The truth is that, one way or another, a very large number of women no longer suffered themselves to be snuffed out, “trodden under foot,” to use the current phrase. As to the manner in which their controlling influence showed itself, that depended on events, tastes, how the wind blew, circumstances. A favourite idea of Margaret of France, and one which it would have been difficult to get out of her head, was that women always err by their meek and quiet spirit, their excess of long-suffering. In vain is the reply made that more than one woman makes a virtue of necessity, and that, face to face with a violent creature threatening to break every bone in her body, a woman needs all her patience; Margaret protests that she would rather be flogged than despised. This magnificent declaration sets some of the company smiling, and enraptures the women. One pert widow alleges that she loved her husband so much that if he had beaten her she would have killed him. “In other words,” retorts Henri d’Albret, “you mean to rule the roost. Well, I am agreeable, but you would have to get all the husbands to agree.” Margaret winces under this intellectual cut; she is put out, for natural as she would regard it for her husband to take her orders, she dares not say so. Even she falters, and admits that the man is the natural head, but not that he has a right to desert or maltreat his wife.[110] Can this be Margaret? Yes, the words are her own, and are exactly to the point. Women do lack decision—and she was the very first to show it! Some young ladies, to elude this difficulty, thought it well to marry a ninny—if not an absolute fool. Worthy folk were amazed and sang the praises of mind and its attractions, “the treasures of knowledge,” and asked them what pleasure they promised themselves. What a question to ask! Why, since a husband was in question, they promised themselves precisely no pleasure; nothing but money, or a name! That was how the Duchess of Medina-Sidonia married; she espoused an income of sixty-thousand ducats, with a grandee of Spain. True, this grandee, when paying a visit to the archbishop, asked very politely to see the children! There was nothing here to hinder the duchess from having as much mind as she wanted. But it must be confessed that this was an extreme remedy, and it would be preferable for a woman to feel and believe herself able to mate with a man of intelligence.