Part 21

Saintfoix, in his History of Paris, and indeed many other authors conclude, because Charles V. of France announced to the authorities at Troyes in Champagne, that his fool was dead, and requested them to provide him with another, that the town in question monopolized the provision of this article for the court; but Dr. Rigollet, author of ‘Les Monnaies des Évêques,’ etc., quotes an autograph letter of the same King, dated February 1364, in which Charles orders the cashier of his treasury to disburse 200 francs, “to fetch hither a fool for us who is now in the Bourbonnois.” If this be not conclusive, the fact that the royal jesters came from parts of France where the municipality of Troyes could have had neither authority nor influence, would seem to be more so. Though, after all, the Champagne magistrates _may_ have procured the jesters where they knew a superior specimen was to be found, without regard to locality.

Once engaged, the poor slave--for he was little else--could not sleep out of the palace, unpermitted, without danger of a whipping when he returned. Neither could he lay aside his dress, without sanction of his master; and even then, were he to clap a sword on his thigh, and so try to pass abroad for a gentleman, and this offence came to the ears of the “King of the Ribalds,” the provost-marshal of the King’s household, the fool might reckon on being scourged till the blood ran down to his heels. Further, it does not appear that the fool could at will divest himself of his office. He was bound to serve, and it was only the royal word that could set him free from his bonds.

In one or two instances the monarch exhibited some attachment to his _fou_, by honouring his memory after death. The King Charles V. buried two of his jesters beneath sumptuous monuments. This King, too, was called “the Wise.” One _plaisant_ thus honoured was interred in the church of St. Germain l’Auxerrois, but I can find no account of his tomb in any description of the church to which I have had access. The second was a _fou_ of some condition apparently, for he bore a noble name, and that is not the case with any _fou à titre d’office_ that I have yet heard of. The one in question was Thevenin de St. Ligier, whose body was deposited in the church of St. Maurice de Senlis. The tomb is described as being of stone, ten feet by five, on which lies a figure of a man in a long robe, whose head and feet are of alabaster. He wears the fool’s hood, and other insignia of his office, among which is the long wand, which he grasps in his hand. The scroll of the tomb is composed of very small figures elaborately carved, and the inscription tells the reader that “Here lies Thevenin de Saint-Ligier, _fou_ of the King our Lord, who deceased on the 11th of July, in the year of Grace 1374. Pray God for his soul.”

We see the _fou_ hardly less honoured when, instead of being splendidly interred by his master, he follows the body of his patron to the tomb, amid the esteemed friends and followers especially selected to fittingly grace the solemn occasion. This was the case in 1416, at the obsequies of John, Duke de Berri. The funeral of that prince was a very stately affair; and not the least sincere mourner who was near the coffin, was the Duke’s favourite _plaisant_, who was attired in a full suit of sables, and bore himself with as much dignity as any noble there present. If my readers choose to accompany me any further, they will find German _narrs_ making a mockery of woe, but no samples of their honouring departed worth, as may be found among the _fous_ of France.

It was not every _fou_ who was a _plaisant_ to his master. Louis XI. must have discovered as much after taking into his service the jester of his deceased brother, Charles, Duke de Guyenne. The Duke and his mistress, “the lady of Monsoreau,” in the month of May 1472, being at dessert, divided between them a peach, presented to them by the kind Abbot of Saint-Jean d’Angeli. The lady and her lord _par amour_, speedily died, and their _fou_ passed into the service of the King. Some time after, Louis XI., then praying in his oratory, his fool standing by, held a little discourse and bargaining, as was his wont, with Our Lady of Clery. The staple of the royal discourse with the Virgin, was to this effect, that he and she being on the most friendly terms, mutually patronizing each other, she of course would arrange with Heaven that the King should not suffer for the murder of his brother; but that the Divine vengeance might very appropriately fall on the Abbot of Saint-Jean d’Angeli, whom Louis had employed to commit the deed, and who, as the monarch assured the Virgin, was a very sorry rascal indeed, fit for nothing better than everlasting perdition. “Just arrange this little matter for me, as I would have it,” said the King, “and I have in my eye some very pretty presents that I will offer at your altar.” According to Brantôme, this pleasant confession and proposed arrangement were overheard by the _fou_, whom Louis looked upon as an amusing imbecile without discretion. But the _plaisant_ loved his old master; and he must have as bitterly hated as he little feared his new patron, if it be true that he accused him of the crime before an august company at a grand banquet. The fool was probably soon disposed of, but when the great Duke of Burgundy laid fratricide to the charge of Louis, the latter met the charge manfully. He shut up the Abbot of Saint-Jean d’Angeli in a dungeon, and appointed two commissioners to examine into the accusation. Shortly after, the Abbot was found strangled in prison, some said, by himself; others declared, by the devil; while some thought of the King, and said nothing,--which was what Louis himself did. The examination having proceeded thus far, the King rewarded the two commissioners. He made Louis d’Amboise, Bishop of Albi; and to Pierre de Sacierges he gave a sinecure post of great value. Therewith the examination was at an end, and Louis, at his next _tête-à-tête_ with the Holy Virgin of Clery, probably talked like a man who had been wronged by false suspicion, and had come cleverly, if not triumphantly, out of a trying ordeal.

Having mentioned the great Duke of Burgundy, I may here appropriately add a word or two of the famous “Le Glorieux,” the French jester to Charles the Bold. Le Glorieux was a facetious fellow, and as fearless as facetious. His master, Duke Charles, used to compare himself with Hannibal. After the overthrow at Granson, Duke and fool were galloping in search of safety, with many others. The Duke was in gloomy wrath, Le Glorieux was full of wicked gaiety. “Uncle,” cried he to Charles, “this is the prettiest way of being like Hannibal that I ever saw.”

So again, subsequently to the defeat sustained by the Duke before Beauvais, Charles was conducting some ambassadors over his arsenal. In one of the rooms the host remarked, “This chamber contains the keys of all the cities in France.” At these words, Le Glorieux began fumbling in his pockets, and looking about the room with an air of anxiety. “Now, ass,” cried the Duke, “what are you searching for so anxiously?” “I am looking,” answered Le Glorieux, with a significant smile,--“I am looking for the keys of Beauvais.”

A lost battle would seem, indeed, to have always heightened the spirits of the licensed fool. We have another instance in the case of the jester of the Marquis del Guasto, a general in the service of Charles V. While his captors were hauling over his baggage, after the day of Cerizoles, his fool exclaimed, “Ay, ay, you will find all sorts of valuable things there, except spurs, of which truly my master has plenty, but he keeps them all to enable him to get quicker out of the fray.”

“_Poeta regius_,” to quote the very words of Ménage (in the third volume, p. 183, of the ‘Ana,’) “en bon François signifie ‘Le Fou du Roi.’” Otherwise, King’s poet, as royal poet laureate, signifies in good English, as I may here put it, ‘King’s Fool.’ For this reason Ménage is inclined to reckon Andrelini, who was the “crowned poet” of Louis XII. and Anne of Brittany, among the “fous du Roi;” and he refers us to Bayle upon that subject. The latter, however, does not bring Andrelini (who styled himself _poeta regius et regineus_) nearer to the cap and bells than by showing that he poured forth verses in astonishing abundance, and was paid for them by the hundred. He appears also to have enjoyed somewhat of the license and privilege of the jester, for he uttered bitter satires against the theologians at a time when to attack them was to run the risk of death. And yet Andrelini shot his bolts with impunity, partly because he reflected lustre on the University of Paris. He was a jester, probably, only as John Heywood was with us. He lived as loosely as any titled jester of them all, and his lax rule of life is sufficiently indicated by Erasmus, in the words (see the twentieth Letter in the 4th book of the Collected Letters of Erasmus) addressed to Peter Barbirius, and which imply that the writer could tell more if he would; that Peter knew a good deal about the matter himself; that Andrelini was a loose fellow; and that his rule of life was tolerably notorious. “Quam non casta erat illius professio! Neque cuiquam obscurum erat qualis esset vita!”

We now come to some renowned names in the register of the _plaisants_. The first of these is Triboulet. The individual known by this nickname does not appear to have been in the service of Louis XII., as is sometimes stated. Indeed, Du Tillot professes to be ignorant of the names of any official fool in the court of that King or of his predecessor, Charles VIII. But he has no doubt whatever of the official presence of jesters at both courts. Such presence was a matter of strict etiquette, and Du Tillot supposes that Anne of Brittany, the wife of both the above-mentioned sovereigns, having introduced a very serious tone at court, the wearers of motley only played a subordinate part.

With Francis I., two of the most famous of Trench “plaisans” appear on the stage, Caillette and Triboulet. These names were fictitious, but they are the only appellations by which this merry pair, who hated each other heartily, were known in their own time, or are known in ours. History, too, has dealt confusedly with both jesters, confusing their biographies, jokes, and adventures, and occasionally forgetting that there were two Caillettes, father and son, of whom the latter was appointed fool against his own inclination.

According to popular tradition, Caillette was to Triboulet, what the simpleton in the _Auberge des Adrets_ was to Robert Macaire,--the scapegoat for the other’s offences. He was, we are told, idiotic, or pretended to be so; and when witty, it was more after the fashion of a clown in a pantomime, than that of a happy low comedian, to which Triboulet may sometimes be compared; though the latter occasionally interfered with politics and spoke little brilliant things like a fine gentleman in a comedy. Jean Marot, however, says of him, that he had as much wit when he was thirty as when he was three years old. The court pages, say the biographers, could do as they pleased with Caillette, and on one occasion they nailed him by the ear to a beam. The poor fool thought he was condemned to remain there for life. On being discovered by some police authority, he was questioned; but he only replied that he did not know who had fixed him there. The pages were confronted with him, but each declared in turn, “I had nothing to do with it,” and each time, Caillette added, “And I had nothing to do with it either.” The alleged offence was, that the fool had cut off a page’s aiguillettes and attached them to his person in the guise of a tail. A similar story is told of Triboulet by the “Bibliophile Jacob” (Paul Lacroix) in his ‘Deux Fous,’ to which volume I am indebted for many antiquarian details touching the discipline of jesters at French courts, as well as for various incidents in the lives both of Triboulet and his rival Caillette.

Tradition, without bringing down to us any samples of the quality of Caillette, was long inconsistent with itself, by diversely representing this jester, now as a sorry, and at other times as a very brilliant, practitioner of his craft. There can be little doubt of the existence of a father and son of this name and office; and Paul Lacroix has followed out this idea in his work, noticed above.

According to this writer, who, it is necessary to remember, mingles a good deal of fiction with his antiquarian facts, the elder Caillette was a very inferior wit to Triboulet, and hung himself out of vexation at having been defeated by him at a match of cudgelling of brains. I do not know how much of reality or how much of merely fanciful is included in the following details; some portions may be less _vrai_ than _vraisemblable_, and with this warning, I place before my readers an outline of the younger Caillette, whose elaborate full-length has been superbly painted by a master in the romance of history.

While the father was exercising his vocation at the court of France, the son was sojourning in the château of the Count de St. Vallier, as a friend rather than a dependant. As a youth, he had attracted the attention of the famous Constable de Bourbon by his beauty and intellect. The Constable could not believe him to be of the low origin commonly assigned to him, and it was at Bourbon’s instigation that the Count de St. Vallier took the boy into his household, and educated him in company with the Count’s renowned daughter, Diane de Poictiers. In such society the younger Caillette remained, happy, loved, and light-hearted, till the period of the marriage of Diane with M. de Brézé, Grand Seneschal of Normandy. From this time, his character became changed. He lost his gaiety and his happy carelessness; studied more, in order to forget his sorrows, among which the circumstance of his father holding the office of fool to the King, was by no means the least.

Francis I. was at Moulins, where he had held the son of the Constable at the baptismal font, when he heard of the death of the elder Caillette. This high festival, celebrated at Moulins, had attracted a noble company, and among them was the Count de Saint-Vallier, with the younger Caillette, then about nineteen, in attendance on him. The death of the father, the fool, had more touched Francis than the demise of any of his ministers could have done; and when he heard and saw who was in attendance upon the Count de Saint-Vallier, he resolved to perpetuate the name of the deceased by appointing his son to the vacant office. The appointment was resisted by the noble patrons of the son, and by the latter himself with the energy of despair. But all in vain. The youth, who had looked forward to wield a sword, was compelled to carry the fool’s bauble. He would have committed suicide, but for the intervention of his confessor.

This jester against his will, is described as being of noble mien, perfect in figure, graceful in manner, attractive and spiritual in physiognomy, and singularly elegant in his expression. He charmed the King by his admirable reading of poetry, by his happy facility of improvising rhymes, and by his readiness to compose verses, which Francis did not disdain sometimes to pass off as his own. This learned, philosophical, classical, and noble fool, who possessed more natural qualities than the King himself, was of course loved by many a great lady at court; but _his_ homage was for one alone, and that _one_ was Diane de Poictiers.

But here we assuredly get into romance; which continues to run in this wise. The Count de Saint-Vallier was sentenced to death for alleged complicity in the treason of the Constable against his country. Caillette exerted himself with unexampled vigour to procure the release of his old patron, for he had obtained from Diane a promise that she would reward him for succeeding in the rescue of her father from a terrible death, by kissing him in the presence of the whole court of France. It was into that presence that he proudly brought, at last, the pardon which his prayers, and still more his ingenuity, had wrested, from the King; but at that moment poison was slaying him, and it was only as the dying fool drew his last breath that Diane stooped to kiss him, and thereby gave sweetness to bitter death. He died in a condition of ecstasy.

“Holy St. Bagpipe!” exclaimed Triboulet, “pray for the defunct! I am now first titled fool in the court of France.”

We may dismiss, as unfounded, the legends, and, as unsaid, the wit touching Triboulet and his remarks on the folly of the Emperor Charles V. trusting to the honour of Francis I. by passing through France, and the greater folly of Francis in not taking advantage of the circumstance to seize upon the Emperor. Triboulet was in his grave before the last delicate affair was even negotiated (1538), and all the smart sayings had been uttered previously, under similar circumstances, by other jesters. Indeed, the best things attributed to Triboulet are of questionable authority. Thus, we hear of his complaining to Francis of a nobleman who had threatened to beat him to death for some impertinent joke. “If he does,” said the King, “I will hang him a quarter of an hour afterwards.” “Ah, Sire!” exclaimed the _fou_, “couldn’t you contrive to hang him a quarter of an hour previously?” Something like this story is told of at least half-a-dozen wearers of motley.

There is another story told which certainly refers to Triboulet. He was passing over a bridge in company with a courtier, who observed that the bridge had no “garde-fou” or “parafool,” as the common term ran for a _parapet_. “Surely,” remarked Triboulet to the observation, “the people here did not expect that we two should cross it together.”

There is something more of a joke in this fou’s reply to another courtier who saw Triboulet galloping or caracoling on a magnificent horse when Francis made his public entry into Rouen. “You had better go more quietly, Cousin,” said the courtier, “or you will suffer for it.” “Alas, Sir,” replied the _plaisant_, “what can I do? I stick my spurs into my horse’s flanks to keep him quiet; and the more I prick, the more unruly I find the obstinate beast!” Such sayings as these were only tricks of vocation. Triboulet did not lack common sense, nor omit to use it for the benefit of those who appeared to have lacked their own. This was the case when Francis gave a courier two thousand crowns, as he mounted his horse, and proceeded on a mission to Rome; which place he undertook to reach within a space of time in which no human being could have accomplished the journey. “I will put you down in my register, Sire, as a fool, for believing a man can do what is impossible, and for paying him four times what were his due, even if he could achieve what he undertakes to do.” “But, if he fails,” said Francis, “he will restore me my money.” “Will he, by my bagpipes!” exclaimed Triboulet; “then he will be a greater fool than yourself, and so I shall have two to register instead of one.”

There is another _trait_ illustrative of Triboulet, which has, nevertheless, been attributed, if I remember rightly, to the jester of Leopold of Austria, when planning his invasion of Switzerland. Francis I. summoned a council in 1525, to deliberate on the necessary measures for the celebrated campaign which ended in the capture of the monarch at Pavia. The counsellors did not spare their brains; and, at length having duly and unanimously decided on the most feasible means for successfully entering Italy, they broke up, and rose to separate.

“A moment, wise Sirs,” said Triboulet, as he lay, supported on his elbow, at the feet of the King. “I pray your stupendous wisdoms to tarry an instant, while I intimate that, although you may fancy you have delivered yourself of the best possible advice to my cousin Francis, you have really forgotten the most important point of all.”

“Ay! ay! merry cousin,” exclaimed the King, “will your sage worship inform us how that may be?”

“Just this,” answered Triboulet, with his merry chuckle. “They have told you how best to get into Italy. Now, you do not intend, I suppose, to stay there for ever; and your fool thinks they would have done well if they had counselled your Majesty, not merely how to get into Italy, but how to get out of it again.”

“Tush! joyous companion,” said Francis; “it is not needful. We shall return _tambour battant_.”

“Very fine,” rejoined the fool. “Vos tambours seront battus;” and at this _équivoque_, the council dispersed, laughing.

The “Bibliophile Jacob” says of Triboulet, that he was as truly an historical personage as any “grand pannetier,” or “bouteiller de la couronne.” Triboulet was a native of Blois, where he led a wild life in his youth, but entered early in the service of the Count d’Angoulême, afterwards Francis I., in the quality of jester. He may have been called the town jester, for he was for ever in the streets, playing on the bagpipes, basking in the sun, saying sharp things to all who passed near him, and impudently importuning everybody for money. It was in Blois that Triboulet cut the “pourpoint de livrée” of one of the pages of the Count d’Angoulême, as the young gentleman was hurrying through the streets on a mission connected with the coming visit of Louis XII. and Anne of Brittany. The page, unconscious of the trick played him, whereby he looked like a monkey _without_ his tail, was hailed by his young fellows at court with shouts of laughter. But when their laughter was at an end, they resolved to avenge the insult. They carried Triboulet off beyond the ramparts of the city, and, near the permanent gallows which was then no uncommon ornament in the vicinity of great cities, they began tormenting him, by pricking his feet with their daggers, dragging him by the hair, and burning his moustaches. This done, one merry and merciful young gentleman, looking at the fool’s long ears (for which he was remarkable), proposed that he should be hung by them to the gibbet; and accordingly, they nailed him by the right ear in such a position that he was only supported by his toes, and his pitiful beseechings only raised the mirth of the tender-hearted young pages.

If we may believe the Bibliophile, who is, indeed, as frequently a romancer as an antiquary, it was as some compensation for this outrage, that Francis of Angoulême created Triboulet his fool by patent. The same writer adds, that the pages found the jester’s tongue even longer than his ears; and, “remarkable fact, from this period, Triboulet, who was then about four-and-twenty years of age, suddenly ceased to be idiotic and imbecile, and became a witty, diverting, and crafty buffoon, and, above all, a perfect courtier.”

In person, Triboulet was small and crooked; his head and ears were enormously large; his mouth proportionately wide; his nose must have been three times the size of that of Francis, who had otherwise the largest nose of any man in France: Rudolph of Hapsburg had not a larger. The fool’s eyes were protruding; his forehead was low and narrow. “His flat and hollow chest,” says Jacob, “his bowed back, his short and twisted legs, his long and hanging arms, amused the ladies, who contemplated him as if he had been a monkey or a paroquet.”