"Messieurs du Baif et du Bellay were inspired with delightful ideas,"
she replied, indicating the organizers of the fete, who were standing
near. "I thought it all in the worst taste," she added in a low voice.
"You had no part to play in it, I think?" remarked Mademoiselle de
Lewiston from the opposite ranks of Queen Mary's maids.
"What are you reading there, madame?" asked Amyot of the Comtesse de
Fiesque.
"'Amadis de Gaule,' by the Seigneur des Essarts, commissary in
ordinary to the king's artillery," she replied.
"A charming work," remarked the beautiful girl who was afterwards so
celebrated under the name of Fosseuse when she was lady of honor to
Queen Marguerite of Navarre.
"The style is a novelty in form," said Amyot. "Do you accept such
barbarisms?" he added, addressing Brantome.
"They please the ladies, you know," said Brantome, crossing over to
the Duchesse de Guise, who held the "Decamerone" in her hand. "Some of
the women of your house must appear in the book, madame," he said. "It
is a pity that the Sieur Boccaccio did not live in our day; he would
have known plenty of ladies to swell his volume--"
"How shrewd that Monsieur de Brantome is," said the beautiful
Mademoiselle de Limueil to the Comtesse de Fiesque; "he came to us
first, but he means to remain in the Guise quarters.
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