The Heptameron of the Queen of Navarre.
I have reserved for this place a few remarks respecting the Heptameron of Margaret of Angoulême, which seem required by the disputed character or this singular work. I have spoken at length of the virtues of the Queen of Navarre, and I may here add a statement of my strong conviction that the accusation is altogether groundless which ascribes a sinister meaning to the strong expressions of sisterly affection so frequent in her correspondence with Francis the First (see M. Génin, Supplément a la notice sur Marg. d'Angoulême, prefixed to the second volume of the Letters). Nor do I make any account of the vague statement of that mendacious libertine, Brantôme, who doubtless imagined himself to be paying the Queen of Navarre the most delicate compliment, when he said, that "of gallantry she knew more than her daily bread."
But, whatever the purity of Margaret's own private life, the fact which cannot be overlooked is that a book of a decidedly immoral tendency was composed and published under her name. Her most sincere admirers would hail with gratification any satisfactory evidence that the Heptameron was written by another hand. Unfortunately, there seems to be none. On the contrary, we have Brantôme's direct testimony to the effect that the composition of the book was the employment of the queen's idle hours when travelling about in her litter, and that his grandmother, being one of Margaret's ladies of honor, was accustomed to take charge of her writing-case (Ed. Lalanne, viii. 126). Equally untenable is the view taken by the historian De Thou (liv. vi., vol. x. 508), who makes the fault more venial by representing the Heptameron to have been composed by the fair author in her youth. (So, too, Soldan, i. 89.) I am sorry to have to say that the events referred to in the stories themselves belong to a period reaching within a year or two of Margaret's death.
The facts, then, are simply these: The tales of Boccaccio's Decameron were read with great delight by Margaret, by Francis the First, and by his children. They resolved, therefore, to imitate the great Italian novelist by committing to writing the most remarkable incidents supplied by the gossip of the court (see the Prologue to the Heptameron). Francis and his children, finding that Margaret greatly excelled in this species of composition, soon renounced the unequal strife, but encouraged her to pursue an undertaking promising to afford them much amusement. Apportioning, after the example of Boccaccio, a decade of stories, illustrative of some single topic, to each day's entertainment, the Queen of Navarre had reached the seventh day, when the death of her brother, the near approach of her own end, and disgust with so frivolous an occupation, induced her to suspend her labors. The Heptameron, as the interrupted work was now called, was not apparently intended for publication, but was, after Margaret's death, printed under the auspices of her daughter, the celebrated Jeanne d'Albret.
As to the stories themselves, they treat of adventures, in great part amorous and often immodest. In this particular they are scarcely less objectionable than those of Boccaccio. They differ from the latter in the circumstance that the author's avowed purpose is to insert none but actual occurrences. They are distinguished from them more especially by the attempt uniformly made to extract a wholesome lesson from every incident. The prevalent vices of the day are portrayed—with too much minuteness of detail, indeed, but only that they may be held up to the greater condemnation. It is particularly the monks of various orders who, for their flagrant crimes against morality, are made the object of biting sarcasm. The abominable teachings of these professed instructors of religion are justly reprobated. For example, in the Forty-fourth Nouvelle, Parlamente, while admitting that some Franciscans preach a pure doctrine, affirms that "the streets are not paved with such, so much as marked by their opposites;" and she relates the attempt of one of their prominent men, a doctor of theology, to convince some members of his own fraternity that the Gospel is entitled to no more credit than Cæsar's Commentaries. "From the hour I heard him," she adds, "I have refused to believe the words of any preacher unless I find them in agreement with God's Word, which is the true touchstone to ascertain what words are true and what false" (Ed. Soc. des bibliophiles, ii. 382-384).
Modern French littérateurs have not failed to eulogize the author as frequently rivalling her model in dramatic vividness of narration. At the same time they take exception to the numerous passages wherein she "preaches," as detracting from the artistic merit of her work. It is, however, precisely the feature here referred to that constitutes, in the eyes of reflecting readers, the chief, if not the sole, redeeming trait of the Heptameron. As a favorable example, illustrating the nature of the pious words and exhortations thrown in so incongruously with stories of the most objectionable kind, I translate a few sentences from the Prologue, in which Oisile (the pseudonym for Margaret herself) speaks: "If you ask me what receipt I have that keeps me so joyful and in such good health in my old age, it is this—that as soon as I rise I take and read the Holy Scriptures. Contemplating there the goodness of God, who sent His Son to earth to announce the glad tidings of the remission of all sins by the gift of His love, passion, and merits, the consideration causes me such joy that I take my psalter and sing in my heart as humbly as I can, while repeating with my lips those beautiful psalms and hymns which the Holy Ghost composed in the heart of David and other authors; and the satisfaction I derive from this does me so much good that all the ills that may befall me through the day appear to me to be blessings, seeing that I bear in my heart Him who bore them for me. In like manner, before I sup, I withdraw to give sustenance to my soul in reading, and then at night I recall all I have done during the past day, in order to ask for the pardon of my faults and thank God for His gifts. Then in His love, fear and peace I take my rest, assured from every ill. Wherefore, my children, here is the pastime upon which I settled long since, after having in vain sought contentment of spirit in all the rest.... For he that knows God sees everything beautiful in Him, and without Him everything unattractive." Prologue, 13-15.
If any one object that no quantity of pious reflections can compensate for the positive evil in the Heptameron, I can but acquiesce in his view, and concede that M. Génin has been much too lenient in his estimate of Margaret's fault. It is a riddle which I leave to the reader to solve, that a princess of unblemished private life, of studious habits, and of not only a serious, but even a positively religious turn of mind—in short, in every way a noble pattern for one of the most corrupt courts Europe has ever seen—should, in a work aiming to inculcate morality, and abundantly furnished with direct religious exhortation, have inserted, not one, but a score of the most repulsive pictures of vice, drawn from the impure scandal of that court.