Twice ToldMarguerite de Navarre, Heptaméron, tale 67 (Gruget's edition, 1559)
- Language
- French
- Reading
- transcribed from the page image
- Translation
- ours
- Retrieved
- 18 October 2026
The passage is the whole 67th tale of the Heptaméron, with the few lines of Simontault’s introduction that name where he heard it. It starts on f. 195 and ends in the middle of f. 196. The long s is written as s, the printer’s tildes over vowels are kept, and the line-end hyphens are closed. Page breaks are marked in square brackets. The spelling of u/v and i/j is as printed.
[f. 195] A l’heure Simontault commença : Ce n’est chose si nouuelle, mes dames, d’ouïr de vous quelque acte vertueux : que s’il s’en offre quelqu’vn, il me semble ne deuoir estre celé, mais plustost escrit en lettres d’or, à fin de seruir aux femmes d’exemple, & aux hommes d’admiration : voyant en sexe fragile, ce que fragilité refuse. C’est l’occasion, qui me fera racompter ce, que i’ay ouy dire au capitaine Roberval, & à plusieurs de sa compagnie.
Extreme amour, & austerité de femme, en terre estrange.
NOVVELLE SOIXANTESEPTIESME.
Roberval faisant vn voyage sur la mer (duquel il estoit chef, par le commandemẽt du roy son maistre) en l’isle de Canadas, auquel lieu auoit deliberé, si l’air du pays eust esté cõmode, de demeurer, & y faire villes & chasteaux. En quoy il feit tel commencement, que chacun peult sçauoir. Et pour habituer le païs de Chrestiens, y mena auec luy toutes sortes d’artisans, entre lesquels y auoit vn homme, qui fut si malheureux, qu’il trahit son maistre, & le meit en dãger d’estre prins des gẽs du pays. Mais Dieu voulut, que son entreprinse fut si tost cogneuë, qu’elle ne peut nuire au capitaine Roberval, lequel feit prendre ce mechant trahistre, le voulant punir comme il auoit merité. Ce qui eust esté faict sans sa femme, laquelle, ayant suyui son mary par les perils de la mer, ne le voulut abandonner à la mort : mais auec force larmes feit tant enuers le capitaine, & toute la compagnie, que tant par la pitié d’icelle, que pour les seruices qu’elle leur auoit faicts, luy accorda sa requeste, qui fut telle, que le mary & la femme seroient laissez en vne petite isle sur la mer, ou n’habitoient que bestes sauuages : & leur fut per[f. 195v]mis de porter auec eux, ce dont ils auoient necessité. Les pauures gens se trouuans tous seuls en la compagnie des bestes sauuages & cruelles, n’eurent recours qu’à Dieu seul, qui auoit tousiours esté le ferme espoir de ceste pauure femme. Laquelle, comme celle qui auoit toute sa consolation en luy, porta pour sa sauue-garde, nourriture, & consolation, le nouueau testamẽt, qu’elle lisoit incessamment : & au demeurant auecques son mary mettoit peine d’accoustrer vn petit logis, le mieux qu’il leur estoit possible. Et quand les lions & autres bestes en aprochoiẽt pour les deuorer, le mary auec sa harquebuze, & elle auec des pierres se deffendoient si bien, que non seulement les bestes, ny les oyseaux, ne les osoient approcher, mais bien souuent en tuerent de bonnes à manger. Ainsi auec telles chairs & les herbes du païs, y vesquirent quelque temps, quand le pain leur fut failly. Toutesfois à la longue, le mary ne peut porter telle nourriture, & à cause des eaux qu’ils beuuoient, deuint si enflé, qu’en peu de temps il mourut, n’ayant seruice ne consolation que de sa femme, laquelle luy seruoit de medecin & confesseur, en sorte qu’il passa ioyeusement de ce desert en la celeste patrie. Et la pauure femme demeurée seule l’enterra le plus profond en terre qu’il luy fut possible. Si est ce que les bestes en eurent incontinent le sentiment, qui vindrent manger la charongne : mais la pauure femme, de sa petite maisonnette defendoit à coups de harquebuze, que la chair de son mary n’eust tel sepulchre. Ainsi viuant, quant au corps, de vie bestiale, & quant à l’esprit de vie angelique, passoit son temps en lectures, contemplations, prieres, & oraisons, ayant vn esprit ioyeux, & contant dedans vn corps amaigry & demy mort. Mais celuy, qui n’abãdonné iamais les siens au besoing, & qui au desespoir des autres, monstre sa puissance, ne permeit que la vertu, qu’il auoit mise en ceste femme, fust ignorée des hommes : mais voulut qu’elle fust cogneuë à sa gloire, & feit qu’au bout de quelque temps vn des nauires de ceste armée passant deuant ceste isle, les gens qui estoient dedans auiserẽt quelque femme, qui leur feit souuenir de ceux qu’ils y auoiẽt laissez, & delibererent d’aller veoir ce que Dieu en auoit faict. La pauure femme, voyant approcher le nauire, se tira au bort de la mer, auquel lieu la trouuerent à leur arriuée, & apres en auoir rendu louënge à Dieu, [f. 196] les mena en sa pauure maisonnette, & leur monstra dequoy elle viuoit durant sa miserable demeure. Ce qui leur eust esté incroyable sans la cognoissance qu’ils auoient, que Dieu est autãt puissant de nourrir en vn desert, ses seruiteurs, cõme aux plus grands festins du monde. Et quand ils eurent faict entendre aux habitans la fidelité & perseuerance de ceste femme, elle fut receuë à grand honneur de toutes les dames, qui volontiers luy baillerent leurs filles pour aprendre à lire, & à escrire. Et à cest honneste mestier là, gaigna le surplus de sa vie, n’ayant autre desir, que d’exhorter vn chacun à l’amour & confiance de nostre seigneur, le proposant pour exemple, pour la grande misericorde dont il auoit vsé enuers elle.
Translation
Simontault began: “It is nothing new, ladies, to hear of some virtuous act of yours. When one turns up, I think it should not be hidden but written in letters of gold, as an example for women and a wonder to men, who see in the weaker sex what weakness itself refuses. That is why I will tell you what I heard from Captain Roberval and several of his company.”
A woman’s extreme love and austerity in a foreign land.
Sixty-seventh tale.
Roberval was making a voyage by sea, as its commander by order of the king his master, to the island of Canadas. If the air of the country suited him, he had decided to stay there and build towns and castles. He made such a beginning as everyone may know. To settle the country with Christians he took with him craftsmen of every kind, and among them was one man so wicked that he betrayed his master and put him in danger of being seized by the people of the country. But God willed that the plot was found out so soon that it could not harm Captain Roberval, who had the wicked traitor arrested and meant to punish him as he deserved. That would have been done but for the man’s wife. She had followed her husband through the dangers of the sea and would not leave him to die. With many tears she pleaded so hard with the captain and the whole company that, out of pity for her and for the services she had done them, they granted her request. It was that husband and wife should be left on a small island in the sea where only wild beasts lived, and they were allowed to take with them what they needed.
The poor people, alone among wild and cruel beasts, turned to God alone, who had always been this poor woman’s firm hope. She found all her comfort in him, and for her protection, food and comfort she had brought the New Testament, which she read without stopping. For the rest, she and her husband did what they could to put up a little shelter. When the lions and other beasts came near to eat them, the husband with his arquebus and she with stones defended themselves so well that neither the beasts nor the birds dared come close, and quite often they killed some that were good to eat. On this meat and the herbs of the country they lived for some time after the bread ran out. In the long run the husband could not stand such food, and because of the water they drank he swelled up so much that he died within a short time. He had no care or comfort except from his wife, who served as his doctor and his confessor, so that he passed joyfully from this desert to the heavenly homeland. The poor woman, left alone, buried him as deep in the ground as she could. The beasts sensed it at once and came to eat the corpse, but from her little hut the poor woman fired the arquebus to keep her husband’s flesh from such a grave.
She lived like a beast in body and like an angel in spirit. She spent her time reading, contemplating, praying and saying her devotions, with a cheerful and content mind in a wasted, half-dead body. But he who never abandons his own in need, and shows his power when others despair, did not let the virtue he had put in this woman go unknown to men. He wished it to be known to his glory, and so after some time one of the ships of that fleet passed in front of the island. The people on board noticed a woman, and it reminded them of those they had left there, and they decided to go and see what God had done with them. The poor woman, seeing the ship approach, made her way to the shore, and they found her there when they landed. After giving thanks to God, she took them to her poor little hut and showed them what she had lived on during her wretched stay. They would not have believed it, had they not known that God is as able to feed his servants in a desert as at the greatest feasts in the world. When they had told the inhabitants how faithful and steadfast this woman had been, she was received with great honour by all the ladies, who gladly gave her their daughters to learn to read and write. At this honest trade she earned her living for the rest of her life, wanting nothing more than to urge everyone to love and trust our Lord, holding him up as an example because of the great mercy he had shown her.
Notes
The tale is the 67th of the seventh day. It is told by Simontault, one of the storytellers, who says he heard it from Roberval and his company. The tale names no one but Roberval and gives no date. The woman has no name and the husband has none either. The island has no name, only “une petite isle sur la mer”.
The French says only “les habitans”, the inhabitants, and does not name a town or La Rochelle. The printed “n’abãdonné iamais” (“never abandons”) has a final é where the verb wants none; we have kept it as printed. Saintsbury’s English translation (Gutenberg #17705) says the ship “took her with them straight to La Rochelle”, which this page does not.
The word “lions” is in the printed text. Saintsbury’s note suggests the sea lion, meaning the seal; we have no source for what Marguerite meant by it.
This is Claude Gruget’s edition; Le Roux de Lincy and Montaiglon say the text printed by Gruget and by the earlier editor Boaistuau was reworked. Boaistuau’s 1558 edition (Gallica btv1b86001442, ff. 157 to 158) prints the same tale as its 56th, in slightly different words and with the captain’s name spelled “Robertual”; the manuscripts we have not seen.
Reading: all three page images (views 403, 404, 405) were read; the transcription follows the Wikisource transcription of the same Gallica copy, corrected where the page differs.