Part 45

◆There is in the Hennin collection of prints at the Bibliothèque Nationale (t. III., f^o 64) a satirical print representing what Brantôme relates here. A lady returns to her husband the key; but behind the bed, the lover, hidden by a duenna, receives from the latter a key similar to the husband’s. This instrument of jealousy was the cingulum pudicitiæ of the Romans, the “Florentine lock” of the sixteenth century. Henri Aldegraver also engraved on the sheath of a dagger a lady who is adorned with a lock of this kind. (Bartsch, Peintre-Graveur, VIII., p. 437.) These refinements in jealousy as well as the refinements in debauchery (of which Brantôme will speak later) were of Italian origin. (See on this subject La Description de l’Ile des Hermaphrodites, Cologne, 1724, p. 43.)

P. 124:

◆Lampride, Alexandre Sévère, Chap. XXII.

P. 125:

◆Nicolas d’Estouteville, lord of Villeconnin, and not Villecouvin, nobleman of the Chambre, died in Constantinople in February, 1567. He had gone to Turkey to forget a disappointment in love or in politics. Here is his epitaph:

Le preux Villeconin en la fleur de ses ans, Hélas! a délaissé nos esbatz si plaisans, Laissant au temple sainct de la digne Memoire Son labeur, son renom, son honneur et sa gloire.

P. 127:

◆Dr. Subtil, surname of J. Scott or Duns.

P. 128:

◆Saint Sophronie.

◆See De Thou liv. XLIX. There were, at the court of France, other women who had escaped from Cyprus and who scarcely resembled this heroine. Témoin de la Dayelle, of whom Brantôme speaks in the Dames illustres, in the chapter on the Medicis. (Journal de Henri III., 1720 edition, t. II., p. 142.)

P. 132:

◆Guillot le Songeur is, according to Lalanne, Don Guilan el Cuidador of the Amadis de Gaule.

◆“Guillot le Songeur,” a name applied to any Pensive man,—from the knight Julian le Pensif, one of the characters of the Amadis of Gaul.

P. 136:

◆Danae, daughter of Acrisius, King of Argos, who confined her in brazen tower, where Jupiter obtained access in the form of a golden shower.

P. 137:

◆An allusion to Duke Henri de Guise. His wife Catherine de Clèves had, in addition to her “bed lovers,” many other intrigues. (See the Confession de Sancy, Chap. VIII., notes.)

P. 138:

◆Trajan (M. Ulpius Trajanus), Emperor A. D. 98–117. His wife Plotina, here mentioned, was a woman of extraordinary merits and virtues, according to the statements of all writers, with one exception, who speak of her. She persuaded her husband to adopt Hadrian who became his successor; but Dion Cassius is the only author who says a word as to her intercourse with the latter having been of a criminal character, and such a thing is utterly opposed to all we know of her character.

P. 141:

◆This refers very likely to Brantôme’s voyage to Scotland. He had accompanied Queen Mary Stuart in August, 1561, at the time of her departure from France. Riccio, who was the favorite of “low rank,” had arrived one year later; but Brantôme, who is relating something which happened a long time before, is not precise: he is unquestionably responding to a request of Queen Catherine.

P. 144:

◆In this passage, where Brantôme cleverly avows his wiles as a courtier, he refers to the Queen of Spain, Elizabeth, the wife of Philip II. The sister of the princess was Marguerite, Queen of Navarre. The two young infantas, whose portraits are examined in detail, were: the first, Isabella Claire Eugenie (later married to Albert of Austria), who became a nun towards the end of her life; the other, Catherine, married Charles Emmanuel de Savoie in 1585. It is difficult to-day to see the resemblance of the two princesses to their father, in spite of the great number of portraits of all these personages; in fact, we can say that they were scarcely more beautiful than their mother. (Cf. the beautiful portrait in crayon of Queen Elizabeth at the Bibliothèque Nationale, Estampes Na 21, f^o 69.)

◆The two Joyeuses: M. du Bouchage, and a gay companion.

P. 145:

◆Marguerite de Lorraine, married to Anne (Duke) de Joyeuse, the favorite of Henri III. The sister-in-law of whom Brantôme speaks could be neither Mme. du Bouchage nor Mme. de Mercoeur, who were spared by the crudest pamphleteers; he undoubtedly refers to Henriette, Duchess de Montpensier.

P. 146: