“You are a wicked servant to try to create contention in this way between my wife and me.  I dismiss you, and will pay you what I owe you for your services to me, and more besides; but be speedily gone, and take care that you are not in the town twenty-four hours from now.”

The President paid him for five or six years in advance, and, knowing him to be a faithful servant, resolved to reward him still further.

When the servant was gone weeping away, the President made Nicholas come forth from the closet, and after telling them both what he thought of their wickedness, he commanded them to give no hint of the matter to anyone.  He also charged his wife to dress more bravely than was her wont, and to attend all assemblies, dances and feasts; and he told Nicholas to make more merry than before, but, as soon as he whispered to him, “Begone,” to see that he was out of the town before three hours were over.  Having arranged matters in this way, he returned to the court, none being any the wiser.  And for a fortnight, contrary to his wont, he entertained his friends and neighbours, and after the banquet had the tabourers, so that the ladies might dance.

One day, seeing that his wife was not dancing, he commanded Nicholas to lead her out.  The clerk, thinking that the past had been forgotten, did so gladly, but when the dance was over, the President, under pretence of charging him with some household matter, whispered to him, “Begone, and come back no more.”  And albeit Nicholas was grieved to leave his mistress, yet was he no less glad that his life was spared.

When the President had convinced all his kinsfolk and friends and the whole countryside of the deep love that he bore his wife, he went into his garden one fine day in the month of May to gather a salad, of such herbs that his wife did not live for twenty-four hours after eating of them; whereupon he made such a great show of mourning that none could have suspected him of causing her death; and in this way he avenged himself upon his enemy, and saved the honour of his house. (2)

2 Whilst admitting the historical basis of this story, M. Le Roux de Lincy conceives it to be the same as No. xlvii. of the Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles, printed half-a-century before the Heptameron was written.  Beyond the circumstance, however, that in both cases a judge is shown privily avenging himself on his wife for her infidelity, there is no resemblance between the two tales.  There is good reason for believing that Queen Margaret’s narrative is based on absolute fact, and not on the story in the Cent Nouvelles.  Both tales have often been imitated.  See for instance Bonaventure Despericr’s Contes, Nouvelles, et joyeux Devis (tale xcii., or, in some editions, xc. ); Les Heures de Recreation de Louis Guicciardini, p. 28; G. Giraldi Cinthio’s Hecatommithi, overro cento Novelle, &c. (dec. iii. nov. vi. ); Malespini’s Ducento Novelle (part