Chapter 8

The poor monk, who was not void of brotherly charity, lifted her up and set her upon a seat in the chapel. Although he had no less need of aid than she had, he feigned to be unaware of her passion, and so strengthened his heart in the love of God against the opportunities now present with him, that, judging by his countenance, he seemed not to know what was actually before him. Having recovered from her weakness, she turned upon him her beautiful, piteous eyes, which were enough to soften a rock, and began to utter all such discourse as she believed apt to draw him from the place in which he now was. He replied as virtuously as he was able; but at last, finding that his heart was being softened by his sweetheart’s abundant tears, and perceiving that Love, the cruel archer whose pains he long had known, was ready with his golden dart to deal him fresh and more deadly wounds, he fled both from Love and from his sweetheart, like one whose only resource lay, indeed, in flight.

When he was shut up in his room, not desiring to let her go without some settlement of the matter, he wrote her a few words in Spanish, which seem to me so excellent in their matter that I would not by translating them mar their grace. These were brought to her by a little novice, who found her still in the chapel and in such despair that, had it been lawful, she too would have remained there and turned friar. But when she saw the words, which were these--

“Volvete don venesti, anima mia, Que en las tristas vidas es la mia,” (1)

she knew that all hope was gone, and she resolved to follow the advice of him and her friends, and so returned home, there to lead a life as melancholy as that of her lover in his monastery was austere.

1 “Return whence thou earnest, my soul, for among the sad lives is mine.”’

“You see, ladies, what vengeance the gentleman took upon his harsh sweetheart, who, thinking to try him, reduced him to such despair that, when she would have regained him, she could not do so.”

“I am sorry,” said Nomerfide, “that he did not lay aside his gown and marry her. It would, I think, have been a perfect marriage.”

“In good sooth,” said Simontault, “I think he was very wise. Anyone who well considers what marriage is will deem it no less grievous than a monkish life. Moreover, being so greatly weakened by fasts and abstinence, he feared to take upon him a burden of that kind which lasts all through life.”

“Methinks,” said Hircan, “she wronged so feeble a man by tempting him to marriage, for ‘tis too much for the strongest man alive; but had she spoken to him of love, free from any obligation but that of the will, there is no friar’s cord that would not have been untied. However, since she sought to draw him out of purgatory by offering him hell, I think that he was quite right to refuse her, and to let her feel the pain that her own refusal had cost him.”

“By my word,” said Ennasuite, “there are many who, thinking to do better than their fellows, do either worse or else the very opposite of what they desire.”

“Truly,” said Geburon, “you remind me--though, indeed, the matter is not greatly to the point--of a woman who did the opposite of what she desired, and so caused a great uproar in the church of St. John of Lyons.”

“I pray you,” said Parlamente, “take my place and tell us about it.”

“My story,” said Geburon, “will not be so long or so piteous as the one we have heard from Parlamente.”

[The Old Woman startled by the Waking of the Soldier]

_TALE LXV_.

_Though the priests of St. John of Lyons would fain have concealed it, the falsity of a miracle was brought to light through an old woman’s folly becoming known_. (1)

In the church of St. John of Lyons there is a very dark chapel, and inside it a stone tomb with figures of great personages raised life-like upon it, whilst several men-at-arms lie all around it.

1 We believe that the incident here narrated occurred early in 1525, when Margaret is known to have been at Lyons. She and her husband (on his return from Pavia) resided there at the house of the Obédiencier de St. Just, and it was in the church of St. Just that the Duke of Alençon was buried. Doubtless it was during his illness that the _novena_ alluded to in the final tale of the _Heptameron_ was performed by Queen Margaret at the church of St. John of Lyons, where the two most important chapels, according to Quincarnon’s _Antiquités et la fondation de la Métropole des Gaules, &c._, Lyons, 1673, were the Most Holy Eucharist, or Bourbon chapel, built in 1449 by Charles de Bourbon, Primate of Gaul, and the Holy Sepulchre, or Good Friday chapel, erected at the beginning of the fifteenth century by Philip de Turey, Archbishop of Lyons. Unfortunately the church of St. John was in 1652 devastated by the Huguenots, who in their insensate fury destroyed almost all the tombs. It is therefore now impossible to identify the chapel and tomb to which the Queen of Navarre refers in the above story, though her allusion to the dimness of the light would incline us to place the incident she recounts in the Chapelle du St. Sépulcre.--L. and Ed.

One day a soldier, walking in the church at the very height of summer, felt inclined to sleep, and, looking at this dark, cool chapel, resolved to go and guard the tomb in sleep like the rest; (2) and accordingly he lay down beside them. Now it chanced that a very pious old woman came in while his sleep was the soundest, and having performed her devotions, holding a lighted taper in her hand, she sought to fix this taper to the tomb. Finding that the sleeping man was nearest to her, she tried to set it upon his forehead, thinking that it was of stone; but the wax would not stick to such stone as this, whereupon the worthy dame, believing that the reason of it was the coldness of the statue, applied the flame to the sleeper’s forehead, that she might the better fix the taper on it. At this, however, the statue, which was not without feeling, began to cry out.

2 Meaning the recumbent statues of the men-at-arms.--Ed.

The good woman was then in exceeding fear, and set herself to shout, “A miracle! a miracle!” until all who were in the church ran, some to ring the bells, and the rest to view the miracle. The good woman forthwith took them to see the statue that had stirred, whereupon many found food for laughter; though the greater number were unable to feel any content, inasmuch as they had really determined to make profit out of the tomb, and to gain as much money by it as by the crucifix on their pulpit, which is said to have spoken. (3) But when the woman’s folly became known the farce came to an end. If all knew of their follies, they would not be accounted holy nor their miracles true. And I would beg you, ladies, to see henceforward to what saints you offer your candles. (4)

3 The crucifix in the church of St. John was mainly of silver, and, according to Quincarnon, at the time of a Huguenot outbreak at Lyons it was thrown to the ground by a Calvinist minister named Ruffy, who, after reducing it to fragments, carried all the precious metal away with him.--M.

4 The latter portion of this story and all the dialogue that follows it are omitted by Boaistuau in his edition. Gruget inserted the dialogue, but he did not dare to print the passage respecting the talking crucifix.--L.

“‘Tis notable,” said Hircan, “that, whatever the matter in question may be, women always do wrong.”

“Is it wrong,” asked Nomerfide, “to bring candles to a tomb?”

“Yes,” said Hircan, “if the flame be turned against a man’s forehead; for nothing good should be called good if it be attended with evil. You may be sure that the poor woman thought she had made a fine gift to God with her little candle.”

“I look not to the gift,” said Oisille, “but to the heart that offers it. Perhaps this worthy woman had more love for God than those who offer great torches; for, as the Gospel says, she gave of her need.”

“Still, I no not believe,” said Saffredent, “that God, who is sovereign wisdom, can be pleased with the foolishness of women. Although simplicity is pleasing to Him, I see from the Scriptures that He despises the ignorant; and if He commands us to be as harmless as the dove, He none the less commands us to be wise like the serpent.”

“For my part,” said Oisille, “I do not call the woman ignorant who brings her candle or burning taper into the presence of God, and makes amends for her wrongdoing on bended knees before her sovereign Lord, confessing her unworthiness and with steadfast hope seeking pity and salvation.”

“Would to God,” said Dagoucin, “that all understood it in the same way as you; but I do not believe that these poor fools do it with the intent you say.”

“The women,” said Oisille, “who are least able to speak are just those who are most sensible of the love and will of God; wherefore ‘tis well to judge none but ourselves.”

Ennasuite laughed and said--“‘Tis no wonderful thing to have frightened a sleeping varlet, since women of as lowly condition have frightened noble Princes, without putting fire to their foreheads.”

“I am sure,” said Geburon, “that you know some such story, which you are willing to relate; wherefore, if it please you, you shall take my place.”

“The tale will not be a long one,” said Ennasuite, “but, could I recount it just as it happened, you would have no desire to weep.”

[The Old Serving-woman explaining her Mistake to the Duke and Duchess of Vendôme]

_TALE LXVI_.

_The Duke of Vendôme and the Princess of Navarre, whilst resting together one afternoon, were surprised by an old serving-woman, who took them for a prothonotary and a damsel between whom she suspected some affection; and, through this fine justicement, a matter, of which intimates were ignorant, was made known to strangers_.

In the year when the Duke of Vendôme married the Princess of Navarre, (1) the King and Queen, their parents, after feasting at Vendôme, went with them into Guienne, and, visiting a gentleman’s house where there were many honourable and beautiful ladies, the newly married pair danced so long in this excellent company that they became weary, and, withdrawing to their chamber, lay down in their clothes upon the bed and fell asleep, doors and windows being shut and none remaining with them.

1 It was in October 1548, some eighteen months after Henry II. had succeeded Francis I., that Anthony de Bourbon, Duke of Vendôme, who after the King’s children held the first rank in France, was married at Moulins to Margaret’s daughter Jane of Navarre. The Duke was then thirty and Jane twenty years old. “I never saw so joyous a bride,” wrote Henry II. to Montmorency, “she never does anything but laugh.” She was indeed well pleased with the match, the better so, perhaps, as her husband had settled 100,000 livres on her, a gift which was the more acceptable by reason of her extravagant tastes and love of display. Ste. Marthe, in his _Oraison Funèbre_ on Queen Margaret, speaks of her daughter’s marriage as “a most fortunate conjunction,” and refers to her son-in-law as “the most valiant and magnanimous Prince Anthony, Duke of Vendôme, whose admirable virtues have so inclined all France to love and revere him, that princes and nobles, the populace, the great and the humble alike, no sooner hear his name mentioned than they forthwith wish him and beg God to bestow on him all possible health and prosperity.”--Ed

Just, however, when their sleep was at its soundest, they were awakened by their door being opened from without, and the Duke drew the curtain and looked to see who it might be, suspecting indeed that it was one of his friends who was minded to surprise him. But he perceived a tall, old bed-chamber woman come in and walk straight up to their bed, where, for the darkness of the room, she could not recognise them. Seeing them, however, quite close together, she began to cry out--

“Thou vile and naughty wanton! I have long suspected thee to be what thou art, yet for lack of proof spoke not of it to my mistress. But now thy vileness is so clearly shown that I shall in no sort conceal it; and thou, foul renegade, who hast wrought such shame in this house by the undoing of this poor wench, if it were not for the fear of God, I would e’en cudgel thee where thou liest. Get up, in the devil’s name, get up, for methinks even now thou hast no shame.”

The Duke of Vendôme and the Princess hid their faces against each other in order to have the talk last longer, and they laughed so heartily that they were not able to utter a word. Finding that for all her threats they were not willing to rise, the serving-woman came closer in order to pull them by the arms. Then she at once perceived both from their faces and from their dress that they were not those whom she sought, and, recognising them, she flung herself upon her knees, begging them to pardon her error in thus robbing them of their rest.

But the Duke of Vendôme was not content to know so little, and rising forthwith, he begged the old woman to say for whom she had taken them. This at first she was not willing to do; but at last, after he had sworn to her never to reveal it, she told him that there was a girl in the house with whom a prothonotary (2) was in love, and that she had long kept a watch on them, since it pleased her little to see her mistress trusting in a man who was working this shame towards her. She then left the Prince and Princess shut in as she had found them, and they laughed for a long while over their adventure. And, although they afterwards told the story they would never name any of the persons concerned.

2 The office of apostolic prothonotary was instituted by Pope Clement I., there being at first twelve such officers, whose duty was to write the lives of the saints and other apostolic records. Gradually their number so increased, that in the fifteenth century the title of prothonotary had come to be merely an honorary dignity, conferred as a matter of course on doctors of theology of noble family, or otherwise of note. In the role of Francis I.’s household for 1522, we find but one prothonotary mentioned, but in that for 1529 there are twelve. More than one of them might have been called _un letrado que no tenia muchas letras_, as Brantôme wrote of Thomas de Lescun, Prothonotary of Foix and afterwards Marshal of France. “In those days,” adds the author of _Les Grands Capitaines Français_, “it was usual for prothonotaries and even for those of good family not to have much learning, but to enjoy themselves, hunt, make love and seduce the wives of the poor gentlemen who were gone to the wars.”--_OEuvres complètes de Brantôme_, 8vo edit., vol. ii. p. 144.--L. and Ed.

“You see, ladies, how the worthy dame, whilst thinking to do a fine deed of justice, made known to strange princes a matter of which the servants of the house had never heard.”

“I think I know,” said Parlamente, “in whose house it was, and who the prothonotary is; for he has governed many a lady’s house, and when he cannot win the mistress’s favour he never fails to have that of one of the maids. In other matters, however, he is an honourable and worthy man.”

“Why do you say ‘in other matters’?” said Hircan. “Tis for that very behaviour that I deem him so worthy a man.”

“I can see,” said Parlamente, “that you know the sickness and the sufferer, and that, if he needed excuse, you would not fail him as advocate. Yet I would not trust myself to a man who could not contrive his affairs without having them known to the serving-women.”

“And do you imagine,” said Nomerfide, “that men care whether such a matter be known if only they can compass their end? You may be sure that, even if none spoke of it but themselves, it would still of necessity be known.”

“They have no need,” said Hircan angrily, “to say all that they know.”

“Perhaps,” she replied, blushing, “they would not say it to their own advantage.”

“Judging from your words,” said Simontault, “it would seem that men delight in hearing evil spoken about women, and I am sure that you reckon me among men of that kind. I therefore greatly wish to speak well of one of your sex, in order that I may not be held a slanderer by all the rest.”

“I give you my place,” said Ennasuite, “praying you withal to control your natural disposition, so that you may acquit yourself worthily in our honour.”

Forthwith Simontault began--

“Tis no new thing, ladies, to hear of some virtuous act on your part which, methinks, should not be hidden but rather written in letters of gold, that it may serve women as an example, and give men cause for admiration at seeing in the weaker sex that from which weakness is prone to shrink. I am prompted, therefore, to relate something that I heard from Captain Robertval and divers of his company.”

[The Wife Reading to her Husband on the Desert Island]

_TALE LXVII_.

_A poor woman risked her own life to save that of her husband, whom she forsook not until death_.

The Captain Robertval aforesaid once made a voyage across the seas to the island of Canadas, (1) himself being chief in command by the appointment of the King, his master. And there, if the air of the country were good, he had resolved to dwell and to build towns and castles. With this work he made such a beginning as is known to all; and to people the country with Christians he took with him all kinds of artificers, among whom was a most wicked man, who betrayed his master and put him in danger of being captured by the natives. But God willed that his attempt should be discovered before any evil befell the Captain, who, seizing the wicked traitor, was minded to punish him as he deserved. And this he would have done but for the man’s wife, who had followed her husband through the perils of the deep and would not now leave him to die, but with many tears so wrought upon the Captain and all his company that, for pity of her and for the sake of the services she had done them, her request was granted. In consequence, husband and wife were left together on a small island in the sea, inhabited only by wild beasts, and were suffered to take with them such things as were needful.

1 Canada had been discovered by Cabot in 1497; and in 1535 James Cartier sailed up the St. Lawrence and, taking possession of the country in the name of Francis I., called it La Nouvelle France. Seven years later a gentleman of Picardy, named John Francis de La Roque, Lord of Robertval, accompanying Cartier, established a colony on the Isle Royale, and subsequently built the fort of Charlebourg. One of his pilots, named Alphonse of Saintonge, meanwhile reconnoitred the coasts both of Canada and Labrador. About this time (1542) the incidents related in the above tale must have occurred.--L.

The poor folk, finding themselves all alone and surrounded by wild and cruel beasts, had no recourse but to God, who had ever been this poor woman’s steadfast hope; and, since she found all her consolation in Him, she carried the New Testament with her for safeguard, nourishment and consolation, and in it read unceasingly. Further, she laboured with her husband to make them a little dwelling as best they might, and when the lions (2) and other animals came near to devour them, the husband with his arquebuss and she with stones made so stout a defence that not only were the beasts afraid to approach, but often some were slain that were very good for food. And on this flesh and the herbs of the land, they lived for some time after their bread failed them.

2 This mention of lions on a small desert island in the Canadian seas would be rather perplexing did we not know how great at that time was the general ignorance on most matters connected with natural history. Possibly the allusion may be to the _lion marin_, as the French call the leonine seal. This, however, is anything but an aggressive animal. Curiously enough, Florimond de Rémond, the sixteenth century writer, speaks of a drawing of a “marine lion” given to him “by that most illustrious lady Margaret Queen of Navarre, to whom it had been presented by a Spanish gentleman, who was taking a second copy of it to the Emperor Charles V., then in Spain.”--Ed.

At last, however, the husband could no longer endure this nutriment, and by reason of the waters that they drank became so swollen that in a short while he died, and this without any service or consolation save from his wife, she being both his doctor and his confessor; and when he had joyously passed out of the desert into the heavenly country, the poor woman, left now in solitude, buried him in the earth as deeply as she was able. Nevertheless the beasts quickly knew of it, and came to eat the dead body; but the poor woman, firing with the arquebuss from her cabin, saved her husband’s flesh from finding such a grave.

Leading thus in regard to her body the life of a brute, and in regard to her soul the life of an angel, she passed her time in reading, meditations, prayers and orisons, having a glad and happy mind in a wasted and half-dead body. But He who never forsakes His own, and who manifests His power when others are in despair, did not suffer the virtue that he had put into this woman to be unknown by men, but willed that it should be made manifest to His own glory. He therefore brought things so to pass, that after some time, when one of the ships of the armament was passing by the island, those that were looking that way perceived some smoke, which reminded them of the persons who had been left there, and they resolved to go and see what God had done with them.

The poor woman, seeing the ship draw nigh, dragged herself to the shore, and there they found her on their arrival. After giving praise to God, she brought them to her poor cottage and showed them on what she had lived during her abode in that place. This would have seemed to them impossible of belief, but for their knowledge that God is as powerful to feed His servants in a desert as at the greatest banquet in the world. As the poor woman could not continue in such a spot, they took her with them straight to La Rochelle, where, their voyage ended, they arrived. And when they had made known to the inhabitants the faithfulness and endurance of this woman, she was very honourably received by all the ladies, who gladly sent their daughters to her to learn to read and write. In this honest calling she maintained herself for the rest of her life, having no other desire save to admonish every one to love and trust Our Lord, and setting forth as an example the great compassion that He had shown towards her.

“Now, ladies, you cannot say I do not praise the virtues which God has given you, and which show the more when possessed by one of lowly condition.”