The
form of the _Heptameron_ lends itself more than any other to such
assistance; and while I should imagine that the setting, with its strong
colour, both of religiosity and amorousness, is almost wholly Margaret's
work, I should also think it so likely as to be nearly certain that in
some at least of the tales the hands of the authors of the _Cymbalum
Mundi_ and the _Adolescence Clementine_, of Le Macon and Brodeau, may
have worked at the devising, very likely re-shaped and adjusted by the
Queen herself, of the actual stories as we have them now.
The book, as we have it, consists of seven complete days of ten novels
each, and of an eighth containing two novels only. The fictitious scheme
of the setting is somewhat less lugubrious than that of the _Decameron_,
but still not without an element of tragedy. On the first of September,
"when the hot springs of the Pyrenees begin to enter upon their virtue,"
a company of persons of quality assembled at Cauterets, we are told, and
abode there three weeks with much profit.
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