The Entire Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois | Page 8

effaced them from my own recollection. So that I view
myself in your Memoirs, and say, with old Madame de Rendan, who,
not having consulted her glass since her husband's death, on seeing her
own face in the mirror of another lady, exclaimed, "Who is this?"
Whatever my friends tell me when they see me now, I am inclined to
think proceeds from the partiality of their affection. I am sure that you
yourself, when you consider more impartially what you have said, will
be induced to believe, according to these lines of Du Bellay:
"C'est chercher Rome en Rome, Et rien de Rome en Rome ne trouver."
('Tis to seek Rome, in Rome to go, And Rome herself at Rome not
know.)
But as we read with pleasure the history of the Siege of Troy, the
magnificence of Athens, and other splendid cities, which once
flourished, but are now so entirely destroyed that scarcely the spot

whereon they stood can be traced, so you please yourself with
describing these excellences of beauty which are no more, and which
will be discoverable only in your writings.
If you had taken upon you to contrast Nature and Fortune, you could
not have chosen a happier theme upon which to descant, for both have
made a trial of their strength on the subject of your Memoirs. What
Nature did, you had the evidence of your own eyes to vouch for, but
what was done by Fortune, you know only from hearsay; and hearsay, I
need not tell you, is liable to be influenced by ignorance or malice, and,
therefore, is not to be depended on. You will for that reason, I make no
doubt, be pleased to receive these Memoirs from the hand which is
most interested in the truth of them.
I have been induced to undertake writing my Memoirs the more from
five or six observations which I have had occasion to make upon your
work, as you appear to have been misinformed respecting certain
particulars. For example, in that part where mention is made of Pau,
and of my journey in France; likewise where you speak of the late
Marechal de Biron, of Agen, and of the sally of the Marquis de
Camillac from that place.
These Memoirs might merit the honourable name of history from the
truths contained in them, as I shall prefer truth to embellishment. In fact,
to embellish my story I have neither leisure nor ability; I shall,
therefore, do no more than give a simple narration of events. They are
the labours of my evenings, and will come to you an unformed mass, to
receive its shape from your hands, or as a chaos on which you have
already thrown light. Mine is a history most assuredly worthy to come
from a man of honour, one who is a true Frenchman, born of illustrious
parents, brought up in the Court of the Kings my father and brothers,
allied in blood and friendship to the most virtuous and accomplished
women of our times, of which society I have had the good fortune to be
the bond of union.
I shall begin these Memoirs in the reign of Charles IX., and set out with
the first remarkable event of my life which fell within my remembrance.
Herein I follow the example of geographical writers, who, having
described the places within their knowledge, tell you that all beyond
them are sandy deserts, countries without inhabitants, or seas never
navigated. Thus I might say that all prior to the commencement of

these Memoirs was the barrenness of my infancy, when we can only be
said to vegetate like plants, or live, like brutes, according to instinct,
and not as human creatures, guided by reason. To those who had the
direction of my earliest years I leave the task of relating the
transactions of my infancy, if they find them as worthy of being
recorded as the infantine exploits of Themistocles and Alexander,--the
one exposing himself to be trampled on by the horses of a charioteer,
who would not stop them when requested to do so, and the other
refusing to run a race unless kings were to enter the contest against him.
Amongst such memorable things might be related the answer I made
the King my father, a short time before the fatal accident which
deprived France of peace, and our family of its chief glory. I was then
about four or five years of age, when the King, placing me on his knee,
entered familiarly into chat with me. There were, in the same room,
playing and diverting themselves, the Prince de Joinville, since the
great and unfortunate Duc de Guise, and the Marquis de Beaupreau,
son of the Prince de la Roche-sur-Yon, who died in his fourteenth year,