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¢ I, CHAPTER XXIX 261

GRAMMONT, COMTESSE DE GUISSEN

, 1 offer you nothing of my own, either it is already yours, or because I find in it worthy of you. But it is my desire that © “ses, wheresoever they might find them- our name at their head, for the honour have the noble Corisande d’Andouins gift seems to me to be appropriate for ‘e few ladies in France who are better vho make use of it more fitly than you; me who can give it life and spirit as you 1 and rich tones with which among a , nature has endowed you. Madame, to be highly valued by you; for you hat none have come out of Gascony rality and delightsomeness, and which ne from a more opulent hand. And be sav searvus vecause you have only the remainder of what some time ago I published ! and dedicated to Monsieur de Foix, your honoured kinsman; for truly these have an in- definable something more vivid and more ebullient, as he wrote them in his lustiest youth and inflamed by a fine and noble passion, about which some day, Madame, I will whisper in your ear. The others ? were written later, for the love of his wife, when he was arranging his marriage, and they have already an indescribable touch of marital coolness. And I am one of those who maintain that poetry is never so charm- ing as when treating a wanton and lawless subject. (c) These verses may be seen elsewhere.*

1 Referring to the volume of Vers Francois of La Boétie, published by Montaigne in 1572.

2 That is, the verses in the volume referred to in the preceding note.

The 29 sonnets were printed in all editions down to and including

1588. In place of the above sentence written by Montaigne on the Bordeaux copy of 1588, on which he struck out the sonnets, we find in 1595 the following: Ces vingt-neuf sonnetz d’Estienne de la Boétie, qui estoient mis en ce lieu, ont esté despuis imprimez avec ses euores. The edi- tion of the sonnets which led Montaigne to omit them here has never been discovered.