he reaches the outer yard of his farmhouse, but finding the door of the stable shut he cries, ‘Help here!  Wife!’ Then he turned round on his mare, thinking to avoid the cursed beast whose love was burning, who was wild with passion, and growing more amorous every moment, to the great danger of the mare.  His family, horrified at the danger, did not go to open the stable door, fearing the strange embrace and the kicks of the iron-shod lover.  At last, Cochegrue’s wife went, but just as the good mare was half way through the door, the cursed stallion seized her, squeezed her, gave her a wild greeting, with his two legs gripped her, pinched her and held her tight, and at the same time so kneaded and knocked about Cochegrue that there was only found of him a shapeless mass, crushed like a nut after the oil has been distilled from it.  It was shocking to see him squashed alive and mingling his cries with the loud love-sighs of the horse.”

“Oh! the mare!” exclaimed the vicar’s good wench.

“What!” said the priest astonished.

“Certainly.  You men wouldn’t have cracked a plumstone for us.”

“There,” answered the vicar, “you wrong me.”  The good man threw her so angrily upon the bed, attacked and treated her so violently that she split into pieces, and died immediately without either surgeons or physicians being able to determine the manner in which the solution of continuity was arrived at, so violently disjointed were the hinges and mesial partitions.  You can imagine that he was a proud man, and a splendid vicar as has been previously stated.

The good people of the country, even the women, agreed that he was not to blame, but that his conduct was warranted by the circumstances.

From this, perhaps, came the proverb so much in use at that time, Que l’aze le saille!  The which proverb is really so much coarser in its actual wording, that out of respect for the ladies I will not mention it.  But this was not the only clever thing that this great and noble vicar achieved, for before this misfortune he did such a stroke of business that no robbers dare ask him how many angels he had in his pocket, even had they been twenty strong and over to attack him.  One evening when his good woman was still with him, after supper, during which he had enjoyed his goose, his wench, his wine, and everything, and was reclining in his chair thinking where he could build a new barn for the tithes, a message came for him from the lord of Sacche, who was giving up the ghost and wished to reconcile himself with God, receive the sacrament, and go through the usual ceremonies.  “He is a good man and loyal lord.  I will go.” said he.  Thereupon he passed into the church, took the silver box where the blessed bread is, rang the little bell himself in order not to wake the clerk, and went lightly and willingly along the roads.  Near the Gue-droit, which is a valley leading to the Indre across the moors, our good vicar perceived a high toby.  And what is a high toby?  It is a clerk of St. Nicholas.  Well, what is that?  That means a person who sees clearly on a dark night, instructs himself by examining and turning over purses, and takes his degrees on the high road.  Do you understand now?  Well then, the high toby waited for the silver box, which he knew to be of great value.