to dance; which he did to obey her; and he took the princess to the grand ball; those who were at the coronation, like myself, saw it, and remember it well. These were the liberties that widows had in the olden time. To-day such things are forbidden them like sacrilege; and as for colours, they dare not wear them, or dress in anything but black and white; though their skirts and petticoats and also their stockings they may wear of a tan-gray, violet, or blue. Some that I see emancipate themselves in flesh-coloured red and chamois colour, as in times past, when, as I have heard said, all colours could be worn in petticoats and stockings, but not in gowns. So this duchess, about whom we have been speaking, could very well wear this gown of cloth of gold, that being her ducal garment and her robe of grandeur, the which was becoming and permissible in her to show her sovereignty and dignity of duchess. Our widows of to-day dare not wear precious stones, except on their fingers, on some mirrors, on some “Hours,” and on their belts; but never on their heads or bodies, unless a few pearls on their neck and arms. But I swear to you I have seen widows as dainty as could be in their black and white gowns, who attracted quite as many and as much as the bedizened brides and maidens of France. There is enough said now of this foreign widow. 9. _Catherine de Clèves, wife of Henri I. de Lorraine, Duc de Guise._ Madame de Guise, Catherine de Clèves, one of the three daughters of Nevers (three princesses who cannot be lauded enough either for their beauty or their virtues, and of whom I hope to make a chapter), has celebrated and celebrates daily the eternal absence of her husband [Le Balafré, killed at Blois 1588]. But oh! what a husband he was! The none-such of the world! That is what she called him in several letters which she wrote to certain ladies of her intimacy whom she held in esteem, after her misfortune; manifesting in sad and grievous words the regrets of her wounded soul. 10. _Madame de Bourdeille._ Madame de Bourdeille, issuing from the illustrious and ancient house of Montbéron, and from the Comtes de Périgord and the Vicomtes d’Aunay, became a widow at the age of thirty-seven or thirty-eight, very beautiful (in Guyenne, where she lived, it was believed that none surpassed her in her day for beauty, grace, and noble appearance); and being thus in fine estate and widowed, she was sought in marriage and pursued by three very great and rich seigneurs, to whom she answered:-- “I shall not say as many ladies do, who declare they will never marry, and give their word in such a way that they must be believed, after which nothing comes of it; but I do say that, if God and flesh do not give me any other wishes than I have at present, it is a very certain thing that I have bade farewell to marriage forever.”