Chapter XXV: Conclusion (2)

“The sincere acceptance of the inevitable,” he says, “supposes a love for the inevitable, the consciousness, and not merely the idea, that this obscure universe has a mysterious and kindly signification. In the depths of our sensibility there exists an indestructible craving that this world shall contain something wherewith to satisfy our heart, since this heart is the world’s own child; and the pure and guileless men whose ever young and tender spirits speak to us across the ages—Francis of Assisi, Savonarola, those who believed in this bountiful kindness of the universe, as they breathed, as they lived, with the whole of their being—these appear to us in a state of unanswerable protest against the nihilism with which we are stifled. They become the accomplices in us of a faith which is hardly conscious of itself, and sometimes seeks its way with tears. ‘Thou wouldst not seek me,’ says the Saviour in the beautiful _Mystery of Jesus_, ‘if thou hadst not found me.’ Is this phenomenon far from that other mysterious one which true believers call prayer?”

We can, we must love Nature, because God has placed her all about us, and because happiness consists in living with what we love. We love things that are not ideally perfect, in other words, which are not superlatively beautiful, because happiness presents itself to us under an essentially relative aspect, and because there is no one but lays claim to it. It is not even a question of loving beautiful things, then, but, as we said, of loving what is beautiful in things.

In real life, to be sure, unpleasant things are as common as blackberries, while pleasant things are few and far between. Nevertheless the truth of the system of happiness through love is proved by its efficacy. Just as the pure platonist, penetrated by his glorious ideal, is cold, unprofitable, and unhappy, the man who loves is conscious of being filled with strength and light. To love is to have real and ardent emotions instead of locking oneself in the icy sentimentalism of reasoning or of false mysticism; it is to become a wellspring of sweetness, kindliness, activity, a mainstay of the world: it is to sow life with flowers, to bestow happiness and to possess it. Though placed by birth in a refractory medium, Ruskin, in spite of his insufficiencies, contradictions, weaknesses, lacunae, has exercised a profound influence, while the platonism of Ficino and Bembo, in a land of high sensibility, amongst incomparable artists and charming women, stifled everything and throttled itself.

There are, spread over the world, two unequal races which, living continually side by side, yet never understand each other and never blend—the race of pride, and the race of vanity. Pride tends to enthusiasm and advancement; it would be well to have proud women. Unhappily men, no matter who they are, do not love them, but much prefer the feeble and the vain.

Yet the efforts of the Renaissance women have not been wholly wasted. Those noble women sowed for the future, and the germ subsists.

Nor can it be said that their defeat was absolute. To form a sound judgment on the question we should have to be able (failures being invariably more noticeable than successes) to gauge the mysterious, secret operations of their grace; to number the despondent men cheered by a kind word or a glance of pity or affection; to fathom the resources, in truth unfathomable, possessed by the spirit of love even when pure, and possessed by it alone. Women of great soul, the Vittoria Colonnas of the world, have drawn from it results almost miraculous; and many others, without turning themselves into a sort of celestial dancing-mistresses, or becoming lost in worthless caprices, have given us reason to hope that, what with labour and earnestness and dignity, the end of their usefulness will not be seen for many a long day.

In short, they took the lead in the profoundest revolution we have ever experienced; from Louis XI. they led us to the boudoirs of the 18th century.

We can give their work neither unqualified praise nor condemnation. But we can praise many of these high-souled women—praise them for having seen and followed their star, though they at first sight may not have recognised the more excellent way. With all our reservations, we feel their spell upon us, because they were interesting, sincere, devoted, eminently tender, eminently feminine. We can commend them to the sympathy of those many ladies of our own day who, as we know, are also seeking their path, and even their star.

Some of my readers may not approve of this conclusion: some will think it optimistic, others pessimistic: in such matters contradiction is easy. Will they allow me to reply in advance that such criticisms would not surprise me? More than once I myself have recast this book, now in the optimistic direction, now in the pessimistic: a simple historian, in contact with subtle, fleeting, elusive shades, with women I sought to see through; as independent as a man may be, in presence of beauties for three centuries in the grave, when he is grey with years, sated with the two great spectacles which, according to Montaigne, quiet the soul—the sight of government, the sight of death,—I would ever and anon catch myself understanding their witchery, enthralled to their charm, or else hating their charm, unjustly; and then, at the moment when I fancied I could at last write my _veni, vidi, vici_, the ideas slipped from my book like water through a sieve. It is thus I have acquired the right of loving these dear ghosts.

And now adieu, princesses, cease to tempt us beyond our powers! Only continue to live amongst us! Our age is very masculine, your spiritualism pays us but angel visits now!—you have been driven in a thousand ways to learn what a soulless commercialism is like. And yet, in your better, spiritual part, you are with us always. We have lovable and accomplished women, we have women in a true sense aristocratic, whose hearts are capable of enthusiasm and heroic charities; there have been some whose names even live after them as synonyms of intelligence and goodness. We have our Margarets of Savoy, and, in goodly numbers, women whose moral bearing surpasses that of men; we have even women of energy, and also, it is said, of tenderness. The day when they proudly resume the motto _Non inferiora secutus_, and when to their eminent good qualities they add the talent of being themselves, the will to speak in their own true accents rather than a borrowed tongue, they will give us back our illusions, and with them what was not illusion.

Let them renounce public life! But let them take complete possession of the home life. Let mannish women, if they must, turn doctors, and womanish women turn priests! Let all be philosophers, comforters, ministers of love human and divine; let them work through love, and love through love! Let them have what we lack, let them excel us, enlighten us, encourage us! And in our hearts we Latins shall bless them, as we bless the sun. Passion is a warrant-royal of life.

The moral of our book is that good women should love the beautiful, and that virtue can be neither tiresome nor torpid.

There is no need to be always a maiden of twelve. True sweetness, true goodness, true love come, not of naïveté or feebleness, but of intelligence and personal force.

FOOTNOTES

[1] Madame Vincent has reminded us, in an interesting memoir, that ladies at one time sat as peers of France.

[2] As administrative authority depended on territorial possessions, it was quite natural that women should exercise it on occasion. The village gilds, though composed of men, sometimes elected a woman as president.

[3] “The history of marriage is the history of a relation in which women have gradually triumphed over the passions, prejudices, and selfish interests of men: that is the picture of true progress.” (F. Brunetière.)

[4] An Italian caricature of about the year 1450 (repeated by the French in the sixteenth century) gives a satirical representation of women violently struggling to wear trunk-hose.

[5] [The manual of religious instruction given to French girls on attaining the age of twelve.]

[6] Clément Marot on the motto of Madame de Lorraine:

[If love fail, faith is surely slain;
If faith die, love flies hence amain;
So in one motto link the twain—
_Faith and love_.]

[7] One of the most distinguished women of Italy to-day, the Countess Pasolini, assures us that the great influence still exercised by women in Italy springs from their approximating more closely than men to fifteenth-century ideas.

[8] We may say, in passing, that the Italianism of the end of the fifteenth century, usually regarded as originating with the Italian expedition of Charles VIII., really goes back to Louis XI. Louis was Italian in education and tastes. Italians flocked into France during his reign.

[9] Cornelius Vitelli, styled Corythius by the public, came to France in 1482, for the simple reason that his own country had become unsafe for him. We have not many details about him or about his colleague, Girolamo Balbi, a pompous and quarrelsome character. A third Italian, Fausto Andrelini, made his appearance in 1488, under the auspices of the Marquis of Mantua. Andrelini, who lived very comfortably at Paris till his death in 1518, had no other effects than the memories of a little love-affair, which he confided to us in three books of verses, his “pages of youth,” as we should say to-day. Exiled, penniless, almost naked, but a poet, he was, as soon as he arrived, petted, adopted, and idolised, the favourite of Chancellor Guillaume de Rochefort and of fortune.

[10] Fausto Andrelini was the object of incredible adulation; Erasmus, wise man, simply calls him “divine,” but some did not hesitate to proclaim that “he alone had rendered France filled instead of famishing, cultivated instead of waste, verdant instead of barren, Latin instead of barbarous.” One of the noblest characters of the time, Guillaume Budé, actually dedicated to him this amazing epitaph: “Here lies Fausto. If the Fates had not given him to us, Gaeta herself would not have been more barbarous than France.” But he was no sooner buried than everyone regarded him as a knave.

[11] John Ruskin.

[12] [The most prolific and popular eclogue writer of the fifteenth century (1436-1516).

“As the moste famous Baptist Mantuan,
The best of that sort since Poetes first began.”

—_Alexander Barclay._

Erasmus went so far as to match him with Virgil.]

[13] [The celebrated cabalistic philosopher (1486-1535). He stayed for a time with Dean Colet in London. He wrote a book _De Nobilitate feminei sexus_.]

[14] An extract from the marriage of Peregrino will give an idea of the Romance (Book I., cap. i., p. 32):

“There standing and awaiting the wished-for end, I heard the voice of a minister of Jupiter, who, regarding both of us, thus spake: ‘Peregrino, and you Geneva, are you clear and free from every manifest or secret bond?’ ‘We are free, nor anywhit bounden?’—_Minister_: ‘Are you not conjoined in affinity?’ _Peregrino and Geneva_: ‘Naught in affinity, and little in amity!’ _Minister_: ‘Have you promised marriage or betrothal to any other man or woman?’ _Peregrino and Geneva_: ‘No, never.’ _Minister_: ‘Are you by common consent disposed to celebrate this present holy sacrament of matrimony?’ _Peregrino and Geneva_: ‘We wish it heartily and in faith.’ _Minister_: ‘Thee, woman, give I to him, and Peregrino will put on the ring.’

“Having done his bidding, as it is the wont, we sat ourselves down,” and a tender conversation ensues between the two spouses.

“O matchless eloquence!” cries Peregrino, “O thrice lucky hour! O blessed day! O my hope in the sovran guerdon vouchsafed to me! With thee, sweet my dame, love, and gentleness, and discretion, and prudence have their habitation, in thee every good thing doth lie hid. Thou art very music, of all discords the harmony. In all parts I find thee whole and perfect. Thou art abundant in all humanity and sweetness, and in thy making the lord and maker of heaven hath created the true copy and sovran revelation of all things.” The couple dream their souls away in these platonic effusions. The bride is bedded there and then, and the author omits no detail. The sun is already high when a young maidservant ventures to come in and light a fire of twigs.

[15] [The quotation is taken from the _Heptameron_, Tale 40. There the lady is named Nomerfide, whom the author identifies with a certain Mlle de Clermont.]

[16] “_Anna_: The maiden invokes with all her prayers the sweets of wedlock, and yet with the first amorous intoxication begin the woes of the conjugal bed; the woman is scarce nestled upon the heart of the man than with one consent they long for separation. _Phyllis_: Anna, little it recks me that thou decriest the bonds of wedlock and the crabbed sour race of men; my heart is a-fire with love and I am tormented with thirst for marriage.... I deem it better far to marry betimes; wedlock is a refuge where modesty may shelter herself.”—(J. Cats, pp. 6, 7, 16.)

[17] _Heptameron_, Tale 21.

[18] [As these royal ladies are constantly cited in subsequent pages, the reader will allow us to remind him once for all of their relationships. Louise of Savoy was the wife of Charles, Count d’Angoulême, cousin-german of Louis XII., and the mother of Francis I. and of Margaret of Valois. She was a passionate and masterful woman and completely ruled her son, and her greed and intriguing spirit brought disaster upon France. Anne of France, also known as Anne of Beaujeu, was the eldest daughter of Louis XI., and wife of Pierre II. of Bourbon. She was virtual ruler of France during the first eight years of the reign of her brother Charles VIII.: see further Book III., chapter i. She is connected with English history in so far as it was largely her money that financed Henry of Richmond’s successful enterprise against Richard III.]

[19] No law in the world had yet authorised them to marry “without the knowledge, advice, and consent of their fathers” (Rabelais).

[20] The good Anne of France, married to a husband much older than herself, had in her life a romance which has escaped notice. She was fond of her first fiancé:

“Le prédit duc de Calabre, famé,
En l’espousant luy donna ung aneau,
Non de grant pris; mais si fut il amé
De par la dame et plus chier estimé
Qu’or ny argent, ne bague, ne joiau
Qu’elle garda, mieulx que plus riche et beau,
Jusque a la mort, c’est vérité patente....”

[“Calabria’s foresaid duke, a prince of fame,
Plighted his troth and gave his bride a ring,
Of no great price, I wot, but yet the dame
Loved him so dear, so high esteemed his name
As never gold nor any precious thing,
Silver nor gem, did her more pleasure bring,
Until her death. ’Tis very truth I tell.”]

The duke died six years after the betrothal,

“Qui fust ung deul qui bien tost ne passa,
Mais grefvement poingnit et trepersa
Le noble cueur de la jeune espousée.
Par quoy, tost fust la chose disposée
Qu’aultre mari prendroit notable et bon,
Ung sien prochain, feu Pierre de Bourbon.”

[“And ’twas a sorrow that not soon did pass,
But smote fell sore and heavily, alas!
The noble heart of this young winsome bride.
Nathless, ere yet her brimming tears were dried,
Another mate was found her, good and high,
Pierre de Bourbon, of her own family.”]

But the princess clung to the ring of her former lover, symbol of

“Loyalle amour dont estoit anoblie ...
... En cest aneau que luy avoit doné
Son amy mort, voullut Pierre espouser.”

[“Of loyal love’s ennobling influence.
And with this ring, gift of her lover dead,
Would she her husband Pierre de Bourbon wed,”]

in order to preserve the memory of him whom God, in his unfathomable designs, had seen fit to take from her—

“Pour petit cueur, d’une jeune pucelle,
Bien garde est d’amour honneste
C’est quant jamais ne varie ou chancelle ...”

—_Poème inédit de La Vauguyon._

[“To the sweet guileless heart of tender maid
’Tis surety of a chaste and noble love
That changeth never, nor will ever fade.”]

The princess was as pure a woman as any of whom we have any account, but the author dwells on this innocent romance in order to keep her memory alive in the hearts of lovers.

[21] [Vittoria Colonna (1490-1547) was the most illustrious member of an old and illustrious Roman family said to derive its name from the _column_ to which Christ was bound for His scourging. At the age of seventeen she married the Marquis of Pescara, and when he died of wounds received at Pavia (1525) she refused many offers of marriage, and devoted herself to literature and works of piety. She wrote poems in imitation of Petrarch.]

[22] [Tiraqueau was the learned and genial seneschal of Fontenoy who released Rabelais from the tender mercies of the Franciscans, for which kindness he was eulogised in _Pantagruel_. He had a large family, wrote many books, and was a water drinker; whence an anonymous epigram which, roughly rendered in English, reads:

Tiraqueau, fruitful as the vine,
Got thirty sons, but drank no wine;
Not less prolific with the pen,
Produced as many books as men.
And had not water sapped his strength,
So strenuous a man at length
Had filled this world of ours—who knows?—
With books and little Tiraqueaux.]

[23] [A famous physician of Lyons (1471-1540), who founded the College of Medicine there. He was also a man of action and a writer, and his _Nef des dames vertueuses_ made him so popular with the ladies that he had to choose back ways to avoid affectionate mobbing.]

[24]

“Ainsi, comme j’ayme m’amye,
Cinq, six, sept heures et demye
L’entretiendray, voyre dix ans,
Sans avoir paour des médisants,
Et sans danger de ma personne.”

—Clément Marot, _Dialogue nouveau_.

[Thus, as I love my doxy dear,
Five, six, seven hours, nay full ten year
I’ll court her, free from fear of slander:
And scatheless—for I but philander.]

[25] [The great general (1460-1525) who served Charles VIII., Louis XII., and Francis I. He conquered Lombardy for Charles, and was killed at Pavia.]

[26] [See Book II., cap. v.]

[27] [_i.e._ Catherine Sforza, the natural daughter of Galeazzo Sforza, Duke of Milan. She married the prince of Forli, and on his assassination by rebels was thrown into prison with her children. But hearing that Rimini held out for her against all assaults, she offered to carry in person an order for its capitulation. On arriving before the city, however, she bade the rebels lay down their arms, and cowed them by sheer force of character. She married later Giovanni de’ Medici, father of Cosimo. She defended Forli against Caesar Borgia, but was captured, and imprisoned in S. Angelo; thence escaping, she retired to Florence, and soon afterwards died there.]

[28] The countess’s lover.

[29] [Egnazio, a fellow-pupil of Leo X., teacher of eloquence and editor of Ovid and Cicero, etc.]

[30] _Heptameron_, Tale 25.

[31] _Heptameron_, Tale 25.

[32] [The Yorick of French literature: see Victor Hugo’s _Le Roi s’amuse_. When Panurge has vainly sought advice from everyone else on the momentous question, ‘to marry or not to marry?’ he tries Triboulet, who sends him to consult the oracle of the Divine Bottle (Rabelais, _Gargantua_, Book III.). Triboulet was court jester to Louis XII. and Francis I.]

[33] [Of the early part of the 17th century. Her chief work is the _Angoisses douloureuses qui procèdent l’amour_.]

[34] A large number of these _cassoni_ exists. One of the most beautiful that can be mentioned represents the story of Esther (Chantilly gallery). The author possesses one that represents Filippo Maria Visconti before the Emperor.

[35] Two days after his marriage, Girolamo Riario sent his bride a casket containing diamond necklaces and robes of gold brocade and of velvet, embroidered with fine pearls; one robe alone carried nearly 3000 pearls; there was also a purse of gold, silver-embroidered girdles, etc.—(Pasolini.)

[36] _Anna Karenina._

[37]

“Y cuidez-vous avoir repos
En mariage, mes mignons?
Ouy dea!”

[“And think you then to find repose
In marriage bonds, my jolly joes?
Heigh ho!”]

chuckles Roger de Collérye, addressing himself here, however, to men.

[38] “It ought to be a voluptuousness somewhat circumspect and conscientious.... Is not a man a miserable creature? He is scarce come to his own strength by his natural condition, to taste one only complete, entire and pure pleasure, but he laboureth by discourse to cut it off: he is not wretched enough except by art and study he augment his misery.” (_Montaigne_, bk. i. cap. xxix. [Florio’s translation]).

[39] [Elder sister (1492-1549) of Francis I., and head of the Renaissance party in France. Her character is elaborately analysed in subsequent pages of this book. The quotations under her name are from the _Heptameron_, and the poems of which she is the reputed author.]

[40] _Heptameron_, Tale 40.

[41] [Baldassare Castiglione (1478-1529), the author of the famous _Book of the Courtier_, Hoby’s translation of which has been recently added to Mr. Henley’s ‘Tudor Translations.’ This book is frequently quoted from and alluded to in the following pages. It purports to be a record of conversations held at the Court of Guidobaldo, Duke of Urbino (1472-1508), upon the qualities that make up the perfect courtier, and many other subjects incidentally. The chief interlocutors who are mentioned in these pages, are the duchess, Elizabeth Gonzaga; Cardinal Pietro Bembo (1470-1547), of so fastidious a taste as to revise his works forty times, the author of _Gli Asolani_, dialogues on platonic love; Bibbiena; and the coarse and dissolute Pietro Aretino, called Unico (1492-1557), who alternately satirised and sponged on the great; he wrote several witty and indecent comedies, and his letters throw much light on the social life of his time. The reader will find some specimens of his work _La Cortigiana_ (the Courtesan) quoted in Burton’s _Anatomy of Melancholy_.]

[42] The abate Serassi has preserved it: “My dear husband, I have got a little daughter, for which I think you will not be sorry. I have been much worse than last time, and, as I wrote you, I have had three attacks of very high fever. To-day, however, I am feeling better, and hope to have no more trouble. I will not try to write any longer, lest I be over bold. With all my heart I commend myself to your lordship. Your wife, who a little _starocca_ with pain. Mantua, August 20, 1520.”

[43] [The duke’s health was ruined by early excesses; Castiglione says ‘gout.’]

[44] [Paolo Giovio, Italian historian (1483-1552), an interesting but untrustworthy writer. As Brantôme puts it, he used two pens, one of gold, the other of iron, according as the princes he served treated him!]

[45] _Heptameron_, Tale 68.

[46] _Heptameron_, Prologue and Tale 45.

[47] By ‘amateurs’ we mean men who, while not professionally qualified, have leisure to devote to extended scientific study. In our own day, as is well known, M. Pasteur and M. Claude Bernard would not be entitled to give professional advice.

[48] [Mistress of Henri II., an imperious and avaricious woman, but a generous patron of the arts. See Hugo’s _Le Roi s’amuse_.]

[49] “I affirm not but I may one day be drawn to such fond opinions, and yield my life and health to the mercy, discretion, and regimen of physicians,” says Montaigne. “I may haply fall into this fond madness; I cannot answer for my future constancy. But even then, if any ask me how I do, I may answer him as did Pericles, ‘You may judge by that.’” (Bk. II. chap, xxxvii.)

[50] “O heavenly physician!” cries St. Theresa, “thou dost resemble only in name these physicians on earth! Thou visitest the sick without summons, and more gladly the poor than the rich.”

[51] Doctors, further, had to take orders and were not allowed to marry.

[52] [An Italian writer (1508-1568) who “wrote in all styles but excelled in none.” He wrote two dialogues on matrimony and the misadventures of husbands.]

[53] Savonarola, who fought in vain against the vogue of astrology (_Opus singulare contra l’astrologia_: a woodcut represents him disputing with an astrologer), ridicules the Roman prelates who never moved a step without consulting their astrologer. The great soldiers and sovereign princes, such as Lodovico Sforza and Francesco di Gonzaga, were no whit different. In princely houses a physician who would not condescend to practise astrology led a sorry life. He points to his phials in vain; “against death he has no medicine”; while the astrologer, a man of position, handsome, fat, well-fed, rich, gazes into the boundless heavens (_Dance of Death_); there was no profession more lucrative than astrology, none more tempting to ambition. It lent itself to dramatic effects. First the astrologer was usually a foreigner, no man having honour in his own country—an Italian or German, or, better still, a Moor or Gipsy. He puts on airs and keeps his clients waiting. If someone sends him a birth date, to have his horoscope cast, he sends no reply; his eyes are so fatigued by constant watching! he is so tired! And the awestruck princesses in the waiting-room say to one another that patience is necessary with “such geniuses.” And the stars were put to marvellous uses.

Bonaventure des Périers relates the amusing story of a physician of Paris, who, alleging high astrological reasons, never showed any amiability to his wife except on rainy days. The despairing lady at last hit upon a very simple expedient: every evening she had a tub of water emptied on the roof so as to produce the sound of a shower in the gutter-spout, and it rained every day! At this game the physician came off second-best and died; and his widow, who found herself very well off, was besieged with numerous offers. She incontinently sent all the physicians packing, then asked her other suitors if they were familiar with the moon and stars. Everyone thought it well to make solemn affirmation that he was, and received his _congé_. There was only one who was simple enough to confess that his science was limited to taking moon and stars to witness when he went to bed. He gained the day (_Contes et Récréations_, Tale 95). No glory was wanting to astrology; physicians and savants practised, defended, and taught it; great nobles gave it their patronage. Marshal Trivulce accepted the dedication of Pirovano’s _Defence of Astrology_. The science numbered eminent adepts. Luther made use of it in support of his doctrines. Michel Servet, after vainly trying theology and medicine, began to profess transcendental astrology; he foretold eclipses, plagues, wars, and the deaths of potentates; he achieved a very great success, pupils drank in his instruction. Unhappily the jealous Faculty directed him to return to the natural sciences and give up the “Almanac.” Servet then turned geographer, and it was not long before he went back into the religious mêlée. The _Atlas of Astrologers_, one of the most curious monuments of moral derangement, enumerates a crowd of astrologers, among them the Sibyls of the Vatican and King Alfonso of Naples.

[54]

Wing’d spirits, who the middle space
’Twixt earth and highest heaven possess,
God’s scouts, the outposts of his grace.

[55]

Unnumbered cords, frail strands full fraught with pain,
That join the soul to things of time and sense.

[56]

The body’s ruled by your command,
Like clay beneath the potter’s hand.

[57]

And this your will and pleasure, stars!
...
In vain doth man at eve and morn
Torment you with his useless prayer;
Fate sweeps him on, he knows not where,
As billows on the stream are borne.

[58] _Les Evangiles des quenouilles_ promise to a wife a son or a daughter according as she loves battle stories or has longings for dancing and music.

[59] One of the greatest ladies of the time, Marie de Luxembourg, Countess of Vendôme, lived on an annual income of 16,000 livres.

[60] Book III.

[61] [“To the Mistletoe! the New Year!” The cry of Breton peasants, “begging small presents or New-Year’s gifts, an ancient tearm of rejoycing derived from the Druides, who were wont, the first day of January, to go into the woods, where having sacrificed and banquetted together, they gathered mistletow, esteeming it excellent to make beasts fruitful, and most sovereign against all poyson” (Cotgrave). From a patois corruption the Scots _Hogmanay_ is said to be derived.]

[62] She provided for so many maidens “by way of marriage, and had so great care of them, that she deserved to be named their mother.”—_La Vauguyon._

[63]

Quattuor sunt que mulieres summe cupiunt:
A formosis amari juvenibus,
Pollere filiis pluribus,
Ornari preciosis vestibus,
Et dominari pre ceteris in domibus.

—_Tractaculi sive opusculi._

[“Four things there are that women eagerly covet: to be loved by handsome youths; to be good for many sons; to be decked out in costly array; and to rule the roost.”]

[64] Montaigne relates that he was put out to nurse with peasants, “and brought up in the humblest and most ordinary way of life.”

[65] Montaigne, Bk. II., cap. iii.

[66]

[Daughter and son gave her obedience,
Stored full of wit and virtue and good sense.]

[67] Maffeo Vegio, a disciple and the biographer of St. Bernardin of Sienna, secretary of Pope Martin V., was a very eminent humanist at the beginning of the 16th century. He added a supplementary book to the _Aeneid_. He was ranked much higher than Petrarch. The book cited, _De educatione liberorum et eorum claris moribus_, often republished since 1491 and issued in a French translation in 1508, is a very remarkable work, and exercised a great influence. It seems, however, to have escaped the researches of the historians of education.

[68] [Jean Lemaire de Belges (1475-1548), historian and poet. His chief works quoted from in these pages are: _Illustrations et singularités des Gaules_ and _Le Temple d’honneur et de vertus_.]

[69] Montaigne.

[70] [A friend of Calvin, and a professor, who reduced himself to beggary by his unselfish efforts to improve the educational methods of his day (1479-1559).]

[71] [A cardinal, and an ardent humanist (1477-1547). He took Cicero for his model, and wrote moral philosophy and poetry. The work here alluded to is his _Paedotropia_.]

[72] [Vivès accompanied Catherine of Aragon to England as her tutor and chaplain. Siding with her on the divorce question, he had to leave the country. His works were published at Basle in 1555.]

[73] He admits astrology among the exact sciences.

[74] [Ulrich von Hütten (1488-1523), friend of Luther and one of the most energetic of the Reformers, by turns soldier, poet, theologian, and politician. He is alluded to _passim_.]

[75] _Heptameron_, Tale 18.

[76] [A 16th century scholar who in an amusing book called _Apologie pour Hérodote_ made an elaborate attack on the clergy of his day.]

[77] “My pupils do just as they please; most of the time they are digging the soil,” writes an unlucky tutor, referring to the dauphin of France; “I have grave doubts whether they’ll be fit for anything better.”

[78] Numerous Latin dialogues were written for children in France and Germany.

[79] Montaigne.

[80] “My daughter is of the age wherein the laws excuse the forwardest to marry. She is of a slow, nice, and mild complexion, and hath accordingly been brought up by her mother in a retired and particular manner, so that she beginneth but now to put off childish simplicity.” (Montaigne.)

[81]

Quid tibi praecipiam molles vitare fenestras?
Ad culpas aditum laxa fenestra facit.
Libera mens, captiva tamen sint lumina, quando
Hanc animo invenit saeva libido viam.
Cogite fallaceis, animus ne peccet, ocellos,
Cogite, libertas ne peritura cadat.
Pellite materiam, primasque extinguite flammas.

(Pontanus, _De Liberis_.)

[“Why should I admonish thee to shun the seduction of windows? An unbolted casement is the door to vice. Keep the mind free, but the eyes in durance, since concupiscence discovers this way to the soul. Restrain thy eyes from tricks lest thy soul sin; yea, lest thy liberty fall and perish. Thrust away the fuel, and extinguish the beginnings of flame.”]

[82] [A disciple of Thomas Aquinas: he died in 1316.]

[83] [The famous mystic and theologian (1363-1429), who so stoutly opposed scholasticism, astrology and magic. The _Imitation of Christ_ has been ascribed to him.]

[84] “Take care of your daughters; let them be always at home, gentle, pious, scorning money and outward adornments. And thus you will preserve not only these young girls, but the men who will one day wed them, and you will assure a good posterity from a healthy stock.”

[85] “From a braying mule and a girl who speaks Latin, good Lord, deliver us.” (Bouchot.)

[86] It was to an expert in high culture that Renée of France entrusted her daughters, in the person of Olympia Morata, who was noted for the eloquent Latin and Greek discourses she delivered as a precocious child of thirteen. While still under fifteen, Olympia’s pupils were sufficiently advanced to act a comedy of Terence before the pope. This education by means of the theatre was completed with serious readings in Ovid and Cicero, and the final polish was given by a Greek monk of known liberal views, Francesco Porto. There was no idleness or melancholy here.

[87] [An Italian poet, pupil of Pontanus (1488-1530). The _Arcadia_, his chief poem, ran into sixty editions.]

[88] Montaigne (who, however, deduces from these premises altogether different conclusions).

[89] “Let us retard the age of marriage,” cries M. Legouvé, “if we wish girls to exercise free choice and live free lives.”

[90] [_Praeter naturam est, feminam in masculos habere imperium._ (Erasmus.) “’Tis against nature for a woman to have rule over males.”] “I allow woman to learn; to teach, never.” (Bruno.)

[91] [A poet of Lyons, who lived about the middle of the sixteenth century.]

[92] [One of the most active of the Italian humanists (1380-1459). He brought many ancient MSS. to Rome, and translated Xenophon and other Greek writers. His _conti_ are as obscene as some of Boccaccio’s.]

[93]

Nil est simplicitate prius.
Haec placet; haud ulla est quaesitae gratia formae,
Quae studio peccas, simplicitate places,
Nulla est ornandi, nulla est, mihi crede, parandi
Gloria, naturae est forma, nec artis opus;
Ars odio digna est, ubi nullo fine tenetur.

(Pontanus, _De amore conjugali_.)

[“Nothing comes before simplicity. That is pleasing; there is no grace in artificial beauty. By artifice thou wilt err, by simplicity thou wilt please. There is no glory in adornment, none, believe me, in farding oneself; beauty is the work of nature, not of art. Art is hateful when not kept within bounds.”]

[94] [A vigorous and witty social satirist (1421-1510).]

[95]

[Some maidens, in their modest way,
With fools their garters stake at play.]

[96] Nifo sincerely admires princesses who go to their husbands _virgines intactae_.

[97] [A doctor of the Sorbonne and a Dominican (1443-1514). In one of his sermons occurs the story of the church bells, repeated by Rabelais à propos of the marriage of Panurge.]

[98]

[A woman, a dog, and a walnut tree,
The more you beat ’em, the better they be.]

[99] In the long run the best things become wearisome: men at last believe they are sacrificing themselves. “Christ died only once for His church; we die every day for our wives,” is the heartfelt cry of a husband; to which a lady retorts: “Go to the wars, then, and lie for a month on the bare ground; and you won’t be sorry to get back to your good bed! Men only appreciate their comforts when they’ve lost them.” (_Heptameron_, Tale 54.)

[100]

Femme bonne qui a mauvais mari
A souvent le cœur marry.
...
Femme aime tant comme elle peut,
Et homme comme il veut.

—_L. de Lincy._

[A good woman with a bad husband has often a sore heart.... Woman loves as much as she can; man as much as he will.]

[101] A woman, irritated at her husband reading in bed, calls out to the servant: “Ah well! Bring me my distaff!” (Billon, _Le Fort inexpugnable de l’honneur du sexe féminin_).

[102] “He who loves not him by whom he is loved is regarded as a homicide, and not merely a homicide, but a committer of sacrilege and a thief.” (Champier, _De vraye Amour_).

[103]

Il se commence à soucyer
Et à chagrin s’associer.
Il plaint la teste, puis les dents,
Et a les oreilles pendans
Ne plus ne moins comme un lymier.

—_R. de Collérye._

[He begins to fume and fret,
Becomes sworn brother to regret;
Headache, toothache he bemoans,
Chapfallen he sighs and groans.]

[104] _Dialogus de matrimonia._

[105] “You have been to seek a little school-miss, an angel who dared not lift her eyes, and who to all appearance was candour to the finger-tips.... She was thinking things over: she was enticing you into her trap, because your rank and fortune suited her, but determined at the bottom of her soul to give you a ‘combing’ later: she says in confidence to her friends, ‘randy steeds need breaking in’.” (Jean d’Ivry: _Les Secretz et Loix de mariage_).

[106] [Title of a brilliant comedy by Emile Augier and Jules Sandeau, produced in 1854. M. Poirier is a wealthy retired cloth merchant who has married his daughter to a spendthrift marquis in the hope of getting a peerage through his influence.]

[107] [Charles had been solemnly betrothed to the daughter of Maximilian of Austria, and Anne of Brittany had been wedded by proxy to Maximilian himself. Both repudiated their contracts, and their alliance united Brittany to the crown of France.]

[108] Cf. the following ballad by Alione:

Qui veut ouir belle chanson
D’une fillette de Lyon
Qui d’amour fut requise,
Ale houe!
En venant de l’église.
Mais elle en fut reprise!
Ale houe!

Un bon copain lui voulut donner
Cent florins pour la marier,
Mais (_Pourvu_) qu’elle fût s’amie.
Ale houe!
Prenez-les, je vous prie;
De cœur les vous octroie.
Ale houe!

A sa mère s’en conseilla,
Qui lui dit que bien la gardera
De cette maladie.
Ale houe!
Il peut bien dire pie,
Car il ne l’aura mie.
Ale houe!

“Les amoureux du temps présent
Font des promesses largement,
Et montrent main garnie.
Ale houe!
Mais folle est qui s’y fie:
Trop coûte la folie!
Ale houe!”

La fillette ne voulut pas
Son conseil croire, en celui cas;
Car elle eut plus grant joie,
Ale houe!
De gagner sa monnaie,
Cent florins de Savoie.
Ale houe!

Cent florins sont beaux et luisants;
S’elle eust fillé vint et cincq ans,
Voire toute sa vie,
Ale houe!
Toute sa fillerie
N’en vaudrait la moitié.
Ale houe!

[Who lists to hear a famous ditty
All on a maid of Lyons city,
Who as she came from church one day
(Hey nonny!)
Was sought in love the usual way—
And sore she smarted, gossips say—
(Hey nonny!)

The jolly youth would give, he said,
A hundred florins her to wed
If she would first his leman be.
(Hey nonny!)
“Prithee, take them, dear,” says he,
“With all my heart I give them thee.”
(Hey nonny!)

The hussy home did straight repair:
Her mother counselled her: “Beware!
Lest it repent thee by and by;
(Hey nonny!)
For though he speak thee fair and sigh,
His precious gold is all my eye!
(Hey nonny!)

“The young men of the present day,
Promise more largely than they pay,
And though their purse well filled appear,
(Hey nonny!)
The girl who trusts to it, I fear,
Will find her folly cost her dear.”
(Hey nonny!)

Alack! the hussy tossed her head,
Heedless of what her mother said,
For ’twas to her a greater joy
(Hey nonny!)
To get the money from her boy—
Those hundred florins of Savoy.
(Hey nonny!)

A hundred! how they gleamed and shone!
Had she sat spinning on and on
Full twenty year, till worn and old,
(Hey nonny!)
Not all the thread she’d spun and sold
Had brought her half that shining gold.
(Hey nonny!)]

[109] One of the friends of Margaret of France, the worthy La Perrière, thunders against marriages for money or beauty, which only end in putting “a fox into a hermitage.”

[110] _Heptameron_, Tale 37.

[111] [See Book III. chapter iii.]

[112] Vittoria Colonna’s bed, preserved in the Pescara palace at Naples, is extraordinarily wide.

[113] A lady of Florence, Alessandra Bardi, on learning of the sudden death of one of her sons, wrote to another the following beautiful letter, so touching in its resignation: “My sweet son, I have learnt how, on the 23rd of last month, it pleased Him who gave me Matteo to recall him to Himself, in complete consciousness, in full possession of grace, with all the sacraments necessary to a good and faithful Christian. I have felt the bitterest grief at being deprived of such a son, and methinks his death has done me great affliction apart from filial love, and likewise to you two, my sons, now reduced to so small a band. I praise and bless the Lord for all that is His will” (Müntz, _History of the Renaissance_, i. 18).

[114] The story is given in Nifo’s _De Amore_, cap. cii.

[115] [Sister of Henry VIII. She was Louis’ third wife: he was in his decrepitude, and died three months after the marriage. She at once married the handsome Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, who had escorted her to France.]

[116] The diplomatic agent of Mantua thus reports his visit of condolence to the Duchess of Urbino: “I found her in her room among her ladies, all in black, the shutters closed, the apartment lighted by a single torch placed on the floor. She was seated on a cushion, a black veil on her head, and wore a high-necked dress, or at any rate her bosom was covered with a veil as high as her chin.... She held out her hand and burst into tears; a moment passed before her sobs and mine permitted us to speak. I handed her your lordship’s letter, and dispatched my visit, my condolences, and my attempts at solace in a few words, so as not to prolong her grief. I imparted to her also the recommendations and offers with which I was charged by my most illustrious lord. Both were well received.” Then they talked of Mantua and the Gonzaga family: the Duchess kept the ambassador for more than two hours. Next day, there was another visit of three hours; this time, her spirit got the upper hand, an interesting discussion ensued, and the ambassador succeeded in making her laugh.

[117] Montaigne, bk. ii. cap. xxxv. He himself desires no tears, no funeral oration: “I renounce henceforth the favourable testimonies men may will to give me, not because I am worthy of them, but because I am dead.”

[118] June 8, 1508. Sisters Domicella and Elena, from Forli, to Catherine Sforza.

[119] [Daughter of Maximilian of Austria, and regent of the Netherlands. She was affianced as a child to the Dauphin of France (Charles VIII.), then married to the Infant of Spain, who died in a few months: finally at the age of twenty-one married Philibert of Savoy, who died after four happy years of wedlock. She was a great patroness of agriculture and the arts, and a poetess.]

[120] She herself, however, employed on occasion the most convincing arguments. She had confiscated the jewels of her cousin, the Countess of Montpensier, who was regarded as rather too hot-headed for a widow, and she refused to restore them to her.

[121] The _Fifteen Joys of Marriage_ include among domestic calamities to return from war after a long captivity and to find one’s wife wearing the finery of a new lord and master.

[122] “There’s no man will have you!” is an insult flung by a peasant at a woman during a squabble.

[123] “Be obedient to your mother, show her honour and reverence, and take care to please her in everything you can, as is her due, as much because it is God’s commandment as that I know she merits it, and that you ought so to do if you wish to succeed, for having known her, I know that she will advise you so well that you will be therewith content” (Instructions of a Duke of Nemours to his sons).

[124] Ruskin.

[125] Ruskin’s favourite theory.

[126] [Minister of finance to Francis I., a faithful and honourable servant of the crown. Lautrec, governor of Milan, having asked for 400,000 crowns as arrears of pay for his troops, the queen-mother, Louise of Savoy, who had a grudge against him, seized all the money in the treasury on the pretext that it was owing to her, and even intercepted what little coin Semblançay was able to get together. The result was that Lautrec’s army melted away and Milan was lost. Louise made Semblançay the scapegoat, and when Francis, after his defeat at Pavia, was carried a prisoner to Spain, she threw Semblançay (he was 72 years old) into the Bastille, had him tried on trumped-up charges, and brought about his execution.]

[127] [Bohier was a jurisconsult, Briçonnet, bishop of Lodève and Meaux, and an insincere persecutor of the Reformers; Robertet was treasurer of France under Louis XII. and Francis I.; and Duprat a venal minister of Francis I. and a partisan of Louise of Savoy.]

[128] Coquillart.

[129] “Have you never reflected, then,” says an old author, “what this smoke is worth?” (Baltazar Gracian).

[130] [Italian poet and historian (1426-1503), the most ‘elegant’ writer of the sixteenth century. He wrote _Amorum libri ii._, on conjugal love.]

[131] _Heptameron_, Tale 51.

[132] Gallants, ambitious men, fashionable men late abed and late up, those who live on credit, litigious fellows, spendthrifts, poor devils who marry for love without a penny, loafers, philosophers who live from hand to mouth, soldiers who run through a quarter’s pay in a month, husbands ruined by their wives’ dressmakers’ bills or their servants’ guzzling, men who keep no accounts, who, without being princes or lords, put eighteen yards of velvet into one costume, who spend much and get little, who let their horses starve, their tapestries and furniture moulder, who leave their orchards to be robbed, who would not spend a penny but fling away a shilling, who endow their daughters too largely, who toil without rhyme or reason, who accept financial responsibilities ... weak-kneed men who back out of their lawsuits, who are led by the nose by those about them, who are always singing a _gaudeamus_ and never a _requiem_, braggarts, giddypates, boasters, “Roger Goodfellows,” gormandisers, debauchees.

[133] [George of Amboise, the wealthy Archbishop of Rouen: a great builder and art-patron, who brought many painters and sculptors and architects into France from Italy. When he died Pope Julius II. “thanked God he was now Pope alone”! The cardinal’s tomb in Rouen Cathedral is one of the finest pieces of Renaissance work in France.]

[134] Which included, we may say in passing, music and gymnastics.

[135] But he did not mean to be absorbed by either the one or the other.

[136]

To love money
Save for its use, is rank idolatry.

[137]

They have what pleasures they desire,
Honours whereto they dare aspire,
And wealth much more than they require.

[138] Almanque Papillon’s _La Victoire et Triomphe d’argent_ (Lyons, 1537). A copy belonging to Baron Pichon includes two miniatures: (1) the Triumph of Money, (2) the Triumph of Honour and Love, represented by Francis I. in a car drawn by two unicorns, and led by Diligence, Sapience, Sobriety and Virtue.

[139] _Imitation of Christ_, book iii., chap. v.

[140] [Italian scholastic philosopher (1453-1538). His lectures attracted lords and ladies who came to laugh at his ugly grimaces and ungainly antics, and at his amusing anecdotes and witticisms. His works include treatises on Beauty, on Love, _De Principe_, etc.]

[141] [The leading Italian humanist (1433-1499); the first professor in Cosimo de’ Medici’s Florentine Academy. He translated Plato under Cosimo’s auspices].

[142] [A prodigy of learning who wasted his energies in attempting to reconcile theology and philosophy, and died young. He knew twenty-two languages].

[143] [An illegitimate scion of the house of the Sanseverini (1425-1477). He founded an academy for the study of antiquity, and pushed his enthusiasm so far as to worship at an altar erected to Romulus, and to roam the streets garbed as Diogenes].

[144] So that nothing should be wanting, a Diogenes started running about the streets with his lantern and his tattered cloak (Paul Jove).

[145] Erasmus archly observes: “When Plato appeared uncertain whether to set woman among rational animals or among the brutes, he did not mean that woman is merely an animal; he merely intended to point out the stupidity of this charming animal.”

[146] To this day this theory of two loves is commonly attributed to Plato, even in philosophical treatises.

[147] His ardent oration has been reported in the _Courtier_ of Castiglione, which became the breviary of the new society; we know that Castiglione faithfully reproduced his words, and, for greater accuracy, first submitted the manuscript to Bembo. [It may be as well to state that the passage quoted here is not a continuous quotation, but an admirable condensation of several pages of Castiglione. See pp. 343-363 of Hoby’s translation in Mr. Henley’s “Tudor Translations.”]

[148] Sonnet viii.

[149] Sonnet lii.

[150] Distinguished as she necessarily was, the lady who inspired such accents had herself nothing so tragic or so sublime. She wrote:

Amor, tu sai, che mai non torsi il piede
Dal carcer tuo soave, nè disciolsi
Dal dolce giogo il collo, nè ti tolsi
Quanto dal primo dì l’alma ti diede.

Tempo non cangiò mai l’antica fede;
Il nodo è stretto anchor, com’io l’avvolsi;
Nè per il frutto amar, ch’ognihor ne colsi,
L’alta cagion men cara al cor mi riede.

Visto hai quanto in un petto fido, ardente
Può oprar quel caro tuo più acuto dardo,
Contro del cui poter Morte non valse,

Fa homai da te, che’l nodo si rallente,
Che a me di libertà già mai nol calse,
Anzi di ricovrarla hor mi par tardo.

[Thou knowest, Love, I never sought to flee
From thy sweet prison, nor impatient threw
Thy dear yoke from my neck; never withdrew
What, that first day, my soul bestowed on thee.

Time hath not changed love’s ancient surety;
The knot is still as firm; and though there grew
Moment by moment fruit bitter as rue,
Yet the fair tree remains as dear to me.

And thou hast seen how that keen shaft of thine,
’Gainst which the might of Death himself is vain,
Smote on one ardent, faithful breast full sore.

Now loose the cords that fast my soul entwine,
For though of freedom ne’er I reck’d before,
Yet now I yearn my freedom to regain.]

[151] “Ye women who glory in your ornaments, your hair, your hands, I tell you you are all ugly. Would you see the true beauty? Look at the pious man or woman in whom spirit dominates matter: watch him, say, when he prays, when a ray of the divine beauty glows upon him, when his prayer is ended; you will see the beauty of God shining in his face, you will behold it as it were the face of an angel.” (_28th Sermon on Ezekiel_).

[152] “Monsieur, si vous estiez aseuré de la prudence et discrétion que vous dictes estre en moy, vous ne prendriez peine de m’escripre courte ne longue lettre, car ou deux telles vertuz consistent, une n’a lieu: qui servira de briefve response à tout ce que m’escripvez. De mon vouloir, il est tel, sans jamais changer propos, que je seray telle que je doibz estre, et que ne m’estimez estre si bonne par vostre lettre; ouy bien autant qu’il me sera possible, et quelque jeune d’aage que je soye, si cognois je bien que en suyvant ces deux devant dictes vertuz, l’on ne se peult desvoyer. Quant à l’audience que me demandez, je ne puis, et ne veulx; et, sans plus m’escripre, à Dieu prenez en gré et ne vous desplaise.” (_La Fleur de toutes joyeusetez_).

[Here is the letter of a woman of the old style: “Sir, if you were assured of the prudence and discretion you say are in me, you would not waste your time writing letters, whether long or short, for where two such virtues are conjoined, a letter is but vain: which will serve as a brief response to all you write to me. My will is such that I am firmly resolved to be good, as I ought to be, though from your letter you do not think I am; ay, so far as lies in my power: and though I may be young in years, yet know I well that in seeking after the two aforesaid virtues one cannot go astray. As to the interview you ask of me, I cannot and I will not; and, without writing further, I pray God you may take it in good part and not be huffed.”]

[153]

La Françoise est entière et sans rompeure:
Plaisir la meine: au proffit ne regarde.
Conclusion: qui en parle ou brocarde,
Françoises sont chef-d’œuvre de nature ...
Pour le desduict (_le plaisir_).

—Marot, _Rondeau 13_.

[Our ladies flawless are and all complete:
’Tis pleasure leads them; they look not for gain:
Conclusion: men will talk and scoff in vain,
For pleasure they are Nature’s master-feat.]