Philosophical Dictionary (Vol. 2)

Anecdote concerning Charles V.

Did Charles V sleep with his sister Margaret, governess of the Netherlands? Did he have Don Juan of Austria by her, the intrepid brother of the prudent Philip II? We have no more proof of this than we do of the secrets of the bed of Charlemagne, who, it is said, slept with all his daughters. Why then affirm it? If the Holy Scripture did not assure me that the daughters of Lot had children by their own father, and Tamar by her father-in-law, I would hesitate greatly to accuse them of it. One must be discreet.

Another more hazardous anecdote.

It has been written that the Duchess of Montpensier granted her favors to the monk Jacques Clément to encourage him to assassinate his king. It would have been more skillful to promise them than to give them. But that is not how one excites a fanatical priest to parricide; one shows him heaven, not a woman. His prior, Bourgoing, was much more capable of determining him than the greatest beauty on earth. He had no love letters in his pocket when he killed the king, but rather the stories of Judith and Ehud, all torn and greasy from having been read so much.