If you wish to be cured Take--if you can find them---- Two conscientious Burgundians, Two clean Germans, Two meek inhabitants of Champagne, Two Englishmen who are not treacherous, Two men of Picardy who are not rash With two bold Lombards, And, to end, two worthies from Limousin. Bray them in an oakum mortar And then put in your soup. If you have made a good hash You’ll find you never had a better Remedy to ward off the epidemic. But no one will ever believe it. Queen Marguerite of Valois, the wife whose wedding festivities had precipitated the massacre of Saint Bartholomew, proved herself Catherine de Medicis’ own daughter in point of morals. Henry’s were none of the best and they were divorced, he to contemplate marriage with Gabrielle d’Estrées and after her death to clinch his Italian alliance by wedding Marie de Medicis, while Marguerite entertained herself with numerous lovers at the Hôtel de Sens and at a new house which she built on the left bank, finding it “piquant” to look across to the Louvre where her successor lived. In moments of emotion, conventionality or fright she founded several religious houses. Of the Monastery of the Petits-Augustins there is a remnant left, the chapel, which has been secularized and now houses the Renaissance museum of the School of Fine Arts. Its façade is, incongruously enough, the façade of Diane de Poitiers’ château d’Anet, mentioned above. Henry’s devotion to Gabrielle d’Estrées, a rarely beautiful woman, made him have her initial carved in parts of the Louvre which he built. The letters are gone now except in one overlooked instance, and they were erased, it is said, by the order of Marie de Medicis. If this is true she seems to have had more feeling about this past love affair of the king’s than about his former wife, for she is said to have been friendly with Marguerite across the river even to the point of paying her debts. In spite of Henry’s warlike career and his rough-and-ready manners he was not without the ability, which many early kings cultivated, to express his lighter emotions in verse. To-day this royal skill seems to have left the monarchs of Europe with the exception of Carmen Sylva and of Nicholas of Montenegro who writes and fights with equal enthusiasm. Here is a poem addressed to CHARMING GABRIELLE[4] My charming Gabrielle! My heart is pierced with woe, When glory sounds her knell, And forth to war I go; Parting, perchance our last! Day, marked unblest to prove! O, that my life were past, Or else my hapless love! Bright star whose light I lose,---- O, fatal memory! My grief each thought renews!---- We meet again or die! Parting, perchance our last! Day, marked unblest to prove! O, that my life were past, Or else my hapless love!