2 The Italian Charles, equerry to the King, to whom the leading part is assigned in Queen Margaret’s tale, may have been Charles de San Severino, who figures among the equerries with a salary of 200 livres, in the roll of the royal household for 1522.  The San Severino family, one of the most prominent of Naples, had attached itself to the French cause at the time of the expedition of Charles VIII., whom several of its members followed to France.  In 1522 we find a “Monsieur de Saint-Severin” holding the office of first maitre d’hotel to Francis I., and over a course of several years his son figures among the enfants d’honneur.—­B.  J. and Ed.

“What say you, ladies, of this wife?  Was she not sensible to make sport of her husband’s sport?”

“’Twas no sport,” said Saffredent, “for the husband who failed in his purpose.”

“I believe,” said Ennasuite, “that he had more delight in laughing with his wife, than at killing himself at his age with his serving-woman.”

“Still, I should be sorely vexed,” said Simontault, “to be discovered so bravely coifed.”

“I have heard,” said Parlamente, “that it was not your wife’s fault that she did not once discover you in very much the same attire in spite of all your craft, and that since then she has known no repose.”

“Rest content with what befalls your own house,” said Simontault, “without inquiring into what befalls mine.  Nevertheless, my wife has no reason to complain of me, and even did I act as you say, she would never have occasion to notice it through any lack of what she might need.”

“Virtuous women,” said Longarine, “require nothing but the love of their husbands, which alone can satisfy them.  Those who seek a brutish satisfaction will never find it where honour enjoins.”

“Do you call it brutish,” asked Geburon, “if a wife desires that her husband should give her her due?”

“I say,” said Longarine, “that a chaste woman, whose heart is filled with true love, is more content to be perfectly loved than to have all the delights that the body can desire.”

“I am of your opinion,” said Dagoucin, “but my lords here will neither hear it nor confess it.  I think if mutual love cannot satisfy a woman, her husband alone will not do so; for unless she live in the love that is honourable for a woman, she must be tempted by the infernal lustfulness of brutes.”

“In truth,” said Oisille, “you remind me of a lady who was both handsome and well wedded, but who, through not living in that honourable love, became more carnal than swine and more cruel than lions.”

“I ask you, madam,” said Simontault, “to end the day by telling us her story.”

“That I cannot do,” said Oisille, “and for two reasons.  The first is that it is exceedingly long; and the second, that it does not belong to our own day.  It is written indeed by an author worthy of belief; but we are sworn to relate nothing that has been written.”