Droll Stories

by Honoré de Balzac

  “Ah! ah! What did she mean, that fool of a Buyrette? I knew you were too well advised to be shivering at this hour in your stall.”

  The canon said not a word. The shepherd, who was like all thinkers, a man of hidden sense, was quite aware that sometimes old men have strange crotchets, converse with the essence of occult things, and mumble to themselves discourses concerning matters not under consideration: so that, from reverence and great respect for the secret meditations of the canon, he went and sat down at a distance, and waited the termination of these dreams; noticing silently the length of the good man’s nails, which looked like cobblers’ awls, and looking attentively at the feet of his uncle, he was astonished to see the flesh of his legs so crimson, that it reddened his breeches and seemed all on fire through his hose.

  He is dead, thought Chiquon. At this moment the door of the room opened, and he still saw the canon, who, his nose frozen, came back from church.

  “Ho! ho!” said Chiquon, “my dear uncle, are you out of your senses? Kindly take notice that you ought not to be at the door, because you are already seated in your chair in the chimney corner, and that it is impossible for there to be two canons like you in the world.”

  “Ah! Chiquon, there was a time when I could have wished to be in two places at once, but such is not the fate of man, he would be too happy. Are you getting dim-sighted? I am alone here.”

  Then Chiquon turned his head towards the chair, and found it empty; and much astonished, as you will easily believe, he approached it, and found on the seat a little pat of cinders, from which ascended a strong odour of sulphur.

  “Ah!” said he merrily, “I perceive that the devil has behaved well towards me—I will pray God for him.”

  And thereupon he related naïvely to the canon how the devil had amused himself by playing at providence, and had loyally aided him to get rid of his wicked cousins, the which the canon admired much, and thought very good, seeing that he had plenty of good sense left, and often had observed things which were to the devil’s advantage. So the good old priest remarked that as much good was always met with in evil as evil in good, and that therefore one should not trouble too much after the other world, the which was a grave heresy, which many councils have put right.

  And this was how the Chiquons became rich, and were able in these times, by the fortunes of their ancestors, to help to build the bridge of St. Michael, where the devil cuts a very good figure under the angel, in memory of this adventure now consigned to the veracious histories.

  THE MERRY JESTS OF KING LOUIS THE ELEVENTH

  KING LOUIS THE ELEVENTH was a merry fellow, loving a good joke, and—the interests of his position as king, and those of the church on one side—he lived jovially, giving chase to soiled doves as often as to hares, and other royal game. Therefore, the sorry scribblers who have made him out a hypocrite, show plainly that they knew him not, since he was a good friend, good at repartee, and a jollier fellow than any of them.

  It was he who said when he was in a merry mood, that four things are excellent and opportune in life—to keep warm, to drink cool, to stand up hard, and to swallow soft. Certain persons have accused him of taking up with dirty trollops; this is a notorious falsehood, since all his mistresses, of whom one was legitimatized, came of good houses and had notable establishments. He did not go in for waste and extravagance, always put his hand upon the solid, and because certain devourers of the people found no crumbs at his table, they have all maligned him. But the real collectors of facts know that the said king was a capital fellow in private life, and even very agreeable; and before cutting off the heads of his friends, or punishing them—for he did not spare them—it was necessary that they should have greatly offended him, and his vengeance was always justice; I have only seen in our friend Verville that this worthy sovereign ever made a mistake; but once does not make a habit, and even for this his boon companion Tristan was more to blame than he, the king. This is the circumstance related by the said Verville, and I suspect he was cracking a joke. I reproduce it because certain people are not familiar with the exquisite work of my perfect compatriot. I abridge it and only give the substance, the details being more ample, of which fact the savants are not ignorant.

  Louis XI. had given the Abbey of Turpenay (mentioned in Imperia) to a gentleman who, enjoying the revenue, had called himself Monsieur de Turpenay. It happened that the king being at Plessis-les-Tours, the real abbot, who was a monk, came and presented himself before the king, and presented also a petition, remonstrating with him that, canonically and monastically, he was entitled to the abbey, and that the usurping gentleman wronged him of his right, and therefore he called upon his majesty to have justice done to him. Nodding his peruke, the king promised to render him contented. This monk, importunate as are all hooded animals, came often at the end of the king’s meals, who, bored with the holy water of the convent, called friend Tristan and said to him, “Old fellow, there is here a Turpenay who angers me, rid the world of him for me.” Tristan, taking a frock for a monk, or a monk for a frock, came to this gentleman, whom all the Court called Monsieur de Turpenay, and having accosted him managed to lead him on one side, and taking him by the button-hole gave him to understand that the king desired he should die. He tried to resist, supplicating and supplicating to escape, but in no way could he obtain a hearing. He was delicately strangled between the head and the shoulders, so that he expired; and, three hours afterward, Tristan told the king that he was discharged. It happened five days afterwards, which is the space in which souls come back again, that the monk came into the room where the king was, and when he saw him he was much astonished. Tristan was present; the king called him, and whispered into his ear—

  “You have not done that which I told you to.”

  “Saving your Grace, I have done it. Turpenay is dead.”

  “Eh? I meant this monk.”

  “I understood the gentleman!”

  “What, it is done then?”

  “Yes, sire.”

  “Very well then”—turning towards the monk—“come here, monk.” The monk approached. The king said to him, “Kneel down.” The poor monk began to shiver in his shoes. But the king said to him, “Thank God that he has not willed that you should be killed as I had ordered. He who took your estates has been instead. God has done you justice. Go and pray for me, and don’t stir out of your convent.”

  This proves the good-heartedness of Louis XI. He might very well have hanged the monk, the cause of the error. As for the said gentleman, he died in the king’s service.

  In the early days of his sojourn at Plessis-les-Tours King Louis, not wishing to hold his drinking-bouts and give vent to his rakish propensities in his chateau, out of respect to her Majesty (a kingly delicacy which his successors have not possessed) became enamoured of a lady named Nicole Beaupertuys, who was, to tell the truth, wife of a citizen of the town. The husband he sent into Ponent, and put the said Nicole in a house near Chardonneret, in that part where is the Rue Quincangrogne, because it was a lonely place, far from other habitations. The husband and the wife were thus both in his service, and he had by La Beaupertuys, a daughter, who died a nun. This Nicole had a tongue as sharp as a popinjay’s, was of stately proportions, furnished with large beautiful cushions of nature, firm to the touch, white as the wing of an angel, and known for the rest to be fertile in peripatetic ways, which brought it to pass that never with her was the same thing encountered twice in love, so deeply had she studied the sweet solutions of the science, the manners of accommodating the olives of Poissy, the expansions of the nerves, and hidden doctrines of the breviary, the which much delighted the king. She was as gay as a lark, always laughing and singing, and never made any one miserable, which is the characteristic of women of this open and free nature, who have always an occupation—an equivocal one if you like. The king often went with the hail-fellows his friends to the lady’s house, and in order not to be seen always went at night-time and without his suite. But being alw
ays distrustful, and fearing some snare, he gave to Nicole all the most savage dogs he had in his kennels, beggars that would eat a man without saying “By your leave,” the which royal dogs knew only Nicole and the king. When the Sire came Nicole let them loose in the garden, and the door of the house being sufficiently barred and closely shut, the king put the keys in his pocket and in perfect security gave himself up, with his satellites, to every kind of pleasure, fearing no betrayal, jumping about at will, playing tricks, and getting up good games. Upon these occasions friend Tristan watched the neighborhood, and any one who had taken a walk on the Mall of Chardonneret would have been rather quickly placed in a position in which it would have been easy to give the passers-by a benediction with his feet, unless he had the king’s pass, since often would Louis send out in search of lasses for his friends, or people to entertain him with the amusements suggested by Nicole or the guests. People of Tours were there for these little amusements, to whom he gently recommended silence, so that no one knew of these pastimes until after his death. The farce of “Baisez mon cul” was, it is said, invented by the said Sire. I will relate it, although it is not the subject of this tale, because it shows the natural comicality and humour of this merry monarch. There were at Tours three well-known misers: the first was Master Cornelius, who is sufficiently well known; the second was called Peccard, and sold the gilt-work, coloured papers, and jewels used in churches; the third was hight Marchandeau, and was a very wealthy vine-grower. These three men of Touraine were the founders of good families, notwithstanding their sordidness. One evening that the king was with Beaupertuys, in a good humour, having drunk heartily, joked heartily, and offered early in the evening his prayer in Madame’s oratory, he said to Le Daim, his crony, to the Cardinal, La Balue, and to old Dunois, who were still soaking, “Let us have a good laugh! I think it will be a good joke to see misers before a bag of gold without their being able to touch it. Hi, there!”

  Hearing which, appeared one of his varlets.

  “Go,” said he, “seek my treasurer, and let him bring hither six thousand gold crowns—and at once! And you will go and seize the bodies of my friend Cornelius, of the jeweller of the Rue de Cygnes, and of old Marchandeau, and bring them here, by order of the king.”

  Then he began to drink again, and to judiciously wrangle as to which was the better, a woman with a gamy odour or a woman who soaped herself well all over; a thin one or a stout one; and as the company comprised the flower of wisdom it was decided that the best was the one a man had all to himself like a plate of warm mussels, at that precise moment when God sent him a good idea to communicate to her. The cardinal asked which was the most precious thing to a lady; the first or the last kiss? To which La Beaupertuys replied, “that it was the last, seeing that she knew then what she was losing, while at the first she did not know what she would gain.” During these sayings, and others which have most unfortunately been lost, came the six thousand gold crowns, which were worth all three hundred thousand francs of to-day, so much do we go on decreasing in value every day. The king ordered the crowns to be arranged upon a table, and well lighted up, so that they shone like the eyes of the company which lit up involuntarily, and made them laugh in spite of themselves. They did not wait long for the three misers, whom the varlet led in, pale and panting, except Cornelius, who knew the king’s strange freaks.

  “Now then, my friends,” said Louis to them, “have a good look at the crowns on the table.”

  And the three townsmen nibbled at them with their eyes. You may reckon that the diamond of La Beaupertuys sparkled less than their little minnow eyes.

  “These are yours,” added the king.

  Thereupon they ceased to admire the crowns to look at each other; and the guests knew well that old knaves are more expert in grimaces than any others, because their physiognomies become tolerably curious, like those of cats lapping up milk, or girls titillated with marriage.

  “There,” said the king, “all that shall be his who shall say three times to the two others, ‘Baisez mon cul,’ thrusting his hand into the gold; but if he be not as serious as a fly who has violated his lady-love, if he smile while repeating the jest, he will pay ten crowns to Madame. Nevertheless he can essay three times.”

  “That will be soon earned,” said Cornelius, who, being a Dutchman, had his lips as often compressed and serious as Madame’s mouth was often open and laughing. Then he bravely put his hand upon the crowns to see if they were good, and clutched them gravely, but as he looked at the others to say civilly to them, “Baisez mon cul,” the two misers, distrustful of his Dutch gravity, replied, “Certainly, sir,” as if he had sneezed. The which caused all the company to laugh, and even Cornelius himself. When the vine-grower went to take the crowns he felt such a commotion in his cheeks that his old scummer face let little laughs exude from all its pores like smoke pouring out of a chimney, and he could say nothing. Then it was the turn of the jeweller, who was a little bit of a bantering fellow, and whose lips were as tightly squeezed as the neck of a hanged man. He seized a handful of the crowns, looked at the others, even the king, and said, with a jeering air, “Baisez mon cul.”

  “Is it dirty?” asked the vine-dresser.

  “Look and see,” replied the jeweller, gravely.

  Thereupon the king began to tremble for his crowns, since the said Peccard began again, without laughing, and for the third time was about to utter the sacramental word, when La Beaupertuys made a sign of consent to his modest request, which caused him to lose his countenance, and his mouth broke up into dimples.

  “How did you do?” asked Dunois, “to keep a grave face before six thousand crowns?”

  “Oh, my lord, I thought first of one of my cases which is tried to-morrow, and, secondly, of my wife who is a sorry plague.”

  The desire to gain this good round sum made them try again, and the king amused himself for about an hour at the expression of these faces, the preparations, jokes, grimaces, and other monkeys’ paternosters that they performed; but they were baling their boats with a sieve, and for men who preferred closing their fists to opening them it was a bitter sorrow to have to count out, each one, a hundred crowns to Madame.

  When they were gone, Nicole said boldly to the king, “Sire, will you let me try?”

  “Holy Virgin!” replied Louis; “no! I can kiss you for less money.”

  That was said like a thrifty man, which indeed he always was.

  One evening the fat Cardinal La Balue carried on gallantly with words and actions, a little farther than the canons of the Church permitted him, with this Beaupertuys, who luckily for herself, was a clever hussy, not to be asked with impunity how many holes there were in her mother’s chemise.

  “Look you here, Sir Cardinal!” said she; “the thing which the king likes is not to receive the holy oils.”

  Then came Olivier le Daim, whom she would not listen to either, and to whose nonsense she replied, that she would ask the king if he wished her to be shaved.

  Now as the said shaver did not supplicate her to keep his proposals secret, she suspected that these little plots were ruses practised by the king, whose suspicions had perhaps been aroused by her friends. Now, not being able to revenge herself upon Louis, she at least determined to pay out the said lords, to make fools of them, and amuse the king with the tricks she would play upon them. One evening that they had come to supper, she had a lady of the city with her, who wished to speak with the king. This lady was a lady of position, who wished to ask of the king pardon for her husband, the which, in consequence of this adventure, she obtained. Nicole Beaupertuys having led the king aside for a moment into an antechamber, told him to make their guests drink hard and eat to repletion; that he was to make merry, and joke with them; but when the cloth was removed, he was to pick quarrels with them about trifles, dispute their words, and be sharp with them; and that then she would divert him by turning them inside out before him. But above all things, he was to be friendly to the said lady, and it w
as to appear genuine, as if she enjoyed the perfume of his flavour, because she had gallantly lent herself to this good joke.