It is claimed (and this is well attested) that at Lectore, a town in Gascony, a girl gave birth at the age of nine. She is still alive, her name is Jane du Peirié, and she was married to Vidau Beghé, who held the post in Lectore of collector of fines on behalf of the King of Navarre. She miscarried of a son at the age of nine. Then at the age of eleven she had a daughter who lived and has herself had children. And at fourteen she had a son, named Laurans, who is still alive. At sixteen she had another son, also still alive, called Pierre. Five years later (when she was twenty one) she gave birth to a daughter, who is now the widow of an apothecary. And after this time she had no more pregnancies, although her husband was still alive.

How can this be? If it is true that a girl cannot conceive before she begins to menstruate (both internally and externally), and that this cannot happen before puberty, when her body starts to need less blood [.] it may be that at the age of ten one girl will be more developed, her body more rounded, than another at fifteen or twenty, and she will even stop growing sooner, and she will be in the stage of puberty having developed as much at the age of nine or ten as is usually the case with other girls at fourteen or twenty. This is not impossible.

After writing this, I have been to Lectore, where I saw the woman who gave birth aged nine, and I spoke with her about it. She was married at the age of seven or eight to Vidau Beghé who was more than twenty-five, and her parents left it entirely to the husband to do just as he wished with her. The case is less surprising given the age of the man. She is a short woman, of medium build, and today (I am writing on 5th April 1577) she is forty-four. She told me that after her pregnancy at the age of nine, which ended in a miscarriage, she always had regular periods. After the age of twenty one, she had no more pregnancies, although she continued to live with her husband for a further nineteen years.

If there are two children, each may have its own separate placenta, and this will mean the woman bears extra weight when she comes to the last months of pregnancy. Sometimes both of them share the same placenta but have a separate amniotic membrane or caul, unfolded like a little skin, which separates them. [.] This was the case for the twins which my wife miscarried with no pain in 1574 (to my great regret and sadness) around the fourth month. They shared a single placenta but each had its own membrane. Otherwise they would have been siamese twins, conceived thus, just as we see conjoined children who are termed 'monstrous'. But the membrane or caul suffices to separate them.

My Lord d'Aubigné, Steward of the King of Navarre, has related to me how, when he was in Geneva in 1565 as a student staying with the very learned doctor Mr Philibert Sarazin, two Italian women, one the wife of a dressmaker, the other a lady, each gave birth in the same month to a monstrous object. That delivered by the dressmaker's wife was small, like a rat with no tail. That of the lady was the size of a cat. In both cases, the object was black and viscous in nature. On coming out of the womb, both monsters threw themselves up against the wall beside the bed and stuck firmly to it, higher than the drapes over the bed.

This is what was related, let us now see what we should believe. It is quite true that women often conceive and deliver from their wombs (after their menstrual blood has pooled there for a while, and they have thought themselves pregnant) misshapen lumps of fleshy tissue, which can be compared to various things according to their appearance. Just as we say that different clouds look like a horse, a writing desk, an ox, a bird, a candlestick, entrails, a bowl, an egg, a basket, and yet none of that is true. We can say the same of these lumps of flesh, which look to one person like a toad, to another like a snail, a hare, or a bird. Yet none of this is really so. This flesh only existed as basic tissue, like a simple plant, with no capacity to move and no feelings. Thus it was never an animal, not even a reptile or lesser species. From which you will see that it is a great mistake to believe that such objects can really fly like harpies and suddenly cling to the curtains of the bed prepared for the mother to give birth.

Some hold the opinion and claim that if a woman gives birth at full moon, when she next gives birth she will have a son ; and if she gives birth at the time of a new moon, the next child will be a daughter. [.] But I maintain that this does not fit every case, nor indeed any woman whose case I have studied and who has had a number of children. For I am not talking about having just two or three children. And to avoid being long-winded by citing various examples I have, I shall give the details of just the children God gave to my late father, also of the name of Joubert, and to my mother, Catherine de Genas, who is still alive, and who bore twenty children in one single marriage.

Jane was the first, born in 1519, on the 6th of July, at 7 in the morning at the time of a new moon. Then came Margarite, in 1520, on the 20th of July, at 6 in the morning at the time of a new moon. Susanne followed, born in 1521, on the 9th of July, at one in the afternoon, with an old moon Another Jane was born in 1523 on the 24 of August, at 9 in the morning with a full moon. After all these girls, she had two sons. One, François, was born in 1524 on the 15th of November at midnight with an old moon. The other, called Guilhaume, was born in 1526, on the 16th of January at 2 in the morning with a new moon. Then came two girls, Magdaleine in 1527, on the 26th of January in the morning with an old moon, and Catherine in 1528 on the 7th of May at 3 in the morning with an old moon. I was born next in 1529 on the 16th of December at 9 in the morning with an old moon. Then came Anthoine, in 1531, on the 11th of January at six in the morning with an old moon. Ysabeau followed in 1532, on the 14th of December at 7 in the afternoon with an old moon. Next came Anne in 1534, on the 17th of June at 6 in the afternoon, with a new moon. Then followed two twin girls, Loise and Justine, born in 1535 on the 17th of July at 8 in the morning with a full moon. After this came a son, the second to be called Antoine, in 1536 on the 20th of October, at 7 in the morning with a new moon. It is recorded that a daughter followed, called Dauphine, in 1537 on the 8th of November at 5 in the morning with a new moon. Then there was a girl called Françoise, in 1538 on the 15th of December at one hour after midnight with a full moon. There followed a son, Claude, in 1540 on the 9th June at six in the morning with a new moon. After this came another son, called Felix, the last child, who was born in 1541 on the 4th of October at 11 in the morning with a full moon. This list of births I have transcribed from the document kept by my late father (except for the details of the moonswhich I calculated using the almanacs from these years). From this one can easily see that there is no foundation for the belief that the phase of the moon influences the sex of the following child.

I have seen this all the more clearly in the case of the children whom God has given to me until now, by Loise Guichard my wife. Isaac was born on the 3rd of March 1565 with an old moon; Susanne on the 13th of March in 1567 with an old moon; Anne the same date the following year with a new moon; Marie on the 29th of July 1571 with an old moon; Cyprian on the 4th August 1574 with a new moon. This shows that the popular belief fits the cases of Marie and Cyprian but falls down in the cases of Susanne and Anne.