A long and wearisome description of the tournament is given, in which Philibert and his brother Charles carried off several prizes. Such were the duke's favourite pastimes, whether at Turin, Carignan, or at Bourg, where the lists were opened under the castle walls.
Philibert had inherited his passion for hunting from a long line of ancestors who were all devoted to this sport. The castle of Pont d'Ain, standing high on a hill overlooking Bresse and Bugey, with the river Ain flowing at its feet well stocked with fish, and its plains and vast forests abounding with game, was an ideal home for a sportsman like Philibert. Here he and Margaret enjoyed the pleas-
ures of a country life. Accompanied by their nobles and friends the duke and duchess often started at dawn of day on their hunting excursions, returning with the last rays of the evening sun. We are told by Jean le Maire that one day Margaret had an accident which might have proved very serious. When she and her husband were hunting 44 in the fields near the town of Quier in Piedmont, the powerful horse on which she was mounted became quite unmanageable, and kicking and plunging, threw her violently to the ground. She fell under its feet, the iron-shod hoofs trampling on her dress, disarranging her hair, and breaking a thick golden chain which hung from her neck. All those who witnessed the accident were paralysed with terror, believing the duchess could not escape alive, and recalling a similar accident in which her mother, Mary of Burgundy, had lost her life. But Margaret had a miraculous escape, and got up without any harm beyond a severe shaking.
One morning, early in September 1504, Philibert went out hunting, leaving Margaret at Pont d'Ain, and though the weather was extremely hot, followed a wild boar for several hours. All his followers were left behind, and his horses having succumbed to the heat and hard riding, he descended a narrow valley about midday on foot, and at last arrived breathless and bathed in perspiration at Saint
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Vulbas' fountain. Delighted with the freshness of the spot, he ordered his meal to be served in a shady grove; but before long he was seized with a sudden chill, and pressing his hand to his side in great pain, mounted a horse which was brought to him, and with difficulty rode back to Pont d'Ain, his nobles and huntsmen sadly following. On arriving at the castle the duke threw himself heavily on a bed, and Margaret was immediately summoned. She tried by all means in her power to relieve him, sending in great haste for the doctors. When they came she gave them her precious pearls to grind to powder, and watched them make an elixir with these jewels which she hoped would save the duke's life. 45 She made many vows, and sent offerings to distant shrines, invoking the help of heaven by her prayers. But Philibert was seized with pleurisy; his vigorous constitution resisted the violence of the attack for some days. The physicians bled him, but all their doctoring was in vain, and soon they had to confess that they could do nothing more.
'He himself feeling his end approaching got up, and wished to go and say an eternal farewell to his very dear companion, embracing her closely. After having asked for the last sacraments, and by many acts of faith and devotion shown his love for the holy Christian faith, Duke Philibert expired in Margaret's arms on the 10th of September 1504, at nine o'clock in the morning, in the twenty-fourth year of his age, in the same room in the castle of Pont d'Ain where he had first seen the light.' Margaret's grief was heart-rending: we are told that her sobs and cries echoed through the castle. The whole duchy of Savoy mourned with her for the gallant young prince, so suddenly cut off in the flower of his age.
TOMB OF PHILIBERT LE BEAU, DUKE OF SAVOY, IN THE CHURCH OF BROU
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The duke's body was embalmed, and attired in ducal robes, with the rich insignia of his rank, laid on a state-bed in a spacious chamber, where a crowd of his subjects came to gaze their last on their young lord. The body was then placed in a leaden coffin on which the deceased's titles were engraved, and his funeral carried out with much pomp. The magistrates of Bourg had a hundred torches made bearing the arms of the town; they were carried by burghers who went to escort the body from the castle of Pont d'Ain to the church of Notre-Dame, though Margaret wished her husband to be laid in the priory church of Brou, near his mother, Margaret of Bourbon's tomb.
46 In 1480 Philibert's father, whilst hunting near the same spot, where later his son contracted his fatal illness, had fallen from his horse and broken his arm. He also was carried to Pont d'Ain, and his life was in danger. His wife, Margaret of Bourbon, then made a vow that if her husband's life was spared she would found a monastery of the order of Saint Benedict at Brou. The duke recovered, but the duchess died in 1483 before she fulfilled the vow, the accomplishment of which she bequeathed to her son Philibert, whose early death also prevented him from carrying out his mother's wishes. Margaret now took upon herself the duty of founding the monastery, and also of erecting for them both, and, above all, for him whom she loved, 'a great tomb which should be their nuptial couch,' where she herself would be laid to rest when her time should come.
Stricken with grief, a childless widow, deprived for the second time of the husband she loved, at the age of twenty-four she felt as though all joy in life had ended, and 'immediately after her husband's death she cut off her beautiful golden hair, and had the same done to her own ladies.'[19]
Margaret passed some years of her widowhood at the castle of Pont d'Ain, where several traces of her sojourn remain. She made some additions to the building; the principal staircase still bears her name. Here she lived in seclusion, mourning her lot, and describ-ing her loneliness and sorrow in prose and in verse. In spite of the imperfections of a free versification Margaret's poems show a certain harmony, smoothness, and charm in the informal stanzas, of which the following is a good specimen:--
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I
'O devots cueurs, amans d'amour fervente, Considerez si j'ay este dolente,
Que c'est raison! je suis la seule mere
Qui ay perdu son seul fils et son pere,
Et son amy par amour excellente!
Ce n'est pas jeu d'estre si fortunee[20] D'estre si fortunee!
Qu'est longue fault[21] de ce qu'on ayme bien! Et je suis sceure que pas de luy ne vient,
Mais me procede de ma grant destinee! Dites-vous donc que je suis egaree
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Quant je me vois separee de mon bien? Ce n'est pas jeu d'estre si fortunee!
Qu'est longue fault de ce qu'on ayme bien! Mais que de luy je ne soye oubliee!!!
II
Deuil et ennuy, soussy, regret et peine, Ont eslongue ma plaisance mondaine,
Dont a part moy je me plains et tourmente, Et en espoir n'ay plus un brin d'attente: Veez la comment Fortune me pourmeine.
Ceste longheur vault pis que mort soudaine; Je n'ay pensee que joye me rameine;
Ma fantaisie est de deplaisir pleine;
Car devant moy a toute heure se presente
Deuil et ennuy. III
Plusieurs regrets qui sur la terre sont,
Et les douleurs que hommes et femmes ont, N'est que plaisir envers ceulx que je porte, Me tourmentant de la piteuse sorte
Que mes esprits ne savent plus qu'ils sont. Cueurs desoles par toutes nations,
Deuil assemblez et lamentations; Plus ne querez l'harmonieuse lyre,
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Lyesse, esbats et consolations;
Laissez aller plaintes, pleurs, passions,
Et m'aidez tous a croistre mon martyre, Cueurs desoles!
IV
Aisn vous plonges en desolation, Venez a moy!...
Le noble et bon dont on ne peult mal dire, Le soutenant de tous sans contredire,
Est mort, helas! quel malediction! Cueurs desoles!