"My daughter," said he, "your sins are so great that to atone for them I command you the penance of wearing my cord upon your naked flesh."
The maiden, who was unwilling to disobey him, made answer--
"Give it to me, father, and I will not fail to wear it."
"My daughter," said the good father, "it will be of no avail from your own hand. Mine, from which you shall receive absolution, must first bind it upon you; then shall you be absolved of all your sins."
The maiden replied, weeping, that she would not suffer it.
"What?" said the confessor. "Are you a heretic, that you refuse the penances which God and our holy mother Church have ordained?"
"I employ confession," said the maiden, "as the Church commands, and I am very willing to receive absolution and do penance. But I will not be touched by your hands, and I refuse this mode of penance."
"Then," said the confessor, "I cannot give you absolution."
The maiden rose from before him greatly troubled in conscience, for, being very young, she feared lest she had done wrong in thus refusing to obey the worthy father.
When mass was over and the Countess of Aiguemont had received the "Corpus Domini," her lady of honour, desiring to follow her, asked her daughter whether she was ready. The maiden, weeping, replied that she was not shriven.
"Then what were you doing so long with the preacher?" asked her mother.
"Nothing," said the maiden, "for, as I refused the penance that he laid upon me, he on his part refused me absolution."
Making prudent inquiry, the mother learnt the extraordinary penance that the good father had chosen for her daughter; and then, having caused her to be confessed by another, they received the sacrament together. When the Countess was come back from the church, the lady of honour made complaint to her of the preacher, whereupon the Countess was the more surprised and grieved, since she had thought so well of him.
Nevertheless, despite her anger, she could not but feel very much inclined to laugh at the unwonted nature of the penance.
Still her laughter did not prevent her from having the friar taken and beaten in her kitchen, where he was brought by the strokes of the rod to confess the truth; and then she sent him bound hand and foot to his Warden, begging the latter for the future to commission more virtuous men to preach the Word of God.
"Consider, ladies, if the monks be not afraid to display their wantonness in so illustrious a house, what may they not do in the poor places where they commonly make their collections, and where opportunities are so readily offered to them, that it is a miracle if they are quit of them without scandal. And this, ladies, leads me to beg of you to change your ill opinion into compassion, remembering that he (3) who blinds the Grey Friars is not sparing of the ladies when he finds an opportunity."
3 The demon.--B. J.
"Truly," said Oisille, "this was a very wicked Grey Friar. A monk, a priest and a preacher to work such wickedness, and that on Christmas day, in the church and under the cloak of the confessional--all these are circumstances which heighten the sin."
"It would seem from your words," said Hircan, "that the Grey Friars ought to be angels, or more discreet than other men, but you have heard instances enough to show you that they are far worse. As for the monk in the story, I think he might well be excused, seeing that he found himself shut up all alone at night with a handsome girl."
"True," said Oisille, "but it was Christmas night."
"That makes him still less to blame," said Simontault, "for, being in Joseph's place beside a fair virgin, he wished to try to beget an infant and so play the Mystery of the Nativity to the life."
"In sooth," said Parlamente, "if he had thought of Joseph and the Virgin Mary, he would have had no such evil purpose. At all events, he was a wickedly-minded man to make so evil an attempt upon such slight provocation."
"I think," said Oisille, "that the Countess punished him well enough to afford an excellent example to his fellows."
"But 'tis questionable," said Nomerfide, "whether she did well in thus putting her neighbour to shame, or whether 'twould not have been better to have quietly shown him his faults, rather than have made them so publicly known."
"That would, I think, have been better," said Geburon, "for we are commanded to rebuke our neighbour in secret, before we speak of the matter to any one else or to the Church. When a man has been brought to public disgrace, he will hardly ever be able to mend his ways, but fear of shame withdraws as many persons from sin as conscience does."
"I think," said Parlamente, "that we ought to observe the teaching of the Gospel towards all except those that preach the Word of God and act contrary to it. We should not be afraid to shame such as are accustomed to put others to shame; indeed I think it a very meritorious thing to make them known for what they really are, so that we take not a mock stone (4) for a fine ruby. But to whom will Saffredent give his vote?"
4 The French word here is _doublet_. The doublet was a piece of crystal, cut after the fashion of a diamond, and backed with red wax so as to give it somewhat the colour of a ruby.--B. J.
"Since you ask me," he replied, "I will give it to yourself, to whom no man of understanding should refuse it."
"Then, since you give it to me, I will tell you a story to the truth of which I can myself testify. I have always heard that when virtue abides in a weak and feeble vessel, and is assailed by its strong and puissant opposite, it especially deserves praise, and shows itself to be what it really is. If strength withstand strength, it is no very wonderful thing; but if weakness win the victory, it is lauded by every one.
Knowing, as I do, the persons of whom I desire to speak, I think that I should do a wrong to virtue, (which I have often seen hidden under so mean a covering that none gave it any heed), if I did not tell of her who performed the praiseworthy actions that I now feel constrained to relate."
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[Illustration: 123a.jpg The Girl refusing the Gift of the Young Prince]
[The Girl refusing the Gift of the Young Prince]
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_TALE XLII_.
_A young Prince set his affections upon a young girl, and although she was of low and poor parentage, he could not, in spite of all his efforts, obtain from her what he had hoped to have. Accordingly, recognising her virtue and honour, the Prince desisted from his attempt, esteemed her highly all his life, and, marrying her to a follower of his own, bestowed great benefits upon her_.
In one of the best towns in Touraine there dwelt a lord of illustrious family, who had there been brought up from early youth. Of the perfections, graces, beauty and great virtues of this young Prince (1) I will say nothing, except that in his time his equal could not be found.
Being fifteen years of age, he had more pleasure in hunting and hawking than in looking at beautiful ladies.
1 This is undoubtedly Francis I., then Count of Angouleme.
M. de Lincy thinks that the scene of the story must be Amboise, where Louise of Savoy went to live with her children in 1499, and remained for several years; Louis XII.
having placed the chateau there at her disposal. Francis, however, left Amboise to join the Court at Blois in August 1508, when less than fourteen years old (see Memoir of Queen Margaret, vol. i. p. xxiii.), and in the tale, above, he is said to have been fifteen at the time of the incidents narrated. These, then, would have occurred in the autumn of 1509. It will be seen that in the tale the young Prince's sister (Margaret) is described as residing at the castle.
Now Margaret married Charles of Alencon at Blois, in October 1509, and forthwith removed to Alencon. Possibly Francis, who was very precocious, especially in matters of gallantry, engaged in the love affair narrated by his sister at a yet earlier age than she asserts, in which case the town she refers to would undoubtedly be Amboise.--Ed.
One day in a church he beheld a young maiden who formerly, during her childhood, had been bred in the castle where he dwelt; but after her mother's death, her father having married again, she had withdrawn into Poitou with her brother. This maiden, who was called Frances, had a bastard sister whom her father dearly loved, and whom he had married to the young Prince's butler, who maintained her in as excellent a condition as that of any of her family. It came to pass that the father died and left to Frances as her portion what he possessed near the town aforementioned, and thither she returned after his death; nevertheless, being unmarried and only sixteen years of age, she would not live alone in her house, but went to lodge with her sister, the butler's wife.
On perceiving this girl, who was passably beautiful for a light brunette, and possessed a grace beyond her condition (for, indeed, she seemed rather a lady or princess than a towns-woman), the young Prince gazed at her for a long time, and he, who never yet had loved, now felt in his heart an unwonted delight. On returning to his apartment he inquired concerning the maiden he had seen in the church, and then recollected that formerly in her youth she had come to the castle to have dolls' play with his sister. He reminded the latter of her; and his sister sent for her, received her kindly, and begged her to come often to see her. This she did whenever there was a feast or entertainment; and the young Prince was so pleased to see her that he had in mind to be deeply in love with her, and, knowing her to be of low and poor parentage, hoped easily to obtain what he sought.
Having no means of speaking with her, he sent a gentleman of his chamber to her to conduct his intrigue. But she, being discreet and fearing God, told the gentleman that she did not believe so handsome and honourable a Prince as his master could have pleasure in looking upon one so ugly as herself, since he had so many beautiful ladies in the castle where he lived, that he had no need to search through the town; and she added that in her opinion the gentleman was speaking of his own authority, and without his master's command.
When the young Prince received this reply, love, which becomes the more eager the more it meets with resistance, caused him to pursue his enterprise more hotly than before, and to write her a letter in which he begged that she would believe all the gentleman had told her.
Being well able to read and write, she read the letter through, but, in spite of all the gentleman's entreaties, she would never send an answer to it. It was not for one of such low degree, she said, to write to so noble a Prince, and she begged the gentleman not to deem her foolish enough to believe that the Prince had so much love for her. Moreover, he was deceived if he thought that he could have her at his will by reason of her humble condition; for her heart was as virtuous as that of the greatest Princess in Christendom, and she looked upon all the treasures in the world as naught in comparison with honour and a good conscience.
She therefore entreated him not to try to hinder her from keeping these treasures safe her whole life long, for she would never change her mind even were she threatened with death.
The young Prince did not find this reply to his liking, nevertheless he loved her dearly for it, and never failed to have his chair set in the church to which she went to hear mass, where, during the service, he would ever turn his eyes upon the same image. When she perceived this, she changed her place and went to another chapel--not indeed to flee the sight of him, for she would not have been a reasonable being had she not found pleasure in beholding him--but because she dreaded to be seen by him. She did not deem herself worthy to be loved by him in honour or marriage, and, on the other hand, she would not be loved wantonly and for pleasure. When she found that, in whatever part of the church she placed herself, the Prince heard mass close by, she would no longer go to the same church, but repaired every day to the remotest that she could find. And when there was feasting at the castle, although the Prince's sister often sent for her, she would no longer go thither, but excused herself on the plea of sickness.
Finding that he could not have speech with her, the Prince had recourse to his butler, and promised him great rewards if he would lend assistance in the matter. This the butler, for the sake both of pleasing his master and of the gain that he expected, readily promised to do.
Every day he would relate to the Prince what she said or did, telling him that she was especially careful to shun all opportunities of seeing him. However, the great desire that the Prince had of speaking with her at his ease, prompted him to devise the following plan.
One day he took his chargers, which he was beginning to manage excellently well, to a large open space in the town opposite to his butler's house, in which Frances lived. After making many courses and leaps which she could easily see, he let himself fall from his horse into some deep mire, but so softly that he was not hurt. Nevertheless he uttered passably loud groans, and asked whether there was a house near in which he might change his dress. Every one offered his own, but on some one saying that the butler's was the nearest and worthiest, it was chosen before all the others.