no new thing for ladies to love pages. What
inclinations some women have, they will willingly take any number of
lovers but they want no husband! All this is through love of liberty,
which they deem such a pleasant thing. It seems to them as though they
were in Paradise when they are not under a husband's rule. They have a
fine dowry and spend it thriftily, they have all their household affairs
in hand, receive their income, everything passing through their hands;
and instead of being servants they are mistresses, select their
own pleasures and favourites, and amuse themselves as much as they
like."--Lalanne's _OEuvres de Brantome_, vol. xi. pp. 703-6.

B. (Tale XXV., Page 131.)

Baron Jerome Pichon's elucidations of this story, as given by him in the
_Melanges de la Societe des Bibliophiles Francais_, 1866, may be thus
summarised:--

The advocate referred to in the tale is James Disome, who Mezeray
declares was the _first_ to introduce Letters to the bar, though this,
to my mind, is a very hazardous assertion. Disome was twice married. His
first wife, Mary de Rueil, died Sept. 17, 1511, and was buried at the
Cordeliers church; he afterwards espoused Jane Lecoq, daughter of
John Lecoq, Counsellor of the Paris Parliament, who held the fiefs
of Goupillieres, Corbeville and Les Porcherons, where he possessed a
handsome chateau, a view of which has been engraved by Israel Silvestre.
John Lecoq's wife was Magdalen Bochart, who belonged like her husband to
an illustrious family of lawyers and judges. Their daughter Jane, who is
the heroine of the tale, must have been married to James Disome not very
long after the death of the latter's first wife, for her intrigue with
Francis I. originated prior to his accession to the throne (1515). This
is proved by the tale, in which Disome is spoken of as being the young
prince's advocate. Now none but the Procurors and Advocates-General were
counsel to the Crown, and Disome held neither of those offices. He was
undoubtedly advocate to Francis as Duke de Valois, and, from certain
allusions in the tale, it may be conjectured that he had been advocate
to Francis's father, the Count of Angouleme.

When Francis ascended the throne his intrigue with Jane Disome was
already notorious, as is proved by this extract, under date 1515, from
the _Journal d'un Bourgeois de Paris_: "About this time whilst the King
was in Paris, there was a priest called Mons. Cruche, a great buffoon,
who a