high favour at Court. So deep was he in love with her, that unable to get of her what he would so fain have had, for truly she was a very lovely widow and very charming, he did follow her up persistently and press her sore to marry him, inducing the King three or four times over to speak to her in his favour. Yet would she never put herself again under a husband's yoke. She had been married twice, her first husband being the Comte de Montravel, the second M. de Carnavalet. And when her most privy friends, myself first and foremost, who was much her admirer, did chide her for her fault she was committing in refusing so high a match, one that would place her in the very midmost and focus of greatness, wealth, riches, favour and every dignity, seeing how M. de la Valette was chiefest favourite of the King, and deemed of him only second to himself, she would answer: that her delight lay not at all in these things, but in her own free-will and the perfect liberty and satisfaction.
Madame de Bourdeille, sprung of the illustrious and ancient house of Montbron and of the Counts of Périgord and Viscounts of Aunay, being left a widow at the age of seven or eight and thirty, a very beautiful woman (and I do think that in all Guienne, of which province she was, was never another that in her day did surpass her in beauty, charm and good looks, for indeed she had one of the finest, tallest and most gracious figures could anywhere be seen, and if the body was fair the mind was to match), being so desirable and now widowed, was wooed and sought after in marriage by three great and wealthy Lords. To them all she made reply as follows: "I will not say, as many dames do, that they will never, never marry again, adding such asseverations you can in no
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