It can hardly be said that any of the
other stock subjects, lawyers, doctors, citizens, even husbands (for she
is less satirical on marriage than encomiastic of love), are dealt with
much by her. She found also in some, but chiefly in older books of the
Chartier and still earlier traditions, and rather in Italian than in
French, a certain strain of romance proper and of adventure; but of
this also she availed herself but rarely. What she did not find in
any example (unless, and then but partially, in the example of her own
servant, Bonaventure Des-periers) was first the interweaving of a great
deal not merely of formal religious exercise, but of positive religious
devotion in her work; and secondly, the infusing into it of the peculiar
Renaissance contrast, so often to be noticed, of love and death, passion
and piety, voluptuous enjoyment and sombre anticipation.
But it is now time to say a little more about the personality and work
of this lady, whose name all this time we have been using freely, and
who was indeed a very notable person quite independently of her literary
work.
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