Gillette de Narbonne

Gillette de Narbonne’s story turns a healing into a promise, and a rejected marriage into a test of ingenuity and endurance. First she cures the King of France, who has lost hope of recovering from a fistula; then, when Bertrand de Roussillon refuses to accept her as his wife, she makes his own conditions the means by which he must recognize her. Her victory is not a sudden reversal but the result of a long campaign in which medical knowledge, patience, disguise, and proof converge before the count’s assembled court.

Identity and Background

Gillette is the daughter of Master Gerard de Narbonne, a renowned physician, and grows up alongside Bertrand, the only son of Count Isnard of Roussillon. She loves Bertrand from an early age. When Count Isnard dies, Bertrand is taken to Paris and placed in the care of the French king; Gillette remains behind, increasingly distressed by their separation.

Her father dies not long afterward. Rich and alone, she is closely guarded, and her relatives seek a suitable husband for her. She refuses the proposed matches without explaining why: she has not forgotten Bertrand. Her attachment therefore persists through both separation and the social arrangements intended to redirect her future. It is not merely a childhood affection revived by chance; it determines the course of the decisions she makes as an adult.

The Cure and the Marriage Promise

News of the king’s illness gives Gillette an honorable reason to travel to Paris and, she hopes, a way to reach Bertrand. The king’s fistula has caused him great pain. Many physicians have tried to treat it, worsening the condition, and he has resolved to accept no further medical advice. Gillette prepares a powder from medicinal ingredients she understands through her father’s teaching and rides to court.

She first seeks out Bertrand, then asks the king to show her his ailment. After examining him, she says she believes she can cure him within eight days, without pain or exertion on his part. The king doubts that a young woman can succeed where the most accomplished physicians have failed. Gillette answers that her knowledge rests not on unaided skill but on God’s help and the learning of her father, Master Gerard. To secure permission to attempt the treatment, she offers to be guarded and burned alive if she fails within the stated time. In return, she asks that, if she succeeds, the king give her a husband of her own choosing, excluding the king’s sons and the royal house.

Gillette completes the cure before the eight days are over. When the king asks whom she wants, she names Bertrand, whom she has loved since childhood. The king is troubled by the request but honors the promise he made. Bertrand, however, objects that Gillette’s lineage does not match his own and refuses to consent to the marriage. The king insists that the marriage must proceed: Gillette is fair and wise, loves him deeply, and has earned the reward promised for restoring the king’s health. The match is thus secured by the king’s pledge, but Bertrand’s refusal leaves Gillette without the mutual acceptance she sought.

Rejection and the Exchange of Identities

After Bertrand leaves her, Gillette does not abandon the marriage. In Florence she learns that he is passionately enamored of a young woman whose family is poor. Disguised in a pilgrim’s habit, she visits the woman and her mother privately. There she reveals who she is and recounts what has happened to her. Her appeal is at once personal and practical: she needs the mother’s help to obtain the two things necessary for her husband to accept her, and offers to provide a substantial dowry for the daughter in return.

Gillette proposes that the mother tell Bertrand her daughter will grant his wishes if he proves his love by sending her the ring he prizes. Once the ring is secured, the mother is to tell him that the daughter is ready to receive him, bring him secretly to the house, and put Gillette in the daughter’s place in bed. Gillette hopes that she may conceive. The plan depends on the ring as a token Bertrand will willingly surrender, on the mother’s cooperation, and on secrecy about the substitution. It converts the count’s pursuit of another woman into an opportunity for Gillette to fulfill the conditions on which he has made his acceptance depend.

When the arrangement has served its purpose, the young woman’s mother receives five hundred and additional rare jewels of comparable value. She is satisfied with the payment and moves with her daughter to the country, depriving Bertrand of further occasion to visit or send to their house. Bertrand hears that Gillette has left the country and returns to his own home. Gillette, meanwhile, bears twin boys who closely resemble their father and has them carefully raised. The evidence establishes the children’s birth and resemblance, while the ring she later presents confirms the connection between the secret encounter and her claim upon Bertrand.

Recognition and Ending

When the time seems right, Gillette travels to Montpellier and learns that Bertrand will hold a great gathering of knights and ladies at Roussillon on All Saints’ Day. Still dressed as a pilgrim, she enters the banqueting hall carrying her two children. In front of the assembled company she falls at Bertrand’s feet, identifies herself as his wife, presents his ring, and asks him to honor the promise made on the conditions set by the two knights she had sent to him. The twins, she says, are his sons.

Bertrand is confounded. He recognizes the ring and sees that the children resemble him, but asks how this can have happened. Gillette recounts the events in order, before him and the assembled court. Her case is now supported by visible proofs as well as her account: the ring he recognizes, the sons whose likeness is plain, and her own constancy through his absence and rejection. Bertrand accepts that she speaks truth. Keeping his promise, and responding to the pleas of his vassals and the ladies present, he puts aside his resistance, embraces and kisses her, and acknowledges her as his lawful wife and the boys as his children. He has her clothed according to her rank, celebrates for several days, and thereafter honors and cherishes her as his bride and wife.

Narrative Significance

Gillette’s story repeatedly places skill beside status. The king initially doubts her because she is young and a woman, but her medical knowledge succeeds where the court’s physicians have failed. Bertrand, by contrast, judges her as an unsuitable match because he considers her lineage beneath his own. The narrative makes the value of her ability unmistakable while showing that ability alone cannot compel affection or dissolve a social hierarchy.

Her later success comes through negotiation rather than a second public contest. She secures the cooperation of a family in need, pays a substantial dowry, and uses Bertrand’s valued ring and his desire for another woman to bring about the conditions under which he can no longer deny their marriage. At the final gathering, private strategy becomes public evidence. The ring and children make her claim legible to the court, while Bertrand’s recognition transforms a marriage imposed by royal authority into one he openly acknowledges and honors. Gillette’s endurance is therefore both personal and strategic: she preserves the promise of marriage through separation, rejection, and concealment, and the ending confirms her place in the household and lineage from which she had initially been excluded.