Note 531 — Chapter XXIII
Reading edition
Fontenelle thinks that it shows “un grand attachement à son devoir, et un grand caractère” in Pauline to desire that Severus should save her husband’s life, instead of procuring the latter to be executed that she might marry her lover. Réflexions sur la Poétique, sect. 16. This is rather an odd notion of what is sufficient to constitute an heroic character. It is not the conduct of Pauline, which in every Christian or virtuous woman must naturally be the same, but the fine sentiments and language which accompany it, that render her part so noble.