Notes and Appendices to Lives of Fair and Gallant Ladies
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These are the original notes and appendices to Lives of Fair and Gallant Ladies (Vies de dames galantes), by English translation by A. R. Allinson.
Contents |
BIBLIOGRAPHY
(This list is simply a selection from the many editions of the works of Brantome in French and German. There are also texts in Spanish and Italian. A complete bibliography would fill many pages and would not be essential to the present text.)
EDITIONS
Leyde, 1666, chez Sambix le jeune, 2 vol. in-12. Le titre portait. "Vies des dames galantes."
Leyde, 1666, chez Jean de la Tourterelle, 2 vol. in-12. Le titre portait. "Memoires de messire Pierre de Bourdeille, seigneur de Brantome, contenans les vies des dames galantes de son temps."
Leyde, 1722, chez Jean de la Tourterelle, 2 vol. in-12. Titre rouge et noir. Meme titre que dans 1'edition precedente et memes fautes.
Londres, 1739, Wood et S. Palmer, 2 vol. in-12, titre rouge et noir. "Memoires de messire Pierre de Bourdeille, seigneur de Brantome, contenant les vies des dames galantes de son temps." Edition copiee sur les precedentes.
La Haye, 1740, 15 vol. in-12. Cette edition est de Le Duchat, Lancelot et Prosper Marchand, et les remarques critiques ont servi aux editions posterieures.
Londres, 1779, aux depens du libraire, 15 vol. in-8. "CEuvres du seigneur de Brantome, nouvelle edition conside- rablement augmentee, accompagnee de remarques historiques et critiques et distribute, dans un meilleur ordre." Les Dames galantes occupent les tomes III et IV.
Paris, 1822, Foucault, 8 vol. in-8. "(Euvres completes du seigneur de Brantome, accompagnees de remarques his- toriques et critiques. Nouvelle edition collationnee sur les manuscrits de la Bibliotheque du Roi." (Monmerque). Les Dames galantes occupant le VII e vol.
Paris, 1834, Ledoux, 2 vol. in-8. "Les Dames galantes, par le seigneur de Brantome, nouvelle edition avec une preface de M. Ph. Chasles." Edition qui a beaucop et mal profite de 1'edition precedente.
Paris, 1841-1869, Gamier freres, 1 vol. in-18. Edition populaire plusieurs fois reimprimee et faite d'apres 1'edition de 1740.
Paris, 1857, A. Delahays, 1 vol. in-12. "(Euvrei de Brantome, nouvelle edition revue d'apres les meilleurs textes, avec une preface historique et critique par H. Vigneau. Vies des Dames galantes." Edition faite d'apres les editions an- tericures. Les notes sont bonnes.
II a etc fait une nouvelle edition de ce travail en 1857, chez Delahays, en in-18.
Paris, 1876, Renouard, libraire de la Sbciete de 1'histoire de France. "(Euvres completes de Pierre de Bourdeille, seigneur de Brantome, publiees d'apres les manuscrits, avec variantes et fragments inedits, pour la Societe de 1'histoire de France, par Ludovic Lalanne. Tome neuvieme. Des Dames" (suite). Un gros vol. in-8 de 743 pages, titre non compris.
Cette edition est la premiere qui indique les sources aux- quelles Brantome a puise ses historiettes. M. Lalanne n'a laisse aucunp assage sans une explication tojours courte et toujours substantielle.
L'CEuvre du Seigneur de Brantome. "Vie des Dames ga- lantes." Introduction and notes by B. de Villeneuve. Paris, 1913.
Les Dames galantes. Publiees d'apres les manuscrits de la Bibliotheque Nationale, par Henri Bouchot. 2 vols. E. Flammarion. Paris. (A very fine edition.)
Brantome: Das Leben der Galanten Damen. (Diony- sos-Biicherei). Introduction by George Harsdorfer. 2 vols. Berlin. (The best German edition.)
Brantome: Lives of Fair and Gallant Ladies. Trans- lated from the original by A. R. Allinson. 2 vols. Paris.
APPENDIX A
BRANTOME : By ARTHUR TILLEY
Like Montaigne, Brantome pretended to be careless of literary fame, but in reality took every pains to secure it; like Montaigne he loved digressions, gaillardes escapades, from his main theme; like Montaigne he has drawn for us, though in his case unconsciously, a portrait of himself; like Montaigne he was curious of information, fond of travel and books. But these points of similarity are after all superficial; the difference is fundamental. While Montaigne tested the world and society by the light of his shrewd common sense, Brantome accepted them without question or reflexion. Montaigne was essentially a thinker, Brantome was merely a reporter; Montaigne was a moralist, for Brantome the word morality had no meaning. Montaigne criticised his age, Brantome reflected it. That indeed is Brantome's chief value, that he reflects his age like a mirror, but it must be added that he reflects chiefly its more trivial, not to say its more scandalous side. He is the Suetonius of the French Renaissance.
Pierre de Bourdeille, "reverend father in God, abbe de Bran- tome," belonged to a noble and ancient family of Perigord. The precise date of his birth is uncertain, but it must be placed somewhere between 1539 and 1542. He spent his childhood with his grandmother, Louise de Vivonne, wife of the seneschal of Poitou, at the court of Margaret of Navarre, and after studying first at Paris and then at Poitiers, travelled for more than a year in Italy, returning to France at the be- ginning of 1560, when he made his first appearance at the court. Though he already held other benefices besides the abbey from which he took his title, he was not in orders. The next fourteen years were spent by him either in fighting on the Catholic side in the religious wars, or in attendance at the court, or in travel. In 1574 his military career came to an end, for his duties as gentleman of the chamber, to which post he had been appointed in 1568, kept him at court, frivo- lous, idle, and discontented. At last the refusal of Henry III. to bestow on him the promised post of governor of Peri- gord filled him with such fury that he determined to enter the service of Spain. But a fall from his horse, which kept him in bed for four years (1583-1587), saved him from being a renegade to his country and turned him into a man of letters.
For it was during this forced inactivity, apparently in 1584, that he began his literary labours, which he continued for the next thirty years, most of which he spent on his estate. He died in 1614, leaving a will of portentous length, in which, among other things, he charged his heirs to have his works printed en belle et grand lettre et grand volume. The charge was neglected, and it was not till 1665-1666 that an incomplete and defective edition was published at Leyden, in the Elzevir form. Previous to this, however, several copies had been made of his manuscripts, and Le Laboureur in his edition of Castelnau's Memoirs, published in 1659, had print- ed long extracts.
Brantome was a disappointed man when he wrote his memoirs. He had been an assiduous courtier for a quarter of a century and had gained nothing by it, while he had seen men whose merits he believed to be inferior to his rise to wealth and honour. But though he had the love of frivolity and the moral indifference of a true courtier, he had not his pliability. "He was violent," says Le Laboureur, "difficult to live with and of a too unforgiving spirit." Perhaps the best thing that can be said in his favour is that among his most intimate friends were two of the most virtuous characters of their time, Teligny, the son-in-law of Coligny, and Teligny's brother-in-law, Fran9ois de la Noue. Among his other friends were Louis de Berenger, seigneur du Guast, who was assassi- nated by order of Marguerite de Valois, and above all Filippo Strozzi, the son of Piero Strozzi, who was his friend for over twenty years, and who exercised over him considerable influ- ence.
The names by which Brantome's writings are generally known are not those which he himself gave them. Thus the titles Dames illustres and Dames galantes are an invention of the Leyden publisher for the Premier et Second livre des Dames. The other main division of his writings, Hommes, consisted in Brantome's manuscript of two volumes, the first containing the Grands capitaines, French and Spanish, and the second Les couronnels, Discours sur les duels, Rodomon- tades espagnoles, and a separate account of La Noue. His original manuscript was completed while Margaret was still the wife of Henry IV., that is to say before November, 1599, but some time after her divorce he made a carefully revised copy. It is upon this copy that the text of M. Lalanne's edi- tion is based for the first five volumes.
Regarded strictly as biographies Brantome's lives have slender merit, for the majority give one little or no idea of the character of the persons treated. He is at least success- ful with those who had in them elements of real greatness, such as Coligny and Conde. Even the long life of Francois de Guise, though it contains some interesting and valuable information, throws little light on Guise himself. But he gives us good superficial portraits of Charles IX., Catharine de Medici, and the Constable de Montmorency, while several of the minor lives, such as Brissac and his brother Cosse, Matignon, and Mary of Hungary, are not only amusing but hit off the characters with considerable success. One of the most entertaining is the unfinished account of his father. On the other hand the account of Margaret of Valois, though it contains some interesting details, is too ecstatic in its open- mouthed admiration to have any value as a biography. The conclusion of the account of Monluc may be quoted not only for its reference to Monluc's conversational powers, but as throwing light on Brantome's own character.
Much of the interest of Brantome's book is to be found in his numerous digressions, for which he is constantly apolo- gizing. Thus in the middle of the account of Montmorency we have a laudatory sketch of Michel de 1'Hospital, in that of Tavannes a digression on the order of St. Michael, in that of Bellegarde an account of his own treatment by Henry III. The digressions are frequently made occasions for amusing stories, which, like Montaigne's, are distinguished from such as Bouchet and Beroalde de Verville collected, in that they generally illustrate some trait of human character.
Like Montaigne again, Brantome copies freely and without acknowledgment from books. Whole pages are taken from Le loyal serviteur, stories are borrowed from Rabelais, Des Periers, and the Heptameron, as well as from most of the writers dealt with in the last chapter. But Brantome, unlike Montaigne, tries to conceal his thefts by judicious alterations, or by pretending that he heard the story himself, or even that he was a witness of the event related. J'ai ouy conter and J'ai vu are frequently in his mouth. He was doubtless chiefly influenced in these endeavours to conceal his borrowings by the same form of vanity as Montaigne, the desire to be regarded, not as a man of letters, but as a gentleman who amused himself by putting down his reminiscences on paper. It is for this reason that he tries to give a negligent and con- versational air to his style. The result is that he is often ungrammatical and sometimes obscure. Yet his style, at any rate in the eyes of a foreigner, has considerable merit, and chiefly from its power of vivid presentment. For Brantome, like other Gascons, like Montaigne and Monluc and Henry IV., saw things vividly and can make his readers see them. He has a store of expressive words and phrases such as un peu hommasse (of Mary of Hungary). A noticeable feature of his style is his love of Italian and Spanish words, reflecting in this, as in other features, the prevailing fashion of the Court.
Brantome's keen enjoyment of the world pageantry was seldom disturbed by inconvenient reflexion. His only quarrel with society was that the ruling powers were blind to his own merits. He thought the duel, even in the treacherous and bloodthirsty fashion in which it was then carried on, an excellent institution, and at the end of his account of Coligny he inserts an elaborate disquisition on the material benefits which the religious wars had conferred on France. All classes had profited, nobles, clergy, magistrates, merchants, artisans.
And all this is said in sober earnest, without a suspicion of irony. One might at any rate give Brantome credit for orig- inality had he not told us at the outset that this was the sub- stance of a conversation which he overheard at Court between two great persons, one a soldier and the other a statesman, and both excellent Catholics. Brantome was the echo as well as the mirror of the Court.
Brantome's glowing panegyric on Margaret of Valois in- duced that virtuous princess to write her memoirs, partly in order to supplement his account of her, partly to correct a few errors into which he had fallen. It is to Brantome accord- inly that her memoirs are addressed. They were written about the year 1597 in the chateau of Usson in Auvergne, where she had resided, nominally as a prisoner, since 1687.
[From The Literature of the French Renaissance, Vol. II. 1904.]
The complement and counterpart of this moralising 1 on human business and pleasure is necessarily to be found in chronicles of that business and that pleasure as actually pur- sued. In these the sixteenth century is extraordinarily rich. Correspondence had hardly yet attained the importance in French literature which it afterwards acquired, but professed history and, still more, personal memoirs were largely written. The name of Brantome has been chosen as the central and representative name of this section of writers, because he is on the whole the most original and certainly the most famous of them. His work, moreover, has more than one point of resemblance to that of the great contemporary author (Mon- taigne) with whom he is linked at the head of this chapter. Brantome neither wrote actual history nor directly personal memoirs, but desultory biographical essays, forming a curious and perhaps designed pendant to the desultory moral essays of his neighbour Montaigne. Around him rank many writers, some historians pure and simple, some memoir-writers pure and simple, of whom not a few approach him in literary genius, and surpass him in correctness and finish of style, while almost all exceed him in whatever advantage may be derived from uniformity of plan, and from regard to the de- cencies of literature.
Pierre de Bourdeille (s) (who derived the name by which he is, and indeed was during his lifetime, generally known from an abbacy given to him by Henri II. when he was still a boy) was born about 1540, in the province of Perigord, but
i Referring to Montaigne's Essays.
the exact date and place of his birth have not been ascertained. He was the third son of Francois, Comte de Bourdeilles, and his mother, Anne de Vivonne de la Chataigneraie, was the sister of the famous duelist whose encounter with Jarnac his nephew has described in a well-known passage. In the court of Marguerite d'Angouleme, the literary nursery of so great a part of the talent of France at this time, he passed his early youth, went to school at Paris and at Poitiers, and was made Abbe de Brantome at the age of sixteen. He was thus suf- ficiently provided for, and he never took any orders, but was a courtier and a soldier throughout the whole of his active life. Indeed almost the first use he made of his benefice was to equip himself and a respectable suite for a journey into Italy, where he served under the Marechal de Brissac. He accompanied Mary Stuart to Scotland, served in the Spanish army in Africa, volunteered for the relief of Malta from the Turks, and again for the expedition destined to assist Hun- gary against Soliman, and in other ways led the life of a knight-errant. The religious wars in his own country gave him plenty of employment; but in the reigns of Charles IX. and Henri III. he was more particularly attached to the suite of the queen dowager and her daughter Marguerite. He was, however, somewhat disappointed in his hopes of recompense; and after hesitating for a time between the Royalists, the Leaguers, and the Spaniards, he left the court, retired into private life, and began to write memoirs, partly in conse- quence of a severe accident. He seems to have begun to write about 1594, and he lived for twenty years longer, dying on the 15th of July, 1614.
The form of Brantome's works is, as has been said, peculiar. They are usually divided into two parts, dealing respectively with men and women. The first part in its turn consists of many subdivisions, the chief of which is made up of the Vies des Grand Capitaines Etrangers et Franpais, while others consist of separate disquisitions or essays, Des Rodomontades Espagnoles, "On some Duels and Challenges in France" and elsewhere, "On certain Retreats, and how they are sometimes better than Battles," etc. Of the part which is devoted to women the chief portion is the celebrated Dames Galantes, which is preceded by a series of Vies des Dames Illustres, matching the Grands Capitaines. The Dames Galantes is subdivided into eight discourses, with titles which smack of Montaigne. These discourses are, however, in reality little but a congerie of anecdotes, often scandalous enough. Be- sides these, his principal works, Brantome left divers Opus- cula, some of which are definitely literary, dealing chiefly with Lucan. None of his works were published in his life- time, nor did any appear in print until 1659. Meanwhile manuscript copies had, as usual, been multiplied, with the result, also usual, that the text was much falsified and muti- lated.
The great merit of Brantome lies in the extraordinary vivid- ness of his powers of literary presentment. His style is careless, though it is probable that the carelessness is not unstudied. But his irregular, brightly coloured, and easily flowing manner represents, as hardly any age has ever been represented, the characteristics of the great society of his time. It is needless to say that the morals of that time were utterly corrupt, but Brantome accepts them with a placid complacency which is almost innocent. No writer, perhaps, has ever put things more disgraceful on paper; but no writer has ever written of such things in such a perfectly natural manner. Brantome was in his way a hero-worshipper, though his heroes and heroines were sometimes oddly coupled. Bay- ard and Marguerite de Valois represent his ideals, and a good knight or a beautiful lady de par le monde can do no wrong. This unquestioning acceptance of, and belief in, the moral standards of his own society give a genuineness and a freshness to his work which are very rare in literature. Few writers, again, have had the knack of hitting off character, superficially it is true, yet with sufficient distinction, which Brantome has. There is something individual about all the innumerable characters who move across his stage, and some- thing thoroughly human about all, even the anonymous men and women, who appear for a moment as the actors in some too frequently discreditable scene. With all this there is a considerable vein of moralising in Brantome which serves to throw up the relief of his actual narratives. He has some- times been compared to Pepys, but, except in point of garrulity and of readiness to set down on paper anything that came into their heads, there is little likeness between the two. Bran- tome was emphatically an ecrivain (unscholarly and Italian- ised as his phrase sometimes appears, if judged by the stand- ards of a severer age), and some of the best passages from his works are among the most striking examples of French prose.
NOTES TO VOLUME I
HISTORICAL NOTE
P. V: The Due d'Alencon was later called the Due d'Anjou. He died at Ch&teau-Thierry, on Sunday, June 10, 1584, from dysen- tery, which had almost reduced him to a shadow. Nevers, in his Memoir es (Vol. I, p. 91), maintains that he was poisoned by a maid of one of his mistresses. According to L'Estoile's account, the Duke was given a magnificent funeral in Paris. He was by no means handsome; his pimpled and deformed nose earned for him an epi- gram during his expedition in Flanders :
Flamands, ne soyez estonnez Si a Francois voyez deux nez: Car par droit, raison et usage, Faut deux nez a double visage.
P. VIII: Pierre de Bourdeille, Seigneur de PAbbaye de Brantdme. Was born in P6rigord, 1527; died 1614. Of an old and distinguished family. Served his apprenticeship to war under the famous Captain Francois de Guise. Later Gentleman of the Chamber to two French Kings in succession, Charles IX. and Henri III., being high in favour with the latter; Chamberlain to the Due d'Alengon. As soldier or traveller visited most parts of Europe; intimate with many of the most famous men of his day, including the poet Ronsard. Some time after the death of Charles IX. he retired (disappointed apparently by a diminution of Court favour, and suffering from the results of a serious accident due to a fall from his horse) to his estates in Guyenne, where he employed his leisure in the composition of a number of voluminous works based on reminiscences of the active period of his life.
These are:
Vies des Homines illustres et grands Capitaines frangais, Vies des Grands Capitaines Strangers, Viet des Dames illustres, Vies des Dames galantes, Anecdotes touchant des Duels, Rodomontades et Jurements espagnols, and sundry fragments.
Souvent femme varie, Bien fol qui s'y fie!
(Woman is changing ever; fool the man who trusts her!)
P. 3: The word which Moliere popularized does not date from that time; it was used much earlier, and in the thirteenth century we see a man pay a fine of twenty ounces of gold for calling an unfortunate husband coucou (cuckold). (Uaatica regni Majorici, Anno 1248.) About the middle of the fifteenth century, in a letter of remission to a guilty fellow, we find this curious remark: "Cogul, which is the same (in the vernacular) as coulz or couppault, is one of the vilest insults to be thrust at a married man." At times the word coux was used:
Suis-je mis en la confrairie
Saint Arnoul le seignenur des Coux.
But it was just about the fifteenth century that the confusion ap- peared between this word and the bird of April (cuckoo) ; the word coucou (cuckoo), which had been explained by a fable, merely imi- tated the cry, whereas the word cocu (cuckold) had been derived from the early Low Latin cugus. "Couquou, thus named after its manner of singing and because it is famed for laying its eggs in the nests of other birds ; so, inconsistently, he is called a cocu (cuckold) in whose nest another man comes." (Bouchet, Series.) There is also a play by Passerat on the metamorphosis of a cuckoo which is worth men- tioning. (Bib. Nat., manuscrit f ratals, 22565, f 24 v.)
P. 4: In the present work the Author constantly uses the words belle et honneste (fair and honourable) to describe such and such a lady, of whom at the same time he speaks as being an unmitigated whore. But when he adds, as he does sometimes, vertueuse (virtuous) to belle et honneste, he implies by this that the lady was chaste and modest, and raised no talk about herself.
P. 7: The prothonotary Baraud was one of those churchmen of whom Brantome says elsewhere: "It was customary at the time that prothonotaries, even those of good families, should scarcely be learned, but give themselves up to pleasure," etc.
P. 10: Cosimo de Medici, who had his wife Eleonora de Toledo poisoned. The daughter of whom Brantome speaks was Isabella, whom he married to Paolo Orsini, the Duke of Bracciano. But Cosimo had too marked an affection for this daughter; although she was married, he insisted that she live in Florence and remain with him. Vasari, who painted for the Medici one of the arches of the Palazzo Vecchio, one day surprised the father and the daughter, and recounts the strange adventure which he witnessed. After the death of Cosimo, Paolo Orsini called Isabella to his apartment, and there, according to Litta, "with a rope around her neck coldly strangled her on the night of July 16, 1576, in the act of consummating the marriage." (Medici, t, IV, tavola xiv.) That unhappy woman was one of the most marvellous of her time: beautiful, cultured, musical, she had all the brilliant advantages of the mind and of the body. Meanwhile, she had had as a lover Troilo Orsini, who was attached to her husband as a bodyguard, and who was assassinated in France, where he had retired.
P. 10: Louis de Clermont de Bussy d'Amboise was born towards the middle of the XVIth Century, and took an active part in the Massacre of Saint Bartholomew. On that occasion, profiting by the confusion, he murdered his kinsman Antoine de Clermont, with whom he was at law for the possession of the Marquisat de Renel. Having obtained from his patron the Due d'Anjou the governorship of the Castle of Angers, he made himself the terror of the country- side. Letters of his addressed to the wife of the Comte de Montso- reau, whom he was endeavouring to seduce, having fallen into Charles IX.'s hands, were by him shown to the husband. The latter forced his wife to write a reply to her lover appointing a rendez- vous. On his appearing there, Montsoreau and a band of armed men fell upon and despatched him (1579). The comment of the historian de Thou is in these words: "The entire Province was overjoyed at Bussy's death, while the Duke of Anjou himself was not sorry to be rid of him." [Transl.]
P. 11: Rene de Villequier, Baron de Clairvaux, murdered his first wife, Francoise de la Marck, in cold blood, in 1677 at the Castle of Poitiers, where the Court was residing. He killed at the same time a young girl who was holding a mirror before her mistress at the moment. According to some authorities he acted on the suggestion of the king, Henri III. At any rate he got off with absolute impunity, and within a very short time after was decorated by his Sovereign with the Order of the St. Esprit. [Transl.]
P. 12: Sampietro, the famous soldier of fortune, and commander of the Italian troops under the French Kings Francis I. and Henri II., was born near Ajaccio in Corsica in 1501. He was of humble birth, but his many brilliant feats of war made him celebrated throughout Europe. He actually strangled his wife, Vanina, a lady of good family, but not in consequence of such misconduct on her part as Brantome represents. The real circumstances were as follows. Sampietro having attempted to raise his Corsican com- patriots in revolt against the Genoese, he was imprisoned and all but put to death by the latter. This roused in him so implacable a hatred of the Genoese State, that on learning that his wife during his absence at Constantinople had condescended to implore his pardon from the Genoese, he deliberately put her to death in the way described. He was himself eventually murdered, being treach- erously stabbed in the back by his Lieutenant and friend Vitelli at the instigation of his Genoese enemies. [Transl.]
P. 12: This is another allusion to Paolo Orsini, Duke of Bracciano, who could not overtake Troilo Orsini, and killed Isabella that he might marry Vittoria Accoramboni, whose husband he had assassi- nated. (Litta, Orsini, t, VII, tav. XXIX.)
P. 15: The Avalos family originally came from Spain, and gave Italy the Marquis de Pescaire, one of the greatest captains of the sixteenth century. It is of him that Brantome speaks as the vice- roy. Maria d'Avalos was married to Carlos Gesualdo, prince of Venousse, and was the niece of this Marquis de Pescaire and of Del Guasto, whom Brantdme describes as "dameret" (foppish) to such a degree that he perfumed the saddles of his horses. He was the one who lost the battle of Consoles in 1544.
P. 16: Iliad, Bk. Ill,
P. 16: Paul de Caussade de Saint-M6grin, favorite of the king, was killed on leaving the Louvre by a band of assassins led by Mayenne. He was the lover of Catherine de Cleves, Duchess de Guise. Henri IV., then king of Navarre, who had good reasons not to like favorites, says apropos of this: "I am thankful to the Due de Guise for refusing to tolerate that a bed favorite like Saint-Megrin should make him a cuckold. This treatment ought to be meted out to all the little court gallants who try to approach the princesses with the aim of making love to them."
P. 17: Francoise de Saillon, married to Jacques de Rohan. She was saved by a miracle, says Jean Bourdigne's chronicle, in 1526.
P. 17: Brantdme refers to Francoise de Foix, Chateaubriant's lady, regarding whom an old pamphlet of 1606 says as follows: "She could do what she desired, and she desired many things that she ought not to at all. During her lifetime, her husband was ever afflicted and tormented." (Factum pour M. le connestable contre Madame de Guise, 1606.) That is also the opinion of Gaillard in his Huttoire d Franqoise /er, t. VII, p. 179, in the 1769 edition, who sees in this passage an allusion to Mme. de Chateaubriant.
P. 17: Jean de Bourdigne, author of Hittoire agrtgative det Annales et Chroniques d'Anjou et du Maine (Angers, 1529, fol.), was born at Angers. He was a priest and Canon of the Cathedral of his native town. The book is very rare; as a history it is almost worthless, being full of the wildest fables.
P. 17: Francis I. king of France, 1515-1547.
P. 21: Philip II. had his wife Isabelle de Valois poisoned; he suspected her of adultery with Don Carlos, his son of a former marriage.
P. 22: Louis X., surnamed le Hutin, had caused his wife Marguerite de Bourgogne to be strangled at the Chateau-Gaillard. She had been imprisoned there in 1314. As to Gaston II., of Foix, outraged by the life of debauch Jeanne d'Artois (his mother) led, he obtained from Philippe de Valois an order of internment in 1331.
P. 22: Anne Boleyn, who was the cause of the Anglican schism. The king had had her beheaded because of her infidelity and married Jane Seymour. As to the charge of which Brantdme speaks, Henry VIII. was so keen on that matter that he had caused Catherine How- ard to be beheaded because he had not been quite convinced of her virginity.
P. 23: Baldwyn II., cousin and successor of the first Baldwyn, king of Jerusalem, brother of Godfrey de Bouillon, reigned from 1119 to 1131. Brantome is mistaken here. Baldwyn II. had married Morphie, daughter of Prince de Melitine; but he had not been for- merly married. Does he wish to speak of Baudoin Ire, who repudi- ated the daughter of the Prince d'Armenie and then Adele de Mon- ferrat? (Cf. Guillaume de Tyr, liv. II, c. xv.)
P. 23: Read Melitene; this is how the Ancients named this town, the modern name of which is Meletin, in Latin Malatia; in Armenia, on the Euphrates.
P. 23: History of the Holy Land; by William of Tyre.
P. 23: Louis VII. succeeded his father, Louis le Gros, on the throne of France 1137, and died 1180. His wife, whom he divorced soon after his return from the Holy Land, whither she had accom- panied him, was Eleanore of Guienne. This divorce was very painful to Louis VII., surnamed le Jeune, because he had to give up the duchy of Aquitaine and cast off the beautiful equestrian seal which he had had engraved for himself in his rank as duke.
P. 24: Suetonius, Caesar, Chap. VI. Brant6me is thinking of Clodius; but Cicero never made the speech in question.
P. 24: BrantSme (Lalanne edition, t. VIII, p. 198) repeats this anecdote without giving further details.
P. 25: Fulvia. (Sallust, Chap. XXIII.)
P. 25: Octavius (Augustus), first Roman Emperor, was the son of C. Octavius, by Atia, a daughter of Julia, the sister of Julius Csesar. He was therefore the grand-nephew of the latter, the founder of the Empire and virtual, though not nominal, first Emperor. He married Livia after his divorce of Scribonia.
P. 26: Caligula, the third Roman Emperor, A. D. 37-41. His name was Caius Caesar, Caligula being properly only a friendly nickname, "Little Boots," bestowed on him as a boy by the soldiers in his father, Germanicus' camp in Germany, where he was brought up. He was inordinately cruel and licentious and madly extravagant. Eventually murdered.
P. 26: Brantome does not appear to know very well the persons he is speaking of here: I lost ill a is Orestilla; Tullia is Lollia; Her- culalina is Urgulanilla.
P. 27: Claudius, the fourth Roman Emperor, A.D. 41-54. The notorious Messalina was his third wife. For a lurid picture of her immoralities see Juvenal's famous Sixth Satire.
P. 28: Giovanni Boccaccio, the author of the Decameron, was born
at Paris in 1313, being the (illegitimate) son of a wealthy merchant of Florence. He died 1375 at Certaldo, a village near Florence, the original seat of the family.
P. 28: Does the following chanson refer to the same woman?
On void Simonne Proumener aux bordeaux Matin, soir, nonne, Avec ses macquereaux.
(Bib. Nat., ms. frangais 22565, f 41 v.)
P. 28: This is indeed one of the most curious passages of the book, and I am glad to remove one of Lalanne's doubts. BrantSme is really talking of a statue, an antique piece which was found July 21, 1594, in a field near the Saint-Martin priory. It had been admirably conserved. Unfortunately, Louis XIV. having claimed it later, it was placed on a barge which sank in the Garonne, and was never re- covered. (O'Reilly, History of Bordeaux, 1863, Vol. II.) The statue is described as having had one breast uncovered and curled hair, a description that agrees only partly with Visconti's type (Icono- graphie romaine, t. II., planche 28), in which Messalina is not decol- lete and carries her son. Was the Bordeaux statue indeed a Messa- lina?
P. 31: Brantome is mistaken; Nero caused Octavia to be killed. (See Suetonius, Nero, Chap. XXXV.)
P. 31 : Nero, fifth Roman Emperor, A. D. 54-63.
P. 31 : Domitian succeeded his father Titus on the Imperial throne ; reigned from A. D. 81 to 96.
P. 31: Pertinax, a man of peasant birth, but who had carved out for himself a distinguished career as soldier and administrator, was elected Emperor by the Praetorian Guards on the murder of Corn- modus, A. D. 193. Himself murdered after a two months' reign.
P. 32: Septimius Severus, Emperor from A.D. 193 to 211. He was a great general and conducted successful campaigns in Britain, where he died, at York.
P. 33: Philippe Auguste, King of France 1180-1223. Philip Au- gustus repudiated Ingeburga after twenty-eight days of marriage, and married Agnes de Me>anie. The censure of the church induced the king to discard the second marriage and return to Ingeburga (1201). The latter was reputed to have a secret vice which greatly angered the king.
P. 34: Marguerite, daughter of the Archduke Maximilian, whom Charles VIII. rejected in order to marry Anne of Brittany (1491). Louis XII. turned away Jeanne in order to marry the widow of Charles VIII.
P. 34: Charles VIII., 1483-1498, of the House of Valois.
P. 34: Louis XII., successor of the last named, reigned 1498-1515, the immediate predecessor of Francis I.
P. 35: Alfonso V., king of Aragon, who left maxims which were collected by Antonio Beccadelli, surnamed Panormita.
P. 35: Twenty-second tale. M. de Bernage was equerry of King Charles VIII. and the lord of Civray, near Chenonceaux.
P. 36: It is not Semiramis, but Thomyris, who, according to Jus- tin (Bk. I.) and Herodotus (Bk. II.), thrust the head of Cyrus into a vat of blood. Xenophon says, on the contrary, that Cyrus died a natural death.
P. 40: Albert de Gondy, Duke de Ret/, was reputed as a prac- titioner of Aretino's principles. His wife, Claudine Catherine de Cler- mont, deserved, perhaps wrongfully, to occupy a place in the pamphlet entitled: "Bibliotheque de Mme. de Montpensier."
P. 41: Elephantis is referred to by Martial and Suetonius as the writer of amatory works "molles Elephantidos libelli," but nothing is known of her otherwise. She was probably a Greek, not a Roman.
P. 41: Heliogabalus, or Elagabalus, Emperor from A. D. 218 to 222. Born at Emesa, and originally high-priest of Elagabalus the Syrian Sun-god. After a very short reign marked by every sort of extravagant folly, he was succeeded by Alexander Severus.
P. 41: The Cardinal de Lorraine, Cardinal du Perron, and others,
had been already represented in the same way along with Catherine de
Medici, Mary Stuart and the Duchesse de Guise, in two paintings
mentioned in the Legende du Cardinal de Lorraine, fol. 24, and in
the Reveille-Matin des Franqais, pp. 11 and 123.
P. 42: I agree with Lalanne that this prince was no other than the Duke d'Alencon. As to the fable of the coupling of the lions, it came from an error of Aristotle, which was repeated by most natural- ists until the eighteenth century.
P. 45: Ronsard the poet was born 1524, being the son of Louis dc Ronsard, sieur de la Poissonniere, an officer in the household of King Francis I., and died 1586. He enjoyed an immense repu- tation in his lifetime, and was the favourite poet of Mary Queen of Scots. Her lover, the unfortunate Chastelard, read his Hymne d la mort on the scaffold, and refused any other book or confessor to prepare him for death. Originator and leading member of the famous Pleiade of Poets.
P. 46: He was a Florentine, Luigi di Ghiaceti, who had grown rich by negotiating the taxes with the king. He married the beauti- ful Mile. d'Atri, and to please her he had bought for 400,000 francs the estate of Chateauvilain. Mme. de Chateauvilain was a model of virtue, if Brantome is to be believed; but we wonder, fully agreeing with the author of the notes to the Journal de Henri III., where this lady could have acquired her virtue was it at the court or at her husband's estate? Besides this gallery of pictures which is mentioned here, Louis Adjecet (the French form for Luigi Ghiaceti) had mis- tresses with whom he indulged in the low appetites of rich upstarts. He was killed in 1593 by an officer; and his wife withdrew to Lan- gres, where she lived with her children.
P. 47: Ariosto, Orlando fwioso, canto XLII., stanza 98.
Ecco un donzcllo a chi 1'ufficio tocca
For su la mensa un bel nappo d'or fino . . .
P. 47: Very likely Bernardin Turissan. Brantdme is perhaps referring to the Ragionamento della Nanna, printed in Paris in 1534, without the name of the publisher. The peggio must have been one of those infamous Italian books which the noblemen of the court wrangled over. The Nanna was well known at the French court
(see Le Divorce satyrique, t. I. of the Journal de Henri III., 1720 edition, p. 190).
P. 47; Bernardino Turisan, who used as his sign the well-known mark of the Manutii, his kinsmen.
P. 47: Pietro Aretino was born at Arezzo in Tuscany in 1492. The natural son of a plain gentleman he became the companion and proteg6 of Princes, and their unscrupulous and adroit flatterer. Friend of Michael Angelo and Titian. His works are full of learn- ing and wit, and obscenity.
P. 48: This book, entitled La Somme des pech6s et leg remedes d'iceux (Compendium of all Sins, and the Remedies of the same), printed at Lyons, by Charles Pesnot c. 1584, 4to, and several times since, was compiled by Jean Benedict, a Cordelier monk of Brittany. He has filled it with filth and foulness as full as did the Jesuit San- chez his treatise De Matrimonio (on Marriage). It is a singular fact that a work so indecent should have been none the less dedicated to the Holy Virgin. As we see from the text, Brant6me and his fellows quite well understood how to turn such works to their advantage and find fresh stories of lubricity in their pages.
P. 49: This Bonvisi, a Lyons banker, had had as receiver Field Marshal de Retz, the son of a Gondi, who had become a bankrupt in Lyons. (Notes of the Confession de Sancy, 1720 edition, t. II., p. 244.)
P. 61: L. Aurelius Commodus (not Sejanus), Emperor A. D. 180- 192, was the son of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius and Faustina. Annius Verus was his brother, and received the appellation of Caesar along with his elder brother in 166.
P. 68: Antonomasia, properly.
P. 60: The Sanzays were a family of Poitou who had settled in Brittany. Ren6 de Sanzay, head of the family at the time in question, had four sons: Rene, Christophe, Claude, and Charles. Ren6 con- tinued the line. Claude was his lieutenant in 1569, as colonel of his forces. Charles married and died only in 1646 (?). Christophe, the second son, was a prothonotary. It seems that Brantome had Claude in mind. Moreover, the constable of Montmorency having died in 1568 and Claude having been a lieutenant of his brother in 1569, we may conjecture that the adventure of which Bran tonic speaks had happened to him previously, for the constable is concerned with his ransom. (Bib. Nat., Cabinet des titres, art. Sanzay.)
P. 61 : Cicero, De officis, Bk. IV., Chap. ix.
P. 61: The second son of Charles V.; he was assassinated at the Gate of Barbette, at the end of Rue Vieille-du-Temple, in 1407, by the orders of Jean Sans peur. He had had for a long time adulterous relations with his sister-in-law Isabeau de Baviere. The woman in question here was Marie d'Enghien, wife of Aubert de Cany and mother of the Batard d'Orleans. This anecdote has inspired several story-tellers, such as Bandello, Strappardo, Malespini, etc. See also the first of the Cents Nouvellea nouvelles.
P. 61 : "Candaules was the last Heracleid king of Lydia. Accord- ing to the account of Herodotus, he was extremely proud of his wife's beauty, and insisted on exhibiting her unveiled charms, but without her knowledge, to Gyges, his favourite officer. Gyges was seen by the queen, as he was stealing from her chamber, and the next day she summoned him before her, intent on vengeance, and bade him choose whether he would undergo the punishment of death himself, or would consent to murder Candaules and receive the kingdom together with her hand. He chose the latter alternative, and became the founder of the dynasty of the Mermnadae, about B. C. 715."
P. 62: Jean Dunois, comte d'Orleans et de Longueville, Grand Chamberlain of France, was his natural son by Mariette d'Enghien, wife of Aubert de Cany-Dunois, and is famous in history under the name of the Bastard of Orleans. Born at Paris 1402; died 1468. Distinguished himself at the sieges of Montargis and Orleans (where he was seconded by Jeanne d'Arc) and in many other encounters. The gallant champion of Charles VII. and the great enemy of the English.
P. 65. Henri III., 1574-1589, last king of the House of Valois; succeeded Charles IX.
P. 65: Emmanuel Philibert, Duke of Savoy, surnamed Tete de fer. He had married Marguerite, sister of Henri II. It was during this journey that the Duchess Marguerite tried to obtain from her nephew Henri III. the retrocession of several fortresses which France still held. (Litta, t. VI., tav. xiv.)
P. 66: Sainte-Soline abandoned Strozzi at the battle of the lies Ter Terceres.
P. 67. Capaneus was one of the mythical seven heroes who marched from Argos against Thebes (Aeschylus, Septem contra Thebas). "During the siege, he was presumptuous enough to say, that even the fire of Zeus should not prevent his scaling the walls of the city; but when she saw his body was burning, his wife Euadn6 leaped into the flames and destroyed herself."
P. 67: Alcestis was a daughter of Pelias, and the wife of Admetus, King of Pherae in Thessaly. According to the legend, Apollo having induced the Fates to promise Admetus deliverance from death, if at the hour of his decease his father, mother or wife would die for him, Alcestis sacrificed herself for her husband's sake. But Heracles brought her back again from the underworld, and "all ended well." The story is the subject of Euripides' beautiful play of Alcestis.
P. 68: Tancred, one of the chief heroes of the First Crusade, was the son of Odo the Good, of Sicily. Date of his birth is uncertain; he died 1112. Type of the gallant soldier and adventurer and the "very perfect, gentle knight."
P. 68: Philippe I. 1060-1108.
P. 68: See Guillaume de Tyr, liv. XI., who tells this anecdote about Tancrede. Bertrade d'Anjou, the wife of Foulques, had been carried off by Philip I., to whom she bore, among other children, Ccile, who married Tancrede.
P. 68: Compare this Albanian savagery with the story of Council- lor Jean Lavoix, who lived with the wife of an attorney named Boulanger. The wife having decided to discontinue that liaison, the Councillor grew so furious that he caused her to be slashed and dis- figured, although he could not get her nose cut off. He was pardoned after having paid his judges. The following song was written about him:
Chasteauvillain, Poisle et Levois,
Seront jugez tous d'une voix
Par un arrest aussi leger
Que fust celluy de Saint-Leger.
Car le malheur est tel en France
Que tout se juge par la finance.
(Bib. Nat, ms. francais, 22563, f 101.)
P. 70: See the Annales d'Aquitaine, f 140 v. Jeanne de Mon-
tal, married to Charles d'Aubusson, lord of La Borne. This Charles
had had a liaison with the prioress of Blessac, who bore him four
children. He was tried for theft and robbery in the convents of his
vicinity, and hanged, February 23, 1533. (Anselme, t. V., p. 335.)
A genealogy by Pierre Robert states precisely what Bran tome re-
cords here.
P. 70: See Brantdme in the Lalanne edition, t. VIII., p. 148. There must be some mistake here. Jacques d'Aragon, the titular king of Majorca, died in an expedition in 1375, according to the Art d verifier let dates.
,i
P. 70: Charles VII. (surnamed the Victorious), crowned at Poitiers 1422, consecrated at Rheims 1429; died 1461, the King for whom Jeanne d'Arc fought against the Burgundians and English, and who really owed his crown to her.
P. 70: Francis I., 1515-1547.
P. 70: Jeanne I., Queen of Naples, 1353-1381, daughter of Charles Duke of Calabria and grand-daughter of the wise King Robert of Naples.
P. 72: The proverb says, the ferret. It should be the ermine, which animal is said to allow itself to be caught rather than soil itself.
P. 72: The opinion that the female ferret would die if it did not find a male to satisfy her during the mating season was still held by naturalists at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Lalanne is mistaken about the ermine, which, on the contrary, dies of the slightest contamination:
Et moi, je suis si delicate Qu'une tache me fait mourir.
(Florian, Fables, liv. III., fab. xiii.)
P. 78: Nouvelle III.
P. 78: Unhappy husbands were classified as follows:
Celluy qui, marie, par sa femme est coqu
Et (qui) pas ne le scait, d'une corne est cornu.
Deux en a cestui-la qui peut dissimuler;
Qui le voit et le souffre, icelluy trois en porte;
Et quatre cestui-la qui meine pour culler
Chez lui des poursuivans. Cil qui en toute sorte
Dit qu'il n'est de ceux-la, et en sa femme croid,
Cinq cornes pour certain sur le front on lui void.
(Bib. Nat., ms. franais 22565, f 41.)
P. 79: It was the marriage of Marguerite of France, the Duchess de Savoie, to Emmanuel PhUibert, the Duke de Savoie, which caused the army to grumble.
P. 79: Boccaccio, Seventh tale of the second day.
P. 79 : Brantome alludes here most likely to Marguerite of France, sister of Henri II., who was 45 when she married the Duke of Savoy.
P. 80: Mile, de Limeuil was the mistress of the Prince de Cond6. During the journey of the court at Lyons, in July, 1564, she was con- fined in the cabinet of the queen mother, who was so furious that she had her locked up in a Franciscan monastery at Auxonne. But the Confession de Sancy and several authors of that time differ from Brantome in saying that the child was a son and not a daughter, and died immediately after birth. The Huguenots wrote verses about the adventure; but the young lady nevertheless married an Italian, Scipion Sardini, for whom she soon forgot the Prince de Conde. Mile, de Limeuil called herself Isabelle de La Tour de Turenne, and was Dame de Limeuil.
P. 81: Cosimo I, Duke of Tuscany. Besides, Pope Alexander VI. was also in a somewhat similar situation.
P. 82: Ferdinand II., King of Naples, 1495-96. Died prematurely at the age of 26. Ferdinand II. married the sister of his father, the daughter of the king of Naples and not of Castile.
P. 86: An ancient city of Italy. At the fort of Monte Cimino, in the Campagna 40 miles NN W. of Rome.
P. 86: La Nanna by Aretino, in the chapter on married women, tells of similar practices of deception regarding the virtue of newly married women.
P. 89: Henry IV. of Castile, 1454-1474, a feeble and dissipated Prince, was a brother of Isabelle of Castile. The young man chosen was not a nobleman, but simply an Antinous of negligible origin whom the king created Duke d' Albuquerque. A child, Jeanne, was born of this complacent match, but she did not reign. Castile pre- ferred Henri III.'s sister, Isabelle.
P. 89: Fulgosius (Battista Fregose), born at Genoa 1440, of a family famous in Genoese history, and for a time Doge of his native City. His chief Work, Factorum et Dictorum Memorabilium libri IX. (Memorable Deeds and Words, 9 bks.), has been more than once reprinted. This particular statement is to be found in ch. 3. of Bk. IX.
P. 91: We have here, perhaps, a discreet allusion to Henri IV.'s passion for Mile, de Tignonville, who had been unmanageable until she married. (See the Confession de Sancy, and t. II., p. 128, of the Journal de Henri 7/7.)
P. 94: Francois de Lorraine, Due de Guise, who was killed by Poltrot.
P. 96: The famous Diane de Poitiers, eldest daughter of Jean de Poitiers, Seigneur de St. Vallier, belonging to one of the most ancient families in Dauphine, was born 1499. At the age of 13 she was married to Louis de Breze, Comte de Maulevrier, Grand Senes- chal of Normandy. She became a widow in 1531. The story of Francois I. having pardoned her father at the price of her honour, as told by Brantome and others, is apparently apocryphal. It was not till after the death of her husband, to whom she was faithful and whose name she honoured, that she became the mistress of Francois I. She was as renowned for her wit and charms of mind as for her beauty. Died 1566.
P. 96: M. de Saint- Vallier, father of Diane de Poitiers. It is not known whether he uttered the word, but his pardon came in time. The headsman had already begged his pardon, according to custom, for killing him, and was about to cut his head off when a clerk, Mathieu Delot, rose and read the royal letter which commuted the capital sentence to imprisonment. The letter is dated February 17, 1523. (Ms. Saint-Germain, 1556, f 74.)
P. 97: Duke d'Etampes, chevalier of the order and governor of Brittany, an obliging and kind husband. Francois de Vivonne, lord of La Chasteigneraie, was among the least meek-minded of the court. Princess de La Roche-sur-Yon having stupidly asked him one day for a domestic favor, he called her "a little muddy princess," which afforded King Francis I. no little laughter. He was killed by Jarnac in a famous duel.
P. 98: An allusion to the demon who threw to the ground the archangel Saint Michael, and who was represented on the collar of the order. It is rather difficult to know of which lady Bran tome is speaking here: the collar of Saint Michael had been given to so many people that it was called "the collar for all animals." (Castel- nau, Memoires, I., p. 363.)
P. 99: Where did Brantome get this story? Gui de CMtillon had expended on banquets the greater part of his fortune and sold his county to Louis d'Orleans; the latter was merely seventeen at the time. It is difficult to admit that he could have carried on a liaison with a woman so ripe in years. After the death of Gui, Marguerite married an officer of the Duke d'Orleans.
P. 101: Apparently Queen Marguerite de Valois. Marguerite de Valois, sister of Francois I., was born at Angouleme in 1492. Mar- ried in 1509 to Charles 4th Due d'Alen^on, who died (1525) soon after the disastrous battle of Pavia, at which Francois I. was taken prisoner. In 1527 she married Henri d'Albret, king of Navarre. She was a Princess of many talents and accomplishments, and the delight of her brother Francois I., who called her his Mignonne, and his Marguerite des Marguerites; Du Bellay and Clement Marot were both members of her literary coterie. Authoress of the famous Heptameron, or Nouvelles de la Reine de Navarre, composed in imitation of Boccaccio's Decameron. Died 1549.
P. 101 : This is also an allusion to Queen Marguerite. Martigues, one of her lovers, had received from her a scarf and a little dog which he wore at the tournaments.
P. 103: Henri III., who had a short-lived affair with Catherine Charlotte de La Tremoille, the wife of Prince de Cond6. But the victory was too easy; the princess was quite corrupt. Later on, the king prostituted her with one of his pages, with whom she con- spired to poison her husband. The plot failed. When brought before the Court, she was pardoned; but a servant named Brilland was [[torn apart by four horses]]. It was also Henri III. who had debauched Marie de Cleves, the first wife of the same Prince de Condé.
P. 103: May very well refer to Henri de Lorraine, Due de Guise, assassinated at Blois.
P. 103: Most probably refers to Marguerite de Valois, the king of Navarre, the Due d'Anjou and the St. Bartholomew.
P. 105: Louis de Be>anger du Guasi, one of Henri III.'s favorites, assassinated in 1575 by M. de Viteaux. His epitaph is in the Manu- tcrit franqais 22565, f 901 (Bibliotheque Nationale). Brantdme, who boasts of being a swordsman, forgets that D'Aubigne was also one.
P. 105: A small town of Brittany (Dep. Ille-et-Vilaine), 14 miles from St. Malo. Has a cathedral of 12th and 13th centuries; the bishopric was suppressed in 1790.
P. 107: To take a journey to Saint-Mathurin was a proverbial expression which meant that a person was mad. Henri Estienne says that this is a purely imaginary saint; be that as it may, he was cred- ited with curing madmen, and the satirical songs of the time are full of allusions to that healing power. (See Journal de Henri III, 1720 edition, t. II., pp. 307 and 308.)
P. 108: Lalanne proves by a passage from Spartianus that this anecdote is apocryphal, or that at least Brantdme has embellished it for his own needs. (Dames, torn. IX., p. 116.)
P. 108: Hadrian (P. Aelius Hadrianus), 14th in the series of Roman Emperors, A. D. 117-138, succeeded his guardian and kins- man Trajan. His wife, Sabina, here mentioned, was a grand-daughter of Trajan's sister Marciana.
P. 109: Marcus Aurelius Antoninus ("The Philosopher") suc- ceeded Antonius Pius as Emperor in A. D. 168. Died 180. His wife Faustina (as profligate a woman as Messalina herself) was daughter of Pius. Author of the famous Meditations. His son Commodus, who succeeded him as Emperor, was a complete contrast in charac- ter to his father, being vicious, weak, cruel and dissolute.
P. 109: Another embellished passage. Faustina had died before Antoninus Commodus was emperor. Moreover, she was only washed (sublevare, says the text) with the blood of the gladiator. (J. Capi- tolin, Marc-Antoine le Philosophe, Chap, xix.)
P. 113: A discreet and veiled allusion to the amours of Mar- guerite de Valois and of the Duchess de Nevers with La M&le and Coconas. Implicated in the affair of Field Marshals de Cosse and de Montmorency, La Mole, a Provenyal nobleman, and Coconas, a Piedmontese, were beheaded on the square of Greve towards the end of April, 1574, and not killed jn battle as Brantdme tries to insinuate. The two princesses, mad with despair, transported the bodies in their carriages to the place of burial, at Montmartre, and kept the heads, which they had had embalmed. (MAmoires de Nevers, I., p. 75, and Le Divorce satirique.)
P. 114: It is Philippe Strozzi, Field Marshal of France, who was born at Venice. Made lieutenant of the naval army in 1579 in order to further the pretensions of Antonio of Portugal, he was defeated, July 28, 1583, and put to death in cold blood by Santa Cruz, his rival. (Vie et mart . . . de Philippe Strozzi. Paris, Guil. Lenoir, 1608.)
P. 119: Thomas de Foix, lord of L'Escu or Lescun, was the brother of Mme. de Chateaubriant, mistress of Francois !-. He was captured at Pavia and carried, mortally wounded, to the home of the lady of whom Brantome speaks. It was he who, by the surrender of Cremona in 1522, caused France to lose Italy. (Guicciardini, t. III., p. 473, Fribourg edition, 1775.)
P. 120: Paolo Jovio, Dialogo delle imprese militari ed amorose, 1559, p. 13.
P. 120: Blaise de Montluc, author of the Commentaires, a diaboli- cal Gascon, made Field Marshal of France in 1574. The siege of La Rochelle, which is here mentioned, took place in 1573. For details on this personage, see the De Ruble edition of the Commentaires, 1854-74, 5 vols.
P. 120: Paulus Jovius (Paolo Giovio), Historian, was a native of Como; born 1483, died 1552.
P. 122: In his Contre-Repentie (fol. 444, A. of his Works, 1576). Joachim du Bellay, the poet, was born about 1524 at Lire in Anjou, of a noble and distinguished family of that Province. After an unfortunate youth, his talents ensured him a welcome at the Court of Francois I. and his sister Marguerite de Valois, where he spent some years. Died young, after a life of ill health, in 1560.
P. 122: Francis Rabelais was born about 1483 at Chinon in Tou- raine, where his father was an apothecary. After a stormy youth and some years spent as a Monk in more than one Monastery of more than one Order, and later wandering the country as a vaga- bond secular priest, he was admitted Doctor in the Faculty of Medicine at Montpellier. Countless stories of his pranks and ad- ventures are told, many no doubt mythical. He visited Rome as well as most parts of France in the course of his life. He died Cur6 of Meudon, about 1553.
P. 123: Chastity-belts of this sort were already in use at Venice at the time.
P. 123: There is in the Hennin collection of prints at the Bibli- otheque Nationale (t. III., f 64) a satirical print representing what Brantome relates here. A lady returns to her husband the key; but behind the bed, the lover, hidden by a duenna, receives from the latter a key similar to the husband's. This instrument of jealousy was the cingulum pudicitice of the Romans, the "Florentine lock" of the sixteenth century. Henri Aldegraver also engraved on the sheath of a dagger a lady who is adorned with a lock of this kind. (Bartsch, Peintre-Graveur, VIII., p. 437.) These refinements in jealousy as well as the refinements in debauchery (of which Brantome will speak later) were of Italian origin. (See on this subject La Description de Vile des Hermaphrodites, Cologne, 1724, p. 43.)
P. 124: Lampride, Alexandre Severe, Chap. XXII.
P. 125: Nicolas d'Estouteville, lord of Villeconnin, and not Ville- couvin, nobleman of the Chambre, died in Constantinople in February, 1567. He had gone to Turkey to forget a disappointment in love or in politics. Here is his epitaph:
Le preux Villeconin en la fleur de ses ans, 5
Helas ! a delaisse nos esbatz si plaisans, Laissant au temple sainct de la digne Memoire Son labeur, son renom, son honneur et sa gloire.
P. 127: Dr. Subtil, surname of J. Scott or Duns.
P. 128: Saint Sophronie.
P. 128: See De Thou liv. XLIX. There were, at the court of France, other women who had escaped from Cyprus and who scarcely resembled this heroine. Temoin de la Dayelle, of whom Brantdme speaks in the Dames illustres, in the chapter on the Medicis. (Jour- nal de Henri III,, 1720 edition, t. II., p. 142.)
P. 132: Guillot le Songeur is, according to Lalanne, Don Guilan el Cuidador of the Amadis de Gaule.
P. 132: "Guillot le Songeur," a name applied to any Pensive man, from the knight Julian le Pensif, one of the characters of the Amadis of Gaul.
P. 136: Danae, daughter of Acrisius, King of Argos, who con- fined her in brazen tower, where Jupiter obtained access in the form of a golden shower.
P. 137: An allusion to Duke Henri de Guise. His wife Catherine de Cleves had, in addition to her "bed lovers," many other intrigues. (See the Confession de Sancy, Chap. VIII., notes.)
P. 138: Trajan (M.Ulpius Trajanus), Emperor A. D. 98-117. His wife Plotina, here mentioned, was a woman of extraordinary merits and virtues, according to the statements of all writers, with one ex- ception, who speak of her. She persuaded her husband to adopt Hadrian who became his successor; but Dion Cassius is the only author who says a word as to her intercourse with the latter having been of a criminal character, and such a thing is utterly opposed to all we know of her character.
P. 141: This refers very likely to Brantome's voyage to Scotland. He had accompanied Queen Mary Stuart in August, 1561, at the time of her departure from France. Riccio, who was the favorite of "low rank," had arrived one year later; but Brantdme, who is relating something which happened a long time before, is not pre- cise: he is unquestionably responding to a request of Queen Catherine.
P. 144: In this passage, where Brant&me cleverly avows his wiles as a courtier, he refers to the Queen of Spain, Elizabeth, the wife of Philip II. The sister of the princess was Marguerite, Queen of Navarre. The two young infantas, whose portraits are examined in detail, were: the first, Isabella Claire Eugenie (later married to Albert of Austria), who became a nun towards the end of her life; the other, Catherine, married Charles Emmanuel de Savoie in 1585. It is difficult to-day to see the resemblance of the two princesses to their father, in spite of the great number of portraits of all these personages; in fact, we can say that they were scarcely more beauti- ful than their mother. (Cf. the beautiful portrait in crayon of Queen Elizabeth at the Bibliotheque Nationale, Estampes Na 21, f 69.)
P. 144: The two Joyeuses: M. du Bouchage, and a gay companion.
P. 145: Marguerite de Lorraine, married to Anne (Duke) de Joyeuse, the favorite of Henri III. The sister-in-law of whom Bran tome speaks could be neither Mme. du Bouchage nor Mme. de Mercoeur, who were spared by the crudest pamphleteers; he un- doubtedly refers to Henriette, Duchess de Montpensier.
P. 146: Francois de Venddme, vidam of Chartres? (See Ftenet, 1729 edition, p. 345.)
P. 148: Ariosto, Orlando furioto, canto V., stanza 57:
lo non credo, signer, che ti sia nova La legge nostra . . .
P. 149: How can Brant6me, who had friends in the Huguenot camp, deliberately relate such absurd tales?
P. 150: There is a close likeness between this woman and the Godard de Blois, a Huguenot, who was hanged for adultery in the year 1563.
P. 152: At that period several persons bore the name of Beauliea. Brantome may have in mind Captain Beaulieu, who held Vincennes for the Ligue in 1594. (Chron. Novenn. III., liv. VII.) The chief prior was Charles de Lorraine, son of the Duke de Guise.
P. 154: The Comtesse de Senizon was accused of having contrived his escape, and brought to book for it.
P. 155: According to his habit, Brantome disfigures what he quotes. Vesta Oppia alone has the right to the name of "good woman"; Cluvia was a profession-courtesan. (Cf. Livy, XXVI., Chap, xxxiii.)
P. 156: This more human reason is probably truer than the one generally given of Jean's chivalrous conduct regarding his pledge.
P. 156: Jean (surnamed le Bon), King of France, 1350-1364. Taken prisoner by Edward the Black Prince at the battle of Poitiers.
P. 159: Proverb marking the small connection that often exists between gifts of body and good qualities of mind and character.
P. 164: The quotation as given in the text is mutilated and the words transposed. It should read:
"Si tibi simplicitas uxoria, deditus uni Est animus :
Nil unquam invita donabis conjuge: vendes Hac obstante nihil ; nihil, haec si nolit, emetur."
JUVEXAL, Sat. VI, 205 sqq.
that is to say, "If you are attached solely and entirely to your wife, . . . you will not be able to give a thing away, or sell or buy a thing, without her consent."
P. 164: They used to say of those Italian infamies: "In Spagna, gli preti; in Francia, i grandi; in Italia, tutti quanti."
P. 164: Why not let Boccaccio have the responsibility of this baseness? (Decameron, Vth day, Xth story.)
P. 168: Christine de Lorraine, daughter of Duke Charles, married to Ferdinand I. de Medici. This young princess had arrived in Italy adorned in her rich French gowns, which she soon cast off in favor of Italian fashions. This concession quickly made her a favorite. It was at the wedding of Christine that the first Italian operas were performed. (Litta, Medici di Firenze, IV., tav. xv.)
P. 171: Brantome is very likely thinking of Princess de Conde, whom Pisani brought before the Parliament, which acquitted her.
P. 174-175: Probably an allusion to Mme. de Sinners and not to Marguerite de Valois, as Lalanne thinks. More tenacious if not more constant than the princess, Louise de Vitry, Lady de Simiers, lost successively Charles d'Humieres at Ham, Admiral de Villars at Dourlens, and the Duke de Guise, whom she deeply loved and who gave her so little in return; this does not include Count de Radan, who died at Issoire, and others of less importance. When she reached old age, old Desportes alone remained for her. He had been her first lover, a poet, whom she had forgotten among her warriors; but it was much too late for both of them.
P. 175: Brantdme is mistaken; it is Seius and not Sejanus.
P. 177: Theodore de Beze, the Reformer; born at V&telais, in the Nivernais, 1519. Author, scholar, jurist and theologian. Died 1595.
P. 178: All the satirical authors agree in charging Catherine de'Medici with this radical change of the old French manners. It would be juster to think also of the civil wars in Italy, which were not without influence upon the looseness of the armies, and, therefore, upon the whole of France.
P. 179: It is the 91st epigram of Bk. I.
P. 180: Isabella de Luna, a famous courtesan mentioned by Ban- dello.
P. 180: Cardinal d'Armagnac was Georges, born in 1502, who was successively ambassador in Italy and archbishop of Toulouse, and finally archbishop of Evignon.
P. 181: Quotation badly understood. Crissantis, in the Latin verse, is a participle and not a proper noun. (Cf. Juvenal, sat. iv.)
P. 181: FiUnes, from Philenus, a courtesan in Lucian.
P. 181: The line should read,
Ipsa Medullinae frictum crissantis adorat.
P. 184: Bran tome seems to speak of himself; yet he might merely have played the side role of confidant in the comedy.
P. 187: Brantome refers to the Dialogue de la beaute des dames. Marguerite d'Autriche is not (as he says) the Duchess de Savoie, who died in 1530, but the natural daughter of the Emperor; she married Alessandro de'Medici, and later Ottavio Farnese.
P. 189: The famous Church of Brou, at Bourg, was built in 1511-36 by the beautiful Marguerite of Austria, wife of Philobert II., le Beau, Duke of Savoy, in fulfilment of a vow made by Marguerite of Bourbon, her mother-in-law. It contains the magnificent tombs of Marguerite herself, her husband and mother-in-law. Celebrated in a well-known poem, "The Church of Brou," of Matthew Arnold.
P. 190: Jean de Meung, the poet (nicknamed Clopinel on account of his lameness), was born at the small town of Meung-sur-Loire in the middle of the Xlllth Century. Died at Paris somewhere about 1320. His famous Roman de la Rose was a continuation of an earlier work of the same name by Guillaume de Lorris, completed and published in its final form by Jean de Meung.
P. 192: Twenty-sixth Tale. It is Lord d'Avesnes, Gabriel d'Albret
P. 194: Claudia Quinta (Livy XXIX, 14).
P. 196: Plutarch, CEuvres melees, LXXVII, t. II., p. 167, in the 1808 edition.
P. 200: The vogue of drawers dated from about 1577; three years later the hoop was in great favor and served to do away with the petticoat. Brant6me probably means that the lady discards the petti- coat and wears the hoop over the drawers.
P. 212: The pun on raynette and raye nette cannot be reproduced in English.
P. 213: Etienne Pasquier, the great lawyer and opponent of the Jesuits, was born at Paris, 1529; died 1615.
P. 213: Thibaut, sixth of the name, Comte de Champagne et Brie, subsequently King of Navarre, was born 1201. Surnamed Faie*r de Chansons from his poetic achievements. Brought up at the Court of Philippe-Auguste. The whole romance of his love for Queen Blanche of Castillo is apparently apocryphal; it rests almost entirely on statements of one (English) historian, Matthew Paris. She was 16 years older than he, and is never once mentioned in his poems.
P. 213: E. Pasquier, (Euvres, 1723, t. II, p. 38. "Which of the two," says Pasquier, "brings more satisfaction to a lover to feel and touch his love without speaking to her, or to see and speak to her without touching her?" In the dialogue between Thibaut de Cham- pagne and Count de Soissons, Thibaut preferred to speak.
P. 215: Brantome aims here at Queen Catherine de'Medici and her favorites.
P. 215: Cf. Plutarch, De Stoicorum repugnant! is, c. xxi.
P. 216: Id., Demetrius, cap. xxvii. Brantdme is mistaken; the woman in question was Thonis.
P. 216: Eighteenth Tale.
P. 216: The "wheel of the nose" was a sort of "mask beard" that women wore in cold weather; it was attached to the hood below the eyes.
P. 220: It was Francois de Compeys, lord of Gruffy, who sold his estate in 1518 in order to expatriate himself.
P. 221: It is not three but four S's that the perfect lover must carry with him, according to Luis Barabona (Lagrimas de Angelica, canto IV.), and these four S's mean: SABIO, SOLO, SOLICITO ET SEGRETO. These initial letters were much in vogue in Spain during the sixteenth century.
P. 224: This story was popular in Paris; it was amplified and embellished into a drama and ascribed to Marguerite de Bourgogne. Was it not Isabeau de Baviere?
P. 224: Isabeau, or Isabelle, de Baviere, wife of the half imbecile Charles VI. of France, and daughter of Stephen II., Duke of Bavaria, was born 1371; died 1435. Among countless other in- trigues was one with the Due d'Orleans, her husband's brother. One of her lovers, Louis de Boisbourdon, was thrown into the Seine in a leather sack inscribed Laisscz patter la justice du rot. The famous story of the Tour de Nesles seems mythical.
P. 225: See under Buridan, in Bayle's Diet. Critique. Compare also Villon, in his Ballade of the Dames des Temps Jadit (Fair Dames of Yore) :
Semblablement ou est la reine,
Qui commanda que Buridan
Fust jet6 en un sac en Seine?
(Likewise where is the Queen, who commanded Buridan to be cast in a sack into the Seine?)
P. 227: Plutarch, Anthony, Chap, xxxii.
P. 229: Livy, lib. XXX., cap. xv. Appien, De Rebus punicis, XXVII.
P. 229: Joachim du Bellay, (Euvres pottiques, 1597.
P. 229: La Vieille Courtisane ("The Old Courtesan"), fol. 449. B. of the (Euvres poet, of Joachim du Bellay, edition of 1597.
P. 230: This pun is difficult to explain. P. 231: Lucian, Amours, XV.
P. 235: Marguerite, wife of Henri IV., whose elegance drew from the old Queen Catherine this remark: "No matter where you may go, the court will take the fashion from you, and not you from the court."
(Brantome, Eloge de la reine Marguerite.)
P. 235: Brantome alludes to the Duke d'Anjou.
P. 235: Jeanne de Navarre, wife of Philippe le Bel, King of France, daughter and sole heiress of Henri I. of Navarre, was born 1272, died 1305 at the early age of 33. She was a beautiful and accomplished Princess, and the tales told by some historians reflecting on her character are apparently quite without foundation.
P. 235: The Divorce satyrique attributes this contrivance to Queen Marguerite, who adopted it to make her husband, the King of Navarre, more deeply enamoured and more naughty.
P. 236: These are taken from an old French book entitled: De la louange et beaute des Dames (" Of the Praise and Beauty of Ladies"). Francois Corniger has put the same into 18 Latin lines. Vencentio Calmeta has rendered them also into Italian verse, commencing with the words: Dolce Flaminia.
P. 236: Pliny speaks of this Helen of Zeuxis.
P. 237: Ronsard, (Euvres, 1584 edition, p. 112. It is a poem addressed to the famous painter Clouet, according to Janet, in which the poet sings the praises of his fair lady. This poem has more than one point in common with the present chapter of the Dames.
P. 238: Marot had arranged this Spanish proverb into a qua- train, and at the time of the Ligue it was applied to the Infanta of Spain:
Pourtant, si je suis brunette, Amy, n'en prenez esmoy, Car autant aymer souhaitte Qu'une plus blanche que moy.
P. 239: Raymond Lulle was a native of Majorca, and lived towards the end of the thirteenth century: he was reputed to be a magician. The story that Brantome tells was taken from the Opuscula by Charles Bovelles, fol. XXXIV. of the in-4 edition of 1521. The famous Raimond Lulle (generally known in England as Raimond Lully), philosopher and schoolman, was celebrated through- out the Middle Ages for his logic and his commentary on Aristotle, and above all for his art of Memory, or Ars Lulliana. He was born at Palma, the capital of Majorca, in 1235. He travelled in various countries, and died (1315) in Africa after suffering great hardships, having gone there as a missionary.
P. 240: Or Charles de Bouvelles. His life of Raymond Lulle is a quarto, printed at Paris, and published by Ascencius. It is dated 3rd of the Nones of December, 1511. Several other works by the same author are extant.
P. 240: Arnauld de Villeneuve, a famous alchemist of the end of the thirteenth century; he died in a shipwreck, in 1313.
P. 240: Oldrade, a jurist, was born at Lodi in the thirteenth cen- tury. His Codex de falsa moneta is not known.
P. 242: Sisteron, in the Department of the B asses- Alpes, on the Durance. Seat of a Bishopric from the 4th Century down to 1770.
P. 242: Aimeric de Rochechouart (1545-1582) was the bishop of Sisteron; he succeeded his uncle Albin de Rochechouart. As to the "very great lady," that applies to one of a dozen princesses.
)
P. 244: Pliny, XXXIII., cap. iv. Brantdme is mistaken about the temple.
P. 246: Claude Blosset, lady of Torcy, the daughter of Jean Blosset and of Anne de Cugnac. She married Louis de Montberon (in 1553), Baron de Fontaines and Chalandray, first gentleman of the king's bed-chamber. The beautiful Torcy, as she was called, had been presented to Queen Eleonor by Mme. de Canaples, the enemy of Mme. d'Etampes.
P. 246: Hubert Thomas, Annales de vita Friderici II. Palatini (Francfort, 1624), gives no idea of this exaggeration of Queen Eleonor's bust, who was promised to Frederick Palatine.
P. 248: Suetonius, Octccvius Augustus, cap. Ixix.
P. 249: Henri de Lorraine, Due de Guise, nicknamed le Balafrt, born 1550. Murdered by the King's (Henri III.) orders at Blois in 1588.
P. 249: Due d'Anjou, afterwards Henri III.
P. 250: The personages in question are probably Bussy d'Amboise and Marguerite de Valois.
P. 252: The king was Henri II., and the grand widow lady the Duchess de Valentinois. They thought it was due to a charm.
P. 254: Pico della Mirandola, Opera omnia, t. II., liv. III., chap, xxii., in the 1517 edition.
P. 254: Pico della Mirandola, one of the greatest of all the bril- liant scholars of the Renaissance, and so famous for the precocity and versatility of his talents, was born 1463. After completing his studies at Bologna and elsewhere, he visited Rome, where he publicly exhibited a hundred propositions De omni re gcribtii, which he undertook to defend against all comers. The maturity of his powers he devoted to the study of religion and the Platonic philos- ophy. He died 1494, on the day of Charles VIII.'s entry into Florence.
P. 265: Ferdinando Francesco Avalos, Marquis de Pescaire, of a well-known Neapolitan family, began his career as a soldier in 1512 at the battle of Ravenna. Distinguished himself by the capture of Milan (1521) and numerous other brilliant feats of arms. Took an important part in the battle of Pavia, where Francois I. of France was taken prisoner. Wounded in that battle, and died in the same year, 1625. His wife was the celebrated Vittoria Colonna.
P. 257: Josephus, The Antiquities of the Jews, Bk. XV., Chap, vii. Herod the Great; died B. C. 4. He put to death his wife Mariamne', as well as her grandfather and his own sons by her.
P. 258: Shiraz, a town of Persia, capital of the Province of Pars, famous for its roses, wine and nightingales, sung by the Persian poets Hafiz and Saadi.
P. 258: Plutarch, Alexander, Chap. XXXIX.
P. 268: It is in his Observations de plusieurs singularity (Paris, 1554) that Belon reports this fact. (Liv. III., chap, x., p. 179.)
P. 261: The usual form is Ortiagon. The woman is the beautiful Queen Chiomara. (C/. Livy, XXXVIII., cap. xxiv., and Boccaccio, De Claris mulieribus, LXXIV.) Chiomara, wife of Ortiagon, King of Galatia, was taken prisoner by the Romans when Cn. Manlius Vulso invaded Galatia, B. C. 189. The story is told by Polybius (XXII., 21).
P. 262: Suetonius, Ccesar, LI I. P. 263: Livy, XXX., cap. xv.
P. 263: Plutarch, Cato the Elder. Brantdme attributes the anec- dote to Scipion.
P. 265: Charles de Lorraine, Cardinal de Guise, known as Car- dinal de Lorraine, died in 1574. He played an important role at the Council of Trente. Brantome refers to the truce of Vaucelles between Henri II. and the Emperor, which Cardinal Caraffa had suc- ceeded in breaking in 1556. This passage had evidently been written before 1588, the year of the death of another Cardinal de Guise, the brother of Balafr6.
P. 265: The beautiful Venitians are described by Vecellio as wearing exquisite gowns on holidays. (See Vecellio, Habiti antichi, Venice, 1590.)
P. 266: This passage is not in the Dies geniales by Alessandro, but in Herodotus, II., chap. ix.
P. 267: What Brantdme says of Flora is not true. The woman in question was not called Flora, but Acca Taruntia.
P. 269: Pausanius, Suetonius, and Manilius have not written special works on women. Brantdme is no doubt referring to the anecdotes that are found in their works.
P. 273: This princess was Catherine de'Medeci.
P. 275: The same story has been told of Mademoiselle, cousin ger- man of Louis XIV., with this addition that she was in the habit of giving any of her pages who were tempted by her charms a few louis to enable them to satisfy their passion elsewhere.
P. 276: Suetonius, Vitellius, cap. ii.: "Messalina petit ut sibi pedes praeberet excalceandos." BrantSme prefers to quote in his own manner.
P. 276: LVIIth Tale.
P. 276: Undoubtedly the grand prior Francois de Lorraine, who accompanied Mary Stuart to Scotland ; however, D' Aumale and Reme" d'Elbeuf also accompanied her.
P. 281: Philip II., of Spain, son of Charles the Fifth, born 1527; died 1588. The husband of Queen Mary of England.
P. 282: Beatrix Pacheco was lady of honor to Eleonor d'Autriche prior to 1544 with several other Spanish ladies ; she became Countess d'Entremont through her marriage with Sbastien d'Entremont. Her daughter, the woman in question here, was Jacqueline, the second wife of Admiral de Coligny, against whom the enemies of her husband turned; she was not, however, beyond reproach.
P. 284: The description which follows was textually taken by Brantome from account printed at Lyons, in 1549, entitled: "La magnificence de la superbe et triomphante entree de la noble et antique cite de Lyon faicte au tres-chrestien Roy de France Henry deuxiesme."
P. 286: Brazilian wood, known before the discovery of America. Br6sil is a common noun here.
P. 287: The king's visit to Lyons took place September 18, 1548.
P. 288: La volte was a dance that had come from Italy in which the gentleman, after having made his partner turn two or three times, raised her from the floor in order to make her cut a caper in the air. This is the caper of which Brantome is speaking.
P. 288: Paul de Labarthe, lord of Thermes, Field Marshal of France, died in 1562. (Montluc, Ruble edition, t. II., p. 55.)
P. 289: Scio (Chios) was the only island in the Orient where the women wore short dresses.
P. 298: Suetonius, Caligula, XXV. "Caesonia was first the mis- tress and afterwards the wife of the Emperor Caligula. She was neither handsome nor young when Caligula fell in love with her; but she was a woman of the greatest licentiousness ... At the time he was married to Lollia Paulina, whom, however, he divorced in order to marry Caesonia, who was with child by him, A. D. 38. ... Caesonia contrived to preserve the attachment of her imperial husband down to the end of his life; but she is said to have effected this by love- potions, which she gave him to drink, and to which some persons attributed the unsettled state of Caligula's mental powers during the latter years of his life. Caesonia and her daughter (Julia Drusilla) were put to death on the same day that Caligula was murdered, A. D. 41."
P. 299: The Emperor Caracalla (M. Aurelius Antoninus) was the son of the Emperor Septimus Severus and was born at Lyons, at the time his father was Governor of Gallia Lugdunensis. Caracalla (like Caligula) is really only a nickname, derived from the long Gaulish cloak which he adopted and made fashionable. Reigned from Severus' death at York in 211 to his own assassination in 217. His brother Geta was at first associated with him in the Empire. Him he murdered, and is said to have suffered remorse for the act to the end of his life, remorse from which he sought distraction in every kind of extravagant folly and reckless cruelty.
P. 299: Spartianus, Caracalla, Chap. x. P. 300: This son was Geta.
P. 301: Beatrix was the daughter of Count Guillaume de Tenda; to her second husband, Phillipe Marie Visconti, she brought all the wealth of her first husband, Facino Cane. In spite of her ripe years, Beatrix was suspected of adultery with Michel Orombelli, and Phil- lipe Marie had them both killed. As a matter of fact this was a convenient way of appropriating Facino Cane's wealth.
P. 301: Collenuccio, liv. IV., anno 1194.
P. 301: Filippo Maria Visconti; born 1391, died 1447. Last Duke of Milan of the house of Visconti, the sovereignty passing at his death to the Sforzas.
P. 301: Facino (Bonifacio) Cane, the famous condot.tiere and des- pot of Alessandria, was born of a noble family about 1360. The prin- cipality he eventually acquired in N. Italy embraced, besides Ales- sandria, Pavia, Vercelli, Tortona, Varese, and all the shores of the Lago Maggiore. Died 1412.
P. 301 : Mother of Frederick II.
P. 301: Pandolfo Collenuccio, famous as author, historian and juris-consult towards the end of the XlVth century. Born at Pesaro, where he spent most of his life, and where he was executed (1500) by order of Giovanni Sforza, in consequence of his intrigues with Caesar Borgia, who was anxious to acquire the sovereignty of that city.
P. 302: Daughter of Bernardin de Clermont, Vicomte de Tallard.
P. 302: Brantdme undoubtedly aims here at Marguerite de Cler- mont.
P. 303: Jean de Bourdeille.
P. 303: Rene, daughter of Louis XII., married to the Duke of Ferraro. She was ungainly but very learned.
P. 304: Marguerite d'Angouleme.
P. 312: Meung-sur-Loire, dep. Loiret, on right bank of the Loire, eleven miles below Orleans.
P. 312: Eclaron, dep. Maute-Marne.
P. 312: Leonor, Duke de Longueville.
P. 312: Francois de Lorraine, Duke de Guise.
P. 313: Louis I., Prince de Cond6.
P. 313: Captain Averet, died at Orleans in 1562.
P. 313: Compare was the name King Henri II. gave the Constable de Montmorency.
P. 316: Octamus is translated Octavie by Brant6me. Cf. Sueto- nius, Caligula, XXXVI., and Octavius Augustus, LXIX.
P. 316: Suetonius, Nero, XXXIV.
P. 318: Brantdme undoubtedly refers to Henri III. and to the Duke d'Alen^on, his brother.
P. 319: Plutarch names this woman Aspasia and makes her a priestess of Diana. Cf. Artaxerxes-Mnemon, Chap. XXVI.
P. 319: Collenuccio, liv. V., p. 208.
P. 319: Artaxerxes I. (Longimanus), King of Persia for forty years, B. C. 465 to 425 ; he succeeded his father Xerxes, having put to death his brother Darius.
P. 320: Wife of Francois d'Orldans.
P. 320: Diane died at the age of 66, April 22, 1566; she was born in 1499.
P. 320: Jacqueline de Rohan-Gi, married to Francois d'Or!6ans, Marquis de Rothelin.
P. 321: Francois Robertet, widow of Jean Babou, whose second husband was Field Marshal d'Aumont.
P. 321: Catherine de Clermont, wife of Guy de Mareuil, grand- mother of the Duke du Montpensier, Franois, surnamed the Prince- Dauphin.
P. 321: Gabrielle de Mareuil, married to Nicolas d'Anjou, Mar- quis de Mzieres.
P. 321: Jacqueline or Jacquette de Montberon.
P. 321: Francoise Robertet, widow of Jean Babon de la Bour- daisiere.
P. 322: Paule Viguier, baronne de Fontenille. P. 322: Francoise de Longwi.
P. 322: The praise of this Toulousean beauty is to be found in the very rare opuscule by G. Minot, De la beaute, 1587.
P. 323: Anne d'Este. She was not exempt from the faults of a corrupt court.
P. 323: This journey occurred in 1574.
i
P. 323: Louis XII.
P. 324: Jean d'O, seigneur de Maillebois.
P. 324: It is not Francois Gonzagne, but Guillaume Gonzagne, his brother and successor to the duchy of Mantoue, born in 1538, died in 1587.
P. 325: He returns here to the Duchess de Guise.
P. 326: At the wedding of Charles Emmanuel, married to Cath- erine, daughter of Philip II. of Spain.
P. 827: Marie d'Aragon, wedded to Alphonse d'Avalos, Marquis del Guasto or Vasto.
P. 327: Henri II., son of Francis I., and husband of Catherine de Medici. Born 1518. Came to throne in 1547; accidentally killed in a tourney by Montgommeri 1559.
P. 327: Paul IV. (of the illustrious Neapolitan family of Caraffa) was raised to the chair of St. Peter in 1558 ; died 1559.
P. 327: This viceroy was Don Perafan, Duke d'Alcala, who en- tered Naples June 12, 1559.
P. 328: Claude de Lestrange?
P. 331: Brant&me's memory fails him. Of the two daughters of the Marquess, Beatrix, the first married Count de Potenza; the other, Prince de Sulmone.
P. 336: His son was Francois Ferdinand, Viceroy of Sicily, died in 1571.
P. 337: Soliman II.
NOTES TO VOLUME II
Sieur de Rendan mentioned in the text; the negotiators appointed to meet them on the English side were the Queen's great minister Cecil and Wotton, Dean of Canterbury. The French troops were withdrawn.
P. 13: The little Leith. (Cf. Jean de Beaugue, Hittoire d la guerre d'Ecosse, reprinted by Montalembert in 1862, Bordeaux.)
P. 13: Jacques de Savoie, Duke de Nemours, died hi 1585.
P. 13: Charles de La Rochefoucauld, Count de Randan, was sent to England in 1559, where he arranged peace with Scotland.
P. 14: An imaginary king without authority.
P. 14: Philibert le Voyer, lord of Lignerolles and of Bellefille, was frequently employed as a diplomatic agent. He was in Scotland in 1567. He was assassinated at Bourgueil in 1571, because he was suspected of betraying Charles IX.'s avowal regarding Saint Bar- tholomew.
P. 15: Bran tome knew quite well that the woman the handsome and alluring Duke de Nemours truly loved was no other than Mme. de Guise, Anne cPEste, whom he later married.
P. 15: XVIth Tale. Guillaume Gouffier, lord of Bonnivet.
P. 16: Marguerite de Valois took Bussy d'Amboise partly be- cause of his reputation as a duellist.
P. 17: Jacques de Lorge, lord of Montgomerie, captain of Fran- cis I.'s Scotch Guard and father of Henri II.'s involuntary murderer.
P. 18: Claude de Clermont, Viscount de Tallard.
P. 18: Francois de Hangest, lord of Genlis, captain of the Louvre, who died of hydrophobia at Strassburg in 1569.
P. 19: It is undoubtedly Louise de Halwin, surnamed Mile, de Piennes the Elder, who later married Cipier of the Marcilly family.
P. 20: It is to this feminine stimulation that King Francis I. alluded in the famous quatrain in the Album of Aix, which is rightly or wrongly attributed to him.
[336]
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NOTES
^iw^tAv4Ji<yi^M!naa^ . .
P. 20: Agnes Sorel, or Soreau, the famous mistress of Charles VII., was daughter of the Seigneur de St. Gerard, and was born at the village of Fromenteau in Touraine in 1409. From a very early age she was one of the maids of honour of Isabeau de Lorraine, Duchess of Anjou, and received every advantage of education. Her wit and accomplishments were no less admired than her beauty.
She first visited the Court of France in the train of this latter Princess in 1431, where she was known by the name of the Demoi- selle de Fromenteau, and at once captivated the young King's heart. She appeared at Paris in the Queen's train in 1437, but was intensely unpopular with the citizens, who attributed the wasteful expen- diture of the Court and the misfortunes of the Kingdom to her. Whatever may be the truth of Brantdme's tale of the astrologer, there is no doubt as to her having exerted her influence to rouse the King from the listless apathy he had fallen into, and the idle, luxurious life he was leading in his Castle of Chinon, while the English were still masters of half his dominions.
She was granted many titles and estates by her Royal lover, amongst others the castle of Beaute, on the Marne, whence her title of La Dame de Beaut6, and that of Loches, in the Abbey Church of which she was buried on her sudden death in 1450, and where her tomb existed down to 1792.
P. 20. Charles VII., son of the mad Charles VI., born 1403, crowned at Poitiers 1422, but only consecrated at Reims in 1429, after the capture of Orleans and the victories due to Jeanne d'Arc. The adversary of the Burgundians and the English under the Duke of Bedford and Henry V. of England. Died 1461.
P. 20: Henry V. of England, reigned, 1413-1422.
P. 20: Bertrand du Guesclin, Constable of France, the most famous warrior of the XlVth Century, and one of the greatest Cap- tains of any age, was born about 1314 near Rennes of an ancient and distinguished family of Brittany. He was the great champion of France in the wars with the English, and the tales of his prowess are endless. Died 1380.
P. 21 : Beatrix, fourth daughter of Raymond-Be>anger IV., Count de Provence.
P. 22: Isabeau de Lorraine, daughter of Charles II., married Ren6 d' Anjou.
[337]
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NOTES
P. 24: He called himself Ren6 de La Platiere, lord of Les Bordes, and was ensign in Field Marshal de Bourdillon's company; he was killed at Dreux. He was the son of Francois de La Platiere and Catherine Motier de La Fayette.
P. 24: Brantdme, in his eulogy of Bussy d'Amboise, relates that he reprimanded that young man for his mania of killing. The woman whom he compares here to Angelique was Marguerite de Valois.
P. 27: Brant&me is unquestionably referring again in this para- graph to Marguerite de Valois and Bussy d'Amboise.
P. 28: Orlando furioso, canto V.
P. 30: That is why Marguerite de Valois turned away "that big disgusting Viscount de Turenne." She compared him "to the empty clouds which look well only from without." (Divorce gatyrique.)
P. 30: This is very likely an adventure that happened to Bran- tdme, and he had occasion to play the r&le of the "gentilhomme con- tent."
P. 32: According to Lalanne, the two gentlemen are Le Balafr6 and Mayenne. If the "grande dame" was Marguerite, she bore Mayenne no grudge, whom she described as "a good companion, big and fat, and voluptuous like herself."
P. 37: It is Madeleine de Saint-Nectaire or Senneterre, married to the lord of Miramont, Guy de Saint-Exup6ry; she supported the Huguenots. She defeated Montal in Auvergne, and according to Mezeray, killed him herself in 1574. (See Anselme, t. IV., p. 890.) In 1569, Mme. de Barbancon had also fought herself; she, too, was formerly an Italian, Ipolita Fioramonti.
P. 39: On the large square with the tower, in the centre of Sienna.
P. 40: Livy, Bk. XXVII., Chap. XXXVII.
P. 42: Orlando furioso, cantos XXII. and XXV.
P. 42: Christophe Jouvenel des Ursins, lord of La Chapelle, died in 1588.
P. 42: Henri II.
[338]
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NOTES
- UHMI>S4lw!7JJl^!^!^!^l^^^
P. 44: Ipolita Fioramonti, married to Luigi di Malaspina, of the Padua branch; she was general of the Duke of Milan's armies. (Litta, Malaspina di Pavia, t. VIII., tav. xx.)
P. 44: Famous fortified city and seaport on the Atlantic coast of France; 800 miles S. W. of Paris, capital of the modern Department of Charente-Inferieure.
P. 45: The interview between Francois de La Noue, surnamed Bras-de-Fer (iron arm), and the representatives of Monsieur, Fran- $ois, Duke d'Alencon, took place February 21, 1573. The scene that Brantome describes happened Sunday, February 22.
P. 46: What Brant6me advances here is to be found in Jacques de Bourbon's La grande et merveillcuse oppugnation de la noble cite de Rhodes, 1527.
P. 46: The siege took place in 1536.
P. 47: August 14, 1536. Count de Nassau besieged P6ronne at the head of 60,000 men ; the population defended itself with the utter- most energy. Marie Four, according to some, was the principal heroine of this famous siege ; according to others, all the honor should go to Mme. Catherine de Foix. (Cf. Pieces et documents relatifs au siege de Peronne, en 1536. Paris, 1864.)
P. 47: The siege of Sancerre began January 3, 1573; but the rdle of the women was more pacific than at P6ronne; they nursed the wounded and fed the combatants. The energetic Joanneau governed the city. (Poupard, Histoire de Sancerre, 1777.)
P. 47: Vitr was besieged by the Duke de Mercoeuer in 1589. This passage of Brantdme's is quoted in the Histoire de Vitre by Louis Dubois (1839, pp. 87-88).
P. 47: Peronne, a small fortified town of N. W. France, on the Somme and in the Department of same name. It was bombarded by the Prussians in 1870, and the fine belfry of the XlVth Century destroyed. Its siege by the Comte de Nassau was in 1536.
P. 47: Sancerre, a small town on the left bank of the Loire, mod- ern Department of the Cher, 27 miles from Bourges. The Huguenots of Sancerre endured two terrible sieges in 1569 and 1573.
[339]
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NOTES
P. 47: Vitr6, a town of Brittany, modern Department Ille-et- Yilaine, of about 10,000 inhabitants. Retains its medieval aspect and town walls to the present day.
P. 48: Collenuccio, Bk. V.
P. 49: Boccaccio has arranged this story in his De claries muli- eribus, cap. CI. Vopiscus, Aurelius, XXVI-XXX, relates this fact more coolly.
P. 49: Zenobia, the famous Queen of Palmyra, widow of Odena- thus, who had been allowed by the weak Emperor Gallienus to par- ticipate in the title of Augustus, and had extended his empire over a great part of Asia Minor, Syria and Egypt. She was eventually defeated by Aurelian in a great battle on the Orontes not far from Antioch. Palmyra was destroyed, and its inhabitants massacred; and Zenobia brought in chains to Rome.
P. 49: The Emperor Aurelian was born about 212 A. D., and was of very humble origin. He served as a soldier in almost every part of the Roman Empire, and rose at last to the purple by dint of his prowess and address in arms, succeeding Claudius in 270 A. D. Almost the whole of his short reign of four years and a half was occupied in constant fighting. Killed in a conspiracy 275 A. D.
P. 53: Perseus, the last King of Macedon, son of Philip V., came to the throne 179 B. C. His struggle with the Roman power lasted from 171 to 165, when he was finally defeated at the battle of Pydna by the consul L. Aemilius Paulus. He was carried to Rome and adorned the triumph of his conqueror in 167 B. C., and after- wards thrown into a dungeon. He was subsequently released, how- ever, on the intercession of Aemilius Paulus, and died hi honour- able captivity at Alba.
P. 53: Maria of Austria, sister of Charles V., widow of Louis II. of Hungary, and ruler over the Netherlands; she died in 1558. It was against her rule that John of Leyden struggled.
P. 53: Brantdme has in mind Aurelia Victorina, mother of Vic- torinus, according to Trebillius Pollio, Thirty Tyrants, XXX.
P. 54: In Froissart, liv. I, chap. 174.
[340]
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NOTES
P. 54: Henri I., Prince de Condd, died in 1588 (January 5), poisoned, says the Journal de Henri, by his wife Catherine Charlotte de la Tremolle.
P. 64: Isabella of Austria, daughter of Philip II.
P. 64: Jeanne de Flandres.
P. 65: Jacquette de Montberon, Brantdme's sister-in-law.
P. 55: Macchiavelli, Dell'arte della guerre, Bk. V., ii.
P. 56: Paule de Penthievre, the second wife of Jean II. de Bour- gogne, Count de Nevers.
P. 57: Richilde, Countess de Hainaut, who died in 1091.
P. 67: Hugues Spencer, or le Dpensier.
P. 67: Jean de Hainaut, brother of Count de Hainaut.
P. 57: Cassel and Broqueron.
P. 57: Edward II. of Caernarvon, King of England, was the fourth son of Edward I. and Queen Eleanor. Ascended the throne 1307, and married Isabel of France the following year. A cowardly and worthless Prince, and the tool of scandalous favourites, such as Piers Gaveston. Isabel and Mortimer landed at Orwell, in Suffolk, in 1326, and deposed the King, who was murdered at Berkeley Castle, 1307.
P. 58: Eleonore d'Acquitaine.
P. 59: Thevet wrote the Cosmographie; Nauclerus wrote a Chro- nographie.
P. 60: Vittoria Colonna, daughter of Fabrizio Colonna and of Agnes de Montefeltro, born in 1490, and affianced at the age of four to Ferdinand d'Avalos, who became her husband. The letter of which Brantdme speaks is famous; he found it in Valles, fol. 205. As for Mouron, he was the great Chancellor Hieronimo Morone.
P. 61: Plutarch, Anthony, Chap. xiv.
[341]
Y*WW4MyWWYM^1^
NOTES
P. 62: Catherine Marie de Lorraine, wife of Louis de Bourbon, Duke De Montpensier.
P. 62: Henri III., assassinated at Paris, 1589. P. 65: The other man was Mayenne.
P. 67: Poltrot de Mer was tortured and quartered (March 18, 1563). As regards the admiral, he was massacred August 24, 1572.
P. 68: Philibert de Marcilly, lord of Cipierre, tutor of Charles IX.
P. 71: On this adventure, consult the Additions au Journal de Henri III., note 2.
P. 72: Louis de Correa, Hiatoria de la conquista del reino d Navarra,
P. 76: Louise de Savoie.
P. 77: Charlotte de Roye, married to Francis III. de La Roche- foucauld in 1557; she died in 1559.
P. 78: Marguerite de Foix-Candale, married to Jean Louis de Nogaret, Duke d'Eperon.
P. 79: Ren6e de Bourdeille, daughter of Andre and Jacquette Montberon. She married, in 1579, David Bouchard, Viscount d'Aube- terre, who was killed in Perigord in 1593. She died in 1596. The daughter of whom Brant6me is about to speak was Hippolyte Bou- chard, who was married to Francois d'Esparbez de Lussan. The three daughters whom he later mentions were: Jeanne, Countess de Duretal, Isabelle, Baroness d'Ambleville, and Adrienne, lady of Saint-Bonnet.
P. 80: Married subsequently to Francois d'Esparbez de Lusan, Marechal d'Aubeterre.
P. 83: Renee de Clermont, daughter of Jacques de Clermont- d'Amboise, lord of Bussy; she was married to the incompetent Jean de Montluc-Balagny (bastard of the Bishop de Valence), created Field Marshal of France in 1594.
[342]
NOTES
P. 84: Gabrielle d'Estrees.
P. 85: Popular song of the day; Musee de Janequin. See Recueil of Pierre Atteignant.
P. 89: Renee Taveau, married to Baron Mortemart. Francois de Rochechouart.
P. 91: There is a copy of this sixth discourse in the MS. 4783, da fonds frangaia, at the Bibliotheque Nationale: this copy is from the end of the sixteenth century.
P. 92: Charlotte de Savoie, second wife of Louis XI., daughter of Louis, Duke de Savoie.
P. 92: Louis XI. is generally supposed not only to have bandied many such stories with all the young bloods at the Court of Philippe le Bon, Duke of Burgundy, where he had taken refuge when Dauphin, but actually to have taken pains to have a collection of them made and afterwards published in the same order in which we have them, in the Work entitled "Cent Nouvelles nouvelles," lequel en soy con- tient cent chapitres ou histoires, compasses ou r6c\t6e far nou- velles gens depui nagueres, "An Hundred New Romances, a Work containing in itself an hundred chapters or tales, composed or recited by divers folk in these last years." This is confirmed by the words of the original preface or notice, which would appear to have been written in his life-time: "And observe that throughout the Nouvelles, wherever 'tis said by Monseigneur, Monseigneur the Dauphin is meant, which hath since succeeded to the crown and is now King Louis XI.; for in those days he was in the Duke of Burgundy's country." But as it is absolutely certain this Prince only withdrew into Brabant at the end of the year 1456, and only returned to France in August 1461, it is quite impossible the Col- lection can have appeared in France about the year 1455, as is stated without sufficient consideration in the preface of the latest editions of this work. Two ancient editions are known, one, Paris 1486, folio; the other also published at Paris, by the widow of Johan Treperre, N. D., also folio. Besides this, two modern edl lions, with badly executed cuts, printed at Cologne, by Pierre Gaillard, 1701 and 1736 respectively, 2 vols. 8vo.
P. 93: By Bourguignonne the King meant etrangere (foreigner).
[343]
NOTES
P. 94: See the sojourn of Charles VIII. at Lyons: Sejours d Charles VIII. et Louis XII. A Lyon sur le Rosne jouxte la copie de faicts, gestes et victoires des roys Charles VIII. et Louis XII., Lyon, 1841.
P. 94: Louis XII. had really been a "good fellow," without men- tioning the laundress of the court, who was rumored to be the mother of Cardinal de Bucy, he had known at Genoa Thomasina Spinola, with whom, according to Jean d'Authon, his relations were purely moral.
P. 97: Francis I. forbade by the decree of December 23, 1523, that any farces be played at the colleges of the University of Paris "Wherein scandalous remarks are made about the King or the princes or about the people of the King's entourage." (Clairambault, 824, fol. 8747, at the Bibilotheque Nationale.) This king maintained, as Brant6me says, that women are very fickle and inconstant; he wrote to Montmorency of his own sister Marguerite de Valois, No- vember 8, 1537: "We may be sure that when we wish women to stop they are dying to trot along; but when we wish them to go they refuse to budge from their place." (Clairambault, 336, fol. 6230, v.)
P. 98: Paul Farnese, Paul III. 1468-1549.
P. 98: The queen arrived at Nice, June 8, 1538, where the king and Pope Paul III. were. The ladies of whom Brantdme speaks should be the Queen of Navarre, Mme. de Venddme, the Duchess d'Etampes, the Marquess de Rothelin that beautiful Rohan of whom it was said that her husband would get with child and not she and thirty-eight gentlewomen. (Clair., 336, fol. 6549.)
P. 98: John Stuart, Duke of Albany, grandson of James II., King of Scotland. He was born in France in 1482 and died in 1536. The anecdote that Brantome relates is connected with the journey of Clement VI. to Marseilles at the time of the marriage of Henri II., then Duke d'Or!6ans, with the niece of the pope, Catherine de Medici. The marriage took place at Marseilles in 1533.
P. 100: Louise de Clermont Tallard, who married as her second husband the Due d'Uzes. Jean de Taix was the grand master of artillery.
P. 107: He was called Pierre de La Mare, lord of Matha, master
[344]
NOTES
of the horse to Marguerite, sister of the king. (Bib. Nat., Cabinet des Titres, art. Matha.) Aimee de Mere 1 was at the court from 1560 to 1564. Hence this adventure took place during that time. (Bib. Nat. ms. francais 7856, fol. 1136, v'.)
P. 108: Provided with "bards," plate-armour used to protect a horse's breast and flanks.
P. 109: This Fontaine-Guerin was in all likelihood Honorat de Bueil, lord of Fontaine-Guerin, gentleman of the king's bed-chamber, councillor of State, who died in 1590. He was a great favorite of Charles IX.
P. 112: The lady in question was Francoise de Rohan, dame de La Garnache, if we are to believe Bayle in the Diet. Critique, p. 1317, 2nd. ed., though there would seem to be some doubt about it. The "very brave and gallant Prince" was the Due de Nemours.
P. 112: A German dance, the Facheltanz. P. 113: Marie de Flamin.
P. 114: The son of this lady was Henri d'Angouleme, who killed Altoviti and was killed by him at Aix, and not at Marseilles, June 2, 1586. Philippe Altoviti was the Baron of Castellane; he had married the beautiful Renee de Rieux-Chateauneuf.
P. 115: Le Tigre a pamphlet by Francois Hotman directed against the Cardinal de Lorraine and the Duchesse de Guise, 1560.
P. 116: Philibert de Marcilly, lord of Cipierre.
P. 117: That pamphlet was aimed at Anne d'Este, Duchess de Guise, at the time of her marriage with the Due de Nemours.
P. 119: Brant6me alludes to the hatred of the Duchess de Mont- pensier.
P. 120: Marie de Cleves, who died during her lying-in in 1574. P. 120: Catherine Charlotte de La Tremolle, Princess de Cond6. P. 122: Not found anywhere in Brantome's extant works.
[345]
NOTES
P. 125: Du Guast or Lignerolles. However, it may refer to Bussy d'Amboise.
P. 126: Marie Babou de la B our dais ie re, who married Claude de
Beauvillier Saint-Aignan in 1560.
P. 128: Plutarch, Sylla, cap. XXX.
P. 129: Queen Maria of Hungary, ruler of the Netherlands, and sister of Charles V.
P. 129: Plutarch, Cato of Utica, cap. XXXV.
P. 132: The personages in question are Henri III., Renee de Rieux-Chateauneuf, then Mme. de Castellane, and Marie de Cleves, wife of the Prince de Conde.
P. 132: Louis de Cond6, who deserted Isabeau de La Tour de Limeuil to marry Francoise d'Orteans. The beauty of which Bran- tome speaks can scarcely be seen in the portrait in crayon of Isabeau de Limeuil who became Mme. de Sardini.
P. 135: Mottoes were constantly used at that time.
P. 136: Anne de Bourbon, married in 1561 to Francois de Cleves, Duke de Nevers and Count d'Eu.
P. 146: The empress was Elizabeth of Portugal; the Marquis de Villena, M. de Villena; the Duke de Feria, Gomez Suarez de Figue- roa, Duke de Feria; Eleonor, the Queen of Portugal, later married to Francois I""; Queen Marie, the Queen of Hungary.
P. 147: Elizabeth, daughter of Henri II.
P. 151 : The MS. of this discourse is at the Bibliotheque Nationale (Ms. fr. 3273) ; it is written in a good hand of the end of the six- teenth century. It is dedicated to the Duke d'Alen^on.
P. 152: Opere di G. Boccaccio, II Filicopo, Firenze, 1723, t. II., p. 73.
P. 159: La Tournelle In the original. This was the name given to the Criminal Court of the Parliament of Paris.
[346]
nflBrosMsnawOTi8flWnn
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P. 161: Barbe de Cilley; she died in 1415.
- i
P. 166: Bran tome is undoubtedly referring to Mme. de Villequier.
P. 172: This is again Isabeau de La Tour Limeuil.
P. 178: See XXVth Tale in Cent Novcellet nowoellet.
P. 188: Honor6 Castellan.
P. 188. Baron de Vitteau was this member of the Du Prat family ; he killed Louis de Beranger du Guast.
P. 190: Chicot was Henri III.'s jester who killed M. de La Roche- foucauld on Saint Bartholomew's Day.
P. 194: Alberic de Rosate, under the word "Matrimonium" in his Dictionary reports an exactly similar instance. Barbatias has some- thing even more extraordinary, how a boy of seven got his nurse with child.
P. 195: The Queen Mother Catherine de Medici. The author gives her name in his book of the Dames Illustres, where he tells the same story.
P. 207: Jean de Rabodanges, who married Marie de Cleves, mother of Louis XII. She was reine blanche, that is, she was in mourning; at that time the women of the nobility wore white when in mourning.
P. 207: These eighteen chevaliers, who were elevated in one batch, caused a good deal of gossip at the court.
P. 214: Louis de Beranger du Guast.
P. 216: She was thirty-five; she died three years later.
P. 217: It is the Chateau d'Usson in Auvergne.
P. 218: Louis de Saint-gelais-Lansac.
P. 220: Jeanne, married to Jean, Prince of Portugal. She died in 1578.
[347]
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NOTES
P. 225: Sbastien, died in 1578. This passage in Brantome is not one of the least irreverent of this hardened sceptic.
P. 226: The portraits of Marie disclose a protruding mouth. She is generally represented with a cap over her forehead. This feature is to be found in a marked degree in Queen Eleanore; and her brother Charles V. also had a protruding mouth. The drooping lip was likewise characteristic of all the later Dukes de Bourgogne.
P. 228: The entanglements of which Brantome speaks were: the revolt of the Germanats, in Spain, in 1522; of Tunis or Barbaric, 1535; the troubles in Italy, also in 1535; the revolt in the Nether- lands, provoked by the taxes imposed by Maria, in 1540. M. de Chievres was Guillaume de Croy.
P. 229: Folembray, the royal residence occupied by Francois let and later by Henri II. Henri IV. negotiated there with Mayenne during the Ligue.
P. 229: Bains en Hainaut.
P. 230: landray.
Claude Blosset, surnamed Torcy, lady of Fontaine Cha-
P. 234: Christine of Denmark, daughter of Christian II., first mar- ried to Francesco Maria Sforza, Duke of Milan. In 1540, five years after her husband's death, she married Francis I. of Lorraine. Her con was Charles II. of Lorraine.
P. 235: N. de La Brosse-Mailly.
P. 235: A small plank attached to the saddle of a lady's horse, and serving to support the rider's feet. Superseded by the single stirrup and pommel.
P. 236: Guy du Faur de Pybrac.
P. 243: Renee, wife of Guillaume V., Duke de Baviere.
P. 246: Blanche de Montferrat, wife of Charles ler, Duke de Savoie; she died in 1509.
P. 247: Paradin, Chronique de Seaooye, III, 85.
[348]
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NOTES
. .
P. 247: The seneschal's lady of Poitou was Mmc. de Vivonne.
P. 249: Nicolas de Lorraine- Vaudemont, father-in-law of Henri III.
P. 249: Franchise d'Orleans, widow of Louis, Prince de Condi.
P. 250: Louise, daughter of Nicolas de Lorraine- Vaudemont, mar- ried in 1575; she died in 1601.
P. 252: Jean de Talleyrand, former ambassador at Rome.
P. 256: Marguerite de Lorraine, whose second marriage was with Francois de Luxembourg, Duke de Piney.
P. 256: Mayenne, Duke du Maine. P. 256: Aymard de Chastes.
P. 256: Refers of course to the assassination of Henri III., by the monk Clement (1589).
P. 257: Catherine de Lorraine.
P. 273: Jean Dorat, died in 1588. Louis de Beranger du Guast.
P. 280: Caesar Borgia, son of Pope Alexander VI.
P. 280: Thomas de Foix, lord of Lescun, brother of Mme. dc Chateaubriant.
P. 280: Piero Strozzi, Field Marshal of France.
P. 281: Jean de Bourdeille, brother of Brantdme. He died at the age of twenty-five at the siege of Hesdin. It was from him that the joint title of Brantome passed on to our author.
P. 281: Henri de Clermont, Viscount de Tallard.
P. 281: Andr6 de Soleillas, Bishop of Riez in Provence, in 1576. He had a mistress who was given to playing the prude, but whose hypocrisy did not deceive King Henri IV. That Prince, one day
[349]
NOTES
rebuking this lady for her love affairs, said her only delight was in le jeune et I'oraiaon, fast and prayer.
P. 282: This widow of a Field Marshal of France was very likely the lady of Field Marshal de Saint-Andre 1 . She wedded as a second husband Geoff roi de Caumont, abbe de Clairac. She called herself Marguerite de Lustrac. As for Brantdme's aunt, it should be Philippe de Beaupoil; she married La Chasteignerie, and as a second husband Francois de Caumont d'Aym6.
P. 285: Anne d'Anglure de Givry, son of Jeanne Chabot and Ren6 d'Anglure de Givry. Jeanne married as a second husband Field Marshal de La Chastre.
P. 285: Jean du Bellay and Blanche de Tournon.
P. 288: Odet de Coligny, Cardinal de Chastillon, married to Eliza- beth de Hauteville.
P. 290: Henri II., who neglected his wife, the Queen, for the Duchesse de Valentinois (Diane de Poitiers), who was already quite an old woman and had been his father, the preceding King's, mistress.
P. 293: About the year 400 of the Christian era, St. Jerome wit- nessed the woman's funeral, and he it is reports the fact mentioned in the text. Epist. ad Ageruchiam, De Monogamia.
P. 293: Charles de Rochechouart.
P. 302: Scio was taken in 1566 by the Turks.
P. 309: It was to her that King Henri IV. said at a court ball by way of amusing the company, that she had used green wood and dry wood both. This jest he made at her expense, because the said lady did never spare any other woman's good name.
P. 310: L'histoire et Plaisante cronique du Petit Jehan de Sain- tre, par Antoine de La Salle. Paris, 1517.
P. 312: XLVth Tale.
P. 316: An allusion to the affair of Jarnac, who killed La Chas- teignerie, Brantfime's uncle, in a duel (1547) with an unexpected and decisive thrust of the sword.
[350]
NOTES
P. 316: Alesandro de Medici, killed, in 1637, by his cousin Loren- cino.
P. 314: According to Rabelais, poultre (filly) is the name given to a mare that has never been leapt. So Bussy was not speaking with strict accuracy in using the term in this case.
P. 317: Mme. de Chateaubriant.
P. 318: Perhaps Marguerite de Valois and the ugly Martigues.
P. 321: The one-eyed Princess d'Kboli and the famous Antonio Perez.
P. 323: Jeanne de Poupincourt.
P. 324: Anne de Berri, Lady de Certeau, at the court in 1583. Helene de Fonseques.
P. 824: This princess was very ugly.
P. 330: In the sixteenth century it was customary to whip lazy people in bed. See Marot's epigram: Du Jour des Innocens.
