that could Boccaccio have only heard them from the
place where he lay, the praise of such illustrious persons would have
raised him from the dead.

11 Margaret here alludes to the French translation of the
_Decameron_ made by her secretary, Anthony le Macon, and
first issued in Paris in 1545. Messrs. De Lincy and
Montaiglon accordingly think that the prologue of the
_Heptameron_ was written subsequently to that date; but M.
Dillaye states that Le Macon's translation was circulated at
Court in manuscript long before it was printed. This
contention is in some measure borne out by Le Macon's
dedication to Margaret, of which the more interesting
passages are given in the Appendix to this volume (A).--ED.

12 The Dauphin here mentioned is Francis I.'s second son,
who subsequently reigned as Henry II. He became Dauphin by
the death of his elder brother on August 10, 1536. The
Dauphiness is Catherine de' Medici, the wife of Henry, whom
he married in 1533; whilst Madame Margaret, according to M.
de Montaiglon, is the Queen of Navarre herself, she being
usually called by that name at her brother's Court. M.
Dillaye, who is of a different opinion, maintains that the
Queen would not write so eulogistically of herself, and that
she evidently refers to her brother's daughter, Margaret de
Berry, born in 1523, and married to the Duke of Savoy.--Ed.

Now I heard not long since that the two ladies I have mentioned,
together with several others of the Court, determined to do like
Boccaccio, with, however, one exception--they would not write any
story that was not a true one. And the said ladies, and Monseigneur the
Dauphin with them, undertook to tell ten stories each, and to assemble
in all ten persons, from among those whom they thought the most capable
of relating something. Such as had studied and were people of letters
were excepted, for Monseigneur the Dauphin would not allow of their art
being brought in, fearing lest the flowers of rhetoric should in some
wise prove injurious to the truth of the tales. But the weighty affairs
in which the King had engaged, the peace between him and the King of
England, the bringing to bed of the Dauphiness,(13) and many other
matters of a nature to engross the whole Court, caused the enterprise to
be entirely forgotten.

13 The confinement mentioned here is that of Catherine de