72 pages • 2 hours read
Marguerite De NavarreHeptameron
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1558A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Eighth Day Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Prologue Summary
The group learns the bridge will be completed in two to three days. Deciding to make the most of their remaining time together, Oisille is asked “to administer her spiritual nourishment” (535), and she leads a lesson on the canonical epistles of Saint John. Following high mass and lunch, the group prepares their stories for the day. With the monks already present, Saffredent declares it would only be fair if one of the ladies should begin two days of storytelling, since he has already started two days. Parlamente agrees to start the day and declares the day should feature stories “which are the most foolish and the most true” (536).
Stories 71-72 Summary
Story 71 is a humorous tale told by Parlamente, featuring a saddler in Amboise named Brimbaudier. A servant of Bacchus, or a drinker, he is a happily married man with a good wife and children. His wife becomes deathly ill, and he begins to fall apart emotionally. He turns to a young chambermaid for comfort and tries to convert their relationship into a sexual liaison. When he throws the unwilling chambermaid on his wife’s deathbed to have his way with her, the wife, who has not spoken for two days, suddenly awakens and chastises her husband, with her anger burning up her sickness and provoking a full recovery. As a result, she “for ever after nagged her husband for not loving her enough” (538). Told by Parlamente to illustrate the hypocrisy of men, the story is followed by a debate that questions the true nature of love and whether one can be so quickly released from love upon death.
Dagoucin tells Story 72, which takes place in a hospital in Paris run by nuns and monks. As a young nun and an austere monk lay out a corpse in a “last act of mercy” (540), the monk begins to seduce the nun, who is too terrified to resist. They have sex near the body, after which he assures her their tryst is blameless, as “a sin committed in secret [is] not counted as a sin in the eyes of God” and “two persons without ties did not commit any offence, provided it did not cause a public scandal” (540). The young nun is overwhelmed with regret upon realizing she lost her virginity to “foolish timidity.” However, the monk convinces her to confess to him and continue the affair, which eventually leads to her becoming pregnant. Soon after, the nun tries to seek help from the prioress to have him removed, and when she is unsuccessful, she sets out for Rome to regain her virginity through a confession to the Pope. Along the way in Lyon, she unknowingly confesses the entire affair to the Duchess of Alençon, who persuades the girl to give up her pilgrimage, sending her back to the Bishop with letters to remove the scandalous monk.
Eighth Day Analysis
The last day of the Heptameron opens as time is running out for the group, with the bridge nearing repair. Saffredent notes the fairness of letting both a man and a woman begin storytelling twice, a detail that is likely included more for a sense of structure in the storytelling than to promote equality between the sexes. It is worth noting that Oisille’s lesson for the day touches on the scriptural basis for many common themes to the Heptameron; the three epistles of John address faith in Christ and warn against imitating evil and opening the home to false teachers, while encouraging practicing truth and avoiding secrecy.
Like most bawdy tales, the first story of the day depicts a common tradesman, Brimbaudier, who has a simple and contented life, drinks a bit too much, and is subject to his own emotional reactions, which are exaggerated to humorous effect. While he loves his wife, it does not require much for him to seek pleasure with another woman, a shift presented in sharp contrast to the emotional and psychological struggle of many aristocratic characters facing temptation. Indeed, while many noble characters are undone by uncontrolled emotions, here the violent reaction to her husband’s infidelity instead cures the wife, giving her new life.
The following story, aimed at illustrating that even death cannot dissuade some couples from sinning together, likewise takes on the question of hypocrisy, this time in the Church. Here, life and death are closely intertwined, for as Hircan notes, while the nun and monk are playing undertaker, they “speak words of death while performing the works of life!” (543). Hircan also questions the honesty of the girl, who was too timid to stop the monk, claiming many “weep for their sins, and at the same time laugh over the pleasures they’ve had” (543). However, the girl is repentant, and the story’s climax centers instead on the chance meeting, willed by God, between the nun and the Duchess of Alençon, who is the only woman who could help the nun in this situation. The Duchess’s justice, in this case taking authority over the clergy, removes the unrepentant monk from his position and returns the girl to the convent, reserving punishment for the once pious man who led the girl astray.
