Page:Lives of Fair and Gallant Ladies Volume II.djvu/50

Rh meet for so great, fair and noble-hearted a Princess. Nay! the respect was e'en too great, some do say; for the same thing happened as with the Señor de Mendoza and the Duchess of Savoy, and such excessive respectfulness did but engender the like despite and dissatisfaction. At any rate she did part from him by no means so well satisfied as she had come. It may well be he would but have wasted his time without her yielding one whit to his wishes; but at the least the attempt would not have been ill, but rather becoming to a gallant man, and folk would have esteemed him the better therefor.

Why! what is the use of a bold and generous spirit, if it show not itself in all things, as well in love as in war? For love and arms be comrades, and do go side by side with a single heart, as saith the Latin poet: "Every lover is a man of war, and Cupid hath his camp and arms no less than Mars." Ronsard hath writ a fine sonnet hereanent in the first book of his "Amours.".

 

OWEVER to return to the fainness women do display to see and love great-hearted and valiant men,—I have heard it told of the Queen of England, Elizabeth, the same which is yet reigning at this hour, how that one day being at table, entertaining at supper the Grand Prior of France, a nobleman of the house of Lorraine, and M. d'Anville, now M. de Montmorency and Constable of France, the table discourse having fallen among divers other matters on the merits of the late King Henri II. of France, she did commend that Prince most highly, for that he was