1 The scene of this tale is laid at the castle where Margaret died. Ste. Marthe in his _Oraison funèbre_, pronounced at Alençon fifteen days after the Queens death, formally states that she expired at Odos near Tarbes. He is not likely to have been mistaken, so that Brantomes assertion that the Queen died at Audos in Beam may be accepted as incorrect (_ante_, vol. i. p. lxxxviii.). It is further probable that the above tale was actually written at Odos (_ante_, vol. i. p. lxxxvi.), but the authenticity of the incidents is very doubtful, as there is an extremely similar story in the _Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles_ (No, xvii. _Le Conseiller au bluteau_), in which the hero of the adventure is a great clerk and knight who presided over the Court of Accounts in Paris. For subsequent imitations see Malespinis _Ducento Novelle_ (No. xcvii.) and _Les Joyeuses Adventures et Nouvelles Recreations_ (No. xix.)--L. and Ed.
One day she hired a discreet and worthy girl, telling her of her husbands temper and her own, and how she was wont to turn away such girls whom she found to be wantons. This maid, wishing to continue in her mistresss service and esteem, resolved to remain a virtuous woman; and although her master often spoke to her, she on her part gave no heed to his words save that she repeated them to her mistress, and they thus both derived much diversion from his folly.
One day the maid was in a back room bolting meal, and wearing her sarot, a kind of hood which, after the fashion of that country, not only formed a coif but covered the whole of the back and shoulders. Her master, finding her in this trim, came and urged her very pressingly, and, although she would not have done such a thing even to save her life, she pretended to consent, and asked leave to go first and see whether her mistress was engaged in some such manner that they might not be surprised together. To this he agreed; whereupon she begged him to put her hood upon his head and to continue bolting whilst she was away, in order that her mistress might still hear the noise of the bolter. And this he gladly did, in the hope of obtaining what he sought.
The maid, who was by no means inclined to melancholy, ran off to her mistress and said to her--