The Tales of the Heptameron, Vol. IV | Page 7

To
revenge herself for this affront, Rosamond caused her husband to be
murdered one night during his sleep in his palace at Pavia.--Ed.
"In other matters I treat her as I do myself, save that she goes shorn; for
an array of hair beseems not the adulterous, nor a veil the unchaste.
"For this reason is her hair cut, showing that she has lost the honour of
virginity and purity. Should it please you to take the trouble to see her,
I will lead you to her."
To this Bernage willingly consented, and going-downstairs they found
her in a very handsome apartment, seated all alone in front of the fire.
The gentleman drew aside a curtain that hung in front of a large
cupboard, wherein could be seen hanging a dead man's bones. Bernage
greatly longed to speak to the lady, but durst not do so for fear of the
husband. The gentleman, perceiving this, thereupon said to him--
"If it be your pleasure to say anything to her, you will see what manner
of grace and speech is hers."
Then said Bernage to her--"Lady, your patience is as great as your
torment. I hold you to be the most unhappy woman alive."
With tears in her eyes, and with the humblest grace imaginable, the
lady answered--
"Sir, I acknowledge my offence to have been so great that all the woes
that the lord of this house (for I am not worthy to call him husband)
may be pleased to lay upon me are nothing in comparison with the grief
I feel at having offended him."
So saying, she began to weep bitterly. The gentleman took Bernage by
the arm and led him away.
On the following morning Bernage took his leave, in order to proceed
on the mission that the King had given him. However, in bidding the

gentleman farewell, he could not refrain from saying to him--
"Sir, the love I bear you, and the honour and friendship that you have
shown me in your house, constrain me to tell you that, having regard to
the deep penitence of your unhappy wife, you should, in my opinion,
take compassion upon her. You are, moreover, young and have no
children, and it would be a great pity that so fair a lineage should come
to an end, and that those who, perhaps, have no love for you, should
become your heirs."
The gentleman, who had resolved that he would never more speak to
his wife, pondered a long time on the discourse held to him by the Lord
de Bernage, and at last recognised that he had spoken truly, and
promised him that, if his wife should continue in her present humility,
he would at some time have pity upon her.
Accordingly Bernage departed on his mission, and when he had
returned to his master, the King, he told him the whole story, which the
Prince, upon inquiry, found to be true. And as Bernage among other
things had made mention of the lady's beauty, the King sent his painter,
who was called John of Paris, (3) that he might make and bring him a
living portrait of her, which, with her husband's consent, he did. And
when she had long done penance, the gentleman, in his desire to have
offspring, and in the pity that he felt for his wife who had submitted to
this penance with so much humility, took her back again and afterwards
had by her many handsome children. (4)
3 John Perréal, called "Jehan de Paris," was one of the most famous
painters of the reigns of Charles VIII. and Louis XII. At the end of
1496 we find him resident at Lyons, and there enjoying considerable
celebrity. From October 1498 to November 1499 he figures in the roll
of officers of the royal household, as valet of the wardrobe, with a
salary of 240 livres. In the royal stable accounts for 1508 he appears as
receiving ten livres to defray the expense of keeping a horse during
June and July that year. He is known to have painted the portrait and
planned the obsequies of Philibert of Savoy in 1509; to have been sent
to England in 1514 to paint a portrait of the Princess Mary, sister of
Henry VIII., who married Louis XII.; and in 1515 to have had charge

of all the decorative work connected with Louis XII.'s obsequies. In his
Légende des Vénitiens (1509) John Le Maire de Belges praises Perréal's
skill both in landscape and portrait painting, and describes him as a
most painstaking and hardworking artist. He had previously referred to
him in his Temple d'Honneur et de Vertu (1504) as being already at that
period painter to the King. In the roll of the officers of Francis I.'s
household