‘If what you’re maintaining,’ said Hircan, ‘is that an honest woman can honourably abandon her love for a man, but that a man can’t do the same, then it’s just an argument made up to suit your own fancies. As if the hearts of men and women were any different! Although their clothes and faces may be, their dispositions are the same – except in so far as the more concealed wickedness is worse!’
‘I’m well aware,’ said Parlamente somewhat angrily, ‘that you think more highly of women whose wickedness is not concealed!’
‘Let’s not pursue that particular topic,’ intervened Simontaut. ‘To put an end once and for all to this question of the difference between the hearts of men and women, I say that the best of them is good for nothing, be they men or women! So let’s hear another good story instead, and see who Parlamente is going to choose to tell it.’
‘I’ll choose Geburon,’ she said.
‘Well, since I began by talking about the Franciscan friars,’ he said, ‘I don’t want to overlook the monks of Saint Benedict. I must tell you about something that happened to one of them not so long ago. Of course, I don’t mean to undermine your good opinion of decent people, just because I tell you a story of one bad monk. However, as the Psalmist has said: “All men are liars”, and again, “There is none that doeth good, no not one.” So it seems to me that one cannot go wrong in esteeming man for what he is. If there is good in him, one should attribute it to Him who is its source, not to those whom He has created. For in giving too much honour and glory to God’s creatures, or in esteeming themselves too highly, most people are greatly deceived. And so that you won’t think that extreme austerity makes extreme concupiscence impossible, I will tell you about something that happened during the reign of Francis I.’
STORY TWENTY-TWO
My story is about a Prior of Saint Martin-des-Champs in Paris. I shall not reveal his name, because of the friendship I have borne him. Up to the age of fifty he led such an austere life that his saintly reputation spread far and wide throughout the realm, and there was not a prince or princess who did not receive him with great honour when he paid them a visit. There was not a single piece of monastic reform for which he did not have some responsibility, and he was known as ‘the father of true monasticism’. He was elected visitor to the celebrated order of the ladies of Fontevrault. The nuns were so much in awe of him that whenever he visited one of their convents, they would tremble in terror, and in an attempt to soften his severity they would treat him like royalty. At first he resisted this, but eventually, as he approached his fifty-fifth year, he began to rather enjoy this treatment in spite of having originally scorned it. He began, in fact, to regard himself as representing the general good of the monastic community at large, and so became very much more concerned to preserve his health than he had been in the past. Although the rule of his order forbade him ever to touch meat, he gave himself a dispensation – something that he never did for anybody else, saying that upon his shoulders rested the entire burden of the religious life. Accordingly he indulged himself to such an extent, that after having been once a very lean monk, he now turned into a very fat one. Now this transformation in his style of life was accompanied by a transformation in matters of the heart. He started to look more attentively at the faces around him, although previously the mere sight of them had been a matter of conscience for him. Then, as he gazed upon these fair countenances, which were all the more desirable for being veiled, he began to lust after them. And in order to satisfy his desire he invented all manner of ingenious methods, so that the good shepherd soon turned into a wolf. There were not a few respectable convents where he managed to find some slow-witted girl whom he could trick. However, after he had carried on in this wicked fashion for some considerable time, the divine Goodness had pity on his poor lost sheep, and unable to endure it any longer brought the reign of this overweening villain to an end in a manner which I shall now recount to you.
One day he was visiting a convent at Gif near Paris, and while he was hearing the nuns’ confessions, he came across one by the name of Marie Héroet. Her voice was gentle and her words sweet, and gave promise that her face and her heart would be no less so. In fact, the mere sound of her voice fired the Prior with a passion far stronger than any he had felt for any of his other nuns. As he spoke to her he bent down low so as to see her. And what he saw was an adorable little mouth with lips so red that he could not restrain himself from lifting her veil to see if the eyes matched the rest. They did indeed, and his heart was overwhelmed with such a violent ardour that he lost all desire to eat and drink. His composure quite left him, however hard he tried to hide his feelings, and when he got back to his priory he simply could not settle down. For whole days and nights he fretted, searching desperately for some way of satisfying his desire and having from this nun what he had had from not a few before her. He feared it would be no easy task, for the girl had been very modest in her speech, and at the same time she was obviously too clever to be taken in. So his hopes were not high. Moreover, he knew he was old and ugly. He therefore decided that rather than try to talk her round, he would frighten her into doing his bidding. Before many days had elapsed, he was back at the convent of Gif, this time putting on a more austere manner than he had ever done before. He scolded every single nun in the convent. He told one she was not wearing her veil low enough, another that she carried her head too high, another that she did not curtsey the way a nun should, and so on. He was so severe about all these trivial things that they were terrified of him. He might have been God Almighty in some picture of the Last Judgement! Gout-ridden as he was, he wore himself out so much doing his rounds, that as the time for vespers approached, he found himself, as he had carefully planned, in the dormitory.
‘It’s time to say vespers, reverend Father,’ the Abbess said to him.
‘You run along and get someone else to say vespers, Mother,’ he replied. ‘I’m so tired, I think I’ll stay here. It’s not that I want to rest – I have something to say to Sister Marie. I’ve heard very bad reports about her. I’m told that she chatters in the most worldly fashion.’
The Abbess, who was the aunt of the girl’s mother, asked him to give her a severe reprimand and then left her alone with him, the only other person there being a young monk who had accompanied the Prior. Once he was on his own with Sister Marie, he lifted her veil and told her to look at him. She replied that her rule forbade her to look at men.
‘You speak well, my daughter,’ came the reply, ‘but you must not think of [us monks] as men.’
Afraid lest she be committing an act of disobedience, Sister Marie looked him in the face. She found him so ugly, that she felt that merely to look at him was more in the way of penance than sin anyway. Then our fine father said a few words about his great love for her, and tried to put his hand on her breasts. Quite rightly and properly she pushed it away. He was furious, and said: ‘What business has a nun to know that she has breasts?’
‘I know perfectly well that I have, and I also know that neither you nor anyone else is going to touch them. I’m not so young and so ignorant, you know, that I don’t understand what is a sin and what isn’t!’
Seeing that she was not going to be won over by this approach, he went on to try another.
‘Alas, my daughter! I shall have to tell you what a desperate condition I am in. The fact is that I am suffering from an illness, and the doctors say that it is incurable unless I indulge myself and take my pleasure with a woman whom I love passionately. I would not for the life of me commit a mortal sin, but in such desperate straits I know that mere fornication is nothing compared with the sin of homicide. So if you have any concern for my life, you can save me and at the same time save your own conscience from the burden of an act of cruelty!’
She asked him what kind of a game he thought he was playing. He replied that her conscience might be guided by his, and that he would do nothing that would weigh on the conscience of either of them. To give her a prelimin
ary idea of the sort of pastime he required, he flung his arms round her and tried to throw her on to a bed. Knowing full well what his intentions were, she cried out and struggled so hard that he only managed to get hold of her habit. His carefully laid plans frustrated, he turned on her like a madman. Not only had he apparently no longer any conscience, he was also completely deprived of his natural reason, for he thrust his hand under her robe and scratched wildly at whatever came in contact with his nails. The poor girl screamed at the top of her lungs and fell in a faint on the floor. Having heard the scream, the Abbess rushed into the dormitory. While she had been at vespers she had remembered leaving the nun, who was her own niece’s daughter, with our fine father. She had suddenly felt a twinge of conscience and had felt impelled to leave the service and listen at the dormitory door. Hearing her niece’s daughter cry out, she pushed open the door, which was being held by the young monk. When the Prior saw the Abbess standing there, he just pointed to the unconscious nun and said:
‘Really, it was wrong of you, Mother, not to tell me about Sister Marie’s state of health. Not knowing she had a weak constitution, I had her standing in front of me while I issued my reprimand, and she just fainted, as you can see.’
They brought her round with vinegar and other suitable medicaments, but found that she had also injured her head in the fall. Once she was conscious, the Prior, who was afraid lest she should tell her aunt what the true cause of her injury was, somehow managed to whisper in her ear:
‘My daughter, I command you on pain of eternal damnation for disobedience never to say a word about what I have done. It was the extreme nature of my love that drove me to act as I did. And since I can see that you have no intention of returning my love, I will never mention it to you again. But let me assure you that if you did change your mind, I would have you elected as abbess of one of the three best abbeys in the kingdom!’
But she replied that she would rather languish in perpetual imprisonment than admit any other lover than Him who had died for her on the cross. With Him she would rather endure all the suffering in the world than enjoy all the pleasures in the world against His will. And she warned the Prior that if he ever spoke to her in this fashion again, she would tell the mother Abbess. Thereupon this bad shepherd made to leave his flock, but in order to appear in a favourable light and also to take one more look at the object of his passions, he lingered on to speak to the Abbess.
‘Mother,’ he said, ‘would you have your daughters sing a Salve Regina in honour of the Virgin, in whom is my hope and trust?’
The Abbess did as he requested and as the nuns sang, the old fox did nothing but weep – not out of devotion, but because he was so disappointed at not having succeeded! The nuns imagined it was because of his love for the Virgin Mary, and thought what a holy man he was. But Sister Marie knew how bad he really was, and prayed inwardly to [Our Lord] that He would confound this man who had so little respect for virginity.
So it was that the hypocrite returned to Saint Martin’s, where the sinful fire continued day and night to burn in his heart, as he turned over in his mind all possible ways of satisfying his desires. His greatest fear was the Abbess, who was a virtuous woman. So he set about devising a way of removing her from her convent. He went to see Madame de Vendôme, who at that time was living at La Fère, where she had founded and built a Benedictine house named Mont d’Olivet. In his self-appointed role of reformer-in-chief he informed her that the current Abbess of Mont d’Olivet was not competent to run a community of that kind. The good lady asked him to provide somebody else who would be worthy of the office. This was just what he was waiting for, and he recommended that she appoint the Abbess of Gif, who was, he told her, the most competent abbess in the whole of France. So Madame de Vendôme immediately sent for her and put her in charge of Mont d’Olivet, while the Prior, who held control of all the votes in the order, had elected as Abbess of Gif a nun who would bow to his wishes.
Once the new Abbess had been elected, the Prior went back to the convent of Gif to try once again to win Sister Marie Héroët round, this time by persuasion and kind words. But finding that he still could not prevail, he went home to his priory in a state of desperation. He was fearful now lest his doings should become known, and, partly in order to accomplish his original design, partly to take revenge for the way he had been so cruelly rejected, he arranged for somebody to go into the [Abbey] of Gif by night and make off with their relics. Then he accused their confessor, an aged and worthy man, of having committed the theft. He had him imprisoned in the priory of Saint Martin and in the meantime set up two false witnesses, who, on his instructions, signed a document according to which they had seen the confessor committing an improper and sordid act with Sister Marie in a garden. The aim was to force the old man to admit such an offence. However, the confessor knew all about the Prior’s misdeeds, and requested to be sent before the Chapter, where he would tell the whole truth to the assembled monks. The Prior refused to grant the request for fear the confessor’s defence should turn into a condemnation of himself. But the old man held firm, and as a result was treated so badly in prison that some say he actually died there. According to other stories he was forced to renounce his habit and was chased out of the kingdom. Be that as it may, the poor man was never seen again.
Thinking he now had a hold over Sister Marie, the Prior went off to her convent, where his Abbess, who bowed to his every whim, never contradicted a word he spoke. He started by exercising his authority as official visitor and had every single nun brought before him, one by one, in a room where he could interview them as part of his visitation. When it came to the turn of Sister Marie, he said to her:
‘Sister Marie, you are aware of the crime that is laid against you and that your pretence of chastity has availed you nothing, for it is known now that you are the very opposite of chaste.’
Sister Marie, who no longer had her good aunt to guard her, replied firmly:
‘Bring my accuser before me and we shall see whether he will maintain his evil opinion in my presence.’
‘We need no further proof, since the confessor already stands convicted.’
‘But I know that he is a good man and that he would never make a false confession. However, supposing he has made such a confession, if you bring him here, I shall prove the contrary of his statements.’
The Prior began to realize that she was not going to be shaken.
‘I am your father, and my sole desire is to safeguard your honour. Therefore, I shall permit the matter to rest on your conscience and shall accept your word. I enjoin you to tell me the truth on pain of mortal sin and ask you to answer me this: when you were placed in this house, were you or were you not a virgin?’
‘Father, I was five years of age when I came here. That should be sufficient evidence of my virginity.’
‘Well then, my daughter, have you since the time of your entry lost that precious flower?’
She swore that she had not and that the only danger to its preservation had come from him. To which he replied that he was not able to believe her and that further proof was required.
‘What proof do you require?’ she asked.
‘The same proof as I require from all the others,’ he answered. ‘In my capacity as visitor I not only examine the soul, but also the body. All your Abbesses and Prioresses have submitted themselves to inspection at my hands. You need have no fear, if my visitation extends to an inspection of your virginity. Kindly lie down on the bed and raise the front part of your habit over your face.’
‘You’ve already talked enough about your base passion,’ she replied in high indignation, ‘to give me every reason to think that your intention as far as my virginity is concerned is to deprive me of it rather than to examine it in your capacity as visitor. So understand that I have no intention of consenting.’
Then he told her she was excommunicate for breaking her vow of obedience and that if she did not consent, he would dishonour her before the wh
ole Chapter by making a statement about the offence she had committed with the confessor. Without a trace of fear Sister Marie replied:
‘He who knows the heart of His servants will reward me with honour in His sight for the disgrace you threaten to bring upon me in the eyes of men. Therefore, since your viciousness has already reached such depths, I would far rather it carry through its cruelty towards me to the bitter end than that it carry through its evil designs and desires. For I know that God is a righteous judge.’
Thereupon the Prior called the whole Chapter together, forced Sister Marie to kneel before him, and in a state of extraordinary rage addressed her thus:
‘Sister Marie, it is with extreme displeasure that I find the just admonitions which I have administered to you have been of no effect, and that you have lapsed to such a dangerous degree that I am constrained to impose on you a penance contrary to my custom. Having examined your confessor with regard to certain offences with which he has been charged, he has confessed to me that he has made abuse of your person [in] a place where he was seen by two people who have duly given testimony. Therefore, as you have been raised to the status of Sister in charge of novices, so now I command not only that you should be reduced to the lowest rank but that you should henceforth eat bread and water on the ground in front of all the Sisters, until such time as your contrition shall have been seen to be such as to merit mercy.’
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