The following is a translation from the French of François de Rosset’s “Of A Brother and Sister’s Incestuous Love and Tragic End,” or “Des amours incestueuses d’un frère et d’une soeur et de leur fin malheureuse et tragique,” form Rosset’s 1619 collection, Tragic Stories (“Histoires tragiques.”) There appears to be no standard translations into English of Tragic Stories, though the book enjoyed dozens of editions through the middle of the 18th century, and additional editions in the 20th. The following translation is by Gemini. It is provided here as a companion to Pierre Tristam’s essay on the story: “François Rosset’s 1619 Story of an Execution for Incest and Adultery.”
One must no longer go to Africa to see some new monster. Our Europe produces only too many today. I would not be astonished by the scandals that occur there every day if I lived among infidels. But to see that Christians are tainted with vices so execrable that those who have no knowledge of the Gospel would not dare commit, I am constrained to confess that our century is the sewer of all the villainies of others, just as the following stories bear witness and particularly this one, which I am going to begin to recite to you. In one of the best provinces of France, anciently called Neustria, was a gentleman of good house, who married an honest young lady, daughter of another gentleman, his neighbor.
They had several beautiful children, and among others a daughter, whom we shall call Doralice, and a son younger than she by some 18 months, whom we shall name Lizaran. This daughter and this son were so beautiful that one would have said Nature had taken pleasure in forming them to show one of her miracles. They resembled each other so perfectly that never was Ariosto’s Bradamante so similar to her brother Richardet. The father was careful to have them instructed in their tenderest age in all sorts of virtuous exercises, such as playing the spinet, dancing, reading, writing, and painting. They profited so well that they overcame the desire of those who had the charge of teaching them.
Moreover, these two young children, always nourished together, loved each other with such a love that one could not live without the other. They were never content except when they saw each other and disdained to run and pass the time with the other children of their age. In this time of innocence, all was permitted to them. They ordinarily slept together, and by adventure this was for too long. Fathers and mothers should take heed of this to make themselves wise by this example.
This century, as I have already said, is only too corrupted. Children just torn from the breast know more malice than children of 12 years once had simplicity. I firmly believe that the evil proceeded from this too long acquaintance, which continued from day to day, until, Doralice having already reached the age of 10 or 11 and Lizaran being between 9 and 10, he was sent to a college to study. This separation was so grievous to them that they both shed 1,000 tears. It was nothing but sobs and interrupted sighs on one side and the other, which the father and mother attributed only to fraternal friendship. But impudent and detestable love was doubtless already mixed in. The appearance is great, as we shall see by the following of this history. Lizaran, having been taken to the college in one of the best cities of the province, made himself in little time so capable that he surpassed all his companions. When he had remained at studies for the space of 4 years, his father had a desire to see him again. He recalls him therefore, very pleased to see him so beautiful, so learned, and already tall. But this was nothing compared to the contentment his sister received from it. She did not cease to embrace and kiss him. Yet they did not have all the privacies that were granted to them in their childhood. And then shame restrained them both and the detestable sin that they represented before their eyes.
Still, neither the one nor the other could so well restrain their cursed passion that it did not sometimes escape the rein of reason. At the same time, the father made Lizaran return to college to finish his studies, as he made plans to have him have an abbey. He had several other sons and was very glad to accommodate this one, who was the younger, with some good piece of the Church, in order to unburden the house. This he did, as the beauty and good grace of Doralice attracted several brave and honest gentlemen to come offer her their service.
She was sought by an infinity of cavaliers who had much merit and were of an age suitable to that of this young lady. Still, the father, preferring means to all these considerations, granted her to a gentleman his neighbor, very rich, but already gray. Ah! cursed avarice, what evil you cause the world. He who called you the root of all vices had good knowledge of what you are and what you produce. Our history calls this gentleman Timandre.
Happy if he had passed the rest of his days without allying himself with a beauty too young for him and who gave him a thousand affronts when he approached her. At least, when the parties are in agreement, the goodwill they have toward each other supplies the defect of age. Finally Doralice, whatever complaints she makes and whatever tears she sheds, is constrained to obey the will of her father. The marriage is concluded, and Lizaran is called from his studies to assist at the wedding.
As soon as his sister saw him and she had the means to speak to him without being heard by any other, she began to utter these piteous words: “My dear brother, how miserable I am! Must I pass the flower of my age with a person I detest more than death itself? Is my father not very cruel to deliver me into the hands of a mortal enemy? Shall I henceforth consume my days in a servitude so contrary to my age and my humor? What use are riches if contentment is not there? Advise me, I pray you, in so great an affliction. I am almost reduced to this extremity of giving myself death by my own hand.” After Lizaran had listened to her complaints, he answered her in this sort: “My dear sister, I pity your misfortune. Your ill is my own. I have as much resentment of it as you yourself. I cannot but blame the cruelty of my father for marrying you thus against your will, and with a man whose age is different from yours. Nevertheless, since the power that fathers have over their children is absolute, I advise you to take patience. Fortune, by adventure, reserves something better for you. At least assure yourself that, as soon as you are married with Timandre, I shall hardly out of your sight. I shall make my ordinary dwelling with you. It is almost impossible for me to live without seeing you.”
Finishing this discourse, they embraced and kissed each other closely and, without the shame that restrained them and the fear they had of being perceived, they would have accomplished their execrable desire. Doralice, consoled by the promise of Lizaran, whom she loved not only as a brother but even with a violent love, above all the rest of men, cared little more about marrying this old man, who henceforth will serve as a cover for her abominable pleasures. She is therefore married and Timandre gathers the fruit he has so much desired.
After the feast is finished, he takes his wife to his house, which was a castle near that of his father-in-law. Lizaran, who was already only too learned, did not return to college. He enjoyed a good benefice that his father had made him obtain. The disordered love he bore his sister did not permit that he be long without going to see her in her new household. He made his ordinary dwelling there, always near her. Their desires began by this frequentation to kindle in such a way that very often, without the shame of so execrable a sin, they would have satisfied them all.
The horror of such a crime represented itself often to their eyes, and particularly to those of Doralice, who held this discourse to herself: “Ah! cruel Love, who makes me foolishly love him whose impudent look I should, for proximity of lineage, not only flee, but even fear that any other than I should ever have knowledge of my foolish and incestuous passion, for what do you reserve me? Must I commit so detestable a sin? Let us remove this cursed fantasy before it imprints itself further and let us represent to ourselves the ill that could proceed from so detestable a crime.” These good inspirations almost turned her away, very often, from these foolish thoughts, when beauty, good grace, and the love she bore her brother opposing at the same time, they were as soon extinguished as kindled. “And who can,” she said afterward, “prevent me from loving? Is it not a natural thing? During the time of innocence and when one lived in the Golden Age, did one have all these considerations? Men have made laws for their pleasures, but Nature is stronger than all these considerations. I want to follow her, since she is a good and sure guide of our life.”
Thus spoke this execrable woman, as her brother lived in the same pains.
Finally I have horror of reciting here their cursed and perverse reasons. It is not my intention. My design is to depict and make appear the filthiness of vice, and not to defend it. I will say then that after several diverse movements, they took for example the law that Jupiter and Juno, execrable deities of the pagans, practiced.
They continued their detestable pleasures without anyone doubting it. Even though one surprised them together lying on a bed, that they kissed before everyone, and that they withdrew into woods and solitary places, who would have ever presumed such an acquaintance? Still Heaven, which can no longer suffer this horrible and incestuous adultery, permitted that one day a maidservant found them in the act. She made the sign of the cross 1000 times and closed her eyes in order not to see so execrable a thing. And not wanting to vent it all at once, she contented herself with privately remonstrating to her mistress the great crime she was committing and the great scandal that would come of it if it were discovered.
Doralice, instead of receiving her warning in good part, treated her the most unworthily in the world. For, after having outraged her with words, she beat her very well and then gave her her dismissal. This servant, indignant at the wrong she had received for having procured good, secretly warned Timandre of the subject that had induced his wife to chase her from the house, and that he should take heed of her, that without doubt the brother was impudently enjoying his own sister.
The husband, very astonished by this advice, did not know what to say nor what to do. Once, he wanted without other procedure to avenge himself on them, so much did the desire for vengeance possess his soul. But afterward, coming to represent to himself that by adventure it was a calumny, he dissimulated his just pain, spying in so many ways on the actions of his wife and his brother-in-law that he was only too assured of their incestuous behaviors. The love he bore his wife, joined to some opinion he forged for himself that by adventure it was not true, even though he had perceived all the appearances that can be noticed, made him content himself with forbidding his brother-in-law his house. A very great sweetness of a husband who received such an offense.
Behold then our lovers deprived of seeing each other, to the great displeasure of the one and the other. Doralice, counterfeiting the woman of good, inquires of her husband what animosity he has against her brother that he thus forbids him his house. Timandre then puts before her eyes their execrable debauchery and the just resentment he should have for it, if he did not prefer sweetness to vengeance; promises her to put all things under feet, provided she will henceforth live a better life and ask pardon of God for so horrible and detestable a crime, otherwise, that he will be constrained to exercise on them the punishment they have deserved. She, hearing the reasons of her husband, began to shed a torrent of tears. Her mouth afterward uttered complaints and regrets, joined with oaths so horrible that they were capable of making Timandre believe the contrary of what he well knew, if jealousy had not already entirely possessed his soul. Men who are already drawing on in age are not so kindled by the fire of love as the young, but also they are much more jealous. The least suspicion remains in their brain, and I let you think if a thing they have seen with their own eyes is not imprinted there.
He does not want Lizaran to return any more to his house and swears that, if he meets him there, he will deal badly with them. As these things were passing, Lizaran had retired to the house of his father, who knew nothing of all this bad household. He remained there days and nights in torment, for not seeing his detestable loves. She was, on the other side, the most worked with boredom and displeasure that one can imagine. In truth, if they had not been so close in blood, they would be more excusable in their foolish passion, for she was one of the most perfect beauties I have ever seen, and he, one of the most beautiful gentlemen one can see.
But when I think of their so scandalous vice, I am constrained to wonder how God, who sees everything, could suffer this wickedness so long without punishing it. His patience is very great to wait so long for penitence from sinners so obstinate in their malice. After Lizaran had stayed a few months with his father, the desire to see his sister again did not permit that he remain there longer without letting her hear news of him by a letter he wrote to her in these terms: I am in the pains of death, deprived of the contentment of seeing you. If I must remain long removed from your beautiful eyes, you will make a loss that you will never recover. The means of conserving my life is that I can speak to you in order to pull you from the captivity where you are reduced and from the torment I suffer in this cruel absence. Bring to it all the remedy you can, my dear sister, if you desire your repose and my life, which depends only on your sight.
When he had written and closed this letter, he gave it to a valet of his father in whom he fully trusted. This man, learned in what he was to do, arrived one evening at Timandre’s castle, feigning to come from elsewhere than from the house of his father-in-law. He was well received there, without one suspecting him for his message.
In the evening, he gave the letter to Doralice, who, having read it, would make no other answer to her brother except that she charged this valet to tell him that he should come the next day late to find her secretly at the house, by the garden door, which she would keep open for him and where she would wait for him. This valet, having the next day taken leave of Timandre and his wife without having other knowledge of the behaviors of the brother and sister, returned to the house of his master, where he reported to Lizaran what his sister sent word of. He, having learned this news, mounts a horse and arrives the same evening at the place where his sister waits for him. After having embraced and satisfied their disordered appetites, they deliberated together on the means they could take to enjoy their pleasures with more liberty. It is that, the next day, she would take all her jewels, and then, toward evening, when everyone would be in bed, he would mount her behind him, and after that they would go off into some province to pass the rest of their days.
Undertaking filled with as much temerity as disordered passion! The time approached that they were to receive the punishment for their execrable adultery. Divine justice, which walks with woollen feet, was already extending its iron arm. They did what they had resolved, and the journey that the husband was to make the next day to a certain city of the province favored their design. The day that followed the evening of their flight having come, the domestics of the house were all astonished not to see their mistress. They searched everywhere, but they searched in vain, she and her brother were already far away.
The husband, having returned a few days later, was very astonished not to find her there. He ran toward the house of his father-in-law to learn news of it. His pain was useless to him. He found neither his wife nor his brother-in-law there. No one knew where he had gone. This immediately made him judge how it was and, from that very hour, he saw his father-in-law, to whom he made understood with many complaints and regrets the wrong his children were doing him. That he had long dissimulated their execrable villainy because few persons had knowledge of it, and tried to bring them to a better way of life; but that now their salvation was despaired of and that he was the fable and the laughingstock of everyone, so that he desired to draw his reason from it by way of justice.
The poor old man of a father, having heard the just resentments of his son-in-law, fell from his height, fainted with pain. When he had regained his spirits a little, he began to curse the fortune that, at the end of his years, gave him such a cruel cross. The mother, on the other side, was reduced to the pains of death. One hears only regrets and groanings in the house. The noise of this adventure spreads through all the country. Everyone speaks of it, but diversely. Some cannot believe such a wickedness, but only that Lizaran, from pity he had to see his sister unworthily treated by a jealous husband, pulled her from this captivity. Others say on the contrary that, if that were so, they would not have fled so secretly and that they would have discovered their undertaking to others.
At the same time that things pass in this sort, these incestuous adulterers go through the cities and provinces of France without being known by anyone. Sometimes they are in Poitou, sometimes in Anjou, and now in Brittany. Finally, believing they are discovered, they think there is no city in France where they can better hide than in Paris. This multitude of persons, which makes a small world, must hold them closed and covered, in their opinion, better than if they were in Canada. Opinion that succeeded for them for some time, but which deceives them in the end. It was necessary that the detestable crime they committed before God should be published before men by a public and exemplary punishment. Timandre had sent on all sides through all France to some of his friends to put pains to apprehend them and, for this effect, he depicted them vividly. In the end, being himself one day in Paris, one of his friends came to warn him that he had perceived his brother-in-law and discovered the place where he was lodged.
The husband, very glad of this news, goes suddenly toward a commissioner, to whom he made his complaint, and then he led him to the dwelling where these adulterers were retiring. It was night and the doors of the house were closed. The commissioner had them opened and, after having informed himself of the host in which room a young gentleman was lodged with a young lady, and learned what he asked, he went up there accompanied by a number of sergeants. He knocked at the door. At the beginning, one made some difficulty in opening it, for they were in bed. But, the commissioner having threatened to break it in, they opened to him. She was in the bed, and he half dressed. The commissioner, having made them prisoners in the name of the king, commanded Doralice to dress. They seized their clothes and led them to the Châtelet.
The husband, the next day, reports the information he had already made and has new witnesses heard. The guilty are heard. Doralice was pregnant, she is asked by whom, for she could not say from the works of her husband, since he had not seen her for 8 months and she was only 4 months pregnant. She does not know what to say to this demand. Her answers are variable. Sometimes she says one thing and then another, and, for conclusion, that it is by a valet of her husband, whom she names. This valet is interrogated, but his innocence is discovered in a short time. She, nevertheless, never accuses Lizaran. At the same time, she and her brother, after so many indices and proofs, are condemned to lose their heads. But before pronouncing the sentence, the judges wait until she is delivered of her childbirth, which was of a daughter. Their judgment is afterward signified to them. They appeal to the Court. Several pursued their deliverance, for they did not lack either friends or means.
The father himself took their fact and cause and informed of the bad treatment his son-in-law had given his daughter and how that had given subject to her brother, for the compassion he had of it, to take her from him and lead her away. He, on the contrary, produces his informations and makes seen to the senate their incest and their adultery clearer than day. Finally, this venerable assembly of the most learned and just people in the world, having examined and weighed this cause in the weight of equity, confirms by its decree the sentence of the Châtelet.
The shattered father, having learned the tenor of this just decree, goes to throw himself at the feet of the prince to obtain their remission. The tears he shed at the feet of Henri the Great, the sighs and regrets that came from the mouth of this gentleman all white with old age, vividly touched the heart of this invincible monarch, who was only too sensitive to pity. “My father,” he said to him, “rise and tell me the subject of your mourning and I will remedy it if I can.” “Alas, sire,” answers this unfortunate, “I ask you for the life of my children, who are near to being executed if they are not succored by your mercy.” “If there is,” the king replies, “some appearance that they should live, I give them life.” And as he wanted to inform himself further of the subject of their condemnation, a lord who accompanied him taught him in few words what he knew of it.
“My father,” the king then said, “I could not before God pardon this crime, it is too great; it would be necessary that one day I should render account of it to him who has constituted me sovereign judge of his people.” The poor father, perceiving that justice must be exercised on his miserable progeny, had no other recourse but to tears and cries.
At the same time, the decree is pronounced to the guilty.
They are given time to confess. “Courage, my brother,” Doralice then said, “since we must die, let us die patiently. It is time we are punished for what we deserve. Let us no longer fear to confess our sin before men, as we must soon render account of it to God. His mercy is great, my dear brother, he will pardon us, provided we have a true contrition for our faults. Alas, gentlemen,” she said afterward to the judges, “I confess that I justly deserve death, but I supplicate you to give it to me the most cruel that can be imagined, provided you give life to this poor gentleman. It is I who am the cause of all the ill. I alone should receive the punishment for it. And then his great youth should touch you to compassion. He is capable of serving his prince one day on some good occasion.” She held these discourses to the judges in order to move them to pity for her brother. But they were lost words. The sentence was already pronounced and they delivered into the hands of the executor of high justice.
It was in the Place de Grève where the execution was done. Never did one see so many people who flocked to this spectacle. The place was so full that one was suffocated there. The windows and the roofs of the houses were all occupied. The first who appeared on this infamous theater was Doralice, with so much courage and resolution that everyone admired her constancy. All the assistants could not prevent their eyes from weeping for this beauty. Also she was such that one would find very few in the world who could be comparable to her. One would have said, when she mounted the scaffold, that she was going to play a feigned tragedy and not a true one. Never did she change color.
After having cast her eyes on one side and the other, she raised them to heaven, and then, with hands joined, she made this prayer: “O Lord! who came into the world for the sinner, and not for the just, take pity on this poor sinner and make the infamous death of her body, which she receives now, be the honorable life of her soul. Pardon also, O God of mercy, my poor brother, who implores your mercy. We have sinned, Lord, we have sinned, but remember that we are the works of your hands. Pardon our iniquity, not as loving vice, but as loving humans, in whom vices are attached from the womb of their mother.”
Having finished her prayer, she unfastened herself without wanting to permit the executioner to touch her. Having removed her collar, she knelt, and the executor blindfolded her and, as she was recommending her soul to God, he separated the head from such a beautiful body with one stroke, whose beauty was obscured by her abominable passion. When this execution was done, one of the valets of the executioner pulled the body aside and, in pulling it, uncovered it up to the mid-calf and showed a crimson silk stocking, which so angered the executioner, who could not contain himself from weeping, with all the assistants, that he pushed his valet with a kick, so that he made him fall from the scaffold down. Also such a beauty, although she had deserved death, should not be so villainously treated, as much for the house from which she was issued as for the happy end she had just witnessed. All the people were still weeping hot tears when they had the brother mount the theater.
If compassion had moved the assembly for the subject of the sister, the pity that she had for that of the brother touched her no less. He could be only 20 years old and barely a little down, messenger of youth, appeared on his cheeks. He was the living portrait of his sister, as we have already said, and consequently endowed with excellent beauty. When he saw this beautiful head separated from such a beautiful throat, he thought suddenly to give up his spirit without waiting for the execution of the executioner. “Alas,” he said, “my poor sister, why did one not exercise all the cruelty one could imagine against me, provided they had given you life and contented themselves with enclosing you in a monastery. There is no torment so rigorous that I would not have suffered with joy. My soul would have left this miserable body with this contentment of not seeing die her to whom I have caused death. They should have excused her fragility and turned all the blame on me as on the author of the crime. O God! have pity on her soul and mine, which has its recourse only to your mercy.” He uttered these words with such zeal that all the people felt a great pain for it.
After they had removed his doublet and done his hair, he knelt. The executioner wanted to blindfold him, but he never wanted it. “Discharge,” he said, “only your stroke, I have enough courage to receive it. You have already seen the constancy of my sister. You must think that I am her brother and that consequently reason wants that I have even more courage.” Having finished this discourse, he set himself to say: “In manus tuas” (“into your hands”), while the executor made his head fly.
Their bodies were the same day carried away and put in coffins to be buried in a church in Paris, where they rest with these words:
HERE LIE THE BROTHER AND THE SISTER. PASSERBY, INQUIRE NOT INTO THE CAUSE OF THEIR DEATH; PASS ON, PASSERBY, AND PRAY TO GOD FOR THEIR SOULS.
It is the tragic and lamentable end of Lizaran and Doralice, whom Heaven had provided with beauty and wit as much as any other person. Their execrable loves advanced the end of their young years. Memorable example, which should make the incestuous and adulterous tremble with fear. God leaves nothing unpunished. His vengeance always finds the guilty if he perseveres in his malice. Such examples are so rare among pagans that one would hardly find 2 or 3 in their fables, indeed even without adultery being conjoined there. God grant to so well defend his people from the snares of Satan that such a scandal never happens among us.
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