King Charles V., treating of the marriage of Queen Marie of France, his daughter, with Guillaume, Count of Hainault, in the year 1374, stipulated for the renunciation by the said count of all right to the kingdom and to Dauphiné; which is a great point, for see the contradictions! Certainly if women could handle arms like men they could make themselves accredited; but by way of compensation, they have their beautiful faces; which, however, are not recognized as they deserve; for surely it is better to be governed by beautiful, lovely, and honourable women than by tiresome, conceited, ugly, and sullen men such as I have seen in this France of ours. I would like to know if this kingdom has found itself any better for an infinitude of conceited, silly, tyrannical, foolish, do-nothing, idiotic, and crazy kings--not meaning to accuse our brave Pharamond, Clodion, Clovis, Pépin, Martel, Charles, Louis, Philippe, Jean, François, Henri, for they are all brave and magnanimous, those kings, and happy they who were under them--than it would have been with an infinitude of the daughters of France, very able, very prudent, and very worthy to govern. I appeal to the regency of the mothers of kings to show this, to wit:-- Frédégonde, how did she administer the affairs of France during the minority of King Clothaire, her son, if not so wisely and dexterously that he found himself before he died monarch of Gaul and of much of Germany? The like did Mathilde, wife of Dagobert, as to Clovis II., her son; and, long after, Blanche, mother of Saint-Louis, who behaved so wisely, as I have read, that, just as the Roman emperors chose to call themselves “Augustus” in commemoration of the luck and prosperity of Augustus, the great emperor, so the former queen-mothers after the decease of the kings, their husbands, desired each to be called “Reine Blanche,” in honourable memory of the government of that wise princess. Though M. du Tillet contradicts this a little, I have heard it from a very great senator. And, to come lower down, Isabeau of Bavaria had the regency of her husband, Charles VI. (who lost his good sense), by the advice of the Council; and so had Madame de Bourbon for little King Charles VIII. during his minority; Madame Louise de Savoie for King François I.; and our queen-mother for King Charles IX., her son. If, therefore, foreign ladies (except Madame de Bourbon, who was daughter of France) were capable of governing France so well, why should not our own ladies do as much, having good zeal and affection, they being born here and suckled here, and the matter touching them so closely?