THE MEMOIRS OF MARGUERITE DE VALOIS


LETTER I

I should commend your work much more were I myself less praised
in it; but I am unwilling to do so, lest my praises should seem
rather the effect of self-love than to be founded on reason and
justice. I am fearful that, like Themistocles, I should appear
to admire their eloquence the most who are most forward to praise
me. It is the usual frailty of our sex to be fond of flattery. I
blame this in other women, and should wish not to be chargeable
with it myself. Yet I confess that I take a pride in being painted
by the hand of so able a master, however flattering the likeness
may be. If I ever were possessed of the graces you have assigned
to me, trouble and vexation render them no longer visible, and
have even effaced them from my own recollection, So that I view
myself in your Memoirs, and say, with old Madame de Rendan, who,
not having consulted her glass since her husband's death, on
seeing her own face in the mirror of another lady, exclaimed, "Who
is this?". Whatever my friends tell me when they see me now, I am
inclined to think proceeds from the partiality of their affection.
I am sure that you yourself, when you consider more impartially
what you have said, will be induced to believe, according to
these lines of Du Bellay:

"C'est chercher Rome en Rome,
Et rien de Rome en Rome ne trouver."