"You see," explained Le Glorieux, "I have lived so long at court, where the past is raked out and talked over and over, that I am afraid to relate anything that happened longer ago than the day before yesterday."
"If it please you, continue," said one of the company. "We are humble folk living in a quiet village, and we know but little of what happens in the great world outside."
So Le Glorieux continued, keeping the company chilled with awe or shaking with laughter, according to the nature of the incident he happened to be relating. It may be that some of the incidents he related never occurred outside of his own brain, but one at least of his anecdotes may be found in history.
"It was after the siege of Beauvais," said he, "that Cousin Charles came nearer to giving me a cuff on the jaw than ever happened before or afterward. He was quite boastful, was Charles, and with considerable pomp he was conducting some ambassadors through the arsenal. He stopped short in one of the rooms and swelling himself up said, 'This room contains the keys of all the cities of France.' Then I began to fumble in my pockets and to search all over the room. 'Now, donkey, for what are you looking so anxiously?' asked he. I replied, 'I am looking for the key of Beauvais,' and that made him turn as red as your doublet, mine host, for we had not been victorious at Beauvais."
"But you were very brave there, although a mere youth," remarked the friar, "and I should advise our young friend here to think twice before he meets you out, as you have invited him to do."
"Oh, we will let that pass, if he is willing," said Le Glorieux good-naturedly, an arrangement with which the young man, who was not especially brave, was very glad to agree.
"And now," said the jester, "I am reminded that there is one thing that I have forgotten, and that is to ask the name that you have given to that blessed baby."
"That you will be glad to hear," said the host, rubbing his hands delightedly. "The good wife too is a Burgundian, and nothing would do but that we should name the little one for the Duchess Mary. Heaven rest her soul!" he continued reverently.
It happened that this was the one theme that could render Le Glorieux sad. He had worshiped the young Duchess Mary, who had ruled the province after the death of her father, Charles the Bold—worshiped her as a faithful dog loves his kind mistress. He had seen her betrothed at Ghent to the Archduke Maximilian of Austria, also styled King of the Romans, and when a few years later news had come of her death, caused by a fall from her horse, the jester had known the first real grief of his life.
"Yes," said the mother of the baby. "Her name is Mary, and may she be as good and beautiful as the poor young duchess, cut off in the bloom of her life."