Cannot these men, the religious women will always ask, abide in
continence like the priests?

Certainly, madame.

Nevertheless, we venture to observe that the vow of chastity is the
most startling exception to the natural condition of man which society
makes necessary; but continence is the great point in the priest's
profession; he must be chaste, as the doctor must be insensible to
physical sufferings, as the notary and the advocate insensible to the
misery whose wounds are laid bare to their eyes, as the soldier to the
sight of death which he meets on the field of battle. From the fact
that the requirements of civilization ossify certain fibres of the
heart and render callous certain membranes, we must not necessarily
conclude that all men are bound to undergo this partial and
exceptional death of the soul. This would be to reduce the human race
to a condition of atrocious moral suicide.

But let it be granted that, in the atmosphere of a drawing-room the
most Jansenistic in the world, appears a young man of twenty-eight who
has scrupulously guarded his robe of innocence and is as truly
virginal as the heath-cock which gourmands enjoy. Do you not see that
the most austere of virtuous women would merely pay him a sarcastic
compliment on his courage; the magistrate, the strictest that ever
mounted a bench, would shake his head and smile, and all the ladies
would hide themselves, so that he might not hear their laughter? When
the heroic and exceptional young victim leaves the drawing-room, what
a deluge of jokes bursts upon his innocent head? What a shower of
insults! What is held to be more shameful in France than impotence,
than coldness, than the absence of all passion, than simplicity?