Page:Lives of Fair and Gallant Ladies Volume II.djvu/13



HE Mondragola of Machiavelli, which reflects Italian morals at the time of the Renaissance, is well known. Lafontaine has later made use of this motif in one of his humorous stories. In the fourth chapter Liguro arrays in battle order an officer, a valet and a doctor, for a humorous love expedition. Liguro says: "In the right corner we shall place Callimaque; I shall place myself in the extreme left corner, and the doctor in the middle. He will be called St. Cuckold."

An interlocutor: "Who is this Saint?"

"The greatest Saint of France."

This question and the answer given are delicious. Brantôme might have made this witticism even in his time. Perhaps he merely did not write it down, for after all he could not make too extensive use of his favorite play with the word "cocu."

"The cuckold, the greatest Saint of France"; this might have been the motto of the "Dames Galantes." Philarete Chasles would have denied this, of course. He always maintained that Gaul was pure and chaste, and that if France was full of vice, it had merely been infected by neighboring peoples. But this worthy academician was well informed merely regarding Italian influence. He was extremely unaware of the existence of the cuckold in the sixteenth century. He even asserts in the strongest terms (in his preface to the edition of 1834) that all of this had not been so serious; the courtiers had merely desired to be immoral in an elegant fashion. He even calls Brantôme "un fanfaron de licence," a braggart of vice. Indeed he would feel unhappy if he could not reassure us: "Quand il se plonge dans les