Page:Lives of Fair and Gallant Ladies Volume II.djvu/15

Rh in book-form?). He is even charged with a crime when he merely reports such events. The responsibility which Brantôme must bear for his writings is greatly to be limited. And if our educated old maids simply refuse to be reconciled with his share we need merely tell them that this share is completely neutralized by his own personal life.

Brantôme undoubtedly considered himself an historian. That was a pardonable error. There is a great difference of opinion regarding the historical value of his reports, the most general opinion being that Brantôme's accuracy is in no way to be relied upon, and that he was more a chronicler and a writer of memoirs. To be sure, Brantôme cannot prove the historical accuracy of every statement he makes. Who would be able to give an exact account of this kaleidoscope of details? But the significance, the symbolic value is there.

In order to substantiate this sharp distinction between the book of Fair and Gallant Ladies and the supposed character of its author, I must be permitted to describe France of the sixteenth century. Various essayists have said that this period had been quite tame and pure in morals, that Brantôme had merely invented and exaggerated these stories. But when they began to cite examples, it became evident that their opinion was like a snake biting its own tail. Their examples proved the very opposite of their views.

Brantôme's book could only have been written at the time of the last of the Valois. These dissolute kings furnished material for his book. Very few of these exploits can be charged to his own account, and even these he relates in an impersonal manner. Most of them he either witnessed or they were related to him, largely by the kings themselves. No matter in what connection one may read the history of the second half of the sixteenth century, the dissolute, licentious and immoral Valois are always mentioned. The kings corrupted this period to such an extent that Brantôme would have had to be a Heliogabalus in order to make his own contributions felt.