unheard of in real life. The actual occurrence of such disguises,
however, made no difference to the female writers of fiction. Anything
soul-stirring, whether from romances or from plays, was equally grist to
their mills.

In seeking for the most dramatic _dénouements_ sensational romancers
were not long in perceiving the suspense that could be produced by
involving the chief characters in a trial for their lives. Mrs. Behn had
by that means considerably protracted the interest in "The Fair Jilt:
or, the Amours of Prince Tarquin and Miranda" (1688), and Mrs. Haywood,
following her example, succeeded in giving a last stimulus to the jaded
nerves of the readers of "The Force of Nature" and "The Injur'd
Husband." And finally the title-page of an anonymous work attributed to
her indicates that the struggling authoress was not insensible to the
popular demand for romances of roguery. A prospective buyer might have
imagined that he was securing a criminal biography in "Memoirs of the
Baron de Brosse, Who was Broke on the Wheel in the Reign of Lewis XIV.
Containing, An Account of his Amours. With Several Particulars relating
to the Wars in those Times," but the promise of the title was
unfulfilled, for Mrs. Haywood was no journalist to make capital out of a
malefactor's exit from the world. The whole book is a chronicle of the
Baron's unsuccessful pursuit of a hard-hearted beauty named Larissa,
mingled with little histories of the Baron's rivals, of a languishing
Madam de Monbray, and of Larissa's mother. The fair charmer finally
marries a count, and her lover, plunged into adequate despair, can
barely exert himself to answer a false accusation trumped up by the
revengeful Monbray. With the verdict in his favor the story ends
abruptly, and the promised continuation was apparently never written. We
read nothing of the wars, nor of the Baron's execution on the wheel.