A Grey Friar to whom a maiden had presented herself on Christmas night that he might confess her, laid upon her so strange a penance that she would not submit to it, but rose from before him without having received absolution; but her mistress, hearing of the matter, caused the Grey Friar to be flogged in her kitchen, and then sent him back, bound and gagged, to his Warden.

In the year when my Lady Margaret of Austria came to Cambray on behalf of her nephew the Emperor, to treat of peace between him and the Most Christian King, who on his part was represented by his mother, my Lady Louise of Savoy, (1) the said Lady Margaret had in her train the Countess of Aiguemont, (2) who won, among this company, the renown of being the most beautiful of all the Flemish ladies.

1 It was in June 1529 that Margaret of Austria came to Cambrai to treat for peace, on behalf of Charles V. Louise of Savoy, who represented Francis I., was accompanied on this occasion by her daughter, Queen Margaret, who appears to have taken part in the conferences.  The result of these was that the Emperor renounced his claims on Burgundy, but upheld all the other stipulations of the treaty of Madrid.  Having been brought about entirely by feminine negotiators, the peace of Cambrai acquired the name of “La Paix des Dames,” or “the Ladies’ Peace.”  Some curious particulars of the ceremonies observed at Cambrai on this occasion will be found in Leglay’s Notice sur les feles et ceremonies a Cambray depuis le XIe siecle, Cambrai, 1827.—­L. and B. J.

2 This is Frances of Luxemburg, Baroness of Fiennes and Princess of Gavre, wife of John IV., Count of Egmont, chamberlain to the Emperor Charles V. They were the parents of the famous Lamoral Count of Egmont, Prince of Gavre and Baron of Fiennes, born in 1522 and put to death by the Duke of Alba on June 5, 1568.—­B.J.

When this great assembly separated, the Countess of Aiguemont returned to her own house, and, Advent being come, sent to a monastery of Grey Friars to ask for a clever preacher and virtuous man, as well to preach as to confess herself and her whole household.  The Warden, remembering the great benefits that the Order received from the house of Aiguemont and that of Fiennes, to which the Countess belonged, sought out the man whom he thought most worthy to fill the said office.

Accordingly, as the Grey Friars more than any other order desire to obtain the esteem and friendship of great houses, they sent the most important preacher of their monastery, and throughout Advent he did his duty very well, and the Countess was well pleased with him.

On Christmas night, when the Countess desired to receive her Creator, she sent for her confessor, and after making confession in a carefully closed chapel, she gave place to her lady of honour, who in her turn, after being shriven, sent her daughter to pass through the hands of this worthy confessor.  When the maiden had told all that was in her mind, the good father knew something of her secrets, and this gave him the desire and the boldness to lay an unwonted penance upon her.