During the first years of the thirteenth century after the coming of
our Divine Saviour there happened in the City of Paris an amorous
adventure, through the deed of a man of Tours, of which the town and
even the king’s court was never tired of speaking. As to the clergy,
you will see by that which is related the part they played in this
history, the testimony of which was by them preserved. This said man,
called the Touranian by the common people, because he had been born in
our merry Touraine, had for his true name that of Anseau. In his
latter days the good man returned into his own country and was mayor
of St. Martin, according to the chronicles of the abbey of that town;
but at Paris he was a great silversmith.
But now in his prime, by his great honesty, his labours, and so forth,
he became a citizen of Paris and subject of the king, whose protection
he bought, according to the custom of the period. He had a house built
for him free of all quit-rent, close the Church of St. Leu, in the Rue
St. Denis, where his forge was well-known by those in want of fine
jewels. Although he was a Touranian, and had plenty of spirit and
animation, he kept himself virtuous as a true saint, in spite of the
blandishments of the city, and had passed the days of his green season
without once dragging his good name through the mire. Many will say
this passes the bounds of that faculty of belief which God has placed
in us to aid that faith due to the mysteries of our holy religion; so
it is needful to demonstrate abundantly the secret cause of this
silversmith’s chastity. And, first remember that he came into the town
on foot, poor as Job, according to the old saying; and unlike all the
inhabitants of our part of the country, who have but one passion, he
had a character of iron, and persevered in the path he had chosen as
steadily as a monk in vengeance. As a workman, he laboured from morn
to night; become a master, he laboured still, always learning new
secrets, seeking new receipts, and in seeking, meeting with inventions
of all kinds. Late idlers, watchmen, and vagrants saw always a modest
lamp shining through the silversmith’s window, and the good man
tapping, sculpting, rounding, distilling, modeling, and finishing,
with his apprentices, his door closed and his ears open. Poverty
engendered hard work, hard work engendered his wonderful virtue, and
his virtue engendered his great wealth. Take this to heart, ye
children of Cain who eat doubloons and micturate water. If the good
silversmith felt himself possessed with wild desires, which now in one
way, now another, seize upon an unhappy bachelor when the devil tries
to get hold of him, making the sign of the cross, the Touranian
hammered away at his metal, drove out the rebellious spirits from his
brain by bending down over the exquisite works of art, little
engravings, figures of gold and silver forms, with which he appeased
the anger of his Venus. Add to this that this Touranian was an artless
man, of simple understanding, fearing God above all things, then
robbers, next to that of nobles, and more than all, a disturbance.
Although if he had two hands, he never did more than one thing at a
time. His voice was as gentle as that of a bridegroom before marriage.
Although the clergy, the military, and others gave him no reputation
for knowledge, he knew well his mother’s Latin, and spoke it correctly
without waiting to be asked. Latterly the Parisians had taught him to
walk uprightly, not to beat the bush for others, to measure his
passions by the rule of his revenues, not to let them take his leather
to make other’s shoes, to trust no one farther then he could see them,
never to say what he did, and always to do what he said; never to
spill anything but water; to have a better memory than flies usually
have; to keep his hands to himself, to do the same with his purse; to
avoid a crowd at the corner of a street, and sell his jewels for more
than they cost him; all things, the sage observance of which gave him
as much wisdom as he had need of to do business comfortably and
pleasantly. And so he did, without troubling anyone else. And watching
this good little man unobserved, many said,
“By my faith, I should like to be this jeweller, even were I obliged
to splash myself up to the eyes with the mud of Paris during a hundred
years for it.”
They might just as well have wished to be king of France, seeing that
the silversmith had great powerful nervous arms, so wonderfully strong
that when he closed his fist the cleverest trick of the roughest
fellow could not open it; from which you may be sure that whatever he
got hold of he stuck to. More than this, he had teeth fit to masticate
iron, a stomach to dissolve it, a duodenum to digest it, a sphincter
to let it out again without tearing, and shoulders that would bear a
universe upon them, like that pagan gentleman to whom the job was
confided, and whom the timely arrival of Jesus Christ discharged from
the duty. He was, in fact, a man made with one stroke, and they are
the best, for those who have to be touched are worth nothing, being
patched up and finished at odd times. In short, Master Anseau was a
thorough man, with a lion’s face, and under his eyebrows a glance that
would melt his gold if the fire of his forge had gone out, but a
limpid water placed in his eyes by the great Moderator of all things
tempered this great ardour, without which he would have burnt up
everything. Was he not a splendid specimen of a man?
With such a sample of his cardinal virtues, some persist in asking why
the good silversmith remained as unmarried as an oyster, seeing that
these properties of nature are of good use in all places. But these
opinionated critics, do they know what it is to love? Ho! Ho! Easy!
The vocation of a lover is to go, to come, to listen, to watch, to
hold his tongue, to talk, to stick in a corner, to make himself big,
to make himself little, to agree, to play music, to drudge, to go to
the devil wherever he may be, to count the gray peas in the dovecote,
to find flowers under the snow, to say paternosters to the moon, to
pat the cat and pat the dog, to salute the friends, to flatter the
gout, or the cold of the aunt, to say to her at opportune moments “You
have good looks, and will yet write the epitaph of the human race.” To
please all the relations, to tread on no one’s corns, to break no
glasses, to waste no breath, to talk nonsense, to hold ice in his
hand, to say, “This is good!” or, “Really, madam, you are very
beautiful so.” And to vary that in a hundred different ways. To keep
himself cool, to bear himself like a nobleman, to have a free tongue
and a modest one, to endure with a smile all the evils the devil may
invent on his behalf, to smother his anger, to hold nature in control,
to have the finger of God, and the tail of the devil, to reward the
mother, the cousin, the servant; in fact, to put a good face on
everything. In default of which the female escapes and leaves you in a
fix, without giving a single Christian reason. In fact, the lover of
the most gentle maid that God ever created in a good-tempered moment,
had he talked like a book, jumped like a flea, turned about like dice,
played like King David, and built for the aforesaid woman the
Corinthian order of the columns of the devil, if he failed in the
essential and hidden thing which pleases his lady above all others,
which often she does not know herself and which he has need to know,
the lass leaves him like a red leper. She is quite right. No one can
blame her for so doing. When this happens some men become
ill-tempered, cross, and more wretched than you can possibly imagine.
Have not many of them killed themselves through this petticoat tyranny?
In this matter the man distinguishes himself from the beast, seeing that
no animal ever yet lost his senses through blighted love, which proves
abundantly that animals have no souls. The employment of a lover is
that of a mountebank, of a soldier, of a quack, of a buffoon, of a
prince, of a ninny, of a king, of an idler, of a monk, of a dupe, of a
blackguard, of a liar, of a braggart, of a sycophant, of a numskull,
of a frivolous fool, of a blockhead, of a know-nothing, of a knave. An
employment from which Jesus abstained, in imitation of whom folks of
great understanding likewise disdain it; it is a vocation in which a
man of worth is required to spend above all things, his time, his
life, his blood, his best words, besides his heart, his soul, and his
brain; things to which the women are cruelly partial, because directly
their tongues begin to go, they say among themselves that if they have
not the whole of a man they have none of him. Be sure, also, that
there are cats, who, knitting their eyebrows, complain that a man does
but a hundred things for them, for the purpose of finding out if there
be a hundred, at first seeing that in everything they desire the most
thorough spirit of conquest and tyranny. And this high jurisprudence
has always flourished among the customs of Paris, where the women
receive more wit at their baptism than in any other place in the
world, and thus are mischievous by birth.
But our silversmith, always busy at his work, burnishing gold and
melting silver, had no time to warm his love or to burnish and make
shine his fantasies, nor to show off, gad about, waste his time in
mischief, or to run after she-males. Now seeing that in Paris virgins
do not fall into the beds of young men any more than roast pheasants
into the streets, not even when the young men are royal silversmiths,
the Touranian had the advantage of having, as I have before observed,
a continent member in his shirt. However, the good man could not close
his eyes to the advantage of nature with which were so amply furnished
the ladies with whom he dilated upon the value of his jewels. So it
was that, after listening to the gentle discourse of the ladies, who
tried to wheedle and to fondle him to obtain a favour from him, the
good Touranian would return to his home, dreamy as a poet, wretched as
a restless cuckoo, and would say to himself, “I must take to myself a
wife. She would keep the house tidy, keep the plates hot for me, fold
the clothes for me, sew my buttons on, sing merrily about the house,
tease me to do everything according to her taste, would say to me as
they all say to their husbands when they want a jewel, ‘Oh, my own
pet, look at this, is it not pretty?’ And every one in the quarter
will think of my wife and then of me, and say ‘There’s a happy man.’
Then the getting married, the bridal festivities, to fondle Madame
Silversmith, to dress her superbly, give her a fine gold chain, to
worship her from crown to toe, to give her the whole management of the
house, except the cash, to give her a nice little room upstairs, with
good windows, pretty, and hung around with tapestry, with a wonderful
chest in it and a fine large bed, with twisted columns and curtains of
yellow silk. He would buy her beautiful mirrors, and there would
always be a dozen or so of children, his and hers, when he came home
to greet him.” Then wife and children would vanish into the clouds. He
transferred his melancholy imaginings to fantastic designs, fashioned
his amorous thoughts into grotesque jewels that pleased their buyers
well, they not knowing how many wives and children were lost in the
productions of the good man, who, the more talent he threw into his
art, the more disordered he became. Now if God had not had pity upon
him, he would have quitted this world without knowing what love was,
but would have known it in the other without that metamorphosis of the
flesh which spares it, according to Monsieur Plato, a man of some
authority, but who, not being a Christian, was wrong. But, there!
these preparatory digressions are the idle digressions and fastidious
commentaries which certain unbelievers compel a man to wind about a
tale, swaddling clothes about an infant when it should run about stark
naked. May the great devil give them a clyster with his red-hot
three-pronged fork. I am going on with my story now without further
circumlocution.
This is what happened to the silversmith in the one-and-fortieth year
of his age. One Sabbath-day while walking on the left bank of the
Seine, led by an idle fancy, he ventured as far as that meadow which
has since been called the Pre-aux-Clercs and which at that time was in
the domain of the abbey of St. Germain, and not in that of the
University. There, still strolling on the Touranian found himself in
the open fields, and there met a poor young girl who, seeing that he
was well-dressed, curtsied to him, saying “Heaven preserve you,
monseigneur.” In saying this her voice had such sympathetic sweetness
that the silversmith felt his soul ravished by this feminine melody,
and conceived an affection for the girl, the more so as, tormented
with ideas of marriage as he was, everything was favourable thereto.
Nevertheless, as he had passed the wench by he dared not go back,
because he was as timid as a young maid who would die in her
petticoats rather than raise them for her pleasure. But when he was a
bowshot off he bethought him that he was a man who for ten years had
been a master silversmith, had become a citizen, and was a man of
mark, and could look a woman in the face if his fancy so led him, the
more so as his imagination had great power over him. So he turned
suddenly back, as if he had changed the direction of his stroll, and
came upon the girl, who held by an old cord her poor cow, who was
munching grass that had grown on the border of a ditch at the side of
the road.
“Ah, my pretty one,” said he, “you are not overburdened with the goods
of this world that you thus work with your hands upon the Lord’s Day.
Are you not afraid of being cast into prison?”
“Monseigneur,” replied the maid, casting down her eyes, “I have
nothing to fear, because I belong to the abbey. The Lord Abbot has
given me leave to exercise the cow after vespers.”
“You love your cow, then, more than the salvation of your soul?”
“Ah, monseigneur, our beast is almost the half of our poor lives.”
“I am astonished, my girl, to see you poor and in rags, clothed like a
fagot, running barefoot about the fields on the Sabbath, when you
carry about you more treasures than you could dig up in the grounds of
the abbey. Do not the townspeople pursue, and torment you with love?”
“Oh, never monseigneur. I belong to the abbey”, replied she, showing
the jeweller a collar on her left arm like those that the beasts of
the field have, but without the little bell, and at the same time
casting such a deplorable glance at our townsman that he was stricken
quite sad, for by the eyes are communicated contagions of the heart
when they are strong.
“And what does this mean?” he said, wishing to hear all about it.
And he touched the collar, upon which was engraved the arms of the
abbey very distinctly, but which he did not wish to see.
“Monseigneur, I am the daughter of an homme de corps; thus whoever
unites himself to me by marriage, will become a bondsman, even if he
were a citizen of Paris, and would belong body and goods to the abbey.
If he loved me otherwise, his children would still belong to the
domain. For this reason I am neglected by everyone, abandoned like a
poor beast of the field. But what makes me most unhappy is, that
according to the pleasure of monseigneur the abbot, I shall be coupled
at some time with a bondsman. And if I were less ugly than I am, at
the sight of my collar the most amorous would flee from me as from the
black plague.”
So saying, she pulled her cow by the cord to make it follow her.
“And how old are you?” asked the silversmith.
“I do not know, monseigneur; but our master, the abbot, has kept
account.”
This great misery touched the heart of the good man, who had in his
day eaten the bread of sorrow. He regulated his pace to the girl’s,
and they went together towards the water in painful silence. The good
man gazed at the fine forehead, the round red arms, the queen’s waist,
the feet dusty, but made like those of a Virgin Mary; and the sweet
physiognomy of this girl, who was the living image of St. Genevieve,
the patroness of Paris, and the maidens who live in the fields. And
make sure that this Joseph suspected the pretty white of this sweet
girl’s breasts, which were by a modest grace carefully covered with an
old rag, and looked at them as a schoolboy looks at a rosy apple on a
hot day. Also, may you depend upon it that these little hillocks of
nature denoted a wench fashioned with delicious perfection, like
everything that the monks possess. Now, the more it was forbidden our
silversmith to touch them, the more his mouth watered for these fruits
of love. And his heart leaped almost into his mouth.
“You have a fine cow,” said he.
“Would you like a little milk?” replied she. “It is so warm these
early days of May. You are far from the town.”
In truth, the sky was a cloudless blue, and glared like a forge.
Everything was radiant with youth, the leaves, the air, the girls, the
lads; everything was burning, was green, and smelt like balm. This
naive offer, made without the hope of recompense, though a byzant
would not have paid for the special grace of this speech; and the
modesty of the gesture with which the poor girl turned to him gained
the heart of the jeweller, who would have liked to be able to put this
bondswoman into the skin of a queen, and Paris at her feet.
“Nay, my child, I thirst not for milk, but for you, whom I would have
leave to liberate.”
“That cannot be, and I shall die the property of the abbey. For years
we have lived so, from father to son, from mother to daughter. Like my
ancestors, I shall pass my days on this land, as will also my
children, because the abbot cannot legally let us go.”
“What!” said the Touranian; “has no gallant been tempted by your
bright eyes to buy your liberty, as I bought mine from the king?”
“It would cost too dear; thus it is those whom at first sight I
please, go as they came.”
“And you have never thought of gaining another country in company of a
lover on horseback on a fleet courser?”
“Oh yes. But, monseigneur, if I were caught I should be hanged at
least; and my gallant, even were he a lord, would lose more than one
domain over it, besides other things. I am not worth so much; besides,
the abbey has arms longer than my feet are swift. So I live on in
perfect obedience to God, who has placed me in this plight.”
“What is your father?”
“He tends the vines in the gardens of the abbey.”
“And your mother?”
“She is a washerwoman.”
“And what is your name?”
“I have no name, dear sir. My father was baptised Etienne, my mother
is Etienne, and I am Tiennette, at your service.”
“Sweetheart,” said the jeweller, “never has woman pleased me as you
please me; and I believe that your heart contains a wealth of
goodness. Now, since you offered yourself to my eyes at the moment
when I was firmly deliberating upon taking a companion, I believe that
I see in you a sign from heaven! And if I am not displeasing to you, I
beg you to accept me as your friend.”
Immediately the maid lowered her eyes. These words were uttered in
such a way, in so grave a tone, so penetrating a manner, that the said
Tiennette burst into tears.
“No, monseigneur, I should be the cause of a thousand
unpleasantnesses, and of your misfortune. For a poor bondsmaid, the
conversation has gone far enough.”
“Ho!” cried Anseau; “you do not know, my child, the man you are
dealing with.”