where it is told inaccurately, and then further corrupted in the telling.

It was not the good widows of Perigord who wore the phallus upon their
coifs; it was the young married women, of the district near Montaigne's
home, who paraded it to view upon their foreheads, as a symbol, says our
essayist, "of the joy they derived therefrom." If they became widows,
they reversed its position, and covered it up with the rest of their
head-dress.

The "emperor" mentioned was not an emperor; he was Procolus, a native of
Albengue, on the Genoese coast, who, with Bonosus, led the unsuccessful
rebellion in Gaul against Emperor Probus. Even so keen a commentator as
Cotton has failed to note the error.

The empress (Montaigne does not say "his empress") was Messalina, third
wife of the Emperor Claudius, who was uncle of Caligula and foster-father
to Nero. Furthermore, in her case the charge is that she copulated with
twenty-five in a single night, and not twenty-two, as appears in the
text. Montaigne is right in his statistics, if original sources are
correct, whereas the author erred in transcribing the incident.

As for Proculus, it has been noted that he was associated with Bonosus,
who was as renowned in the field of Bacchus as was Proculus in that of
Venus (Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire). The feat of
Proculus is told in his own words, in Vopiscus, (Hist. Augustine, p. 246)
where he recounts having captured one hundred Sarmatian virgins, and
unmaidened ten of them in one night, together with the happenings
subsequent thereto.

Concerning Messalina, there appears to be no question but that she was a