all. The Rhenish wine which growes on the renouned Rhein, on which standes
so many brave tounes, is weill enough knowen. They sometymes sell their
wine by the weight as the livre or pound, etc., which may seime as strange
as the cherries 2 tymes a year in France. Thus they ar necessitate to do in
the winter, when it freizes so that they most break it wt great mattocks
and axes, and sell it in the faschion we have named.
Adultery, especially in the women, is wery vigorously punished in many
places of France. In Poictou, as Mr. Daillé informed, they ignominously
drag them after the taile of a mule thorow the streits, the hangman
convoying them, then they sett them in the most publick part of the toune
bound be a stake, wt their hands behind their backs, to be a obiect of
mockery ther to all that pleases.
They that commits any pitty roobery or theifte are whipt thorow the toune
and stigmatized wt a hote iron marked wt the _flower de lis_ on the cheik
or the shoulder. If any be taken after in that fault having the mark,
theirs no mercy for them under hanging.
Every province almost hath its sundry manner of torturing persones
suspected for murder or even great crimes to extort from them a confession
of the truth. At Paris the hangman takes a serviet, or whiles a wool cloath
(which I remember Cleark in his Martyrologie discovering the Spanish
Inquisition also mentioned), which he thrustes doune the throat of him as
far as his wery heart, keiping to himselfe a grip of one end of the cloath,
then zest wt violence pules furth the cloath al ful of blood, which cannot
be but accompanied wt paine. Thus does the _burreau_ ay til he confesses.
In Poictou the manner is wt bords of timber whilk they fasten as close as
possibly can be both to the outsyde and insyde of his leg, then in betuixt
the leg and the timber they caw in great wedges[166] from the knee doune to
the wery foot, and that both in the outsyde and insyde, which so crusheth
the leg that it makes it as thin and as broad as the loafe[167] of a mans
hand. The blood ishues furth in great abondance. At Bourdeaux, the capital
of Guienne, they have a boat full of oil, sulfre, pitch, resets, and other
like combustible things, which they cause him draw on and hold it above a
fire til his leg is almost all brunt to the bone, the sinews shrunk, his
thigh also al stretched wt the flame.
[166] The torture of the boot was apparently new to Lauder, but from
his later MSS., it appears to have been in use in Scotland.
[167] Loof, palm.
On a tyme we went to sie the charlatan at the Marcher Vieux, who took
occasion to show the spectators some vipers he had in a box wt scalves[168]
in it, as also to refute that tradition delivered by so many, of the young
vipers killing their mother in raving[l69] her belly to win furth, and
that wt the horrid peine she suffers in the bringing furth her young she
dies, which also I have heard Mr. Douglas--preaching out of the last of the
Acts about that Viper that in the Ile of Malta (wheir they are a great more
dangerous then any wheir else) cleave to Pauls hand--affirme at least as a
thing reported by naturalists, the etymon of the Greek word [Greek:
hechidnae] seiming to make for this opinion, since it comes [Greek: apo ton
echein taen odunaen][170] _a habendo dolorem_. Yet he hath demonstrated the
falshood of that opinion: for he showed a black viper also spooted wt
yellow about the lenth of a mans armes, about the grossenesse of a great
inkhorne wholly shappen like a ell[171] save only its head wt its tongue,
which was iust like a fork wt 2 teeth, wheir its poison mainly resydes,
that had brought furth 2 young ones that same very day, which he showed us
wt some life in them just like 2 blew, long wormes that are wrinkled; and
notwtstanding the mother was on life and no apparence of any rupture in hir
belly. To let us sie whow litle he cared for it he took hir and wrapt it
that she might not reach him wt hir head, and put it in his mouth and held
it a litle space wt his lipes; which tho the common peaple looked on as a
great attempt, yet surely it was nothing, since their is no part of the
Viper poisonnable save only its head and its guts. As for the flech of it,
any man may eat it wtout hazard, for the same very charlatan promised that
ere we left the toune, having decapitated and disbowelled it, he sould eat
the body of it before all that pleased to look on, which he might easily
do. For as litle as he showed himself to care for it, yet he having
irritate and angred it, either by his brizing[172] it in his mouth or by
his unattentive handling of it (for such is the nature of the Viper that
tho its poison be a great deall more subtil, percing and penetrating, and
consequently in some account more dangerous then that of the hideous
coleuure or serpent, yet it wil not readily sting or bit except they be
exasperate, when the others neids no incitations, but wil pershew a man if
they sy him), when he was not taking heid, it snatcht him by the finger, he
hastily shakt it of on the stage and his finger fell a blooding. He was
not ordinarly moved at this accident, telling us that it might endanger the
losse of his finger. He first scarified the flech that was about the wound,
then he caused spread some theriac (one of the rarest contrepoisons, made
mainly of the flech of the Viper) on a cloath which he applied to it. About
a halfe hower after he looked to it in our presenc, and his finger was also
raisen in blay[173] blisters. He said he would blood himselfe above a
hower, to the end to reid himselfe of any blood already poisoned and
infected, lest by that circulation that the blood makes thorow al the body
of a man once of the 24 howers the blood infected sould communicate itselfe
to much. Also he sayd that he had rather bein stung in the leg, the thigh,
or many other parts of the body then the finger, by reason of the great
abondance of nerves their, and the sympathy the rest of the body keips wt
them, which renders the cure more difficile.
[168] Shelves.
[169] Riving, tearing.
[170] Mistake for [Greek: hodunaen]. The etymology is fanciful and
incorrect.
[171] Eel.
[172] Squeezing.
[173] Livid.
This charlatan seimed to be very weill experimented. He had bein at Rome,
which voyage is nothing in France, and thorow the best of France. The stone
thats to be found in the head of the hie[174] toad is very medicinal and of
great use their. They call a toad grappeau; a frog grenouille.
[174] i.e. he.
The papists looks very much on the 7 sone for the curing of the
cruels;[175] severall of the protestants look on it as superstition. They
come out of the fardest nooks of Germany, as also out of Spain itselfe, to
the King of France to be cured of this: who touches wt thir wordes, which
our King æquivalently uses, tho he gives no peice of Gold as our King does,
_c'est le roy qui vous touche, c'est Dieu qui vous guerisse_. He hath a set
tyme of the year for the doing of it. The day before he prepares himself by
fasting and praying that his touche may be the more effectuall. The French
could give me no reason of it but lookt on it as a gift of God.
[175] Cruels, scrofula, king's evil. For the healing powers of the
seventh son, compare Chambers's _Book of Days_, vol. i. p. 167;
_Notes and Queries_, June 12, 1852.
We can not forget a witty answer of a young English nobleman who was going
to travel thorow France and Italie, whom his friends feared exceedingly
that he would change his Religion, because he mocked at Religion. They
thought that King James admonition to him might do much to keip him
constant, wheiron they prayed the King to speak to him. Yes I shall do
that, quoth he. When he came to take his leave of the King, King James
began to admonish him that he would not change his Religion, for amongs
many other inconveniences he would so render himselfe incapable of serving
his King and his country, and of bearing any office theirin. He quickly
replied, I wonder of your Majesty who is so wise a man that ye sould speak
so; for ther is no a man in all France or Italy that wil change wt me tho I
would give him a 100,000 livres aboot.[176] The King was wery weill
satisfied wt this, telling his freinds that he was not feared he would
change, but that he saw he would bring back all the Religion he carried
afield wt him.
[176] To boot.
At the Marcher Vieux beyond our expectation we saw one of the fellows eat
the Viper head and all. The master striped it as a man would do an elle,
and clasped it sicker wtin a inch of its neck. The fellow took the head of
it in his mouth and zest[177] in a instant bit it of its neck and over his
throat wt it, rubing his throat griveously for fear that it stake their. He
had great difficulty of getting it over, and wt the time it had bein in his
mouth his head swalled as big as 2 heads. The master immediatly took a
glasse halfe full of wine, in which he wrang the blood and bowells of the
headlesse body of the Viper and caused him drink it also, breaking the
glasse in which he drank it to peices on the stage, causing sweip all wery
diligently away that it might do no harme. Immediatly on the fellows
drinking of it he had ready a cup of contrepoison, which he caused him
drink, then giving him a great weighty cloak about his shoulders he sent
him to keip him selfe warme before a great fire. The reason of which was to
contrepoise the cold nature of this poison as of all that poison thats to
be found in living creatures, which killeth us by extinguishing our natural
radical heat, which being chockt and consumed the soul can no more execute
its offices in the body but most depart.
[177] Just.
In the more Meridional provinces of France, as Provence, Languedoc, etc.,
they have besydes the other ordinar Serpents also Scorpions, which,
according as we may sie them painted, are just like a litle lobster, or
rather the French _rivier Escrivises_. They carry their sting in their
taile as the Viper does in its mouth. Tho it be more dangerous then any,
yet it carries about wt it contrepoison, for one stung wt it hath no more
ado, but to take that same that stung him, or any other if he can light on
it, and bruise out its substance on the place wheir he is stung, and theirs
no hazard. The potingers also extracts a oile which hath the same virtue.
Its not amisse to point as it ware wt the finger at that drollery of the
priest who preaching upon the gifts that the 3 wise men gave to Christ,
alleadged the first gave _d'or, myrrthe_, the 2d _argent_. He could never
find, tho he repeated it 20 tymes over, what the 3d gave wt the rest of its
circumstances. As also of the soger that made good cheir to his Landlord;
and of Grillet the Deviner who notwtstanding of his ignorance yet fortune
favorized.
The Frenchwomen thought strange to hear that our women theyle keip the
house a moneth after they are lighter, when they come abroad on 8 dayes,
and they are very weak that keips it a fortnight.
Be the Lawes of France a slave, let him be a Turk, slave to a Venitien or
Spaniard, etc. (such enemies they pretend themselfes to be to servitude,
tho their be legible enough marks of it amongs them as in their _gens de
main mort_,[178] etc.), no sooner sets he his foot on French ground but
_ipso facto_ he is frie. Yet al strangers are not in the same condition
their, nether brook they the same priveledges, for some they call
Regnicolls,[179] others Aubiens[180] (_suivans les loix du Royaume_,
bastards). The principal difference they make betuixt them is this, that if
a Regnicoll such as the Scots are, chance to dy in France they have the
power of making a testament and disposing of their goods as they please
which they have their, whither they be moveable or immoveable. If they die
not leiving a testament yet its no less secure, since their friends to the
10 degrie may take possession of them. Its not so wt the Aubiens who have
no such right, but dieng, the King is their heir, unless it may be they be
Aubiens naturalized, who then begin to have the priveledges of the others
and the very natives.
[178] Serfs under the feudal law, whose power of disposing of their
property by will was restricted.
[179] A legal term meaning native or naturalised citizens.
[180] _Aubains_. Foreigners, whose succession fell to the Crown
(_droit d'aubaine_).
The Laws of France [this is the rigor][181] denies children begotten in
Adultery or incest aliments, which tho harsh, condemning the innocent for
the guilty, yet they think it may serve to deterre the parents from sick
illicit commixtions.
[181] Interlined.
The Laws of France, as of the most of Europe (tho not practicate wt us), in
thess case wheirin a man gets a woman wt child, ordains that ether he marry
hir or that he pay hir tocher good, which is very rigorously execute in
France.
We can not forget a Anagram that one hes found in Cornelius Jansenius, to
wit, _Calvini sensus in ore_.
At Rome the Jews have a street assigned to them to live in a part. In
France, especially in Montpeliers, wheir theirs seweralls, they dare not
wear hats of that coleur that others wear, as black or gray, but ether rid
or green or others, that all may know them from Christians.
The King of France amongs other titles he assumes, he calls himselfe Abbot
of St. Hilaire, to wit of that church that bears the name in Poictiers,
whence its amongs the ænigma'es of France that the Abbot of St. Hilaire
hath the right of laying with the Queen of France the 1 night of the
marriage. Wheirupon when this king married the Infanta of Spaine, some of
the French nobility told hir that the Abbot of St. Hilaire had the right of
lying wt the Queen of France the first night, she replied that no Abbot
sould lay wt hir but her prince. They pressing that the laws of France ware
such, she answered she would have that law repealed. They telling hir the
matter she said the Abbot sould be welcome.
The most part of Them that sweips the chimelies in France we discovered to
be litle boyes that come out of Savoy wt a long trie over the shoulders,
crying shrilly thorow the cityes, _je vengeray vos cheminées haut en bas_.
Its strange of thir litle stirrows,[182] let us or the Frenchmen menace
them as we like we can never get them to say, _Vive le Roy de France_, but
instead of it, ay _Vive la Reine de Sauoye_.
[182] Lads, fellows.
We was not a little amazed to sy them on dy making ready amongs other
things to our diet upright poddock stools, which they call _potirons_ or
_champignons_. They'le raise in a night. They grow in humid, moisty places
as also wt us. They frie them in a pan wt butter, vinegar, salt, and spice.
They eated of it greedily vondering that I eated not so heartily of them as
they did; a man seimes iust to be eating of tender collops in eating them.
But my praeiudice hindred me.
To know the way of making their sups is not uunecessar since our curiosity
may cause us make of them at home. Of this we spoke something already.
Further he that hes made ready boiled flech, he hath no more ado but to
take the broth or sodden water wt his flech and pour it above his cut doune
loaves, which we proved to be very nourishing. If a man would make a good
soup wtout flech, he would cut me doune some onions wt a lump of butter
ether fresh or salt, which he sall frie in a pan, then pour in some
vinaigre, then vater, then salt and spice, and let al boil together, then
pour it on your sup, and I promise you a good sup.
We cannot forget what good company we have had some winter nights at the
fire syde, my host in the one noock, Madame in the other, and I in the
mides, in the navel of the fire. He was of Chattelerault, she of Partenay:
they would fallen to and miscalled one anothers country, reckning over al
that might be said against the place wheir the other was born and what
might be sayd for their oune. Whiles we had very great bickering wt good
sport. They made me iudge to decide according to the relevancy of what I
fand ether alledge. I usually held for Madame as the weaker syde.
The most part of the French sauces they make wt vergus.[183] For geese they
use no more but salt and water.
[183] Verjuice.
This consequence may be whiles used: Sy ye this, yes. Then ye are not
blind: hear you that; R, yes. Then ye are not deaf.
We saw a horse ruber wt a blew bonnet in Poictiers almost in the faschion
of our Scotes ones; another we saw not, from our leiving of Berwick, til
our returne to it againe.
To be fully informed of the history of the brave General [Mareschal][184]
Birron,[185] whom they had such difficulty to get headed; as of the
possessed Convent of Religious vomen called _les diablesses de Loudun_; as
of the burning of the preist as sorcerer and his arraigning his iudges
before the tribunal of the Almighty to answer him wtin a few dayes, and all
that sat upon his Azize their dying mad wtin som litle tyme; it wil not be
amisse to informe ourselfe of them from the History of France.
[184] Interlined.
[185] Ch. de Gontant, Duc de Biron, Marshal of France, born 1562, died
1602. A favourite of Henry IV, but executed for treason against
him.
The French, tho the civilest of peaple, yet be seweral experiences we may
find them the most barbarous. Vitnes besyde him who dwellt at Porte St.
Lazare, another who brunt his mother because she would not let him ly wt
hir, and was brunt quick himselfe at the place in Poictiers some 5 years
ago.
The French Law is that if a women be 7 years wtout hearing news of hir
husband that she may marrie againe.
We have marked the German language to have many words common wt our oune,
as bread, drink, land, _Goet_ for our God; _rauber_; feeds,[186]
_inimiticiæ_; march, _limites_; fich; flech; _heer_, sir; our man, _homo_;
_weib_ for wife.
[186] Feeds, _fehde_, feuds.
We have eated puddings heir also that we call sauses, which they make most
usualy of suine.
We cannot passe over in silence the observation the naturalists hath of the
Sow, that it hath its noble parts disposed in the same very sort they are
found in a man, which may furnish us very great matter of humility, as also
lead us to the consideration and sight of our bassesse, that in the
disposall of our noble parts we differ nothing from that beast which we
recknon amongs the filthiest. They make great use of it in France heir. In
travelling we rencontred wery great heards.
Tuo boyes studieing the grammar in the Jesuits Colledge at Poictiers,
disputing before the regent on their Lesson, the on demanded, _Mater cuius
generis est_: the other, knowing that the mother of the proponer had a wery
ill name of a whore, replied wittily, _distinguo; da distinctionem_ then;
replied, _si intelligas de meâ est faeminini; si de tua, est communis_ (in
the same sort does Rosse tel it).
The occasion of the founding that order of the Charterous in France is wery
observable. About the tyme of the wars in the Low Contries their was a man
at Paris that led one of the strictest, godliest and most blameless lifes
that could be, so that he was in great reputation for his holinesse. He
dies, his corps are carried to some church neir hand wheir a preist was to
preach his funeral sermon the nixt day. A great concourse of peaple who
know him al weill are gathered to heir, amongs other, lead by meer
curiosity, comes a Soger (Bruno) who had served in the Low Country wars
against the Spaniard and had led a very dissolute, prophane, godless life.
The preist in his sermon begins to extol the person deceased and amongs
other expressions he had that, that undoubtedly he was in paradis at the
present. Upon this the dead man lifted himselfe up in his coffin and cried
wt a loud voice, _justo dei iudicio citatus sum_: the peaple, the preist
and al ware so terrified that they ran al out of the kirk, yet considering
that he was a godly man and that it would be a sin to leive his corps
unburied they meit the nixt day. They ware not weill meet, when he cried
again, _iusto dei indicio indicatus sum_; when they came again the 3d tyme,
at which he cried, _justo dei iudicio condemnatus sum_. This seimed wery
strange to all, yet it produced no such effects in any as in our Soger, who
was present al the tymes: it occasioned enexpressible disquietment of
spirit, and he fell a raisoning, If such a man who was knowen to be of so
blamlesse a conversation, who was so observant of al his dueties to God be
dammed, hath not obtained mercy, oh what wil word of[187] the who hath lead
so vicious a life, thinks thou that thou will be able to reach the height
that that man wan to, no. At last considering that company and the tongue
ware great occasions to sin he resolves to institute a order who sould have
converse wt none and whom all discourse should be prohibited save onlie
when they meet one another, thir 2 words _Memento Mori_. For this effect he
fel in scrutiny of a place wheir they might be friest from company, and
pitched upon a rocky, desolate, unhabited place not far from Grenoble
(about 3 leagues), wheir they founded their first Convent, which bears the
name of Chartrouse, and is to be sein at this day. Notwtstanding that their
first institution bears that they stay far from the converse of men, yet
(which also may be observed in the primitive Monachisme) they are creeping
into the most frequented cities. Vitness their spatious Convent, neir halfe
a mile about, at Paris.
[187] What will become of thee. Compare German, _werden,
geworden_.
These of the Religion at Poictiers from St. Michel to Paise[188] they have
no preaching the Sabath afternoone.
[188] Pasch, Easter.
Its not leasum for a man or woman of the Religion to marry wt a Papist;
which if they do, they most come and make a publick confession of the fault
and of the scandal they have given by such a marriage before the whole
church. Experience hes learned them to use it wery sparingly and meekly,
for when they would have put it in execution on som they have lost them,
they choosing rather to turne papists then do it. We are not so strick in
this point as they are; for wt us _licet sed non expedit cum non omne quod
liceat honestum sit_.
Out of the same fear of loosing them they use wery sparingly the dart of
excommunication except against such as lives al the more scandoulously. The
protestants in speaking of their Religion before papists they dare not
terme it otherwise then _pretendue Reformée_.
We have eaten panches[189] heir, which we finding drest in a different sort
from ours but better, we informed ourselfe of it thus: they keip them not
intier as we do, but cuts them into peices as big as a man wil take in his
mouth at once, then puts them in a frying pan wt a considerable lump of
butter, having fryed them a good space, they put in vineger, a litle salt
and some spice; this is all.
[189] Tripe.
Their goosing irons they heat them not in the fire as we do; but hath a
pretty device. They make the body of the iron a great deall thicker then
ours, which is boss,[190] and which opens at the hand, which boss they fil
wt charcoall, which heats the bottom of the iron, which besydes that its
very cleanly, they can not burn themselfes so readily, since the hands not
hot.
[190] Hollow.
They dry not out their linnens before the fire as we do: they have a broad
thing iust like a babret[191] on which we bak the cakes, only its of brass
very clear, its stands on 4 right hight feet. They take a choffer whiles of
brass oftner lame,[192] filled wt charcoall, which they sett beneath the
thing, on which they dry out their cloaths wery neitly.
[191] Babret or bawbret or baikbred, kneading trough.
[192] Earthenware.
We think fit to subioine heir a ridle or 2. Your father got a child; your
mother bore the same child and it was nether brother nor sister to you:
yourselfe. A man married a woman which was so his wife, his daughter and
his sister. A man got his mother wt child of a lasse, which by that means
was both his sister and his daughter, whom he afterwards not knowing
married.