More humble characters appear in the next chapter: "Un autre manière de parler de pietalle, comme des labourers et œuvrers de mestiers." Here we have conversations between members of the working classes. A gardener and a ditcher discuss their respective earnings, describe their work, and finally go and dine together; a baker talks with his servant, and so gives us the names of the chief things used in his trade, just as the gardener gave a list of flowers and fruits. A merchant scolds his apprentice for various misdemeanours, and then sends him off to market:
Doncques l'apprentiz s'en vait au marchié pour vendre les danrées de son maistre et la vienment grant cop des gens de divers pais de les achater: et apprentiz leur dit tout courtoisement en cest maniere,—'Mes amis venez vous ciens et je vous monstrerai de aussi bon drap comme vous trouverez en tout ce ville, et vous en aurez de aussi bon marché comme nul autre. Ore regardez, biau sire, comment vous est avis; vel sic: comment vous plaist il;
and after some bargaining he sells his goods.
In the next "manière de parler" a servant brings a torn doublet to a mender of old clothes, and enlists his services. A chapter of more interest and importance is that dealing with greetings and salutations to be used at different times of the day to members of the various ranks of society:
Quant un homme encontrera aucun au matinée il luy dira tout courtoisement ainsi: "Mon signour Dieux vous donne boun matin et bonne aventure," vel sic: "Sire Dieux vous doint boun matin et bonne estraine, Mon amy, Dieux vous doint bon jour et bonne encontre." Et a midi vous parlerez en cest maniere: "Monsieur Dieux vous donne bon jour et bonnes heures"; vel sic: "Sire, Dieu vous beneit et la compaignie!" A peitaille vous direz ainsi: "Dieux vous gart!" . . . Et as œuvrers et labourers vous direz ainsi: "Dieux vous ait, mon amy,"
and so on. One traveller asks another whence he comes and where he was born, and the other says he comes from Orleans, where there is a fierce quarrel between the students and the townspeople; and was born in Hainaut, where they love the English well, and there is a saying that "qui tient un Henner (Hennuyer) par la main, tient un Englois par le cuer." We are next taught how to speak to children: "Quant vous verez un enfant plorer et gemir, vous direz ainsi: Qu'as tu, mon enfant," and comfort him, and when a poor man asks you for alms, you shall answer, "Mon amy, se je pourroi je vous aidasse tres volantiers. . . ."
From this we return to subjects more suited to merchants and wayfarers—how to inquire the road, and to go on a pilgrimage to the tomb of St. Thomas-à-Becket. The work closes with a gathering of companions in an inn, which, like the rest of the chapters, is full of life and interest. Last of all, a sort of supplement is added in the form of a short poem on the drawbacks of poverty:
Il est hony qui pouveres est,
and a fatrasie in prose.
Another treatise of the same kind, written about three years later, was intended chiefly for the use of children, Un petit livre pour enseigner les enfantz de leur entreparler comun françois.[106] It was not the first of its kind. The metrical vocabularies of Bibbesworth and his successors were chiefly intended for the use of children. There is also some evidence to show that the grammatical treatises were used by children; the commentary was added to the Orthographica Gallica because the rules were somewhat obscure "pour jeosne gentz," and Barton, in his introduction, mentions the "chiers enfantz" and "tresdoulez puselles," as those whom his grammar particularly concerns.