Florence.
Before the Italian husbands could adopt or reconcile their minds to a
custom so opposite to their former practice, they took some measures to
secure a point which they had always thought of the highest importance.
Finding that confinement was a plan generally reprobated, and that any
appearance of jealousy subjected the husband to ridicule, they agreed
that their wives should go into company and attend public places, but
always attended by a friend whom they could trust, and who, at the same
time, should not be disagreeable to the wife. This compromise could not
fail of being acceptable to the women, who plainly perceived that they
must be gainers by any alteration of the former system; and it soon
became universal all over Italy, for the women to appear at public places
leaning upon the arm of a man; who, from their frequently whispering
together, was called her Cicisbeo. It was stipulated, at the same time,
that the lady, while abroad under his care, should converse with no other
man but in his presence, and with his approbation; he was to be her
guardian, her friend, and gentleman-usher.
The custom at present is, that this obsequious gentleman visits the lady
every forenoon at the toilet, where the plan for passing the evening is
agreed upon; he disappears before dinner, for it is usual all over Italy
for the husband and wife to dine together tête-à-tête, except on great
occasions, as when there is a public feast. After dinner the husband
retires, and the Cicisbeo returns and conducts the lady to the public
walk, the conversazioné, or the opera; he hands her about wherever
she goes, presents her coffee, sorts her cards, and attends with the
most pointed assiduity till the amusements of the evening are over; he
accompanies her home, and delivers up his charge to the husband, who is
then supposed to resume his functions.
From the nature of this connection, it could not be an easy matter
to find a Cicisbeo who would be equally agreeable to the husband and
wife. At the beginning of the institution, the husbands, as I have
been informed, preferred the platonic swains, who professed only the
metaphysicks of love, and whose lectures, they imagined, might refine
their wives ideas, and bring them to the same way of thinking; in many
instances, no doubt, it would happen, that the platonic admirer asked
with _less seraphic ends_; but these instances serve only as proofs that
the husbands were mistaken in their men; for however absurd it may appear
in the eyes of some people, to imagine that the husbands believe it is
only a platonic connection which subsists between their wives and the
Cicisbeos; it is still more absurd to believe, as some strangers who have
passed through this country seem to have done, that this whole system
of Cicisbeism was from the beginning, and is now, an universal system
of adultery connived at by every Italian husband. To get clear of one
difficulty, those gentlemen fall into another much more inexplicable; by
supposing that the men, who of all the inhabitants of Europe were the
most scrupulous with regard to their wives chastity, should acquiesce in,
and in a manner become subservient to, their prostitution. In support of
this strange doctrine, they assert, that the husbands being the Cicisbeos
of other women, cannot enjoy this privilege on any other terms; and
are therefore contented to sacrifice their wives for the sake of their
mistresses. That some individuals may be profligate enough to act in this
manner, I make no doubt. Similar arrangements we hear instances of in
every country; but that such a system is general, or any thing near it,
in Italy, seems to me perfectly incredible, and is contrary to the best
information I have received since I have been here. It is also urged,
that most of the married men of quality in Italy act in the character of
Cicisbeo to some woman or other; and those who are not Platonic lovers,
ought to suspect that the same liberties are taken with their wives which
they take with the spouses of their neighbours; and therefore their
suffering a man to visit their wives in the character of a cavaliero
servente, is in effect conniving at their own cuckoldom. But this does
not follow as an absolute consequence; for men have a wonderful faculty
of deceiving themselves on such occasions. So great is the infatuation
of their vanity, that the same degree of complaisance, which they
consider as the effect of a very natural and excusable weakness, when
indulged by any woman for themselves, they would look on as a horrible
enormity if admitted by their wives for another man; so that whatever
degree of licentiousness may exist in consequence of this system, I am
convinced the majority of husbands make exceptions in their own favour,
and that their ladies find means to satisfy each individual that he is
not involved in a calamity, which, after all, is more general in other
countries, as well as Italy, than it ought.
Even when there is the greatest harmony and love between the husband and
wife, and although each would prefer the other’s company to any other,
still, such is the tyranny of fashion, they must separate every evening;
he to play the cavaliero servente to another woman, and she to be led
about by another man. Notwithstanding this inconveniency, the couples who
are in this predicament are certainly happier than those whose affections
are not centered at home. Some very loving couples lament the cruelty
of this separation, yet the world in general seem to be of opinion, that
a man and his wife who dine together every day, and lie together every
night, may, with a proper exertion of philosophy, be able to support
being asunder a few hours in the evening.
The Cicisbeo, in many instances, is a poor relation or humble friend,
who, not being in circumstances to support an equipage, is happy to
be admitted into all the societies, and to be carried about to public
diversions, as an appendage to the lady. I have known numbers of those
gentlemen, whose appearance and bodily infirmities carried the clearest
refutation, with respect to themselves personally, of the scandalous
stories of an improper connection between cavaliero serventes and their
mistresses. I never in my life saw men more happily formed, both in body
and mind, for saving the reputation of the females with whom they were
on a footing of intimacy. The humble and timid air which many of them
betray in the presence of the ladies, and the perseverance with which
they continue their services, notwithstanding the contemptuous stile in
which they are often treated, is equally unlike the haughtiness natural
to favoured lovers, and the indifference of men satiated with enjoyment.
There are, it must be confessed, Cicisbeos of a very different stamp,
whose figure and manners might be supposed more agreeable to the ladies
they serve, than to their lords. I once expressed my surprise, that a
particular person permitted one of this description to attend his wife. I
was told, by way of solution of my difficulty, that the husband was poor,
and the Cicisbeo rich. It is not in Italy only where infamous compromises
of this nature take place.
I have also known instances, since I have been in this country, where the
characters of the ladies were so well established, as not to be shaken
either in the opinion of their acquaintances or husbands, although their
cavaliero serventes were in every respect agreeable and accomplished.
But whether the connection between them is supposed innocent or criminal,
most Englishmen will be astonished how men can pass so much of their
time with women. This, however, will appear less surprising, when they
recollect that the Italian nobility dare not intermeddle in politics;
can find no employment in the army or navy; and that there are no such
amusements in the country as hunting or drinking. In such a situation,
if a man of fortune has no turn for gaming, what can he do? Even an
Englishman, in those desperate circumstances, might be driven to the
company and conversation of women, to lighten the burden of time. The
Italians have persevered so long in this expedient, that, however
extraordinary it may seem to those who have never tried it, there can
be no doubt that they find it to succeed. They tell you, that nothing so
effectually sooths the cares, and beguiles the tediousness of life, as
the company of an agreeable woman; that though the intimacy should never
exceed the limits of friendship, there is something more flattering and
agreeable in it than in male friendships; that they find the female heart
more sincere, less interested, and warmer in its attachments; that women
in general have more delicacy, and—. Well, well, all this may be true,
you will say; but may not a man enjoy all these advantages, to as great
perfection, by an intimacy and friendship with his own wife, as with his
neighbour’s? “Non, Monsieur, point du tout,” answered a Frenchman, to
whom this question was once addressed. “Et pourquoi donc? Parceque cela
n’est pas permis.” This you will not think a very satisfactory answer
to so natural and so pertinent a question—It is not the fashion! This,
however, was the only answer I received all over Italy.
This system is unknown to the middle and lower ranks; they pass their
time in the exercise of their professions, and in the society of their
wives and children, as in other countries; and in that sphere of life,
jealousy, which formed so strong a feature of the Italian character, is
still to be found as strong as ever. He who attempts to visit the wife
or mistress of any of the tradespeople without their permission, is in
no small danger of a Coltellata. I have often heard it asserted, that
Italian women have remarkable powers of attaching their lovers. Those
powers, whatever they are, do not seem to depend entirely on personal
charms, as many of them retain their ancient influence over their
lovers after their beauty is much in the wane, and they themselves are
considerably advanced in the vale of years. I know an Italian nobleman,
of great fortune, who has been lately married to a very beautiful young
woman, and yet he continues his assiduity to his former mistress, now an
old woman, as punctually as ever. I know an Englishman who is said to
be in the same situation, with this difference, that his lady is still
more beautiful. In both these instances, it is natural to believe that
the beautiful young wives will always take care to keep their husbands
in such a chaste and virtuous way of thinking, that, whatever time they
may spend with their ancient mistresses, nothing criminal will ever pass
between them.
Whatever satisfaction the Italians find in this kind of constancy, and
in their friendly attachments to one woman, my friend the Marquis de
F—— told me, when I last saw him at Paris, that he had tried it while
he remained at Rome, and found it quite intolerable. A certain obliging
ecclesiastic had taken the trouble, at the earnest request of a lady of
that city, to arrange matters between her and the Marquis, who was put
into immediate possession of all the rights that were ever supposed to
belong to a Cicisbeo. The woman nauseated her husband, which had advanced
matters mightily; and her passion for the Marquis was in proportion to
her abhorrence of the other. In this state things had remained but a very
short time, when the Marquis called one afternoon to drive the Abbé out
a little into the country, but he happened to have just dined. The meals
or this ecclesiastic were generally rather oppressive for two or three
hours after they were finished; he therefore declined the invitation,
saying, by way of apology, “Je suis dans les horreurs de la digestion.”
He then enquired how the Marquis’s amour went on with the lady. “Ah, pour
l’amour, cela est à peu près passé,” replied the Marquis, “et nous sommes
actuellement dans les horreurs de l’amitié.”