72 pages • 2 hours read
Marguerite De NavarreHeptameron
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1558A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Seventh Day Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Prologue Summary
Madame Oisille starts the day with a lesson on the Acts, and the group plunges into deep contemplation of the lives and acts of Jesus’ apostles. A morning at church follows this lesson, and they are so deeply engaged in their spiritual contemplation that they almost forget their afternoon pastime of storytelling. Saffredent begins the storytelling of the day.
Stories 61-70 Summary
In Story 61, a woman is happily married to a younger businessman but is eventually seduced by a wealthy canon (an official at church). The canon attempts to visit her at home, but her husband catches on and keeps her hidden. One day she runs away, and she lives with the canon for more than a year before the husband appeals to the Bishop for help. She is imprisoned but eventually returned home to her husband, who treats her well. However, “her mind was always seven good leagues away from her body” thinking of her lover (481), and after faking fatal illness, she runs away again in the night. He husband pursues her on horseback, and she hides in a cold swamp to avoid him and returns to her canon. They live together for around 15 years and have children, and she hides herself at first. She cannot resist flaunting her status and hosting an extravagant wedding for her daughter, however, and it catches the attention of Queen Claude. When she is unrepentant before the Queen, the woman is sentenced to a year in prison with the result that the canon rebukes her, and her husband is convinced to take her back after only a fortnight in prison. They live happily and peacefully from then on.
In Story 62, a young woman recounts a tale for a royal lady. In it, a young noblewoman is married to an older man, and she attracts a young nobleman, who falls in love with her. Her husband goes out of town, and the young man sees his chance: He sneaks into her bedroom, jumps into bed with her, and takes her by force, raping her. He is still wearing his boots and spurs, and when the maids enter the room, he jumps off the bed with the sheets stuck to his spurs, and she is left completely exposed. The storyteller unthinkingly reveals the story is about herself, mindlessly exclaiming, “No woman has ever been as embarrassed as I was, when I found myself completely naked!” (486), and the royal lady laughs at the revelation.
Story 63 is set in Paris, where four beautiful young sisters constantly attract suitors. The Provost of Paris takes notice of them and invites them each separately to meet the King, then meanwhile arranges this as a private tryst with the King and two other gentlemen. To round out the party, he asks an honorable man at court to be the fourth man; this man reluctantly accepts, as he is already happily married with children, and he is the devoted servant of another woman. He devises a plan with his wife to pretend to be sick for a week, which works to help him avoid dishonoring his wife, as the King is called away from Paris in the interim. When they see each other next, the gentleman feigns disappointment that their party was canceled, and the King never knows he missed it intentionally.
Set in Valencia, Story 64 tells of a nobleman who is in love with a lady of equal virtue and “gentle birth,” and the two begin to talk about marriage. She insists her friends and family approve of it, and when they do, she hesitates, likely to test his love. He is so distraught he enters a Franciscan monastery, and she writes to him to convince him to return to her, but she is too late. He rejects her pleas, now convinced the monastic life is his only relief from heartbreak. She visits him at the monastery to try to change his mind. When she sees him, she faints, and he catches her. For a moment he too is overcome with love for her, but he runs away back to his cell and sends her word never to visit him again. She relents and returns to her own house to lead a melancholy life.
Story 65 takes place in the church of Saint John of Lyons, where a soldier finds a quiet, cool spot in a side chapel to take a nap on a hot summer day. As he sleeps among life-sized statues, an old lady arrives to say prayers and light a candle. She means to place the candle on the altar, but the soldier is in her way, and, mistaking him for a statue, she attempts to place the candle on his forehead, burning him in the process. He wakes with a start, and she runs off screaming, “A miracle!” (498). When the townspeople come running and discover the soldier, they all have a good laugh, except for the priests, who had hoped to make a profit from the “miracle.”
In Story 66, the royal household is traveling after the Princess of Navarre and the Duke of Vendôme are married. Lodging in the house of a nobleman, they spend the evening celebrating, and when the newly married couple retires for the evening, they fall asleep fully clothed. A maid enters the room, and mistaking the Duke for another man who has been pursuing her mistress, she shouts at him, “You wicked, shameless good-for-nothing!” (500), and much worse. The Duke and Princess are “speechless with laughter” (500), and when the old maid realizes her mistake, she gets down on her knees to apologize. They let her go without punishment, but not before they convince her to share with them who she mistook them for.
Story 67 provides an anecdote of the French settlers on the “island” of Canada (503), where Captain Robertval must deal with a man who has betrayed his master. Through his wife’s intervention, he is not put to death, but instead they are sent into exile with few supplies “on a little island inhabited only by wild animals” (503). The wife is a good woman, and God provides for them, but the husband dies from a water-borne illness. She fights off the lions that come for his body and spends her time in spiritual contemplation and devotions, until one day God has mercy on her, and one of Robertval’s ships visits the island after seeing the smoke from afar. She returns with the ship to La Rochelle in France, where society welcomes such a brave and virtuous woman.
In Story 68, an apothecary in Pau is happily married but begins to lose interest in his wife. She eavesdrops on a consulting session in which he makes an aphrodisiac powder, poudre de duc, for another woman in a similar situation, and it is a success. Seeing this, at her first opportunity the wife drugs her husband’s food with the same elixir but does not mind the dosage. At first it works as it should, but the overdose begins to burn him up from the inside out. She confesses what she did, and he sends for the Queen of Navarre’s apothecary, who also reprimands him enough that he realizes he was acting improperly and God has justly punished him by turning his trick upon himself.
In Story 69, an equerry of the King lives with his wife, and with both getting on in years, they live more as friends than as lovers. He begins to flirt with the maids, and she tolerates it, but she warns a new hire not to indulge him or she will be fired. The new maid wants to keep her job and always tells the lady when he flirts with her. One day, she decides to play with him: When he comes to flirt with her, she agrees to his demands but says she must first check that the wife is busy. She suggests he wear her smock and continue to sift her grain so the sound does not stop, and he readily agrees. She runs off to find the wife and shows her how ridiculous the husband is, and they have a good laugh. The wife offers the girl more money, while the husband wants to fire her. In the end they manage to live together peacefully.
In Story 70 the Duke of Burgundy has brought up a young man in his household and entrusts him with his affairs. The Duchess, whose heart “was not the heart of a virtuous wife and princess” (513), falls in love with the young man and one day questions him as to why he has not chosen a lady. He avoids her questions, and she eventually admits her love for him, which he duly rejects, being a virtuous young man. She is furious and humiliated and pretends he misunderstood her meaning; however, she is fixed on revenge. That evening, she pretends to be sick; when the Duke comes to visit her, she says she might be pregnant, then inverts the truth, saying the young man instead sought to pursue her. Angered by this, the Duke confronts the young man, who denies it, swearing his loyalty to the Duke.
When the Duchess hears of this, she presses further, questioning how a young man like him has not yet had an “affair of the heart” (520), seeing it as proof of his love for her. The Duke returns to the young man, who admits he does love someone, but that he has promised to keep their love secret. The Duchess, on hearing this from her husband, is consumed with jealousy and insists the Duke discover which lady the young man serves, or else he must assume it is herself. The Duke puts the young man in an impossible position—either name the woman or leave his lands on pain of death. The young man, after hesitating, names the Duke’s niece, the Lady of Vergy, as his lady. He visits her at night, waiting in the garden until her little dog barks as a signal her ladies have left her alone. The Duke, who has sworn to keep it a secret, is both relieved and delighted and witnesses it himself that evening.
The Duke is true to his word, but the Duchess is obsessed with discovering the truth, becoming sick with jealousy. Using her sickness (and feigned pregnancy) to manipulate the Duke, she convinces him to share the Lady of Vergy’s name with her. Later, when they are all at a banquet, the Duchess begins to question the Lady of Vergy, pressing her to admit she has a lover and slyly revealing she knows of the little dog. The Lady of Vergy is humiliated and heartbroken because her lover has broken his promise, but she hides her feelings and retreats to a dressing room, where a maid overhears her lamenting her loss as she begins to die of heartbreak. The young man comes in just as she loses consciousness, and after she rouses to see him holding her, she quickly dies in his arms. The maid relates everything she said, and when the young man realizes it is his betrayal that killed her, he stabs himself in the heart. The Duke comes running at the maid’s cries and finds the two dead lovers, both of whom he dearly loved. When the maid relates the story to him, he runs after his wife, finds her dancing, and stabs her in the heart in front of the whole banquet. After this, he builds an Abbey to atone for the murder of his wife, has her buried there, and builds a tomb for the two lovers to rest together forever. He lives a valiant life, retiring to a religious life at the same Abbey, leaving his wealth to his son.
Seventh Day Analysis
As if to balance out the stories of vice and virtue the group has been telling over the previous days, the Scripture lesson in the prologue serves to balance these tales, providing exemplary lives to aspire to, those of the followers of Jesus. The “righteous deeds of the glorious knights and apostles of Jesus Christ” are meant not only to inspire the group to live better but also to condemn the corruption of the present (476). In these moments, the storytellers are always described as completely engrossed in their lessons and reluctant to set them aside, showing the reader that while it is fine to indulge in the afternoon storytelling, the morning’s “saving nourishment” is what truly engages and sustains the group.
Story 61 is a variation on the previous story, in which a wanton wife is returned home to her long-suffering husband. In this iteration, the Queen and Duchess get involved in the case. Both women symbolize the ideal of aristocratic behavior—it is their duty to provide guidance for women, bringing them back towards decency by whatever means necessary. Oisille emphasizes this in the following debate, speaking to the Queen’s powerful reputation for decency and honor. Indeed, at the end of the story, the wayward wife is relieved and grateful for this correction, particularly when her canon so quickly discards her after 15 years together. Where men’s intercession fails in Story 60, a matriarch’s intercession succeeds in changing another woman’s shameful behavior.
Story 62 is a nested tale within a tale, in which the storyteller attempts to remove herself from her own traumatic experience but nonetheless implicates herself in the shameful tale. The story of this woman’s rape is told with humor, with some of the women of the group condemning her for telling her story and joking at her own expense, while ironically, some men of the group seem to defend her for being overpowered. The arguments made by the women reinforce patriarchal attitudes about rape: It is shameful, it should be kept hidden and ultimately forgotten, and to do otherwise suggests the woman enjoyed it. As with similar stories of rape or attempted rape, the woman is continually advised to keep it secret and to avoid the social disruption a revelation would make.
Story 63 reveals some of the social pressure on gentlemen of the court to engage in extramarital affairs at the pleasure of the King and indicates how one might diplomatically avoid the situation. As the gentleman remarks to his wife, “the wise man always has some urgent journey or some indisposition up his sleeve to which he can resort when necessary” (489), and he is able to avoid this obligation through cunning, rather than insulting the King. Notably, the story does not name which King expects this of his subject, demonstrating that one must guard oneself against vice, even in the presence of the monarch.
In Story 64, a perfect match is disrupted by the lady’s need to test her suitor and his inability to withstand an initial rejection. Like previous stories that address “noble love” between the gentry, this tale uses verse (or poetry) to express those “higher” feelings of love, dwelling on the impossibility to translate such words from Spanish to French, which extends to the inability to truly translate feelings into words. By the time the lady visits her erstwhile suitor at the monastery, it is too late
once someone has taken a vow in the service of God in The Heptameron, there is no returning to aristocratic society. In fact, they are literally speaking two different languages at this point; while she writes to him in the common vernacular, he replies to her in the language of the Church (Latin).
Story 65 uses comedy and common people to demonstrate the stupidity of women, or rather, to warn women about where they place their offerings and prayers. The old lady in this tale is somewhat blinded in the dark chapel—she literally cannot see where she is placing her candle. Likewise, she reacts without questioning what she sees, immediately jumping to a supernatural explanation before seeking a more logical answer. The old lady is both blind and gullible, the real danger of which is emphasized by the presence of enterprising priests seeking to profit from the gullibility of the laity.
Story 66 presents a similar, humorous situation, but this time in a noble household. Here, another old lady makes a similar mistake while “blinded,” humiliating herself and revealing the secrets of others in the process. The moral of this story is centered more on discretion and secrecy, of whom secrets are shared with, and whether men should strive to be discreet. In both tales, blinding darkness functions metaphorically for a state of ignorance, and one must take care not to share information or jump to conclusions when facts are obscured.
Story 67 provides a somewhat inversed Adam and Eve story in which the husband is the betrayer and the wife finds absolution. Alone in the wilderness and surrounded by ferocious beasts, the husband’s betrayal of the social order (symbolized by the sabotage of his master) makes him little better than the wild animals he is sent to live among. However, his wife finds solace in Scripture, living more as a devout hermit, and for that she is rewarded by God and society, who seek her out to teach their girls to read and write. Indeed, she pivots from resourceful and brave frontierswoman to erudite teacher of letters to girls in the trajectory of her story, while her husband perishes in the wilderness.
Stories 68 and 69 feature husbands and wives who try to outsmart one another, but in the end, these plans backfire with the positive effect that the two are reconciled. In Story 68, the wife attempts to take the place of her husband, mixing a similar powder to what she saw him make, but she botches the plan when she ignores the dosage. Similarly, in Story 69 the husband takes on the role of the maid, only to be humiliated when she outsmarts him. Here, the tolerant wife, rather than overreacting to his flirtations, takes them in stride and manages the situation from her end. The husband, however, debases himself, literally taking the maid’s place and even wearing the tools of her trade. In both tales, trying on the role of another person only sends the spouse back to their happy marriage.
One of the longer tales, story 70 is the only tale that is not of their time and derives from a previous written source, the 13th-century poem La Chastelaine de Vergi. The core theme is loyalty—between lovers, spouses, and men—but also the importance of secrecy for preserving one’s honor. The love between the young man and the niece is exemplary of noble love; they behave honorably, meet privately, and keep their affair a secret, thus protecting their honor and their intimacy from public scrutiny. It is a love so pure that they both end up dying for it, as this arrangement depends on both of their loyalty. However, like in story 12, the young man’s master also demands loyalty, and he must choose between love and his place in the social order. He will literally be exiled from the land if he does not share the name of his lover, so he concedes to his master, hoping to preserve his love nonetheless.
The tension between noble love and patriarchal obedience plays out, manipulated by the jealous Duchess. She invents a pregnancy to keep her husband attached to her sentimentally, and she deploys the information she gets from him like a weapon. She has created the third tension here, which is the contest for the Duke’s loyalty between the young man and the wife. When these three allegiances are all tested against one another, the only survivor is the man at the nexus of these relationships, who makes his penance as best he can, significantly passing along his wealth and power to his son with the patriarchal order still in place.
