The Tales Of The Heptameron Volume IV Part 21

APPENDIX.

A. (Tale x.x.xVI., Page 63.)

The following are the more important particulars, supplied by M. Jules Roman, with reference to President Charles of Gren.o.ble:--

Jeffroy Charles was an Italian, born in the marquisate of Saluzza, where his father, Constant, had been a distinguished jurisconsult. The hero of Queen Margaret's x.x.xvith tale always signed his name Jeffroy Charles, but his descendants adopted the spelling Carles. Doubtless the name had originally been Caroli. Before fixing himself in France, Jeffroy Charles had been in the service of Luigi II., Marquis of Saluzza, who had appointed him to the office of "Podesta" and entrusted him with various diplomatic missions to the French Court (see _Discorsi sopre alame famiglie n.o.bili del Piemonte_ by Francesco Agostini della Chiesa, in MS. in the State Archives, at Turin). At the time when Charles VIII.

was planning his expedition to Naples, he gave a cordial greeting to all the Italians who presented themselves at his Court, and, securing the services of Jeffroy Charles, he appointed him counsellor of the Parliament of Gren.o.ble (October 5, 1493), and entrusted him with various secret missions, the result being that he sojourned but unfrequently in Dauphine. On the death of Charles VIII., Jeffroy secured the good graces of his successor, Louis XII., and was appointed (June 16, 1500) President of the Senate of Turin, and some months later Chief President of the Parliament of Gren.o.ble. Charles spent the greater part of that year on missions, both to the Court of the Emperor Maximilian and that of the Pope. It was he who obtained from the former the invest.i.ture of Louis XII. as Duke of Milan, which afterwards led to so much warfare.

Most of the following years he spent at Milan, seeking to organise the government of the duchy, and contending against the rapacity of both the French and the Italian n.o.bles. In 1508 he was sent by Louis XII.

to Cambrai, in company with Cardinal d'Amboise, to conclude an alliance with the Emperor against Venice, and he also repaired the same year to Rome with Marshal Trivulzio to negotiate the Pope's entry into this league.

On war being declared, he set aside his judicial robes, and took an active part in the campaign against Venice, fighting so bravely at Agnadel that Louis XII. knighted him on the battlefield. His last diplomatic mission was to the Court of Leo X. in 1515, in which year he was, on account of his great learning, appointed to direct the education of the King's younger daughter, the celebrated Renee of Ferrara. But it is doubtful whether he ever even entered upon these duties, since he died soon after he had been entrusted with them. His family remained in Dauphine, where it died out, obscurely, during the seventeenth century.

Only one of his sons, Anthony, evinced any talent, becoming counsellor of the Rouen Parliament (1519), and amba.s.sador at Milan (1530). Lancelot de Carles, Bishop of Riez, was not, as some biographers a.s.sert, a son of Jeffroy Charles, nor was he, it would seem, in any way connected with the Saluzza family.

Jeffroy Charles's wife, Margaret du Mottet, had borne him eight children before he surprised her in adultery. After the tragical ending of his conjugal mishaps he adopted as his crest the figure of an angel holding the forefinger of one hand to his mouth as if to enjoin secrecy. (1) In the seventeenth century this "angel of silence" was to be seen, carved in stone, and serving as a support of the Charles escutcheon, on the house where the President had resided in the Rue des Clercs at Gren.o.ble (Guy Allard's _Dictionnaire du Dauphine, &c_, Gren.o.ble 1695). Escutcheon and support have nowadays disappeared, but on certain of Charles's seals, as well as in books that belonged to him, now in the Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris, the emblem of the angel will still be found. The earliest seal on which we find it is one affixed to a receipt dated from Milan, July 31, 1506. a.s.suming that he adopted this crest in memory of the events narrated by Queen Margaret, it is probable that the latter occurred in the earlier part of 1506 or the latter part of the previous year. (2)

1 The suggestion here presents itself that, apart from the question of any crime, this emblem of secrecy was a very fitting one for a diplomatist to a.s.sume.--Ed.

2 That is, twenty years after the _Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles_, from which some commentators think the _Heptameron_ story to have been borrowed, was first printed.

--Ed.

Three copies of a medal showing Charles's energetic, angular profile, with the inscription _Jafredus Karoli jurisconsultus preses Delphinatus et Mediolani_, are known to exist; one in the Gren.o.ble museum, one in that of Milan, and one in my (M. Roman's) collection. Three MS. works from the President's library are in the Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris.

The frontispiece of one of these (MSS. Lat. No. 4801) is a miniature painting of his escutcheon, surmounted by the half-length figure of the "angel of silence," who is clad in dark blue, with wings of red, green and blue feathers. On folio 74 of the same MS. is a full-length figure of the angel, clad in light blue and supporting Charles's escutcheon with one hand, whilst the forefinger of the other is pressed to his lips. In the libraries of Lyons, Gren.o.ble and Turin are other richly-illuminated works that belonged to the President, who was a distinguished bibliophilist and great patron of letters, several learned Italian writers, and among others, J. P. Parisio, J. M. Cattaneo and P'ranchino Gafforio, having dedicated their princ.i.p.al works to him.

He it was, moreover, who saved the life of Aldo Manuzio, the famous Venetian printer, when he was arrested by the French as a spy in 1506.

From the foregoing particulars it will be seen that President Charles was alike learned, brave and skilful. But for the Queen of Navarre's circ.u.mstantial narrative it would be hard to believe that a man with so creditable a public record killed his wife by means of a salad of poisonous herbs.--Ed.

THE END OF THE FOURTH VOLUME