The king wished to know what his minister meant by these strange words; and when his majesty was getting into bed, Jacques de Beaune narrated to him the history with which you are acquainted.  Now Francis the First, who was partial to these spicy stories, thought the adventure a very droll one, and was the more amused thereat because at that time his mother, the Duchess d’Angouleme, in the decline of life, was pursuing the Constable of Bourbon, in order to obtain of him one of these dozens.  Wicked love of a wicked woman, for therefrom proceeded the peril of the kingdom, the capture of the king, and the death—­as has been before mentioned—­of poor Samblancay.

I have here endeavoured to relate how the Chateau d’Azay came to be built, because it is certain that thus was commenced the great fortune of that Samblancay who did so much for his natal town, which he adorned; and also spent such immense sums upon the completion of the towers of the cathedral.  This lucky adventure has been handed down from father to son, and lord to lord, in the said place of Azay-les-Ridel, where the story frisks still under the curtains of the king, which have been curiously respected down to the present day.  It is therefore the falsest of falsities which attributes the dozen of the Tourainian to a German knight, who by this deed would have secured the domains of Austria to the House of Hapsburgh.  The author of our days, who brought this history to light, although a learned man, has allowed himself to be deceived by certain chroniclers, since the archives of the Roman Empire make no mention of an acquisition of this kind.  I am angry with him for having believed that a “braguette” nourished with beer, could have been equal to the alchemical operations of the Chinonian “braguettes,” so much esteemed by Rabelais.  And I have for the advantage of the country, the glory of Azay, the conscience of the castle, and renown of the House of Beaune, from which sprang the Sauves and the Noirmoutiers, re-established the facts in all their veritable, historical, and admirable beauty.  Should any ladies pay a visit to the castle, there are still dozens to be found in the neighbourhood, but they can only be procured retail.

THE FALSE COURTESAN

That which certain people do not know, is a the truth concerning the decease of the Duke of Orleans, brother of King Charles VI., a death which proceeded from a great number of causes, one of which will be the subject of this narrative.  This prince was for certain the most lecherous of all the royal race of Monseigneur St. Louis (who was in his life time King of France), without even putting on one side some of the most debauched of this fine family, which was so concordant with the vices and especial qualities of our brave and pleasure-seeking nation, that you could more easily imagine Hell without Satan than France without her valorous, glorious, and jovial