Page:Man Who Laughs (Estes and Lauriat 1869) v1.djvu/259

Rh Bassompierre,—and was a virgin. What she did for Bassompierre the Queen of Sheba had done for Solomon; consequently she was right, Holy Writ having created the precedent. That which is Biblical may well be Anglican. Biblical precedent even goes so far as to speak of a child who was called Ebnehaquem, or Melilechet; that is to say, "the Wise Man's son."

Why object to such manners? Cynicism is at least as good as hypocrisy. Nowadays England, whose Loyola is named Wesley, casts down her eyes a little at the remembrance of that past age; she is vexed at the memory, yet proud of it.

Amidst such manners as these, a taste for deformity existed, especially among women, more especially among beautiful women. What was the use of being beautiful if one did not possess a baboon? What was the charm of being a queen if one could not bandy words with a dwarf? Mary Stuart had "been kind" to the bandy-legged Rizzio. Maria Theresa of Spain had been "somewhat familiar" with a negro; hence the "black abbess." In the alcoves of the great century a hump was the fashion: witness the Marshal of Luxembourg; and before Luxembourg, Condé, "such a pretty little man!" Beauties themselves might be ill-made without detriment; that was admitted. Anne Boleyn had one breast bigger than the other, six fingers on one hand, and a projecting tooth; La Vallière was bandy-legged,—which did not hinder Henry VIII. from going mad for the one, and Louis XIV. for the other.

Morals were equally awry. There was not a woman of high rank who was not a sort of monster. Every Agnes was a Melusina at heart. They were women by day and ghouls by night. They sought the scaffold to