“Then said my lady:
“‘But of them that are nothing to ye, which love ye the best?’
“‘I love none of them,’ said Saintré.
“‘What! none of them?’ quoth my lady. ‘Ha! false gentleman! You love none of them? Then by that token I prophesy that you will come to nothing. Faint heart that ye are! whence sprang all noble enterprises, all great achievements and valorous deeds of Launcelot, of Gawain, of Tristan, of the courteous Giron, and the other knights of the Round Table? Also of Ponthus,[65] and innumerable other heroes? What else but love-service? What else but the desire to keep the favour of their much-desired dame? And I myself have known many men who, through their love affairs, have reached the highest possible honours, of whom, but for these, no more talk had been made than of so many simple soldiers.’”
Little Saintré left the lady’s presence shamefaced, and when the door was shut, “he ran down the gallery as fast as if he had fifty wolves behind him.” But one day, as he waited at table on the maids of honour, these ladies made him vow to give the promised answer that afternoon. Therefore, when the king and queen retired for their noonday siesta, my lady sought young Saintré in the gallery, and took him to her chamber with her; and there, surrounded by her ladies, she seated him at the foot of her couch and summoned him for a reply.
“At last the poor lad bethought him of one of the noble maidens sent to court, who was ten years of age.
“‘My lady,’ quoth he, ’tis Matheline de Courcy!’
“‘Ah, coward!’ cried my lady, ‘to choose a child like Matheline. Not that she be not a very fair maiden, and of an excellent house, better than thine. But what good, what profit, what honour, what comfort, what advantage, what subsidy, what aid and counsel can you find in the love of Matheline? She is but a lassie yet. Nay, you should choose a lady of high and noble birth, wise, and with the wherewithal to help your fortunes, and set you above necessity; and her should you love with perfect service, loyally and well, and in all honour. Be sure that in the end she will have mercy upon you, “et par ainsy deviendrez homme de bien.”’”[66]
When we think that this harangue (and especially all that follows it) was penned by an ecclesiastic for the education of a prince, we perceive that our code of morals has changed. Young Saintré received large sums of money from his mistress, with no loss of honour, and the lady herself enters on her mission as on a sacred calling. “Although so young, she had, in her virtue, formed a Roman resolution never to remarry; but often she wished that her work in the world might be to train some young knight or squire and make him a pattern of chivalry.” It is with this high intention that she becomes the mistress of young Saintré; that she bestows her wealth upon him, and keeps him in due splendour of steed and apparel; that she preaches to him, with a sublime lack of logic, “how to flee the seven mortal sins”; that she finds him books to read, and stuffs him with quotation from Thales of Miletus, Chilon of Lacedemonia, Avicenna, Valerius Maximus, and Pittacus of Mitylene. To this end she persuades herself to a cruel separation, and sends him on his travels as knight-errant. She is, in fact, his mundane Beatrice. Her love for him is in truth a liberal education, and one that seems delightful and legitimate to her contemporaries. But our eyes see in her an ugly likeness to Madame de Warens, and we should say, in downright English, that she corrupts the lad.