Popular Tales

The Project Gutenberg eBook, Popular Tales, by Madame Guizot, Translated by Mrs. L. Burke
REED AND PARDON, PRINTERS, PATERNOSTER-ROW, LONDON.
POPULAR TALES.
MADAME GUIZOT.
TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH. BY MRS. L. BURKE.
LONDON: GEORGE ROUTLEDGE & CO., FARRINGDON STREET. 1854.
The favourable reception accorded to our first introduction of Madame Guizot's Tales to the English Public, leads us to hope that our youthful readers will welcome with pleasure another volume from the pen of that talented writer.
This new series will be found in no respect inferior to the former; one of its tales, certainly, has even a deeper interest than anything contained in that volume, while the same sound morality, elevation of sentiment and general refinement of thought, which so strongly recommend the Moral Tales to the sympathies of the Parent and Teacher, will be found equally to pervade the present series.

It was a village fair, and Punch with his usual retinue—Judy, the Beadle, and the Constable—had established himself on one side of the green; while on the other were to be seen, Martin, the learned ass, and Peerless Jacquot, the wonderful parrot. Matthieu la Bouteille (such was the nickname bestowed upon the owner of the ass, a name justified by the redness of his nose) held Martin by the bridle, while Peerless Jacquot rested on his shoulder, attached by a chain to his belt. His wife, surnamed La Mauricaude , had undertaken to assemble the company, and to display Martin's talents. Thomas, the son of La Mauricaude, a child of eleven years of age, covered with a few rags, which had once been a pair of trowsers and a shirt, collected, in the remnant of a hat, the voluntary contributions of the spectators; while in the background, sad and silent, stood Gervais, a lad of between fourteen and fifteen years of age, Matthew's son by a former marriage.
Come, ladies and gentlemen, exclaimed La Mauricaude, in her hoarse voice, come and see Martin; he will tell you, ladies and gentlemen, what you know and what you don't know. Come, ladies and gentlemen, and hear Peerless Jacquot; he will reply to what you say to him, and to what you do not say to him. And this joke, constantly repeated by La Mauricaude in precisely the same tone, always attracted an audience of pretty nearly the same character.