spite of the generally received opinion that the
husband is the real judge and master of his wife; that privilege cannot
be granted in my kingdom where husbands are by far too indifferent on
that subject. Fanatic husbands may complain as much as they please that I
dishonour them by punishing their wives; they are dishonoured already by
the fact of the woman's infidelity."

"But, madam, dishonour rises in reality only from the fact of infidelity
being made public; besides, you might be deceived, although you are
empress."

"I know that, but that is no business of yours, and I do not grant you
the right of contradicting me."

Such is the way in which Maria Teresa would have argued, and
notwithstanding the principle of virtue from which her argument had
originated, it had ultimately given birth to all the infamous deeds which
her executioners, the Commissaries of Chastity, committed with impunity
under her name. At every hour of the day, in all the streets of Vienna,
they carried off and took to prison the poor girls who happened to live
alone, and very often went out only to earn an honest living. I should
like to know how it was possible to know that a girl was going to some
man to get from him consolations for her miserable position, or that she
was in search of someone disposed to offer her those consolations?
Indeed, it was difficult. A spy would follow them at a distance. The
police department kept a crowd of those spies, and as the scoundrels wore
no particular uniform, it was impossible to know them; as a natural
consequence, there was a general distrust of all strangers. If a girl
entered a house, the spy who had followed her, waited for her, stopped
her as she came out, and subjected her to an interrogatory. If the poor
creature looked uneasy, if she hesitated in answering in such a way as to
satisfy the spy, the fellow would take her to prison; in all cases
beginning by plundering her of whatever money or jewellery she carried
about her person, and the restitution of which could never be obtained.
Vienna was, in that respect a true den of privileged thieves. It happened
to me one day in Leopoldstadt that in the midst of some tumult a girl
slipped in my hand a gold watch to secure it from the clutches of a
police-spy who was pressing upon her to take her up. I did not know the
poor girl, whom I was fortunate enough to see again one month afterwards.
She was pretty, and she had been compelled to more than one sa