The Tales Of The Heptameron Volume V Part 13

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_TALE LXVI_.

_The Duke of Vendome 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 Vendome married the Princess of Navarre, (1) the King and Queen, their parents, after feasting at Vendome, 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 Vendome, 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 Funebre_ 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 Vendome, whose admirable virtues have so inclined all France to love and revere him, that princes and n.o.bles, the populace, the great and the humble alike, no sooner hear his name mentioned than they forthwith wish him and beg G.o.d 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 G.o.d, 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 Vendome 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 Vendome 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 inst.i.tuted 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 t.i.tle of prothonotary had come to be merely an honorary dignity, conferred as a matter of course on doctors of theology of n.o.ble 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 Brantome wrote of Thomas de Lescun, Prothonotary of Foix and afterwards Marshal of France. "In those days," adds the author of _Les Grands Capitaines Francais_, "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 completes de Brantome_, 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 compa.s.s 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, blus.h.i.+ng, "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 s.e.x, 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 s.e.x that from which weakness is p.r.o.ne to shrink. I am prompted, therefore, to relate something that I heard from Captain Robertval and divers of his company."

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

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_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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d, 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 Remond, the sixteenth century writer, speaks of a drawing of a "marine lion" given to him "by that most ill.u.s.trious 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 pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.s, that after some time, when one of the s.h.i.+ps of the armament was pa.s.sing 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 G.o.d had done with them.

The poor woman, seeing the s.h.i.+p draw nigh, dragged herself to the sh.o.r.e, and there they found her on their arrival. After giving praise to G.o.d, 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 G.o.d 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 Roch.e.l.le, 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 compa.s.sion that He had shown towards her.

"Now, ladies, you cannot say I do not praise the virtues which G.o.d has given you, and which show the more when possessed by one of lowly condition."

"Why, we are not sorry," said Oisille, "to hear you praise the mercies of Our Lord, for in truth all virtue comes from Him; but we must confess that man a.s.sists in the work of G.o.d as little as women. Neither can by heart or will do more than plant. G.o.d alone giveth the increase."

"If you have studied Scripture," said Saffredent, "you know that St.

Paul says that Apollos planted and he himself watered; (3) but he does not speak of women as having set hand to the work of G.o.d."

3 The text is just the contrary: "I have planted, Apollos watered; but G.o.d gave the increase."--I _Corinthians_ iii.

6.--Ed.

"You would follow," said Parlamente, "the opinion of those wicked men who take a pa.s.sage of Scripture that is in their favour and leave one that is against them. If you had read St. Paul to the end, you would have found that he commends himself to the ladies, who greatly laboured with him in the work of the Gospel."

"However that may be," said Longarine, "the woman in the story is well worthy of praise both for the love she bore her husband, on whose behalf she risked her own life, and for the faith she had in G.o.d, who, as we see, did not forsake her."

"I think," said Ennasuite, "as far as the first is concerned, that there is no woman present but would do as much to save her husband's life."

"I think," said Parlamente, "that some husbands are such brutes that the women who live with them should not find it strange to live among their fellows."