3 The gentleman deemed it only natural that the woman he honoured with his love should present him with money.  In the seventeenth century similar opinions were held, if one may judge by some passages in Dancourt’s comedies, and by the presents which the Duchess of Cleveland made to Henry Jerrayn and John Churchill, afterwards Duke of Marlborough, as chronicled in the Memoirs of the Count de Gramont.—­M.

4 Brantome tells a somewhat similar tale to this in his Vies des Dames Galantes (Dis.  I.):  “I knew,” he writes, “two ladies of the Court, sisters-in-law to one another, one of whom was married to a courtier, high in favour and very skilful, but who did not make as much account of his wife as by reason of her birth he should have done, for he spoke to her in public as he might have spoken to a savage, and treated her most harshly.  She patiently endured this for some time, until indeed her husband lost some of his credit, when, watching for and taking the opportunity, she quickly repaid him for all the disdain that he had shown her.  And her sister-in-law imitated her and did likewise; for having been married when of a young and tender age, her husband made no more account of her than if she had been a little girl....  But she, advancing in years, feeling her heart beat and becoming conscious of her beauty, paid him back in the same coin, and made him a present of a fine pair of horns, by way of interest for the past”—­Lalanne’s OEuvres de Brantome, vol. ix. p. 157.—­L.

“In this tale, ladies, I have tried, without sparing our own sex, to show husbands that wives of spirit yield rather to vengeful wrath than to the sweetness of love.  The lady of whom I have told you withstood the latter for a great while, but in the end succumbed to despair.  Nevertheless, no woman of virtue should yield as she did, for, happen what may, no excuse can be found for doing wrong.  The greater the temptations, the more virtuous should one show oneself, by resisting and overcoming evil with good, instead of returning evil for evil; and this all the more because the evil we think to do to another often recoils upon ourselves.  Happy are those women who display the heavenly virtues of chastity, gentleness, meekness, and long-suffering.”

“It seems to me, Longarine,” said Hircan, “that the lady of whom you have spoken was impelled by resentment rather than by love; for had she loved the gentleman as greatly as she appeared to do, she would not have forsaken him for another.  She may therefore be called resentful, vindictive, obstinate, and fickle.”

“It is all very well for you to talk in that way,” said Ennasuite, “but you do not know the heartbreak of loving without return.”

“It is true,” said Hircan, “that I have had but little experience in that way.  If I am shown the slightest disfavour, I forthwith forego lady and love together.”

“That,” said Parlamente, “is well enough for you who love only your own pleasure; but a virtuous wife cannot thus forsake her husband.”