King Louis The Eleventh was a merry fellow, loving a good joke, and
--the interests of his position as king, and those of the church on
one side--he lived jovially, giving chase to soiled doves as often as
to hares, and other royal game. Therefore, the sorry scribblers who
have made him out a hypocrite, showed plainly that they knew him not,
since he was a good friend, good at repartee, and a jollier fellow
than any of them.
It was he who said when he was in a merry mood, that four things are
excellent and opportune in life--to keep warm, to drink cool, to stand
up hard, and to swallow soft. Certain persons have accused him of
taking up with a dirty trollops; this is a notorious falsehood, since
all his mistresses, of whom one was legitimised, came of good houses
and had notable establishments. He did not go in for waste and
extravagance, always put his hand upon the solid, and because certain
devourers of the people found no crumbs at his table, they have all
maligned him. But the real collector of facts know that the said king
was a capital fellow in private life, and even very agreeable; and
before cutting off the heads of his friends, or punishing them--for he
did not spare them--it was necessary that they should have greatly
offended him, and his vengeance was always justice; I have only seen
in our friend Verville that this worthy sovereign ever made a mistake;
but one does not make a habit, and even for this his boon companion
Tristan was more to blame than he, the king. This is the circumstance
related by the said Verville, and I suspect he was cracking a joke. I
reproduce it because certain people are not familiar with the
exquisite work of my perfect compatriot. I abridge it and only give
the substance, the details being more ample, of which facts the savans
are not ignorant.
Louis XI. had given the Abbey of Turpenay (mentioned in ‘Imperia’) to
a gentleman who, enjoying the revenue, had called himself Monsieur de
Turpenay. It happened that the king being at Plessis-les-Tours, the
real abbot, who was a monk, came and presented himself before the
king, and presented also a petition, remonstrating with him that,
canonically and a monastically, he was entitled to the abbey and that
the usurping gentleman wronged of his right, and therefore he called
upon his majesty to have justice done to him. Nodding his peruke, the
king promised to render him contented. This monk, importunate as are
all hooded animals, came often at the end of the king’s meals, who,
bored with the holy water of the convent, called friend Tristan and
said to him: “Old fellow, there is here a Turpenay who angers me, rid
the world of him for me.” Tristan, taking a frock for a monk, or a
monk for a frock, came to this gentleman, whom all the court called
Monsieur de Turpenay, and having accosted him managed to lead him to
one side, and taking him by the button-hole gave him to understand
that the king desired he should die. He tried to resist, supplicating
and supplicating to escape, but in no way could he obtain a hearing.
He was delicately strangled between the head and shoulders, so that he
expired; and, three hours afterwards, Tristan told the king that he
was discharged. It happened five days afterwards, which is the space
in which souls come back again, that the monk came into the room where
the king was, and when he saw him he was much astonished. Tristan was
present: the king called him, and whispered into his ear--
“You have not done that which I told you to.”
“Saving your Grace I have done it. Turpenay is dead.”
“Eh? I meant this monk.”
“I understood the gentleman!”
“What, is it done then?”
“Yes, sire,”
“Very well then”--turning towards the monk--“come here, monk.” The
monk approached. The king said to him, “Kneel down!” The poor monk
began to shiver in his shoes. But the king said to him, “Thank God
that he has not willed that you should be killed as I had ordered. He
who took your estates has been instead. God has done you justice. Go
and pray God for me, and don’t stir out of your convent.”
The proves the good-heartedness of Louis XI. He might very well have
hanged the monk, the cause of the error. As for the said gentleman, he
died in the king’s service.
In the early days of his sojourn at Plessis-les-Tours king Louis, not
wishing to hold his drinking-bouts and give vent to his rakish
propensities in his chateau, out of respect to her Majesty (a kingly
delicacy which his successors have not possessed) became enamoured of
a lady named Nicole Beaupertuys, who was, to tell the truth, wife of a
citizen of the town. The husband he sent into Ponent, and put the said
Nicole in a house near Chardonneret, in that part which is the Rue
Quincangrogne, because it was a lonely place, far from other
habitations. The husband and the wife were thus both in his service,
and he had by La Beaupertuys a daughter, who died a nun. This Nicole
had a tongue as sharp as a popinjay’s, was of stately proportions,
furnished with large beautiful cushions of nature, firm to the touch,
white as the wings of an angel, and known for the rest to be fertile
in peripatetic ways, which brought it to pass that never with her was
the same thing encountered twice in love, so deeply had she studied
the sweet solutions of the science, the manners of accommodating the
olives of Poissy, the expansions of the nerves, and hidden doctrines
of the breviary, the which much delighted the king. She was as gay as
a lark, always laughing and singing, and never made anyone miserable,
which is the characteristic of women of this open and free nature, who
have always an occupation--an equivocal one if you like. The king
often went with the hail-fellows his friends to the lady’s house, and
in order not to be seen always went at night-time, and without his
suite. But being always distrustful, and fearing some snare, he gave
to Nicole all the most savage dogs he had in his kennels, beggars that
would eat a man without saying “By your leave,” the which royal dogs
knew only Nicole and the king. When the Sire came Nicole let them
loose in the garden, and the door of the house being sufficiently
barred and closely shut, the king put the keys in his pocket, and in
perfect security gave himself up, with his satellites, to every kind
of pleasure, fearing no betrayal, jumping about at will, playing
tricks, and getting up good games. Upon these occasions friend Tristan
watched the neighbourhood, and anyone who had taken a walk on the Mall
of Chardonneret would be rather quickly placed in a position in which
it would have been easy to give the passers-by a benediction with his
feet, unless he had the king’s pass, since often would Louis send out
in search of lasses for his friends, or people to entertain him with
the amusements suggested by Nicole or the guests. People of Tours were
there for these little amusements, to whom he gently recommended
silence, so that no one knew of these pastimes until after his death.
The farce of “_Baisez mon cul_” was, it is said, invented by the said
Sire. I will relate it, although it is not the subject of this tale,
because it shows the natural comicality and humour of this merry
monarch. They were at Tours three well known misers: the first was
Master Cornelius, who is sufficiently well known; the second was
called Peccard, and sold the gilt-work, coloured papers, and jewels
used in churches; the third was hight Marchandeau, and was a very
wealthy vine-grower. These two men of Touraine were the founders of
good families, notwithstanding their sordidness. One evening that the
king was with Beaupertuys, in a good humour, having drunk heartily,
joked heartily, and offered early in the evening his prayer in
Madame’s oratory, he said to Le Daim his crony, to the Cardinal, La
Balue, and to old Dunois, who were still soaking, “Let us have a good
laugh! I think it will be a good joke to see misers before a bag of
gold without being able to touch it. Hi, there!”
Hearing which, appeared one of his varlets.
“Go,” said he, “seek my treasurer, and let him bring hither six
thousand gold crowns--and at once! And you will go and seize the
bodies of my friend Cornelius, of the jeweller of the Rue de Cygnes,
and of old Marchandeau, and bring them here, by order of the king.”
Then he began to drink again, and to judiciously wrangle as to which
was the better, a woman with a gamy odour or a woman who soaped
herself well all over; a thin one or a stout one; and as the company
comprised the flower of wisdom it was decided that the best was the
one a man had all to himself like a plate of warm mussels, at that
precise moment when God sent him a good idea to communicate to her.
The cardinal asked which was the most precious thing to a lady; the
first or the last kiss? To which La Beaupertuys replied: “that it was
the last, seeing that she knew then what she was losing, while at the
first she did not know what she would gain.” During these sayings, and
others which have most unfortunately been lost, came the six thousand
gold crowns, which were worth all three hundred thousand francs of
to-day, so much do we go on decreasing in value every day. The king
ordered the crowns to be arranged upon a table, and well lighted up,
so that they shone like the eyes of the company which lit up
involuntarily, and made them laugh in spite of themselves. They did
not wait long for the three misers, whom the varlet led in, pale and
panting, except Cornelius, who knew the king’s strange freaks.
“Now then, my friends,” said Louis to them, “have a good look at the
crowns on the table.”
And the three townsmen nibbled at them with their eyes. You may reckon
that the diamond of La Beaupertuys sparkled less than their little
minnow eyes.
“These are yours,” added the king.
Thereupon they ceased to admire the crowns to look at each other; and
the guests knew well that old knaves are more expert in grimaces than
any others, because of their physiognomies becoming tolerably curious,
like those of cats lapping up milk, or girls titillated with marriage.
“There,” said the king, “all that shall be his who shall say three
times to the two others, ‘_Baisez mon cul_’, thrusting his hand into the
gold; but if he be not as serious as a fly who had violated his
lady-love, if he smile while repeating the jest, he will pay ten crowns
to Madame. Nevertheless he can essay three times.”
“That will soon be earned,” said Cornelius, who, being a Dutchman, had
his lips as often compressed and serious as Madame’s mouth was often
open and laughing. Then he bravely put his hands on the crowns to see
if they were good, and clutched them bravely, but as he looked at the
others to say civilly to them, “_Baisez mon cul_,” the two misers,
distrustful of his Dutch gravity, replied, “Certainly, sir,” as if he
had sneezed. The which caused all the company to laugh, and even
Cornelius himself. When the vine-grower went to take the crowns he
felt such a commotion in his cheeks that his old scummer face let
little laughs exude from its pores like smoke pouring out of a
chimney, and he could say nothing. Then it was the turn of the
jeweller, who was a little bit of a bantering fellow, and whose lips
were as tightly squeezed as the neck of a hanged man. He seized a
handful of the crowns, looked at the others, even the king, and said,
with a jeering air, “_Baisez mon cul_.”
“Is it dirty?” asked the vine-dresser.
“Look and see,” replied the jeweller, gravely.
Thereupon the king began to tremble for these crowns, since the said
Peccard began again, without laughing, and for the third time was
about to utter the sacramental word, when La Beaupertuys made a sign
of consent to his modest request, which caused him to lose his
countenance, and his mouth broke up into dimples.
“How did you do it?” asked Dunois, “to keep a grave face before six
thousand crowns?”
“Oh, my lord, I thought first of one of my cases which is tried
tomorrow, and secondly, of my wife who is a sorry plague.”
The desire to gain this good round sum made them try again, and the
king amused himself for about an hour at the expression of these
faces, the preparations, jokes, grimaces, and other monkey’s
paternosters that they performed; but they were bailing their boats
with a sieve, and for men who preferred closing their fists to opening
them it was a bitter sorrow to have to count out, each one, a hundred
crown to Madame.
When they were gone, and Nicole said boldly to the king, “Sire will
you let me try?”
“Holy Virgin!” replied Louis; “no! I can kiss you for less money.”
That was said like a thrifty man, which indeed he always was.
One evening the fat Cardinal La Balue carried on gallantly with words
and actions, a little farther than the canons of the Church permitted
him, with this Beaupertuys, who luckily for herself, was a clever
hussy, not to be asked with impunity how many holes there were in her
mother’s chemise.
“Look you here, Sir Cardinal!” said she; “the thing which the king
likes is not to receive the holy oils.”
Then came Oliver le Daim, whom she would not listen to either, and to
whose nonsense she replied, that she would ask the king if he wished
her to be shaved.
Now as the said shaver did not supplicate her to keep his proposals
secret, she suspected that these little plots were ruses practised by
the king, whose suspicions had perhaps been aroused by her friends.
Now, for being able to revenge herself upon Louis, she at least
determined to pay out the said lords, to make fools of them, and amuse
the king with the tricks she would play upon them. One evening that
they had come to supper, she had a lady of the city with her, who
wished to speak with the king. This lady was a lady of position, who
wished asked the king pardon for her husband, the which, in
consequence of this adventure, she obtained. Nicole Beaupertuys having
led the king aside for a moment into an antechamber, told him to make
their guests drink hard and eat to repletion; that he was to make
merry and joke with them; but when the cloth was removed, he was to
pick quarrels with them about trifles, dispute their words, and be
sharp with them; and that she would then divert him by turning them
inside out before him. But above all things, he was to be friendly to
the said lady, and it was to appear as genuine, as if she enjoyed the
perfume of his favour, because she had gallantly lent herself to this
good joke.
“Well, gentlemen,” said the king, re-entering the room, “let us fall
to; we have had a good day’s sport.”
And the surgeon, the cardinal, a fat bishop, the captain of the Scotch
Guard, a parliamentary envoy, and a judge loved of the king, followed
the two ladies into the room where one rubs the rust off one’s jaw
bones. And there they lined the mold of their doublets. What is that?
It is to pave the stomach, to practice the chemistry of nature, to
register the various dishes, to regale your tripes, to dig your grave
with your teeth, play with the sword of Cain, to inter sauces, to
support a cuckold. But more philosophically it is to make ordure with
one’s teeth. Now, do you understand? How many words does it require to
burst open the lid of your understanding?
The king did not fail to distill into his guests this splendid and
first-class supper. He stuffed them with green peas, returning to the
hotch-potch, praising the plums, commending the fish, saying to one,
“Why do you not eat?” to another, “Drink to Madame”; to all of them,
“Gentlemen, taste these lobsters; put this bottle to death! You do not
know the flavour of this forcemeat. And these lampreys--ah! what do
you say to them? And by the Lord! The finest barbel ever drawn from
the Loire! Just stick your teeth into this pastry. This game is my own
hunting; he who takes it not offends me.” And again, “Drink, the
king’s eyes are the other way. Just give your opinion of these
preserves, they are Madame’s own. Have some of these grapes, they are
my own growing. Have some medlars.” And while inducing them to swell
out their abdominal protuberances, the good monarch laughed with them,
and they joked and disputed, and spat, and blew their noses, and
kicked up just as though the king had not been with them. Then so much
victuals had been taken on board, so many flagons drained and stews
spoiled, that the faces of the guests were the colour of cardinals
gowns, and their doublets appeared ready to burst, since they were
crammed with meat like Troyes sausages from the top to the bottom of
their paunches. Going into the saloon again, they broke into a profuse
sweat, began to blow, and to curse their gluttony. The king sat
quietly apart; each of them was the more willing to be silent because
all their forces were required for the intestinal digestion of the
huge platefuls confined in their stomachs, which began to wabble and
rumble violently. One said to himself, “I was stupid to eat of that
sauce.” Another scolded himself for having indulged in a plate of eels
cooked with capers. Another thought to himself, “Oh! oh! The forcemeat
is serving me out.” The cardinal, who was the biggest bellied man of
the lot, snorted through his nostrils like a frightened horse. It was
he who was first compelled to give vent to a loud sounding belch, and
then he soon wished himself in Germany, where this is a form of
salutation, for the king hearing this gastric language looked at the
cardinal with knitted brows.
“What does this mean?” said he, “am I a simple clerk?”
This was heard with terror, because usually the king made much of a
good belch well off the stomach. The other guests determined to get
rid in another way of the vapours which were dodging about in their
pancreatic retorts; and at first they endeavoured to hold them for a
little while in the pleats of their mesenteries. It was then that some
of them puffed and swelled like tax-gatherers. Beaupertuys took the
good king aside and said to him--
“Know now that I have had made by the Church jeweller Peccard, two
large dolls, exactly resembling this lady and myself. Now when
hard-pressed by the drugs which I have put in their goblets, they
desire to mount the throne to which we are now about to pretend to go,
they will always find the place taken; by this means you will enjoy
their writhings.”
Thus having said, La Beaupertuys disappeared with the lady to go and
turn the wheel, after the custom of women, and of which I will tell
you the origin in another place. And after an honest lapse of water,
Beaupertuys came back alone, leaving it to be believed that she had
left the lady at the little laboratory of natural alchemy. Thereupon
the king, singling out the cardinal, made him get up, and talked with
him seriously of his affairs, holding him by the tassel of his amice.
To all that the king said, La Balue replied, “Yes, sir,” to be
delivered from this favour, and slip out of the room, since the water
was in his cellars, and he was about to lose the key of his back-door.
All the guests were in a state of not knowing how to arrest the
progress of the fecal matter to which nature has given, even more than
to water, the property of finding a certain level. Their substances
modified themselves and glided working downward, like those insects
who demand to be let out of their cocoons, raging, tormenting, and
ungrateful to the higher powers; for nothing is so ignorant, so
insolent as those cursed objects, and they are importunate like all
things detained to whom one owes liberty. So they slipped at every
turn like eels out of a net, and each one had need of great efforts
and science not to disgrace himself before the king. Louis took great
pleasure in interrogating his guests, and was much amused with the
vicissitudes of their physiognomies, on which were reflected the dirty
grimaces of their writhings. The counsellor of justice said to Oliver,
“I would give my office to be behind a hedge for half a dozen
seconds.”
“Oh, there is no enjoyment to equal a good stool; and now I am no
longer astonished at sempiternal droppings of a fly,” replied the
surgeon.
The cardinal believing that the lady had obtained her receipt from the
bank of deposit, left the tassels of his girdle in the king’s hand,
making a start as if he had forgotten to say his prayers, and made his
way towards the door.
“What is the matter with you, Monsieur le Cardinal?” said the king.
“By my halidame, what is the matter with me? It appears that all your
affairs are very extensive, sire!”
The cardinal had slipped out, leaving the others astonished at his
cunning. He proceeded gloriously towards the lower room, loosening a
little the strings of his purse; but when he opened the blessed little
door he found the lady at her functions upon the throne, like a pope
about to be consecrated. Then restraining his impatience, he descended
the stairs to go into the garden. However, on the last steps the
barking of the dogs put him in great fear of being bitten in one of
his precious hemispheres; and not knowing where to deliver himself of
his chemical produce he came back into the room, shivering like a man
who has been in the open air! The others seeing the cardinal return,
imagined that he had emptied his natural reservoirs, unburdened his
ecclesiastical bowels, and believed him happy. Then the surgeon rose
quickly, as if to take note of the tapestries and count the rafters,
but gained the door before anyone else, and relaxing his sphincter in
advance, he hummed a tune on his way to the retreat; arrived there he
was compelled, like La Balue, to murmur words of excuse to this
student of perpetual motion, shutting the door with as promptitude as
he opened it; and he came back burdened with an accumulation which
seriously impeded his private channels. And in the same way went to
guests one after the other, without being able to unburden themselves
of their sauces, as soon again found themselves all in the presence of
Louis the Eleventh, as much distressed as before, looking at each
other slyly, understanding each other better with their tails than
they ever understood with their mouths, for there is never any
equivoque in the transactions of the parts of nature, and everything
therein is rational and of easy comprehension, seeing that it is a
science which we learn at our birth.
“I believe,” said the cardinal to the surgeon, “that lady will go on
until to-morrow. What was La Beaupertuys about to ask such a case of
diarrhoea here?”
“She’s been an hour working at what I could get done in a minute. May
the fever seize her” cried Oliver le Daim.
All the courtiers seized with colic were walking up and down to make
their importunate matters patient, when the said lady reappeared in
the room. You can believe they found her beautiful and graceful, and
would willingly have kissed her, there where they so longed to go; and
never did they salute the day with more favour than this lady, the
liberator of the poor unfortunate bodies. La Balue rose; the others,
from honour, esteem, and reverence of the church, gave way to the
clergy, and, biding their time, they continued to make grimaces, at
which the king laughed to himself with Nicole, who aided him to stop
the respiration of these loose-bowelled gentlemen. The good Scotch
captain, who more than all the others had eaten of a dish in which the
cook had put an aperient powder, became the victim of misplaced
confidence. He went ashamed into a corner, hoping that before the
king, his mishap might escape detection. At this moment the cardinal
returned horribly upset, because he had found La Beaupertuys on the
episcopal seat. Now, in his torments, not knowing if she were in the
room, he came back and gave vent to a diabolical “Oh!” on beholding
her near his master.
“What do you mean?” exclaimed the king, looking at the priest in a way
to give him the fever.
“Sire,” said La Balue, insolently, “the affairs of purgatory are in my
ministry, and I am bound to inform you that there is sorcery going on
in this house.”
“Ah! little priest, you wish to make game of me!” said the king.
At these words the company were in a terrible state.
“So you treat me with disrespect?” said the king, which made them turn
pale. “Ho, there! Tristan, my friend!” cried Louis XI. from the
window, which he threw up suddenly, “come up here!”
The grand provost of the hotel was not long before he appeared; and as
these gentlemen were all nobodies, raised to their present position by
the favour of the king, Louis, in a moment of anger, could crush them
at will; so that with the exception of the cardinal who relied upon
his cassock, Tristan found them all rigid and aghast.
“Conduct these gentleman to the Pretorium, on the Mall, my friend,
they have disgraced themselves through over-eating.”
“Am I not good at jokes?” said Nicole to him.
“The farce is good, but it is fetid,” replied he, laughing.
This royal answer showed the courtiers that this time the king did not
intend to play with their heads, for which they thanked heaven. The
monarch was partial to these dirty tricks. He was not at all a bad
fellow, as the guests remarked while relieving themselves against the
side of the Mall with Tristan, who, like a good Frenchman, kept them
company, and escorted them to their homes. This is why since that time
the citizens of Tours had never failed to defile the Mall of
Chardonneret, because the gentlemen of the court had been there.
I will not leave this great king without committing to writing this
good joke which he played upon La Godegrand, who was an old maid, much
disgusted that she had not, during the forty years she had lived, been
able to find a lid to her saucepan, enraged, in her yellow skin, that
she still was as virgin as a mule. This old maid had her apartments on
the other side of the house which belonged to La Beaupertuys, at the
corner of the Rue de Hierusalem, in such a position that, standing on
the balcony joining the wall, it was easy to see what she was doing,
and hear what she was saying in the lower room where she lived; and
often the king derived much amusement from the antics of the old girl,
who did not know that she was so much within the range of his
majesty’s culverin. Now one market day it happened that the king had
caused to be hanged a young citizen of Tours, who had violated a noble
lady of a certain age, believing that she was a young maiden. There
would have been no harm in this, and it would have been a thing
greatly to the credit of the said lady to have been taken for a
virgin; but on finding out his mistake, he had abominably insulted
her, and suspecting her of trickery, had taken it into his head to rob
her of a splendid silver goblet, in payment of the present he had just
made her. This young man had long hair, and was so handsome that the
whole town wished to see him hanged, both from regret and out of
curiosity. You may be sure that at this hanging there were more caps
than hats. Indeed, the said young man swung very well; and after the
fashion and custom of persons hanged, he died gallantly with his lance
couched, which fact made a great noise in the town. Many ladies said
on this subject that it was a murder not to have preserved so fine a
fellow from the scaffold.
“Suppose we were to put this handsome corpse in the bed of La
Godegrand,” said La Beaupertuys to the king.
“We should terrify her,” replied Louis.
“Not at all, sire. Be sure that she will welcome even a dead man, so
madly does she long for a living one. Yesterday I saw her making love
to a young man’s cap placed on the top of a chair, and you would have
laughed heartily at her words and gestures.”
Now while this forty-year-old virgin was at vespers, the king sent to
have this young townsman, who had just finished the last scene of his
tragic farce, taken down, and having dressed him in a white shirt, two
officers got over the walls of La Godegrand’s garden, and put the
corpse into her bed, on the side nearest the street. Having done this
they went away, and the king remained in the room with the balcony to
it, playing with Beaupertuys, and awaiting an hour at which the old
maid should go to bed. La Godegrand soon came back with a hop, skip,
and jump, as the Tourainians say, from the church of St Martin, from
which she was not far, since the Rue de Hierusalem touches the walls
of the cloister. She entered her house, laid down her prayer-book,
chaplet, and rosary, and other ammunition which these old girls carry,
then poked the fire, and blew it, warmed herself at it, settled
herself in her chair, and played with her cat for want of something
better; then she went to the larder, supping and sighing, and sighing
and supping, eating alone, with her eyes cast down upon the carpet;
and after having drunk, behaved in a manner forbidden in court
society.
“Ah!” the corpse said to her, “‘_God bless you_!’”
At this joke of luck of La Beaupertuys, both laughed heartily in their
sleeves. And with great attention this very Christian king watched the
undressing of the old maid, who admired herself while removing her
things--pulling out a hair, or scratching a pimple which had
maliciously come upon her nose; picking her teeth, and doing a
thousand little things which, alas! all ladies, virgins or not, are
obliged to do, much to their annoyance; but without these little
faults of nature, they would be too proud, and one would not be able
to enjoy their society. Having achieved her aquatic and musical
discourse, the old maid got in between the sheets, and yelled forth a
fine, great, ample, and curious cry, when she saw, when she smelt the
fresh vigour of this hanged man and the sweet perfume of his manly
youth; then sprang away from him out of coquetry. But as she did not
know he was really dead, she came back again, believing he was mocking
her, and counterfeiting death.
“Go away, you bad young man!” said she.
But you can imagine that she proffered this requests in a most humble
and gracious tone of voice. Then seeing that he did not move, she
examined him more closely, and was much astonished at this so fine
human nature when she recognised the young fellow, upon whom the fancy
took her to perform some purely scientific experiments in the
interests of hanged persons.
“What is she doing?” said La Beaupertuys to the king.
“She is trying to reanimate him. It is a work of Christian humanity.”
And the old girl rubbed and warmed this fine young man, supplicating
holy Mary the Egyptian to aid her to renew the life of this husband
who had fallen so amorously from heaven, when, suddenly looking at the
dead body she was so charitably rubbing, she thought she saw a slight
movement in the eyes; then she put her hand upon the man’s heart, and
felt it beat feebly. At length, from the warmth of the bed and of
affection, and by the temperature of old maids, which is by far more
burning then the warm blasts of African deserts, she had the delight
of bringing to life that fine handsome young fellow who by lucky
chance had been very badly hanged.
“See how my executioners serve me!” said Louis, laughing.
“Ah!” said La Beaupertuys, “you will not have him hanged again? he is
too handsome.”
“The decree does not say that he shall be hanged twice, but he shall
marry the old woman.”
Indeed, the good lady went in a great hurry to seek a master leech, a
good bleeder, who lived in the Abbey, and brought him back directly.
He immediately took his lancet, and bled the young man. And as no
blood came out: “Ah!” said he, “it is too late, the transshipment of
blood in the lungs has taken place.”
But suddenly this good young blood oozed out a little, and then came
out in abundance, and the hempen apoplexy, which had only just begun,
was arrested in its course. The young man moved and came more to life;
then he fell, from natural causes, into a state of great weakness and
profound sadness, prostration of flesh and general flabbiness. Now the
old maid, who was all eyes, and followed the great and notable changes
which were taking place in the person of this badly hanged man, pulled
the surgeon by the sleeve, and pointing out to him, by a curious
glance of the eye, the piteous cause, said to him--
“Will he for the future be always like that?”
“Often,” replied the veracious surgeon.
“Oh! he was much nicer hanged!”
At this speech the king burst out laughing. Seeing him at the window,
the woman and the surgeon were much frightened, for this laugh seemed
to them a second sentence of death for their poor victim. But the king
kept his word, and married them. And in order to do justice he gave
the husband the name of the Sieur de Mortsauf in the place of the one
he had lost upon the scaffold. As La Godegrand had a very big basket
of crowns, they founded a good family in Touraine, which still exists
and is much respected, since M. de Mortsauf faithfully served Louis
the Eleventh on different occasions. Only he never liked to come
across gibbets or old women, and never again made amorous assignations
in the night.
This teaches us to thoroughly verify and recognise women, and not to
deceive ourselves in the local difference which exists between the old
and the young, for if we are not hanged for our errors of love, there
are always great risks to run.