Je n’alléguerai que ce seul exemple de Mme. la grande-duchesse de Florence d’aujourd’hui, de la maison de Lorraine,[94*] laquelle étant arrivée á Florence le soir que le grand-duc l’épousa, et qu’il voulut aller coucher avec elle pour la dépuceler, il la fit avant pisser dans un bel urinoir de cristal, le plus beau et le plus clair qu’il put, et en ayant vu l’urine, il la consulta avec son médecin, qui était un très grand et très savant et expert personnage, pour savoir de lui, par cette inspection, si elle était pucelle oui ou non. Le médecin l’ayant bien fixement et doctement inspectée, il trouva qu’elle était telle comme quand sortit du ventre de sa mère, et qu’il y allât hardiment, et qu’il n’y trouverait point le chemin nullement ouvert, frayé ni battu; ce qu’il fit, et en trouva la vérité telle et puis. Then next morning, in amaze, he did exclaim thus: “Lo and behold, a miracle,—that the girl should thus have come forth a virgin from yonder Court of France!” Truly a curious investigation, and a strange opinion! I know not if the tale be true, but it hath been confidently affirmed to me as being so. A fine repute for our Court. But indeed ’tis no long while since men generally held that all the ladies of the Court and of Paris city were not so virtuous of their body as they of the open countryside, and such as never left their homes. There have been men known so scrupulous they would never wed with girls or women which had travelled far afield, and seen the world, be it ever so little. Thus in our native Guyenne, in the days of my youth, I have heard not a few gallant gentlemen say this and seen them swear to the same, that they would never wed girl or woman which should ever have gone forth of the Port de Pille, to journey away toward France. Poor silly creatures surely herein, albeit wise and gallant men enough in other matters, to suppose that cuckoldry did never abide in their own houses, at their hearths and in their closets and bedchambers, just as readily,—or mayhap more so, seeing the easy opportunities,—as in the Royal Palaces and the great Royal towns! For could not lovers well enough come thither to suborn, win over, court and undo their wives for them, when they were themselves away at Court, at the wars, or the chase, attending their law business or on their journeyings abroad? This they would never understand, but were so simple as to think men would never dare to say one word of love to their ladies, but speak only of their households, gardens, hunting and hawking parties. And so by such blindness and rash confidence they did get themselves cuckolded even more freely than elsewhere; for there is no spot where a fair and clever woman, and an honourable and gallant man, cannot find room and convenience for love-making. Poor fools and idiots that they were! could they not realize how that Venus hath no fixed and special place of abode, as of old in Cyprus, at Paphos and