The Heptameron (Machen)/Novel 46

In the town of Angoulême, where Count Charles, father of King Francis, often resorted, there lived a friar named De Vale, accounted for a learned man and a great preacher. So it fell out that one Advent season he preached in the town before the Count, and got such fame thereby that all who knew him were fain to have him dine with them. And amongst these was the Judge of Exemptions for the county, he having to wife a good and pretty woman, whom the friar loved better than his life, but had not the boldness to tell her, which she perceiving made a mock of him. After that he had shown several appearances of the folly in his brain, he one day saw her mounting all alone to her granary, and, thinking to take her unawares, began to climb up after her; but she, hearing the noise, turned round and asked him whither he was going. "I am coming," said he, "to tell you a certain secret matter." "Then by no means come, good father," answered she, "for it is not my mind to talk with such folk as you in secret, and if you mount higher up this ladder it will repent you of it." He, perceiving that she was alone, made no account of her words, but hasted to climb up, but she, being of good courage, seeing him at the top of the ladder, gave him a kick in the belly, and saying, "Down, down," threw him from the top to the bottom. At this the good father was so ashamed that he forgot his bodily hurts, and fled hotfoot from the town, for he was well ​assured she would not conceal the thing from her husband, as indeed she did not, and told it likewise to the Count and Countess, for which cause the friar durst no more appear before them. And to fill up the measure of his iniquity he went to live with a dame that loved the friars above all other folk, and after that he had preached a sermon or two before her he perceived her daughter that she was very fair. And this daughter he often rebuked for not getting up in the morning to hear the sermon, in the presence of her mother, who said to him: "Would to God, father, she had a taste of the discipline you monks give one another." The friar swore that if she continued thus idle he would give it her, which the mother earnestly entreated him to do. After a few days the good father entered the lady's room, and asked where was her daughter. The lady answered: "She fears you so little that she is still a-bed." "Without doubt," said the friar, "'tis a very bad thing for young maids to be idle. Few people make any account of the sin of slothfulness; but as for me, I esteem it as one of the most deadly both to body and soul; wherefore you would do well to chastise her, and if you will give the charge to me I will have a care that she be no longer in bed at the hour in which she should be praising God." The poor dame, thinking he was an honest man, prayed him to be pleased to chastise her, which he did straightway, and, mounting by a small wooden stair, found the maid all alone asleep in bed, and there while she slept he took her by force. The poor girl, waking up, and not knowing whether it were man or devil, fell to crying out as loudly as she could, and called her mother to the rescue; but her mother, standing at the bottom of the stair, said to the friar: "Have no compassion on her, father; give it her a second time, and chastise this wicked wench." And when the friar had accomplished his evil intent, he came down the stair to the dame, and said with a face all a-fire: "I believe, mistress, your daughter will remember my discipline." The mother, after giving him great thanks, went up to her daughter and found her in such grief as becomes an honest woman that has fallen into so evil a case. And when she knew the truth she made seek for the friar on every side, but he was already afar off, and was no more found in the realm of France.

"You see, ladies, with what security such charges are given ​to them that are not fit. The chastisement of men pertains to men, and the chastisement of women to women; for women would be as pitiful in the chastising of men as men are cruel in the chastising of women." "Jesus!" said Parlamente, "what a wicked and abominable friar!" "Say rather," said Hircan, "what a silly and foolish mother, who, cozened by their deceit, used so familiarly them that should only be seen in church." "Truly," said Parlamente, "I confess; she was one of the most foolish mothers that have ever lived, and if she had been like to the judge's wife she would sooner have sent him down the stair than up it. But this devil that is half an angel is the most dangerous of all, for he knows so well how to transform himself into an angel of light that one is half afraid of suspecting him to be what he really is, and methinks a woman that is not suspicious is in some sort worthy of praise." "Natheless," said Oisille, "the evil that is to be avoided ought to be suspected, notably of them that are in charge of others, for it is better to suspect an evil that is not than to fall through foolish belief into an evil that is. And never have I seen a woman deceived for that she was slow to believe the words of men, but many have I seen deceived for too easily putting faith in a lie; wherefore I say that the evil that may come cannot be too much suspected, and especially of them that bear rule over men, women, towns, or states, for howsoever good the watch, so strong are wickedness and treachery that the shepherd that is not careful will always be deceived by the craftiness of the wolf." "Yet," said Dagoucin, "a suspicious man is not able to be a perfect friend, and many through suspicion are divided one from the other." "If you know an example thereof," said Oisille, "I will give you my vote for the telling of it." "So true a tale will I tell you," said Dagoucin, "that you will take pleasure to hear it. I will tell you, ladies, how a brave friendship was broken in twain, I would say when the surety thereof began to give place to suspicion. For as to believe and trust in a friend is the greatest honour you can do him, so to distrust him is the greatest dishonour, for in that way one esteems him other than he should be, and so many a fine friendship is broken up and friends become enemies, as you shall see by the relation I am about to make you."

In the town of Angoulême, where Count Charles, father of Francis the First, often resorted, there lived a Grey Friar named De Valles, a learned man and so fine a preacher that he was chosen to preach the Advent sermons before the Count, whereby his fame grew still greater. And it fell out that one Advent season a young rattle-pate of the town took to wife a comely lass, but yet continued to run his courses among other women, and this more than the bachelors. And his wife being advertised thereof could not keep silence, speaking to her husband in such a manner that he paid her for it in a fashion not at all to her liking; natheless she for all that would not forego her lamentations and railing, whereat the young man grew wroth and beat her even to bruises and blood-letting. But the women who were her neighbours, knowing the cause of her complaints, could not more be silent than the wife, crying aloud at the corners of the streets: "Woe, woe, on such husbands, to the devil with them!" By good hap the friar De Valles passing by, heard the noise and the reason of it, and determined to touch upon the matter in his sermon on the morrow, and failed not to do so. For drawing his discourse to matrimony, and the love to be observed therein, he greatly magnified it, blaming the infringers of the same, and comparing conjugal love with parental. And amongst other things he said it were a more dangerous thing, and more grievously punished, for a man to beat his wife than to beat his father or mother. "For," said he, "if you do the latter they will send you by way of penance to Rome; but if you beat your wife, she and all her gossips will send you to the devil, whose home is hell. Consider then how diverse are these two penances, for from Rome it is common for men to return, but from hell, alas! no one returns any more, nulla est redemptio." Now after this homily he was advised that the women fortified themselves on the strength of it, in such wise that their husbands could take no order with them, wherefore he resolved to do them a kindness as he had before done their wives. So in one of his ​sermons he likened women to devils, calling these two the greatest of man's enemies, that ceased not to tempt him, and of whom, but notably women, he could by no means rid himself. "For," said he, "with respect to the devils, when the cross is shown them, they fly from before it; but contrariwise women are tamed by this very cross, by reason of it they fetch and carry, and give their husbands an infinity of torments. Know, then, good folk, what you must do to them. When you find your wives cease not to trouble you, as is their manner, take the handle off the cross, and with it press them hard a good while; you will not have tried this cure three or four times before you take some benefit therefrom; and in like manner as the devil is warded off by the virtue of the cross, so will you ward off your wives and put them to silence by the virtue of the handle alone."

"This, ladies, was one of the homilies of Father De Valles, of whose life I will tell you nothing more, and for a good cause; but be assured (for I knew him) that, howsoever good a face he put upon it, he was by much the more inclined to the side of the women than the men." "Yet, mistress," said Parlamente, "he showed but little of his inclinations in his last sermon wherein he teaches men to evilly entreat their wives." "You understand not his device," said Hircan, "since you are not used to warfare, its wiles and stratagems; of which the greatest is to sow discord in the camp of the enemy, for that when he is divided against himself he is mighty easy to be conquered. So master monk knew well that wrath and hatred between a husband and his wife do very often cause the woman to give rein to her honour, which honour, being freed from the guard of virtue, finds itself in the wolf's teeth before it thought to have strayed away." "Howsoever that may be," said Parlamente, "I could bear no love for him that had put discord between my husband and myself, so that we came to blows, for these same blows are altogether the death of love. Natheless, as it hath been told me, so craftily do they go to work, when they would gain an advantage over a woman, and use such pleasant discourse, that I am persuaded it were more perilous to listen to them in secret than publicly to be beaten of a husband, who for the rest might be a good one." "In truth," said Dagoucin, "they have made their ways so mani​fest, that it is not without cause that one fears them, though methinks the woman who is not suspicious is in some sort worthy of praise."