{"collection":"myth-cosmogony","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_25407/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_25407","id":"gutenberg_25407","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/25407","summary":null,"tags":["Category: French Literature","Category: Humour","Category: Mythology, Legends & Folklore","Category: Short Stories","France -- Social life and customs -- Fiction","French fiction -- Translations into English","Nobel Prizes in Literature"],"text":"Produced by David Widger\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nTHE MERRIE TALES OF JACQUES TOURNEBROCHE\n\nAND CHILD LIFE IN TOWN AND COUNTRY\n\nBy Anatole France\n\nJohn Lane Company, MCMXIX\n\nCopyright 1909\n\nJohn Lane Company\n\n\n\n\nTHE MERRIE TALES OF JACQUES TOURNEBROCHE\n\n\n\n\nOLIVIER\u2019S BRAG\n\n[Illustration: 016]\n\nThe Emperor Charlemagne and his twelve peers, having taken the palmer\u2019s\nstaff at Saint-Denis, made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. They prostrated\nthemselves before the tomb of Our Lord, and sat in the thirteen chairs\nof the great hall wherein Jesus Christ and his Apostles met together\nto celebrate the blessed sacrifice of the Mass. Then they fared to\nConstantinople, being fain to see King Hugo, who was renowned for his\nmagnificence.\n\nThe King welcomed them in his Palace, where, beneath a golden dome,\nbirds of ruby, wrought with a wondrous art, sat and sang in bushes of\nemerald.\n\nHe seated the Emperor of France and the twelve Counts about a table\nloaded with stags, boars, cranes, wild geese, and peacocks, served in\npepper. And he offered his guests, in ox-horns, the wines of Greece and\nAsia to drink. Charlemagne and his companions quaffed all these wines\nin honour of the King and his daughter, the Princess Helen. After supper\nHugo led them to the chamber where they were to sleep. Now this chamber\nwas circular, and a column, springing in the midst thereof, carried the\nvaulted roof. Nothing could be finer to look upon. Against the walls,\nwhich were hung with gold and purple, twelve beds were ranged, while\nanother greater than the rest stood beside the pillar.\n\nCharlemagne lay in this, and the Counts stretched themselves round about\nhim on the others. The wine they had drunk ran hot in their veins, and\ntheir brains were afire. They could not sleep, and fell to making brags\ninstead, and laying of wagers, as is the way of the knights of France,\neach striving to outdo the other in warranting himself to do some\ndoughty deed for to manifest his prowess. The Emperor opened the game.\nHe said:\n\n\u201cLet them fetch me, a-horseback and fully armed, the best knight King\nHugo hath. I will lift my sword and bring it down upon him in such wise\nit shall cleave helm and hauberk, saddle and steed, and the blade shall\ndelve a foot deep underground.\u201d\n\nGuillaume d\u2019Orange spake up after the Emperor and made the second brag.\n\n\u201cI will take,\u201d said he, \u201ca ball of iron sixty men can scarce lift, and\nhurl it so mightily against the Palace wall that it shall beat down\nsixty fathoms\u2019 length thereof.\u201d\n\nOgier, the Dane, spake next.\n\n\u201cYe see yon proud pillar which bears up the vault. To-morrow will I tear\nit down and break it like a straw.\u201d\n\nAfter which Renaud de Montauban cried with an oath:\n\n\u201c\u2018Od\u2019s life! Count Ogier, whiles you overset the pillar, I will clap the\ndome on my shoulders and hale it down to the seashore.\u201d\n\nG\u00e9rard de Rousillon it was made the fifth brag.\n\nHe boasted he would uproot single-handed, in one hour, all the trees in\nthe Royal pleasaunce.\n\nAimer took up his parable when G\u00e9rard was done.\n\n\u201cI have a magic hat,\u201d said he, \u201cmade of a sea-calf\u2019s skin, which renders\nme invisible. I will set it on my head, and to-morrow, whenas King Hugo\nis seated at meat, I will eat up his fish and drink down his wine, I\nwill tweak his nose and buffet his ears. Not knowing whom or what\nto blame, he will clap all his serving-men in gaol and scourge them\nsore,--and we shall laugh.\u201d\n\n\u201cFor me,\u201d declared Huon de Bordeaux, whose turn it was, \u201cfor me, I am\nso nimble I will trip up to the King and cut off his beard and eyebrows\nwithout his knowing aught about the matter. \u2018T is a piece of sport I\nwill show you to-morrow. And I shall have no need of a sea-calf hat\neither!\u201d\n\nDoolin de Mayence made his brag too. He promised to eat up in one\nhour all the figs and all the oranges and all the lemons in the King\u2019s\norchards.\n\nNext the Due Naisme said in this wise:\n\n\u201cBy my faith! _I_ will go into the banquet hall, I will catch up flagons\nand cups of gold and fling them so high they will never light down again\nsave to tumble into the moon.\u201d\n\nBernard de Brabant then lifted his great voice:\n\n\u201cI will do better yet,\u201d he roared. \u201cYe know the river that flows by\nConstantinople is broad and deep, for it is come nigh its mouth by then,\nafter traversing Egypt, Babylon, and the Earthly Paradise. Well, I will\nturn it from its bed and make it flood the Great Square of the City.\u201d\n\nG\u00e9rard de Viane said:\n\n\u201cPut a dozen knights in line of array. And I will tumble all the twelve\non their noses, only by the wind of my sword.\u201d\n\nIt was the Count Roland laid the twelfth wager, in the fashion\nfollowing:\n\n\u201cI will take my horn, I will go forth of the city and I will blow such a\nblast all the gates of the town will drop from their hinges.\u201d\n\nOlivier alone had said no word yet. He was young and courteous, and the\nEmperor loved him dearly.\n\n\u201cOlivier, my son,\u201d he asked, \u201cwill you not make your brag like the rest\nof us?\u201d\n\n\u201cRight willingly, sire,\u201d Olivier replied.\n\n\u201cDo you know the name of Hercules of Greece?\u201d\n\n\u201cYea, I have heard some discourse of him,\u201d said Charlemagne. \u201cHe was an\nidol of the misbelievers, like the false god Mahound.\u201d\n\n\u201cNot so, sire,\u201d said Olivier. \u201cHercules of Greece was a knight among\nthe Pagans and King of a Pagan kingdom. He was a gallant champion and\nstoutly framed in all his limbs. Visiting the Court of a certain Emperor\nwho had fifty daughters, virgins, he wedded them all on one and the same\nnight, and that so well and throughly that next morning they all avowed\nthemselves well-contented women and with naught left to learn. He had\nnot slighted ever a one of them. Well, sire, an you will, I will lay my\nwager to do after the fashion of Hercules of Greece.\u201d\n\n\u201cNay, beware, Olivier, my son,\u201d cried the Emperor, \u201cbeware what you do;\nthe thing would be a sin. I felt sure this King Hercules was a Saracen!\u201d\n\n\u201cSire,\u201d returned Olivier, \u201cknow this--I warrant me to show in the same\nspace of time the selfsame prowess with one virgin that Herailes of\nGreece did with fifty. And the maid shall be none other but the Princess\nHelen, King Hugo\u2019s daughter.\u201d\n\n\u201cGood and well,\u201d agreed Charlemagne; \u201cthat will be to deal honestly and\nas a good Christian should. But you were in the wrong, my son, to drag\nthe fifty virgins of King Hercules into your business, wherein, the\nDevil fly away with me else, I can see but one to be concerned.\u201d\n\n\u201cSire,\u201d answered Olivier mildly, \u201cthere is but one of a truth. But she\nshall win such satisfaction of me that, an I number the tokens of my\nlove, you will to-morrow see fifty crosses scored on the wall, and that\nis _my_ brag.\u201d\n\nThe Count Olivier was yet speaking when lo! the column which bare the\nvault opened. The pillar was hollow and contrived in such sort that\na man could lie hid therein at his ease to see and hear everything.\nCharlemagne and the twelve Counts had never a notion of this; so they\nwere sore surprised to behold the King of Constantinople step forth. He\nwas white with anger and his eyes flashed fire.\n\nHe said in a terrible voice:\n\n\u201cSo this is how ye show your gratitude for the hospitality I offer you.\nYe are ill-mannered guests. For a whole hour have ye been insulting me\nwith your bragging wagers. Well, know this,--you, Sir Emperor, and ye,\nhis knights; if to-morrow ye do not all of you make good your boasts, I\nwill have your heads cut off.\u201d\n\nHaving said his say, he stepped back within the pillar, which shut to\nagain closely behind him. For a while the twelve paladins were dumb\nwith wonder and consternation. The Emperor was the first to break the\nsilence.\n\n\u201cComrades,\u201d he said, \u201c\u2018tis true we have bragged too freely. Mayhap we\nhave spoken things better unsaid. We have drunk overmuch wine, and have\nshown unwisdom. The chiefest fault is mine; I am your Emperor, and I\ngave you the bad example. I will devise with you to-morrow of the means\nwhereby we may save us from this perilous pass; meantime, it behoves us\nto get to sleep. I wish you a good night. God have you in his keeping!\u201d\n\nA moment later the Emperor and the twelve peers were snoring under their\ncoverlets of silk and cloth of gold.\n\nThey awoke on the morrow, their minds still distraught and deeming the\nthing was but a nightmare. But anon soldiers came to lead them to the\nPalace, that they might make good their brags before the King\u2019s face.\n\n\u201cCome,\u201d cried the Emperor, \u201ccome; and let us pray God and His Holy\nMother. By Our Lady\u2019s help shall we easily make good our brags.\u201d\n\nHe marched in front with a more than human majesty of port. Arriving\nanon at the King\u2019s Palace, Charlemagne, Naisme, Aimer, Huon, Doolin,\nGuillaume, Ogier, Bernard, Renaud, the two G\u00e9rards, and Roland fell on\ntheir knees and, joining their hands in prayer, made this supplication\nto the Holy Virgin:\n\n\u201cLady, which art in Paradise, look on us now in our extremity; for love\nof the Realm of the Lilies, which is thine own, protect the Emperor of\nFrance and his twelve peers, and give them the puissance to make good\ntheir brags.\u201d\n\nThereafter they rose up comforted and fulfilled of bright courage and\ngallant confidence, for they knew that Our Lady would answer their\nprayer.\n\nKing Hugo, seated on a golden throne, accosted them, saying:\n\n\u201cThe hour is come to make good your brags. But an if ye fail so to do, I\nwill have your heads cut off. Begone therefore, straightway, escorted by\nmy men-at-arms, each one of you to the place meet for the doing of the\nfine things ye have insolently boasted ye will accomplish.\u201d\n\nAt this order they separated and went divers ways, each followed by a\nlittle troop of armed men. Whiles some returned to the hall where they\nhad passed the night, others betook them to the gardens and orchards.\nBernard de Brabant made for the river, Roland hied him to the ramparts,\nand all marched valiantly. Only Olivier and Charlemagne tarried in the\nPalace, waiting, the one for the knight that he had sworn to cleave in\ntwain, the other for the maiden he was to wed.\n\nBut in very brief while a fearful sound arose, awful as the last trump\nthat shall proclaim to mankind the end of the world. It reached the\nGreat Hall of the Palace, set the birds of ruby trembling on their\nemerald perches and shook King Hugo on his throne of gold.\n\n\u2018Twas a noise of walls crumbling into ruin and floods roaring, and\nhigh above the din blared out an ear-splitting trumpet blast. Meanwhile\nmessengers had come hurrying in from all quarters of the city, and\nthrown themselves trembling at the King\u2019s feet, bearing strange and\nterrible tidings.\n\n\u201cSire,\u201d said one, \u201csixty fathoms\u2019 length of the city walls is fallen in\nat one crash.\u201d\n\n\u201cSire,\u201d cried another, \u201cthe pillar which bare up your vaulted hall is\nbroken down, and the dome thereof we have seen walking like a tortoise\ntoward the sea.\u201d\n\n\u201cSire,\u201d faltered a third, \u201cthe river, with its ships and its fishes,\nis pouring through the streets, and will soon be beating against your\nPalace walls.\u201d\n\nKing Hugo, white with terror, muttered:\n\n\u201cBy my faith! these men are wizards.\u201d\n\n\u201cWell, Sir King,\u201d Charlemagne addressed him with a smile on his lips,\n\u201cthe Knight I wait for is long of coming.\u201d\n\nThe King sent for him, and he came. He was a knight of stately stature\nand well armed. The good Emperor clave him in twain, as he had said.\n\nNow while these things were a-doing, Olivier thought to himself:\n\n\u201cThe intervention of Our Most Blessed Lady is plain to see in these\nmarvels; and I am rejoiced to behold the manifest tokens she vouchsafes\nof her love for the Realm of France. Not in vain have the Emperor and\nhis companions implored the succour of the Holy Virgin, Mother of God.\nAlas! _I_ shall pay for all the rest, and have my head cut off. For I\ncannot well ask the Virgin Mary to help me make good _my_ brag. \u2018Tis\nan enterprise of a sort wherein \u2018twould be indiscreet to crave the\ninterference of Her who is the _Lily of Purity_, the _Tower of Ivory_,\nthe _Guarded Door_ and the _Fenced Orchard-Close_. And, lacking aid from\non high, I am sore afraid I may not do so much as I have said.\u201d\n\nThus ran Olivier\u2019s thoughts, when King Hugo roughly accosted him with\nthe words:\n\n\u201c\u2018T is now your turn, Count, to fulfil your promise.\u201d\n\n\u201cSire,\u201d replied Olivier, \u201cI am waiting with great impatience for the\nPrincess your daughter. For you must needs do me the priceless grace of\ngiving me her hand.\u201d\n\n\u201cThat is but fair,\u201d said King Hugo. \u201cI will therefore bid her come to\nyou and a chaplain with her for to celebrate the marriage.\u201d\n\nAt church, during the ceremony, Olivier reflected:\n\n\u201cThe maid is sweet and comely as ever a man could desire, and too fain\nam I to clip her in my arms to regret the brag I have made.\u201d\n\nThat evening, after supper, the Princess Helen and the Count Olivier\nwere escorted by twelve ladies and twelve knights to a chamber, wherein\nthe twain were left alone together.\n\nThere they passed the night, and on the morrow guards came and led them\nboth before King Hugo. He was on his throne, surrounded by his knights.\nNear by stood Charlemagne and the peers.\n\n\u201cWell, Count Olivier,\u201d demanded the King, \u201cis your brag made good?\u201d\n\nOlivier held his peace, and already was King Hugo rejoiced at heart\nto think his new son-in-law\u2019s head must fall. For of all the brags and\nboasts, it was Olivier\u2019s had angered him worst.\n\n\u201cAnswer,\u201d he stormed. \u201cDo you dare to tell me your brag is\naccomplished?\u201d\n\nThereupon the Princess Helen, blushing and smiling, spake with eyes\ndowncast and in a faint voice, yet clear withal, and said,--\u201cYea!\u201d\n\nRight glad were Charlemagne and the peers to hear the Princess say this\nword.\n\n\u201cWell, well,\u201d said Hugo, \u201cthese Frenchmen have God and the Devil\no\u2019 their side. It was fated I should cut off none of these knights\u2019\nheads.... Come hither, son-in-law,\u201d--and he stretched forth his hand to\nOlivier, who kissed it.\n\nThe Emperor Charlemagne embraced the Princess and said to her:\n\n\u201cHelen, I hold you for my daughter and my son\u2019s wife. You will go along\nwith us to France, and you will live at our Court.\u201d\n\nThen, as his lips lay on the Princess\u2019s cheek, he rounded softly in her\near:\n\n\u201cYou spake as a loving-hearted woman should. But tell me this in closest\nconfidence,--Did you speak the truth?\u201d\n\nShe answered:\n\n\u201cSire, Olivier is a gallant man and a courteous. He was so full of\npretty ways and dainty devices for to distract my mind, _I_ never\nthought of counting. Nor yet did _he_ keep score. Needs therefore must I\nhold him quit of his promise.\u201d\n\nKing Hugo made great rejoicings for his daughter\u2019s nuptials. Thereafter\nCharlemagne and his twelve peers returned back to France, taking with\nthem the Princess Helen.\n\n\n\n\nTHE MIRACLE OF THE MAGPIE\n\n[Illustration: 034]\n\n\n\n\nI\n\nLENT, of the year 1429, presented a strange marvel of the Calendar, a\nconjunction that moved the admiration not only of the common crowd\nof the Faithful, but eke of Clerks, well learned in Arithmetic. For\nAstronomy, mother of the Calendar, was Christian in those days. In 1429\nGood Friday fell on the Feast of the Annunciation, so that one and the\nsame day combined the commemoration of the two several mysteries which\ndid commence and consummate the redemption of mankind, and in wondrous\nwise superimposed one on top of the other, Jesus conceived in the\nVirgin\u2019s womb and Jesus dying on the Cross. This Friday, whereon the\nmystery of joy came so to coincide exactly with the mystery of sorrow,\nwas named the \u201cGrand Friday,\u201d and was kept holy with solemn Feasts on\nMount Anis, in the Church of the Annunciation. For many years, by gift\nof the Popes of Rome, the sanctuary of Mount Anis had possessed the\nprivilege of the plenary indulgences of a great jubilee, and the\nlate-deceased Bishop of Le Puy, \u00c9lie de Le-strange, had gotten Pope\nMartin to restore this _pardon_. It was a favour of the sort the Popes\nscarce ever refused, when asked in due and proper form.\n\nThe _pardon_ of the Grand Friday drew a great crowd of pilgrims and\ntraders to Le Puy-en-Velay. As early as mid February folk from distant\nlands set out thither in cold and wind and rain. For the most part\nthey fared on foot, staff in hand. Whenever they could, these pilgrims\ntravelled in companies, to the end they might not be robbed and held to\nransom by the armed bands that infested the country parts, and by the\nbarons who exacted toll on the confines of their lands. Inasmuch as\nthe mountain districts were especially dangerous, they tarried in the\nneighbouring towns, Clermont, Issoire, Brioude, Lyons, Issingeaux,\nAlais, till they were gathered in a great host, and then went forth on\ntheir road in the snow. During Holy Week a strange multitude thronged\nthe hilly streets of Le Puy,--pedlars from Languedoc and Provence and\nCatalonia, leading their mules laded with leather goods, oil, wool, webs\nof cloth, or wines of Spain in goat-skins; lords a-horseback and ladies\nin wains, artisans and traders pacing on their mules, with wife or\ndaughter perched behind, Then came the poor pilgrim folk, limping along,\nhalting and hobbling, stick in hand and bag on back, panting up the\nstiff climb. Last were the flocks of oxen and sheep being driven to the\nslaughterhouses.\n\nNow, leant against the wall of the Bishop\u2019s palace, stood Florent\nGuillaume, looking as long and dry and black as an espalier vine in\nwinter, and devoured pilgrims and cattle with his eyes.\n\n\u201cLook,\u201d he called to Marguerite the lace-maker, \u201clook at yonder fine\nheads of bestial.\u201d\n\nAnd Marguerite, squatted beside her bobbins, called back:\n\n\u201cYea, fine beasts, and fat withal!\u201d\n\nBoth the twain were very bare and scant of the goods of this world, and\neven then were feeling bitterly the pinch of hunger. And folk said\nit came of their own fault. At that very moment Pierre Grandmange the\ntripe-seller was saying as much, where he stood in his tripe-shop,\npointing a finger at them. \u201c\u2018T would be sinful,\u201d he was crying, \u201cto give\nan alms to such good-for-nothing varlets.\u201d The tripe-seller would fain\nhave been very charitable, but he feared to lose his soul by giving to\nevil-livers, and all the fat citizens of Le Puy had the selfsame\nscruples.\n\nTo say truth, we must needs allow that, in the heyday of her hot youth,\nMarguerite the lace-maker had not matched St. Lucy in purity, St. Agatha\nin constancy, and St. Catherine in staidness. As for Florent Guillaume,\nhe had been the best scrivener in the city. For years he had not had his\nequal for engrossing the Hours of Our Lady of Le Puy. But he had been\nover fond of merrymakings and junketings. Now his hand had lost its\ncunning, and his eye its clearness; he could no more trace the letters\non the parchment with the needful steadiness of touch. Even so, he might\nhave won his livelihood by teaching apprentices in his shop at the\nsign of the Image of Our Lady, under the choir buttresses of _The\nAnnunciation_, for he was a fellow of good counsel and experience. But\nhaving had the ill fortune to borrow of Ma\u00eetre Jacquet Coquedouille the\nsum of six livres ten sous, and having paid him back at divers terms\neighty livres two sous, he had found himself at the last to owe yet\nsix livres two sous to the account of his creditor, which account was\napproved correct by the judges, for Jacquet Coquedouille was a sound\narithmetician. This was the reason why the scrivenry of Florent\nGuillaume, under the choir buttresses of _The Annunciation_, was sold,\non Saturday the fifth day of March, being the Feast of St. Theophilus,\nto the profit of Ma\u00eetre Jacquet Coquedouille. Since that time the poor\npenman had never a place to call his own. But by the good help of Jean\nMagne the bell-ringer and with the protection of Our Lady, whose Hours\nhe had aforetime written, Florent Guillaume found a perch o\u2019 nights in\nthe steeple of the Cathedral.\n\nThe scrivener and the lace-maker had much ado to live. Marguerite only\nkept body and soul together by chance and charity, for she had long lost\nher good looks and she hated the lace-making. They helped each other.\nFolks said so by way of reproach; they had been better advised to\naccount it to them for righteousness. Florent Guillaume was a learned\nclerk. Well knowing every word of the history of the beautiful Black\nVirgin of Le Puy and the ordering of the ceremonies of the great\n_pardon_, he had conceived the notion he might serve as guide to the\npilgrims, deeming he would surely light on someone compassionate enough\nto pay him a supper in guerdon of his fine stories. But the first folk\nhe had offered his services to had bidden him begone because his ragged\ncoat bespoke neither good guidance nor clerkly wit; so he had come back,\ndownhearted and crestfallen, to the Bishop\u2019s wall, where he had his\nbit of sunshine and his kind gossip Marguerite. \u201cThey reckon,\u201d he said\nbitterly, \u201cI am not learned enough to number them the relics and recount\nthe miracles of Our Lady. Do they think my wits have escaped away\nthrough the holes in my gaberdine?\u201d\n\n\u201c\u2018Tis not the wits,\u201d replied Marguerite, \u201cescape by the holes in a\nbody\u2019s clothes, but the good natural heat. I am sore a-cold. And it\nis but too true that, man and woman, they judge us by our dress. The\ngallants would find me comely enough yet if I was accoutred like my Lady\nthe Comtesse de Clermont.\u201d\n\nMeanwhile, all the length of the street in front of them the pilgrims\nwere elbowing and fighting their way to the Sanctuary, where they were\nto win pardon for their sins.\n\n\u201cThey will surely suffocate anon,\u201d said Marguerite. \u201cTwenty-two years\nagone, on the Grand Friday, two hundred persons died stifled under the\nporch of _The Annunciation_. God have their souls in keeping! Ay, those\nwere the good times, when I was young!\u201d\n\n\u201c\u2018Tis very true indeed, that year you tell of, two hundred pilgrims\ncrushed each other to death and departed from this world to the other.\nAnd next day was never a sign to be seen of aught untoward.\u201d\n\nAs he so spake, Florent Guillaume noted a pilgrim, a very fat man, who\nwas not hurrying to get him assoiled with the same hot haste as the\nrest, but kept rolling his wide eyes to right and left with a look of\ndistress and fear. Florent Guillaume stepped up to him and louted low.\n\n\u201cMessire,\u201d he accosted him, \u201cone may see at a glance you are a sensible\nman and an experienced; you do not rush blindly to the _pardon_ like a\nsheep to the slaughter. The rest of the folk go helter-skelter thither,\nthe nose of one under the tail of the other; but you follow a wiser\nfashion. Grant me the boon to be your guide, and you will not repent\nyour bargain.\u201d\n\nThe pilgrim, who proved to be a gentleman of Limoges, answered in the\npatois of his countryside, that he had no use for a scurvy beggarman and\ncould very well find his own way to _The Annunciation_ for to receive\npardon for his faults. And therewith he set his face resolutely to the\nhill. But Florent Guillaume cast himself at his feet, and tearing at his\nhair:\n\n\u201cStop! stop! messire,\u201d he cried; \u201ci\u2019 God\u2019s name and by all the Saints,\nI warn you go no farther! \u2018T will be your death, and you are not the man\nwe could see perish without grief and dolour. A few steps more and you\nare a dead man! They are suffocating up yonder. Already full six hundred\npilgrims have given up the ghost. And this is but a small beginning! Do\nyou not know, messire, that twenty-two years agone, in the year of grace\none thousand four hundred and seven, on the selfsame day and at the\nselfsame hour, under yonder porch, nine thousand six hundred and\nthirty-eight persons, without reckoning women and children, trampled\neach other underfoot and perished miserably? An you met the same fate,\nI should never smile again. To see you is to love you, messire; to know\nyou is to conceive a sudden and overmastering desire to serve you.\u201d\n\nThe Limousin gentleman had halted in no small surprise and turned\npale to hear such discourse and see the fellow tearing out his hair in\nfistfuls. In his terror he was for turning back the way he had come. But\nFlorent Guillaume, on his knees in the mud, held him back by the skirt\nof his jacket.\n\n\u201cNever go that way, messire! not that way. You might meet Jacquet\nCoquedouille, and you would be all in an instant turned into stone.\nBetter encounter the basilisk than Jacquet Coquedouille. I will tell you\nwhat you must do if, like the wise and prudent man your face proclaims\nyou to be, you would live long and make your peace with God. Hearken\nto me; I am a scholar, a Bachelor. To-day the holy relics will be borne\nthrough the streets and crossways of the city. You will find great\nsolace in touching the carven shrines which enclose the cornelian cup\nwherefrom the child Jesus drank, one of the wine-jars of the Marriage at\nCana, the cloth of the Last Supper, and the holy foreskin. If you take\nmy advice, we will go wait for them, under cover, at a cookshop I wot\nof, before which they will pass without fail.\u201d\n\nThen, in a wheedling voice, without loosing his hold of the pilgrim\u2019s\njacket, he pointed to the lace-maker and said:\n\n\u201cMessire, you must give six sous to yonder worthy woman, that she may go\nbuy us wine, for she knows where good liquor is to be gotten.\u201d\n\nThe Limousin gentleman, who was a simple soul after all, went where he\nwas led, and Florent Guillaume supped on the leg and wing of a goose,\nthe bones whereof he put in his pocket as a present for Madame Ysabeau,\nhis fellow lodger in the timbers of the steeple,--to wit, Jean Magne the\nbell-ringer\u2019s magpie.\n\nHe found her that night perched on the beam where she was used to roost,\nbeside the hole in the wall which was her storeroom wherein she hoarded\nwalnuts and hazel-nuts, almonds and beech-nuts. She had awoke at the\nnoise of his coming and flapped her wings; so he greeted her very\ncourteously, addressing her in these obliging terms:\n\n\u201cMagpie most pious, lady recluse, bird of the cloister, Margot of the\nNunnery, sable-frocked Abbess, Church fowl of the lustrous coat, all\nhail!\u201d\n\nThen offering her the goose bones nicely folded in a cabbage leaf:\n\n\u201cLady,\u201d he said, \u201cI bring you here the scraps remaining of a good dinner\na gentleman from Limoges gave me. His countrymen are radish eaters; but\nI have taught this one to prefer an Anis goose to all the radishes in\nthe Limousin.\u201d\n\nNext day and the rest of the week Florent Guillaume,--for he could never\nlight on his fat friend again nor yet any other good pilgrim with a\nwell-lined travelling wallet,--fasted _a solis ortu usque ad occasum_,\nfrom rising sun to dewy eve. Marguerite the lace-maker did likewise.\nThis was very meet and right, seeing the time was Holy Week.\n\n\n\n\nII.\n\n[Illustration: 046]\n\nNow on Holy Easter Day, Ma\u00eetre Jacquet Coquedouille, a notable citizen\nof the place, was peeping through a hole in a shutter of his house and\nwatching the countless throng of pilgrims passing down the steep street.\nThey were wending homewards, happy to have won their pardon; and the\nsight of them greatly magnified his veneration for the Black Virgin. For\nhe deemed a lady so much sought after must needs be a puissant dame.\nHe was old, and his only hope lay in God\u2019s mercy. Yet was he but\nill-assured of his eternal salvation, for he remembered how many a time\nhe had ruthlessly fleeced the widow and the orphan. Moreover, he had\nrobbed Florent Guillaume of his scrivenry at the sign of Our Lady. He\nwas used to lend at high interest on sound security. Yet could no man\ninfer he was a usurer, forasmuch as he was a Christian, and it was only\nthe Jews practised usury,--the Jews, and, if you will, the Lombards and\nthe men of Cahors.\n\nNow Jacquet Coquedouille went about the matter quite otherwise than the\nJews. He never said, like Jacob, Ephraim, and Manasses, \u201cI am lending\nyou money.\u201d What he did say was, \u201cI am putting money into your business\nto help your trafficking,\u201d a different thing altogether. For usury and\nlending upon interest were forbidden by the Church, but trafficking was\nlawful and permitted.\n\nAnd yet at the thought how he had brought many Christian folk to poverty\nand despair, Jacquet Coquedouille felt the pangs of remorse, as he\npictured the sword of Divine Justice hanging over his head. So on this\nholy Easter Day he was fain to secure him against the Last Judgment\nby winning the protection of Our Lady. He thought to himself she would\nplead for him at the judgment seat of her divine Son, if only he gave\nher a handsome fee. So he went to the great chest where he kept his\ngold, and, after making sure the chamber door was shut fast, he opened\nthe chest, which was full of angels, flor-ins, esterlings, nobles, gold\ncrowns, gold ducats, and golden sous, and all the coins ever struck by\nChristian or Saracen. He extracted with a sigh of regret twelve\ndeniers of fine gold and laid them on the table, which was crowded\nwith balances, files, scissors, gold-scales, and account books. After\nshutting his chest again and triple-locking it, he numbered the deniers,\nrenumbered them, gazed long at them with looks of affection, and\naddressed them in words so soft and sweet, so affable and ingratiating,\nso gentle and courteous, it seemed rather the music of the spheres than\nhuman speech.\n\n\u201cOh, little angels!\u201d sighed the good old man. \u201cOh, my dear little\nangels! Oh, my pretty gold sheep, with the fine, precious fleece!\u201d\n\nAnd taking the pieces between his fingers with as much reverence as it\nhad been the body of Our Lord, he put them in the balance and made sure\nthey were of the full weight,--or very near, albeit a trifle clipped\nalready by the Lombards and the Jews, through whose hands they had\npassed. After which he spoke to them yet more graciously than before:\n\n\u201cOh, my pretty sheep, my sweet, pretty lambs, there, let me shear you!\n\u2018T will do you no hurt at all.\u201d\n\nThen, seizing his great scissors, he clipped off shreds of gold here and\nthere, as he was used to clip every piece of money before parting with\nit. And he gathered the clippings carefully in a wooden bowl that was\nalready half full of bits of gold. He was ready to give twelve angels\nto the Holy Virgin; but he felt no way bound to depart from his use and\nwont. This done, he went to the aumry where his pledges lay, and drew\nout a little blue purse, broidered with silver, which a dame of the\npetty trading sort had left with him in her distress. He remembered that\nblue and white are Our Lady\u2019s colours.\n\nThat day and the next he did nothing further. But in the night, betwixt\nMonday and Tuesday, he had cramps, and dreamt the devils were pulling\nhim by the feet. This he took for a warning of God and our Blessed Lady,\ntarried within doors pondering the matter all the day, and then toward\nevening went to lay his offering at the feet of the Black Virgin.\n\n\n\n\nIII\n\n[Illustration: 051]\n\nTHAT same day, as night was closing in, Florent Guillaume thought\nruefully of returning to his airy bedchamber. He had fasted the livelong\nday, sore against the grain, holding that a good Christian ought not to\nfast in the glorious Resurrection week. Before mounting to his bed in\nthe steeple, he went to offer a pious prayer to the Lady of Le Puy. She\nwas still there in the midst of the Church at the spot where she had\noffered herself on the Grand Friday to the veneration of the Faithful.\nSmall and black, crowned with jewels, in a mantle blazing with gold and\nprecious stones and pearls, she held on her knees the Child Jesus, who\nwas as black as his mother and passed his head through a slit in her\ncloak. It was the miraculous image which St. Louis had received as a\ngift from the Soldan of Egypt and had carried with his own hands to the\nChurch of Anis.\n\nAll the pilgrims were gone now, and the Church was dark and empty. The\nlast offerings of the Faithful were spread at the feet of the beautiful\nBlack Virgin, displayed on a table lit with wax tapers. You could see\namongst the rest a head, hearts, hands, feet, a woman\u2019s breasts of\nsilver, a little boat of gold, eggs, loaves, Aurillac cheeses, and in\na bowl full of deniers, sous, and groats, a little blue purse broidered\nwith silver. Over against the table, in a huge chair, dozed the priest\nwho guarded the offerings.\n\nFlorent Guillaume dropped on his knees before the holy image, and said\nover to himself this pious prayer:\n\n\u201cLady, an it be true that the holy prophet Jeremias, having beheld thee\nwith the eyes of faith ere ever thou wast conceived, carved with his\nhands out of cedar-wood in thy likeness the holy image before which I\nam at this present kneeling; an it be true that afterward King Ptolemy,\ninstructed of the miracles wrought by this same holy image, took it\nfrom the Jewish priests, bare it to Egypt and set it up, covered\nwith precious stones, in the temple of the idols; an it be true that\nNebuchadnezzar, conqueror of the Egyptians, seized it in his turn and\nhad it laid amongst his treasure, where the Saracens found it when they\ncaptured Babylon; an it be true that the Soldan loved it in his heart\nabove all things, and was used to adore it at the least once every day;\nan it be true that the said Soldan had never given it to our saintly\nKing Louis, but that his wife, who was a Saracen dame, yet prized\nchivalry and knightly prowess, resolved to make it a gift to the best\nknight and worthiest champion of all Christendom; in a word, an this\nimage be miraculous, as I do firmly credit, have it do a miracle, Lady,\nin favour of the poor clerk who hath many a time writ thy praises on\nthe vellum of the service books. He hath sanctified his sinful hands by\nengrossing in a fair writing, with great red capitals at the beginning\nof each clause, \u2018the fifteen joys of Our Lady,\u2019 in the vulgar tongue\nand in rhyme, for the comforting of the afflicted. \u2018Tis pious work this.\nThink of it, Lady, and heed not his sins. Give him somewhat to eat.\n\u2018Twill both do me much profit, and bring thee great honour, for the\nmiracle will appear no mean one to all them that know the world. Thou\nhast this day gotten gold, eggs, cheeses, and a little blue purse\nbroidered with silver. Lady, I grudge thee none of the gifts that have\nbeen made thee. Thou dost well deserve them, yea, and more than they. I\ndo not so much as ask thee to make them give me back what a thief hath\nrobbed me of, a thief by name Jacquet Coque-douille, one of the most\nhonoured citizens of this thy town of Le Puy. No, all I ask of thee\nis not to let me die of hunger. And if thou grant me this boon, I will\nindite a full and fair history of thine holy image here present.\u201d\n\nSo prayed Florent Guillaume. The soft murmur of his petition was\nanswered only by the deep-chested, placid snore of the sleeping priest.\nThe poor scrivener rose from his knees, stepped noiselessly adown the\nnave, for he was grown so light his footfall could scarce be heard, and,\nfasting as he was, climbed the tower stairs that had as many steps as\nthere are days in the year.\n\nMeanwhile Madame Ysabeau, slipping under the cloister gate, entered\nher Church. The pilgrims had driven her away, for she loved peace and\nsolitude. The bird came forward cautiously, putting one foot slowly\nin front of the other, then stopped and craned her neck, casting a\nsuspicious look to right and left. Then giving a graceful little jump\nand shaking out her tail feathers, she hopped up to the Black Madonna.\nThen she stood stock still a few moments, scrutinising the sleeping\nwatchman and questioning the darkness and silence with eyes and ears\nalert. At last with a mighty flutter of wings she alighted on the table\nof offerings.\n\n\n\n\nIV\n\n[Illustration: 056]\n\nMEANWHILE Florent Guillaume had settled himself for the night in the\nsteeple. It was bitter cold. The wind came blowing in through the\nluffer-boards and fluted and organed among the bells to rejoice the\nheart of the cats and owls. And this was not the only objection to\nthe lodging. Since the earthquake of 1427, which had shaken the whole\nchurch, the spire was dropping to pieces stone by stone and threatened\nto collapse altogether in the first storm. Our Lady suffered this\ndilapidation because of the people\u2019s sins.\n\nPresently Florent Guillaume fell asleep, which is a token of his\ninnocency of heart. What dreams he dreamt is clean forgot, except that\nhe had a vision in his sleep of a lady of consummate beauty who came and\nkissed him on the mouth. But when his lips opened to return her salute,\nhe swallowed two or three woodlice that were walking over his face and\nby their tickling had deluded his sleeping senses into the agreeable\nfancy. He awoke, and hearing a noise of wings beating above his head, he\nthought it was a devil, as was very natural for him to opine, seeing how\nthe evil spirits flock in countless swarms to torment mankind, and above\nall at night time. But the moon just then breaking through the clouds,\nhe recognised Madame Ysabeau and saw she was busy with her beak pushing\ninto a crack in the wall that served her for storehouse a blue purse\nbroidered with silver. He let her do as she list; but when she had left\nher hoard, he clambered onto a beam, took the purse, opened it, and saw\nit contained twelve good gold deniers, which he clapped in his belt,\ngiving thanks to the incomparable Black Virgin of Le Puy. For he was a\nclerk and versed in the Scriptures, and he remembered how the Lord fed\nhis prophet Elias by a raven; whence he inferred that the Holy Mother\nof God had sent by a magpie twelve deniers to her poor penman, Florent\nGuillaume.\n\nOn the morrow Florent and Marguerite the lace-maker ate a dish of\ntripe,--a treat they had craved for many a long year.\n\nSo ends the Miracle of the Magpie. May he who tells the tale live, as he\nwould fain live, in good and gentle peace, and all good hap befall such\nfolk as shall read the same.\n\n\n\n\nBROTHER JOCONDE\n\n[Illustration: 062]\n\nTHE Parisians were far from loving the English and found it hard to put\nup with them. When, after the obsequies of the late King Charles VI, the\nDuke of Bedford had the sword of the King of France borne before him,\nthe people murmured. But what cannot be cured must be endured. Besides,\nthough the capital hated the English, it loved the Burgundians. What\nmore natural for citizen folk, and especially for money-changers and\ntraders, than to admire Duke Philip, a prince of seemly presence and the\nrichest nobleman in Christendom. As for the \u201clittle King of Bourges,\u201d\n a sorry-looking mortal and very poor, strongly suspected, moreover, of\nfoul murder at the Bridge of Montereau, what had he about him to please\nfolk withal? Scorn was the sentiment felt for him, and horror and\nloathing for his partisans. For ten years now had these been riding and\nraiding around the walls, pillaging and holding to ransom. No doubt the\nEnglish and Burgun-dians did much the same; when, in the month of\nAugust, 1423, Duke Philip came to Paris, his men-at-arms had ravaged all\nthe country about. And they were friends and allies of course; but after\nall they only came and went. The Armagnacs, on the contrary, were always\nin the field, stealing whatever they could lay their hands upon, firing\nfarmsteads and churches, killing women and children, deflowering virgins\nand nuns, hanging men by the thumbs. In 1420 they threw themselves like\ndevils let loose on the village of Champigny and burnt up altogether\noats, wheat, lambs, cows, oxen, children, and women. They did the like\nand worse at Croissy. A very great clerk of the University declared they\nwrought all wickedness that can be wrought and conceived, and that more\nChristian folk had been martyred at their hands than ever Maximian or\nDiocletian did to death.\n\nAt the news that these accursed Armagnacs were at the gates of Compi\u00e8gne\nand occupying the neighbouring castles and their lands, the folk of\nParis were sore afraid. They believed that the Dauphin\u2019s soldiers had\nsworn, if they entered Paris, to slay whomsoever they found there. They\naffirmed openly that Messire Charles de Valois had given up to his men\u2019s\nmercy town and townsmen, great and small, of every rank and condition,\nmen and women, and that he proposed to drive the plough over the site of\nthe city. The inhabitants mostly believed the tale; so they set the St.\nAndrew\u2019s cross on their coats, in token that they were of the party of\nthe Burgundians. Their hatred was doubled, and their fears with it, when\nthey learned that Brother Richard and the Maid Jeanne were at the head\nof King Charles\u2019 army. They knew nothing of the Maid save from the\nrumour of the victories she was reported to have won at Orleans. But\nthey deemed she had vanquished the English by the Devil\u2019s aid, by means\nof spells and enchantments.\n\nThe Masters of the University all said: \u201cA creature in shape of a woman\nis with the Armagnacs. What it is, God knows!\u201d\n\nFor Brother Richard, they knew him well. He had come to Paris before,\nand they had hearkened reverently to his sermons. He had even persuaded\nthem to renounce those games of chance for which they had been used\nto forget meat and drink and the services of the Church. Now, at the\ntidings that Brother Richard was on foray with the Armagnacs and\nwinning over for them by his well-hung tongue good towns like Troyes in\nChampagne, they called down on him the curse of God and his Saints. They\ntore out of their hats the leaden medals inscribed with the holy name\nof Jesus, which the good Brother had given them, and to show in what\ndetestation they held him, resumed dice, bowls, draughts, and all other\ngames they had renounced at his exhortation.\n\nThe city was strongly fortified, for in the days when King Jean was a\nprisoner of the English, the citizens of Paris, seeing the enemy in the\nheart of the Kingdom, had feared a siege and had hastened to put the\nwalls in a state of defence. They had surrounded the place with moats\nand counter-moats. The moats, on the left bank of the river, were dug\nat the foot of the walls forming the old circle of fortification. But\non the right bank there were faubourgs, both extensive and well built,\noutside the walls and almost touching them. The new moats enclosed a\npart of these, and the Dauphin Charles, King Jean\u2019s son, afterward had\na wall built along the line of them. Nevertheless there was some feeling\nof insecurity, for the Cathedral Chapter took measures to put the relics\nand treasure out of reach of the enemy.\n\nMeantime, on Sunday, August 21st, a Cordelier, by name Brother Joconde,\nentered the town. He had made pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and was said,\nlike Brother Vincent Ferrier and Brother Bernardino of Sienna, to\nhave enjoyed by the abounding grace of God many revelations anent the\nforthcoming end of the world. He gave out that he would preach his first\nsermon to the Parisians on Tuesday following, St. Bartholomew\u2019s day, in\nthe Cloister of \u201cThe Innocents.\u201d On the eve of that day more than six\nthousand persons spent the night in the Cloister. At the foot of the\nplatform wherefrom he was to preach, the women sat squatted on their\nheels, and amongst them Guillaumette Dyonis, who was blind from birth.\nShe was the child of an artisan who had been killed by the Burgundians\nin the woods of Boulogne-la-Grande. Her mother had been carried off by\na Burgundian man-at-arms, and none knew what had become of her.\nGuillaumette was fifteen or sixteen years of age. She lived at \u201cThe\nInnocents\u201d on what she made by spinning wool, at which trade there was\nnot a better worker to be found in all the town. She went and came in\nthe streets without the help of any and knew everything as well as those\nwho can see. As she lived a good and holy life and fasted often, she\nwas favoured with visions. In especial she had been accorded notable\nrevelations by the Apostle St. John concerning the troubles that then\nbeset the Kingdom of France. Now, as she was reciting her Hours at the\nfoot of the platform, under the great Dance of Death, a woman called\nSimone la Bardine, who was seated on the ground beside her, asked her if\nthe good Brother was not coming soon.\n\nGuillaumette Dyonis could not see the tailed gown of green and the\nhorned wimple which Simone la Bardine wore; yet she knew by instinct the\nwoman was no honest dame. She felt a natural aversion for light women\nand the sort the soldiers called their sweethearts or \u201cdoxies,\u201d but it\nhad been revealed to her that we should hold such in great pity and\ndeal compassionately with them. Wherefore she answered Simone la Bardine\ngently:\n\n\u201cThe good Father will come soon, please God. And we shall have no reason\nto regret having waited, for he is eloquent in prayer and his sermons\nturn the folk to devotion more even than those of Brother Richard, who\nspake in these Cloisters in the springtime. He knows more than any man\nliving of the times that shall come and shall show us strange portents.\nI trow we shall gain great profit of his words.\u201d\n\n\u201cGod grant it,\u201d sighed Simone la Bardine. \u201cBut are you not very sorry to\nbe blind?\u201d\n\n\u201cNo. I wait to see God.\u201d\n\nSimone la Bardine made her mantle into a cushion, and said:\n\n\u201cLife is all ups and downs. I live at the top of the Rue Saint-Antoine.\n\u2018T is the finest part of the city and the merriest, for the best\nhostelries are in the Place Baudet and thereabout. Before the Wars there\nwas aye abundance there of hot cakes and fresh herrings and Auxerre\nwine by the tun. With the English famine entered the town. Now is there\nneither bread in the bin nor firewood on the hearth. One after other the\nArmagnacs and the Burgundians have drunk up all the wine, and there is\nnaught left in the cellar but a little thin, sour cider and sloe-juice.\nKnights armed for the tourney, pilgrims with their cockleshells\nand staves, traders with their chests full of knives and little\nservice-books, where are they gone? They never come now to seek a\nlodging and good living in the Rue Saint-Antoine. But the wolves quit\ncovert in the forests and prowl of nights in the faubourgs and devour\nlittle children.\u201d\n\n\u201cPut your trust in God,\u201d Guillaumette Dyonis answered her.\n\n\u201cAmen!\u201d returned Simone la Bardine. \u201cBut I have not told you the worst.\nOn the Thursday before St, John\u2019s day, at three after midnight, two\nEnglishmen came knocking at my door. Not knowing but they had come to\nrob me or break up my chests and coffers out of mischief, or do some\nother devilment, I shouted to them from my window to go their ways, that\nI did not know them and I was not going to open the door. But they only\nhammered louder, swearing they were going to break in the door and\ncome in and cut off my nose and ears. To stop their uproar I emptied a\ncrockful of water on their heads; but the crock slipped out of my hands\nand broke on the back of one fellow\u2019s neck so unchancily that it felled\nhim. His comrade called up the watch. I was haled to the Ch\u00e2telet and\nclapped in prison, where I was very hardly handled, and only escaped by\npaying a heavy sum of money. I found my house pillaged from cellar to\nattic. From that day my affairs have gone from bad to worse, and I have\nnaught in the wide world but the clothes I stand up in. In very despair\nI have come hither to hear the good Father, who they say abounds in\ncomforting words.\u201d\n\n\u201cGod, who loves you,\u201d said Guillaumctte Dyonis, \u201chas moved you in all\nthis.\u201d\n\nThen a great silence fell on the crowd as Brother Joconde appeared. His\neyes flashed like lightning. When he opened his lips, his voice pealed\nout like thunder.\n\n\u201cI have come from Jerusalem,\u201d he began; \u201cand to prove it, see in this\nwallet are roses of Jericho, a branch of the olive under which Our\nSaviour sweated drops of blood, and a handful of the earth of Calvary.\u201d\n\nHe gave a long narrative of his pilgrimage. And he added:\n\n\u201cIn Syria I met Jews travelling in companies; I asked them whither they\nwere bound, and they told me: \u2018We are flocking in crowds to Babylon,\nbecause in very deed the Messiah is born among men, and will restore\nus our heritage, and stablish us again in the Land of Promise.\u2019 So said\nthese Jews of Syria. Now the Scriptures teach us that he they call the\nMessiah is, in truth, Antichrist, of whom it is said he must be born at\nBabylon, chief city of the kingdom of Persia, be reared at Bethsaida,\nand dwell in his youth at Chorazin. That is why Our Lord said: \u2018Woe unto\nthee, Chor-azin! Woe unto thee, Bethsaida!\u2019\n\n\u201cThe year that is at hand,\u201d went on Brother Joconde, \u201cwill bring the\ngreatest marvels that have ever been beheld.\n\n\u201cThe times are at hand. He is born, the man of sin, the son of\nperdition, the wicked man, the beast from out the abyss, the abomination\nof desolation. He comes from the tribe of Dan, of which it is written:\n\u2018Dan shall be a serpent in the way, an adder in the path.\u2019\n\n\u201cBrethren, soon shall ye see returning to this earth the Prophets Elias\nand Enoch, Moses, Jeremias, and St. John Evangelist. And lo! the day of\nwrath is dawning, the day which \u2018solvet s\u00e6clum in favilla, teste David\net Sibylla.\u2019 Wherefore now is the time to repent and do penance and\nrenounce the false delights of this world.\u201d\n\nAt the good Brother\u2019s word bosoms heaved with remorse and deep-drawn\nsighs were heard. Not a few, both men and women, were near fainting when\nthe preacher cried:\n\n\u201cI read in your souls that ye keep mandrakes at home, which will bring\nyou to hell fire.\u201d\n\nIt was true. Many Parisians paid heavily to the old witch-wives, who\nprofess unholy knowledge, for to buy mandrakes, and were used to keep\nthem treasured in a chest. These magic roots have the likeness of\na little man, hideously ugly and misshapen in a weird and diabolic\nfashion. They would dress them out magnificently, in fine linen and\nsilks, and the mannikins brought them riches, chief source of all the\nills of this world.\n\nNext Brother Joconde thundered against women\u2019s extravagant attire.\n\n\u201cLeave off,\u201d he bade them, \u201cyour horns and your tails! Are ye not shamed\nso to bedizen yourselves like she-devils? Light bonfires, I say, in the\npublic streets, and cast therein and burn your damnable head-gear,--pads\nand rolls, erections of leather and whalebone, wherewith ye stiffen out\nthe front of your hoods.\u201d\n\nHe ended by exhorting them with so much zeal and loving-kindness not to\nlose their souls, but put themselves in the grace of God, that all who\nheard him wept hot tears. And Simone la Bardine wept more abundantly\nthan any.\n\nWhen, finally, coming down from his platform, Brother Joconde crossed\nthe cloister and graveyard, the people fell on their knees as he went\nby. The women gave him their little ones to bless, or besought him to\ntouch medals and rosaries for them. Some plucked threads from his gown,\nthinking to get healing by putting them, like relics of the Saints, on\nthe places where they were afflicted. Guillaumette Dyonis followed the\ngood Father as easily as if she saw him with her bodily eyes. Simone\nla Bardine trailed behind her, sobbing. She had pulled off her horned\nwimple and tied a kerchief round her head.\n\nThus they marched, the three of them, along the streets, where men and\nwomen, who had been at the preaching, were kindling fires before their\ndoors to cast therein head-gear and mandrake roots. But on reaching\nthe river bank, Brother Joconde sat down under an elm, and Guillaumette\nDyonis came up to him and said:\n\n\u201cFather, it hath been revealed to me in vision that you are come to this\nKingdom to restore the same to good peace and concord. I have had myself\nmany revelations concerning the peace of the Kingdom.\u201d\n\nNext Simone la Bardine took up her parable and said:\n\n\u201cBrother Joconde, I lived once in a fine house in the Rue Saint-Antoine,\nnear by the Place Baudet, which is the fairest quarter of Paris, and the\nwealthiest. I had a matted chamber, mantles of cloth of gold, and\ngowns trimmed with miniver, enough to fill three great chests; I had a\nfeather-bed, a dresser loaded with pewter, and a little book wherein you\nsaw in pictures the story of Our Lord. But since the wars and pillagings\nthat devastate the Kingdom, I have lost everything. The gallants never\ncome now to take their pleasure in the Place Baudet. But the wolves come\nthere instead to devour little children. The Burgundians and the English\nare as bad as the Armagnacs. Would you have me go with you?\u201d\n\nThe Monk gazed a while in silence at the two women; and deeming it\nwas Jesus Christ himself had led them to him, he received them for his\nPenitents, and thereafter the twain followed him wherever he went. Every\nday he preached to the people, now at \u201cThe Innocents,\u201d now at the Porte\nSaint-Honor\u00e9, or at the Halles. But he never went outside the Walls, by\nreason of the Armagnacs, who were raiding all the countryside round the\ncity.\n\nHis words led many souls to a better life; and at the fourth sermon he\npreached in Paris, he received for Penitents Jeannette Chastenier, wife\nof a merchant-draper on the Pont-au-Change, and another woman, by name\nOpportune Jadoin, who nursed the sick at the H\u00f4tel-Dieu and was no\nlonger very young. He admitted likewise into his company a gardener of\nthe Ville-l\u2019Ev\u00eaque, a lad of about sixteen, Robin by name, who bare on\nhis feet and hands the stigmata of the crucifixion, and was shaken by\na sore trembling of all his limbs. He often saw the Holy Virgin in\ncorporeal presence, and heard her speech and savoured the divine odours\nof her glorified body. She had entrusted him with a message for the\nRegent of England and for the Duke of Burgundy. Meantime the army of\nMessire Charles of Valois entered the town of Saint-Denis. And no man\ndurst from that day go out of Paris to harvest the fields or gather\naught from the market-gardens which covered the plain to the northward\nof the city. Instantly famine prices ruled, and the inhabitants began to\nsuffer cruelly. And they were further exasperated because they believed\nthemselves betrayed. It was openly said that certain folk, and in\nespecial certain men of Religion, suborned by Messire Charles of Valois,\nwere watching for the best time to stir up trouble and bring in the\nenemy in an hour of panic and confusion. Haunted by this fear, which\nwas not perhaps altogether baseless, the citizens who kept guard of the\nramparts showed scant mercy to any men of evil looks whom they found\nloitering near the Gates and whom they might suspect, on the most\ntrivial evidence, of making signals to the Armagnacs. On Thursday,\nSeptember 8th, the good people of Paris awoke without any fear of being\nattacked before the next day. This day, September 8th, was the Feast of\nthe Nativity of the Virgin, and it was an established custom with the\ntwo factions that tore the Kingdom in twain to keep holy the feast-days\nof Our Lord and His Blessed Mother.\n\nYet at this holy season the Parisians, on coming forth from Mass, learnt\nthat, notwithstanding the sacredness of the day, the Armagnacs had\nappeared before the Porte Saint-Honor\u00e9 and had set fire to the outwork\nwhich defended its approach. It was further reported that Messire\nCharles of Valois was posted, for the time being, along with Brother\nRichard and the Maid Jeanne, in the Hog Market without the Walls. The\nsame afternoon, through all the city, on either side the bridges, shouts\nof fear arose--\u201cSave yourselves! fly, the enemy are come in, all is\nlost!\u201d The cries were heard even inside the Churches, where pious folks\nwere singing Vespers. These came flying out in terror and ran to their\nhouses to take refuge behind barred doors.\n\nNow the men who went about raising these cries were emissaries of\nMessire Charles of Valois. In fact, at that very time, the Company of\nthe Mar\u00e9chal de Rais was making assault on the Walls near by the Porte\nSaint-Honor\u00e9. The Armagnacs had brought up in carts great bundles of\nfaggots and wattled hurdles to fill up the moats, and above six hundred\nscaling-ladders for storming the ramparts. The Maid Jeanne, who was\nnowise as the Burgundians believed, but lived a pious life and guarded\nher chastity, set foot to ground, and was the first down into a dry\nmoat, which for that cause was easy to cross. But thereupon they found\nthemselves exposed to the arrows and cross-bolts that rained down thick\nand fast from the Walls. Then they had in front of them a second moat.\nWherefore were the Maid and her men-at-arms sore hampered. Jeanne\nsounded the great moat with her lance and shouted to throw in faggots.\n\nInside the town could be heard the roar of cannon, and all along the\nstreets the citizens were running, half accoutred, to their posts on\nthe ramparts, knocking over as they went the brats playing about in the\ngutters. The chains were drawn across the roadways, and barricades were\nbegun. Tribulation and tumult filled all the place.\n\nBut neither the Brother Joconde nor his Penitents saw aught of it,\nforasmuch as they took heed only of eternal things, and deemed the vain\nagitation of men to be but a foolish game. They marched through the\nstreets singing the \u201cVeni creator spiritus,\u201d and crying out: \u201cPray, for\nthe times are at hand.\u201d\n\nThus they made their way in good array down the Rue Saint-Antoine, which\nwas densely crowded with men, women, and children. Coming presently to\nthe Place Baudet, Brother Joconde pushed through the throng and mounted\na great stone that stood at the door of the H\u00f4tel de la Truie, which\nMessire Florimont Lecocq, the master of the house, used to help him\nmount his mule. This Messire Florimont Lecocq was Sergeant at the\nCh\u00e2telet Prison and a partisan of the English.\n\nSo, standing on the great stone, Brother Joconde preached to the people.\n\u201cSow ye,\u201d he cried, \u201csow ye, good folk; sow abundantly of beans, for He\nwhich is to come will come quickly.\u201d\n\nBy the beans they were to sow, the good Brother signified the charitable\nworks it behoved them accomplish before Our Lord should come, in the\nclouds of heaven, to judge both the quick and the dead. And it was\nurgent to sow these works without tarrying, for that the harvest would\nbe soon. Guillaumette Dyonis, Simone la Bardine, Jeanne Chastenier,\nOpportune Jadoin, and Robin the gardener, stood in a ring about the\nPreacher, and cried \u201cAmen!\u201d\n\nBut the citizens, who thronged behind in a great crowd, pricked up their\nears and bent their brows, thinking the Monk was foretelling the entry\nof Charles of Valois into his good town of Paris, over which he was\nfain--at any rate, so they believed--to drive the ploughshare.\n\nMeanwhile the good Brother went on with his soul-awakening discourse.\n\n\u201cOh! ye men of Paris, ye are worse than the Pagans of old Rome.\u201d\n\nJust then the mangonels firing from the Porte Saint-Denis mingled their\nthunder with Brother Joconde\u2019s voice and shook the bystanders\u2019\nhearts within them. Some one in the press cried out, \u201cDeath! death to\ntraitors!\u201d All this time Messire Florimont Lecocq was within-doors doing\non his armour. He now came forth at the noise, before he had buckled his\nleg-pieces. Seeing the Monk standing on his mounting-block, he asked:\n\u201cWhat is this good Father saying?\u201d And a chorus of voices answered:\n\u201cTelling us that Messire Charles of Valois is going to enter the city,\u201d\n while others cried:\n\n\u201cHe is against the folk of Paris,\u201d and others again:\n\n\u201cHe would fain cozen and betray us, like the Brother Richard, who at\nthis very time is riding with our enemies.\u201d\n\nBut Brother Joconde made answer: \u201cThere be neither Armagnacs, nor\nBurgundians, nor French, nor English, but only the sons of light and\nthe sons of darkness. Ye are lewd fellows and your women wantons.\u201d\n\n\u201cGo to, thou apostate! thou sorcerer! thou traitor!\u201d yelled Messire\nFlorimont Lecocq,--and lugging out his sword, he plunged it in the good\nBrother\u2019s bosom.\n\nWith pale lips and faltering voice, the man of God still managed to say:\n\n\u201cPray, fast, do penance, and ye shall be forgiven, my brethren...\u201d\n\nThen his voice choked, as the blood poured from his mouth, and he fell\non the stones. Two knights, Sir John Stewart and Sir George Morris,\nthrew themselves on the body and pierced it with more than a hundred\ndagger thrusts, vociferating:\n\n\u201cLong life to King Henry! Long life to my Lord the Duke of Bedford! Down\nwith the Dauphin! Down with the mad Maid of the Armagnacs! Up, up! To\nthe Gates, to the Gates!\u201d\n\nTherewith they ran to the Walls, drawing off with them Messire Florimont\nand the crowd of citizens.\n\nMeanwhile the holy women and the gardener tarried about the bleeding\ncorse. Simone la Bardine lay prostrate on the ground, kissing the good\nBrother\u2019s feet and wiping away his blood with her unbound hair.\n\nBut Guillaumette Dyonis, standing up with her arms lifted to heaven,\ncried in a voice as clear as the sound of bells:\n\n\u201cMy sisters, Jeanne, Opportune and Simone, and you, my brother, Robin\nthe gardener, let us be going, for the times are at hand. The soul\nof this good Father holds me by the hand, and it will lead me aright.\nWherefore ye must follow along with me. And we will say to those who are\nmaking cruel war upon each other: \u2018Kiss and make peace. And if ye must\nneeds use your arms, take up the cross and go forth all together to\nfight the Saracens.\u2019 Come! my sisters and my brother.\u201d\n\nJeanne Chastenier picked up the shaft of an arrow from the ground, brake\nit, and made a cross, which she laid on good Brother Joconde\u2019s bosom.\nThen these holy women, and the gardener with them, followed after\nGuillaumette Dyonis, who led them by the streets and squares and alleys\nas if her eyes had seen the light of day. They reached the foot of the\nrampart, and by the stairway of a tower that was left unguarded, they\nmounted onto the curtain-wall. There had been no time to furnish it with\nits hoardings of wood; so they went along in the open. They proceeded\ntoward the Porte Saint-Honor\u00e9, by this time enveloped in clouds of dust\nand smoke. It was there the Mar\u00e9chal de Rais and his men were making\nassault. Their bolts flew thick and fast against the ramparts, and they\nwere hurling faggots into the water of the great moat. On the hog\u2019s-back\nparting the great moat from the little, stood the Maid, crying: \u201cYield,\nyield you to the King of France.\u201d The English had abandoned the top\nof the wall in terror, leaving their dead and wounded behind them.\nGuillaumette Dyonis walked first, her head high and her left arm\nextended before her, while with her right hand she kept signing herself\nreverently. Simone la Bardine followed close on her heels. Then came\nJeanne Chastenier and Opportune Jadoin. Robin the gardener brought\nup the rear, his body all shaking with his infirmity, and showing\nthe divine stigmata on his hands. They were singing canticles as they\nwalked.\n\nAnd Guillaumette, turning now toward the city and now toward the open\ncountry, cried: \u201cBrethren, embrace ye one another. Live in peace\nand harmony. Take the iron of your spearheads and forge it into\nploughshares!\u201d\n\nScarce had she spoken ere a shower of arrows, some from the parapet-way\nwhere a Company of Citizens was defiling, some from the hog\u2019s-back\nwhere the Armagnac men-at-arms were massed, flew in her direction, and\ntherewith a storm of insults:\n\n\u201cWanton! traitress! witch!\u201d\n\nMeanwhile she went on exhorting the two sides to stablish the Kingdom\nof Jesus Christ upon earth and to live in innocency and brotherly love,\ntill a cross-bow bolt struck her in the throat and she staggered and\nfell backward.\n\nIt was which could laugh the louder at this, Armagnacs or Burgundians.\nDrawing her gown over her feet, she lay still and made no other stir,\nbut gave up her soul, sighing the name of Jesus. Her eyes, which\nremained open, glowed like two opals.\n\nShort while after the death of Guillaumette Dyonis the men of Paris\nreturned in great force to man their Wall, and defended their city right\nvalorously. Jeanne the Maid was wounded by a cross-bow bolt in the leg,\nand Messire Charles of Valois\u2019 men-at-arms fell back upon the Chapelle\nSaint-Denis. What became of Jeanne Chastenier and Opportune Jadoin no\none knows. They were never heard of more. Simone la Bardine and Robin\nthe gardener were taken the same day by the citizens on guard at the\nWalls and handed over to the Bishop\u2019s officer, who duly brought them\nbefore the Courts. The Church adjudged Simone heretic, and condemned\nher for salutary penance to the bread of suffering and the water of\naffliction. Robin was convicted of sorcery, and, persevering in his\nerror, was burned alive in the Place du Parvis.\n\n\n\n\nFIVE FAIR LADIES OF PICARDY, OF POITOU, OF TOURAINE, OF LYONS, AND OF PARIS\n\n[Illustration: 090]\n\nONE day the Capuchin, Brother Jean Chavaray, meeting my good master the\nAbb\u00e9 Coign-ard in the cloister of \u201cThe Innocents,\u201d fell into talk\nwith him of the Brother Olivier Maillard, whose sermons, edifying and\nmacaronic, he had lately been reading.\n\n\u201cThere are good bits to be found in these sermons,\u201d said the Capuchin,\n\u201cnotably the tale of the five ladies and the go-between...\u201d You will\nreadily understand that Brother Olivier, who lived in the reign of\nLouis XI and whose language smacks of the coarseness of that age, uses a\ndifferent word. But our century demands a certain politeness and decency\nin speech; wherefore I employ the term I have, to wit, _go-between_.\n\n\u201cYou mean,\u201d replied my good master, \u201cto signify by the expression a\nwoman who is so obliging as to play intermediary in matters of love\nand love-making. The Latin has several names for her,--as _lena,\nconciliatrix_, also _internuntia libidinum_, ambassadress of naughty\ndesires. These prudish dames perform the best of services; but\nseeing they busy themselves therein for money, we distrust their\ndisinterestedness. Call yours a _procuress_, good Father, and have done\nwith it; \u2018t is a word in common use, and has a not unseemly sound.\u201d\n\n\u201cSo I will, Monsieur l\u2019Abb\u00e9,\u201d assented Brother Jean Chavaray. \u201cOnly\ndon\u2019t say _mine_, I pray, but the Brother Olivier\u2019s. A procuress then,\nwho lived on the Pont des Tournelles, was visited one day by a knight,\nwho put a ring into her hands. \u2018It is of fine gold,\u2019 he told her, \u2018and\nhath a balass ruby mounted in the bezel. An you know any dames of good\nestate, go say to the most comely of them that the ring is hers if she\nis willing to come to see me and do at my pleasure.\u2019\n\n\u201cThe procuress knew, by having seen them at Mass, five ladies of an\nexcellent beauty,--natives the first of Picardy, the second of Poitou,\nthe third of Touraine, another from the good city of Lyons, and the last\na Parisian, all dwelling in the Cite or its near neighbourhood.\n\n\u201cShe knocked first at the Picard lady\u2019s door. A maid opened, but her\nmistress refused to have one word to say to her visitor. She was an\nhonest woman.\n\n\u201cThe procuress went next to see the lady of Poitiers and solicit her\nfavours for the gallant knight. This dame answered her:\n\n\u201c\u2018Prithee, go tell him who sent you that he is come to the wrong house,\nand that I am not the woman he takes me for.\u2019\n\n\u201cShe too is an honest woman; yet less honest than the first, in that she\ntried to appear more so.\n\n\u201cThe procuress then went to see the lady from Tours, made the same offer\nto her as to the other, and showed her the ring.\n\n\u201c\u2018I\u2019 faith,\u2019 said the lady, \u2018but the ring is right lovely.\u2019\n\n\u201c\u2018\u2019T is yours, an you will have it.\u2019\n\n\u201c\u2018I will not have it at the price you set on it. My husband might catch\nme, and I should be doing him a grief he doth not deserve.\u2019\n\n\u201cThis lady of Touraine is a harlot, I trow, at bottom of her heart.\n\n\u201cThe procuress left her and went straight to the dame of Lyons, who\ncried:\n\n\u201c\u2018Alack! my good friend, my husband is a jealous wight, and he would cut\nthe nose off my face to hinder me winning any more rings at this pretty\ntilting.\u2019\n\n\u201cThis dame of Lyons, I tell you, is a worthless good-for-naught.\n\n\u201cLast of all the procuress hurried to the Parisian\u2019s. She was a hussy,\nand answered brazenly:\n\n\u201c\u2018My husband goes Wednesday to his vineyards; tell the good sir who sent\nyou I will come that day and see him.\u2019\n\n\u201cSuch, according to Brother Olivier, from Picardy to Paris, are the\ndegrees from good to evil amongst women. What think you of the matter,\nMonsieur Coignard?\u201d\n\nTo which my good master made answer:\n\n\u201c\u2018T is a shrewd matter to consider the acts and impulses of these petty\ncreatures in their relations with Eternal Justice. I have no lights\nthereanent. But methinks the Lyons dame who feared having her nose cut\noff was a more good-for-nothing baggage than the Parisian who was afraid\nof nothing.\u201d\n\n\u201cI am far, very far, from allowing it,\u201d replied Brother Jean Chavaray.\n\u201cA woman who fears her husband may come to fear hell fire. Her\nConfessor, it may be, will bring her to do penance and give alms. For,\nafter all, that is the end we must come at. But what can a poor Capuchin\nhope to get of a woman whom _nothing_ terrifies?\u201d\n\n\n\n\nA GOOD LESSON WELL LEARNT\n\n[Illustration: 098]\n\nIN the days of King Louis XI there lived at Paris, in a matted chamber,\na citizen dame called Violante, who was comely and well-liking in all\nher person. She had so bright a face that Master Jacques Tribouillard,\ndoctor in law and a renowned cosmographer, who was often a visitor at\nher house, was used to tell her:\n\n\u201cSeeing you, madame, I deem credible and even hold it proven, what\nCucurbitus Piger lays down in one of his scholia on Strabo, to wit, that\nthe famous city and university of Paris was of old known by the name of\nLutetia or Leucecia, or some such like word coming from _Leuk\u00ea_, that\nis to say, \u2018the white,\u2019 forasmuch as the ladies of the same had bosoms\nwhite as snow,--yet not so clear and bright and white as is your own,\nmadame.\u201d\n\nTo which Violante would say in answer:\n\n\u201c\u2018T is enough for me if my bosom is not fit to fright folks, like some\nI wot of. And, if I show it, why, \u2018tis to follow the fashion. I have not\nthe hardihood to do otherwise than the rest of the world.\u201d\n\nNow Madame Violante had been wedded, in the flower of her youth, to an\nAdvocate of the Parlement, a man of a harsh temper and sorely set on the\narraignment and punishing of unfortunate prisoners. For the rest, he\nwas of sickly habit and a weakling, of such a sort he seemed more fit to\ngive pain to folks outside his doors than pleasure to his wife within.\nThe old fellow thought more of his blue bags than of his better\nhalf, though these were far otherwise shapen, being bulgy and fat and\nformless. But the lawyer spent his nights over them.\n\nMadame Violante was too reasonable a woman to love a husband that was\nso unlovable. Master Jacques Tribouillard upheld she was a good wife,\nas steadfastly and surely confirmed and stablished in conjugal virtue\nas Lucretia the Roman. And for proof he alleged that he had altogether\nfailed to turn her aside from the path of honour. The judicious observed\na prudent silence on the point, holding that what is hid will only be\nmade manifest at the last Judgment Day. They noted how the lady was over\nfond of gewgaws and laces and wore in company and at church gowns of\nvelvet and silk and cloth of gold, purfled with miniver; but they were\ntoo fair-minded folk to decide whether, damning as she did Christian\nmen who saw her so comely and so finely dressed to the torments of vain\nlonging, she was not damning her own soul too with one of them. In a\nword, they were well ready to stake Madame Violante\u2019s virtue on the toss\nof a coin, cross or pile,--which is greatly to the honour of that fair\nlady.\n\nThe truth is her Confessor, Brother Jean Turelure, was for ever\nupbraiding her.\n\n\u201cThink you, madame,\u201d he would ask her, \u201cthat the blessed St. Catherine\nwon heaven by leading such a life as yours, baring her bosom and sending\nto Genoa for lace ruffles?\u201d\n\nBut he was a great preacher, very severe on human weaknesses, who could\ncondone naught and thought he had done everything when he had inspired\nterror. He threatened her with hell fire for having washed her face with\nass\u2019s milk.\n\nAs a fact, no one could say if she had given her old husband a meet and\nproper head-dress, and Messire Philippe de Coetquis used to warn the\nhonest dame in a merry vein:\n\n\u201cSee to it, I say! He is bald, he will catch his death of cold!\u201d\n\nMessire Philippe de Coetquis was a knight of gallant bearing, as\nhandsome as the knave of hearts in the noble game of cards. He had first\nencountered Madame Violante one evening at a ball, and after dancing\nwith her far into the night, had carried her home on his crupper, while\nthe Advocate splashed his way through the mud and mire of the kennels\nby the dancing light of the torches his four tipsy lackeys bore. In the\ncourse of these merry doings, a-foot and on horseback, Messire Philippe\nde Coetquis had formed a shrewd notion that Madame Violante had a limber\nwaist and a full, firm bosom of her own, and there and then had been\nsmit by her charms.\n\nHe was a frank and guileless wight and made bold to tell her outright\nwhat he would have of her,--to wit, to hold her naked in his two arms.\n\nTo which she would make answer:\n\n\u201cMessire Philippe, you know not what you say. I am a virtuous wife,\u201d--\n\nOr another time:\n\n\u201cMessire Philippe, come back again tomorrow,--\u201d\n\nAnd when he came next day she would ask innocently:\n\n\u201cNay, where is the hurry?\u201d\n\nThese never-ending postponements caused the Chevalier no little distress\nand chagrin. He was ready to believe, with Master Tribouillard, that\nMadame Violante was indeed a Lucretia, so true is it that all men are\nalike in fatuous self-conceit! And we are bound to say she had not so\nmuch as suffered him to kiss her mouth,--only a pretty diversion after\nall and a bit of wanton playfulness.\n\nThings were in this case when Brother Jean Turelure was called to Venice\nby the General of his Order, to preach to sundry Turks lately converted\nto the true Faith.\n\nBefore setting forth, the good Brother went to take leave of his fair\nPenitent, and upbraided her with more than usual sternness for living\na dissolute life. He exhorted her urgently to repent and pressed her to\nwear a hair-shirt next her skin,--an incomparable remedy against naughty\ncravings and a sovran medicine for natures over prone to the sins of the\nflesh.\n\nShe besought him: \u201cGood Brother, never ask too much of me.\u201d\n\nBut he would not hearken, and threatened her with the pains of hell if\nshe did not amend her ways. Then he told her he would gladly execute any\ncommissions she might be pleased to entrust him with. He was in hopes\nshe would beg him to bring her back some consecrated medal, a rosary,\nor, better still, a little of the soil of the Holy Sepulchre which the\nTurks carry from Jerusalem together with dried roses, and which the\nItalian monks sell.\n\nBut Madame Violante preferred a quite other request:\n\n\u201cGood Brother, dear Brother, as you are going to Venice, where such\ncunning workmen in this sort are to be found, I pray you bring me back a\nVenetian mirror, the clearest and truest can be gotten.\u201d\n\nBrother Jean Turelure promised to content her wish.\n\nWhile her Confessor was abroad, Madame Violante led the same life as\nbefore. And when Messire Philippe pressed her: \u201cWere it not well to take\nour pleasure together?\u201d she would answer: \u201cNay! \u2018t is too hot. Look at\nthe weathercock if the wind will not change anon.\u201d And the good folk\nwho watched her ways were in despair of her ever giving a proper pair\nof horns to her crabbed old husband. \u201c\u2018T is a sin and a shame!\u201d they\ndeclared.\n\nOn his return from Italy Brother Jean Turelure presented himself before\nMadame Violante and told her he had brought what she desired.\n\n\u201cLook, madame,\u201d he said, and drew from under his gown a death\u2019s-head.\n\n\u201cHere, madame, is your mirror. This death\u2019s-head was given me for that\nof the prettiest woman in all Venice. She was what you are, and you will\nbe much like her anon.\u201d\n\nMadame Violante, mastering her surprise and horror, answered the good\nFather in a well-assured voice that she understood the lesson he would\nteach her and she would not fail to profit thereby.\n\n\u201cI shall aye have present in my mind, good Brother, the mirror you\nhave brought me from Venice, wherein I see my likeness not as I am at\npresent, but as doubtless I soon shall be. I promise you to govern my\nbehaviour by this salutary thought.\u201d\n\nBrother Jean Turelure was far from expecting such pious words. He\nexpressed some satisfaction.\n\n\u201cSo, madame,\u201d he murmured, \u201cyou see yourself the need of altering your\nways. You promise me henceforth to govern your behaviour by the thought\nthis fleshless skull hath brought home to you. Will you not make the\nsame promise to God as you have to me?\u201d\n\nShe asked if indeed she must, and he assured her it behoved her so to\ndo.\n\n\u201cWell, I will give this promise then,\u201d she declared.\n\n\u201cMadame, this is very well. There is no going back on your word now.\u201d\n\n\u201cI shall not go back on it, never fear.\u201d\n\nHaving won this binding promise, Brother Jean Turelure left the place,\nradiant with satisfaction. And as he went from the house, he cried out\nloud in the street:\n\n\u201cHere is a good work done! By Our Lord God\u2019s good help, I have turned\nand set in the way toward the gate of Paradise a lady, who, albeit not\nsinning precisely in the way of fornication spoken of by the Prophet,\nyet was wont to employ for men\u2019s temptation the clay whereof the Creator\nhad kneaded her that she might serve and adore him withal. She will\nforsake these naughty habits to adopt a better life. I have throughly\nchanged her. Praise be to God!\u201d\n\nHardly had the good Brother gone down the stairs when Messire Philippe\nde Coetquis ran up them and scratched at Madame Violante\u2019s door. She\nwelcomed him with a beaming smile, and led him into a closet, furnished\nwith carpets and cushions galore, wherein he had never been admitted\nbefore. From this he augured well. He offered her sweetmeats he had in a\nbox.\n\n\u201cHere be sugar-plums to suck, madame; they are sweet and sugared, but\nnot so sweet as your lips.\u201d\n\nTo which the lady retorted he was a vain, silly fop to make boast of a\nfruit he had never tasted.\n\nHe answered her meetly, kissing her forthwith on the mouth.\n\nShe manifested scarce any annoyance and said only she was an honest\nwoman and a true wife. He congratulated her and advised her not to lock\nup this jewel of hers in such close keeping that no man could enjoy it.\n\u201cFor, of a surety,\u201d he swore, \u201cyou will be robbed of it, and that right\nsoon.\u201d\n\n\u201cTry then,\u201d said she, cuffing him daintily over the ears with her pretty\npink palms.\n\nBut he was master by this time to take whatsoever he wished of her. She\nkept protesting with little cries:\n\n\u201cI won\u2019t have it. Fie! fie on you, messire! You must not do it. Oh!\nsweetheart... oh! my love... my life! You are killing me!\u201d\n\nAnon, when she had done sighing and dying, she said sweetly:\n\n\u201cMessire Philippe, never flatter yourself you have mastered me by force\nor guile. You have had of me what you craved, but \u2018t was of mine own\nfree will, and I only resisted so much as was needful that I might yield\nme as I liked best. Sweetheart, I am yours. If, for all your handsome\nface, which I loved from the first, and despite the tenderness of\nyour wooing, I did not before grant you what you have just won with my\nconsent, \u2018t was because I had no true understanding of things. I had\nno thought of the flight of time and the shortness of life and love;\nplunged in a soft languor of indolence, I reaped no harvest of my youth\nand beauty. However, the good Brother Jean Turelure hath given me a\nprofitable lesson. He hath taught me the preciousness of the hours. But\nnow he showed me a death\u2019s-head, saying: \u2018Suchlike you will be soon.\u2019\nThis taught me we must be quick to enjoy the pleasures of love and make\nthe most of the little space of time reserved to us for that end.\u201d\n\nThese words and the caresses wherewith Madame Violante seconded them\npersuaded Messire Philippe to turn the time to good account, to set to\nwork afresh to his own honour and profit and the pleasure and glory\nof his mistress, and to multiply the sure proofs of prowess which it\nbehoves every good and loyal servant to give on suchlike an occasion.\n\nAfter which, she was ready to cry quits. Taking him by the hand, she\nguided him back to the door, kissed him daintily on the eyes, and asked:\n\n\u201cSweetheart Philippe, is it not well done to follow the precepts of the\ngood Brother Jean Turelure?\u201d\n\n\n\n\nSATAN\u2019S TONGUE-PIE\n\n[Illustration: 112]\n\nSATAN lay in his bed with the flaming curtains. The physicians and\napothecaries of Hell, finding their patient had a white tongue, inferred\nhe was suffering from a weakness of the stomach and prescribed a diet at\nonce light and nourishing.\n\nSatan swore he had no appetite for aught but a certain earthly\ndish, which women excel in making when they meet in company, to wit,\ntongue-pie.\n\nThe doctors agreed there was nothing could better suit His Majesty\u2019s\nstomach.\n\nIn an hour\u2019s time the dish was set before the King; but he found it\ninsipid and tasteless.\n\nHe sent for his Head Cook and asked him where the pie came from.\n\n\u201cFrom Paris, sire. It is quite fresh; \u2018twas baked this very morning,\nin the Marais Quarter, by a dozen gossips gathered round the bed at a\nwoman\u2019s lying-in.\u201d\n\n\u201cAh! now I know the reason it is so flavourless,\u201d returned the Prince of\nDarkness. \u201cYou have not been to the best cooks for dishes of the sort.\nCitizens\u2019 wives, they do their best; but they lack delicacy, they lack\nthe fine touch of genius. Women of the people are clumsier still. For a\nreal good tongue-pie a Nunnery is the place to go to. There\u2019s nobody to\nmatch these old maids of Religion for a pretty skill in compounding all\nthe needful ingredients,--fine spices of rancour, thyme of backbiting,\nfennel of insinuation, bay-leaf of calumny.\u201d\n\nThis parable is taken from a sermon of the good Father Gillotin\nLandoulle, a poor, unworthy Capuchin.\n\n\n\n\nCONCERNING AN HORRIBLE PICTURE\n\n[Illustration: 116]\n\n     THE WHICH WAS SHOWED IN A TEMPLE AND OF SUNDRY LIMNINGS OF A\n     RIGHT PACIFIC AND AMOROUS SORT THE WHICH THE SAGE PHILEMON\n     HAD HANGED IN HIS LIBRARIE AND OF A NOBLE PORTRAITURE OF THE\n     POET HOMER THE WHICH THE AFORESAID PHILEMON DID PRIZE ABOVE\n     ALL OTHER LIMNINGS\n\nPHILEMON was used to confess how, in the fire of his callow youth\nand fine flower of his lustie springal days, he had been stung with\nmurderous frenzie at view of a certaine picture of Apelles, the which\nin those times was showed in a temple. And the said picture did present\nAlexander the Great laying on right shrewdly at Darius, king of the\nIndians, whiles round about these twain, soldiers and captains were\na-slaying one another with a savage furie and in divers strange\nfashions. And the said work was right cunningly wrought and in very\nclose mimicrie of nature. And none, an they were in the hot and lustie\nseason of their life, could cast a look thereon without being stirred\nincontinent to be striking and killing poor harmlesse folk for the sole\nsake of donning so rich an harnesse and bestriding such high-stepping\nchargers as did these good codpieces in their battle,--for that young\nblood doth aye take pleasure in horseflesh and the practise of arms.\nThis had the aforesaid Philemon proven in his day. And he was used to\nsay how ever after \u2018twas his wont to turn aside his eyen of set purpose\nfrom suchlike pictures of wars and bloodshed, and that he did so\nheartily loathe these cruelties as that he could not abear to behold\nthem even set forth in counterfeit presentment.\n\nAnd he was used to say that any honest and prudent wight must needs be\nsore offended and scandalized by all this appalling array of armour\nand bucklers and the horde of warriors Homer calls _Corythaioloi_\n(glancing-helmed) by reason of the terrifying hideousness of their\nhead-gear, and that the portrayal of these same fighting fellows was\nin very truth unseemly, as contrarie to good and peaceable manners,\nimmodest, no thing in the world being more shameful then homicide, and\neke lascivious, as alluring folk to cruelty, the which is the worst of\nall allurements. For to entice to pleasant dalliaunce is a far lesse\nheinous fault.\n\nAnd the aforesaid Philemon was used to say that it was honest, decent,\nof good ensample and entirely modest to show by painting, chiselling, or\nany other fine artifice the scenes of the Golden Age, to wit maidens and\nyoung men interlacing limbs in accord with the craving of kindly Nature,\nor other the like delectable fancy, as of a Nymph lying laughing in the\ngrass. And on her ripe smiling mouth a Faun is crushing a purple grape.\n\nAnd he was used to say that belike the Golden Age had never flourished\nsave only in the fond imagining of the poets, and that our first\nforebears of human kind, being yet barbarous and silly folk, had known\nnaught at all thereof; but that, an the said age could not credibly be\ndeemed to have been at the beginning of the world, we might well wish\nit should be at the end, and that meanwhiles it was a gracious boon to\noffer us a likeness of the same in pictured image.\n\nAnd like as it is (so he would say) obscene,--\u2018t is the word Virgil\nwrites of dogs wallowing in the mud and mire,--to depict murderers,\nwhoreson men-at arms, fighting-men, conquering heroes and plundering\nthieves, wreaking their foul and wicked will, yea! and poor devils\nlicking the dust and swallowing the same in great mouthfuls, and one\nunhappie wretch that hath been felled to the earth and is striving to\nget to his feet againe, but is pinned down by an horse\u2019s hoof pressing\non his chops, and another that looketh piteously about him for that his\npennon hath been shorn from him and his hand with it,--so is it of right\nsubtile and so to say heavenly art to exhibit prettie blandishments,\ncaresses, frolickings, beauties and delights, and the loves of the\nNymphs and Fauns in the woods. And he would have it there was none\noffence in these naked bodies, clothed upon enow with their owne grace\nand comeliness.\n\nAnd he had in his closet, this same Philemon aforesaid, a very\nmarvellous painting, wherein was limned a young Faun in act to filch\naway with a craftie hand a light cloth did cover the belly of a sleeping\nNymph. \u2018T was plain to see he was full fain of his freak and seemed to\nbe saying: The body of this young goddess is so sweet and refreshing\nas that the fountaine springing in the shade of the woods is not more\ndelightsome. How I do love to look upon you, soft sweet lap, and prettie\nwhite thighs, and shady cavern at once terrifying and entrancing! And\nover the heads of the twain did hover winged Cupids and watched them\nlaughingly, whiles fair dames and their gallants, their brows wreathen\nwith flowers, footed it on the lush grass.\n\nAnd he had, the aforesaid Philemon, yet other limnings of cunning\ncraftsmanship in his closet. And he did prize very high the portraiture\nof a good doctor a-sitting in his cabinet writing at a table by\ncandle-light. The said cabinet was fully furnished with globes, gnomons,\nand astrolabes, proper for meting the movements of the orbs of heaven,\nthe which is a right praiseworthy task and one that doth lift the spirit\nto sublime thoughts and the exceeding pure love of Venus Urania.\n\nAnd there was hanging from the joists of the said cabinet a great\nserpent and crocodile, forasmuch as they be rarities and very needful\nfor the due understanding of anatomy. And he had likewise, the\nsaid doctor, amid his belongings, the books of the most excellent\nphilosophers of Antiquity and eke the treatises of Hippocrates. And he\nwas an ensample to young men which should be fain, by hard swinking, to\nstuff their pates with as much high learning and occult lore as he had\nunder his own bonnet.\n\nAnd he had, the aforesaid Philemon, painted on a panel that shined like\na polished mirror a portraiture of Homer in the guise of an old blind\nman, his beard white as the flowers of the hawthorn and his temples\nbound about with the fillets sacred to the god Apollo, which had loved\nhim above all other men. And, to look at that good old man, you deemed\nverily his lips were presently to ope and break into words of m\u00e9lodie.\n\n\n\n\nMADEMOISELLE DE DOUCINE\u2019S NEW YEAR\u2019S PRESENT\n\n[Illustration: 124]\n\nON January 1st, in the forenoon, the good M. Chanterelle sallied out on\nfoot from his h\u00f4tel in the Faubourg Saint-Marcel. He felt the cold and\nwas a poor walker; so it was a real penance to him to face the chilly\nair and the bleak streets which were full of half-melted snow. He had\nrefused to take his coach by way of mortifying the flesh, having grown\nvery solicitous since his illness about the salvation of his soul. He\nlived in retirement, aloof from all society and company, and paid no\nvisits save to his niece, Mademoiselle de Doucine, a little girl of\nseven.\n\nLeaning on his walking-cane, he made his way painfully to the Rue\nSaint-Honor\u00e9 and entered the shop of Madame Pinson at the sign of the\n_Panier Fleuri_. Here was displayed an abundant stock of children\u2019s toys\nto tempt customers seeking presents for this New Year\u2019s Day of 1696.\nYou could scarce move for the host of mechanical figures of dancers and\ntipplers, birds in the bush that clapped their wings and sang, cabinets\nfull of wax puppets, soldiers in white and blue ranged in battle array,\nand dolls dressed some as fine ladies, others as servant wenches, for\nthe inequality of stations, established by God himself among mankind,\nappeared even in these innocent mannikins.\n\nM. Chanterelle chose a doll. The one he selected was dressed like the\nPrincess of Savoy on her arrival in France, on November 4th. The head\nwas a mass of bows and ribbons; she wore a very stiff corsage, covered\nwith gold filigrees, and a brocade petticoat with an overskirt caught up\nby pearl clasps.\n\nM. Chanterelle smiled to think of the delight such a lovely doll would\ngive Mademoiselle de Doucine, and when Madame Pinson handed him\nthe Princess of Savoy wrapped up in silk paper, a gleam of sensuous\nsatisfaction flitted over his kind face, pinched as it was with illness,\npale with fasting and haggard with the fear of hell.\n\nHe thanked Madame Pinson courteously, clapped the Princess under his arm\nand walked away, dragging his leg painfully, towards the house where he\nknew Mademoiselle de Doucine was waiting for him to attend her morning\nlev\u00e9e.\n\nAt the corner of the Rue de l\u2019 Arbre-Sec, he met M. Spon, whose great\nnose dived almost into his lace cravat.\n\n\u201cGood morning, Monsieur Spon,\u201d he greeted him. \u201cI wish you a happy New\nYear, and I pray God everything may turn out according to your wishes.\u201d\n\n\u201cOh! my good sir, don\u2019t say that,\u201d cried M. Spon. \u201c\u2018T is often for our\nchastisement that God grants our wishes. _Et tribuit eis petittonem\neorum_.\u201d\n\n\u201c\u2018Tis very true,\u201d returned M. Chanterelle, \u201cwe do not know our own best\ninterests. I am an example myself, as I stand before you. I thought at\nfirst that the complaint I have suffered from for the last two years was\na curse; but I see now it is a blessing, since it has removed me from\nthe abominable life I was leading at the play-houses and in society.\nThis complaint, which tortures my limbs and is like to turn my brain, is\na signal token of God\u2019s goodness toward me. But, sir, will you not do\nme the favour to accompany me as far as the Rue du Roule, whither I am\nbound, to carry a New Year\u2019s gift to my niece Mademoiselle de Doucine?\u201d\n\nAt the words M. Spon threw up his arms and gave a great cry of horror.\n\n\u201cWhat!\u201d he exclaimed. \u201cCan it be M. Chanterelle I hear say such\nthings,--and not some profligate libertine? Is it possible, sir, that\nliving as you do a religious and retired life, I see you all in a moment\nplunge into the vices of the day?\u201d\n\n\u201cAlack! I did not think I was plunging into vice,\u201d faltered M.\nChanterelle, trembling all over. \u201cBut I sorely lack a lamp of guidance.\nIs it so great a sin then to offer a doll to Mademoiselle de Doucine?\u201d\n\n\u201cYes, a great and terrible sin,\u201d replied M. Spon. \u201cAnd what you are\noffering this innocent child to-day is meeter to be called an idol,\na devilish simulacrum, than a doll. Are you not aware, sir, that the\ncustom of New Year\u2019s gifts is a foul superstition and a hideous survival\nof Paganism?\u201d\n\n\u201cNo, I did not know that,\u201d said M. Chanterelle.\n\n\u201cLet me tell you, then,\u201d resumed M. Spon, \u201cthat this custom descends\nfrom the Romans, who seeing something divine in all beginnings, held\nthe beginning of the year holy also. Hence, to act as they did is to\ndo idolatry. You make New Year\u2019s offerings, sir, in imitation of the\nworshippers of the God Janus. Be consistent, and like them consecrate to\nJuno the first day of every month.\u201d\n\nM. Chanterelle, hardly able to keep his feet, begged M. Spon to give him\nhis arm, and while they moved on, M. Spon proceeded in the same vein:\n\n\u201cIs it because the Astrologers have fixed on the first of January\nfor the beginning of the year that you deem yourself obliged to make\npresents on that day? Pray, what call have you to revive at that precise\ndate the affection of your friends. Was their love dying then with\nthe dying year? And will it be so much worth the having when you have\nreanimated it by dint of cajolements and baneful gifts?\u201d\n\n\u201cSir,\u201d returned the good M. Chanterelle, leaning on M. Spon\u2019s arm and\ntrying hard to make his tottering steps keep pace with his impetuous\ncompanion\u2019s, \u201csir, before my sickness, I was only a miserable sinner,\ntaking no heed but to treat my friends with civility and govern my\nbehaviour by the principles of honesty and honour. Providence hath\ndeigned to rescue me from this abyss, and I direct my conduct since my\nconversion by the admonitions the Director of my conscience gives me.\nBut I have been so light-minded and thoughtless as not to seek his\nadvice on this question of New Year\u2019s gifts. What you tell me of them,\nsir, with the authority of a man alike admirable for sober living and\nsound doctrine, amazes and confounds me.\u201d\n\n\u201cNay! that is indeed what I mean to do,\u201d resumed M. Spon,--\u201cto confound\nyou, and to illumine you, not indeed by my own lights, which burn\nfeebly, but by those of a great Doctor. Sit you down on that wayside\npost.\u201d\n\nAnd pushing M. Chanterelle into the archway of a carriage gate, where\nhe made himself as easy as circumstances allowed, M. Spon drew from his\npocket a little parchment-bound book, which he opened, and after hunting\nthrough the pages, lighted on a passage which he proceeded to read\nout loud amid a gaping circle of chimney-sweeps, chamber-maids, and\nscullions who had collected at the resounding tones of his voice:\n\n\u201c\u2018We who hold in abhorrence the festivals of the Jews, and who would\ndeem strange and outlandish their Sabbaths and New Moons and other Holy\nDays erst loved of the Almighty, we deal familiarly with the Saturnalia\nand the Calends of January, with the Matronalia and the Feast of the\nWinter Solstice; New Year\u2019s gifts and foolish presents fill all our\nthoughts; merrymakings and junketings are in every house. The Heathens\nguard their religion better; they are heedful to observe none of our\nFeasts, for fear of being taken for Christians, while we never hesitate\nto make ourselves look like Heathens by celebrating their Ceremonial\nDays.\u2019\n\n\u201cYou hear what I say,\u201d went on M. Spon. \u201c\u2018T is Tertullian speaks in this\nwise and from the depths of Africa displays before your eyes, sir, the\nodiousness of your behaviour. He it is upbraids you, declaring how \u2018New\nYear\u2019s gifts and foolish presents fill all your thoughts. You keep\nholy the feasts of the Heathen.\u2019 I have not the honour to know your\nConfessor. But I shudder, sir, to think of the way he neglects his duty\ntoward you. Tell me this, can you rest assured that at the day of your\ndeath, when you come to stand before God, he will be at your side, to\ntake upon him the sins he hath suffered you to fall into?\u201d\n\nAfter haranguing in this sort, he put back his book in his pocket and\nmarched off with angry strides, followed at a distance by the astonished\nchimney-sweeps and scullions.\n\nThe good M. Chanterelle was left sitting alone on his post with the\nPrincess of Savoy, and thinking how he was risking the eternal pains of\nhell fire for giving a doll to Mademoiselle de Doucine, his niece, he\nfell to pondering the unfathomable mysteries of Religion.\n\nHis legs, which had been tottery for several months, refused to carry\nhim, and he felt as unhappy as ever a well-meaning man possibly can in\nthis world.\n\nHe had been sitting stranded in this distressful mood on his post for\nsome minutes when a Capuchin friar stepped up and addressed him:\n\n\u201cSir, will you not give New Year\u2019s presents to the Little Brethren who\nare poor, for the love of God?\u201d\n\n\u201cWhy! what! good Father,\u201d M. Chan-terelle burst out, \u201cyou are a man of\nreligion, and you ask me for New Year\u2019s gifts?\u201d\n\n\u201cSir,\u201d replied the Capuchin, \u201cthe good St. Francis bade his sons make\nmerry with all simplicity. Give the Capuchins wherewith to make a good\nmeal this day, that they may endure with cheerfulness the abstinence and\nfasting they must observe all the rest of the year,--barring, of course,\nSundays and Feast Days.\u201d\n\nM. Chanterelle gazed at the holy man with wonder:\n\n\u201cAre you not afraid, Father, that this custom of New Year\u2019s gifts is\nbaneful to the soul?\u201d\n\n\u201cNo, I am not afraid.\u201d\n\n\u201cThe custom comes to us from the Pagans.\u201d\n\n\u201cThe Pagans sometimes followed good customs. God was pleased to suffer\nsome faint rays of his light to pierce the darkness of the Gentiles.\nSir, if you refuse to give _us_ presents, never refuse a boon to our\npoor little ones. We have a home for foundlings. With this poor crown I\nshall buy each child a little paper windmill and a cake. They will owe\nyou the only pleasure perhaps of all their life; for they are not fated\nto have much joy in the world. Their laughter will go up to heaven; when\nchildren laugh, they praise the Lord.\u201d\n\nM. Chanterelle laid his well-filled purse in the poor friar\u2019s palm and\ngot him down from his post, saying over softly to himself the word he\nhad just heard:\n\n\u201cWhen children laugh, they praise the Lord.\u201d\n\nThen his soul was comforted and he marched off with a firmer step to\ncarry the Princess of Savoy to Mademoiselle de Doucine, his niece.\n\n\n\n\nMADEMOISELLE ROXANE\n\n[Illustration: 136]\n\nMY good master, M. l\u2019Abb\u00e9 Coignard, had taken me with him to sup\nwith one of his old fellow-students, who lodged in a garret in the Rue\nG\u00eet-le-Cour. Our host, a Premonstratensian Father of much learning and\na fine Theologian, had fallen out with the Prior of his House for having\nwrit a little book relating the calamities of Mam\u2019zelle Fanchon. The end\nof it was he turned tavern-keeper at The Hague. He was now returned to\nFrance and living precariously by the sermons he composed, which were\nfull of high argument and eloquence. After supper he had read us these\nsame calamities of Mam\u2019zelle Fanchon, source of his own, and the reading\nhad kept us there till a late hour. At last I found myself without-doors\nwith my good master, under a wondrous fine summer\u2019s night, which made\nme straightway comprehend the verity of the ancient fables regarding the\nloves of Diana and feel how natural it is to employ in soft dalliance\nthe silent, silvery hours of night. I said as much to M. l\u2019Abb\u00e9\nCoignard, who retorted that love is to blame for many and great ills.\n\n\u201cTournebroche, my son,\u201d he asked me, \u201chave you not just heard from the\nmouth of yonder good Monk how, for having loved a recruiting sergeant,\na clerk of M. Gaulot\u2019s mercer at the sign of the Truie-qui-file, and the\nyounger son of M. le Lieutenant-Criminel Leblanc, Mam\u2019zelle Fanchon was\nclapped in hospital? Would you wish to be any of these,--sergeant or\nclerk or limb of the law?\u201d\n\nI answered I would indeed. My good master thanked me for my candid\navowal, and quoted some verses of Lucretius to persuade me that love is\ncontrary to the tranquillity of a truly philosophical soul.\n\nThus discoursing, we were come to the round-point of the Pont-Neuf.\nLeaning our elbows on the parapet, we looked over at the great tower of\nthe Ch\u00e2telet, which stood out black in the moonlight.\n\n\u201cThere might be much to say,\u201d sighed my good master, \u201con this justice of\nthe civilized nations, the punishments whereof in retaliation are often\nmore cruel than the crime itself I cannot believe that these tortures\nand penalties that men inflict on their fellows are necessary for the\nsafeguarding of States, seeing how from time to time one and another\nlegal cruelty is done away with without hurt to the commonweal. And I\nhold it likely that the severities they still maintain are no whit more\nuseful than those they have abolished. But men are cruel. Come away,\nTournebroche, my dear lad; it grieves me to think how unhappy prisoners\nare even now lying awake behind those walls in anguish and despair. I\nknow they have done faultily, but this doth not hinder me from pitying\nthem. Which of us is without offence?\u201d\n\nWe went on our way. The bridge was deserted save for a beggarman and\nwoman, who met on the causeway. The pair drew stealthily into one of the\nrecesses over the piers, where they lurked together on the door-step\nof a hucksters booth. They seemed well enough content, both of them, to\nmingle their joint wretchedness, and when we went by were thinking\nof quite other things than craving our charity. Nevertheless my good\nmaster, who was the most compassionate of men, threw them a half\nfarthing, the last piece of money left in his breeches pocket.\n\n\u201cThey will pick up our obol,\u201d he said, \u201cwhen they have come back to the\nconsciousness of their misery. I pray they may not quarrel then over\nfiercely for possession of the coin.\u201d\n\nWe passed on without further rencounter till on the Quai des Oiseleurs\nwe espied a young damsel striding along with a notable air of\nresolution. Hastening our pace to get a nearer view, we saw she had a\nslim waist and fair hair in which the moonbeams played prettily. She was\ndressed like a citizen\u2019s wife or daughter.\n\n\u201cThere goes a pretty girl,\u201d said the Abb\u00e9; \u201chow comes it she is out of\ndoors alone at this hour of night?\u201d\n\n\u201cTruly,\u201d I agreed, \u201c\u2018tis not the sort one generally encounters on the\nbridges after curfew.\u201d\n\nOur surprise was changed to alarm when we saw her go down to the river\nbank by a little stairway the sailors use. We ran towards her; but she\ndid not seem to hear us. She halted at the edge; the stream was running\nhigh, and the dull roar of the swollen waters could be heard some\nway off. She stood a moment motionless, her head thrown back and arms\nhanging, in an attitude of despair. Then, bending her graceful neck, she\nput her two hands over her face and kept it hid behind her fingers for\nsome seconds. Next moment she suddenly grasped her skirts and dragged\nthem forward with the gesture a woman always uses when she is going to\njump. My good master and I came up with her just as she was taking the\nfatal leap, and we hauled her forcibly backward. She struggled to get\nfree of our arms; and as the bank was all slimy and slippery with ooze\ndeposited by the receding waters (for the river was already beginning\nto fall), M. l\u2019Abb\u00e9 Coignard came very near being dragged in too. I was\nlosing my foothold myself. But as luck would have it, my feet lighted on\na root which held me up as I crouched there with my arms round the best\nof masters and this despairing young thing. Presently, coming to the\nend of her strength and courage, she fell back on M. l\u2019Abb\u00e9 Coignard\u2019s\nbreast, and we managed all three to scramble to the top of the bank\nagain. He helped her up daintily, with a certain easy grace that was\nalways his. Then he led the way to a great beech-tree at the foot of\nwhich was a wooden bench, on which he seated her.\n\nTaking his place beside her:\n\n\u201cMademoiselle,\u201d he said gently, \u201cyou need have no fear. Say nothing just\nyet, but be assured it is a friend sits by you.\u201d\n\nNext, turning to me, my master went on:\n\n\u201cTournebroche, my son, we may congratulate ourselves on having brought\nthis strange adventure to a good end. But I have left my hat down yonder\non the river bank; albeit it has lost pretty near all its lace and is\nthread-bare with long service, it was still good to guard my old head,\nsorely tried by years and labours, against sun and rain. Go see, my son,\nif it may still be found where I dropped it. And if you discover it,\nbring it me, I beg,--likewise one of my shoe buckles, which I see I have\nlost. For my part I will stay by this damsel we have rescued and watch\nover her slumber.\u201d\n\nI ran back to the spot we had just quitted and was lucky enough to find\nmy good master\u2019s hat. The buckle I could not espy anywhere. True, I did\nnot take any very excessive pains to hunt for it, having never all my\nlife seen my good master with more than one shoe buckle. When I returned\nto the tree, I found the damsel still in the same state, sitting quite\nmotionless with her head leant against the trunk of the beech. I noticed\nnow that she was of a very perfect beauty. She wore a silk mantle\ntrimmed with lace, very neat and proper, and on her feet light shoes,\nthe buckles of which caught the moonbeams.\n\nI could not have enough of examining her. Suddenly she opened her\ndrooping lids, and casting a look that was still misty at M. Coignard\nand me, she began in a feeble voice, but with the tone and accent, I\nthought, of a person of gentility:\n\n\u201cI am not ungrateful, sirs, for the service you have done me from\nfeelings of humanity; but I cannot truthfully tell you I am glad, for\nthe life to which you have restored me is a curse, a hateful, cruel\ntorment.\u201d\n\nAt these sad words my good master, whose face wore a look of compassion,\nsmiled softly, for he could not really think life was to be for ever\nhateful to so young and pretty a creature.\n\n\u201cMy child,\u201d he told her, \u201cthings strike us in a totally different light\naccording as they are near at hand or far off. It is no time for you to\ndespair. Such as I am, and brought to this sorry plight by the buffets\nof time and fortune, I yet make shift to endure a life wherein my\npleasures are to translate Greek and dine sometimes with sundry very\nworthy friends. Look at me, mademoiselle, and say,--would you consent to\nlive in the same conditions as I?\u201d\n\nShe looked him over; her eyes almost laughed, and she shook her head.\nThen, resuming her melancholy and mournfulness, she faltered:\n\n\u201cThere is not in all the world so unhappy a being as I am.\u201d\n\n\u201cMademoiselle,\u201d returned my good master, \u201cI am discreet both by calling\nand temperament; I will not seek to force your confidence. But your\nlooks betray you; any one can see you are sick of disappointed love.\nWell, \u2018t is not an incurable complaint. I have had it myself, and I have\nlived many a long year since then.\u201d\n\nHe took her hand, gave her a thousand tokens of his sympathy, and went\non in these terms:\n\n\u201cThere is only one thing I regret for the moment,--that I cannot offer\nyou a refuge for the night, or what is left of it. My present lodging\nis in an old ch\u00e2teau a long way from here, where I am busy translating a\nGreek book along with young Master Tournebroche whom you see here.\u201d\n\nMy master spoke the truth. We were living at the time with M. d\u2019Astarac,\nat the Ch\u00e2teau des Sablons, in the village of Neuilly, and were in the\npay of a great alchemist, who died later under tragic circumstances.\n\n\u201cAt the same time, mademoiselle,\u201d my master added, \u201cif you should know\nof any place where you think you could go, I shall be happy to escort\nyou thither.\u201d\n\nTo which the girl answered she appreciated all his kindness, that she\nlived with a kinswoman, to whose house she could count on being admitted\nat any hour; but that she had rather not return before daylight. She was\nfain, she said, not to disturb quiet folks\u2019 sleep, and dreaded moreover\nto have her grief too painfully renewed by the sight of her old,\nfamiliar surroundings.\n\nAs she spoke thus, the tears rained down from her eyes. My good master\nbade her:\n\n\u201cMademoiselle, give me your handkerchief, if you please, and I will wipe\nyour eyes. Then I will take you to wait for daybreak under the archways\nof the Halles, where we can sit in comfort under shelter from the night\ndews.\u201d\n\nThe girl smiled through her tears.\n\n\u201cI do not like,\u201d she said, \u201cto give you so much trouble. Go your way,\nsir, and rest assured you take my best thanks with you.\u201d\n\nFor all that she laid her hand on the arm my good master offered her,\nand we set out, all the three of us, for the Halles. The night had\nturned much cooler. In the sky, which was beginning to assume a milky\nhue, the stars were growing paler and fainter. We could hear the first\nof the market-gardeners\u2019 carts rumbling along to the Halles, drawn by a\nslow-stepping horse, half asleep in the shafts. Arrived at the archways,\nwe chose a place in the recess of a porch distinguished by an image of\nSt. Nicholas, and established ourselves all three on a stone step, on\nwhich M. l\u2019Abb\u00e9 Coignard took the precaution of spreading his cloak\nbefore he let his young charge sit down.\n\nThereupon my good master fell to discoursing on divers subjects,\nchoosing merry and enlivening themes of set purpose to drive away the\ngloomy thoughts that might assail our companion\u2019s mind. He told her he\naccounted this rencounter the most fortunate he had ever chanced on all\nhis life, and that he should ever cherish a fond recollection of one who\nhad so deeply touched him,--all this, however, without ever asking to\nknow her name and story.\n\nMy good master thought no doubt that the unknown would presently tell\nhim what he refrained from asking. She broke into a fresh flood of\nweeping, heaved a deep sigh and said:\n\n\u201cI should be churlish, sir, to reward your kindness with silence. I am\nnot afraid to trust myself in your hands. My name is Sophie T------. You\nhave guessed the truth; \u2018tis the betrayal of a lover I was too fondly\nattached to has brought me to despair. If you deem my grief excessive,\nthat is because you do not know how great was my assurance, how blind my\ninfatuation, and you cannot realize how enchanting was the paradise I\nhave lost.\u201d\n\nThen, raising her lovely eyes to our faces, she went on:\n\n\u201cSirs, I am not such a woman as your meeting me thus at night time might\nlead you to suppose. My father was a merchant. He went, in the way of\ntrade, to America, and was lost on his way home in a shipwreck, he\nand his merchandise with him. My mother was so overwhelmed by these\ncalamities that she fell into a decline and died, leaving me, while\nstill a child, to the charge of an aunt, who brought me up. I was a\ngood girl till the hour I met the man whose love was to afford me\nindescribable delights, ending in the despair wherein you now see me\nplunged.\u201d\n\nSo saying, Sophie hid her face in her handkerchief. Presently she\nresumed with a sigh:\n\n\u201cHis worldly rank was so far above my own I could never expect to be\nhis except in secret. I flattered myself he would be faithful to me. He\nswore he loved me, and easily overcame my scruples. My aunt was aware\nof our feelings for one another, and raised no obstacles, for two\nreasons,--because her affection for me made her indulgent, and because\nmy dear lover\u2019s high position impressed her imagination. I lived a year\nof perfect happiness only equalled by the wretchedness I now endure.\nThis morning he came to see me at my aunt\u2019s, with whom I live. I was\nhaunted by dark forebodings. As I dressed my hair but an hour or so\nbefore, I had broken a mirror he had given me. The sight of him only\nincreased my misgivings, for I noticed instantly that his face wore an\nunaccustomed look of constraint... Oh! sir, was ever woman so unhappy as\nI?...\u201d\n\nHer eyes filled again with tears; but she kept them back under her\nlids, and was able to finish her tale, which my good master deemed as\ntouching, but by no means so unique, as she did herself.\n\n\u201cHe informed me coldly, though not without signs of embarrassment,\nthat his father having bought him a Company, he was leaving to join the\ncolours. First, however, he said, his family required him to plight his\ntroth to the daughter of an Intendant of Finances; the connection\nwas advantageous to his fortune and would bring him means adequate to\nsupport his rank and make a figure in the world. And the traitor, never\ndeigning to notice my pale looks, added in his soft, caressing voice\nwhich had made me so many vows of affection, that his new obligations\nwould prevent his seeing me again, at least for some while. He assured\nme further that he was still my friend and begged me to accept a sum of\nmoney in memory of the days we had passed together.\n\n\u201cAnd with the words he held out a purse to me.\n\n\u201cI am telling you the truth, sirs, when I assure you I had always\nrefused to listen to the offers he repeated again and again, to give me\nfine clothes, furniture, plate, an establishment, and to take me away\nfrom my aunt\u2019s, where I lived in very narrow circumstances, and settle\nme in a most elegant little mansion he had in the Rue di Roule. My wish\nwas that we should be united only by the ties of affection, and I was\nproud to have of his gift nothing but a few jewels whose sole value came\nfrom the fact of his being the donor. My gorge rose at the sight of the\npurse he offered me, and the insult gave me strength to banish from my\npresence the impostor whom in one moment I had learnt to know and to\ndespise. He faced my angry looks unabashed, and assured me with the\nutmost unconcern that I could know nothing of the paramount obligations\nthat fill the existence of a man of quality, adding that he hoped\neventually, when I looked at things quietly, I should come to see his\nbehaviour in a better light. Then, returning the purse to his pocket,\nhe declared he would readily find a way of putting the contents at my\ndisposal in such a manner as to make it impossible for me to refuse his\nliberality. Thus leaving me with the odious, the intolerable implication\nthat he was going to make full amends by these sordid means, he made for\nthe door to which I pointed without a word. When he was gone, I felt a\ncalmness of mind that surprised myself. It arose from the resolution I\nhad formed to die. I dressed with some care, wrote a letter to my aunt\nasking her forgiveness for the pain I was about to cause her by my\ndeath, and went out into the streets. There I roamed about all the\nafternoon and evening and a part of the night, moving from busy\nthoroughfare to deserted lane without a trace of fatigue, postponing\nthe execution of my purpose to make it more sure and certain under the\nfavouring conditions of darkness and solitude. Possibly too I found a\ncertain weak pleasure in dallying with the thought of dying and tasting\nthe mournful satisfaction of my coming release from my troubles. At two\no\u2019clock in the morning, I went down to the river\u2019s brink. Sirs, you know\nthe rest,--you snatched me from a watery grave. I thank you for your\ngoodness,--though I am sorry you saved my life. The world is full of\nforsaken women. I did not wish to add another to the number.\u201d\n\nSophie then fell silent and began weeping afresh. My good master took\nher hand with the greatest delicacy.\n\n\u201cMy child,\u201d he said, \u201cI have listened with a tender interest to the\nstory of your life, and I own \u2018tis a sad tale. But I am happy to discern\nthat your case is curable. Not only was your lover unworthy of the\nfavours you showed him and has proved himself on trial a selfish,\ncruel-hearted libertine, but I see plainly your love for him was only\nan impulse of the senses and the effect of your own sensibility, the\nparticular object of which mattered far less than you imagine. What\nthere was rare and excellent in the liaison came from you. Well then,\nnothing is lost, since the source still remains. Your eyes, which have\nthrown a glamour of the fairest hues over, I doubt not, a very ordinary\nindividual, will not cease to go on shedding abroad elsewhere the same\nbright rays of charming self-delusion.\u201d\n\nMy good master said more in the same strain, dropping from his lips the\nfinest words ever heard anent the tribulations of the senses and the\nerrors lovers are prone to. But, as he talked on, Sophie, who for some\nwhile had let her pretty head droop on the shoulder of this best of men,\nfell softly asleep. When M. l\u2019Abb\u00e9 Coignard saw his young friend\nwas wrapped in a sound slumber, he congratulated himself on having\ndiscoursed in a vein so meet to afford repose and peace to a suffering\nsoul.\n\n\u201cIt must be allowed,\u201d he chuckled, \u201cmy sermons have a beneficent\neffect.\u201d\n\nNot to disturb Mademoiselle\u2019s slumbers, he took a thousand pretty\nprecautions, amongst others constraining himself to talk on\nuninterruptedly, not unreasonably apprehensive that a sudden silence\nmight awake her.\n\n\u201cTournebroche, my son,\u201d he said, turning to me, \u201clook, all her sorrows\nare vanished away with the consciousness she had of them. You must see\nthey were all of the imagination and resided in her own thought.\nYou must understand likewise they sprang from a certain pride and\noverweening conceit that goes along with love and makes it very\nexacting. For, in truth, if only we loved in humbleness of spirit and\nforgetfulness of self, or merely with a simple heart, we should be\ncontent with what is vouchsafed us and should not straightway cry\ntreason when some slight is put on us. And if some power of loving were\nleft us still, after our lover had deserted us, we should await the\nissue in calmness of mind to make what use of it God should please to\ngrant.\u201d\n\nBut the day was just breaking by this time, and the song of the birds\ngrew so loud it drowned my good master\u2019s voice. He made no complaint on\nthis score.\n\n\u201cHearken,\u201d he said, \u201cto the sparrows. They make love more wisely than\nmen do.\u201d\n\nSophie awoke in the white light of dawn, and I admired her lovely eyes,\nwhich fatigue and grief had ringed with a delicate pearly-grey.\nShe seemed somewhat reconciled to life, and did not refuse a cup of\nchocolate which my good master made her drink at Mathurine\u2019s door, the\npretty chocolate-seller of the Halles.\n\nBut as the poor child came into more complete possession of her wits,\nshe began to trouble about sundry practical difficulties she had not\nthought of till then.\n\n\u201cWhat will my aunt say? And whatever can I tell her?\u201d she asked\ndistractedly.\n\nThe aunt lived just opposite Saint-Eustache, less than a hundred yards\nfrom Mathurine\u2019s archway. Thither we escorted her niece; and M.\nl\u2019Abb\u00e9 Coignard, who had quite a venerable look, though one shoe _was_\nunbuckled, accompanied the fair Sophie to the door of her aunt\u2019s lodging\nand pitched that lady a fine tale:\n\n\u201cI had the happy fortune,\u201d he informed her, \u201cto encounter your good\nniece at the very moment when she was assailed by four footpads armed\nwith pistols, and I shouted for the watch so lustily that the thieves\ntook to their heels in a panic. But they were not quick enough to\nescape the sergeants who, by the rarest chance, ran up in answer to my\noutcries. They arrested the villains after a desperate tussle. I took my\nshare of the rough and tumble, and I thought at first I had lost my hat\nin the fray. When all was over, we were all taken, your niece, the four\nfootpads and myself, before his Honour the Lieutenant-Criminel, who\ntreated us with much consideration and detained us till daylight in his\ncabinet, taking down our evidence.\u201d The aunt answered drily:\n\n\u201cI thank you, sir, for having saved my niece from a peril which, to say\nthe truth, is not the risk a girl of her age need fear the most, when\nshe is out alone at night in the streets of Paris.\u201d\n\nMy good master made no answer to this; but Mademoiselle Sophie spoke up\nand said in a voice of deep feeling:\n\n\u201cI do assure you, Aunt, Monsieur l\u2019Abb\u00e9 saved my life.\u201d\n\n*****\n\nSome years after this singular adventure, my master made the fatal\njourney to Lyons from which he never returned. He was foully murdered,\nand I had the ineffable grief of seeing him expire in my arms. The\nincidents of his death have no connexion with the matter I speak of\nhere. I have taken pains to record them elsewhere; they are indeed\nmemorable, and will never, I think, be forgotten. I may add that this\njourney was in all ways unfortunate, for after losing the best of\nmasters on the road, I was likewise forsaken by a mistress who loved me,\nbut did not love me alone, and whose loss nearly broke my heart, coming\nafter that of my good master. It is a mistake to suppose that a man\nwho has received one cruel blow grows callous to succeeding strokes\nof calamity. Far otherwise; he suffers agonies from the smallest\ncontrarieties. I returned to Paris in a state of dejection almost beyond\nbelief.\n\nWell, one evening, by way of enlivening my spirits, I went to the\nCom\u00e9die, where they were playing _Bajazet_, one of Racine\u2019s excellent\npieces. I was particularly struck by the charm and beauty, no less than\nthe originality and talent, of the actress who took the part of Roxane.\nShe expressed with a delightful naturalness the passion animating that\ncharacter, and I shuddered as I heard her declaim in accents that were\nharmonious and yet terrible the line:\n\n     \u00c9coutez  Bajazet, je sens que je vous aime.{*}\n\n     * \u201cHearken, Bajazet, I feel I love you.\u201d\n\nI never wearied of gazing at her all the time she occupied the stage,\nand admiring the beauty of her eyes that gleamed below a brow as pure\nas marble and crowned by powdered locks all spangled with pearls. Her\nslender waist too, which her hoop showed off to perfection, did not\nfail to make a vivid impression on my heart. I had the better leisure to\nscrutinize these adorable charms as she happened to face in my direction\nto deliver several important portions of her r\u00f4le. And the more I\nlooked, the more I felt convinced I had seen her before, though I found\nit impossible to recall anything connected with our previous meeting. My\nneighbour in the theatre, who was a constant frequenter of the Com\u00e9die,\ntold me the beautiful actress was Mademoiselle B------, the idol of the\npit. He added that she was as great a favourite in society as on the\nboards, that M. le Duc de La ------ had made her the fashion and that\nshe was on the highroad to eclipse Mademoiselle Lecouvreur.\n\nI was just leaving my seat after the performance when a \u201cfemme de\nchambre\u201d handed me a note in which I found written in pencil the words:\n\n\u201c_Mademoiselle Roxane is waiting for you in her coach at the theatre\ndoor_.\u201d\n\nI could not believe the missive was intended for me; and I asked the\nabigail who had delivered it if she was not mistaken in the recipient.\n\n\u201cIf I _am_ mistaken,\u201d she replied confidently, \u201cthen you cannot be\nMonsieur de Tournebroche, that is all.\u201d\n\nI ran to the coach which stood waiting in front of the House, and inside\nI recognized Mademoiselle B------, her head muffled in a black satin\nhood.\n\nShe beckoned to me to get in, and when I was seated beside her:\n\n\u201cDo you not,\u201d she asked me, \u201crecognize Sophie, whom you rescued from\ndrowning on the banks of the Seine?\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat! you! Sophie--Roxane--Mademoiselle B------, is it possible?--\u201d\n\nMy confusion was extreme, but she appeared to view it without annoyance.\n\n\u201cI saw you,\u201d she went on, \u201cin one corner of the pit. I knew you\ninstantly and played for you. Say, did I play well? I am so glad to see\nyou again!--\u201d\n\nShe asked me news of M. l\u2019Abb\u00e9 Coignard, and when I told her my good\nmaster had just perished miserably, she burst into tears.\n\nShe was good enough to inform me of the chief events of her life:\n\n\u201cMy aunt,\u201d she said, \u201cused to mend her laces for Madame de Saint-Remi,\nwho, as you must know, is an admirable actress. A short while after the\nnight when you did me such yeoman service, I went to her house to take\nhome some pieces of lace. The lady told me I had a face that interested\nher. She then asked me to read some verses, and concluded I was not\nwithout wits. She had me trained. I made my first appearance at the\nCom\u00e9die last year. I interpret passions I have felt myself, and the\npublic credits me with some talent. M. le Duc de La ------ exhibits a\nvery dear friendship for me, and I think he will never cause me pain and\ndisappointment, because I have learnt to ask of men only what they can\ngive. At this moment he is expecting me at supper. I must not break my\nword.\u201d\n\nBut, reading my vexation in my eyes, she added:\n\n\u201cHowever, I have told my people to go the longest way round and to drive\nslowly.\u201d","title":"The Merrie Tales of Jacques Tournebroche","tradition":"myth-cosmogony","translated_text":null,"word_count":22312}