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Her sole distraction consisted in visits to the various shrines the Sudario, the Consolata, the Corpus Domini at which the feminine aristocracy offered up its devotions and implored absolution for sins it had often no opportunity to commit: for though fashion accorded cicisbei to the fine ladies of Turin, the Church usually restricted their intercourse to the exchange of the most harmless amenities.
I know it is generally supposed that the custom of choosing cicisbei, was calculated to prevent the extinction of families, which would otherwise often happen in consequence of marriages founded upon interest, without any mutual affection in the contracting parties.
The ladies sit within, and the cicisbei stand on the foot-boards, on each side of the coach, entertaining them with their discourse. It would be no unpleasant inquiry to trace this sort of gallantry to its original, and investigate all its progress.
"The Grand Duke is rotting on his bed, and these are the vermin about him. Before long he will be dust, and then it will be the turn of Don Gastone, and frati will give place to cicisbei. Maybe that you won't find them any more to your liking." "I shall leave Florence," I told her, "so soon as I am assured of Aurelia's escape from it." I heard her sniff of scorn, but did not care to reprove her.
To the favoured lover there is generally opposed an importunate one, who presses his suit without return, the soffione among the cicisbei; the former loves in silence, and frequently finds no opportunity till the end of the piece, of offering his little word of declaration; we might call him the patito.
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