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The Pious Lady and the Gray Friar – Marguerite de Navarre (1492-1549)
Marguerite d’Angouleme, daughter of the Due d’Angouleme and sister of Francois I, was the second wife of the King of Navarre, and grandmother of Henry IV of France. A woman of culture and learn­ing, and of immense political ability, she was a writer of consider­able importance. But among all her varied literary works none is more popular than her famous collection of tales under the title of the Heptameron, a volume more or less based on the Decameron of Boccac­cio.

These tales are for the most part intended to teach manners, wisdom and courtesy, and though they are no longer a practical or useful Bookof Etiquette, they are still readable. Marguerite was a shrewd observer of men, and showed in the best of her stories a feeling for character and a love of nature. The Heptameron was not published until after her death, though the stories circulated in MS. during her lifetime.

The present tale is reprinted from an anonymous translation pub­lished in London in 1894. It is the fifty-sixth story, and has for title only a lengthy descriptive paragraph.
The Pious Lady and the Gray Friar
From the Heptameron, Tale 56

A french lady, whilst sojourning at Padua, was informed that there was a Gray Friar in the Bishop’s prison there, and finding that everyone spoke jestingly about him, she inquired the reason. She was told that this Gray Friar, who was an old man, had been confessor to a very honorable and pious widow lady, mother of only one daughter, whom she loved so dearly as to be at all pains to amass riches for her and to find her a good husband.

The Pious Lady and the Gray Friar part 4

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She uttered, however, not a word, but waited till he should turn round again, when, looking still more carefully at him, she had no doubt that it was indeed he. Then she twitched her...

The Pious Lady and the Gray Friar part 3

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“Sir,” replied the worthy woman, “I look upon what you tell me as of great advantage to myself, for I shall at least have by me what I most desire in the world.”Thereupon the...

The Pious Lady and the Gray Friar part 2

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After she had earnestly begged him to choose for her daughter such a husband as he knew a woman that loved God and her honor ought to desire, he replied that first of all...

The Pious Lady and the Gray Friar part 1

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Marguerite de Navarre (1492-1549)Marguerite d`Angouleme, daughter of the Due d`Angouleme and sister of Francois I, was the second wife of the King of Navarre, and grandmother of Henry IV of France. A woman of...

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