Kitabı oku: «The book of the ladies», sayfa 10

DISCOURSE V.
MARGUERITE, QUEEN OF FRANCE AND OF NAVARRE, SOLE DAUGHTER NOW REMAINING OF THE NOBLE HOUSE OF FRANCE. ¹²

WHEN I consider the miseries and ill-adventures of that beautiful Queen of Scotland of whom I have heretofore spoken, and of other princesses and ladies whom I shall not name, fearing by such digression to impair my discourse on the Queen of Navarre, of whom I now speak, not being as yet Queen of France, I cannot think otherwise than that Fortune, omnipotent goddess of weal and woe, is the opposing enemy of human beauty; for if ever there was in the world a being of perfect beauty it is the Queen of Navarre, and yet she has been little favoured by Fortune, so far; so that one may indeed say that Fortune was so jealous of Nature for having made this princess beautiful that she wished to run counter in fate. However that may be, her beauty is such that the blows of said Fortune have no ascendency upon her, for the generous courage she drew at birth from so many brave and valorous kings, her father, grandfather, great-grandfather, and their ancestors, has enabled her hitherto to make a brave resistance.

To speak now of the beauty of this rare princess: I think that all those who are, will be, or ever have been beside it are plain, and cannot have beauty; for the fire of hers so burns the wings of others that they dare not hover, or even appear, around it. If there be any unbeliever so chary of faith as not to give credence to the miracles of God and Nature, let him contemplate her fine face, so nobly formed, and become converted, and say that Mother Nature, that perfect workwoman, has put all her rarest and subtlest wits to the making of her. 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; so that, in order to duly proclaim her beauty, virtues, and merit, God must lengthen the earth and heighten the sky beyond where they now are, for space in the airs and on the land is lacking for the flight of her perfection and renown.

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; but modesty and laudable shamefacedness thus ordain it – for they lodge among princesses and great ladies as they do among commoner folk.

To bring a few examples to show how the beauty of this queen was admired and held for rare: I remember that when the Polish ambassadors came to France, to announce to our King Henri [then Duc d’Anjou] his election to the kingdom of Poland, and to render him homage and obedience, after they had made their reverence to King Charles, to the queen-mother, and to their king, they made it, very particularly, and for several days, to Monsieur, and to the King and Queen of Navarre; but the day when they made it to the said Queen of Navarre she seemed to them so beautiful and so superbly and richly accoutred and adorned, and with such great majesty and grace that they were speechless at such beauty. Among others, there was Lasqui, the chief of the embassy, whom I heard say, as he retired, overcome by the sight: “No, never do I wish to see such beauty again. Willingly would I do as do the Turks, pilgrims to Mecca, where the sepulchre of their prophet Mahomet is, and where they stand speechless, ravished, and so transfixed at the sight of that superb mosque that they wish to see nothing more and burn their eyes out with hot irons till they lose their sight, so subtly is it done; saying that nothing more could be seen as fine, and therefore would they see nothing.” Thus said that Pole about the beauty of our princess. And if the Poles were won to admiration, so were others. I instance here Don Juan of Austria, who (as I have said elsewhere), passing through France as stilly as he could, and reaching Paris, knowing that that night a solemn ball was given at the Louvre, went there disguised, as much to see Queen Marguerite of Navarre as for any other purpose. He there had means and leisure to see her at his ease, dancing, and led by the king, her brother, as was usual. He gazed upon her long, admired her, and then proclaimed her high above the beauties of Spain and Italy (two regions, nevertheless, most fertile in beauty), saying these words in Spanish: “Though the beauty of that queen is more divine than human, she is made to damn and ruin men rather than to save them.”

Shortly after, he saw her again as she went to the baths of Liège, Don Juan being then at Namur, where she had to pass; the which crowned all his hopes to enjoy so fine a sight, and he went to meet her with great and splendid Spanish magnificence, receiving her as though she were the Queen Élisabeth, her sister, in the latter’s lifetime his queen, and Queen of Spain. And though he was most enchanted with the beauty of her body, he was the same with that of her mind, as I hope to show in its proper place. But it was not Don Juan alone who praised and delighted to praise her, but all his great and brave Spanish captains did the same, and even the very soldiers of those far-famed bands, who went about saying among themselves, in soldierly chorus, that “the conquest of such beauty was better than that of a kingdom, and happy would be the soldiers who, to serve her, would die beneath her banner.”

It is not surprising that such people, well-born and noble, should think this princess beautiful, but I have seen Turks coming on an embassy to the king her brother, barbarians that they were, lose themselves in gazing at her, and say that the pomp of their Grand Signior in going to his mosque or marching with his army was not so fine to see as the beauty of this queen.

In short, I have seen an infinity of other strangers who have come to France and to the Court expressly to behold her whose fame had gone from end to end of Europe, so they said.

I once saw a gallant Neapolitan knight, who, having come to Paris and the Court, and not finding the said queen, delayed his return two months in order to see her, and having seen her he said these words: “In other days, the Princess of Salerno bore the like reputation for beauty in our city of Naples, so that a foreigner who had gone there and had not seen her, when he returned and related his visit, and was asked had he seen that princess, and answered no, was told that in that case he had not seen Naples. Thus I, if on my return without seeing this beautiful princess I were asked had I seen France and the Court, could scarcely say I had, for she is its ornament and enrichment. But now, having seen and contemplated her so well, I can say that I have seen the greatest beauty in the world, and that our Princess of Salerno is as nothing to her. Now I am well content to go, having enjoyed so fine a sight. I leave you Frenchmen to think how happy you should be to see at your ease and daily her fine face; and to approach that flame divine, which can warm and kindle frigid hearts from afar more than the beauty of our most beauteous dames near-by.” Such were the words said to me one day by that charming Neapolitan knight.

An honourable French gentleman, whom I could name, seeing her one evening, in her finest lustre and most stately majesty in a ball-room, said to me these words: “Ah! if the Sieur des Essarts, who, in his books of ‘Amadis’ forced himself with such pains to well and richly describe to the world the beautiful Nicquée and her glory, had seen this queen in his day he would not have needed to borrow so many rich and noble words to depict and set forth Nicquée’s beauty; ‘t would have sufficed him to declare she was the semblance and image of the Queen of Navarre, unique in this world; and thus the beauteous Nicquée would have been better pictured than she has been, and without superfluity of words.”

Therefore, M. de Ronsard had good reason to compose that glorious elegy found among his works in honour of this beautiful Princess Marguerite of France, then not married, in which he has introduced the goddess Venus asking her son whether in his rambles here below, seeing the ladies of the Court of France, he had found a beauty that surpassed her own. “Yes, mother,” Love replied, “I have found one on whom the glory of the finest sky is shed since ever she was born.” Venus flushed red and would not credit it, but sent a messenger, one of her Charites, to earth to examine that beauty and make a just report. On which we read in the elegy a rich and fine description of the charms of that accomplished princess, in the mouth of the Charite Pasithea, the reading of which cannot fail to please the world. But M. de Ronsard, as a very honourable and able lady said to me, stopped short and lacked a little something, in that he should have told how Pasithea returned to heaven, and there, discharging her commission, said to Venus that her son had only told the half; the which so saddened and provoked the goddess into jealousy, making her blame Jupiter for the wrong he did to form on earth a beauty that shamed those of heaven (and principally hers, the rarest of them all), that henceforth she wore mourning and made abstinence from pleasures and delights; for there is nothing so vexatious to a beautiful and perfect lady as to tell her she has her equal, or that another can surpass her.

Now, we must note that if our queen was beauteous in herself and in her nature, also she knew well how to array herself; and so carefully and richly was she dressed, both for her body and her head, that nothing lacked to give her full perfection.

To the Queen Isabella of Bavaria, wife of King Charles VI., belongs the praise of having brought to France the pomps and gorgeousness that henceforth clothed most splendidly and gorgeously the ladies;¹³ for in the old tapestries of that period in the houses of our kings we see portrayed the ladies attired as they then were, in nought but drolleries, slovenliness, and vulgarities, in place of the beautiful, superb fashions, dainty headgear, inventions, and ornaments of our queen; from which the ladies of the Court and France take pattern, so that ever since, appearing in her modes, they are now great ladies instead of simple madams, and so a hundredfold more charming and desirable. It is to our Queen Marguerite that ladies owe this obligation.

I remember (for I was there) that when the queen-mother took this queen, her daughter, to the King of Navarre, her husband, she passed through Coignac and made some stay. While they were there, came various grand and honourable ladies of the region to see them and do them reverence, who were all amazed at the beauty of the princess, and could not surfeit themselves in praising her to her mother, she being lost in joy. Wherefore she begged her daughter to array herself one day most gorgeously in the fine and superb apparel that she wore at Court for great and magnificent pomps and festivals, in order to give pleasure to these worthy dames. Which she did, to obey so good a mother; appearing robed superbly in a gown of silver tissue and dove-colour, à la bolonnoise [bouillonnée– with puffs?], and hanging sleeves, a rich head-dress with a white veil, neither too large nor yet too small; the whole accompanied with so noble a majesty and good grace that she seemed more a goddess of heaven than a queen of earth. The queen-mother said to her: “My daughter, you look well.” To which she answered: “Madame, I begin early to wear and to wear out my gowns and the fashions I have brought from Court, because when I return I shall bring nothing with me only scissors and stuffs to dress me then according to current fashions.” The queen-mother asked her: “What do you mean by that, my daughter? Is it not you yourself who invent and produce these fashions of dress? Wherever you go the Court will take them from you, not you from the Court.” Which was true; for after she returned she was always in advance of the Court, so well did she know how to invent in her dainty mind all sorts of charming things.

But the beauteous queen in whatsoever fashion she dressed, were it à la française with her tall head-dress, or in a simple coif, with her grand veil, or merely in a cap, could never prove which of these fashions became her most and made her most beautiful, admirable, and lovable; for she well knew how to adapt herself to every mode, adjusting each new device in a way not common and quite inimitable. So that if other ladies took her pattern to form it for themselves they could not rival her, as I have noticed a hundred times. I have seen her dressed in a robe of white satin that shimmered much, a trifle of rose-colour mingling in it, with a veil of tan crêpe or Roman gauze flung carelessly round her head; yet nothing was ever more beautiful; and whatever may be said of the goddesses of the olden time and the empresses as we see them on ancient coins, they look, though splendidly accoutred, like chambermaids beside her.

I have often heard our courtiers dispute as to which attire became and embellished her the most, about which each had his own opinion. For my part, the most becoming array in which I ever saw her was, as I think, and so did others, on the day when the queen-mother made a fête at the Tuileries for the Poles. She was robed in a velvet gown of Spanish rose, covered with spangles, with a cap of the same velvet, adorned with plumes and jewels of such splendour as never was. She looked so beautiful in this attire, as many told her, that she wore it often and was painted in it; so that among her various portraits this one carries the day over all others, as the eyes of good judges will tell, for there are plenty of her pictures to judge by.

When she appeared, thus dressed, at the Tuileries, I said to M. de Ronsard, who stood next to me: “Tell the truth, monsieur, do you not think that beautiful queen thus apparelled is like Aurora, as she comes at dawn with her fair white face surrounded with those rosy tints? – for face and gown have much in sympathy and likeness.” M. de Ronsard avowed that I was right; and on this my comparison, thinking it fine, he made a sonnet, which I would fain have now, to insert it here.

I also saw this our great queen at the first States-general at Blois on the day the king, her brother, made his harangue. She was dressed in a robe of orange and black (the ground being black with many spangles) and her great veil of ceremony; and being seated according to her rank she appeared so beautiful and admirable that I heard more than three hundred persons in that assembly say they were better instructed and delighted by the contemplation of such divine beauty than by listening to the grave and noble words of the king, her brother, though he spoke and harangued his best. I have also seen her dressed in her natural hair without any artifice or peruke; and though her hair was very black (having derived that from her father, King Henri), she knew so well how to curl and twist and arrange it after the fashion of her sister, the Queen of Spain, who wore none but her own hair, that such coiffure and adornment became her as well as, or better than, any other. That is what it is to have beauties by nature, which surpasses all artifice, no matter what it may be. And yet she did not like the fashion much and seldom used it, but preferred perukes most daintily fashioned.

In short, I should never have done did I try to describe all her adornments and forms of attire in which she was ever more and more beauteous; for she changed them often, and all were so becoming and appropriate, as though Nature and Art were striving to outdo each other in making her beautiful. But this is not all; for her fine accoutrements and adornments never ventured to cover her beautiful throat or her lovely bosom, fearing to wrong the eyes of all the world that roved upon so fine an object; for never was there seen the like in form and whiteness, and so full and plump that often the courtiers died with envy when they saw the ladies, as I have seen them, those who were her intimates, have license to kiss her with great delight.

I remember that a worthy gentleman, newly arrived at Court, who had never seen her, when he beheld her said to me these words: “I am not surprised that all you gentlemen should like the Court; for if you had no other pleasure than daily to see that princess, you have as much as though you lived in a terrestrial paradise.”

Roman emperors of the olden time, to please the people and give them pleasure, exhibited games and combats in their theatres; but to give pleasure to the people of France and gain their friendship, it was enough to let them often see Queen Marguerite, and enjoy the contemplation of so divine a face, which she never hid behind a mask like other ladies of our Court, for nearly all the time she went uncovered; and once, on a flowery Easter Day at Blois, still being Madame, sister of the king (although her marriage was then being treated of), I saw her appear in the procession more beautiful than ever, because, besides the beauty of her face and form, she was most superbly adorned and apparelled; her pure white face, resembling the skies in their serenity, was adorned about the head with quantities of pearls and jewels, especially brilliant diamonds, worn in the form of stars, so that the calm of the face and the sparkling jewels made one think of the heavens when starry. Her beautiful body with its full, tall form was robed in a gown of crinkled cloth of gold, the richest and most beautiful ever seen in France. This stuff was a gift made by the Grand Signior to M. de Grand-Champ, our ambassador, on his departure from Constantinople, – it being the Grand Signior’s custom to present to those who are sent to him a piece of the said stuff amounting to fifteen ells, which, so Grand-Champ told me, cost one hundred crowns the ell; for it was indeed a masterpiece. He, on coming to France and not knowing how to employ more worthily the gift of so rich a stuff, gave it to Madame, the sister of the king, who made a gown of it, and wore it first on the said occasion, when it became her well – for from one grandeur to another there is only a hand’s breadth. She wore it all that day, although its weight was heavy; but her beautiful, rich, strong figure supported it well and served it to advantage; for had she been a little shrimp of a princess, or a dame only elbow-high (as I have seen some), she would surely have died of the weight, or else have been forced to change her gown and take another.

That is not all: being in the precession and walking in her rank, her visage uncovered, not to deprive the people of so good a feast, she seemed more beautiful still by holding and bearing in her hand her palm (as our queens of all time have done) with royal majesty and a grace half proud half sweet, and a manner little common and so different from all the rest that whoso had seen her would have said: “Here is a princess who goes above the run of all things in the world.” And we courtiers went about saying, with one voice boldly, that she did well to bear a palm in her hand, for she bore it away from others; surpassing them all in beauty, in grace, and in perfection. And I swear to you that in that procession we forgot our devotions, and did not make them while contemplating and admiring that divine princess, who ravished us more than divine service; and yet we thought we committed no sin; for whoso contemplates divinity on earth does not offend the divinity of heaven; inasmuch as He made her such.

When the queen, her mother, took her from Court to meet her husband in Gascoigne, I saw how all the courtiers grieved at her departure as though a great calamity had fallen on their heads. Some said: “The Court is widowed of her beauty;” others: “The Court is gloomy, it has lost its sun;” others again: “How dark it is; we have no torch.” And some cried out: “Why should Gascoigne come here gascoigning to steal our beauty, destined to adorn all France and the Court, Fontainebleau, Saint-Germain, the hôtel du Louvre, and all the other noble places of our kings, to lodge her at Pau and Nérac, places so unlike the others?” But many said: “The deed is done; the Court and France have lost the loveliest flower of their garland.”

In short, on all sides did we hear resound such little speeches upon this departure, – half in vexed anger, half in sadness, – although Queen Louise de Lorraine remained behind, who was a very handsome and wise princess, and virtuous (of whom I hope to speak more worthily in her place); but for so long the Court had been accustomed to that beauteous sight it could not keep from grieving and proffering such words. Some there were who would have liked to kill M. de Duras, who came from his master the King of Navarre to obtain her; and this I know.

Once there came news to Court that she was dead in Auvergne some eight days. On which a person whom I met said to me: “That cannot be, for since that time the sky is clear and fine; if she were dead we should have seen eclipse of sun, because of the great sympathy two suns must have, and nothing could be seen but gloom and clouds.”

Enough has now been said, methinks, upon the beauty of her body, though the subject is so ample that it deserves a decade. I hope to speak of it again, but at present I must say something of her noble soul, which is lodged so well in that noble body. If it was born thus noble within her she has known how to keep it and maintain it so; for she loves letters much and reading. While young, she was, for her age, quite perfect in them; so that we could say of her: This princess is truly the most eloquent and best-speaking lady in the world, with the finest style of speech and the most agreeable to be found. When the Poles, as I have said before, came to do her reverence they brought with them the Bishop of Cracovie, the chief and head of the embassy, who made the harangue in Latin, he being a learned and accomplished prelate. The queen replied so pertinently and eloquently without the help of an interpreter, having well understood and comprehended the harangue, that all were struck with admiration, calling her with one voice a second Minerva, goddess of eloquence.

When the queen her mother took her to the king her husband, as I have said, she made her entry to Bordeaux, as was proper, being daughter and sister of a king, and wife of the King of Navarre, first prince of the blood, and governor of Guyenne. The queen her mother willed it so, for she loved and esteemed her much. This entry was fine; not so much for the sumptuous magnificence there made and displayed, as for the triumph of this most beautiful and accomplished queen of the world, mounted on a fine white horse superbly caparisoned; she herself dressed all in orange and spangles, so sumptuously as never was; so that none could get their surfeit of looking at her, admiring and lauding her to the skies.

Before she entered, the State assembly of the town came to do reverence and offer their means and powers, and to harangue her at the Chartreux, as is customary. M. de Bordeaux [the bishop] spoke for the clergy; M. le Maréchal de Biron, as mayor, wearing his robes of office, for the town, and for himself as lieutenant-general afterwards; also M. Largebaston, chief president for the courts of law. She answered them all, one after the other (for I heard her, being close beside her on the scaffold, by her command), so eloquently, so wisely and promptly and with such grace and majesty, even changing her words to each, without reiterating the first or the second, although upon the same subject (which is a thing to be remarked upon), that when I saw that evening the said president he said to me, and to others in the queen’s chamber, that he had never in his life heard better speech from any one; and that he understood such matters, having had the honour to hear the two queens, Marguerite and Jeanne, her predecessors, speak at the like ceremonies, – they having had in their day the most golden-speaking lips in France (those were the words he used to me); and yet they were but novices and apprentices compared to her, who truly was her mother’s daughter.

I repeated to the queen, her mother, this that the president had said to me, of which she was glad as never was; and told me that he had reason to think and say so, for, though she was her daughter, she could call her, without falsehood, the most accomplished princess in the world, able to say exactly what she wished to say the best. And in like manner I have heard and seen ambassadors, and great foreign seigneurs, after they had spoken with her, depart confounded by her noble speech.

I have often heard her make such fine discourse, so grave and so sententious, that could I put it clearly and correctly here in writing I should delight and amaze the world; but it is not possible; nor could any one transcribe her words, so inimitable are they.

But if she is grave, and full of majesty and eloquence in her high and serious discourses, she is just as full of charming grace in gay and witty speech; jesting so prettily, with give and take, that her company is most agreeable; for, though she pricks and banters others, ‘tis all so à propos and excellently said that no one can be vexed, but only glad of it.

But further: if she knows how to speak, she knows also how to write; and the beautiful letters we have seen from her attest it. They are the finest, the best couched, whether they be serious or familiar, and such that the greatest writers of the past and present may hide their heads and not produce their own when hers appear; for theirs are trifles near to hers. No one, having read them, would fail to laugh at Cicero with his familiar letters. And whoso would collect Queen Marguerite’s letters, together with her discourses, would make a school and training for the world; and no one should feel surprised at this, for, in herself, her mind is sound and quick, with great information, wise and solid. She is a queen in all things, and deserves to rule a mighty kingdom, even an empire, – about which I shall make the following digression, all the more because it has to do with the present subject.

When her marriage was granted at Blois to the King of Navarre, difficulties were made by Queen Jeanne [d’Albret, Henri IV.’s mother], very different then from what she wrote to my mother, who was her lady of honour, and at this time sick in her own house. I have read the letter, writ by her own hand, in the archives of our house; it says thus: —

“I write you this, my great friend, to rejoice and give you health with the good news my husband sends me. He having had the boldness to ask of the king Madame, his young daughter, for our son, the king has done him the honour to grant it; for which I cannot tell you the happiness I have.”

There is much to be said thereon. At this time there was at our Court a lady whom I shall not name, as silly as she could be. Being with the queen-mother one evening at her coucher, the queen inquired of her ladies if they had seen her daughter, and whether she seemed joyful at the granting of her marriage. This silly lady, who did not yet know her Court, answered first and said: “How, madame, should she not be joyful at such a marriage, inasmuch as it will lead to the crown and make her some day Queen of France, when it falls to her future husband, as it well may do in time.” The queen, hearing so strange a speech, replied: “Ma mie, you are a great fool. I would rather die a thousand deaths than see your foolish prophecy accomplished; for I hope and wish long life and good prosperity to the king, my son, and all my other children.” On which a very great lady, one of her intimates, inquired: “But, madame, in case that great misfortune – from which God keep us! – happens, would you not be very glad to see your daughter Queen of France, inasmuch as the crown would fall to her by right through that of her husband?” To which the queen made answer: “Much as I love this daughter, I think, if that should happen, we should see France much tried with evils and misfortunes. I would rather die (as she did in fact) than see her in that position; for I do not believe that France would obey the King of Navarre as it does my sons, for many reasons which I do not tell.”

Behold two prophecies accomplished: one, that of the foolish lady, the other, but only till her death, that of the able princess. The latter prophecy has failed to-day, by the grace which God has given our king [Henri IV.], and by the force of his good sword and the valour of his brave heart, which have made him so great, so victorious, so feared, and so absolute a king as he is to-day after too many toils and hindrances. May God preserve him by His holy grace in such prosperity, for we need him much, we his poor subjects.

The queen said further: “If by the abolition of the Salic law, the kingdom should come to my daughter in her own right, as other kingdoms have fallen to the distaff, certainly my daughter is as capable of reigning, or more so, as most men and kings whom I have known; and I think that her reign would be a fine one, equal to that of the king her grandfather and that of the king her father, for she has a great mind and great virtues for doing that thing.” And thereupon she went on to say how great an abuse was the Salic law, and that she had heard M. le Cardinal de Lorraine say that when he arranged the peace between the two kings with the other deputies in the abbey of Cercan, a dispute came up on a point of the Salic law touching the succession of women to the kingdom of France; and M. le Cardinal de Grandvelle, otherwise called d’Arras, rebuked the said Cardinal de Lorraine, declaring that the Salic law was a veritable abuse, which old dreamers and chroniclers had written down, without knowing why, and so made it accepted; although, in fact, it was never made or decreed in France, and was only a custom that Frenchmen had given each other from hand to hand, and so introduced; whereas it was not just, and, consequently, was violable.