81.--We can love nothing but what agrees with us,
and we can only follow our taste or our pleasure when
we prefer our friends to ourselves; nevertheless it is
only by that preference that friendship can be true
and perfect.
82.--Reconciliation with our enemies is but a desire
to better our condition, a weariness of war, the fear
of some unlucky accident.
["Thus terminated that famous war of the Fronde. * *
The Duke de la Rochefoucauld desired peace because of
his dangerous wounds and ruined castles, which had made
him dread even worse events. On the other side the
Queen, who had shown herself so ungrateful to her too
ambitious friends, did not cease to feel the bitterness of
their resentment. 'I wish,' said she, 'it were always
night, because daylight shows me so many who have
betrayed me.'"--MEMOIRES DE MADAME DE MOTTEVILLE, TOM.
IV., p. 60. Another proof that although these maxims
are in some cases of universal application, they were based
entirely on the experience of the age in which the author
lived.
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