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Day 2: Seventh Tale
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Decameron, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Love and Sex
Men and Women
Moderation and Excess
Intelligence
Class and Character
Faith vs. Religion
Summary
Analysis
Panfilo’s tale inspires many a sigh from the ladies—maybe from pity for Alatiel, maybe from jealousy at her sexual exploits—but everyone laughs at the ending. Elissa begins her tale next, setting it in the context of a war between France and Germany.
Fears of female sexual desire are raised—but neither confirmed nor denied—by the ladies’ sighs. But the laughter of the ending serves as a reminder that the purpose of the stories is to entertain their listeners and readers.
Themes
The French king and his son mobilize their forces and go to war, leaving Walter, Count of Antwerp, to oversee the kingdom. Walter is a noble, intelligent man who’s skilled in the arts of war and diplomacy. He’s also blessed with good looks and fine manners and is a recent widower who has a son and a daughter. In her husband’s absence, the French Princess falls in love with him.
In Elissa’s tale, Walter is an incredibly eligible and attractive widower—a portrait of the ideal nobleman, who is as accomplished and upright as he is handsome. The fact that he can both fight and negotiate points to the moderation and balance prized in the tales, and speaks to his intelligence and noble character. The trust the royal family places in him gives him a lot of power, but also makes him vulnerable, especially when the Princess falls in love with him.
Themes
In her bedroom, the French Princess confesses her inability to escape love’s urges to Walter, both because of her husband’s extended absence and because she doesn’t have enough to occupy her attention. She believes that a noble woman’s affair is harmless if it’s with a worthy man and kept secret. She asks Walter to take pity on her as she melts “for [him] like ice before a fire,” bursts into tears, and throws herself into his arms. He pushes her away, chastising her and declaring that he would prefer to be drawn and quartered than to permit anyone to sleep with the prince’s wife, much less himself.
The French Princess’s passion turns to rage. She tears her dress, musses her hair, and begins to accuse Walter of trying to rape her. His conscience is clear, but Walter worries that envious courtiers will take advantage of the situation and harm his reputation. He hurries home, gets his children, and flees to England. These actions seem to confirm his guilt; the king and his son condemn Walter’s family to eternal exile and offer a reward for his capture if he returns.
Themes
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Dressed in rags, Walter and his children reach London. To protect their identities, he begins to call his son “Perrot” and his daughter “Jeannette,” and he tells people they fled France because of crimes committed by an older son. Eventually, the wife of one of the English king’s marshals (later named as Madame Lamiens) takes pretty and sweet Jeannette into her home. She promises to raise her well and find her a suitable husband someday. Walter and Perrot travel to Wales, where the king’s Welsh marshal is so impressed by the boy’s manners and athleticism that he takes him into his home. Walter lands in Ireland, where he patiently endures years of hard work and suffering as a servant in noble houses.
Themes
Years pass, and Madame Lamiens begins to think of finding a husband for Jeannette. Fortunately, God has a plan to prevent the noble Jeannette from being married beneath her station in life: it just so happens that Madame Lamiens’s son (later identified as Jacques) has fallen violently in love with Jeannette. Fearing parental reproach for loving someone they believe to be a commoner, he keeps his feelings secret, but this just intensifies his suffering. Secret love makes him so sick that his parents must call many physicians to his bedside.
None of Jacques’s physicians can identify or treat his illness until one happens to be taking his pulse when Jeannette walks into the room. Noticing that this makes Jacques’s heart race, the doctor waits for an opportunity to call her back in. When she returns to the room, Jacques’s heart races again, and the doctor realizes that he’s suffering from lovesickness over the young woman. He tells Jacques’s parents that “unmistakable symptoms” show that Jacques is “ardently in love” with the oblivious Jeannette.
Jacques’s parents are relieved to know the cause of his illness, but they’re disturbed by his love for a supposed commoner. Madame Lamiens tells Jacques that she knows why he is sick and that she’s willing to help him recover. Unfortunately, her plan isn’t marriage, but suggesting to Jeannette that she take Jacques as a lover. But Jeannette is horrified by the idea, and she declares that she will guard her chastity with her life and will love no man but her lawful husband. She says she would even refuse to be the king’s lover despite his power and good looks.
Themes
Madame Lamiens, although impressed by Jeannette’s morals, is frustrated. She suggests locking Jeannette in Jacques’s room so he can have his way with her. But Jacques finds this plan horrifying and suffers a relapse. Finally deciding that they’d rather have an unsuitable daughter-in-law than a dead son, Marshal Lamiens and his wife relent and allow Jacques to marry Jeannette, much to the young couple’s mutual delight.
Themes
Meanwhile, handsome, fearless Perrot makes a favorable impression on his benefactors. And God also provides him a suitable spouse: when a plague sweeps through Wales, most of the marshal’s family dies, leaving just one marriageable daughter who quickly takes Perrot as her husband.
Themes
After 18 years, Walter decides to check on his children and returns to England. Age, labor, and hardship have made him almost unrecognizable. In London, he loiters near Jeannette and Jacques’s home. When Jacques invites him to receive charity, their children instinctively love their grandfather in disguise. They become so attached that the family hires him as a servant to play with the children. Marshal Lamiens, spiteful towards his “common” daughter-in-law, takes his grandchildren’s attachment to Walter as proof of their mother’s low birth.
Themes
In the past, the French king made peace with the Germans, but his son resumes the hostilities after his father’s death. The English king sends an army to his aid under the command of Perrot and Jacques. Walter joins Jacques’s contingent as a groom (someone who cares for horses). The French Princess, having fallen ill, makes a deathbed confession of her love for Walter and her false accusation of him. The new French king grieves over Walter’s undeserved exile, decides to restore his honor and status, and offers a reward for information on his whereabouts.
Themes
Walter reveals the truth of his identity—and his children’s—to Perrot and Jacques. He tells Perrot that Jacques married his sister without a dowry (the property and wealth a woman brings into her marriage), so it’s best for Jacques to claim the king’s reward as a dowry. Perrot recognizes his father, and their tearful reunion astonishes and delights Jacques. He begs forgiveness for the times he spoke harshly to Walter under the assumption he was a lowly servant rather than a nobleman.
Themes
Jacques presents Walter and Perrot to the king, claiming the great reward, and the king gives Walter the gift of “clothes, servants, horses, and accoutrements” appropriate to his status. Walter asks Jacques to remind Marshal Lamiens that his grandchildren aren’t descended from a lowlife on Jeannette’s side, and they all live happily ever after.
Themes
