as is the custom in London; and as, while I was young, I had picked up three or four play-fellows and companions suitable to my years, so as we grew bigger we learnt to call one another intimates and friends, and this forwarded very much the finishing me for conversation and the world.
I went to English schools, and, being young, I learnt the English tongue perfectly well, with all the customs of the English young women; so that I retained nothing of the French but the speech, nor did I so much as keep any remains of the French language tagged to my way of speaking, as most foreigners do, but spoke what we call natural English, as if I had been born here.
Being to give my own character, I must be excused to give it as impartially as possible, and as if I was speaking of another body; and the sequel will leave you to judge whether I flatter myself or no.
I was (speaking of myself as about fourteen years of age) tall and very well made, sharp as a hawk in matters of common knowledge, quick and smart in discourse, apt to be satirical, full of repartee, and a little too forward in conversation; or, as we call it in English, bold, though perfectly modest in my behaviour. Being French born, I danced, as some say, naturally, loved it extremely, and sang well also; and so well, that, as you will hear, it was afterwards some advantage to me. With all these things, I wanted neither wit, beauty, nor money. In this manner I set out into the world, having all the advantages that any young woman could desire to recommend me to others and form a prospect of happy living to myself.
At about fifteen years of age my father gave me, as he called it in French, 25,000 livres, that is to say, two thousand pounds portion, and married me to an eminent brewer in the City. Pardon me if I conceal his name, for though he was the foundation of my ruin, I cannot take so severe a revenge upon him.
With this thing called a husband I lived eight years in good fashion, and for some part of the time kept a coach; that is to say, a kind of mock coach, for all the week the horses were kept at work in the dray carts, but on Sunday I had the privilege to go abroad in my chariot, either to church or otherwise, as my husband and I could agree about it; which, by the way, was not very often. But of that hereafter.
Before I proceed in the history of the married part of my life, you must allow me to give as impartial an account of my husband as I have done of myself. He was a jolly, handsome fellow as any woman need wish for a companion, tall and well made, rather a little too large, but not so as to be ungenteel; he danced well, which I think was the first thing that brought us together. He had an old father who managed the business carefully, so that he had little of that part laid on him but now and then to appear and show himself; and he took the advantage of it, for he troubled himself very little about it, but went abroad, kept company, hunted much, and loved it exceedingly.
After I have told you that he was a handsome man and a good sportsman, I have indeed said all; and unhappy was I--like other young people of our sex, I chose him for being a handsome, jolly fellow, as I have said--for he was otherwise a weak, empty-headed, untaught creature as any woman could ever desire to be coupled with. And here I must take the liberty, whatever I have to reproach myself with in my after conduct, to turn to my fellow creatures, the young ladies of this country, and speak to them by way of precaution. If you have any regard to your future happiness, any view of living comfortably with a husband, any hope of preserving your fortunes or restoring them after any disaster, never, ladies, marry a fool. Any husband rather than a fool. With some other husbands you may be unhappy, but with a fool you will be miserable; with another husband you may, I say, be unhappy, but with a fool you must; nay, if he would, he cannot make you easy, everything he does is so awkward, everything he says is so empty, a woman of any sense cannot but be surfeited and sick of him twenty times a day. What is more shocking than for a woman to bring a handsome, comely fellow of a husband into company and then be obliged to blush for him every time she hears him speak; to hear other gentlemen talk sense and he able to say nothing, and so look like a fool; or, which is worse, hear him talk nonsense and be laughed at for a fool?
In the next place, there are so many sorts of fools, such an infinite variety of fools, and so hard it is to know the worst of the kind, that I am obliged to say, no fool, ladies, at all, no kind of fool; whether a mad fool or a sober fool, a wise fool or a silly fool, take anything but a fool; nay, be anything, be even an old maid, the worst of nature's curses, rather than take up with a fool.
But to leave this awhile, for I shall have occasion to speak of it again, my case was particularly hard, for I had a variety of foolish things complicated in this unhappy match.
First, and which I must confess is very unsufferable, he was a conceited fool, tout opiniâtre; everything he said was right, was best, and was to the purpose, whoever was in company and whatever was advanced by others, though with the greatest modesty imaginable. And yet when he came to defend what he had said by argument and reason, he would do it so weakly, so emptily, and so nothing to the purpose, that it was enough to make anybody that heard him sick and ashamed of him.
Secondly, he was positive and obstinate, and the most positive in the most simple and inconsistent things such as were intolerable to bear.
These two articles, if there had been no more, qualified him to be a most unbearable creature for a husband, and so it may be supposed at first sight what kind of life I led with him. However, I did as well as I could and held my tongue, which was the only victory I gained over him; for when he would talk after his own empty rattling way with me, and I would not answer or enter into discourse with him on the point he was upon, he would rise up in the greatest passion imaginable and go away, which was the cheapest way I had to be delivered.
I could enlarge here much upon the method I took to make my life passable and easy with the most incorrigible temper in the world, but it is too long and the articles too trifling. I shall mention some of them as the circumstances I am to relate shall necessarily bring them in.
After I had been married about four years my own father died, my mother having been dead before. He liked my match so ill, and saw so little room to be satisfied with the conduct of my husband, that though he left me 5,000 livres and more at his death, yet he left it in the hands of my elder brother, who, running on too rashly in his adventures as a merchant, failed, and lost not only what he had but what he had for me too, as you shall hear presently.
Thus I lost the last gift of my father's bounty by having a husband not fit to be trusted with it; there's one of the benefits of marrying a fool!
Within two years after my own father's death my husband's father also died, and, as I thought, left him a considerable addition to his estate; the whole trade of the brewhouse, which was a very good one, being now his own.
But this addition to his stock was his ruin, for he had no genius to business. He had no knowledge of his accounts; he bustled a little about it indeed at first, and put on a face of business, but he soon grew slack. It was below him to inspect his books, he committed all that to his clerks and book-keepers, and while he found money in cash to pay the maltman and the excise, and put some in his pocket, he was perfectly easy and indolent, let the main chance go how it would.
I foresaw the consequences of this, and attempted several times to persuade him to apply himself to his business. I put him in mind how his customers complained of the neglect of his servants on one hand, and how abundance broke in his debt, on the other hand, for want of the clerk's care to secure him, and the like; but he thrust me by, either with hard words or fraudulently with representing the cases otherwise than they were.
However, to cut short a dull story which ought not to be long, he began to find his trade sunk, his stock declined, and that, in short, he could not carry on his business; and once or twice his brewing utensils were extended for the excise, and the last time he was put to great extremities to clear them.
This alarmed him, and he resolved to lay down his trade, which indeed
