LICIDAS: They're putting on a play there.
MADAME DE KRIEGSCHENMAHL: Ah! My God! That's ruinous. A young man of 24 acting in a play.
MR. DE KRIEGSCHENMAHL: It's fine for a woman to act in a play; but a man must make war, always war.
LICIDAS: But father--when we are at peace?
MR. DE KRIEGSCHENMAHL: That makes no difference.
MADAME DE KRIEGSCHENMAHL: I would be very upset if you were making war. That's much too rough for my darling son. But act in a play! Truly, that makes me shudder! Never would my mother or my grand-mother have imagined such a thing.
From Madame de Staël's Signora Fantastici (Morlock translation).