Page:Lives of Fair and Gallant Ladies Volume II.djvu/228

Rh I knew a great Lady at Court which had the repute of being over familiar with her reader and teacher,—so much so indeed that one day Chicot, the King's jester, did openly reproach her therewith in presence of his Majesty and many other personages of the Court, asking her if she were not ashamed to have herself loved (saying the word right out) of so ugly and base a loon as yonder fellow, and if she had not wit to choose a better man. The company hereon began to laugh uproariously and the lady to weep, supposing that the King had abetted the game; for strokes of the sort were quite in character with his usual play. Other very great ladies and high Princesses I have known, which every day would amuse themselves with making their Secretaries, whom I have likewise known, write, or rather pretend to write, and have fine games. Or if they did not call for them to write, having naught to say, then would they make them read aloud, for to give a better colour to the whole thing, declaring how reading themselves did weaken their sight.

Great ladies which do make choice of suchlike paramours be quite inexcusable and most blameworthy, seeing they have their liberty of action, and full freedom and opportunity to choose whom they will. But poor girls which be abject slaves of father and mother, kinsfolk and guardians and mistresses, and timid to boot, are constrained to pick up any stone they can find for their purpose, never thinking whether it be cold or hot, roast or boiled. And so, according as occasion offer, they do generally resort to their men-servants, to their schoolmaster and teacher, to fellows of the artist craft, lute-players, fiddlers, dancing masters, painters, in a word