A mistress or a saint in every grove.”
Almost every traveller who has visited Italy, agrees in describing it as the most abandoned of all the countries of Europe. At Venice, at Naples, and indeed in almost every port of Italy, women are taught from their infancy the various [p59]
arts of alluring to their arms the young and unwary, and of obtaining from them, while heated by love or wine, every thing that flattery and false smiles can obtain, in these unguarded moments.
The Italians, like their neighbors of Spain and Portugal, live under the paralyzing influence of a religion that retains its superstitious forms, while little of life-giving faith remains. Like them they have lively passions, are extremely susceptible, and in the general conduct of life more governed by the impetuosity of impulse than rectitude of principle. The ladies have less gravity than the Spanish, and less frivolity than the French, and in their style of dress incline towards the freedom of the latter. Some of the richest and most commodious convents of Europe are in Italy. The daughters of wealthy families are generally bestowed in marriage as soon as they leave these places of education. These matters are entirely arranged by parents and guardians, and youth and age are not unfrequently joined together, for the sake of uniting certain acres of land. But the affections, thus repressed, seek their natural level by indirect courses. It is a rare thing for an Italian lady to be without her cavaliere servente, or lover, who spends much of his time at her house, attends her to all public places, and appears to live upon her smiles. The old maxim of the Provençal troubadours, that matrimony ought to be no hindrance to such liaisons, seems to be generally and practically believed in Italy.
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In Genoa, there are marriage-brokers, who have pocketbooks filled with the names of marriageable girls of different classes, with an account of their fortunes, personal attractions, &c. When they succeed in arranging connections, they have two or three per cent. commission on the portion. The marriage-contract is often drawn up before the parties have seen each other. If a man dislikes the appearances or manners of his future partner, he may break off the match, on condition of paying the brokerage and other expenses.
SPANISH WOMEN.
As the Spanish ladies are under a greater seclusion from general society, than the sex is in other European countries, their desires of an adequate degree of liberty are consequently more strong and urgent. A free and open communication being denied them, they make it their business to secure themselves a secret and hidden one. Hence it is that Spain is the country of intrigue.
The Spanish women are little or nothing indebted to education. But nature has liberally supplied them with a fund of wit and sprightliness, which is certainly no small inducement to those, who have only transient glimpses of their charms, to wish very earnestly for a removal of those impediments, that obstruct their more frequent presence. This not being attainable in a [p61] lawful way of customary intercourse, the natural propensity of men to overcome difficulties of this kind, incites them to leave no expedient untried to gain admittance to what perhaps was at first only the object of their admiration, but which, by their being refused an innocent gratification of that passion, becomes at last the subject of a more serious one. Thus in Spain, as in all countries where the sex is kept much out of sight, the thoughts of men are continually employed in devising methods to break into their concealments.
There is in the Spaniards a native dignity; which, though the source of many inconveniences, has nevertheless this salutary effect, that it sets them above almost every species of meanness and infidelity. This quality is not peculiar to the men; it diffuses itself, in a great measure, among the women also. Its effects are visible both in their constancy in love and friendship, in which respects they are the very reverse of the French women. Their affections are not to be gained by a bit of sparkling lace, or a tawdry set of liveries. Their deportment is rather grave and reserved; and, on the whole, they have much more of the prude than the coquette in their composition. Being more confined at home, and less engaged in business and pleasure, they take more care of their children than the French, and have a becoming tenderness in their disposition to all animals, except a heretic and a rival.
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Something more than a century ago, the Marquis D’Astrogas having prevailed on a young woman of great beauty to become his mistress, the Marchioness hearing of it, went to her lodging with some assassins, killed her, tore out her heart, carried it home, made a ragout of it, and presented the dish to the Marquis. “It it exceedingly good,” said he. “No wonder,” answered she, “since it was made of the heart of that creature you so much doated on.” And, to confirm what she had said, she immediately drew out her head all bloody from beneath her hoop, and rolled it on the floor, her eyes sparkling all the time with a mixture of pleasure and infernal fury.