Brittany, an obliging and kind husband.—François de Vivonne, lord of La Chasteigneraie, was among the least meek-minded of the court. Princess de La Roche-sur-Yon having stupidly asked him one day for a domestic favor, he called her "a little muddy princess," which afforded King Francis I. no little laughter. He was killed by Jarnac in a famous duel.
P. 98: An allusion to the demon who threw to the ground the archangel Saint Michael, and who was represented on the collar of the order. It is rather difficult to know of which lady Brantôme is speaking here: the collar of Saint Michael had been given to so many people that it was called "the collar for all animals." (Castelnau, Mémoires, I., p. 363.)
P. 99: Where did Brantôme get this story? Gui de Châtillon had expended on banquets the greater part of his fortune and sold his county to Louis d'Orléans; the latter was merely seventeen at the time. It is difficult to admit that he could have carried on a liaison with a woman so ripe in years. After the death of Gui, Marguerite married an officer of the Duke d'Orléans.
P. 101: Apparently Queen Marguerite de Valois. Marguerite de Valois, sister of Francois I., was born at Angouleme in 1492. Married in 1509 to Charles 4th Duc d'Alençon, who died (1525) soon after the disastrous battle of Pavia, at which François I. was taken prisoner. In 1527 she married Henri d'Albret, king of Navarre. She was a Princess of many talents and accomplishments, and the delight of her brother François I., who called her his Mignonne, and his Marguerite des Marguerites; Du Bellay and Clément Marot were both members of her literary coterie. Authoress of the famous Heptameron, or Nouvelles de la Reine de Navarre, composed in imitation of Boccaccio's Decameron. Died 1549.
P. 101: This is also an allusion to Queen Marguerite. Martigues, one of her lovers, had received from her a scarf and a little dog which he wore at the tournaments.
P. 103: Henri III., who had a short-lived affair with Catherine Charlotte de La Tremoille, the wife of Prince de Condé. But the victory was too easy; the princess was quite corrupt. Later on, the king prostituted her with one of his pages, with whom she conspired to poison her husband. The plot failed. When brought before the Court, she was pardoned; but a servant named Brilland was torn
[370]
