“I think you are right,” said Geburon, “and that hypocrisy, whether towards God, man or Nature, is the cause of all our ills.”

“It would be a glorious thing,” said Parlamente, “if our hearts were so filled with faith in Him, who is all virtue and all joy, that we could freely show them to every one.”

“That will come to pass,” said Hircan, “when all the flesh has left our bones.”

“Yet,” said Oisille, “the Spirit of God, which is stronger than Death, is able to mortify our hearts without changing or destroying the body.”

“Madam,” returned Saffredent, “you speak of a gift of God that is not as yet common among mankind.”

“It is common,” said Oisille, “among those that have faith, but as this is a matter not to be understood by such as are fleshly minded, let us see to whom Simontault will give his vote.”

“I will give it,” said Simontault, “to Nomerfide, for, since her heart is merry, her words cannot be sad.”

“Truly,” said Nomerfide, “since you desire to laugh, I will give you reason to do so.  That you may learn how hurtful are ignorance and fear, and how the lack of comprehension is often the cause of much woe, I will tell you what happened to two Grey Friars, who, through failing to understand the words of a butcher, thought that they were about to die.”

[Illustration:  037.jpg Tailpiece]

[Illustration:  039a.jpg The Grey Friar imploring the Butcher to Spare his Life]

[The Grey Friar imploring the Butcher to Spare his Life]

[Illustration:  039.jpg Page Image]

TALE XXXIV.

     Two Grey Friars, while listening to secrets that did not
     concern them, misunderstood the language of a butcher and
     endangered their lives. (1)

Between Nyort and Fors there is a village called Grip, (2) which belongs to the Lord of Fors.

     1 This story is evidently founded upon fact; the incidents
     must have occurred prior to 1530.—­L.

2 Gript, a little village on the Courance, eight miles south of Niort (Deux-Sevres), produces some of the best white wine in this part of France.  Its church of St. Aubin stood partly in the diocese of Poitiers, partly in that of Saintes, the altar being in the former, and the door in the latter one.  This is the only known instance of the kind in France.  Fors, a few miles distant from Gript, was a fief which Catherine, daughter of Artus de Vivonne, brought in marriage to James Poussart, knight, who witnessed the Queen of Navarre’s marriage contract, signing himself, “Seigneur de Fors, Bailly du Berry.”  He is often mentioned in the Queen’s letters.—­See Genin’s Lettres de Marguerite, &c, pp. 243-244, 258-259, 332.—­L. and M.

It happened one day that two Grey Friars, on their way from Nyort, arrived very late at this place, Grip, and lodged in the house of a butcher.  Now, as there was nothing between their host’s room and their own but a badly joined partition of wood, they had a mind to listen to what the husband might say to his wife when he was in bed with her, and accordingly they set their ears close to the head of their host’s bed.  He, having no thought of his lodgers, spoke privately with his wife concerning their household, and said to her—­