s flying from the Prince's Servant]

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_TALE LIII_.

_By her dissimulation the Lady of Neufchastel caused the
Prince of Belhoste to put her to such proof that it turned
to her dishonour_.

King Francis the First was once at a handsome and pleasant castle,
whither he had gone with a small following, both for the purpose of
hunting and in order to take some repose. With him in his train was a
certain Prince of Belhoste, (1) as worshipful, virtuous, discreet and
handsome a Prince as any at Court. The wife he had married did not
belong to a family of high rank, yet he loved her as dearly and treated
her as well as it were possible for a husband to do, and also trusted
in her. And when he was in love with anybody he never concealed it from
her, knowing that she had no other will than his own.

1 The Bibliophile Jacob surmises that this personage may be
one of the Italian grandees at that period in the service of
France, in which case the allusion may be to John
Caraccioli, Prince of Melphes, created a marshal of France
in 1544. Queen Margaret, however, makes no mention of her
Prince being a foreigner. "Belhoste" is of course a
fictitious name invented to replace that which the Prince
really bore, and admits of so many interpretations that its
meaning in the present instance cannot well be determined.
From the circumstance, however, that the Prince's wife was
of inferior birth to himself, it is not impossible that the
personage referred to may be either Charles de Bourbon,
Prince of La Roche-sur-Yonne and Duke of Beaupreau, or John
VIII., Lord of Crequi, Canaples and Pontdormi, and Prince of
Poix. The former, who married Philippa de Montespedon, widow
of Rene de Montejan, and a lady of honour to Catherine de'
Medici when Dauphiness, took a prominent part in the last
wars of Francis I.'s reign, and survived till 1565. The
latter, generally known at Court by the name of Canaples,
was a gentleman of the chamber and an especial favourite of
Francis I. Brantome says of him in his _Homines Illustres_
that he was "a valiant lord and the strongest man of arms
that in those days existed in all Christendom, for he broke
a lance, no matter its strength, as easily as though it were
a mere switch, and few were able to withstand him." In 1525
the Pr