Note 103 — Chapter VIII
Lionel J. (Lionel James) Trotter translation
It was very easy to cheat those who wished to be cheated. By this time celibacy was harder to practise than in the Middle Ages, the number of fasts and bloodlettings being greatly reduced. Many died from the nervous plethora of a life so cruelly sluggish. They made no secret of their torments, owning them to their sisters, to their confessor, to the Virgin herself. A pitiful thing, a thing to sorrow for, not to ridicule. In Italy, a nun besought the Virgin for pity’s sake to grant her a lover.