never leaves him; the servants are old and sullen, and will stir for
nobody. Finding her resolved, as they believe, to become a nun, they
are little assiduous in their services. Humour her, if none else does,
Amadeo; let her fancy that you intend to be a friar; and, for the
present, walk not on these grounds.'
'Are you true, or are you traitorous?' cried Amadeo, grasping his
friend's hand most fiercely.
'Follow your own counsel, if you think mine insincere,' said the young
friar, not withdrawing his hand, but placing the other on Amadeo's.
'Let me, however, advise you to conceal yourself; and I will direct
Silvestrina to bring you such accounts of her mistress as may at least
make you easy in regard to her health. Adieu.'
Amadeo was now rather tranquil; more than he had ever been, not only
since the displeasure of Monna Tita, but since the first sight of her.
Profuse at all times in his gratitude to Silvestrina, whenever she
brought him good news, news better than usual, he pressed her to his
bosom. Silvestrina Pioppi is about fifteen, slender, fresh,
intelligent, lively, good-humoured, sensitive; and any one but Amadeo
might call her very pretty.
_Petrarca._ Ah, Giovanni! here I find your heart obtaining the mastery
over your vivid and volatile imagination. Well have you said, the
maiden being really pretty, any one but Amadeo might think her so. On
the banks of the Sorga there are beautiful maids; the woods and the
rocks have a thousand times repeated it. I heard but one echo; I heard
but one name: I would have fled from them for ever at another.
_Boccaccio._ Francesco, do not beat your breast just now: wait a
little. Monna Tita would take the veil. The fatal certainty was
announced to Amadeo by his true Guiberto, who had earnestly and
repeatedly prayed her to consider the thing a few months longer.
'I will see her first! By all the saints of heaven I will see her!'
cried the desperate Amadeo, and ran into the house, toward the still
apartment of his beloved. Fortunately Guiberto was neither less active
nor less strong than he, and overtaking him at the moment, drew him
into the room opposite. 'If you will be quiet and reasonable, there is
yet a possibility left you,' said Guiberto in his ear, although
perhaps he did not think it. 'But if you utter a voice or are seen by
any one, you ruin the fame of her you love, and obstruct your own
prospects for ever. It being known that you have not slept in Florence
these several nights, it will be suspected by the malicious that you
have slept in the villa with the connivance of Monna Tita. Compose
yourself; answer nothing; rest where you are: do not add a worse
imprudence to a very bad one. I promise you my assistance, my speedy
return, and best counsel: you shall be released at daybreak.' He
ordered Silvestrina to supply the unfortunate youth with the cordials
usually administered to the uncle, or with the rich old wine they were
made of; and she performed the order with such promptitude and
attention, that he was soon in some sort refreshed.
_Petrarca._ I pity him from my innermost heart, poor young man! Alas,
we are none of us, by original sin, free from infirmities or from
vices.
_Boccaccio._ If we could find a man exempt by nature from vices and
infirmities, we should find one not worth knowing: he would also be
void of tenderness and compassion. What allowances then could his best
friends expect from him in their frailties? What help, consolation,
and assistance in their misfortunes? We are in the midst of a workshop
well stored with sharp instruments: we may do ill with many, unless we
take heed; and good with all, if we will but learn how to employ them.
_Petrarca._ There is somewhat of reason in this. You strengthen me to
proceed with you: I can bear the rest.
_Boccaccio._ Guiberto had taken leave of his friend, and had advanced
a quarter of a mile, which (as you perceive) is nearly the whole way,
on his return to the monastery, when he was overtaken by some peasants
who were hastening homeward from Florence. The information he
collected from them made him determine to retrace his steps. He
entered the room again, and, from the intelligence he had just
acquired, gave Amadeo the assurance that Monna Tita must delay her
entrance into the convent; for that the abbess had that moment gone
down the hill on her way toward Siena to venerate some holy relics,
carrying with her three candles, each five feet long, to burn before
them; which candles contained many particles of the myrrh presented at
the Nativity of our Saviour by the Wise Men of the East. Amadeo
breathed freely, and was persuaded by Guiberto to take another cup of
old wine, and to eat with him some cold roast kid, which had been
offered him for _merenda_. After the agitation of his mind a heavy
sleep fell upon the lover, coming almost before Guiberto departed: so
heavy indeed that Silvestrina was alarmed. It was her apartment; and
she performed the honours of it as well as any lady in Florence could
have done.
_Petrarca._ I easily believe it: the poor are more attentive than the
rich, and the young are more compassionate than the old.
_Boccaccio._ O Francesco! what inconsistent creatures are we!
_Petrarca._ True, indeed! I now foresee the end. He might have done
worse.
_Boccaccio._ I think so.
_Petrarca._ He almost deserved it.
_Boccaccio._ I think that too.
_Petrarca._ Wretched mortals! our passions for ever lead us into this,
or worse.
_Boccaccio._ Ay, truly; much worse generally.
_Petrarca._ The very twig on which the flowers grew lately scourges us
to the bone in its maturity.
_Boccaccio._ Incredible will it be to you, and, by my faith, to me it
was hardly credible. Certain, however, is it that Guiberto on his
return by sunrise found Amadeo in the arms of sleep.
_Petrarca._ Not at all, not at all: the truest lover might suffer and
act as he did.
_Boccaccio._ But, Francesco, there was another pair of arms about him,
worth twenty such, divinity as he is. A loud burst of laughter from
Guiberto did not arouse either of the parties; but Monna Tita heard
it, and rushed into the room, tearing her hair, and invoking the
saints of heaven against the perfidy of man. She seized Silvestrina by
that arm which appeared the most offending: the girl opened her eyes,
turned on her face, rolled out of bed, and threw herself at the feet
of her mistress, shedding tears, and wiping them away with the only
piece of linen about her. Monna Tita too shed tears. Amadeo still
slept profoundly; a flush, almost of crimson, overspreading his
cheeks. Monna Tita led away, after some pause, poor Silvestrina, and
made her confess the whole. She then wept more and more, and made the
girl confess it again, and explain her confession. 'I cannot believe
such wickedness,' she cried: 'he could not be so hardened. O sinful
Silvestrina! how will you ever tell Father Doni one half, one quarter?
He never can absolve you.'
_Petrarca._ Giovanni, I am glad I did not enter the house; you were
prudent in restraining me. I have no pity for the youth at all: never
did one so deserve to lose a mistress.
_Boccaccio._ Say, rather, to gain a wife.
_Petrarca._ Absurdity! impossibility!
_Boccaccio._ He won her fairly; strangely, and on a strange table, as
he played his game. Listen! that guitar is Monna Tita's. Listen! what
a fine voice (do not you think it?) is Amadeo's.
_Amadeo._ [_Singing._]
Oh, I have err'd!
I laid my hand upon the nest
(Tita, I sigh to sing the rest)
Of the wrong bird.
_Petrarca._ She laughs too at it! Ah! Monna Tita was made by nature to
live on this side of Fiesole.
BOSSUET AND THE DUCHESS DE FONTANGES
_Bossuet._ Mademoiselle, it is the king's desire that I compliment you
on the elevation you have attained.
_Fontanges._ O monseigneur, I know very well what you mean. His
Majesty is kind and polite to everybody. The last thing he said to me
was, 'Angélique! do not forget to compliment Monseigneur the bishop on
the dignity I have conferred upon him, of almoner to the dauphiness. I
desired the appointment for him only that he might be of rank
sufficient to confess, now you are duchess. Let him be your confessor,
my little girl.'
_Bossuet._ I dare not presume to ask you, mademoiselle, what was your
gracious reply to the condescension of our royal master.
_Fontanges._ Oh, yes! you may. I told him I was almost sure I should
be ashamed of confessing such naughty things to a person of high rank,
who writes like an angel.
_Bossuet._ The observation was inspired, mademoiselle, by your
goodness and modesty.
_Fontanges._ You are so agreeable a man, monseigneur, I will confess
to you, directly, if you like.
_Bossuet._ Have you brought yourself to a proper frame of mind, young
lady?
_Fontanges._ What is that?
_Bossuet._ Do you hate sin?
_Fontanges._ Very much.
_Bossuet._ Are you resolved to leave it off?
_Fontanges._ I have left it off entirely since the king began to love
me. I have never said a spiteful word of anybody since.
_Bossuet._ In your opinion, mademoiselle, are there no other sins than
malice?
_Fontanges._ I never stole anything; I never committed adultery; I
never coveted my neighbour's wife; I never killed any person, though
several have told me they should die for me.
_Bossuet._ Vain, idle talk! Did you listen to it?
_Fontanges._ Indeed I did, with both ears; it seemed so funny.
_Bossuet._ You have something to answer for, then.
_Fontanges._ No, indeed, I have not, monseigneur. I have asked many
times after them, and found they were all alive, which mortified me.
_Bossuet._ So, then! you would really have them die for you?
_Fontanges._ Oh, no, no! but I wanted to see whether they were in
earnest, or told me fibs; for, if they told me fibs, I would never
trust them again.
_Bossuet._ Do you hate the world, mademoiselle?
_Fontanges._ A good deal of it: all Picardy, for example, and all
Sologne; nothing is uglier--and, oh my life! what frightful men and
women!
_Bossuet._ I would say, in plain language, do you hate the flesh and
the devil?
_Fontanges._ Who does not hate the devil? If you will hold my hand the
while, I will tell him so. I hate you, beast! There now. As for flesh,
I never could bear a fat man. Such people can neither dance nor hunt,
nor do anything that I know of.
_Bossuet._ Mademoiselle Marie-Angélique de Scoraille de Rousille,
Duchess de Fontanges! do you hate titles and dignities and yourself?
_Fontanges._ Myself! does any one hate me? Why should I be the first?
Hatred is the worst thing in the world: it makes one so very ugly.
_Bossuet._ To love God, we must hate ourselves. We must detest our
bodies, if we would save our souls.
_Fontanges._ That is hard: how can I do it? I see nothing so
detestable in mine. Do you? To love is easier. I love God whenever I
think of Him, He has been so very good to me; but I cannot hate
myself, if I would. As God hath not hated me, why should I? Beside, it
was He who made the king to love me; for I heard you say in a sermon
that the hearts of kings are in His rule and governance. As for titles
and dignities, I do not care much about them while his Majesty loves
me, and calls me his Angélique. They make people more civil about us;
and therefore it must be a simpleton who hates or disregards them, and
a hypocrite who pretends it. I am glad to be a duchess. Manon and
Lisette have never tied my garter so as to hurt me since, nor has the
mischievous old La Grange said anything cross or bold: on the
contrary, she told me what a fine colour and what a plumpness it gave
me. Would not you rather be a duchess than a waiting-maid or a nun, if
the king gave you your choice?
_Bossuet._ Pardon me, mademoiselle, I am confounded at the levity of
your question.
_Fontanges._ I am in earnest, as you see.
_Bossuet._ Flattery will come before you in other and more dangerous
forms: you will be commended for excellences which do not belong to
you; and this you will find as injurious to your repose as to your
virtue. An ingenuous mind feels in unmerited praise the bitterest
reproof. If you reject it, you are unhappy; if you accept it, you are
undone. The compliments of a king are of themselves sufficient to
pervert your intellect.
_Fontanges._ There you are mistaken twice over. It is not my person
that pleases him so greatly: it is my spirit, my wit, my talents, my
genius, and that very thing which you have mentioned--what was it? my
intellect. He never complimented me the least upon my beauty. Others
have said that I am the most beautiful young creature under heaven; a
blossom of Paradise, a nymph, an angel; worth (let me whisper it in
your ear--do I lean too hard?) a thousand Montespans. But his Majesty
never said more on the occasion than that I was _imparagonable!_ (what
is that?) and that he adored me; holding my hand and sitting quite
still, when he might have romped with me and kissed me.
_Bossuet._ I would aspire to the glory of converting you.
_Fontanges._ You may do anything with me but convert me: you must not
do that; I am a Catholic born. M. de Turenne and Mademoiselle de Duras
were heretics: you did right there. The king told the chancellor that
he prepared them, that the business was arranged for you, and that you
had nothing to do but get ready the arguments and responses, which you
did gallantly--did not you? And yet Mademoiselle de Duras was very
awkward for a long while afterwards in crossing herself, and was once
remarked to beat her breast in the litany with the points of two
fingers at a time, when every one is taught to use only the second,
whether it has a ring upon it or not. I am sorry she did so; for
people might think her insincere in her conversion, and pretend that
she kept a finger for each religion.
_Bossuet._ It would be as uncharitable to doubt the conviction of
Mademoiselle de Duras as that of M. le Maréchal.
_Fontanges._ I have heard some fine verses, I can assure you,
monseigneur, in which you are called the conqueror of Turenne. I
should like to have been his conqueror myself, he was so great a man.
I understand that you have lately done a much more difficult thing.
_Bossuet._ To what do you refer, mademoiselle?
_Fontanges._ That you have overcome quietism. Now, in the name of
wonder, how could you manage that?
_Bossuet._ By the grace of God.
_Fontanges._ Yes, indeed; but never until now did God give any
preacher so much of His grace as to subdue this pest.
_Bossuet._ It has appeared among us but lately.
_Fontanges._ Oh, dear me! I have always been subject to it dreadfully,
from a child.
_Bossuet._ Really! I never heard so.
_Fontanges._ I checked myself as well as I could, although they
constantly told me I looked well in it.
_Bossuet._ In what, mademoiselle?
_Fontanges._ In quietism; that is, when I fell asleep at sermon time.
I am ashamed that such a learned and pious man as M. de Fénelon should
incline to it,[1] as they say he does.
_Bossuet._ Mademoiselle, you quite mistake the matter.
_Fontanges._ Is not then M. de Fénelon thought a very pious and
learned person?
_Bossuet._ And justly.
_Fontanges._ I have read a great way in a romance he has begun, about
a knight-errant in search of a father. The king says there are many
such about his court; but I never saw them nor heard of them before.
The Marchioness de la Motte, his relative, brought it to me, written
out in a charming hand, as much as the copy-book would hold; and I got
through, I know not how far. If he had gone on with the nymphs in the
grotto, I never should have been tired of him; but he quite forgot his
own story, and left them at once; in a hurry (I suppose) to set out
upon his mission to Saintonge in the _pays de d'Aunis_, where the king
has promised him a famous _heretic hunt_. He is, I do assure you, a
wonderful creature: he understands so much Latin and Greek, and knows
all the tricks of the sorceresses. Yet you keep him under.
_Bossuet._ Mademoiselle, if you really have anything to confess, and
if you desire that I should have the honour of absolving you, it would
be better to proceed in it, than to oppress me with unmerited eulogies
on my humble labours.
_Fontanges._ You must first direct me, monseigneur: I have nothing
particular. The king assures me there is no harm whatever in his love
toward me.
_Bossuet._ That depends on your thoughts at the moment. If you
abstract the mind from the body, and turn your heart toward Heaven----
_Fontanges._ O monseigneur, I always did so--every time but once--you
quite make me blush. Let us converse about something else, or I shall
grow too serious, just as you made me the other day at the funeral
sermon. And now let me tell you, my lord, you compose such pretty
funeral sermons, I hope I shall have the pleasure of hearing you
preach mine.
_Bossuet._ Rather let us hope, mademoiselle, that the hour is yet far
distant when so melancholy a service will be performed for you. May he
who is unborn be the sad announcer of your departure hence![2] May he
indicate to those around him many virtues not perhaps yet full-blown
in you, and point triumphantly to many faults and foibles checked by
you in their early growth, and lying dead on the open road, you shall
have left behind you! To me the painful duty will, I trust, be
spared: I am advanced in age; you are a child.
_Fontanges._ Oh, no! I am seventeen.
_Bossuet._ I should have supposed you younger by two years at least.
But do you collect nothing from your own reflection, which raises so
many in my breast? You think it possible that I, aged as I am, may
preach a sermon at your funeral. We say that our days are few; and
saying it, we say too much. Marie-Angélique, we have but one: the past
are not ours, and who can promise us the future? This in which we live
is ours only while we live in it; the next moment may strike it off
from us; the next sentence I would utter may be broken and fall
between us.[3] The beauty that has made a thousand hearts to beat at
one instant, at the succeeding has been without pulse and colour,
without admirer, friend, companion, follower. She by whose eyes the
march of victory shall have been directed, whose name shall have
animated armies at the extremities of the earth, drops into one of its
crevices and mingles with its dust. Duchess de Fontanges! think on
this! Lady! so live as to think on it undisturbed!
_Fontanges._ O God! I am quite alarmed. Do not talk thus gravely. It
is in vain that you speak to me in so sweet a voice. I am frightened
even at the rattle of the beads about my neck: take them off, and let
us talk on other things. What was it that dropped on the floor as you
were speaking? It seemed to shake the room, though it sounded like a
pin or button.
_Bossuet._ Leave it there!
_Fontanges._ Your ring fell from your hand, my lord bishop! How quick
you are! Could not you have trusted me to pick it up?
_Bossuet._ Madame is too condescending: had this happened, I should
have been overwhelmed with confusion. My hand is shrivelled: the ring
has ceased to fit it. A mere accident may draw us into perdition; a
mere accident may bestow on us the means of grace. A pebble has moved
you more than my words.
_Fontanges._ It pleases me vastly: I admire rubies. I will ask the
king for one exactly like it. This is the time he usually comes from
the chase. I am sorry you cannot be present to hear how prettily I
shall ask him: but that is impossible, you know; for I shall do it
just when I am certain he would give me anything. He said so himself:
he said but yesterday--
'Such a sweet creature is worth a world':
and no actor on the stage was more like a king than his Majesty was
when he spoke it, if he had but kept his wig and robe on. And yet you
know he is rather stiff and wrinkled for so great a monarch; and his
eyes, I am afraid, are beginning to fail him, he looks so close at
things.
_Bossuet._ Mademoiselle, such is the duty of a prince who desires to
conciliate our regard and love.
_Fontanges._ Well, I think so, too, though I did not like it in him at
first. I am sure he will order the ring for me, and I will confess to
you with it upon my finger. But first I must be cautious and
particular to know of him how much it is his royal will that I should
say.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] The opinions of Molinos on Mysticism and Quietism had begun to
spread abroad; but Fénelon, who had acquired already a very high
celebrity for eloquence, had not yet written on the subject. We may
well suppose that Bossuet was among the earliest assailants of a
system which he afterward attacked so vehemently.
[2] Bossuet was in his fifty-fourth year; Mademoiselle de Fontanges
died in child-bed the year following: he survived her twenty-three
years.
[3] Though Bossuet was capable of uttering and even of feeling such a
sentiment, his conduct towards Fénelon, the fairest apparition that
Christianity ever presented, was ungenerous and unjust.
While the diocese of Cambray was ravaged by Louis, it was spared by
Marlborough; who said to the archbishop that, if he was sorry he had
not taken Cambray, it was chiefly because he lost for a time the
pleasure of visiting so great a man. Peterborough, the next of our
generals in glory, paid his respects to him some years afterward.
JOHN OF GAUNT AND JOANNA OF KENT
Joanna, called the Fair Maid of Kent, was cousin of
the Black Prince, whom she married. John of Gaunt was
suspected of aiming at the crown in the beginning of
Richard's minority, which, increasing the hatred of
the people against him for favouring the sect of
Wickliffe, excited them to demolish his house and to
demand his impeachment.
_Joanna._ How is this, my cousin, that you are besieged in your own
house by the citizens of London? I thought you were their idol.
_Gaunt._ If their idol, madam, I am one which they may tread on as
they list when down; but which, by my soul and knighthood! the ten
best battle-axes among them shall find it hard work to unshrine.
Pardon me: I have no right, perhaps, to take or touch this hand; yet,
my sister, bricks and stones and arrows are not presents fit for you.
Let me conduct you some paces hence.
_Joanna._ I will speak to those below in the street. Quit my hand:
they shall obey me.
_Gaunt._ If you intend to order my death, madam, your guards who have
entered my court, and whose spurs and halberts I hear upon the
staircase, may overpower my domestics; and, seeing no such escape as
becomes my dignity, I submit to you. Behold my sword and gauntlet at
your feet! Some formalities, I trust, will be used in the proceedings
against me. Entitle me, in my attainder, not John of Gaunt, not Duke
of Lancaster, not King of Castile; nor commemorate my father, the most
glorious of princes, the vanquisher and pardoner of the most powerful;
nor style me, what those who loved or who flattered me did when I was
happier, cousin to the Fair Maid of Kent. Joanna, those days are over!
But no enemy, no law, no eternity can take away from me, or move
further off, my affinity in blood to the conqueror in the field of
Crecy, of Poitiers, and Najera. Edward was my brother when he was but
your cousin; and the edge of my shield has clinked on his in many a
battle. Yes, we were ever near--if not in worth, in danger. She weeps.
_Joanna._ Attainder! God avert it! Duke of Lancaster, what dark
thought--alas! that the Regency should have known it! I came hither,
sir, for no such purpose as to ensnare or incriminate or alarm you.
These weeds might surely have protected me from the fresh tears you
have drawn forth.
_Gaunt._ Sister, be comforted! this visor, too, has felt them.
_Joanna._ O my Edward! my own so lately! Thy memory--thy beloved
image--which never hath abandoned me, makes me bold: I dare not say
'generous'; for in saying it I should cease to be so--and who could be
called generous by the side of thee? I will rescue from perdition the
enemy of my son.
Cousin, you loved your brother. Love, then, what was dearer to him
than his life: protect what he, valiant as you have seen him, cannot!
The father, who foiled so many, hath left no enemies; the innocent
child, who can injure no one, finds them!
Why have you unlaced and laid aside your visor? Do not expose your
body to those missiles. Hold your shield before yourself, and step
aside. I need it not. I am resolved----
_Gaunt._ On what, my cousin? Speak, and, by the saints! it shall be
done. This breast is your shield; this arm is mine.