One evening after supper, she slipped off in the dark on her own, and went straight to the ladies’ chamber, where she met the man she loved more than life itself. She sat by his side, and, leaning over the table as if they were reading a book together, they chatted intimately. The husband, however, had set someone to watch her, and her whereabouts were soon reported back to him. Being a cautious man he said nothing, but made his way to the scene as fast as he could. He saw his wife sitting there reading as soon as he went into the room, but pretending not to have noticed her, he went straight over to the ladies on the other side. The poor wife, realizing that her husband had discovered her with a man to whom she had never spoken in his presence, was so unnerved that she completely lost her head. Unable to move along the bench, she jumped over the top of the table, as if her husband was after her with a naked sword, and went to find her mistress, who was just retiring for the night. Then she too undressed and retired, but one of her women arrived with a message to say that her husband was demanding her. She replied outright that she had no intention of going to him; he was so hard and cruel that she was afraid he might actually do her some harm. In the end, however, she did decide to go to him, for fear that worse might happen if she did not. The husband spoke not a word when she came in. [But she, not so good at dissembling as he was, started to cry as soon as they were in bed.] When he asked what was the matter with her, she replied that she was afraid he might be angry with her because he had found her reading a book with a gentleman. To this he answered that he had never forbidden her to speak to any man, and that he found nothing wrong with her talking to that one. What he did find suspicious was the way she had run off when she had seen her husband, as if she really was doing something reprehensible. And it was this alone, he said, which led him to think that she was in love with this particular gentleman. Consequently he was going to forbid her ever to speak to him again, either in private or in public. The first time he should catch her doing so, he warned her, he would kill her without pity or compassion. This she was ready to accept, resolving not to be so foolish a second time. But to forbid something is the surest way to make it even more ardently desired, and it was not very long before the poor young wife had forgotten her husband’s threats, as well as the promises she herself had made. Indeed, that very evening, having gone back to sleep in another room with the other young ladies and their attendants, she sent word to her young gentleman that he was to come and see her during the night! But the husband, so racked by jealousy that he cannot sleep, gets up, dresses himself in a cloak, and calls a valet de chambre to accompany him. This, so he had heard, was how his rival equipped himself for his nocturnal visits. Then off he goes to his wife’s quarters, and knocks at the door. She gets up, puts on the furry shoes and wrap lying by her side, and, seeing that the three or four women she had with her were asleep, goes alone out of the room straight to the main door. Her husband was the last person she expected to find there.
‘Who is it?’ she called out.
A voice replied, giving the name of the young man she was in love with. But to make certain, she opened a grating in the door, saying:
‘If you’re who you say you are, let me feel your hand, and I shall recognize it.’
As soon as she touched the hand, she knew it was her husband’s. She slammed the grille shut, shouting, ‘Ah! Monsieur, it’s your hand!’
He was beside himself with rage.
‘Yes, it is indeed my hand!’ he shouted. ‘And by this hand I shall keep my promise! Therefore do not fail to come when I command you!’
With these words he went back, and she, more dead than alive, returned to her room.
‘Get up! Get up!’ she shouted to her attendants. ‘You have slept too long! I thought I was going to outwit you, but instead it is I who have been outwitted!’
As she spoke she fell in a faint in the middle of the room. The poor women scrambled out of bed, astonished to hear their mistress talking like that, and then to see her collapse on the floor as if she were dead. There was nothing to do but to run and find some means of reviving her. When she came round and could speak again, she said: ‘My dear friends, the woman you see before you is the most miserable creature in all the world!’
Then she told them what had befallen her, and begged them to give her their help, for she thought that she was already as good as dead. As they were trying to console her, one of her husband’s valets de chambre came in with the order that she was to appear before him at once. She threw her arms round two of her women, screaming and crying, and beseeching them not to let her go, for she was sure she would be going to her death. But the valet de chambre assured her that she would be alright, and that he would answer for her safety with his own life. She saw there was no way out, and threw herself into the poor servant’s arms, saying, ‘Since it must be so, bear this, my wretched body, unto death!’
In her despair she almost fainted, and the valet de chambre had to carry her bodily to his master. The poor lady fell at his feet, saying: ‘Monsieur, I beg you to have pity on me. I swear to you, by the faith I owe to almighty God, that I will tell you the whole truth.’
‘By God!’ he replied, beside himself with rage, ‘tell me you certainly shall!’
He then ordered all his servants out of the room. Knowing that his wife had always been devout, he felt that she would not dare to perjure herself if she was made to swear by the true cross. So he had a cross sent for, a particularly fine specimen which he happened to have in his possession, and when they were alone again, he made her swear on it that she would tell the truth in reply to his questions. But having overcome her initial fears of death, she took courage, and while resolving not to conceal the truth before she died, she also resolved to say nothing which might cause the young gentleman she loved to suffer. So, having listened to her husband’s questions, she replied thus.
‘It is not my intention, Monsieur, to justify my love for the young gentleman who has roused your suspicions, or to make light of it. After the evidence you have had of it today you would not be able to believe me, nor is there any reason why you should. But I do wish to explain to you how this friendship came about in the first place. You know, Monsieur, that no wife ever loved her husband as dearly as I did. From the day I married you until my present age, my heart knew no love but my love for you. You know, too, that when I was still only a child, my parents were anxious for me to marry a man who was much richer than you, and of higher birth. But from the moment I met you, I could not agree to their plans for me. In opposition to their wishes, in spite of your lack of means and in spite of the way everyone criticized me for what I was doing, I insisted on having you and you alone. Nor can you be exactly ignorant of the way you have treated me since we were married, of the way you’ve failed to show me any love and respect! I’ve been so wretched, so miserable, that if it hadn’t been for the lady who has looked after me, I would have sunk into the depths of despair. But then I grew up. Everybody – except you – considered me beautiful. I began to be so acutely aware of the wrong you had done me that instead of loving you as I did before, I began to hate you. Before I had longed to do your bidding, now my longing turned into a desire for revenge. This was the desperate state I was in when I was found by a certain prince. And then, just as this honourable love was beginning to give me some relief from all my sufferings, he left me too, because he preferred to obey the dictates of the King rather than the dictates of Love. After he had left me, I met this other man. There was no need for him to approach me. He was handsome, refined, charming. He had manly qualities that made him sought after by every woman with any discernment. It was because I sought his love, not because he sought mine, that he came to love me with a love that was pure and virtuous. Never once did he demand of me anything that honour could not have granted. Although I had little enough reason to give you my love and had every excuse to break my loyal vows, the love which I have for God and for my honour have prevented me till now from doing anything that I need t
o confess or be in any way ashamed of. I don’t deny that I went to talk to him as often as I could in a private room. I used to pretend I was going there alone to say my prayers, because I trusted no one, neither man nor woman, to assist me in this matter. I don’t want to deny, either, that when I was alone with him in that intimate room where nobody could suspect us I often kissed him, and kissed him more gladly than I do you. But may I answer to God, if anything more than that ever passed between us, or if he ever demanded more, or if I ever had the slightest desire that he should do so. It gave me joy just to see him. I could have imagined nothing in the world more pleasurable. Now, Monsieur, do you intend, after being the sole cause of all my misery, to take revenge on me for the very kind of thing of which you yourself have been guilty for years – with the difference that the example you set was completely devoid of any scruple of honour or conscience? You know, and I know, that the woman you love doesn’t content herself with what lies within the commands of God and reason. However, although the law of men attaches dishonour to women who fall in love with those who aren’t their husbands, the law of God does not exempt men who fall in love with women who aren’t their wives. Suppose that what each of us has done is weighed in the balance. There are you, a mature man with experience of the ways of the world, who ought to be able to tell right from wrong. There am I, young and with no experience of the violence and the power of love. You have a wife who wants to be with you, who admires you and loves you more than life itself. And what have I got? A husband who keeps out of my way as much as possible, who hates me and despises me more than if I were a humble chambermaid. You are in love with a woman who’s already getting on in years, a shapeless creature far less beautiful than I, while my love is for a gentleman who’s younger than you, more handsome than you and more worthy to be loved than you! Furthermore, this woman you’re in love with is the wife of one of the closest friends you have and at the same time the mistress of your monarch, so that you violate the duty that you owe to both of them, betraying not only the bond of friendship, but also the obligation of respect and esteem; whereas the young man whom I love is under no bond, except the bond of love, the love that he bears for me. Well then, judge without bias. Which of the two of us most deserves to be punished, and which of us most deserves to be excused? Is it you, or is it I? Is it you, the man considered experienced and wise, who not only shamefully wrongs his wife, although she never gave him the least provocation, but also wrongs his King, to whom he owes his loyalty? Or is it I, the young and innocent girl, rejected and despised by you, who loves the finest and most honourable man in all France, and who loves him only because she despaired of ever being loved by you?’
The husband was overcome by these words, words so obviously full of truth, spoken from the lips of this beautiful woman, and spoken with such confident grace and bold assurance that it was evident she neither feared punishment nor considered she deserved it. So overcome was he that he did not know what to say, except that men’s honour and women’s honour were not the same thing. However, since she had sworn that there had been nothing [sinful] between her and the young man, it was not his intention to punish her further, provided that she did not see him again, and provided that both of them forgot all about the past. This she promised, and thus reconciled the two of them went to bed together.
The next day an elderly lady who attended the wife, and who had been extremely anxious for her mistress’s life, came to her as she was rising, and asked: ‘And how are you, Madame?’
‘My dear,’ replied the wife, laughing, ‘I have the best husband in all the world. He believed everything that I swore to him!’
For the next five or six days the husband kept her under such close observation that she was spied on night and day. But guard her as he might, he could not stop her meeting her young man in some dark and [secret] corner. In fact she kept the affair so well concealed that there was not a man or woman in the place who could have guessed the truth. However, some servant or other spread a rumour that he had found a young lady and gentleman in the stable underneath the room occupied by the wife’s mistress, and the husband became so suspicious at this report that he finally made up his mind to have the young man murdered. He called together a large number of relatives and friends with the intention of having him killed, if they could catch him in some [out-of-the-way] place. But the foremost of the relatives happened to be a great friend of the young man himself, with the result that instead of helping to take the intended victim by surprise, he actually warned him of all [the moves that were being made] against him. In any case the young man was so well liked at court and always surrounded by so many people that he was not at all afraid of his enemy’s superior forces, and was in fact never [caught]. Moreover, he managed to go to a church to meet the Princess, who was the mistress of the lady he loved, and who had learned nothing of what had passed between the couple, since neither had so much as spoken to the other in her presence. The young gentleman told her that the husband was suspicious of him and full of ill-will, and declared that although he himself was innocent he intended to go to distant parts to escape the rumours that were starting to spread. The noble Princess who had his lady in her charge was astonished to hear this. She swore that the husband was completely in the wrong to suspect his wife, whom she had always known to be a model of virtue and honour. However, because of the husband’s high position, and in order to put an end to the malicious gossip, she advised the young man to absent himself for a good while, assuring him at the same time that she personally placed no credence in any of these wild suspicions. Both the young man and his lady were overjoyed that they were still well regarded and still favoured by the Princess, who gave a final piece of advice – that the young man should speak to the husband before leaving, which he duly did.
It was in the gallery, near the King’s own chamber, that he came across the husband. He approached him confidently, but with due respect for the man’s rank, and said: ‘Monsieur, all my life it has been my wish to render you service, yet I learn that for my sole reward you sent people yesterday evening to seize and kill me. I would beg you to bear in mind, Monsieur, that although you may have more power and influence than I have, I am, like yourself, a gentleman, and I should be very disinclined to give up my life for nothing. I would also beg you to bear in mind that you have a virtuous wife, and that if any man dares to assert the contrary, then I shall tell him that he has uttered a wicked lie! As far as I myself am concerned, I do not think I have done anything that ought to give you cause to wish me harm. Therefore, I shall remain your servant, if it so please you, and if it does not, then I remain the servant of the King, and that is sufficient for me!’
In reply to these words the husband said that he had indeed been suspicious of him in the past, but that he considered him an honourable man whose friendship he preferred to his enmity. So saying, he embraced him like a bosom friend, and, hat in hand, bade him adieu. You can imagine what the people who only the night before had been commissioned to murder him said, when they saw him being given such tokens of friendship and respect! They all had something to say about it.
And so the young man set off. Since he was not so well endowed with riches as he was with good looks, his lady presented him with a ring which her husband had given her. It was worth three thousand écus, and he pawned it for one thousand five hundred. Some time after he had left, the husband approached his wife’s mistress, the Princess, and asked leave for his wife to go and stay for a while with one of his sisters [in the country.] The Princess thought this request rather curious, and insisted so strongly on being given a reason, that he was obliged to give her a partial, though not a complete, explanation. The young wife took leave of her mistress and the court without shedding a tear or showing any sign of regret. She then went off to the destination desired by her husband under the escort of a young gentleman who had been expressly instructed to keep a careful watch on her. In particular, he was to take care that she had no communication en ro
ute with the man who was the object of her husband’s suspicions. She knew perfectly well what orders her escorts had been given, and every day took great delight in setting them on their guard and then teasing them for not being vigilant.
One day, as they were leaving the inn where they had spent the night, they came across a Franciscan friar on horseback. The lady rode along on her palfrey at his side, and chatted with him from midday till supper-time. When they were within a quarter of a league of their next lodging place, she said to him:
The Heptameron Page 21