If, on the other hand, we glance at the literature which flourished in France during the period of the revival of learning, we can not but infer that the morals of the people at large were not pure. During the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries, the standard reading of the educated cla.s.ses among the French was the celebrated _Roman de la Rose_, a work of remarkable talent, but, at the same time, distinguished by a cynic vein of philosophy and a singular obscenity of language. No portion of that work was wholly free from lewd expressions, and it would be impossible to quote fifty lines of it to-day in a modern language. The doctrine of the author with regard to women was insulting and cynical.[176] They were uniformly depicted as being restrained only by legal difficulties from giving way to the loosest pa.s.sions; and all men, in like manner, were painted as seducers, adulterers, and violators of young girls. Such was the reading of the best society in France. The _Roman de la Rose_ was to them what Shakspeare is to us.
Nor was it alone of its kind. Of the works which that age has bequeathed to us, nearly all are tainted with the same grossness of language and pruriency of idea. All, or nearly all, breathe the air of the brothel. It was rather a matter of boasting than of shame with the authors. Villon and Regnier seem to plume themselves on their familiarity with scenes of debauch, and their extensive acquaintance among the prost.i.tute cla.s.s. The best of their works are descriptions of episodes of dissipation; their most lively sketches have prost.i.tutes, or their fortunes, or their diseases, for the themes. They seemed to fancy they were imitating Horace when they borrowed his most odious blemishes. Some of them were actors as well as poets, and used the machinery of the stage to disseminate their lewd compositions. Though it was still unusual, or even unlawful, for women to appear on the stage in their time, the boys who played female parts were well drilled to the business, and the performances which delighted the towns and villages of France fell but little short, in point of grossness, of the theatrical enormities of the imperial era at Rome.
One may form some idea of the popularity of erotic literature at this period in France from the amazing vocabulary of erotic terms which is gathered from the works of Rabelais, Beroald de Verville, Regnier, Brantome, and their contemporaries. There was not a form of lewdness for which an appropriate name had not been invented; and as to the ordinary acts and instruments of prost.i.tution, a dictionary of synonyms might have been compiled without embracing all of them. Monsieur Dufour, in his conscientious work, fills a couple of pages with the mere words that were employed to express the act of fornication.
Many events likewise indicate a loose state of morals. The history of the _incubes_ and _succubes_, filling some s.p.a.ce in every treatise on demonology, is a most curious feature of the morals of the day. The existence of demons who made a practice of a.s.sailing the virtue of girls and boys was admitted by some of the fathers of the Church,[177] who quoted the words of Genesis in support of the singular doctrine. They were of two kinds: _incubi_, from the Latin _incubare_, male demons who a.s.sailed the chast.i.ty of girls; and _succubae_, female demons who robbed boys of their innocence. The old chronicles are full of accounts of the mischievous deeds of these evil spirits. As might be expected, the _incubi_ were more numerous and more enterprising than the _succubae_. For one boy who confessed that a female demon had attacked him in his sleep, and compelled him to minister to her sensuality, there were a score of girls who furnished very tolerable evidence of having yielded their virginity to creatures of the male gender, who, they were satisfied, could be none other than devils. The ecclesiastical writers of the period have preserved a number of scandalous stories of the kind, which were so well credited that Pope Innocent VIII. felt impelled to issue a bull on the subject, and provide the faithful with an efficacious formula of exorcism.
Females, most of whom appeared to be nuns, confessed that they had been subject to the scandalous visits of the demons for long periods of time, and that neither fasting, nor prayer, nor spiritual exercise could release them from the hated plague. Some girls were brought to admit a similar intercourse, and were burnt at the stake as partakers of the nature of sorceresses.[178] Married women made similar confessions. They stated that they were able to affirm that intercourse with demons was extremely painful; that their frigid nature, combined with their monstrous proportions, rendered their society a severe affliction, independently of the sin. It was noticed that the women, married or single, who applied to the ecclesiastical authorities for relief from this curious form of torment were almost invariably young and pretty.
In the year 1637 a public discussion took place at Paris on the question, Whether there exist _succubae_ and _incubi_, and whether they can procreate their species? The discussion was long and elaborate. It was conducted by a body of learned doctors, in presence of a large audience, composed partly of ladies; and while the judgment of the tribunal appeared to be in the negative, it was not so emphatic as to settle the question.[179] Even a century later, when one of the royal physicians undertook to explode the theory of lewd demons, and to prove that girls had endeavored to conceal their intercourse with lovers by attributing to them a devilish character, the public was not convinced, and the _incubi_ were not left without believers. The laws still p.r.o.nounced the penalty of death against all persons, male or female, who had commerce with demons.
Another practice which was brought to a close about the same time was ent.i.tled "_Le sabat des sorciers_," the witches" vigil. It appears that, at the earliest times of which we have any record, the inhabitants of France and Germany were in the habit of frequenting nocturnal a.s.semblies in which witchcraft was believed or pretended to occupy a prominent place.
In the thirteenth century they were denounced by Pope Gregory IX.,[180]
who was satisfied that the devil had to do with them, and that their prime object was the gratification of sensuality. His bull did not attain its object. The witches" meetings were still held, or believed to have been held throughout the fourteenth, fifteenth, and part of the sixteenth centuries. The popular belief was that the persons in league with witches anointed their bodies with magical ointment, bestrode a broom, and were forthwith carried through the air to the place of meeting; that Satan was present at the ceremony in the form of a huge he-goat, and received the homage of the witches and their proselytes; that songs and dances followed next in order, and that the whole performance was closed with a scene of promiscuous debauchery.[181] The Inquisition took the matter in hand, and obtained affidavits from several females averring that they had had commerce with demons on these occasions, and relating with singular crudity the peculiar sensations they experienced.[182] On the strength of this evidence prosecutions were inst.i.tuted, and many persons were condemned and executed.
It has been usual in modern times to regard the persecution of the witches as a proof of the barbarous intolerance of the ancient Church; but, in truth, a careful examination of the evidence leaves no room for doubting that witchcraft was only the cloak of real vices. Most of the persons who were burned in France as sorcerers had really used the popular belief in magic to hide their own debaucheries, and had succeeded in depraving large numbers of youth of both s.e.xes. It was stated by a theological writer of the time of Francis I., that in his day there were one hundred thousand persons sold to Satan in France.[183] Allowing for some exaggeration, it must still be inferred from this statement that this form of prost.i.tution had a.s.sumed alarming proportions. Nor is there any good reason for doubting but priests and other persons of lewd propensities turned the simplicity of the village girls to account in very many instances, and richly earned the severe penalty that was inflicted upon them by the arm of the Church. The vigil, or _sabat_, disappears from history during the sixteenth century. That it had been for some time before its extinction a haunt of debauchees and a fertile source of prost.i.tution, the writers on demonology and the old chroniclers establish incontrovertibly.
Other aids to prost.i.tution were obtained from the very ranks of the Church. During the Middle Ages numbers of strange sects appeared, many of which relied for success on the favor they allowed to sensuality. At the present day it is not easy to determine what proportion of the stories that are in print respecting many of these sects were the fruit of sectarian jealousy on the part of their rivals; some of them were doubtless calumniated, but there are others about whose character and practices there is no room for controversy. The Flagellants, for instance, who counted eight hundred thousand proselytes in France in the fourteenth century, were unquestionably depraved. They marched in procession, men and women together, through the cities of France, each member of the society using the whip freely on the bare back of the person before him; and at night they a.s.sembled in country places, and proceeded to more serious flagellations. The opinion of learned persons ascribed erotic effects to these flagellations, it being said, apparently with truth, that when the flagellants had excited their senses by their discipline, they gave way to frantic debauchery. However this be, it is plain that the spectacle of naked men and women marching in procession and scourging one another can not but have been provocative of prost.i.tution.[184]
Another similar sect was the Adamites, who argued that nudity was the law of nature, and that clothes were an abomination in the sight of G.o.d. It is said that, at first, the Adamites insisted on nudity only during their religious exercises, and that their proselytes stripped themselves within the place of worship; but one, Picard, who became a leading authority in the sect, took the ground that their principles should be carried out boldly in the face of the world. He and his followers, male and female, accordingly appeared in the streets in the costume in which they were born. The Inquisition very properly laid hands on them, punished some, and exiled the others.[185]
Again: if we pa.s.s from individual accidents to the state of society at large, we shall find many features that can not have been aids to virtue.
Allusion has already been made to the obscene character of much of the early poetry of France, and to the excessive grossness of those works especially which obtained, and perhaps deserved, the widest popularity.
Many of the customs of the day were equally adverse to sound morals. To cite one by way of example: On the _Jour des Innocents_, which fell on the 28th of December, men were allowed to invade the bed-chambers of girls, and, if they could find them in bed, to administer the chastis.e.m.e.nt which used to be common in schools. Hence arose the proverbial expression, _Donner les innocents a quelqu"un_, which meant to birch a person on the bare skin. No doubt the old chroniclers were justified in saying that when the girl was worth the trouble, the invader of the chamber was not satisfied with inflicting a chastis.e.m.e.nt.[186]
Marriages were attended with ceremonies far grosser than any that were practiced in Rome. It was not only decorous, it was fashionable, both for men and women, to spy out the bed-chamber of the newly-wedded couple, and the fortunate man or girl who had contrived to see the interior of the room through a c.h.i.n.k in the wall or a hole in the door was loudly applauded when the result of his or her discoveries was made known.[187]
The invention of bridal chambers is therefore not original in America, as some have supposed.
Strange to say, neither the lewdness of the poets nor the grossness of the social habits of the times strikes one as more singular than the tone of the sermons which were delivered in Paris at the same period. One of the most famous preachers of the day was Maillard, who rose to eminence under Louis XI. His sermons on the luxury and corruptions of the times were very popular. We find him cursing the "burgesses" who, for the sake of gain, let their houses to prost.i.tutes: "_Vultis vivere de posterioribus meretric.u.m_," he cries, indignantly. He denounces with extraordinary virulence the "crimes of impudicity which are committed in churches," and which "the pillars and nave would denounce, if they had eyes and a voice."
He did not spare his congregation. Turning fiercely to the women who sat before him, he apostrophized them: "Dicatis, vos, mulieres, posuistis, posuistis filias ad peccandum? vos, mulieres, per vestros traitus impudiae, provocastis alios ad peccandum? Et vos, maquerellae, quid dicitis?" He thunders against this latter cla.s.s, the procuresses, who ought, he says, to be burned at the stake, especially when, as is often the case, they are both the mothers and the venders of their daughters. Words fail him to denounce the intercourse of abandoned women with ecclesiastics; he invokes the divine wrath upon those of his congregation _quae dant corpus curialibus, monachis, presbyteris_. Both he and other famous preachers of the day p.r.o.nounced maledictions upon lewd convents, which some of them say are mere seraglios for the bishops and monks, where every abomination is practiced.
It was estimated that at this time, say the fifteenth century, when Paris was comparatively a small city, it contained five to six thousand prost.i.tutes, who were said by an Italian to be far more beautiful and attractive than any prost.i.tutes he had seen elsewhere.
CHAPTER VII.
FRANCE.--HISTORY FROM THE MIDDLE AGES TO LOUIS XIII.
The Court.--Louis IX. to Charles V.--Charles VI.--Agnes Sorel.--Louis XI.--Charles VIII.--Louis XII.--Francis I.--La Belle Feronniere.-- Henry II.--Diana de Poictiers.--Lewd Books and Pictures.--Catharine of Medicis.--Margaret.--Henry IV.--Mademoiselle de Entragues.--Henry III.--Mignons.--Influence of the Ligue.--Indecency of Dress.-- Theatricals.--Ordinance of 1560.--Police Regulations.
The memoranda we have already given will enable the reader to form an idea of the state of society at large. It remains to say something of the court, which, in some respects, was France.
From Louis IX. to Charles V. inclusive, it is said that the kings of France set no example of debauchery, and that the court rather encouraged virtue than vice. When the sisters-in-law of Philip the Handsome scandalized Paris by their loose life in the Tour de Nesle, into which they were said to make a practice of inveigling students, whom they a.s.sa.s.sinated when their lubricity was satiated, the king had them brought to punishment and dealt with as though the popular scandal was well founded in fact. When Charles VI. ascended the throne the scene changed.
This unfortunate monarch was not only himself weak and depraved, but his wife, Isabel of Bavaria, was more vicious still. The pair encouraged every practice that could shock modesty or outrage decency. The queen lived almost openly with her lover, the Duke of Orleans. The king, so long as he retained his reason, was a leading actor in the scandalous masquerades of the court, and narrowly escaped losing his life on one occasion when he disguised himself as a devil, and danced immodestly before the ladies of the court. Round his loins, as round those of his fellow-demons, a sort of girdle of tow had been fastened, and all the masqueraders were chained together. In the midst of their dances, some foolish person threw a lighted torch at them. Their girdles took fire, and all were burned to death except the king, whom the d.u.c.h.ess of Berri saved by courageously raising her skirts and throwing them over the burning monarch.
Charles had had many mistresses in his youth. When he went mad, the physicians directed the queen to refuse to discharge her conjugal duty.
Charles had enough of his former nature left to resent this privation. He even employed force, and succeeded at last in compelling his wife to resume her place in the royal couch. She contrived, however, to defraud him by hiring a pretty girl to take her place. It is said Charles never detected the fraud. His wife, meanwhile, gave the reins to her loose pa.s.sions, and was known to have had at least a score of lovers.
A very striking picture of the manners of the time is afforded by the story of Agnes Sorel. She was, as is known, the mistress of Charles VII., a lady of good family, and, otherwise than as the king"s mistress, of spotless reputation. Her influence over the king she used for the best of purposes. It was she who roused him to make the efforts which eventually expelled the foreigner from France. Her private character was laudable: she was amiable, generous, kind, and true; yet when she visited Paris in company with the king, the crowd followed her whenever she appeared in the streets, insulting her, and calling her a prost.i.tute in the grossest terms. The king lived with her eighteen years, but never ventured to acknowledge her publicly as his mistress. Of the four daughters she bore him, three only were legitimated by his successor.
Louis XI. had a seraglio and a colony of b.a.s.t.a.r.ds before he became king, nor did he alter his mode of life when he a.s.sumed control of the kingdom.
His favorites were usually chosen from the lowest cla.s.s of his subjects, many of whom had gone through an apprenticeship for the king"s service in the houses of prost.i.tution of the capital. Louis never pretended to bear them any affection; he used them as he used the men of letters who composed for his diversion the lewd tales which have reached us.
Charles VIII. appears to have been more virtuous than his predecessors, though, of course, he did not pique himself upon any conjugal fidelity. A story is told which reflects credit upon his character. It is said that during his campaign in Italy, when he retired to his chamber one evening, he found there a young girl of marvelous beauty in a state of complete deshabille. She was kneeling and in tears when the king entered. On Charles inquiring the cause of her sorrow, she confessed that her parents had sold her to the king"s valet for the use of his majesty, and conjured Charles to spare her. The king was touched by her distress. He inquired into the facts, and, finding that they were as she stated, and, farther, that she was betrothed to a youth of the neighborhood, he sent for him and married the young couple forthwith.
It appears certain that Charles"s death was caused by his indiscreet commerce with the s.e.x. All the chroniclers state that he fell a victim to the indulgence of his pa.s.sions, being frail of body and of feeble const.i.tution.
The court of Louis XII. was purer than that of his predecessors, owing to the austere virtue of the queen. Louis himself had shared the profligacies of his family in his youth, but, on becoming king, he allowed his wife to regulate his household according to her principles. For the first time for many years, say the old chroniclers, prost.i.tution was banished from court.
We shall have something to say of Francis I. in connection with syphilis, of which he was a conspicuous and an early victim. At the age of eighteen his mother stated that he had been punished where he sinned. The misfortune did not operate as a warning. His life was notoriously dissolute at a time when profligacy was so much the rule that it was hardly likely to be noticed. Brantome a.s.serts positively[188] that his expedition to Italy was prompted by the desire to make acquaintance with a courtesan of Milan whose charms Admiral Bonnivet had extolled. Previous to his time, it seems, there had always been attached to the court a body of prost.i.tutes for the use of the courtiers. Francis suppressed this body, and actually invited the ladies of the court to take their place. Brantome reviews this policy, and while he praises it in view of the "joyous pastimes" to which it led, he is bound to acknowledge that it produced the greatest immorality ever known in France. The ladies of the town followed the example of those of the court, and but little was wanting but that every woman in France became a prost.i.tute.
It was the custom during this reign for the king to invite all his courtiers and their wives and daughters to lodge at the royal palaces from time to time. The ladies had apartments by themselves, and to each room the king had a key. We are a.s.sured that the husbands, fathers, and brothers of ladies who refused to submit to the royal demands had but little chance of retaining their offices. If they had been guilty of maladministration or peculation, as was the case with most of them, they could hope for pardon only through the complaisance of their female relatives. The story of M. de St. Vallier, who was reprieved on the scaffold in payment for the favors which his daughter, the beautiful Diana of Poictiers, had granted to the king, is too well known to need repet.i.tion here.
It was the boast of Francis that he had always respected the honor of the ladies of the court, and the boast was just, from his point of view. His visits to his mistresses were always made in a mysterious manner, and at night. Even to the d.u.c.h.ess of Etampes, who was his acknowledged mistress and procuress for a period of nearly twenty years, he never behaved in public in a manner to compromise her reputation. In private he was not so scrupulous. When this lady"s husband disturbed the king one evening, Francis drew his sword on him, and threatened to kill him instantly if he dared to reveal what every one knew, or to punish the wife at whose adultery he had connived for years. His idea seems to have been that words alone const.i.tuted the sin of debauchery. On one occasion he took all the ladies of the court to see the royal deer in the rutting season; but when a gentleman ventured a very obvious pleasantry on the scene, he exiled him from court for life.
His death has been frequently described. Some writers imply, by their silence, doubts of the authenticity of the story of _La Belle Ferronniere_; but it rests on very tolerable evidence. This lady, who was uncommonly beautiful, was the wife of a lawyer or a merchant (the authorities do not agree on the point). The king solicited her favors, but, strange to say, was met with a positive refusal. On consultation with the court lawyers, however, Francis was informed that he could, by the exercise of his royal prerogative, enjoy the company of any woman he pleased, and the Ferronniere was accordingly notified that the king commanded her to yield to his desires. She confided the order to her husband, who, on reflection, counseled her to submit. Meanwhile Ferronniere himself used his best endeavors to catch a syphilitic disease, which he communicated to his wife. She gave it to the king, who died of it after much suffering.
Henry II. had the merit of fidelity, not to his wife, but to his mistress.
The latter was the famous Diana de Poictiers, whose successful intercession with Francis I. on her father"s behalf has been already noticed. Brantome a.s.serts that she did not emulate the constancy of her royal lover, saying that in her youth she had "obliged many persons." He tells a story which, if true, reflects credit on the temper of the king.
Visiting his mistress one day, he surprised her in the company of a courtier named Brissac, who had only time to hide himself under the bed.
After spending some moments with Diana, the king asked for some refreshments. Some boxes of confectionery were brought him, and in the midst of his meal he took a box and threw it under the bed, saying, "Halloo, Brissac, every body must live!" Diana lost no portion of her lover"s heart in consequence of her infidelities. This she owed in some degree to her extraordinary beauty, which she preserved so late in life that it was commonly reported she was in the habit of using soap made of liquid gold. Henry was proud of his mistress, and never concealed their liaison. He had his arms interwoven with hers on many public buildings and pieces of plate. He used constantly to ride through the streets with the beautiful Diana on his crupper; and he showed her so marked a preference over his wife that judicious courtiers never made the mistake of courting the latter.
But the orderly life of the king was not imitated by the court. According to Brantome and Sauval, the excesses of the age of Francis were aggravated under Henry. It was rare, says the former, that ladies presented their virginity to their husbands; and husbands who objected to the intimacy of their wives with "kings, princes, n.o.blemen, and others of the court," were eschewed from society. A woman was held to be virtuous because she begged her lover to wait till she was married to gratify his desires; married women who retained their love for the same _galant_ for several years were considered models of purity. Brantome intimates distinctly that ordinary debauchery fell short of the desires of the courtiers; incest, sodomy, and similar enormities could alone satiate the pa.s.sions of the old debauchees of the day.
The same writer partially explains the spread of vice by saying that within the last half century the ladies of France had acquired the arts of Italy; nor is it doubtful that with the Medicis many of the monstrous vices which have been peculiar to Italy ever since the age of Imperial Rome were imported into France. We hear of all kinds of instruments of debauchery; of lewd books and lewd pictures; of indecent sculptures and bronzes being sold without let or hinderance in the stores of Paris. It was the age of Aretino; and besides that famous or infamous writer, a number of other Italians had competed for the prize of lewdness in composition. Poets, painters, sculptors, seemed to try how far art could be prost.i.tuted. Cellini, Leonardo da Vinci, Giulio Romano, Nicollo dell"
Abate, and, indeed, almost all their contemporaries, debased their genius by the execution of indecent works. Many of these found their way to Paris. When Pope Clement VII. undertook to prosecute the authors of indecent works, whether in letters or art, most of the compositions that were endangered by his bull were transported to France. Brantome alludes to many of them as being quite common in his time. He describes, for instance, a silver goblet on which the most indecent scenes were graven, and which a n.o.bleman of the court always obliged the ladies who visited him to use at table. Other n.o.blemen had their rooms painted in fresco in similar taste. It is stated that Anne of Austria caused three hundred thousand ecus worth of frescoes of this kind to be removed from the ceilings of the palace at Fontainebleau.[189] But in the reign of Henry II. it does not appear that any one was ever prosecuted for dealing in this kind of merchandise.
During the three following reigns, it was Catharine of Medicis who gave the tone to the court, and really ruled the kingdom. All historians concur in stating that she used prost.i.tution as the mainspring of her policy. She had a court of sometimes two to three hundred ladies of honor, whom she employed to worm out the secrets of the politicians of the day. They were known as the Queen"s Flying Squadron, and it appears they performed their duties successfully; of course, at the cost of whatever virtue or decency the court still retained. Brantome is still our authority for a.s.serting that they introduced a new feature of debauchery; they took the initiative in affairs of this kind, and instead of yielding to the entreaties of lovers, it was they who pressed their lovers to meet them half way. He likewise informs us that they aided the establishment in France of other vices which had hitherto been peculiar to Southern and Eastern climates, by the revival of practices which had been common among the _hetairae_ of Athens.
It has been a.s.serted that Catharine willfully tutored her children in habits of debauchery, in order to divert their minds from politics, and retain control over the kingdom, but this scandal does not appear to rest on authentic evidence. It is unquestionable, however, that Charles IX., the author of the ma.s.sacre of St. Bartholomew, lived in incestuous intercourse with his sister Margaret, and there seems no reason to doubt the truth of the story that Catharine more than once entertained the king and court at a banquet at which nude females served as waiters.
Perhaps the best idea of the morals of the time can be obtained from the adventures of the Margaret just mentioned, who married Henry IV., King of Navarre, and afterward King of France. It is said that at the age of eleven she had two lovers, both of whom claimed to have robbed her of her virtue. Marrying the King of Navarre, she found means to leave her husband and reside at Paris, whose air suited her better than the country. Here her debaucheries were a common theme of scandal, her lovers being counted by the score. Happening at last to give birth to a child which mysteriously disappeared, her brother Henry III. sent her to her husband in a quasi-disgrace. Henry of Navarre refused to cohabit with her. The king vainly endeavored to reconcile the couple. With more zeal than tact, he used as an argument with his cousin that the mother of the King of Navarre had not herself led an irreproachable life. At this Henry burst into a laugh, and remarked to the envoy that the king was very complimentary in his letters, his majesty having in the first described the vices of the wife, and in the second alluded to the frailties of the mother.
He persisted in refusing to receive Margaret, and she took refuge in the little town of Agen, but no sooner began to lead her usual life there than the people rose and expelled her. She found a second refuge in the fortress of Usson, and there she lived twenty years in a sort of prison which she converted into a brothel. She was debarred from the society of men of fashion and courtiers, but for her purposes, servants, secretaries, musicians, and even the peasants of the neighborhood answered as well, and of these there was no lack. Returning to Paris in her old age, she did not alter her course of life. She became outwardly devout, and established a nunnery and monastery near her hotel; the latter, the people said, in order to have monks always at hand; but the list of her lovers remained undiminished to the very verge of her death.[190]
Nor did her husband present any striking contrast to his wife, though he reflected so severely upon her in the work published under the t.i.tle _Le divorce Satirique_. Bayle remarks that, had he not expended so large a portion of his energy in the pursuit of sensual pleasures, he would have been one of the greatest heroes of history.[191] He was profuse and indiscriminate in his attachments; d.u.c.h.ess or farmer"s daughter, it was all the same to him. He changed his mistress once a month at least. As an exception to this rule, his affection for Gabrielle d"Estrees, a very lovely creature, whom he shared with the Marquis of Bellegarde, and who bore him, or them, three children, lasted several years. He was not faithful to her, and made no secret of his infidelities, but he loved her pa.s.sionately. On one occasion he left his army in the midst of a campaign, disguised himself as a peasant, and traveled through the enemy"s country to meet her. He once went to see her, but was stopped at the door with the announcement that Bellegarde was with her. His first impulse was one of rage. Drawing his sword, he rushed toward the door, but stopped half way, and saying, "No, it would make her angry," he returned home. Gabrielle was a very beautiful and charming person. She was in the habit of having herself painted in a state of perfect nudity, with her children playing around her.
When she died, Henry proposed to replace her by Mademoiselle D"Entragues, whose beauty had made some sensation at court. Negotiations were opened with the lady, who dutifully placed the matter in the hands of her family, and father, mother, and brothers began to treat with the king for the prost.i.tution of their daughter and sister. They asked a hundred thousand crowns. The king thought the sum large, and offered fifty thousand, but the family refusing to give way, he acceded to their demands. They then added that they would like to have a promise of marriage, conditioned upon the lady"s bearing a male child within a year. To this likewise Henry agreed, in spite of Sully"s remonstrances; and Mdlle. D"Entragues became the acknowledged mistress of the king. It need not be added that the promise of marriage was never fulfilled.
Some time afterward Henry fell in love with a young lady who was betrothed to Marshal Ba.s.sompierre. As ardent as ever, he sent for the marshal, explained his feelings, and ordered Ba.s.sompierre to renounce his claims.
The marshal obeyed, and Henry married the lady (who was a Montmorency) to the Prince of Conde. The marriage was hardly over before the king opened negotiations with the bride. It will be scarcely credited that the emissary he employed was the mother of the Prince of Conde, who left no means untried to effect the dishonor of her son. The prince, of less complacent temper than most other courtiers, refused to allow his wife to become the king"s mistress. He removed her from France, and, just as Henry was about to send after her, the a.s.sa.s.sin Ravaillac freed Conde from the danger.
The disorders of Henry III., the predecessor of the King of Navarre, are shamefully notorious. There was a time during his reign when, for the same reason which induced the establishment of _Dicteria_ at Athens, prost.i.tution almost seemed a desirable inst.i.tution at Paris. In his youth he had been a famous seducer of the ladies of honor. An anecdote of his life at this period not only reveals the tone of the court, but happily shows that depravity was not so universal as might be imagined. When Henry was chosen King of Poland, he was anxious to settle his mistress, Mdlle.
de Chateauneuf, by finding her a husband. He applied to a courtier, the Provost of Paris, M. de Nantonillet, but received the scathing reply that "M. de Nantonillet would not marry a prost.i.tute till the king had established brothels in the Louvre."