Brantôme undoubtedly considered himself an historian. That was a pardonable error. There is a great difference of opinion regarding the historical value of his reports, the most general opinion being that Brantôme’s accuracy is in no way to be relied upon, and that he was more a chronicler and a writer of memoirs. To be sure, Brantôme cannot prove the historical accuracy of every statement he makes. Who would be able to give an exact account of this kaleidoscope of details? But the significance, the symbolic value is there.
In order to substantiate this sharp distinction between the book of Fair and Gallant Ladies and the supposed character of its author, I must be permitted to describe France of the sixteenth century. Various essayists have said that this period had been quite tame and pure in morals, that Brantôme had merely invented and exaggerated these stories. But when they began to cite examples, it became evident that their opinion was like a snake biting its own tail. Their examples proved the very opposite of their views.
Brantôme’s book could only have been written at the time of the last of the Valois. These dissolute kings furnished material for his book. Very few of these exploits can be charged to his own account, and even these he relates in an impersonal manner. Most of them he either witnessed or they were related to him, largely by the kings themselves. No matter in what connection one may read the history of the second half of the sixteenth century, the dissolute, licentious and immoral Valois are always mentioned. The kings corrupted this period to such an extent that Brantôme would have had to be a Heliogabalus in order to make his own contributions felt.
At the beginning of this period we meet with the influence of the Italian Renaissance. Through the crusades of Charles VIII., France came into close contact with it. These kings conducted long wars for the possession of Milan, Genoa, Siena and Naples. A dream of the South induced the French to cross the Alps, and every campaign was followed by a new flood of Italian culture. If at the beginning of the sixteenth century France was not yet the Capital of grand manners, it approached this condition with giant strides during the reign of Francis I. For now there was added an invasion of Spanish culture. Next to Rome, Madrid had the greatest influence upon Paris. Francis I., this chivalrous king (1515–1547), introduced a flourishing court life. He induced Italian artists such as Leonardo and Cellini to come to Blois and try to introduce the grand Spanish manners into his own court. For a time France still seemed to be an imitation of Italy, but a poor one. With the preponderance of the Spanish influence the Etiquette of Society approached its perfection.
Francis I. therefore brought knighthood into flower. He considered a nobleman the foremost representative of the people and prized chivalry more than anything else. The court surrendered itself to a life of gaiety and frivolity; even at this period the keeping of mistresses became almost an official institution. “I have heard of the king’s wish,” Brantôme relates, “that the noblemen of his court should not be without a lady of their heart and if they did not do as he wished he considered them simpletons without taste. But he frequently asked the others the name of their mistresses and promised to help and to speak for them. Such was his kindness and intimacy.” Francis I. is responsible for this saying: “A court without women is like a year without a spring, like a spring without roses.” To be sure, there was also another side to this court life. There were serious financial troubles, corruption in administration and sale of offices. The Italian architects who constructed the magnificent buildings of Saint Germain, Chantilly, Chambord and Chenonceaux were by no means inexpensive. Great interest was also taken in literary things. A more refined French was developed at this period. In Blois a library, Chambre de Librarye, was established. All of the Valois had great talent in composing poetic epistles, songs and stories, not merely Marguerite of Navarre, the sister of Francis I., who following the example of her brother was a patroness of the arts. To be sure, mention is also made of the “terrifying immorality” in Pau, even though this may not have been so bad. Brantôme is already connected with this court life in Pau. His grandmother, Louise of Daillon, Seneschal of Poitiers, was one of the most intimate ladies-in-waiting of the Queen of Navarre. His mother, Anne of Bourdeille, is even introduced in several stories of the Heptameron. She is called Ennasuite, and his father Francis of Bourdeille appears as Simontaut. Life in the Louvre became more and more lax. Francis I., this royal Don Juan, is even said to have been a rival of his son, without our knowing, however, whether this refers to Catherine of Medici or to Diana of Poitiers. Another version of the story makes Henri II. a rival of his father for the favor of Diana of Poitiers. But the well known revenge of that deceived nobleman which caused the death of Francis I. was entirely unnecessary. It is said that the king had been intentionally infected. He could not be healed and died of this disease. At any rate, his body was completely poisoned by venereal ulcers, when he died. This physical degeneration was a terrible heritage which he left to his son, Henri II. (1547–1550).
The latter had in the meantime married Catherine of Medici. Italian depravities now crossed the Alps in even greater numbers. She was followed by a large number of astrologers, dancers, singers, conjurors and musicians who were like a plague of locusts. She thus accelerated the cultural process, she steeped the court of Henri II. as well as that of his three sons in the spirit of Italy and Spain. (The numerous citations of Brantôme indicate the frequency and closeness of relations at this time between France and Spain, the classical country of chivalry.) But her greed for power was always greater than her sensual desires. Though of imposing exterior, she was not beautiful, rather robust, ardently devoted to hunting, and masculine also in the quantity of food she consumed. She talked extremely well and made use of her literary skill in her diplomatic correspondence, which is estimated at about 6,000 letters. She was not, however, spared the great humiliation of sharing the bed and board of her royal husband with Madame de Valentinois, Diana of Poitiers, the mistress of Henri II. In this difficult position with an ignorant and narrow-minded husband who was moreover completely dominated by his favorites, she maintained a very wise attitude. Catherine of Medici was, of course, an intriguing woman who later tried to carry out her most secret purposes in the midst of her own celebrations.
Henri II. had four sons and a daughter, who were born to him by Catherine of Medici after ten years of sterility. In them the tragic fate of the last of the Valois was fulfilled. One after the other mounts the throne which is devoid of any happiness. The last of them is consumed when he has barely reached it. The blood of the Valois would have died out completely but for its continuation in the Bourbons through Marguerite, the last of the Valois, who with her bewitching beauty infatuated men and as the first wife of Henri IV. filled the world with the reports of her scandalous life. There is tragedy in the fact that the book of Fair and Gallant Ladies was dedicated to Alençon, the last and youngest of the Valois. Of these four sons each was more depraved than the other; they furnished the material for Brantôme’s story. The book of Fair and Gallant Ladies, therefore, also seals the end of the race.
The line began with Francis II. He mounted the throne when he was a boy of sixteen. He was as weak mentally as he was physically. He died in 1560, less than a year later, “as a result of an ulcer in the head.” Then Catherine of Medici was Regent for ten years. In 1571 the next son, Charles, was old enough to mount the throne. He was twenty-two years old, tall and thin, weak on his legs, with a stooping position and sickly pale complexion. Thus he was painted by François Clouet, called Janet, a famous painting which is now in possession of the Duke of Aumale. While a young prince, he received the very best education. His teachers were Amyot and Henri Estienne, with whom he read Plotin, Plato, Virgil, Cicero, Tacitus, Polybius and Machiavelli. Amyot’s translation of Plutarch’s Lives delighted the entire court. “The princesses of the House of France,” Brantôme relates, “together with their ladies-in-waiting and maids-of-honor, took the greatest pleasure in the sayings of the Greeks and Romans which have been preserved by sweet Plutarch.” Thus literature came into its own even in this court life. But they did not merely do homage to the old classical literature, all of them were also versed in the art of the sonnet, and were able to rhyme graceful love songs as well as Ronsard. Charles IX. himself wrote poetry and translated the Odes of Horace into French. His effeminate nature, at one moment given to humiliating excesses and in the next consumed by pangs of conscience, was fond of graceful and frivolous poetry. But there was also some good in this movement. Whereas the French language had been officially designated in 1539 as the Language of Law, to be used also in lectures, Charles IX. now gave his consent in 1570 for the founding of a Society to develop and purify the language. But even in this respect the honest de Thou denounced “this depraved age” and spoke of “the poisoning of women by immoral songs.” This worthy man himself wrote Latin, of course. A time of disorder was now approaching, the revolts of the Huguenots were sweeping through France. But these very disorders and dangers encouraged a certain bold carelessness and recklessness. Murder was slinking through the streets. It was the year of St. Bartholomew’s Eve. The Duke of Anjou himself relates that he feared to be stabbed by his own brother king, Charles IX., and later when he himself mounted the throne his brother Alençon was in conspiracy against him. The Mignons and the Rodomonts, the coxcombs and braggarts, were increasing at this depraved court. Soon it was able seriously to compete with Madrid and Naples. Indeed the people down there now began to look up to France as the centre of fashion. Brantôme was the first to recognize this and he was glad of it. Indeed he even encouraged it. Even at that time the Frenchman wished to be superior to all other people.
The king was completely broken by the results of St. Bartholomew’s Eve. His mind wandered back and forth. He became gloomy and vehement, had terrible hallucinations, and heard the spirits of the dead in the air. By superhuman exertions he tried to drown his conscience and procure sleep. He was constantly hunting, remaining in the saddle continuously from twelve to fourteen hours and often three days in succession. When he did not hunt he fenced or played ball or stood for three to four hours at the blacksmith’s anvil swinging an enormous hammer. Finally, consumption forced him to stay in bed. But even now he passed his time by writing about his favorite occupation, he was composing the Livre du Roy Charles, a dissertation on natural history and the deer hunt. When he reached the twenty-ninth chapter death overtook him. This fragment deserves praise, it was well thought out and not badly written.
It is always unpleasant to say of a king that he had more talent to be an author than a king. It is unfortunate but true that the Valois were a literary race. But France itself in 1577 was in a sorry state. Everywhere there were ruins of destroyed villages and castles. There were enormous stretches of uncultivated land and cattle-raising was greatly diminished. There were many loafing vagabonds accustomed to war and robbery who were a danger to the traveller and the farmer. Every province, every city, almost every house was divided against itself.