Page:The Way of a Virgin.djvu/37

Rh little work, La Ceinture de Chastete (Paris, 1904), which contains numerous engravings and photographic designs, he gives an illustration of the specimen in the Musee de Cluy. Quoting Brantome (Lives of Fair and Gallant Ladies), he adds:

"In the time of Henry the king there lived an ironmonger who brought to the fair of St. Germain a dozen of certain machines to bridle the parts of women; they were fashioned of iron and went round like a girdle, and went below and were closed with a key. So cleverly were they fashioned that it was not possible for the women, when once bridled, to arrive at the sweet pleasure, there being but a few small holes in it for pissing.

"'Tis said there were five or six jealous husbands, who bought these machines and bridled their wives with them in such fashion that they might well have said 'Farewell, happy time,' had there not been one who bethought her of applying to a locksmith very skilled in his art, to whom she showed the machine, her own, her husband being then out in the fields; and he applied his mind so well to the matter that he made for her a false key, with which the lady opened or closed the machine at any time and when she willed.

"The husband never discovered aught to say on the matter; and the lady gave herself up to her own good pleasure, despite her foolish, jealous, cuckold husband, being ever able to live in the freedom of cuckoldom. But the wicked locksmith who fashioned the false key tasted of it all! and he did well, so they say, for he was the first to taste of it.

"They say, too, that there were many gallant and honest gentlemen of the court who threatened