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DISCOURSE VII.
OF VARIOUS ILLUSTRIOUS LADIES. ²²

1. Isabelle d’Autriche, wife of Charles IX., King of France [daughter of the Emperor Maximilian II.]

We have had our Queen of France, Isabelle d’Autriche, who was married to King Charles IX., of whom it is everywhere said she was one of the best, the gentlest, the wisest, and most virtuous queens who reigned since kings and queens began to reign. I can say this, and every man who has ever seen or heard of her will say it with me, and not do wrong to others, but with the greatest truth. She was very beautiful, having the complexion of her face as fine and delicate as any lady of her Court, and very agreeable. Her figure was beautiful also, though it was of only medium height. She was extremely wise, and very virtuous and kind, never giving pain to others, no matter who, nor offending any by a single word; and as to that, she was very sober, speaking little, and then in Spanish.

She was most devout, but in no way bigoted, not showing her devotion by external acts too visible and too extreme, such as I have seen in some of our paternosterers; but, without failing in her ordinary hours of praying to God, she used them well, so that she did not need to borrow extraordinary ones. It is true, as I have heard her ladies tell, that when she was in bed and hidden, her curtains well-drawn, she would kneel on her knees, in her shift, and pray to God an hour and a half, beating her breast and macerating it in her great devotion. Which they did not see by her consent, and then not till her husband, King Charles, was dead; at which time, she having gone to bed and all her women withdrawn, one of them remained to sleep in her chamber; and this lady, hearing her sigh one night, bethought her of looking through the curtains and saw her in that state, and praying to God in that manner, and so continuing every night; until at last the waiting-woman, who was familiar with her, began to remonstrate, and told her she did harm to her health. On which the queen was angry at being discovered and advised, and wished to conceal what she did, commanding her to say no word of it, and, for that night, desisted; but the night after she made up for it, thinking that her women did not perceive what she did, whereas they saw and perceived her by her shadow thrown by the night-lamp filled with wax which she kept lighted on her bed to read and pray to God; though other queens and princesses kept theirs upon their sideboards. Such ways of prayer are not like those of hypocrites, who, wishing to make an appearance before the world, say their prayers and devotions publicly, mumbling them aloud, that others may think them devout and saintly.

Thus prayed our queen for the soul of the king, her husband, whom she regretted deeply, – making her plaints and regrets, not as a crazed and despairing woman, with loud outcries, wounding her face, tearing her hair, and playing the woman who is praised for weeping; but mourning gently, shedding her beautiful and precious tears so tenderly, sighing so softly and lowly, that we knew she restrained her grief, not to make pretence to the world of brave appearance (as I have seen some ladies do), but keeping in her soul her greatest anguish. Thus a torrent of water if arrested is more violent than one that runs its ordinary course.

Here I am reminded to tell how, during the illness of the king, her lord and husband, he dying on his bed, and she going to visit him; suddenly she sat down beside him, not by his pillow as the custom is, but a little apart and facing him where he lay; not speaking to him, as her habit was, she held her eyes upon him so fixedly as she sat there you would have said she brooded over him in her heart with the love she bore him; and then she was seen to shed tears so quietly and tenderly that those who did not look at her would not have known it, drying her eyes while making semblance to blow her nose, causing pity to one (for I saw her) in seeing her so tortured without yielding to her grief or her love, and without the king perceiving it. Then she rose, and went to pray God for his cure; for she loved and honoured him extremely, although she knew his amorous complexion, and the mistresses that he had both for honour and for pleasure. But she never for that gave him worse welcome, nor said to him any harsh words; bearing patiently her little jealousy, and the robbery he did to her. She was very proper and dignified with him; indeed it was fire and water meeting together, for as much as the king was quick, eager, fiery, she was cold and very temperate.

I have been told by those who know that after her widowhood, among her most privileged ladies who tried to give her consolation, there was one (for you know among a large number there is always a clumsy one) who, thinking to gratify her said: “Ah, madame, if God instead of a daughter had given you a son, you would now be queen-mother of the king, and your grandeur would be increased and strengthened.” “Alas!” she replied, “do not say to me such grievous things. As if France had not troubles enough without my producing her one which would complete her ruin! For, had I a son, there would be more divisions, troubles, seditions to gain the government during his minority; from that would come more wars than ever; and each would be trying to get his profit in despoiling the poor child, as they would have done to the late king, my husband, when he was little, if the queen-mother and her good servitors had not opposed it. If I had a son, I should be miserable to think I had conceived him and so caused a thousand maledictions from the people, whose voice is that of God. That is why I praise my God, and take with gratitude the fruit he gives me, whether it be to me myself for better or for worse.”

Such was the goodness of this good princess towards the country and people to which she had been brought by marriage. I have heard related how, at the massacre of Saint-Bartholomew, she, knowing nothing of it nor even hearing the slightest breath of it, went to bed as usual, and did not wake till morning, at which time they told her of the fine drama that was playing [le beau mystère qui se jouoit]. “Alas!” she said quickly, “the king, my husband, does he know of it?” “Yes, madame,” they answered her; “it was he himself who ordered it.” “0 my God!” she cried, “what is this? What counsellors are those who gave him such advice? My God! I implore thee, I beg thee to pardon him; for if thou dost not pity him, I fear that this offence is unforgivable.” Then she asked for her prayer-book and began her orisons, imploring God with tears in her eyes.

Consider, I beg of you, the goodness and wisdom of this queen in not approving such a festival nor the deed then performed, although she had reasons to desire the total extermination of M. l’amiral and those of his religion, not only because they were contrary to hers, which she adored and honoured before all else in the world, but because she saw how they troubled the States of the king, her husband; and also because the emperor, her father, had said to her when she parted from him to come to France: “My daughter, you will be queen of the finest, most powerful and greatest kingdom in the world, and for that I hold you to be very happy; but happier would you be if you could find that kingdom as flourishing as it once was; but instead you will find it torn, divided, weakened; for though the king, your husband, holds a good part of it, the princes and seigneurs of the Religion hold on their side the other part of it.” And as he said to her, so she found it.

This queen having become a widow, many persons, men and women of the Court, the most clear-sighted that I know, were of opinion that the king, on his return from Poland, would marry her although she was his sister-in-law; for he could have done so by dispensation of the pope, who can do much in such matters, and above all for great personages because of the public good that comes of it. There were many reasons why this marriage should be made; I leave them to be deduced by high discoursers, without alleging them myself. But among others was that of recognizing by this marriage the great obligations the king had received from the emperor on his return from Poland and departure thence; for it cannot be doubted that if the emperor had placed the smallest obstacle in his way, he could never have left Poland or reached France safely. The Poles would have kept him had he not departed without bidding them farewell; and the Germans lay in wait for him on all sides to catch him (as they did that brave King Richard of England of whom we read in the chronicles); they would surely have taken him prisoner and held him for ransom, and perhaps worse; for they were bitter against him for the Saint-Bartholomew; or, at least, the Protestant princes were. But, voluntarily and without ceremony, he threw himself in good faith upon the emperor, who received him very graciously and amiably, and with much honour and privilege as though they were brothers, and feasted him nobly; then, after having kept him several days, he conducted him himself for a day or two, giving him safe passage through his territory; so that King Henri, by his favour, reached Carinthia, the land of the Venetians, Venice, and then his own kingdom.

This was the obligation the king was under to the emperor; so that many persons, as I have said, were of opinion that King Henri III. would meet it by drawing closer their alliance. But at the time he went to Poland he saw at Blamont, in Lorraine, Mademoiselle de Vaudemont, Louise de Lorraine, one of the handsomest, best, and most accomplished princesses in Christendom, on whom he cast his eyes so ardently that he was soon in love, and in such a manner that (nursing his flame during the whole of his absence) on his return to France he despatched from Lyon M. du Gua, one of his prime favourites, to Lorraine, where he arranged and concluded the marriage between him and her very easily, and without altercation, as I leave you to think; because by the father and the daughter no such luck was expected, the one to be father-in-law of a king of France, and the daughter to be queen. Of her I shall speak elsewhere.

To return now to our little queen, who, disliking to remain in France for several reasons, especially because she was not recognized and endowed as she should have been, resolved to go and finish the remainder of her noble days with the emperor and empress, her father and mother. When there, the Catholic king being widowed of Queen Anne of Austria, own sister to Queen Isabelle, he desired to espouse the latter, and sent to beg the empress, his own sister, to lay his proposals before her. But she would not listen to them, not the first, nor the second, nor the third time her mother the empress spoke of them; excusing herself on the honourable ashes of the king, her husband, which she would not insult by a second marriage, and also on the ground of too great consanguinity and close parentage between them, which might greatly anger God; on which the empress and her brother the king urged her to lay the matter before a very learned and eloquent Jesuit, who exhorted and preached to her as much as he could, not forgetting to quote all the passages of Holy and other Scripture, which might serve his purpose. But the queen confounded him quickly by other quotations as fine and more truthful, for, since her widowhood, she had given herself to the study of God’s word; besides which, she told him her determined resolution, which was her most sacred defence, namely, not to forget her husband in a second marriage. On which the Jesuit was forced to leave her without gaining anything. But, being urged to return by a letter from the King of Spain, who would not accept the resolute answer of the princess, he treated her with rigorous words and even threats, so that she, not willing to lose her time contesting against him, cut him short by saying that if he meddled with her again she would make him repent it, and even went so far as to threaten to have him whipped in her kitchen. I have also heard, but I do not know if it be true, that this Jesuit having returned for the third time, she turned away and had him chastised for his presumption. I do not believe this; for she loved persons of holy lives, as those men are.

Such was the great constancy and noble firmness of this virtuous queen, which she kept to the end of her days, towards the venerated bones of the king her husband, which she honoured incessantly with regrets and tears; and not being able to furnish more (for a fountain must in the end dry up) she succumbed, and died so young that she was only thirty-five years old at the time of her death. Loss most inestimable! for she might long have served as a mirror of virtue to the honest ladies of all Christendom.

If, of a surety, she manifested love to the king her husband, by her constancy, her virtuous continence, and her continual grief, she showed it still more in her behaviour to the Queen of Navarre, her sister-in-law; for, knowing her to be in a great extremity of famine in the castle of Usson in Auvergne, abandoned by most of her relations and by so many others whom she had obliged, she sent to her and offered her all her means, and so provided that she gave her half the revenue she received in France, sharing with her as if she had been her own sister; and they say Queen Marguerite would indeed have suffered severely without this great liberality of her good and beautiful sister. Wherefore she deferred to her much, and honoured and loved her so that scarcely could she bear her death patiently, as people do in the world, but took to her bed for twenty days, weeping continually with constant moans, and ever since has not ceased to regret and deplore her; expending on her memory most beautiful words, which she needed not to borrow from others, in order to praise her and to give her immortality. I have been told that Queen Isabelle composed and printed a beautiful book which touched on the word of God, and also another concerning histories of what happened in France during the time she was there. I know not if this be true, but I am assured of it, and also that persons have seen that book in the hands of the Queen of Navarre, to whom she sent it before she died, and who set great store by it, calling it a fine thing; and if so divine an oracle said so, we must believe it.

This is a summary of what I have to say of our good Queen Isabella, of her goodness, her virtue, her continence, her constancy, and of her loyal love to the king her husband. And were it not her nature to be good and virtuous (I heard M. de Langeac, who was in Spain when she died, tell how the empress said to him: “That which was best among us is no more”), we might suppose that in all her actions Queen Isabelle sought to imitate her mother and her aunts.

2. Jeanne d’Autriche, wife of Jean, Infante of Portugal, and mother of the king, Don Sebastian.

This princess of Spain was of great beauty and very majestic, or she would not have been a Spanish princess; for a fine carriage and good grace always accompany the majesty of a Spanish woman. I had the honour of seeing her and talking with her rather privately, being in Spain on my way back from Portugal. I had gone to pay my respects to our Queen of Spain, Élisabeth of France, and was talking with her, she asking news both of France and Portugal, when they came to tell her that Madame la Princesse Jeanne was arriving. On which the queen said to me, “Do not stir, M. de Bourdeille. You will see a beautiful and honourable princess. It will please you to see her, and she will be very glad to see you and ask you news of the king her son, since you have lately seen him.” Whereupon, the princess arrived, and I thought her very beautiful according to my taste, very well attired, and wearing on her head a Spanish toque of white crêpe coming low in a point upon her nose, and dressed as a Spanish widow, who wears silk usually. I admired and gazed upon her so fixedly that I was on the point of feeling ravished when the queen called me and said that Madame la princesse wished to hear from me news of her son the king; I had overheard her telling the princess that she was talking with a gentleman of her brother Court who had just come from Portugal.

On which I approached the princess, and kissed her gown in the Spanish manner. She received me very gently and intimately; and then began to ask me news of the king, her son, his behaviour, and what I thought of him; for at that time they were thinking to make a marriage between him and Madame Marguerite de France, sister of the king, and in these days Queen of Navarre. I told her everything; for at that time I spoke Spanish as well as, or better than French. Among her other questions she asked me this: “Was her son handsome, and whom did he resemble?” I told her he was certainly one of the handsomest princes of Christendom and resembled her in everything and was, in fact, the very image of her beauty; at which she gave a little smile and the colour came into her face, which showed much gladness at what I said. After talking with her some time they came to call the queen to supper, and the two princesses separated; the queen saying to me with a smile: “You have given her a great pleasure in what you said of the resemblance of her son.”

And afterwards she asked me what I thought of her; whether I did not think her an honourable woman and such as she had described her to me, adding: “I think she would like much to marry the king, my brother [Charles IX.], and I should like it, too.” She knew I should repeat this to the queen-mother on my return to Court, which was then at Arles in Provence; and I did so; but she said she was too old for him, old enough to be his mother. I told the queen-mother, however, what had been said to me in Spain, on good authority, namely: that the princess had said she was firmly resolved not to marry again unless with the King of France, and failing that to retire from the world. In fact, she had so set her fancy on this high match and station, for her heart was very lofty, that she fully believed in attaining her end and contentment; otherwise she meant to end her days, as I have said, in a monastery, where she was already building a house for her retreat. Accordingly she kept this hope and belief very long in her mind, managing her widowhood sagely, until she heard of the marriage of the king to her niece [Isabelle], and then, all hope being lost, she said these words, or something like them, as I have heard tell: “Though the niece be more in her springtime and less weighed with years than the aunt, the beauty of the aunt, now in its summer, all made and formed by charming years, and bearing fruit, is worth far more than the fruit her youthful blooms give promise of; for the slightest misadventure will undo them, make them fall and perish, no more no less than the trees of spring, which with their lovely blooms promise fine fruits in summer; but an evil wind may blow and beat them down and nought be left but leaves. But let it be done to the will of God, with whom I now shall marry for all time, and not with others.”

As she said, so she did, and led so good and holy a life apart from the world that she left to ladies, both great and small, a noble example to imitate. There may be some who have said: “Thank God she could not marry King Charles, for if she had done so she would have left behind the hard conditions of widowhood and resumed all the sweetness of marriage.” That may be presumed. But may we not, on the other hand, presume that the great desire she showed the world to marry that great king was a form and manner of ostentation and Spanish pride, manifesting her lofty aspirations which she would not lower? – for seeing her sister Marie Empress of Austria and wishing to equal her she aspired to be Queen of France which is worth an empire – or more.

To conclude: she was, to my thinking, one of the most accomplished foreign princesses I have ever seen, though she may be blamed for retreating from the world more from vexation than devotion; but the fact remains that she did it; and her good and saintly end has shown in her I know not what of sanctity.