The next day he put on a false beard and the dress of a date merchant,
and, taking a little table, he placed himself before the door of the
church.
He spread carefully out on a fine white cloth his Mirabelle plums, which
looked for all the world as if they had been freshly gathered, and
when he saw the Princess coming out of church he began to call out in a
feigned voice: ‘Fine plums! lovely plums!’
‘How much are they?’ said the Princess.
‘Fifty crowns each.’
‘Fifty crowns! But what is there so very precious about them? Do they
give one wit, or will they increase one’s beauty?’
‘They could not increase what is perfect already, fair Princess, but
still they might add something.’
Rolling stones gather no moss, but they sometimes gain polish; and the
months which John had spent in roaming about the world had not been
wasted. Such a neatly turned compliment flattered Ludovine.
‘What will they add?’ she smilingly asked.
‘You will see, fair Princess, when you taste them. It will be a surprise
for you.’
Ludovine’s curiosity was roused. She drew out the purse and shook out as
many little heaps of fifty crowns as there were plums in the basket. The
little soldier was seized with a wild desire to snatch the purse from
her and proclaim her a thief, but he managed to control himself.
His plums all sold, he shut up shop, took off his disguise, changed his
inn, and kept quiet, waiting to see what would happen.
No sooner had she reached her room than the Princess exclaimed, ‘Now let
us see what these fine plums can add to my beauty,’ and throwing off her
hood, she picked up a couple and ate them.
Imagine with what surprise and horror she felt all of a sudden that
something was growing out of her forehead. She flew to her mirror and
uttered a piercing cry.
‘Horns! so that was what he promised me! Let someone find the
plum-seller at once and bring him to me! Let his nose and ears be cut
off! Let him be flayed alive, or burnt at a slow fire and his ashes
scattered to the winds! Oh, I shall die of shame and despair!’
Her women ran at the sound of her screams, and tried to wrench off the
horns, but it was of no use, and they only gave her a violent headache.
The King then sent round a herald to proclaim that he would give
the hand of the Princess to anyone who would rid her of her strange
ornaments. So all the doctors and sorcerers and surgeons in the Low
Countries and the neighbouring kingdoms thronged to the palace, each
with a remedy of his own. But it was all no good, and the Princess
suffered so much from their remedies that the King was obliged to
send out a second proclamation that anyone who undertook to cure the
Princess, and who failed to do it, should be hanged up to the nearest
tree.
But the prize was too great for any proclamation to put a stop to the
efforts of the crowd of suitors, and that year the orchards of the Low
Countries all bore a harvest of dead men.