“It is neither thee nor thy wife that I fear, but evil-minded people,
who will take advantage of this to entangle us like skeins of silk.”
“Do not be afraid of me,” replied Maille, clasping Lavalliere to his
breast. “If it be the divine will of the Almighty that I should have
the misfortune to be a cuckold, I should be less grieved if it were to
your advantage. But by my faith I should die of grief, for my life is
bound up in my good, young, virtuous wife.”
Saying which, he turned away his head, in order that Lavalliere should
not perceive the tears in his eyes; but the fine courtier saw this
flow of water, and taking the hand of Maille--
“Brother,” said he to him, “I swear to thee on my honour as a man,
that before anyone lays a finger on thy wife, he shall have felt my
dagger in the depth of his veins! And unless I should die, thou shalt
find her on thy return, intact in body if not in heart, because
thought is beyond the control of gentlemen.”
“It is then decreed above,” exclaimed Maille, “that I shall always be
thy servant and thy debtor!”
Thereupon the comrade departed, in order not to be inundated with the
tears, exclamations, and other expressions of grief which ladies make
use of when saying “Farewell.” Lavalliere having conducted him to the
gate of the town, came back to the hotel, waited until Marie
d’Annebaut was out of bed, informed her of the departure of her good
husband, and offered to place himself at her orders, in such a
graceful manner, that the most virtuous woman would have been tickled
with a desire to keep such a knight to herself. But there was no need
of this fine paternoster to indoctrinate the lady, seeing that she had
listened to the discourse of the two friends, and was greatly offended
at her husband’s doubt. Alas! God alone is perfect! In all the ideas
of men there is always a bad side, and it is therefore a great science
in life, but an impossible science, to take hold of everything, even a
stick by the right end. The cause of the great difficulty there is in
pleasing the ladies is, that there is it in them a thing which is more
woman than they are, and but for the respect which is due to them, I
would use another word. Now we should never awaken the phantasy of
this malevolent thing. The perfect government of woman is a task to
rend a man’s heart, and we are compelled to remain in perfect
submission to them; that is, I imagine, the best manner in which to
solve the most agonising enigma of marriage.
Now Marie d’Annebaut was delighted with the bearing and offers of this
gallant; but there was something in her smile which indicated a
malicious idea, and, to speak plainly, the intention of putting her
young guardian between honour and pleasure; to regale him so with
love, to surround him with so many little attentions, to pursue him
with such warm glances, that he would be faithless to friendship, to
the advantage of gallantry.
Everything was in perfect trim for the carrying out of her design,
because of the companionship which the Sire de Lavalliere would be
obliged to have with her during his stay in the hotel, and as there is
nothing in the world can turn a woman from her whim, at every turn the
artful jade was ready to catch him in a trap.
At times she would make him remain seated near her by the fire, until
twelve o’clock at night, singing soft refrains, and at every
opportunity showed her fair shoulders, and the white temptations of
which her corset was full, and casting upon him a thousand piercing
glances, all without showing in her face the thoughts that surged in
her brain.
At times she would walk with him in the morning, in the gardens of the
hotel, leaning heavily upon his arm, pressing it, sighing, and making
him tie the laces of her little shoes, which were always coming undone
in that particular place. Then it would be those soft words and things
which the ladies understand so well, little attentions paid to a
guest, such as coming in to see if he were comfortable, if his bed
were well made, the room clean, if the ventilation were good, if he
felt any draughts in the night, if the sun came in during the day, and
asking him to forgo none of his usual fancies and habits, saying--
“Are you accustomed to take anything in the morning in bed, such as
honey, milk, or spice? Do the meal times suit you? I will conform mine
to yours: tell me. You are afraid to ask me. Come--”
She accompanied these coddling little attentions with a hundred
affected speeches; for instance, on coming into the room she would
say--
“I am intruding, send me away. You want to be left alone--I will go.”
And always was she graciously invited to remain.
And the cunning Madame always came lightly attired, showing samples of
her beauty, which would have made a patriarch neigh, even were he as
much battered by time as must have been Mr. Methusaleh, with his nine
hundred and sixty years.
That good knight being as sharp as a needle, let the lady go on with
her tricks, much pleased to see her occupy herself with him, since it
was so much gained; but like a loyal brother, he always called her
absent husband to the lady’s mind.
Now one evening--the day had been very warm--Lavalliere suspecting the
lady’s games, told her that Maille loved her dearly, that she had in
him a man of honour, a gentleman who doted on her, and was ticklish on
the score of his crown.
“Why then, if he is so ticklish in this manner, has he placed you
here?”
“Was it not a most prudent thing?” replied he. “Was it not necessary
to confide you to some defender of your virtue? Not that it needs one
save to protect you from wicked men.”
“Then you are my guardian?” said she.
“I am proud of it!” exclaimed Lavalliere.
“Ah!” said she, “he has made a very bad choice.”
This remark was accompanied by a little look, so lewdly lascivious
that the good brother-in-arms put on, by way of reproach, a severe
countenance, and left the fair lady alone, much piqued at this refusal
to commence love’s conflict.
She remained in deep meditation, and began to search for the real
obstacle that she had encountered, for it was impossible that it
should enter the mind of any lady, that a gentleman could despise that
bagatelle which is of such great price and so high value. Now these
thoughts knitted and joined together so well, one fitting into the
other, that out of little pieces she constructed a perfect whole, and
found herself desperately in love; which should teach the ladies never
to play with a man’s weapons, seeing that like glue, they always stick
to the fingers.
By this means Marie d’Annebaut came to a conclusion which she should
have known at the commencement--viz., that to keep clear of her
snares, the good knight must be smitten with some other lady, and
looking round her, to see where her young guest could have found a
needle-case to his taste, she thought of the fair Limeuil, one of
Queen Catherine’s maids, of Mesdames de Nevers, d’Estree, and de Giac,
all of whom were declared friends of Lavalliere, and of the lot he
must love one to distraction.
From this belief, she added the motive of jealousy to the others which
tempted her to seduce her Argus, whom she did not wish to wound, but
to perfume, kiss his head, and treat kindly.
She was certainly more beautiful, young, and more appetising and
gentle than her rivals; at least, that was the melodious decree of her
imaginations. So, urged on by the chords and springs of conscience,
and physical causes which affect women, she returned to the charge, to
commence a fresh assault upon the heart of the chevalier, for the
ladies like that which is well fortified.
Then she played the pussy-cat, and nestled up close to him, became so
sweetly sociable, and wheedled so gently, that one evening when she
was in a desponding state, although merry enough in her inmost soul,
the guardian-brother asked her--
“What is the matter with you?”
To which she replied to him dreamily, being listened to by him as the
sweetest music--
That she had married Maille against her heart’s will, and that she was
very unhappy; that she knew not the sweets of love; that her husband
did not understand her, and that her life was full of tears. In fact,
that she was a maiden in heart and all, since she confessed in
marriage she had experienced nothing but the reverse of pleasure. And
she added, that surely this holy state should be full of sweetmeats
and dainties of love, because all the ladies hurried into it, and
hated and were jealous of those who out-bid them, for it cost certain
people pretty dear; that she was so curious about it that for one good
day or night of love, she would give her life, and always be obedient
to her lover without a murmur; but that he with whom she would sooner
than all others try the experiment would not listen to her; that,
nevertheless, the secret of their love might be kept eternally, so
great was her husband’s confidence in him, and that finally if he
still refused it would kill her.
And all these paraphrases of the common canticle known to the ladies
at their birth were ejaculated between a thousand pauses, interrupted
with sighs torn from the heart, ornamented with quiverings, appeals to
heaven, upturned eyes, sudden blushings and clutchings at her hair. In
fact, no ingredient of temptation was lacking in the dish, and at the
bottom of all these words there was a nipping desire which embellished
even its blemishes. The good knight fell at the lady’s feet, and
weeping took them and kissed them, and you may be sure the good woman
was quite delighted to let him kiss them, and even without looking too
carefully to see what she was going to do, she abandoned her dress to
him, knowing well that to keep it from sweeping the ground it must be
taken at the bottom to raise it; but it was written that for that
evening she should be good, for the handsome Lavalliere said to her
with despair--
“Ah, madame, I am an unfortunate man and a wretch.”
“Not at all,” said she.
“Alas, the joy of loving you is denied to me.”
“How?” said she.
“I dare not confess my situation to you!”
“Is it then very bad?”
“Ah, you will be ashamed of me!”
“Speak, I will hide my face in my hands,” and the cunning madame hid
her face is such a way that she could look at her well-beloved between
her fingers.
“Alas!” said he, “the other evening when you addressed me in such
gracious words, I was so treacherously inflamed, that not knowing my
happiness to be so near, and not daring to confess my flame to you, I
ran to a Bordel where all the gentleman go, and there for love of you,
and to save the honour of my brother whose head I should blush to
dishonour, I was so badly infected that I am in great danger of dying
of the Italian sickness.”
The lady, seized with terror, gave vent to the cry of a woman in
labour, and with great emotion, repulsed him with a gentle little
gesture. Poor Lavalliere, finding himself in so pitiable state, went
out of the room, but he had not even reached the tapestries of the
door, when Marie d’Annebaut again contemplated him, saying to herself,
“Ah! what a pity!” Then she fell into a state of great melancholy,
pitying in herself the gentleman, and became the more in love with him
because he was fruit three times forbidden.
“But for Maille,” said she to him, one evening that she thought him
handsomer than unusual, “I would willingly take your disease. Together
we should then have the same terrors.”
“I love you too well,” said the brother, “not to be good.”
And he left her to go to his beautiful Limeuil. You can imagine that
being unable to refuse to receive the burning glances of the lady,
during meal times, and the evenings, there was a fire nourished that
warmed them both, but she was compelled to live without touching her
cavalier, otherwise than with her eyes. Thus occupied, Marie
d’Annebaut was fortified at every point against the gallants of the
Court, for there are no bounds so impassable as those of love, and no
better guardian; it is like the devil, he whom it has in its clutches
it surrounds with flames. One evening, Lavalliere having escorted his
friend’s wife to a dance given by Queen Catherine, he danced with the
fair Limeuil, with whom he was madly in love. At that time the knights
carried on their amours bravely two by two, and even in troops. Now
all the ladies were jealous of La Limeuil, who at that time was
thinking of yielding to the handsome Lavalliere. Before taking their
places in the quadrille, she had given him the sweetest of
assignations for the morrow, during the hunt. Our great Queen
Catherine, who from political motives fermented these loves and
stirred them up, like pastrycooks make the oven fires burn by poking,
glanced at all the pretty couples interwoven in the quadrille, and
said to her husband--
“When they combat here, can they conspire against you, eh?”
“Ah! but the Protestants?”
“Bah! have them here as well,” said she, laughing. “Why, look at
Lavalliere, who is suspected to be a Huguenot; he is converted by my
dear little Limeuil, who does not play her cards badly for a young
lady of sixteen. He will soon have her name down in his list.”
“Ah, Madame! do not believe it,” said Marie d’Annebaut, “he is ruined
through that same sickness of Naples which made you queen.”
At this artless confession, Catherine, the fair Diana, and the king,
who were sitting together, burst out laughing, and the thing ran round
the room. This brought endless shame and mockery upon Lavalliere. The
poor gentleman, pointed at by everyone, soon wished somebody else in
his shoes, for La Limeuil, who his rivals had not been slow laughingly
to warn of her danger, appeared to shrink from her lover, so rapid was
the spread, and so violent the apprehensions of this nasty disease.
Thus Lavalliere found himself abandoned by everyone like a leper. The
king made an offensive remark, and the good knight quitted the
ball-room, followed by poor Marie in despair at the speech. She had in
every way ruined the man she loved: she had destroyed his honour, and
marred his life, since the physicians and master surgeons advance as a
fact, incapable of contradiction, that persons Italianised by this
love sickness, lost through it their greatest attractions, as well as
their generative powers, and their bones went black.
Thus no woman would bind herself in legitimate marriage with the
finest gentlemen in the kingdom if he were only suspected of being one
of those whom Master Frances Rabelais named “his very precious scabby
ones. . . . .”
As the handsome knight was very silent and melancholy, his companion
said to him on the road home from Hercules House, where the fete had
been held--
“My dear lord, I have done you a great mischief.”
“Ah, madame!” replied Lavalliere, “my hurt is curable; but into what a
predicament have you fallen? You should not have been aware of the
danger of my love.”
“Ah!” said she, “I am sure now always to have you to myself; in
exchange for this great obloquy and dishonour, I will be forever your
friend, your hostess, and your lady-love--more than that, your
servant. My determination is to devote myself to you and efface the
traces of this shame; to cure you by a watch and ward; and if the
learned in these matters declare that the disease has such a hold of
you that it will kill you like our defunct sovereign, I must still
have your company in order to die gloriously in dying of your
complaint. Even then,” said she, weeping, “that will not be penance
enough to atone for the wrong I have done you.”
These words were accompanied with big tears; her virtuous heart waxed
faint, she fell to the ground exhausted. Lavalliere, terrified, caught
her and placed his hand upon her heart, below a breast of matchless
beauty. The lady revived at the warmth of this beloved hand,
experiencing such exquisite delights as nearly to make her again
unconscious.
“Alas!” said she, “this sly and superficial caress will be for the
future the only pleasure of our love. It will still be a hundred times
better than the joys which poor Maille fancies he is bestowing on me.
. . . Leave your hand there,” said she; “verily it is upon my soul,
and touches it.”
At these words the knight was in a pitiful plight, and innocently
confessed to the Lady that he experienced so much pleasure at this
touch that the pains of his malady increased, and that death was
preferable to this martyrdom.
“Let us die then,” said she.
But the litter was in the courtyard of the hotel, and as the means of
death was not handy, each one slept far from the other, heavily
weighed down with love, Lavalliere having lost his fair Limeuil, and
Marie d’Annebaut having gained pleasures without parallel.
From this affair, which was quite unforeseen, Lavalliere found himself
under the ban of love and marriage and dared no longer appear in
public, and he found how much it costs to guard the virtue of a woman;
but the more honour and virtue he displayed the more pleasure did he
experience in these great sacrifices offered at the shrine of
brotherhood. Nevertheless, his duty was very bitter, very ticklish,
and intolerable to perform, towards the last days of his guard. And in
this way.
The confession of her love, which she believed was returned, the wrong
done by her to her cavalier, and the experience of an unknown
pleasure, emboldened the fair Marie, who fell into a platonic love,
gently tempered with those little indulgences in which there is no
danger. From this cause sprang the diabolical pleasures of the game
invented by the ladies, who since the death of Francis the First
feared the contagion, but wished to gratify their lovers. To these
cruel delights, in order to properly play his part, Lavalliere could
not refuse his sanction. Thus every evening the mournful Marie would
attach her guest to her petticoats, holding his hand, kissing him with
burning glances, her cheek placed gently against his, and during this
virtuous embrace, in which the knight was held like the devil by a
holy water brush, she told him of her great love, which was boundless
since it stretched through the infinite spaces of unsatisfied desire.
All the fire with which the ladies endow their substantial amours,
when the night has no other lights than their eyes, she transferred
into the mystic motions of her head, the exultations of her soul, and
the ecstasies of her heart. Then, naturally, and with the delicious
joy of two angels united by thought alone, they intoned together those
sweet litanies repeated by the lovers of the period in honour of
love--anthems which the abbot of Theleme has paragraphically saved
from oblivion by engraving them on the walls of his Abbey, situated,
according to master Alcofribas, in our land of Chinon, where I have
seen them in Latin, and have translated them for the benefit of
Christians.
“Alas!” said Marie d’Annebaut, “thou art my strength and my life, my
joy and my treasure.”
“And you,” replied he “you are a pearl, an angel.”
“Thou art my seraphim.”
“You my soul.”
“Thou my God.”
“You my evening star and morning star, my honour, my beauty, my
universe.”
“Thou my great my divine master.”
“You my glory, my faith, my religion.”
“Thou my gentle one, my handsome one, my courageous one, my dear one,
my cavalier, my defender, my king, my love.”
“You my fairy, the flower of my days, the dream of my nights.”
“Thou my thought at every moment.”
“You the delights of my eyes.”
“Thou the voice of my soul.”
“You my light by day.”
“Thou my glimmer in the night.”
“You the best beloved among women.”
“Thou the most adored of men.”
“You my blood, a myself better than myself.”
“Thou art my heart, my lustre.”
“You my saint, my only joy.”
“I yield thee the palm of love, and how great so’er mine be, I believe
thou lovest me still more, for thou art the lord.”
“No; the palm is yours, my goddess, my Virgin Marie.”
“No; I am thy servant, thine handmaiden, a nothing thou canst crush to
atoms.”
“No, no! it is I who am your slave, your faithful page, whom you see
as a breath of air, upon whom you can walk as on a carpet. My heart is
your throne.”
“No, dearest, for thy voice transfigures me.”
“Your regard burns me.”
“I see but thee.”
“I love but you.”
“Oh! put thine hand upon my heart--only thine hand--and thou will see
me pale, when my blood shall have taken the heat of thine.”
Then during these struggles their eyes, already ardent, flamed still
more brightly, and the good knight was a little the accomplice of the
pleasure which Marie d’Annebaut took in feeling his hand upon her
heart. Now, as in this light embrace all their strength was put forth,
all their desires strained, all their ideas of the thing concentrated,
it happened that the knight’s transport reached a climax. Their eyes
wept warm tears, they seized each other hard and fast as fire seizes
houses; but that was all. Lavalliere had promised to return safe and
sound to his friend the body only, not the heart.
When Maille announced his return, it was quite time, since no virtue
could avoid melting upon this gridiron; and the less licence the
lovers had, the more pleasure they had in their fantasies.
Leaving Marie d’Annebaut, the good companion in arms went as far as
Bondy to meet his friend, to help him to pass through the forest
without accident, and the two brothers slept together, according to
the ancient custom, in the village of Bondy.
There, in their bed, they recounted to each other, one of the
adventures of his journey, the other the gossip of the camp, stories
of gallantry, and the rest. But Maille’s first question was touching
Marie d’Annebaut, whom Lavalliere swore to be intact in that precious
place where the honour of husbands is lodged; at which the amorous
Maille was highly delighted.
On the morrow, they were all three re-united, to the great disgust of
Marie, who, with the high jurisprudence of women, made a great fuss
with her good husband, but with her finger she indicated her heart in
an artless manner to Lavalliere, as one who said, “This is thine!”
At supper Lavalliere announced his departure for the wars. Maille was
much grieved at this resolution, and wished to accompany his brother;
that Lavalliere refused him point blank.
“Madame,” said he to Marie d’Annebaut, “I love you more than life, but
not more than honour.”
He turned pale saying this, and Madame de Maille blanched hearing him,
because never in their amorous dalliance had there been so much true
love as in this speech. Maille insisted on keeping his friend company
as far as Meaux. When he came back he was talking over with his wife
the unknown reasons and secret causes of this departure, when Marie,
who suspected the grief of poor Lavalliere said, “I know: he is
ashamed to stop here because he has the Neapolitan sickness.”
“He!” said Maille, quite astonished. “I saw him when we were in bed
together at Bondy the other evening, and yesterday at Meaux. There’s
nothing the matter with him; he is as sound as a bell.”
The lady burst into tears, admiring this great loyalty, the sublime
resignation to his oath, and the extreme sufferings of this internal
passion. But as she still kept her love in the recesses of her heart,
she died when Lavalliere fell before Metz, as has been elsewhere
related by Messire Bourdeilles de Brantome in his tittle-tattle.