One Hundred Merrie And Delightsome Stories.

by Various.

INTRODUCTION

The highest living authority on French Literature--Professor George Saintsbury--has said:

"The _Cent Nouvelles_ is undoubtedly the first work of literary prose in French, and the first, moreover, of a long and most remarkable series of literary works in which French writers may challenge all comers with the certainty of victory. The short prose tale of a comic character is the one French literary product the pre-eminence and perfection of which it is impossible to dispute, and the prose tale first appears to advantage in the _Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles_. The subjects are by no means new.

They are simply the old themes of the _fabliaux_ treated in the old way.

The novelty is in the application of prose to such a purpose, and in the crispness, the fluency, and the elegance, of the prose used."

Besides the literary merits which the eminent critic has pointed out, the stories give us curious glimpses of life in the 15th Century. We get a genuine view of the social condition of the n.o.bility and the middle cla.s.ses, and are pleasantly surprised to learn from the mouths of the n.o.bles themselves that the peasant was not the down-trodden serf that we should have expected to find him a century after the Jacquerie, and 350 years before the Revolution.

In fact there is an atmosphere of tolerance, not to say _bonhommie_ about these stories which is very remarkable when we consider under what circ.u.mstances they were told, and by whom, and to whom.

This seems to have struck M. Lenient, a French critic, who says:

"Generally the incidents and personages belong to the _bourgeoisee_; there is nothing chivalric, nothing wonderful; no dreamy lovers, romantic dames, fairies, or enchanters. n.o.ble dames, bourgeois, nuns, knights, merchants, monks, and peasants mutually dupe each other. The lord deceives the miller's wife by imposing on her simplicity, and the miller retaliates in much the same manner. The shepherd marries the knight's sister, and the n.o.bleman is not over scandalized.

"The vices of the monks are depicted in half a score tales, and the seducers are punished with a severity not always in proportion to the offence."

It seems curious that this valuable and interesting work has never before been translated into English during the four and a half centuries the book has been in existence. This is the more remarkable as the work was edited in French by an English scholar--the late Thomas Wright. It can hardly be the coa.r.s.eness of some of the stories which has prevented the _Nouvelles_ from being presented to English readers when there are half a dozen versions of the _Heptameron_, which is quite as coa.r.s.e as the _Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles_, does not possess the same historical interest, and is not to be compared to the present work as regards either the stories or the style.

In addition to this, there is the history of the book itself, and its connection with one of the most important personages in French history--Louis XI. Indeed, in many French and English works of reference, the authorship of the _Nouvelles_ has been attributed to him, and though in recent years, the writer is now believed--and no doubt correctly--to have been Antoine de la Salle, it is tolerably certain that Prince Louis heard all the stories related, and very possibly contributed several of them. The circ.u.mstances under which these stories came to be narrated requires a few words of explanation.

At a very early age, Louis showed those qualities by which he was later distinguished. When he was only fourteen, he caused his father, Charles VII, much grief, both by his unfilial conduct and his behaviour to the beautiful Agnes Sorel, the King's mistress, towards whom he felt an implacable hatred. He is said to have slapped her face, because he thought she did not treat him with proper respect. This blow was, it is a.s.serted, the primary cause of his revolt against his father's authority (1440). The rebellion was put down, and the Prince was pardoned, but relations between father and son were still strained, and in 1446, Louis had to betake himself to his appanage of Dauphine, where he remained for ten years, always plotting and scheming, and braving his father's authority.

At length the Prince's Court at Gren.o.ble became the seat of so many conspiracies that Charles VII was obliged to take forcible measures.

It was small wonder that the King's patience was exhausted. Louis, not content with the rule of his province, had made attempts to win over many of the n.o.bility, and to bribe the archers of the Scotch Guard.

Though not liberal as a rule, he had also expended large sums to different secret agents for some specific purpose, which was in all probability to secure his father's death, for he was not the sort of man to stick at parricide even, if it would secure his ends.

The plot was revealed to Charles by Antoine de Chabannes, Comte de Dampmartin. Louis, when taxed with his misconduct, impudently denied that he had been mixed up with the conspiracy, but denounced all his accomplices, and allowed them to suffer for his misdeeds. He did not, however, forget to revenge them, so far as lay in his power. The fair Agnes Sorel, whom he had always regarded as his bitterest enemy, died shortly afterwards at Jumieges, and it has always been believed, and with great show of reason, that she was poisoned by his orders. He was not able to take vengeance on Antoine de Chabannes until after he became King.

Finding that his plots were of no avail, he essayed to get together an army large enough to combat his father, but before he completed his plans, Charles VII, tired of his endless treason and trickery, sent an army, under the faithful de Chabannes, into the Dauphine, with orders to arrest the Dauphin.

The forces which Louis had at his disposal were numerically so much weaker, that he did not dare to risk a battle.

"If G.o.d or fortune," he cried, "had been kind enough to give me but half the men-at-arms which now belong to the King, my father, and will be mine some day, by Our Lady, my mistress, I would have spared him the trouble of coming so far to seek me, but would have met him and fought him at Lyon."

Not having sufficient forces, and feeling that he could not hope for fresh pardon, he resolved to fly from France, and take refuge at the Court of the Duke of Burgundy.

One day in June, 1456, he pretended to go hunting, and then, attended by only half a dozen friends, rode as fast as he could into Burgundian territory, and arrived at Saint Claude.

From there he wrote to his father, excusing his flight, and announcing his intention of joining an expedition which Philippe le Bon, the reigning Duke of Burgundy was about to undertake against the Turks. The Duke was at that moment besieging Utrecht, but as soon as he heard the Dauphin had arrived in his dominions, he sent orders that he was to be conducted to Brussels with all the honours befitting his rank and station.

Shortly afterwards the Duke returned, and listened with real or pretended sympathy to all the complaints that Louis made against his father, but put a damper on any hopes that the Prince may have entertained of getting the Burgundian forces to support his cause, by saying;

"Monseigneur, you are welcome to my domains. I am happy to see you here.

I will provide you with men and money for any purpose you may require, except to be employed against the King, your father, whom I would on no account displease."

Duke Philippe even tried to bring about a reconciliation between Charles and his son; but as Louis was not very anxious to return to France, nor Charles to have him there, and a good many of the n.o.bles were far from desiring that the Prince should come back, the negotiations came to nothing.

Louis could make himself agreeable when he pleased, and during his stay in the Duke's domains, he was on good terms with Philippe le Bon, who granted him 3000 gold florins a month, and the castle of Genappe as a residence. This castle was situated on the Dyle, midway between Brussels and Louvain, and about eight miles from either city. The river, or a deep moat, surrounded the castle on every side. There was a drawbridge which was drawn up at night, so Louis felt himself quite safe from any attack.

Here he remained five years (1456-1461) until the death of his father placed him on the throne of France.

It was during these five years that these stories were told to amuse his leisure. Probably there were many more than a hundred narrated--perhaps several hundreds--but the literary man who afterwards "edited" the stories only selected those which he deemed best, or, perhaps, those he heard recounted. The narrators were the n.o.bles who formed the Dauphin's Court. Much ink has been spilled over the question whether Louis himself had any share in the production. In nearly every case the author's name is given, and ten of them (Nos. 2, 4, 7, 9, 11, 29, 33, 69, 70 and 71) are described in the original edition as being by "Monseigneur."

Publishers of subsequent editions brought out at the close of the 15th, or the beginning of the 16th, Century, jumped to the conclusion that "Monseigneur" was really the Dauphin, who not only contributed largely to the book, but after he became King personally supervised the publication of the collected stories.

For four centuries Louis XI was credited with the authorship of the tales mentioned. The first person--so far as I am aware--to throw any doubt on his claim was the late Mr. Thomas Wright, who edited an edition of the _Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles_, published by Jannet, Paris, 1858. He maintained, with some show of reason, that as the stories were told in Burgundy, by Burgundians, and the collected tales were "edited" by a subject of the Duke (Antoine de la Salle, of whom I shall have occasion to speak shortly) it was more probable that "Monseigneur" would mean the Duke than the Dauphin, and he therefore ascribed the stories to Philippe le Bel. Modern French scholars, however, appear to be of opinion that "Monseigneur" was the Comte de Charolais, who afterwards became famous as Charles le Temeraire, the last Duke of Burgundy.

The two great enemies were at that time close friends, and Charles was a very frequent visitor to Genappe. It was not very likely, they say, that Duke Philippe who was an old man would have bothered himself to tell his guest indecent stories. On the other hand, Charles, being then only Comte de Charolais, had no right to the t.i.tle of "Monseigneur," but they parry that difficulty by supposing that as he became Duke before the tales were printed, the t.i.tle was given him in the first printed edition.

The matter is one which will, perhaps, never be satisfactorily settled.

My own opinion--though I claim for it no weight or value--is that Louis appears to have the greatest right to the stories, though in support of that theory I can only adduce some arguments, which if separately weak may have some weight when taken collectively. Verard, who published the first edition, says in the Dedication; "Et notez que par toutes les Nouvelles ou il est dit par Monseigneur il est entendu par Monseigneur le Dauphin, lequel depuis a succede a la couronne et est le roy Loys unsieme; car il estoit lors es pays du duc de Bourgoingne."

The critics may have good reason for throwing doubt on Verard's statement, but unless he printed his edition from a M.S. made after 1467, and the copyist had altered the name of the Comte de Charolais to "Monseigneur" it is not easy to see how the error arose, whilst on the other hand, as Verard had every facility for knowing the truth, and some of the copies must have been purchased by persons who were present when the stories were told, the mistake would have been rectified in the subsequent editions that Verard brought out in the course of the next few years, when Louis had been long dead and there was no necessity to flatter his vanity.

On examining the stories related by "Monseigneur," it seems to me that there is some slight internal evidence that they were told by Louis.

Brantome says of him that, "he loved to hear tales of loose women, and had but a poor opinion of woman and did not believe they were all chaste. (This sounds well coming from Brantome) Anyone who could relate such tales was gladly welcomed by the Prince, who would have given all Homer and Virgil too for a funny story." The Prince must have heard many such stories, and would be likely to repeat them, and we find the first half dozen stories are decidedly "broad," (No XI was afterwards appropriated by Rabelais, as "Hans Carvel's Ring") and we may suspect that Louis tried to show the different narrators by personal example what he considered a really "good tale."

We know also Louis was subject to fits of religious melancholy, and evinced a superst.i.tious veneration for holy things, and even wore little, leaden images of the saints round his hat. In many of the stories we find monks punished for their immorality, or laughed at for their ignorance, and nowhere do we see any particular veneration displayed for the Church. The only exception is No LXX, "The Devil's Horn," in which a knight by sheer faith in the mystery of baptism vanquishes the Devil, whereas one of the knight's retainers, armed with a battle-axe but not possessing his master's robust faith in the efficacy of holy water, is carried off bodily, and never heard of again.

It seems to me that this story bears the stamp of the character of Louis, who though suspicious towards men, was childishly credulous in religious matters, but I leave the question for critics more capable than I to decide.

Of the thirty-two n.o.blemen or squires who contributed the other stories, mention will be made in the notes. Of the stories, I may here mention that 14 or 15 were taken from Boccaccio, and as many more from Poggio or other Italian writers, or French _fabliaux_, but about 70 of them appear to be original.

The knights and squires who told the stories had probably no great skill as _raconteurs_, and perhaps did not read or write very fluently. The tales were written down afterwards by a literary man, and they owe "the crispness, fluency, and elegance," which, as Prof. Saintsbury remarks, they possess in such a striking degree, to the genius of Antoine de la Sale. He was born in 1398 in Burgundy or Touraine. He had travelled much in Italy, and lived for some years at the Court of the Comte d' Anjou.

He returned to Burgundy later, and was, apparently, given some sort of literary employment by Duke Philippe le Bel. At any rate he was appointed by Philippe or Louis to record the stories that enlivened the evenings at the Castle of Genappe, and the choice could not have fallen on a better man. He was already known as the author of two or three books, one of which--_Les Quinze Joyes de Mariage_--relates the woes of married life, and displays a knowledge of character, and a quaint, satirical humour that are truly remarkable, and remind the reader alternately of Thackeray and Douglas Jerrold,--indeed some of the Fifteen Joys are "Curtain Lectures" with a mediaeval environment, and the word pictures of Woman's foibles, follies, and failings are as bright to-day as when they were penned exactly 450 years ago. They show that the "Eternal Feminine" has not altered in five centuries--perhaps not in five thousand!

The practised and facile pen of Antoine de la Sale clothed the dry bones of these stories with flesh and blood, and made them live, and move.

Considering his undoubted gifts as a humourist, and a delineator of character it is strange that the name of Antoine de la Sale is not held in higher veneration by his countrymen, for he was the earliest exponent of a form of literary art in which the French have always excelled.

In making a translation of these stories I at first determined to adhere as closely as possible to the text, but found that the versions differed greatly. I have followed the two best modern editions, and have made as few changes and omissions as possible.

Three or four of the stories are extremely coa.r.s.e, and I hesitated whether to omit them, insert them in the original French, or translate them, but decided that as the book would only be read by persons of education, respectability, and mature age, it was better to translate them fully,--as has been done in the case of the far coa.r.s.er pa.s.sages of Rabelais and other writers. This course appeared to me less hypocritical than that adopted in a recent expensive edition of Boccaccio in which the story of Rusticus and Alibech was given in French--with a highly suggestive full-page ill.u.s.tration facing the text for the benefit of those who could not read the French language.

ROBERT B. DOUGLAS.

Paris, 21st October 1899.

Good friends, my readers, who peruse this book, Be not offended, whilst on it you look: Denude yourselves of all deprav'd affection, For it contains no badness nor infection: 'T is true that it brings forth to you no birth Of any value, but in point of mirth; Thinking therefore how sorrow might your mind Consume, I could no apter subject find; One inch of joy surmounts of grief a span; Because to laugh is proper to the man.

(RABELAIS: _To the Readers_).