Part 46

◆François de Vendôme, vidam of Chartres? (See Fæneste, 1729 edition, p. 345.)

P. 148:

◆Ariosto, Orlando furioso, canto V., stanza 57:

Io non credo, signor, che ti sia nova La legge nostra....

P. 149:

◆How can Brantôme, who had friends in the Huguenot camp, deliberately relate such absurd tales?

P. 150:

◆There is a close likeness between this woman and the Godard de Blois, a Huguenot, who was hanged for adultery in the year 1563.

P. 152:

◆At that period several persons bore the name of Beaulieu. Brantôme may have in mind Captain Beaulieu, who held Vincennes for the Ligue in 1594. (Chron. Novenn. III., liv. VII.) The chief prior was Charles de Lorraine, son of the Duke de Guise.

P. 154:

◆The Comtesse de Senizon was accused of having contrived his escape, and brought to book for it.

P. 155:

◆According to his habit, Brantôme disfigures what he quotes. Vesta Oppia alone has the right to the name of “good woman”; Cluvia was a profession-courtesan. (Cf. Livy, XXVI., Chap. xxxiii.)

P. 156:

◆This more human reason is probably truer than the one generally given of Jean’s chivalrous conduct regarding his pledge.

◆Jean (surnamed le Bon), King of France, 1350–1364. Taken prisoner by Edward the Black Prince at the battle of Poitiers.

P. 159:

◆Proverb marking the small connection that often exists between gifts of body and good qualities of mind and character.

P. 161:

◆The quotation as given in the text is mutilated and the words transposed. It should read:

“Si tibi simplicitas uxoria, deditus uni Est animus: ... ... Nil unquam invita donabis con juge: vendes Hac obstante nihil; nihil, haec si nolit, emetur.”

Juvenal, Sat. VI, 205 sqq.

That is to say, “If you are attached solely and entirely to your wife, ... you will not be able to give a thing away, or sell or buy a thing, without her consent.”

P. 164:

◆They used to say of those Italian infamies: “In Spagna, gli preti; in Francia, i grandi; in Italia, tutti quanti.”

◆Why not let Boccaccio have the responsibility of this baseness? (Decameron, Vth day, Xth story.)

P. 168: