‘_J’ai ouï parler d’une grande Dame de par le monde, voire grandissime, qui ne se contentant pas de lasciveté naturelle, & étant mariée & étant Veuve, pour la provoquer & exciter davantage, elle faisoit depouiller ses Dames & filles, je dis les plus belles, & se delectoit fort à les voir, & puis elle les battoit du plat de la main sur les fesses, avec de grandes clacquades & blamuses assez rudes; & les filles qui avoient delinqué en quelques chose, avec de bonnes verges.----Autres fois, sans les depouiller, les faisoit trousser en robes, car pour lors elles ne portoient point de calecons, & les clacquettoit sur les fesses, selon le sujet qu’elles lui en donnoient, pour les faire ou rire, ou pleurer._’ It is no easy matter to point out what precise views the Lady in question had, when she served the abovementioned flagellations. Brantôme, who had much travelled, and was grown much acquainted with the wickedness of the world, insinuates that she was actuated by motives of rather a wanton kind; but since it is extremely difficult to believe that thoughts like those Brantôme supposes, could be entertained, I shall not say by a Lady, but by a person of the high rank of the Lady in question, I will endeavour to account for her conduct in a different manner; and I shall consider my time as exceedingly well employed, if I can clear her from the aspersion thrown upon her by the above Gentleman. In the first place, it is very possible, that (as hath been above insinuated) she considered the flagellations in question as an exercise advantageous to her health: and Physicians have often made worse prescriptions. In the second place, she might, without looking farther, be prompted by a desire of doing justice; for Brantôme makes express mention of Ladies who had committed faults: now, such a conduct on the part of the Lady we speak of, would reflect much honour upon her, and shew that she did not disdain to superintend her own family. Perhaps also it might be, that the abovementioned flagellations were of the same jocular kind merely, with those which, as hath been related in the sixth Chapter of this Book, were in use in Rome, and were often practised in the presence of the Emperor Claudius, and sometimes upon that Emperor himself. Nor is the circumstance mentioned by Brantôme, of the high Lady in question sometimes using pretty great severity, contrary to this supposition: it is a well-known fact that Great people, when they do their inferiors the honour to play with them, will often carry the joke too far, farther than the latter have a liking to: jokes or tricks of this kind, gave rise to the French common saying, _Jeux de Princes, qui plaisent à ceux qui les font_. ‘Tricks of Princes, which please those (_only_) by whom they are played.’