[Illustration: 071.jpg Tailpiece]
[Illustration: 073a.jpg Sister Marie and the Prior]
[Sister Marie and the Prior]
[Illustration: 073.jpg Page Image]
_TALE XXII_.
_Sister Marie Heroet, being unchastely solicited by a Prior
of Saint-Martin-in-the-Fields, was by the grace of God
enabled to overcome his great temptations, to the Prior’s
exceeding confusion and her own glory_. (1)
1 This story is historical, and though M. Frank indicates
points of similarity between it and No. xxvii. of St. Denis’
_Comptes du Monde Adventureux_, and No. vi. of Masuccio de
Solerac’s _Novellino_, these are of little account when one
remembers that the works in question were written posterior
to the _Heptameron_. The incidents related in the tale must
have occurred between 1530 and 1535. The Abbey of Saint-
Martin-in-the-Fields stood on the site of the present
Conservatoire des Arts et Métiers, Paris.--Ed.
In the city of Paris there was a Prior of Saint-Martin-in-the-Fields,
whose name I will keep secret for the sake of the friendship I bore him.
Until he reached the age of fifty years, his life was so austere that
the fame of his holiness was spread throughout the entire kingdom, and
there was not a prince or princess but showed him high honour when he
came to visit them. There was further no monkish reform that was not
wrought by his hand, so that people called him the “father of true
monasticism.” (2)
He was chosen visitor to the illustrious order of the “Ladies of
Fontevrault,” (3) by whom he was held in such awe that, when he visited
any of their convents, the nuns shook with very fear, and to soften his
harshness towards them would treat him as though he had been the King
himself in person. At first he would not have them do this, but at last,
when he was nearly fifty-five years old, he began to find the treatment
he had formerly contemned very pleasant; and reckoning himself the
mainstay of all monasticism, he gave more care to the preservation of
his health than had heretofore been his wont. Although the rules of
his order forbade him ever to partake of flesh, he granted himself a
dispensation (which was more than he ever did for another), declaring
that the whole burden of conventual affairs rested upon him; for which
reason he feasted himself so well that, from being a very lean monk he
became a very fat one.
2 This prior was Stephen Gentil, who succeeded Philip
Bourgoin on December 15, 1508, and died November 6, 1536.
The _Gallia Christiana_ states that in 1524 he reformed an
abbey of the diocese of Soissons, but makes no mention of
his appointment as visitor to the abbey of Fontevrault.
Various particulars concerning him will be found in Manor’s
_Monasterii Regalis S. Martini de Campis, &c. Parisiis_,
1636, and in _Gallia Christiana_, vol. vii. col. 539.--L.
3 The abbey of Fontevrault, near Saumur, Maine-et-Loire, was
founded in 1100 by Robert d’Arbrissel, and comprised two
conventual establishments, one for men and the other for
women. Prior to his death, d’Arbrissel abdicated his
authority in favour of Petronilla de Chemillé, and from her
time forward monks and nuns alike were always under the sway
of an abbess--this being the only instance of the kind in
the history of the Roman Catholic Church. Fourteen of the
abbesses were princesses, and several of these were of the
blood royal of France. In the abbey church were buried our
Henry II., Eleanor of Guienne, Richard Coeur-de-Lion, and
Isabella of Angoulême; their tombs are still shown, though
the abbey has become a prison, and its church a refectory.--
Ed.
Together with this change of life there was wrought also a great change
of heart, so that he now began to cast glances upon countenances which
aforetime he had looked at only as a duty; and, contemplating charms
which were rendered even more desirable by the veil, he began to hanker
after them. Then, to satisfy this longing, he sought out such cunning
devices that at last from being a shepherd he became a wolf, so that in
many a convent, where there chanced to be a simple maiden, he failed
not to beguile her. But after he had continued this evil life for a
long time, the Divine Goodness took compassion upon the poor, wandering
sheep, and would no longer suffer this villain’s triumph to endure, as
you shall hear.
One day he went to visit the convent of Gif, (4) not far from Paris,
and while he was confessing all the nuns, it happened that there was one
among them called Marie Heroet, whose speech was so gentle and pleasing
that it gave promise of a countenance and heart to match.
4 Gif, an abbey of the Benedictine order, was situated at
five leagues from Paris, in the valley of Chevreuse, on the
bank of the little river Yvette. A few ruins of it still
remain. It appears to have been founded in the eleventh
century.--See Le Beuf s _Histoire du Diocèse de Paris_, vol.
viii. part viii. p. 106, and _Gallia Christiana_, vol. vii.
col. 596.--L. and D.
The mere sound of her voice moved him with a passion exceeding any that
he had ever felt for other nuns, and, while speaking to her, he bent
low to look at her, and perceiving her rosy, winsome mouth, could not
refrain from lifting her veil to see whether her eyes were in keeping
therewith. He found that they were, and his heart was filled with so
ardent a passion that, although he sought to conceal it, his countenance
became changed, and he could no longer eat or drink. When he returned
to his priory, he could find no rest, but passed his days and nights in
deep disquiet, seeking to devise a means whereby he might accomplish his
desire, and make of this nun what he had already made of many others.
But this, he feared, would be difficult, seeing that he had found her
to be prudent of speech and shrewd of understanding; moreover, he knew
himself to be old and ugly, and therefore resolved not to employ words
but to seek to win her by fear.
Accordingly, not long afterwards, he returned to the convent of Gif
aforesaid, where he showed more austerity than he had ever done before,
and spoke wrathfully to all the nuns, telling one that her veil was not
low enough, another that she carried her head too high, and another
that she did not do him reverence as a nun should do. So harsh was he in
respect of all these trifles, that they feared him as though he had been
a god sitting on the throne of judgment.
Being gouty, he grew very weary in visiting all the usual parts of the
convent, and it thus came to pass that about the hour for vespers, an
hour which he had himself fixed upon, he found himself in the dormitory,
when the Abbess said to him--
“Reverend father, it is time to go to vespers.”
“Go, mother,” he replied, “do you go to vespers. I am so weary that I
will remain here, yet not to rest but to speak to Sister Marie, of
whom I have had a very bad report, for I am told that she prates like a
worldly-minded woman.”
The Abbess, who was aunt to the maiden’s mother, begged him to
reprove her soundly, and left her alone with him and a young monk who
accompanied him.
When he found himself alone with Sister Marie, he began to lift up her
veil, and to tell her to look at him. She answered that the rule of her
order forbade her to look at men.
“It is well said, my daughter,” he replied, “but you must not consider
us monks as men.”
Then Sister Marie, fearing to sin by disobedience, looked him in the
face; but he was so ugly that she though it rather a penance than a sin
to look at him.
The good father, after telling her at length of his goodwill towards
her, sought to lay his hand upon her breasts; but she repulsed him, as
was her duty; whereupon, in great wrath, he said to her--
“Should a nun know that she has breasts?”
“I know that I have,” she replied, “and certes neither you nor any other
shall ever touch them. I am not so young and ignorant that I do not know
the difference between what is sin and what is not.”
When he saw that such talk would not prevail upon her, he adopted a
different plan, and said--
“Alas, my daughter, I must make known to you my extreme need. I have an
infirmity which all the physicians hold to be incurable unless I have
pleasure with some woman whom I greatly love. For my part, I would
rather die than commit a mortal sin; but, when it comes to that, I know
that simple fornication is in no wise to be compared with the sin of
homicide. So, if you love my life, you will preserve it for me, as well
as your own conscience from cruelty.”
She asked him what manner of pleasure he desired to have. He replied
that she might safely surrender her conscience to his own, and that he
would do nothing that could be a burden to either.
Then, to let her see the beginning of the pastime that he sought, he
took her in his arms and tried to throw her upon a bed. She, recognising
his evil purpose, defended herself so well with arms and voice that he
could only touch her garments. Then, when he saw that all his devices
and efforts were being brought to naught, he behaved like a madman and
one devoid not only of conscience but of natural reason, for, thrusting
his hand under her dress, he scratched wherever his nails could reach
with such fury that the poor girl shrieked out, and fell swooning at
full length upon the floor.
Hearing this cry, the Abbess came into the dormitory; for while at
vespers she had remembered that she had left her niece’s daughter alone
with the good father, and feeling some scruples of conscience, she had
left the chapel and repaired to the door of the dormitory in order to
learn what was going on. On hearing her niece’s voice, she pushed open
the door, which was being held by the young monk.
And when the Prior saw the Abbess coming, he pointed to her niece as she
lay in a swoon, and said--
“Assuredly, mother, you are greatly to blame that you did not inform me
of Sister Marie’s condition. Knowing nothing of her weakness, I caused
her to stand before me, and, while I was reproving her, she swooned away
as you see.”
They revived her with vinegar and other remedies, and found that she had
wounded her head in her fall. When she was recovered, the Prior, fearing
that she would tell her aunt the reason of her indisposition, took her
aside and said to her--
“I charge you, my daughter, if you would be obedient and hope for
salvation, never to speak of what I said to you just now. You must know
that it was my exceeding love for you that constrained me, but since
I see that you do not wish to love me, I will never speak of it to you
again. However, if you be willing, I promise to have you chosen Abbess
of one of the three best convents in the kingdom.”
She replied that she would rather die in perpetual imprisonment than
have any lover save Him who had died for her on the cross, for she
would rather suffer with Him all the evils the world could inflict than
possess without Him all its blessings. And she added that he must never
again speak to her in such a manner, or she would inform the Abbess;
whereas, if he kept silence, so would she.
Thereupon this evil shepherd left her, and in order to make himself
appear quite other than he was, and to again have the pleasure of
looking upon her he loved, he turned to the Abbess and said--
“I beg, mother, that you will cause all your nuns to sing a _Salve
Regina_ in honour of that virgin in whom I rest my hope.”
While this was being done, the old fox did nothing but shed tears, not
of devotion, but of grief at his lack of success. All the nuns, thinking
that it was for love of the Virgin Mary, held him for a holy man, but
Sister Marie, who knew his wickedness, prayed in her heart that one
having so little reverence for virginity might be brought to confusion.
And so this hypocrite departed to St. Martin’s, where the evil fire that
was in his heart did not cease burning night and day alike, prompting
him to all manner of devices in order to compass his ends. As he above
all things feared the Abbess, who was a virtuous woman, he hit upon a
plan to withdraw her from the convent, and betook himself to Madame de
Vendôme, who was at that time living at La Fère, where she had founded
and built a convent of the Benedictine order called Mount Olivet. (5)
5 This is Mary of Luxemburg, Countess of St. Paul-de-
Conversan, Marie and Soissons, who married, first, James of
Savoy, and secondly, Francis de Bourbon, Count of Vendôme.
The latter, who accompanied Charles VIII. to Italy, was
killed at Vercelli in October 1495, when but twenty-five
years old. His widow did not marry again, but retired to her
château of La Fère near Laon (Aisne), where late in 1518 she
founded a convent of Benedictine nuns, which, according to
the _Gallia Christiana_, she called the convent of Mount
Calvary. This must be the establishment alluded to by Queen
Margaret, who by mistake has called it Mount Olivet, i.e.,
the Mount of Olives. Madame de Vendôme died at a very
advanced age on April 1, 1546.--See Anselme’s _Histoire
Généalogique_, vol. i. p. 326.--L.
Speaking in the quality of a prince of reformers, he gave her to
understand that the Abbess of the aforesaid Mount Olivet lacked the
capacity to govern such a community. The worthy lady begged him to
give her another that should be worthy of the office, and he, who asked
nothing better, counselled her to have the Abbess of Gif, as being the
most capable in France. Madame de Vendôme sent for her forthwith, and
set her over the convent of Mount Olivet.
As the Prior of St. Martin’s had every monastic vote at his disposal, he
caused one who was devoted to him to be chosen Abbess of Gif, and this
being accomplished, he went to Gif to try once more whether he might win
Sister Marie Heroet by prayers or honied words. Finding that he could
not succeed, he returned in despair to his priory of St. Martin’s, and
in order to achieve his purpose, to revenge himself on her who was so
cruel to him, and further to prevent the affair from becoming known, he
caused the relics of the aforesaid convent of Gif to be secretly stolen
at night, and accusing the confessor of the convent, a virtuous and
very aged man, of having stolen them, he cast him into prison at St.
Martin’s.
Whilst he held him captive there, he stirred up two witnesses who in
ignorance signed what the Prior commanded them, which was a statement
that they had seen the confessor in a garden with Sister Marie, engaged
in a foul and wicked act; and this the Prior sought to make the old monk
confess. But he, who knew all the Prior’s misdoings, entreated him to
bring him before the Chapter, saying that there, in presence of all the
monks, he would tell the truth of all that he knew. The Prior, fearing
that the confessor’s justification would be his own condemnation, would
in no wise grant this request; and, finding him firm of purpose, he
treated him so ill in prison that some say he brought about his death,
and others that he forced him to lay aside his robe and betake himself
out of the kingdom of France. Be that as it may, the confessor was never
seen again.
The Prior, thinking that he had now a sure hold upon Sister Marie,
repaired to the convent, where the Abbess, chosen for this purpose,
gainsaid him in nothing. There he began to exercise his authority as
visitor, and caused all the nuns to come one after the other into a room
that he might hear them, as is the fashion at a visitation. When the
turn of Sister Marie, who had now lost her good aunt, had come, he began
speaking to her in this wise--
“Sister Marie, you know of what crime you are accused, and that your
pretence of chastity has availed you nothing, since you are well known
to be the very contrary of chaste.”
“Bring here my accuser,” replied Sister Marie, with steadfast
countenance, “and you will see whether in my presence he will abide by
his evil declaration.”
“No further proof is needed,” he said, “since the confessor has been
found guilty.”
“I hold him for too honourable a man,” said Sister Marie, “to have
confessed so great a lie; but even should he have done so, bring him
here before me, and I will prove the contrary of what he says.”