[373] Some unprincipled suitors borrowed costly jewels which they put in the trousseau of their brides, but which had to be returned after the marriage.
[374] Gaultier was the proprietor of a well-known warehouse for the sale of silks and gold and silver-embroidered stuffs in the Rue des Bourdonnais, in Paris, during the latter part of the seventeenth century.
[375] According to an immemorial custom in Paris, a young wife showily dressed had to sit up on her bed during the first three days after marriage to receive visits. Several memoirs and letters of the time refer to it. Addison in “The Spectator,” No. 45, speaks also of the “English ladies ... brought up the fashion of receiving visits in their beds.”
[376] People were then (1688-1694) in the habit of dining at twelve oʼclock, and of taking supper at seven or eight; hence the reference to the “five hours.”
[377] We do not know if this refers to Swiss porters or Swiss guards; I should think it meant the former, and intends to point out that the lady made three calls. (See also page [134], note 260.)
[378] This paragraph alludes, of course, to the visits ladies pay one another.
[379] Sou pour livre, or a penny in the pound, in the original, was a tax on merchandise of a twentieth part of their value.
[380] Wax-candles were a luxury at the time La Bruyère wrote, and chiefly manufactured at Bougiah, on the coast of Africa; hence their name, bougie.
[381] In every parliament there were originally two courts, and two kinds of barristers or conseillers; one court was called the grandʼchambre, where the cases were heard; in the other court, the chambre des enquêtes, reports in writing were made of all cases.
[382] The nobleman or lady of high rank to whom the education of the children of royalty was intrusted in France bore the title of gouverneur, or gouvernante des enfants de France.