conductor, and also leader of all the army which was with her, was
summoned to deliver her, according to the order, which was shown to the
Cardinal de Bourbon, to receive her. The king replied, for he spoke
well, and said: “I place in your hands this princess, whom I have
brought from the house of the greatest king in the world to be placed in
the hands of the most illustrious king on earth. Knowing you to be very
sufficient and chosen by the king your master to receive her, I make no
difficulty nor doubt that you will acquit yourselves worthily of this
trust, which I now discharge upon you; begging you to have peculiar
care of her health and person, for she deserves it; and I wish you to
know that never did there enter Spain so great an ornament of all
virtues and chastities, as in time you will know well by results.”
The Spaniards replied at once that already at first sight they had very
ample knowledge of this from her manner and grave majesty; and, in
truth, her virtues were rare.
She had great knowledge, because the queen her mother had made her study
well under M. de Saint-Étienne, her preceptor, whom she always loved and
respected until her death. She loved poesy, and to read it. She spoke
well, in either French or Spanish, with a very noble air and much good
grace. Her Spanish language was beautiful, as dainty and attractive as
possible; she learned it in three or four months after coming to Spain.
To Frenchmen she always spoke French; never being willing to discontinue
it, but reading it daily in the fine books they sent from France, which
she was very anxious to have brought to her. To Spaniards and all others
she spoke Spanish and very well. In short, she was perfect in all
things, and so magnificent and liberal that no one could be more so. She
never wore her gowns a second time, but gave them to her ladies and
maids; and God knows what gowns they were, so rich and so superb that
the least was reckoned at three or four hundred crowns; for the king,
her husband, kept her most superbly in such matters; so that every day
she had a new one, as I was told by her tailor, who from being a very
poor man became so rich that nothing exceeded him, as I saw myself.
She dressed well, and very pompously, and her habiliments became her
much; among other things her sleeves were slashed, with scollops which
they call in Spanish _puntas_; her head-dress the same, where nothing
lacked. Those who see her thus in painting admire her; I therefore leave
you to think what pleasure they had who saw her face to face, with all
her gestures and good graces.
As for pearls and jewels in great quantity, she never lacked them, for
the king, her husband, ordered a great estate for her and for her
household. Alas! what served her that for such an end? Her ladies and
maids of honour felt it. Those who, being French, could not constrain
themselves to live in a foreign land, she caused, by a prayer which she
made to the king, her husband, to receive each four thousand crowns on
their marriage; as was done to Mesdamoiselles Riberac, sisters,
otherwise called Guitignières, de Fumel, the two sisters de Thorigny, de
Noyau, d’Arne, de La Motte au Groin, Montal, and several others. Those
who were willing to remain were better off, like Mesdamoiselles de
Saint-Ana and de Saint-Legier, who had the honour to be governesses to
Mesdames the infantas, and were married very richly to two great
seigneurs; they were the wisest, for better is it to be great in a
foreign country than little in your own,--as Jesus said: “No one is a
prophet in his own land.”
This is all, at this time, that I shall say of this good, wise and very
virtuous queen, though later I may speak of her. But I give this sonnet
which was written to her praise by an honourable gentleman, she being
still Madame, though promised in marriage:--
“Princess, to whom the skies give such advantage
That, for the part you have in Heaven’s divinity,
They grant you all the virtues of this earth,
And crown you with the gift of immortality:
“And since it pleased them that in early years
Your heavenly gifts of deity be seen,
So that you temper with a humble gravity
The royal grandeur of your sacred heritage:
“And also since it pleases them to favour you,
And place in you the best of all their best,
So that your name is cherished everywhere:
“Methinks that name should undergo a change,
And though we call you now Élisabeth of France,
You should be named Élisabeth of Heaven.”
I know that I may be reproved for putting into this Discourse and others
preceding it too many little particulars which are quite superfluous. I
think so myself; but I know that if they displease some persons, they
will please others. Methinks it is not enough when we laud persons to
say that they are handsome, wise, virtuous, valorous, valiant,
magnanimous, liberal, splendid, and very perfect; those are general
descriptions and praises and commonplace sayings, borrowed from
everybody. We should specify such things and describe particularly all
perfections, so that one may, as it were, touch them with the finger.
Such is my opinion, and it pleases me to retain and rejoice my memory
with things that I have seen.
EPITAPH ON THE SAID QUEEN.
“Beneath this stone lies Élisabeth of France:
Who was Queen of Spain and queen of peace,
Christian and Catholic. Her lovely presence
Was useful to us all. Now that her noble bones
Are dry and crumbling, lying under ground,
We have nought but ills and wars and troubles.”
DISCOURSE V.
MARGUERITE, QUEEN OF FRANCE AND OF NAVARRE, SOLE DAUGHTER NOW REMAINING
OF THE NOBLE HOUSE OF FRANCE.[12]
When I consider the miseries and ill-adventures of that beautiful Queen
of Scotland of whom I have heretofore spoken, and of other princesses
and ladies whom I shall not name, fearing by such digression to impair
my discourse on the Queen of Navarre, of whom I now speak, not being as
yet Queen of France, I cannot think otherwise than that Fortune,
omnipotent goddess of weal and woe, is the opposing enemy of human
beauty; for if ever there was in the world a being of perfect beauty it
is the Queen of Navarre, and yet she has been little favoured by
Fortune, so far; so that one may indeed say that Fortune was so jealous
of Nature for having made this princess beautiful that she wished to run
counter in fate. However that may be, her beauty is such that the blows
of said Fortune have no ascendency upon her, for the generous courage
she drew at birth from so many brave and valorous kings, her father,
grandfather, great-grandfather, and their ancestors, has enabled her
hitherto to make a brave resistance.
To speak now of the beauty of this rare princess: I think that all those
who are, will be, or ever have been beside it are plain, and cannot have
beauty; for the fire of hers so burns the wings of others that they dare
not hover, or even appear, around it. If there be any unbeliever so
chary of faith as not to give credence to the miracles of God and
Nature, let him contemplate her fine face, so nobly formed, and become
converted, and say that Mother Nature, that perfect workwoman, has put
all her rarest and subtlest wits to the making of her. For whether she
shows herself smiling or grave, the sight of her serves to enkindle
every one; so beauteous are her features, so well defined her
lineaments, so transparent and agreeable her eyes that they pass
description; and, what is more, that beautiful face rests on a body
still more beautiful, superb, and rich,--of a port and majesty more like
to a goddess of heaven than a princess of earth; for it is believed, on
the word of several, that no goddess was ever seen more beautiful; so
that, in order to duly proclaim her beauty, virtues, and merit, God must
lengthen the earth and heighten the sky beyond where they now are, for
space in the airs and on the land is lacking for the flight of her
perfection and renown.
Those are the beauties of body and mind in this fair princess, which I
at this time represent, like a good painter, after nature and without
art. I speak of those to be seen externally; for those that are secret
and hidden beneath white linen and rich accoutrements cannot be here
depicted or judged except as being very beautiful and rare; but this
must be by faith, presumption, and credence, for sight is interdicted.
Great hardship truly to be forced to see so beautiful a picture, made by
the hand of a divine workman, in the half only of its perfection; but
modesty and laudable shamefacedness thus ordain it--for they lodge among
princesses and great ladies as they do among commoner folk.
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 Henri [then Duc d’Anjou] his election
to the kingdom of Poland, and to render him homage and obedience, after
they had made their reverence to King Charles, to the queen-mother, and
to their king, they made it, very particularly, and for several days, to
Monsieur, and to the King and Queen of Navarre; but the day when they
made it to the said Queen of Navarre she seemed to them so beautiful and
so superbly and richly accoutred and adorned, and with such great
majesty and grace that they were speechless at such beauty. Among
others, there was Lasqui, the chief of the embassy, whom I heard say, as
he retired, overcome by the sight: “No, never do I wish to see such
beauty again. Willingly would I do as do the Turks, pilgrims to Mecca,
where the sepulchre of their prophet Mahomet is, and where they stand
speechless, ravished, and so transfixed at the sight of that superb
mosque that they wish to see nothing more and burn their eyes out with
hot irons till they lose their sight, so subtly is it done; saying that
nothing more could be seen as fine, and therefore would they see
nothing.” Thus said that Pole about the beauty of our princess. And if
the Poles were won to admiration, so were others. I instance here Don
Juan of Austria, who (as I have said elsewhere), passing through France
as stilly as he could, and reaching Paris, knowing that that night a
solemn ball was given at the Louvre, went there disguised, as much to
see Queen Marguerite of Navarre as for any other purpose. He there had
means and leisure to see her at his ease, dancing, and led by the king,
her brother, as was usual. He gazed upon her long, admired her, and then
proclaimed her high above the beauties of Spain and Italy (two regions,
nevertheless, most fertile in beauty), saying these words in Spanish:
“Though the beauty of that queen is more divine than human, she is made
to damn and ruin men rather than to save them.”
Shortly after, he saw her again as she went to the baths of Liège, Don
Juan being then at Namur, where she had to pass; the which crowned all
his hopes to enjoy so fine a sight, and he went to meet her with great
and splendid Spanish magnificence, receiving her as though she were the
Queen Élisabeth, her sister, in the latter’s lifetime his queen, and
Queen of Spain. And though he was most enchanted with the beauty of her
body, he was the same with that of her mind, as I hope to show in its
proper place. But it was not Don Juan alone who praised and delighted to
praise her, but all his great and brave Spanish captains did the same,
and even the very soldiers of those far-famed bands, who went about
saying among themselves, in soldierly chorus, that “the conquest of such
beauty was better than that of a kingdom, and happy would be the
soldiers who, to serve her, would die beneath her banner.”
It is not surprising that such people, well-born and noble, should think
this princess beautiful, but I have seen Turks coming on an embassy to
the king her brother, barbarians that they were, lose themselves in
gazing at her, and say that the pomp of their Grand Signior in going to
his mosque or marching with his army was not so fine to see as the
beauty of this queen.
In short, I have seen an infinity of other strangers who have come to
France and to the Court expressly to behold her whose fame had gone from
end to end of Europe, so they said.
I once saw a gallant Neapolitan knight, who, having come to Paris and
the Court, and not finding the said queen, delayed his return two months
in order to see her, and having seen her he said these words: “In other
days, the Princess of Salerno bore the like reputation for beauty in our
city of Naples, so that a foreigner who had gone there and had not seen
her, when he returned and related his visit, and was asked had he seen
that princess, and answered no, was told that in that case he had not
seen Naples. Thus I, if on my return without seeing this beautiful
princess I were asked had I seen France and the Court, could scarcely
say I had, for she is its ornament and enrichment. But now, having seen
and contemplated her so well, I can say that I have seen the greatest
beauty in the world, and that our Princess of Salerno is as nothing to
her. Now I am well content to go, having enjoyed so fine a sight. I
leave you Frenchmen to think how happy you should be to see at your ease
and daily her fine face; and to approach that flame divine, which can
warm and kindle frigid hearts from afar more than the beauty of our most
beauteous dames near-by.” Such were the words said to me one day by that
charming Neapolitan knight.
An honourable French gentleman, whom I could name, seeing her one
evening, in her finest lustre and most stately majesty in a ball-room,
said to me these words: “Ah! if the Sieur des Essarts, who, in his books
of ‘Amadis’ forced himself with such pains to well and richly describe
to the world the beautiful Nicquée and her glory, had seen this queen in
his day he would not have needed to borrow so many rich and noble words
to depict and set forth Nicquée’s beauty; ‘t would have sufficed him to
declare she was the semblance and image of the Queen of Navarre, unique
in this world; and thus the beauteous Nicquée would have been better
pictured than she has been, and without superfluity of words.”
Therefore, M. de Ronsard had good reason to compose that glorious elegy
found among his works in honour of this beautiful Princess Marguerite of
France, then not married, in which he has introduced the goddess Venus
asking her son whether in his rambles here below, seeing the ladies of
the Court of France, he had found a beauty that surpassed her own. “Yes,
mother,” Love replied, “I have found one on whom the glory of the finest
sky is shed since ever she was born.” Venus flushed red and would not
credit it, but sent a messenger, one of her Charites, to earth to
examine that beauty and make a just report. On which we read in the
elegy a rich and fine description of the charms of that accomplished
princess, in the mouth of the Charite Pasithea, the reading of which
cannot fail to please the world. But M. de Ronsard, as a very honourable
and able lady said to me, stopped short and lacked a little something,
in that he should have told how Pasithea returned to heaven, and there,
discharging her commission, said to Venus that her son had only told the
half; the which so saddened and provoked the goddess into jealousy,
making her blame Jupiter for the wrong he did to form on earth a beauty
that shamed those of heaven (and principally hers, the rarest of them
all), that henceforth she wore mourning and made abstinence from
pleasures and delights; for there is nothing so vexatious to a beautiful
and perfect lady as to tell her she has her equal, or that another can
surpass her.
Now, we must note that if our queen was beauteous in herself and in her
nature, also she knew well how to array herself; and so carefully and
richly was she dressed, both for her body and her head, that nothing
lacked to give her full perfection.
To the Queen Isabella of Bavaria, wife of King Charles VI., belongs the
praise of having brought to France the pomps and gorgeousness that
henceforth clothed most splendidly and gorgeously the ladies;[13] for in
the old tapestries of that period in the houses of our kings we see
portrayed the ladies attired as they then were, in nought but
drolleries, slovenliness, and vulgarities, in place of the beautiful,
superb fashions, dainty headgear, inventions, and ornaments of our
queen; from which the ladies of the Court and France take pattern, so
that ever since, appearing in her modes, they are now great ladies
instead of simple madams, and so a hundredfold more charming and
desirable. It is to our Queen Marguerite that ladies owe this
obligation.
I remember (for I was there) that when the queen-mother took this queen,
her daughter, to the King of Navarre, her husband, she passed through
Coignac and made some stay. While they were there, came various grand
and honourable ladies of the region to see them and do them reverence,
who were all amazed at the beauty of the princess, and could not surfeit
themselves in praising her to her mother, she being lost in joy.
Wherefore she begged her daughter to array herself one day most
gorgeously in the fine and superb apparel that she wore at Court for
great and magnificent pomps and festivals, in order to give pleasure to
these worthy dames. Which she did, to obey so good a mother; appearing
robed superbly in a gown of silver tissue and dove-colour, _à la
bolonnoise_ [_bouillonnée_--with puffs?], and hanging sleeves, a rich
head-dress with a white veil, neither too large nor yet too small; the
whole accompanied with so noble a majesty and good grace that she seemed
more a goddess of heaven than a queen of earth. The queen-mother said to
her: “My daughter, you look well.” To which she answered: “Madame, I
begin early to wear and to wear out my gowns and the fashions I have
brought from Court, because when I return I shall bring nothing with me
only scissors and stuffs to dress me then according to current
fashions.” The queen-mother asked her: “What do you mean by that, my
daughter? Is it not you yourself who invent and produce these fashions
of dress? Wherever you go the Court will take them from you, not you
from the Court.” Which was true; for after she returned she was always
in advance of the Court, so well did she know how to invent in her
dainty mind all sorts of charming things.
But the beauteous queen in whatsoever fashion she dressed, were it _à la
française_ with her tall head-dress, or in a simple coif, with her grand
veil, or merely in a cap, could never prove which of these fashions
became her most and made her most beautiful, admirable, and lovable; for
she well knew how to adapt herself to every mode, adjusting each new
device in a way not common and quite inimitable. So that if other ladies
took her pattern to form it for themselves they could not rival her, as
I have noticed a hundred times. I have seen her dressed in a robe of
white satin that shimmered much, a trifle of rose-colour mingling in it,
with a veil of tan crêpe or Roman gauze flung carelessly round her head;
yet nothing was ever more beautiful; and whatever may be said of the
goddesses of the olden time and the empresses as we see them on ancient
coins, they look, though splendidly accoutred, like chambermaids beside
her.
I have often heard our courtiers dispute as to which attire became and
embellished her the most, about which each had his own opinion. For my
part, the most becoming array in which I ever saw her was, as I think,
and so did others, on the day when the queen-mother made a fête at the
Tuileries for the Poles. She was robed in a velvet gown of Spanish rose,
covered with spangles, with a cap of the same velvet, adorned with
plumes and jewels of such splendour as never was. She looked so
beautiful in this attire, as many told her, that she wore it often and
was painted in it; so that among her various portraits this one carries
the day over all others, as the eyes of good judges will tell, for
there are plenty of her pictures to judge by.
When she appeared, thus dressed, at the Tuileries, I said to M. de
Ronsard, who stood next to me: “Tell the truth, monsieur, do you not
think that beautiful queen thus apparelled is like Aurora, as she comes
at dawn with her fair white face surrounded with those rosy tints?--for
face and gown have much in sympathy and likeness.” M. de Ronsard avowed
that I was right; and on this my comparison, thinking it fine, he made a
sonnet, which I would fain have now, to insert it here.
I also saw this our great queen at the first States-general at Blois on
the day the king, her brother, made his harangue. She was dressed in a
robe of orange and black (the ground being black with many spangles) and
her great veil of ceremony; and being seated according to her rank she
appeared so beautiful and admirable that I heard more than three hundred
persons in that assembly say they were better instructed and delighted
by the contemplation of such divine beauty than by listening to the
grave and noble words of the king, her brother, though he spoke and
harangued his best. I have also seen her dressed in her natural hair
without any artifice or peruke; and though her hair was very black
(having derived that from her father, King Henri), she knew so well how
to curl and twist and arrange it after the fashion of her sister, the
Queen of Spain, who wore none but her own hair, that such coiffure and
adornment became her as well as, or better than, any other. That is what
it is to have beauties by nature, which surpasses all artifice, no
matter what it may be. And yet she did not like the fashion much and
seldom used it, but preferred perukes most daintily fashioned.
In short, I should never have done did I try to describe all her
adornments and forms of attire in which she was ever more and more
beauteous; for she changed them often, and all were so becoming and
appropriate, as though Nature and Art were striving to outdo each other
in making her beautiful. But this is not all; for her fine accoutrements
and adornments never ventured to cover her beautiful throat or her
lovely bosom, fearing to wrong the eyes of all the world that roved upon
so fine an object; for never was there seen the like in form and
whiteness, and so full and plump that often the courtiers died with envy
when they saw the ladies, as I have seen them, those who were her
intimates, have license to kiss her with great delight.
I remember that a worthy gentleman, newly arrived at Court, who had
never seen her, when he beheld her said to me these words: “I am not
surprised that all you gentlemen should like the Court; for if you had
no other pleasure than daily to see that princess, you have as much as
though you lived in a terrestrial paradise.”
Roman emperors of the olden time, to please the people and give them
pleasure, exhibited games and combats in their theatres; but to give
pleasure to the people of France and gain their friendship, it was
enough to let them often see Queen Marguerite, and enjoy the
contemplation of so divine a face, which she never hid behind a mask
like other ladies of our Court, for nearly all the time she went
uncovered; and once, on a flowery Easter Day at Blois, still being
Madame, sister of the king (although her marriage was then being treated
of), I saw her appear in the procession more beautiful than ever,
because, besides the beauty of her face and form, she was most superbly
adorned and apparelled; her pure white face, resembling the skies in
their serenity, was adorned about the head with quantities of pearls and
jewels, especially brilliant diamonds, worn in the form of stars, so
that the calm of the face and the sparkling jewels made one think of
the heavens when starry. Her beautiful body with its full, tall form was
robed in a gown of crinkled cloth of gold, the richest and most
beautiful ever seen in France. This stuff was a gift made by the Grand
Signior to M. de Grand-Champ, our ambassador, on his departure from
Constantinople,--it being the Grand Signior’s custom to present to those
who are sent to him a piece of the said stuff amounting to fifteen ells,
which, so Grand-Champ told me, cost one hundred crowns the ell; for it
was indeed a masterpiece. He, on coming to France and not knowing how to
employ more worthily the gift of so rich a stuff, gave it to Madame, the
sister of the king, who made a gown of it, and wore it first on the said
occasion, when it became her well--for from one grandeur to another
there is only a hand’s breadth. She wore it all that day, although its
weight was heavy; but her beautiful, rich, strong figure supported it
well and served it to advantage; for had she been a little shrimp of a
princess, or a dame only elbow-high (as I have seen some), she would
surely have died of the weight, or else have been forced to change her
gown and take another.