he loves with a constancy which he never showed towards his wife? To keep a mistress, in fact, is esteemed a point of honor by two-thirds of the gentry of France. I have cheated a little at cards, but what of that? The Marquis of ——— and the Count of ——— derive their whole incomes from that source alone; while the Prince of ——— and His Grace the Duke of ——— are the chiefs in a League of 'Knights' of the same order."[1]
It would have been equally easy for me to prove that I was not without precedents in the matter of my designs
on the purses of the two G——— M———s, but I had too much sense of honor left to allow me to do anything but condemn myself on that point, in common with all those whose examples I might have pleaded. I merely begged my father, therefore, to overlook that fault in consideration of the fact that I had been driven to its commission by two such overmastering passions as Love and Revenge.
He then asked me whether I could suggest any means for him to adopt in order to procure me my liberty as speedily as possible without public scandal. I told him
- ↑ i. e., Chevaliers d'Industrie.
