The Heptameron

by Marguerite de Navarre

  ‘Monsieur, when I crossed over, I had a close look at the Franciscan’s companion, and it’s not Brother John at all! It looks just like Mademoiselle, your wife, and she looked at me in the most piteous way, with her eyes full of tears!’

  The gentleman told him he must be dreaming and took no notice. But the manservant insisted, begged leave to follow the pair, and requested that his master wait at the road to see if it was as he suspected. The gentleman agreed, and waited to see what his servant would find out. But when the Franciscan heard the manservant behind him calling Brother John, he guessed that the lady had been recognized and came at him with a great studded stick which he carried. He dealt the man such a blow in the side that he knocked him off his horse on to the ground. In a flash he jumped on top of him and cut his throat. The gentleman had seen his servant fall, and thinking he must have had an accident, rode after him to help him up. When the friar saw him, he turned on him with his studded stick, just as he had turned on the servant, knocked him to the ground and leapt on top of him. But the gentleman, who was well-built and powerful, got his arms round the monk in such a way as to prevent him doing him any harm and sent his dagger flying out of his hand. His wife picked it up immediately, handed it to her husband, and at the same time seized hold of the friar by his hood, holding on to it with all the strength in her body. The husband stabbed him several times with the knife, until he begged for mercy and confessed his wickedness. The gentleman had no desire to kill him. Instead he asked his wife to go to the house to fetch his servants, and a cart to take the friar away in. This she did, stripping off her habit, and running, shift and shorn head for everyone to see, all the way back to the castle. Immediately the whole household came running to their master to help him bring in the wolf he had caught. They found the friar on the road, seized him, bound him, and carried him back. The gentleman subsequently had him led before the court of the Emperor in Flanders, where he confessed his evil intents. And it was discovered as a result of his confession and an inquiry at the scene by special commissioners that in this particular monastery a large number of noblewomen and other good-looking girls had been abducted by the same method that the Franciscan had attempted to use – a method in which he would have succeeded, were it not for the grace of our Lord, who always helps those who place their hope in Him. The monastery was deprived of its spoils and of the beautiful girls who were there, and the monks were locked in and burned along with the monastery building as a perpetual memorial to the crime. Thus one can see that there is nothing more dangerous than love when it is founded on vice, just as there is nothing more human and laudable than love when it dwells in a heart that is virtuous.

  *

  ‘I am sorry, Ladies, that the truth does not bring us as many stories to the Franciscans’ advantage as to their disadvantage, for I am very fond of the order and it would give me great pleasure to hear some tale that would give me occasion to praise them. But we’ve sworn so firmly to tell the truth that having heard the accounts of reliable people, I am obliged not to conceal it. I assure you that when monks do something memorable that is to their credit, I will take pains to place them in a better light than I have in telling you this particular story, true as it is.’

  ‘Indeed, Geburon,’ said Oisille, ‘this is a case of love that should really be called cruelty.’

  ‘I’m amazed,’ said Simontaut, ‘that he had the restraint not to take her by force, when he saw her standing there in her underclothes, and in a spot, too, where he had the upper hand.’

  ‘He wasn’t interested in titbits,’ said Saffredent. ‘He was a glutton! He wanted to have his fill of her every single day, not just amuse himself with one little nibble!’

  ‘That’s not the point,’ said Parlamente. ‘In fact a violent man is always a scared man. He was afraid of being discovered and that someone would take away his prey, so he had to carry off his little lamb like a wolf, in order to be able to devour her at his leisure.’

  ‘All the same,’ said Dagoucin, ‘I cannot believe he [loved] her, or that in a heart as base as his the god of love [could] find a dwelling place.’

  ‘Be it as it may,’ said Oisille, ‘he received his just deserts. I pray God that the outcome of all such deeds may be a similar punishment. But who do you choose to tell the next story?’

  ‘You, Madame,’ said Geburon. ‘You will not fail to give us a good story.’

  ‘As it is my turn,’ she replied, ‘I shall tell you a good one, and I shall tell it because it happened during my time and because it was told to me by the very man who witnessed it. I am sure you are all aware that at the end of all our woes is death, but that since death puts an end to all our woes, it can be called our joy and repose. Man’s greatest woe, therefore, is to desire death and not to be able to have it. Consequently, the greatest punishment that can be meted out to an evil-doer is not death but continuous torture, torture severe enough to make him desire death, yet not so severe that it causes death. This is just what one husband did to his wife, as you shall now hear.’

  STORY THIRTY-TWO

  King Charles VIII sent to Germany a gentleman by the name of Bernage, Seigneur of Sivray, near Amboise. This Bernage, seeking to expedite his mission, rested neither night nor day, and late one evening he came to a castle, where he asked for a night’s lodging, which with great difficulty he was able to obtain. However, when the master of the house learned that he was in the service of so great a king, he went straight to him and begged him not to be annoyed at the discourtesy of his servants. The reason was that his wife’s parents bore a grudge against him, and he was obliged to keep his house closed up. So Bernage told him the purpose of his mission, and the gentleman, offering to do everything in his power for his master the King, took him into the house, where he lodged and entertained him with due honour.

  It was suppertime, and the gentleman led him into a beautiful room draped with magnificent tapestries. When the food was brought onto the table, he saw emerge from behind the tapestry the most beautiful woman it was possible ever to behold, though her hair was cropped and the rest of her body clad in black in the German style. After Bernage and the gentleman had washed together, the water was taken to the lady, who washed in her turn and went to sit at the end of the table without speaking to anyone and without anyone speaking to her. The Seigneur de Bernage looked at her closely. She seemed to him to be one of the most beautiful women he had ever seen, except that her face was very pale and her expression very sad. When she had eaten a little, she asked for something to drink, and a servant of the house brought her a most remarkable drinking-cup made of a skull, the [apertures] of which were filled in with silver. From this she took two or three draughts. When she had finished the meal and washed her hands, she curtseyed to the master of the house, and went back behind the tapestry without speaking. Bernage was taken aback at such a strange spectacle, and became quite melancholy and pensive. Seeing this, the gentleman said to him:

  ‘I see you are surprised by what you’ve seen over this meal, but I perceive that you are an honourable man, and I do not want to hide the truth of the matter from you, lest you should think I am capable of such cruelty without good cause. The lady you saw is my wife, whom I have loved more than any man ever could, so much so that in order to marry her I left fear behind me and brought her here against her parents’ wishes. She too showed me so many signs of affection that I would have risked ten thousand lives to bring her here and give her the happiness that was also my happiness. Indeed, for a long time we lived a quiet, contented life, and I considered myself the happiest gentleman in Christendom. But while I was away on a journey that for honour’s sake I was obliged to undertake, she so forgot her conscience, her own honour and her love for me, that she became enamoured of a young gentleman whom I had brought up in this house. On my return I believed that I had detected their liaison, but I loved her so much that I could not bring myself to doubt her, until the moment when my eyes were opened and I saw for myself what I had feared
more than death itself. So my love turned to fury and desperation. I kept a close watch on her, and one day, having told her I was going out, I hid in the room where she now lives. Not long after I had disappeared, she came into the room and sent word for the young man to join her there. I saw him come in with the kind of familiarity to which I alone have the right. But when I saw he was intending to climb on to the bed with her, I jumped out from my hiding-place, seized him while he was still in her arms and slew him. And since my wife’s crime seemed to me to be so heinous that a similar death would hardly suffice, I imposed a punishment which I think she finds more painful than death. I decided to lock her up in the very room where she used to go to wallow in her pleasures, and keep her there in the company of the man she loved more than she had ever loved me. In a cupboard in the room I hung her lover’s skeleton like some precious object in a private gallery. And so that she should never forget him even when eating and drinking, I made her sit [in front of me] at table and had her served from the man’s skull instead of a cup, so that she would have before her both the living and the dead, both him whom through her sin she had transformed into a mortal enemy and [him whose love she had preferred to mine.] Thus when she takes dinner and supper she sees the two things that must distress her most, her living enemy and her dead lover, and all by her own sin. For the rest I treat her as myself, except that she has her hair shorn, for the crowning glory of woman no more becomes an adulteress than the veil becomes a harlot. So her head is shaved to show that she has lost her modesty and the honour of [chastity.] If you would care to see her, I’ll take you to her.’

  Bernage gladly accepted. They went downstairs and found her in a beautiful room, seated in front of a fire. The gentleman drew a curtain in front of an alcove to reveal hanging there the skeleton of a dead man. Bernage wanted very much to talk to the lady, but dared not do so because of the husband. Realizing this, the gentleman said: ‘If you would like to say something to her, you’ll see how graciously she speaks.’

  So Bernage said to her: ‘Madame, your resignation matches your suffering. I think you are the unhappiest woman in the world.’

  Tears came to the lady’s eyes, and she spoke with the greatest possible grace and humility: ‘Monsieur, I confess that my sins are so great that all the suffering that is inflicted upon me by the lord of this house, whom I am not worthy to call my husband, is as nothing compared with the remorse I feel in having wronged him.’

  As she spoke she began to weep bitterly. The gentleman took Bernage by the arm, and drew him away. The next morning he left in order to carry out the mission entrusted to him by the King. But as he bade farewell to the gentleman he could not resist adding:

  ‘Monsieur, the affection I bear you and the honours and kindness which you have shown me in your own house oblige me to say to you that as your poor wife’s remorse is so deep, it is my belief that you should show some compassion towards her. Moreover, you are young and you have no children. It would be a great shame to let so fine a house as yours slip from your hands and permit it to be inherited by people who may be far from being your friends.’

  The gentleman, who had resolved never again to speak to his wife, thought for a long time about the things Bernage had said to him. Finally he realized that Bernage was right, and promised that if his wife continued to live in such humility, he would one day have pity on her. So Bernage went off to complete his mission. On his return to court he recounted the whole story to his master the King, who found upon inquiry that it was even as it had been told him. And having heard [tell] also of the lady’s great beauty, he sent his painter, Jean de Paris, to bring back her living likeness. This the painter did, with the approval of the husband, who, because of his desire to have children, and because of the compassion he felt for his wife in her humble submission to her penance, took her back, and subsequently had many fine children by her.

  *

  ‘Ladies, if all the women who behaved like this one were to drink from cups like hers, I fear that many a golden goblet would be replaced by a skull! From such things may God preserve us, for if His goodness did not restrain us, there is not one of us here who is not capable of doing things worse by far. But if we place our trust in Him, He will guard those women who confess that they cannot guard themselves. And women who trust in their own strength and virtue are in great danger of being tempted to the point where they have to confess their weakness. [I can assure you that there have been many whose pride has led to] their downfall in circumstances where [humility] saved women thought to be less virtuous. As the old proverb says, “That which God guards is guarded well.”’

  ‘I find the punishment extremely reasonable,’ said Parlamente. ‘For just as the crime was worse than death, so the punishment was worse than death.’

  ‘I don’t agree,’ said Ennasuite. ‘I would far rather be shut up in my room with the bones of all my lovers for the rest of my days than die for them, since there’s no sin one can’t make amends for while one is alive, but after death there is no making amends.’

  ‘How could you make up for loss of honour?’ said Longarine. ‘You know that nothing a woman can do after such a crime can ever restore her honour.’

  To which Ennasuite replied: ‘Tell me, I beg you, whether the Magdalene does or does not have more honour amongst men than her sister, who was a virgin?’

  ‘I admit,’ said Longarine, ‘that she is praised for her great love for Jesus Christ and for her great penitence, but even so she is still given the name of Sinner.’

  ‘I don’t care,’ said Ennasuite, ‘what names men call me, only that God pardons me and my husband. There is no reason why I should wish to die.’

  ‘If the lady in the story had loved her husband as she should have done,’ said Dagoucin, ‘I am amazed she did not die of grief when she looked at the bones of the man whose death she had caused by her sin.’

  ‘What, Dagoucin,’ said Simontaut, ‘do you still have to learn that women possess neither love nor regrets?’

  ‘Indeed, I have still to learn,’ said Dagoucin, ‘for I have never dared try out their love, for fear of finding less than I desired.’

  ‘So you live on faith and hope,’ said Nomerfide, ‘like a plover on the wind? You’re easy to feed!’

  ‘I am satisfied,’ he replied, ‘with the love I feel within me, and with the hope that in the hearts of ladies such love also resides. But if I knew for certain that it was even as I hoped, my joy would be too intense to bear, and I should die!’

  ‘You should rather watch out for the plague,’ said Geburon, ‘because there’s no need to worry about that sickness, I can assure you! But I’d like to see whom Madame Oisille will choose next.’

  ‘I choose Simontaut,’ she said, ‘who will not, I know, spare anyone.’

  ‘In other words, you accuse me of having a somewhat malicious tongue! Well, I shall nevertheless show you that those who have been called malicious have in fact spoken the truth. I don’t think, Ladies, that you are foolish enough to believe all the stories people tell you, however pious they might appear, unless you have such firm proof that they are beyond all doubt. Similarly, behind what may appear as miracles there are often abuses. This is why I wanted to tell you a story about a supposed miracle which in the end is no less to the credit of a certain faithful prince than it is to the discredit of a certain corrupt minister of the Church.’

  STORY THIRTY-THREE

  Count Charles of Angoulême, father of Francis I, a faithful, God-fearing prince, was in Cognac, when someone told him that in the nearby village of Cherves there was a girl who lived a life so austere that everyone marvelled at her; yet, although still a virgin, she had been found to be pregnant. She made no attempt to hide the fact, assuring everyone that she had never known a man and that she had no idea how it happened, if it was not the working of the Holy Spirit. The local people believed this without question and treated her as a second Virgin Mary, for it was known to all that she had from childhood been so wise and
good that never once had she shown any sign of worldliness. Not only did she fast on the days prescribed by the Church, but in addition she fasted several times a week of her own accord, and she was never away from the church whenever there was a service. Her way of life was so much respected by local folk that they all came to visit her, thinking a miracle had been wrought on her, and anyone who came close enough to touch her dress would consider himself blessed indeed. The parish priest was her brother, an elderly man, who himself lived an austere life and was loved and respected by his parishioners, who regarded him as a very holy man. But he was so strict with his sister that he had her shut up in a house. This greatly displeased the villagers, who complained so loudly that the affair eventually reached the ears of the Count himself. When he saw how people were being deceived, his immediate desire was to disabuse them, so he sent a referendary and a chaplain, both honest men, to find out the truth of the matter. They went to the village, made the most careful inquiries they could and approached the priest himself. The man was so upset by the whole affair that he begged them to be present the next day at a special ceremony which he hoped would prove the matter once and for all.

  Early the next morning, then, the priest sang mass. His sister was there, kneeling the whole time, and looking very pregnant. At the close of the service the priest took the Corpus Do mini , and before the whole congregation said to his sister:

  ‘Wretched woman that you are, behold Him who for your sake suffered death and passion. Before Him I charge you to tell me whether you be a virgin, as you have always assured me.’