_On the First Day are recounted the ill-turns which
have been done by Women to Men and by
Men to Women._
_TALE I_.
_The wife of a Proctor, having been pressingly solicited by
the Bishop of Sees, took him for her profit, and, being as
little satisfied with him as with her husband, found a means
to have the son of the Lieutenant-General of Alençon for her
pleasure. Some time afterwards she caused the latter to be
miserably murdered by her husband, who, although he obtained
pardon for the murder, was afterwards sent to the galleys
with a sorcerer named Gallery; and all this was brought
about by the wickedness of his wife_.(1)
1 The incidents of this story are historical, and occurred
in Alençon and Paris between 1520 and 1525.--L.
Ladies, said Simontault, I have been so poorly rewarded for my long
service, that to avenge myself upon Love, and upon her who treats me so
cruelly, I shall be at pains to make a collection of all the ill turns
that women hath done to hapless men; and moreover I will relate nothing
but the simple truth.
In the town of Alençon, during the lifetime of Charles, the last
Duke,(2) there was a Proctor named St. Aignan, who had married a
gentlewoman of the neighbourhood. She was more beautiful than virtuous,
and on account of her beauty and light behaviour was much sought after
by the Bishop of Sees,(3) who, in order to compass his ends, managed the
husband so well, that the latter not only failed to perceive the vicious
conduct of his wife and of the Bishop, but was further led to forget the
affection he had always shown in the service of his master and mistress.
2 The Duke Charles here alluded to is Margaret’s first
husband.--Ed.
3 Sees or Séez, on the Orne, thirteen miles from Alençon,
and celebrated for its Gothic cathedral, is one of the
oldest bishoprics in Normandy. Richard Coeur-de-Lion is said
to have here done penance and obtained absolution for his
conduct towards his father, Henry II. At the time of this
story the Bishop of Sees was James de Silly, whose father,
also James de Silly, Lord of Lonray, Vaux-Pacey, &c, a
favourite and chamberlain of King Louis XII., became Master
of the Artillery of France in 1501. The second James de
Silly--born at Caen--was ordained Bishop of Sees on February
26th, 1511; he was also Abbot of St. Vigor and St. Pierre-
sur-Dives, where he restored and beautified the abbatial
church. In 1519 he consecrated a convent for women of noble
birth, founded by Margaret and her first husband at Essey,
twenty miles from Alençon, the ruins of which still exist. A
year later Francis Rometens dedicated to him an edition of
the letters of Pico della Mirandola. He died April 24th,
1539, at Fleury-sur-Aiidellé, about fifteen miles from
Rouen, and was buried in his episcopal church. (See _Gallia
Christiana_, vol. xi. p. 702.) His successor in the See of
Sees was Nicholas Danguye, or Dangu (a natural son of
Cardinal Duprat), with whom M. Frank tries to identify
Dagoucin, one of the narrators of the _Heptameron_.--L. and
Ed.
Thus, from being a loyal servant, he became utterly adverse to them, and
at last sought out sorcerers to procure the death of the Duchess.(4)
Now for a long time the Bishop consorted with this unhappy woman, who
submitted to him from avarice rather than from love, and also because
her husband urged her to show him favour. But there was a youth in the
town of Alençon, son of the Lieutenant-General,(5) whom she loved
so much that she was half crazy regarding him; and she often availed
herself of the Bishop to have some commission intrusted to her husband,
so that she might see the son of the Lieutenant, who was named Du
Mesnil, at her ease.