Part 22
We find one of the uses to which these official fools were put at this court, in a remark touching the costume of Triboulet. “His dress was not less eccentric than his person. In accordance with his secret occupation of purveyor of pleasures to the King, he adopted the colours of the reigning mistress, and dressed in something of the fashion of his master. His _justaucorps_ was of striped blue and white silk, fitting so tightly as to render his bodily deformity more conspicuous, and to excite more readily the laughter of all who looked upon him for the first time. On his back, thighs, and cap, were emblazoned the royal arms, and from his girdle of gilt leather hung the symbols of his office,--a club, a wooden sword, and a bagpipe. Another distinguishing mark of his office might be seen and heard in the little silver bells attached to his conical cap, his wand with a fool’s head at the end of it, and his long-toed red morocco slippers. He could not advance a step, nor turn his body ever so slightly, without setting these bells in motion, and thereby making a noise louder than that of ten mules in full trot. Triboulet was proud of functions which placed him near the King, and which he would not have exchanged for a ducal coronet or an episcopal mitre. He used to say of himself, that he was ‘the most noble in France, commencing from the lowest rank.... Keep duchies, countships, baronies, and marquisates to yourselves, Triboulet is sovereign lord of all at whom he mocks.’”
The Triboulet of Paul Lacroix is probably more like the original Triboulet than the half sentimental half savage hero of Victor Hugo’s play, ‘Le Roi s’amuse.’ In this piece, the “fou” is rendered malicious by a three-piled misery,--he is infirm, deformed, and an official court fool. He hates all his superiors because they _are_ his superiors, and detests those beneath him,--detests men generally, in fact, because they are not hunchbacked, like himself. He excites rank against rank, and all against the King, and the King against all. He is the bad genius of Francis, whom he corrupts, and the scourge of the nobility, the dishonour of whose families he works through the King. He is Mephistophiles without superhuman power, for the lack of which he makes up by the intensity of his devilishness. Victor Hugo himself compares the buffoon and the King to a man holding a plaything and mortally wounding those among whom he capers with his toy. The buffoon is altogether without heart; yet not quite altogether, for there is one point on which he is as tender-hearted, as ever father could be who had an only daughter dearer to him far than his own life. Yet he has no heart for other sires whose love for their daughters is ardent, but who would rather see them coffined at their feet than crowned and dishonoured. So, when the Count de Saint-Vallier denounces Francis, in open court, for having brought disgrace upon his child, Diane de Poictiers, Triboulet the fool insults the outraged parent; and the old noble, robbed of his daughter, curses Triboulet the man. On this curse the whole piece turns, and from the time it is fulminated, there is little that ensues which is illustrative of the office and pleasantry of the buffoon, though all is highly dramatic, and Nemesis rules without restraint. The curse of the old Count smites Triboulet through his child, whom the King carries off, and whom the father slays by mistake for the royal seducer. The moral of the piece is defective, seeing that the buffoon, for a thoughtless trick of his office, is the only person most terribly punished. The King, who is the gay stage villain of the piece, escapes scot-free. It is like sending Leporello _ad inferos_, instead of Don Giovanni. If the Triboulet of Victor Hugo be full of brilliant inconsistencies and glittering contradictions, he is in many things what tradition represents him to have been. He flings smart sayings at marriage, laughs at the King’s pretensions to write verses, pushes or draws him into vice, and shoots a fool’s bolt at woman, by styling her, “a highly perfected devil.” His malice is illustrated by his delight at the opportunity offered him to cruelly rally the husbands whom his highly perfected devils outrage and betray. His humour is to comment and criticize, while others, and especially the King, enjoy life after their fashion. Between his own condition and that of the master whom he serves, he draws a distinction of which he might reasonably have been the author, saying to Francis
“Vous êtes Heureux comme un roi, et moi comme un bossu.”
That Victor Hugo was careful of representing Triboulet in his vocation of buffoon, according to the way in which the contemporaries of the “fou” had spoken of him, may be seen in the speech of M. de Pienne to Marot, who is, and was, fool in all things but the title, with enough of that wit which our own national poet alluded to as requisite for a man who aspired to play the character becomingly. De Pienne says to Marot:--
“J’ai lu dans votre écrit du siége de Peschière, Ces vers sur Triboulet, Fou de tête écornée, Aussi sage à trente ans que le jour qu’ il est né.”
It is probable, therefore, that we find other reflections of the buffoon’s actual character and his bearing towards Francis, in the best passages connected with him and his vocation. Triboulet certainly exhibits a turn of his profession when, after drinking with the monarch, he boasts of possessing two advantages over him, that of not being drunk, and that of not being King. The well-known freedom which he invariably took with Francis, is not less pleasantly illustrated by his satire against scholars, when the King’s sister Margaret counselled him to surround himself with wise men, since he lacked the love of ladies.
“C’est bien mal,” says the buffoon,--
“C’est bien mal De la part d’une sœur. Il n’est pas d’animal, Pas de corbeau goulu, pas de loup, pas de chouette, Pas d’oison, pas de bœuf, pas même de poët e, Pas de Mahométan, pas de théologien, Pas d’échevin flamand, pas d’ours et pas de chien, Plus laid, plus chevelu, plus repoussant des formes, Plus caparaçonné d’absurdités énormes, Plus hérissé, plus sale et plus gonflé de vent, Que cet âne bâté qu’on appelle un savant. .... Médecine inouïe! Conseiller les savants à quelqu’un qui s’ennuie!”
And again, we have a fact put in rhyme, though it be told of other buffoons, in the passage where Francis, pointing to three courtiers, tells Triboulet that they are employed in making sport of him. “Not of me,” says Triboulet, “but of another fool.” “And who is he?” asks Francis. “The King,” briefly and drily replies the buffoon, who especially hated the courtiers, who as heartily hated the King’s jester. Francis, still remarking on the three, observes discontentedly, “I have made one an admiral, one a grand constable, and of the third, controller of my household. What more could I do for them?” “Well,” returns Triboulet, “there is _one_ thing more you might very justly do for them;--you might hang them!” It may be added, that the _plaisant_ did not at all fear those whom he exasperated by the exercise of his wit; and his feeling in this respect is well illustrated by his remark to one of the illustrious gentlemen whom he had offended, and by whom he was thrashed:--
“Be assured, my good seigneurs, that Triboulet’s far From dreading the nobles ’gainst whom he makes war. Dread! I dread nothing; my heart’s calm and cool; For I’ve nothing to risk but the head of a fool.”
Triboulet, after his death, was not honoured, like Thevenin de Saint-Légier, with a magnificent tomb and a superscribed epitaph. Nevertheless, he did not lack a poet who at least penned an epitaph which is in very tolerable Latin, and has fool’s wit in its closing turn. It is by Jean Bouté, was printed in 1538, and is to this effect:--
“Vixi _Morio_, Regibus qui gratus Solo hoc nomine; viso num futurus Regum Morio sim Jovi Supremo.”
Among the frequenters of the court of Francis we occasionally meet with personages who had too much wit to be official _fous_, but whose humour was sometimes exercised like theirs, but without license. Their wit was enjoyed, but it was exercised at their risk and peril. Marot was one of those; and many are the stories of him that are little worth relating. Of the best of them, there is one which tells of his feigned simplicity, when he saw the French Ambassador at Rome kiss the Pope’s foot. “Merciful powers!” cried Marot, “if the representative of the King of France kisses his Holiness’s foot, what may a poor fellow like me be called upon to salute!” Marot, too, is the author of a smart saying that has been turned and re-turned in many a handbook of wit since his time. He was walking with a very fine court personage, who hated wits and poets, and who remarked to Marot, who was to the right of him, “I cannot bear, Marot, to have a fool on my right-hand.” “Can you not?” said the wit, slipping round to the left, “I can bear it very well!” This wit satirized with his pen the hypocritical priests as stingingly as Triboulet did with his tongue the nobles whom he hated; and he was, consequently, once menaced with the vengeance of a bishop on whom he had been particularly severe. “Oh!” remarked Marot, “I am in no anxiety, I know a place where I can easily escape the research of the bishop. I will go and sit in his library.”
It is true, that though the especial duty of the _fou_ was to laugh and make laugh, and that he possessed not the privilege of weeping if choice or calamity urged him thereto, he had license of speech, and sometimes used it for the admonition as well as amusement of his master. In this respect, the _plaisant_ often became a political personage or agent of considerable importance; and an instance of this is recounted of Briandas, who was one of the official fools of Francis I., after the death of Triboulet, about the year 1538.
Francis had so neglected his wife, the gentle, pious, but grandeur-loving Claude, that their eldest son had little love for his sire; and the Dauphin, subsequently Henry II., was upon such terms with his father as the Princes of Wales were, under our Georges. They had their separate households, courts, and factions, and the feuds between the two were constant and bitter. It is worth remarking that Briandas, who was attached to the King’s person, as “Bouffon de Cour,” had free access to the Prince’s presence at all times. On one of these occasions, he was present when the Dauphin and a few personal friends were discussing their future prospects and chances of fortune. The discussion took the turn of an appeal to the heir-apparent, as to the distribution of wealth and honours, when the reigning King, Francis, should be in his grave. The Dauphin did not seem to think that the matter was in any way delicate or difficult. He felt a joy in the mere fancy of being King, and joyously notified how he would deprive certain noblemen of the court of his father of their offices, and confer them on his followers present. The prince proceeded to sportively appoint various laughing applicants to divers posts coveted by them. All found themselves thus provided for, save one--the old Marshal Vielleville,--who had remained silent. Now there was another individual in the room, silent also; and he had not escaped the Marshal’s observation. This was Briandas, the fool. The Marshal, in his honesty or great discretion, would not take part in the proceedings, the little decorum of which may have shocked an old-world courtier, and he remained taciturn, as if he disapproved of the entire comedy. The _fou_ too was silent; but he was thoughtful also. No one, however, suspected him of having attended to what had been going forward, or of his holding long in memory the serious joking of which he had been a witness. The buffoon, however, was not the man they took him for. He that night entered the apartment where Francis sat surrounded by his friends, and approaching his master with solemn gait, addressed him as solemnly of speech, with, “God greet you, _Francis of Valois_, for from what I have seen and heard this evening, you are King no longer!” He did not pause here, but turning to the various great officers of the crown, he announced to each that he was deprived of his dignity, to which a successor had been appointed. “God’s death!” he finally exclaimed, turning sharp round upon the King, “as for you, the grand constable will soon be upon you, rod in hand, to whip you for your follies.”
It would be difficult to say whether the wrath or the curiosity of the King was greater. He had his misgivings, too, as to indulging in either, for this might only be a fool’s jest after all. His curiosity however had the mastery, and Briandas, in presence of Francis, the Cardinal of Lorraine, and the Duchess d’Estampes, was so closely questioned and cross-questioned, as to induce us to believe that the querists were more justified in trusting to his intelligence than the Dauphin and his friends had been in depending on his simplicity or imbecility. The buffoon succinctly revealed everything, named all the persons who had leaped into high saddles before their time, but made especial exception of Vielleville, as having neither applied for a post nor had one conferred on him by the foolish King _in posse_.
The royal curiosity satisfied, wrath took its place; and at the head of a body of Scottish and Swiss guards, Francis hastened, with the “fou,” to arrest his own too hasty son and his adherents. These, however, had been timely forewarned, and had hurriedly decamped. There were no persons left in the Dauphin’s chamber, except a few pages and servants, on whom Francis let his wrath fall, and ordered them to be soundly horsewhipped. They doubtless deserved it for something or another, so that it was not altogether thrown away. The King acted less justifiably, even in the eyes of the buffoon, when he proceeded with his own hand to destroy the furniture in the Dauphin’s chamber, and to slash the tapestry with his sword.
Months elapsed before the King and his son became partially reconciled, through the intervention of mutual friends. As for the Dauphin’s followers, they were all punished by various measures of disgrace and severity, excepting Vielleville, who had marked the presence of Francis’s fool, and in that presence had been too wise or honest to offend Francis’s self-love. And thus things remained till the death of Francis and the accession of Henry. _Then_ the long-before discussed probabilities, and the lavish promises, became realities. Francis’s friends were swept from their high estate, and the trusty or eager followers of Henry appointed in their place. Never was the tune of ‘Up go we’ so admirably played out as on this occasion by the husband of Catherine de Medicis and his partisans. There were however two personages who did not join in the chorus, namely, the wise or discreet Marshal Vielleville and the loquacious but trusty fool, Briandas. The former was passed over for being too silent, and the latter suffered stripes and imprisonment for being too talkative.
Neither of these lost much by not serving Henry II. (especially as regards Briandas), for that King and his actual fool could never agree. The great man could not bear the license of the little one, and the latter could so indifferently endure the exasperating humour of his master, that he one day drew his sword upon the King. It could only have been his wooden sword, for fools could carry no other on their thigh; but Henry took the act of poor Capuchio as an act of treason, and the buffoon is said to have paid for it with his life.
Henry had far more regard for the fool Thony, whom he raised to the rank of patented buffoon, after the death of the jester’s late master, the Duke of Orleans. The Duke had taken him, at an early age, from his mother, at Coucy in Picardy. Thony had three brothers, all of whom were actually out of their wits, and the pious woman desired to see Thony in priest’s orders, that he might pray for his witless brethren. “Leave him to me,” said the Duke, “I will look to it.” Therewith his highness carried him off; and as the aforesaid brothers had received appointments as house-fools in illustrious but private families, the Duke made a fool of Thony. He was a coarse, rough fellow at first, but the society of pages and courtiers improved him. By constant friction with such materials, he became remarkably polished and jocose. The constable Anne de Montmorency had an especial regard for Thony. He invited him to his own table, where the “fou” was served like a King, and where his chief joke seems to have been in complaining of the inattention of the pages and lackeys; and his chief enjoyment in seeing them smartly scourged in his presence for their neglect, real or alleged. The constable called him the most subtle courtier of a fool that he had ever seen. Thony exhibited his subtlety by naming the constable familiarly, his “Papa;” but this was only as long as that great officer was in favour with the King. When the royal favour had departed, Thony no longer looked with an eye of affection on him. Only the King’s friends were _his_ friends, so that, in one respect, the fool was like any ordinary man.
Indeed, some of the ordinary men were brighter wits than the fools. After the demise of Francis I. we meet with a personage who, without being a jester by vocation, probably caused more mirth and laughter at the court of Henry II. than was ever raised there by courtier or court fool. The name of this personage was Mendoza, and the first subject for his wit he found in a solemn circumstance. Henry celebrated the obsequies of his predecessor in magnificent style. The priest who pronounced the funeral oration maintained that King Francis had been of so holy a life, that his soul had gone to Paradise without passing through Purgatory. The denial of Purgatory was a favourite tenet of the Reformers. The Sorbonne accused the preacher of heresy, and sent a deputation to St. Germain, to make known their complaint to the King. Mendoza, then a chief officer of the court, first received it, and, by a facetious speech, saved Henry from an act of injustice. “Calm yourselves, gentlemen,” said he to the deputies of the Sorbonne; “if you had known the good King Francis as well as I did, you would have better understood the words of the preacher. Francis was not a man to tarry long anywhere; and if he did take a turn in Purgatory, believe me, the devil himself could not persuade him to make anything like a sojourn.” What could the deputation do, save laugh themselves into good humour at the wit of this court official?
Indisputably the most celebrated of the French fools by right of patent, was Brusquet, whose whole career is tolerably well known, and who was in every respect one of the most singular characters of his time. He was a native of Provence; of his childhood little is known, save that he spent it in his native province; and there is some little uncertainty as to the profession with which he first started on his more public career. According to some authors, he appeared at Paris as a pettifogging lawyer, and was in danger of starving for want of clients. But Brusquet was an original fellow, and the nearer he was in danger of being famished, the more merrily he met what fate was preparing for him. Indeed, his mirth, wit, and light-heartedness procured for him a prosperity unattainable by the practice of the law, by introducing him to the tables of great men, as a professional jester.
There is another and a still more amusing version of the early professional life of Brusquet. According to this, he commenced as a quack doctor; perhaps he took up physic when he laid down law. However this may be, it is pretty certain that he was a medical hanger-on to the camp at Avignon, in 1536. He had of course little or no knowledge of his profession; but his patients died in greater ignorance than he. His _impudence and boldness_ were about equal; and he so dosed the Lanzknechts and Switzers, that he at last became as terrible to them as the enemy. They perished by scores under his vigorous practice, of which the modest practitioner seemed to think lightly; for after all, said he, “What are they? Only Swiss robbers and plundering riders.” But these robbers and riders were first-rate troops, and their commanders could not afford to lose them at the rate by which they were despatched by the gay yet terrific Brusquet. And the quack began to be looked upon, in some sort, as an assassin. Indeed, the great constable de Montmorency, exasperated by the results of his peculiar medical skill, resolved to confer on him an assassin’s reward, and, accordingly, ordered him to be summarily executed. Brusquet was warned in time, by friends who could better spare a legion of Lanzknechts than they could the brilliant-witted quack; and he at once betook himself to the quarters of the commander-in-chief, the Dauphin, afterwards Henry II. This prince knew of Brusquet’s better qualities, by report, and he was so charmed by the fellow’s manner and matter, his quaint address, his witty illustrations, and his method of making his offences assume the guise of merits, that he at once took him under his protection, exempted him from arrest by the camp provost, and appointed him to a subordinate place in the Dauphin’s household.
If Brusquet really became fool by right of office, which seems to have been the case, it is certain that he was the object also of much favour, enjoying privileges seldom if ever granted to the court buffoon. I have said, in a previous page, that the _plaisant_ could never lay aside his official costume, nor sleep out of the royal mansion, nor clap sword on his thigh, except by permission (and that was rarely given) of his master. With Brusquet the reverse seems to have been the rule. He did not reside in the palace, although he held the office of jester to three kings, Henry II., Francis II., and Charles IX. He was, moreover, a married man, and he filled other posts besides that of mirth-maker to their Majesties. After being a sort of gentleman valet to Henry, he was elevated to the responsible and lucrative situation of “Maître des Postes,” or Posting-master General of Paris. In this capacity he laid travellers under contribution without mercy. Very few could undertake a journey without having recourse to his office, and his fees being fixed by himself, journeying was found to be a very costly thing, without being in any sense of the word a luxury. He never had less than a hundred nags in his stables, ready for hirers, and he used to designate himself, with comic pomposity, “Brusquet, captain of the hundred light horse.”