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RENEE DE L'ESTORADE TO LOUISE DE CHAULIEU

May

If love be the life of the world, why do austere philosophers count it

for nothing in e? Why should Society take for its first law

that the wo thus a

note of discord into the very heart of e? And this discord was

foreseen, since it was tofroainst us But for these, we should

have been able to bring their whole theory to nothing, whether by the

force of love or of a secret, persistent aversion

I see inforces which

it was the task of the lawgiver to reconcile "When will they be

reconciled?" I said to myself, as I read your letter Oh! h to overthrow the whole fabric constructed

by the sage of Aveyron, under whose shelter I had so cheerfully

ensconced myself! The laere made by old men--any woh to decree that conjugal love,