Denys. “Les coquins! ha! ha!”
“Natheless, courtesy is in their hearts, ay, in their very blood. They say commonly, 'Give yourself the trouble of sitting down.' And such straws of speech show how blows the wind. Also at a public show, if you would leave your seat, yet not lose it, tie but your napkin round the bench, and no French man or woman will sit here; but rather keep the place for you.”
Catherine. “Gramercy! that is manners. France for me!”
Denys rose and placed his hand gracefully to his breastplate.
“Natheless, they say things in sport which are not courteous, but shocking. 'Le diable t'emporte!' 'Allez au diable!' and so forth. But I trow they mean not such dreadful wishes: custom belike. Moderate in drinking, and mix water with their wine, and sing and dance over their cups, and are then enchanting company. They are curious not to drink in another man's cup. In war the English gain the better of them in the field; but the French are their masters in attack and defence of cities; witness Orleans, where they besieged their besiegers and hashed them sore with their double and treble culverines; and many other sieges in this our century. More than all nations they flatter their women, and despise them. No. She may be their sovereign ruler. Also they often hang their female malefactors, instead of drowning them decently, as other nations use. The furniture in their inns is walnut, in Germany only deal. French windows are ill. The lower half is of wood, and opens; the upper half is of glass, but fixed; so that the servant cannot come at it to clean it. The German windows are all glass, and movable, and shine far and near like diamonds. In France many mean houses are not glazed at all. Once I saw a Frenchman pass a church without unbonneting. This I ne'er witnessed in Holland, Germany, or Italy. At many inns they show the traveller his sheets, to give him assurance they are clean, and warm them at the fire before him; a laudable custom. They receive him kindly and like a guest; they mostly cheat him, and whiles cut his throat. They plead in excuse hard and tyrannous laws. And true it is their law thrusteth its nose into every platter, and its finger into every pie. In France worshipful men wear their hats and their furs indoors, and go abroad lighter clad. In Germany they don hat and furred cloak to go abroad; but sit bareheaded and light clad round the stove.
“The French intermix not the men and women folk in assemblies, as we Hollanders use. Round their preachers the women sit on their heels in rows, and the men stand behind them. Their harvests are rye, and flax, and wine. Three mules shall you see to one horse, and whole flocks of sheep as black as coal.
“In Germany the snails be red. I lie not. The French buy minstrelsy, but breed jests, and make their own mirth. The Germans foster their set fools, with ear-caps, which move them to laughter by simulating madness; a calamity that asks pity, not laughter. In this particular I deem that lighter nation wiser than the graver German. What sayest thou? Alas! canst not answer me now.
“In Germany the petty laws are wondrous wise and just. Those against criminals, bloody. In France bloodier still; and executed a trifle more cruelly there. Here the wheel is common, and the fiery stake; and under this king they drown men by the score in Paris river, Seine yclept. But the English are as peremptory in hanging and drowning for a light fault; so travellers report. Finally, a true-hearted Frenchman, when ye chance on one, is a man as near perfect as earth affords; and such a man is my Denys, spite of his foul mouth.”
Denys. “My foul mouth! Is that so writ, Master Richart?”
Richart. “Ay, in sooth; see else.”