“He that knows the hearts of His servants shall give me as much honour
in His presence as you can give me shame in the presence of men; and
since your wickedness goes so far, I would rather it wreaked its cruelty
upon me than its evil passion; for I know that God is a just judge.”
Then the Prior departed and assembled the whole Chapter, and, causing
Sister Marie to appear on her knees before him, he said to her with
wondrous malignity--
“Sister Marie, it grieves me to see that the good counsels I have given
you have been of no effect, and to find you fallen into such evil ways
that, contrary to my wont, I must needs lay a penance upon you. I have
examined your confessor concerning certain crimes with which he is
charged, and he has confessed to me that he has abused your person in
the place where the witnesses say that they saw him. And so I command
that, whereas I had formerly raised you to honourable rank as Mistress
of the Novices, you shall now be the lowest placed of all, and further,
shall eat only bread and water on the ground, and in presence of all
the Sisters, until you have shown sufficient penitence to receive
forgiveness.”
Sister Marie had been warned by one of her companions, who was
acquainted with the whole matter, that if she made any reply displeasing
to the Prior, he would put her _in pace_--that is, in perpetual
imprisonment--and she therefore submitted to this sentence, raising her
eyes to heaven, and praying Him who had enabled her to withstand sin,
to grant her patience for the endurance of tribulation. The Prior of St.
Martin’s further commanded that for the space of three years she should
neither speak with her mother or kinsfolk when they came to see her, nor
send any letters save such as were written in community.
The miscreant then went away and returned no more, and for a long time
the unhappy maiden continued in the tribulation that I have described.
But her mother, who loved her best of all her children, was much
astonished at receiving no tidings from her; and told one of her sons,
who was a prudent and honourable gentleman, (6) that she thought her
daughter was dead, and that the nuns were hiding it from her in order
that they might receive the yearly payment. She, therefore, begged him
to devise some means of seeing his sister.
6 It is conjectured by M. Lacroix that this “prudent and
honourable gentleman,” Mary Heroet’s brother, was Antoine
Heroet or Hérouet, alias La Maisonneuve, who at one time was
a valet and secretary to Queen Margaret, and so advanced
himself in life that he died Bishop of Digne in 1544. He was
the author of _La Parfaite Amie, L’Androgyne, and De n’aimer
point sans être aimé_, poems of a semi-metaphysical, semi-
amorous character such as might have come from Margaret’s
own pen. Whether he was Mary Heroet’s brother or not, it is
at least probable that he was her relative.-B. J. and L.
He went forthwith to the convent, where he met with the wonted excuses,
being told that for three years his sister had not stirred from her bed.
But this did not satisfy him, and he swore that, if he did not see
her, he would climb over the walls and force his way into the convent.
Thereupon, being in great fear, they brought his sister to him at the
grating, though the Abbess stood so near that she could not tell her
brother aught that was not heard. But she had prudently set down in
writing all that I have told you, together with a thousand others of the
Prior’s devices to deceive her, which ‘twould take too long to relate.
Yet I must not omit to mention that at the time when her aunt was
Abbess, the Prior, thinking that his ugliness was the cause of her
refusal, had caused Sister Marie to be tempted by a handsome young monk,
in the hope that if she yielded to this man through love, he himself
might afterwards obtain her through fear. The young monk aforesaid spoke
to her in a garden with gestures too shameful to be mentioned, whereat
the poor maiden ran to the Abbess, who was talking with the Prior, and
cried out--
“Mother, they are not monks, but devils, who visit us here!”
Thereupon the Prior, in great fear of discovery, began to laugh, and
said--
“Assuredly, mother, Sister Marie is right.”
Then, taking Sister Marie by the hand, he said to her in presence of the
Abbess--
“I had heard that Sister Marie spoke very well, and so constantly that
she was deemed to be worldly-minded. For this reason I constrained
myself, contrary to my natural inclination, to speak to her in the way
that worldly men speak to women--at least in books, for in point
of experience I am as ignorant as I was on the day when I was born.
Thinking, however, that only my years and ugliness led her to discourse
in so virtuous a fashion, I commanded my young monk to speak to her as
I myself had done, and, as you see, she has virtuously resisted him.
So highly, therefore, do I think of her prudence and virtue, that
henceforward she shall rank next after you and shall be Mistress of the
Novices, to the intent that her excellent disposition may ever increase
in virtue.”
This act, with many others, was done by this worthy monk during the
three years that he was in love with the nun. She, however, as I have
said, gave her brother in writing, through the grating, the whole story
of her pitiful fortunes; and this her brother brought to her mother, who
came, overwhelmed with despair, to Paris. Here she found the Queen of
Navarre, only sister to the King, and showing her the piteous story,
said--
“Madam, trust no more in these hypocrites. I thought that I had placed
my daughter within the precincts of Paradise, or on the high road
thither, whereas I have placed her in the precincts of Hell, and in the
hands of the vilest devils imaginable. The devils, indeed, do not tempt
us unless temptation be our pleasure, but these men will take by force
when they cannot win by love.”
The Queen of Navarre was in great concern, for she trusted wholly in
the Prior of St. Martin’s, to whose care she had committed her
sisters-inlaw, the Abbesses of Montivilliers and Caen. (7) On the
other hand, the enormity of the crime so horrified her and made her
so desirous of avenging the innocence of this unhappy maiden, that she
communicated the matter to the King’s Chancellor, who happened also to
be Legate in France. (8)
7 The abbess of Montivilliers was Catherine d’Albret,
daughter of John d’Albret, King of Navarre and sister of
Queen Margaret’s husband, Henry. At first a nun at the abbey
of St. Magdalen at Orleans, she became twenty-eighth abbess
of Montivilliers near Havre. She was still living in 1536.
(_Gallia Christ_., vol. xi. col. 285). The abbess of Caen
was Magdalen d’Albret, Catherine’s sister. She took the veil
at Fontevrault in 1527, subsequently became thirty-third
abbess of the Trinity at Caen, and died in November 1532.
(_Gallia Christ_., vol. xi. col. 436).--L.
8 This is the famous Antony Duprat, Francis I.’s favourite
minister. Born in 1463, he became Chancellor in 1515, and
his wife dying soon afterwards, he took orders, with the
result that he was made Archbishop of Sens and Cardinal. It
was in 1530 that he was appointed Papal Legate in France, so
that the incidents related in this tale cannot have occurred
at an earlier date. Duprat died in July 1535, of grief, it
is said, because Francis I. would not support him in his
ambitious scheme to secure possession of the papal see, as
successor to Clement VII.-B. J. and Ed.
The Prior was sent for, but could find nothing to plead except that he
was seventy years of age, and addressing himself to the Queen of Navarre
he begged that, for all the good she had ever wished to do him, and in
token of all the services he had rendered or had desired to render her,
she would be pleased to bring these proceedings to a close, and he would
acknowledge that Sister Marie was a pearl of honour and chastity.
On hearing this, the Queen of Navarre was so astonished that she could
make no reply, but went off and left him there. The unhappy man then
withdrew in great confusion to his monastery, where he would suffer
none to see him, and where he lived only one year afterwards. And Sister
Marie Heroet, now reputed as highly as she deserved to be, by reason of
the virtues that God had given her, was withdrawn from the convent of
Gif, where she had endured so much evil, and was by the King made Abbess
of the the convent of Giy (9) near Montargis.
9 Giy-les-Nonains, a little village on the river Ouanne, at
two leagues and a half from Montargis, department of the
Loiret.--L.
This convent she reformed, and there she lived like one filled with the
Spirit of God, whom all her life long she ever praised for having of His
good grace restored to her both honour and repose.
“There, ladies, you have a story which clearly proves the words of the
Gospel, that ‘God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound
the things which are mighty, and things which are despised of men hath
God chosen to bring to nought the glory of those who think themselves
something but are in truth nothing.’ (10) And remember, ladies, that
without the grace of God there is no good at all in man, just as there
is no temptation that with His assistance may not be overcome. This
is shown by the abasement of the man who was accounted just, and the
exaltation of her whom men were willing to deem a wicked sinner. Thus
are verified Our Lord’s words, ‘Whosoever exalteth himself shall be
abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.’” (11)