Part 44

◆May very well refer to Henri de Lorraine, Duc de Guise, assassinated at Blois.

◆Most probably refers to Marguerite de Valois, the king of Navarre, the Duc d’Anjou and the St. Bartholomew.

P. 105:

◆Louis de Béranger du Guasi, one of Henri III.’s favorites, assassinated in 1575 by M. de Viteaux. His epitaph is in the Manuscrit français 22565, f^o 901^o (Bibliothèque Nationale). Brantôme, who boasts of being a swordsman, forgets that D’Aubigné was also one.

◆A small town of Brittany (Dep. Ille-et-Vilaine), 14 miles from St. Mâlo. Has a cathedral of 12th and 13th centuries; the bishopric was suppressed in 1790.

P. 107:

◆To take a journey to Saint-Mathurin was a proverbial expression which meant that a person was mad. Henri Estienne says that this is a purely imaginary saint; be that as it may, he was credited with curing madmen, and the satirical songs of the time are full of allusions to that healing power. (See Journal de Henri III, 1720 edition, t. II., pp. 307 and 308.)

P. 108:

◆Lalanne proves by a passage from Spartianus that this anecdote is apocryphal, or that at least Brantôme has embellished it for his own needs. (Dames, tom. IX., p. 116.)

◆Hadrian (P. Aelius Hadrianus), 14th in the series of Roman Emperors, A. D. 117–138, succeeded his guardian and kinsman Trajan. His wife, Sabina, here mentioned, was a grand-daughter of Trajan’s sister Marciana.

P. 109:

◆Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (“The Philosopher”) succeeded Antonius Pius as Emperor in A. D. 168. Died 180. His wife Faustina (as profligate a woman as Messalina herself) was daughter of Pius. Author of the famous Meditations. His son Commodus, who succeeded him as Emperor, was a complete contrast in character to his father, being vicious, weak, cruel and dissolute.

◆Another embellished passage. Faustine had died before Antoninus Commodus was emperor. Moreover, she was only washed (sublevare, says the text) with the blood of the gladiator. (J. Capitolin, Marc-Antoine le Philosophe, Chap. xix.)

P. 113:

◆A discreet and veiled allusion to the amours of Marguerite de Valois and of the Duchess de Nevers with La Môle and Coconas. Implicated in the affair of Field Marshals de Cossé and de Montmorency, La Môle, a Provençal nobleman, and Coconas, a Piedmontese, were beheaded on the square of Grève towards the end of April, 1574, and not killed in battle as Brantôme tries to insinuate. The two princesses, mad with despair, transported the bodies in their carriages to the place of burial, at Montmartre, and kept the heads, which they had had embalmed. (Mémoires de Nevers, I., p. 75, and Le Divorce satirique.)

P. 114:

◆It is Philippe Strozzi, Field Marshal of France, who was born at Venice. Made lieutenant of the naval army in 1579 in order to further the pretensions of Antonio of Portugal, he was defeated, July 28, 1583, and put to death in cold blood by Santa Cruz, his rival. (Vie et mort ... de Philippe Strozzi. Paris, Guil. Lenoir, 1608.)

P. 119:

◆Thomas de Foix, lord of L’Escu or Lescun, was the brother of Mme. de Chateaubriant, mistress of François I^{er}. He was captured at Pavia and carried, mortally wounded, to the home of the lady of whom Brantôme speaks. It was he who, by the surrender of Cremona in 1522, caused France to lose Italy. (Guicciardini, t. III., p. 473, Fribourg edition, 1775.)

P. 120:

◆Paolo Jovio, Dialogo delle imprese militari ed amorose, 1559, p. 13.

◆Blaise de Montluc, author of the Commentaires, a diabolical Gascon, made Field Marshal of France in 1574. The siege of La Rochelle, which is here mentioned, took place in 1573. For details on this personage, see the De Ruble edition of the Commentaires, 1854–74, 5 vols.

◆Paulus Jovius (Paolo Giovio), Historian, was a native of Como; born 1483, died 1552.

P. 122:

◆In his Contre-Repentie (fol. 444, A. of his Works, 1576). Joachim du Bellay, the poet, was born about 1524 at Lire in Anjou, of a noble and distinguished family of that Province. After an unfortunate youth, his talents ensured him a welcome at the Court of François I. and his sister Marguerite de Valois, where he spent some years. Died young, after a life of ill health, in 1560.

◆Francis Rabelais was born about 1483 at Chinon in Touraine, where his father was an apothecary. After a stormy youth and some years spent as a Monk in more than one Monastery of more than one Order, and later wandering the country as a vagabond secular priest, he was admitted Doctor in the Faculty of Medicine at Montpellier. Countless stories of his pranks and adventures are told, many no doubt mythical. He visited Rome as well as most parts of France in the course of his life. He died Curé of Meudon, about 1553.

P. 123:

◆Chastity-belts of this sort were already in use at Venice at the time.