Lives of Fair and Gallant Ladies. Vol 2.

by Pierre de Bourdeille Brantôme

FIFTH DISCOURSE

Telling how fair and honourable ladies do love brave and valiant men, and brave men courageous women.[1*]

1.

It hath ever been the case that fair and honourable ladies have loved brave and valiant men, albeit by natural bent they be cowardly and timid creatures. But such a virtue doth valour possess with them, as that they do grow altogether enamoured thereof. What else is this but to constrain their exact opposite to love them, and this spite of their own natural complexion? And for an instance of this truth, Venus, which in ancient days was the goddess of Beauty, and of all gentle and courteous bearing, being fain, there in the skies and at the Court of Jupiter, to choose her some fair and handsome lover and so make cuckold her worthy husband Vulcan, did set her choice on never a one of the pretty young gallants, those dapper, curled darlings, whereof were so many to hand, but did select and fall deep in love with the god Mars, god of armies and warlike prowess,—and this albeit he was all foul and a-sweat with the wars he had but just come from, and all besmirched with dust and as filthy as might be, more smacking of the soldier in the field than the gallant at Court. Nay! worse still, very oft mayhap all bloody, as returning from battle, he would so lie with her, without any sort of cleansing of himself or scenting of his person.

Again, the fair and high-born Penthesilea, Queen of the Amazons, having learned of fame concerning the valour and prowess of the doughty Hector, and his wondrous feats of arms which he did before Troy against the Greeks, did at the mere report of all this grow so fondly enamoured of the hero, that being fain to have so valiant a knight for father of her children, her daughters to wit which should succeed to her kingdom, she did hie her forth to seek him at Troy. There beholding him, and contemplating and admiring his puissance, she did all ever she could to find favour with him, not less by the brave deeds of war she wrought than by her beauty, the which was exceeding rare. And never did Hector make sally upon his foes but she would be at his side, and was always as well to the front as Hector himself in the mêlée, wherever the fight was hottest. In such wise that ’tis said she did several times accomplish such deeds of daring and so stir the Trojan’s wonder as that he would stop short as if astonished in the midst of the fiercest combats, and so withdraw somewhat on one side, the better to see and admire this most valiant Queen doing such gallant deeds.

Thereafter, we leave the world to suppose what was the issue of their love, and if they did put the same in practise; and truly the result could not long be doubtful. But any way, their pleasure was to be of no great duration for the Queen, the better to delight her lover, did so constantly rush forth to confront all hazards, that she was slain at last in one of the fiercest and fellest encounters. Others however say she did never see Hector at all, but that he was dead before her arrival. So coming on the scene and learning his death, she did thereupon fall into so great grief and such sadness to have lost the goodly sight she had so fondly desired and had come from so far a land to seek, that she did start forth to meet a voluntary death in the bloodiest battles of the war; and so she died, having no further cause to live, now she had failed of beholding the gallant being she had chosen as best of all and had loved the most.[2]

The like was done by Thalestris, another Queen of the Amazons, who did traverse a great country and cover I know not how many leagues for to visit Alexander the Great, and asking it of him as a favour, or as but a fair exchange of courtesy, did lie with him in order that she might have issue by him of so noble and generous a blood, having heard him so high rated of all men. This boon did Alexander very gladly grant her; and verily he must needs have been sore spoiled and sick of women if he had done otherwise, for the said Queen was as beautiful as she was valiant. Quintus Curtius, Orosius and Justin do affirm moreover that she did thus visit Alexander with three hundred ladies in her suite, all bearing arms, and all so fair apparelled and of such a beauteous grace as that naught could surpass the same. So attended, she did make her reverence before the King, who did welcome her with the highest marks of honour. And she did tarry thirteen days and thirteen nights with him, submitting herself in all ways to his good will and pleasure. At the same time she did frankly tell him how that if she had a daughter by him, she would guard her as a most priceless treasure; but an if she had a son, that she would send him back to the King, by reason of the abhorrence she bear to the male sex, in the matter of holding rule and exercising any command among them, in accordance with the laws introduced in their companies after they had slain their husbands.

Herein need we have no doubt whatever but that the rest of the ladies and attendant dames did after a like manner, and had themselves covered by the different captains and men of war of the said King Alexander. For they were bound in this matter to follow their mistress’ example.

So too the fair maiden Camilla, at once beautiful and noble-hearted, and one which did serve her mistress Diana right faithfully in the woodlands and forests on her hunting parties, having heard the bruit of Turnus’ valiance, and how he had to do with another valiant warrior, to wit Aeneas, which did press him sore, did choose her side. Then did she seek out her favourite and join him, but with three very honourable and fair ladies beside for her comrades, the which she had taken for her close friends and trusty confidantes,—and for tribads too mayhap, and for mutual naughtiness. And so did she hold these same in honour and use them on all occasions, as Virgil doth describe in his Æneid. And they were called the one Armia, a virgin and a valiant maid, another Tullia, and the third Tarpeia, which was skilled to wield the pike and dart, and that in two divers fashions, be it understood,—all three being daughters of Italy.[3*]

Thus then did Camilla arrive with her beauteous little band (as they say “little and good”) for to seek out Turnus, with whom she did perform sundry excellent feats of arms; and did sally forth so oft and join battle with the doughty Trojans that she was presently slain, to the very sore grief of Turnus, who did regard her most highly, as well for her beauty as for the good succour she brought. In such wise did these fair and courageous dames seek out brave and valiant heroes, succouring the same in their ways and encounters.

What else was it did fill the breast of poor Dido with the flame of so ardent a love, what but the valiance she did feel to be in her Aeneas,—if we are to credit Virgil? For she had begged him to tell her of his wars, and the ruin and destruction of Troy, and he had gratified her wish,—albeit to his own great grief, to renew the memory of such sorrows, and in his discourse had dwelt by the way on his own valiant achievements. And Dido having well marked all these and pondered them in her breast, and presently declaring of her love to her sister Anna, the chiefest and most pregnant of the words she said to her were these and no other: “Ah! sister mine, what a guest is this which hath come to my Court! Oh! the noble way he hath with him, and how his very carriage doth announce him a brave and most valiant warrior, in deed and in spirit! I do firmly believe him to be the offspring of some race of gods; for churlish hearts are ever cowardly of their very nature.” Such were Dido’s words; and I think she did come to love him so, quite as much because she was herself brave and generous-hearted, and that her instinct did push her to love her fellow, as to win help and service of him in case of need. But the wretch did deceive and desert her in pitiful wise,—an ill deed he should never have done to so honourable a lady, which had given him her heart and her love, to him, I say, that was but a stranger and an outlaw.

Boccaccio in his book of Famous Folk which have been Unfortunate,[4] doth tell a tale of a certain Duchess of Forli, named Romilda, who having lost husband and lands and goods, all which Caucan, King of the Avarese, had robbed her of, was constrained to take refuge with her children in her castle of Forli, and was therein besieged by him. But one day when he did approach near the walls to make a reconnaissance, Romilda who was on the top of a tower, saw him and did long and carefully observe him. Then seeing him so handsome, being in the flower of his age, mounted on a fine horse and clad in a magnificent suit of mail, and knowing how he was used to do many doughty deeds of war, and that he did never spare himself any more than the least of his soldiers, she did incontinently fall deeply enamoured of the man, and quitting to mourn for her husband and all care for her castle and the siege thereof, did send him word by a messenger that, if he would have her in marriage, she would yield him up the place on the day their wedding should be celebrated.

King Caucan took her at her word. Accordingly the day agreed upon being come, lo! she doth deck herself most stately as a duchess should in her finest and most magnificent attire, which did make her yet fairer still to look on, exceeding fair as she was by nature. So having come to the King’s camp for to consummate the marriage, this last, to the end he might not be blamed as not having kept his word, did spend all that night in satisfying the enamoured duchess’s desires. But the next morning, on rising, he did have a dozen Averese soldiers of his called, such as he deemed to be the strongest and most stalwart fellows, and gave Romilda into their hands, to take their pleasure of her one after other. These did have her for all a night long so oft as ever they could. But then, when day was come again, Caucan having summoned her before him, and after sternly upbraiding her for her wantonness and heaping many insults upon her, did have her impaled through her belly, of which cruel treatment she did presently die. Truly a savage and barbarous act, so to mishandle a fair and honourable lady, instead of displaying gratitude, rewarding her and treating her with all possible courtesy, for the good opinion she had showed of his generosity, valour and noble courage, and her love for him therefor! And of this must fair ladies sometimes have good heed; for of these valiant men of war there be some which have so grown accustomed to killing and slashing and savagely plying the steel, that now and again it doth take their humour to exercise the like barbarity on women. Yet are not all of this complexion, but rather, when honourable ladies do them this honour to love them and hold their valour in high esteem, they do leave behind in camp their fury and fierce passions, and in court and ladies’ chambers do fit themselves to the practise of all gentleness and kindness and fair courtesy.

Bandello in his Tragic Histories[5] doth relate one, the finest story I have ever read, of a certain Duchess of Savoy, who one day coming forth from her good town of Turin, did hear a Spanish woman, a pilgrim on her road to Loretto to perform a vow, cry out and admire her beauty and loudly declare, how that if only so fair and perfect a lady were wedded to her brother, the Señor de Mendoza, which was himself so handsome, brave and valiant, folk might well say in all lands that now the finest and handsomest couple in all the world were mated together. The Duchess who did very well understand the Spanish tongue, having graven these words in her breast and pondered them over in her heart, did anon begin to grave love in the same place likewise. In such wise that by this report of his merits she did fall so passionately in love with the Señor de Mendoza as that she did never slacken till she had planned a pretended pilgrimage to St. James of Compostella, for to see the man for whom she had so suddenly been smit with love. So having journeyed to Spain, and taken the road passing by the house of de Mendoza, she had time and leisure to content and satisfy her eyes with a good sight of the fair object she had chosen. For the Señor de Mendoza’s sister, which was in the Duchess’ train, had advised her brother of so distinguished and fair a visitor’s coming. Wherefore he did not fail to go forth to meet her in gallant array, and mounted on a noble Spanish horse, and this with so fine a grace as that the Duchess could not but be assured of the truth of the fair report which had been given her, and did admire him greatly, as well for his handsome person as for his noble carriage, which did plainly manifest the valiance that was in him. This she did esteem even more highly than all his other merits, accomplishments and perfections, presaging even at that date how she would one day mayhap have need of his valour,—as truly in after times he did excellently serve her under the false accusation which Count Pancalier brought against her chastity. Natheless, though she did find him brave and courageous as a man of arms, yet for the nonce was he a recreant in love; for he did show himself so cold and respectful toward her as to try never an assault of amorous words, the very thing she did most desire, and for which she had undertook her journey. Wherefore, in sore despite at so chilling a respect, or to speak plainly such recreancy in love, she did part from him on the morrow, not near so well content as she had come.

Thus we see how true ’tis that ladies do sometimes love men no less which are bold in love than they which be brave in arms,—not that they would have them brazen and over-bold, impudent and self-satisfied, as I have known some to be. But in this matter must they keep ever the via media.

I have known not a few which have lost many a good fortune with women by reason of such over-respectfulness, whereof I could tell some excellent stories, were I not afeared of wandering too far from the proper subject of my Discourse. But I hope to give them in a separate place; so I will only tell the following one here.

I have heard tell in former days of a lady, and one of the fairest in all the world, who having in the like fashion heard a certain Prince given out by repute for brave and valiant, and that he had already in his young days done and performed great exploits of war, and in especial won two great and signal victories against his foes,[6] did conceive a strong desire to see him; and to this end did make a journey to the province wherein he was then tarrying, under some pretext or other that I need not name. Well! at last she did set forth; and presently,—for what is not possible to a brave and loving heart?—she doth gain sight of him and can contemplate him at her ease, for he did come out a long distance to meet her, and doth now receive her with all possible honour and respect, as was meet for so great, fair and noble-hearted a Princess. Nay! the respect was e’en too great, some do say; for the same thing happened as with the Señor de Mendoza and the Duchess of Savoy, and such excessive respectfulness did but engender the like despite and dissatisfaction. At any rate she did part from him by no means so well satisfied as she had come. It may well be he would but have wasted his time without her yielding one whit to his wishes; but at the least the attempt would not have been ill, but rather becoming to a gallant man, and folk would have esteemed him the better therefor.

Why! what is the use of a bold and generous spirit, if it show not itself in all things, as well in love as in war? For love and arms be comrades, and do go side by side with a single heart, as saith the Latin poet: “Every lover is a man of war, and Cupid hath his camp and arms no less than Mars.” Ronsard hath writ a fine sonnet hereanent in the first book of his “Amours.”[7*]

2.

However to return to the fainness women do display to see and love great-hearted and valiant men,—I have heard it told of the Queen of England, Elizabeth, the same which is yet reigning at this hour, how that one day being at table, entertaining at supper the Grand Prior of France, a nobleman of the house of Lorraine, and M. d’Anville, now M. de Montmorency and Constable of France, the table discourse having fallen among divers other matters on the merits of the late King Henri II. of France, she did commend that Prince most highly, for that he was so brave, and to use her own word so martial a monarch, as he had manifested plainly in all his doings. For which cause she had resolved, an if he had not died so early, to go visit him in his Kingdom, and had actually had her galleys prepared and made ready for to cross over into France, and so the twain clasp hands and pledge their faith and peaceable intent. “In fact ’twas one of my strongest wishes to see this hero. I scarce think he would have refused me, for,” she did declare, “my humour is to love men of courage. And I do sore begrudge death his having snatched away so gallant a King, at any rate before I had looked on his face.”

This same Queen, some while after, having heard great renown of the Duc de Nemours for the high qualities and valour that were in him, was most eager to enquire news of him from the late deceased M. de Rendan[8] at the time when King Francis II did send him to Scotland to conclude a peace under the walls of Leith,[8] which was then besieged by the English. And so soon as he had told the Queen at length all the particulars of that nobleman’s high and noble deeds and merits and points of gallantry, M. de Rendan, who was no less understanding in matters of love than of arms, did note in her and in her countenance a certain sparkle of love or at the least liking, as well as in her words a very strong desire to see him. Wherefore, fain not to stay her in so excellent a path, he did what he could to find out from her whether, if the Duke should come to see her, he would be welcome and well received. She did assure him this would certainly be so, from which he did conclude they might very well come to be wed.

Presently being returned to the Court of France from off his embassy, he did report all the discourse to the King and M. de Nemours. Whereupon the former did command and urge M. de Nemours to agree to the thing. This he did with very great alacrity, if he could come into so fine a Kingdom[9*] by the means of so fair, so virtuous and noble a Queen.

As a result the irons were soon in the fire. With the good means the King did put in his hands, the Duke did presently make very great and magnificent preparations and equipments, both of raiment, horses and arms, and in fact of all costly and beautiful things, without omitting aught needful (for myself did see all this) to go and appear before this fair Princess, above all forgetting not to carry thither with him all the flower of the young nobility of the Court. Indeed Greffier, the Court fool, remarking thereupon did say ’twas wondrous how all the gay pease blossom of the land was going overseas, pointing by this his jape at the wild young bloods of the French Court.

Meantime M. de Lignerolles, a gentleman of much adroitness and skill, and at that time an high favourite with M. de Nemours, his master, was despatched to the said fair Princess, and anon returned bearing a most gentle answer and one very meet to content him, and cause him to press on and further hasten his journey. And I remember me the marriage was held at Court to be as good as made. Yet did we observe how all of a sudden the voyage in question was broke off short and never made, and this in spite of a very great expenditure thereon, now all vain and useless.

Myself could say as well as any man in France what ’twas did lead to this rupture; yet will I remark thus much only in passing:—It may well be other loves did more move his heart, and held him more firm a captive. For truly he was so accomplished in all ways and so skilful in arms and all good exercises, as that ladies did vie with each other in running after him. So I have seen some of the most high-spirited and virtuous women which were ready enough to break their fast of chastity for him.

We have, in the Cent Nouvelles of Queen Marguerite of Navarre, a very excellent tale of that lady of Milan,[10*] which having given assignation to the late M. de Bonnivet, since that day Admiral of France, one night, did charge her chamber-women to stand with drawn swords in hand and to make a disturbance on the steps, just as he should be ready to go to bed. This they did to great effect, following therein their mistress’ orders, which for her part did feign to be terrified and sore afraid, crying out ’twas her husband’s brothers which had noted something amiss, and that she was undone, and that he should hide under the bed or behind the arras. But M. de Bonnivet, without the least panic, taking his cloak round the one arm and his sword in the other hand, said only: “Well, well! where be they, these doughty brothers, which would fright me or do me hurt? Soon as they shall see me, they will not so much as dare look at the point of my sword.” So saying, he did throw open the door and sally forth, but as he was for charging down the steps, lo! he did find only the women and their silly noise, which were sore scared at sight of him and began to scream and confess the whole truth. M. de Bonnivet, seeing what was toward, did straight leave the jades, commending them to the devil, and hying him back to the bedchamber, shutteth to the door behind him. Thus did he betake him to his lady once more, which did then fall a-laughing and a-kissing of him, confessing how ’twas naught but a trick of her contriving, and declaring, an if he had played the poltroon and had not shown his valiance, whereof he had the repute, that he should never have lain with her. But seeing he had proved him so bold and confident of heart, she did therefore kiss him and frankly welcome him to her bed. And all night long ’twere better not to enquire too close what they did; for indeed she was one of the fairest women in all Milan, and one with whom he had had much pains to win her over.

I once knew a gallant gentleman, who one day being at Rome to bed with a pretty Roman lady, in her husband’s absence, was alarmed in like wise; for she did cause one of her waiting women to come in hot haste to warn him the husband was hunting round. The lady, pretending sore amazement, did beseech the gentleman to hide in a closet, else she was undone. “No, no!” my friend made answer, “I would not do that for all the world; but an if he come, why! I will kill him.” With this he did spring to grasp his sword; but the lady only fell a-laughing, and did confess how she had arranged it all of set purpose to prove him, to see what he would do, if her husband did threat him with hurt, and whether he would make a good defence of his mistress.

I likewise knew a very fair lady, who did quit outright a lover she had, because she deemed him a coward; and did change him for another, which did in no way resemble him, but was feared and dreaded exceedingly for his powers of fence, being one of the best swordsmen to be found in those days.

I have heard a tale told at Court by the old gossips, of a lady which was at Court, mistress of the late M. de Lorge,[11] that good soldier and in his younger days one of the bravest and most renowned captains of foot men of his time. She having heard so much praise given to his valour, was fain, one day that King Francis the First was showing a fight of lions at his Court, to prove him whether he was so brave as folk made out. Wherefore she did drop one of her gloves in the lions’ den, whenas they were at their fiercest; and with that did pray M. de Lorge to go get it for her, an if his love of her were as great as he was forever saying. He without any show of surprise, doth take his cloak on fist and his sword in the other hand, and so boldly forth among the lions for to recover the glove. In this emprise was fortune so favourable to him, that seeing he did all through show a good front and kept the point of his sword boldly presented to the lions, these did not dare attack him. So after picking up the glove, he did return toward his mistress and gave it back to her; for the which she and all the company there present did esteem him very highly. But ’tis said that out of sheer despite at such treatment, M. de Lorge did quit her for ever, forasmuch as she had thought good to make her pastime of him and his valiance in this fashion. Nay! more, they say he did throw the glove in her face, out of mere despite; for he had rather an hundred times she had bid him go break up a whole battalion of foot soldiery, a matter he was duly trained to undertake, than thus to fight beasts, a contest where glory is scarce to be gained. At any rate suchlike trials of men’s courage be neither good nor honourable, and they that do provoke the same are much to be blamed.

I like as little another trick which a certain lady did play her lover. For when he was offering her his service, assuring her there was never a thing, be it as perilous as it might, he would not do for her, she taking him at his word, did reply, “Well! an if you love me so much, and be as courageous as you say, stab yourself with your dagger in the arm for the love of me.” The other, who was dying for love of her, did straight draw his weapon, ready to give himself the blow. However I did hold his arm and took the dagger from him, remonstrating and saying he would be a great fool to go about it in any such fashion to prove his love and courage. I will not name the lady; but the gentleman concerned was the late deceased M. de Clermont-Tallard the elder,[12*] which fell at the battle of Montcontour, one of the bravest and most valiant gentlemen of France, as he did show by his death, when in command of a company of men-at-arms,—a man I did love and honour greatly.

I have heard say a like thing did once happen to the late M. de Genlis, the same which fell in Germany, leading the Huguenot troops in the third of our wars of Religion. For crossing the Seine one day in front of the Louvre with his mistress, she did let fall her handkerchief, which was a rich and beautiful one, into the water on purpose, and told him to leap into the river to recover the same. He, knowing not how to swim but like a stone, was fain to be excused; but she upbraiding him and saying he was a recreant lover, and no brave man, without a word more he did throw himself headlong into the stream, and thinking to get the handkerchief, would assuredly have been drowned, had he not been promptly rescued by a boat.

Myself believe that suchlike women, by such trials, do desire in this wise gracefully to be rid of their lovers, which mayhap do weary them. ’Twere much better did they give them good favours once for all and pray them, for the love they bear them, to carry these forth to honourable and perilous places in the wars, and so prove their valour. Thus would they push them on to greater prowess, rather than make them perform the follies I have just spoke of, and of which I could recount an infinity of instances.

This doth remind me, how that, whenas we were advancing to lay siege to Rouen in the first war of Religion, Mademoiselle de Piennes,[13*] one of the honourable damsels of the Court, being in doubt as to whether the late M. de Gergeay was valiant enough to have killed, himself alone and man to man, the late deceased Baron d’Ingrande, which was one of the most valiant gentlemen of the Court, did for to prove his valiance, give him a favour,—a scarf which he did affix to his head harness. Then, on occasion of the making a reconnaissance of the Fort of St. Catherine, he did charge so boldly and valiantly on a troop of horse which had sallied forth of the city, that bravely fighting he did receive a pistol shot in the head, whereof he did fall stark dead on the spot. In this wise was the said damsel fully satisfied of his valour, and had he not been thus killed, seeing he had fought so well, she would have wedded him; but doubting somewhat his courage, and deeming he had slain the aforesaid Baron unfairly, for so she did suspect, she was fain, as she said, to make this visible trial of him. And verily, although there be many men naturally courageous, yet do the ladies push the same on to greater prowess; while if they be cold and cowardly, they do move them to some gallantry and warm them up to some show of fight.

We have an excellent example hereof in the beautiful Agnes Sorel,[14] who seeing the King of France Charles VII.[14] deep in love with her, and recking of naught but to pleasure her, and slack and cowardly take no heed for his kingdom, did say to him one day, how that when she was a child, an astrologer had predicted she would be loved and served of one of the most valiant and courageous kings of Christendom. Accordingly, whenas the King did her the honour to love her, she did think he was the valorous monarch which had been predicted for her; but seeing him so slack, with so little care of his proper business, she did plainly perceive she was deceived in this, and that the courageous King intended was not he at all, but the King of England,[14] which did perform such fine feats of war, and did take so many of his fairest cities from under his very nose. “Wherefore,” she said to her lover, “I am away to find him, for of a surety ’tis he the astrologer did intend.” These words did so sorely prick the King’s heart, as that he fell a-weeping; and thenceforward, plucking up spirit and quitting his hunting and his gardens, he did take the bit in his teeth,—and this to such good effect that by dint of good hap and his own valiance he did drive the English forth of his Kingdom altogether.

Bertrand du Guesclin[14] having wedded his wife Madame Tiphaine, did set himself all to pleasure her and so did neglect the management of the War, he who had been so forward therein afore, and had won him such praise and glory. But she did upbraid him with this remonstrance, how that before their marriage folk did speak of naught but him and his gallant deeds, but henceforth she might well be reproached for the discontinuance of her husband’s fair deeds and good repute. This she said was a very great disgrace to her and him, that he had now grown such a stay-at-home; and did never cease her chiding, till she had roused in him his erstwhile spirit, and sent him back to the wars, where he did even doughtier deeds than aforetime.

Thus do we see how this honourable lady did not love so much her night’s pleasures as she did value the honour of her husband. And of a surety our wives themselves, though they do find us near by their side, yet an if we be not brave and valiant, will never really love us nor keep us by them of good and willing heart; whereas when we be returned from the wars and have done some fine and noble exploit, then they do verily and indeed love us and embrace of right good will, and themselves find the enjoyment most precious.

The fourth daughter of the Comte de Provence,[15*] father-in-law of St. Louis, and herself wife to Charles, Count of Anjou, brother of the said King, being sore vexed, high-spirited and ambitious Princess as she was, at being but plain Countess of Anjou and Provence, and because she alone of her three sisters, of whom two were Queens and the third Empress, did bear no better title than that my Lady and Countess, did never cease till she had prayed, beseeched and importuned her husband to conquer and get some Kingdom for himself. And they did contrive so well as that they were chose of Pope Urban to be King and Queen of the Two Sicilies; and they did away, the twain of them, to Rome with thirty galleys to be crowned by his Holiness, with all state and splendour, King and Queen of Jerusalem and Naples, which dominion he did win afterward, no less by his victorious arms than by the aid his wife afforded him, selling all her rings and jewels for to provide the expenses of the war. So thereafter did they twain reign long and not unpeaceably in the fine kingdoms they had gotten.

Long years after, one of their grand-daughters, issue of them and theirs, Ysabeau de Lorraine to wit,[16*] without help of her husband René, did carry out a like emprise. For while her husband was prisoner in the hands of Charles, Duke of Burgundy, she being a Princess of a wise prudence and high heart and courage, the Kingdom of Sicily and Naples having meantime fallen to them in due succession, did assemble an army of thirty thousand men. This she did lead forth in person, and so conquer all the Kingdom and take possession of Naples.

3.

I could name an host of ladies which have in suchlike ways done great and good service to their husbands, and how being high of heart and ambition they have pushed on and encouraged their mates to court fortune, and to win goods and grandeur and much wealth. And truly ’tis the most noble and most honourable fashion of getting of such things, thus at the sword’s point.

I have known many men in this our land of France and at our Courts, which really more by the urging of their wives than by any will of their own, have undertaken and accomplished gallant exploits.

Many women on the other hand have I known, which thinking only of their own good pleasures, have stood in their husbands’ way and kept the same ever by their side, hindering them of doing noble deeds, unwilling to have them find amusement in aught else but in contenting them at the game of Venus, so keen were they after this sport. I could tell many a tale hereof, but I should be going too far astray from my subject, which is a worthier one for sure, seeing it doth handle virtue, than the other, which hath to do with vice. ’Tis more pleasant by far to hear tell of such ladies as have pushed on their men to noble deeds. Nor do I speak solely of married women, but of many others beside, which by dint of one little favour bestowed, have made their lovers to do many a fine thing they had never done else. For what a satisfaction is theirs! what incitement and warming of heart is greater than when at the wars a man doth think how he is well loved of his mistress, and if only he do some fine thing for the love of her, what kind looks and pretty ways, what fair glances, what kissings, delights and joys, he may hope after to receive of her?

Scipio amongst other rebukes he did administer to Massinissa, when, all but bloody yet from battle, he did wed Sophonisba, said to him: how that ’twas ill-becoming to think of ladies and the love of ladies, when at the wars. He must pardon me here, an if he will; but for my own part, I ween there is no such great contentment, nor one that giveth more courage and emulation to do nobly than they. I have travelled in that country myself in old days. And not only I, but all such, I do firmly believe, as take the field and fight, do find the same; and to them I make appeal. I am sure they be all of my opinion, be they who they may, and that whenas they are embarked on some good warlike emprise, and presently find themselves in the heat of battle and press of the foe, their heart doth swell within them as they think on their ladies, the favours they do carry of them, and the caresses and gentle welcome they will receive of the same after the war is done, if they but escape,—and if they come to die, the sore grief they will feel for love of them and thought of their end. In a word, for the love of their ladies and fond thoughts of them, all emprises be facile and easy, the sternest fights be but merry tourneys to them, and death itself a triumph.

I do remember me how at the battle of Dreux the late M. des Bordes,[17*] a brave and gentle knight if ever there was one in his day, being Lieutenant under M. de Nevers, known at the first as the Comte d’Eu, a most excellent Prince and soldier, when he had to charge to break up a battalion of foot which was marching straight on the advanced guard where was the late M. de Guise the Great, and the signal to charge was given, the said Des Bordes, mounted on a grey barb, doth start forward instantly, adorned and garnished with a very fine favour his mistress had given him (I will not name her, but she was one of the fair and honourable damsels and great ladies of the Court), and as he gave rein, he did cry: “Ha! I am away to fight valiantly for the love of my mistress, or to die for her!” And this boast he failed not to fulfil; for after piercing the six first ranks, he fell at the seventh, borne down to earth. Now tell me if this lady had not well used her favour, and if she had aught to reproach her with for having bestowed it on him!

M. de Bussi again was a young soldier which did as great honour to his mistresses’ favours as any man of his time, yea! and the favours of some I know of, which did merit more stricken fields and deeds of daring and good sword thrusts than did ever the fair Angelica of the Paladins and Knights of yore, whether Christian or Saracen. Yet have I heard him often declare that in all the single combats and wars and general rencounters (for he hath fought in many such) where he hath ever been engaged, ’twas not so much for the service of his Prince nor yet for love of success as for the sole honour and glory of contenting his lady love. He was surely right in this, for verily all the success in the world and all its ambitions be little worth in comparison of the love and kindness of a fair and honourable lady and mistress.

And why else have so many brave Knights errant of the Round Table and so many valorous Paladins of France in olden time undertaken so many wars and far journeyings, and gone forth on such gallant emprises, if not for the love of the fair ladies they did serve or were fain to serve? I do appeal to our Paladins of France, our Rolands, Renauds, Ogiers, our Olivers, Yvons and Richards, and an host of others. And truly ’twas a good time and a lucky; for if they did accomplish some gallant deed for love of their ladies, these same fair ladies, in no wise ingrate, knew well how to reward them, whenas they hied them back to meet them, or mayhap would give them tryst there, in the forests and woodlands, or near some fair fountain or amid the green meadows. And is not this the guerdon of his doughtiness a soldier most doth crave of his lady love?

Well! it yet remains to ask, why women do so love these men of valiance? First, as I did say at the beginning, valour hath in it a certain force and overmastering power to make itself loved of its opposite. Then beside, there is a kind of natural inclination doth exist, constraining women to love great-heartedness, which to be sure is an hundred times more lovable than cowardice,—even as virtue is alway more to be desired than vice.

Some ladies there be which do love men thus gifted with valour, because they imagine that just as they be brave and expert at arms and in the trade of War, they must be the same at that of Love.

And this rule doth hold really good with some. ’Twas fulfilled for instance by Cæsar, that champion of the world, and many another gallant soldier I have known, though I name no names. And such lovers do possess a very different sort of vigour and charm from rustics and folk of any other profession but that of arms, so much so that one push of these same gallants is worth four of ordinary folk. When I say this, I do mean in the eyes of women moderately lustful, not of such as be inordinately so, for the mere number is what pleaseth this latter sort. But if this rule doth hold good sometimes in some of these warlike fellows, and according to the humour of some women, it doth fail in others; for some of these valiant soldiers there be so broken down by the burden of their harness and the heavy tasks of war, that they have no strength left when they have to come to this gentle game of love, in such wise that they cannot content their ladies,—of whom some (and many are of such complexion), had liever have one good workman at Venus’ trade, fresh and ground to a good point, than four of these sons of Mars, thus broken-winged.

I have known many of the sex of this sort and this humour; for after all, they say, the great thing is to pass one’s time merrily, and get the quintessence of enjoyment out of it, without any special choice of persons. A good man of war is good, and a fine sight on the field of battle; but an if he can do naught a-bed, they declare, a good stout lackey, in good case and practice, is every whit as worth having as a handsome and valiant gentleman,—tired out.

I do refer me to such dames as have made trial thereof, and do so every day; for the gallant soldier’s loins, be he as brave and valiant as he may, being broken and chafed of the harness they have so long carried on them, cannot afford the needful supply, as other men do, which have never borne hardship or fatigue.

Other ladies there be which do love brave men, whether it be for husbands or for lovers, to the end these may show good fight and so better defend their honour and chastity, if any detractors should be fain to befoul these with ill words. Several such I have seen at Court, where I knew in former days a very great and a very fair lady[18] whose name I had rather not give, who being much subject to evil tongues, did quit a lover, and a very favourite one, she had, seeing him backward to come to blows and pick a quarrel and fight it out, to take another[18] instead which was a mettlesome wight, a brave and valiant soul, which would gallantly bear his lady’s honour on the point of his sword, without ever a man daring to touch the same in any wise.

Many ladies have I known in my time of this humour, wishful always to have a brave gallant for their escort and defence. This no doubt is a good and very useful thing oftentimes for them; but then they must take good heed not to stumble or let their heart change toward them, once they have submitted to their domination. For if these fellows do note the least in the world of their pranks and fickle changes, they do lead them a fine life and rebuke them in terrible wise, both them and their new gallants, if ever they change. Of this I have seen not a few examples in the course of my life.

Thus do we see how suchlike women, those that will fain have at command suchlike brave and mettlesome lovers, must needs themselves be brave and very faithful in their dealings with the same, or at any rate so secret in their intrigues as that they may never be discovered. Unless indeed they do compass the thing by some arrangement, as do the Italian and Roman courtesans, who are fain ever to have a bravo (this is the name they give him) to defend and keep them in countenance; but ’tis always part of the bargain that they shall have other favoured swains as well, and the bravo shall never say one word.

This is mighty well for the courtesans of Rome and their bravos, but not for the gallant gentlemen of France and other lands. But an if an honourable dame is ready to keep herself in all firmness and constancy, her lover is bound to spare his life in no way for to maintain and defend her honour, if she do run the very smallest risk of hurt, whether to her life or her reputation, or of some ill word of scandal. So have I seen at our own Court several which have made evil tattlers to hold their tongues at a moment’s notice, when these had started some detraction of their ladies or mistresses. For by devoir of knighthood and its laws we be bound to serve as their champions in any trouble, as did the brave Renaud for the fair Ginevra in Scotland,[19] the Señor de Mendoza for the beautiful Duchess I have spoke of above, and the Seigneur de Carouge for his own wedded wife in the days of King Charles VI., as we do read in our Chronicles. I could quote an host of other instances, as well of old as of modern times, to say naught of those I have witnessed at our own Court; but I should never have done.

Other ladies I have known which have quitted cowardly fellows, albeit these were very rich, to love and wed gentlemen that did possess naught at all but sword and cloak, so to say. But then they were valorous and great-hearted, and had hopes, by dint of their valiance and bravery, to attain to rank and high estate. Though truly ’tis not the bravest that do most oft win these prizes; but they do rather suffer sore wrong, while many a time we behold the cowardly and fainthearted succeed instead. Yet be this as it may, such fortune doth never become these so well as it doth the men of valour.

But there, I should never get me done, were I to recount at length the divers causes and reasons why women do so love men of high heart and courage. I am quite sure, were I set on amplifying this Discourse with all the host of reasons and examples I might, I could make a whole book of it alone. However, as I wish not to tarry over one subject only, so much as to deal with various and divers matters, I will be satisfied to have said what I have said,—albeit sundry will likely blame me, how that such and such a point was surely worthy of being enriched by more instances and a string of prolix reasons, which themselves could very well supply, exclaiming, “Why! he hath clean forgot this; he hath clean forgot that.” I know my subject well enough for all that; and mayhap I know more instances than ever they could adduce, and more startling and private. But I prefer not to divulge them all, and not to give the names.

This is why I do hold my tongue. Yet, before making an end, I will add this further word by the way. Just as ladies do love men which be valiant and bold under arms, so likewise do they love such as be of like sort in love; and the man which is cowardly and over and above respectful toward them, will never win their good favour. Not that they would have them so overweening, bold and presumptuous, as that they should by main force lay them on the floor; but rather they desire in them a certain hardy modesty, or perhaps better a certain modest hardihood. For while themselves are not exactly wantons, and will neither solicit a man nor yet actually offer their favours, yet do they know well how to rouse the appetites and passions, and prettily allure to the skirmish in such wise that he which doth not take occasion by the forelock and join encounter, and that without the least awe of rank and greatness, without a scruple of conscience or a fear or any sort of hesitation, he verily is a fool and a spiritless poltroon, and one which doth merit to be forever abandoned of kind fortune.[20*]

I have heard of two honourable gentlemen and comrades, for the which two very honourable ladies, and of by no means humble quality, made tryst one day at Paris to go walking in a garden. Being come thither, each lady did separate apart one from the other, each alone with her own cavalier, each in a several alley of the garden, that was so close covered in with a fair trellis of boughs as that daylight could really scarce penetrate there at all, and the coolness of the place was very grateful. Now one of the twain was a bold man, and well knowing how the party had been made for something else than merely to walk and take the air, and judging by his lady’s face, which he saw to be all a-fire, that she had longings to taste other fare than the muscatels that hung on the trellis, as also by her hot, wanton and wild speech, he did promptly seize on so fair an opportunity. So catching hold of her without the least ceremony, he did lay her on a little couch that was there made of turf and clods of earth, and did very pleasantly work his will of her, without her ever uttering a word but only: “Heavens! Sir, what are you at? Surely you be the maddest and strangest fellow ever was! If anyone comes, whatever will they say? Great heavens! get out!” But the gentleman, without disturbing himself, did so well continue what he had begun that he did finish, and she to boot, with such content as that after taking three or four turns up and down the alley, they did presently start afresh. Anon, coming forth into another, open, alley, they did see in another part of the garden the other pair, who were walking about together just as they had left them at first. Whereupon the lady, well content, did say to the gentleman in the like condition, “I verily believe so and so hath played the silly prude, and hath given his lady no other entertainment but only words, fine speeches and promenading.”

Afterward when all four were come together, the two ladies did fall to asking one another how it had fared with each. Then the one which was well content did reply she was exceeding well, indeed she was; indeed for the nonce she could scarce be better. The other, which was ill content, did declare for her part she had had to do with the biggest fool and most coward lover she had ever seen; and all the time the two gentlemen could see them laughing together as they walked and crying out: “Oh! the silly fool! the shamefaced poltroon and coward!” At this the successful gallant said to his companion: “Hark to our ladies, which do cry out at you, and mock you sore. You will find you have overplayed the prude and coxcomb this bout.” So much he did allow; but there was no more time to remedy his error, for opportunity gave him no other handle to seize her by. Natheless, now recognizing his mistake, after some while he did repair the same by certain other means which I could tell, an if I would.

Again I knew once two great Lords, brothers, both of them highly bred and highly accomplished gentlemen[21] which did love two ladies, but the one of these was of much higher quality and more account than the other in all respects. Now being entered both into the chamber of this great lady, who for the time being was keeping her bed, each did withdraw apart for to entertain his mistress. The one did converse with the high-born dame with every possible respect and humble salutation and kissing of hands, with words of honour and stately compliment, without making ever an attempt to come near and try to force the place. The other brother, without any ceremony of words or fine phrases, did take his fair one to a recessed window, and incontinently making free with her (for he was very strong), he did soon show her ’twas not his way to love à l’espagnole, with eyes and tricks of face and words, but in the genuine fashion and proper mode every true lover should desire. Presently having finished his task, he doth quit the chamber; but as he goes, saith to his brother, loud enough for his lady to hear the words: “Do you as I have done, brother mine; else you do naught at all. Be you as brave and hardy as you will elsewhere, yet if you show not your hardihood here and now, you are disgraced; for here is no place of ceremony and respect, but one where you do see your lady before you, which doth but wait your attack.” So with this he did leave his brother, which yet for that while did refrain him and put it off to another time. But for this the lady did by no means esteem him more highly, whether it was she did put it down to an over chilliness in love, or a lack of courage, or a defect of bodily vigour. And still he had shown prowess enough elsewhere, both in war and love.

The late deceased Queen Mother did one day cause to be played, for a Shrove Tuesday interlude, at Paris at the Hôtel de Reims, a very excellent Comedy which Cornelio Fiasco, Captain of the Royal Galleys, had devised. All the Court was present, both men and ladies, and many folk beside of the city. Amongst other matters, was shown a young man which had laid hid a whole night long in a very fair lady’s bedchamber, yet had never laid finger on her. Telling this hap to his friend, the latter asketh him: Ch’avete fatto? (What did you do?), to which the other maketh answer: Niente (Nothing). On hearing this, his friend doth exclaim: Ah! poltronazzo, senza cuore! non havete fatto niente! che maldita sia la tua poltronneria!—“Oh! poltroon and spiritless! you did nothing! a curse on your poltroonery then!”

The same evening after the playing of this Comedy, as we were assembled in the Queen’s chamber, and were discoursing of the said play, I did ask a very fair and honourable lady, whose name I will not give, what were the finest points she had noted and observed in the Comedy, and which had most pleased her. She told me quite simply and frankly: The best point I noted was when his friend did make answer to the young man called Lucio, who had told him che non haveva fatto niente (that he had done nothing) in this wise, Ah poltronazzo! non havete fatto niente! che maldita sia la tua poltronneria!—“Oh! you poltroon! you did nothing! a curse be on your poltroonery!”

So you see how this fair lady which did talk with me was in agreement with the friend in reprobating his poltroonery, and that she did in no wise approve of him for having been so slack and unenterprising. Thereafter she and I did more openly discourse together of the mistakes men make by not seizing opportunity and taking advantage of the wind when it bloweth fair, as doth the good mariner.

This bringeth me to yet another tale, which I am fain, diverting and droll as it is, to mingle among the more serious ones. Well, then! I have heard it told by an honourable gentleman and a good friend of mine own, how a lady of his native place, having often shown great familiarities and special favour to one of her chamber lackeys, which did only need time and opportunity to come to a point, the said lackey, neither a prude nor a fool, finding his mistress one morning half asleep and lying on her bed, turned over away from the wall, tempted by such a display of beauty and a posture making it so easy and convenient, she being at the very edge of the bed, he did come up softly, and alongside the lady. She turning her head saw ’twas her lackey, which she was fain of; and just as she was, her place occupied and all, without withdrawing or moving one whit, and neither resisting nor trying in the very least to shake off the hold he had of her, did only say to him, turning round her head only and holding still for fear of losing him, “Ho! ho! Mister prude, and what hath made you so bold as to do this?” The lackey did answer with all proper respect, “Madam, shall I leave?”—“That’s not what I said, Mister prude,” the lady replied, “I ask you, what made you so bold as to put yourself there?” But the other did ever come back to the same question, “Madam, shall I stop? if you wish, I will go out,”—and she to repeating again and again, “That is not what I say, not what I say, Mister prude!” In fact, the pair of them did make these same replies and repetitions three or four times over,—which did please the lady far better than if she had ordered her gallant to stop, when he did ask her. Thus it did serve her well to stick to her first question without ever a variation, and the lover in his reply and the repetition thereof. And in this wise did they continue to lie together for long after, the same rubric being always repeated as an accompaniment. For ’tis, as men say, the first batch only, and the first measure of wine, that costs dear.

A good lackey and an enterprising! To such bold fellows we must needs say in the words of the Italian proverb, A bravo cazzo mai non manca favor.

Well, from all this you learn how that there be many men which are brave, bold and valiant, as well in arms as in love; others which be so in arms, but not in love; others again, which be so in love and not in arms. Of this last sort was that rascally Paris, who indeed had hardihood and valiance enough to carry off Helen from her poor cuckold of a husband Menelaus, but not to do battle with him before Troy town.

Moreover this is why the ladies love not old men, nor such as be too far advanced in years, seeing such be very timid in love and shamefaced at asking favours. This is not because they have not concupiscence and desires as great as young men, or even greater, but because they have not the powers to match. And this is what a Spanish lady meant, which said once: how that old men did much resemble persons who, whenas they do behold kings in their magnificence, domination and authority, do covet exceedingly to be like them, yet would they never dare to make any attempt against them to dispossess them of their kingdoms and seize their place. She was used further to say, Y a penas es nacido el deseo, cuando se muere luego,—“Scarce is the desire born, but it dies straightway.” Thus old men, when they do see fair objects of attack, dare not take action, porque los viejos naturalmente son temerosos; y amor y temor no se caben en un saco,—“for that old men are naturally timid; and love and fear do never go well in one pack.” And indeed they are quite right; for they have arms neither for offence nor defence, like young folks, which have youth and beauty on their side. So verily, as saith the poet: naught is unbecoming to youth, do what it will; and as another hath it: two sorry sights,—an old man-at-arms and an old lover.

4.

Well! enough hath been said on this subject; so I do here make an end and speak no more thereof. Only will I add somewhat on another point, one that is appertinent and belonging as it were to this, to wit: how just as fair ladies do love brave men, and such as be valorous and great-hearted, in like wise do men love women brave of heart and noble-spirited. And as noble-spirited and courageous men be ever more lovable and admirable than others, so is the like true of illustrious, noble-hearted and courageous dames,—not that I would have these perform the deeds of men, nor yet arm and accoutre them like a man,—as I have seen and known, as well as heard tell of, some which would mount a-horse-back like a man, carry their pistol at saddle-bow, shoot off the same, and generally fight like a man.

I could name one famous instance at any rate of a lady which did all this during the recent Wars of the League.[22*] But truly suchlike disguisement is an outrage to the sex. Besides its being neither becoming nor suitable, ’tis not lawful, and doth bring more harm and ill repute than many do suppose. Thus it did work great hurt to the gentle Maid of Orleans, who at her trial was sore calumniated on this very account, and this was in part cause of her sore and piteous downfall and death. Wherefore such masqueradings do like me not, nor stir me to any great admiration. Yet do I approve and much esteem a fair dame which doth make manifest her courageous and valiant spirit, being in adversity and downright need, by brave, womanly acts that do show a man’s heart and courage. Without borrowing examples from the noble-hearted dames of Rome and of Sparta of yore, the which have excelled herein all other women in the world, there be others plain enough to be seen before our very eyes; and I do choose rather to adduce such modern instances belonging to our own day.

The first example I shall give, and in my eyes the finest I know of is that of those fair, honourable and doughty dames of Sienna, at the time of the revolt of their city against the intolerable yoke of the Imperialists (Ghibellines). For after the dispositions had been fixed for the defence, the women of the city, being set aside therein as not apt for war like the men, were fain to make a display of their mettle, and show how that they could do something else than only ply their female tasks of day and night. So, to bear their part of the work of defence, they did divide them into three bands or companies; and one St. Anthony’s day, in the month of January, they did appear in public led by three of the fairest ladies, and the greatest and best born, of all the city, in the Great Square of that town (and it is a very noble one), with their drums and ensigns.

The first was the Signora Forteguerra, clad in violet, her ensign of the same colour and all her company in like array, her banner bearing this device: Pur che sia il vero (Let the truth prevail). Now all these ladies were dressed in the guise of nymphs, with short skirts which did best discover and display the fine leg beneath. The second was the Signora Piccolomini, clad in scarlet, and her company and ensign the same, with a white cross and this device: Pur che no l’habbia tutto (Let him not have it all). The third was the Signora Livia Fausta, clad all in white, and her company in white and a white ensign, whereon was a palm, and for device: Pur che l’habbia (Let him have it, then!).

Round about and in the train of these three, which did seem very goddesses, were a good three thousand other women, both gentlewomen, citizens’ wives and others, all fair to look upon, and all duly clad in their proper dress and livery, whether of satin, taffety, damask, or other silken stuff, and each and all firm resolved to live or die for freedom. Moreover each did carry a fascine on her shoulder for a fort which was a-building, while all cried out together, France, France! With this spectacle, so rare and delightsome an one, the Cardinal of Ferrara and M. de Termes, the French King’s Lieutenants, were so ravished, as that they did find no other pleasure but only in watching, admiring and commending these same fair and honourable ladies. And of a truth I have heard many say, both men and women, which were there present, that never was seen so fine a sight. And God knoweth, beautiful women be not lacking in this city of Sienna, and that in abundance, and without picking and choosing.

The men of the city, which of their own wishes were greatly set on winning their freedom, were yet more encouraged to the same by this noble display, unwilling to fall below the women in zeal. In such wise that all did vie with one another, Lords, gentlemen, citizens, trades-folk, artizans, rich and poor alike, and all did flock to the fort to imitate the example of these fair, virtuous and honourable dames. So all in much emulation,—and not laymen alone, but churchmen to boot,—did join in pushing on the good work. Then, on returning back from the fort, the men on one side, and the women likewise ranged in battle array in the great square before the Palace of the Signoria,[23*] they did advance one after other, and company after company, to salute the image of the Blessed Virgin, patroness of the city, singing the while sundry hymns and canticles in her honour, to airs so soft and with so gracious an harmony that, part of pleasure, part of pity, tears ’gan fall from the eyes of all the people present. These after receiving the benediction of the most reverend Cardinal of Ferrara, did withdraw, each to their own abode,—all the whole folk, men and women alike, with fixed resolve to do their duty yet better for the future.

This sacred ceremony of these ladies doth remind me (but without making comparison ’twixt the two) of a heathen one, yet goodly withal, which was performed at Rome at the period of the Punic Wars, as we do read in the Historian Livy.[24*] ’Twas a solemn progress and procession made by three times nine, which is twenty-seven, young and pretty Roman maids, all of them virgins, clad in longish frocks, of which history doth not however tell us the colours. These dainty maids, their solemn march and procession completed, did then make halt at a certain spot, where they proceeded to dance a measure before the assembled people, passing from hand to hand a cord or ribband, ranged all in order one after other, and stepping a round, accommodating the motion and twinkling of their feet to the cadence of the tune and the song they sang the while. It was a right pretty sight to see, no less for the beauty of the maids than for their sweet grace, their dainty way of dancing and the adroit tripping of their feet, the which is one of the chiefest charms of a maid, when she is skilled to move and guide the same daintily and well.

I have oft pictured to myself the measure they did so dance; and it hath brought to my mind one I have seen performed in my young days by the girls of mine own countryside, called the “garter.” In this, the village girls, giving and taking the garter from hand to hand, would pass and re-pass these above their heads, then entangle and interlace the same between their legs, leaping nimbly over them, then unwinding them and slipping free with little, dainty bounds,—all this while keeping rank one after other, without once losing cadence with the song or instrument of music which led the measure, in such wise that the thing was a mighty pretty thing to see. For the little leaps and bounds they gave, the interlacing and slipping free again, the wielding of the garter and the graceful carriage of the girls, did all provoke so dainty a smack of naughtiness, as that I do marvel much the said dance hath never been practised at Court in these days of ours. Pleasant ’tis to see the dainty drawers, and the fine leg freely exhibited in this dance, and which lass hath the best fitting shoe and the most alluring mien. But truly it can be better appreciated by the eye than described in words.

But to return to our ladies of Sienna. Ah! fair and valiant dames, you should surely never die,—you nor your glory, which will be for ever immortal. So too another fair and gentle maid of your city, who during its siege, seeing one night her brother kept a prisoner by sickness in his bed and in very ill case to go on guard, doth leave him there a-bed and slipping quietly away from his side, doth take his arms and accoutrements, and so, a very perfect likeness of her brother, maketh appearance with the watch. Nor was she discovered, but by favour of the night was really taken for him she did represent. A gentle act, in truth! for albeit she had donned a man’s dress and arms, yet was it not to make a constant habit thereof, but for the nonce only to do a good office for her brother. And indeed ’tis said no love is like that of brother and sister, and further that in a good cause no risk should be spared to show a gentle intrepidity of heart, in whatsoever place it be.

I ween the corporal of the guard which was then in command of the squad in which was this fair girl, when he wist of her act, was sore vexed he had not better recognized her, so to have published abroad her merit on the spot, or mayhap to have relieved her of standing sentry, or else merely to have taken his pleasure in gazing on her beauty and grace, and her military bearing; for no doubt at all she did study in all things to counterfeit a soldier’s mien.

Of a surety so fine a deed could scarce be overpraised, and above all when the occasion was so excellent, and the thing carried out for a brother’s sake. The like was done by the gentle Richardet, in the Romance, but for different purpose, when after hearing one evening his sister Bramante discourse of the beauties of the fair Princess of Spain, and of her own love and vain desires after her, he did take her accoutrements and fine frock, after she was to bed, and so disguiseth himself in the likeness of his sister,—the which he could readily accomplish, so like they were in face and beauty. Then presently, under this feigned form he did win from the said lovely Princess what was denied his sister by reason of her sex. Whereof, however, great hurt had come to him, but for the favour of Roger, who taking him for his mistress Bramante, did save him scatheless of death.[25]

Now as to the ladies of Sienna, I have heard it of M. de La Chapelle des Ursins, which was at that time in Italy, and did make report of this their gallant exploit to our late King Henri II. of France, how that this monarch did find the same so noble, that with tears in his eyes he took an oath, an if one day God should grant him peace or truce with the Emperor, he would hie him with his galleys across the Tuscan sea, and so to Sienna, to see this city so well affected to him and his party, and thank the citizens for their good will and gallantry, and above all to behold these fair and honourable ladies and give them especial thanks.

I am sure he would not have failed so to do, for he did highly honour the said good and noble dames. Accordingly he did write them, addressing chiefly the three chief leaders, letters the most gracious possible, full of thanks and compliments, the which did pleasure them greatly and animate their courage to yet an higher pitch.

Alas! the truce came right enough some while after; but meantime the city had been taken, as I have described elsewhere. Truly ’twas an irreparable loss to France to be deprived of so noble and affectionate an ally, which mindful and conscious of the ties of its ancient origin, was always fain to join us and take place in our ranks. For they say these gallant Siennese be sprung from that people of France which in Gaul they did call the Senones in old times, now known as the folk of Sens. Moreover they do retain to this day somewhat of the humour of us Frenchmen; they do very much wear their heart on their sleeve, as the saying is, and be quick, sudden and keen like us. The Siennese ladies likewise have much of those pretty ways and charming manners and graceful familiarities which be the especial mark of Frenchwomen.

I have read in an old Chronicle, which I have cited elsewhere, how King Charles VIII., on his Naples journey, when he did come to Sienna, was there welcomed with so magnificent and so triumphal an entry, as that it did surpass all the others he received in all Italy. They did even go so far by way of showing greater respect and as a sign of humbleness, as to take all the city gates from off their hinges and lay the same flat on the ground; and so long as he did tarry there, the gates were thus left open and unguarded to all that came and went, then after, on his departure, set up again as before.

I leave you to imagine if the King, and all his Court and army, had not ample and sufficient cause to love and honour this city (as indeed he did always), and to say all possible good thereof. In fact their stay there was exceeding agreeable to him and to all, and ’twas forbid under penalty of death to offer any sort of insult, as truly not the very smallest did ever occur. Ah! gallant folk of Sienna, may ye live for ever! Would to heaven ye were still ours in all else, as it may well be, ye are yet in heart and soul! For the overrule of a King of France is far gentler than that of a Duke of Florence; and besides this, the kinship of blood can never go for naught. If only we were as near neighbours as we be actually remote from each other, we might very like be found at one in will and deed.

In like wise the chiefest ladies of Pavia, at the siege of that town by King Francis I. of France, following the lead and example of the noble Countess Hippolita de Malespina, their generalissima, did set them to carrying of the earth-baskets, shifting soil and repairing the breaches in their walls, vying with the soldiery in their activity.

Conduct like that of the Siennese dames I have just told of, myself did behold on the part of certain ladies of La Rochelle,[26] at the siege of their town. And I remember me how on the first Sunday of Lent during the siege, the King’s brother, our General, did summon M. de la Noue to come before him on his parole, and speak with him and give account of the negotiations he had charged him withal on behalf of the said city,—all the tale whereof is long and most curious, as I do hope elsewhere to describe the same. M. de la Noue failed not to appear, to which end M. d’Estrozze was given as an hostage on the town, and truce was made for that day and for the next following.[27*]

This truce once concluded, there did appear immediately, as on our side we too did show us outside our trenches, many of the towns-folk on the ramparts and walls. And notable over all were seen an hundred or so of noble ladies and citizens’ wives and daughters, the greatest, richest and fairest of all the town, all clad in white, the dress, which did cover head as well as body, being all of fine white Holland linen, that ’twas a very fair sight to see. And they had adopted this dress by reason of the fortification of the ramparts at which they were at work, whether carrying of the earth-baskets or moving the soil. Now other garments would have soon grown foul, but these white ones had but to be sent to the wash, and all was well again; beside, with this white costume were they more readily distinguished among the rest. For our part we were much delighted to behold these fair ladies, and I do assure you many of us did find more divertisement herein than in aught else. Nor were they the least chary of giving us a sight of them, for they did line the edge of the rampart, standing in a most gracious and agreeable attitude, so as they were well worth our looking at and longing after.

We were right curious to learn what ladies they were. The towns-folk did inform us they were a company of ladies so sworn and banded together, and so attired for the work at the fortifications and for the performing of suchlike services to their native city. And of a truth did they do good service, even to the more virile and stalwart of them bearing arms. Yea! I have heard it told of one, how, for having oft repulsed her foes with a pike, she doth to this day keep the same carefully as ’twere a sacred relic, so that she would not part with it nor sell it for much money, so dear a home treasure doth she hold it.

I have heard the tale told by sundry old Knights Commanders of Rhodes, and have even read the same in an old book, how that, when Rhodes was besieged by Sultan Soliman, the fair dames and damsels of that place did in no wise spare their fair faces and tender and delicate bodies, for to bear their full share of the hardships and fatigues of the siege, but would even come forward many a time at the most hot and dangerous attacks, and gallantly second the knights and soldiery to bear up against the same. Ah! fair Rhodian maids, your name and fame is for all time; and ill did you deserve to be now fallen under the rule of infidel barbarians![28*] In the reign of our good King Francis I., the town of Saint-Riquier in Picardy was attempted and assailed by a Flemish gentleman, named Domrin, Ensign of M. du Ru, accompanied by two hundred men at arms and two thousand foot folk, beside some artillery. Inside the place were but an hundred foot men, the which was far too few for defence. It had for sure been captured, but that the women of the town did appear on the walls with arms in hand, boiling water and oil and stones, and did gallantly repulse the foe, albeit these did exert every effort to gain an entry. Furthermore two of the said brave ladies did wrest a pair of standards from the hands of the enemy, and bore them from the walls into the town, the end of all being that the besiegers were constrained to abandon the breach they had made and the walls altogether, and make off and retire. The fame of this exploit did spread through all France, Flanders and Burgundy; while King Francis, passing by the place some time after, was fain to see the women concerned, and did praise and thank them for their deed.

The ladies of Péronne[29] did in like gallant wise, when that town was besieged by the Comte de Nassau, and did aid the brave soldiers which were in the place in the same fashion as their sisters of Saint-Riquier, for which they were esteemed, commended and thanked of their sovereign.

The women of Sancerre[29] again, in the late civil wars and during the siege of their town, were admired and praised for the noble deeds they did at that time in all sorts.

Also, during the War of the League, the dames of Vitré[29] did acquit them right well in similar wise at the besieging of the town by M. de Mercueur. The women there be very fair and always right daintily put on, and have ever been so from old time; yet did they not spare their beauty for to show themselves manlike and courageous. And surely all manly and brave-hearted deeds, at such a time of need, are as highly to be esteemed in women as in men.

Of the same gallant sort were of yore the women of Carthage, who whenas they beheld their husbands, brothers, kinsfolk and the soldiery generally cease shooting at the foe, for lack of strings to their bows, these being all worn out by dint of shooting all through the long and terrible siege, and for the same cause no longer being able to provide them with hemp, or flax, or silk, or aught else wherewithal to make bow-strings, did resolve to cut off their lovely tresses and fair, yellow locks, not sparing this beauteous honour of their heads and chief adornment of their beauty. Nay! with their own fair hands, so white and delicate, they did twist and wind the same and make it into bow-strings to supply the men of war. And I leave you to imagine with what high courage and mettle these would now stretch and bend their bows, shoot their arrows and fight the foe, bearing as they did such fine favours of the ladies.

We read in the History of Naples[30] how that great Captain Sforza, serving under the orders of Queen Jeanne II., having been taken prisoner by the Queen’s husband, James, and set in strict confinement and having some taste of the strappado, would without a doubt ere much longer have had his head cut off, but that his sister did fly to arms and straight take the field. She made so good a fight, she in her own person, as that she did capture four of the chiefest Neapolitan gentlemen, and this done, sent to tell the King that whatsoever treatment he should deal to her brother, the same would she meet out to his friends. The end was, he was constrained to make peace and deliver him up safe and sound. Ah! brave and gallant-hearted sister, rising so superior to her sex’s weakness!

I do know of certain sisters and kinswomen, who if but they had dared a like deed, some while agone, might mayhap have saved alive a gallant brother of theirs, which was undone for lack of help and timely succour of the sort.

5.

Now am I fain to have done with the consideration of these warlike and great-hearted dames in general, and to speak of some particular instances of the same. And as the fairest example Antiquity hath to show us, I will adduce the gallant Zenobia[31] only, to answer for all. This Queen, after the death of her husband, was too wise to waste her time, like so many others in like case, in mere lamentation and vain regrets, but did grasp the reins of his empire in the name of her children, and make war against the Romans and their Emperor Aurelian,[31] at that time reigning at Rome. Much trouble did she give these foes for eight long years, till at the last coming to a pitched battle with his legions, she was vanquished therein and taken prisoner and brought before the Emperor. On his asking her how she had had the hardihood to make war against the Emperors of Rome, she did answer only this: “Verily! I do well recognise that you are Emperor, seeing that you have vanquished me.”

So great content had he of his victory, and so proud thereof was he and exalted, that he was fain to hold a triumph over her. So with an exceeding great pomp and magnificence did she walk before his triumphal car, right gorgeously put on and adorned with much wealth of pearls and precious stones, superb jewels and great chains of gold, wherewith she was bound about the body and by the hands and feet, in sign of being captive and slave of her conqueror. And so it was that by reason of the heavy weight of her jewels and chains she was constrained to make sundry pauses and to rest her again and again on this march of triumph. A fine thing, of a surety, and an admirable, that all vanquished and prisoner as she was, she could yet give the law to her triumphant conqueror, and thus make him tarry and wait her pleasure till that she had recovered breath! A great instance too of good feeling and honest courtesy on the part of the Emperor, so to allow her breathing space and rest, and to suffer her weakness, rather than unduly to constrain or press her to hurry more than she well could. So that one doth scarce know which to commend the more, the honourable courtesy of the Emperor, or the Queen’s way of acting,—who it may well be, did play this part of set purpose, not so much forced thereto by her actual weakness of body and weariness, as for to make some show of pride and prove to all how she would and could gather this little sprig of respect in the evening of her fortunes no less than she had done in the morning-tide of the same, and let them see how the Emperor did grant her this much privilege, to wait on her slow steps and lingering progress.

Much was the Queen gazed at and admired by men and women alike, not a few of which last had been but too glad to resemble so fair an apparition. For truly she was one of the most lovely of women, by what is said of the historians of these events. She was of a very fine, tall and opulent figure, say they, her carriage right noble, and her grace and dignity to match; furthermore her face very beautiful and exceeding pleasing, her eyes dark and piercing. Beside her other beauties, these writers do give her fine and very white teeth, a keen wit and a modest bearing, a sincere and at need a kind and merciful heart. Her speech was eloquent and spoke with a fine clear voice; moreover she was used always to express her ideas and wishes herself to her soldiers, and would many a time harangue the same publicly.

I ween he did so show her to best advantage, thus richly and gracefully attired in women’s weeds, no less than when she was armed in all points as the Warrior Queen. For sex doth always count for much; and we may rightly suppose the Emperor was fain to display her at his triumph only under guise of her own fair sex, wherein she would seem most beauteous and agreeable to the populace in all the perfection of her charms. Furthermore, ’tis to be supposed, so lovely as she was, the Emperor had tasted and enjoyed her loveliness, and was yet in the enjoyment thereof. So albeit he had vanquished her in one fashion, yet had she,—or he, if you prefer it so, for the two be as one in this,—won the victory in another.

Mine own wonder is, that seeing the said Zenobia was so beautiful, the Emperor did not take her and keep her for one of his mistresses; or else that she did not open and establish by his permission, or the Senate’s, a shop or market of love and harlotry, as did the fair Flora in the same city, for to win wealth and store up much gear and goods, by the toil of her body and shaking of her bed. For to such a market had surely resorted all the greatest men of Rome, one vying with other in eagerness; seeing there is no contentment ’twould seem, or satisfaction in all the world like that of a man’s taking his will of a Royal or Princely person, and enjoying of a fair Queen, or Princess or a high-born Lady. As to this I do appeal to such men as have embarked on these voyages, and made such good traffic there. Now in this fashion would Queen Zenobia have soon grown rich out of the purse of these great folks, as did Flora, which did receive no others in her place of commerce. Had it not been far better for her to make of her life a scene of merry-making and magnificence, of money getting and compliments, than to have fallen into that need and extremity of poverty she did come to? For she was constrained to gain her bread a-spinning among common work-women, and would have died of hunger, but that the Senate, taking pity of her in view of her former greatness, did decree her a pension for her maintenance, and some trifling lands and possessions, which were for long after known as “Zenobia’s Lands.” For indeed and indeed is poverty a sore evil; and whosoever can avoid the same, no matter what transformation be taken to that end, doth well and right, as one I wot of was used to declare.

Thus we see how Zenobia did not carry her high courage to the end of her career, as she should,—and as folk should ever persist in every course of action to the last. ’Tis said she had had a triumphal car constructed, the most magnificent ever seen in Rome, to the end she might, as she was often used to say in her days of high prosperity and glorying, hold triumph therein at Rome. For her ambition was to conquer and subdue the Roman Empire! Alas! for her presumption; for it did all fall out quite otherwise, and the Emperor having won the day, did take her car for himself, and use it in his own triumph, while she did march a-foot, and did make as much triumph and ceremonial over her as if he had vanquished a puissant King,—and more. Yet be sure, a victory won over a woman, be it gained how it may, is no very great or famous exploit!

After a like fashion did Augustus long to triumph over Cleopatra; but he got no success in this. She did forestall him in good time, and in the same way which Aemilius Paulus did signify in what he said to Perseus,[32] when in his captivity he did beseech him to have pity on him, answering him he should have seen to that beforehand, meaning that he ought to have killed himself.

I have heard say that our late King Henri II. did long for no other thing so sore as to be able to take prisoner the Queen of Hungary, and this not to treat her ill, albeit she had given him many causes of offence by her devastations of his territory, but only to have the glory of holding this great Princess captive, and to see what bearing and countenance she would show in her prison, and if she would then be so gallant and proud-spirited as at the head of her armies. For in truth there is naught else so fine and gallant as such a fair, brave and high-born lady, when she hath will and courage as had this same Princess, which did much delight in the name the Spanish soldiers had given her; for just as they did call her brother the Emperor el padre de los soldados, “the father of the soldiers,” so did they entitle her la madre, “the mother,” of the same. So in old days, in the times of the Romans, was Victoria or Victorina known in her armies by the name of “the mother of the camp.” Of a surety, an if a great and beautiful lady do undertake an exploit of war, she doth contribute much to its success and giveth much encouragement and spirit to her folk, as myself have seen in the case of our own Queen Mother, Catherine de Medici, which did often visit our armies, and so doing did greatly animate their courage and rouse their ardour. The same is done at this present by her grand-daughter, the Infanta[33] in Flanders, which doth take the lead of her army, and show herself a valorous chief of her fighting men,—so much so that without her and her noble and delightful presence, Flanders could never have been retained, as all men allow. And never did even the Queen of Hungary herself, her grand-aunt, make so fair a show of beauty, valour, great-heartedness and graceful bearing.

In our histories of France we do read of how much avail was the presence of the noble-hearted Comtesse de Montfort,[33] when shut up and besieged in Hennebon. For albeit her men were brave and valiant, and had quit themselves in battle and withstood the enemy’s assaults as well as ever any folk could, yet did they at the last begin to lose heart and talk of surrendering. But she did harangue them so eloquently, and did re-animate their courage with such good and intrepid words, inspiriting them so finely and so well, as that they did hold out till the succour, so long and eagerly desired, did arrive, and the siege was raised. Nay! she did better still; for whenas the enemy were set on the attack and were all busied therewith, seeing their tents to be all left empty and unprotected, she did make a sally, mounted on a good horse and with fifty good horses to follow her. In this wise doth she surprise the camp and set it a-fire, the result being that Charles de Blois, deeming himself to be betrayed, did straight abandon the assault. On this subject, I will add yet another little tale:

During the late Wars of the League, the Prince de Condé, since deceased, being at Saint-Jean, did send to demand of Madame de Bourdeille,[34] then a widow of the age of forty, and a very handsome woman, six or seven of the wealthiest tenants of her estate, the which had taken refuge in her castle of Mathas at her side. She did refuse him outright, declaring she would never betray nor give up these unhappy folk, who had put themselves under her protection and trusted to her honour for their safety. On this he did summon her for the last time, informing her that unless she would deliver them up to him, he would teach her better obedience. She did make reply to this (for myself was with her by way of rendering help) that, seeing he knew not himself how to obey, she did find it very strange he should wish to make others do so, and that so soon as he should have obeyed his King’s orders, she would obey him. For the rest, she did declare that for all his threats, she was afraid neither of his cannon nor of his siege, and how that she was descended from the far-famed Comtesse de Montfort, from whom her folk had inherited the place, and herself too, and therewith some share of her gallantry. Further that she was determined to defend the same so well as that he should never take it, and that she should win no less fame herein than her ancestress, the aforesaid Countess, had done at Hennebon. The Prince did ponder long over this reply, and did delay some days’ space, without further threatening her. Yet, had he not presently died, he would assuredly have laid siege to her castle; but in that case was she right well prepared in heart, resolution, men and gear, to receive him warmly, and I do think he would have gotten a shameful rebuff.

Machiavelli, in his book On the Art of War, doth relate how that Catherine, Countess of Forli, was besieged in that her good town fortress by Cæsar Borgia, aided by the French army, which did make a most gallant resistance to him, yet at the last was taken. The cause of its loss was this, that the said strong town was over full of fortresses and strongholds, for folk to retire from the one to the other; so much so that Borgia having made his approaches, the Signor Giovanni de Casale (whom the said Countess had chose for her helper and protector), did abandon the breach to withdraw into his strongholds. Through the which error, Borgia did force an entrance and took the place. And so, saith the author, these errors did much wrong the high-hearted courage and repute of the said gallant Countess, which had withstood an army the King of Naples and the Duke of Milan had not dared to face; and albeit the issue was unfortunate, yet did she win the honour she so well deserved, and for this exploit many rhymes and verses were writ in Italy in her honour. This passage is one well worthy the attention of all such as have to do with the fortifying of places of strength, and do set them to build therein great numbers of castles, strongholds, fortresses and citadels.

To return to our proper subject, we have had in times past many Princesses and high-born ladies in this our land of France, which have given excellent marks of their prowess. As did Paule,[35*] daughter of the Comte de Penthièvre, who was besieged in Roye by the Comte de Charolais, and did there show herself so gallant and great-hearted as that, on the town being taken, the Count did grant her very good conditions, and had her conducted in safety to Compiègne, not suffering any hurt to be done her. So greatly did he honour her for her valour,—and this albeit he felt deep resentment against her husband, whom he held guilty of having tried to work his death by black arts and sundry evil devices of images and candles.

Richilda,[36] only daughter and heiress of Mons in Hainault, and wife of Baldwyn the Sixth, Count of Flanders, did make all efforts against Robert the Frisian, her brother-in-law, appointed guardian of the children of Flanders, for to take away from him the duty and administration of the same, and have it assigned to herself. To which end she did take up arms with the help of Philip, King of France, and hazarded two battles[36] against Count Robert. In the first she was taken prisoner, as was likewise her foe, the said Count Robert, but afterward were the twain given back in exchange one of the other. A second battle followed, which she lost, her son Arnulphe being slain therein, and was driven back to Mons.

Ysabel of France, daughter of King Philippe le Bel, and wife of Edward II.[36] of England, and Duke of Guienne, was ill looked on of the King her husband, through the intrigues of Hugh le Despenser, whereby she was constrained to withdraw to France with her son Edward. Afterward she did return to England with the Chevalier de Hainault, her kinsman, and an army which she did lead thither, and by means of which she did presently take her husband prisoner. Him she did deliver up into the hands of men which did soon bring about his death; a fate that overtook herself likewise, for by reason of her loves with a certain Lord Mortimer, she was confined by her own son in a castle, and there ended her days. She it was that did afford the English pretext to quarrel with France to the sore hurt of the same. Yet surely we have here a piece of base ingratitude on her son’s part, who all forgetful of great benefit received, did so cruelly treat his mother for so small a fault. Small I call it, for that ’twas but natural, and an easy thing, that after dealing long with men of arms, and grown so accustomed to go in manly guise with them amid armies and tents and camps, she should do the like also a-bed.

This is a thing oft times seen to happen. For example I do refer me to our Queen Léonor,[37*] Duchess of Guienne, which did accompany her husband over seas and to the Holy Wars. By dint of much frequenting of men at arms and troopers and such folk, she did come to derogate very gravely from her honour,—so far as that she did have dealings even with the Saracens. For the which the King her husband did put her away, a thing that cost us very dear. We can but suppose she was fain to try whether these worthy foes were as gallant champions in a lady’s chamber as in the open field, and that mayhap ’twas her humour to ever love valiant wights, and that one valiance doth ever attract another, as virtue doth to virtue. For verily he saith most true, which doth declare virtue to be like the lightning, that pierceth through all things.

The said Queen Léonor was not the only lady which did accompany her husband to these same Holy Wars. But both before her day, and with her, and after her, no few other Princesses and great ladies did along with their lords take the cross,—not that they did therefore cross their legs, but did rather open these and stretch them right wide, in such wise that while some did remain there for good and all, others came back from the wars most finished harlots. So under pretext of visiting the Holy Sepulchre, amid all that press of arms they did much amorous wantoning; for verily, as I have observed afore, arms and love do well accord together, so close and congruous is the sympathy betwixt these twain.

Suchlike dames ought surely to be esteemed, loved and treated like men,—not as the Amazons did of old, which proclaiming themselves daughters of Mars, did rid them of their husbands, pretending marriage was sheer slavery; yet desire enough and to spare had they to go with other men, for to have daughters of them, but killing all the male children.

Jo. Nauclerus, in his Cosmography,[38*] relates how, in the year of Christ 1123, after the death of Tibussa, Queen of the Bohemians, she who did first close in the town of Prague with walls, and who did very greatly abhor the power and domination of men, there was one of her damsels, by name Valasca, which did so well gain over the maids and matrons of that land by her fair and alluring promises of liberty, and did so thoroughly disgust and set them against their servitude to manfolk, as that they did slay each her man, one her husband, another her brother, another her kinsman or next neighbour, and so in less than no time were mistresses of the realm. Then having taken their husbands’ harness of war, they did make such good use thereof, and grew so valiant and skilled in arms, fighting after the Amazon fashion, as that they soon gat them several victories. Yet were they presently, by the conduct and cunning wiles of one Primislaus, husband of Tibussa, a man she had raised up from low and humble state, routed entirely and put to death. This was sure God Almighty’s vengeance for so heinous an act and dread attempt, no less indeed than to destroy the human race itself.

6.

Thus did these Amazonian dames find no other fashion of showing forth their gallant spirit for fine, bold and manly exploits but only by these cruel deeds we have named. On the contrary, how many Empresses, Queens, Princesses and other high-born Ladies, have done the like by means of noble acts, both in the governance and management of their dominions, and in other excellent ways, whereof the Histories be so full that I need not recount the same. For the desire of holding sway, of reigning and ruling, doth lodge within women’s breasts no less than in men’s, and they be just as eager after domination as the other sex.

Well! now I am about to speak of one that was unsullied of this ambition, to wit Vittoria Colonna,[39] wife of the Marquis de Pescaire. I have read of this lady in a Spanish book, how that whenas the said Marquis did hearken to the fine offers made him by Hieronimo Mouron on the Pope’s behalf (as I have said in a previous passage) of the Kingdom of Naples, if only he would enter into the league with him, she being informed of the matter by her husband himself, who did never hide aught from her of his privy affairs, neither small nor great, did write to him (for she had an excellent gift of language), and bade him remember his ancient valour and virtue, the which had given him such glory and high repute, as that these did exceed the fame and fortune of the greatest Kings of the earth. She then went on: non con grandeza de los reynos, de Estados ny de hermosos titulos, sino con fè illustre y clara virtud, se alcançava la honra, la qual con loor siempre vivo, legava a los descendientes; y que no havia ningun grado tan alto que no fuese vencido de una trahicion y mala fe. Que por esto, ningun deseo tenia de ser muger de rey, queriendo antes ser muger de tal capitan, que no solamente en guerra con valorosa mano, mas en paz con gran honra de animo no vencido, havia sabido vencer reyes, y grandissimos principes, y capitanes, y darlos a triunfos, y imperiarlos,—“not by the greatness of Kingdoms and of vast Dominions, nor yet of high and sounding titles, but by fair faith and unsullied virtue, is honour won,—the virtue that with ever living praise doth go down to all descendants. And there is never a rank so exalted but it were undone and spoiled by treason wrought and good faith broke. For such a prize she had no wish to be a King’s wife, but had rather be a simple Captain’s such as he, which not alone in war by his valiant arm, but in peace likewise with the honour of an unbroken spirit, had been strong to vanquish Kings, great Princes and mighty Captains, to triumph over the same and master them.” High courage and virtue and truth did all mark this lady’s words; for truly to reign by ill faith is a very evil and sorry thing, but to give the law to Kings and kingdoms by honesty and worth a right noble one.

Fulvia, wife of Publius Clodius, and in second wedlock that of Mark Antony, finding but small amusement in her household tasks, did set herself to higher business, to manage affairs of State that is, till she did win herself the repute of ruling the Rulers of Rome.[40*] And indeed Cleopatra did owe her some gratitude and obligation for having so well trained and disciplined Mark Antony to obey and bend him under the laws of submission.

We read moreover of that great French Prince Charles Martel, which in his day would never take nor bear the title of King, as ’twas within his power to do, but liked better to govern Kings and give orders to the same.

However let us speak of some of our own countrywomen. We had, in our War of the League, Madame de Montpensier, sister of the late Duc de Guise, who was a great Stateswoman, and did contribute much, as well by the subtile inventions of her fine spirit as by the labour of her hands, to build up the said league. And after the same had been now well established, playing one day at cards (for she doth well love this pastime) and taking the first deal, on their telling her she should well shuffle the cards, she did answer before all the company: “I have shuffled the cards so well, as that they could not be better shuffled or combined together.” This would all have turned out well, if only her friends had lived; on whose unhappy end however, without losing heart at all at such a loss, she did set herself to avenge them. And having heard the news when in Paris, she doth not shut herself in her chamber to indulge her grief, as most other women would have done, but cometh forth of her house with her brother’s children, and holding these by the hand, doth take them up and down the city, making public mourning of her bereavement before the citizens, rousing the same by her tears and piteous cries and sad words which she did utter to all, to take up arms and rise in fierce protest, and insult the King’s[41] house and picture, as we have seen done, and I do hope to relate in his life, and deny all fealty to him, swearing rank rebellion to his authority, all which did presently result in his murder. As to which ’tis well enough known what persons, men and women, did counsel the same, and are properly guilty thereof. Of a surety no sister’s heart, losing such brothers, could well digest such deadly venom without vengeance of this foul murder.

I have heard it related how after she had thus put the good folk of Paris in so great a state of animosity and dissatisfaction, she did set her forth to ask of the Duke of Parma his help toward her vengeance. So thither she maketh her way, but by such long and heavy stages as that her coach horses were left so wearied out and foundered, stranded in the mire somewhere in the very midst of Picardy, that they could not go another step either forward or backward, nor put one foot before another. As chance would have it, there did pass that way a very honourable gentleman of that countryside, which was a Protestant, and who, albeit she was disguised both as to name and in dress, did recognize her well enough. But yet, ignoring all the hurts she had wrought against his fellows in religion, and the hatred she bare them, with frank and full courtesy, he did thus accost her: “Madam, I know you well, and am your most humble servant. I find you in ill case, and beg you, an if you will, come to my house, which is close at hand, to dry your clothes and rest you. I will afford you every convenience I can to the very best of my ability. Have no fear; for though I be of the reformed faith, which you do hate so sore in us, I would fain not leave you without offering you a courtesy you do stand much in need of.” This fair offer she did in no wise refuse, but did accept very readily; then after that he had provided her with such things as were needful, she doth take the road again, he conducting her on her way two leagues, though all the while she did keep secret from him the purport of her journey. Later on in the course of the war, by what I have heard, she did repay her debt to the said gentleman by many acts of courtesy done him.

Many have wondered at her trusting of herself to him, being Huguenot as he was. But there! necessity hath no law; and beside, she did see him so honourable seeming, and heard him speak so honestly and frankly, that she could not but believe him disposed to deal fairly with her.

As for Madame de Nemours, her mother, who was thrown into prison after the murder of her noble son’s children, there can be little doubt of the despair and desolation she was left in by so intolerable a loss; and albeit till that day she had ever shown herself of a gentle and cold humour, and one that did need good and sufficient cause to rouse her, she did now spew forth a thousand insults against the King, and cast in his teeth a thousand curses and execrations, going so far (for verily what deed or word could ever match the vehemence of such a loss and bitter sorrow?) as always to speak of him by no other name but this, that Tyrant. Later, being come somewhat to herself, she would say: “Alas! what say I,—Tyrant? Nay! nay! I will not call him so, but a most good and clement King, if only he will kill me as he hath killed my children, to take me out of the wretchedness wherein I am, and remove me to the blessedness of God’s heaven!” Later again, softening still further her words and bitter cries, and finding some surcease of sorrow, she would say naught else but only, “Ah! my children! my poor children!”—repeating these same words over and over again with floods of tears, that ’twould have melted an heart of stone. Alas! she might well lament and deplore them so sore, being so good and great hearted, so virtuous and so valorous, as they were, but above all the noble Duc de Guise, a worthy eldest son and true paragon of all valour and true-heartedness. Moreover she did love her children so fondly, that one day as I was discoursing with a noble lady of the Court of the said Madame de Nemours, she told me how that Princess was the happiest in all the world, for sundry reasons which she did give me,—except only in one thing, which was that she did love her children over much; for that she did love them with such excess of fondness as that the common anxiety she had of their safety and the fear some ill should happen them, did cloud all her happiness, making her to live always in inquietude and alarm for their sake. I leave you then, reader, to imagine how grievous was the sorrow, bitterness and pain she did feel at the death of these twain, and how lively the terror for the other,[42*] which was away in the neighbourhood of Lyons, as well as for the Duke her husband, then a prisoner. For of his imprisonment she had never a suspicion, as herself did declare, nor of his death neither, as I have said above.

When she was removed from the Castle of Blois to be conveyed to that of Amboise for straiter confinement therein, just as she had passed the gate, she did turn her round and lifted her head toward the figure of King Louis XII., her grandfather, which is there carven in stone above the door, on horseback and with a very noble mien and warlike bearing. So she, tarrying there a little space and gazing thereon, said in a loud voice before a great number of folk which had come together, with a fine bold look which did never desert her: “An if he which is there pourtrayed were alive, he would never suffer his granddaughter thus to be carried away prisoner, and treated as she is this day.” Then with these words, she did go on her way, without further remonstrance. Understand this, that in her heart she was invoking and making appeal to the manes of that her great-hearted ancestor, to avenge her of the injustice of her imprisonment. Herein she acted precisely as did certain of the conspirators for Cæsar’s death, which as they were about to strike their blow, did turn them toward the statue of Pompey, and did inwardly invoke and make appeal to the shade of his valiant arm, so puissant of old, to conduct the emprise they were set on to a successful issue. It may well be the invocation of this Princess may have something aided and advanced the death of the King which had so outraged her. A lady of high heart and spirit which doth thus brood over vengeance to come is no little to be dreaded.

I do remember me how, when her late husband, the Duc de Guise, did get the stroke whereof he died, she was at the time in his camp, having come thither some days previously to visit the same. So soon as ever he did come into his quarters wounded, she did advance to meet him as far as the door of his lodging all tearful and despairing, and after saluting him, did suddenly cry out: “Can it be that the wretch which hath struck this blow and he that hath set him on (signifying her suspicion of the Admiral de Coligny) should go unpunished? Oh God! an if thou art just, as thou must needs be, avenge this deed; or else ...,” but stopping at this word, she did not end her sentence, for that her noble husband did interrupt her, saying: “Nay! dear heart, defy not God. An if ’tis He which hath sent me this for my sins, His will be done, and we should glorify him therefor. But an if it come from other, seeing vengeance is His alone, He will surely exact the penalty without you.” Natheless, when he was dead, did she so fiercely follow up her revenge, as that the murderer was torn to pieces of four horses,[43*] while the supposed author of the crime was assassinated after the lapse of some years, as I will tell in its proper place. This was due to the instruction she did give her son, as myself have seen, and the counsel and persuasion she did feed him withal from his tenderest years, till at the last final and complete vengeance was accomplished.

7.

The counsel and appeal of great-hearted wives and loving mothers be of no small avail in such matters. As to this, I do remember me how, when King Charles IX. was making his Royal progress about his Kingdom, and was now at Bordeaux, the Baron de Bournazel was put in prison, a very brave and honourable gentleman of Gascony, for having slain another gentleman of his own neighbourhood, named La Tour,—and, so ’twas said, by dint of much traitorous subtlety. The widow did so eagerly press for his punishment, as that care was taken the news should reach the King’s and Queen’s chambers, that they were about to cut off the said Baron’s head. Hereon did the gentlemen and ladies of the Court of a sudden bestir themselves, and much effort was made to save his life. Twice over were the King and Queen besought to grant his pardon. The High Chancellor did set him strongly against this, saying justice must needs be done; whereas the King was much in favour of mercy, for that he was a young man, and asked for naught better than to save his life, as he was one of the gallants frequenting the Court, and M. de Cipierre[44] was keen in urging the same course. Yet was the hour of execution now drawing nigh, without aught being done,—to the astonishment of everybody.

Hereupon did M. de Nemours intervene, which loved the unhappy Baron, who had followed him gallantly on sundry fields of battle. The Duke went and threw himself at the Queen’s feet, and did earnestly beseech her to give the poor gentleman his life, begging and praying so hard and pressing her so with his words as that the favour was e’en given him at the last. Then on the instant was sent a Captain of the Guard, which went and sought the man out and took him from the prison, just as he was being led forth to his doom. Thus was he saved, but in such fearful circumstances that a look of terror did remain ever after imprinted on his features, and he could never thereafter regain his colour, as myself have seen. I have heard tell how the same thing did happen to M. de Saint-Vallier, which did have a fine escape by the interest of M. de Bourbon.

Meantime however the widow was not idle, but did come next day to intercept the King as he was going to Mass, and did throw herself at his feet. She did present him her son, which might be three or four years old, saying thus: “At the least, Sire, as you have given pardon to this child’s murderer, I do beseech you grant the same to him now at this moment, for the time when he shall be grown up and shall have taken his vengeance and slain that wretch.” And from that time onward, by what I have heard said, the mother would come every morning to awake her child; and showing him the bloody shirt his father had on when he was killed, would repeat to him three times over: “Mark this token, well, and bear well in mind, when you be grown up, to avenge this wrong; else do I disinherit you.” A bitter spirit of revenge truly!

Myself when I was in Spain, did hear the tale how Antonio Roques, one of the most brave and valiant, cunning, cautious and skilful, famous and withal most courteous, bandits ever was in all Spain (’tis a matter of common knowledge), did in his early years desire to enter religion and be ordained priest. But the day being now come when he was to sing his first mass, just as he was coming forth from the vestry and was stepping with great ceremony toward the High Altar of his parish Church duly robed and accoutred to do his office, and chalice in hand, he did hear his mother saying to him as he passed her: Ah! vellaco, vellaco, mejor seria de vengar la muerte de tu padre, que de cantar misa,—“Ah! wretch and miscreant that you are! ’twere better far to avenge your father’s death than to be singing Mass.” This word did so touch him at heart, as that he doth coldly turn him about in mid progress, and back to the vestry, where he doth unrobe him, pretending his heart had failed him from indisposition, and that it should be for another time. Then off to the mountains to join the brigands, among whom he doth presently win such esteem and renown that he was chose their chief; there he doth many crimes and thefts, and avengeth his father’s death, which had been killed, some said, of a comrade, though others declared him a victim of the King’s justice. This tale was told me by one that was a bandit himself, and had been under his orders in former days. This man did bepraise him to the third heaven; and true it is the Emperor Charles could never do him any hurt.

But to return once more to Madame de Nemours, the King did keep her in prison scarce any time, whereof was M. d’Escars in part the cause. He did soon release her, for to send her on a mission to the Ducs du Maine and de Nemours, and other Princes members of the League, bearing to all words of peace and oblivion of all past grievances:—dead men were dead, and there an end; best be good friends as aforetime. In fact, the King did take an oath of her, that she would faithfully perform this said embassy. Accordingly on her arrival, at first accost ’twas naught but tears and lamentations and regrets for all their losses; then anon did she make report of her instructions, whereto M. du Maine did reply, asking her if this were her own advice. She answered simply: “I have not come hither, my son, to advise you, but only to repeat to you the message I am charged withal and bidden give you. ’Tis for you to think whether you have sufficient cause to do so, and if your duty points that way. As to what I tell you, your heart and your conscience should give you the best advice. For myself, I do but discharge a commission I have promised to fulfil.” Natheless, under the rose, she knew well enough how to stir the fire, which did long burn so fierce.

Many folks have wondered greatly, how the King, that was so wise and one of the most adroit men of his Kingdom, came to employ this lady for such an office, having so sorely injured her that she could have had neither heart nor feeling if she had taken therein the very least pains in the world; but there, she did simply make mock of him and his instructions. Report said at the time this was the fine advice of the Maréchal de Retz, who did give a like piece of counsel to King Charles, namely to send M. de la Noue into the town of La Rochelle, for to persuade the inhabitants to peace and their proper duty and allegiance. The better to accredit him to them, he did permit him to play the eager partisan on their side and on his own, to fight desperately for them, and give them counsel and advice against the King,—but all under this condition that when his services should be claimed by the King or the King’s brother, which was his Lieutenant General, and he ordered to leave the place, he would obey. This he did and all else, making fierce enough war, and finally quitting the place; yet meanwhile he did so confirm his folk and sharpen their spirit, and did give them such excellent lessons and so greatly encouraged them, as that for that time they did cut our beards to rights for us.[45*] Many would have it, there was no subtlety in all this; but I did see it all with mine own eyes, and I do hope to give full account of these doings elsewhere. At any rate this was all the said Maréchal did avail his King and country; one that ’twere more natural surely to hold a charlatan and swindler than a good counsellor and a Marshal of France.

I will tell one other little word of the aforesaid Duchesse de Nemours. I have heard it said that at the time they were framing the famous League, and she would be examining the papers and the lists of the towns which did join it, not yet seeing Paris figuring therein, she would ever say to her son: “All this is naught, my son; we must have Paris to boot. If you have not Paris, you have done naught; wherefore, ho! for Paris city.” And never a word but Paris, Paris, was always in her mouth; and the end of it all was the barricades that were seen afterward.

8.

In this we see how a brave heart doth ever fly at the highest game. And this doth again remind me of a little tale I have read in a Spanish Romance called la Conquista de Navarra, “The Conquest of Navarre.”[46] This Kingdom having been taken and usurped from King John of Navarre by the King of Aragon, Louis XII. did send an army under M. de la Palice to win it back. Our King did send word to the Queen, Donna Catherine, by M. de la Palice which did bring her the news, that she should come to the Court of France and there tarry with his Queen Anne, while that the King, her husband, along with M. de la Palice was making essay to recover the Kingdom. The Queen did make him this gallant answer: “How now, Sir! I did suppose the King your master had sent you hither for to carry me with you to my Kingdom and set me again at Pampeluna, and for me to accompany you thither, as my mind was made up to do and my preparations made. Yet now you bid me go stay at the Court of France? Truly a poor hope and ill augury for me! I see plainly I shall never set foot in mine own land again.” And even as she did presage, the thing fell out.

It was told and commanded the Duchess de Valentinois, on the approach of the death of King Henri II., when his health was now despaired of, to retire to her mansion in Paris, and go no more into his chamber,—to the end she might not disturb him in his pious meditations, and no less on account of the hostility certain did bear her. Then when she had so withdrawn, they did send to her again to demand sundry rings and jewels, which did belong to the Crown and which she must give back. At this she did on a sudden ask the worthy spokesman: “Why! is the King dead then?”—“No! Madam,” replied the other, “but it can scarce be long first.”—“As long as there is one breath of life left in his body, I would have my enemies to know I fear them not a whit, and that I will never obey them, so long as he shall be alive. My courage is still invincible. But when he is dead, I care not to live on after him, and all the vexations you could inflict on me would be but kindness compared with the bitterness of my loss. So, whether my King be quick or dead, I fear not mine enemies at all.”

Herein did this fair lady show great spirit, and a true heart. Yet she did not die, ’twill be objected of some, as she did say she would. True! yet did she not fail to experience some threatenings of death; beside, she did better to choose rather to live than to die, for to show her enemies she was no wise afeared of them. Having erst seen them shake and tremble before her, she would fain escape doing the same before them, and did wish to show so good a face and confident look to them as that they never durst do her any displeasure. Nay! more than this; within two years’ space they did seek to her more than ever, and renewed their friendship with her, as I did myself see. And this is the way with great lords and ladies, which have little solid continuance in their friendships, and in their differences do readily make it up again, like thieves at a fair, and the same with all their loves and hatreds. This we smaller folks do never do; for either we must needs fight, avenge and die, or else make up the quarrel by way of punctilious, minutely ordered and carefully arranged terms of agreement. So in this we do play the better part.

We cannot but admire this lady’s conduct and behaviour; and truly these high-born dames which have to do with affairs of State, do commonly act in a grander way than the ordinary run of women. And this is why our late King Henri III., last deceased, and the Queen, his mother, did by no means love such ladies of their Court as did much trouble their wits with matters of State and put their nose therein and did concern them to speak of other matters near touching the government of the Kingdom. ’Twas as if, their Majesties were used to declare, they had some great part therein and might be heirs of the same, or just as if they had given the sweat of their bodies and force of their hands to its management and maintenance, like men; whereas, for a mere pastime, talking at the fireside, sitting comfortably in their chairs or lying on their pillows, or their daybeds, they would discourse at their ease of the world at large and the state of the Country, as if they did arrange it all. On this point a certain great lady of fashion, whom I will not name, did one time make a shrewd reply, who taking on her to say out all her say on occasion of the first meeting of the Estates at Blois, their Majesties did cause a slight reprimand to be given her, telling her she should attend to the affairs of her own house and her prayers to God. To this being something too free in her speech, she did answer thus: “In days of yore when Princes, Kings and great Lords did take the cross and hie them over-seas, to do so noble exploits in the Holy Land, insooth ’twas allowed us women only to fast and pray, make orisons and vows, that God might give them a successful journey and a safe return. But nowadays that we do see them do naught better than ourselves, ’tis surely allowed us to speak of all matters; for as to praying God for them, why should we do so, seeing they do no more heroic deeds than ourselves?”

This speech was for sure too bold and outspoken, and indeed it came very nigh to costing her dear. She had all the difficulty in the world to win pardon and excuse, which she had to ask for right humbly; and had it not been for a certain private reason I could tell, and if I would, she had received dire pains and penalties therefor, and very signal punishment.

’Tis not always well to speak out a sharp saying such as this, when it cometh to the lips. Myself have seen not a few folk which could in no wise govern their wit in this sort, but were more untamed than a Barbary charger. Finding a good shrewd gibe in their mouth, out they must spit it, without sparing relations, friends or superiors. Many such I have known at our own Court of France, where they were well called Marquis et Marquises de belle-bouche, “Lords and Ladies of Frank Speech;” but many and many a time did their frank speech bring them in sore trouble.

9.

Having thus described the brave and gallant bearing of sundry ladies on sundry noble occasions of their life, I am fain now to give some examples of the like high qualities displayed at their death. Without borrowing any instance of Antiquity, I will merely adduce that of the late deceased Queen Regent[47] mother of our noble King Francis I. In her day this Princess, as I have heard many of mine acquaintance say, both men and women, was a very fair lady, and very gay and gallant to boot, which she did continue to be even in her declining years. And for this cause, when folk did talk to her of death, she did exceedingly mislike such discourse, not excepting preachers which did hold forth on this subject in their sermons. “As if,” she would cry, “we did not all of us know well enough we must one day die. The fact is, these preachers, whenas they can find naught further to say in their sermons, and be at the end of their powers of invention, like other simple folk, do take refuge in this theme of death.” The late Queen of Navarre, her daughter, did no less than her mother detest these same harpings on death and sermonizings on mortality.

Well, being now come near her fated end, and lying on her deathbed, three days before that event, she did see her chamber at night all lit up by a brilliant gleam shining in through the window. She did hereupon chide her bedchamber women, which were sitting up with her, asking them for why they did make so big and bright a fire. But they did answer, that there was but a small fire burning, and that ’twas the moon which did shine so bright and cause the illumination. “Why!” she did exclaim, “there is no moon at this time of the month; it hath no business to be shining now.” And of a sudden, bidding open her curtain, she did behold a comet, which shone right on her bed. “Ah, look!” she cried, “yonder is a sign which doth not appear for persons of common quality. God doth show it forth only for us great lords and ladies. Shut the window again; ’tis a comet, announcing my death; we must prepare therefor.” So next morning, having sent to seek her confessor, she did perform all the duty of a good Christian, albeit the physicians did assure her she was not yet come to this. “Had I not seen the sign of my death,” she said, “I should believe you, for indeed I do not feel me so far gone,” and thereon did describe to them all the appearance of the comet. Finally, three days later, leaving all concerns of this world, she did pass away.

I cannot but believe but that great ladies, and such as be young, beautiful and high-born, do feel greater and more sore regret to leave this world than other women. Yet will I now name some such, which have made light of death, and have met the same with a good heart, though for the moment the announcement thereof was exceeding bitter and hateful to them. The late Comtesse de La Rochefoucault,[48*] of the house of Roye, in my opinion and that of many beside, one of the fairest and most charming women in all France, when her minister (for she was of the Reformed Faith, as everybody is aware) did warn her she must think no more of worldly things, and that her hour was now come, that she must presently away to God which was calling her, and leave all worldly vanities, which were naught as compared with the blessedness of heaven, she said to him thus: “This is all very well, Sir Minister, to say to women which have no great contentment and pleasure in this world, and which have one foot in the grave already; but to me, that am no more than in the bloom of mine age and my delight in this world and my beauty, your sentence is exceeding bitter. And albeit I have more cause to hug myself in this world than in any other, and much reason to regret dying, yet would I fain show you my high courage herein, and do assure you I take my death with as good will as the most common, abject, low, foul old crone that ever was in this world.” So presently, she did set her to sing psalms with much pious devotion, and so died.

Madame d’Espernon,[49*] of the house of Candale, was attacked of so sudden and deadly a malady as that she was carried off in less than a week. Before her death, she did essay all remedies which might cure her, imploring the help of men and of God in most fervent prayers, as well as of all her friends, and her retainers male and female, taking it very hard that she was to die so young. But when they did reason with her and inform her she must verily and indeed quit this world, and that no remedy was of any avail: “Is it true?” she said; “leave me alone then, I will make up my mind to bear it bravely.” These were the exact words she used. Then lifting up her two soft, white arms, and laying her two hands one against the other, with an open look and a confident spirit, she made her ready to wait death with all patience, and to leave this world, which she did proceed to abjure in very pious and Christian terms. Thus did she die as a devout and good Christian should, at the age of twenty-six, being one of the handsomest and most charming women of her time.

’Tis not right, they say, to praise one’s own belongings; on the other hand what is at once good and true should not be kept hid. This is why I am fain in this place to commend Madame d’Aubeterre,[50] mine own niece and daughter of my elder brother, who as all they that have seen her at Court or elsewhere will go with me in saying, was one of the fairest and most perfect ladies you could see, as well in body as in mind. The former did plainly and externally show forth its excellence in her handsome and charming face, her graceful figure, and all her sweet mien and bearing; while for the mind, ’twas divinely gifted and ignorant of naught it were meet to know. Her discourse was very fit, simple and unadorned, and did flow right smoothly and agreeably from her lips, whether in serious converse or in merry interchange of wit. No woman have I ever seen which, in my opinion, did more resemble our Queen Marguerite of France, as well in her general air as in her special charms; and I did once hear the Queen Mother say the same. To say this is by itself commendation enough, so I will add no more; none which have ever seen her, will, I am well assured, give me the lie as to this. Of a sudden it befell this lady to be attacked by a malady, which the physicians did fail to recognize rightly, merely wasting their Latin in the attempt. Herself, however, did believe she had been poisoned; though I will not say in what quarter. Still God will avenge all, and mayhap the guilty in this matter will yet be punished. She did all she could in the way of remedies,—though not, she did declare, because she was afeared of dying. For since her husband’s death, she had lost all fear of this, albeit he was for sure in no wise her equal in merit, nor deserving of her or of the tender tears her fair eyes did shed after his death. Yet would she have been right glad to live on a while longer for the love of her daughter, the which she was leaving a tender slip of a girl. This last was a good and excellent reason, while regrets for an husband that was both foolish and vexatious are surely but vain and idle.

Thus she, seeing now no remedy was of avail, and feeling her own pulse, which she did herself try and find to be galloping fast (for she had understanding of all such matters), two days before she died, did send to summon her daughter,[51] and did make her a very good and pious exhortation, such as no other mother mayhap that I know of could have made a finer one or one better expressed,—at once instructing her how to live in this world and how to win the grace of God in the next; this ended, she did give her her blessing, bidding her no more trouble with her tears the sweet easefulness and repose she was about to enjoy with God. Presently she did ask for her mirror, and looking at herself very fixedly therein, did exclaim, “Ah! traitor face, that doth in no wise declare my sickness (for indeed ’twas as fair to look on as ever), thou art yet unchanged; but very soon death, which is drawing nigh, will have the better of thy beauty, which shall rot away and be devoured of worms.” Moreover she had put the most part of her rings on her fingers; and gazing on these, and her hand withal, which was very well shaped: “Lo! a vanity I have much loved in days gone-by; yet now I do quit the same willingly, to bedeck me in the other world with another much fairer adornment.”

Then seeing her sisters weeping their eyes out at her bedside, she did comfort them, exhorting them to take in good part, as she did, what God was pleased to send her, and saying that as they had always loved each other so well, they should not grieve at that which did bring her only joy and contentment. She did further tell them that the fond friendship she had ever borne them should be eternal, beseeching them to return her the like, and above all to extend it to her child. Presently seeing them but weep the harder at this, she said once more: “Sisters mine, an if ye do love me, why do ye not rejoice with me over the exchange I make of a wretched life for one most happy? My soul, wearied of so many troubles, doth long to be free, and to be in blessed rest with Jesus Christ my Saviour. Yet you would fain have it still tied to this miserable body, which is but its prison, not its domicile. I do beseech you, therefore, my sisters, torment yourselves no more.”

Many other the like words did she prefer, so pious and Christian as that there is never a Divine, however great could have uttered better or more blessed,—all which I do pass over. In especial she did often ask to see Madame de Bourdeille, her mother, whom she had prayed her sisters to send fetch, and kept saying to them: “Oh! sisters, is not Madame de Bourdeille coming yet? Oh! how slow your couriers be! they be really not fit to ride post and make special speed.” Her mother did at last arrive, but never saw her alive, for she had died an hour before.

She did ask earnestly too for me, whom she ever spake of as her dear uncle, and did send us her last farewell. She did beg them to have her body opened after death, a thing she had always strongly abhorred, to the end, as she said to her sisters, that the cause of her death being more evidently discovered, this should enable them and her daughter the better to take precautions and so preserve their lives. “For I must admit,” she said, “a suspicion that I was poisoned five years agone along with mine uncle de Brantôme and my sister the Comtesse de Durtal; but I did get the biggest piece. Yet would I willingly charge no one with such a crime, for fear it should prove a false accusation and my soul be weighted with the guilt thereof,—my soul which I do earnestly desire may be free of all blame, rancour, ill-will and sinfulness, that it may fly straight to God its Creator.”

I should never have done, if I were to repeat all; for her discourse was full and long, and such as did show no sign at all of an outwearied body or a weak and failing spirit. As to this, there was a certain gentleman, her neighbour, a witty talker and one she had loved to converse and jest withal, who did present himself and to whom she said: “Ha, ha! good friend! needs must give in this fall, tongue and sword and all. So, fare you well!”

Her physician and her sisters did wish her to take some cordial medicine or other; but she begged them not to give it her, “for these would merely,” she said, “be helping to prolong my pain and put off my final rest.” So she did ask them to leave her alone; and was again and again heard to say: “Dear God! how gentle sweet is death! who had ever dreamed it could be so?” Then, little by little, yielding up her spirit very softly, she did close her eyes, without making any of those hideous and fearsome signs that death doth show in many at the supreme moment.

Madame de Bourdeille, her mother, was not long in following her. For the melancholy she did conceive at the death of this her noble daughter did carry her off in eighteen months, after a sickness lasting seven months, at one time giving cause for good hope of recovery, at another seeming desperate. But from the very first, herself did declare she would never get the better of it, in no wise fearing death, and never praying God to grant her life and health, but only patience in her sufferings and above that He would send her a peaceful death, and one neither painful nor long drawn out. And so it befell; for while we deemed her only fainted, she did give up her soul so gently as that she was never seen to move either foot or arm or limb, nor give any fearful and hideous look; but casting a glance around with eyes that were as fair as ever, she passed away, remaining as beautiful in death as she had been when alive and in the plenitude of her charms.

A sore pity, verily, of her and of all fair ladies that die so in the bloom of their years! Only I do believe this, that Heaven, not content with those fair lights which from the creation of the world do adorn its vault, is fain, beside these, to have yet other new stars to still illumine us, as erst they did when alive, with their beauteous eyes.

---

Another example, and then an end:

You have seen in these last days the case of Madame de Balagny,[52*] true sister in all ways of the gallant Bussy. When Cambrai was besieged, she did all ever she could, of her brave and noble heart, to prevent its being taken; but after having in vain exhausted herself in every sort of defensive means she could contrive, and seeing now ’twas all over and the town already in the enemy’s power, and the citadel soon to go the same road, unable to endure the smart and heart’s pang of evacuating her Principality (for her husband and herself had gotten themselves to be called Prince and Princess of Cambrai and Cambrésis,—a title sundry nations did find odious and much too presumptuous, seeing their rank was but that of plain gentlefolk), did die of grief and so perished at the post of honour. Some say she did die by her own hand, an act deemed however more Pagan than Christian. Be this as it may, she deserveth but praise for her gallantry and bravery in all this, and for the rebuke she did administer her husband at the time of her death, when she thus said to him: “How can you endure, Balagny, to live on after your most dismal fall of Fortune, to be a spectacle and laughing stock to all the world, which will point the finger of scorn at you, thus falling from great glory whereto you had been elevated to the low place I see awaiting you, and if you follow not my example? Learn then of me to die nobly, and not survive your misfortunes and disgrace.” ’Tis a grand thing thus to see a woman teaching us how to live,—and how to die. Yet would he neither obey nor believe her; but at the end of seven or eight months, quick forgetting the memory of this gallant lady, he did re-wed with the sister of Madame de Monceaux,[53] no doubt a fair and honourable damosel,—manifesting to all and sundry how that to keep alive was his one thing needful, be it on what terms it may.

Of a surety life is good and sweet; natheless is a noble death greatly to be commended, such as was this lady’s, who dying as she did of grief, doth appear of a contrary complexion to that of some women, which are said to be of an opposite nature to men, for that they do die of joy and in joy.

10.

Of this sort of death I will allege only the instance of Mlle. de Limueil, the elder, which did die at Court, being one of the Queen’s maids of honour. All through her sickness, whereof she died, her tongue did never leave off wagging, but she did talk continuously; for she was a very great chatterbox, a sayer of very witty and telling scoffs, and a very fine woman withal. When the hour of her death was come, she did summon her chamber valet to her; for each maid of honour hath her own. He was called Julian, and did play excellently on the violin. “Julian,” saith she to him, “come take your violin and go on playing me the Défaite des Suisses (Switzers’ Rout)[54] till I be dead, and play it as well as ever you can; and when you come to the words, Tout est perdu (“All is lost”), play the passage over four or five times as pathetically as you may.” This the other did, while she joined in with her voice; and when ’twas come to Tout est perdue, she did repeat it over twice. Then turning to the other side of the bed, she cried to her friends: “Yes! all is lost this bout, and for good and all,” and so died. Truly a death we may call gay and pleasant! This tale I have of two of her companions, persons of credit, who saw the mystery played out.

If then there be women which do die of joy and in joyous wise, no less are men to be found which have done the like. Thus we read of that great Pope, Leo X., how he did die of joy and delight, when he beheld us Frenchmen driven out altogether from the State of Milan; so sore a hate he bare us!

The late Grand Prior, M. de Lorraine, did one time conceive the wish to send a pair of his Galleys on an expedition to the Levant under the command of Captain Beaulieu, one of his Lieutenants, of the which I have spoke somewhat in another place. Beaulieu went readily enough, being a brave and valiant sailor. When he was toward the Archipelago, he did fall in with a great Venetian ship, well armed and well found, which he set him to fire upon. But the ship did return his salute to some purpose; for at the first volley she did carry clean away two of his banks of oars, galley-slaves and all. Amongst other sore wounded was his Lieutenant, a man named Captain Panier (“Basket”) and a good fellow enough, which had time to cry out this word only before he died: “Good-bye baskets all, the harvest is done,”—a merry and a pleasant jest to enliven his death withal! The end was, M. de Beaulieu had to retire, this big ship proving beyond his power to overcome.

The first year King Charles IX. was King, at the time of the July edict when he was yet residing in the Faubourg St. Germain, we did see the hanging of a certain gallows-bird in that quarter, which had stolen six silver goblets from the kitchen of the Prince de La Roche-sur-Yonne. So soon as he was on the ladder, he did beg the hangman to grant him a little space for a dying speech, and did take up his parable, remonstrating with the folk and telling them he was unjustly put to death, “for never,” said he, “have I practised my thievings on the poor, on beggars and the vulgar herd, but only on Princes and great Lords, which be greater thieves than we, and do rob us every day of their lives; and ’tis a good deed to recover again of these folk what they do rob and filch from us.” Much more diverting nonsense of the sort he did utter, the which ’twere but wasted time to repeat. Presently the priest which was with him at the top of the ladder, turning to the people, as we see done, did call upon them: “Good sirs! this poor criminal doth recommend himself to your prayers; we will say all together for him and his soul’s peace a Pater noster and an Ave Maria, and will sing a Salve.” Then just as the folk were answering, the said poor criminal did drop his head, and fixing his eyes on the priest, did start bellowing like a calf, and making mock of the priest in the most absurd fashion; then lending him a kick, did send him flying from the top of the ladder to the bottom, so big a leap that he brake a leg. “Ah, ha! Sir priest!” cried the fellow, “God’s truth, I knew I should shift you. Well! you’ve got your gruel now, my fine fellow.” Hearing him groan, he did set up a loud and hearty guffaw; then this ended, did jump off the ladder of his own motion and set himself a-swinging into space. I dare swear the Court did laugh merrily at the trick, albeit the poor priest had done himself a serious hurt. A death, in good sooth, that can scarce be called grave and melancholy!

The late deceased M. d’Estampes had a fool called Colin, a very diverting fellow. When his death was now nigh, his master did enquire how Colin was doing. They told him, “But poorly, my Lord; he is going to die, for he will take nothing.”—“Come now,” said M. d’Estampes, who was at the moment at table, “take him this soup, and tell him, an if he will not take somewhat for love of me, I will never love him more, for they inform me he will take naught.” The message was delivered to Colin, who, death already ’twixt the teeth of him, did make answer, “And who be they which have told my Lord I would take naught?” Then being surrounded by a countless cloud of flies (for ’twas summer time), he began to hunt them with his hand, as we see pages and lackeys and children do, a-trying to catch them; and having taken two with one swoop, he cried, making a funny gesture more readily imagined than described, “Go tell my Lord,” said he, “what I have taken for love of him, and that now I’m away to the kingdom of the flies,” and so saying and turning him round to the other side of the bed, the merry rascal did expire.

As to this, I have heard sundry philosophers declare that folk do very often at the moment of death remember them of those things they have the most loved in life, and tell of these; so gentlemen, soldiers, sportsmen, artisans, all in fact, very near, according to their former occupation, do say some word thereof when a-dying. This is a fact often noted no less in past time than at the present day.

Women in like wise do often out with a similar rigmarole,—whores just as much as honest dames. So have I heard speak of a certain lady, of very good quality too, which on her death-bed did exult to spit out all about her divers intrigues, naughtinesses and past pleasures, to such purpose that she told more thereof than ever folk had known before, albeit she had always been suspected as a desperate wanton. This revelation she may have made, either in a dream possibly, or else because truth, that can never be hid, did constrain her thereto, or mayhap because she was fain so to discharge her conscience. Anyhow, she did actually, with clear conscience and true repentance, confess and ask forgiveness for her sins, detailing them each and all, dotting i’s and crossing t’s, till all was as clear as day. Verily, a curious thing, she should have found leisure at that supreme hour so to be sweeping her conscience clean of such a muckheap of scandal,—and with such careful particularity.

Another good lady I have heard of which was so apt to dream every night, as that she would tell out by night everything she did by day, in such wise that she did bring sore suspicion of herself on her husband’s part, who did presently set himself to listen to her talking and prattling and pay heed to her dreams, whereby an ill fate did later on befall her.

’Tis no long while since a gentleman of the great world, belonging to a province I will not name, did the same thing on his death-bed, publishing abroad his loves and lecheries, and specifying the ladies, wives and maids, which he had had to do with, and in what places, and how and under what circumstances. All this he did confess loud out, asking God’s pardon therefor before everybody. This last did worse than the woman just mentioned, for whereas she did bring disrepute on herself only, he did blacken several fair ladies’ good name. A fine pair of gallants truly!

’Tis said that misers, both male and female, have likewise this trick of thinking much, in the hour of death, on their hoard of crowns, forever talking of the same. Some forty years agone there was a certain lady of Mortemar,[55*] one of the richest ladies in all Poitou and one of the most moneyed, which afterward when she came to die had never a thought for aught but her crowns that were in her closet. All the time of her sickness, she would rise from her bed twenty times a day to go visit her treasure. At the last, when she was now very nigh her end and the priest was exhorting her to think of the life eternal, she would make no other reply nor say any other word but only this: “Give me my gown; the villains are robbing me.” Her one thought was to rise and visit her strong-room, as she did sore strive to do, but the effort was beyond the poor lady. And so she died.

I have let myself toward the end wander a little away from the first intention of my present Discourse; but we should bear in mind that after preaching and tragedy, farce ever cometh next. With this word, I make an end.

SIXTH DISCOURSE[56*]

Of how we should never speak ill of ladies, and of the consequences of so doing.

1.

One point there is to be noted in these fair and honourable dames which do indulge in love, to wit that whatsoever freedom they do allow themselves, they will never willingly suffer offence or scandal to be said of them by others, and if any do say ill of them, they know very well how to avenge the affront sooner or later. In a word, they be ready enough to do the thing, but unwilling it should be spoken about. And in very sooth ’tis not well done to bring ill repute on an honourable lady, nor to divulge on her; for indeed what have a number of other folks to do with it, an if they do please their senses and their lovers’ to boot?

The Courts of our French Kings, and amongst others, those of later years in especial, have been greatly given to blazon abroad the faults of these worthy dames; and I have known the days when was never a gallant about the Palace but did discover some falsehood to tell against the ladies, or at least find some true though scandalous tale to repeat. All this is very blameworthy; for a man ought never to offend the honour of fair ladies, and least of all great ladies. And I do say this as well to such as do reap enjoyment of ladies’ favour, as to them which cannot taste the venison, and for this cause do decry the same.

The Courts of our later Kings have, I repeat it, been overmuch given to this scandal-mongering and tale-bearing,—herein differing widely from those of earlier Sovereigns, their predecessors, alway excepting that of Louis XI., that seasoned reprobate. Of him ’tis said that most times he would eat at a common table, in open Hall, with many gentlemen of his privy household and others withal; and whoever could tell him the best and most lecherous story of light women and their doings, this man was best welcomed and made most of. Himself, too, showed no scruple to do the like, for he was exceeding inquisitive and loved to be informed of all secrets; then having found these out, he would often divulge the same to companions, and that publicly.[57] This was indeed a very grave scandal. He had a most ill opinion of women, and an entire disbelief in their chastity. After inviting the King of England to Paris on a visit of good fellowship, and being taken at his word by that Prince, he did straight repent him, and invented an alibi to break off the engagement. “Holy Christ!” he said on this occasion, “I don’t want him coming here. He would certainly find some little smart, dainty minx, that he would fall over head and ears in love with, who would tempt him to stay longer and come oftener than I should at all like.”

Natheless of his wife[57] he had a very high opinion, who was a very modest and virtuous lady; and truly she had need be so, for else, being a distrustful and suspicious Prince if ever there was one, he would very soon have treated her like the rest. And when he died, he did charge his son to love and honour his mother well, but not to be ruled of her,—“not that she was not both wise and chaste,” he declared, “but that she was more Burgundian than French.”[58*] And indeed he did never really love her but to have an heir of her; and when he had gotten this, he made scarce any account of her more. He kept her at the Castle of Amboise like a plain Gentlewoman in very scanty state and as ill-dressed as any young country girl. There he would leave her with few attendants to say her prayers, while himself was away travelling and taking his pleasure elsewhere. I leave you to imagine, such being the opinion the King held of women, and such his delight in speaking ill of them, how they were maltreated by every evil tongue at Court. Not that he did otherwise wish them ill for so taking their pleasure, nor that he desired to stop their amusements at all, as I have seen some fain to do; but his chiefest joy was to gird at them, the effect being that these poor ladies, weighed down under such a load of detraction, were often hindered from kicking of their heels so freely as they would else have liked to do. Yet did harlotry much prevail in his day; for the King himself did greatly help to establish and keep up the same with the gentlemen of his Court. Then was the only question, who could make the merriest mock thereat, whether in public or in privity, and who could tell the merriest tales of the ladies’ wantonings and wriggles (this was his phrase) and general naughtiness. True it is the names of great ladies were left unmentioned, such being censured only by guess-work and appearances; and I ween they had a better time than some I have seen in the days of the late King, which did torment and chide and bully them most strangely. Such is the account I have heard of that good monarch, Louis XI., from divers old stagers.

At any rate his son, King Charles VIII., which did succeed him, was not of this complexion; for ’tis reported of him now that he was the most reticent and fair-speaking monarch was even seen, and did never offend man or woman by the very smallest ill word.[59] I leave you then to think of the fair ladies of his reign, and all merry lovers of the sex, did not have good times in those days. And indeed he did love them right well and faithfully,—in fact too well; for returning back from his Naples expedition triumphant and victorious, he did find such excessive diversion in loving and fondling the same, and pleasuring them with so many delights at Lyons, in the way of tournaments and tourneys which he did hold for love of them, that clean forgetting his partisans which he had left in that Kingdom, he did leave these to perish,—and towns and kingdom and castles to boot, which yet held out, and were stretching forth hands of supplication to him to send them succour. ’Tis said moreover that overmuch devotion to the ladies was the cause of his death, for by reason of a too reckless abandonment to these pleasures, he did, being of a very weakly frame of body, so enervate and undermine his health as that this behaviour did no little contribute to his death.

Our good King Louis XII. was very respectful toward the ladies; for as I have said in another place, he would ever pardon all stage-players, as well as scholars and clerks of the Palace in their guilds, no matter who they did make free to speak of, excepting the Queen his wife, and her ladies and damosels,—albeit he was a merry gallant in his day and did love fair women as well as other folk. Herein he did take after his grand-father, Duke Louis of Orleans,—though not in this latter’s ill tongue and inordinate conceit and boastfulness. And truly this defect did cost him his life, for one day having boasted loud out at a banquet whereat Duke John of Burgundy, his cousin, was present, how that he had in his private closet portraits of all the fairest ladies he had enjoyed, as chance would have it, Duke John himself did enter this same closet. The very first lady whose picture he beheld there, and the first sight that met his eyes, was his own most noble lady wife, which was at that day held in high esteem for her beauty. She was called Marguerite, daughter of Albert of Bavaria, Count of Hainault and Zealand. Who was amazed then? who but the worthy husband? Fancy him muttering low down to himself, “Ha, ha! I see it all!” However, making no outcry about the flea that really bit him, he did hide it all, though hatching vengeance, be sure, for a later day, and so picked a quarrel with him as to his regency and administration of the Kingdom. Thus putting off his grievance on this cause and not on any matter of his wife at all, he had the Duke assassinated at the Porte Barbette of Paris. Then presently his first wife being now dead (we may suspect by poison), and right soon after, he did wed in the second place the daughter of Louis, third Duke of Bourbon. Mayhap this bargain was no better than his first; for truly with folks which be meet for horns, change bed-chamber and quarters as they may, they will ever encounter the same.

The Duke in this matter did very wisely, so to avenge him of his adultery without setting tongues a-wagging of his concerns or his wife’s, and ’twas a judicious piece of dissimulation on his part. Indeed I have heard a very great nobleman and soldier say, how that there be three things a wise man ought never to make public, an if he be wronged therein. Rather should he hold his tongue on the matter, or better still invent some other pretext to fight upon and get his revenge,—unless that is the thing was so clear and manifest, and so public to many persons, as that he could not possibly put off his action onto any other motive but the true one.

The first is, when ’tis brought up against a man that he is cuckold and his wife unfaithful; another, when he is taxed with buggery and sodomy; the third, when ’tis stated of him that he is a coward, and that he hath basely run away from a fight or a battle. All three charges be most shameful, when a man’s name is mentioned in connection therewith; so he doth fight the accusation, and will sometimes suppose he can well clear himself and prove his name to have been falsely smirched. But the matter being thus made public, doth cause only the greater scandal; and the more ’tis stirred, the more doth it stink, exactly as vile stench waxeth worse, the more it is disturbed. And this is why ’tis always best, if a man can with honour, to hold his tongue, and contrive and invent some new motive to account for his punishment of the old offence; for such like grievances should ever be ignored so far as may be, and never brought into court, or made subjects of discussion or contention. Many examples could I bring of this truth; but ’twould be over irksome to me, and would unduly lengthen out my Discourse.

So we see Duke John was very wise and prudent thus to dissimulate and hide his horns, and on quite other grounds take his revenge on his cousin, which had shamed him. Else had he been made mock of, and his name blazoned abroad. No doubt dread of such mockery and scandal did touch him as nigh at heart as ever his ambition, and made him act like the wise and experienced man of the world he was.

Now, however, to return from the digression which hath delayed me, our King Francis I., who was a good lover of fair ladies, and that in spite of the opinion he did express, as I have said elsewhere, how that they were fickle and inconstant creatures, would never have the same ill spoke of at his Court, and was always most anxious they should be held in all high respect and honour.[60*] I have heard it related how that one time, when he was spending his Lent at Meudon near Paris, there was one of the gentlemen in his service there named the Sieur de Brizambourg, of Saintogne. As this gentleman was serving the King with meat, he having a dispensation to eat thereof, his master bade him carry the rest, as we see sometimes done at Court, to the ladies of the privy company, whose names I had rather not give, for fear of offence. The gentleman in question did take upon him to say, among his comrades and others of the Court, how that these ladies not content with eating of raw meat in Lent, were now eating cooked as well,—and their belly full. The ladies hearing of it, did promptly make complaint to the King, which thereupon was filled with so great an anger, as that he did instantly command the archers of the Palace guard to take the man and hang him out of hand. By lucky chance the poor gentleman had wind of what was a-foot from one of his friends, and so fled and escaped in the nick of time. But an if he had been caught, he would most certainly have been hanged, albeit he was a man of good quality, so sore was the King seen to be wroth that time, and little like to go back on his word. I have this anecdote of a person of honour and credibility which was present; and at the time the King did say right out, that any man which should offend the honour of ladies, the same should be hanged without benefit of clergy.

A little while before, Pope Farnese[61*] being come to Nice, and the King paying him his respects in state with all his Court and Lords and Ladies, there were some of these last, and not the least fair of the company, which did go to the Pope for to kiss his slipper. Whereupon a gentleman did take on him to say they had gone to beg his Holiness for a dispensation to taste of raw flesh without sin or shame, whenever and as much as ever they might desire. The King got to know thereof; and well it was for the gentleman he did fly smartly, else had he been hanged, as well for the veneration due to the Pope as for the respect proper to fair ladies.

2.

These gentlemen were not so happy in their speeches and interviews as was once the late deceased M. d’Albanie. The time when Pope Clement did visit Marseilles to celebrate the marriage of his niece with M. d’Orleans, there were three widow ladies, of fair face and honourable birth, which by reason of the pains, vexations and griefs they suffered from the absence of their late husbands and of those pleasures that were no more, had come so low, and grown so thin, weak and sickly, as that they did beseech M. d’Albanie, their kinsman, who did possess a good share of the Pope’s favour, to ask of him dispensation for the three of them to eat meat on prohibited days. This the said Duke did promise them to do, and to that end did one day bring them on a friendly footing to the Pope’s lodging. Meantime he had warned the King of what was a-foot, telling him he would afford him some sport. So having put him up to the game, and the three ladies being on their knees before his Holiness, M. d’Albanie took the word first, saying in a low tone and in Italian, so that the ladies did not catch his words: “Holy Father, see here before you three widow ladies, fair to look on and very well born. These same for the respect they bear toward their dead husbands and the love they have for the children they have borne to these, will not for aught in all the world marry again and so wrong their husbands and children. But whereas they be sometimes sore tempted by the pricks of the flesh, they do therefore humbly beseech your Holiness for leave to go with men without marriage, whenever and wherever they shall find them under the said temptation.”—“What say you, cousin?” cried the Pope. “Why! ’twould be against God’s own commandments, wherefrom I can give no dispensation.” “Well! the ladies are here before you, Holy Father, and if it please you to hear them say their say.” At this one of the three, taking the word, said: “Holy Father! we have besought M. d’Albanie to make you our very humble petition for us three poor women, and to represent to your Holiness our frailty and our weakly complexion.”—“Nay! my daughters,” replied the Pope, “but your petition is in no wise reasonable, for the thing would be clean against God’s commandments.” Then the widows, still quite ignorant of what M. d’Albanie had told the Pope, made answer: “At the least, Holy Father, may it please you give us leave three times a week, without scandal to our name.”—“What!” exclaimed the Pope, “give you leave to commit il peccato di lussuria (the sin of lasciviousness?). I should damn mine own soul; I cannot do it!” Hereupon the three ladies, perceiving at last ’twas a case of scampishness and knavery, and that M. d’Albanie had played a trick on them, declared, “’Tis not of that we speak, Holy Father; we but ask permission to eat meat on prohibited days.”—Hearing these words, the Duc d’Albanie told them, “Nay! I thought ’twas live flesh you meant, ladies!” The Pope was quick to understand the knavery put on them, and said with a dawning smile, “You have put these noble ladies to the blush, my cousin; the Queen will be angered when she doth hear of it.” The Queen did hear of it anon, but made no ado, and found the tale diverting. The King likewise did afterward make good mirth thereof with the Pope; while the Holy Father himself, after giving them his benediction, did grant them the dispensation they craved, and dismissed them well content.

I have been given the names of the three ladies concerned, namely: Madame de Chasteau-Briant or Madame de Canaples, Madame de Chastillon and the Baillive de Caen, all three very honourable ladies. I have the tale from sundry old frequenters of the Court.

Madame d’Uzès[62] did yet better, at the time when Pope Paul III. came to Nice to visit King Francis. She was then Madame du Bellay, and a lady which hath from her youth up always had merry ways and spake many a witty word. One day, prostrating herself at his Holiness’ feet, she did make three supplications to him: first, that he grant her absolution, for that when yet a little maid, in waiting on the Queen Regent’s majesty, and called by the name of Tallard, she did lose her scissors while sewing of her seam, and did make a vow to St. Allivergot to perform the same, an if she found them. This she presently did, yet did never accomplish her vow, not knowing where the said Saint’s body lay. The second petition was that he give her pardon forasmuch as, when Pope Clement came to Marseilles, she being still Mlle. Tallard, she did take one of the pillows of his Holiness’ bed, and did wipe herself therewith in front and in rear, on the which his Holiness did afterward rest his noble head and face. The third was this, that the Sieur de Tays, because she did love the same, but he loved not her, and the man is accursed and should be excommunicated which loveth not again, if he be loved.

The Pope at first was sore astonished at these requests, but having enquired of the King who she was, did learn her witty ways, and laughed heartily over the matter with the King. Yet from that day forth all she did was found admirable, so good a grace did she display in all her ways and words.

Now never suppose this same great monarch was so strict and stern in his respect for ladies, as that he did not relish well enough any good stories told him concerning them, without however any scandal-mongering or decrying of their good name. Rather like the great and highly privileged King he was, he would not that every man, and all the vulgar herd, should enjoy like privileges with himself.

I have heard sundry relate how he was ever most anxious that the noble gentlemen of his Court should never be without mistresses. If they won none such, he did deem them simpletons and empty fools; while many a time he would ask one Courtier or another the name of the lady of his choice, and promise to do them good service in that quarter, and speak well of their merits. So good-natured a Prince was he and an affable. Oftentimes too, when he did observe his gentlemen full of free discourse with their mistresses, he would come up and accost them, asking what merry and gallant words they were exchanging with their ladies, and if he found the same not to his liking, correcting them and teaching them better. With his most intimate friends, he was no wise shy or sparing to tell his stories and share his good things with them. One diverting tale I have heard him tell, which did happen to himself, and which he did later on repeat. This was of a certain young and pretty lady new come to Court, the which being little skilled in the ways of the world, did very readily yield to the persuasions of the great folks, and in especial those of the said monarch himself. One day when he was fain to erect his noble standard and plant the same in her fort, she having heard it said, and indeed begun to note that when one gave a thing to the King, or took aught from him and touched it, the person must first kiss the hand for to take and touch it withal, did herself without more ado fulfil the obligation and first very humbly kissing her hand did seize the King’s standard and plant it in the fort with all due humbleness. Then did she ask him in cold blood, how he did prefer her to love him, as a respectable and modest lady, or as a wanton. No doubt he did ask her for the latter, for herein was she more able to show herself more agreeable than as a modest woman. And indeed he soon found out she had by no means wasted her time, both after the event and before it, and all. When all was done, she would drop him a deep curtsy, thanking him respectfully for the honour he had done her, whereof she was all unworthy, often suggesting to him at the same time some promotion for her husband. I have heard the lady’s name, one which hath since grown much less simple than at first she was, and is nowadays cunning and experienced enough. The King made no ado about repeating the tale, which did reach the ears of not a few folks.

This monarch was exceeding curious to hear of the love of both men and women, and above all their amorous engagements, and in especial what fine airs the ladies did exhibit when at their gentle work, and what looks and attitudes they did display therein, and what words they said. On hearing all this, he would laugh frank and free, but after would forbid all publishing abroad thereof and any scandal making, always strongly recommending an honourable secrecy on these matters.

He had for his good follower herein that great, most magnificent and most generous nobleman, the Cardinal de Lorraine. Most generous I may well call him, for he had not his like in his day; his free expenditure, his many gracious gifts and kindnesses, did all bear witness thereof, and above all else his charity toward the poor. He would regularly bear with him a great game-bag, the which his valet of the bed-chamber, who did govern his petty cash, never failed to replenish, every morning, with three or four hundred crowns. And as many poor folk as he met, he would plunge his hand in the game-bag, and whatsoever he drew out therefrom, without a moment’s thought, he gave away, and without any picking or choosing. ’Twas of him a poor blind man, as the Cardinal was passing in the streets of Rome and was asked for an alms, and so did throw him according to wont a great handful of gold, said thus, crying out aloud in the Italian tongue: O tu sei Christo, o veramente el cardinal di Lorrena,—“Either you are Christ, or the Cardinal de Lorraine.” Moreover if he was generous and charitable in this way, he was no less liberal toward other folks as well, and chiefly where fair ladies were concerned, whom he did easily attach to him by this regale. For money was not so greatly abundant in those days as it hath nowadays become, and for this cause women were more eager after the same, and every sort of merry living and gay attire.

I have heard it said that ever on the arrival at Court of any fair damsel or young wife that was handsome and attractive, he would come instantly to greet the same, and discoursing with her would presently offer to undertake the training of her. A pretty trainer for sooth! I ween the task was not so irksome an one as to train and break some wild colt. Accordingly ’twas said at that time, was scarce dame or damsel resident at Court or newly come thither, but was caught and debauched by dint of her own avariciousness and the largesse of the aforesaid Cardinal; and few or none have come forth of that Court women of chastity and virtue. Thus might their chests and big wardrobes be seen for that time more full of gowns and petticoats, of cloth of gold and silver and of silk, than be nowadays those of our Queens and great Princesses of the present time. I know this well, having seen the thing with mine own eyes in two or three instances,—fair ladies which had gotten all this gear by their dainty body; for neither father, mother nor husband could have given them the same in anything like such wealth and abundance.

Nay! but I should have refrained me, some will say, from stating so much of the great Cardinal, in view of his honoured cloth and most reverend and high estate. Well! his King would have it so, and did find pleasure therein; and pleasure one’s Sovereign, a man is dispensed of all scruple, whether in making love or other matters, provided always they be not dishonourable. Accordingly he did make no ado about going to the wars, and hunting and dancing, taking part in mascarades, and the like sports and pastimes. Moreover he was a man of like flesh and blood with other folk, and did possess many great merits and perfections of his own, enough surely to outweigh and cloak this small fault,—if fault it is to be called, to love fair ladies!

I have heard the following tale told of him in connection with the proper respect due to ladies. He was naturally most courteous toward them; yet did he once forget his usual practice, and not without reason enough, with the Duchess of Savoy, Donna Beatrix of Portugal. Travelling on one occasion through Piedmont, on his way to Rome on his Royal master’s service, he did visit the Duke and Duchess. After having conversed a sufficient while with the Duke, he went to find the noble Duchess in her chamber for to pay his respects to her; arrived there and on his coming forward toward her, her Grace, who was haughtiness itself, if ever was such in the world, did offer him her hand to kiss. The Cardinal, loath to put up with this affront, did press forward to kiss her on the mouth, while she did draw back all she could. Then losing all patience and crowding up yet nearer to her, he takes her fairly by the head, and in spite of her struggles did kiss her two or three times over. And albeit she did protest sore with many cries and exclamations both in Portuguese and Spanish, yet had she to endure this treatment. “What!” the Cardinal cried out; “is it to me this sort of state and ceremony is to be used? I do kiss right enough the Queen of France my Mistress, which is the greatest Queen in all the world, and I am not to kiss you, a dirty little slip of a duchess! I would have you to know I have bedded with ladies as fair as you, and as good to boot, and of better birth than ever you be.” And mayhap he spoke but the truth. Anyway the Princess was ill-advised to make this show of haughtiness toward a Prince of so high an house, and above all towards a Cardinal; for there is never one of this exalted rank in the Church, but doth liken himself with the greatest Princes of Christendom. The Cardinal too was in the wrong to take so harsh reprisals; but ’tis ever very irksome to a noble and generous spirit, of whatever estate and calling, to put up with an affront.

Another of the same rank, the Cardinal de Granvelle, did likewise well know how to make the Comte d’Egmont feel his displeasure on the same account, and others too whose names be at the tip of my pen, but whom I will pass over for fear of confusing my subject overmuch, though I may return again to them later. I do now confine myself to our late King Henri le Grand, which monarch was exceeding respectful to the ladies, whom he was used to treat with all reverence, and did alway hate gainsayers of their honour. And when so great King doth so serve fair ladies, a monarch of such puissance and repute, very loath for sure be all men of his Court to open mouth for to speak ill of the same. Beside, the Queen mother did exert a strong hand to guard her ladies and damsels, and make calumniators and satirists feel the weight of her resentment, when once they were found out, seeing how she had been as little spared by such as any of her ladies. Yet ’twas never herself she did take heed for so much as others, seeing, she was used to declare, how she did know her soul and conscience pure and void of offence, and could afford to laugh at these foul-mouthed writers and scandal-mongers. “Why! let them say their worst,” she would say, “and have their trouble for nothing”; yet whenever she did catch them at it, she knew how to make them smart soundly.

It befell the elder Mlle. de Limeuil, at her first coming to Court, to compose a satire or lampoon (for she had the gift of witty speech and writing) on the Court generally, not however so much scandalous in its matter as diverting in form. Be assured the King’s mother did make her pay for this well and feel the whip smartly, as well as two of her comrades which were in the secret to her majesty, through the house of Turenne, which is allied to that of Boulogne, she would have been chastised with every ignominy, and this by express order of the King, who had the most particular and curious dislike of such writings.

I do remember me of an incident connected with the Sieur de Matha,[63*] a brave and gallant gentleman much loved of the King, and a kinsman of Madame de Valentinois, which did ever have some diverting quarrel and complaint against the damsels and dames of the Court, of so merry a complexion was he. One day having attacked one of the Queen’s maids of honour, another, known by the name of “big Méray,” was for taking up the cudgels for her companion. The only reply Matha did vouchsafe her was this: “Go to! I’m not attacking you, Méray; you’re a great war-horse, and should be barded!”[64] For insooth she was the very biggest woman, maid or wife, I have ever seen. She did make complaint of the speech to the Queen, saying the other had called her a mare and a great war-horse to be barded. The Queen was so sore angered that Matha had to quit the Court for some days, spite of all the favour he had with his kinswoman Madame de Valentinois; and for a month after his return durst not set foot in the apartment of the Queen and her maids of honour.

The Sieur de Gersay did a much worse thing toward one of the Queen’s maids of honour, to whom he was ill-disposed, for to avenge him upon her, albeit he was never at a loss for ready words; for indeed he was as good as most at saying a witty thing or telling a good story, and above all when spreading a scandal, of which art and mystery he was a past master; only scandal-mongering was at that time strongly forbidden. One day when he was present at the after dinner assembly of the Queen along with the other ladies and gentlemen of her Court, the custom then being that the company should not sit except on the floor when the Queen was present, de Gersay having taken from the pages and lackeys a ram’s pizzle they were playing with in the Office Court of the Palace, sitting down beside her he did slip the same into the girl’s frock, and this so softly as that she did never notice it,—that is not until the Queen did proceed to rise from her chair to retire to her private apartment. The girl, whose name I had better not give, did straight spring up, and as she rose to her feet, right in front of the Queen, doth give so lusty a push to the strange plaything she had about her, as that it did make six or seven good bounces along the floor, for all the world as though it were fain of its own accord to give the company a free exhibition and some gratuitous sport. Who more astonished than the poor girl,—and the Queen to boot, for ’twas well in front of her with naught to prevent her view? “Mother of God!” cried the Queen, “and what is that, my child; what would you be at with that thing?” The unhappy maid of honour, blushing and half fainting with confusion, began to cry out she knew not what it was, that some one who did wish her ill had played this horrid trick on her, and how she thought ’twas none other but de Gersay which had done it. The latter waiting only to see the beginning of the sport and the first few bounces, was through the door by now. They sent to call him back, but he would never come, perceiving the Queen to be so very wroth, yet stoutly denying the whole thing all the while. So he was constrained for some days to fly her resentment, and the King’s too; and indeed had he not been, along with Fontaine-Guérin,[65*] one of the Dauphin’s prime favourites, he would assuredly have been in sore straits, albeit naught could ever be proven against him except by guess-work, and notwithstanding the fact that the King and his courtiers and not a few ladies could not refrain them from laughing at the incident, though they durst not show their amusement in view of the Queen’s displeasure. For was never a lady in all the world knew better than she how to startle folk with a sudden and sore rebuke.

A certain honourable gentleman of the Court and a maid of honour did one time, from the good affection they erst had with one another, fall into hate and sore quarrel; this went so far that one day the young lady said loud out to him in the Queen’s apartment, the twain being in talk as to their difference: “Leave me alone, Sir, else I will tell what you told me.” The gentleman, who had informed her in strict confidence of something about a very great lady, and fearing ill would befall him from it, and at the least he would be banished the Court, without more ado did answer back,—for he was ready enough of speech: “If you do tell what I have told you, I will tell what I have done to you.” Who more astonished than the lady at this? yet did she contrive to reply: “Why! what have you done to me?” The other did reply: “Why! what have I told you?” Thereupon doth the lady make answer: “Oh! I know very well what you told me.” To which the other: “Oh! and I know very well what I did to you.” The lady doth retort, “But I’ll prove quite clearly what you told me;” and the other: “And I’ll prove clearer still what I did to you.” At long last, after sticking a long while at this counterchange of reply and retort in identical form and almost the same words, they were parted by the gentlemen and ladies there present, albeit these got much diversion from the dispute.

This disputation having come to the Queen’s ears, the latter was in great wrath thereanent, and was fain at once to know the words of the one and the deeds of the other, and did send to summon them. But the pair of them, seeing ’twas to be made a serious matter, did consult and straight agree together to say, whenas they did appear before the Queen, how that ’twas merely a game their so disputing with each other, and that neither had she been told aught by the gentleman, nor yet had he done aught to her. So did they balk the Queen, which did none the less chide and sore blame the courtier, on the ground that his words were over free and like to make scandal. The man sware to me twenty times over that, and if they had not so made it up and agreed in a tale, and the lady had actually revealed the secret he had told her, which might well have turned to his great injury, he would have resolutely maintained he had done his will on her, challenging them to examine her, and if she should not be found virgin, that ’twas himself had deflowered her. “Well and good!” I answered, “but an if they had examined her and found her a maid, for she was quite young and unmarried, you would have been undone, and ’twould have gone hard but you had lost your life.”—“Body of me!” he did return, “that’s just what I should have liked the best, that they should have examined the jade. I was well assured of my tale, for I knew quite well who had deflowered her, and that another man had been there right enough, though not I,—to my much regret. So being found already touched and soiled, she had been undone, and I avenged, and her good name ruined to boot. I should have got off with marrying her, and afterward ridding me of her, as I could.” And these be the risks poor maids and wives have to run, whether they be in the right o’t or the wrong!

3.

I did one time know a lady of very high rank which did actually find herself pregnant by the act of a very brave and gallant Prince;[66] ’twas said however the thing was done under promise of marriage, though later the contrary was ascertained to be the case. King Henri was the first to learn the facts, and was sore vexed thereat, for she was remotely connected with his Majesty. Any way, without making any further noise or scandal about the matter, he did the same evening at the Royal ball, chose her as his partner and lead her out to dance the torch-dance[66] with him; and afterward did make her dance with another the galliard and the rest of the “brawls,” wherein she did display her readiness and dexterity better than ever, while her figure had all its old grace and was so well arranged for the occasion as that she gave no sign of her bigness. The end was that the King, who had kept his eyes fixed on her very strictly all the time, did perceive naught, no more than if she had not been with child at all, and did presently observe to a great nobleman, one of his chief familiars: “The folk were most ill-advised and spiteful to have gone about to invent the tale that yonder poor girl was big with child; never have I seen her in better grace. The spiteful authors of the calumny have told a most wicked falsehood.” Thus this good King did shield the noble lady and poor girl, and did repeat the same thing to his Queen whenas he was to bed with her that night. But the latter, mistrusting the thing, did have her examined the next morning, herself being present, and she was found to be six months gone in pregnancy; after she did confess and avow the whole truth to the Queen, saying ’twas done under pretence of marriage to follow. Natheless the King, who was all good nature, had the secret kept as close as ever possible, so as not to bring shame and scandal on the damsel, though the Queen for her part was very wrathful. Any way, they did send her off very quietly to the home of her nearest kinsfolk, where she was presently brought to bed of a fine boy. Yet was the lad so unfortunate that he could never get him recognized by his putative father; the trial of the case did drag out to great length, but the mother could never get aught decided in her favour.

Now good King Henri did love merry tales as well as any of his predecessors, but he would never have scandal brought on ladies therein nor their secrets divulged. In fact, the King himself, who was of amorous complexion enough, when he was away to visit the ladies, would ever go thither stealthily and under cover all ever he could, to the end they might be free of suspicion and ill-repute. But an if there was any that was discovered, ’twas never by his fault or with his consent, but rather by the fair dame’s doing. So have I heard of one lady of the sort, of a good house, named Madame Flamin,[67*] a Scotswoman, which being gotten with child by the King, did make no sort of secret of it, but would say it out boldly in her French Scotch thus: “I hae dune what I could, sae that the noo, God be thankit, I am wi’ bairn by the King, whilk doth mak me an honoured and unco happy woman. And I maun say the blude Royal hath in it something of a more douce and tasty humour than the ordinar, I do find myself in sic gude case,—no to speak of the fine bits o’ presents forthcoming.”

Her son,[68*] that she had presently, was the late Grand Prior of France, who was killed lately at Marseilles,—a sore pity, for he was a very honourable, brave and gallant nobleman, and did show the same clearly at his death. Moreover he was a man of property and sense, and the least tyrannical Governor of a District of his own day or since. Provence could tell us that, and beside that he was a right magnificent Seigneur and of a generous expenditure. He was indeed a man of means, good sense and wise moderation.

The said lady, with others I have heard of, held the opinion that to lie with one’s Sovereign was no disgrace; those be harlots indeed which do abandon their bodies to petty folk, but not where great Kings and gallant gentlemen be in question. Like that Queen of the Amazons I have named above, which came a journey of three hundred leagues for to be gotten with child by Alexander the Great, to have good issue therefrom. Yet there be those who say one man is as good as another for this!

After King Henri came Francis II., whose reign however was so short as that spiteful folks had no time even to begin speaking ill of ladies. Not that we are to believe, if he had enjoyed a long reign, that he would have suffered aught of the kind at his Court; for he was a monarch naturally good-natured, frank, and not one to take pleasure in scandal, as well as being most respectful toward ladies and very ready to pay them all honour. Beside he had the Queen his wife and the Queen his mother, and his good uncles to boot, all of which were much for checking these chatterers and loose-tongued gentry. I remember me how once, the King being at Saint-Germain en Laye, about the month of August or September, the fancy took him one evening to go see the stags in their rut in that noble forest of Saint-Germain, and he did take with him certain princes, his chief familiars, and some great ladies, both wives and maids, whose names I could very well give, an if I chose. Nor was there lacking one fain to make a talk of it, and say this did not smack of his womankind being exactly virtuous or chaste, to be going to see these lovemakings and wanton ruttings of beasts, seeing how the appetite of Venus must heat them more and more at sight of such doings. In fact, so sore will they be longing to taste, that sure the water or saliva will be coming to their mouth, in such wise that no other remedy will there be thereafter for to get rid of the same except only by some other discharge of saliva, or something else. The King heard of this speech, and the noblemen and ladies which had accompanied him thither. Be well assured, an if the gentleman had not straightway decamped, he had fared very ill; nor did he ever again appear at Court till after that King’s death and the end of his reign. Many scandalous pamphlets there were put forth against them which were then in direction of the Government of the Kingdom; but there was never an one that did so hurt and offend as a satire entitled The Tiger[69]—modelled on the first invective of Cicero against Catiline,—especially as it spake freely of the amours of a very great and fair lady, and a great nobleman, her kinsman. An if the gallant author had been caught, though he had had an hundred thousand lives, he had surely lost them every one; for the two great folks, lady and gentleman, were so exceeding vexed and angered as that they did all but die of despair.

This King Francis II. was not subject to love like his predecessors; and truly he would have been greatly to blame, seeing he had to wife the fairest woman in all the world and the most amiable. And when a man hath such a wife, he doth not go seeking fortune elsewhere as others use, else is he a wretch indeed. And not so going, little recks he to speak ill of ladies, or indeed to speak well either, or to speak at all about them, except always of his own good lady at home. ’Tis a doctrine I have heard a very honourable personage maintain: natheless have I known it prove false more than once.

King Charles came next to the throne, which by reason of the tenderness of his years, did pay no heed at the beginning of his reign to the ladies, but did rather give his thoughts to spending his time in youthful sports and exercises. Yet did the late deceased M. de Sipierre his Governour and Tutor,[70*] a man who was in my opinion and in that of every one else, the most honourable and most courteous gentleman of his time, and the most gentle and respectful toward women, did so well teach the same lesson to the King his master and pupil, as that he was as ready to honour ladies as any of the kings his predecessors. For never, whether as boy or man, did he see a woman, no matter how busied he was in other matters, whether he was hurrying on or standing still, on foot or on horse-back, but he would straight salute the same and most respectfully doff his cap. Whenas he came to an age for love, he did serve several very honourable dames and damsels I have known of, but all this with so great honour and respect as that he might have been the humblest gentleman of the Court.

In his reign the great lampoonists did first begin their vogue, and amongst them even some very gallant gentlemen of the Court, whose names I will not give, did strangely abuse the ladies, both in general and in particular, and even some of the greatest in the land. For this some of them have found themselves entangled in downright fierce quarrels, and have come off second best,—not indeed that they did avow the truth, for they did rather always deny they had aught to do with it. If they had confessed, they had had heavy payment to make, and the King would certainly have let them feel the weight of his displeasure, inasmuch as they did attack ladies of over high a rank. Others did show the best face they could, and did suffer the lie to be cast in their teeth a thousand times over, conditionally as we may say and vaguely, and had to swallow a thousand affronts, drinking the same in as sweetly as though they had been milk, without daring to retort one word, else had their lives been at risk. ’Tis a thing which hath oft given me great surprise that suchlike folks should set them to speak ill of their neighbours, yet suffer others to speak ill of themselves so sorely and to their very face. Yet had these men the repute of being gallant swordsmen; but in this matter they would aye endure all but the extremest insult bravely and without one word of protest.

I do remember me of a lampoon which was made against a very great lady, a widow, fair and of most honourable birth, which did desire to marry again with a very great Prince, a young and handsome man.[71] There were certain persons, (and I have accurate knowledge of the same), who disliking this marriage, and to dissuade the Prince therefrom, did concoct a lampoon on her, the most scandalous I have ever seen, in the which they did compare her to five or six of the chiefest harlots of Antiquity, and the most notorious and wanton, declaring how that she did overtop them each and all. The actual authors of the said satire did present it to the Prince, professing however that it did emanate from others, and that themselves had merely been given it. The Prince, having looked at it, gave the lie to its statements and hurled a thousand vague and general insults at them which had writ it; yet did they pass all over in silence, brave and valiant men though they were. The incident however did give the Prince pause a while, seeing the lampoon did contain several definite revelations and point direct at some unpleasant facts; natheless after the lapse of two years more was the marriage accomplished.

The King was so great-hearted and kindly that he was never inclined to favour folks of this kidney. To pass a spicy word or two with them aside, this he did like well enough; but he was always most unwilling the common herd should be fed on such diet, declaring that his Court, which was the best ennobled and most illustrious by reason of great and noble ladies of any in all the world, should never, such being its high repute, be cheapened and foully aspersed by the mouth of suchlike reckless and insolent babblers. ’Twas well enough to speak so of the courtesans of Rome, or Venice, or other the like places, but not of the Court of France; it might be permitted to do the thing, it was not permitted to speak thereof.

Thus do we see how this Sovereign was ever respectful toward ladies, nay! so much so that in his later days when some I know of were fain to give him an evil impression of certain very great, as well as most fair and honourable dames, for that these had intermeddled in some highly important matters of his concern, yet would he never credit aught against them; but did accord them as good favour as ever, dying at the last in their very good graces and with many a tear of their shedding to wet his corpse. And they did find good cause to say so too, so soon as ever King Henri III. came to succeed him, who by reason of sundry ill reports he had been told of these ladies when in Poland, did not make near so much of them as he had done aforetime. Both over these and over some others that I know of, he did exercise a very strict censorship, and one we may be sure that made him not more liked; and indeed I do believe they did him no little hurt, and contributed in part to his evil fortune and final ruin. I could allege sundry special facts in proof hereof, but I had rather pass them over,—saying only this much, that women generally are keen set on taking vengeance. It may be long in coming, but they do execute it at the last.[72*] On the contrary many men’s revenge is just the opposite in its nature, for ardent and hot enough at its first beginning to deceive all, yet by dint of temporising and putting off and long delays it doth grow cool and come to naught. And this is why ’tis meet to guard against the first attempt, and take time by the forelock in parrying the blows; but with women the first fury and attempt, and the temporising and delay, do both last out to the end,—that is in some women, though hardly many.

Some have been for excusing the King for the war he made on women in the way of crying them down, by saying ’twas in order to curb and correct vice,—as if the curb were of any of the slightest use in these cases, seeing woman is so conditioned of nature as that the more this thing is forbid her, the more ardent is she after the same, and to set a watch on her is just labour lost. So in actual fact myself have seen how, for all he could do, they were never turned out of their natural road.

Several ladies that I wot well enough, did he love and serve with all due respect and very high honour,—and even a certain very great and fair Princess,[73] of whom he had fallen so deep in love before his going into Poland, that after he became King, he did resolve to wed the same, although she was already married to a great and gallant Prince, but one that was in rebellion against him and had fled to a foreign land to gather an army and make war upon him. But at the moment of his return to France, the lady died in child-birth. Her death alone did hinder the marriage, for he was firm set thereon. He would certainly have married her by favour and dispensation of the Pope, who would not have refused him his consent, being so great a Monarch as he was, and for sundry other reasons that may be readily imagined.

Others again he did make love to only for to bring the same into disparagement. Of such I wot of one, a great lady, in whose case, for the displeasures her husband had wrought him, and not able otherwise to get at him, the King did take his revenge on his wife, whom he did after publish abroad for what she was in the presence of a number of folk. Yet was this vengeance mild and merciful after all, for in lieu of death he did give her life.

Another I wot of, which for overmuch playing the wanton, as also for a displeasure she did the King, the latter did of set purpose pay court to. Anon without any vast deal of persuasion, she did grant him an assignation in a garden, the which he failed not to keep. But he would have naught else to do with her (so some folk say, but be sure he did find something to do with her right enough) but only to have her so seen offering herself in open market, and then to banish her from the Court with ignominy.

He was anxious and exceeding inquisitive to know the life of all and every fair lady of his Court, and to penetrate their secret wishes. ’Tis said he did sometimes reveal one or other of his successes with women to sundry of his most privy intimates. Happy they! for sure the leavings of suchlike great monarchs must needs be very tasty morsels.

The ladies did fear him greatly, as I have myself seen. He would either reprimand them personally, when needful, or else beg the Queen his mother so to do, who on her part was ready enough at the work. ’Twas not however that she did favour scandal-mongers, as I have shown above in the little examples I have there given. And paying such heed as she did to these and showing so great displeasure against them, what was she not bound to do others which did actually compromise the good name and honour of her ladies?

This monarch again was so well accustomed from his earliest years, as myself have seen, to hear tales of ladies and their gallantries (and truly myself have told him one or two such), and to repeat them too,—yet alway in secret, for fear the Queen his mother should learn thereof, for she would never have him tell such stories to any others than herself, that she might check the same,—so well accustomed was he to all this, that coming to riper years and full liberty, he did never lose the habit. And in this wise he did know how they did all live at his Court and in his Kingdom,—or at the least many of them, and especially the great ladies of rank, as well as if he had frequented them every one. And if any there were which were new come to Court, accosting these most courteously and respectfully, yet would he tell them over such tales as that they would be utterly amazed at heart to know where he had gotten all his information, though all the while denying and protesting against the whole budget to his face. And if he did divert himself after this fashion, yet did he not fail, in other and more weighty matters, to apply his visit to such high purpose as that folk have counted him the greatest King which for an hundred years hath been in France, as I have writ elsewhere in a chapter composed expressly upon this Sovereign.[74]

Accordingly I do now say no more about him, albeit it may be objected to me that I have been but chary of examples of his character on this point, and that I should say more, an if I be so well informed. Yea! truly, I do know tales enough, and some of them high-spiced; but I wish not to be a mere chronicler of news whether of the Court or of the world at large. Beside, I could never cloak and cover up these my tales so featly but that folk would see through them, and scandal come therefrom.

Now these traducers of fair ladies be of divers sorts. Some do speak ill of women for some displeasure these have done them, though all the while they be as chaste as any in all the world, and instead of the pure and beauteous angel they really resemble do make out a picture of a devil all foul and ugly with wickedness. Thus an honourable gentleman I have both seen and known, did most abominably defame a very honourable and virtuous lady for a slight affront she had put upon him, and did sorely wreak his displeasure on her. He would say thus: “I know quite well I am in the wrong, and do not deny the lady to be really most chaste and virtuous. But be it who it may, the woman which shall have affronted me in the smallest degree, though she were as chaste and pure as the Blessed Virgin herself, seeing I can in no other way bring her to book, as I would with a man, I will say every evil gallows thing I can think of concerning her.” Yet surely God will be angered at such a wretch.

Other traducers there be, which loving ladies and failing to overcome their virtue and get aught out of them, do of sheer despite proclaim them public wantons. Nay! they will do yet worse, saying openly they have had their will of them, but having known them and found them too exceeding lustful, have for this cause left them. Myself have known many gentlemen of this complexion at our French Kings’ Courts. Then again there is the case of women quitting right out their pretty lovers and bed favourites, but who presently, following the dictates of their fickleness and inconstancy, grow sick again and enamoured of others in their stead; whereupon these same lovers, in despite and despair, do malign and traduce these poor women, there is no saying how bitterly, going so far even as to relate detail by detail their naughtinesses and wanton tricks which they have practised together, and to make known their blemishes which they have on their naked bodies, to win the better credence to their tale.

Other men there be which, in despite because ladies do give to others what they refuse to them, do malign them with might and main, and have them watched and spied upon and observed, to the end they may afford the world the greater signs and proofs of their true speaking.

Others again there be, which, fairly stung with jealousy, without other cause than this, do speak ill of those men whom women love the most, and of the very women whom they themselves love fondly until they see their faults fully revealed. And this is one of the chiefest effects of jealousy. Yet are such traducers not so sore to blame as one would at first say they were; for this their fault must be set down to love and jealousy; twin brother and sister of one and the same birth.

Other traducers there be which are so born and bred to backbiting, as that rather than not backbite some one or other, they will speak ill of their own selves. Now, think you ’tis likely ladies’ honour will be spared in the mouth of folks of this kidney? Many suchlike have I seen at the Courts of our Kings, which being afeared to speak of men by reason of their sword play, would raise up scandal around the petticoats of poor weak women, which have no other means of reprisal but tears, regrets and empty words. Yet have I known not a few which have come off very ill at this game; for there have been kinsmen, brothers, friends, lovers of theirs, even husbands, which have made many repent of their spite, and eat and swallow down their foul words.

Finally, did I but tell of all the diverse sorts of detractors of ladies, I should never have done.

An opinion I have heard many maintain as to love is this: that a love kept secret is good for naught, an if it be not in some degrees manifest,—if not to all, at the least to a man’s most privy friends. But an if it cannot be told to all, yet at the least must some show be made thereof, whether by display of favours, wearing of fair ladies’ liveries and colours, or acts of knightly prowess, as tiltings at the ring, tourneys, mascarades, fights in the lists, even to fights in good earnest when at the wars. Verily the content of a man is great at these satisfactions.

For to tell truth, what would it advantage a great Captain to have done a fine and signal exploit of war, if not a word were said and naught known thereof? I ween ’twould be a mortal vexation to him. The like would rightly seem to be the case with lovers which do love nobly,—as some at any rate maintain. And of this opinion was that prince of lovers, M. de Nemours, the paragon of all knighthood; for truly if ever Prince, great Lord or simple gentleman, hath been fortunate in love, ’twas he. He found no pleasure in hiding his successes from his most privy friends, albeit from the general he did keep the same so secret, as that only with much difficulty could folk form a judgment thereanent.

In good sooth, for married ladies is the revealing of such matters highly dangerous. On the other hand for maids and widows, which are to marry, ’tis of no account; for that the cloak and pretext of a future marriage doth cover up all sins.

I once knew a very honourable gentleman at Court,[75*] which being lover of a very great lady, and finding himself one day in company of a number of his comrades in discourse as to their mistresses, and agreeing together to reveal the favours received of them to each other, the said gentleman did all through refuse to declare his mistress, and did even feign quite another lady to be his dear, and so threw dust in their eyes,—and this although there was present in the group a great Prince, which did conjure him to tell the truth, having yet some suspicion of the secret intrigue he was engaged in. But neither he nor his companions could draw anything more out of him, although in his inmost heart he did curse his fate an hundred times over, which had so constrained him not to reveal, like the rest of them, his success and triumph, ever more sweet to tell of than defeat.

Another I once knew, and a right gallant gentleman, by reason of his presumption and overmuch freedom of speech in proclaiming of his mistress’ name, the which he should have held sacred, as much by signs and tokens as by actual words, did come parlous near his death in a murderous attack he but barely escaped from. Yet afterward on another count he did not so escape the assassins’ swords, but did presently die of the hurt they gave him.

Myself was at Court in the time of King Francis II. when the Comte de Saint-Aignan did wed at Fontainebleau with young Madame la Bourdaisière.[76] Next day, the bridegroom having come into the King’s apartment, each and all of the courtiers present did begin to vent their japes on him. Amongst others a certain great Lord and very gallant soldier did ask him how many stages he had made. The husband replied five. As it fell out, there was also there present an honourable gentleman, a Secretary, which was then in the very highest favour with a very great Princess, whose name I will not give, who hereupon declared,—’twas nothing much, considering the fair road he had travelled and the fine weather he had, for it was summer-time. The great Lord then said to him, “Ho! my fine fellow, you’ld be for having birds enough to your bag, it seems!”—“And prithee, why not?” retorted the Secretary. “By God! why! I have taken a round dozen in four and twenty hours on the most fairest meadow is in all this neighbourhood, or can be anywhere in all France.” Who more astounded than the said Lord, who did learn by these words a thing he had longwhile suspected? And seeing that himself was deep in love with this same Princess, he was exceeding mortified to think how he had so long hunted in this quarter without ever getting aught, whereas the other had been so lucky in his sport. This the Lord did dissimulate for the moment; but later, after long brooding over his resentment, he had paid him back hot and strong in his own coin but for a certain consideration that I prefer not to mention. Yet did he ever after bear him a secret grudge. Indeed, an if the Secretary had been really well advised, he would never have so boasted of his bag, but would rather have kept the thing very secret, especially in so high and brilliant an adventure, whereof trouble and scandal were exceeding like to arise.

What should we say of a certain gentleman of the great world, which for some displeasure his mistress had done him, was so insolent as that he went and showed her husband the lady’s portrait, which she had given him, and which he carried hung at his neck. The husband did exhibit no small astonishment, and thereafter showed him less loving toward his wife, who yet did contrive to gloze over the matter as well as she could.

Still more to blame was a great Lord I wot of, who disgusted at some trick his mistress had played on him, did stake her portrait at dice and lose it to one of his soldiers, for he was in command of a large company of infantry. Hearing thereof, the lady came nigh bursting with vexation, and was exceeding angered. The Queen Mother did presently hear of it, and did reprimand him for what he had done, on the ground that the scorn put on her was far too extreme, so to go and abandon to the chance of the dice the portrait of a fair and honourable lady. But the Lord did soon set the matter in a better light, declaring how that in his hazard, he had kept back the parchment inside, and had staked only the box encasing the same, which was of gold and enriched with precious stones. Myself have many a time heard the tale discussed between the lady and the said Lord in right merry wise, and have whiles laughed my fill thereat.

Hereanent will I say one thing: to wit, that there be ladies,—and myself have known sundry such,—which in their loves do prefer to be defied, threatened, and eke bullied; and a man will in this fashion have his way with them better far than by gentle dealings and complacencies. Just as with fortresses, some be taken by sheer force of arms, others by gentler means. Yet will no women endure to be reviled and cried out upon as whores; for such words be more offensive to them than the things they do represent.

Sulla would never forgive the city of Athens, nor refrain from the utter overthrow of the same root and branch, not by reason of the obstinacy of its defence against him, but solely because from the top of the walls thereof the citizens had foully abused his wife Metella and touched her honour to the quick.[77*]

In certain quarters, the which I will not name, the soldiery in skirmishes and sieges of fortified places were used, the one side against the other, to cast reproach upon the virtue of two of their sovereign Princesses, going so far as to cry forth one to the other: “Your Princess doth play ninepins fine and well!”—“And yours is downright good at a main too!” By dint of these aspersions and bywords were the said Princesses cause of rousing them to do havoc and commit cruelties more than any other reason whatever, as I have myself seen.

I have heard it related how that the chiefest motive which did most animate the Queen of Hungary[78*] to light up those her fierce fires of rage about Picardy and other regions of France was to revenge sundry insolent and foul-mouthed gossips, which were forever telling of her amours, and singing aloud through all the countryside the refrain:

Au, au Barbanson,

Et la reine d’Ongrie,

—a coarse song at best, and in its loud-voiced ribaldry smacking strong of vagabond and rustic wit.

4.

Cato could never stomach Cæsar from that day when in the Senate, which was deliberating as to measures against Catiline and his conspiracy, Cæsar being much suspected of being privy to the plot, there was brought in to the latter under the rose a little packet, or more properly speaking a billet doux, the which Servilia, Cato’s sister, did send for to fix an assignation and meeting place. Cato now no more doubting of the complicity of Cæsar with Catiline, did cry out loud that the Senate should order him to show the communication in question. Thus constrained, Cæsar made the said letter public, wherein the honour of the other’s sister was brought into sore scandal and open disrepute. I leave you then to imagine if Cato, for all the fine airs he did affect of hating Cæsar for the Republic’s sake, could ever come to like him, in view of this most compromising incident. Yet was it no fault of Cæsar’s, for he was bound to show the letter, and that on risk of his life. And I ween Servilia bare him no special ill-will for this; for in fact and deed they ceased not to carry on still their loving intercourse, whereof sprang Brutus, whose father Cæsar was commonly reputed to have been. If so, he did but ill requite his parent for having given him being.

True it is, ladies in giving of themselves to great men, do run many risks; and if they do win of the same favours, and high privileges and much wealth, yet do they buy all these at a great price.

I have heard tell of a very fair lady, honourable and of a good house, though not of so great an one as a certain great Lord, who was deep in love with her. One day having found the lady in her chamber alone with her women, and seated on her bed, after some converse betwixt them and sundry conceits concerning love, the Lord did proceed to kiss the lady and did by gentle constraint lay her down upon the bed. Anon coming to the main issue, and she enduring that same with quiet, civil firmness, she did say thus to him: “’Tis a strange thing how you great Lords cannot refrain you from using your authority and privileges upon us your inferiors. At the least, if only silence were as common with you as is freedom of speech, you would be but too desirable and excusable. I do beg you therefore, Sir! to hold secret what you do, and keep mine honour safe.”

Such be the words customarily employed by ladies of inferior station to their superiors. “Oh! my Lord,” they cry, “think at any rate of mine honour.” Others say, “Ah! my dear Lord, an if you speak of this, I am undone; in Heaven’s name safeguard mine honour.” Others again, “Why! my good Lord! if only you do say never a word and mine honour be safe, I see no great objection,” as if wishing to imply thereby a man may do what he please, an if it be in secret. So other folk know naught about it, they deem themselves in no wise dishonoured.

Ladies of higher rank and more proud station do say to their gallants, if inferior to themselves: “Be you exceeding careful not to breathe one word of the thing, no matter how small. Else it is a question of your life; I will have you thrown in a sack into the water, or assassinated, or hamstrung;” such and suchlike language do they hold. In fact there is never a lady, of what rank soever she be, that will endure to be evil spoke of or her good name discussed however slightly in the Palace or in men’s mouths. Yet are there some others which be so ill-advised, or desperate, or entirely carried away of love, as that without men bringing any charge against them, they do traduce their own selves. Of such sort was, no long while agone, a very fair and honourable lady, of a good house, with the which a great Lord did fall deep in love, and presently enjoying her favours, did give her a very handsome and precious bracelet. This she was so ill-advised as to wear commonly on her naked arm above the elbow. But one day her husband, being to bed with her, did chance to discover the same; and examining it, found matter enough therein to cause him to rid him of her by a violent death. A very foolish and ill-advised woman truly!

I knew at another time a very great and sovereign Prince who after keeping true to a mistress, one of the fairest ladies of the Court, by the space of three years, at the end of that time was obliged to go forth on an expedition for to carry out some conquest. Before starting, he did of a sudden fall deep in love with a very fair and honourable Princess, if ever there was one. Then for to show her he had altogether quitted his former mistress for her sake, and wishing to honour and serve her in every way, without giving a second thought to the memory of his old love, he did give her before leaving all the favours, jewels, rings, portraits, bracelets and other such pretty things which his former mistress had given him. Some of these being seen and noted of her, she came nigh dying of vexation and despite; yet did she not refrain from divulging the matter; for if only she could bring ill repute on her rival, she was ready to suffer the same scandal herself. I do believe, had not the said Princess died some while after, that the Prince, on his coming back from abroad, would surely have married her.

I knew yet another Prince,[79] though not so great an one, which during his first wife’s lifetime and during his widowhood, did come to love a very fair and honourable damsel of the great world, to whom he did make, in their courting and love time, most beautiful presents, neck-chains, rings, jewels and many other fine ornaments, and amongst others a very fine and richly framed mirror wherein was set his own portrait. Well! presently this same Prince came to wed a very fair and honourable Princess of the great world, who did make him lose all taste for his first mistress, albeit neither fell aught below the other for beauty. The Princess did then so work upon and strongly urge the Prince her husband, as that he did anon send to demand back of his former mistress all he had ever given her of fairest and most rich and rare.

This was a very sore chagrin to the lady; yet was she of so great and high an heart, albeit she was no Princess, though of one of the best houses in France, as that she did send him back all that was most fair and exquisite, wherein was a beautiful mirror with the picture of the said Prince. But first, for to decorate the same still better, she did take a pen and ink, and did scrawl inside a great pair of horns for him right in the mid of the forehead. Then handing the whole to the gentleman, the Prince’s messenger, she spake thuswise to him: “Here, my friend, take this to your master, and tell him I do hereby send him back all he ever gave me, and that I have taken away nor added naught, unless it be something he hath himself added thereto since. And tell yonder fair Princess, his wife, which hath worked on him so strongly to demand back all his presents of me, that if a certain great Lord (naming him by name, and myself do know who it was) had done the like by her mother, and had asked back and taken from her what he had many a time and oft given her for sleeping with him, by way of love gifts and amorous presents, she would be as poor in gewgaws and jewels as ever a young maid at Court. Tell her, that for her own head, the which is now so loaded at the expense of this same Lord and her mother’s belly, she would then have to go scour the gardens every morning for to pluck flowers to deck it withal, instead of jewelry. Well! let her e’en make what show and use she will of them; I do freely give them up to her.” Any which hath known this fair lady will readily understand she was such an one as to have said as much; and herself did tell me she did, and very free of speech she aye was. Yet could she not fail but feel it sore, whether from husband or wife, to be so ill treated and deceived. And the Princess was blamed of many folk, which said ’twas her own fault, to have so despitefully used and driven her to desperation the poor lady, the which had well earned such presents by the sweat of her body.

This lady, for that she was one of the most beautiful and agreeable women of her time, failed not, notwithstanding she had so sacrificed her virtue to this Prince, to make a good marriage with a very rich man, though not her equal in family. So one day, the twain being come to mutual reproaches as to the honour they had done each the other in marrying, and she making a point of the high estate she was of and yet had married him, he did retort, “Nay! but I have done more for you than you have done for me; for I have dishonoured myself for to recover your honour for you;” meaning to infer by this that, whereas she had lost hers when a girl, he had won it back for her, by taking her to wife.

I have heard tell, and I ween on good authority, how that, after King Francis I. had quitted Madame de Chasteaubriand, his most favourite mistress, to take Madame d’Etampes, Helly by her maiden name, whom the Queen Regent had chosen for one of her Maids of Honour and did bring to the King’s notice on his return from Spain to Bordeaux,—and he did take her for his mistress, and left the aforesaid Madame de Chasteaubriand, as they say one nail doth drive out another,—his new mistress Madame d’Etampes, did beg the King to have back from the Chasteaubriand all the best jewels which he had given her. Now this was in no wise for the price or value of the same, for in those days pearls and precious stones had not the vogue they have since gotten, but for liking of the graceful mottoes[80*] which had been set, imprinted and engraven thereon, the which the Queen of Navarre, his sister, had made and composed; for she was a past mistress of this art. So King Francis did grant her prayer, and promising he would do this, was as good as his word. To this end he did send one of his gentlemen to her for to demand their return, but she on the instant did feign herself sick and appointed the gentleman to come again in three days’ time, when he should have what he craved. Meantime, in her despite, she did send for a goldsmith, and had him melt down all the jewels, without any regard or thought of the dainty devices which were engraven thereon. Then anon, when the messenger was returned, she did give him all the ornaments converted and changed into gold ingots. “Go, carry this,” she said, “to the King, and tell him that, as it hath pleased his Majesty to ask back what he did erst so generously give me, I do now return and send back the same in gold ingots. As for the mottoes and devices, these I have so well conned over and imprinted on my mind, and do hold them so dear, as that I could in no wise suffer any other should use or enjoy the same and have delight therein but myself.”

When the King had received the whole, ingots and message and all, he made no other remark but only this, “Nay! give her back the whole. What I was for doing, ’twas not for the worth of the gold (for I would have gladly given her twice as much), but for liking of the devices and mottoes; but seeing she hath so destroyed these, I care not for the gold, and do return it her again. Herein hath she shown more greatness and boldness of heart than ever I had dreamed could come of a woman.” A noble-spirited lady’s heart, chagrined so and scorned, is capable of great things.

These Princes which do so recall their presents act much otherwise than did once Madame de Nevers, of the house of Bourbon, daughter of M. de Montpensier.[81*] This same was in her day a very prudent, virtuous and beautiful Princess, and held for such both in France and Spain, in which latter country she had been brought up along with Queen Elisabeth of France, being her cup-bearer and giving her to drink; for it must be known this Queen was aye served by her gentlewomen, dames and damsels, and each had her rank and office, the same as we Courtiers in attendance on our Kings. This Princess was married to the Comte d’Eu, eldest son of M. de Nevers, she worthy of him as he was right well worthy of her, being one of the handsomest and most pleasing Princes of his time. For which cause was he much loved and sought after of many fair and noble ladies of the Court, amongst others of one which was both this, and a very adroit and clever woman to boot. Now it befell one day that the Prince did take a ring from off his wife’s finger, a very fine one, a diamond worth fifteen hundred or mayhap two thousand crowns, the which the Queen of Spain had given her on her quitting her Court. This ring the Prince, seeing how his mistress did admire it greatly and did show signs of coveting its possession, being very free-handed and generous, did frankly offer her, giving her to understand he had won the same at tennis. Nor did she refuse the gift, but taking it as a great mark of affection, did always wear it on her finger for love of him. And thus Madame de Nevers, who did understand from her good husband that he had lost the ring at tennis, or at any rate that it was lying pawned, came presently to see the same on the hand of her rival, whom she was quite well aware was her husband’s mistress. Yet was she so wise and prudent and had such command of herself, as that, merely changing colour somewhat and quietly dissembling her chagrin, without any more ado she did turn her head another way, and did breathe never a word of the matter either to her husband or his mistress. Herein was she much to be commended, for that she did show no cross-grained, vixenish temper, nor anger, nor yet expose the younger lady to public scorn, as not a few others I wot of would have done, thus delighting the company and giving them occasion for gossip and scandal-mongering.

Thus we see how necessary is moderation in such matters and how excellent a thing, as also that here no less than elsewhere doth luck and ill-luck prevail. For some ladies there be which cannot take one step aside or make the very smallest stumble in the path of virtue, or taste of love but with the tip of their finger, but lo! they be instantly traduced, exposed and satirized right and left.

Others again there be which do sail full before the wind over the sea and pleasant waters of Venus, and with naked body and wide spread limbs do swim with wide strokes therein, wantoning in its waves, voyaging toward Cyprus and the Temple of Venus there and her gardens, and taking their fill of delight in love; yet deuce a word doth any say about them, no more than if they had never been born. Thus doth fortune favour some and mislike others in matter of scandal-making; myself have seen not a few examples thereof in my day, and some be found still.

In the time of King Charles was writ a lampoon at Fontainebleau, most base and scurrilous, wherein the fellow did spare neither the Royal Princesses nor the very greatest ladies nor any others. And verily, an if the true author had been known, he would have found himself in very ill case.

At Blois moreover, whenas the marriage of the Queen of Navarre was arranged with the King, her husband, was made yet another, against a very great and noble lady, and a most scurrilous one, whereof the author was never discovered. But there were really some very brave and valiant gentlemen mixed up therein, which however did carry it off very boldly and made many loud general denials. So many others beside were writ, as that naught else was seen whether in this reign or in that of King Henri III.—and above all one most scurrilous one in the form of a song, and to the tune of a coranto which was then commonly danced at Court, and hence came to be sung among the pages and lackeys on every note, high and low.

5.

In the days of our King Henri III. was a yet worse thing done. A certain gentleman, whom I have known both by name and person, did one day make a present to his mistress of a book of pictures, wherein were shown two and thirty ladies of high or middling rank about the Court, painted in true colours, a-bed and sporting with their lovers, who were likewise represented and that in the most natural way. Some had two or three lovers, some more, some less; and these thirty-two ladies did figure forth more than seven and twenty of the figures or postures of Aretino, and all different. The actors were so well represented and so naturally, as that they did seem actually to be speaking and doing. While some were disrobed, other were shown clad in the very same clothes, and with the same head-dresses, ornaments and weeds as they were commonly to be seen wearing. In a word, so cunningly was the book wrought and painted that naught could be more curious; and it had cost eight or nine hundred crowns, and was illuminated throughout.

Now this lady did show it one day and lend it to another, her comrade and bosom friend, which latter was much a favourite and familiar of a great Lady that was in the book, and one of the most vividly and vigorously represented there; so seeing how much it concerned herself, she did give her best attention. Then being curious of all experience, she was fain to look it over with another, a great lady, her cousin and chiefest friend, who had begged her to afford her the enjoyment of the sight, and who was likewise in the pictures, like the rest.

So the book was examined very curiously and with the greatest care, leaf by leaf, without passing over a single one lightly, so that they did spend two good hours of the afternoon at the task. The fair ladies, far from being annoyed or angered thereat, did find good cause for mirth therein, seeing them to admire the pictures mightily, and gaze at them fixedly.

These two dames were bolder and more valiant and determined than one I have heard tell of, who one day looking at this same book with two others of her friends, so ravished with delight was she and did enter into such an ecstasy of love and so burning a desire to imitate these same luscious pictures, as that she cannot see out of her eyes till the fourth page, and at the fifth did fall in a dead faint. A terrible swoon truly! very different to that of Octavia, sister of Cæsar Augustus, who one day hearing Virgil recite the three verses he had writ on her dead son Marcellus (for which she did give him three thousand crowns for the three alone) did incontinently swoon right away. That was love indeed, but of how different a sort!

I have heard tell, in the days when I was at Court, of a great Prince of the highest rank, old and well stricken in years, and who ever since the loss of his wife had borne him very continently in his widowhood, as indeed was but consistent with his high repute for sanctity of life. At last he was fain to marry again with a very fair, virtuous and young Princess. But seeing how for the ten years he had been a widower he had never so much as touched a woman, and fearing to have forgot the way of it (as though it were an art that a man may forget), and to get a rebuff the first night of his wedlock, and perform naught of his desire, was anxious to make a previous essay. So by dint of money he did win over a fair young maid, a virgin like the wife he was to marry; nay more, ’tis said he had her chosen to resemble somewhat in features his future wife. Fortune was so kind to him that he did prove he had by no means forgot as yet his old skill; and his essay was so successful that, bold and happy, he did advance to his wife’s fortress, and won good victory and high repute.

This essay was more successful than that of another gentleman whose name I have heard, whom his father, although he was very young and much of a simpleton, did desire should marry. Well! first of all he was for making an essay, to know if he would be a good mate with his wife; so for this end, some months aforehand, he did get him a pretty-faced harlot, whom he made to come every afternoon to his father’s warren, for ’twas summer-time, where he did frisk and make sport with the damsel in the freshness of the green trees and a gushing fountain in such wise that he did perform wonders. Thus encouraged, he feared no man, but was ready enough to play the like bold part with his wife. But the worst of it was that when the marriage night was come, and it was time to go with his wife, lo! he cannot do a thing. Who so astonished as the poor youth, and who so ready to cry out upon his accursed recreant weapon, which had so missed fire in the new spot where he now was. Finally plucking up his courage, he said thus to his wife, “My pretty one, I cannot tell what this doth mean, for every day I have done wonders in the warren,” and so recounted over his deeds of prowess to her. “Let us to sleep now, and my advice is, to-morrow after dinner I will take you thither, and you shall see very different sport.” This he did, and his wife found him as good as his word. Hence the saying current at Court, “Ha, ha! an if I had you in my father’s warren, you should see what I would do!” We can only suppose that the god of gardens, Dan Priapus, and the fauns and wanton satyrs which haunt the woods, do there aid good fellows and favour their deeds of prowess.

Yet are not all essays alike, nor do all end favorably. For in matter of love, I have both seen and heard tell of not a few good champions which have failed to remember their lessons and keep their engagements when they came to the chief task of all. For while some be either too hot or too cold, in such wise that these humours, of ice or of fire, do take them of a sudden, others be lost in an ecstasy to find so sovran a treat within their arms; others again grow over fearful, others get instantly and totally flaccid and impotent, without the least knowing the reason why, and yet others find themselves actually paralysed. In a word there be so many unexpected accidents which may occur just at the wrong moment, that if I were to tell them all, I should not have done for ages. I can only refer me to many married folk and other amateurs of love, who can say an hundred times more of all this than I. Now such essays be good for the men, but not for the women. Thus I have heard tell of a mother, a lady of quality, who holding very dear an only daughter she had, and having promised the same in marriage to an honourable gentleman, avant que de l’y faire entrer et craignant qu’elle ne pût souffrir ce premier et dur effort, à quoi on disait le gentilhomme être très rude et fort proportionné, elle la fit essayer premièrement par un jeune page qu’elle avait, assez grandet, une douzaine de fois, disant qu’il n’y avait que la première ouverture fâcheuse à faire et que, se faisant un peu douce et petite au commencement, qu’elle endurerait la grande plus aisément; comme il advint, et qu’il y put avoir de l’apparence. Cet essai est encore bien plus honnête et moins scandaleux qu’un qui me fut dit une fois, en Italie, d’un père qui avait marié son fils, qui était encore un jeune sot, avec une fort belle fille à laquelle, tant fat qu’il était, il n’avait rien pu faire ni la première ni la seconde nuit de ses noces; et comme il eut demandé et au fils et à la nore comme ils se trouvaient en mariage et s’ils avaient triomphé, ils répondirent l’un et l’autre: “Niente.—A quoi a-t-il tenu?” demanda à son fils. Il répondit tout follement qu’il ne savait comment il fallait faire. Sur quoi il prit son fils par une main et la nore par une autre et les mena tous deux en une chambre et leur dit: “Or je vous veux donc montrer comme il faut faire.” Et fit coucher sa nore sur un bout de lit, et lui fait bien élargir les jambes, et puis dit à son fils: “Or vois comment je fais,” et dit à sa nore: “Ne bougez, non importe, il n’y a point de mal.” Et en mettant son membre bien arboré dedans, dit: “Avise bien comme je fais et comme je dis, Dentro fuero, dentro fuero,” et répliqua souvent ces deux mots en s’avançant dedans et reculant, non pourtant tout dehors. Et ainsi, après ces fréquentes agitations et paroles, dentro et fuero, quand ce vint à la consommation, il se mit à dire brusquement et vite: Dentro, dentro, dentro, dentro, jusqu’à ce qu’il eût fait. Au diable le mot de fuero. Et par ainsi, pensant faire du magister, il fut tout à plat adultère de sa nore, laquelle, ou qu’elle fit de la niaise ou, pour mieux dire, de la fine, s’en trouva très bien pour ce coup, voire pour d’autres que lui donna le fils et le père et tout, possible pour lui mieux apprendre sa leçon, laquelle il ne lui voulut pas apprendre à demi ni à moitié, mais à perfection. Aussi toute leçon ne vaut rieu autrement.

I have heard many enterprising and successful Lovelaces declare how that they have often seen ladies in these faints and swoonings, yet always readily coming to again afterward. Many women, they said, do cry out: “Alackaday! I am a-dying!”—but ’tis, I ween, a mighty agreeable sort of death. Others there be which do turn back their eyes in their head for excess of pleasure, as if about to expire outright, and let themselves go absolutely motionless and insensible. Others I have been told do so stiffen and spasmodically contract their nerves, arteries and limbs, as that they do bring on cramp; as one lady I have heard speak of, which was so subject thereto she could never be cured.

Anent these same swoonings, I have heard tell of a fair lady, which was being embraced by her lover on top of a large chest or coffer. Very suddenly and unavoidably for herself, she did swoon right off in such wise that she did let herself slide behind the coffer with legs projected in the air, and getting so entangled betwixt the coffer and the tapestry of the wall, that while she was yet struggling to free herself and her cavalier helping her, there entered some company and so surprised her in this forked-radish attitude. These had time enough to see all she had,—which was all very pretty and dainty however,—and all the poor woman could do was to cover herself up as best she might, saying so and so had pushed her, as they were playing, behind the coffer, and declaring how that she would never like the fellow again for it.

Cette dame courut bien plus grande fortune qu’une que j’ai ouï dire, laquelle, alors que son ami la tenait embrassée et investie sur le bord de son lit, quand ce vint sur la douce fin qu’il eut achevé et que par trop il s’étendait, il avait par cas des escarpins neufs qui avaient la semelle glissante, et s’appuyant sur des carreaux plombés dont la chambre était pavée, qui sont fort sujets à faire glisser, il vint à se couler et glisser si bien sans se pouvoir arrêter que, du pourpoint qu’il avait, tout recouvert de clinquant, il en écorcha de telle façon le ventre, la motte le cas et les cuisses de sa maitresse que vous eussiez dit que les griffes d’un chat y avaient passé; ce qui cuisait si fort la dame qu’elle en fit un grand cri et ne s’en put garder; mais le meilleur fut que la dame, parce que c’était en été et faisait grand chaud, s’était mise en appareil un peu plus lubrique que les autres fois, car elle n’avait que sa chemise bien blanche et un manteau de satin blanc dessus, et les caleçons à part e si bien que le gentilhomme.

The lady told the story to one of her female friends, and the gentleman to one of his comrades. So the thing came to be known, from being again repeated over to others; for indeed ’twas a right good tale and very meet to provoke mirth.

And no doubt but the ladies, whenas they be alone, among their most privy bosom-friends, do repeat merry tales, everywhit as much as we men-folk do, and tell each other their amorous adventures and all their most secret tricks and turns, and afterward laugh long and loud over the same, making fine fun of their gallants, whenever these be guilty of some silly mistake or commit some ridiculous and foolish action.

Yea! and they do even better than this. For they do filch their lovers the one from the other, and this sometimes not so much for passion’s sake, but rather for to draw from them all their secrets, the pretty games and naughty follies they have practised with them. These they do then turn to their own advantage, whether still further to stir their ardour, or by way of revenge, or to get the better one of the other in their privy debates and wranglings when they be met together.

In the days of this same King Henri III. was made that satire without words consisting of the book of pictures I have spoke of above, of sundry ladies in divers postures and connections with their gallants. ’Twas exceeding base and scurrilous,—for the which see the above passage wherein I have described the same.

Well! enough said on this matter. I could wish from my heart that not a few evil tongues in this our land of France could be chastened and refrain them from their scandal-making, and comport them more after the Spanish fashion. For no man there durst, on peril of his life, to make so much as the smallest reflection on the honour of ladies of rank and reputation. Nay! so scrupulously are they respected that on meeting them in any place whatsoever, an if the faintest cry is raised of lugar a las damas, every man doth lout low and pay them all honour and reverence. Before them is all insolence straitly forbid on pain of death.

Whenas the Empress,[82] wife of the Emperor Charles, made his entry into Toledo, I have heard tell how that the Marquis de Villena, one of the great Lords of Spain, for having threatened an alguasil, which had forcibly hindered him from stepping forward, came nigh being sore punished, because the threat was uttered in presence of the Empress; whereas, had it been merely in the Emperor’s, no such great ado would have been made.

The Duc de Feria being in Flanders, and the Queens Eleanor and Marie taking the air abroad, and their Court ladies following after them, it fell out that as he was walking beside them, he did come to words with an other Spanish knight. For this the pair of them came very nigh to losing their lives,—more for having made such a scandal before the Queen and Empress than for any other cause.

The same befell Don Carlos d’Avalos at Madrid, as Queen Isabelle of France was walking through the town; and had he not sped instantly into a Church which doth there serve as sanctuary for poor unfortunate folk, he had been straightway put to death. The end was he had to fly in disguise, and leave Spain altogether; and was kept in banishment all his life long and confined in the most wretched islet of all Italy, Lipari to wit.

Court jesters even, which have usually full license of free speech, an if they do assail the ladies, do get somewhat to remember. It did so fall out one time to a Fool called Legat, whom I once knew myself. Queen Elizabeth of France[83*] once in conversation speaking of the houses at Madrid and Valladolid, how charming and agreeable these were, did declare she wished with all her heart the two places were so near she could e’en touch one with one foot and the other with the other, spreading her legs very wide open as she said the words. The Fool, who heard the remark, cried, “And I should dearly wish to be in betwixt, con un carrajo de borrico, para encarguar y plantar la raya,”—that is, “with a fool’s cudgel to mark and fix the boundary withal.” For this he was soundly whipped in the kitchens. Yet was he well justified in forming such a wish; for truly was she one of the fairest, most agreeable and honourable ladies was ever in all Spain, and well deserving to be desired in this fashion,—only of folk more honourable than he an hundred thousand times.

I ween these fine slanderers and traducers of ladies would dearly love to have and enjoy the same privilege and license the vintagers do possess in the country parts of Naples at vintage time. These be allowed, so long as the vintage dureth, to shout forth any sort of vile word and insult and ribaldry to all that pass that way, coming and going on the roads. Thus will you see them crying and screaming after all wayfarers and vilifying the same, without sparing any, whether great, middling or humble folk, of what estate soever they be. Nor do they spare,—and this is the merry part on’t,—the ladies one whit neither, high-born dames or Princesses or any. Indeed in my day I did there hear of not a few fine ladies, and see them too, which would make a pretext to hie them to the fields on purpose, so as they might pass along the roads, and so hearken to this pretty talk and hear a thousand naughty conceits and lusty words. These the peasants would invent and roll off in plenty, casting up at the great ladies their naughtiness and the shameful ways they did use toward their husbands and lovers, going so far as to chide them for their shameful loves and intimacies with their own coachmen, pages, lackeys and apparitors, which were of their train. Going yet further, they would ask them right out for the courtesy of their company, saying they would assault them roundly and satisfy them better than all the others could. All this they would let out in words of a fine, natural frankness and bluntness, without any sort of glossing or disguising. The ladies had their good laugh and pastime out of the thing, and there an end, making their servants which were with them answer back in the like strain and give as good as they got. The vintage once done and over, there is truce of suchlike language till another year, else would they be brought to book and sore punished.

I am told the said custom doth still endure, and that many folk in France would fain have it observed there also at some season of the year or other, to enjoy in security the pleasure of their evil speaking, which they do love so well.

Well! to make an end of the subject, ’tis very meet all ladies be respected of all men, and the secret of their loves and favours duly kept. This is why Pietro Aretino said, that when lovers were come to it, the kisses that man and maid did give each other were not so much for their mutual delight as for to join connection of the mouths together and so make signal betwixt them that they do keep hid the secret of their merry doings. Nay, more! that some lustful and lascivious husbands do in their wantonness show them so free and extravagant in words, as that not content with committing sundry naughty profligacies with their wives, they do declare and publish the same to their boon-companions, and make fine tales out of them. So much so that I have myself known wives which did conceive a mortal repugnance to their husbands for this cause and would even very often refuse them the pleasures they had erst afforded them. They would not have such scandalous things said of them, albeit ’twas but betwixt husband and wife.

M. du Bellay, the poet, in his book of Latin epitaphs called Les Tombeaux, which he hath composed, and very fine it is, hath writ one on a dog, that methinks is well worth quoting here, for ’tis writ much in our own manner. It runneth thus:

Latratu fures excepi, mutus amentes.

Sic placui domino, sic placui dominæ.

(By my barking I did drive away thieves, with a quiet tongue I did greet lovers. Thus I did please my master, and thus my mistress.)

Well! if we are so to love animals for discreetness, how much more must we not value men for holding silence? And if we are to take advice on this matter of a courtesan which was one of the most celebrated of former days, and a past mistress in her art, to wit Lamia, here it is. Asked wherein a woman did find most satisfaction in her lover, she replied ’twas when he was discreet in talk and secret as to what he did. Above all else she said she did hate a boaster, one that was forever boasting of what he did not do, yet failing to accomplish what he promised,—two faults, each as bad as the other. She was used to say further: that a woman, albeit ready enough to be indiscreet, would never willingly be called harlot, nor published abroad for such. Moreover she said how that she did never make merry at a man’s expense, nor any man at hers, nor did any ever miscall her. A fair dame of this sort, so experienced in love’s mysteries, may well give lessons to other women.

Well, well! enough said on these points. Another man, more eloquent than I, might have embellished and ennobled the subject better far. To such I do pass on hereby mine arms and pen.

SEVENTH DISCOURSE[84*]

Concerning married women, widows and maids,—to wit, which of these same be better than the other to love.

INTRODUCTION

One day when I was at the Court of Spain at Madrid, and conversing with a very honourable lady, as is the way at Kings’ Courts, she did chance to ask me this question following: Qual era mayor fuego d’amor, el de la biuda, el de la casada, o de la hija moça,—“which of the three had the greater heat of love, widow, wife or maid?” After myself had told her mine opinion, she did in turn give me hers in some such terms as these: Lo que me parece d’ esta cosa es que, aunque las moças con el hervor de la sangre, se disponen á querer mucho, no deve ser tanto como lo que quieren las casadas y biudas, con la gran experiencia del negocio. Esta razon debe ser natural, como lo seria la del que, por haver nacido ciego de la perfeccion de la luz, no puede cobdiciar de ella con tanto deseo como el que vio, y fue privado de la vista.—“What I think on the matter is this: that albeit maids, with all that heat of blood that is theirs, be right well disposed to love, yet do they not love so well as wives and widows. This is because of the great experience of the business the latter have, and the obvious fact that supposing a man born blind, and from birth robbed of all power of vision, he can never desire the gift so strongly as he that hath sweetly enjoyed the same a while and then been deprived thereof.” To which she did presently add this further remark: Con menos pena se abstiene d’ una cosa la persona que nunca supo, que aquella que vive enamorada del gusto pasado—“How that one could with a lesser ado refrain from a thing one had never tried, than from one already known and loved.” Such were the reasons this lady did adduce on this moot point.

Again the respected and learned Boccaccio, among the questions discussed in his Filicopo,[85*] doth in the ninth treat of this same problem: Which of these three, wife, widow or maid, a man should rather fall in love with, in order the more happily to carry his desire into effect? The author doth answer by the mouth of the Queen he doth there introduce speaking, that although ’tis of course very ill done and against God and one’s own conscience to covet a married woman, which is in no sense another’s, but subject to her husband, it is natheless far easier to come to the point with her than ever with maid or widow, albeit such love is dangerous,—seeing the more a man doth blow the fire, the more he rouseth it, whereas otherwise it dieth down. Indeed all things do wane in the using, except only wantonness, which doth rather wax. But the widow, which hath been long without such exercise, doth scarce feel it at all, and doth take no more account of love than if she had never been married, and is more heated by memory of the past than by present concupiscence. Also the maid, which hath no knowledge nor experience of what it is, save by imagination, hath but a lukewarm longing therefor. On the other hand the married woman, heated more than the others, doth oft desire to come to the point and enjoy this pleasure, in spite of its sometimes bringing on her her husband’s sore displeasure manifested in words and eke blows. For all this, fain to be revenged on him (for naught is so vengeful as a woman), as well as for sake of the thing itself, doth the wife make him cuckold right out, and enjoy the desire of her heart. Beside, folk do soon weary of eating ever of the same meat, and for this cause even great Lords and Ladies do often leave good and delicate viands for to take others instead. Moreover, with girls, ’tis a matter of overmuch pains and consumption of time to tame them and bring them round to the will of men; nay! an if they do love, they know not that they do. But with widows, the old fire doth readily recover its vigour, very soon making them desire once more what by reason of long discontinuance they had forgot the savour of. Thus they be not slow to come back again to the old delights, only regretting the time wasted and the weary nights of widowhood passed all alone and uncomforted in their cold beds.

In answer to these arguments of the Queen, a certain gentleman named Faramond doth make reply. Leaving married women aside altogether, as being so easy to get the better of without a man’s using any great reasoning to persuade them to it, he doth consider the case of maids and widows, maintaining the maid to be more steadfast in love than the widow. For the widow, who hath experienced in the past the secrets of passion, doth never love steadfastly, but always doubtfully and tentatively, quickly changing and desiring now one, now another gallant, never knowing to which she should give herself for her greater advantage and honour! Nay! sometimes so vacillating is she in her long deliberations she doth choose never an one at all, and her amorous passion can find no steadfast hold whatever. Quite opposite is the maid, he saith, and all such doubts and hesitations be foreign to her. Her one desire is to have a lover true, and after once choosing him well, to give all her soul to him and please him in all things, deeming it the best honour she can do him to be true and steadfast in her love. So being only too ardent for the things which have never yet been seen, heard or proven of her, she doth long far more than other women which have had experience of life, to see, hear and prove all such matters. Thus the keen desire she hath to see new things doth strongly dominate her heart; she doth make enquiries of them that know,—which doth increase her flame yet more. Accordingly she is very eager to be joined with him she hath made Lord of her affections, whereas this same ardour is not in the widow, seeing she hath passed that way already.

Well at the last the Queen in Boccaccio, taking up the word again and wishing to give a final answer to the question, doth thus conclude: That the widow is more painstaking of the pleasure of love an hundred fold than the virgin, seeing the latter is all for dearly guarding her precious virginity and maidenhead. Further, virgins be naturally timid, and above all in this matter, awkward and inept to find the sweet artifices and pretty complaisances required under divers circumstances in such encounters. But this is not so with the widow, who is already well practised, bold and ready in this art, having long ago bestowed and given away what the virgin doth make so much ado about giving. For this cause she hath no fear of her person being looked at, or her virtue impugned by the discovery of any mark of lapse from honour; and in all respects she doth better know the secret ways for to arrive at her end. Beside all this, the maid doth dread this first assault of her virginity, which in many women is sometimes rather grievous and painful than soft and pleasant, whereas widows have no such fear, but do submit themselves very sweetly and gently, even when the assailant be of the roughest. Now this particular pleasure is quite different from many others, for with them a man is oft satisfied with the first experience and goeth lightly to others, whereas in this the longing to return once more to the same doth ever wax more and more. Accordingly the widow, which doth give least, but giveth it often, is an hundred times more liberal than the maid, when this last doth at length consent to abandon her most precious possession, to the which she doth direct a thousand thoughts and regrets. Wherefore, the Queen doth conclude, ’tis much better for a man to address himself to a widow than to a maid, as being far easier to gain over and corrupt.