Woman, this name alone touches the soul, but it does not always elevate it; it only gives rise to pleasing notions, which become by turn unsettling sensations or tender sentiments a moment later; and the philosopher who thinks of contemplating it is too soon only a man who desires, or a lover who dreams.

A woman had her portrait painted; that which she lacked in beauty was precisely that which made her attractive. She wanted the painter to exaggerate her beauty without detracting from her graces; she wanted everything at once, both that the painter be untruthful, and that the painting be true: This is how they all are for the writer who would speak of them.

This half of the human race, compared physically to the other, is superior to him in charms, inferior in force. The roundness of forms, the delicacy of lines, the brightness of color, these are her distinctive attributes.

Women do not differ from men so much in heart and mind as in size and shape; but education has modified their natural dispositions in so many ways, the dissimulation that seems to be for them compulsory, has rendered their soul so secret, the exceptions are so numerous, so mixed up with generalities, that the more one looks, the less one can find results.

Their souls are like their beauty; it seems that they give you a glimpse in order to keep you guessing. Their characteristics are like colors; there are primary ones, and there are changeable ones; there are infinite nuances, and they merge into one another. Women only have mixed, intermediate, or variable characters; whether education alters their nature more than ours, or because the delicacy of their organization makes their soul a block of ice which receives all objects, returns them brusquely, and saves nothing.

How can one define women? Even when she speaks the truth, it is an equivocal one. She who seems the most indifferent is often the most sensitive; the most indiscrete passes often for the most false: always forewarned, love or spite dictates the judgments that we bring to them; and the most independent thinker, he who has studied them the best, believing himself to have resolved problems, only succeeds in proposing new ones. There are three things , said one wit, that I have always loved without understanding, painting, music and women .

If it is true that weakness gives rise to timidity, and from timidity, delicacy, and from delicacy, falsity, one must conclude that truth is a virtue highly valued in women.

If the same delicacy of organs that makes women's imaginations more lively renders their minds less capable of concentration, it can at least be said that they perceive more quickly, can see as well, though they can't pay attention for as long.

How I admire virtuous women, if they are as firm in their virtue, as the vicious women seem to me to be intrepid in their vice!

The youth of women is shorter and more brilliant than that of men; their old age is more unfortunate and long.

Women are vindictive. Vengeance, which is the act of momentary power, is a proof of weakness. The weakest and most timid must be cruel: it is the general law of nature, that all sensitive beings respond to danger with resentment.

How could they be discreet? They are curious; and how could they be otherwise? We make everything a mystery to them: they are called neither to the trial nor to the execution.

There is less unity among women than among men, because they have only one goal.

Distinguished by inequalities, the two sexes have almost equal advantages. Nature has put on one side force and majesty, courage and reason; on the other, graces, beauty, delicacy and emotion. These advantages are not always incompatible; sometimes differences serve as counterweights, and sometimes they are the same qualities, but in differing degrees. That which is attractiveness or virtue in one sex, is a defect or deformity in the other. Natural differences should be built into education; it is the hand of the sculptor which gives shape to a piece of clay.

For men who share among themselves the duties of civil life, the state to which they are destined decides their education and specialization. For women, education is as bad as it is general, and more neglected than useful. One should be surprised that such uncultivated souls can produce so many virtues, and that they don't foster more vices.

Women who have renounced the world before knowing it are charged with inculcating principles in those who must live in it. This is why so often a young girl is led before the altar in order to take oaths to duties that she doesn't understand, and to be united forever to a man whom she has never seen. More often she is called back to her own family to receive a second education which reverses all the ideas of the first, and which focuses more on manners than on morals, exchanging continually poorly cut or poorly chosen diamonds for foundation stones.

It is at this point, after having passed three quarters of the day before a mirror or a harpsichord, that Chloé enters with her mother into the labyrinth of the world: there her wandering spirit is misled down a thousand detours, from which one can only escape with the thread of experience: once there, always proper and silent, without any knowledge of who is worthy of esteem or contempt, she does not know what to think, she is afraid to fear, and she does not dare either see or understand; or rather observing all with as much curiosity as ignorance, seeing often more than there is, hearing more than is said, blushing indecently, smiling at the wrong time, and sure of being equally caught out by that which she seems to know as by that which she does not, she waits with impatience in constraint and boredom, for a change of name to lead her to independence and pleasure.

She is only kept for her beauty, which is a simple and natural way to please, if there's nothing else going on, or for her dress, which is an artificial means of augmenting the effect of the first, or of taking its place, and which most often does neither. Praise of the character or mind of a woman is almost always proof of her ugliness; it seems that sentiment and reason are only supplemental to beauty. After having formed Chloé for love, one must take care to defend her from its use.

Nature seems to have conferred upon men the right to govern. Women have had recourse to art to free themselves. The two sexes have reciprocally abused their advantages, of force and of beauty, these two means of producing unhappiness. Men have augmented their natural power through the laws they have written; women have augmented the price of their possession through the difficulty of obtaining it. It isn't difficult to say where one finds servitude today. Be that as it may, authority is the goal toward which women tend; the love they give leads them there; the love they receive leads them away from it; tasked with inspiring, forcing themselves not to feel, or at least to hide that which they feel: this is the source of all their politics and all their morality.

This art of pleasing, this desire to please everyone, this desire to please above all else, this silence of the heart, this disturbance of the mind, this continual dishonesty called coquetry, seems to be in women a primitive characteristic, which, born from their naturally subordinated condition, unjustly servile, is extended and fortified by education, and can only be weakened by a exertion of reason, and destroyed by a great intensity of sentiment: one could even compare this characteristic to a sacred fire which is never extinguished.

Watch Chloé enter the world stage; he who has just given her the right to go out alone, too kind to love his wife, or too disgraced by nature, too limited by duty to be loved, also seems to give her the right to love another.

Vain and frivolous, less concerned with seeing than with being seen, Chloé steals the stage at every spectacle, at all the parties: hardly has she appeared before she is surrounded by these men, who, confident and disdainful, without either virtue or talent, seduce women dishonestly, take their glory from dishonoring them, seeming to increase daily the size of their good fortune; this species of idlers who make birds protest at being called by the same name.

Follow Chloé into the middle of this assiduous crowd; she is the coquette come from the island of Crete to the temple of Gnide; she smiles at one, speaks in the ear of another, rests her arm on a third, signals to two others to follower her: does she speak to one of them of her love? Its Armide, she leaves him one moment, she rejoins him a minute later, and then is gone again: are they jealous of each other? She's Celimenes of the Misanthrope , she reassures them in turn with the evil she speaks to each about his rivals; thus blending artfully disdain and preference, she quells temerity with a stern look, revives hope with a tender smile; she's Archilocus’ cheating woman, who holds water in one hand and fire in the other.

But the more women have perfected the art of causing desire, hope, and the pursuit of that which they have resolutely refused to grant, the more men have multiplied the means of obtaining the possession: the art of inspiring desires that one does not want to satisfy has from whole cloth produced the art of feigning sentiments that one lacks entirely. Chloé only wants to hide herself after having been seen; Damis knows how to stop while pretending not to have seen her: the one and the other, after having traveled all the byways of the art, find themselves at last where nature put them.

There is in every heart a secret principal of union. There is a fire which, hidden more or less long-term, lights up without our knowledge, burns longer as we try to extinguish it, and which ultimately goes out despite us. There is a germ that contains fear and hope, pain and pleasure, mystery and indiscretion; which contains arguments and reconciliations, complaints and laughter, tears both sweet and bitter; spread everywhere, it is more or less quick to develop, according to the precautions that one ascribes to it, and the obstacles that oppose it.

Like a weak baby that she is protecting, Chloé takes Love on her knee, toys with his bow, plays with his arrows, clips his wings, binds his hands with flowers, and having already tied herself with invisible bonds, believes herself yet free. While she brings him close to her breast, while she listens to him, while she smiles at him, while she is equally amused by his complaints and his fears, an involuntary spell suddenly makes her press him in her arms, and already love is in her heart: she does not yet dare to confess her love, she begins to think that love is sweet. She now finds more pleasure in rejecting the many lovers whom she once led in triumph than she ever did in attracting them. But there is one she cannot keep her eyes off, one who always turns away from her. It seems at times that she hardly senses his presence, but he hasn't done anything she hasn't noticed. If he speaks, she doesn’t seem to hear him; but he hasn’t said anything she hasn’t heard: on the contrary, does she speak to him? Her voice becomes more timid, her expressions more animated. If she goes to a play, is he less evident? On the contrary, he is the first that she sees there, his name always the first that she utters. If he still doesn’t know how she feels, it is no longer because of her alone; it has been revealed by everything that she has done to hide it; he is irritated by everything that she has done to calm him: she is sad, but her sadness is one of the charms of love. She ceases in the end to be a coquette to the extent that she begins to feel, and seems only to have perpetually set traps in order to fall into them herself.

I have read that of all the passions, love is that which sits the best with women; it is at least true that they carry this sentiment, which is the most tender characteristic of humanity, to a degree of delicacy and vivacity which few men could attain. Their soul seems to have been made only for feeling, they seem to have been formed only for the sweet work of loving. To this passion which comes so naturally to them the antagonist is a deprivation that we call honor; but it is said, and it is only too true, that honor seems only to have been dreamt up in order to be sacrificed.

Hardly has Chloé pronounced the death sentence of her liberty, but she makes her lover the object of all her thoughts, the goal of all her actions, the arbiter of her life. She only knows amusement and boredom, she is ignorant of pain and pleasure. All her days are full, all her hours are lively, no more languid intervals; time, always too slow or too rapid for her, nevertheless disappears without her knowing it; all these names so vain, so dear, the sweet exchange of glances and smiles, this silence more eloquent than speech, a thousand souvenirs, a thousand projects, a thousand ideas, a thousand sentiments, come in the end to renew her soul and extend her existence; but the last test of her sensibility is the first instance of inconstancy on the part of her love. Can the ties of love ever be tightened on one side once they are relaxed on the other?

If there are among men some privileged souls in whom love, far from being weakened by pleasures, seems to borrow new energy from them, for the most part it is a false pleasure which, preceded by an uncertain desire, is immediately followed by a marked disgust, accompanied again too often by hatred or contempt. It is said that there grow on the shores of a sea, fruits of such rare beauty that the instant they are touched they turn into powder: this is the image of this ephemeral love, vain projection of the imagination, fragile work of the senses, weak tribute that one pays to beauty. When the source of pleasure is in the heart, it does not tarnish; love founded on respect is inalterable, it is the charm of life and the price of virtue.

Singularly occupied with her lover, Chloé senses immediately that he is less tender, she is soon suspects that he is unfaithful; she complains, he reassures her; he continues to stray, she complains again; infidelities multiply on one side, reproaches on the other: disputes are lively and frequent, arguments long, reconciliations cool; meetings grow distant, conversations grow short, all tears are bitter. Chloé demands justice from Love. What has become, she says, of our pledge of love? But it is done, Chloé is left, she is left for another, and she is left with a bang.

Abandoned to shame and sadness, she makes as many pledges never to love again as she ever made to love eternally; but when once one has lived for love, one can only live for it. When it has taken root in one's soul, it spreads I don't know what spell which alters the source of all other pleasures; when it has vanished, it leaves behind the horror of the desert and of solitude: it is without doubt the origin of the saying that it is easier to find a woman who has never been engaged than it is to find one who has had only one engagement.

Chloé's despair changes imperceptibly into a languor which makes her days a tissue of boredom; overwhelmed with the heaviness of her existence, she no longer knows what to do with her life, it is an arid rock to which she is attached. But former lovers return to her with hope, declare themselves again, women arrange dinners; she agrees to be distracted, she is consoled in the end. She has made a new choice which will hardly be happier than the first, although more willing, and which will soon be followed by another. She belonged to love, she who now belongs to pleasure; her senses were at the service of her heart, her mind is now at the service of her senses: art, so easy to distinguish everywhere else from nature, is here separated only by imperceptible nuance: Chloé sometimes fools herself: eh, and what does it matter if her lover is fooled, if he is happy! There are as many lies in gallantry as there are fictions in theater, where plausibility is often more attractive than the truth.

Horace painted the morals of his day in this way, od. vj. l. III . "Scarcely has a young girl emerged from the innocent games of tender childhood before she delights in learning the voluptuous dances and all the arts and mysteries of love. Scarcely has a wife been seated at her husband's table than with furtive looks she is seeking a lover; soon she no longer chooses, she thinks that in the darkness all pleasures are legitimate." Chloé will also soon arrive at this final stage of gallantry. Already all of her feelings and actions are tinged with sensuality. She knows equally well how to simulate desire and to feign sentiment, as well as to fake laughter and to turn on the tears. She rarely shows in her eyes what is in her heart, and on her lips almost never what is either in her eyes or in her heart. That which she has done in secret, she has persuaded herself never happened; that which we have seen her do, she knows how to persuade us we haven't seen; and that which the artifice of speech cannot justify, her tears excuse, her caresses cause to be forgotten.

Courtesans also have their morality. Chloé has made for herself a code, according to which it is rude to a woman, whatever feeling one has for her, whatever passion one witnesses in her, to take the lover of a woman of her set. It is also said that there are no eternal lovers; best not to form an engagement, when one can predict the end. She added that between a break up and a new relationship, one must have an interval of six months; and immediately she has established that one must not leave a lover without having designated his successor.

Chloé comes in the end to think that it is only in a permanent engagement, what's called a "steady relationship" that a woman loses. She comports herself accordingly; she has no more than the passing fancies that she calls fantasies , which might encourage his suspicion but which never give him the time to become certain. The public seems to have just gotten wind of something before its forgotten, already replaced by something else; I dare say that sometimes several demand attention all at once. In Chloé's fantasies, mind is at first secondary to figure, before long, figure to fortune; she neglects at court those she sought out in town, ignores in town those that she has avoided in the country; and forgets so perfectly in the evening the fantasy of the morning that she comes to be uncertain as to who the object of it was. In his vexation he believes himself exempt from the silence the situation merits, forgetting in turn that a woman has always the right to deny that which a woman never has the right to say. This is more certain to demonstrate to Chloé his desire, than declaring his feelings to her would: sometime she still permits oaths of constancy and fidelity; but the one who persuades her is clumsy, and the one who keeps his word is perfidious. The only possible way to keep her constant is to pardon her infidelity; she fears jealousy more than faithlessness, bother more than abandon. She pardons her lovers everything, and allows herself everything except love.

Although more than a courtesan, she considers herself only a coquette. It is while believing this that, at the gaming table, alternatively attentive and distracted, she plays footsies with one, holds hands with another while complementing his lace, and at the same time trades pleasantries with a third. She says she is without prejudice because she is without principles; she claims the title of honest man because she has renounced that of honest woman; and what will surprise you the most is that in all the variety of her fantasies, pleasure rarely serves as an excuse.

She has a big name, and an easy husband: so much so that she would have beauty or grace, or at least the benefits of youth, the desire of men and the jealously of women, take the place of his consideration. Her shortcomings will not exile her from society, except when they are confirmed by ridicule. This ridicule finally comes, crueler than dishonor. Chloé ceases to please, she doesn't want to stop loving; she wants to go out all the time, and no one wants to be seen with her. In this position, her life is an unquiet and punishing sleep, a profound dejection, mixed with agitation; about her only alternatives are wit and devotion. True devotion is the most honest refuge for courtesans; but there are very few who can pass from love of men to the love of God: likewise few who, while crying tears of regret, are able to learn what it is to repent; there are even fewer who, after having disavowed vice, can make up their minds to at least feign virtue.

The rarest of all are those who can pass from the temple of love into the sanctuary of the muses, and who can make themselves heard there, that which is lost when they put themselves on display. Be that as it may, Chloé having strayed so many times, running always after vain pleasures, and always retreating from happiness, wanders again down a new path. After having wasted fifteen or twenty years, ogling, mocking, simpering, making alliances and causing scenes; after having made several honest men unhappy, given herself to a pompous fool, lent herself to a crowd of idiots, this madwoman changes role, passes from one theater to another; no longer able to play Phryne , she believes herself able to be Aspasia .

I am sure that no woman would recognize herself in this portrait of Chloé; in effect there are few of them whose life has had its periods so marked.

There is one woman who has the spirit to make herself loved, without making herself feared, has the virtue to make herself esteemed, without misleading others; and enough beauty to give value to her virtue. Equally distance from the shame of unrequited love, the torment of not daring to love, and from the boredom of living without love, she has so much indulgence for the foibles of her sex that the most libertine pardon her for being virtuous; she has so much respect for propriety that the most prudish pardon her for being tender. She leaves to the madwomen all around her the coquetry, frivolity, caprice and jealousy, all the petty passions, all the trifles which make their lives empty or contentious; in the middle of these infectious dealings, she always consults her own pure heart, and her healthy reason, in preference to opinion, that queen of the world, which governs so despotically the senseless and the stupid. Happy is the woman who possesses these advantages, happier he who has the heart of such a woman!

Finally there is another sort, more securely happy still; her happiness comes from ignoring that which the world calls pleasures, her glory is to live in obscurity. Caught up in the duties of wife and mother, she devotes her days to the practice of unobtrusive virtues: occupied with the governing of her family, she rules over her husband through kindness, over her children through sweetness, over her domestics through goodness: her house is the abode of religious sentiment, filial piety, conjugal love, maternal tenderness, order, interior peace, gentle sleep and of health: thrifty and settled, she thereby avoids passions and needs; the poor man who comes to her door is never turned away; the licentious man never comes in the first place. She has a reserved and dignified character which makes her respected, leniency and sensitivity which make her loved, prudence and firmness which make her feared; she spreads around her a sweet warmth, a pure light which clarifies and enlivens all around her. Has nature placed her or has reason led her to the high station where I find her?