V EN ERIE AND THE V A LOIS 249 



grounde, she spake and said that she felt not hurt ; and her 

 self begaine to set her heare, and dresse up her head and so 

 returned to Court ; where she kept her chamber till the King 

 removed. She feleth no incommodite by her fall ; and yet 

 she hath determined to chaunge that kind of exercise.' That 

 the pace was too good to inquire would hardly, in those days, 

 have constituted a sufficient excuse for such careless be- 

 haviour. The ' diverse ' gentlemen and ladies of the house- 

 hold must have been too busy riding or perhaps flirting. 



As against the magnificent and picturesque days of Fran- 

 9oisI., Charles IX. 's reign was the Hterary £ind thoughtful 

 period. I have already spoken of Du Fouilloux's book, and a 

 host of grave treatises now formulated the definitions, postu- 

 lates, and axioms of an exact science with all the French love 

 of order and symmetry. Charles IX. himself was the author 

 of a painstaking text-book. Not a single sentence, however, 

 begins with I. Thus the want of the personal note makes it 

 sadly dull. It has not the real spark about it. Unlike Henry 

 IV., who wrote all about his day both to Gabrielle and to his 

 Queen— how he got drenched to the skin, how he did not get 

 back till one in the morning, but took his deer ; how he is short 

 of shirts, how he has the toothache, but hopes a day's hawk- 

 ing will put him right, and so on— Charles gives us nothing 

 of himself except his theory. 



However, Charles died before he had finished his book. 



Pour aymer trop Diane et Cytheree aussi 

 L'une et I'autre m'ont mis en ce tombeau icy. 



So ran the popular epitaph. It cannot be disputed that 

 hunting and love-making have always been close friends. 

 Mrs. Markham will have nothing to do with Cytheraea. 

 When pressed by the intelligent questions of Richard and 

 George and Mary, she falls back upon the French horn ex- 

 planation of his death. It is true that Ambroise Pare, Charles' 

 physician, told Brantome ' qu'il estoit mort par s'etre trop 



