Page:Margaret of Angoulême, Queen of Navarre (Robinson 1886).djvu/188

Rh "but, if I can tell it as it happened, you will have no need to weep about it."

The first of these stories gives a good idea of the romantic side of the Heptameron; all the pathetic tales are much the same. It is impossible, to-day, to care for Florinde and Amadour: for all the various true lovers, who see each other, fall in raptures, are parted, and retire each to a separate monastery. This is Margaret's stock idea of the heartrending; and the people of the Heptameron cherish this ideal of pathos (as perhaps the ideal is always cherished) in defiance of the conduct of actual life. Not one of them would allow a daughter to marry for love. "You may say what you will," says Oisille; "none the less we must recognise paternal authority; for, if people married at pleasure, what unhappy marriages would there not be! Is it to be expected that a young man and a girl from twelve to fifteen years of age can understand what is really their good? And, if you consider, those who have married for love come off far worse, as a rule, than those who are married by force; for young men, not knowing what is fit for them, take the first they find, without consideration; then they discover their error, and go from bad to worse; whereas a forced marriage is generally made by those who have more judgment and experience than those whom it chiefly concerns; so that when these discover all the benefits they did not understand, they savour and embrace these with the greater affection." Thus discourses Oisille, in dialogue with her companions, thinking, no doubt, a little bitterly of the rebellious conduct of Mademoiselle d'Albret. And this is the real opinion of the whole society. But let any one of them begin on a pathetic tale, and we shall have the old puppets,