Note 21* — FIRST DISCOURSE
A. R. (Alfred Richard) Allinson translation
[21] P. 29:
◆This is indeed one of the most curious passages of the book, and I am glad to remove one of Lalanne’s doubts. Brantôme is really talking of a statue, an antique piece which was found July 21, 1594, in a field near the Saint-Martin priory. It had been admirably conserved. Unfortunately, Louis XIV. having claimed it later, it was placed on a barge which sank in the Garonne, and was never recovered. (O’Reilly, History of Bordeaux, 1863, Vol. II.) The statue is described as having had one breast uncovered and curled hair, a description that agrees only partly with Visconti’s type (Iconographie romaine, t. II., planche 28), in which Messalina is not décolleté and carries her son. Was the Bordeaux statue indeed a Messalina?