At
all events, some conjecture of the sort is necessary to make the plot of
the piece we are noticing somewhat probable--that being the precise
circumstance upon which it hinges. The _Count St. Louis_, a youthful
_attache_ of the French embassy, becomes attached, by a marriage contract,
to _Lady Bell_, a maid of honour to Queen Anne. The husband at sixteen, of
a wife quite nineteen, would, according to the natural course of things, be
very considerably hen-pecked; and _St. Louis_, foreseeing this, determines
to begin. Well, he insists upon having "article five" of the marriage
contract cancelled; for, by this stipulation, he is to be separated from
his wife, on the evening of the ceremony (which fast approaches), for five
years. He storms, swears, and is laughed at; somebody sends him a wedding
present of sugar-plums--everybody calls him a boy, and makes merry at his
expense--the wife treats him with contempt, and plays the scornful. The
hobble-de-hoy husband, fired with indignation, determines to prove himself
a man.
At the court of Queen Anne this seems to have been an easy matter. _St.
Louis_ writes love-letters to several maids of honour and to a citizen's
wife, finishing the first act by invading the private apartments of the
maiden ladies belonging to the court of the chaste Queen Anne.
The second act discovers him confined to his apartments by order of the
Queen, having amused himself, while the intrigues begun by the love-letters
are hatching, by running into debt, and being surrounded by duns.
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