Il disait bien son Benedicite,
Et notre mère, et votre charité; ...
Il était là maintes filles savantes
Qui mot pour mot portaient dans leurs cerveaux
Tous les noëls anciens et nouveaux.
Instruit, formé par leurs leçons fréquentes,
Bientôt l’élève égala ses régentes;
De leur ton même, adroit imitateur
Il exprimait la pieuse lenteur,
Les saints soupirs, les notes languissantes
Du chant des sœurs, colombes gémissantes.
Finalement Vert-Vert savait par cœur
Tout ce que sait une mère de chœur.
Small wonder that the fame of this pious bird spread far and wide; small wonder that pilgrims came from all directions to the abbey parlour to hear him talk. But alas, it was this very fame which led to his undoing. The physical tragedy of Philip Sparrow, an unlearned bird of frivolous tastes, pales before the moral tragedy of Vert-Vert. One day his renown reached the ears of a distant convent of nuns at Nantes, many miles further down the river Loire; and they conceived a violent desire to see him:
Désir de fille est un feu qui dévore,
Désir de nonne est cent fois pire encore.
They wrote to their fortunate sisters of Nevers, begging that Vert-Vert might be sent in a ship to visit them. Consternation at Nevers. The grand chapter was held; the younger nuns would have preferred death to parting with the darling parrot, but their elders judged it impolitic to refuse and to Nantes must Vert-Vert go for a fortnight. The parrot was placed on board a ship; but the ship
Portait aussi deux nymphes, trois dragons,
Une nourrice, un moine, deux Gascons:
Pour un enfant qui sort du monastère,
C’était échoir en dignes compagnons.
At first Vert-Vert was confused and silent among the unseemly jests of the women and the Gascons and the oaths of the boatmen. But too soon his innocent heart was acquainted with evil; desiring always to please he repeated all that he heard; no evil word escaped him; by the end of his journey he had forgotten all that he had learned in the nunnery, but he had become a pretty companion for a boatload of sinners. Nantes was reached; Vert-Vert (all unwilling) was carried off to the convent, and the nuns came running to the parlour to hear the saintly bird. But horror upon horrors, nothing but oaths and blasphemies fell from Vert-Vert’s beak. He apostrophised sister Saint-Augustin with “la peste te crève,” and
Jurant, sacrant d’une voix dissolue,
Faisant passer tout l’enfer en revue,
Les B, les F, voltigeaient sur son bec.
Les jeunes sœurs crurent qu’il parlait grec.
The scandalised nuns dispatched Vert-Vert home again without delay. His own convent received him in tears. Nine of the most venerable sisters debated his punishment; two were for his death; two for sending him back to the heathen land of his birth; but the votes of the other five decided his punishment:
On le condamne à deux mois d’abstinence,
Trois de retraite et quatre de silence;
Jardins, toilette, alcôve et biscuits,
Pendant ce temps, lui seront interdits.
Moreover the ugliest lay sister, a veiled ape, an octogenarian skeleton, was made the guardian of poor Vert-Vert, who had always preferred the youngest and coyest of the novices. Little remains to be told. Vert-Vert, covered with shame and taught by misfortune, became penitent, forgot the dragoons and the monk, and showed himself once more “plus dévot qu’un chanoine.” The happy nuns cut short his penance; the convent kept fête, the dorters were decked with flowers, all was song and tumult. But alas, Vert-Vert, passing too soon from a fasting diet to the sweets that were pressed upon him: