| Citation |
IL.783.014
17 Feb 1783:23 (5/250)
Matrimonial Anecdote. A circumstance lately happened at
Paris, which seems to prove that all French husbands are not
so entirely easy with regard to the conduct of their ladies
as we are taught. The Count de St. L. entered a ball-room,
in which his wife was dancing with a Prince of the blood,
and coolly staid till the English dance was finished, then
taking her hand, lead her, without speaking, out of the
room. In the street he found a chaise with two postilions,
into which he ordered her to go; then entering himself, bid
them go on. They never stopt till they reached his estate
near Toulous, where he led her to an apartment prepared for
her, composed of three large rooms, but all with iron bars
at the windows. He told her, in this place she might amuse
herself with her music and her books, that her table should
be well supplied, but that she would never come out till her
age and her wrinkles became securities for his honour. He
left the lady in a fit, and delivered the keys to a woman
who was sworn to obey him. The mother of the Countess, as
soon as she heard of her confinement, threw herself at the
feet of her son-in-law; the Count only answered, "Your
grief, madam, is a just punishment for the neglect of your
daughter's education; had you imprinted, in her infant mind,
proper notions of the rigid nature of female virtue, she
would have known no other person than my arms."
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