thly honour, she neither changed her countenance
nor treated them worse than before, whereat they were so confounded,
that they carried away in their own bosoms the shame they had thought to
bring upon her.

"If, ladies, you do not consider this story enough to prove that women
are as bad as men, I will seek out others of the same kind to relate to
you. Nevertheless I think that this one will suffice to show you that a
woman who has lost shame is far bolder to do evil than a man."

There was not a woman in the company that heard this story, who did not
make as many signs of the cross as if all the devils in hell were before
her eyes. However, Oisille said--

"Ladies, let us humble ourselves at hearing of so terrible a
circumstance, and the more so as she who is forsaken by God becomes like
him with whom she unites; for even as those who cleave to God have His
spirit within them, so is it with those that cleave to His opposite,
whence it comes that nothing can be more brutish than one devoid of the
Spirit of God."

"Whatever the poor lady may have done," said Ennasuite, "I nevertheless
cannot praise the men who boasted of their imprisonment."

"It is my opinion," said Longarine, "that a man finds it as troublesome
to conceal his good fortune as to pursue it. There is never a hunter but
delights to wind his horn over his quarry, nor lover but would fain have
credit for his conquest."

"That," said Simontault, "is an opinion which I would hold to be
heretical in presence of all the Inquisitors of the Faith, for there are
more men than women that can keep a secret, and I know right well that
some might be found who would rather forego their happiness than have
any human being know of it. For this reason has the Church, like a wise
mother, ordained men to be confessors and not women, seeing that the
latter can conceal nothing."

"That is not the reason," said Oisille; "it is because women are such
enemies of vice that they would not grant absolution with the same
readiness as is shown by men, and would be too stern in their penances."

"If they were as stern in their penances," said Dagoucin, "as they are
in their responses, they would reduce far more sinners to despair than
they would draw to salvation; and so the Church has in every sort well
ordained. But, for all that, I will not excuse the gentlemen who thus
boasted of their prison, for never was a man honoured by speaking evil
of a woman."

"Since they all f