Short while after the death of Guillaumette Dyonis the men of Paris returned in great force to man their Wall, and defended their city right valorously. Jeanne the Maid was wounded by a cross-bow bolt in the leg, and Messire Charles of Valois’ men-at-arms fell back upon the Chapelle Saint-Denis. What became of Jeanne Chastenier and Opportune Jadoin no one knows. They were never heard of more. Simone la Bardine and Robin the gardener were taken the same day by the citizens on guard at the Walls and handed over to the Bishop’s officer, who duly brought them before the Courts. The Church adjudged Simone heretic, and condemned her for salutary penance to the bread of suffering and the water of affliction. Robin was convicted of sorcery, and, persevering in his error, was burned alive in the Place du Parvis.
FIVE FAIR LADIES OF PICARDY, OF POITOU, OF TOURAINE, OF LYONS, AND OF PARIS
ONE day the Capuchin, Brother Jean Chavaray, meeting my good master the Abbé Coign-ard in the cloister of “The Innocents,” fell into talk with him of the Brother Olivier Maillard, whose sermons, edifying and macaronic, he had lately been reading.
“There are good bits to be found in these sermons,” said the Capuchin, “notably the tale of the five ladies and the go-between...” You will readily understand that Brother Olivier, who lived in the reign of Louis XI and whose language smacks of the coarseness of that age, uses a different word. But our century demands a certain politeness and decency in speech; wherefore I employ the term I have, to wit, go-between.
“You mean,” replied my good master, “to signify by the expression a woman who is so obliging as to play intermediary in matters of love and love-making. The Latin has several names for her,—as lena, conciliatrix, also internuntia libidinum, ambassadress of naughty desires. These prudish dames perform the best of services; but seeing they busy themselves therein for money, we distrust their disinterestedness. Call yours a procuress, good Father, and have done with it; ‘t is a word in common use, and has a not unseemly sound.”
“So I will, Monsieur l’Abbé,” assented Brother Jean Chavaray. “Only don’t say mine, I pray, but the Brother Olivier’s. A procuress then, who lived on the Pont des Tournelles, was visited one day by a knight, who put a ring into her hands. ‘It is of fine gold,’ he told her, ‘and hath a balass ruby mounted in the bezel. An you know any dames of good estate, go say to the most comely of them that the ring is hers if she is willing to come to see me and do at my pleasure.’
“The procuress knew, by having seen them at Mass, five ladies of an excellent beauty,—natives the first of Picardy, the second of Poitou, the third of Touraine, another from the good city of Lyons, and the last a Parisian, all dwelling in the Cite or its near neighbourhood.