“I will not undertake,” said Parlamente, “to atone for your offences, but I will promise not to imitate them. Wherefore, holding to the truth that we have promised and vowed to utter, I propose to show you that there are ladies who in their loves have aimed at nought but virtue. And since she of whom I am going to speak to you came of an honourable line, I will just change the names in my story but nothing more; and I pray you, ladies, believe that love has no power to change a chaste and virtuous heart, as you will see by the tale I will now begin to tell.”
[Rolandine Conversing With Her Husband]
TALE XXI.
Having remained unmarried until she was thirty years of
age, Rolandine, recognising her father’s neglect and her
mistress’s disfavour, fell so deeply in love with a bastard
gentleman that she promised him marriage; and this being
told to her father he treated her with all the harshness
imaginable, in order to make her consent to the dissolving
of the marriage; but she continued steadfast in her love
until she had received certain tidings of the Bastard’s
death, when she was wedded to a gentleman who bore the same
name and arms as did her own family.
There was in France a Queen (1) who brought up in her household several maidens belonging to good and noble houses. Among others there was one called Rolandine, (2) who was near akin to the Queen; but the latter, being for some reason unfriendly with the maiden’s father, showed her no great kindness.