First set down in the waning years of the French Renaissance and unpublished until long after its author's death, Lives of Fair and Gallant Ladies remains one of the most candid portraits of courtly life ever written. Pierre de Bourdeille, seigneur de Brantôme, soldier and abbé, gathered anecdotes of the queens, princesses, and great ladies he had known or heard of — their loves, rivalries, virtues, vanities, and scandals — recording them with a mixture of chivalric admiration and irrepressible gossip. The result is at once a moral gallery of Renaissance womanhood and an irresistible chronicle of the Valois court in its splendor and intrigue. This edition presents the complete, unabridged original text of Volume 1, accompanied by a new introduction and reader's notes that illuminate the historical figures, customs, and controversies behind Brantôme's tales. Frank, funny, and endlessly quotable, it is essential reading for anyone drawn to the sixteenth century. Part of The Founding Texts Library.