She made him appreciate that a man with the birth and status of Oxtiern must be incapable of deceit. The innocent creature! She did not know that vices, supported by birth and wealth, and then emboldened by impunity, only become more dangerous.

Without principles and without virtue, and still full of the prejudices of that group of men whose pride had just led them to fight against the sovereign himself, Oxtiern imagined that nothing in the world could curb his passions. Well, of all those that burned within him, love was the most impetuous; but this feeling, which can be almost a virtue in a good soul, is bound to become the source of many crimes in a corrupt heart like that of Oxtiern.

In order to know virtue, we must acquaint ourselves with vice. Only then can we know the true measure of a man.

Tormented virtue fidgets while vice takes its repose.

Do the meager pleasures you have been able to enjoy during your fall compensate for the torments which now rend your heart? Happiness therefore lies only in virtue,my child, and all the sophistries of its detractors can never procure a single one of its delights.

Oh! my friend, never seek to corrupt the person whom you love, it can go further than you think...

...and what creature, after all, is more precious, more attractive in the eyes of men, than the woman who has cherished, respected, and cultivated all earthly virtues, only to find, at every step, both misfortune and sorrow?

You cannot imagine, my friend, the desire I have to possess Aline; I find such stinging detail in the dear young thing. It must be delicious to take her in tears! Sophie was all very fine, but Aline! We'll never go as far with the latter as with the former; there's some sort of consideration we owe to virtue—and to blood. But let's not swear on anything because, for minds like ours, the paths we take are, as you know, unbounded.

Virtue, always more useful to others than to us, is not the essential thing; truth alone serves us and if we find it only by moving away from virtue, is it not better to reach the light by such diversion than remain in the dark and be a good-hearted dupe?