“In sooth,” said Saffredent, “I consent, for I have here in hand the story of a wanton woman and a discreet one, and you shall take example by her who pleases you best.  You will see that just as love leads wicked people to do wicked things, so does it lead a virtuous heart to do things that are worthy of praise; for love in itself is good, although the evil that is in those that are subject to it often makes it take a new title, such as wanton, light, cruel or vile.  However, you will see from the tale that I am now about to relate that love does not change the heart, but discovers it to be what it really is, wanton in the wanton and discreet in the discreet.”

[Illustration:  142.jpg Tailpiece]

[Illustration:  143a.jpg The Lord of Avannes paying His Court in Disguise]

[The Lord of Avannes paying His Court in Disguise]

[Illustration:  143.jpg Page Image]

TALE XXVI.

     By the counsel and sisterly affection of a virtuous lady,
     the Lord of Avannes was drawn from the wanton love that he
     entertained for a gentlewoman dwelling at Pampeluna.

In the days of King Louis the Twelfth there lived a young lord called Monsieur d’Avannes, (1) son of the Lord of Albret [and] brother to King John of Navarre, with whom this aforesaid Lord of Avannes commonly abode.

1 This is Gabriel d’Albret, Lord of Avesnes and Lesparre, fourth son of Alan the Great, Sire d’Albret, and brother of John d’Albret, King of Navarre, respecting whom see post, note 4 to Tale XXX.  Queen Margaret is in error in dating this story from the reign of Louis XII.  The incidents she relates must have occurred between 1485 and 1490, under the reign of Charles VIII., by whom Gabriel d’Albret, on reaching manhood, was successively appointed counsellor and chamberlain, Seneschal of Guyenne and Viceroy of Naples.  Under Louis XII. he took a prominent part in the Italian campaigns of 1500-1503, in which latter year he is known to have made his will, bequeathing all he possessed to his brother, Cardinal d’Albret.  He died a bachelor in 1504.—­See Anselme’s Histoire Genealogique, vol. vi. p. 214.—­L. and Ed.

Now this young lord, who was fifteen years of age, was so handsome and so fully endowed with every excellent grace that he seemed to have been made solely to be loved and admired, as he was indeed by all who saw him, and above all by a lady who dwelt in the town of Pampeluna (2) in Navarre.  She was married to a very rich man, with whom she lived in all virtue, inasmuch that, although her husband was nearly fifty years old and she was only three and twenty, she dressed so plainly that she had more the appearance of a widow than of a married woman.  Moreover, she was never known to go to weddings or feasts unless accompanied by her husband, whose worth and virtue she prized so highly that she set them before all the comeliness of other men.  And her husband, finding her so discreet, trusted her and gave all the affairs of his household into her hands.