cicisbeos

“I have seen nothing but cards and dull pairs of cicisbeos.”

Selected English Letters

“Editors forget their proofs; Baboos forget Moses; mothers forget their cicisbeos.”

Twenty-One Days in India; and, the Teapot Series

“Were I in Italy, disburse but a few sequins and battling legions would move at my bidding: but here we have neither cicisbeos, carnivals, confessors, bravoes nor sanctuaries.”

Anna St. Ives

“The beauties were the Duke of Richmond's two daughters (272) and their mother, still handsomer than they: the duke (273) sat by his wife all night, kissing her hand: how this must sound in the ears of Florentine cicisbeos, cock or hen!”

The Letters of Horace Walpole, Earl of Orford — Volume 1