Part 36

Well, well! I may herein apply to myself the word which our Redeemer Jesus Christ did pronounce out of his own mouth, “a prophet hath no honour in his own country.” Mayhap had I served foreign Princes as well as I have done mine own, and sought adventure among them as I have among those of our land, I should now be more laden with wealth and dignities than I actually am with years and vexations. Patience! if ’tis my Fate hath spun it so, I do curse the jade; if ’tis my Princes be to blame, I do give them to all the devils, an if they be not there already!

This doth end my account of this most honourable lady. She is dead, with an excellent repute as having been a right fair noble dame and having left behind her a good and generous line, as the Marquis eldest son, Don Juan, Don Carlos, Don Cæsar d’Avalos, all which myself have seen and have spoke of them elsewhere. The daughters no less have followed in their brothers’ steps. And herewith I do terminate the main thread of my principal Discourse.

NOTES AND APPENDICES

BIBLIOGRAPHY

(This list is simply a selection from the many editions of the works of Brantôme in French and German. There are also texts in Spanish and Italian. A complete bibliography would fill many pages and would not be essential to the present text.)

EDITIONS

— Leyde, 1666, chez Sambix le jeune, 2 vol. in-12. Le titre portait. “Vies des dames galantes.”

— Leyde, 1666, chez Jean de la Tourterelle, 2 vol. in-12. Le titre portait. “Mémoires de messire Pierre de Bourdeille, seigneur de Brantôme, contenans les vies des dames galantes de son temps.”

— Leyde, 1722, chez Jean de la Tourterelle, 2 vol. in-12. Titre rouge et noir. Mème titre que dans l’édition précédente et mêmes fautes.

— Londres, 1739, Wood et S. Palmer, 2 vol. in-12, titre rouge et noir. “Mémoires de messire Pierre de Bourdeille, seigneur de Brantôme, contenant les vies des dames galantes de son temps.” Édition copiée sur les précédentes.

— La Haye, 1740, 15 vol. in-12. Cette édition est de Le Duchat, Lancelot et Prosper Marchand, et les remarques critiques ont servi aux éditions postérieures.

— Londres, 1779, aux dépens du libraire, 15 vol. in-8^o. “Œuvres du seigneur de Brantôme, nouvelle édition considérablement augmentée, accompagnée de remarques historiques et critiques et distribuée, dans un meilleur ordre.” Les Dames galantes occupent les tomes III et IV.

— Paris, 1822, Foucault, 8 vol. in-8^o. “Œuvres complétes du seigneur de Brantôme, accompagnées de remarques historiques et critiques. Nouvelle édition collationnée sur les manuscrits de la Bibliothèque du Roi.” (Monmerqué). Les Dames galantes occupent le VII^e vol.

— Paris, 1834, Ledoux, 2 vol. in-8^o. “Les Dames galantes, par le seigneur de Brantôme, nouvelle édition avec une préface de M. Ph. Chasles.” Édition qui a beaucop et mal profité de l’édition précédente.

— Paris, 1841–1869, Garnier frères, 1 vol. in-18. Édition populaire plusieurs fois réimprimée et faite d’après l’édition de 1740.

— Paris, 1857, A. Delahays, 1 vol. in-12. “Œuvres de Brantôme, nouvelle édition revue d’après les meilleurs textes, avec une préface historique et critique par H. Vigneau. Vies des Dames galantes.” Édition faite d’après les éditions antéricures. Les notes sont bonnes.

Il a été fait une nouvelle édition de ce travail en 1857, chez Delahays, en in-18.

— Paris, 1876, Renouard, libraire de la Société de l’histoire de France. “Œuvres complètes de Pierre de Bourdeille, seigneur de Brantôme, publiées d’après les manuscrits, avec variantes et fragments inédits, pour la Société de l’histoire de France, par Ludovic Lalanne. Tome neuvième. Des Dames” (suite). Un gros vol. in-8 de 743 pages, titre non compris.

Cette édition est la première qui indique les sources auxquelles Brantôme a puisé ses historiettes. M. Lalanne n’a laissé aucun passage sans une explication toujours courte et toujours substantielle.

— L’Œuvre du Seigneur de Brantôme. “Vie des Dames galantes.” Introduction and notes by B. de Villeneuve. Paris, 1913.

— Les Dames galantes. Publiées d’apres les manuscrits de la Bibliothèque Nationale, par Henri Bouchot. 2 vols. E. Flammarion. Paris. (A very fine edition.)

— Brantôme: Das Leben der Galanten Damen. (Dionysos-Bücherei). Introduction by George Harsdörfer. 2 vols. Berlin. (The best German edition.)

— Brantôme: Lives of Fair and Gallant Ladies. Translated from the original by A. R. Allinson. 2 vols. Paris. Carrington. 1902.

APPENDIX—A

BRANTÔME: By ARTHUR TILLEY

Like Montaigne, Brantôme pretended to be careless of literary fame, but in reality took every pains to secure it; like Montaigne he loved digressions, gaillardes escapades, from his main theme; like Montaigne he has drawn for us, though in his case unconsciously, a portrait of himself; like Montaigne he was curious of information, fond of travel and books. But these points of similarity are after all superficial; the difference is fundamental. While Montaigne tested the world and society by the light of his shrewd common sense, Brantôme accepted them without question or reflexion. Montaigne was essentially a thinker, Brantôme was merely a reporter; Montaigne was a moralist, for Brantôme the word morality had no meaning. Montaigne criticised his age, Brantôme reflected it. That indeed is Brantôme’s chief value, that he reflects his age like a mirror, but it must be added that he reflects chiefly its more trivial, not to say its more scandalous side. He is the Suetonius of the French Renaissance.

Pierre de Bourdeille, “reverend father in God, abbé de Brantôme,” belonged to a noble and ancient family of Perigord. The precise date of his birth is uncertain, but it must be placed somewhere between 1539 and 1542. He spent his childhood with his grandmother, Louise de Vivonne, wife of the seneschal of Poitou, at the court of Margaret of Navarre, and after studying first at Paris and then at Poitiers, travelled for more than a year in Italy, returning to France at the beginning of 1560, when he made his first appearance at the court. Though he already held other benefices besides the abbey from which he took his title, he was not in orders. The next fourteen years were spent by him either in fighting on the Catholic side in the religious wars, or in attendance at the court, or in travel. In 1574 his military career came to an end, for his duties as gentleman of the chamber, to which post he had been appointed in 1568, kept him at court, frivolous, idle, and discontented. At last the refusal of Henry III. to bestow on him the promised post of governor of Perigord filled him with such fury that he determined to enter the service of Spain. But a fall from his horse, which kept him in bed for four years (1583–1587), saved him from being a renegade to his country and turned him into a man of letters.

For it was during this forced inactivity, apparently in 1584, that he began his literary labours, which he continued for the next thirty years, most of which he spent on his estate. He died in 1614, leaving a will of portentous length, in which, among other things, he charged his heirs to have his works printed en belle et grand lettre et grand volume. The charge was neglected, and it was not till 1665–1666 that an incomplete and defective edition was published at Leyden, in the Elzevir form. Previous to this, however, several copies had been made of his manuscripts, and Le Laboureur in his edition of Castelnau’s Memoirs, published in 1659, had printed long extracts.