forest clearing, the count led us on to discourse about women just as
Brantome and Aloysia might have done.

"You fellows are very happy under the present government!--the women
of the time are well mannered" (in order to appreciate the exclamation
of the old gentleman, the reader should have heard the atrocious
stories which the captain had been relating). "And this," he went on,
"is one of the advantages resulting from the Revolution. The present
system gives very much more charm and mystery to passion. In former
times women were easy; ah! indeed, you would not believe what skill it
required, what daring, to wake up those worn-out hearts; we were
always on the _qui vive_. But yet in those days a man became
celebrated for a broad joke, well put, or for a lucky piece of
insolence. That is what women love, and it will always be the best
method of succeeding with them!"

These last words were uttered in a tone of profound contempt; he
stopped, and began to play with the hammer of his gun as if to
disguise his deep feeling.

"But nonsense," he went on, "my day is over! A man ought to have the
body as well as the imagination young. Why did I marry? What is most
treacherous in girls educated by mothers who lived in that brilliant
era of gallantry, is that they put on an air of frankness, of reserve;
they look as if butter would not melt in their mouths, and those who
know them well feel that they would swallow anything!"

He rose, lifted his gun with a gesture of rage, and dashing it to the
ground thrust it far up the butt in the moist sod.