7. Marie d’Autriche, wife of the Emperor Maximilian II.
This empress, though she was left a widow quite young and very beautiful, would never marry again, but contained herself and continued in widowhood very virtuously, having left Austria and Germany, the scene of her empire, after the death of her husband. She returned to her brother, Philip II. in Spain; he having sent for her, and begged her to come and assist him with the heavy burden of his affairs, which she did; being a very wise and judicious princess. I have heard the late King Henri III. say,—and he was a better judge of people than any man in his kingdom,—that to his mind she was one of the ablest and most honourable princesses in the world.
On her way to Spain, after crossing the Germanys, she came to Italy and Genoa, where she embarked; and as it was winter and the month of December when she set sail, bad weather overtook her near Marseille, where she was forced to put in and anchor. But still, for all that, she would not enter the port, neither her own galley nor the others, for fear of causing suspicion or offence. Only once did she enter the town, just to see it. She remained there eight days awaiting fair weather. Her best exercise was in the mornings, when she left her galley (where she slept) and went to hear mass and service at the church of Saint-Victor, with very ardent devotion. Then her dinner was brought and prepared in the abbey, where she dined; and after dinner she talked with her women or with certain gentlemen from Marseille, who paid her all the honour and reverence that were due to so great a princess; for King Henri had commanded them to receive her as they would himself, in return for the good greeting and cheer she had given him in Vienna. So soon as she perceived this she showed herself most friendly, and spoke to them very freely both in German and in French; so that they were well content with her and she with them, selecting twenty especially; among them M. Castellan, called the Seigneur Altivity, captain of the galleys, who was distinguished for having married the beautiful Châteauneuf at Court, and also for having killed the Grand-prior, as I shall relate elsewhere.
It was his wife who told me all that I now relate, and discoursed to me about the perfections of this great princess; and how she admired Marseille, thinking it very fine, and went about with her on her promenades. At night she returned to her galley, so that if the fine weather and the good wind came, she might quickly set sail. I was at our Court when news was brought to the king of this passing visit; and I saw him very uneasy lest she should not be received as she ought to be, and as he wished. This princess still lives, and continues in all her fine virtues. She greatly helped and served her brother, as I have been told. Since then she has retired to a convent of women called the “bare-footed” [Carmelites], because they wear neither shoes nor stockings. Her sister, the Princess of Spain, founded them.
8. Blanche de Montferrat, Duchesse de Savoie.
While I am on this subject of noble widows I must say two words of one of past times, namely: that honourable widow, Madame Blanche de Montferrat, one of the most ancient houses in Italy, who was Duchesse de Savoie and thought to be the handsomest and most perfect princess of her time; also very virtuous and judicious, for she governed wisely the minority of her son and his estates; she being left a widow at the age of twenty-three.
It was she who received so honourably our young King Charles VIII. when he went to his kingdom of Naples, through all her lands and principally her city of Turin, where she gave him a pompous entry, and met him in person, very sumptuously accoutred. She showed she felt herself a great lady; for she appeared that day in magnificent state, dressed in a grand gown of crinkled cloth of gold, edged with large diamonds, rubies, sapphires, emeralds, and other precious stones. Round her throat she wore a necklace of very large oriental pearls, the value of which none could estimate, with bracelets of the same. She was mounted on a beautiful white ambling mare, harnessed most superbly and led by six lacqueys dressed in figured cloth of gold. A great band of damoiselles followed her, very richly, daintily, and neatly dressed in the Piedmont fashion, which was fine to see; and after them came a very long troop of noblemen and knights of the country. Then there entered and marched King Charles, beneath a rich canopy, and went to the castle, where he lodged, and where Madame de Savoie presented to him her son, who was very young. After which she made the king a fine harangue, offering her lands and means, both hers and her son’s; which the king received with very good heart, and thanked her much, feeling greatly obliged to her. Throughout the town were everywhere seen the arms of France and those of Savoie interlaced in a great lover’s-knot, which bound together the two escutcheons and the two orders, with these words: Sanguinis arctus amor; as may be read in the “Chronicles of Savoie.”
I have heard several of our fathers and mothers, who got it from their parents, and also Mademoiselle the Sénéchale de Poitou, my grandmother, then a damoiselle at Court, affirm that nothing was talked of but the beauty, wisdom, and wit of this princess, when the courtiers and gallants returned from their journey; and, above all, by the king, who seemed, from appearance, to be wounded in his heart.
At any rate, even without her beauty, he had good reason to love her; for she aided him with all the means in her power, and gave up her jewels and pearls and precious stones to send them to him that he might use them and pledge them as he pleased; which was indeed a very great obligation, for ladies bear a great affection to their precious stones and rings and jewels, and would sooner give and pledge some precious piece of their person than their wealth of jewels—I speak of some, not all. Certainly this obligation was great; for without this courtesy, and that also of the Marquise de Montferrat, a very virtuous lady and very handsome, he would have met in the long run a short shame, and must have returned from the semi-journey he had undertaken without money; having done worse than that bishop of France who went to the Council of Trent without money and without Latin. What an embarkation without biscuit! However, there is a difference between the two; for what one did was out of noble generosity and fine ambition, which closed his eyes to all inconveniency, thinking nothing impossible to his brave heart; while as for the other, he lacked wit and ability, sinning in that through ignorance and stupidity—if it was not that he trusted to beg them when he got there.
In this discourse that I have made of that fine entry, there is to be noted the superbness of the accoutrements of this princess, which seem to be more those of a married woman than a widow. Upon which the ladies said that for so great a king she could dispense with mourning; and also that great people, men and women, gave the law to themselves; and besides, that in those times the widows, so it was said, were not so restricted nor so reformed in their clothes as they have been since for the last forty years; like a certain lady whom I know, who, being in the good graces and delights of a king [probably Diane de Poitiers] dressed herself much à la modest (though always in silk), the better to cover and hide her game; and in that respect, the widows of the Court, wishing to imitate her, did the same. But this lady did not reform herself so much, nor to such austerity, that she ceased to dress prettily and pompously, though always in black and white; indeed there seemed more of worldliness than of widow’s reformation about it; for especially did she always show her beautiful bosom. I have heard the queen, mother of King Henri, say the same thing at the coronation and wedding of King Henri III., namely: that the widows in times past did not have such great regard to their clothes and to modesty of actions as they have to-day; the which she said she saw in the times of King François, who wanted his Court to be free in every way; and even the widows danced, and the partners took them as readily as if they were girls or married women. She said on this point that she commanded and begged M. de Vaudemont to honour the fête by taking out Madame la Princesse de Condé, the dowager, to dance; which he did to obey her; and he took the princess to the grand ball; those who were at the coronation, like myself, saw it, and remember it well. These were the liberties that widows had in the olden time. To-day such things are forbidden them like sacrilege; and as for colours, they dare not wear them, or dress in anything but black and white; though their skirts and petticoats and also their stockings they may wear of a tan-gray, violet, or blue. Some that I see emancipate themselves in flesh-coloured red and chamois colour, as in times past, when, as I have heard said, all colours could be worn in petticoats and stockings, but not in gowns.