The book of the ladies

Also I have seen them dance the Italian pazzemeno [the minuet, menu pas], now advancing with grave port and majesty, doing their steps so gravely and so well; next gliding only; and anon making most fine and dainty and grave passages, that none, princes or others, could approach, nor ladies, because of the majesty that was not lacking. Wherefore this queen took infinite pleasure in these grave dances on account of her grace and dignity and majesty, which she displayed the better in these than in others like bransles, and volts, and courants. The latter she did not like, although she danced them well, because they were not worthy of her majesty, though very proper for the common graces of other ladies.

I have seen her sometimes like to dance the bransle by torchlight. I remember that once, being at Lyon, on the return of the king from Poland, at the marriage of Besne (one of her maids of honour) she danced the bransle before many foreigners from Savoie, Piedmont, Italy, and elsewhere, who declared they had never seen anything so fine as this queen, a grave and noble lady, as indeed she is. One of them there was who went about declaring that she needed not, like other ladies, the torch she carried in her hand; for the light within her eyes, which could not be extinguished like the other, was sufficient; the which had other virtue than leading men to dance, for it inflamed all those about her, yet could not be put out like the one she had in hand, but lit the night amid the darkness and the day beneath the sun.

For this reason must we say that Fortune has been to us as great an enemy as to her, in that we see no longer that bright torch, or rather that fine sun which lighted us, now hidden among those hills and mountains of Auvergne. If only that light had placed itself in some fine port or haven near the sea, where passing mariners might be guided, safe from wreck and peril, by its beacon, her dwelling would be nobler, more profitable, more honourable for herself and us. Ah! people of Provence, you ought to beg her to dwell upon your seacoasts or within your ports; then would she make them more famous than they are, more inhabited and richer; from all sides men in galleys, ships, and vessels would flock to see this wonder of the world, as in old times to that of Rhodes, that they might see its glorious and far-shining pharos. Instead of which, begirt by barriers of mountains, she is hidden and unknown to all our eyes, except that we have still her lovely memory. Ah! beautiful and ancient town of Marseille, happy would you be if your port were honoured by the flame and beacon of her splendid eyes! For the county of Provence belongs to her, as do several other provinces in France. Cursèd be the unhappy obstinacy of this kingdom which does not seek to bring her hither with the king, her husband, to be received, honoured and welcomed as they should be. (This I wrote at the very height of the Wars of the League.)

Were she a bad, malicious, miserly, or tyrannical princess (as there have been a plenty in times past in France, and will be, possibly, again), I should say nothing in her favour; but she is good, most splendid, liberal, giving all to others, keeping little for herself, most charitable, and giving freely to the poor. The great she made ashamed with liberalities; for I have seen her make presents to all the Court on New Year’s Day such as the kings, her brothers, could not equal. On one occasion she gave Queen Louise de Lorraine a fan made of mother-of-pearl enriched with precious stones and pearls of price, so beautiful and rich that it was called a masterpiece and valued at more than fifteen thousand crowns. The other, to return the present, sent her sister those long aiguillettes which Spaniards call puntas, enriched with certain stones and pearls, that might have cost a hundred crowns; and with these she paid for that fine New Year’s gift, which was, certainly, most dissimilar.

In short, this queen is in all things royal and liberal, honourable and magnificent, and, let it not displease the empresses of long past days, their splendours described by Suetonius, Pliny, and others, do not approach her own in any way, either in Court or city, or in her journeys through the open country; witness her gilded litters so superbly covered and painted with fine devices, her coaches and carriages the same, and her horses so fine and so richly caparisoned.

Those who have seen, as I have, these splendid appurtenances know what I say. And must she now be deprived of all this, so that for seven years she has not stirred from that stern, unpleasant castle? – in which, however, she takes patience; such virtue has she of self-command, one of the greatest, as many wise philosophers have said!

To speak once more of her kindness: it is such, so noble, so frank, that, as I believe, it has done her harm; for though she has had great grounds and great means to be revenged upon her enemies and injure them, she has often withheld her hand when, had she employed those means or caused them to be employed, and commanded others, who were ready enough, to chastise those enemies with her consent, they would have done so wisely and discreetly; but she resigned all vengeances to God.

This is what M. du Gua said to her once when she threatened him: “Madame, you are so kind and generous that I never heard it said you did harm to any one; and I do not think you will begin with me, who am your very humble servitor.” And, in fact, although he greatly injured her, she never returned him the same in vengeance. It is true that when he was killed and they came to tell her, she merely said, being ill: “I am sorry I am not well enough to celebrate his death with joy.” She had also this other kindness in her: that when others had humbled themselves and asked her pardon and favour, she forgave and pardoned, with the generosity of a lion which never does harm to those who are humble to him.

I remember that when M. le Maréchal de Biron was lieutenant of the king in Guyenne, war having broken out around him (possibly with his knowledge and intent), he went one day before Nérac, where the King and Queen of Navarre were living at that time. The marshal prepared his arquebusiers to attack, beginning with a skirmish. The King of Navarre brought out his own in person, and, in a doublet like any captain of adventurers, he held his ground so well that, having the best marksmen, nothing could prevail against him. By way of bravado the marshal let fly some cannon against the town, so that the queen, who had gone upon the ramparts to see the pastime, came near having her share in it, for a ball flew right beside her; which incensed her greatly, as much for the little respect Maréchal de Biron showed in braving her to her face, as because he had a special command from the king not to approach the war nearer than five hundred leagues to the Queen of Navarre, wherever she might be. The which command he did not observe on this occasion; for which she felt resentment and revenge against the marshal.

About a year and a half later she came to Court, where was the marshal, whom the king had recalled from Guyenne, fearing further disturbance; for the King of Navarre had threatened to make trouble if he were not recalled. The Queen of Navarre, resentful to the said marshal, took no notice of him, but disdained him, speaking everywhere very ill of him and of the insult he had offered her. At last, the marshal, dreading the hatred of the daughter and sister of his masters, and knowing the nature of the princess, determined to seek her pardon by making excuses and humbling himself; on which, generous as she was, she did not contradict him, but took him into favour and friendship and forgot the past. I knew a gentleman by acquaintance who came to Court about this time, and seeing the good cheer the queen bestowed upon the marshal was much astonished; and so, as he sometimes had the honour of being listened to by the queen, he said to her that he was much amazed at the change and at her good welcome, in which he could not have believed, in view of the affront and injury. To which she answered that as the marshal had owned his fault and made his excuses and sought her pardon humbly, she had granted it for that reason, and did not desire further talk about his bravado at Nérac. See how little vindictive this good princess is, – not imitating in this respect her grandmother, Queen Anne, towards the Maréchal de Gié, as I have heretofore related.

I might give many other examples of her kindness in her reconciliations and forgivenesses.

Rebours, one of her maids of honour, who died at Chenonceaux, displeased her on one occasion very much. She did not treat her harshly, but when she was very ill she went to see her, and as she was about to die admonished her, and then said: “This poor girl has done great harm, but she has suffered much. May God pardon her as I have pardoned her.” That was the vengeance and the harm she did her. Through her generosity she was slow to revenge, and in all things kind.

Alfonso, the great King of Naples, who was subtle in loving the beauties of women, used to say that beauty is the sign manual of kindness and gentle goodness, as the beautiful flower is that of a good fruit. As to that it cannot be doubted that if our queen had been ugly and not composed of her great beauty, she would have been very bad in view of the great causes to be so that were given her. Thus said the late Queen Isabella of Castile, that wise and virtuous and very Catholic princess: “The fruit of clemency in a queen of great beauty and lofty heart, covetous of honour, is sweeter far than any vengeance whatever, even though it be undertaken for just claims and reason.”

This queen most sacredly observes that rule, striving to conform to the commandments of her God, whom she has always loved and feared and served devotedly. Now that the world has abandoned her and made war upon her, she takes her sole resource in God, whom she serves daily, as I am told by those who have seen her in her affliction; for never does she miss a mass, taking the communion often and reading much in Holy Scripture, finding there her peace and consolation.

She is most eager to obtain the fine new books that are composed, as much on sacred subjects as on human; and when she undertakes to read a book, however large and long it be, she never stops or quits it until she sees the end, and often loses sleep and food in doing so. She herself composes, both in prose and verse. As to which no one can think otherwise than that her compositions are learned, beautiful, and pleasing, for she knows the art; and could we bring them to the light, the world would draw great pleasure and great profit from them. Often she makes very beautiful verses and stanzas, that are sung to her by choir-boys whom she keeps, and which she sings herself (for her voice is beautiful and pleasant) to a lute, playing it charmingly. And thus she spends her time and wears away her luckless days, – offending none, and living that tranquil life she chooses as the best.

She has done me the honour to write me often in her adversity, I being so presumptuous as to send for news of her. But is she not the daughter and sister of my kings, and must I not wish to know her health, and be glad and happy when I hear ‘tis good? In her first letter she writes thus: —

“By the remembrance you have of me, which is not less new than pleasant to me, I see that you have well preserved the affection you have always shown to our family and to the few now left of its sad wreck, so that I, in whatever state I be, shall ever be disposed to serve you; feeling most happy that ill fortune has not effaced my name from the remembrance of my oldest friends, of whom you are. I know that you have chosen, like myself, a tranquil life; and I count those happy who can maintain it, as God has given me the grace to do these five years, He having brought me to an ark of safety, where the storms of all these troubles cannot, I thank God, hurt me; so that if there remain to me some means to serve my friends, and you particularly, you will find me wholly so disposed with right good will.”

Those are noble words; and such was the state and resolution of our beautiful princess. That is what it is to be born of a noble house, the greatest in the world, whence she drew her courage by inheritance from many brave and valiant kings, her father, grandfather, great-grandfather, and all their ancestors. And be it, as she says, that from so great a shipwreck she alone remains, not recognized and reverenced as she should be by her people, I believe this people of France has suffered much misery for that reason, and will suffer more for this war of the League. But to-day this is not so;17 for by the valour and wisdom and fine government of our king never was France more flourishing, or more pacific, or better ruled; which is the greatest miracle ever seen, having issued from so vast an abyss of evils and corruptions; by which it seems that God has loved our queen, – He being good and merciful.

Oh! how ill-advised is he who trusts in the people of to-day! Oh! how differently did the Romans recognize the posterity of Augustus Cæsar, who gave them wealth and grandeurs, from the people of France, who received so much from their later kings these hundred years, and even from François I. and Henri II., so that without them France would have been tumbled topsy-turvy by her enemies watching for that chance, and even by the Emperor Charles, that hungry and ambitious man. And thus it is they are so ungrateful, these people, toward Marguerite, sole and only remaining daughter and princess of France! It is easy to foresee the wrath of God upon them, because nothing is to Him so odious as ingratitude, especially to kings and queens, who here below fulfil the place and state of God. And thou, disloyal Fortune, how plainly dost thou show that there are none, however loved by heaven and blessed by nature, who can be sure of thee and of thy favours a single day! Art thou not dishonoured in thus so cruelly affronting her who is all beauty, sweetness, virtue, magnanimity and kindness?

All this I wrote during those wars we had among us for ten years. To make an end, did I not speak elsewhere of this great queen in other discourses I would lengthen this still more and all I could, for on so excellent a subject the longest words are never wearisome; but for a time I now postpone them.

Live, princess, live in spite of Fortune! Never can you be other than immortal upon earth and in heaven, whither your noble virtues bear you in their arms. If public voice and fame had not made common praise of your great merits, or if I were of those of noble speech, I would say further here; for never did there come into the world a figure so celestial.

This queen who should by good right order usBy laws and edicts and above us reign,Till we behold a reign of pleasure under her,As in her father’s days, a Star of France,Fortune hath hindered. Ha! must rightful claimBe wrongly lost because of Fortune’s spite?Never did Nature make so fine a thingAs this great unique princess of our France!Yet Fortune chooses to undo her wholly.Behold how evil balances with good!

In the sixteenth century there were three Marguerites: one, sister of François I. and Queen of Navarre, celebrated for her intellect, her Tales in the style of Boccaccio, and her verses, which are less interesting; another, Marguerite, niece of the preceding, sister of Henri II., who became Duchesse de Savoie, very witty, also a writer of verses, and, in her youth, the patroness of the new poets at Court; and lastly, the third Marguerite, niece and great-niece of the first two, daughter of Henri II. and Catherine de’ Medici, first wife of Henri IV., and sister of the last Valois. It is of her that I speak to-day as having left behind her most agreeable historical pages and opened in our literature that graceful series of women’s Memoirs which henceforth never ceases, but is continued in later years and lively vein by Mesdames de La Fayette, de Caylus and others. All of these Memoirs are books made without intending it, and the better for that. The following is the reason why Queen Marguerite took the idea of writing those in which she describes herself with so lightsome a pen.

Brantôme, who was making a gallery of illustrious French and foreign ladies, after bringing Marie Stuart into it, bethought him of placing Marguerite beside her as another example of the injustice and cruelty of Fortune. Marguerite, at the period when Brantôme indited his impulsive, enthusiastic portrait of her, flinging upon his paper that eulogy which may truly be called delirious, was confined at the castle of Usson in Auvergne (1593), where she was not so much a prisoner as mistress. Prisoner at first, she soon seduced the man who held her so and took possession of the place, where she passed the period of the League troubles, and beyond it, in an impenetrable haven. The castle of Usson had been fortified by Louis XI., well-versed in precautions, who wanted it as a sure place in which to lodge his prisoners. There Marguerite felt herself safe, not only from sudden attack, but also from the trial of a long siege and repeated assault. Writing to her husband, Henri IV., in October, 1594, she says to him, jokingly, that if he could see the fortress and the way in which she had protected herself within it he would see that God alone could reduce it, and she has good reason to believe that “this hermitage was built to be her ark of safety.”

The castle which she thus compares to Noah’s ark, and which some of her panegyrists, convinced that she who lived there was given to celestial contemplations, compare to Mount Tabor, was regarded as a Caprea and an abominable lair by enemies, who, from afar, plunged eyes of hatred into it. It is very certain, however, that Queen Marguerite lost nothing in that retreat of the delicate nicety of her mind, for it was there that she undertook to write her Memoirs in a few afternoons, in order to come to Brantôme’s assistance and correct him on certain points. We will follow her, using now and then some contemporary information, without relying too much upon either, but endeavouring to draw with simple truth a singular portrait in which there enters much that was enchanting and, towards the end, fantastic.

Marguerite, born at Saint-Germain-en-Laye, May 14, 1553, was six years old when her father, Henri II., was killed at that fatal tournament which ruined the fortunes of the house of Valois. She tells us several anecdotes of herself and her childish repartees which prove a precocious mind. She takes great pains to call attention to a matter which in her is really a sign, a distinctive note through all excesses, namely: that as a child and when it was the fashion at Court to be “Huguenot,” and when all those who had intelligence, or wished to pass for having it, had withdrawn from what they called “bigotry,” she resisted that influence. In vain did her brother, d’Anjou, afterward Henri III., fling her Hours into the fire and give her the Psalms and the Huguenot prayers in place of it; she held firm and preserved herself from the mania of Huguenotism, which at that date (1561) was a fancy at Court, a French and mundane fashion, attractive for a time to even those who were soon to turn against it and repress it. Marguerite, in the midst of a life that was little exemplary, will always be found to have kept with sincerity this corner of good Catholicism which she derived from her race, and which made her in this respect and to this degree more of an Italian than a Frenchwoman; however, that which imports us to notice is that she had it.

Still a child when the first religious wars began, she was sent to Amboise with her young brother, d’Alençon. There she found herself in company with several of Brantôme’s female relations: Mme. de Dampierre, his aunt, Mme. de Retz, his cousin; and she began with the elder of these ladies a true friendship; with the younger, the cousin, the affection came later. Marguerite gives the reason for this very prettily: —

“At that time the advanced age of your aunt and my childish youthfulness had more agreement; for it is the nature of old people to love children; and those who are in the perfection of their age, like your cousin, despise and dislike their annoying simplicity.”

Childhood passed, and the first awakening to serious things was given to Marguerite about the time of the battle of Moncontour (1569). She was then sixteen. The Duc d’Anjou, afterwards Henri III., aged eighteen, handsome, brave, and giving promise of a virtue and a prudence he never justified, took his sister aside one day in one of the alleys of the park at Plessis-lez-Tours to tell her of his desire, on starting for the army, to leave her as his confidant and support with their mother, Catherine de’ Medici, during his absence at the wars. He made her a long speech, which she reports in full with some complacency: —

“Sister, the nourishment we have taken together obliges us, not less than proximity, to love each other… Until now we have naturally been guided to this without design and without the said union being of any utility beyond the pleasure we have had in conversing together. That was good for our childhood; but now it is time to no longer live like children.”

He then points out to her the great and noble duties to which God calls him, in which the queen, their mother, brought him up, and which King Charles IX., their brother, lays upon him. He fears that this king, courageous as he is, may not always be satisfied with hunting, but will become ambitious to put himself at the head of the armies, the command of which has been hitherto left to him. It is this that he wishes to prevent.

“In this apprehension,” he continues, “thinking of some means of remedy, I believe that it is necessary to leave some very faithful person behind me who will maintain my side with the queen, my mother. I know no one as suitable as you, whom I regard as a second myself. You have all the qualities that can be desired, – intelligence, judgment, and fidelity.”

The Duc d’Anjou then proposes to his sister to change her manner of life, to be assiduous towards the queen, their mother, at all hours, at her lever, in her cabinet during the day, at her coucher, and so act that she be treated henceforth, not as a child, but as a person who represents him during his absence. “This language,” she remarks, “was very new to me, having lived until then without purpose, thinking of nothing but dancing and hunting; and without much interest even in dressing and in appearing beautiful, not having yet reached the age of such ambitions.” The fear she always felt for the queen, her mother, and the respectful silence she maintained in her presence, held her back still further. “I came very near,” she says, “replying to him as Moses did to God in the vision of the bush: ‘Who am I? Send, I pray thee, by him whom thou shouldest send.’” Nevertheless, she felt within her at her brother’s words a new courage, and powers hitherto unknown to her, and she soon consented to all, entering zealously into her brother’s design. From that moment she felt herself “transformed.”

This fraternal and politic union thus created by the Duc d’Anjou did not last. On his return from the victory of Moncontour she found him changed, distrustful, and ruled by a favourite, du Gua, who possessed him as so many others possessed him later. Henceforth his sister was out of favour with him, and it was with her younger brother, the Duc d’Alençon, that Marguerite renewed and continued as long as she could a union of the same kind, which gave room for all the feelings and all the ambitious activities of youth.

Did she at that time give some ground for the coolness of her brother d’Anjou by her liaison with the young Duc de Guise? An historian who knew Marguerite well and was not hostile to her, says: “She had long loved Henri, Duc de Guise, who was killed at Blois, and had so fixed the affections of her heart from her youth upon that prince of many attractions that she never loved the King of Navarre, afterwards King of France of happy memory, but hated him from the beginning, and was married to him in spite of herself, and against canonical law.”18 However this may be, the Duc d’Anjou seized the pretext of the Duc de Guise to break with his sister, whose enemy he became insensibly, and he succeeded in alienating her from her mother.

Marguerite, in this flower of her youth, was, according to all testimony, enchantingly beautiful. Her beauty was not so much in the special features of her face as in the grace and charm of her whole person, with its mingling of seduction and majesty. Her hair was dark, which was not thought a beauty in those days; blond hair reigned. “I have seen her sometimes wearing her natural hair without any peruke artifice,” Brantôme tells us, “and though it was black (having inherited that colour from King Henri, her father), she knew so well how to twist and curl and arrange it, in imitation of her sister, the Queen of Spain, who never wore any hair but her own, that such arrangement and coiffure became her as well as, or better than, any other.” Toward the end of her life Marguerite, becoming in her turn antiquated, with no brown hair to dress, made great display of blond perukes. “For them she kept great, fair-haired footmen, who were shaved from time to time;” but in her youth, when she dared to be dark-haired as nature made her, it was not unbecoming to her; for she had a most dazzling complexion and her “beautiful fair face resembled the sky in its purest and greatest serenity” with its “noble forehead of whitening ivory.” Nor must we forget her art of adorning and dressing herself to advantage, and the new inventions of that kind she gave to women, she being then the queen of the modes and fashion. As such she appeared on all solemn occasions, and notably on that day when, at the Tuileries, the queen-mother fêted the Polish seigneurs who came to offer the crown of Poland to the Duc d’Anjou, and Ronsard, who was present, confesses that the beautiful goddess Aurora was vanquished; but more notably still on that flowery Easter at Blois, when we see her in procession, her dark hair starred with diamonds and precious stones, wearing a gown of crinkled cloth of gold from Constantinople, the weight of which would have crushed any other woman, but which her beautiful, rich, strong figure supported firmly, bearing the palm in her hand, her consecrated branch, “with regal majesty, and a grace half proud, half tender.” Such was the Marguerite of the lovely years before the disasters and the flights, before the castle of Usson, where she aged and stiffened.