These artful compeers by a species of legal chicanery, decreed that the good man was not a cuckold, seeing that his wife had refused a consummation, and if the planter of horns had been anyone but the king, the said marriage might have been dissolved; but the amorous spouse was wretched unto death at my lady’s trick.  However, he left her to the king, determining one day to have her to himself, and thinking that a life-long shame would not be too dear a payment for a night with her.  One must love well to love like that, eh? and there are many worldly ones, who mock at such affection.  But he, still thinking of her, neglected his cases and his clients, his robberies and everything.  He went to the palace like a miser searching for a lost sixpence, bowed down, melancholy, and absent-minded, so much so, that one day he relieved himself against the robe of a counsellor, believing all the while he stood against a wall.  Meanwhile the beautiful girl was loved night and day by the king, who could not tear himself from her embraces, because in amorous play she was so excellent, knowing as well how to fan the flame of love as to extinguish it—­to-day snubbing him, to-morrow petting him, never the same, and with it a thousand little tricks to charm the ardent lover.

A lord of Bridore killed himself through her, because she would not receive his embraces, although he offered her his land, Bridore in Touraine.  Of these gallants of Touraine, who gave an estate for one tilt with love’s lance, there are none left.  This death made the fair one sad, and since her confessor laid the blame of it upon her, she determined for the future to accept all domains and secretly ease their owner’s amorous pains for the better saving of their souls from perdition.  ’Twas thus she commenced to build up that great fortune which made her a person of consideration in the town.  By this means she prevented many gallant gentlemen from perishing, playing her game so well, and inventing such fine stories, that his Majesty little guessed how much she aided him in securing the happiness of his subjects.  The fact is, she has such a hold over him that she could have made him believe the floor was the ceiling, which was perhaps easier for him to think than anyone else seeing that at the Rue d’Hirundelle my lord king passed the greater portion of his time embracing her always as though he would see if such a lovely article would wear away:  but he wore himself out first, poor man, seeing that he eventually died from excess of love.  Although she took care to grant her favours only to the best and noblest in the court, and that such occasions were rare as miracles, there were not wanting those among her enemies and rivals who declared that for 10,000 crowns a simple gentleman might taste the pleasures of his sovereign, which was false above all falseness, for when her lord taxed her with it, did she not reply, “Abominable wretches!  Curse the devils who put this idea in your head!  I never yet did have man who spent less than 30,000 crowns upon me.”