Part 6
The Jews themselves employed jesters to enliven their own wedding feasts. This was the case in Silesia as late as the last century. The company sat gravely enough till the indispensable jokers and tumblers were introduced, and _then_ the fun was of the oddest, if not most refined, sort. But the Silesian Jews were a simple people, unacquainted with the mendacity and dreariness of wedding-breakfast speeches. Their fools had full license to abuse truth, but not to be dreary.
In passing now to the fools of different courts and localities, I will, by the way, notice a class which may claim precedence, by right of sex. I therefore proceed to say a few words of the FEMALE FOOLS.
THE FEMALE FOOLS.
I do not know any earlier instance of a retained female fool than in the case of the wife of Seneca, who kept in her house one named Harpaste, and whom the philosopher describes as _fatua_, adding that he himself found no pleasure in such objects; and (as I have quoted in another page) that if he found it necessary to take delight in contemplating a fool, he had not far to go,--having only to look in a mirror. Harpaste may have been retained out of charity, for she was so witless that, becoming suddenly blind, she was not conscious of her calamity; but, remarking how very dark it was in the house, asked the pædagogus to lead her out-of-doors.
Seneca, it will be remembered, loved folly as little in a philosopher as in the fool by vocation. “He,” observes the son of the Cordovaner, “who duly considers the business of life and death, will find that he has little time to spare from that study. And yet, how we trifle away our hours upon niceties and cavils! Will Plato’s imaginary ideas make me an honest man?... _A mouse is a syllable, but a syllable does not eat cheese; therefore a mouse does not eat cheese?_ Oh, these childish follies!... We are jesting, when we should help the miserable,--ourselves, as well as others.”
Jeanne, Queen of Charles I. of France, maintained a female fool of the name of Artaude du Puy, but of whom we know nothing more than that she cost her mistress, or rather the royal treasury, a considerable sum, for dress. There is an unpublished autograph letter of Charles, dated January 3, 1373, an extract from which, printed by the author of ‘_Les Monnaies des Évêques_,’ etc., shows that the King orders his treasurers to pay Jean Mandoli, furrier and citizen of Paris, the sum of 179 gold francs, for certain gauds and braveries of woman’s dress, furnished “to Artaude du Puy, Fole to our dear companion, the Queen.”
In 1429, we hear of a _moult gracieuse folle_ (she is so called by St. Remy), whose name was Madame d’Or, and whose wit kept all the nobles laughing at the festival in honour of the institution of the Golden Fleece, at Bruges, in 1429. A _folle_ was also attached to the household of Margaret, the granddaughter of Charles the Bold. Her position in the household is clearly ascertained by the fact that, when moving abroad, she followed her mistress in a chariot, accompanied by the “_old_ ladies in waiting.”
In the succeeding century, in the year 1561, we find a woman, named La Jardinière, registered as “Fole de la Royne,” attached to the rather gloomy household of the Queen Dowager, Catherine de Medicis. Catherine seems to have patronized this sort of official, for in 1568, and for at least four subsequent years, there was a certain _Jacquette_, who held in the Queen’s establishment the office of “Plaisante de la Royne.”
As far, however, as witty license of speech went, Catherine’s court ladies not unfrequently excelled the court fools, male or female. They did not, indeed, let their lightly-hung tongues ring out at Majesty itself; but they observed no such restraint with anybody beneath the rank, even though the individual might be above the King himself in power. I may instance, as a case in point, the mighty Cardinal of Lorraine, who, despite all his puissance, was often the butt of the lively ladies of the Court of Catherine de Medicis and her royal sons. Brantôme says of this gay and intellectual priest, that, when things went well with him, his arrogance was insufferable; but that no one could be more courteous, or more humble, when his projects met with obstruction. One of the Queen’s maids-of-honour, Mdlle. de la Guyonnière, afterwards Madame de Ligneroles, often carried on a fool’s war with the redoubted Cardinal. Whenever the latter appeared to be meek and polite with this lady,--she, who, according to Brantôme’s pleasant compendium, “étoist très habile fille, belle, honneste, et qui disoit bien le mot,” would, with audacious gaiety, exclaim, “Come, come, meek Sir, tell us now if you have not met with some check during the night past? Confess at once that you have been humbled, or we will have nothing to say to you; for, most assuredly, you have encountered some defeat. So, let us hear all about it, if you would have us gracious with you.”
At a later period, we find another lady whose wit was wont to give mirth to courtly circles, if not to the French Court itself. I allude to the sister of that younger De Thou who was executed, by Richelieu, in 1642, for not revealing the conspiracy headed by Cinq-Mars, who had trusted the secret of it with his friend. In after-years, this lady attended the funeral service of the Cardinal, or a service held for the repose of his soul. And there she set the noble persons present into scarcely suppressed laughter, by exclaiming, as she gazed at the coffin where Richelieu lay, or was supposed to lie,--in the words of Martha to Christ, after the death of Lazarus,--“Domine, si fuisses hîc, frater meus non esset mortuus.” (“Lord, if thou hadst been _here_, my brother had not died.”) It was very apt, though a little profane.
To return to the official female fool, we must go back to the Court of the father of the King, under whom this lady lived, namely, the Court of Henri IV. There was there a Mathurine, who seems to have held the office of _Plaisante_, not to the Queen exclusively, but for the benefit and amusement of the Court generally. Of what quality was the wit of these _plaisantes_, some of whom I think were dwarfs, I am unable to say; the only certain fact I can tell of them is, that they, though not more than the male fools, continued to wear out the soles of their shoes with great rapidity. The registers of accounts show an extraordinary consumption of shoe leather. In the ‘_Collection de la Chambre des Comptes_,’ under the year 1319, thirty-two pairs of shoes are set down as having been supplied _at one time_ to the Queen’s dwarf!
It is said of Mathurine that she employed her wit in laughing people out of the Huguenot faith into Catholicism. Mathurine was present in 1594 when Jean Chastel wounded Henri, in his attempt on that king’s life, and she ran great risk of sharing the fate of the would-be assassin, for the monarch, aware of her frantic zeal for the Roman Catholic Church, and that she only looked on Henri as half a Romanist, or believing that she was playing too serious a joke by right of her office, ordered her under arrest as an accomplice. Mathurine, however, proved her innocence, and was set free. She died previous to the year 1627.
De Tillot quotes two authors who make mention of this female fool, Mathurine. The first is the anonymous author of ‘La Lunatique,’ who, addressing the King’s male jester, “Maître Guillaume,” remarks: “Thou doest well to have small love for the Reformers. Satan himself looks on them only with regret; and for a good reason, seeing that if the Reformers could have their way, there would soon be an end of court fools and buffoons. Ah, poor Mathurine, and you poor fellows, Angoulevent, Maître Guillaume, and indeed all you other fools, as well without hoods as with, where would all your pensions be if the Reformers had the upper hand?”
It is a significant fact, this, of the Reformers being the opponents of the expensive follies, and their professors, patronized at Court. Ogive, the second author cited by De Tillot, speaks also of Mathurine, as a salaried fool, appointed by the King: “Folle à gages, et appointée du Roi.” He writes, in 1627, saying, “Truly it is a marvellous thing that noble personages, who have been brought up all their lives with the parrots and apes of the Louvre, and who do not less belong to the Court than Mathurine did, or the Queen-Mother’s dwarfs _do_, should not have learnt in their cabinets to write reasonably.”
Thirty-four years after this was written, a Spanish _folle_ appeared at the French Court, and in rather suspicious society; that of Don John of Austria, who accompanied the famous Pimentel to Paris, to negotiate the marriage of Maria Theresa of Spain with the young Louis XIV. (a marriage which, as it was to put an end to the war, was more cared for by Mazarin than a union which might have taken place between the Cardinal’s most clever niece, Marie Mancini, and the French king). Don John had the impudence to present at court this woman, whom he called his “Folle.” She was full of fun and wit, and every one sought to excite both. Louis enjoyed her jokes with wonderful zest. Her name was Capiton, and no party was thought complete without the presence of the Don’s _Folle_. The cudgelling of brains between her and Marie Mancini was a gladiatorial fight. Poor Marie had loved Louis, and Louis was warmly attached to a woman who had awakened in him the only good qualities he ever possessed, and who saved him from being such a mere beast as his successor was. Capiton loved to provoke Marie, by singing the praises of the Spanish Infanta, and Marie, sharp-witted, as well as sharply wounded by these praises of a rival who was to triumph over her, replied by sarcasms that were repeated with intense delight throughout France. The haughty, eccentric, coarse, and sensual Don John was proud of his Folle Capiton.
The official female fool survived as late as the year 1722, when we meet with a certain Kathrin Lise. She was the duly-appointed jokeress, if I may so speak, to the Duchess von Sachsen-Weissenfels-Dahme, who resided in the castle of Drehna, and depended upon Kathrin for her mirth. This is all we know of the last of the line of female jesters.
* * * * *
Before proceeding to sketch an historical outline of our own English fools, I propose to treat briefly of the Eastern buffoons. These may fairly claim precedence, on the ground that in the East the fashion of maintaining household fools is supposed to have originated, and that it has not yet expired in that locality. Further, there is, in connection with barbaric Courts, both in the East and the West, some legendary matter connected with the Fool, of which it may be as well finally to dispose, prior to dealing with the English jester as an historical character.
THE ORIENTAL “NOODLE.”
As I have just stated, the court or household fool probably originated in the East. The close of this Chapter will show that in the East that pleasant or pretentious official still survives. In a region where aberration of mind is taken to be a sort of divine inspiration, we need not wonder at finding the professional jester still attached to certain families, and himself and his vocation treated with a certain degree of respect.
I have already spoken of the buffoons who could not move the gravity of their own solemn master Attila; and we know that Timour rather kept these people for the amusement of his guests, than that he experienced any satisfaction himself in the exercise of their craft. They were not wanting in the Courts of the Caliphs, and the name of Bahalul conspicuously figures among the cap-and-bell favourites of Haroon Al-Raschid. It was to him that the Caliph once said, “Fool, give me a list of all the blockheads in Bagdad.” To which Bahalul answered, “That were not so easy, and would take too long; but if you want a list of the wise men, you shall have it in two minutes.”
It was in jest that Haroon presented him a document, by which he was constituted governor of all the bears, wolves, foxes, apes, and asses, in the Caliphate. “It is too much for me,” said the fool; “I am not ambitious enough to desire to rule all your holiness’s subjects.”
Bahalul one day, finding no one in the throne-room of the sovereign father of the faithful, seated himself on the cushions of the priest-monarch. The guards near were horror-stricken at beholding the jester on the sacred couch of authority, imitating the manners of Haroon himself; just as Chicot, long after, used to mimic those of Henri III. They speedily dragged him from the throne of cushions, and began bastinadoing him with such violence that the Caliph, hearing his cries, entered the hall and demanded the reason of the outcry. “Uncle,” said Bahalul, “I am not screaming on my own account, but on yours. I pity you. I have only tried royalty for five minutes, and I am already in a fever with pain inflicted by these fellows. What must you endure, then, who occupy the same distinguished seat every day!”
Bahalul seems to have been a dissipated fellow, and the Caliph enjoined him to marry and live discreetly, loving his wife, and bringing up his family in honour. The jester so far obeyed as to go through the nuptial ceremony; but as he was conducting his wife to her apartment, the uncourteous bridegroom suddenly paused, looked as if he were petrified, and declaring that he had never heard such a tumult in his life, took to his heels, and did not re-appear for months. Meanwhile, the deserted bride had procured a divorce, and _then_ Bahalul made his _rentrée_ at Court.
“So!” exclaimed the Caliph, with an inquiring air.
“Ay, ay!” cried the fool, “you would have done as I did. The tumult scared me away beyond the hills.”
“What tumult?” asked Haroon.
“Why,” said Bahalul, “as my wife was entering her room, there came from her, sounds as of a thousand voices. Amid them, I could distinguish the cries of ‘rent! taxes! doctors! sons! daughters! schooling! dress! silks! satins! muslins! drawers! slippers! money! more money! debt! imprisonment! and Bahalul has drowned himself in the Caliph’s bath!--therewith,” added the jester, “terrified at the solemn warning, and wishing to avoid the profanity of plunging my person into your brightness’s bath, I fled, till the danger was over, and--here I am; owing nothing, and disinclined to drown myself.”
Bahalul, however, was not the most favourite jester of this Caliph. There is no doubt that the most renowned of these was Ebn Oaz. We have indeed but one sample of his quality, but that is excellent. Unfortunately, it is also well known; but it must not be omitted in this record of the fraternity. Haroon, it is said, desired to exhibit the best qualities of the wit in presence of the young Sultana and her brilliant court; and he suddenly ordered Ebn Oaz to make some excuse which should be more offensive than the crime it was to extenuate. After considerable thought, Oaz slunk away, and the disappointed spectators were speaking of him as “incapable,” when the Caliph, suddenly starting up from his seat, with a roar and a look of exquisite anguish, set the whole court in confusion. The fact was, that Ebn Oaz had gone behind the curtains of the throne, and, opening them gently, had given the Caliph so astounding a pinch in the rear, that he sprang up as if a javelin had pierced him. Looking on the offender with rage and anguish, he ordered him to be slain for the treasonable and intolerable assault. “Stay!” said Oaz to the too-ready officials, who were already fingering their bow-strings. “Hear my excuse,” added he, turning to the Caliph; “I declare, by way of apology, that when I pinched your Holiness behind, I thought I was pinching the Sultana, your wife.” Haroon saw at once that the excuse was worse than the crime, and that he ought to be delighted; but he only laughed in a forced way, remarking to the Sultana, before he resumed his seat, that he felt he should not forget the joke for some time to come.
This story has been made wonderful use of, and has been dished up in a hundred different ways in a hundred different localities. It belongs, however, originally to the East, as do so many other of our most ancient and accepted anecdotes. I believe that all the facetiæ of Hierocles were old Indian, before they were new Greek stories, and that the “simpleton” who clung to the anchor when the ship was sinking,--who stood before a mirror with his eyes closed, to see how he looked when asleep,--who carried about with him a brick of his house, as a specimen of the building,--who made the experiment of keeping a horse alive without food, only failing to succeed by the premature death of the steed;--all these, and some dozens of others like them, had all drawn laughter from Eastern potentates before they began to raise a smile in the fairer faces of the Hellenes. But these stories only amused; and the jester had the prerogative of being free, as well as the duty of being entertaining.
This freedom of the jester, and the good use to which he could apply his joke and his license, is exemplified in the case of the town-fool who entered the hall where Mahmoud Ghizni was seated in full assembly. Without appearing to be conscious of the illustrious presence and the august company, he went prying about into the corners of the hall, as if in search of some particular object. At length, said he, “Not one!”
“Not one what?” roared the Ghiznian.
“Sheep’s tail!” said the fool, in a tone of voice which set every one in a roar of laughter.
“It’s no laughing matter,” added he; “I am starving, and all I ask is a sheep’s tail for my dinner.”
“Nay!” cried Mahmoud, “thou shalt have one;” and whispering to an official who stood near, the latter personage presently brought in a raw vegetable, which in its shape somewhat closely resembled the long, heavy, and unctuous tail of the Eastern sheep. The fool took it without observation; and, after thanks to the Prophet for excellent mutton, he began devouring it. Observing that the monarch smiled, the jester asked him, with the tail in his mouth, if what he was doing reminded his Majesty of anything.
“Of what should a sheep’s tail in thy mouth remind me,” said Mahmoud, “except of the proverb that ‘Extremes meet’?” The fool was overwhelmed for awhile by the laughter duly shouted forth by the subordinates at their great master’s joke, but he soon recovered himself, and when Mahmoud asked him what he thought of his joint, he answered, “That the thing was eatable enough, but that he observed that sheep’s tails were by no means so fat and well-flavoured as they had been in the days of his Majesty’s predecessor; but that, as men were more lean, too, now, than they used to be, perhaps the fact alluded to was of no material consequence.”
“Thou art not such a fool as thou pretendest to be,” said the sovereign. “It was but yesterday that one of thy profession told me of the gratitude the owls felt for me, because of the many ruined villages in the land; and now thou hintest at the misery of the people. Go thy way, good fellow, and go thy way with full stomach, and assurance that both evils shall yet be remedied.”
In the sixteenth century, when Baber was Emperor of Hindostan, the merry profession was in favour, but the furnishers of amusement for the monarch comprised others besides jesters. Thus, at state dinners, as soon as the imperial host and his guests took their places, tumblers, rope-dancers, and jugglers, whom no other country could equal, exhibited their feats. The highest point of fun was when the scattering of coin among the performers, excited a huge uproar. In earlier times, the wordy contests of two fools used to beguile the half-hour before dinner; but in Baber’s days, he and similar potentates were wont to be exceedingly well amused by witnessing a couple of rams butting at each other. It was perhaps as rational for royalty so to do, as to listen to Ethiopian serenaders chanting harmonized nonsense.
Some writers have classed the “Mutes” among the professional fools of the Eastern courts. This would seem to be an error not easily accounted for. The duty of that official was of a rather severe cast. The fool, however, was well known among the Turks, and perhaps the most celebrated was that Nasur ed Deen Chodscha, who was in the service of the first Bajazet, and who joked to such excellent effect that he once tickled Timour Leng into such good humour that the latter paid the fool the high compliment of saving from plunder his native town Jengi-Scheher (Neapolis). It was done after this wise:--
The inhabitants of the city, hearing of the approach of the conqueror, prepared to defend themselves with vigour. Nasur counselled them to do nothing of the sort, but to trust to him alone, and his mediation with Timour. The people were doubtful of his success, but they yielded. Before proceeding to the camp of the besieger, Nasur, who knew it was useless to approach the great chief without a present, considered what gift was likely to be most acceptable. He resolved it should be fruit, but he hesitated between figs and quinces. “I will consult with my wife,” said Nasur ed Deen, and he according did so. The lady advised him to take quinces, as the larger fruit. “Very good,” said Nasur, “that being your opinion, I will take figs.” When he reached the foot of the throne of Tamerlane, he announced himself as the ambassador from the beleaguered citizens, and presented, as an offering of their homage, his trumpery basket of figs. The chief burst into a rage, and ordered them to be flung at the head of the representative of the people of Jengi-Scheher. The courtiers pelted him with right good will; and each time he was struck, Nasur, who stood patient and immovable, gently exclaimed, “Now Allah be praised!” or, “Oh, the Prophet be thanked!” or, “Oh, admirable! how can I be sufficiently grateful?”
“What dost thou mean, fellow?” asked Timour; “we pelt you with figs, and you seem to enjoy it!”
“Ay, truly, great Sir,” replied Nasur; “I gratefully enjoy the consequence of my own wit. My wife counselled me to bring quinces, but I chose to bring figs; and well that I did, for with figs you have only bruised me, but had I brought quinces, you would have beaten my brains out.”
The stern conqueror laughed aloud, and declared that, for the sake of one fool, he would spare all the asses in the city, male and female, them and their property.
“Then,” cried Nasur, “the entire population is safe!” and he ran homewards to communicate the joyful intelligence.
Nasur, indeed, ranks among the most useful, as well as the most witty, of his ancient vocation. On one occasion, Bajazet had condemned many scores of his officers to death, for some trifling offence, in time of war. “Ay, indeed,” exclaimed the fool, “hang the knaves! hang them! what use are they? kill them for small offences, and rogues will fear to commit greater! excellent wisdom! Timour is at hand; away with them before he comes! The army can do without leaders. You take the standard; I will beat the drum; and we will thus meet that troublesome individual at the head of the forces. We will see how we can handle the Tartars, without such knaves as these to help us!” Bajazet comprehended the implied reproof, and spared the well-proved and lightly-offending leaders of his host.