Memoirist Pierre de Bourdeille, seigneur de Brantome (1540—1614), born into a family of courtiers, was well placed to gather oral histories about the kings and queens of France and the men and women who served them.
His grandmother, Louise de Daillon du Lude, was raised at Anne of France’s court and later served Queen Marguerite of Navarre, sister of Francois I;1 his father, Francois de Bourdeille, and two of his aunts served Queen Anne of Brittany;[368] [369] his mother, Anne de Vivonne, was goddaughter of Anne of Brittany, and his maternal aunt Jeanne de Dampierre waited on Francois I’s sister, Marguerite of Navarre, and remained in the service of queens all her life. The author himself spent time as a boy at Marguerite’s court alongside his grandmother, and he later knew another Marguerite of Navarre, “la reine Margot” (1553—1615), daughter of Henri II and Catherine de Medicis.[370] Given his intimate connections to court life, the portraits and anecdotes that Brantome presents in the works widely known today as the Vies des dames illustres and the Vies des dames galantes are considered important sources of information about the women of the French royal court. Brantome insists that his stories are accurate, even those which he did not witness himself. He admits that at times his knowledge of court intrigue comes from books, but, he affirms, he also learned the truth from Madame la Seneschale, my grandmother, and from Mme. de Dampierre, my aunt, a true Court recorder, and as clever, wise, and virtuous a lady as ever entered a court a hundred years ago and who knew well how to discourse on everything. From the age of eight she was brought up at court and forgot nothing. It was good to hear her talk...4 And yet, despite the tags like “I read,” “I heard it said,” and “I saw” that punctuate his work, encouraging readers to understand his descriptions as genuine memories of his own or of trustworthy eyewitnesses, Brantome’s stories cannot all be accepted at face value.[371] [372] In addition to borrowing from literary sources while purporting to convey an eye-witness testimony,[373] he recounts anecdotes that feel improbable, leaving readers wondering at times whether they are reading something wild but authentic, basically true but hyperbolized, or completely fictitious.[374] This is especially true of the anecdotes about individual women’s words, features, or actions that Brantome scatters throughout his memoirs, anecdotes that he calls particularitez, particularities. In what follows I consider how modern historical portrayals of the women Brantome describes have at times been influenced by literal readings of his particularities. Unpacking Brantome’s “Particularitez” ∣ 113 wrapped in an interpretation that gives it meaning. That is, a particularity is a telling detail, as writers of fiction might say.[375] This means that alternate interpretations of a particularity are always possible, which means, in turn, that we can “reprocess” particularities through cultural templates that feminist scholars have developed to discuss female power. In this way we arrive at alternate readings of the conduct of some Brantome’s illustrious characters. Certainly the method is not fool-proof, especially given that we can never be certain that a particularity is in fact based on an eye-witness report at all. Still, as I hope to show here, some re-processed particularities can be corroborated by other sources and taken as plausible details about real women. First, however, it will be useful to consider in more detail how Brantome uses particularities.