The book of the ladies

Now, to thoroughly consider how fine a sight was this troupe of beautiful ladies and damoiselles, creatures divine rather than human, we must imagine the entries into Paris and other cities, the sacred and superlative bridals of our kings of France, and their sisters, the daughters of France; such as those of the dauphin, of King Charles, of King Henri III., of the Queen of Spain, of Madame de Lorraine, of the Queen of Navarre, not to speak of many other grand weddings of the princes and princesses, like that of M. de Joyeuse, which would have surpassed them all if the Queen of Navarre had been there. Also we must picture to ourselves the interview at Bayonne, the arrival of the Poles, and an infinite number of other and like magnificences, which I could never finish naming, where I saw these ladies appear, each more beautiful than the rest; some more finely appointed and better dressed than others, because for such festivals, in addition to their great means, the king and queen would give them splendid liveries.

In short, nothing was ever seen finer, more dazzling, dainty, superb; the glory of Niquée never approached it [enchanted palace in “Amadis”]. All this shone in a ballroom of the Tuileries or the Louvre as the stars of heaven in the azure sky. The queen-mother wished and commanded her ladies always to appear in grand and superb apparel, though she herself during her widowhood never clothed herself in worldly silks, unless they were lugubrious, but always properly and so well-fitting that she looked the queen above all else. It is true that on the days of the weddings of her two sons Henri and Charles, she wore gowns of black velvet, wishing, she said, to solemnize the event by so signal an act. While she was married she always dressed very richly and superbly, and looked what she was. And it was fine to see and admire her in the general processions that were made, both in Paris and other cities, such as the Fête Dieu, that of the Rameaux [Palm Sunday], bearing palms and branches with such grace, and on Candlemas Day, when the torches were borne by all the Court, the flames of which contended against their own brilliancy. At these three processions, which are most solemn, we certainly saw nothing but beauty, grace, a noble bearing, a fine gait and splendid apparel, all of which delighted the spectators.

It was fine also to see the queen in her married life going through the country in her litter, being pregnant, or afterwards on horseback attended by forty or fifty ladies and damoiselles mounted on handsome hackneys well caparisoned, and sitting their horses with such good grace that the men could not do better, either in equestrian style or apparel; their hats adorned with plumes which floated in the air as if demanding either love or war. Virgil, who took upon himself to write of the apparel of Queen Dido when she went to the chase, says nothing that approaches the luxury of that of our queen with her ladies, may it not displease her, as I think I have said elsewhere.

This queen (made by the act of the great King François), who introduced this beautiful pageantry, never forgot or let slip anything of the kind she had once learned, but always wanted to imitate or surpass it; I have heard her speak three or four times in my life on this subject. Those who have seen things as I did still feel their souls enchanted like mine, for what I say is true; I know it having seen it.

So there is the Court of our queen. Unhappy was the day when she died! I have heard tell that our present king [Henri IV.], some eighteen months after he saw himself more in hope and prospect of becoming King of France, began one day to discourse with the late M. le Maréchal de Biron, on the plans and projects he would undertake to make his Court prosperous and fine and in all things like that of our said queen, for at that time it was in its greatest lustre and splendour. M. le Maréchal answered: “It is not in your power, nor in that of any king who will ever reign, unless you can manage with God that he shall resuscitate the queen-mother, and bring her round to you.” But that was not what the king wanted, for when she died there was no one whom he hated so much, but without grounds, as I could see, and as he should have known better than I.

How luckless was the day on which such a queen died, at the very point when we had such great necessity for her, and still have!

She died at Blois of sadness caused by the massacre which there took place, and the melancholy tragedy there played, seeing that, without reflection, she had brought the princes to Blois thinking to do well; whereas it was true, as M. le Cardinal de Bourbon said to her: “Alas! madame, you have led us all to butchery without intending it.” That so touched her heart, and also the death of those poor men, that she took to her bed, having previously felt ill, and never rose again.

They say that when the king announced to her the murder of M. de Guise, saying that he was now absolutely king, without equal, or master, she asked him if he had put the affairs of his kingdom in order before striking the blow. To which he answered yes. “God grant it, my son,” she said. Very prudent that she was, she foresaw plainly what would happen to him, and to all the kingdom.[5 - Henri III. convoked the States-General at Blois in 1588; the Duc de Guise (Henri, le Balafré) was there assassinated, by the king’s order, December 23, 1588; his brother, Cardinal de Bourbon, the next day. – Tr.]

Persons have spoken diversely as to her death, and even as to poison. Possibly it was so, possibly not; but she was held to have died of desperation, and she had reason to do so.

She was placed on her state-bed, as one of her ladies told me, neither more nor less like Queen Anne of whom I have already spoken, clothed in the same royal garments that the said Queen Anne wore, they not having served since her death for any others; and thus she was borne to the church of the castle, with the same pomp and solemnity as Queen Anne, where she lies and rests still. The king wished to take her to Chartres and thence to Saint-Denis, to put her with the king, her husband, in the same tomb which she had caused to be made, built, and constructed, so noble and superb, but the war which came on prevented it.

This is what I can say at this time of this great queen, who has given assuredly such noble grounds to speak worthily of her that this short discourse is not enough for her praise. I know that well; also that the quality of my speech does not suffice, for better speakers than I would be insufficient. At any rate, such as my discourse is, I lay it, in all humility and devotion, at her feet; also I would avoid too great prolixity, for which indeed I feel myself too capable; but I hope I shall not separate from her much, although in my discourses I shall be silent, and only speak of what her noble and incomparable virtues command me, giving me ample matter so to do, I having seen all that I have written of her; and as for what had happened before my time, I heard it from persons most illustrious; and thus I shall do in all my books.

This queen, who was of many kings the mother,
Of queens also, belonging here to France,
Died when we had most need of her support;
For none but she could give us true assistance.

Mézeray [in his “History of France”], who never thinks of the dramatic, nevertheless makes known to us at the start his principal personages; he shows them more especially in action, without detaching them too much from the general sentiment and interests of which they are the leaders and representatives, while, at the same time, he leaves to each his individual physiognomy. The old Connétable de Montmorency, the Guises, Admiral de Coligny, the Chancellor de l’Hôpital define themselves on his pages by their conduct and proceedings even more than by the judgment he awards them. Catherine de’ Medici is painted there in all her dissimulation and her network of artifices, in which she was often caught herself; ambitious of sovereign power without possessing either the force or the genius of it; striving to obtain it by craft, and using for this purpose a continual system of what we should call to-day see-sawing; “rousing and elevating for a time one faction, putting to sleep or lowering another; uniting herself sometimes with the feeblest side out of caution, lest the stronger should crush her; sometimes with the stronger from necessity; at times standing neutral when she felt herself strong enough to command both sides, but without intention to extinguish either.” Far from being always too Catholic, there are moments when she seems to lean to the Reformed religion and to wish to grant too much to that party; and this with more sincerity, perhaps, than belonged to her naturally. The Catherine de’ Medici, such as she presents herself and is developed in plain truth on the pages of Mézeray is well calculated to tempt a modern writer. As there is nothing new but that which is old, for often discoveries are nothing more than that which was once known and is forgotten, the day when a modern historian shall take up the Catherine de’ Medici of Mézeray and give her some of the rather forced features which are to the taste of the present day, there will come a great cry of astonishment and admiration, and the critics will register a new discovery.[6 - Honoré de Balzac’s volume, in the Philosophical Series of his “Comedy of Human Life,” on Catherine de’ Medici, while called a romance, is really an admirable and carefully drawn historical portrait, and might be read to profit in connection with Brantôme’s account of her. – Tr.]

M. Niel, librarian to the ministry of the Interior, an enlightened amateur of the arts and of history, has been engaged since 1848 in publishing a series of Portraits or “Crayons” of the celebrated personages of the sixteenth century, kings, queens, mistresses of kings, etc., the whole forming already a folio volume. M. Niel has applied himself in this collection to reproduce none but authentic portraits and solely from the original, and he has confined himself to a single form of portraiture, that which was drawn in crayons of divers colours by artists of the sixteenth century. “They designated in those days by the name of ‘crayons,’” he observes, “certain portraits executed on paper in red chalk, in black lead, and in white chalk, shaded and touched in a way to present the effect of painting.” These designs, faithfully reproduced, in which the red tone predominates, are for the most part originally due to unknown artists, who seem to have belonged to the true French lineage of art. They resemble the humble companions and followers of our chroniclers who simply sought in their rapid sketches to catch physiognomies, such as they saw them, with truth and candour; the likeness alone concerned them.

François I. leads the procession with his obscure wives, and one, at least, of his obscure mistresses, the Comtesse de Châteaubriant. Henri II. succeeds him, giving one hand to Catherine de’ Medici, the other to Diane de Poitiers. We are shown a Marie Stuart, young, before and after her widowhood. In general, the men gain most from this rapid reproduction of feature; whereas with the women it needs an effort of the imagination to catch their delicacy and the flower of their beauty. Charles IX. at twelve years of age, and again at eighteen and twenty, is there to the life and caught from nature. Henri IV. is shown to us younger and fresher than as we are wont to see him, – a Henri de Navarre quite novel and before his beard grizzled. His first wife, Marguerite de Valois, is portrayed at her most beauteous age, but so masked by her costume and cramped in her ruff that we need to be aware of her charm to be certain that the doll-like figure had any. Gabrielle d’Estrées, who stands aloof, stiffly imprisoned in her gorgeous clothes, also needs explanation and reflection before she appears what she really was. The testimony of “Notices” aids these portraits; for M. Niel accompanies his personages with remarks made with erudition and an inquiring mind.

One of the brief writings of that period which make known clearly the person and nature of Henri IV. is the Memoir of the first president of Normandy, Claude Groulard, at all times faithful to the king, who has left us a naïve account of his frequent journeys to that prince and the sojourns he made with him. Among many remarks which Groulard has collected from the lips of Henri IV. there is one that paints the king well in his sound good sense, his freedom from rancour, and his knowledge – always practical, never ideal – of human beings. Groulard is relating the approaching marriage of the king with a princess of Florence. When Henri IV. announced it to him the worthy president replied by an erudite comparison with the lance of Achilles, saying that the Florentine house would thus repair the wounds it had given to France in the person of Catherine de’ Medici. “But I ask you,” said Henri IV., speaking thereupon of Catherine and excusing her, “I ask you what a poor woman could do, left by the death of her husband, with five little children on her arms, and two families in France who were thinking to grasp the crown, – ours and the Guises. Was she not compelled to play strange parts to deceive first one and then the other, in order to guard, as she has done, her sons, who have successively reigned through the wise conduct of that shrewd woman? I am surprised that she never did worse.”

    Sainte-Beuve, Causeries du Lundi (1855).

DISCOURSE III.

MARIE STUART, QUEEN OF SCOTLAND, FORMERLY QUEEN OF OUR FRANCE

THOSE who wish to write of this illustrious Queen of Scotland have two very ample subjects: one her life, the other her death; both very ill accompanied by good fortune, as I shall show at certain points in this short Discourse in form of epitome, and not a long history, which I leave to be written by persons more learned and better given to writing than I.

This queen had a father, King James, of worth and valour, and a very good Frenchman; in which he was right. After he was widowed of Madame Magdelaine, daughter of France, he asked King François for some honourable and virtuous princess of his kingdom with whom to re-marry, desiring nothing so much as to continue his alliance with France.

King François, not knowing whom to choose better to content the good prince, gave him the daughter of M. de Guise, Claude de Lorraine, then the widow of M. de Longueville, wise, virtuous, and honourable, of which King James was very glad and esteemed himself fortunate to take her; and after he had taken and espoused her he found himself the same; the kingdom of Scotland also, which she governed very wisely after she was widowed; which event happened in a few years after her marriage, but not before she had produced a fine issue, namely this most beautiful princess in the world, our queen, of whom I now speak, she being, as one might say, scarcely born and still at the breast, when the English invaded Scotland. Her mother was then forced to hide her from place to place in Scotland from fear of that fury; and, without the good succour King Henri sent her she would scarce have been saved; and even so they had to put her on vessels and expose her to the waves, the storms and winds of the sea and convey her to France for greater security; where certainly ill fortune, not being able to cross the seas with her or not daring to attack her in France, left her so alone that good fortune took her by the hand. And, as her youth grew on, we saw her great beauty and her great virtues grow likewise; so that, coming to her fifteenth year, her beauty shone like the light at mid-day, effacing the sun when it shines the brightest, so beauteous was her body. As for her soul, that was equal; she had made herself learned in Latin, so that, being between thirteen and fourteen years of age, she declaimed before King Henri, the queen, and all the Court, publicly in the hall of the Louvre, an harangue in Latin, which she had made herself, maintaining and defending, against common opinion, that it was well becoming to women to know letters and the liberal arts. Think what a rare thing and admirable it was, to see this wise and beautiful young queen thus orate in Latin, which she knew and understood right well, for I was there and saw her. Also she made Antoine Fochain, of Chauny in Vermandois, prepare for her a rhetoric in French, which still exists, that she might the better understand it, and make herself as eloquent in French as she had been in Latin, and better than if she had been born in France. It was good to see her speak to every one, whether to great or small.

As long as she lived in France she always reserved two hours daily to study and read; so that there was no human knowledge she could not talk upon. Above all, she loved poesy and poets, but especially M. de Ronsard, M. du Bellay, and M. de Maison-Fleur[7 - See Appendix.], who all made beautiful poems and elegies upon her, and also upon her departure from France, which I have often seen her reading to herself, in France and in Scotland, with tears in her eyes and sighs from her heart.

She was a poet herself and composed verses, of which I have seen some that were fine and well done and in no wise resembling those they have laid to her account on her love for the Earl of Bothwell, which are too coarse and too ill-polished to have come from her beautiful making. M. de Ronsard was of my opinion as to this one day when we were reading and discussing them. Those she composed were far more beautiful and dainty, and quickly done, for I have often seen her retire to her cabinet and soon return to show them to such of us good folk as were there present. Moreover she wrote well in prose, especially letters, of which I have seen many that were very fine and eloquent and lofty. At all times when she talked with others she used a most gentle, dainty, and agreeable style of speech, with kindly majesty, mingled, however, with discreet and modest reserve, and above all with beautiful grace; so that even her native tongue, which in itself is very rustic, barbarous, ill-sounding, and uncouth, she spoke so gracefully, toning it in such a way, that she made it seem beautiful and agreeable in her, though never so in others.

See what virtue there was in such beauty and grace that they could turn coarse barbarism into sweet civility and social grace. We must not be surprised therefore that being dressed (as I have seen her) in the barbarous costume of the uncivilized people of her country, she appeared, in mortal body and coarse ungainly clothing a true goddess. Those who have seen her thus dressed will admit this truth; and those who did not see her can look at her portrait, in which she is thus attired. I have heard the queen-mother, and the king too, say that she looked more beautiful, more agreeable, more desirable in that picture than in any of the others. But how else could she look, whether in her beautiful rich jewels, in French or Spanish style, or wearing her Italian caps, or in her mourning garments? – which latter made her most beautiful to see, for the whiteness of her face contended with the whiteness of her veil as to which should carry the day; but the texture of her veil lost it; the snow of her pure face dimmed the other, so that when she appeared at Court in her mourning the following song was made upon her: —

“L’on voit, sous blanc atour
En grand deuil et tristesse,
Se pourmener mainct tour
De beauté la déese,
Tenant le trait en main
De son fils inhumain;

“Et Amour, sans fronteau,
Voletter autour d’elle,
Desguisant son bandeau
En un funebre voile,
Où sont ces mots ecrits:
Mourir ou être pris.”[8 - See Appendix.]

That is how this princess appeared under all fashions of clothes, whether barbarous, worldly, or austere. She had also one other perfection with which to charm the world, – a voice most sweet and excellent; for she sang well, attuning her voice to the lute, which she touched very prettily with that white hand and those beautiful fingers, perfectly made, yielding in nothing to those of Aurora. What more remains to tell of her beauty? – if not this saying about her: that the sun of her Scotland was very unlike her, for on certain days of the year it shines but five hours, while she shone ever, so that her clear rays illumined her land and her people, who of all others needed light, being far estranged from the sun of heaven. Ah! kingdom of Scotland, I think your days are shorter now than they ever were, and your nights the longer, since you have lost the princess who illumined you! But you have been ungrateful; you never recognized your duty of fidelity, as you should have done; which I shall speak of presently.

This lady and princess pleased France so much that King Henri was urged to give her in alliance to the dauphin, his beloved son, who, for his part, was madly in love with her. The marriage was therefore solemnly celebrated in the great church and the palace of Paris; where we saw this queen appear more beauteous than a goddess from the skies, whether in the morning, going to her espousals in noble majesty, or leading, after dinner, at the ball, or advancing in the evening with modest steps to offer and perform her vows to Hymen; so that the voice of all as one man resounded and proclaimed throughout the Court and the great city that happy a hundredfold was he, the prince, thus joined to such a princess; and even if Scotland were a thing of price its queen out-valued it; for had she neither crown nor sceptre, her person and her glorious beauty were worth a kingdom; therefore, being a queen, she brought to France and to her husband a double fortune.

This was what the world went saying of her; and for this reason she was called queen-dauphine and her husband the king-dauphin, they living together in great love and pleasant concord.

Next, King Henri dying, they came to be King and Queen of France, the king and queen of two great kingdoms, happy, and most happy in themselves, had death not seized the king and left her widowed in the sweet April of her finest youth, having enjoyed together of love and pleasure and felicity but four short years, – a felicity indeed of short duration, which evil fortune might well have spared; but no, malignant as she is, she wished to miserably treat this princess, who made a song herself upon her sorrows in this wise: —

En mon triste et doux chant,
D’un ton fort lamentable,
Je jette un deuil tranchant,
De perte incomparable,
Et en soupirs cuisans,
Passe mes meilleurs ans.

Fut-il un tel malheur
De dure destinée,
N’y si triste douleur
De dame fortunée,
Qui mon cœur et mon œil
Vois en bierre et cercueil,

Qui en mon doux printemps
Et fleur de ma jeunesse
Toutes les peines sens
D’une extresme tristesse,
Et en rien n’ay plaisir
Qu’en regret et desir?

Ce qui m’estoit plaisant
Ores m’est peine dure;
Le jour le plus luisant
M’est nuit noire et obscure.