Note 65b — Chapter III · PASCAL IN THE WORLD.

Lélut, p. 234. Women throughout this time took the lead, and were never so active, even in French politics. “Beautiful, witty, and dissolute, they brought into public affairs their frivolous ideas, and sacrificed to their vanity their honour and that of their houses.”—La Vallée, Hist. des Français, t. iii. p. 195, quoted in Kitchin’s Hist. of France, vol. iii. p. 114.