Marital infidelity is a cherished institution in France. Has been for ages. No big deal. Just the degenerate Frenchies doing what they always do.
The objects of which Paris folks are fond--literature, art, medicine and adultery.
- - speech at the Stanley Club in Paris, ca. April 1879
France has neither winter nor summer nor morals--apart from these drawbacks it is a fine country.
- Mark Twain's Notebook
A Frenchman's home is where another man's wife is.
- Notebook #18, Feb.- Sept. 1879
M. de Lamester's new French dictionary just issued in Paris defines virtue as: "A woman who has only one lover and don't steal."
- quoted in A Bibliography of Mark Twain, Merle Johnson