[The Old Serving-woman explaining her Mistake
to the Duke and Duchess of Vendôme]
TALE LXVI.
The Duke of Vendôme and the Princess of Navarre, whilst
resting together one afternoon, were surprised by an old
serving-woman, who took them for a prothonotary and a damsel
between whom she suspected some affection; and, through this
fine justicement, a matter, of which intimates were
ignorant, was made known to strangers.
In the year when the Duke of Vendôme married the Princess of Navarre, (1) the King and Queen, their parents, after feasting at Vendôme, went with them into Guienne, and, visiting a gentleman’s house where there were many honourable and beautiful ladies, the newly married pair danced so long in this excellent company that they became weary, and, withdrawing to their chamber, lay down in their clothes upon the bed and fell asleep, doors and windows being shut and none remaining with them.
1 It was in October 1548, some eighteen months after Henry
II. had succeeded Francis I., that Anthony de Bourbon, Duke
of Vendôme, who after the King’s children held the first
rank in France, was married at Moulins to Margaret’s
daughter Jane of Navarre. The Duke was then thirty and Jane
twenty years old. “I never saw so joyous a bride,” wrote
Henry II. to Montmorency, “she never does anything but
laugh.” She was indeed well pleased with the match, the
better so, perhaps, as her husband had settled 100,000
livres on her, a gift which was the more acceptable by
reason of her extravagant tastes and love of display. Ste.
Marthe, in his Oraison Funèbre on Queen Margaret, speaks
of her daughter’s marriage as “a most fortunate
conjunction,” and refers to her son-in-law as “the most
valiant and magnanimous Prince Anthony, Duke of Vendôme,
whose admirable virtues have so inclined all France to love
and revere him, that princes and nobles, the populace, the
great and the humble alike, no sooner hear his name
mentioned than they forthwith wish him and beg God to bestow
on him all possible health and prosperity.”—Ed