historical personage as any “grand pannetier,” or “bouteiller de la
couronne.” Triboulet was a native of Blois, where he led a wild life in
his youth, but entered early in the service of the Count d’Angoulême,
afterwards Francis I., in the quality of jester. He may have been
called the town jester, for he was for ever in the streets, playing
on the bagpipes, basking in the sun, saying sharp things to all who
passed near him, and impudently importuning everybody for money. It was
in Blois that Triboulet cut the “pourpoint de livrée” of one of the
pages of the Count d’Angoulême, as the young gentleman was hurrying
through the streets on a mission connected with the coming visit of
Louis XII. and Anne of Brittany. The page, unconscious of the trick
played him, whereby he looked like a monkey _without_ his tail, was
hailed by his young fellows at court with shouts of laughter. But when
their laughter was at an end, they resolved to avenge the insult. They
carried Triboulet off beyond the ramparts of the city, and, near the
permanent gallows which was then no uncommon ornament in the vicinity
of great cities, they began tormenting him, by pricking his feet with
their daggers, dragging him by the hair, and burning his moustaches.
This done, one merry and merciful young gentleman, looking at the
fool’s long ears (for which he was remarkable), proposed that he should
be hung by them to the gibbet; and accordingly, they nailed him by the
right ear in such a position that he was only supported by his toes,
and his pitiful beseechings only raised the mirth of the tender-hearted
young pages.
If we may believe the Bibliophile, who is, indeed, as frequently a
romancer as an antiquary, it was as some compensation for this outrage,
that Francis of Angoulême created Triboulet his fool by patent. The
same writer adds, that the pages found the jester’s tongue even longer
than his ears; and, “remarkable fact, from this period, Triboulet,
who was then about four-and-twenty years of age, suddenly ceased to
be idiotic and imbecile, and became a witty, diverting, and crafty
buffoon, and, above all, a perfect courtier.”
In person, Triboulet was small and crooked; his head and ears were
enormously large; his mouth proportionately wide; his nose must have
been three times the size of that of Francis, who had otherwise the
largest nose of any man in France: Rudolph of Hapsburg had not a
larger. The fool’s eyes were protruding; his forehead was low and
narrow. “His flat and hollow chest,” says Jacob, “his bowed back, his
short and twisted legs, his long and hanging arms, amused the ladies,
who contemplated him as if he had been a monkey or a paroquet.”
We find one of the uses to which these official fools were put at this
court, in a remark touching the costume of Triboulet. “His dress was
not less eccentric than his person. In accordance with his secret
occupation of purveyor of pleasures to the King, he adopted the colours
of the reigning mistress, and dressed in something of the fashion of
his master. His _justaucorps_ was of striped blue and white silk,
fitting so tightly as to render his bodily deformity more conspicuous,
and to excite more readily the laughter of all who looked upon him
for the first time. On his back, thighs, and cap, were emblazoned the
royal arms, and from his girdle of gilt leather hung the symbols of his
office,--a club, a wooden sword, and a bagpipe. Another distinguishing
mark of his office might be seen and heard in the little silver bells
attached to his conical cap, his wand with a fool’s head at the end
of it, and his long-toed red morocco slippers. He could not advance a
step, nor turn his body ever so slightly, without setting these bells
in motion, and thereby making a noise louder than that of ten mules
in full trot. Triboulet was proud of functions which placed him near
the King, and which he would not have exchanged for a ducal coronet or
an episcopal mitre. He used to say of himself, that he was ‘the most
noble in France, commencing from the lowest rank.... Keep duchies,
countships, baronies, and marquisates to yourselves, Triboulet is
sovereign lord of all at whom he mocks.’”
The Triboulet of Paul Lacroix is probably more like the original
Triboulet than the half sentimental half savage hero of Victor Hugo’s
play, ‘Le Roi s’amuse.’ In this piece, the “fou” is rendered malicious
by a three-piled misery,--he is infirm, deformed, and an official court
fool. He hates all his superiors because they _are_ his superiors, and
detests those beneath him,--detests men generally, in fact, because
they are not hunchbacked, like himself. He excites rank against rank,
and all against the King, and the King against all. He is the bad
genius of Francis, whom he corrupts, and the scourge of the nobility,
the dishonour of whose families he works through the King. He is
Mephistophiles without superhuman power, for the lack of which he
makes up by the intensity of his devilishness. Victor Hugo himself
compares the buffoon and the King to a man holding a plaything and
mortally wounding those among whom he capers with his toy. The buffoon
is altogether without heart; yet not quite altogether, for there is
one point on which he is as tender-hearted, as ever father could be
who had an only daughter dearer to him far than his own life. Yet he
has no heart for other sires whose love for their daughters is ardent,
but who would rather see them coffined at their feet than crowned and
dishonoured. So, when the Count de Saint-Vallier denounces Francis,
in open court, for having brought disgrace upon his child, Diane de
Poictiers, Triboulet the fool insults the outraged parent; and the old
noble, robbed of his daughter, curses Triboulet the man. On this curse
the whole piece turns, and from the time it is fulminated, there is
little that ensues which is illustrative of the office and pleasantry
of the buffoon, though all is highly dramatic, and Nemesis rules
without restraint. The curse of the old Count smites Triboulet through
his child, whom the King carries off, and whom the father slays by
mistake for the royal seducer. The moral of the piece is defective,
seeing that the buffoon, for a thoughtless trick of his office, is the
only person most terribly punished. The King, who is the gay stage
villain of the piece, escapes scot-free. It is like sending Leporello
_ad inferos_, instead of Don Giovanni. If the Triboulet of Victor Hugo
be full of brilliant inconsistencies and glittering contradictions,
he is in many things what tradition represents him to have been. He
flings smart sayings at marriage, laughs at the King’s pretensions to
write verses, pushes or draws him into vice, and shoots a fool’s bolt
at woman, by styling her, “a highly perfected devil.” His malice is
illustrated by his delight at the opportunity offered him to cruelly
rally the husbands whom his highly perfected devils outrage and
betray. His humour is to comment and criticize, while others, and
especially the King, enjoy life after their fashion. Between his own
condition and that of the master whom he serves, he draws a distinction
of which he might reasonably have been the author, saying to Francis
“Vous êtes
Heureux comme un roi, et moi comme un bossu.”
That Victor Hugo was careful of representing Triboulet in his vocation
of buffoon, according to the way in which the contemporaries of the
“fou” had spoken of him, may be seen in the speech of M. de Pienne to
Marot, who is, and was, fool in all things but the title, with enough
of that wit which our own national poet alluded to as requisite for a
man who aspired to play the character becomingly. De Pienne says to
Marot:--
“J’ai lu dans votre écrit du siége de Peschière,
Ces vers sur Triboulet, Fou de tête écornée,
Aussi sage à trente ans que le jour qu’ il est né.”
It is probable, therefore, that we find other reflections of the
buffoon’s actual character and his bearing towards Francis, in the
best passages connected with him and his vocation. Triboulet certainly
exhibits a turn of his profession when, after drinking with the
monarch, he boasts of possessing two advantages over him, that of not
being drunk, and that of not being King. The well-known freedom which
he invariably took with Francis, is not less pleasantly illustrated by
his satire against scholars, when the King’s sister Margaret counselled
him to surround himself with wise men, since he lacked the love of
ladies.
“C’est bien mal,” says the buffoon,--
“C’est bien mal
De la part d’une sœur. Il n’est pas d’animal,
Pas de corbeau goulu, pas de loup, pas de chouette,
Pas d’oison, pas de bœuf, pas même de poët e,
Pas de Mahométan, pas de théologien,
Pas d’échevin flamand, pas d’ours et pas de chien,
Plus laid, plus chevelu, plus repoussant des formes,
Plus caparaçonné d’absurdités énormes,
Plus hérissé, plus sale et plus gonflé de vent,
Que cet âne bâté qu’on appelle un savant.
.... Médecine inouïe!
Conseiller les savants à quelqu’un qui s’ennuie!”
And again, we have a fact put in rhyme, though it be told of other
buffoons, in the passage where Francis, pointing to three courtiers,
tells Triboulet that they are employed in making sport of him. “Not
of me,” says Triboulet, “but of another fool.” “And who is he?” asks
Francis. “The King,” briefly and drily replies the buffoon, who
especially hated the courtiers, who as heartily hated the King’s
jester. Francis, still remarking on the three, observes discontentedly,
“I have made one an admiral, one a grand constable, and of the third,
controller of my household. What more could I do for them?” “Well,”
returns Triboulet, “there is _one_ thing more you might very justly do
for them;--you might hang them!” It may be added, that the _plaisant_
did not at all fear those whom he exasperated by the exercise of his
wit; and his feeling in this respect is well illustrated by his remark
to one of the illustrious gentlemen whom he had offended, and by whom
he was thrashed:--
“Be assured, my good seigneurs, that Triboulet’s far
From dreading the nobles ’gainst whom he makes war.
Dread! I dread nothing; my heart’s calm and cool;
For I’ve nothing to risk but the head of a fool.”
Triboulet, after his death, was not honoured, like Thevenin de
Saint-Légier, with a magnificent tomb and a superscribed epitaph.
Nevertheless, he did not lack a poet who at least penned an epitaph
which is in very tolerable Latin, and has fool’s wit in its closing
turn. It is by Jean Bouté, was printed in 1538, and is to this
effect:--
“Vixi _Morio_, Regibus qui gratus
Solo hoc nomine; viso num futurus
Regum Morio sim Jovi Supremo.”
Among the frequenters of the court of Francis we occasionally meet
with personages who had too much wit to be official _fous_, but whose
humour was sometimes exercised like theirs, but without license. Their
wit was enjoyed, but it was exercised at their risk and peril. Marot
was one of those; and many are the stories of him that are little worth
relating. Of the best of them, there is one which tells of his feigned
simplicity, when he saw the French Ambassador at Rome kiss the Pope’s
foot. “Merciful powers!” cried Marot, “if the representative of the
King of France kisses his Holiness’s foot, what may a poor fellow like
me be called upon to salute!” Marot, too, is the author of a smart
saying that has been turned and re-turned in many a handbook of wit
since his time. He was walking with a very fine court personage, who
hated wits and poets, and who remarked to Marot, who was to the right
of him, “I cannot bear, Marot, to have a fool on my right-hand.” “Can
you not?” said the wit, slipping round to the left, “I can bear it very
well!” This wit satirized with his pen the hypocritical priests as
stingingly as Triboulet did with his tongue the nobles whom he hated;
and he was, consequently, once menaced with the vengeance of a bishop
on whom he had been particularly severe. “Oh!” remarked Marot, “I am in
no anxiety, I know a place where I can easily escape the research of
the bishop. I will go and sit in his library.”
It is true, that though the especial duty of the _fou_ was to laugh
and make laugh, and that he possessed not the privilege of weeping
if choice or calamity urged him thereto, he had license of speech,
and sometimes used it for the admonition as well as amusement of his
master. In this respect, the _plaisant_ often became a political
personage or agent of considerable importance; and an instance of this
is recounted of Briandas, who was one of the official fools of Francis
I., after the death of Triboulet, about the year 1538.
Francis had so neglected his wife, the gentle, pious, but
grandeur-loving Claude, that their eldest son had little love for his
sire; and the Dauphin, subsequently Henry II., was upon such terms
with his father as the Princes of Wales were, under our Georges. They
had their separate households, courts, and factions, and the feuds
between the two were constant and bitter. It is worth remarking that
Briandas, who was attached to the King’s person, as “Bouffon de Cour,”
had free access to the Prince’s presence at all times. On one of
these occasions, he was present when the Dauphin and a few personal
friends were discussing their future prospects and chances of fortune.
The discussion took the turn of an appeal to the heir-apparent, as
to the distribution of wealth and honours, when the reigning King,
Francis, should be in his grave. The Dauphin did not seem to think
that the matter was in any way delicate or difficult. He felt a joy
in the mere fancy of being King, and joyously notified how he would
deprive certain noblemen of the court of his father of their offices,
and confer them on his followers present. The prince proceeded to
sportively appoint various laughing applicants to divers posts coveted
by them. All found themselves thus provided for, save one--the old
Marshal Vielleville,--who had remained silent. Now there was another
individual in the room, silent also; and he had not escaped the
Marshal’s observation. This was Briandas, the fool. The Marshal, in his
honesty or great discretion, would not take part in the proceedings,
the little decorum of which may have shocked an old-world courtier,
and he remained taciturn, as if he disapproved of the entire comedy.
The _fou_ too was silent; but he was thoughtful also. No one, however,
suspected him of having attended to what had been going forward, or
of his holding long in memory the serious joking of which he had been
a witness. The buffoon, however, was not the man they took him for. He
that night entered the apartment where Francis sat surrounded by his
friends, and approaching his master with solemn gait, addressed him
as solemnly of speech, with, “God greet you, _Francis of Valois_, for
from what I have seen and heard this evening, you are King no longer!”
He did not pause here, but turning to the various great officers of
the crown, he announced to each that he was deprived of his dignity,
to which a successor had been appointed. “God’s death!” he finally
exclaimed, turning sharp round upon the King, “as for you, the grand
constable will soon be upon you, rod in hand, to whip you for your
follies.”
It would be difficult to say whether the wrath or the curiosity of
the King was greater. He had his misgivings, too, as to indulging in
either, for this might only be a fool’s jest after all. His curiosity
however had the mastery, and Briandas, in presence of Francis, the
Cardinal of Lorraine, and the Duchess d’Estampes, was so closely
questioned and cross-questioned, as to induce us to believe that the
querists were more justified in trusting to his intelligence than the
Dauphin and his friends had been in depending on his simplicity or
imbecility. The buffoon succinctly revealed everything, named all the
persons who had leaped into high saddles before their time, but made
especial exception of Vielleville, as having neither applied for a post
nor had one conferred on him by the foolish King _in posse_.
The royal curiosity satisfied, wrath took its place; and at the head
of a body of Scottish and Swiss guards, Francis hastened, with the
“fou,” to arrest his own too hasty son and his adherents. These,
however, had been timely forewarned, and had hurriedly decamped. There
were no persons left in the Dauphin’s chamber, except a few pages and
servants, on whom Francis let his wrath fall, and ordered them to be
soundly horsewhipped. They doubtless deserved it for something or
another, so that it was not altogether thrown away. The King acted less
justifiably, even in the eyes of the buffoon, when he proceeded with
his own hand to destroy the furniture in the Dauphin’s chamber, and to
slash the tapestry with his sword.
Months elapsed before the King and his son became partially reconciled,
through the intervention of mutual friends. As for the Dauphin’s
followers, they were all punished by various measures of disgrace
and severity, excepting Vielleville, who had marked the presence of
Francis’s fool, and in that presence had been too wise or honest to
offend Francis’s self-love. And thus things remained till the death of
Francis and the accession of Henry. _Then_ the long-before discussed
probabilities, and the lavish promises, became realities. Francis’s
friends were swept from their high estate, and the trusty or eager
followers of Henry appointed in their place. Never was the tune of
‘Up go we’ so admirably played out as on this occasion by the husband
of Catherine de Medicis and his partisans. There were however two
personages who did not join in the chorus, namely, the wise or discreet
Marshal Vielleville and the loquacious but trusty fool, Briandas. The
former was passed over for being too silent, and the latter suffered
stripes and imprisonment for being too talkative.
Neither of these lost much by not serving Henry II. (especially as
regards Briandas), for that King and his actual fool could never agree.
The great man could not bear the license of the little one, and the
latter could so indifferently endure the exasperating humour of his
master, that he one day drew his sword upon the King. It could only
have been his wooden sword, for fools could carry no other on their
thigh; but Henry took the act of poor Capuchio as an act of treason,
and the buffoon is said to have paid for it with his life.
Henry had far more regard for the fool Thony, whom he raised to the
rank of patented buffoon, after the death of the jester’s late master,
the Duke of Orleans. The Duke had taken him, at an early age, from his
mother, at Coucy in Picardy. Thony had three brothers, all of whom
were actually out of their wits, and the pious woman desired to see
Thony in priest’s orders, that he might pray for his witless brethren.
“Leave him to me,” said the Duke, “I will look to it.” Therewith his
highness carried him off; and as the aforesaid brothers had received
appointments as house-fools in illustrious but private families, the
Duke made a fool of Thony. He was a coarse, rough fellow at first,
but the society of pages and courtiers improved him. By constant
friction with such materials, he became remarkably polished and jocose.
The constable Anne de Montmorency had an especial regard for Thony.
He invited him to his own table, where the “fou” was served like a
King, and where his chief joke seems to have been in complaining of
the inattention of the pages and lackeys; and his chief enjoyment in
seeing them smartly scourged in his presence for their neglect, real
or alleged. The constable called him the most subtle courtier of a
fool that he had ever seen. Thony exhibited his subtlety by naming the
constable familiarly, his “Papa;” but this was only as long as that
great officer was in favour with the King. When the royal favour had
departed, Thony no longer looked with an eye of affection on him. Only
the King’s friends were _his_ friends, so that, in one respect, the
fool was like any ordinary man.
Indeed, some of the ordinary men were brighter wits than the fools.
After the demise of Francis I. we meet with a personage who, without
being a jester by vocation, probably caused more mirth and laughter at
the court of Henry II. than was ever raised there by courtier or court
fool. The name of this personage was Mendoza, and the first subject
for his wit he found in a solemn circumstance. Henry celebrated the
obsequies of his predecessor in magnificent style. The priest who
pronounced the funeral oration maintained that King Francis had been
of so holy a life, that his soul had gone to Paradise without passing
through Purgatory. The denial of Purgatory was a favourite tenet of
the Reformers. The Sorbonne accused the preacher of heresy, and sent a
deputation to St. Germain, to make known their complaint to the King.
Mendoza, then a chief officer of the court, first received it, and,
by a facetious speech, saved Henry from an act of injustice. “Calm
yourselves, gentlemen,” said he to the deputies of the Sorbonne; “if
you had known the good King Francis as well as I did, you would have
better understood the words of the preacher. Francis was not a man to
tarry long anywhere; and if he did take a turn in Purgatory, believe
me, the devil himself could not persuade him to make anything like a
sojourn.” What could the deputation do, save laugh themselves into good
humour at the wit of this court official?
Indisputably the most celebrated of the French fools by right of
patent, was Brusquet, whose whole career is tolerably well known, and
who was in every respect one of the most singular characters of his
time. He was a native of Provence; of his childhood little is known,
save that he spent it in his native province; and there is some little
uncertainty as to the profession with which he first started on his
more public career. According to some authors, he appeared at Paris
as a pettifogging lawyer, and was in danger of starving for want of
clients. But Brusquet was an original fellow, and the nearer he was
in danger of being famished, the more merrily he met what fate was
preparing for him. Indeed, his mirth, wit, and light-heartedness
procured for him a prosperity unattainable by the practice of the
law, by introducing him to the tables of great men, as a professional
jester.
There is another and a still more amusing version of the early
professional life of Brusquet. According to this, he commenced as a
quack doctor; perhaps he took up physic when he laid down law. However
this may be, it is pretty certain that he was a medical hanger-on to
the camp at Avignon, in 1536. He had of course little or no knowledge
of his profession; but his patients died in greater ignorance than he.
His _impudence and boldness_ were about equal; and he so dosed the
Lanzknechts and Switzers, that he at last became as terrible to them
as the enemy. They perished by scores under his vigorous practice, of
which the modest practitioner seemed to think lightly; for after all,
said he, “What are they? Only Swiss robbers and plundering riders.” But
these robbers and riders were first-rate troops, and their commanders
could not afford to lose them at the rate by which they were despatched
by the gay yet terrific Brusquet. And the quack began to be looked
upon, in some sort, as an assassin. Indeed, the great constable de
Montmorency, exasperated by the results of his peculiar medical skill,
resolved to confer on him an assassin’s reward, and, accordingly,
ordered him to be summarily executed. Brusquet was warned in time,
by friends who could better spare a legion of Lanzknechts than they
could the brilliant-witted quack; and he at once betook himself to the
quarters of the commander-in-chief, the Dauphin, afterwards Henry II.
This prince knew of Brusquet’s better qualities, by report, and he
was so charmed by the fellow’s manner and matter, his quaint address,
his witty illustrations, and his method of making his offences assume
the guise of merits, that he at once took him under his protection,
exempted him from arrest by the camp provost, and appointed him to a
subordinate place in the Dauphin’s household.