Maldonat had with him the maître d’hôtel of M. de Nevers. They gave to M. de Montaigne the printed paper relating to the dispute between M. de Montpensier and M. de Nevers,[12] so that he might be rightly informed concerning the matter, and be able to explain the same to any gentlefolk who might question him thereanent. We set forth on the Friday morning and travelled seven leagues to Châlons.[13] Here we lodged at the “Crown,” a fine house, where we were served on silver plate, and most of us were provided with silken bedding. The ordinary houses of this district are built of chalk stone, cut into small blocks about half a foot square; some, however, are of turf, treated in like fashion. On the morrow we set out after dinner and slept at Vitri le François, seven leagues farther on.
This is a small town on the banks of the Marne, built some thirty-five or forty years ago in place of the former town, which had been burnt. It still keeps its original form, pleasant and well proportioned, and in the midst thereof is a large square, one of the finest in France. During our sojourn there, three marvellous stories were told to us. One was that Madame the Dowager de Guise de Bourbon,[14] who was living at the age of eighty-seven years, could still go afoot for the distance of a quarter of a league. Another was, that a short time ago, execution had been done at Montirandet,[15] a place close by, upon one condemned for a certain offence. Several years before, seven or eight girls belonging to Chaumont-en-Bassigni had secretly determined to put on male attire, and to live the life of men. Amongst these one, called Mary, came from Vitry aforenamed. She got her living by weaving, passing as a well-favoured young man, and on friendly terms with every one. She engaged herself to marry a woman of Vitry, who is still alive, but on account of some strife which arose between them, the match went no further. Afterwards, having gone to Montirandet, and still following the weavers calling, she fell in love again with a certain woman, with whom she married and lived, as the story goes, contentedly four or five months. But, having been recognised by some one living at Chaumont, and the matter having been brought to the notice of the courts, she was condemned to be hanged; whereupon she declared she would liefer suffer thus than live a woman’s life. She was hanged on the charge of using unlawful appliances to remedy the defects of her sex.
The third story is of a man still living named Germain,[16] of humble condition, and engaged in no employment. Up to the age of twenty-two years he had been regarded by all the townsfolk as a girl, albeit the chin was more hairy than that of other girls, for which reason she was called Marie la barbue. It came to pass one day when she put forth all her strength in taking a leap, that the distinctive signs of manhood showed themselves, whereupon the Cardinal of Lenoncourt, at that time bishop of Châlons, gave him the name of Germain. This personage is still unmarried, and has a large thick beard. We could not see him because he was away at the village where he lived. A popular song, sung by the girls of the place, warns all girls against taking long strides lest they should become men like Marie Germain. Report says that Ambrose Paré has taken note of this tale in his book on surgery. It is certainly true, and testimony thereof was given to M. de Montaigne by the chief officials of the town. We left this place after breakfast on Sunday morning and travelled to Bar,[17] a distance of nine leagues.
M. de Montaigne had already visited this town. He now came upon nothing fresh worth noting, save the extraordinary outlay which a certain priest, the dean of the place, had made, and was still making, over public works. His name was Gilles de Trèves.[18] He has built a chapel of marble, with paintings and ornaments, the most sumptuous of any in France; and besides this, he has erected and almost furnished a house which is the finest in the town, of the fairest structure, the best planned and furnished, elaborated with rich carved work and most comfortable as a residence. This he desires to make a college, to endow the same, and set it to work at his own charges. From Bar, where we took our dinner on the Monday morning, we journeyed four leagues to Mannese,[19] where we slept.
This was a small village, where M. de Montaigne was forced to halt by reason of a colic, for which same cause he put aside the plan he had formed of seeing Toul, Metz, Nancy, Joinville, and St. Disier, towns scattered along the route, and repaired direct by diligence to the baths of Plombières. From Mannese we departed on the Tuesday morning, and took our dinner at Vaucouleur, a place a league farther on. Passing along the banks of the Meuse we came to Donremy-sur-Meuse, seven leagues from Vaucouleur, where was born the famous Maid of Orleans named Jeanne Day or Dallis. Her family was afterwards ennobled by the king,[20] who made a grant of arms which was shown to us; azure with a straight sword, crowned and with a golden hilt, and two fleurs-de-lis in gold beside the sword aforenamed. A certain receiver of Vaucouleur gave a painted escutcheon of the same to M. de Caselis. The front of the little house where she was born is all painted with her feats, but the colour is much decayed through age. There is also a tree beside a vineyard which they call “l’arbre de la Pucelle,” but there is nothing remarkable about it. That evening we slept, after travelling five leagues, at Neufchasteau.
Here in the church of the Cordeliers are many ancient tombs, three or four hundred years old, erected to the memory of the nobles of the province. The inscriptions thereon all run in these terms: “Here lies a certain one who died when the tale of years was passing through the twelve hundreds,” &c.[21] M. de Montaigne went to see the library, which contains many books, but none of them rare; and a well from which water is drawn by vast buckets which are turned by stepping with the feet on to a wooden plank attached to a wheel: the axle of the wheel aforesaid being a piece of wood to which the well rope is fastened. He had seen elsewhere others like it. Beside the well is a great stone trough, six or seven feet above the brim, and the bucket rises and empties water into this trough without further help, and lowers itself when empty. This trough is raised so high that by means of leaden pipes the water of the well finds its way to the refectory and kitchen and bath-house. It likewise springs forth out of masses of stone, built to counterfeit natural fountains. We breakfasted in the morning at Neufchasteau, and after travelling six leagues we supped at Mirecourt.
This is a fair little town where M. de Montaigne heard tidings of M. and Madame de Bourbon who dwelt near thereto. On the morning of the morrow after breakfast he went a quarter of a league or so aside from our route to see the nuns of Poussay. This was one of those religious houses, of which there are many in these parts, established for the maintenance of women of good family. Each one has pension by way of sustenance, of one, two, or three hundred crowns, some less, some more, and a separate dwelling where each one can live apart. There little girls are taken in to nurse; no obligation of virginity is laid upon any except those holding office, to wit, the abbess, the prioress, and certain others. They have liberty to dress as they will, like other ladies, except that they wear on their heads a white veil; and, in church during the Mass, they wear a large cloak which they leave behind them in their seat in the choir. The inmates can receive any acquaintance who may come to seek them, whether to urge them to matrimony or for any other reason. Any one who is so minded may sell her annuity to whomsoever she will, provided that this person be of the class and condition required. For certain of the nobles of the district have this duty laid upon them, to wit, that they must be satisfied by a sworn declaration as to the lineage of the candidate whom any one may bring forward. It is not unbecoming for one nun to hold three or four annuities. During their sojourn they attend religious services the same as in other places, and the greater part of them end their days there without desiring change of condition.
On leaving this place we rode five leagues to supper at Espine,[22] a well-built little town where entry was denied to us for that we had journeyed by Neufchasteau where the plague had raged a short time ago. On the next day in the morning we reached Plommieres[23] in time for dinner, a journey of four leagues.
From Bar-le-Duc onwards the leagues are again of the Gascon measure, and as one approaches Germany they become longer and longer, so that, at last, they wax double, or even treble. We entered Plommieres on Friday the 16th of September 1580, at two o’clock in the afternoon. It is on the borders of Lorraine and Germany, situated in a chasm between divers lofty scarped hills, which close it in on all sides. At the bottom of this valley several springs, cold and hot as well, flow forth. The hot water has neither smell nor taste, and is by nature as hot as any one can endure to drink: so much so that M. de Montaigne was obliged to pass it from glass to glass. Only two of the springs are drunk. One which flows from the eastward and forms the bath, which they call the Queen’s Bath, leaves in the mouth a certain sweet taste, not unlike liquorice, and no disagreeable aftertaste. But after very careful attention, M. de Montaigne declared that a slight flavour of iron might be detected therein. The other spring which rises at the base of the mountain opposite, and of which M. de Montaigne drank only one day, is slightly harsh, and has the flavour of alum. The habit of the place is to take a bath two or three times a day. Some take their meals in the bath, where they are cupped and scarified, and do not drink the waters except after a purge. If they drink at all, they take a glass or two in the bath. They deemed the practice of M. de Montaigne a mighty strange one, to wit that, without any preparatory medicine, he should take nine glasses of water, amounting to a potful, every morning at seven, and dine at mid-day; that on the days when he bathed—every other one—he should fix upon four o’clock, and only stay about an hour in the water. And on these days he willingly went without his supper.
We saw some men cured of ulcers and others of pimples on the body. The wonted course is a month at least, and rooms are let most readily in May. Few people frequent the place after the month of August, by reason of the cold, but we found much company there still, because the heat and drought had been abnormally prolonged. Amongst others, M. de Montaigne gained the friendship and acquaintance of the Seigneur d’Andelot of Franche Conté,[24] the son of the master of the horse of the Emperor Charles V. He himself was chief field-marshal in the army of Don John of Austria, and he held the governorship of St. Quentin after we lost the place. One portion of his beard and one side of his eyebrow had become white, and he told M. de Montaigne how this change had come about in a moment of time, on a certain day when he was filled with distress over the death of one of his brothers, whom the Duke of Alva had put to death as an accomplice of the Counts Egmont and Horn. He was sitting resting his head upon his hand, which touched the places beforenamed, wherefore his attendants, when they saw what had happened to him, deemed that some flour must have fallen upon him by accident. He has been like this ever since.