Padre Peter, cleric for wedding ceremonies and regular contributor to CONFETI Magazine
Old Wives KNEW A THING OR TWO!
Young ladies of today, of course, can drink as much chocolate as they like without fear of it affecting the colour of their baby. Madame de Sevigné failed to report that the Marquise was attended by a stunningly handsome black manservant, whom modern medicine may have linked in some way with the baby’s birth! Yet even today there are those who hold that the drinking of too much coffee will result in a baby being born with light brown birthmarks. However nonsensical that may seem in the modern age, “old wives” with their dire prognostications still abound. And they are to be found all over the world. In Hawaii pregnant women are warned against wearing a lei as this may cause the umbilical cord to wrap round the baby’s head. The western version of this is that a pregnant woman should
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hen the Marquise de Coëtlogon gave birth to a black baby in 1671 during the reign of King Louis XIV of France (there is a Coëtlogon commemorated on the walls of the little chapel at La Virginia in Marbella – perhaps a distant descendent?), the redoubtable and somewhat unsympathetic Madame de Sevigné reported: “The Marquise de Coëtlogon drank so much chocolate when she was pregnant last year, that she gave birth to a baby who was black as the devil and died”.
The Marquise de Coëtlogon drank so much chocolate when she was pregnant last year, that she gave birth to a baby who was black as the devil and died