Droll Stories, Volume 2

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DROLL STORIES

COLLECTED FROM THE ABBEYS OF TOURAINE

VOLUME II
THE SECOND TEN TALES

BY

HONORE DE BALZAC




CONTENTS

THE SECOND TEN TALES

PROLOGUE
THE THREE CLERKS OF SAINT NICHOLAS
THE CONTINENCE OF KING FRANCIS THE FIRST
THE MERRY TATTLE OF THE NUNS OF POISSY
HOW THE CHATEAU D'AZAY CAME TO BE BUILT
THE FALSE COURTESAN
THE DANGER OF BEING TOO INNOCENT
THE DEAR NIGHT OF LOVE
THE SERMON OF THE MERRY VICAR OF MEUDON
THE SUCCUBUS
DESPAIR IN LOVE
EPILOGUE




SECOND TEN TALES



PROLOGUE

Certain persons have reproached the Author for knowing no more about
the language of the olden times than hares do of telling stories.
Formerly these people would have been vilified, called cannibals,
churls, and sycophants, and Gomorrah would have been hinted at as
their natal place. But the Author consents to spare them the flowery
epithets of ancient criticism; he contents himself with wishing not to
be in their skin, for he would be disgusted with himself, and esteem
himself the vilest of scribblers thus to calumniate a poor little book
which is not in the style of any spoil-paper of these times. Ah!
ill-natured wretches! you should save your breath to cool your own
porridge! The Author consoles himself for his want of success in not
pleasing everyone by remembering that an old Tourainian, of eternal
memory, had put up with such contumely, that losing all patience, he
declared in one of his prologues, that he would never more put pen to
paper. Another age, but the same manners. Nothing changes, neither God
above nor men below. Thereupon of the Author continues his task with a
light heart, relying upon the future to reward his heavy labours.

And certes, it is a hard task to invent _A Hundred Droll Tales_, since
not only have ruffians and envious men opened fire upon him, but his
friends have imitated their example, and come to him saying "Are you
mad? Do you think it is possible? No man ever had in the depths of his
imagination a hundred such tales. Change the hyperbolic title of your
budget. You will never finish it." These people are neither
misanthropes nor cannibals; whether they are ruffians I know not; but
for certain they are kind, good-natured friends; friends who have the
courage to tell you disagreeable things all your life along, who are
rough and sharp as currycombs, under the pretence that they are yours
to command, in all the mishaps of life, and in the hour of extreme
unction, all their worth will be known. If such people would only keep
these sad kindnesses; but they will not. When their terrors are proved
to have been idle, they exclaimed triumphantly, "Ha! ha! I knew it. I
always said so."

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 on the aforesaid
hundred.

Were it not a bad time for a bibliopolists, bibliomaniacs,
bibliographers, and bibliotheques 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 story-tellers, of whom there are not more than seven perfect in the
great ocean of human writers, others, although friendly, have been of
opinion that, at a time when everyone 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 construct cathedrals and castles of
which neither stone nor cement could be moved, would die unknown, like
the Pope's slippers. The 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 flintstone weighing a hundred pounds; the
ring of Hans Carvel, as told by Rabelais, or a modern narrative
pitifully expectorated by a schoolboy. Seeing them dumbfounded 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 of whom
it may concern:--The good man to whom we owe fables and stories of
sempiternal authority 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 steal 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
licence 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 gentleman on the bench, and take down the
sayings of each witness in this case. He is responsible for
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 they 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 Medici, 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 that 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 insurrection, 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, Furetiere, Menage, St. Evremonde,
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 everyone, 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 best of
cooks, went to prepare wedding breakfasts as far as Chatelherault,
Loches, Vendome, and Blois. This said man, an old fox, perfect in his
business, never lighted lamps in the day time, knew how to skin a
flint, charged for wool, leather, and feathers, had an eye to
everything, did not easily let anyone pay with chaff instead of coin,
and for a penny less than his account 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 their persons. The host bustled about, turned the spits, 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 spoiled 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 shoe maker'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'Enterfesse of
Angiers?" Then they hustled everyone, 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 dinner until the
evening when they recommenced their pranks by torchlight. After the
peddlers, 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: _Cuiqum jus tribuere_. "To every
one his own juice;" and afterwards jokingly said to the poor wenches--

"We are in the right and you are 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, remonstrating with him that elsewhere the
innkeepers had them caught in order that gentleman of position might
not be annoyed by them. However, towards the fifth day, which is the
critical day of fevers, the host not having 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 of a canon, wishing even to see them drunk, in order the
more easily to clap them in jail 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, and 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 woefully. 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 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 of Catholic religion, and none of them will 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 Larze, returning one night from his evening prayer to the wine
flasks of 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--

"'Hulloa! 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
tomorrow, 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 payed 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."

"Let us drink," cried the Picardian. "Moist stories slip out easier."

At the same time he tossed off a glassful without leaving a drop at
the bottom, and after a preliminary little cough, he related the
following:--

"You must know that the maids of Picardy, before setting up
housekeeping, are accustomed honestly to gain their linen, vessels,
and chests; in short, all the needed household utensils. To accomplish
this, they go into service in Peronne, Abbeville, Amiens, and other
towns, where they are tire-women, wash up glasses, clean plates, fold
linen, and carry up the dinner, or anything that there is to be
carried. They are all married as soon as they possess something else
besides that which they naturally bring to their husbands. These women
are the best housewives, because they understand the business and
everything else thoroughly. One belonging to Azonville, which is the
land of which I am lord by inheritance, having heard speak of Paris,
where the people did not put themselves out of the way for anyone, and
where one could subsist for a whole day by passing the cook's shops,
and smelling the steam, so fattening was it, took it into her head to
go there. She trudged bravely along the road, and arrived with a
pocket full of emptiness. There she fell in, at the Porte St. Denise,
with a company of soldiers, placed there for a time as a vidette, for
the Protestants had assumed a dangerous attitude. The sergeant seeing
this hooded linnet coming, stuck his headpiece on one side,
straightened his feather, twisted his moustache, cleared his throat,
rolled his eyes, put his hand on his hips, and stopped the Picardian
to see if her ears were properly pierced, since it was forbidden to
girls to enter otherwise into Paris. Then he asked her, by way of a
joke, but with a serious face, what brought her there, he pretending
to believe she had come to take the keys of Paris by assault. To which
the poor innocent replied, that she was in search of a good situation,
and had no evil intentions, only desiring to gain something.

"'Very well; I will employ you,' said the wag. 'I am from Picardy, and
will get you taken in here, where you will be treated as a queen would
often like to be, and you will be able to make a good thing of it.'

"Then he led her to the guard-house, where he told her to sweep the
floor, polish the saucepans, stir the fire, and keep a watch on
everything, adding that she should have thirty sols a head from the
men if their service pleased her. Now seeing that the squad was there
for a month, she would be able to gain ten crowns, and at their
departure would find fresh arrivals who would make good arrangements
with her, and by this means she would be able to take back money and
presents to her people. The girl cleaned the room and prepared the
meals so well, singing and humming, that this day the soldiers found
in their den the look of a monk's refectory. Then all being well
content, each of them gave a sol to their handmaiden. Well satisfied,
they put her into the bed of their commandant, who was in town with
his lady, and they petted and caressed her after the manner of
philosophical soldiers, that is, soldiers partial to that which is
good. She was soon comfortably ensconced between the sheets. But to
avoid quarrels and strife, my noble warriors drew lots for their turn,
arranged themselves in single file, playing well at Pique hardie,
saying not a word, but each one taking at least twenty-six sols worth
of the girl's society. Although not accustomed to work for so many,
the poor girl did her best, and by this means never closed her eyes
the whole night. In the morning, seeing the soldiers were fast asleep,
she rose happy at bearing no marks of the sharp skirmish, and although
slightly fatigued, managed to get across the fields into the open
country with her thirty sols. On the route to Picardy, she met one of
her friends, who, like herself, wished to try service in Paris, and
was hurrying thither, and seeing her, asked her what sort of places
they were.