On brisa vitré, on rompit porte, ... Bref: si fort s'accrut le tumulte Que de peur de plus grande insulte, Cette dame s'enfuit exprès, Et se sauva par le marais.
But if the ladies were not lambs, the gentlemen were not sheep. They were no laggards in war. When they turned the flank of the enemy they did not mince matters, and upon occasion they drew the first blood. Once upon a time, at a dance, Comte de Brégis, having received a slap from his partner, turned upon her and pulled her hair down in the midst of the banquet. At a supper, in the presence of a great and joyous company, the Marquis de la Case snatched a leg of mutton from a trencher and buffeted his neighbour in her face, smearing her with gravy. As she was a lady of an even temper, she laughed heartily,[43] and the incident was closed. Malherbe confessed to Madame de Rambouillet that he had "cuffed the ears of the Viscountess d'Auchy until she had cried for aid." As he was a jealous man, his action was not without cause, and in that day to flog a woman was a thing that any gentleman felt free to do.
The regenerating _Précieuses_ had not arrived too soon. Ignoble jests and obscenities too foul to recount were accepted as conversation by both sexes. The father of the great Condé, who was president of a "social" club whose rules compelled members to imitate every movement made by their leader, ate, and forced his fellow members (including the ladies) to eat--I dare not say what; do not try to guess--you could never do it!
The modest and timid Louis XIII. could--when he set about it--give his Court very unappetising examples. In a book of _Edification_, bearing date 1658, we read that "the late King, seeing a young woman among the crowds admitted to his palace so that they might see the King eat, said nothing, and gave no immediate evidence that he had seen her; but, as he raised his glass for the last sup, before rising from the table, he filled his mouth with wine, and having held it thus sanctuaried for an instant, launched it forth into the uncovered chest of the watchful lady," who had been too eager to witness the mastications of royalty.
Aristocratic traditions exacted that the nobles should flog their inferiors, and the nobles conformed to the traditional exactions freely. Men and women were flogged for "failures" of the least importance, and knowing those antique customs as we do, we may be permitted to wonder that we have so few records of the music of that eventful day.