de Navarre

Keeping it Fair 6/23/13

            Marguerite de Navarre was a renaissance woman. Not only was she a queen, but she was also an author, an advisor to her brother, and a well-educated woman. de Navarre wrote “The Heptameron”, and within this story of stories she shows that she was a fair and just ruler. According to the French philosopher Pierre Bayle she is a queen who “grant[s] her protection to people persecuted for opinions which she believes to be false; to open a sanctuary to them; to preserve them from the flames prepared for them; to furnish them with a subsistence.” This statement is proven true within de Navarre’s Story 8 from “The Heptameron”.

            Story 8 tells of a King who wishes to sleep with his Queen’s chambermaid. The chambermaid denies his advances and tells her Queen of the King’s intentions. The Queen tells the chambermaid to lead the King on and when the night arrives of the supposed affair the Queen is waiting for the King. The King believes that he is making love to the chambermaid, and then he continues to let his friend sleep with the woman who is really the Queen. When all this is said and done the friend of the King takes the woman’s wedding ring, which then makes the King realize he did not in fact sleep with the maid, but with his wife, and so did his friend. (de Navarre)

            The story continues, but with regards to Pierre Bayle his statement is proven correct within this short summary. The Queen will not allow her servant to be a pawn in her husband’s unfaithfulness. “Had she not saved her chambermaid from staining her conscience” (de Navarre 1644). The Queen is being just, and even though she does not approve of adultery she allows her husband to think he is having an affair, and taking the place of the maid, which saves the maid’s dignity and reputation.

            The Queen believes that she is saving her husband “from the flames prepared for them”. “I did what I did in order to save you from your wicked ways, so that when you get old, we can live happily and peacefully together without anything on our consciences” (de Navarre 1645). The Queen has successfully saved her husband from cheating on her, but what happens without her knowledge is that she then sleeps with a man whom is not her husband. This sin; however, does not fall upon her. It falls upon her husband because he allowed another man to trick another woman (the Queen who was thought to be the chambermaid). This deceit turns the King into a cuckold. “The husband was branded as a cuckold without his wife having done a single thing to disgrace herself” (de Navarre 1645).

            According to Bayle the Queen is the type of person who keeps an open mind. She does not punish those who have differing opinions than she does, but she tries to steer them onto the right path. Although she may not succeed since her husband still sins, but at least he does not cheat on her.

Work Cited

de Navarre, Marguerite. "The Heptameron." The Norton Anthology of World Literature. Ed. Martin Puchner. 3rd ed. Vol. 2. New York: W.W. Norton &, 2013. 1640-1647. Print.