The Heptameron (Machen)/Novel 41

When Margaret of Austria came to Cambray to treat on behalf of the Emperor her nephew with the Most Christian King, he on his part sent his mother Louise of Savoy, and with her was Margaret Countess of Aiquemont, who bore the fame of being the comeliest of all the ladies of Flanders. And when this great gathering was dispersed, the Countess of Aiquemont returned to her house; and Advent being come, she sent to a monastery of Grey Friars asking for a skilled preacher and a good man, not only that he might preach, but also confess her and her whole house. So the warden sought out the most worthy he could find for this office, since the brethren had received much benefit both from the house of Aiquemont and that of Fiennes, to which the Countess belonged. So the Grey Friars, who more than the other orders desire the good esteem and liking of great houses, sent the best preacher in the monastery, and throughout Advent he did his duty well, and the Countess was satisfied with him. And on Christmas Night the Countess, intending to receive the Holy Sacrament, made the confessor come to her, and having confessed in a chapel well shut up, so that it might be more secretly performed, she gave place to her Maid of Honour, who having confessed, sent for her daughter, that she too might pass through the hands of the good priest. And after the girl had opened all her mind to him, he knew somewhat of her secrets that gave him the desire and the courage to lay on her an unwonted penance. For he said to her: "My daughter, your sins are so grievous that I give you as penance my cord, to wear it on your naked flesh." She, not willing to disobey him, answered: "Give it me, father, and ​I will not fail to wear it." "My daughter," said he, "it will avail nothing put on by your hands; but these hands of mine, that shall give you absolution, must first have girded the cord round you: then shall you be absolved of all your sins." The girl, weeping, said she would not suffer it. "What," said the ghostly man, "are you a heretick, that you refuse the penance that God and our Holy Mother the Church have enjoined?" "I use confession as the Church commands," replied she, "and am fain to have absolution and do penance, but I will not have you put your hands on my naked flesh, and I refuse this your penance." "Then," said the confessor, "I will give you no absolution." The girl got up from beside him with a troubled conscience, for she was so young that she feared she had not done well in refusing in such sort her ghostly father; and when mass was sung and the Countess of Aiquemont had received the Corpus Domini, her Maid of Honour, wishing to go after her, asked her daughter if she were ready. The girl, weeping, said she had not confessed. "What then have you done all the while with the preacher?" said her mother. "Nothing," she answered, "for since I refused the penance he gave me he refused his absolution." The mother made prudent inquiry, and discovered the strange penance the holy father had given her daughter, and so having caused her to confess to another priest they received together the Body of Our Lord. But when the Countess was returned from the church the Maid of Honour made complaint to her of the preacher, at which she was as astonished as wrathful, seeing that she had had a good opinion of him. But for all her wrath she laughed most heartily at this new kind of penance, yet this did not hinder her from having the friar taken and shrewdly striped in the kitchen, where at the point of the rod he confessed his fault. And afterwards the Countess sent him back bound hand and foot to the warden, praying him another time that he would intrust the preaching to a better man.

"Consider, ladies, if they are not afraid to show their wickedness in so honourable a house, what they must do in the poor cottages where they are accustomed to go their rounds, and where opportunities are so readily given them that it is a miracle when they escape without scandal. And this makes me pray you to convert your poor esteem of the friars ​into compassion for the women, for the devil that blinds the one will by no means spare the other if he find them fit for his purpose." "Truly," said Oisille, "this was a very wicked friar; monk, priest, and preacher, and yet to work such ungodliness on Christmas Day, in a church, and under the cloak of confession, all the which are circumstances that aggravate his sin." "Did you think, then," said Hircan, "that the friars were angels, or better than other men? You have heard so many examples that you should rather think them worse; and methinks the man had many excuses, that he was alone, at night time, shut up with a pretty maid." "Ay," said Oisille, "but it was Christmas Night." "That does but better his excuse," said Simontault, "for taking Joseph's place with a pretty virgin, he was fain to try make a child, to play the Mystery of the Nativity to the life." "Truly," said Parlamente, "if Joseph and the Virgin Mary had been in his mind, he had not had so wicked a desire. But it was an arrant knave and a daring to undertake such an enterprise with such poor hopes of success." "The Countess, methinks," said Oisille, "punished him so well that his fellows would take warning by him." "But it may be questioned," said Nomerfide, "whether she did well in this manner to put her neighbour to open shame, and whether she had not done better to have gently remonstrated with him on his sin than thus to have blazed it abroad." "Ay," said Geburon, "that would have been the better way, for we are commanded to reprove our neighbour secretly before we tell his sin to any man or proclaim it in the congregation. And after a man has been put to open shame, he will never mend his doings; for the fear of this shame keeps as many from sin as conscience." "I think," said Parlamente, "that this counsel of the Gospel should be used towards all men, save them that preach the word and do it not; for one need not fear of shaming them that are a shame to the whole world. And I esteem it a good deed to make them appear such as they really are, so that we take not glass for a fine ruby. But to whom will Saffredent give his vote?" "Since you ask, I will give it you," said Saffredent, "to whom no man of understanding would refuse it." "If you will have it so," said she, "I will tell you of a case to which I myself can bear witness. And I have always heard that virtuousness ​abiding in a weak and feeble vessel, but assailed by mighty and all powerful vice, is much to be praised, and to be held at its best: for if the strong withstands the strong, 'tis no great matter for admiration; but when the weak fights with the strong and prevails, 'tis a very glorious and notable affair. And since I know the folk of whom I am fain to tell you, methinks I should do a wrong to that virtuousness I have seen going in such poor raiment that no account was made of it, if I did not speak of her who did such honourable deeds. Wherefore I will make you the relation."