Zitat über die Standesdünkel der Wiener Adelsgesellschaft

Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (1716) on choosing a partner in Vienna’s aristocratic society:

… they don’t only scorn to marry, but even to make love to any woman of a family not as illustrious as their own, and the pedigree is much more considered by them, than either the complexion or features… Happy are the She’s that can number amongst their ancestors, Counts of the Empire; they have neither occasion for beauty, money or good conduct, to get them husbands.