Page:Lives of Fair and Gallant Ladies Volume II.djvu/153

Rh fancy took him one evening to go see the stags in their rut in that noble forest of Saint-Germain, and he did take with him certain princes, his chief familiars, and some great ladies, both wives and maids, whose names I could very well give, an if I chose. Nor was there lacking one fain to make a talk of it, and say this did not smack of his womankind being exactly virtuous or chaste, to be going to see these lovemakings and wanton ruttings of beasts, seeing how the appetite of Venus must heat them more and more at sight of such doings. In fact, so sore will they be longing to taste, that sure the water or saliva will be coming to their mouth, in such wise that no other remedy will there be thereafter for to get rid of the same except only by some other discharge of saliva, or something else. The King heard of this speech, and the noblemen and ladies which had accompanied him thither. Be well assured, an if the gentleman had not straightway decamped, he had fared very ill; nor did he ever again appear at Court till after that King's death and the end of his reign. Many scandalous pamphlets there were put forth against them which were then in direction of the Government of the Kingdom; but there was never an one that did so hurt and offend as a satire entitled The Tiger —modelled on the first invective of Cicero against Catiline,—especially as it spake freely of the amours of a very great and fair lady, and a great nobleman, her kinsman. An if the gallant author had been caught, though he had had an hundred thousand lives, he had surely lost them every one; for the two great folks, lady and gentleman, were so exceeding vexed and angered as that they did all but die of despair.

This King Francis II. was not subject to love like his