Though the Comte d'Herouville was barely fifty years of age, he appeared at first sight to be sixty, so much had the toils of war, without injuring his robust constitution, dilapidated him physically.
The countess, who was now in her nineteenth year, made a painful contrast to that large, repulsive figure.

She was fair and slim.

Her chestnut locks, threaded with gold, played upon her neck like russet shadows, and defined a face such as Carlo Dolce has painted for his ivory-toned madonnas,--a face which now seemed ready to expire under the increasing attacks of physical pain.

You might have thought her the apparition of an angel sent from heaven to soften the iron will of the terrible count.
"No, he will not kill us!" she cried to herself mentally, after contemplating her husband for a long time.

"He is frank, courageous, faithful to his word--faithful to his word!" Repeating that last sentence in her thoughts, she trembled violently, and remained as if stupefied.
To understand the horror of her present situation, we must add that this nocturnal scene took place in 1591, a period when civil war raged throughout France, and the laws had no vigor.