Pierre de Bourdeille Brantôme

“ She loved the king for himself, as the finest man in the kingdom, as the person who appeared to her the most admirable. She loved him sincerely, with a degree of sentimentalism, if not with a profound passion. Her ideal had been on arriving at the court to fascinate him, to keep him amused by a thousand diversions suggested by art or intellect, to make him happy and contented in a circle of ever-changing enchantments and pleasures. A Watteau-like country, plays, comedies, pastorals in the shade, a continual embarking for Cytherea, that would have been the setting she preferred. ”

“ Nearing a decrepit old age, the worst of all woes, nearing, too, a poverty which cannot be cured as in our flourishing years when nought is impossible, repenting me a hundred thousand times for the fine extravagances I committed in other days, and regretting I did not save enough then to support me now in feeble age, when I lack all of which I once possessed too much,—I see, with a bursting heart, an infinite number of paltry fellows raised to rank and riches, while Fortune, treacherous and blind that she is, feeds me on air and then deserts and mocks me. ”

“ Nay! how shall it be said of me that in the flower of mine age, and at the prompting of a mere frivolous point of honour and silly scruple making me overmuch keep in my natural fire, I did thus come to dry up and waste away, and grow old and ugly before my time, and lose all the bloom of my beauty, which did erst make me valued and preferred and loved. Instead of a fair lady of good flesh and bone I am become a skeleton, a very anatomy, enough to make folk banish me and jeer at me in any good company, a laughing-stock to all and sundry. ”

“ Besides, which is best, Summer or Winter, when one is in bed? ’Tis the greatest delight in all the world for lovers, man and maid, to cling together and kiss close, to entwine one with other, for fear of the nipping cold, and this not for a brief space but for a long while, and so right pleasantly warm each other,—all this without feeling aught at all of the excessive heat Summer doth provoke, and that extreme of sweating that doth sore hinder the carrying out of love. ”

“ She loved beyond all things those spheres of enchantment, those Fortunate Isles, alike of Urania and of Calypso, and she was ever seeking to reproduce them in all places and under all forms, whether at her Court at Nérac or amid the rocks of Usson, or, at the last, in that beautiful garden on the banks of the Seine (which to-day is the Rue des Petits-Augustins) where she strove to cheat old age.
“O my queen! how good it is to be with you!” ”

“ Catherine hated Mary Stuart, his young Queen, whose only fault was to have exaggerated in herself all the frailties together with all the physical perfections of a woman; and dreadful words had been whispered with bated breath about the Queen Mother. An Italian, deprived of all power while her husband lived, insulted by a proud and beautiful favourite, yet knowing herself well fitted for command, she had brought up her children with ideas of respect and submission to her will they were never able to throw off. ”

“ In the present times, money has taken the place of this spirit; it has become the universal lever, and you are in want of it. A spirit of finance affects every department of the state; it reigns triumphant at Court; all have become venal; and all distinction of rank is broken up. Your Ministers are without genius and capacity since the dismissal of MM. d'Argenson and de Machault. You alone cannot judge of their incapacity, because they lay before you what has been prepared by skilful clerks, but which they pass as their own. ”

“ For such a prize she had no wish to be a King’s wife, but had rather be a simple Captain’s such as he, which not alone in war by his valiant arm, but in peace likewise with the honour of an unbroken spirit, had been strong to vanquish Kings, great Princes and mighty Captains, to triumph over the same and master them.” High courage and virtue and truth did all mark this lady’s words; for truly to reign by ill faith is a very evil and sorry thing, but to give the law to Kings and kingdoms by honesty and worth a right noble one. ”

“ Did not the beautiful Galatea rule in Gaul when Hercules married her after his conquest of Spain?—from which marriage issued our brave, valiant, generous Gauls, who in the olden time made themselves laudable.
Why should the daughters of dukes in this kingdom be more capable of governing a duchy or a county and administering justice (which is the duty of kings) than the daughters of kings to rule the kingdom of France? As if the daughters of France were not as capable and fitted to command and reign as those of other kingdoms and fiefs that I have named! ”

“ He did take her from him to send her to Rome, there to live out the rest of her days as a wretched slave,—if Massinissa had not found a remedy to save her from this fate. The Conqueror’s glory had been fairer and nobler, if she had appeared at Rome as a glorious and stately Queen, and wife of Massinissa, so that folk would have said, as they saw her go by: “Look! one of the fair vestiges of Scipio’s conquests.” Surely true glory doth lie much rather in the display of great and noble things than of mean and degraded. ”

“ Madame de Pompadour never betrayed the least ennui. She even sometimes persuaded him to begin his story anew.
I one day said to her, "It appears to me, Madame, that you are fonder than ever of the Comtesse d'Amblimont." "I have reason to be so," said she. "She is unique, I think, for her fidelity to her friends, and for her honour. Listen, but tell nobody--four days ago, the King, passing her to go to supper, approached her, under the pretence of tickling her, and tried to slip a note into her hand. ”

“ True the niece is younger and in her first prime, and less advanced in years than the aunt, yet is the beauty of the latter, already in its summer glory, fully grown and formed by the gracious years, and bearing fruit, better worth than all the fruits that the other’s age, now but beginning to bloom, doth give expectation of. For the smallest human accident will destroy the same, withering and ruining them, just like trees in the springtime, which by their fair white blossoms do promise us fair and excellent fruits in summer. ”

“ For whether she shows herself smiling or grave, the sight of her serves to enkindle every one; so beauteous are her features, so well defined her lineaments, so transparent and agreeable her eyes that they pass description; and, what is more, that beautiful face rests on a body still more beautiful, superb, and rich,—of a port and majesty more like to a goddess of heaven than a princess of earth; for it is believed, on the word of several, that no goddess was ever seen more beautiful ”

“ This may well make me odious to you, and render it impossible to you to be my loving wife, as if I could to you the regular offices a strong, robust husband should. So I have thought good to suffer you and grant you full freedom to love some other, and borrow one that may satisfy you better than I can. But above all, I pray you choose out one that is discreet and modest, and will in no wise bring scandal on you, nor on me neither. And may he make you a pair of fine lads, the which I will love and rear as my own, in such wise that all men shall think them our own true and lawful offspring. ”

“ Truly ’twas an irreparable loss to France to be deprived of so noble and affectionate an ally, which mindful and conscious of the ties of its ancient origin, was always fain to join us and take place in our ranks. For they say these gallant Siennese be sprung from that people of France which in Gaul they did call the Senones in old times, now known as the folk of Sens. Moreover they do retain to this day somewhat of the humour of us Frenchmen; they do very much wear their heart on their sleeve, as the saying is, and be quick, sudden and keen like us. ”

“ I would like to know if this kingdom has found itself any better for an infinitude of conceited, silly, tyrannical, foolish, do-nothing, idiotic, and crazy kings—not meaning to accuse our brave Pharamond, Clodion, Clovis, Pépin, Martel, Charles, Louis, Philippe, Jean, François, Henri, for they are all brave and magnanimous, those kings, and happy they who were under them—than it would have been with an infinitude of the daughters of France, very able, very prudent, and very worthy to govern. ”

“ At the last was she so fired by such contemplations and sights and longings as that she did bid a long farewell to her virtue and her marriage vow, and did practise new love with a new lover.
This is how a woman’s beauty doth kindle and inflame her, constraining her to have resort to such, whether husbands or lovers, as may satisfy her desire; while ’tis always the nature of one love to lead to another. Wherefore being thus fair and sought after of some admirer, and if she disdain not to answer to his passion, she is at once in the snare. ”

“ For in those old days, even as to-day, some of our greatest ladies were slaves to love and much subject to detraction; for indeed folk so adroit as they have grown since, and ’twas only the cleverest that had the good fortune to impose on their husbands and pass as good women by virtue of their hypocrisies and little wiles. The lady then, seeing the lad to be well-favoured, goes on to tell him how she would give him a mistress that would love him well, provided he was a true lover to her, making him promise under pain of instant shame and disgrace, that above all he should be sure and secret. ”

“ Those are the beauties of body and mind in this fair princess, which I at this time represent, like a good painter, after nature and without art. I speak of those to be seen externally; for those that are secret and hidden beneath white linen and rich accoutrements cannot be here depicted or judged except as being very beautiful and rare; but this must be by faith, presumption, and credence, for sight is interdicted. Great hardship truly to be forced to see so beautiful a picture, made by the hand of a divine workman, in the half only of its perfection ”

“ Myself once saw the fair Duchesse de Valentinois (Diane de Poitiers) at the age of seventy, as fair of face, as fresh-looking and lovable as at thirty; and verily she was well loved and courted by one of the greatest and most gallant Kings in all the world. I may tell her age frankly, without wrong to the beauty of this fair lady, seeing whenever a lady is loved of a great King, ’tis sure sign perfection [320] doth abundantly reside in her, and make her dear to him. And surely that beauty which is given of heaven should never be spared in favour of heaven’s demigods. ”

“ Ah! gallant folk of Sienna, may ye live for ever! Would to heaven ye were still ours in all else, as it may well be, ye are yet in heart and soul! For the overrule of a King of France is far gentler than that of a Duke of Florence; and besides this, the kinship of blood can never go for naught. If only we were as near neighbours as we be actually remote from each other, we might very like be found at one in will and deed. ”

“ Such was at that time the true grief of France for the loss of her king.
As Marguerite advances farther into the country she observes more and more the absence of the master; the kingdom is “like a body without a head, living to recover you, dying in the sense that you are absent.” As for herself, seeing this, she thinks that her toils in Spain were more endurable than this stillness in France, “where fancies torment me more than efforts.”
In general, all Marguerite’s letters do the greatest honour to her soul, to her generous, solid qualities, filled with affection and heartiness. ”