e monk came into the room where
the king was, and when he saw him he was much astonished. Tristan was
present: the king called him, and whispered into his ear--

"You have not done that which I told you to."

"Saving your Grace I have done it. Turpenay is dead."

"Eh? I meant this monk."

"I understood the gentleman!"

"What, is it done then?"

"Yes, sire,"

"Very well then"--turning towards the monk--"come here, monk." The
monk approached. The king said to him, "Kneel down!" The poor monk
began to shiver in his shoes. But the king said to him, "Thank God
that he has not willed that you should be killed as I had ordered. He
who took your estates has been instead. God has done you justice. Go
and pray God for me, and don't stir out of your convent."

The proves the good-heartedness of Louis XI. He might very well have
hanged the monk, the cause of the error. As for the said gentleman, he
died in the king's service.

In the early days of his sojourn at Plessis-les-Tours king Louis, not
wishing to hold his drinking-bouts and give vent to his rakish
propensities in his chateau, out of respect to her Majesty (a kingly
delicacy which his successors have not possessed) became enamoured of
a lady named Nicole Beaupertuys, who was, to tell the truth, wife of a
citizen of the town. The husband he sent into Ponent, and put the said
Nicole in a house near Chardonneret, in that part which is the Rue
Quincangrogne, because it was a lonely place, far from other
habitations. The husband and the wife were thus both in his service,
and he had by La Beaupertuys a daughter, who died a nun. This Nicole
had a tongue as sharp as a popinjay's, was of stately proportions,
furnished with large beautiful cushions of nature, firm to the touch,
white as the wings of an angel, and known for the rest to be fertile
in peripatetic ways, which brought it to pass that never with her was
the same thing encountered twice in love, so deeply had she studied
the sweet solutions of the science, the manners of accommodating the
olives of Poissy, the expansions of the nerves, and hidden doctrines
of the breviary, the which much delighted the king. She was as gay as
a lark, always laughing and singing, and never made anyone miserable,
which is the characteristic of women of this open and free nature, who
have always an occupation--an equivocal one if you like. The king
often went with the hail-fellows his friends to the lady's house, and
in order not