Outwardly, at any rate, there occurred another lull in the fighting. The court removed into the country, and eased everything by an out-of-door existence. Marot, who had been sent by Margaret of Navarre to Renée for safety, made light, enticing verses upon the ladies he transiently delighted in. He also wrote a sonnet to Renée herself, that, besides containing one line of exquisite musicalness—“O la douceur des douceurs feminines”—shows how unconcealed the failure of her marriage had become. It suggests, in fact, that Ercole’s behaviour was publicly abusive and unpardonable. He wrote—
“Souvenant de tes graces divines
Suis en douleur, princesse, en ton absence,
Et si languis quand suis en ta presence
Voyant ce Lys au milieu des épines.
O la douceur des douceurs feminines?
O cœur sans fiel? O race d’excellence?
O dur mari rempli de violence.”
The rest is uninteresting. But the reference to Ercole, allowing for prejudice, could not have been uttered, one imagines, wholly without justification. No fundamentally pleasant person could be referred to so uncompromisingly as steeped in hateful violences.
Marot sided deeply with Renée, and wrote some additional verses to Margaret, which he told her openly were intended to convey a picture of the wrongs and sufferings to which the duchess was subjected. All the lines dealing directly with the subject read as if sincere and vivid, while the note of gravity was struck in the poignant bluntness of the opening verse. Marot meant the queen to realize that he handled something unmistakably and acutely tragic—