receive kindly those who are so awkward in gallantry. I could lay a
wager they have not even seen a map of the country of _Tenderness_, and
that _Love-letters_, _Trifling attentions_, _Polite epistles_, and
_Sprightly verses_, are regions to them unknown.

[Footnote: The map of the country of Tenderness (_la carte de Tendre_)
is found in the first part of _Clelie_ (see note 2, page 146);
Love-letter (_Billetdoux_); Polite epistle (_Billet galant_); Trifling
attentions (_Petit Soins_); Sprightly verses (_Jolts vers_), are the
names of villages to be found in the map, which is a curiosity in its
way.]

Do you not see that the whole person shews it, and that their external
appearance is not such as to give at first sight a good opinion of them.
To come and pay a visit to the object of their love with a leg without
any ornaments, a hat without any feathers, a head with its locks not
artistically arranged, and a coat that suffers from a paucity of
ribbons. Heavens! what lovers are these! what stinginess in dress! what
barrenness of conversation! It is not to be allowed; it is not to be
borne. I also observed that their ruffs

[Footnote: The ruff (_rabat_) was at first only the shirt-collar pulled
out and worn outside the coat. Later ruffs were worn, which were not
fastened to the shirt, sometimes adorned with lace, and tied in front
with two strings with tassels. The _rabat_ was very fashionable during
the youthful years of Louis XIV.]

were not made by the fashionable milliner, and that their breeches were
not big enough by more than half-a-foot.