Again, if we turn to ‘Les Quarante-Cinq,’ in search of further information touching the qualities of this famous plaisant, we find him brave and careless, and yet fully appreciating life generally, which came to him in a very enjoyable form. In this latter work, we find him loving wine, and eccentric in act and speech. He was not close cropped, or shaven, like the earlier jesters. His hair was black and curled, but his brow was bald long before the period of middle age. He brought to perfection, says the author of ‘Les Quarante-Cinq,’ “that art dear to the ancient mimes, which consists in changing, by scientific contractions, the natural play of the muscles, and the habitual play of the physiognomy.”
Chicot cannot be said to have been a graceful fellow. His arms and legs were immoderately long. He was all nerves, muscle, and bone; active, addicted to raillery, ingenious in contrivances, and he laughed silently like an Indian. After having been prodigal, he became parsimonious, and saved a little fortune. He ordinarily spoke with a Gascon accent, but he could change that at will, and it was as easy for him to assume any other as it was for him to assume any rank. He maintained a superiority over his royal master through the fears of the latter, and the author of ‘Les Quarante-Cinq’ represents Henri as having a superstitious dread of his jester, who was occasionally a sort of phantom-buffoon, suddenly appearing and disappearing in a way which perplexed Henri, but which admitted of very natural explanations. We see him in the last-mentioned work, as a scholar and a man of taste, a purist in classical knowledge, able to construe Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, and reading, and sometimes sleeping over, the Essays of Montaigne.
Had this jester not been a man of singular ability, the King would not have employed him on diplomatic missions of some delicacy and difficulty. He went on such missions to Henri of Navarre; and Dumas represents him to us as saving the life of the Béarnais, in his first fight at Cahors, where Henri’s bold soul carried his then cowardly body into the very thickest of the mêlée. It is said to have been on this occasion that the King of Navarre induced Chicot to promise to enter his service whenever his old master, Henri III., should die. Flögel, Cardinal Perron, and Sully, only mention Chicot as the court jester of Henri IV.; he was however in the service of both Kings. He was as familiar with his new master as with the old one, and the Bourbon King was as indulgent to him as the old Valois monarch had been. His boldness was especially exhibited in satirical allusions to the King of Navarre being of the reformed religion, and to suggestions touching political matters generally. In the ‘Mémoires pour l’Histoire de France’ (vol. ii. 72), it is stated that when the Duke of Parma came to France, Chicot said to the King, before all the courtiers, “My friend, I see very well that all you do will signify nothing, unless you either turn Catholic, or pretend you are one.” Another time, Chicot said to him, “I am convinced that to be peaceably King of France, you would give both Papists and Huguenots to Lucifer’s clerk.” “I am not surprised,” said he another time to his Majesty, “that so many persons desire to be Kings. It is a good trade, and by working at it only an hour in a day, one may make sufficient provision for the rest of the week, without being obliged to one’s neighbours. But, for Heaven’s sake! my friend, take care, and keep out of the hands of the Leaguers, for if you should fall into them, they would hang you up like a hog’s pudding, and write upon your gibbet—‘Good lodgings to let, at the Crown of France and Navarre.’”
Of such quality was the bold humour of Chicot. Of his bravery, we have an instance in his conduct at the siege of Rouen, where he behaved so gallantly that he made Henri of Lorraine, Count of Chaligny, prisoner with his own hand. He led his captive to the King, saying to the latter, “Here, I make you a present of the Count; keep what I took, and now give you.” The Count was so enraged at being captured by a court fool, that he smote poor Chicot on the head, so violently, with the hilt of his sword, that the jester died of the cruel blow, after lingering for a fortnight. During this latter period, a dying Huguenot soldier shared his room. A priest visited the Huguenot, but, at the moment of his dying, refused to administer consolation, on the ground of his being a heretic. The orthodox Chicot could not witness this with patience. Weak as he was, he arose to chastise the priest for his lack of charity; but he was too feeble for the achievement, and he returned to bed, only to die. The honest Gascon thus ended his life, and his last act exhibits, as much as anything, the daring and impatience of his character.
Contemporary with the Gascon Chicot, was the Norman Maître Guillaume Le Marchand, a dreaming half-witted fellow, who passed from the household of the Cardinal of Bourbon to be “fou” in that of Henry IV. Master Guillaume was accustomed to say that God created angels, but the devil made pages. These last never lost an opportunity of tormenting the “natural,” who was quite as active in taking advantage of every occasion to revenge himself. He would then take out his “little bird,” as he called his cudgel, pretty well break the bones of the offending page, and would roar all the time, as if he himself were being beaten. Guillaume was a Roman Catholic, like Chicot, but he was less tolerant. He so hated the reformed religion, and the Reformation itself, that he always used the words “ruined religion,” or the “Ruin,” to show a fool’s contempt for what he could not understand.
The King certainly did not value him as he valued Chicot. When any one uttered an opinion in his hearing, unsupported by reason, Henry was accustomed to bid them go and keep company with Master Guillaume. The Paris gamins were in the habit of hooting him in the streets, and noble counts made little of employing him to scare away a whole saloon-full of ladies by the performance of some beastly trick. Even Cardinals would condescend to argue with this Norman fool, and boast of victories in disputes where there was small common sense and less wit on either side, and little honour to be gained by triumphing over a “natural.”
As a companion to Guillaume, the name of Pierre du Four l’Evêque is met with; but he was a street fool, and not a “fou à titre d’office.” Under their names, and that of Chicot, some of the best political satires of this period were published. The author could not safely print his own name; and he found not only safety but profit in publishing his book under the name of some more popular fool.
Some authors rank Joubert, surnamed Angoulevent, with the court fools of Henri IV. The surname was common to some of the clubs or memberships which met under the inspiration of Folly. Joubert was president of some such society. He called himself “noble” and “gentleman of the King’s chamber;” but this was in joke, for Joubert seems to have been connected with the theatre at the Hôtel de Bourgogne. His title of “Prince of Fools” procured for him some privileges granted by the Parliament, and some protection at the tribunals of law and justice. This is explained at great length by Du Tillot, and also by Dr. Rigollet, in their respective works on this subject. Joubert was probably a well-esteemed farceur, but I only find him once in connection with Henri IV., namely, when a woman committed suicide by hanging herself, and the King gave her property, forfeited to the crown by the felonious act, to Joubert, “surnamed Angoulement, Prince of Fools.”
Chicot, with his Gascon accent, was accustomed to excite the laughter of the courts of Henri III. and Henri IV. Maret, the servant and plaisant of Louis XIII. tried to effect the same object by imitating the Gascon twang of Gascon nobles. Even Richelieu once imitated this bad example, bidding the Duke d’Espernon to get rid of his provincial accent, and at the same time speaking with that accent himself. The Cardinal ended by hoping that the Duke would not be offended. “Why should I take offence at it?” said the Duke; “it is only what the King’s fool does in my hearing every day.”
Maret showed more jealousy than wit, when the King’s page Bravadas was suddenly preferred to be the friend and playfellow of Louis. At dinner, on the day when this sudden growth of favour was first made manifest, the fool, pointing to some mushrooms, bade the lacquey bring him “a spoonful of Bravadas.” On many of the royal customs this jester was trenchant enough, particularly on the custom observed by the King, of eating alone; while other customs were observed by him only when surrounded by a circle of courtiers. “Voilà deux choses de votre métier,” said Maret, “dont je ne pourrois jamais m’accommoder.”