" In discussing literature, they spoke of the perennial stock-in-trade of the republic of letters — woman’s sin. And they presently found themselves confronted by two opinions: When a woman sins, is the man or the woman to blame? The three women present — the Ambassadress, the Consul’s wife, and Mademoiselle des Touches, women, of course, of blameless reputations — were without pity for the woman. The men tried to convince these fair flowers of their sex that some virtues might remain in a woman after she had fallen. "

― Honoré de Balzac , Works of Honore de Balzac