But nowhere do we catch sight of the woman: it is the man who predominates and plays the leading part. Suddenly the curtain falls. The girl has become a wife, and then what crudities! what realism! even in those circles where delicacy is as a rule pushed to the utmost limits of refinement. Details on so intimate a matter appear to elude the historian. But though confidences are lacking, we may surmise the real feelings, the profound degradation of certain young brides, from the very circumstantial reports of the ambassadors charged with superintending the arrangements of royal marriages. These reports, it is true, relate to a very special society, but it was the highest society, and precisely that which set the fashion. No one would imagine what singular details are to be found in these letters. Take for instance an incident that happened at the charming Court of Urbino, perhaps the most exquisite of all courts. On the morrow of her son’s marriage, the Duchess-dowager had the door of the bridal chamber flung open at dawn, and approaching her daughter-in-law, who bashfully tried to hide under the bedclothes, said to her: “Well now, my daughter, isn’t it a fine thing to sleep with the men!” What a compliment from the Queen of Platonism! No one after this will deny that marriage is everywhere stamped with the character of unredeemed prose. That phrase “fine thing” in particular, which on the lips of the duchess so often denoted the ideal, startles us here with a singular irony. Or again, what a curious chapter of adventures was that of Bianca Sforza, who as heiress to an immense fortune had become by proxy the wife of the Emperor Maximilian! Ambassador Brascha was deputed to the delicate mission of proceeding to Innsprück to hand the princess over to her husband, but lo! on arriving they found no one to meet them but an archduchess. How was he to extricate the lady from this embarrassing situation? Brascha wrote to Vienna, striving in the meantime to put a good face on the matter, giving balls, and so forth. Maximilian was in no hurry to reply, but wrote at length, asking to see the ambassador. Brascha set out instantly, taking with him this charming but singular note: “Most serene King, My lord, I find myself under such obligations towards your Majesty that I am quite dazed at the love you manifest for me. I could not if I tried express the joy which floods my soul. Being unable to testify to it sufficiently in writing, I send Messer Erasmus Brascha to speak on my behalf: and I beseech your Majesty to believe him, and I commend myself to you. Innsprück, December 26, 1493. From Your Majesty’s handmaid, BLANCA MARIA, with her own hand.”