[The Wife Reading to her Husband on the Desert Island]
TALE LXVII.
A poor woman risked her own life to save that of her
husband, whom she forsook not until death.
The Captain Robertval aforesaid once made a voyage across the seas to the island of Canadas, (1) himself being chief in command by the appointment of the King, his master. And there, if the air of the country were good, he had resolved to dwell and to build towns and castles. With this work he made such a beginning as is known to all; and to people the country with Christians he took with him all kinds of artificers, among whom was a most wicked man, who betrayed his master and put him in danger of being captured by the natives. But God willed that his attempt should be discovered before any evil befell the Captain, who, seizing the wicked traitor, was minded to punish him as he deserved. And this he would have done but for the man’s wife, who had followed her husband through the perils of the deep and would not now leave him to die, but with many tears so wrought upon the Captain and all his company that, for pity of her and for the sake of the services she had done them, her request was granted. In consequence, husband and wife were left together on a small island in the sea, inhabited only by wild beasts, and were suffered to take with them such things as were needful.
1 Canada had been discovered by Cabot in 1497; and in 1535
James Cartier sailed up the St. Lawrence and, taking
possession of the country in the name of Francis I., called
it La Nouvelle France. Seven years later a gentleman of
Picardy, named John Francis de La Roque, Lord of Robertval,
accompanying Cartier, established a colony on the Isle
Royale, and subsequently built the fort of Charlebourg. One
of his pilots, named Alphonse of Saintonge, meanwhile
reconnoitred the coasts both of Canada and Labrador. About
this time (1542) the incidents related in the above tale
must have occurred.—L.
The poor folk, finding themselves all alone and surrounded by wild and cruel beasts, had no recourse but to God, who had ever been this poor woman’s steadfast hope; and, since she found all her consolation in Him, she carried the New Testament with her for safeguard, nourishment and consolation, and in it read unceasingly. Further, she laboured with her husband to make them a little dwelling as best they might, and when the lions (2) and other animals came near to devour them, the husband with his arquebuss and she with stones made so stout a defence that not only were the beasts afraid to approach, but often some were slain that were very good for food. And on this flesh and the herbs of the land, they lived for some time after their bread failed them.
2 This mention of lions on a small desert island in the
Canadian seas would be rather perplexing did we not know how
great at that time was the general ignorance on most matters
connected with natural history. Possibly the allusion may be
to the lion marin, as the French call the leonine seal.
This, however, is anything but an aggressive animal.
Curiously enough, Florimond de Rémond, the sixteenth century
writer, speaks of a drawing of a “marine lion” given to him
“by that most illustrious lady Margaret Queen of Navarre, to
whom it had been presented by a Spanish gentleman, who was
taking a second copy of it to the Emperor Charles V., then
in Spain.”—Ed.