Page:Lives of Fair and Gallant Ladies Volume II.djvu/57

Rh they give them good favours once for all and pray them, for the love they bear them, to carry these forth to honourable and perilous places in the wars, and so prove their valour. Thus would they push them on to greater prowess, rather than make them perform the follies I have just spoke of, and of which I could recount an infinity of instances.

This doth remind me, how that, whenas we were advancing to lay siege to Rouen in the first war of Religion, Mademoiselle de Piennes, one of the honourable damsels of the Court, being in doubt as to whether the late M. de Gergeay was valiant enough to have killed, himself alone and man to man, the late deceased Baron d'Ingrande, which was one of the most valiant gentlemen of the Court, did for to prove his valiance, give him a favour,—a scarf which he did affix to his head harness. Then, on occasion of the making a reconnaissance of the Fort of St. Catherine, he did charge so boldly and valiantly on a troop of horse which had sallied forth of the city, that bravely fighting he did receive a pistol shot in the head, whereof he did fall stark dead on the spot. In this wise was the said damsel fully satisfied of his valour, and had he not been thus killed, seeing he had fought so well, she would have wedded him; but doubting somewhat his courage, and deeming he had slain the aforesaid Baron unfairly, for so she did suspect, she was fain, as she said, to make this visible trial of him. And verily, although there be many men naturally courageous, yet do the ladies push the same on to greater prowess; while if they be cold and cowardly, they do move them to some gallantry and warm them up to some show of fight.

We have an excellent example hereof in the beautiful