d for debt!

Scarce had the first weeks of her married life passed away, when the
young wife found herself mated to one wholly unsuited to her character.
She was beautiful, witty, and frivolous; he jealous, dull, and morose.
The incompatibility of their dispositions became as discernible to him,
as they had become intolerable to her; and, as if to avenge the fate
which had united them, he lost no opportunity of thwarting her desires,
by such means striving to bend her lissom quality to the gnarled shape
of his unhappy nature.

With such a purpose in view no opportunity was neglected to curb her
pleasures or oppose her inclinations. He continually forced her to leave
Paris, and even when her condition required rest and care, compelled
her to accompany him on long and weary journeys, undertaken by him in
consequence of his diplomatic missions. If she received two successive
visits from one man, he was instantly forbidden the house. If she called
her carriage, the coachman received orders not to obey. If she betrayed
a preference for one maid more than another, the favourite was instantly
dismissed, moreover, the duchess was surrounded by spies, her movements
being rigorously watched, and invariably reported. Nor would the duke
vouchsafe an explanation to his young wife regarding the cause of this
severe treatment, but continued the even course of such conduct without
intermission or abatement.

After displaying these eccentricities for some years, they suddenly
associated themselves with religion, when he became a fanatic. Her
condition was now less endurable than before; his whims more ludicrous
and exasperating. With solemnity he declared no one could in conscience
visit the theatre; that it was a sin to play blind man's buff, and
a heinous crime to retire to bed late. And presently, his fanaticism
increasing, he prohibited the woman who nursed his infant to suckle it
on Fridays or Saturdays; that instead of imbibing milk, it might, in
its earliest life, become accustomed to fasting and mortification of the
flesh.

The young duchess grew hopeless of peace. All day her ears were beset
by harangues setting forth her wickedness, by exortations calling her to
repentance, and by descriptions of visions vouchsafed him. By night her
condition was rendered scarcely less miserable. "No sooner," says St.
Evremond, "were her eyes closed, than Monsieur Mazarine (who had the
devil always present in his black imagination) wakes h