In order not to discourage fine sentiments, intolerable though they be, the Author leaves to his friends his old shoes, and in order to make their minds easy, assures them that he has, legally protected and exempt from seizure, seventy droll stories, in that reservoir of nature, his brain. By the gods! they are precious yarns, well rigged out with phrases, carefully furnished with catastrophes, amply clothed with original humour, rich in diurnal and nocturnal effects, nor lacking that plot which the human race has woven each minute, each hour, each week, month, and year of the great ecclesiastical computation, commenced at a time when the sun could scarcely see, and the moon waited to be shown her way. These seventy subjects, which he gives you leave to call bad subjects, full of tricks and impudence, lust, lies, jokes, jests, and ribaldry, joined to the two portions here given, are, by the prophet! a small instalment of the aforesaid hundred.
Were it not now a bad time for bibliopolists, bibliomaniacs, bibliographers, and bibliothèques which hinder bibliolatry, he would have given them in a bumper, and not drop by drop as if he were afflicted with dysury of the brain. He cannot possibly be suspected of this infirmity, since he often gives good weight, putting several stories into one, as is clearly demonstrated by several in this volume. You may rely on it, that he has chosen for the finish, the best and most ribald of the lot, in order that he may not be accused of a senile discourse. Put then more likes with your dislikes, and dislikes with your likes. Forgetting the niggardly behaviour of nature to storytellers, of whom there are not more than seven perfect in the great ocean of human writers, other, although friendly, have been of opinion that, at a time when every one went about dressed in black, as if in mourning for something, it was necessary to concoct works either wearisomely serious, or seriously wearisome; that a writer could only live henceforward by enshrining his ideas in some vast edifice, and that those who were unable to reconstruct cathedrals and castles of which neither stone nor cement could be moved, would die unknown, like the Pope’s slippers. These friends were requested to declare which they liked best, a pint of good wine, or a tun of cheap rubbish; a diamond of twenty-two carats, or a flint-stone weighing a hundred pounds; the ring of Hans Carvel, as told by Rabelais, or a modern narrative pitifully expectorated by a schoolboy. Seeing them dumb-foundered and abashed, it was calmly said to them, “Do you thoroughly understand, good people? Then go your ways, and mind your own businesses.”
The following, however, must be added, for the benefit of all whom it may concern:—The good man to whom we owe fables and stories of sempiternal authority has only used his tool on them, having taken his material from others; but the workmanship expended on these little figures has given them a high value; and although he was, like M. Louis Ariosto, vituperated for thinking of idle pranks and trifles, there is a certain insect engraved by him which has since become a monument of perennity more assured than that of the most solidly built works. In the especial jurisprudence of wit and wisdom the custom is to esteem more dearly a leaf wrested from the book of Nature and Truth, than all the indifferent volumes from which, however fine they be, it is impossible to extract either a laugh or a tear. The author has license to say this without any impropriety, since it is not his intention to stand upon tiptoe in order to obtain an unnatural height, but because it is a question of the majesty of his art, and not of himself—a poor clerk of the court, whose business it is to have ink in his pen, to listen to the gentlemen on the bench, and take down the sayings of each witness in this case. He is responsible for the workmanship, Nature for the rest, since from the Venus of Phidias the Athenian, down to the little old fellow Godenot, commonly called the Sieur Breloque, a character carefully elaborated by one of the most celebrated authors of the present day, everything is studied from the eternal model of human imitations which belongs to all. At this honest business, happy are the robbers that are not hanged, but esteemed and beloved. But he is a triple fool, a fool with ten horns on his head, who struts, boasts, and is puffed up at an advantage due to the hazard of dispositions, because glory lies only in the cultivation of the faculties, in patience and courage.
As for the soft-voiced and pretty-mouthed ones, who have whispered delicately in the author’s ear, complaining to him that they have disarranged their tresses and spoiled their petticoats in certain places, he would say to them, “Why did you go there?” To these remarks he is compelled, through the notable slanders of certain people, to add a notice to the well-disposed, in order that they may use it, and end the calumnies of the aforesaid scribblers concerning him.
These droll tales are written—according to all authorities—at that period when Queen Catherine, of the house of Medicis, was hard at work; for during a great portion of the reign, she was always interfering with public affairs to the advantage of our holy religion. The which time has seized many people by the throat, from our defunct master, Francis, first of the name, to the Assembly at Blois, where fell M. de Guise. Now, even schoolboys who play at chuck-farthing, know that at this period of insurrections, pacifications, and disturbances, the language of France was a little disturbed also, on account of the inventions of the poets, who at that time, as at this, used each to make a language for himself, besides the strange Greek, Latin, Italian, German, and Swiss words, foreign phrases, and Spanish jargon, introduced by foreigners, so that a poor writer has plenty of elbow room in this Babelish language, which has since been taken in hand by Messieurs de Balzac, Blaise Pascal, Furetière, Menage, St. Evremond, de Malherbe, and others, who first cleaned out the French language, sent foreign words to the rightabout, and gave the right of citizenship to legitimate words used and known by every one, but of which the Sieur Ronsard was ashamed.
Having finished, the author returns to his lady-love, wishing every happiness to those by whom he is beloved; to the others, misfortune according to their deserts. When the swallows fly homeward, he will come again, not without the third and fourth volume, which he here promises to the Pantagruelists, merry knaves, and honest wags of all degrees, who have a wholesome horror of the sadness, sombre meditation and melancholy of literary croakers.
THE THREE CLERKS OF ST. NICHOLAS
THE Inn of the Three Barbels was formerly at Tours, the best place in the town for sumptuous fare; and the landlord, reputed the prince of cooks, went to prepare wedding breakfasts as far as Chatelherault, Loches, Vendôme, and Blois. This said man, an old fox, perfect in his business, never lighted lamps in the daytime, knew how to skin a flint, charged for wool, leather, and feathers, had an eye to everything, did not easily let any one pay with chaff instead of coin, and for a penny less than his accouut would have affronted even a prince. For the rest, he was a good banterer, drinking and laughing with his regular customers, hat in hand always before the persons furnished with plenary indulgences entitled Sit nomen Domini benedictum, running them into expense, and proving to them, if need were, by sound argument, that wines were dear, and that whatever they might think, nothing was given away in Touraine, everything had to be bought, and, at the same time, paid for. In short, if he could without disgrace have done so, he would have reckoned so much for the good air, and so much for the view of the country. Thus he built up a tidy fortune with other people’s money, became as round as a butt, larded with fat, and was called Monsieur. At the time of the last fair three young fellows, who were apprentices in knavery, in whom there was more of the material that makes thieves than saints, and who knew just how far it was possible to go without catching their necks in the branches of trees, made up their minds to amuse themselves, and live well, condemning certain hawkers or others in all the expenses. Now these limbs of Satan gave the slip to their masters, under whom they had been studying the art of parchment scrawling, and came to stay at the hotel of the Three Barbels, where they demanded the best rooms, turned the place inside out, turned up their noses at everything, bespoke all the lampreys in the market, and announced themselves as first-class merchants, who never carried their goods with them, and travelled only with thei
r persons. The host bustled about, turned the spits, got out the best of everything, and prepared a glorious repast for these three dodgers, who had already made noise enough for a hundred crowns, and who most certainly would not even have given up the copper coins which one of them was jingling in his pocket. But if they were hard up for money they did not want for ingenuity, and all three arranged to play their parts like thieves at a fair. Theirs was a farce in which there was plenty of eating and drinking, since for five days they so heartily attacked every kind of provision, that a party of German soldiers would have spoilt less than they obtained by fraud. These three cunning fellows made their way to the fair after breakfast, well primed, gorged, and big in the belly, and did as they liked with the greenhorns and others, robbing, filching, playing, and losing, taking down the writings and signs and changing them, putting that of the toyman over the jeweller’s, and that of the jeweller’s outside the shoemaker’s, turning the shops inside out, making the dogs fight, cutting the ropes of tethered horses, throwing cats among the crowd, crying “Stop thief!” and saying to every one they met, “Are you not Monsieur D’Entrefesse, of Angiers?” Then they hustled every one, making holes in the sacks of flour, looking for their handkerchiefs in ladies’ pockets, raising their skirts, crying, looking for a lost jewel, and saying to them—
“Ladies, it has fallen into a hole!”
They directed the little children wrongly, slapped the stomachs of those who were gaping in the air, and prowled about, fleecing and annoying every one. In short, the devil would have been a gentleman in comparison with these blackguard students, who would have been hanged rather than do an honest action; as well have expected charity from two angry litigants. They left the fair, not fatigued, but tired of ill-doing, and spent the remainder of their time over their dinner until the evening, when they recommenced their pranks by torchlight. After the pedlars they commenced operations on the ladies of the town, to whom, by a thousand dodges, they gave only that which they received, according to the axiom of Justinian: Cuicum jus tribuere. “To every one his own juice;” and afterwards jokingly said to the poor wenches—
“We are in the right and you in the wrong.”
At last, at supper-time, having nothing else to do, they began to knock each other about, and, to keep the game alive, complained of the flies to the landlord, remonsrating with him that elsewhere the innkeepers had them caught in order that gentlemen of position might not be annoyed by them. However, towards the fifth day, which is the critical day of fevers, the host not having been seen, although he kept his eyes wide open, the royal surface of a crown, and knowing that if all that glittered were gold it would be cheaper, began to knit his brows and go more slowly about that which his high-class merchants required of him. Fearing that he had made a bad bargain with them, he tried to sound the depth of their pockets; perceiving which the three clerks ordered him, with the assurance of a provost hanging his man, to serve them quickly with a good supper, as they had to depart immediately. Their merry countenances dismissed the host’s suspicions. Thinking that rogues without money would certainly look grave, he prepared a supper worthy a canon, wishing even to see them drunk, in order the more easily to clap them in gaol in the event of an accident. Not knowing how to make their escape from the room, in which they were about as much at their ease as are fish upon straw, the three companions ate and drank immoderately, looking at the situation of the windows, waiting the moment to decamp, but not getting the opportunity. Cursing their luck, one of them wished to go and undo his waistcoat, on account of a colic, the other to fetch a doctor to the third, who did his best to faint. The cursed landlord kept dodging about from the kitchen into the room, and from the room into the kitchen, watching the nameless ones, going a step forward to save his crowns, and going a step back to save his crown, in case they should be real gentlemen; and he acted like a brave and prudent host who likes halfpence and objects to kicks; but under pretence of properly attending to them, he always had an ear in the room and a foot in the court; fancied he was always being called by them, came every time they laughed, showing them a face with an unsettled look upon it, and always said, “Gentlemen, what is your pleasure?” This was an interrogatory in reply to which they would willingly have given him ten inches of his own spit in his stomach, because he appeared as if he knew very well what would please them at this juncture, seeing that to have twenty crowns, full weight, they would each of them have sold a third of his eternity. You can imagine they sat on their seats as if they were gridirons, that their feet itched and their posteriors were rather warm. Already the host had put the pears, the cheese, and the preserves near their noses, but they, sipping their liquor and picking at the dishes, looked at each other to see if either of them had found a good piece of roguery in his sack, and they all began to enjoy themselves rather wofully. The most cunning of the three clerks, who was a Burgundian, smiled and said, seeing the hour of payment arrived, “This must stand over for a week,” as if they had been at the Palais de Justice. The two others, in spite of the danger, began to laugh.
“What do we owe?” asked he who had in his belt the heretofore mentioned twelve sols, and he turned them about as though he would make them breed little ones by this excited movement. He was a native of Picardy, and very passionate; a man to take offence at anything in order that he might throw the landlord out of the window in all security of conscience. Now he said these words with the air of a man of immense wealth.
“Six crowns, gentlemen,” replied the host, holding out his hand.
“I cannot permit myself to be entertained by you alone, Viscount,” said the third student, who was from Anjou, and as artful as a woman in love.
“Neither can I,” said the Burgundian.
“Gentlemen! gentlemen!” replied the Picardian, “you are jesting. I am yours to command.”
“Sambreguoy!” cried he of Anjou. “You will not let us pay three times; our host would not suffer it.”
“Well then,” said the Burgundian, “whichever of us shall tell the worst tale shall justify the landlord.”
“Who will be the judge?” asked the Picardian, dropping his twelve sols to the bottom of his pocket.
“Pardieu! our host. He should be capable, seeing that he is a man of taste,” said he of Anjou. “Come along, great chef, sit you down, drink, and lend us both your ears. The audience is open.”
Thereupon the host sat down, but not until he had poured out a gobletful of wine.
“My turn first,” said the Anjou man. “I commence.”
“In our duchy of Anjou, the country people are very faithful servants to our holy Catholic religion, and none of them would lose his portion of paradise for lack of doing penance or killing a heretic. If a professor of heresy passed that way, he quickly found himself under the grass, without knowing whence his death had proceeded. A good man of Larzé, returning one night from his evening prayer to the wine flasks of the Pomme-de-Pin, where he had left his understanding and memory, fell into a ditch full of water near his house, and found he was up to his neck. One of the neighbours finding him shortly afterwards nearly frozen, for it was winter time, said jokingly to him—
“‘Holloa! what are you waiting for there?’
“‘A thaw,’ said the tipsy fellow, finding himself held by the ice.
“Then Godenot, like a good Christian, released him from his dilemma, and opened the door of the house to him, out of respect to the wine, which is lord of this country. The good man then went and got into the bed of the maid-servant, who was a young and pretty wench. The old bungler, bemuddled with wine, went ploughing in the wrong land, fancying all the time it was his wife by his side, and thanking her for the youth and freshness she still retained. On hearing her husband, the wife began to cry out, and by her terrible shrieks the man was awakened to the fact that he was not in the road to salvation, which made the poor labourer sorrowful beyond expression.
“‘Ah!’ said he; ‘God has punished me for not going to vespers
at church.’
“And he began to excuse himself as best he could, saying, that the wine had muddled his understanding, and getting into his own bed he kept repeating to his good wife, that for his best cow he would not have had this sin upon his conscience.
“‘My dear,’ said she, ‘go and confess the first thing tomorrow morning, and let us say no more about it.’
“The good man trotted to confessional, and related his case with all humility to the rector of the parish, who was a good old priest, capable of being up above, the slipper of the holy foot.
“‘An error is not a sin,’ said he to the penitent. ‘You will fast to-morrow, and be absolved.’
“‘Fast—with pleasure,’ said the good man. ‘That does not mean go without drink.’
“‘Oh!’ replied the rector, ‘you must drink water, and eat nothing but a quarter of a loaf and an apple.’
“Then the good man, who had no confidence in his memory, went home, repeating to himself the penance ordered. But having loyally commenced with a quarter of a loaf and an apple, he arrived at home, saying, a quarter of apples, and a loaf.
“Then, to purify his soul, he set about accomplishing his fast, and his good woman having given him a loaf from the safe, and unhooked a string of apples from the beam, he set sorrowfully to work. As he heaved a sigh on taking the last mouthful of bread, hardly knowing where to put it, for he was full to the chin, his wife remonstrated with him, that God did not desire the death of a sinner, and that for lack of putting a crust of bread in his belly, he would not be reproached for having put things in their wrong places.
“‘Hold your tongue, wife!’ said he. ‘If it chokes me, I must fast.’”
“I’ve paid my share, it’s your turn, Viscount,” added he of Anjou, giving the Picardian a knowing wink.
“The goblets are empty. Hi, there! More wine.”
Droll Stories Page 18
