because before marriage
he wished to take certain liberties: and jokingly, in this dream she
let him reconnoiter to a certain extent, in order to avoid any dispute
afterwards, and that in spite of her prohibitions he went further than
she had given him leave to go, and finding more pain than pleasure in
the affair, she had been awakened by Vieux par-Chemins, who had
attacked her as a gray-friar would a ham at the end of lent.

This trial caused so great a commotion in the town of Rouen that the
provost was sent for by the duke, who had an intense desire to know if
the thing were true. Upon the affirmation of the provost, he ordered
Vieux par-Chemins to be brought to his palace, in order that he might
hear what defence he had to make. The poor old fellow appeared before
the prince, and informed him naively of the misfortune which his
impulsive nature brought upon him, declaring that he was like a young
fellow impelled by imperious desires; that up to the present year he
had sweethearts of his own, but for the last eight months he had been
a total abstainer; that he was too poor to find favour with the girls
of the town; that honest women who once were charitable to him, had
taken a dislike to his hair, which had feloniously turned white in
spite of the green youth of his love, and that he felt compelled to
avail himself of the chance when he saw this maiden, who, stretched at
full length under the beech tree, left visible the lining of her dress
and two hemispheres, white as snow, which had deprived him of reason;
that the fault was the girl's and not his, because young maidens
should be forbidden to entice passers-by by showing them that which
caused Venus to be named Callipyge; finally the prince ought to be
aware what trouble a man had to control himself at the hour of noon,
because that was the time of day at which King David was smitten with
the wife of the Sieur Uriah, that where a Hebrew king, beloved of God,
had succumbed, a poor man, deprived of all joy, and reduced to begging
for his bread, could not expect to escape; that for that matter of
that, he was quite willing to sing psalms for the remainder of his
days, and play upon a lute by way of penance, in imitation of the said
king, who had had the misfortune to slay a husband, while he had only
done a trifling injury to a peasant girl. The duke listened to the
arguments of Vieux par-Chemins, and said that he was a man of good
parts. Then he made his memorable