Page:Lives of Fair and Gallant Ladies Volume II.djvu/136

Rh most certainly have been hanged, albeit he was a man of good quality, so sore was the King seen to be wroth that time, and little like to go back on his word. I have this anecdote of a person of honour and credibility which was present; and at the time the King did say right out, that any man which should offend the honour of ladies, the same should be hanged without benefit of clergy.

A little while before, Pope Farnese being come to Nice, and the King paying him his respects in state with all his Court and Lords and Ladies, there were some of these last, and not the least fair of the company, which did go to the Pope for to kiss his slipper. Whereupon a gentleman did take on him to say they had gone to beg his Holiness for a dispensation to taste of raw flesh without sin or shame, whenever and as much as ever they might desire. The King got to know thereof; and well it was for the gentleman he did fly smartly, else had he been hanged, as well for the veneration due to the Pope as for the respect proper to fair ladies.

 

HESE gentlemen were not so happy in their speeches and interviews as was once the late deceased M. d'Albanie. The time when Pope Clement did visit Marseilles to celebrate the marriage of his niece with M. d'Orleans, there were three widow ladies, of fair face and honourable birth, which by reason of the pains, vexations and griefs they suffered from the absence of their late husbands and of those pleasures that were no more, had come so low, and grown so thin, weak and sickly, as that they did beseech M. 