“A master story!”

“The king of stories!”

“Ha, ha!  It beats all the other stories hollow.  After that I say there are no stories like the stories of our host.”

“By the faith of a Christian, I never heard a better story in my life.”

“Why, I can hear the report.”

“I should like to kiss the orchestra.”

“Ah! gentlemen,” said the Burgundian, gravely, “we cannot leave without seeing the hostess, and if we do not ask to kiss this famous wind-instrument, it is a out of respect for so good a story-teller.”

Thereupon they all exalted the host, his story, and his wife’s trumpet so well that the old fellow, believing in these knaves’ laughter and pompous eulogies, called to his wife.  But as she did not come, the clerks said, not without frustrative intention, “Let us go to her.”

Thereupon they all went out of the room.  The host took the candle and went upstairs first, to light them and show them the way; but seeing the street door ajar, the rascals took to their heels, and were off like shadows, leaving the host to take in settlement of his account another of his wife’s offerings.

THE CONTINENCE OF KING FRANCIS THE FIRST

Every one knows through what adventure King Francis, the first of that name, was taken like a silly bird and led into the town of Madrid, in Spain.  There the Emperor Charles V. kept him carefully locked up, like an article of great value, in one of his castles, in the which our defunct sire, of immortal memory, soon became listless and weary, seeing that he loved the open air, and his little comforts, and no more understood being shut up in a cage than a cat would folding up lace.  He fell into moods of such strange melancholy that his letters having been read in full council, Madame d’Angouleme, his mother; Madame Catherine, the Dauphine, Monsieur de Montmorency, and those who were at the head of affairs in France knowing the great lechery of the king, determined after mature deliberation, to send Queen Marguerite to him, from whom he would doubtless receive alleviation of his sufferings, that good lady being much loved by him, and merry, and learned in all necessary wisdom.  But she, alleging that it would be dangerous for her soul, because it was impossible for her, without great danger to be alone with the king in his cell, a sharp secretary, the Sieur de Fizes, was sent to the Court of Rome, with orders to beg of the pontiff a papal brief of special indulgences, containing proper absolutions for the petty sins which, looking at their consanguinity, the said queen might commit with a view to cure the king’s melancholy.