After dinner, they rested in their apartments, and at the appointed time returned to the meadow, where day and season alike seemed favourable to their plans.  They all sat down on the natural seat afforded by the green sward, and Parlamente said—­

“Yesterday I told the tenth and last tale; it is therefore for me to choose who shall begin to-day.  Madame Oisille was the first of the ladies to speak, as being the oldest and wisest, and so I now give my vote to the youngest—­I do not also say the flightiest—­for I am sure that if we all follow her leading we shall not delay vespers so long as we did yesterday.  Wherefore, Nomerfide, you shall lead us, but I beg that you will not cause us to begin our second day in tears.”

“There was no need to make that request,” said Nomerfide, “for one of our number has made me choose a tale which has taken such a hold on me that I can tell no other; and should it occasion sadness in you, your natures must be melancholy ones indeed.”

[Illustration:  089.jpg Page Image]

TALE XI. (A).

Madame de Roncex, while at the monastery of the Grey Friars at Thouars, (1) was constrained to go in great haste to a certain place, and, not looking to see whether the seats were clean, sat down in a filthy spot and befouled both her person and clothes; whereupon crying out for assistance, in the hope that some woman would come and cleanse her, she was waited on by men, who beheld her in the worst plight in which a woman could be found. (2)

     1 In the department of the Deux-Sevres.—­Ed.

2 This story, given in Boaistuau’s version of Margaret’s tales, and to be found in most of the MS. copies of the Heptameron at the ‘Paris Bibliotheque Nationale’, was not included in the edition issued by Gruget, who replaced it by a story called The jests made by a Grey Friar, for which see post, p. 95 et seq.—­Ed.

In the household of Madame de la Tremoille there was a lady named Roncex, who one day, when her mistress had gone to visit the monastery of the Grey Friars, found herself in great need to go to a certain place whither her maid could not go in her stead.  She took with her a girl named La Mothe to keep her company, but being modest and unwilling to be seen, left her in the room, and went alone into a darksome privy, a place used in common by all the friars, who had given such a good account therein of all their victuals, that seat and floor, and in sooth the whole place, were thickly covered with the must of Bacchus and Ceres that had passed through the friars’ bellies.

The unhappy lady, who was so hard pressed that she had scarcely time to lift her dress, chanced to sit down in the foulest, dirtiest spot in the whole place, where she found herself stuck fast as though with glue, her poor hips, garments, and feet being so contaminated that she durst not take a step or turn on any side, for fear lest she should meet with something worse.  Thereupon she began to call out as loudly as she could—­