Part 49

◆This story was popular in Paris; it was amplified and embellished into a drama and ascribed to Marguerite de Bourgogne. Was it not Isabeau de Bavière?

◆Isabeau, or Isabelle, de Bavière, wife of the half imbecile Charles VI. of France, and daughter of Stephen II., Duke of Bavaria, was born 1371; died 1435. Among countless other intrigues was one with the Duc d’Orléans, her husband’s brother. One of her lovers, Louis de Boisbourdon, was thrown into the Seine in a leather sack inscribed Laissez passer la justice du roi. The famous story of the Tour de Nesles seems mythical.

P. 225:

◆See under Buridan, in Bayle’s Dict. Critique. Compare also Villon, in his Ballade of the Dames des Temps Jadis (Fair Dames of Yore):

Semblablement où est la reine, Qui commanda que Buridan Fust jeté en un sac en Seine?

(Likewise where is the Queen, who commanded Buridan to be cast in a sack into the Seine?)

P. 227:

◆Plutarch, Anthony, Chap. xxxii.

P. 229:

◆Livy, lib. XXX., cap. xv. Appien, De Rebus punicis, XXVII.

◆Joachim du Bellay, Œuvres poétiques, 1597.

◆La Vieille Courtisane (“The Old Courtesan”), fol. 449. B. of the Œuvres poét. of Joachim du Bellay, edition of 1597.

P. 230:

◆This pun is difficult to explain.

P. 231:

◆Lucian, Amours, XV.

P. 235:

◆Marguerite, wife of Henri IV., whose elegance drew from the old Queen Catherine this remark: “No matter where you may go, the court will take the fashion from you, and not you from the court.”

(Brantôme, Elogé de la reine Marguerite.)

◆Brantôme alludes to the Duke d’Anjou.

◆Jeanne de Navarre, wife of Philippe le Bel, King of France, daughter and sole heiress of Henri I. of Navarre, was born 1272, died 1305 at the early age of 33. She was a beautiful and accomplished Princess, and the tales told by some historians reflecting on her character are apparently quite without foundation.

◆The Divorce satyrique attributes this contrivance to Queen Marguerite, who adopted it to make her husband, the King of Navarre, more deeply enamoured and more naughty.

P. 236:

◆These are taken from an old French book entitled: De la louange et beauté des Dames (“Of the Praise and Beauty of Ladies”). François Corniger has put the same into 18 Latin lines. Vencentio Calmeta has rendered them also into Italian verse, commencing with the words: Dolce Flaminia.

◆Pliny speaks of this Helen of Zeuxis.

P. 237:

◆Ronsard, Œuvres, 1584 edition, p. 112. It is a poem addressed to the famous painter Clouet, according to Janet, in which the poet sings the praises of his fair lady. This poem has more than one point in common with the present chapter of the Dames.

P. 238: