But you must know that whilst madame was saying her prayers with her lover, it happened, I know not how, that her husband begged Jehannette, who was keeping him company, to grant him her favours.
To cut matters short, by his promises and fine words she was induced to obey him, but the worst of it was that madame, when she returned from seeing her lover, who had tumbled her twice before she left, found her husband and Jehannette, her waiting-woman, engaged in the very same work which she had been performing, at which she was much astonished; and still more so were her husband and Jehannette at being thus surprised.
When madame saw that, God knows how she saluted them, though she would have done better to hold her tongue; and she vented her rage so on poor Jehannette that it seemed as though she must have a devil in her belly, or she could not have used such abominable words.
Indeed she did more and worse, for she picked up a big stick and laid it across the girl’s shoulders, on seeing which, monseigneur, who was already vexed and angry, jumped up and so beat his wife that she could not rise.
Having then nothing but her tongue, she used it freely God knows, but addressed most of her venomous speeches to poor Jehannette, who no longer able to bear them, told monseigneur of the goings-on of his wife, and where she had been to say her prayers, and with whom.
The whole company was troubled—monseigneur because he had good cause to suspect his wife, and madame, who was wild with rage, well beaten, and accused by her waiting-woman.
How this unfortunate household lived after that, those who know can tell.
