Gallantry. On can consider this word to have two generally accepted meanings; 1 ^st . among men there is a particular focus on telling women in a refined and delicate way the things that please them and that convey a good opinion of them and us. This art, which might make them better and console them, only too often serves to corrupt them.

All men of the court are said to be polite; supposing that true, all men may not be gallant.

The world may impart a common politeness: but nature alone gives this seductive and dangerous character that makes a man gallant or that inclines him to become so.

It is claimed that gallantry was the trivial, subtle, perpetual lie of love. But perhaps love only lasts with the help that gallantry lends it: Does love cease because it no longer happens between spouses?

Unhappy love excludes gallantry , the ideas that it inspires ask for an open mind; and happiness gives that.

Truly gallant men have become rare; they seem to have been replaced by a kind of flatterer who, affected in what he does, because he has no manners at all, and uses jargon in all he says because he has no wit, has substituted the problem of insipidness for the charms of gallantry.

Among the savages, who have no regulated government at all, and who live almost without clothing love is only a need. In a state where everything is a slave, there is no gallantry at all, because the men there have no freedom and the women no influence. In a free people, one finds great virtues but also a rough and crude politeness: a courtier from the court of Augustus would be a very unusual men in one of our modern courts. In a government where one person is in charge of everyone’s affairs, the idle citizen put into a situation that he does not know how to change will, at least, think of making it bearable, and from this common necessity will be born a more extensive society: women will have more freedom in it; men will make it a habit to please them; and one will little by little see the art of gallantry form: then, gallantry will spread its general hue over the customs of the nation and all areas of its production; the latter will lose some of its greatness and strength, but will gain in gentleness, and some kind of original embellishment that other peoples will try to imitate and that will lend them a gauche and ridiculous manner.

There are men whose customs have always tended more toward particular systems than to general conduct; they are philosophers: they have been reproached for not being gallant; and one must admit that it was difficult for gallantry to go with their strict idea of truth.

However, the philosopher sometimes has the advantage over the common man, that if a truly gallant word escapes from him, the contrast of the word with the character of the person makes him stand out and appears more flattering.

2 ^nd . Gallantry that is considered as a vice of the heart is only libertinism given the name of honesty. Generally, people hardly fail to mask common vices by honest names. The words gallant and gallantry have other accepted meanings. See the preceding article [Gallant].