Page:Margaret of Angoulême, Queen of Navarre (Robinson 1886).djvu/171

156 new ideas. And Francis laughs, and says: "She loves me too well to adopt a religion that would prejudice my estate!"

With no better success than this, Madame Oisille also preaches to her companions. She induces them to read the Bible; they will do anything to gratify so charming a lady. So before dinner they study the scriptures at her side. After dinner, not to be outdone in complaisance, Oisille listens to their Boccaccian stories. And she listens without shame and without regret. She and her listeners are equally ignorant that their novels leave anything to be desired. For Madame Oisille, with her chivalric ideal, is no more fastidious than they.

But we have made too long a digression from the Heptameron itself. Hircan and his friends desiring, as I have told, that Madame Oisille should find them a suitable pastime, Oisille replies in a speech of real beauty:—

"My children, this is a difficult thing that you ask of me, to teach you a pastime that can deliver you from your troubles; for, having sought such a remedy all my life, I have never found but one. And this is the reading of the Holy Scriptures, in which is found the true and perfect joy of the spirit; and from which proceed health and rest for the flesh. And if you ask me to tell you the receipt which keeps me so joyous and so healthy in my age, it is that as soon as I arise in the morning I take the Holy Scriptures and read therein, seeing and contemplating the Will of God, who sent His Son for our sake into the world to announce His Holy Word and glad tidings, whereby He promises remission from our sins and the full discharge of all our debts, by the gift of His love, His