- He pretends to adore me, continued she with a sigh,
and spares no vows nor presents to assure me of it: - something within
tempts me to believe him, and yet I fear to be a second time betrayed.
Ah! madam, cried Louisa, in the sincerity of her heart, I beseech you to
be cautious how you too readily give credit to the protestations of a
sex, who, by the little observations I have made, take a pride in
deceiving ours; - besides, the count de Bellfleur is of a nation where
faith, I have heard, is little to be depended on.
Those who give them that character, replied Melanthe, do them an
infinite injustice: - in politics, I allow, they have their artifices,
their subterfuges, as well as in war; but then they put them in practice
only against their enemies, or such as are likely to become
so: - wherever they love, or have a friendship, their generosity is
beyond all bounds. -
She pursued this discourse with a long detail of all she had ever read
or heard in the praise of the French, and did not forget to speak of the
prince of Conti as an instance of the gallant spirit with which that
people are animated.
