The Tales of the Heptameron, Vol. IV | Page 4

to the lady--
"I see your husband coming this way. I know that if you look at him he
will try to take you out of my hands. Go, then, before me, and turn not
your head in his direction; for, if you make the faintest sign, my dagger
will be in your throat before he can deliver you."
As he was speaking, the gentleman came up, and asked him whence he
was coming.

"From your house," replied the other, "where I left my lady in good
health, and waiting for you."
The gentleman passed on without observing his wife, but a servant who
was with him, and who had always been wont to foregather with one of
the friar's comrades named Brother John, began to call to his mistress,
thinking, indeed, that she was this Brother John. The poor woman, who
durst not turn her eyes in the direction of her husband, answered not a
word. The servant, however, wishing to see her face, crossed the road,
and the lady, still without making any reply, signed to him with her
eyes, which were full of tears.
The servant then went after his master and said--"Sir, as I crossed the
road I took note of the friar's companion. He is not Brother John, but is
very like my lady, your wife, and gave me a pitiful look with eyes full
of tears."
The gentleman replied that he was dreaming, and paid no heed to him;
but the servant persisted, entreating his master to allow him to go back,
whilst he himself waited on the road, to see if matters were as he
thought. The gentleman gave him leave, and waited to see what news
he would bring him. When the friar heard the servant calling out to
Brother John, he suspected that the lady had been recognised, and with
a great, iron-bound stick that he carried, he dealt the servant so hard a
blow in the side that he knocked him off his horse. Then, leaping upon
his body, he cut his throat.
The gentleman, seeing his servant fall in the distance, thought that he
had met with an accident, and hastened back to assist him. As soon as
the friar saw him, he struck him also with the iron-bound stick, just as
he had struck the servant, and, flinging him to the ground, threw
himself upon him. But the gentleman being strong and powerful,
hugged the friar so closely that he was unable to do any mischief, and
was forced to let his dagger fall. The lady picked it up, and, giving it to
her husband, held the friar with all her strength by the hood. Then her
husband dealt the friar several blows with the dagger, so that at last he
cried for mercy and confessed his wickedness. The gentleman was not
minded to kill him, but begged his wife to go home and fetch their

people and a cart, in which to carry the friar away. This she did,
throwing off her robe, and running as far as her house in nothing but
her shift, with her cropped hair.
The gentleman's men forthwith hastened to assist their master to bring
away the wolf that he had captured. And they found this wolf in the
road, on the ground, where he was seized and bound, and taken to the
house of the gentleman, who afterwards had him brought before the
Emperor's Court in Flanders, when he confessed his evil deeds.
And by his confession and by proofs procured by commissioners on the
spot, it was found that a great number of gentlewomen and handsome
wenches had been brought into the monastery in the same fashion as
the friar of my story had sought to carry off this lady; and he would
have succeeded but for the mercy of Our Lord, who ever assists those
that put their trust in Him. And the said monastery was stripped of its
spoils and of the handsome maidens that were found within it, and the
monks were shut up in the building and burned with it, as an
everlasting memorial of this crime, by which we see that there is
nothing more dangerous than love when it is founded upon vice, just as
there is nothing more gentle or praiseworthy when it dwells in a
virtuous heart. (2)
2 Queen Margaret states (ante, p. 5) that this tale was told by M. de
St.-Vincent, ambassador of Charles V., and seems to imply that the
incident recorded in it was one of recent occurrence. The same story
may be found, however, in most of the collections of early fabliaux.
See _OEuvres de Rutebeuf, vol. i. p. 260 (Frère Denise_), Legrand
d'Aussy's Fabliaux, vol. iv. p. 383, and the _Recueil complet des
Fabliaux_, Paris, 1878, vol.