you
to-day, I was told so merry a tale about two servants of a Princess,
that, in laughing at it, I quite forgot the melancholy story which I had
prepared, and which I will put off until to-morrow; for, with the merry
face I now have, you would scarce find it to your liking."

[Illustration: 170.jpg Tailpiece]

[Illustration: 171a.jpg The Secretary imploring the Lady not To Tell Of His Wickedness]

[The Secretary imploring the Lady not To Tell Of His Wickedness]

[Illustration: 171.jpg Page Image]

_TALE XXVII_.

_A secretary sought the wife of his host and comrade in
dishonourable and unlawful love, and as she made show of
willingly giving ear to him, he was persuaded that he had
won her. But she was virtuous, and, while dissembling
towards him, deceived his hopes and made known his
viciousness to her husband_. (1)

1 The incidents here related would have occurred at Amboise
between 1540 and 1545. The hero of the story would probably
be John Frotte, Queen Margaret's First Secretary, who also
apparently figures in Tale XXVIII. The Sires de Frotte had
been in the service of the Dukes of Alencon since the early
part of the fifteenth century. Ste-Marthe says of John
Frotte that he was a man of great experience and good wit,
prudent, dutiful and diligent. He died secretary to Francis
I.--L. and B. J.

In the town of Amboise there lived one of this Princess's servants, an
honest man who served her in the quality of valet-de-chambre, and who
used readily to entertain those that visited his house, more especially
his own comrades; and not long since one of his mistress's servants came
to lodge with him, and remained with him ten or twelve days.

This man was so ugly that he looked more like a King of the cannibals
than a Christian, and although his host treated him as a friend and a
brother, and with all the courtesy imaginable, he behaved in return not
only like one who has forgotten all honour, but as one who has never had
it in his heart. For he sought, in dishonourable and unlawful love, his
comrade's wife, who was in no sort attractive to lust but rather the
reverse, and was moreover as virtuous a woman as any in the town in
which she lived. When she perceived the man's evil intent, she thought
it better to employ dissimulation in order to bring his viciousness to
light, rather than conceal it by a sudden refusal; and she therefor