No less do I admire a certain Preacher, who one day preaching to a worthy company, and taking occasion to reprove the habits of some women and of their husbands which did endure to be cuckolded of them, did of a sudden set to and shout out: “Yes, I know them well, I can see them, and I am going to throw these two stones at the heads of the biggest cuckolds in the assembly.” Then as he did make pretence to throw them, there was never a man in all the congregation but did duck his head, or put up his cloak, or his cape, or his arm, before his face, for to ward off the blow. But the divine, rebuking them, cried, “Did I not tell you? I did suppose there might be two or three cuckolds in my congregation; but lo! by what I see, there is never a man but is one.” Still, let these wild talkers say what they will, there be many very chaste and honourable women, who if they had to give battle to their opposites, would gain the day, not for their numbers but their virtue, which doth resist and easily subdue its contrary. Moreover when the aforenamed Jean de Meung doth blame those women which are “whores, in desire,” meseems he ought rather to commend and extol such to the skies, seeing that if they do burn so ardently in their body and spirit, yet put no wrong in practice, they do herein manifest their virtue, and the firmness and nobility of their heart. For they do choose rather to burn and consume away in their own fire and flame of desire, like that rare and wondrous bird the phœnix, than forfeit and stain their honour. Herein they do resemble the white ermine, which had rather die than foul itself,—’tis the device of a very great lady I knew at one time, yet but ill carried out by her,—seeing how, it being in their power to apply the remedy, yet do they so nobly refrain, and seeing there is no greater virtue nor no nobler victory than to master and subdue one’s own nature. Hereanent we have a very excellent story in the _Cent Nouvelles_ of the Queen of Navarre, concerning that honourable lady of Pampeluna, who albeit in her heart and of desire a whore, and burning for the love of the handsome and noble M. d’Avannes, did choose rather to die in her heat of longing than seek her remedy, as she did find means to inform him in her dying words.[106*] Most unfairly and unjustly then did this same fair and honourable lady bring to pass her own death; and, as I did hear an honourable gentleman and lady say, when discoursing on this passage, the thing was not void of offence against God, seeing she could have saved herself from death. But to so bring it on herself and precipitate it, this is rightly called suicide. And there be many of her kidney which by reason of this great continence and abstinence from the pleasures of love, do bring about their own death, both for body and spirit.