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THE BOOK OF THE LADIES
[Illustration: MESSIRE PIERRE DE BOURDEILLE
SEIGNEUR DE BRANTOME.]
_The Reign and Amours of the
Bourbon Régime_
A Brilliant Description of
the Courts of Louis XVI,
Amours, Debauchery, Intrigues,
and State Secrets, including
Suppressed and Confiscated MSS.
[Illustration]
The Book of the
Illustrious Dames
BY
PIERRE DE BOURDEÏLLE, ABBÉ DE BRANTÔME
WITH INTRODUCTORY ESSAY BY
C.-A. SAINTE-BEUVE
_Unexpurgated Rendition into English_
PRIVATELY PRINTED FOR MEMBERS OF THE
VERSAILLES HISTORICAL SOCIETY
NEW YORK
Copyright, 1899.
BY H. P. & CO.
_All Rights Reserved._
Édition de Luxe
_This edition is limited to two
hundred copies, of which this
is Number_ ........ .....
CONTENTS.
PAGE
INTRODUCTION 1
DISCOURSE I. ANNE DE BRETAGNE, Queen of France 25
_Sainte-Beuve’s remarks upon her_ 40
DISCOURSE II. CATHERINE DE’ MEDICI, Queen, and mother of
our last kings 44
_Sainte-Beuve’s remarks upon her_ 85
DISCOURSE III. MARIE STUART, Queen of Scotland, formerly
Queen of our France 89
_Sainte-Beuve’s essay on her_ 121
DISCOURSE IV. ÉLISABETH OF FRANCE, Queen of Spain 138
DISCOURSE V. MARGUERITE, Queen of France and of Navarre,
sole daughter now remaining of the Noble House of France 152
_Sainte-Beuve’s essay on her_ 193
DISCOURSE VI. MESDAMES, the Daughters of the Noble House
of France:
Madame Yoland 214
Madame Jeanne 215
Madame Anne 216
Madame Claude 219
Madame Renée 220
Mesdames Charlotte, Louise, Magdelaine, Marguerite 223
Mesdames Élisabeth, Claude, and Marguerite 229
Madame Diane 231
MARGUERITE DE VALOIS, Queen of Navarre 234
_Sainte-Beuve’s essay on the latter_ 243
DISCOURSE VII. OF VARIOUS ILLUSTRIOUS LADIES:
Isabelle d’Autriche, wife of Charles IX 262
Jeanne d’Autriche, wife of the Infante of Portugal 270
Marie d’Autriche, wife of the King of Hungary 273
Louise de Lorraine, wife of Henri III 280
Marguerite de Lorraine, wife of the Duc de Joyeuse 282
Christine of Denmark, wife of the Duc de Lorraine 283
Marie d’Autriche, wife of the Emperor Maximilian II 291
Blanche de Montferrat, Duchesse de Savoie 293
Catherine de Clèves, wife of Henri I. de Lorraine, Duc de Guise 297
Madame de Bourdeille 297
APPENDIX 299
INDEX 305
LIST OF PHOTOGRAVURE ILLUSTRATIONS.
PIERRE DE BOURDEILLE, ABBÉ AND SEIGNEUR DE BRANTÔME _Frontispiece_
From an old engraving by I. Von Schley.
PAGE
FRANÇOIS DE LORRAINE, DUC DE GUISE 8
By François Clouet; in the Louvre.
DISCOURSE
I. TOMB OF LOUIS XII. AND ANNE DE BRETAGNE 34
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
that the portraits are faithful. The cardinal virtues, Justice,
Prudence, Temperance, and Fortitude, sit at the corners of
the monument: the twelve apostles between the pillars; and
round the base, between the virtues, are exquisite representations
(not visible in the reproduction) of the king’s campaigns in Italy.
II. CATHERINE DE’ MEDICI, QUEEN OF FRANCE 44
School of the sixteenth century; in the Louvre.
II. HENRI II., KING OF FRANCE 52
By François Clouet; in the Louvre.
II. BALL AT THE COURT OF HENRI III., WITH PORTRAITS 81
Attributed to François Clouet; in the Louvre. See description
in note to Discourse VII.
III. MARIE STUART, QUEEN OF FRANCE AND SCOTLAND 90
Painter unknown; in the Uffizi Gallery, Florence.
III. THE SAME 120
School of the sixteenth century; Versailles.
V. HENRI IV., KING OF FRANCE 166
By Franz Pourbus (le jeune); in the Louvre.
V. ÉLISABETH DE FRANCE, QUEEN OF SPAIN 185
By Rubens; in the Louvre.
V. CORONATION OF MARIE DE’ MEDICI, WITH PORTRAITS 211
By Rubens (Peter Paul); in the Louvre. See description in
note to the Discourse.
VI. FRANÇOIS I., KING OF FRANCE 224
By Jean Clouet; in the Louvre.
VI. DIANE DE FRANCE, DUCHESSE D’ANGOULÊME 232
School of the sixteenth century; in the Louvre.
VII. ISABELLE D’AUTRICHE, WIFE OF CHARLES IX. 262
By François Clouet; in the Louvre.
VII. CHARLES IX., KING OF FRANCE 271
By François Clouet; in the Louvre.
VII. LOUISE DE LORRAINE, WIFE OF HENRI III 280
School of the sixteenth century; in the Louvre.
VII. HENRI III., KING OF FRANCE 286
School of the sixteenth century; in the Louvre.
INTRODUCTION.[1]
The title, “Vie des Dames Illustres,” given habitually to one volume of
Brantôme’s Works, is not that which was chosen by its author. It was
given by his first editor fifty years after his death; Brantôme himself
having called his work “The Book of the Ladies.”
One of his earliest commentators, Castelnaud, almost a cotemporary, says
of him in his Memoirs:--
“Pierre de Bourdeille, Abbé de Brantôme, author of volumes of which I
have availed myself in various parts of this history, used his quality
as one of those warrior abbés who were called _Abbates Milites_ under
the second race of our kings; never ceasing for all that to follow arms
and the Court, where his services won him the Collar of the Order and
the dignity of gentleman of the Bedchamber to the King.
“He frequented, with unusual esteem for his courage and intelligence,
the principal Courts of Europe, such as Spain, Portugal (where the king
honoured him with his Order), Scotland, and those of the Princes of
Italy. He went to Malta, seeking an occasion to distinguish himself, and
after that lost none in our wars of France. But, although he managed
perfectly all the great captains of his time and belonged to them by
alliance of friendship, fortune was ever contrary to him; so that he
never obtained a position worthy, not of his merits only, but of a name
so illustrious as his.
“It was this that made him of a rather bad humour in his retreat at
Brantôme, where he set himself to compose his books in different frames
of mind, according as the persons who recurred to his memory stirred his
bile or touched his heart. It is to be wished that he had written a
discourse on himself alone, like other seigneurs of his time. He would
then have shown us much, if nothing were omitted in it; but perhaps he
abstained from doing this in order not to declare his inclinations for
the House of Lorraine at the very moment of the ruin of all its schemes;
for he was greatly attached to that house, and it appears in various
places that he had more respect than affection for the House of Bourbon.
It was this that made him take part against the Salic law, in behalf of
Queen Marguerite, whom he esteemed infinitely, and whom he saw, with
regret, deprived of the Crown of France.
“In many other matters he gives out sentiments which have more of the
courtier than the abbé; indeed to be a courtier was his principal
profession, as it still is with the greater part of the abbés of the
present day; and in view of this quality we must pardon various little
liberties which would be less pardonable in a sworn historian.
“I do not speak of the volume of the ‘Dames Galantes’ in order not to
condemn the memory of a nobleman whose other Works have rendered him
worthy of so much esteem; I attribute the crime of that book to the
dissolute habits of the Court of his time, about which more terrible
tales could be told than those he relates.
“There is something to complain of in the method with which he writes;
but perhaps the name of ‘Notes’ may cover this defect. However that may
be, we can gather from him much and very important knowledge on our
History; and France is so indebted to him for this labour that I do not
hesitate to say that the services of his sword must yield in value to
those of his pen. He had much wit and was well read in Letters. In youth
he was very pleasing; but I have heard those who knew him intimately say
that the griefs of his old age lay heavier upon him than his arms, and
were more displeasing than the toils and fatigues of war by sea or land.
He regretted his past days, the loss of friends, and he saw nothing that
could equal the Court of the Valois, in which he was born and bred....”
“The family of Bourdeille is not only illustrious in temporal
prosperities, but it is remarkable throughout antiquity for the valour
of its ancestors. King Charlemagne held it in great esteem, which he
showed by choosing, when the splendid abbey of Brantôme was founded in
Périgord, that the Seigneur de Bourdeille should be associated in that
pious work and be, with him, the founder of the Monastery. He therefore
made him its patron, and obliged his posterity to defend it against all
who might molest the monks and hinder them in the enjoyment of their
property.
“If we may rely on ancient deeds [_pancartes_] still in possession of
this family, we must accord it a first rank among those which claim to
be descended from kings, inasmuch as they carry back its origin to
Marcomir, King of France, and Tiloa Bourdelia, daughter of a king of
England.
“The same old deeds relate that Nicanor, son of this Marcomir, being
appealed to by the people of Aquitaine to assist them in throwing off
the Roman yoke, and having come with an army very near to Bordeaux, was
compelled to withdraw by the violence of the Romans, who were stronger
than he, and also by a tempest that arose in the sea. Nicanor cast
anchor at an island, uninhabited on account of the wild beasts that
peopled it, and especially certain griffins, animals with four feet, and
heads and wings like eagles.
“He had no sooner set foot on land with his men than he was forced to
fight these monsters, and after battling with them a long time, not
without loss of soldiers, he succeeded in vanquishing them. With his own
hand he killed the largest and fiercest of them all, and cut off his
paws. This victory greatly rejoiced all the neighbouring countries,
which had suffered much damage from these beasts.
“On account of this affair, Nicanor was ever after surnamed ‘The
Griffin’ and honoured by every one, like Hercules when he killed the
Stymphalides in Arcadia, those birds of prey that feed on human flesh.
This is the origin of the arms which the Seigneurs de Brantôme bear to
this day, to wit: Or, two griffins’ paws gules, onglée azure, counter
barred.”
* * * * *
Pierre de Bourdeille, third son of François, Vicomte de Bourdeille and
Anne de Vivonne de la Châtaignerie, was born in the Périgord in 1537,
under the reign of François I. The family of Bourdeille is one of the
most ancient and respected in the Périgord, which province borders on
Gascony and echoes, if we may say so, the caustic tongue and rambling,
restless temperaments that flourish on the banks of the Garonne. “Not to
boast of myself,” says Brantôme, “I can assert that none of my race have
ever been home-keeping; they have spent as much time in travels and wars
as any, no matter who they be, in France.”
As for his father, Brantôme gives an amusing account of him as a true
Gascon seigneur. He began life by running away from home to go to the
wars in Italy, and roam the world as an adventurer. He was, says
Brantôme, “a jovial fellow, who could say his word and talk familiarly
to the greatest personages.” Pope Julius II. took a fancy to him. “One
day they were playing cards together and the pope won from my father
three hundred crowns and his horses, which were very fine, and all his
equipments. After he had lost all, he said: ‘_Chadieu bénit_!’ (that was
his oath when he was angry; when he was good-natured he swore: ‘_Chardon
bénit!_’)--‘_Chadieu bénit!_ pope, play me five hundred crowns against
one of my ears, redeemable in eight days. If I don’t redeem it I’ll give
you leave to cut it off, and eat it if you like.’ The pope took him at
his word; and confessed afterwards that if my father had not redeemed
his ear, he would not have cut it off, but he would have forced him to
keep him company. They began to play again, and fortune willed that my
father won back everything except a fine courser, a pretty little
Spanish horse, and a handsome mule. The pope cut short the game and
would not play any more. My father said to him: ‘Hey! _Chadieu_! pope,
leave me my horse for money’ (for he was very fond of him) ‘and keep the
courser, who will throw you and break your neck, for he is too rough for
you; and keep the mule too, and may she rear and break your leg!’ The
pope laughed so he could not stop himself. At last, getting his breath,
he cried out: ‘I’ll do better; I’ll give you back your two horses, but
not the mule, and I’ll give you two other fine ones if you will keep me
company as far as Rome and stay with me there two months; we’ll pass the
time well, and it shall not cost you anything.’ My father answered:
‘_Chadieu!_ pope, if you gave me your mitre and your cap, too, I would
not do it; I wouldn’t quit my general and my companions just for your
pleasure. Good-bye to you, rascal.’ The pope laughed, while all the
great captains, French and Italians, who always spoke so reverently to
his Holiness, were amazed and laughed too at such liberty of language.
When the pope was on the point of leaving, he said to him, ‘Ask what
you want of me and you shall have it,’ thinking my father would ask for
his horses; but my father did not ask anything, except for a license and
dispensation to eat butter in Lent, for his stomach could never get
accustomed to olive and nut oil. The pope gave it him readily, and sent
him a bull, which was long to be seen in the archives of our house.”
The young Pierre de Bourdeille spent the first years of his existence at
the Court of Marguerite de Valois, sister of François I., to whom his
mother was lady-in-waiting. After the death of that princess in 1549 he
came to Paris to begin his studies, which he ended at Poitiers about the
year 1556.
Being the youngest of the family he was destined if not for the Church
at least for church benefices, which he never lacked through life. An
elder brother, Captain de Bourdeille, a valiant soldier, having been
killed at the siege of Hesdin by a cannon-ball which took off his head
and the arm that held a glass of water he was drinking on the breach,
King Henri II. desired, in recognition of so glorious a death, to do
some favour to the Bourdeille family; and the abbey of Brantôme falling
vacant at this very time, he gave it to the young Pierre de Bourdeille,
then sixteen years old, who henceforth bore the name of Seigneur and
Abbé de Brantôme, abbreviated after a while to Brantôme, by which name
he is known to posterity. In a few legal deeds of the period, especially
family documents, he is mentioned as “the reverend father in God, the
Abbé de Brantôme.”
Brantôme had possessed his abbey about a year when he began to dream of
going to the wars in Italy; this was the high-road to glory for the
young French nobles, ever since Charles VIII. had shown them the way.
Brantôme obtained from François I. permission to cut timber in the
forest of Saint-Trieix; this cut brought him in five hundred golden
crowns, with which he departed in 1558, “bearing,” he says, “a matchlock
arquebuse, a fine powder-horn from Milan, and mounted on a hackney worth
a hundred crowns, followed by six or seven gentlemen, soldiers
themselves, well set-up, armed and mounted the same, but on good stout
nags.”
He went first to Geneva, and there he saw the Calvinist emigration;
continuing his way he stayed at Milan and Ferrara, reaching Rome soon
after the death of Paul IV. There he was welcomed by the Grand-Prior of
France, François de Guise, who had brought his brother, the Cardinal of
Lorraine, to assist in the election of a new pontiff.
This was the epoch of the Renaissance,--that epoch when the knightly
king made all Europe resound with the fame of his amorous and warlike
prowess; when Titian and Primaticcio were leaving on the walls of
palaces their immortal handiwork; when Jean Goujon was carving his
figures on the fountains and the façades of the Louvre; when Rabelais
was inciting that mighty roar of laughter which, in itself, is a whole
human comedy; when the Marguerite of Marguerites was telling in her
“Heptameron” those charming tales of love. François I. dies; his son
succeeds him; Protestantism makes serious progress. Montgomery kills
Henri II., and François II. ascends the throne only to live a year; and
then it is that Marie Stuart leaves France, the tears in her eyes, sadly
singing as the beloved shores over which she had reigned so short a
while recede from sight: “Farewell, my pleasant land of France,
farewell!”
Returning to France without any warrior fame but closely attached by
this time to the Guises, Brantôme took to a Court life. He assisted in a
tournament between the grand-prior, François de Guise, disguised as an
Egyptian woman, “having on her arm a little monkey swaddled as an
infant, which kept its baby face there is no telling how,” and M. de
Nemours, dressed as a bourgeoise housekeeper wearing at her belt more
than a hundred keys attached to a thick silver chain. He witnessed the
terrible scene of the execution of the Huguenot nobles at Amboise
(March, 1560); was at Orléans when the Prince de Condé was arrested, and
at Poissy for the reception of the Knights of Saint-Michel. In short, he
was no more “home-keeping” in France than in foreign parts.
Charles IX., then about ten years old, succeeded his brother François
II. in December, 1560. The following year Duc François de Guise was
commissioned to escort his niece, Marie Stuart, to Scotland. Brantôme
went with them, saw the threatening reception given to the queen by her
sullen subjects, and then returned with the duke by way of England. In
London, Queen Elizabeth greeted them most graciously, deigning to dance
more than once with Duc François, to whom she said: “Monsieur mon
prieur” (that was how she called him) “I like you very much, but not
your brother, who tore my town of Calais from me.”
[Illustration: _Duc François de Guise_]
Brantôme returned to France at the moment when the edict of
Saint-Germain granting to Protestants the exercise of their religion was
promulgated, and he was struck by the change of aspect presented by the
Court and the whole nation. The two armed parties were face to face; the
Calvinists, scarcely escaped from persecution, seemed certain of
approaching triumph; the Prince de Condé, with four hundred gentlemen,
escorted the preachers to Charenton through the midst of a quivering
population. “Death to papists!”--the very cry Brantôme had first heard
on landing in Scotland, where it sounded so ill to his ears--was
beginning to be heard in France, to which the cry of “Death to the
Huguenots!” responded in the breasts of an irritated populace. Brantôme
did not hesitate as to the side he should take,--he was abbé, and
attached to the Guises; he fought through the war with them, took part
in the sieges of Blois, Bourges, and Rouen, was present at the battle of
Dreux, where he lost his protector the grand-prior, and attached himself
henceforth to François de Guise, the elder, whom he followed to the
siege of Orléans in 1563, where the duke was assassinated by Poltrot de
Méré under circumstances which Brantôme has vividly described in his
chapter on that great captain.
In 1564 Brantôme entered the household of the Duc d’Anjou (afterwards
Henri III.) as gentleman-in-waiting to the prince, on a salary of six
hundred livres a year. But, being seized again by his passion for
distant expeditions, he engaged during the same year in an enterprise
conducted by Spaniards against the Emperor of Morocco, and went with the
troops of Don Garcia of Toledo to besiege and take the towns on the
Barbary coast. He returned by way of Lisbon, pleased the king of
Portugal, Sebastiano, who conferred upon him his Order of the Christ,
and went from there to Madrid, where Queen Élisabeth gave him the
cordial welcome on which he plumes himself in his Discourse upon that
princess. He was commissioned by her to carry to her mother, Catherine
de’ Medici, the desire she felt to have an interview with her; which
interview took place at Bayonne, Brantôme not failing to be present.
In that same year, 1565, Sultan Suleiman attacked the island of Malta.
The grand-master of the Knights of Saint-John, Parisot de La Valette,
called for the help of all Christian powers. The French government had
treaties with the Ottoman Porte which did not allow it to come openly to
the assistance of the Knights; but many gentlemen, both Catholic and
Protestant, took part as volunteers. Among them went Brantôme,
naturally. “We were,” he says, “about three hundred gentlemen and eight
hundred soldiers. M. de Strozzi and M. de Bussac were with us, and to
them we deferred our own wills. It was only a little troop, but as
active and valiant as ever left France to fight the Infidel.”
While at Malta he seems to have had a fancy to enter the Order of the
Knights of Saint-John, but Philippe Strozzi dissuaded him. “He gave me
to understand,” says Brantôme, “that I should do wrong to abandon the
fine fortune that awaited me in France, whether from the hand of my
king, or from that of a beautiful, virtuous lady, and rich, to whom I
was just then servant and welcome guest, so that I had hope of marrying
her.”
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 contrary wind defeated his project, which
he did not renounce without regret. In after years he considered this
mischance a strong feature in his unfortunate destiny. “It was
possible,” he says, “that by means of Mme. la marquise I might have
encountered good luck, either by marriage or otherwise, for she did me
the kindness to love me. But I believe that my unhappy fate was resolved
to bring me back to France, where never did fortune smile upon me; I
have always been duped by vain expectations: I have received much honour
and esteem, but of property and rank, none at all. Companions of mine
who would have been proud had I deigned to speak to them at Court or in
the chamber of the king or queen, have long been advanced before me; I
see them round as pumpkins and highly exalted, though I will not, for
all that, defer to them to the length of my thumb-nail. That proverb,
‘No one is a prophet in his own country,’ was made for me. If I had
served foreign sovereigns as I have my own I should now be as loaded
with wealth and dignities as I am with sorrows and years. Patience! if
Fate has thus woven my days, I curse her! If my princes have done it, I
send them all to the devil, if they are not there already.”
But when he started from Malta Brantôme was still young, being then only
twenty-eight years of age. “Jogging, meandering, vagabondizing,” as he
says, he reached Venice; there he thought of going into Hungary in
search of the Turks, whom he had not been able to meet in Malta. But the
death of Sultan Suleiman stopped the invasion for one year at least, and
Brantôme reluctantly decided to return to France, passing through
Piedmont, where he gave a proof of his disinterestedness, which he
relates in his sketch of Marguerite, Duchesse de Savoie.
Reaching his own land he found the war he had been so far to seek
without encountering it; whereupon he recruited a company of
foot-soldiers, and took part in the third civil war with the title of
commander of two companies, though in fact there was but one. Shortly
after this he resigned his command to serve upon the staff of Monsieur,
commander-in-chief of the royal army. After the battle of Jarnac (March
15, 1569), being sick of an intermittent fever, he retired to his abbey,
where his presence throughout the troubles was far from useless. But
always more eager for distant expeditions than for the dulness of civil
war, Brantôme let himself be tempted by a grand project of Maréchal
Strozzi, who dreamed of nothing less than a descent on South America and
the conquest of Peru. Brantôme was commissioned in 1571 to go to the
port of Brouage and direct the preparations for the armament. It was
this enterprise that prevented him from being present at the battle of
Lepanto (October 7, 1571). “I should have gone there resolutely, as did
that brave M. de Grillon,” he says, “if it had not been for M. de
Strozzi, who amused me a whole year with that fine embarkation at
Brouage, which ended in nothing but the ruin of our purses,--to those of
us at least who owned the vessels.” But if the duties which kept him at
Brouage robbed him of the glory of being present at the greatest battle
of the age, it also saved him from being a witness of the Saint
Bartholomew.
The treaty of June 24, 1573, put an end to the siege of Rochelle and the
fourth civil war. Charles IX. died on May 30, 1574. Monsieur, elected
the year before to the throne of Poland, was in that distant country
when the death of his brother made him king of France. He hastened to
return. Brantôme went to meet him at Lyons and was one of the gentlemen
of his Bedchamber from 1575 to 1583. During the years just passed
Brantôme, besides the principal events already named in which he
participated, took part in various little or great events in the daily
life of the Court, such as: the quarrel of Sussy and Saint-Fal, the
splendid disgrace of Bussy d’Amboise, the death and obsequies of Charles
IX., the coronation of Henri III., etc. Throughout them all he played
the part of interested spectator, of active supernumerary without
importance; discontented at times and sulky, but always unable to make
himself feared.
The years went by in this sterile round. He was now thirty-five years
old. The hope of a great fortune was realized no more on the side of his
king than on that of his beautiful, virtuous, and rich lady. He is, no
doubt, “liked, known, and made welcome by the kings, his masters, by his
queens and his princesses, and all the great seigneurs, who held him in
such esteem that the name of Brantôme had great renown.” But he is not
satisfied with the Court small-change in which his services are paid. He
is vexed that his own lightheartedness is taken at its word; he would be
very glad indeed if that love of liberty with which he decked himself
were put to greater trials. Philosopher in spite of himself, he finds
his disappointments all the more painful because of his own opinion of
his merits. He sees men to whom he believes himself superior, preferred
before him. “His companions, not equal to him,” he says in the epitaph
he composed for himself, “surpassed him in benefits received, in
promotions and ranks, but never in virtue or in merit.” And he adds,
with posthumous resignation: “God be praised nevertheless for all, and
for his sacred mercy!”
Meantime, perchance a queen, Catherine de’ Medici or Marguerite de
Valois, deigns to drop into his ear some trifling word which he relishes
with delight. Henri de Guise [le Balafré], who was ten years younger
than himself, called him “my son;” and the Baron de Montesquieu, the one
that killed the Prince de Condé at Jarnac and was very much older than
Brantôme, who had pulled him out of the water during certain aquatic
games on the Seine, called him “father.” Such were the familiarities
with which he was treated.
He was, it is true, chevalier of the Order of Saint-Michel, but that was
not enough to console his ambition. He complained that they degraded
that honour, no longer reserved to the nobility of the sword. He thinks
it bad, for instance, that it was granted to his neighbour, Michel de
Montaigne. “We have seen,” he says, “counsellors coming from the courts
of parliament, abandoning robes and the square cap to drag a sword
behind them, and at once the king decks them with the collar, without
any pretext of their going to war. This is what was given to the Sieur
de Montaigne, who would have done much better to continue to write his
Essays instead of changing his pen into a sword, which does not suit
him. The Marquis de Trans obtained the Order very easily from the king
for one of his neighbours, no doubt in derision, for he is a great
joker.” Brantôme always speaks very slightingly of Montaigne because the
latter was of lesser nobility than his own; but that does not prevent
the Sieur de Montaigne from being to our eyes a much greater man than
the Seigneur de Brantôme.
Brantôme continued to follow the Court. He accompanied the queen-mother
when she went in 1576 to Poitou to bring back the Duc d’Alençon, who was
dabbling in plots. He accompanied her again when she conducted in 1578
her daughter Marguerite to Navarre; and at their solemn entry into
Bordeaux he had the honour of being near them on the “scaffold,” or, as
we should say in the present day, the platform. He had also the luck to
hear at Saint-Germain-en-Laye King Henri III. make during his dinner, in
presence of the Duc de Joyeuse (on whose nuptials the fluent monarch was
destined to spend a million), a discourse worthy of Cato against luxury
and extravagance.
In 1582, his elder brother, André de Bourdeille, seneschal and governor
of the Périgord, died. He left a son scarcely nine years old. Brantôme
had obtained from King Henri III. a promise that he should hold those
offices until the majority of his nephew, on condition of transmitting
them at that time. The king confirmed this promise on several occasions
during the last illness of André de Bourdeille. But at the latter’s
death it was discovered that he had bound himself in his daughter’s
marriage contract to resign those offices to his son-in-law. The king
considered that he ought to respect this family arrangement. Brantôme
was keenly hurt. “On the second day of the year,” he says, “as the king
was returning from his ceremony of the Saint-Esprit, I made my complaint
to him, more in anger than to implore him, as he well understood. He
made me excuses, although he was my king. Among other reasons he said
plainly that he could not refuse that resignation when presented to him,
or he should be unjust. I made him no reply, except: ‘Well, sire, I
ought not to have put faith in you; a good reason never to serve you
again as I have served you.’ On which I went away much vexed. I met
several of my companions, to whom I related everything. I protested and
swore that if I had a thousand lives not one would I employ for a King
of France. I cursed my luck, I cursed life, I loathed the king’s favour,
I despised with a curling lip those beggarly fellows loaded with royal
favours who were in no wise as worthy of them as I. Hanging to my belt
was the gilt key to the king’s bedroom; I unfastened it and flung it
from the Quai des Augustins, where I stood, into the river below. I
never again entered the king’s room; I abhorred it, and I swore never to
set foot in it any more. I did not, however, cease to frequent the Court
and to show myself in the room of the queen, who did me the honour to
like me, and in those of her ladies and maids of honour and of the
princesses, seigneurs, and princes, my good friends. I talked aloud
about my displeasure, so that the king, hearing of what I said, sent me
a few words by M. du Halde, his head _valet de chambre_. I contented
myself with answering that I was the king’s most obedient, and said no
more.”
Monsieur (the Duc d’Alençon) took notice of Brantôme, and made him his
chamberlain. About this time it was that he began to compose for this
prince the “Discourses” afterwards made into a book and called “Vies des
Dames Galantes,” which he dedicated to the Duc d’Alençon. The latter
died in 1584,--a loss that dashed once more the hopes of Brantôme and of
others who, like him, had pinned their faith upon that prince. After
all, Brantôme had some reason to complain of his evil star.
Then it was that Brantôme meditated vast and even criminal projects,
which he himself has revealed to us: “I resolved to sell the little
property I possessed in France and go off and serve that great King of
Spain, very illustrious and noble remunerator of services rendered to
him, not compelling his servitors to importune him, but done of his own
free will and wise opinion, and out of just consideration. Whereupon I
reflected and ruminated within myself that I was able to serve him well;
for there is not a harbour nor a seaport from Picardy to Bayonne that I
do not know perfectly, except those of Bretagne which I have not seen;
and I know equally well all the weak spots on the coast of Languedoc
from Grasse to Provence. To make myself sure of my facts, I had recently
made a new tour to several of the towns, pretending to wish to arm a
ship and send it on a voyage, or go myself. In fact, I had played my
game so well that I had discovered half a dozen towns on these coasts
easy to capture on their weak sides, which I knew then and which I still
know. I therefore thought I could serve the King of Spain in these
directions so well that I might count on obtaining the reward of great
wealth and dignities. But before I banished myself from France I
proposed to sell my estates and put the money in a bank of Spain or
Italy. I also proposed, and I discoursed of it to the Comte de La
Rochefoucauld, to ask leave of absence from the king that I might not be
called a deserter, and to be relieved of my oath as a subject in order
to go wherever I should find myself better off than in his kingdom. I
believe he could not have refused my request; because everyone is free
to change his country and choose another. But however that might be, if
he had refused me I should have gone all the same, neither more nor less
like a valet who is angry with his master and wants to leave him; if the
latter will not give him leave to go, it is not reprehensible to take it
and attach himself to another master.”
Thus reasoned Brantôme. He returns on several occasions to these lawless
opinions; he argues, apropos of the Connétable de Bourbon and La Noue,
against the scruples of those who are willing to leave their country,
but not to take up arms against her. “I’faith!” he cries, “here are
fine, scrupulous philosophers! Their quartan fevers! While I hold shyly
back, pray who will feed me? Whereas if I bare my sword to the wind it
will give me food and magnify my fame.”
Such ideas were current in those days among the nobles, in whom the
patriotic sentiment, long subordinated to that of caste, was only
developed later. These projects of treachery should therefore not be
judged altogether with the severity of modern ideas. Besides, Brantôme
is working himself up; it does not belong to every one to produce such
grand disasters as these he meditates. Moreover, thought is far from
action; events may intervene. People call them fate or chance, but
chance will often simply aid the secret impulses of conscience, and bind
our will to that it chooses.
“Fine human schemes I made!” Brantôme resumes. “On the very point of
their accomplishment the war of the League broke out and turmoiled
things in such a way that no one would buy lands, for every man had
trouble enough to keep what he owned, neither would he strip himself of
money. Those who had promised to buy my property excused themselves. To
go to foreign parts without resources was madness,--it would only have
exposed me to all sorts of misery; I had too much experience to commit
that folly. To complete the destruction of my designs, one day, at the
height of my vigor and jollity, a miserable horse, whose white skin
might have warned me of nothing good, reared and fell over upon me
breaking and crushing my loins, so that for four years I lay in my bed,
maimed, impotent in every limb, unable to turn or move without torture
and all the agony in the world; and since then my health has never been
what it once was. Thus man proposes, and God disposes. God does all
things for the best! It is possible that if I had realized my plans I
should have done more harm to my country than the renegade of Algiers
did to his; and because of it, I might have been perpetually cursed of
God and man.”
Consequently, this great scheme remained a dream; no one need ever have
known anything about it if Brantôme himself had not taken pains to
inform us of it with much complacency.
The cruel fall which stopped his guilty projects must have occurred in
1585. At the end of three years and a half of suffering he met, he tells
us, “with a very great personage and operator, called M.
Saint-Christophe, whom God raised up for my good and cure, who succeeded
in relieving me after many other doctors had failed.” As soon as he was
nearly well he began once more to travel. It does not appear that he
frequented the Court after the death of Catherine de’ Medici, which took
place in January, 1589; but he was present, in that year, at the baptism
of the posthumous son of Henri de Guise, whom the Parisians adopted
after the father’s murder at Blois, and named _Paris_. Agrippa
d’Aubigné, in his caricature of the Procession of the League, gives
Brantôme a small place as bearer of bells. But was he really there? It
seems doubtful; he makes somewhere the judicious reflection that: “One
may well be surprised that so many French nobles put themselves on the
side of the League, for if it had got the upper hand it is very certain
that the clergy would have deprived them of church property and wiped
their lips forever of it, which result would have cut the wings of their
extravagance for a very long while.” The secular Abbé de Brantôme had
therefore as good reasons for not being a Leaguer as for not being a
Huguenot.
In 1590 he went to make his obeisance to Marguerite, Queen of Navarre,
then confined in the Château d’Usson in Auvergne. He presented to her
his “discourse” on “Spanish Rhodomontades,” perhaps also a first copy of
the life of that princess (which appears in this volume), and he also
showed her the titles of the other books he had composed. He was so
enchanted with the greeting Queen Marguerite, la Reine Margot, gave him,
“the sole remaining daughter of the noble house of France, the most
beautiful, most noble, grandest, most generous, most magnanimous, and
most accomplished princess in the world” (when Brantôme praises he does
not do it by halves), that he promised to dedicate to her the entire
collection of his works,--a promise he faithfully fulfilled.
His health, now decidedly affected, confined more and more to his own
home this indefatigable rover, who had, as he said, “the nature of a
minstrel who prefers the house of others to his own.” Condemned to a
sedentary life, he used his activity as he could. He caused to be built
the noble castle of Richemont, with much pains and at great expense. He
grew quarrelsome and litigious; brought suits against his relations,
against his neighbours, against his monks, whom he accused of
ingratitude. By his will he bequeathed his lawsuits to his heirs, and
forbade each and all to compromise them.
Difficult to live with, soured, dissatisfied with the world, he was not,
it would seem, in easy circumstances. He did not spare posterity the
recital of his plaints: “Favours, grandeurs, boasts, and vanities, all
the pleasant things of the good old days are gone like the wind. Nothing
remains to me but to _have been_ all that; sometimes that memory pleases
me, and sometimes it vexes me. Nearing a decrepit old age, the worst of
all woes, nearing, too, a poverty which cannot be cured as in our
flourishing years when nought is impossible, repenting me a hundred
thousand times for the fine extravagances I committed in other days, and
regretting I did not save enough then to support me now in feeble age,
when I lack all of which I once possessed too much,--I see, with a
bursting heart, an infinite number of paltry fellows raised to rank and
riches, while Fortune, treacherous and blind that she is, feeds me on
air and then deserts and mocks me. If she would only put me quickly into
the hands of death I would still forgive her the wrongs she has done me.
But there is the worst of it; we can neither live nor die as we wish.
Therefore, let destiny do as it will, never shall I cease to curse it
from heart and lip. And worst of all do I detest old age weighed down by
poverty. As the queen-mother said to me one day when I had the honour to
speak to her on this subject about another person, ‘Old age brings us
inconveniences enough without the additional burden of poverty; the two
united are the height of misery, against which there is one only
sovereign cure, and that is death. Happy he who finds it when he reaches
fifty-six, for after that our life is but labour and sorrow, and we eat
but the bread of ashes, as saith the prophet.’”
He continued, however, to write, retracing all that he had seen and
garnered either while making his campaigns with the great captains of
his time, or in gossiping with idle gentlemen in the halls of the
Louvre. It was thus he composed his biographical and anecdotical
volumes, which he retouched and rewrote at intervals, making several
successive copies. That he had the future of his writings much at heart,
in spite of a scornful air of indifference which he sometimes assumed,
appears very plainly from the following clause in his will:
“I will,” he says, “and I expressly charge my heirs to cause to be
printed my Books, which I have composed from my mind and invention with
great toil and trouble, written by my hand, and transcribed clearly by
that of Mataud, my hired secretary; the which will be found in five
volumes covered with velvet, black, tan, green, blue, and a large
volume, which is that of ‘The Ladies,’ covered with green velvet, and
another covered with vellum and gilded thereon, which is that of ‘The
Rhodomontades.’ They will be found in one of my wicker trunks, carefully
protected. Fine things will be found in them, such as tales, discourses,
histories, and witticisms; which no one can disdain, it seems to me, if
once they are placed under his nose and eyes. In order to have them
printed according to my fancy, I charge with that purpose Madame la
Comtesse de Duretal, my dear niece, or some other person she may choose.
And to do this I order that enough be taken from my whole property to
pay the costs of the said printing, and my heirs are not to divide or
use my property until this printing is provided for. It is not probable
that it will cost much; for the printers, when they cast their eyes upon
the books, would pay to print them instead of exacting money; for they
do print many gratis that are not worth as much as mine. I can boast of
this; for I have shown them, at least in part, to several among that
trade, who offered to print them for nothing. But I do not choose that
they be printed during my life. Above all, I will that the said printing
be in fine, large letters, in a great volume to make the better show,
with license from the king, who will give it readily; or without
license, if that can be. Care must also be taken that the printer does
not put on another name than mine; otherwise I shall be frustrated of
all my trouble and of the fame that is my due. I also will that the
first book that issues from the press shall be given as a gift, well
bound and covered in velvet, to Queen Marguerite, my very illustrious
mistress, who did me the honour to read some of my writings, and who
thought them fine and esteemed them.”
This will was made about the year 1609. On the 15th of July, 1614,
Brantôme died, after living his last years in complete oblivion; he was
buried, according to his wishes, in the chapel of his château of
Richemont. In spite of his express directions, neither the Comtesse de
Duretal nor any other of his heirs executed the clause in his will
relating to the publication of his works. Possibly they feared it might
create some scandal, or it may be that they could not obtain the royal
license. The manuscripts remained in the château of Richemont. Little by
little, as time went on, they attracted attention; copies were made
which found their way to the cabinets and libraries of collectors. They
were finally printed in Holland; and the first volume, which appeared in
Leyden from the press of Jean Sambix the younger, sold by F. Foppons,
Brussels, 1665, was that which here follows: “The Book of the Ladies,”
called by the publisher, not by Brantôme, “Lives of Illustrious Dames.”
It is not easy to distinguish the exact periods at which Brantôme wrote
his works. “The Book of the Ladies,” first and second parts,--_Dames
Illustres and Dames Galantes_,--were evidently the first written; then
followed “The Lives of Great and Illustrious French Captains,” “Lives of
Great Foreign Captains,” “Anecdotes concerning Duels,” “The
Rhodomontades,” and “Spanish Oaths.” Brantôme did not write his Memoirs,
properly so-called; his biographical facts and incidents are scattered
throughout the above-named volumes.
The following translation of the “Book of the Ladies” does not pretend
to imitate Brantôme’s style. To do so would seem an affectation in
English, and attract attention to itself which it is always desirable to
avoid in translating. Wherever a few of Brantôme’s quaint turns of
phrase are given, it is only as they fall naturally into English.
THE BOOK OF THE LADIES.
DISCOURSE I.
ANNE DE BRETAGNE, QUEEN OF FRANCE.
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 about them, and even the great
Boccaccio has made a fine book solely on that subject [_De claris
mulieribus_].
I shall begin therefore with our queen, Anne de Bretagne, the most
worthy and honourable queen that has ever been since Queen Blanche,
mother of the King Saint-Louis, and very sage and virtuous.
This Queen Anne was the rich heiress of the duchy of Bretagne, which was
held to be one of the finest of Christendom, and for that reason she was
sought in marriage by the greatest persons. M. le Duc d’Orléans,
afterwards King Louis XII., in his young days courted her, and did for
her sake his fine feats of arms in Bretagne, and even at the battle of
Saint Aubin, where he was taken prisoner fighting on foot at the head of
his infantry. I have heard say that this capture was the reason why he
did not espouse her then; for thereon intervened Maximilian, Duke of
Austria, since emperor, who married her by the proxy of his uncle the
Prince of Orange in the great church at Nantes. But King Charles VIII.,
having advised with his council that it was not good to have so
powerful a seigneur encroach and get a footing in his kingdom, broke off
a marriage that had been settled between himself and Marguerite of
Flanders, took the said Anne from Maximilian, her affianced, and wedded
her himself; so that every one conjectured thereon that a marriage thus
made would be luckless in issue.
Now if Anne was desired for her property, she was as much so for her
virtues and merits; for she was beautiful and agreeable; as I have heard
say by elderly persons who knew her, and according to her portrait,
which I have seen from life; resembling in face the beautiful Demoiselle
de Châteauneuf, who has been so renowned at the Court for her beauty;
and that is sufficient to tell the beauty of Queen Anne as I have heard
it portrayed to the queen-mother [Catherine de’ Medici].
Her figure was fine and of medium height. It is true that one foot was
shorter than the other the least in the world; but this was little
perceived, and hardly to be noticed, so that her beauty was not at all
spoilt by it; for I myself have seen very handsome women with that
defect who yet were extreme in beauty, like Mme. la Princesse de Condé,
of the house of Longueville.