The Heptameron

by Marguerite de Navarre

  To which she boldly replied that she was.

  ‘And how then is it possible that you are with child, yet still a virgin?’

  She replied: ‘I cannot explain it unless it be the grace of the Holy Spirit who performs in me what he pleases. But neither can I deny the grace which God has granted me to keep myself a virgin. Nor did I ever have any desire to marry.’

  Then her brother said: ‘I will give you the most precious body of Jesus Christ, which you take to your damnation if the truth is other than you say. And let the gentlemen here present, sent by Monseigneur the Count, be witnesses to your oath.’

  Then the girl, who was aged [sixteen], swore the following oath: ‘I take the body of Our Lord present here, before you, Messieurs, and before you my brother, to my damnation, if ever a man touched me any more than you.’

  So saying, she received the body of Our Lord. Having seen this, the Count’s referendary and the chaplain went off, thoroughly abashed, and feeling that no one could lie on an oath like that. So they told the the Count what had happened, and tried to convince him. But the Count was a wise man, and after thinking carefully he asked them to repeat the exact words used in the oath. Having considered them closely, he said:

  ‘She said that no man had ever touched her, any more than her brother had. I think the truth is that it’s her brother who has made her pregnant, and that he wants to cover up his wickedness under this enormous piece of deception. And we who believe that one Christ has already come to this earth ought not to be expecting a second. So fetch the priest, and throw him into prison! I am sure he will confess the truth.’

  His orders were duly carried out, but not without considerable criticism from those who thought that an unnecessary scandal was being created around a good man. However, as soon as he was taken prisoner, he confessed to his crime. He also admitted that he had counselled his sister to speak as she had in order to cover up the life they had been leading together, not just by means of the tenuous explanation she had given but also by means of her ambiguous form of words, which they had hoped would permit them to remain in public esteem. And when the priest was accused of going so far in his wickedness as to make her swear on the body of Our Lord, he replied that he did not have the temerity to go as far as that – he had used bread which was not consecrated or blessed! This was reported to the Count of Angoulême, who ordered the courts of law to do what was proper. They waited till the girl had been delivered of a fine little boy, then they burnt her and her brother together. The local people were extremely shocked to discover such a hideous monstrosity under the cloak of sanctity, to discover, concealed behind such a holy and commendable life, vice that was so detestable.

  *

  ‘So that, Ladies, is how the faith of the good Count remained firm against outward signs and miracles, for he knew that we have but one Saviour, who, when He said Consummatum est , showed that he was leaving no way open for any successor to bring us salvation.’

  ‘What an extraordinary outrage, and what utter hypocrisy,’ said Oisille, ‘to cloak so heinous a crime under the mantle of God and of true Christian people!’

  ‘I’ve heard,’ added Hircan, ‘that people who use royal authority as an excuse to commit acts of cruelty and oppression receive double punishment, because they’ve used the King’s justice as a cover for their own injustice. So you see that although hypocrites may prosper for a time under a cloak of godliness, God eventually unmasks them and reveals them in all their nakedness. And then their nakedness, filth and corruption is seen to be the more ugly, the more their cover [was] worthy of respect.’

  ‘Nothing’s more agreeable than to speak simply and frankly, straight from the heart!’ said Nomerfide.

  ‘Because one profits by it,’ said Longarine, ‘and I think you give your opinion in accordance with your disposition.’

  ‘Let me tell you this,’ replied Nomerfide. ‘I notice that the foolish live longer than the wise – so long as they’re not murdered, that is. And there’s only one reason, as far as I can see – they don’t disguise their emotions. If they’re angry, they lash out; if they’re happy, they laugh; and those who think themselves wise disguise their shortcomings to such an extent that their hearts become full of poison.’

  ‘I think that what you say is the truth,’ said Geburon, ‘and that hypocrisy, whether towards God, towards men or towards Nature, is the cause of all the evils we have.’

  ‘It would be a fine thing,’ said Parlamente, ‘for our hearts to be so filled, through faith, with Him who is all virtue and all joy that we could freely show it to everyone.’

  ‘That,’ said Hircan, ‘will come the day when we’re mouldering in the grave and the flesh has dropped from our bones!’

  ‘But,’ Oisille said, ‘the spirit of God is stronger than death and can mortify the heart without changing or destroying the body.’

  ‘Madame,’ said Saffredent, ‘you refer to a gift from God which is [scarcely] shared by all men.’

  ‘It is shared,’ said Oisille, ‘by those who have faith. But this is a matter beyond the understanding of those still bound to the flesh, so let us see who Simontaut will choose to speak next.’

  ‘I choose Nomerfide,’ said Simontaut, ‘because she has a cheerful spirit, and her story won’t be a sad one.’

  ‘Well,’ said Nomerfide, ‘since you want to laugh, I’ll give you something to laugh at, and to show you how much harm fear and ignorance can do, and how much damage can be done through misunderstanding something, I’ll tell you what happened to two Franciscans from Niort who nearly lost their lives because they misunderstood the language of a butcher in whose house they were staying.’

  STORY THIRTY-FOUR

  Between Niort and Fors there is a village called Gript belonging to the Seigneur de Fors. One day two Franciscan friars on their way from Niort arrived in the village of Gript late one evening, and stayed in the house of a butcher. As their room was only separated from that of their host by a badly jointed screen of planks, they decided they would like to listen to what the husband would say to his wife when they were in bed. So they put their ears to the partition close to the head of the husband’s bed. The husband, not suspecting what his guests were up to, started to talk to his wife about his business.

  ‘I’ve to get up early tomorrow, my dear,’ he said, ‘to have a look at our little friars. There’s a big fat one needs slaughtering. We’ll salt him right away and make quite a bit on it.’

  Although he was only talking about his pigs, which he habitually called his ‘little friars’, the poor brothers were convinced they had overheard a murder conspiracy of which they themselves were to be the victims! They waited until daybreak in fear and trembling. One of them was in fact very fat, while the other was rather thin. The fat one decided to make his last confession to his companion, saying that a butcher who had lost all love and fear of God would no more hesitate to slaughter him than an ox or any other beast. And since they were shut up in their room unable to get out except by passing through their host’s room, they could only wait, certain of death, and recommend their souls to God. But the younger one, who was not so paralysed by fear as his companion, told him that as the door was locked they would have to try to get out through the window – whether they stayed or whether they jumped, death was the worst that could befall them. So the fat one agreed. The younger one opened the window and seeing that it was not too far down, jumped out and landed lightly on the ground. He wasted no time waiting for his friend, but ran off as fast and as far as he could. Then the fat one made the jump, but fell so heavily that he hurt his leg badly and was obliged because of his weight to stay put. When he saw that his young friend had abandoned him and realized he could not possibly catch him up, he looked round for somewhere to hide. The only place he could see was a pigsty, into which he crawled as best he could. As he opened the door, two large pigs ran out, leaving just enough space for the poor friar. He closed the door behind him, intending to call out for help if he he
ard anyone passing by. As soon as morning came, the butcher got his big knives ready and asked his wife to go with him to slaughter his fat pig. When he arrived at the pigsty where the friar was hidden, he began to shout in a loud voice, as he opened the door: ‘Come on out, my plump little friar, come on out! I’m going to make sausage-meat of you today!’

  The poor Franciscan, not being able to stand up on his injured leg, crawled out of the sty on all fours, shouting for mercy at the top of his voice. The butcher and his wife were no less terrified than he was, for they thought Saint Francis was angry with them for calling their pigs ‘friars’. They got down on their knees in front of the poor monk, begging Saint Francis and his order to have mercy on them. So, there they were, the friar crying for mercy from the butcher, the butcher and his wife crying for mercy from the friar. This went on for a good quarter of an hour before any of them calmed down. Eventually, the good father, realizing that the butcher did not mean him any harm, explained why he had hidden in the sty. Their fright immediately gave way to laughter – except that the poor Franciscan with his injured leg was not really in any state for merriment. However, the butcher took him back home and dressed his wounds. As for his brother who had left him in his hour of need, he ran all night long until he came in the morning to the house of the Seigneur de Fors. There he protested loudly about the butcher, who, he supposed, must by now have caught and killed his missing companion. The Seigneur de Fors immediately sent someone to Gript to make inquiries. When the truth of the matter was revealed there was clearly nothing to cry about – on the contrary. And the Seigneur de Fors made a special point of recounting the story to the Duchess of Angoulême, who was the mother of Francis I.

  *

  ‘That then, Ladies, shows that you shouldn’t listen to other people’s secrets without being asked and so misunderstand their words.’

  ‘Wasn’t I right in thinking that Nomerfide wouldn’t make us cry,’ said Simontaut, ‘but make us laugh instead? And I think we’ve all acquitted ourselves well, as far as laughing’s concerned!’

  ‘And why is it,’ said Oisille, ‘that we are more inclined to laugh at foolish acts than at deeds which are wise?’

  ‘Because,’ replied Hircan, ‘folly is more amusing in so far as it resembles our own nature, which in itself is never wise. And everyone takes pleasure in things that resemble himself: fools like folly, the wise like wisdom. I think nobody, whether wise or foolish, could stop himself laughing at this story.’

  ‘There are people,’ Geburon said, ‘whose hearts are so devoted to the love of wisdom that whatever they heard, no one could make them laugh, for they have joy in their hearts and contentment so full of moderation that no accident can change them.’

  ‘And [who] are these people?’ said Hircan.

  ‘The philosophers of ancient times,’ said Geburon, ‘by whom sadness and joy were hardly felt at all. At least, they did not show their feelings, so great a virtue was it in their eyes to overcome the self and the passions.’

  ‘I think, as they do, that it’s a good thing to overcome vicious passions,’ said Saffredent, ‘but to overcome a natural passion that has no tendency to evil, that seems to me to be a useless victory.’

  ‘Even so,’ said Geburon, ‘the ancients considered it to be a great virtue.’

  ‘That doesn’t mean they were all men of wisdom,’ said Saffredent.’ On the contrary, it was more a matter of the appearance of sense and virtue than of actual effects.’

  ‘Nevertheless,’ said Geburon, ‘you [can see] that they condemn anything that is evil. Diogenes even trampled on Plato’s couch, [because] he thought him too much concerned with luxury, and in order to show that he despised and wished to trample underfoot Plato’s vainglory and desire for possessions, saying “I [trample] on Plato’s pride.”’

  ‘But you’re not telling the whole story,’ said Saffredent. ‘Plato replied immediately that Diogenes was indeed trampling on his pride, but that he was doing so with pride of another sort.’

  ‘If the truth be told,’ said Parlamente, ‘it’s impossible to overcome the self by our own means, without extraordinary arrogance on our part. And arrogance is a vice we should fear above all others, because it is born of the death and destruction of all the virtues.’

  ‘Have I not read to you this morning,’ said Oisille, ‘of how those who think themselves wiser than other people and who by the light of reason have come to know God, who created all things, only to attribute that glory to themselves and not to Him from whom it comes, how such people, believing that it is their own effort that has brought them such knowledge, have become not only more ignorant and unreasonable than other men but more ignorant and unreasonable even than the beasts? For, allowing their minds to go astray, attributing to themselves that which belongs to God alone, they have shown their errors by the disorder of their bodies, forgetting and perverting their sex, as Saint Paul has written in his epistle to the Romans.’

  ‘There’s not one of us,’ said Parlamente, ‘who doesn’t admit on reading that epistle that all external sins are the fruit of an inner [lack of faith], which, the more it is covered by virtue and miracles, the more dangerous it is to root out.’

  ‘We men,’ Hircan said, ‘are [therefore] closer to our salvation than you, for since we do not disguise our fruits, we more easily recognize the root which bears them. But you women, who do not dare to bring them into the open and who do so many seemingly fair deeds, only with great difficulty will you recognize that deep-rooted pride which goes on growing beneath such a fair exterior.’

  ‘I admit,’ said Longarine, ‘that if the word of God does not by faith show us the leprosy of faithlessness hidden within our hearts, God’s grace is great indeed when we stumble and commit some visible fault which makes us see clearly the plague hidden within us. And blessed are they whom faith has so humbled that they have no need of external effects to have their sinful nature demonstrated to them.’

  ‘But look how far we’ve come,’ said Simontaut.’ We started with folly and we end up with philosophy and theology! Let’s leave such disputes to those better able to muse on such matters than we, and ask Nomerfide who she will choose as the next storyteller.’

  ‘I choose Hircan,’ replied Nomerfide, ‘but I would ask him to be considerate of the honour of the ladies.’

  ‘You could not ask for anything more appropriate,’ replied Hircan, ‘since the story I have prepared is just what is required to obey your command. Even so, when you hear it, you will admit that both men and women are by nature inclined to vices of all kinds, unless they are preserved by Him to whom honour for any victory is due. And in order to humble the pride you women feel whenever you hear a story that does you credit, I shall give you an example that is very true.’

  STORY THIRTY-FIVE

  In the town of Pamplona there was once a lady who was widely esteemed, not only for her great beauty, but also for her virtue. Indeed, she was considered to be the most chaste and the most devout lady in the land. She loved her husband, and was so obedient to him that he confided everything in her. She spent her whole life attending divine service and sermons, and had managed to persuade her husband and children to do likewise. Now one Ash Wednesday, when she was in her thirtieth year, that is, at a time of life when ladies usually want to be known for their wisdom rather than for their beauty, this lady went to church to receive the ashes. She arrived to find the sermon being preached by a particular Franciscan friar who was regarded by everybody as a holy man because his austere and saintly life made him look so pale and thin – not so pale and thin, however, that he was not regarded also as one of the handsomest men in the world. The lady devoutly listened to his sermon, her eyes firmly fixed on this venerable individual and her ears hanging on his every word. Thus the sweetness of the preacher’s words penetrated her ears and reached her heart, and the sight of his handsome face entered by her eyes and wounded her spirit so sorely that she was as someone in a state of ecstasy. After the sermon she to
ok care to note which chapel the preacher was going to say mass in, and made sure she was there to take the ashes from his hands, hands which were as fine and white as any lady’s. And upon these hands the devout lady meditated rather than upon the ash they proffered. Firmly believing that spiritual love and whatever pleasurable sensations it aroused could not hurt her conscience, she made a point of attending the friar’s sermons every single day, taking her husband with her. They both admired the preacher so much that when they were at table, and even when they were not, they would talk of nothing else. The fire of her passion beneath its spiritual guise was carnal to such a degree that the flames raging in the poor lady’s heart spread throughout the whole of her body. Being slow to feel the heat, she caught fire all the more quickly and experienced the pleasure of passion before she had even realized that it was passion that had her in its grip. The enemy had caught her by surprise. She could offer no resistance to Love’s demands. But even worse for her was that the man who could cure her suffering knew nothing of her malady. So putting aside all the misgivings she ought to have felt at exposing her folly before such a good man, her wicked vice to a man so virtuous and wise, she began to write to him of her love, at first in veiled tones. A young page was entrusted with the letters, and instructed what to do. In particular he was to be careful not to let the husband see him going to the monastery. But the page, taking a short cut, went down a street where his master happened to be sitting in a shop. When the husband saw him passing by, he came out to see where he was going. The lad was scared and hid in a nearby house. At this, his master went after him, grabbed him by the arm, and asked him where he thought he was going. The page merely stammered some vague excuses and looked terrified, upon which the master threatened to give him a good beating if he did not say where he was going. The poor page replied: ‘Alas, Monsieur, if I told you, Madame would kill me!’ The gentleman thought his wife was making some purchase behind his back. He assured the page that he would come to no harm, that he would be well rewarded if he told the truth, but that he would be put into prison for good if he lied. The page, thinking he would avoid trouble and might even make some gain, told him the whole story and showed the letters his mistress had written to the preacher. The husband was amazed and distressed, for he had been sure all his life that his wife was faithful to him and had never known any fault in her. But being a wise man he disguised his anger, and in order to find out exactly what were his wife’s designs he decided to write a reply in the preacher’s name, thanking her for her kind sentiments and declaring that he for his part felt no less well inclined. Having sworn to carry out this mission as secretly as he could, the page took the letter straight back to his mistress. She was, of course, overjoyed – so much so that her husband could see immediately that her expression had changed, for instead of looking thin from the Lenten fast, she was even more beautiful and fresh than she had been at Shrovetide.