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“We came together,” says Marguerite, “to take walks in company, either in a lovely garden where are long alleys of cypress and laurel, or in the park which I had caused to be made, in alleys three thousand paces long, which border the river; and the rest of the day was spent in all sorts of suitable pleasures, a ball ordinarily filling the afternoon and the evening.” The grave Sully “took a mistress like the rest.” In visiting the restored dining-hall, you repeople it involuntarily with the sumptuous costumes described by Brantôme: ladies “clad in orange-color and gold lace, robes of cloth of silver, of crisped cloth of gold, stuffs perfectly stiff with ornaments and embroidery. Queen Marguerite in a robe of flesh-colored Spanish velvet, heavily loaded with gold lace, so decked out with plumes and precious stones as nothing ever was before.” I said to M. de Ronsard: “Do you not seem to see this beautiful queen, in such guise, appearing as the lovely Aurora, when she is going to spring up before the day, with her beautiful pale face, bordered with its ruby and carnation color?” At the ball in the evening, she loved to dance “the pavane of Spain and the Italian pazzemano. The passages in this were so well danced, the steps so judiciously conducted, the rests so beautifully made, that you knew not which most to admire, the beautiful manner of dancing, or the majesty of the steps, representing now gayety, now a fine and grave disdain.”
You may well believe that the good king was not sparing of sport.
“Il fut de ses sujets le vainqueur et le père”
The maids of honor of Marguerite could bear witness to this; hence intrigues, quarrels and conjugal comedies, one of which is very prettily and very artlessly told by the queen; Mlle. de Fosseuse was the heroine. “The pain seized her one morning, at the break of day, while in bed in the chamber of the maids, and she sent for my physician and begged him to go and inform the king my husband, which he did. We were in bed in the same chamber, but in separate beds, according to our custom. When the physician gave him this bit of news, he was in great trouble, not knowing what to do, fearful on the one hand lest she should be discovered, and on the other lest she should want help, for he loved her dearly. He determined, finally, to confess all to me, and to beg me go to her assistance, for he knew well that, whatever might have passed, he should always find me ready to serve him in anything that could please him. He opens my curtain and says to me: ‘Dearest, I have concealed from you one thing which I must confess to you: I beg you to excuse me for it, and not to remember all that I have said to you on this subject. But oblige me so much as to get up at once, and go to the assistance of Fosseuse, who is very ill; I am sure that you would not wish, when you see her in that condition, to resent what is past. You know how much I love her; I beg that you will oblige me in this matter.’ I told him that I honored him too much to be offended with anything coming from him. That I would be off and do as if it were my daughter; that in the mean time he should go to the chase and take everybody with him, so that no talk of it should be heard.
“I had her promptly removed from the chamber of the maids and put into a chamber apart, with my physician and women to wait upon her, and gave her my best assistance. God willed that it should be only a daughter, which moreover was dead. After the delivery, she was carried to the chamber of the maids, where, though all possible discretion was used, they could not prevent the report from spreading throughout the castle. When the king my husband was returned from the chase, he went to see her according to his custom; she begged him that I would come to see her, as I was accustomed to visit all my maids when they were ill, thinking to stop by this means the spread of the report. The king my husband came into the chamber and found that I had gone to bed again, for I was tired with getting up so early, and with the trouble I had had in rendering her assistance. He begged that I would get up and go to see her; I told him that I had done so when she had need of my aid, but now she no longer had occasion for it; that if I went there, I should reveal rather than cloak the truth, and that everybody would point their finger at me. He was seriously vexed with me, and this was far from pleasant to me, for it seemed that I had not deserved such a recompense for what I had done in the morning. She often put him into similar mood toward me.”