“I will have no indulgence either for domestic disorders, for the moment I hear that a wife is unfaithful to her husband, I will have her locked up, in spite of all, in spite of the generally received opinion that the husband is the real judge and master of his wife; that privilege cannot be granted in my kingdom where husbands are by far too indifferent on that subject.  Fanatic husbands may complain as much as they please that I dishonour them by punishing their wives; they are dishonoured already by the fact of the woman’s infidelity.”

“But, madam, dishonour rises in reality only from the fact of infidelity being made public; besides, you might be deceived, although you are empress.”

“I know that, but that is no business of yours, and I do not grant you the right of contradicting me.”

Such is the way in which Maria Teresa would have argued, and notwithstanding the principle of virtue from which her argument had originated, it had ultimately given birth to all the infamous deeds which her executioners, the Commissaries of Chastity, committed with impunity under her name.  At every hour of the day, in all the streets of Vienna, they carried off and took to prison the poor girls who happened to live alone, and very often went out only to earn an honest living.  I should like to know how it was possible to know that a girl was going to some man to get from him consolations for her miserable position, or that she was in search of someone disposed to offer her those consolations?  Indeed, it was difficult.  A spy would follow them at a distance.  The police department kept a crowd of those spies, and as the scoundrels wore no particular uniform, it was impossible to know them; as a natural consequence, there was a general distrust of all strangers.  If a girl entered a house, the spy who had followed her, waited for her, stopped her as she came out, and subjected her to an interrogatory.  If the poor creature looked uneasy, if she hesitated in answering in such a way as to satisfy the spy, the fellow would take her to prison; in all cases beginning by plundering her of whatever money or jewellery she carried about her person, and the restitution of which could never be obtained.  Vienna was, in that respect a true den of privileged thieves.  It happened to me one day in Leopoldstadt that in the midst of some tumult a girl slipped in my hand a gold watch to secure it from the clutches of a police-spy who was pressing upon her to take her up.  I did not know the poor girl, whom I was fortunate enough to see again one month afterwards.  She was pretty, and she had been compelled to more than one sacrifice in order to obtain her liberty.  I was glad to be able to hand her watch back to her, and although she was well worthy of a man’s attention I did not ask her for anything to reward my faithfulness.  The only way in which girls could walk unmolested in the streets was to go about with their head bent down with beads in hand, for in that case the disgusting brood of spies dared not arrest them, because they might be on their way to church, and Maria Teresa would certainly have sent to the gallows the spy guilty of such a mistake.