Page:Lives of Fair and Gallant Ladies Volume II.djvu/18

Rh relations at this time between France and Spain, the classical country of chivalry.) But her greed for power was always greater than her sensual desires. Though of imposing exterior, she was not beautiful, rather robust, ardently devoted to hunting, and masculine also in the quantity of food she consumed. She talked extremely well and made use of her literary skill in her diplomatic correspondence, which is estimated at about 6,000 letters. She was not, however, spared the great humiliation of sharing the bed and board of her royal husband with Madame de Valentinois, Diana of Poitiers, the mistress of Henri II. In this difficult position with an ignorant and narrow-minded husband who was moreover completely dominated by his favorites, she maintained a very wise attitude. Catherine of Medici was, of course, an intriguing woman who later tried to carry out her most secret purposes in the midst of her own celebrations.

Henri II. had four sons and a daughter, who were born to him by Catherine of Medici after ten years of sterility. In them the tragic fate of the last of the Valois was fulfilled. One after the other mounts the throne which is devoid of any happiness. The last of them is consumed when he has barely reached it. The blood of the Valois would have died out completely but for its continuation in the Bourbons through Marguerite, the last of the Valois, who with her bewitching beauty infatuated men and as the first wife of Henri IV. filled the world with the reports of her scandalous life. There is tragedy in the fact that the book of Fair and Gallant Ladies was dedicated to Alençon, the last and youngest of the Valois. Of these four sons each was more depraved than the other; they furnished the material for Brantôme's story. The book of Fair and Gallant Ladies, therefore, also seals the end of the race.

The line began with Francis II. He mounted the throne when he was a boy of sixteen. He was as weak mentally as he was physically. He died in 1560, less than a year later, "as a result of an ulcer in the head." Then Catherine of