TALE XX.
The Lord of Riant, being greatly in love with a widow lady and finding her the contrary of what he had desired and of what she had often declared herself to be, was so affected thereby that in a moment resentment had power to extinguish the flame which neither length of time nor lack of opportunity had been able to quench. (1)
1 The unpleasant discovery related in this tale is
attributed by Margaret to a gentleman of Francis I.‘s
household, but a similar incident figures in the
introduction to the Arabian Nights. Ariosto also tells
much the same tale in canto xxviii. of his Rolando
Furioso, and another version of it will be found in No. 24
of Morlini’s Novella, first issued at Naples in 1520.
Subsequent to the Heptameron it supplied No. 29 of the
Comptes du Monde Adventureux, figured in a rare imitation
of the Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles printed at Rouen early in
the seventeenth century, and was introduced by La Fontaine
into his well-known tale Joconde. On the other hand, there
is certainly a locality called Rians in Provence, just
beyond the limits of Dauphiné, and moreover among Francis
I.‘s “equerries of the stable” there was a Monsieur dc Rian
who received a salary of 200 livres a year from 1522 to
1529.—See the roll of the officers of the King’s Household
in the French National Archives, Sect. Histor., K. 98.
Some extracts from Brantôme bearing on the story will be
found in the Appendix to this vol. (A).—L. and En.
In the land of Dauphiné there lived a gentleman named the Lord of Riant; he belonged to the household of King Francis the First, and was as handsome and worshipful a gentleman as it was possible to see. He had long been the lover of a widow lady, whom he loved and revered so exceedingly that, for fear of losing her favour, he durst not solicit of her that which he most desired. Now, since he knew himself to be a handsome man and one worthy to be loved, he fully believed what she often swore to him—namely, that she loved him more than any living man, and that if she were led to do aught for any gentleman, it would be for him alone, who was the most perfect she had ever known. She at the same time begged him to rest satisfied with this virtuous love and to seek nothing further, and assured him that if she found him unreasonably aiming at more, he would lose her altogether. The poor gentleman was not only satisfied, but he deemed himself very fortunate in having gained the heart of a lady who appeared to him so full of virtue.
It would take too long to tell you his love-speeches, his lengthened visits to her, and the journeys he took in order to see her; it is enough to say that this poor martyr, consumed by so pleasing a fire that the more one burns the more one wishes to burn, continually sought for the means of increasing his martyrdom.
One day the fancy took him to go post-haste to see the lady whom he loved better than himself, and whom he prized beyond every other woman in the world. On reaching her house, he inquired where she was, and was told that she had just come from vespers, and was gone into the warren to finish her devotions there. He dismounted from his horse and went straight to the warren where she was to be found, and here he met with some of her women, who told him that she had gone to walk alone in a large avenue.
He was more than ever beginning to hope that some good fortune awaited him, and continued searching for her as carefully and as quietly as he could, desiring above all things to find her alone. He came in this way to a summer-house formed of bended boughs, the fairest and pleasantest place imaginable, (2) and impatient to see the object of his love, he went in; and there beheld the lady lying on the grass in the arms of a groom in her service, who was as ill-favoured, foul and disreputable as the Lord of Riant was handsome, virtuous and gentle.
2 For a description of a summer-house of the kind referred
to, see Cap’s edition of Palissy’s Dessein du Jardin
Délectable, p. 69. Palissy there describes some summer-
houses formed of young elmtrees, with seats, columns,
friezes, and a roofing so cunningly contrived of bent boughs
that the rain could not penetrate into the interior. It is
to some such construction that Queen Margaret refers.—M.
I will not try to depict to you his resentment, but it was so great that in a moment it had power to extinguish the flame which neither length of time nor lack of opportunity had been able to impair.
“Madam,” he said to her, being now as full of indignation as once he had been of love, “much good may this do you! (3) The revelation of your wickedness has to-day cured me, and freed me from the continual anguish that was caused by the virtue I believed to be in you.” (4)