three years general of the Capuchins, but turned Protestant and got
into hot water with the Church. He spent a few years in England at the
invitation of Cranmer. A man of rare independence of mind, his opinions
soon verged towards heresy, and his _Diologi_, in which he opposed the
doctrines of the Incarnation, the divinity of Christ, and others, and
spoke in favour of polygamy, brought on him the displeasure and even
persecution of his co-religionists.
[310] “Difficiles aditu fugias in amore puellas.” (_Celtis_, _Quattuor
libri_.)
[311] _Heptameron_, Tale 30.
[312]
Souvienne-toy, regaignant ta raison,
Que ta maîtresse est de grande maison,
De noble sang, et non pas amusée
A dévider ou tourner la fusée;
Et que son œil, mais plutôt un soleil doré,
Et son esprit, des autres adoré,
Et ses cheveux, les liens de ta prise,
Sa belle main, à la victoire apprise,
Son ris, son chant, son parler et sa voix,
Méritent bien le mal que tu reçois.
(Ronsard.)
[Remember, when thou canst regain thy nous,
Thy mistress is of high and famous house,
Of noble blood, nor is she wont to play
At wheel and distaff all the livelong day.
Remember that her eye, a sun of gold,
Her mind, by other worshippers extolled,
Her hair, the bonds of thy captivity,
Her lovely hand, well trained to victory,
Her smile, her song, her speech, her gentle voice
Deserve that for thy smart thou shouldst rejoice.]
[313]
Et, si l’on dit que le privé toucher
Faict près du feu le tison approcher,
Je respondray: Il y ha ja longtemps
Que, si l’honneur, où tousjours je prétens,
N’eust en moy deu faire plus de demeure,
Un, que nommer je ne veux pour ceste heure,
Par les effors de sa langue diserte
Auroit plus tost tiré gaing de ma perte,
Que par baisers, ne par approchements
Qui de la chair ne sont qu’attouchemens.
Héroët (one of Margaret’s friends).
[And if one says the intimate caress
Is fire to tinder, then will I confess
That if the honour hitherto my pride
Within my soul no longer would abide,
Long, long ere now a man I will not name
(Lest at this hour it bring us both to shame),
Would by his tongue’s delicious eloquence
Have won his profit at my dear expense
Far speedier than by kiss or dalliance hot,
That titillates the flesh, and is forgot.]
[314] The ancient Valentinians went much farther, and maintained that it
is impossible to the witty to become corrupt, whatever their actions.
[315]
Qu’eust fait ce grec, si ceste image nue
Entre ses bras fust Vénus devenue?
Que suis-je lors, quand Louize me touche
Et, l’accollant, d’un long baiser me baise?
L’âme me part, et, mourant en cet aise,
Je la reprens ja fuiant en sa bouche.
[What would that Greek of old have done if in his clinging arms
His naked statue had become Venus with all her charms?
And when Louisa touches me, ah! what is then my bliss,
When all my body tingles with the thrill of her long kiss?
In that sweet agony I die, my soul then from me slips;
But I catch it as it passes ’twixt my lady’s burning lips.]
[316] There are some rather lively and amusing letters of Bibbiena. On
February 7, 1516, he wrote to the Marchioness of Mantua: “The compliments
your Excellency has been good enough to pay me on behalf of Isabella
have given me supreme pleasure, for I have always loved and still love
Isabella more than myself. I am wholly Isabella’s, body and soul; so
that, whether loving or not loving Isabella Mario, I am wholly hers, and
desire above all things in the world to be loved by her.”
[317] _Heptameron_, Tales 20, 25, 14.
[318] Here are specimens of Phausina’s talk, that Nifo found so
delightful. “Phausina,” said he, “since it befell me to love you, you
have become an Aurora, superb, resplendent! How happy it makes me!”—“Near
such a sun as you,” she replies, “ought I not to become the finest dawn
ever seen?”
“One day I asked her how it was that with her sixteen years and her charm
she could love an old fellow like me, reciprocity of love resulting
philosophically from a certain similarity.”—“True, we are different,” she
replied prettily, “yet we are wholly at one in the basis of our mutual
love” (she meant beauty of soul).
“Who is the true lover?” he said. “The idolater,” she replied, “is he who
adores the image and not the divinity; the false lover, he who loves the
face of a girl, but does not respect her modesty.”
“Phausina, how can you love a man with one foot in the grave?” “’Tis not
the dotard I love so warmly, but he whom neither age nor anything can
affect; he who, after his death, will come to life again.”
“One day I was teasing Phausina: to provoke her I said, ‘Come now.
Phausina, when you are quite old, do you think I shall still love you?’:
‘Why, of course,’ she said: ‘what you love in me will not grow old.
Petrarch loved Laura ardently, young, mature, living, dead: he saw no
mark of age, which nevertheless he might have earnestly desired, so
that he might enjoy her beauty without any suspicion.’ And I then asked
Phausina what would be the reward for such a love. ‘That you will not be
a liar when you shower your praises on me.’”
[319] “One day, among the group of girls, someone set the little problem
of guessing what gave me the greatest pleasure in my relations with
Phausina. One of them said it was to gaze at so pretty a woman, another
that her conversation was very sweet, another swore that in reality it
was because we wrangled so pleasantly, and that she knew it. Phausina
smiled and said: ‘We all know, my dear Nifo, that all those things go to
produce my pleasure: but my deepest satisfaction is to be able to enjoy
everything, frequently, freely, without fear of material seductions,
because of your age.’”
[320]
Ma dame, un jour, daigna tant s’abaisser,
Parlant à moy, de doucement me dire:
‘Je ne te veux, amy, rien escond[u]ire
Qui soit en moy, je te pry le penser.’
Et pour encor du tout récompenser
Mon triste cueur de l’enduré martire,
Sa blanche main hors du gand elle tire
Et me la tend pour la mener danser.
(Magny, p. 7.)
[My fair did condescend one day
Sweetly to speak to me, and say:
“My friend, nothing will I deny thee
Of all I have, come prithee, try me.”
And for to recompense my heart
For all its grievous dole and smart,
From out her glove she drew her lily hand,
To lead her forth to dance did then command.]
[321] “And you, Madam, if you succumb to the flesh, beat your breast,
for you do not shun temptation. Why do you stand at your window? why
chat with young men?... Why go to the ball and give yourself to so many
idle conversations? Shun temptation, and the devil will leave you in
peace. Resist him and he will flee from you!” Woman’s tongue is one of
the greatest of the devil’s instruments: “I did that because the devil
seduced me:” it is Eve over again: “The serpent beguiled me.” (Baraleta.)
[322] “Casta est quam nemo rogavit.”
[323]
The servant that is brisk and trusty
Becometh master ere he be rusty.
[324] _Heptameron_, Tale 40, and prologue of first day.
[325] “Most illustrious and wicked girl. When the terrible duchess
Elizabeth was alive, she made me her martyr and protomartyr; and you
perhaps, nay certainly, with your angel’s face and your serpent’s
heart, were her perfidious counsel to my detriment; and now look at me,
compelled by aid of medicine to support as best I can the miserable
remnant of a life thus exhausted. Through that pity which you know not,
either in life or in fiction, you will condescend to do me the favour to
send me a _baratollo_ or rather a little tree of _barbe di calcatrepuli_,
a specialty of Urbino, so that I may boast of once having had a prayer
granted by the flinty ladies of the house of Gonzaga. I do not commend
myself to your highness, not wishing to waste my words on the air. I only
pray Heaven to keep you long in health and happiness, so that you may
long make mincemeat (_macello_) of your servitors.—Your servant for life,
Unicus.”
[326] _Heptameron_, Tale 8.
[327] Tales 9, 10.
[328] One of the ladies replies tranquilly: “I should prefer all my life
long to see the bones of all my servitors in my room than to die for
them: for everything can be amended but death.” (_Heptameron_, Tale 32.)
[329]
“Je le sçay bien, mais point ne le veux croire,
Car je perdrois l’aise que j’ai reçeu.”
(Clément Marot.)
[I know it well, but will not it believe,
For I should lose the comfort I receive.]
[330] Hütten writes: “What shall I say of Samson, who while all but in
the arms of a woman received the inspiration of the Holy Ghost?... And of
Solomon, who had 300 queens and an infinite number of concubines, till
his death, and who nevertheless in the eyes of the divines passes for
saved? What is the inference? I am not stronger than Solomon, nor wiser,
and one must sometimes have a little joy. The doctors say ’tis necessary
to cure melancholy. Well, what do you say of these grave authors?
Ecclesiastes says: ‘There is nothing better than that a man should
rejoice in his own works.’ So I say to my love, with Solomon: ‘Thou hast
wounded my heart, my sister, my spouse, thou hast wounded my heart with
one of thy hairs. How fair is thy breast, my sister, my spouse! How much
better is thy breast than wine!’ and so on.”
[331] _Heptameron_, Tale 15.
[332] _Ibid._, Tale 18.
[333] _Ibid._, Tale 13 and end of First Day.
[334] [Referring to the fable of the Stork and the Fox, versified later
by La Fontaine. “The stork with his long neck could not pick up a bit.”]
[335]
Comes from divinity,
And its torment from our humanity.
[336] [Ninon was the celebrated courtesan who, without any great beauty,
retained her ascendancy over men through a long life (1616-1706).
She was well-born, wealthy and witty, and capricious in the bestowal
of her favours. She is the original of Clarisse in Mlle de Scudéry’s
interminable romance _Clélie_. Herself a writer and a lover of
literature, she left Voltaire 2000 francs to buy books.]
[337] [An ancient princely family of Rome which claimed descent from
Fabius Maximus the Dictator.]
[338] Panormita, who died in 1471, had already employed his muse in
lamenting departed courtesans; for example:
Hoc jacet ingenuae formae Catharina sepulcro;
Grata fuit multis scita puella procis, etc.
[In this tomb lies Catharine of noble beauty: pleasing was the fair girl
to many a wooer.]
[339] Women “may accept of our service unto a certain measure, and make
us honestly perceive how they disdain us not; for the law which enjoineth
them to abhor us, because we adore them, and to hate us forasmuch as we
love them, is doubtless very cruel.... A queen of our time said wittily
that to refuse men’s kind summons is a testimony of much weakness,
and an accusing of one’s own facility, and that an unattempted lady
could not vaunt of her chastity.... If rareness be in any thing worthy
estimation, it ought to be in this.” And again: “In my time, the pleasure
of reporting and blabbing what one hath done (a pleasure not much short
of the act itself in sweetness) was only allowed to such as had some
assured, trusty and singular friend; whereas nowadays the ordinary
entertainments and familiar discourses of meetings and at tables are the
boastings of favours received, graces obtained, and secret liberalities
of ladies. Verily it is too great an abjection and argueth a baseness of
heart, so fiercely to suffer those tender, dainty, delicious joys to be
persecuted, pelted and foraged by persons so ungrateful, so indiscreet,
and so giddy-headed.” (Montaigne, Bk. III., cap. v.)
[340] Vice was incredibly base and ignoble at the courts of Charles VIII.
and Louis XII. Ragged and loathsome wretches went everywhere in the train
of the court, to whom the princes gave alms on fête days.
[341]
[Nor will you find it hard to tell
On what fair morning this befell.]
[342]
[God hath sent you to this place
Like some miracle of grace,
That you may both have and hold
Our great sovreign’s heart of gold,
And that like a holy fire,
Purified in all desire
His affection light may shed,
By your true perfections fed.
Kings to mortal men below
God’s own form and image show.]
[343] [And you have won the whole great heart of France.]
[344]
[Shall I alone of all this age in France
Forbear to sing thy dread and puissant name,
Nor tell the glory of thy crescent flame,
Nor by some deathless rime thy praise enhance?]
[345] Some historians have maintained that the love of Henri II. for
Diana was purely platonic.
[346] As a prelate and an aspirant to the purple Bembo was tied to
celibacy; but he was only in the lower ranks of the clergy so far as
actual _orders_ were concerned.
[347] Before becoming pope Julius had shaved. It was during his
pontificate that the discussion waxed bitter. Clement VII. lent his name
to the tractate _Pro sacerdotum barbis_ of Piero.
[348] “Well may a piece of marble raise your titles as high as you list,
because you have repaired a piece of an old wall, or cleansed a common
ditch, but men of judgment will never do it.” (Montaigne, III. x.)
[349] In the Louvre.
[350]
The day thy sail dipped to the dancing brine,
And from our streaming eyes robbed sight of thine,
That fatal bark bore far from weeping France
The Muses erst who dwelt there—sad mischance!
And now Parnassus thrums a tuneless lyre,
And Helicon distils an ooze of mire;
Our laurel is all parched, our ivy sere,
Our song-birds stint their singing—thou not here!
[351]
Prince Françoys, veulx tu, comme seigneur
Supérieur, estre dominateur,
Prans pour faveur, par amour et mérite.
Celle qui est en florée verdeur,
Digne d’honneur, nommée Margarite.
[Prince Francis, if thou dost desire
To rule indeed as lord and sire,
For love and worth in favour set
Her who is filled with youthful fire,
Deserving honour, Margaret.]
[352] This is especially noticeable in her first work, _The Mirror of the
Soul_, which she modestly called the work of a woman “who had in herself
neither science nor knowledge.” Besides, she employed a good secretary.
[353] Another anecdote of the court of Urbino. A Bergamese peasant had
just entered the service of a nobleman. The princesses were told that
there had arrived a retainer of Cardinal Borgia, who was a fine musician,
a dancer, and a great oddity. They fetched him in, welcomed him, sat
him down among them, and lionised him with great respect. Unhappily the
good man spoke an indescribable jargon. The author of the trick made the
princesses believe that he was shamming the Lombard peasant for fun. The
scene lasted a rather long time, while those in the secret were splitting
their sides.
[354]
O main polye, main divine,
Main qui n’as ta pareille en terre,
Main qui tient la paix et la guerre ...
Main portant la clef pour fermer
Et ouvrir l’huys de bien aymer,
Main plaisante, main délicate,
Je n’oserois te dire ingrate.
Tu peulx blesser, tu peulx guérir,
Tu peulx faire vivre et mourir.
[O fair smooth hand, O hand divine,
Hand never match’d on earth before,
The arbiter of peace and war,
That bears the key to lock or loose
The door for happy lover’s use,
O pleasant hand and dainty, ne’er
To call thee thankless could I dare.
’Tis thine to wound and thine to heal,
And thine both life and death to deal.]
[355] The question has often been asked whether the _Heptameron_ is a
work of imagination, or whether it should be taken seriously. After
the labours of MM. de Montaiglon, Franck, and Gaston Pâris, to speak
only of the principal authorities, there can be no longer any doubt.
Margaret, like Castiglione, certifies in a general way the veracity of
her stories. She worked at this collection for several years, beginning
probably in 1545, and with so much care that in 1549, when she died,
she left it incomplete. The _Heptameron_ then is not a juvenile work,
but the testament of her court life and her philosophic career, and an
autobiography, since several anecdotes relate to her, her brother, and
her intimate friends. Moreover, among the large number of manuscripts she
left in her portfolios, Boistuau (another strange character, to judge
by his works!) chose this one to publish under the title of _History of
Fortunate Lovers_, with some touching up, and a few excisions he thought
it well to make in certain risky passages. This precaution gave offence,
and Margaret’s own daughter took care to get a new and authentic edition
published, two years later.
[356] So we identify “Simontault,” [one of the _raconteurs_ of the
_Heptameron_].
[357] Thus we identify “Nomerfide.”
[358] “Ennasuite.”
[359] Margaret excelled in artistic needlework. She made a piece of
tapestry, representing a high mass as perfectly as a picture could have
done. While she plied her needle, she had near her someone to read to
her, or a historian, poet, or writer of some kind to talk to her.
[360] Very few poets had the audacity of Clément Marot, who, harassed by
his creditors, went a-begging to the Queen of Navarre, beslavering her
with love the while: she replied with a _dixain_. He acknowledged receipt
of it ironically, saying that on the strength of her verses his creditors
have called him “Monsieur,” and have permitted him to borrow again, which
he proceeded to do.
[361] “My heart’s friend, I beg you to send me the crucifix for a short
time, even if it is not far advanced, so that I may show it to the
gentlemen of the Most Reverend Cardinal of Mantua. And if you are not
very busy to-day, come and talk to me at any hour that suits you.—Yours
to command, the Marchioness of Pescara.”
[362] [Usually known as Lydius Cattus. His Latin poems in praise of Lydia
appeared at Venice in 1502.]
[363] [A Portuguese writer (1505-1566) who spent the most of his life
in France and taught philosophy at Paris. He is chiefly notable for his
crushing reply to Ramus’s attacks on Aristotle.]
[364] Paul Bourget, address in the French Academy, Dec. 9, 1897.
[365] He undertook to write for her the _Annals of Brittany_, and had an
idea of a history of the Greeks and Turks for the same princess.
[366] [So called because their aim was to purify the Italian tongue by
sifting the wheat from the chaff.]
[367] Castiglione got Bembo to revise the speeches he attributed to him.
[368] The Spanish _canzone_, inserted by Lucretia Borgia in her letters
to Bembo, are perhaps not her own.
[369] [Her librarian.]
[370] Castiglione, that arbiter of taste, devotes six pages of excellent
Latin distiches to dissuade his lady from going to the sea-baths. He
gives a charming description of the sea monsters which advance towards
the girls, not only to fling them as food to the fishes, but to get them
into their embrace, and so on. “Let us go rather,” he sighs, “towards the
gentle river, in the thick shade, among the flowers. Perfumed, crowned
with our favourite colours, we will let the water lave thy snowy feet,
... the zephyr will lay bare thy marble flanks.... O, dear soul of mine,
the woodland gods will feel the sting of my love, the very water of
the river will boil with my flame: let no one know whither we bend our
steps! The crowd strips rocks and woods of their charm.... Let young
scatterbrains go to the sea. We will be mum about the place whereto we
are bound. And if on the billows thou hearest a murmur, ah! my love, at
once bury thy head in my breast!”
[371] Virgil was much out of fashion, though translations are
occasionally to be met with.
[372] [A poet of Mantua (1498-1560), writer of extremely free verse on
monks and women.]
[373] [_I.e._ the Doubtful.]
[374]
Young Maupas’ sparrow—he is dead, alack!
Fair maids, lament him.
A thing unfeathered save upon his back
Hath slain and rent him.
Ye know the rogue—that froward wight
Called Love hath done it out of spite,
For when the mistress ’scaped his arrow,
He turned about and slew the sparrow.
[375] [Lemaire de Belges wrote an elegiac poem on _L’amant vert_,
Margaret’s parrot. A charming poem with the title _Vert-Vert_ was written
by Gresset, a contemporary of Voltaire, recounting the burlesque story of
a parrot which had been the pet of a convent.]
[376]
Mon Dieu, quel plaisir c’estoit,
Quand Peloton se grattoit,
Faisant tinter sa sonnette,
Avec sa teste folette!
Quel plaisir, quand Peloton
Cheminoit sur un baston,
Ou, coifé d’un petit linge,
Assis comme un petit singe,
Se tenoit, mignardelet,
D’un maintien damoiselet!
Ou, sur les pieds de derrière,
Portant la pique guerrière,
Marchoit d’un front asseuré
Avec un pas mesuré.
[Gad, how pleasant ’twas to see
Fluffy scratching prettily,
Making with his silky pate
Toy-bells tintinnabulate!
And what fun to see him ride
On a hobby-horse astride,
Or, bedight in tiny cape,
Squatting like a little ape,
Posing like a proper squire,
Spruce and dainty in attire;
On hind legs erect, perchance,
Shouldering a martial lance,
Marching at a measured pace,
Full assurance in his face.]
[377] [The French adapter of _Sandford and Merton_, etc.; known as the
Friend of Children.]
[378] [Alluding to his forename Angelo.]
[379] In 1500, in the village of Auvilliers in Normandy, a girl of
fourteen named Jeanne la Fournette, as skilled in Latin as the parish
parson, sang the Tenebrae in church.
[380] “Verse is the clarion, prose the sword.” (L. Veuillot.)
[381] “Gli Italiani, col lor saper lettere, haver mostrato poco valer
nell’ arme, da un tempo in qua.” (Castiglione.) [The Italians, with their
knowledge of letters, have shown little worth in arms at any time.]
[382] [The popularity of the _Ship of Fools_ was partly due to its
admirable woodcuts, which are of quite extraordinary excellence, and much
more amusing than the text.]
[383] Hütten. Though he is joking, Hütten pretty faithfully represents
the opinions of a part of Germany, which did not perceive his sarcasm.
[384] [Verses by Héroët and La Borderie appeared in _Opuscules d’amour_,
Lyons, 1547. Héroët’s _Parfaite Amie_ is a lady who, having lost her
lover, is content to await a spiritual union in a better world. La
Borderie’s _Amie de Cour_ is a lady of quite contrary proclivities.]
[385] In 1546 Delahaye, sometime printer of Alençon, now blossomed into
‘Silvius,’ could praise Margaret for the service she had just rendered
to the French mind: A coarse Cupid, he said, was reigning when true
Love descended from heaven to chase him away, found hostelry with the
princess, and “gently settled upon a hedge.” According to him, Margaret
had succeeded in ruling the appetites, and in practically introducing
philosophic love into poetry.
[386] [The _puy_ was properly a mound or other elevated place on which
competitions in poetry and song were held—eisteddfoddi.]
[387] [A racy preacher whose sermons on Brandt’s _Ship of Fools_ were
very popular. He preached on “subjects of the day.”]
[388] _Stultifere naves._
[389] Bk. i. cap. li.; bk. iii. cap. v.
[390] One of the peculiarities of the Albigensian heresy was that it
developed through the apostleship of women.
[391] With this motto:
Donnez puissance souveraine
Au croissant de France, tel cours
Qu’il vienne jusqu’à lune plaine
Sans jamais entrer en décours.
[All sovereign might do ye bestow
On France’s crescent; let it grow
Till a full moon in heaven it reigns
And never from that glory wanes.]
[392] Bk. ii. cap. xii.
[393] “Platonis, ceterorumque philosophorum, quos omnes errorum magistros
ostendimus.”
[394] “Nevertheless it must not be thought, when we make mention of
philosophy, that we speak only of that which is learnt in the writings
of Plato and other philosophers, for we get also from the philosophy of
the Gospel, which is the word of God, the holy and salutary precepts with
which Margaret was so well indoctrinated and instructed by her teachers”
(Sainte-Marthe’s Funeral Oration).
[395] People still went to witches and “Egyptians” to get antidotes for
love, or love philtres, or simply potions for securing good luck. These
potions were mischievously used, as morphine is to-day: it was what they
called selling the devil in bottles. Rabelais shows us his Pantagruelion:
Porta, Cardan, and other grave occultists or physicians have handed down
several of the prescriptions then current: opium was generally used
to produce delightful dreams; nightshade produced smiling illusions.
The principle of love philtres was derived from remote antiquity, and
apparently M. Brown-Sequard has borrowed something from them.
[396] For instance, a lady of Blois, attacked with a decline,
“bewitched,” it was said, had a mass said at Notre Dame des Aides; then a
witch lay full length upon the patient, mumbling her wicked charms. The
sick lady was at once cured; it is true that, two months afterwards, she
had a relapse and died, but the witch attributed that accident to her own
unruly tongue.
[397] Witches were the happy possessors of a number of talents: they
cured diseases by amulets or charms; they brought hail and rain; their
malign power played with the secrets of kings as well as of families. Two
young peasants of Nivernais, stalwart striplings and much in love, one
day married two sisters. On the evening of the wedding day, strange to
say, the newly-married couples, instead of making love, fell to blows.
All at once someone remembered that on the previous Palm Sunday one of
the young fellows had refused to give a piece of consecrated boxwood to
an old witch in that neighbourhood, and that she had simply said: “You
will repent this.” Off they went to the hag, brought her back with them,
gave her a warm welcome and a good meal; she relented and allowed one
of the men to drink from her glass; he recovered immediately and his
wife was satisfied. The other, on the contrary, who had not drunk of the
same cup, fell ill; soon he seemed in imminent danger; the witch, when
summoned, refused to inconvenience herself a second time: all offers
and threats were alike unavailing. The family was in despair, the whole
village at its wit’s end. The witch locked herself in; a hole was made in
the roof, she was dragged out with her husband and carried off. Arrived
at the bedside of the sick man, the husband said: “You are not going to
die”; but the woman refused to utter a syllable. Then the rage of the
bystanders knew no bounds: men who had been in hiding flung themselves
on the malevolent hag as soon as she withdrew, seized her, and flung her
into the fire. Others, more merciful or more apprehensive, managed to
pull her out, her legs horribly burned, carried her home, and tended her.
But the wretched woman, stoically wrapping herself in her pain, shut her
door, refused to send to Nevers for a doctor, and after three months of
agony died in her obstinate solitude.
[398] [An accomplished lady of the court of Ferrara, who wrote dialogues
and Greek verses, married a German physician, and died at twenty-nine.]
[399] [Medieval types of the perfect wife. Clotilde was wife of Clovis
I., King of the Franks (475-545); Theodelinde, Queen of the Lombards
(died 625). Both converted their husbands to the Christian faith.]
[400]
Le nom de foy et de bonté
A tant mon esprit mesconté,
Que je croy qu’il est en nature
Moins de bons hommes qu’en peinture.
(Melin de Saint-Gelais, in allusion to the order
of St. Francis de Paul, known as _bonhommes_.)
[“Goodness” and “faith” and all such cant
With me find sympathy but scant;
Nature doth fewer good men breed
Than live in pictures: that’s my creed.]
[401] Thus Paul Jove describes the villa on the Lake of Como, in which
he wrote his _Elogia_: a villa fanned by gentle breezes, hung on a
hillside dominating the lake, so rich in classic memories, so pure, so
blue; in the episcopal dining-room, Apollo and the Muses presided; the
drawing-room, dedicated to Minerva, contained busts of several great
writers of antiquity; thence one passed to the library, then into the
Hall of the Sirens, then the Hall of the Three Graces. Large windows
opened upon green flower-bedecked mountains, luxuriant valleys, rugged
granite peaks, a majestic horizon of eternal snow, and indestructible
glaciers, above which hung the beautiful transparent blue sky.
[402] [A conventual order for ladies of rank founded by the repudiated
queen of Louis XII.]
[403] “With a cable of love and fidelity welded together, I fasten my
barque to a never-yielding rock, to Jesus Christ the living stone,
whereby I may at any time return to port.” (Vittoria Colonna.)
[404] All the speakers in the _Heptameron_ begin by taking the communion.
[405] [The moralist who translated Pascal’s _Lettres provinciales_ into
Latin, and to some extent continued his influence.]
[406]
[Churches I saw (cries Margaret), rich, beautiful, and old,
And altars deck’d with images of silver and of gold;
My heart was fill’d with pleasure as I heard new strains of song,
And saw the gleaming tapers and the torches pass along,
And heard the merry clash and clang of bells high overhead,
To mortal ears astounding: oh, ’tis heaven below, I said.]
[407] Bonaventure des Périers, Tale 35.
[408] The Bible was much in request. Editions in the vulgar tongue had
long been popular in Germany and Italy. Lefèvre d’Etaples, who produced
his translation in 1523, had passed his life in expounding the sacred
books. In 1514, Charles de Saint-Gelais dedicated to Francis I., while
still only a prince, a translation of the Book of Maccabees.
[409]
Les aucunes sont bibliennes
Et le texte très mal exposent:
Jeunes bigottes, anciennes,
Dessus les Evangiles glosent,
Et tout au contraire proposent
De ce qui est à proposer.
(Gringoire, _Les folles Entreprises_.)
[Some are bible-women bold,
And very ill the text expound:
Bigots young and bigots old
Gloss the Gospels round and round,
Preaching doctrine far from sound.]
[410] M. Gebhardt has well characterised this spirit of Italy: “The
astonishing intellectual freedom with which Italy treated dogma and
discipline; the serenity she was able to preserve in face of the great
mystery of life and death; the art she devoted to the reconciliation
of faith with rationalism; her dallyings with formal heresy, and the
audacities of her mystic imagination: the enthusiasm of love which often
carried her up to the loftiest Christian ideal—such was the original
religion of Italy”—that of the Renaissance as of the Middle Ages.
Alexander II. and Julius II. scandalised everybody beyond the borders of
Italy: in Italy, no one.
[411] Tale 34.
[412] [A wealthy _bourgeoise_ who held a literary salon frequented by the
Encyclopaedists—Diderot, D’Alembert, and the rest.]
[413] “Grant, I beseech thee, Lord, that by the humility that becomes the
creature and by the pride thy greatness demands, I may adore thee always,
and that, in the fear thy justice imposes, as in the hope thy clemency
justifies, I may live eternally and submit to thee as the Almighty,
follow thee as the All-wise, and turn towards thee as towards Perfection
and Goodness. I beseech thee, most tender Father, that thy living fire
may purify me, thy radiant light illumine me; that this sincere love for
thee may profit me in such wise that, never finding let or hindrance in
things of this world, I may return to thee in happiness and safety.”
[414]
I have transgresséd all God’s Holy laws;
To stint my story, I except not one.
[415]
Las, tous ces motz ne voulois escouter,
Mais encore je venois à douter
Si c’estoit vous, ou si par adventure
Ce n’estoit rien qu’une simple escripture.
[I would not hear those words, but still
A doubt my wearied soul would fill,
Whether ’twere very you indeed,
Or chance had given me trash to read.]
[416] In her _Comédie sur le trespas du Roy_ the shepherdess Amarissima
(that is, she herself) mourns the death of the god Pan; she no longer
believes in anything—either human virtue, or human consolations, or
even the old-time constancy. She has lost her philosophy! In the
end, the Paraclete comes to restore our serenity by the assurance
that Pan is tasting Elysian joys in the eternal meadows. At the
carnival of Mont-de-Marsan in 1547, the princess, shaking off mournful
preoccupations, put another comedy on the stage, in which she brought
into opposition a beautiful lady of fashion, a superstitious lady who
speaks of death and paradise, and a wise woman who advocates equilibrium
of soul and body; then the “Queen of God” (we may guess who she is)
upsets it all—the world, superstition, and wisdom—with a philosophic
panacea of divine and human love commingled. We shall not be expected,
however, to follow Margaret in the meanderings of her thought, nor even
in her prayers “of the faithful soul,” or “to Jesus Christ”—earnest
appeals to the love and favour and mercy of the Most High, who can save
us only by love.
[417] See the close of the _Navire_, a poem devoted to the praise of
love and to the glorification of the beauty and virtues of the late king
Francis I.
[418]
“Souvienne toy qu’ilz sont nés imparfaitz,
Et que de chair fragile tous sont faitz.”
[Remember that imperfect were they born,
And of frail flesh God’s creatures all are made.]
[419]
“Priez Dieu pour les trespassez,
Dont le retour est incongneu.”
[Pray God for sinners whose return
From Death’s far bourn is all unknown.]
Very few have returned, “the way is long!”
[420] [The architect and sculptor (1400-1469) known as Philaretes, who
mingled pagan mythology and Christian legend in his designs for the
bronze gates of St. Peter’s, and in his _Treatise, on Architecture_
taught that a true architect should possess all the virtues.]
[421] [The _palinod_ was properly a poem in honour of the Immaculate
Conception. Several such poems were recited on a set day, and a prize was
awarded to the best.]
[422]
The flesh! ’Tis mortal, fed with mortal food!
Love’s spirit nourishes true hearts and good.
[423] [Author of _De perpetuo in terris gaudio piorum_. Basle, 1558.]
[424] _Heptameron_, Prologue.
[425] This was before Luther, or independently of him. Erasmus pleasantly
scoffs at prayers to the Virgin or to St. Christopher, and is convinced
that the vows of sailors during a tempest are to be traced simply to
paganism, the ancient worship of Venus, “Star of the Seas.” He has
glorified the Virgin in cold but elegantly rhetorical verses, in which
the Styx, Phlegethon, Helicon, and the Castalian fount proclaim the new
spirit. While in former days Louis XI., for the slightest tribulation,
struck a medal to the Virgin or went on a pilgrimage, neither Louis XII.
nor Francis I., who will not be regarded as Lutherans, had any such
idea; in an extreme case, Louis XII. pays his vows direct in the Holy
Eucharist. Sannazaro, who remained faithful to the Virgin, declared
himself of Spanish descent.
[426] [Disappointed of a cardinalate, he undertook a polemic against
the Reformers, but was led to adopt their views. He had met Luther at
Wittenberg.]
[427] Heroine of Bandello’s love-poem.
[428] [One of the best modern Latin poets (1498-1550). He was nominated
by the pope as secretary to the Council of Trent.]
[429] “Who then has supported these men?” cries Alberto Pio: “the
dignitaries of the church, and the highest of them! They have maintained
at their voluptuous court these men with their half pagan leanings, who
pour contempt on all that is dear to the people, and strive only to
overturn existing things.”
[Pio was prince da Carpi, and a nephew of Pico della Mirandola.]
[430] “We,” he says, “nourished and moulded by Christianity, no longer
approach the thought of divine and eternal things except with a heart
full of vanity, a mind deadened and filled with the love of material
things. To the instruction of Scripture, to the responses and prophecies
of the Son of God, it is necessary to find (I am ashamed to say it) an
academic counterpart. We have gone back to the old state of polytheism or
atheism, to the maxims of antiquity.... In this paradise of study it is
necessary for every lover of letters that his philosophic mind, leaving
behind the pastures of philology (very pleasant, but in themselves futile
and of no account for what concerns the present object), should strive
to fill itself with the nutriment of sacred philosophy, the feast of
heavenly wisdom descended among mortals.”
[431] [A brief criticism of this excellent comedy is given in Macaulay’s
essay on Machiavelli.]
[432]
La foy sans amour est morte et endormye,
Aussi l’amour sans effect vient à rien.
[A loveless faith is slumberous and dead,
And love inactive naught accomplishes.]
[433] _Heptameron_, Tale 42.
[434] Renan.
[435] The art of evoking the spirits which hover about us, and of
entering by their aid into relations with the absent or the dead—an art
largely practised in France and Germany—was quite as pagan as the Italian
mythology. Trithemius, the famous abbot of Spanheim, laid down dogmatic
rules for it. Many spirits came without being summoned. There were
amiable spirits among them, simple domestic goblins who made themselves
useful. At the moment of death Agrippa was thus attended. There were also
troublesome fiends, like those tricksy sprites who visited women in the
darkness of the night. Jean Mansel relates the story of an unhappy woman
tormented every night by a sort of unconscionable husband, who was no
other than a jovial demon. At last, worn out, she consults a hermit, who
directs her to raise her arms at the critical moment towards a sacred
picture; with the result that the demon takes flight, not without cursing
the hermit.
[436]
[Theology he will expound;
But as for drinking water pure,
You’d better give it to your hound,
For brother Lubin can’t—be sure.]
[437] Oliver Maillard declaims at St. Jean de Grêve, Paris: “O women, O
flaunting wenches, bethink ye well. Why fill your time with amusements
and vanities? You will have to answer, not for the conceptions of
Aristotle, nor the learning of idealists or realists, of legists or
physicians, but for your good or evil life.... Lift up your hearts,
ladies; are you good theologians?” That is what he finds to say to women
who patronise and cultivate learning, to platonists penetrated with the
idea of the indulgent mercy of God, and convinced of the great number of
the Elect. (_Sermones de adventu_). A preacher is describing the Virgin
at the moment of the Annunciation: “What was she doing, ladies? Think you
she was occupied in painting and powdering her face? No, at the foot of
the Cross she was reading the Hours of Our Lady”!
[438] Maillard.
[439]
“Nec formæ contenta suæ, splendore decorem
Auget mille modis mulier; frontem ligat auro,
Purpurat arte genas et collocat arte capillos,
Arte regit gressus, et lumina temperat arte.
Currit ut in latebras ludens perducat amantem.”
(_Egloga_, 4.)
[Not content with her natural beauty, woman enhances the brilliance of
her charms in a thousand ways. She binds her brow with gold, artfully
colours her cheeks and knots her hair and rules her gait and manages her
eyes. She runs that sportive she may lure her lover into her secret nook.]
[440]
Dueil, jalousie,
Puis frénésie,
Puis souspessons,
Mélancolie,
Tours de follie,
Regretz, tensons,
Pleurs et chansons,
Sont les façons
D’amoureuse chevalerie.
Mieulx vauldroit servir les massons
Que d’avoir au cœur telz glassons.
[Jealous care,
Rage, despair,
Then suspicions,
Melancholy,
Freaks of folly,
Regrets, quarrels,
Tears and carols,
These conditions
Do our love-lorn knighthood bear.
Better to fill a hodman’s part
Than have such icicles chilling the heart.]
That is how the good prior of Liré, Guillaume Alexis, expresses himself
as he rides with a nobleman along the road from Rome to Verneuil. (_Le
grant Blason des faulces amours._) He continues in the same vigorous and
cutting style. What, replies his companion, disagreeably surprised, you
ask them only to work
Et de nul plaisir n’avez cure!
Tous pageaulx
Sont-ils égaulx?...
... Quant on est jeune,
Force est qu’on tienne
Le train des autres jouvenceaulx.
[And never to have a pleasure in life!
Varlets in hall,
Are they equal all?
When one is young
One needs must along
With other younkers rolling the ball.]
Nature speaks; Gawain, Arthur, Lancelot
Qui ne craignoyent ne froit ne chault
... Toujours estoyent amoureux.
Nous aymerons
Et chanterons
En noz jouvences:
Quant vieulx serons,
Nous penserons
Des consciences,
Menues offenses,
Et négligences.
Quelque jour récompenseront
Force pardons, prou indulgences.
[Who feared nor heat nor cold a whit,
Were ever in love.
Blithe and gay
With love and lay
Youth we will speed:
When old and gray
’Twill be time to pray,
Conscience to heed,
Follies to shun,
To rue good undone.
And some day indulgences, pardons galore,
Will help pay the piper and settle the score.]
The monk replies with a long discourse, flagellating the vices of women
and resulting disasters.
[441] _Reformationis monasticæ vindiciæ_, 1503.
[442] [Thenaud and Thevet were both Franciscans who travelled in the East
and published accounts of their adventures.]
[443] [He eloped with a woman, lived a Bohemian life for ten years,
and then returned to the hair-shirt and piety, wandering from convent
to convent. He was one of the earliest and most successful writers of
macaronic verse (_Opus Merlini Cocaii macaronicorum_).]
[444] [Noted for an excellent Latin verse translation of the _Iliad_. He
was a German.]
[445] Maitre Berthold, he relates, who had gone to Rome to seek his
fortune, had only succeeded after two months in finding a place as groom
to an auditor of the rota, to look after his mule. “But,” said I to him,
“that’s not the sort of thing for me, a master of arts of Cologne; I
can’t do things like that.” “Very well, if you won’t, I can’t help it.”
“I think I shall return to my own country.... Am I to currycomb the mule
and scrub the stable? Sooth, everything may go to the devil, for me!”
Again, Conrad Stryldriot writes: “’Tis the devil who brought me here, and
I can’t go back; there is no good fellowship here as in Germany; people
aren’t sociable; if a man gets drunk once a day, they take offence and
call him a pig. What is one to do? The courtesans are very dear, and not
at all pretty. I tell you in all truth, in Italy the women are uncommonly
ill made, spite of all their fine furbelows of silk and camlet.... They
stoop, and eat garlic and are swarthy-hued.... What colour they have is
paint.” (_Epistolæ obscurorum virorum._)
[446] “Post tenebras ego spero lucem,” wrote Jean Marot in 1415.
[447] “You cannot imagine anyone more useful or holy,” her friend Bembo
wrote; “I understand why your ladyship is so fond of him!” Again: “Our
brother Bernardino is adored here: men, women, everybody lauds him to the
skies.... I hope some day to converse with your ladyship about him.”
[448] Lavardin also touched the chords of feeling, and was thereupon
congratulated by Ronsard in a sonnet: he translated for the princess a
dialogue by Mark Antony Natta, on the Nature of God. He acknowledges that
in reality the subject seems to him inaccessible, whether one takes the
wings of an eagle or descends into the depths: in the end he thinks that
the incomprehensible had better be left to faith. But he dedicates this
work to Margaret in excellent verse:
A quel plus propre autel pourrions-nous présenter
Le sujet immortel de ce précieux livre?
... O perle, ô Marguerite,
O beau fleuron royal, vostre sang très chrestien,
Et toutes les vertus dont vostre grâce hérite ...
Nous font foy ...
Que des enfans de Dieu vous serez le soutien.
[To what more seemly altar could we bring
The immortal subject of this precious book?
O pearl, O Margaret,
Fair queenly gem, thy purest Christian ray
And all the virtues by thy grace possest
To us attest
God’s children all will find in thee their stay.]
[449] _Les très merveilleuses Victoires._
[450]
To love the mind, Madam, is loving folly.
[451]
Your arms are Juno’s, and your breast
The Graces have with beauty drest;
Your hand and brow Aurora sent,
A lioness proud your heart has lent.
[452] [Trissotin is the affected coxcomb and Vadius the pedant of
Molière’s famous comedy, _Les Femmes savantes_ (Act iii. scene v.).]
[453] [A Jewish physician whose Dialogues on Love were printed at Venice
in 1549.]
[454] Ronsard to Henri III.
[455] Baïf to Catherine de’ Medici.
[456]
L’homme à la femme y rend obéissance....
L’esprit bon s’y fait lourd, la femme s’y diffame,
La fille y perd sa honte, la veuve y acquiert blasme.
Tous y sont desguisez: la fille y va sans mère,
La femme sans mary, le prestre sans bréviaire.
[At court the woman rules the man....
The brightest wit grows sluggish, and women smirch their fame,
The maid loses her modesty, the widow her good name.
All there is masquerade: the girl without her mother fares,
Wife without husband; and the priest no breviary bears.]
All they think of there is
mendier le goust d’une vaine fumée
(Qui s’acquiert à grand’peine, et tost est consumée),
Piaffer, se friser, à faire l’amoureux.
(Jean de la Taille, _Satires_).
[to beg a spark of empty praise
(That’s very hard to kindle, and too quickly burns away),
To cut a dash, and dandify, a lover’s part to play.]
[457]
[Happy the age when wild in woods
The naked savage ran,
When nuts and apples were his foods,
And man was yet a man.]
[458]
Multa tegit sacro involucro Natura; neque ullis
Fas est scire quidem mortalibus omnia; multa
Admirare modo, necnon venerare, neque illa
Inquires quae sunt arcanis proxima.
[Nature conceals many things within her sacred shrine; nor may any mortal
presume to know all things; many things indeed thou mayst admire, aye,
reverence, without prying into those that lie closest to the mysteries.]
[459] Yet Ronsard and his friends made the mistake of believing that the
language should be aristocratic, and that it was for writers, not for the
people, to form or reform it.
[460]
[Alas! when shall I see again
The smoking chimneys of my village home?]
[461] [A popular French writer (died in 1566). He translated Bandello
into French, and his _Théâtre du Monde_, in which he discussed “the woes
of humanity and the dignity and excellence of man,” ran into twenty
editions.]
[462] [His _Nouvel Amour_ appeared along with Héroët’s _Opuscules
d’Amour_.]
[463]
[Then I perceived that, ignorant as yet
Of her high worth, I worshipped Margaret,
As, all unwitting, we admire the heavens.]
[464] [Andrea Navagero, commentator on the classics, author of _Viaggio_.]
[465]
[Nothing remained in all the realm of France
Holy and pure, of antique charity,
Save Margaret, a human deity.]
[466] The 16th century was the golden age of women’s education.
[467] [The hôtel de Rambouillet was the famous salon held by the marquise
de Rambouillet, where met a crowd of wits, fops, and scholars, to set
fashions for society and for literature. This was the headquarters of
the _Précieuses_, who were anxious to polish the language, and who
introduced, among forms of expression which time has approved, absurd
affectations like the Euphuism of the previous century in England.]
[468] When women were not supposed to be able to do more than
“distinguish a doublet from trunk-hose.” [A quotation from Molière’s _Les
Femmes savantes_, Act ii. sc. vii.]
[469] Tale ii., “Corruptio optimi pessima.”
[470] “Venus has caught the ladies in her toils, and God is tired!”
(Montaiglon). Tavannes asks that someone will shut women’s mouths.
[471] St. Theresa goes to these words from the Song of Songs: “The milk
of thy breasts is sweeter than wine, and from them riseth a savour more
excellent than precious ointments”; or to these: “I sat down under his
shadow with great delight, and his fruit was sweet to my taste.”
[472]
Peace and joy in living reign no longer here;
Music and the dance to silence are constrained.
[473] Cf. the following well-known passage from the _Apology of Raymond
de Sebonde_ (_Essays_, ii. cap. xii.): “The soul, by reason of her
trouble and imbecility, as unable to subsist of herself, is ever and
in all places questing and searching comforts, hopes, foundations, and
foreign circumstances on which she may take hold and settle herself. And
how light and fantastical soever his invention doth frame them unto him,
he notwithstanding relieth more surely upon them, and more willingly,
than upon himself.... It is for the punishment of our temerity, and
instruction of our misery and incapacity, that God caused the trouble,
downfall, and confusion of Babel’s tower. Whatsoever we attempt without
his assistance, whatever we see without the lamp of his grace, is but
vanity and folly. With our weakness we corrupt and adulterate the very
essence of truth (which is uniform and constant) when fortune giveth us
the possession of it.” [Florio.]
[474] “Nam vere sumus omnes de muliere” (_Facetus_).
INDEX
Accolti, Bernardo, itinerant singer, 273.
age of marriage, 27, 28, 98.
Agrippa, Cornelius, his view of marriage, 21;
on Louise of Savoy, 166 _n_;
book on the Pre-eminence of the Female Sex, 400;
lectures on Plato, 402.
Alexander VI., pope, on Urbino marriage, 52;
his hunting, 247;
on monks, 463.
Alfonso of Aragon’s wedding, 40.
Alfonso of Naples’ dinners, 231.
Alione’s ballad, 121 _n_;
anecdote by, 222.
almsgiving, 66-69.
_Amadis de Gaule_, its popularity, 269.
Amaretta, Costanza, 339, 340.
‘amateurs,’ 56, 264, 388.
Amboise, cardinal of, 146, 257.
Andrelini, Fausto, 17, 326.
Anet, château of Diana of Poitiers, 387.
animals, platonist attitude towards, 244.
Anne de Graville quoted, 198 _n_.
Anne of Brittany, 145, 375.
Anne of France, her first lover, 26 _n_;
as sick nurse, 54;
her charity, 68;
views on education, 85, 89-91;
on girls’ stories, 100-102;
‘school of manners,’ 103;
on maternal self-sacrifice, 105;
on mourning, 129, 130, 133;
on valour, 146;
on love-making, 165;
her character, 166-168;
idea of charm, 180, 181;
her platonism, 181;
compared with Margaret, 197;
opinion on ‘age of wisdom,’ 214;
on dress, 216, 218;
hunting, 252, 253;
books, 265;
political career, 313, 314;
love of art, 375.
Anne of Polignac, 131.
Anne of Vivonne, 385.
architecture, domestic, 224.
Aretino, on tutors, 79, 80;
his _Marescalco_, 80, 281;
on duchess of Urbino, 351;
courtesans, 201, 358, 361;
on nudities, 204;
his methods, 370;
relations with Vittoria Colonna, 390, 391;
correspondence, 394, 395.
art, 377, 380.
_Asolani_, Bembo’s, 156, 432.
Baden in Aargau, 259, 260.
balls, 232, 236;
Daneau on, 236, 237.
baths, 254;
Calvinists’ view of, 255, 256;
life at, 259, 260.
Battista Spagnuoli, his view of marriage, 21;
of baths, 258;
of monks, 460.
beards, dispute on growing of, 370.
Beatrice d’Este, _see_ D’Este.
beauty, platonist idea of, 158, 159, 161;
Bembo’s idea of, 160;
Michelangelo’s, 161;
distrusted, 196;
preservation of, 215.
Bembo, on Latin for girls, 96;
his _Asolani_, 156, 432;
on love, 159-161;
conversation, 294, 295;
handwriting, 304;
his Morosina, 366-368, 390;
his talk, 403, 404;
idea of poetry, 404;
relations with Olympia Morata, 428;
letter to Isabella d’Este, 432.
Beroaldo, Filippo, on drunkenness, 298;
on love and Propertius, 402, 403.
Bibbiena on Catherine Sforza, 29;
his _Calandra_, 79, 278, 279;
decoration of his bath-room, 256;
his letters, 307;
his liberalism, 432;
anecdote of, 463.
Bible, reading of, 155, 288, 438, 439.
_bibliennes_, the, 426, 435.
Billon, 481.
Blando, Michelangelo, on hunting, 251, 252.
_blasons_, 208.
Boccaccio, popularity of, 100, 268, 398.
Bonaventure des Périers, _see_ Des Périers.
Boistuau, 480.
Bonnivet, admiral de, 178, 213.
books, 88, 263.
Botticelli’s _Venus and Cupid_, 318.
Bouchet, Jean, on flirtation, 105, 106;
remedy for materialism, 147;
story of ladies of Poitiers, 288;
_Les Regnars traversant les voies périlleuses_, 392.
Bourget, Paul, his naturalism contrasted with Ruskin’s, 499, 500.
boutrimés, 300.
boys’ education, 75, 76.
Brandiolini, Aurelio, musician, 273.
Brandt’s _Ship of Fools_, 416.
Brantôme on tutors, 99;
on marquis of Pescara’s book, 124;
on spicy literature, 266;
on Mortemart ladies, 286;
on the court, 495.
Brascha, ambassador, 42, 43.
Briçonnet, bishop of Meaux, 470.
Budé, Guillaume, _Livre de l’Institution du prince_, 250, 251;
on religion, 454.
burial customs, 129.
Burye, character in _Heptameron_, 385.
Calvin on women, 84, 467;
on divorce, 339;
character of Reformation, 467.
Calvinists, objection to fine weddings, 37;
to baths, 255, 256.
Cardan on marriage, 32;
on gout, 230;
on talk, 285;
life at Venice, 290 _n_.
Carnesecchi, 259.
carpet knights, 369.
Castelli, Cardinal, his hunting ode, 248, 249.
Castiglione, relations with his wife, 51;
theory of social aesthetics, 144;
on Raphael, 157;
on intellectual occupations for women, 261;
his _Courtier_, 265, 395, 404, 405 _n_;
on music, 274;
on talk, 292;
on duke of Urbino, 293;
handwriting, 304;
letters to Vittoria Colonna, 306, 395;
letter to Marchesa Scaldasole, 306;
on viragos, 319;
on painting, 377, 381, 431.
Cataneo, on two loves, 156, 159.
Catherine de’ Medici, _see_ De’ Medici.
Catholicism and colour, 220;
relation to philosophy, etc., 456 ff.
Caviceo, his _Peregrino_, 22, 239.
_Célestine, La_, 270.
Chailly, Louis XII.’s hound, 249.
Champier on marriage age, 28;
_Livre de vraye amour_, 45, 46;
on doctors, 59;
on love, 114, 168;
on women and men, 301.
charity, 66-69.
charm, theory of, 195-200.
chase, the, 246-253.
Christian socialism, 142.
churches, mundane use of, 237-240.
Church’s distrust of women, 422, 423.
Cibo, Caterina, _papaline_, 428, 457.
_cicisbeo_, 346, 347.
classics, respect for, 143, 156, 157.
clergy, character of, 165, 434-438.
Clichtoue’s philosophy of life, 146, 147.
Clouet, Jean, 207.
college education, 75, 76, 78.
Collérye, Roger, quoted, 46 _n_, 115 _n_.
Colonna, Ascanio, 312.
Colonna, Pompeo, his _Apologia pro mulieribus_ (MS. in M. de Maulde’s
possession), 399, 400.
Colonna, Vittoria, age of betrothal, 27;
widowhood, 131, 316, 317;
relations with Michelangelo, 163, 182, 183, 395;
on painting, 182;
relations with Carnesecchi, 259;
letter to Paulo Giovio, 292;
handwriting, 304;
letters, 305-308, 450, 451;
character, 316, 317, 328;
relations with Aretino, 390, 391;
with Dolce, 394;
with Bembo, 394;
her poetry, 163, 404, 405;
religion, 428, 469;
relations with Pole, 429;
her prayer, 442;
relations with Ochino, 469, 470.
colours, 219-221.
complexions, 199.
concubinage, 113, 363-366.
Condivi on Michelangelo, 162, 182, 183.
Consentana, countess of, anecdote of, 129.
conversation, 284-302, 345, 347.
coquetry, 187.
Coquillart, 105, 325.
Correggio’s _St. Jerome_, 449;
_Mystic Marriage_, 450.
correspondence, 304-310.
Costa, Lorenzo, picture by, 276.
country life, 242, 243.
country squires, 64, 140.
courtesans, 356-362.
_Courtier_, Castiglione’s, 265, 395, 404.
Cremonini, 152.
_Cymbalum_, Des Périers’, 386, 393.
D’Albret, Charlotte, 131.
D’Albret, Henri, 53, 334, 352.
D’Amboise, Catherine, 444.
D’Amboise, Françoise, 132.
D’Amboise, Michel, 206, 252.
dancing, 233-237.
Daneau on dancing and balls, 236, 237.
Dangu, Nicolas, 384.
Dante, 406.
D’Aragona, _see_ Tullia.
De Beaulieu, Eustorg, 99.
De Bourbon, Gabrielle, expenditure, 66;
lack of dowry, 117;
death of her son, 126;
religious works, 443.
De Clermont, Mlle, 24, 385.
De Longray, Mme, 385.
De’ Medici, Catherine, her ‘flying squadron,’ 103.
De’ Medici, Julian, 205.
De Montausé, 384.
Des Périers, Bonaventure, 59, 386, 387;
his _Cymbalum_, 386, 393, 418.
De Pons, 315, 316.
De Soubise, Madame, 315.
Desprez, Josquin, 275.
D’Este, Beatrice, 318.
D’Este, Isabella, setter of fashions, 219;
on pilgrimage, 240;
love of art, 374, 375.
D’Etampes, duchess, 364.
dialogues, 156, 403.
Diana of Poitiers, as widow, 131;
her portraits, 207, 211;
statue of, by Goujon, 208;
relations with king, 364, 365;
love of art, 387.
divorce, 127, 338, 339.
doctors, 55-58.
Dolce on misadventures of husbands, 58;
on education, 94, 95;
the moon, 423.
domestic letters, 117 _n_, 126, 304-310.
dowries, 117-119.
‘dragons,’ 330, 331.
drama, 278-283.
dress, 216-223.
drinking, 229, 230.
Du Bellay, 169 _n_, 362, 365, 408, 476, 477, 479, 483, 484.
Du Four, 165.
Dürer’s women, 203.
dwelling house, 223, 224.
eating, customs in, 229-231.
education, 74-78, 86-100.
Egnatius, 31.
Eleanor, wife of Francis I., 53.
Equicola, _Di natura d’amore_, 161.
Erasmus, on virginity, 32;
on maternity, 48;
education, 82, 97;
husbands, 116;
women’s stupidity, 157 _n_;
church music, 277;
his attitude to reformers, 473.
Estienne, Henri, 84.
Eustorg de Beaulieu, 99.
eyes, 199.
_facéties_, 266-268.
Feo, lover of Catherine Sforza, 30, 321.
Ferrara, music at, 276;
talk at, 290.
Ficino, Marzilio, on platonic love, 154, 158, 159.
Firenzuola, on beauty, 196;
his stories, 299;
his inspiration, 399.
flirtation, 103-107.
Florentine worship of Plato, 153, 154;
idea of charm, 198.
flowers, 243.
Folengo, 465.
Francis I., 62, 125, 169, 170, 240, 251, 265;
his mistresses, 363, 364.
Francis de Paul, St., story of, 461.
Franco, Veronica, 358.
free love, 327.
Fregoso, detractor of women, 298.
French marriage customs, 37-39;
country gentry, 64-66;
society, 140-142;
worship of rank, 144, 145;
idea of charm, 198;
drama, 282, 283;
conversation, 296, 297;
letters, 308-310.
Gambara, Veronica, 364, 394.
gambling, 237.
Gastius’ table talk, 232.
Gazius, _Florida Corona_, treatise on health, 255.
German girls’ education, 89;
table talk, 297;
opposition to Italy, 415, 416;
liberalism, 433;
narrowness, 434;
monks, 466.
Gioconda, _see_ _Monna Lisa_.
girls’ education, 86-100;
tutors, 98, 99.
Gonzaga, Julia, 52.
Gonzaga, Leonora, 28.
Goujon’s statue of Diana, 208.
hair, popular colour of, 199.
hair-dressing, 216, 217.
handwritings, 303, 304.
Helysenne de Crenne, 39.
Henri II., 364.
_Heptameron_ quoted, 24, 25, 33, 34, 49, 53, 84, 112 _n_, 151, 173,
175, 189, 212, 213, 296, 298, 299, 329, 334, 335, 351, 353, 354;
realist character of, 382-385.
Héroët de la Maisonneuve, 344, 418.
history, 401.
hood, the, 217.
households, constitution of, 66.
Huguenots on dancing, 236, 237.
hunting, 246-253.
husbands’ authority, 109, 110.
Hütten, Ulrich von, 83, 466, 467.
hydrotherapeutics, 254-258.
illegitimacy, 338.
_Imitation of Christ_, 139, 150.
Imperia, courtesan, 358, 361.
impromptus, 300.
incomes, 64, 68, 117.
Inghirami, Tommaso, 280, 281, 300;
anecdote of, 431.
‘innocents,’ the, 212.
instrumental music, 276-278.
interviews, 29.
Isabella d’Este, _see_ D’Este.
Isabella of Aragon, 312.
Isabella the Catholic, 323.
Italian marriage customs, 34;
education, 94-96;
drama, 278-281;
conversation, 285-296;
letters, 306;
monks, 465.
Jeanne of Aragon, 312, 407.
Jews, hatred of, 478.
Joanna, wife of Philip the Fair, anecdote of, 114, 115.
Josquin Desprez, 275.
Jove, Paul, 52, 292.
Julius II., anecdote of, 68;
hunting, 247;
beard, 370.
kissing, 233-235.
Labé, Louise, poetess, on dress, 218;
accomplishments, 245;
on music, 274;
poetry, 412, 413.
La Bruyère quoted, 115, 210, 296, 372.
ladies’ letters, 305.
_Lancelot du Lak_, 269.
lapdogs, 244.
La Rochefoucauld quoted, 111, 184, 214, 314.
La Salle, Antoine de, 79.
La Trémoille, Louis de, 29, 117;
_see_ Gabrielle de Bourbon.
Lefèvre d’Etaples, 250, 264.
Lemaire de Belges, 79, 327, 401.
Leo X., 247, 280, 300, 362, 425, 431.
Leonardo’s _Monna Lisa_, 191;
ideal of beauty, 200.
letters, domestic, 126, 127 _n_.
letter-writing, 303.
liberalism at Rome, 430, 431, 433, 434, 473.
life at spas, 259, 260.
Limosin, Leonard, 207.
literature, licentious character of, 391-393.
Longueil, 473.
Louis XI., 118.
Louis XII., 64, 67, 118, 129, 234, 249.
Louise of Savoy, her views on education, 77, 85, 96;
her sphere, 170, 311;
her reading and books, 262, 265, 267;
her politics, 311;
on mystic love, 335;
her principles, 354.
Luther on celibacy, 32;
divorce, 338;
on women, 467;
his true relation to Reformation, 468.
Lyons, headquarters of feminine poetry, 411.
Madeleine, sister of Francis I., 309.
Maillard, Oliver, on bathing, 255;
his preaching, 459, 460.
_Marescalco_, Aretino’s, 281.
Margaret of Austria, her collections, 226;
career, 313;
parrot, 408;
poetry, 411.
Margaret of France (sister of Francis I.), on marriage, 49;
relations with her husband, 53;
on doctors, 53, 58;
influence of stars, 61;
charity, 69;
education, 96-98;
authority of husband, 123;
widow, 131;
remarriage, 134;
defects of women, 137;
remedy for materialism, 147-149;
names and character, 170-172, 245, 418;
her portraits, 170, 210;
theory of love, 173-175;
motto, 176;
platonic love, 189, 352, 353;
compared with Anne of France, 197;
_petit lever_, 213;
on physical decay, 214;
on wearing black, 221;
books, 263, 266, 267;
poetry, 274;
drama, 282, 283;
as a talker, 285;
her failure, 287, 475;
handwriting, 304;
moral scheme, 334;
toleration, 355, 475;
relations with Francis’ mistresses, 364;
intellectual influence, 378-383;
lovers, 384, 385;
writings, 386, 387;
vacillation, 418;
religion, 436, 437, 442-445, 457, 470.
Margaret of France (wife of Henry of Navarre), 486.
Margaret of Lorraine, 133.
Margaret of Savoy, 172, 481-486.
Marone, Andrea, 273.
Marot, Clément, 29, 165 _n_, 198 _n_, 212, 287, 315, 317, 353, 407,
457.
marriage customs, 37-42;
presents, 72.
Mary of Cleves, 67.
Mary of England, 129, 217, 274.
Mary Stuart, 92, 376.
materialism, 456.
matrimony, test questions for, 33.
Maupas’ sparrow, 407.
medicine, 54-58.
men of letters, 392.
Ménot on death, 491.
Michelangelo, his nephew’s marriage, 35, 36;
on love, 162;
relations with Vittoria Colonna, 162, 182, 183, 213, 214, 395, 396;
his _Eve_, 202;
_Last Judgment_, 204, 324;
_Virgin_ of Casa Buonarotti, 323;
_Pietà_, 323, 324;
ideal of woman, 324;
sonnets to courtesans, 359;
frescoes, 428.
_Mirror of the Sinful Soul_, 92, 386.
mistresses of Francis I., 363.
money, importance of, 117-121;
worship of, 145, 146, 148, 149.
monks, 458-466.
_Monna Lisa_, Leonardo’s, 191.
Montaigne on marriage, 46;
on capricious treatment of women, 52;
on business, 65;
on peasant nurture, 73 _n_;
on college education, 76, 78;
on women’s ‘policy,’ 86;
on his daughter, 88, 95;
on moneyed wives, 121;
on tears of mourning, 130;
his scepticism, 191, 479, 488-490;
on coquetry, 362 _n_;
on women’s virtue, 420;
on faith, 425;
on death, 491.
moon, woman compared to the, 423.
Morosina, Bembo’s mistress, 366, 367.
Mortemart, ladies of, 286.
motherhood, 71-74, 77.
mother-in-law, the, 110.
mourning, 128.
Muguet, falcon of Louis XII., 250.
music, 83, 88, 270-278.
Mysteries, 282, 283.
mysticism, varieties of, 446-448, 465.
mythology, use of, 156, 455.
Naples, love of art at, 225.
Nature and man, 138, 139, 254, 449;
platonist attitude towards, 241-243, 253, 254.
naturalism, Ruskin’s, 498, 499;
contrasted with Bourget’s, 499, 500.
needlework, 88.
Nifo, his changeableness, 152, 331;
catalogue of love-motives, 191, 192;
pen portrait of Jeanne of Aragon, 208, 209;
anecdote of, 327, 328;
platonism, 332, 333;
Phausina Rhea, 348, 399;
feminism, 369.
_Nouvelles_, 259, 266, 267.
nudities, 202-209.
nurses, 73.
Ochino, 339, 428, 469, 470.
Ockeghem, John of, 275.
Olympia Morata, 94 _n_, 428.
Ordelaffi, husband of Catherine Sforza, 321.
Orleans, duchess of, her charity, 66;
love of music, 273.
Ovid, popularity of, 265, 266.
painting, 396, 377.
_palinods_, the, 446.
Papillon, Almanque, 149, 480.
patronage, 393-396, 398.
Paul II., 247.
Paul III., 432, 469.
Paul IV., the ‘breeches-maker,’ 204.
pen portraits, 208-210.
_Peregrino_, Caviceo’s romance, 22.
Pernette du Guillet, 412.
Perugino, 375.
Petrarch, 234, 265, 272, 406, 487.
‘Phaedra,’ _see_ Inghirami.
Phausina Rhea, 210, 348.
Philippa of Gueldres, 133.
philosophy, love of, 401, 402.
physical exercise, 244.
Pia, Emilia, 288, 305.
Piccoli, Gabriele, 322.
Pico della Mirandola, 154.
pilgrimages, 240.
Pio, Alberto, 277, 454, 462.
plate, family, 229.
Plato, theory of love, 151-153;
vogue of, 154, 402, 448;
theory of beauty, 158, 161;
Nature, 241;
relation to Christianity, 425;
negative results of doctrine, 494-496.
platonic love, 213, 339-344, 348.
platonism, 154, 157, 164, 177-193, 197, 260, 297, 334, 336;
causes of its failure, 487, 488, 495-498.
Pléiade, the, 172, 478-481.
poetry, 262, 271, 404-408;
and hunting, 248-250.
Poggio, his _facetiae_, 100, 154;
on Baden, 259, 260.
Poirier, son-in-law of Monsieur, 117.
Poitiers, three maids of, 102;
ladies of, 288.
Pole, Cardinal, 429.
Politian, 154, 265, 409.
polygamy, 339.
Pomponius Laetus, 154, 278.
Pontanus, 88, 104, 144, 240.
poodles, 244, 407, 408.
portraits of ladies as Venus, 205-207.
Postel, Guillaume, 471, 472.
priesthood of women, 428.
princesses’ love, 187, 188.
publicity, writers’ objection to, 376.
Puritans and music, 277.
_puys d’amour_, 419.
Rabelais, pedigrees, 145;
on colours, 221;
antiplatonist, 325, 336;
his abbey of Thelema, 465;
his mysticism, 465.
Raphael on marriage, 36, 37;
_Vision of a Knight_, 330;
anecdote of, 431.
Raulin, Jean, his sermon, 108.
reading, 88, 262.
religion and aesthetics, 423, 424;
relations to philosophy and Plato, 425, 426, 479 ff.
Renée of France, on influence of stars, 61;
letters, 308;
career and character, 314-316, 456.
Romances, 100, 268-270.
Roman aristocracy, 143;
idea of beauty, 143;
liberalism, 430-434.
Ronsard, 60, 198, 215, 235, 343, 365, 376, 477, 478.
Rosera, Isabella, 409.
Ruskin, 111;
on nature, 137, 138;
his naturalism compared with Bourget’s, 498-500.
Sadoleto, 429.
‘Saffredent’ (character in _Heptameron_), 385.
Saint-Gelais, Melin de, 235, 327, 431.
Saint-Gelais, Octovien de, 167, 266, 300, 326.
Saint-Simon on Mortemart ladies, 286.
Salel, Hugues, 382.
Savonarola, 163, 164, 278, 297, 322, 459.
Scaldasole, Marchesa, 184.
scepticism, 479.
Semblançay, 141.
serving maids, 106, 112.
Sforza, Ascanio, 248, 249.
Sforza, Bianca, 42, 43.
Sforza, Catherine, widowhood, 29;
her wedding presents, 40 _n_;
alchemy, 61, 62;
character and career, 245, 246, 320-322.
_Ship of Fools_, 416.
slave girls as concubines, 113.
small families, 71.
sonnet, popularity of, 405.
Spagnuoli, Battista, on marriage, 21;
on baths, 258;
on monks, 460.
Spain, education of girls in, 91-94;
idea of charm, 198.
spas, 257, 258.
Spinola, Thomasina, 190.
stick, the, 110, 111.
‘stork-love,’ 355, 441.
story-telling, 299.
subsidiary marriage, 339.
Sygea, Loysa, 409.
table-talk, 231, 232.
Theresa, St., 92, 197.
Tiraqueau, 27, 35.
titles, love of, 143.
topics of conversation, 294.
tournaments, 245, 246.
Triboulet, 34.
Trithemius, 458 _n_, 463.
Tullia d’Aragona, her book on the Infinity of Perfect Love, 164;
her influence, 357, 360;
a poetess, 413.
tutors, 78-81.
Urbino, court of, 159, 290, 303, 381 _n_.
Urbino, duke of, 52, 145, 293;
duchess of, 41, 43, 52, 129 _n_, 309.
Valois, court of, 369, 486.
Vegio on tutors, 79.
Venice, marriages at, 41;
education at, 96;
idea of charm, 198;
music at, 277;
courtesans at, 361.
Venus, passion for painting, 201-205.
Vérard, publisher, 392.
Vergerio, 451, 452, 457, 458.
Vert-vert, 408.
Villamarina, Isabella, anecdote of, 320.
Virgil, unpopularity of, 265.
virtue represented in painting as repellent, 329, 330.
Vittoria Colonna, _see_ Colonna.
Vivès, on education of girls, 92, 98, 100;
on husbands, 111;
on dancing and kissing, 233, 234.
vocal music, 270-273.
Voiture, 187.
_volta_, the, 236, 237.
war, 317-319.
wealth, worship of, 222, 236.
widows, 128-134.
witchcraft, 426, 427.
women as professional writers, 409, 410.
Zwingle on education, 82.
GLASGOW: PRINTED AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS BY ROBERT MACLEHOSE AND CO.