After they had lived for a few years in the delight that man and woman can have together in marriage, and as one of the handsomest and most loving couples in Christendom, Fate, vexed to find two persons so much at their ease, would no longer suffer them to continue in it, but stirred up against them an enemy, who, keeping watch upon the lady, came to a knowledge of her great happiness, and, ignorant the while of her marriage, went and told the Lord of Jossebelin that the gentleman in whom he had so much trust, went too often to his sister’s room, and that moreover at hours when no man should enter it. This the Count would not at first believe for the trust that he had in his sister and in the gentleman.
But the other, like one careful for the honour of the house, repeated the charge so often that a strict watch was set, and the poor folk, who suspected nothing, were surprised. For one evening the Lord of Jossebelin was advised that the gentleman was with his sister, and, hastening thither, found the poor love-blinded pair lying in bed together. His anger at the sight robbed him of speech, and, drawing his sword, he ran after the gentleman to kill him. But the other, being nimble of body, fled in nothing but his shirt, and, being unable to escape by the door, leaped through a window into the garden.
Then the poor lady, clad only in her chemise, threw herself upon her knees before her brother and said to him—
“Sir, spare the life of my husband, for I have indeed married him; and if you are offended punish only me, for what he did was done at my request.”
Her brother, beside himself with wrath, could only reply—
“Even if he be your husband one hundred thousand times over, yet will I punish him as a rascally servant who has deceived me.”
So saying, he went to the window and called out loudly to kill him, which was speedily done before the eyes of himself and his sister. The latter, on beholding the pitiful sight which no prayers on her part had been able to prevent, spoke to her brother like a woman bereft of reason.
“Brother,” she said, “I have neither father nor mother, and I am old enough to marry according to my own pleasure. I chose one whom many a time you said you would gladly have me marry, and for doing by your own counsels that which the law permits me to do without them, you have put to death the man whom you loved best of all the world. Well, since my prayers have been of no avail to preserve his life, I implore you, by all the love you have ever borne me, to make me now a sharer in his death even as I have been a sharer in all his living fortunes. In this way, while sating your unjust and cruel anger, you will give repose to the body and soul of one who cannot and will not live without him.” Although her brother was almost distracted with passion, (4) he had pity upon his sister, and so, without granting or denying her request, withdrew. After weighing well what he had done, and hearing that the gentleman had in fact married his sister, he would gladly have undone his grievous crime. Nevertheless, being afraid that his sister would seek justice or vengeance for it, he caused a castle to be built in the midst of a forest, (5) and, placing her therein, forbade that any should have speech with her.
4 John II. of Rohan was a man of the most passionate,
resentful disposition, and the greater part of his life was
spent in furthering ambitious schemes, stirring up feuds and
factions, and desolating Brittany with civil war. In 1470 we
find him leaving the service of the Duke, his master, to
enter that of Louis XI., on whose side he fought till the
peace of Senlis in 1475. Four years later the Duke of
Brittany caused him to be arrested on the charge of
murdering the Count of Keradreux, and he appears to have
remained in prison till 1484, when it is recorded that he
fled to France, and thence to Lorraine. In 1487 he leagued
himself with several discontented nobles to drive away the
Chancellor of Brittany and various foreign favourites around
the Duke, and carried civil war into several parts of the
duchy. Then for a brief space he made his peace with the
Duke, but again took up arms for the French King, fought at
St. Aubin du Cormier, captured Dinan and besieged and
pillaged Guingamp. Charles VIII. appointed him Lieutenant-
general of Lower Brittany in 1491, and he was first
commissary of the King of France at the States of Brittany
held at Vannes in 1491 and 1501. In 1507 he witnessed the
marriage contract of the Princess Claude with Francis, Duke
of Valois, afterwards Francis I. (Anselme’s Histoire
Généalogique, vol. iv. p. 57). When Anne became Duchess of
Brittany, John II. vainly strove to compel her to marry his
son, James, and this was one of the causes of their life-
long enmity (ante vol. iii. Tale XXI.) John II. died in
1516.—L. and Ed.
5 If this be the chateau of Josselin, as some previous
commentators think, Queen Margaret is in error here, for
records subsist which prove that Josselin, now classed among
the historical monuments of France, was built not by John
II., but by his father, Alan IX. It rises on a steep rock on
the bank of the Oust, at nine miles from Ploèrmel, and on
the sculptured work, both inside and out, the letters A. V.
(Alan, Viscount) are frequently repeated, with the arms of
Rohan and Brittany quartered together, and bearing the proud
device A plus. It seems to us evident that the incidents
recorded in the early part of Queen Margaret’s tale took
place at Josselin, and that Catherine de Rohan was
imprisoned in some other chateau expressly erected by her
brother.—D. and Ed.
Some time afterwards he sought, for the satisfaction of his conscience, to win her back again, and spoke to her of marriage; but she sent him word that he had given her too sorry a breakfast to make her willing to sup off the same dish, and that she looked to live in such sort that he should never murder a second husband of hers; for, she added, she could scarcely believe that he would forgive another man after having so cruelly used the one whom he had loved best of all the world.