Page:Lives of Fair and Gallant Ladies Volume II.djvu/322

Rh a good husband, I wish not to be exposed to the fear of losing him; but if a bad, what need to have one at all?" Valeria, a Roman lady, having lost her husband, whenas some of her companions were condoling with her on his loss and death, said thus to them: " 'Tis too true he is dead for you all, but he liveth in me for ever." The fair Marquise I have spoke of a little above, had borrowed a like phrase from her. These expressions of these noble ladies do differ much from what a Spanish ill-wisher of the sex declared, to wit: que la jornada de la biudez d' una muger es d' un dia,—"that the day of a woman's widowhood is one day long." A lady I must now tell of did much worse. This was Madame de Moneins, whose husband was King's lieutenant, and was massacred at Bordeaux, by the common folk in a salt-excise riot. So soon as ever news was brought her that her husband had been killed and had met the fate he did, she did straight cry out: "Alas! my diamond, what hath become of it?" This she had given him by way of marriage present, being worth ten to twelve hundred crowns of the money of the day, and he was used to wear it always on his finger. By this exclamation she did let folk plainly see which grief she did bear the more hardly, the loss of her husband or that of the diamond.

Madame d'Estampes was a high favourite with King Francis, and for that cause little loved of her husband. Once when some widow or other came to her asking her pity for her widowed state, "Why! dear heart," said she, "you are only too happy in your condition, for I tell you, one cannot be a widow by wishing for't,"—as if implying she would love to be one. Some women be so situate, others not.