Eleanor digresses from time to time to instruct her young secretary on how a woman can win in a man’s world: “There have been times since ancient days when Woman is deified,” Eleanor tells Aline. “She attains a stature worthy of worship. Why our sex should be represented in this fashion used to mystify me. But it is a manifest failing in the minds of men which we can put to great advantage.”
Eleanor possessed a hard-won wealth of wisdom in this arena, as well as a lasting reputation perpetuated by a press corps of troubadours through eight hundred years.
Two female bloggers discovered this section independently, copying a comment that Eleanor makes looking back on her life: “Kings have lain me. But what man can claim me?” [From ‘Power of a Woman. Memoirs of a turbulent life: Eleanor of Aquitaine‘ Chapter 15, All Rights Reserved © Robert Fripp 2006]