Lives of Fair and Gallant Ladies. Vol 1Brantôme, Pierre de Bourdeille
History
Lives of Fair and Gallant Ladies. Vol 1
Brantôme, Pierre de Bourdeille
Erotic literature
We have yet among us to this day Madame de Nemours, of yore in the
April of her beauty the wonder of the world, which doth still defy
all devastating time. I may truly say of her, as may all that have
seen her with me, that she was erst the fairest dame, in her blooming
days, in all Christendom. I did see her one day dance, as I have told
elsewhere, with the Queen of Scots, they twain all alone together and
without any other ladies to bear them company, by way of a caprice, so
that all such, men and women, as did behold them knew not to which to
adjudge the palm of beauty. Verily, as one said at the time, you would
have thought them those two suns which we read in Pliny to have once
appeared together in the sky, to dazzle the world. Madame de Nemours,
at that time Madame de Guise, did show the more luxurious figure; and
if it be allowed me so to say without offence to the Queen of Scots,
she had the more imposing and apparent dignity of port, albeit she was
not a Queen like the other. But then she was grand-daughter of that
great King,[171] the father of his people, whom she did resemble in
many of her features, as I have seen him portrayed in the gallery of
the Queen of Navarre, showing in every look the great monarch he was.
I think I was the first which did call her by this name of
Grand-daughter of the great King, Father of his People. This was at
Lyons, time when the King did return out of Poland; and often would
I call her so, and she did me the honour to deem it well, and like it
at my hands. She was in very deed a true grand-daughter of that great
King, and especially in goodness of heart and beauty. For she was ever
very good-hearted, and few or none are to be found that she ever did
ill or displeasure to, while many did win great advantage in the time
of her favour, that is to say in the time of her late husband, Monsieur
de Guise, which did enjoy high consideration in France. Thus were there
two very noble perfections united in this lady, goodness and beauty,
and both of these hath she right well maintained to this present day,
and by their means hath married two most honourable husbands, and two
that few or none at all could have been found to match. And indeed, and
if another could be found of like sort and worthy of her, and if she
did wish for a third, she might well enjoy one more, so fair is she yet.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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