Lives of Fair and Gallant Ladies/Volume II/Notes
NOTES
P. 3: At first this discourse was the last; it is outlined in the manuscript 608 as follows: "Discourse on why beautiful and faithful women love valiant men, and why worthy men love courageous women."
P. 4: Virgil, in his Æneid (Bk. I), makes Penthesileia appear only after Hector's death. For these accounts on the Amazons, consult Traité historique sur les Amazones, by Pierre Petit, Leyde, 1718.
P. 5: See Boccaccio, De Claris Mulieribus.
P. 6: Æneid, IV., 10-13.
P. 8: A Latin work of Boccaccio in nine books.
P. 8: Bk. IX., Chap. 3.
P. 9: Nouvelle, 1554-1574.
P. 9: Bandello, t. III., p. 1 (Venice, 1558).
P. 11: The Duc d'Anjou, afterwards Henri III. of France, is meant. He was the third son of Henri II. and Catherine de Medici, and was born at Fontainebleau 1551. On the death of his brother Charles IX. in 1574 he succeeded to the throne. Died 1589. The victories referred to are those of Jarnac and Montcontour.
P. 12: Ronsard, Œuvres, liv. 1, 174th sonnet.
P. 13: "Petit-Lit" is Leith,—the port of Edinburgh, on the Firth of Forth. The English army under Lord Grey of Wilton invaded Scotland in 1560, and laid siege to Leith, then occupied by the French. The place was stubbornly defended, but must soon have fallen, when envoys were sent by Francis II. from France to conclude a peace. These were Monluc, Bishop of Valence, and the Sieur de Rendan mentioned in the text; the negotiators appointed to meet them on the English side were the Queen's great minister Cecil and Wotton, Dean of Canterbury. The French troops were withdrawn.
P. 13: The little Leith. (Cf. Jean de Beaugué, Histoire de la guerre d'Ecosse, reprinted by Montalembert in 1862, Bordeaux.)
P. 13: Jacques de Savoie, Duke de Nemours, died in 1585.
P. 13: Charles de La Rochefoucauld, Count de Randan, was sent to England in 1559, where he arranged peace with Scotland.
P. 14: An imaginary king without authority.
P. 14: Philibert le Voyer, lord of Lignerolles and of Bellefille, was frequently employed as a diplomatic agent. He was in Scotland in 1567. He was assassinated at Bourgueil in 1571, because he was suspected of betraying Charles IX.'s avowal regarding Saint Bartholomew.
P. 15: Brantôme knew quite well that the woman the handsome and alluring Duke de Nemours truly loved was no other than Mme. de Guise, Anne d'Este, whom he later married.
P. 15: XVIth Tale. Guillaume Gouffier, lord of Bonnivet.
P. 16: Marguerite de Valois took Bussy d'Amboise partly because of his reputation as a duellist.
P. 17: Jacques de Lorge, lord of Montgomerie, captain of Francis I.'s Scotch Guard and father of Henri II.'s involuntary murderer.
P. 18: Claude de Clermont, Viscount de Tallard.
P. 18: Francois de Hangest, lord of Genlis, captain of the Louvre, who died of hydrophobia at Strassburg in 1569.
P. 19: It is undoubtedly Louise de Halwin, surnamed Mlle. de Piennes the Elder, who later married Cipier of the Marcilly family.
P. 20: It is to this feminine stimulation that King Francis I. alluded in the famous quatrain in the Album of Aix, which is rightly or wrongly attributed to him.
P. 20: Agnès Sorel, or Soreau, the famous mistress of Charles VII., was daughter of the Seigneur de St. Gerard, and was born at the village of Fromenteau in Touraine in 1409. From a very early age she was one of the maids of honour of Isabeau de Lorraine, Duchess of Anjou, and received every advantage of education. Her wit and accomplishments were no less admired than her beauty.
She first visited the Court of France in the train of this latter Princess in 1431, where she was known by the name of the Demoiselle de Fromenteau, and at once captivated the young King's heart. She appeared at Paris in the Queen's train in 1437, but was intensely unpopular with the citizens, who attributed the wasteful expenditure of the Court and the misfortunes of the Kingdom to her. Whatever may be the truth of Brantôme's tale of the astrologer, there is no doubt as to her having exerted her influence to rouse the King from the listless apathy he had fallen into, and the idle, luxurious life he was leading in his Castle of Chinon, while the English were still masters of half his dominions.
She was granted many titles and estates by her Royal lover,—amongst others the castle of Beauté, on the Marne, whence her title of La Dame de Beauté, and that of Loches, in the Abbey Church of which she was buried on her sudden death in 1450, and where her tomb existed down to 1792.
P. 20. Charles VII., son of the mad Charles VI., born 1403, crowned at Poitiers 1422, but only consecrated at Reims in 1429, after the capture of Orleans and the victories due to Jeanne d'Arc. The adversary of the Burgundians and the English under the Duke of Bedford and Henry V. of England. Died 1461.
P. 20: Henry V. of England, reigned, 1413-1422.
P. 20: Bertrand du Guesclin, Constable of France, the most famous warrior of the XIVth Century, and one of the greatest Captains of any age, was born about 1314 near Rennes of an ancient and distinguished family of Brittany. He was the great champion of France in the wars with the English, and the tales of his prowess are endless. Died 1380.
P. 21: Béatrix, fourth daughter of Raymond-Béranger IV., Count de Provence.
P. 22: Isabeau de Lorraine, daughter of Charles II., married René d' Anjou.
P. 24: He called himself René de La Platière, lord of Les Bordes, and was ensign in Field Marshal de Bourdillon's company; he was killed at Dreux. He was the son of François de La Platière and Catherine Motier de La Fayette.
P. 24: Brantôme, in his eulogy of Bussy d'Amboise, relates that he reprimanded that young man for his mania of killing. The woman whom he compares here to Angélique was Marguerite de Valois.
P. 27: Brantôme is unquestionably referring again in this paragraph to Marguerite de Valois and Bussy d'Amboise.
P. 28: Orlando furioso, canto V.
P. 30: That is why Marguerite de Valois turned away "that big disgusting Viscount de Turenne." She compared him "to the empty clouds which look well only from without." (Divorce satyrique.)
P. 30: This is very likely an adventure that happened to Brantôme, and he had occasion to play the rôle of the "gentilhomme content."
P. 32: According to Lalanne, the two gentlemen are Le Balafré and Mayenne. If the "grande dame" was Marguerite, she bore Mayenne no grudge, whom she described as "a good companion, big and fat, and voluptuous like herself."
P. 37: It is Madeleine de Saint-Nectaire or Senneterre, married to the lord of Miramont, Guy de Saint-Exupéry; she supported the Huguenots. She defeated Montal in Auvergne, and according to Mézeray, killed him herself in 1574. (See Anselme, t. IV., p. 890.) In 1569, Mme. de Barbancon had also fought herself; she, too, was formerly an Italian, Ipolita Fioramonti.
P. 39: On the large square with the tower, in the centre of Sienna.
P. 40: Livy, Bk. XXVII., Chap. XXXVII.
P. 42: Orlando furioso, cantos XXII. and XXV.
P. 42: Christophe Jouvenel des Ursins, lord of La Chapelle, died in 1588.
P. 42: Henri II.
P. 44: Ipolita Fioramonti, married to Luigi di Malaspina, of the Padua branch; she was general of the Duke of Milan's armies. (Litta, Malaspina di Pavia, t. VIII., tav. xx.)
P. 44: Famous fortified city and seaport on the Atlantic coast of France; 800 miles S. W. of Paris, capital of the modern Department of Charente-Inférieure.
P. 45: The interview between François de La Noue, surnamed Bras-de-Fer (iron arm), and the representatives of Monsieur, François, Duke d'Alencon, took place February 21, 1573. The scene that Brantôme describes happened Sunday, February 22.
P. 46: What Brantôme advances here is to be found in Jacques de Bourbon's La grande et merveilleuse oppugnation de la noble cite de Rhodes, 1527.
P. 46: The siege took place in 1536.
P. 47: August 14, 1536. Count de Nassau besieged Péronne at the head of 60,000 men; the population defended itself with the uttermost energy. Marie Fouré, according to some, was the principal heroine of this famous siege; according to others, all the honor should go to Mme. Catherine de Foix. (Cf. Pièces et documents relatifs au siege de Peronne, en 1536. Paris, 1864.)
P. 47: The siege of Sancerre began January 3, 1573; but the rôle of the women was more pacific than at Péronne; they nursed the wounded and fed the combatants. The energetic Joanneau governed the city. (Poupard, Histoire de Sancerre, 1777.)
P. 47: Vitré was besieged by the Duke de Mercœuer in 1589. This passage of Brantôme's is quoted in the Histoire de Vitré by Louis Dubois (1839, pp. 87-88).
P. 47: Péronne, a small fortified town of N. W. France, on the Somme and in the Department of same name. It was bombarded by the Prussians in 1870, and the fine belfry of the XlVth Century destroyed. Its siege by the Comte de Nassau was in 1536.
P. 47: Sancerre, a small town on the left bank of the Loire, modern Department of the Cher, 27 miles from Bourges. The Huguenots of Sancerre endured two terrible sieges in 1569 and 1573.
P. 47: Vitré, a town of Brittany, modern Department Ille-et-Yilaine, of about 10,000 inhabitants. Retains its medieval aspect and town walls to the present day.
P. 48: Collenuccio, Bk. V.
P. 49: Boccaccio has arranged this story in his De claries mulieribus, cap. CI. Vopiscus, Aurelius, XXVI-XXX, relates this fact more coolly.
P. 49: Zenobia, the famous Queen of Palmyra, widow of Odenathus, who had been allowed by the weak Emperor Gallienus to participate in the title of Augustus, and had extended his empire over a great part of Asia Minor, Syria and Egypt. She was eventually defeated by Aurelian in a great battle on the Orontes not far from Antioch. Palmyra was destroyed, and its inhabitants massacred; and Zenobia brought in chains to Rome.
P. 49: The Emperor Aurelian was born about 212 A. D., and was of very humble origin. He served as a soldier in almost every part of the Roman Empire, and rose at last to the purple by dint of his prowess and address in arms, succeeding Claudius in 270 A. D. Almost the whole of his short reign of four years and a half was occupied in constant fighting. Killed in a conspiracy 275 A. D.
P. 53: Perseus, the last King of Macedon, son of Philip V., came to the throne 179 B. C. His struggle with the Roman power lasted from 171 to 165, when he was finally defeated at the battle of Pydna by the consul L. Aemilius Paulus. He was carried to Rome and adorned the triumph of his conqueror in 167 B. C., and afterwards thrown into a dungeon. He was subsequently released, however, on the intercession of Aemilius Paulus, and died in honourable captivity at Alba.
P. 53: Maria of Austria, sister of Charles V., widow of Louis II. of Hungary, and ruler over the Netherlands; she died in 1558. It was against her rule that John of Leyden struggled.
P. 53: Brantôme has in mind Aurelia Victorina, mother of Victorinus, according to Trebillius Pollio, Thirty Tyrants, XXX.
P. 54: In Froissart, liv. I, chap. 174.
P. 54: Henri I., Prince de Condé, died in 1588 (January 5), poisoned, says the Journal de Henri, by his wife Catherine Charlotte de la Trémolle.
P. 54: Isabella of Austria, daughter of Philip II.
P. 54: Jeanne de Flandres.
P. 55: Jacquette de Montberon, Brantôme's sister-in-law.
P. 55: Macchiavelli, Dell'arte della guerre, Bk. V., ii.
P. 56: Paule de Penthièvre, the second wife of Jean II. de Bourgogne, Count de Nevers.
P. 57: Richilde, Countess de Hainaut, who died in 1091.
P. 57: Hugues Spencer, or le Dépensier.
P. 57: Jean de Hainaut, brother of Count de Hainaut.
P. 57: Cassel and Broqueron.
P. 57: Edward II. of Caernarvon, King of England, was the fourth son of Edward I. and Queen Eleanor. Ascended the throne 1307, and married Isabel of France the following year. A cowardly and worthless Prince, and the tool of scandalous favourites, such as Piers Gaveston. Isabel and Mortimer landed at Orwell, in Suffolk, in 1326, and deposed the King, who was murdered at Berkeley Castle, 1307.
P. 58: Eleonore d'Acquitaine.
P. 59: Thevet wrote the Cosmographie; Nauclerus wrote a Chronographie.
P. 60: Vittoria Colonna, daughter of Fabrizio Colonna and of Agnes de Montefeltro, born in 1490, and affianced at the age of four to Ferdinand d'Avalos, who became her husband. The letter of which Brantôme speaks is famous; he found it in Vallès, fol. 205. As for Mouron, he was the great Chancellor Hieronimo Morone.
P. 61: Plutarch, Anthony, Chap. xiv.
P. 62: Catherine Marie de Lorraine, wife of Louis de Bourbon, Duke De Montpensier.
P. 62: Henri III., assassinated at Paris, 1589.
P. 65: The other man was Mayenne.
P. 67: Poltrot de Méré was tortured and quartered (March 18, 1563). As regards the admiral, he was massacred August 24, 1572.
P. 68: Philibert de Marcilly, lord of Cipierre, tutor of Charles IX.
P. 71: On this adventure, consult the Additions au Journal de Henri III., note 2.
P. 72: Louis de Correa, Historia de la conquista del reino de Navarra.
P. 76: Louise de Savoie.
P. 77: Charlotte de Roye, married to Francis III. de La Rochefoucauld in 1557; she died in 1559.
P. 78: Marguerite de Foix-Candale, married to Jean Louis de Nogaret, Duke d'Eperon.
P. 79: Renée de Bourdeille, daughter of Andre and Jacquette Montberon. She married, in 1579, David Bouchard, Viscount d'Aubeterre, who was killed in Périgord in 1593. She died in 1596. The daughter of whom Brantôme is about to speak was Hippolyte Bouchard, who was married to François d'Esparbez de Lussan. The three daughters whom he later mentions were: Jeanne, Countess de Duretal, Isabelle, Baroness d'Ambleville, and Adrienne, lady of Saint-Bonnet.
P. 80: Married subsequently to Francois d'Esparbez de Lusan, Marechal d'Aubeterre.
P. 83: Renée de Clermont, daughter of Jacques de Clermont-d'Amboise, lord of Bussy; she was married to the incompetent Jean de Montluc-Balagny (bastard of the Bishop de Valence), created Field Marshal of France in 1594.
P. 84: Gabrielle d'Estrées.
P. 85: Popular song of the day; Musée de Janequin. See Recueil of Pierre Atteignant.
P. 89: Renée Taveau, married to Baron Mortemart. François de Rochechouart.
P. 91: There is a copy of this sixth discourse in the MS. 4783, da fonds français, at the Bibliothèque Nationale: this copy is from the end of the sixteenth century.
P. 92: Charlotte de Savoie, second wife of Louis XI., daughter of Louis, Duke de Savoie.
P. 92: Louis XI. is generally supposed not only to have bandied many such stories with all the young bloods at the Court of Philippe le Bon, Duke of Burgundy, where he had taken refuge when Dauphin, but actually to have taken pains to have a collection of them made and afterwards published in the same order in which we have them, in the Work entitled "Cent Nouvelles nouvelles," lequel en soy contient cent chapitres ou histoires, composées ou récitées par nouvelles gens depuis naguères, "An Hundred New Romances, a Work containing in itself an hundred chapters or tales, composed or recited by divers folk in these last years." This is confirmed by the words of the original preface or notice, which would appear to have been written in his life-time: "And observe that throughout the Nouvelles, wherever 'tis said by Monseigneur, Monseigneur the Dauphin is meant, which hath since succeeded to the crown and is now King Louis XI.; for in those days he was in the Duke of Burgundy's country." But as it is absolutely certain this Prince only withdrew into Brabant at the end of the year 1456, and only returned to France in August 1461, it is quite impossible the Collection can have appeared in France about the year 1455, as is stated without sufficient consideration in the preface of the latest editions of this work. Two ancient editions are known, one,—Paris 1486, folio; the other also published at Paris, by the widow of Johan Treperre, N. D., also folio. Besides this, two modern editions, with badly executed cuts, printed at Cologne, by Pierre Gaillard, 1701 and 1736 respectively, 2 vols. 8vo.
P. 93: By Bourguignonne the King meant étrangère (foreigner).
P. 94: See the sojourn of Charles VIII. at Lyons: Séjours d Charles VIII. et Louis XII. à Lyon sur le Rosne jouxte la copie de faicts, gestes et victoires des roys Charles VIII. et Louis XII., Lyon, 1841
P. 94: Louis XII. had really been a "good fellow," without mentioning the laundress of the court, who was rumored to be the mother of Cardinal de Bucy, he had known at Genoa Thomasina Spinola, with whom, according to Jean d'Authon, his relations were purely moral.
P. 97: Francis I. forbade by the decree of December 23, 1523, that any farces be played at the colleges of the University of Paris "Wherein scandalous remarks are made about the King or the princes or about the people of the King's entourage." (Clairambault, 824, fol. 8747, at the Bibilothèque Nationale.) This king maintained, as Brantôme says, that women are very fickle and inconstant; he wrote to Montmorency of his own sister Marguerite de Valois, November 8, 1537: "We may be sure that when we wish women to stop they are dying to trot along; but when we wish them to go they refuse to budge from their place." (Clairambault, 336, fol. 6230, vo.)
P. 98: Paul Farnese, Paul III. 1468-1549.
P. 98: The queen arrived at Nice, June 8, 1538, where the king and Pope Paul III. were. The ladies of whom Brantôme speaks should be the Queen of Navarre, Mme. de Vendôme, the Duchess d'Etampes, the Marquess de Rothelin—that beautiful Rohan of whom it was said that her husband would get with child and not she—and thirty-eight gentlewomen. (Clair., 336, fol. 6549.)
P. 98: John Stuart, Duke of Albany, grandson of James II., King of Scotland. He was born in France in 1482 and died in 1536. The anecdote that Brantôme relates is connected with the journey of Clement VI. to Marseilles at the time of the marriage of Henri II., then Duke d'Orléans, with the niece of the pope, Catherine de Medici. The marriage took place at Marseilles in 1533.
P. 100: Louise de Clermont Tallard, who married as her second husband the Due d'Uzes. Jean de Taix was the grand master of artillery.
P. 107: He was called Pierre de La Mare, lord of Matha, master of the horse to Marguerite, sister of the king. (Bib. Nat., Cabinet des Titres, art. Matha.) Aimée de Méré was at the court from 1560 to 1564. Hence this adventure took place during that time. (Bib. Nat. ms. français 7856, fol. 1136, vo.)
P. 108: Provided with "bards," plate-armour used to protect a horse's breast and flanks.
P. 109: This Fontaine-Guérin was in all likelihood Honorat de Bueil, lord of Fontaine-Guerin, gentleman of the king's bed-chamber, councillor of State, who died in 1590. He was a great favorite of Charles IX.
P. 112: The lady in question was Françoise de Rohan, dame de La Garnache, if we are to believe Bayle in the Dict. Critique, p. 1317, 2nd. ed., though there would seem to be some doubt about it. The "very brave and gallant Prince" was the Duc de Nemours.
P. 112: A German dance, the Facheltanz.
P. 113: Marie de Flamin.
P. 114: The son of this lady was Henri d'Angoulème, who killed Altoviti and was killed by him at Aix, and not at Marseilles, June 2, 1586. Philippe Altoviti was the Baron of Castellane; he had married the beautiful Renée de Rieux-Châteauneuf.
P. 115: Le Tigre—a pamphlet by François Hotman directed against the Cardinal de Lorraine and the Duchesse de Guise, 1560.
P. 116: Philibert de Marcilly, lord of Cipierre.
P. 117: That pamphlet was aimed at Anne d'Este, Duchess de Guise, at the time of her marriage with the Duc de Nemours.
P. 119: Brantôme alludes to the hatred of the Duchess de Montpensier.
P. 120: Marie de Clèves, who died during her lying-in in 1574.
P. 120: Catherine Charlotte de La Tremolle, Princess de Condé.
P. 122: Not found anywhere in Brantôme's extant works.
P. 125: Du Guast or Lignerolles. However, it may refer to Bussy d'Amboise.
P. 126: Marie Babou de la Bourdaisière, who married Claude de Beauvillier Saint-Aignan in 1560.
P. 128: Plutarch, Sylla, cap. XXX.
P. 129: Queen Maria of Hungary, ruler of the Netherlands, and sister of Charles V.
P. 129: Plutarch, Cato of Utica, cap. XXXV.
P. 132: The personages in question are Henri III., Renée de Rieux-Châteauneuf, then Mme. de Castellane, and Marie de Clèves, wife of the Prince de Condé.
P. 132: Louis de Condé, who deserted Isabeau de La Tour de Limeuil to marry Françoise d'Orléans. The beauty of which Brantôme speaks can scarcely be seen in the portrait in crayon of Isabeau de Limeuil who became Mme. de Sardini.
P. 135: Mottoes were constantly used at that time.
P. 136: Anne de Bourbon, married in 1561 to François de Clèves, Duke de Nevers and Count d'Eu.
P. 146: The empress was Elizabeth of Portugal; the Marquis de Villena, M. de Villena; the Duke de Feria, Gomez Suarez de Figueroa, Duke de Feria; Eleonor, the Queen of Portugal, later married to François Ier; Queen Marie, the Queen of Hungary.
P. 147: Elizabeth, daughter of Henri II.
P. 151: The MS. of this discourse is at the Bibliothèque Nationale (Ms. fr. 3273); it is written in a good hand of the end of the sixteenth century. It is dedicated to the Duke d'Alençon.
P. 152: Opere di G. Boccaccio, Il Filicopo, Firenze, 1723, t. II., p. 73.
P. 159: La Tournelle in the original. This was the name given to the Criminal Court of the Parliament of Paris.
P. 161: Barbe de Cilley; she died in 1415.
P. 166: Brantôme is undoubtedly referring to Mme. de Villequier.
P. 172: This is again Isabeau de La Tour Limeuil.
P. 178: See XXVth Tale in Cent Nouvelles nouvelles.
P. 188: Honoré Castellan.
P. 188. Baron de Vitteau was this member of the Du Prat family; he killed Louis de Beranger du Guast.
P. 190: Chicot was Henri III.'s jester who killed M. de La Rochefoucauld on Saint Bartholomew's Day.
P. 194: Alberic de Rosate, under the word "Matrimonium" in his Dictionary reports an exactly similar instance. Barbatias has something even more extraordinary, how a boy of seven got his nurse with child.
P. 195: The Queen Mother Catherine de Medici. The author gives her name in his book of the Dames Illustres, where he tells the same story.
P. 207: Jean de Rabodanges, who married Marie de Clèves, mother of Louis XII. She was reine blanche, that is, she was in mourning; at that time the women of the nobility wore white when in mourning.
P. 207: These eighteen chevaliers, who were elevated in one batch, caused a good deal of gossip at the court.
P. 214: Louis de Béranger du Guast.
P. 216: She was thirty-five; she died three years later.
P. 217: It is the Château d'Usson in Auvergne.
P. 218: Louis de Saint-gelais-Lansac.
P. 220: Jeanne, married to Jean, Prince of Portugal. She died in 1578.
P. 225: Sébastien, died in 1578. This passage in Brantôme is not one of the least irreverent of this hardened sceptic.
P. 226: The portraits of Marie disclose a protruding mouth. She is generally represented with a cap over her forehead. This feature is to be found in a marked degree in Queen Eleanore; and her brother Charles V. also had a protruding mouth. The drooping lip was likewise characteristic of all the later Dukes de Bourgogne.
P. 228: The entanglements of which Brantôme speaks were: the revolt of the Germanats, in Spain, in 1522; of Tunis or Barbaric, 1535; the troubles in Italy, also in 1535; the revolt in the Netherlands, provoked by the taxes imposed by Maria, in 1540. M. de Chièvres was Guillaume de Croy.
P. 229: Folembray, the royal residence occupied by François let and later by Henri II. Henri IV. negotiated there with Mayenne during the Ligue.
P. 229: Bains en Hainaut.
P. 230: Claude Blosset, surnamed Torcy, lady of Fontaine Chalandray.
P. 234: Christine of Denmark, daughter of Christian II., first married to Francesco Maria Sforza, Duke of Milan. In 1540, five years after her husband's death, she married Francis I. of Lorraine. Her son was Charles II. of Lorraine.
P. 235: N. de La Brosse-Mailly.
P. 235: A small plank attached to the saddle of a lady's horse, and serving to support the rider's feet. Superseded by the single stirrup and pommel.
P. 236: Guy du Faur de Pybrac.
P. 243: Renée, wife of Guillaume V., Duke de Bavière.
P. 246: Blanche de Montferrat, wife of Charles Ier, Duke de Savoie; she died in 1509.
P. 247: Paradin, Chronique de Savoye, III, 85.
P. 247: The seneschal's lady of Poitou was Mme. de Vivonne.
P. 249: Nicolas de Lorraine-Vaudemont, father-in-law of Henri III.
P. 249: Françoise d'Orleans, widow of Louis, Prince de Condé.
P. 250: Louise, daughter of Nicolas de Lorraine-Vaudemont, married in 1575; she died in 1601.
P. 252: Jean de Talleyrand, former ambassador at Rome.
P. 256: Marguerite de Lorraine, whose second marriage was with François de Luxembourg, Duke de Piney.
P. 256: Mayenne, Duke du Maine.
P. 256: Aymard de Chastes.
P. 256: Refers of course to the assassination of Henri III., by the monk Clément (1589).
P. 257: Catherine de Lorraine.
P. 273: Jean Dorat, died in 1588. Louis de Beranger du Guast.
P. 280: Cæsar Borgia, son of Pope Alexander VI.
P. 280: Thomas de Foix, lord of Lescun, brother of Mme. de Châteaubriant.
P. 280: Piero Strozzi, Field Marshal of France.
P. 281: Jean de Bourdeille, brother of Brantôme. He died at the age of twenty-five at the siege of Hesdin. It was from him that the joint title of Brantôme passed on to our author.
P. 281: Henri de Clermont, Viscount de Tallard.
P. 281: André de Soleillas, Bishop of Riez in Provence, in 1576. He had a mistress who was given to playing the prude, but whose hypocrisy did not deceive King Henri IV. That Prince, one day rebuking this lady for her love affairs, said her only delight was in le jeune et l'oraison, fast and prayer.
P. 282: This widow of a Field Marshal of France was very likely the lady of Field Marshal de Saint-André. She wedded as a second husband Geoffroi de Caumont, abbé de Clairac. She called herself Marguerite de Lustrac. As for Brantôme's aunt, it should be Philippe de Beaupoil; she married La Chasteignerie, and as a second husband François de Caumont d'Aymé.
P. 285: Anne d'Anglure de Givry, son of Jeanne Chabot and René d'Anglure de Givry. Jeanne married as a second husband Field Marshal de La Chastre.
P. 285: Jean du Bellay and Blanche de Tournon.
P. 288: Odet de Coligny, Cardinal de Chastillon, married to Elizabeth de Hauteville.
P. 290: Henri II., who neglected his wife, the Queen, for the Duchesse de Valentinois (Diane de Poitiers), who was already quite an old woman and had been his father, the preceding King's, mistress.
P. 293: About the year 400 of the Christian era, St. Jerome witnessed the woman's funeral, and he it is reports the fact mentioned in the text. Epist. ad Ageruchiam, De Monogamia.
P. 293: Charles de Rochechouart.
P. 302: Scio was taken in 1566 by the Turks.
P. 309: It was to her that King Henri IV. said at a court ball by way of amusing the company, that she had used green wood and dry wood both. This jest he made at her expense, because the said lady did never spare any other woman's good name.
P. 310: L'histoire et Plaisante cronique du Petit Jehan de Saintre, par Antoine de La Salle. Paris, 1517.
P. 312: XLVth Tale.
P. 316: An allusion to the affair of Jarnac, who killed La Chasteignerie, Brantôme's uncle, in a duel (1547) with an unexpected and decisive thrust of the sword.
P. 316: Alesandro de Medici, killed, in 1637, by his cousin Lorencino.
P. 314: According to Rabelais, poultre (filly) is the name given to a mare that has never been leapt. So Bussy was not speaking with strict accuracy in using the term in this case.
P. 317: Mme. de Chateaubriant.
P. 318: Perhaps Marguerite de Valois and the ugly Martigues. P. 321: The one-eyed Princess d'Kboli and the famous Antonio Perez.
P. 323: Jeanne de Poupincourt.
P. 324: Anne de Berri, Lady de Certeau, at the court in 1583. Helene de Fonsèques.
P. 324: This princess was very ugly.
P. 330: In the sixteenth century it was customary to whip lazy people in bed. See Marot's epigram: Du Jour des Innocens.
End of Volume Two