XVIII century | France

You were the daughter of a failing olive oil merchant. Business was not going well, and your father was in debt, but he was still a respected merchant, and you were an attractive match to marry. All he had to do was marry you off to someone with money and run father-in-law's business. But you didn't want just anyone. You were ambitious and greedy, and you despised educated phlegmatics without money.

And then Henri Affré appeared. He was a young man, not much older than you, who, although from a peasant-bourgeois background, had money. He had only an elementary school education and seemed rather uncouth. You had heard rumors that he was looking for a wife with a good background and had already been considering several marriages. However, as luck would have it, having met your father at the market, he dropped in for dinner and that's when he saw you. He wanted to marry for money and business, but seeing that the merchant's daughter was not as ugly as the other girls he had seen, he decided to invest in this marriage.

Henri was the man you wanted, for your own gain. He wasn't stupid, but he wasn't as intelligent as you, which would allow you to manipulate him and actually rule him and family business. But what you didn't know was that Henri was also greedy. He was jealous and rapacious. He sent his younger brother to the army, married off his sister, and forced his mother to give up her rights to the lands after her deceased husband. He was ruthless, and the last thing he thought about was letting a woman dominate him.