Lives of Fair and Gallant Ladies. Vol 2.

by Pierre de Bourdeille Brantôme

ARTICLE III

OF THE LOVE OF WIDOWS

1.

Well! enough said of maids; ’tis but right we now proceed to speak of widows in their turn.

The love of widows is good, easy and advantageous, seeing they be in full liberty of action, and in no sense slaves of fathers, mothers, brothers, kinsmen and husbands, nor yet of any legal bar, a still more important point. A man may make love and lie with a widow as much as ever he please, he is liable to no penalty, as he is with maids or married women. In fact the Romans, which people hath given us the most of the laws we have, did never make this act punishable, either in person or property. I have this from a great lawyer, who did cite Papinian for confirmation of the point, that great Roman jurisconsult, who treating of adultery declares; if occasionally under this term adultery hath been inadvertently included lawless intercourse with maid or widow, ’tis a misuse of words. In another passage the same authority saith: the heir hath no right of reproach or concern with the character of the deceased man’s widow, except only if the deceased had in his lifetime brought action against his wife on this ground; then could the said heir take up and carry on the prosecution, but not otherwise. And as a fact in all the whole of Roman law is no penalty ordained for the widow, except only for one that did marry again within the year of her mourning, or who without re-marrying had borne a child subsequently to the eleventh month of her first year of widowhood, this first year being deemed sacred to the honour of her former husband. There was likewise a law made by Heliogabalus, that no widow must marry again for one year after the death of her husband, to the end she might have due leisure to bewail his loss and deliberate carefully on the choice of a successor. A truly paternal law, and an excellent reason i’ faith! As for a widow’s original dowry, the heir could not in any case rob her thereof, even though she should have given her person to every possible form of naughtiness. And for this my authority did allege a very good reason; for the heir having no other thought but only the property, if once a door were opened to him to accuse the widow in hope of making her forfeit this and so rob her of her dowry, she would be exposed at once to every calumny his malignity could invent. So there would be never a widow, no matter how virtuous and unoffending, could safeguard her from slanderous actions on the part of enterprising heirs.

All this would seem to show, I think, that the Roman ladies did have good opportunities and occasion for self-indulgence. No need then to be astonished if one of them, in the reign of Marcus Aurelius, (as is found writ in that Emperor’s life), as she was walking in her husband’s funeral procession, and in the midst of all her cries, sobs, sighs, tears and lamentations, did so strictly press the hand of the gentleman which was her escort, as to surely signify thereby her willingness for another taste of love and marriage. Accordingly at the end of a year,—for he could not marry her before, without a special dispensation, as was done for Pompey whenas he did wed Cæsar’s daughter, but this was scarce ever given but to the greatest personages,—he did marry the lady, having meantime enjoyed some dainty foretastes, and picked many an early loaf out of the batch, as the saying goes. Mighty fain was this good lady to lose naught by procrastination, but take her measures in good time; yet for all this, she did lose never a doit of her property and original dowry.

Thus fortunate were Roman widows,—as are still in the main their French sisters, which for giving heart and fair body satisfaction, do lose naught of their rights; albeit several cases hereanent have been pleaded before our parliaments. Thus I wot of a great and wealthy French Lord, which did carry on a long process against his sister-in-law concerning her dowry, charging her that her life had been lascivious and with another crime of a less gay sort to boot. Natheless did she win her case; and the brother-in-law was obliged to dower her handsomely and give her all that did belong to her. Yet was the governance of her son and daughter taken from her, seeing she had married again. This the judges and noble councillors of the parliaments do look to, forbidding widows that re-marry to have guardianship of their children. In spite of this I do know of widows which within the last few years have successfully asserted their rights, though re-married, over their daughters being under age, against their brothers-in-law and other kinsmen; but then they were greatly helped by the influence of the Prince which was their protector. Indeed there is never a law a fine motte cannot traverse. Of these subjects I do now refrain me from speaking more, seeing ’tis not my trade; so thinking to say something mighty clever, ’tis very like I may say what is quite from the point. I do refer me to our great men of the law.

Now of our widows some be alway glad to try marriage once again and run its risks, like mariners that twice, thrice and four times saved from shipwreck do again and again go back to the sea, and as married women do, which in the pains of motherhood do swear and protest they will never, never go back to it again, and no man shall ever be aught to them, yet no sooner be they sound and clean again, but they take to the same old dance once more. So a Spanish lady, being in her pangs, had a candle lighted in honour of Our Lady of Mont-Sarrat, who much succours women in child-birth. Yet did she fail not to have sore pain and swear right earnestly she would never go back to it any more. She was no sooner delivered but turning to her woman who held the candle still alight, she said, Serra esto cabillo de candela para otra vez, “Put away that bit of candle for another time.”

Other ladies do prefer not to marry; and of these are always some, and always have been, which coming to be widows in the flower of their age, be content to stay so. Ourselves have seen the Queen Mother, which did become a widow at the age of seven or eight and thirty years, and did ever after keep that state; and fair, pleasant and agreeable as she was, did never so much as think of any man to be her second husband. No doubt it may be said on the other side,—Whom could she have wedded suitable to her lofty estate and comparable with the great King Henri, her late lord and master; beside she would thereby have lost the government of the Kingdom, which was better worth than an hundred husbands, and its enjoyment more desirable and pleasant? Yet is there no advantage Love doth not make women forget; wherefore she is the more to be commended and worthy to be recorded in the temple of fame and immortality. For she did master and command her passions,—not like another Queen, which unable to restrain herself, did wed her own steward of the household, by name the Sieur de Rabodanges.[95*] This the King, her son, did at first beginning find exceeding strange and bitter; but yet, because she was his mother, he did excuse and pardon the said Rabodanges for having married her; and it was arranged that by day, before the world, he should serve her alway as steward, not to deprive her, being the King’s mother, of her proper state and dignity, but by night she should make of him what pleased her, using him either as servant or master at her choice, this being left to their own discretion and good pleasure. We may readily imagine who was master then; for every woman, be she as high-born as she may, coming to this point, is ever subject to the superior male, according to the law of nature and humanity in this matter. I have the tale from the late Grand Cardinal de Lorraine, second of the name and title, which did tell it at Poissy to King Francis II., the time he did institute the eighteen knights of the Order of Saint Michael,—a very great number, and one never seen or heard of before then.[96*] Among others was the Seigneur de Rabodanges, a very old man, that had not been seen for years at Court, except on occasion of some of our warlike expeditions, he having withdrawn soon after the death of M. de Lautrec out of disappointment and despite, a common enough case, having lost his good master, the Captain of whose Guard he was, on his journey to the Kingdom of Naples, where he died. And the Cardinal did further say he did believe this M. de Rabodanges was descended of the marriage in question.—Some while agone a lady of France did marry her page, so soon as ever his pagehood was expired and he his own master, thinking she had worn her widow’s weeds quite long enough.