Perico distinguished himself more wittily in his reply to a knight who once asked him the properties of turquoise. “Why,” said the fool, “if you have a turquoise about you, and should fall from the top of a tower and be dashed to pieces, the stone would not break!”
I have already spoken of the Spanish jester who was in the household of the Marquis del Guasto. The latter, a vaunting General, was opposed to the Count François de Bourbon, at the battle of Cerizoles. He had previously made himself so sure of defeating the Count that he took his fool with him, attired in a splendid suit of armour, that the jester might witness his triumph. He had, moreover, promised the jester several hundred ducats if he succeeded in being first to carry to the wife of the Marquis, the news of her husband’s victory. Things, however, fell out just contrary to the Marquis’s expectations. Instead of defeating the Count, the Count defeated him, slaying thousands, capturing cannon, and taking 4,000 prisoners,--not half the number of the slain. Among the prisoners was a noble-looking gentleman in a gorgeous suit of armour, of which he appeared to have taken very peculiar care, for there was no sign of battle about it. It seemed, however, to promise heavy ransom, and the dignified-looking warrior who wore it was conducted with much courteous ceremony to the tent of François de Bourbon. When the Count inquired of his captive as to the rank he bore, the merry fellow at once burst into a laugh, and confessed that he was only house fool to the Marquis del Guasto. “And where is the Marquis?” asked the Count. “Oh!” replied Sir Fool, with a merrier laugh than before, “he has ridden home to his wife, to cheat me of my reward by carrying her the earliest news of the battle.”
If we may judge from the little that is to be collected in books, concerning the Spanish jesters, they were mentally superior to their Italian colleagues. Some of the former achieved a literary reputation. At the head of these was Estevanillo Gonzales, who held office successively in the households of Count Piccolomini and the Duke of Amalfi; both these noblemen were commanders in the King of Spain’s army, in the Netherlands. In 1646, when Gonzales was with the Duke, he wrote his autobiography, describing himself as “hombre de buen humor.” This book was partly translated, partly rewritten by Lesage, and is doubtless known to most of my readers.