Margaret, Queen Of Navarre - The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. IV. (of V.)

M >> Margaret, Queen Of Navarre >> The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. IV. (of V.)

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"Do not stir from this door," said his lord to him, "for, as you are
aware, there is no other means of going into or out of the room, except
indeed by way of a little closet of which I myself alone carry the key."

The President entered the room and found his wife and Nicholas in bed
together. The clerk, clad in nothing but his shirt, threw himself at his
feet to entreat forgiveness, while his wife began to weep.

Then said the President--

"Though you have done a deed the enormity of which you may yourself
judge, I am yet unwilling that my house should be dishonoured on your
account, and the daughters I have had by you made to suffer. Wherefore,"
he continued, "cease to weep, I command you, and hearken to what I am
going to do; and do you, Nicholas, hide yourself in my closet and make
not a single sound."

When this was done, he opened the door, and calling his old servant,
said to him--

"Did you not assure me that you would show me Nicholas in company with
my wife? Trusting in your word, I came hither in danger of killing my
poor wife, and I have found nothing of what you told me. I have searched
the whole room, as I will show you."

So saying, he caused his servant to look under the beds and in every
quarter. The servant, finding nothing, was greatly astonished, and said
to his master--

"The devil must have made away with him, for I saw him go in, and he did
not come out through the door. But I can see that he is not here."

Then said his master to him--

"You are a wicked servant to try to create contention in this way
between my wife and me. I dismiss you, and will pay you what I owe you
for your services to me, and more besides; but be speedily gone, and
take care that you are not in the town twenty-four hours from now."

The President paid him for five or six years in advance, and, knowing
him to be a faithful servant, resolved to reward him still further.

When the servant was gone weeping away, the President made Nicholas come
forth from the closet, and after telling them both what he thought of
their wickedness, he commanded them to give no hint of the matter to
anyone. He also charged his wife to dress more bravely than was her
wont, and to attend all assemblies, dances and feasts; and he told
Nicholas to make more merry than before, but, as soon as he whispered
to him, "Begone," to see that he was out of the town before three hours
were over. Having arranged matters in this way, he returned to the
court, none being any the wiser. And for a fortnight, contrary to his
wont, he entertained his friends and neighbours, and after the banquet
had the tabourers, so that the ladies might dance.

One day, seeing that his wife was not dancing, he commanded Nicholas to
lead her out. The clerk, thinking that the past had been forgotten, did
so gladly, but when the dance was over, the President, under pretence of
charging him with some household matter, whispered to him, "Begone,
and come back no more." And albeit Nicholas was grieved to leave his
mistress, yet was he no less glad that his life was spared.

When the President had convinced all his kinsfolk and friends and the
whole countryside of the deep love that he bore his wife, he went into
his garden one fine day in the month of May to gather a salad, of such
herbs that his wife did not live for twenty-four hours after eating of
them; whereupon he made such a great show of mourning that none could
have suspected him of causing her death; and in this way he avenged
himself upon his enemy, and saved the honour of his house. (2)

2 Whilst admitting the historical basis of this story, M.
Le Roux de Lincy conceives it to be the same as No. xlvii.
of the _Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles_, printed half-a-century
before the _Heptameron_ was written. Beyond the
circumstance, however, that in both cases a judge is shown
privily avenging himself on his wife for her infidelity,
there is no resemblance between the two tales. There is good
reason for believing that Queen Margaret's narrative is
based on absolute fact, and not on the story in the _Cent
Nouvelles_. Both tales have often been imitated. See for
instance Bonaventure Despericr's _Contes, Nouvelles, et
joyeux Devis_ (tale xcii., or, in some editions, xc. ); _Les
Heures de Recreation de Louis Guicciardini_, p. 28; G.
Giraldi Cinthio's _Hecatommithi, overro cento Novelle, &c_.
(dec. iii. nov. vi. ); Malespini's _Ducento Novelle _(part
ii. nov. xvi.); Verboquet's _Les Delices, &c_, 1623, p. 23;
and Shirley's _Love's Cruelly_. These tales also inspired
some of the Spanish dramatists, notably Calderon.--Ed. and
L.

"I do not mean by this, ladies, to praise the President's conscience,
but rather to bring out the frailty of a woman and the great patience
and prudence of a man. And I beg you, ladies, be not angered by the
truth, which sometimes speaks as loudly against ourselves as against the
men; for vice and virtue are common alike to men and women."

"If all those," said Parlamente, "who have fallen in love with their
servants were obliged to eat salads of that kind, I know some who would
be less fond of their gardens than they are at present, and who would
pluck up the herbs to get rid of such as restore the honour of a family
by compassing the death of a wanton mother."

Hircan, who guessed why she had said this, angrily replied--"A virtuous
woman should never judge another guilty of what she would not do
herself."

"Knowledge is not judgment nor yet foolishness," returned Parlamente.
"However, this poor woman paid the penalty that many others have
deserved, and I think that the President, when desirous of vengeance,
comported himself with wondrous prudence and wisdom."

"And with great malevolence, also," said Longarine. "'Twas a slow and
cruel vengeance, and showed he had neither God nor conscience before his
eyes."

"Why, what would you have had him do," said Hircan, "to revenge himself
for the greatest wrong that a woman can deal to a man?"

"I would have had him kill her in his wrath," she replied. "The doctors
say that since the first impulses of passion are not under a man's
control, such a sin may be forgiven; so it might have obtained pardon."
"Yes," said Geburon, "but his daughters and descendants would have
always borne the stain."

"He ought not to have killed her at all," said Longarine, "for, when
his wrath was past, she might have lived with him in virtue, and nothing
would ever have been said about the matter."

"Do you think," said Saffredent, "that he was appeased merely because he
concealed his anger? For my part, I believe that he was as wrathful on
the last day, when he made his salad, as he had been on the first, for
there are persons whose first impulses have no rest until their passion
has worked its will. I am well pleased you say that the theologians deem
such sins easy to be pardoned, for I am of their opinion."

"It is well to look to one's words," said Longarine, "in presence of
persons so dangerous as you. What I said is to be understood of passion
when it is so strong that it suddenly seizes upon all the senses, and
reason can find no place."

"It is so," said Saffredent, "that I understood your words, and I thence
conclude that, whatever a man may do, he can commit only venial sin
if he be deeply in love. I am sure that, if Love hold him fast bound,
Reason can never gain a hearing, whether from his heart or from his
understanding. And if the truth be told, there is not one among us but
has had knowledge of such passion; and not merely do I think that sin
so committed is readily pardoned, but I even believe that God is not
angered by it, seeing that such love is a ladder whereby we may climb
to the perfect love of Himself. And none can attain to this save by the
ladder of earthly love, (3) for, as St. John says, 'He that loveth not
his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not
seen?'" (4)

3 All this passage is borrowed, almost word for word, from
Castiglione's _Libro del Cortegiano_. See _ante_, vol. i. p.
10.--B.J.

4 i John iv. 20.--M.

"There is not a passage in Scripture," said Oisille, "too good for you
to turn to your own purposes. But beware of doing like the spider, which
transforms sound meat into poison. Be advised that it is a perilous
matter to quote Scripture out of place and without cause."

"Do you call speaking the truth out of place and without cause?" said
Saffredent. "You hold, then, that when, in speaking to you unbelieving
women, we call God to our assistance, we take His name in vain; but if
there be any sin in this, you alone must bear the blame, for it is your
unbelief that compels us to seek out all the oaths that we can think of.
And in spite of it all, we cannot kindle the flame of charity in your
icy hearts."

"That," said Longarine, "proves that you all speak falsely. If truth
were in your words, it is strong enough to make you be believed. Yet
there is danger lest the daughters of Eve should hearken too readily to
the serpent."

"I see clearly," said Saffredent, "that women are not to be conquered
by men. So I shall be silent, and see to whom Ennasuite will give her
vote."

"I give it," she said, "to Dagoucin, for I think he would not willingly
speak against the ladies."

"Would to God," said Dagoucin, "that they were as well disposed towards
me as I am towards them. To show you that I have striven to honour the
virtuous among them by recalling their good deeds, I will now tell you
the story of such a one. I will not deny, ladies, that the patience of
the gentleman at Pampeluna, and of the President at Grenoble was great,
but then it was equalled in magnitude by their vengeance. Moreover,
when we seek to praise a virtuous man, we ought not so to exalt a single
virtue as to make of it a cloak for the concealment of grievous vice;
for none are praiseworthy save such as do virtuous things from the love
of virtue alone, and this I hope to prove by telling you of the patient
virtue of a lady whose goodness had no other object save the honour of
God and the salvation of her husband."

[Illustration: 072.jpg Tailpiece]

[Illustration: 073a.jpg The Lady of Loue bringing her Husband the Basin of Water]

[The Lady of Loue bringing her Husband the Basin of Water]

[Illustration: 073.jpg Page Image]

_TALE XXXVII_.

_The Lady of Loue so influenced her husband by her great
patience and longsuffering, that she drew him from his evil
ways, and they lived afterwards in greater love than
before_.

There was a lady of the house of Loue (1) who was so prudent and
virtuous, that she was loved and esteemed by all her neighbours. Her
husband trusted her, as well he might, with all his affairs, and she
managed them with such wisdom that his house came, by her means, to be
one of the wealthiest and best appointed in either the land of Anjou or
Touraine.

1 Loue is in Anjou, in the department of the Sarthe, being
the chief locality of a canton of the arrondissement of Le
Mans. The Lady of Loue referred to may be either Philippa de
Beaumont-Bressuire, wife of Peter de Laval, knight, Lord of
Loue, Benars, &c.; or her daughter-in-law, Frances de
Maille, who in or about 1500 espoused Giles de Laval, Lord
of Loue. Philippa is known to have died in 1525, after
bearing her husband five children. She had been wedded fifty
years. However, the subject of this story is the same as
that of the Lady of Langallier, or Languillier (also in
Anjou), which will be found in chapter xvii. of _Le Livre du
Chevalier de la Tour-Landry_, an English translation of
which, made in the reign of Henry VI., was edited in 1868 by
Mr. Thomas Wright for the Early English Text Society.--See
also Le Roux de Lincy's _Femmes celebres de l'ancienne
France,_ vol i. p. 356. Particulars concerning the Laval-
Loue family will be found in Duchesne's Histoire de la
Maison de Montmorency.--L. and M.

In this fashion she lived a great while with her husband, to whom
she bore several handsome children; but then, as happiness is always
followed by its opposite, hers began to be lessened. Her husband,
finding virtuous ease to be unendurable, laid it aside to seek for toil,
and made it his wont to rise from beside his wife as soon as she was
asleep, and not to return until it was nearly morning. The lady of Loue
took this conduct ill, and falling into a deep unrest, of which she was
fain to give no sign, neglected her household matters, her person and
her family, like one that deemed herself to have lost the fruit of her
toils, to wit, her husband's exceeding love, for the preserving of which
there was no pain that she would not willingly have endured. But having
lost it, as she could see, she became careless of everything else in the
house, and the lack of her care soon brought mischief to pass.

Her husband, on the one part, spent with much extravagance, while, on
the other, she had ceased to control the management, so that ere long
affairs fell into such great disorder, that the timber began to be
felled, and the lands to be mortgaged.

One of her kinsfolk that had knowledge of her distemper, rebuked her for
her error, saying that if love for her husband did not lead her to care
for the advantage of his house, she should at least have regard to her
poor children. Hereat her pity for them caused her to recover herself,
and she tried all means to win back her husband's love.

In this wise she kept good watch one night, and, when he rose from
beside her, she also rose in her nightgown, let make her bed, and said
her prayers until her husband returned. And when he came in, she went to
him and kissed him, and brought him a basin full of water that he might
wash his hands. He was surprised at this unwonted behaviour, and told
her that there was no need for her to rise, since he was only coming
from the latrines; whereat she replied that, although it was no great
matter, it was nevertheless a seemly thing to wash one's hands on coming
from so dirty and foul a place, intending by these words to make him
perceive and abhor the wickedness of his life. But for all that he did
not mend his ways, and for a full year the lady continued to act in this
way to no purpose.

Accordingly, seeing that this behaviour served her naught, one day,
while she was waiting for her husband, who tarried longer than ordinary,
she had a mind to go in search of him, and, passing from room to room,
found him at last in a closet at the back of the house, lying asleep by
the side of the ugliest, vilest, and filthiest serving-woman they had.

Thereupon, thinking she would teach him to leave so excellent a wife for
so filthy and vile a woman, she took some straw and set it on fire in
the middle of the room; but on seeing that it would as soon kill her
husband as awaken him, she plucked him by the arm, crying out--

"Fire! fire!"

If the husband was ashamed and sorry at being found by so virtuous a
wife in company with such a slut, he certainly had good reason for it.
Then said his wife to him--

"For a year, sir, have I tried by gentle and patient means to draw you
from this wickedness, and to show you that whilst washing the outside
you should also cleanse that which is within. Finding that all I could
do was of no avail, I have sought assistance from that clement which
brings all things to an end, and I promise you, sir, that, if this
do not mend you, I know not whether I shall a second time be able to
deliver you from the danger as I have now done. I pray you remember that
the deepest despair is that caused by love, and that if I had not had
the fear of God before my eyes I could not have endured so much."

The husband, glad to get off so easily, promised that he would never
again cause her any pain on his account. This the lady was very willing
to believe, and with her husband's consent turned away the servant who
had so offended her. And from that time forth they lived most lovingly
together, so that even the errors of the past, by the good that had
resulted from them, served but to increase their happiness.

"Should God give you such husbands, ladies, I pray you despair not until
you have fully tried all means to win them back. There are twenty-four
hours in the day in which a man may change his mind, and a wife who
has gained her husband over by patience and longsuffering should deem
herself more fortunate than if fate and her kinsfolk had given her one
more perfect."

"It is an example," said Oisille, "that all married women ought to
follow."

"Follow it who will," said Parlamente; "for my own part, I should
find it impossible to be patient so long. Although in every condition
patience is a seemly virtue, yet I think that in wedded life it finally
produces ill-will. For, when suffering is caused you by your partner,
you are compelled to keep yourself as much apart from him as possible;
and from such estrangement there springs up contempt for the faithless
one; and this contempt gradually lessens love, for a thing is loved in
proportion as it is esteemed."

"But there is a danger," said Ennasuite, "that the impatient wife may
meet with a passionate husband who, instead of patience, will bring her
pain."

"And what more," said Parlamente, "could a husband do than was done by
the husband in the story?"

"What more?" said Ennasuite. "Why, beat his wife soundly, and make her
lie in the smaller bed, and his sweetheart in the larger." (2)

2 At this period, and for some time afterwards, there were
usually two beds in the master's room, a large one for
himself and his wife, and a small one in which slept a
trusty servant, male or female. These little beds are shown
in some of the designs engraved by Abraham Bosse in the
seventeenth century.--L.

"It is my belief," said Parlamente, "that a true woman would be less
grieved by being beaten in anger than by being contemned for one of less
worth than herself. After enduring the severance of love, nothing that
her husband could do would be able to cause her any further pain. And in
this wise the story says that the trouble she took to regain him was for
the sake of her children--which I can well believe."

"And do you think that it showed great patience on her part," said
Nomerfide, "to kindle a fire beneath the bed on which her husband was
sleeping."

"Yes," said Longarine; "for when she saw the smoke she waked him, and
herein, perhaps, was she most to blame; for the ashes of such a husband
as hers would to my thinking have been good for the making of lye."

"You are cruel, Longarine," said Oisille, "but those are not the terms
on which you lived with your own husband."

"No," said Longarine, "for, God be thanked, he never gave me cause. I
have reason to regret him all my life long, not to complain of him."

"But if he had behaved in such a manner towards you," said Nomerfide,
"what would you have done?"

"I loved him so dearly," said Longarine, "that I believe I should have
killed him, and myself as well. To die after taking such a vengeance
would have been sweeter to me than to live faithfully with the
faithless."

"So far as I can see," said Hircan, "you do not love your husbands
except for your own sakes. If they are what you want them to be, you
are very fond of them; but if they fall into the slightest error towards
you, they lose on a Saturday the toil of an entire week. Thus you are
minded to rule, and I for my part will consent to it provided, however,
that all other husbands agree."

"It is reasonable," said Parlamente, "that man should rule us as our
head, but not that he should forsake us or treat us ill."

"God has provided so wisely," said Oisille, "both for man and for woman,
that I hold marriage, if it be not abused, to be the goodliest and
securest condition imaginable, and I am sure that, whatever they may
seem to do, all here present think the same. And if the man claims to
be wiser than the woman, he will be the more severely blamed should the
fault come from him. But enough of such talk. Let us now see to whom
Dagoucin will give his vote."

"I give it," he said, "to Longarine."

"You do me a great pleasure," she replied, "for I have read a story that
is worthy to follow yours. Since we are set upon praising the virtuous
patience of ladies, I will show you one more worthy of praise than she
of whom we have just been speaking. And she is the more deserving of
esteem in that she was a city dame, and therefore one of those whose
breeding is less virtuous than that of others."

[Illustration: 081.jpg Tailpiece]

[Illustration: 083a.jpg The Lady of Tours questioning her Husband's Mistress]

[The Lady of Tours questioning her Husband's Mistress]

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_TALE XXXVIII_.

_A towns-woman of Tours returned so much good for all the
evil treatment she had received from her husband, that the
latter forsook the mistress whom he was quietly maintaining,
and returned to his wife_. (1)

1 It is probable that the incidents related in this tale
occurred between 1460 and 1470. They will be found recorded
in the _Menagier de Paris_. (See Baron Pichon's edition,
1847, vol. i. p. 237). A similar narrative figures in some
editions of Morlini's tales, notably the _Novello, Fabello,
et Comedies, Neapoli_, 1520. We further find it in
Gueudeville's translation of Erasmus's Colloquies (_Dialogue
sur le mariage, collogues, &c., Leyden_, 1720, vol. i. p.
87), and Mr. Walter Keily has pointed out (the _Heptameron_,
Bohn, 1864) that William Warner worked the same incidents
into his poem _Albion's England_, his stanzas being
reproduced in Percy's _Reliques_ under the title of _The
Patient Countess_.--L. and Ed.

In the city of Tours there dwelt a chaste and comely townswoman, who, by
reason of her virtues, was not only loved but feared also and respected
by her husband. Nevertheless, with all the fickleness of men who grow
weary of ever eating good bread, he fell in love with a farm tenant (2)
of his own, and would oft-time leave Tours to visit the farm, where he
always remained two or three days; and when he came back to Tours he was
always in so sorry a plight that his wife had much ado to cure him, yet,
as soon as he was whole again, he never failed to return to the place
where pleasure caused him to forget all his ills.

2 The French word here is _metayere_. The _metayer_ (fem.
metayere) was a farm tenant under the general control of his
landlord, who supplied him with seed and took to himself a
considerable portion of the produce. The system was done
away with at the Revolution, but was revived here and there
under the Restoration, when some of the nobles came to
"their own" again, and there may even nowadays be a few
instances of the kind.--Ed.

When his wife, who was anxious above all things for his life and health,
found him constantly return home in so evil a plight, she went to the
farm and found there the young woman whom her husband loved. Then,
without anger but with graceful courage, she told her that she knew her
husband often went to see her, but that she was ill-pleased to find him
always return home exhausted in consequence of her sorry treatment of
him. The poor woman, influenced as much by respect for her mistress
as by regard for the truth, was not able to deny the fact, and craved
forgiveness.

The lady asked to see the room and bed in which her husband was wont
to sleep, and found it so cold and dirty and ill-appointed that she was
moved to pity. Forthwith she sent for a good bed furnished with sheets,
blankets and counterpane such as her husband loved; she caused the room
to be made clean and neat and hung with tapestries; provided suitable
ware for his meat and drink, a pipe of good wine, sweetmeats and
confections, and begged the woman to send him back no more in so
miserable a state.

It was not long before the husband again went, as was his wont, to see
his tenant, and he was greatly amazed to find his poor lodging in such
excellent order. And still more was he surprised when the woman gave him
to drink in a silver cup; and he asked her whence all these good things
had come. The poor woman told him, weeping, that they were from his
wife, who had taken such great pity on his sorry treatment that she had
furnished the house in this way, and had charged her to be careful of
his health.

When the gentleman saw the exceeding generosity of his wife in returning
so much good for all the evil turns that he had done her, he looked upon
his own wrongdoing as no less great than her kindness; and, after giving
some money to his tenant, he begged her to live in future as an honest
woman. Then he went back to his wife, acknowledged his wrongdoing, and
told her that, but for her great gentleness and generosity, he
could never have forsaken the life that he had been leading. And
thenceforward, forgetting the past, they lived in all peacefulness
together.

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