The book of the ladies Illustrious Dames: The Reign and Amours of the Bourbon Régime

So now our queen, having lost her mother, Magdelaine de Boulogne, and Lorenzo de’ Medici, Duke of Urbino, her father, in early life, was married by her good uncle the pope to Fr...

To bring a few examples to show how the beauty of this queen was admired and held for rare: I remember that when the Polish ambassadors came to France, to announce to our King H...

This is why they cannot charge her with the first spark of the civil war, nor yet with the second, which was the day of Meaux; for at that time she was thinking only of a hunt,...

I have read many letters from her to our family in the days of her greatness; but never did I see any of our kings (and I have seen many) talk and write so bravely and imperious...

He left Malta on a galley of the Order, intending to go to Naples, according to a promise he had made to the “beautiful and virtuous lady,” the Marchesa del Vasto. But a contrar...

The Queen of Navarre, having listened very attentively to Mme. de Dampierre, answered her rather coldly, but with a smiling face, as her manner was: “Madame de Dampierre, what y...

King François, not knowing whom to choose better to content the good prince, gave him the daughter of M. de Guise, Claude de Lorraine, then the widow of M. de Longueville, wise,...

So then, the queen, being at liberty, did not stay idle; in less than no time she gathered an army of those whom she thought her most faithful adherents, leading it herself,--at...

After this Claude de France, comes that beautiful Marguerite de France, Queen of Navarre, of whom I have already spoken; for which reason I am silent here, awaiting another time...

Inasmuch as I must speak of ladies, I do not choose to speak of former dames, of whom the histories are full; that would be blotting paper in vain, for enough has been written a...

She wrote and spoke French very well, although an Italian; and even to persons of her own nation she usually spoke it, so much did she honour France and its language; taking pai...

When her marriage was granted at Blois to the King of Navarre, difficulties were made by Queen Jeanne [d’Albret, Henri IV.’s mother], very different then from what she wrote to...

If, of a surety, she manifested love to the king her husband, by her constancy, her virtuous continence, and her continual grief, she showed it still more in her behaviour to th...

But our Queen Louise, so wise and chaste and virtuous, did not desire, either by true or false means, to become queen-mother; though, had she been willing to play such a game, t...

Dame Oisille responded in a manner most edifying: “My children, you ask me a thing that I find very difficult, namely: to teach you a pastime which shall deliver you from ennui....

Less than six months after her marriage Marie, wholly disgusted, consoled herself with an Italian, David Riccio, a man thirty-two years of age, equally well fitted for business...

She was dressed in a gown of white satin all covered with silver trimmings, her face uncovered. I think that nothing was ever seen more beautiful than this queen, as I had the b...

Oh! how ill-advised is he who trusts in the people of to-day! Oh! how differently did the Romans recognize the posterity of Augustus Cæsar, who gave them wealth and grandeurs, f...

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...

Now, to return to our Queen Anne: we see from this fine last duty of her obsequies how beloved she was of earth and heaven; far otherwise than that proud, pompous queen, Isabell...

Leaving Namur, we have at Liège a touching and pathetic story of a poor young girl, Mlle. de Tournon, who dies of grief for being slighted and betrayed by her lover, to whom she...

Marguerite de Valois, the first of the three Marguerites of the sixteenth century, does not altogether resemble the reputation made of her from afar. Born at the castle of Angou...

I have never known a generous person who did not say that the Queen of England would have won immortal glory had she used mercy to the Scottish queen; and also she would be exem...

By Jean Juste, in the Cathedral of Saint-Denis. The king and queen are carved as skeletons within the twelve columns; above they kneel at their prie-dieus, and the tradition is...

SAINTE-BEUVE (Charles-Augustin), his remarks on Anne de Bretagne, 40-43; his estimate of Catherine de’ Medici, 85-88; his essay on Marie Stuart, 121-136; on Marguerite de Navarr...