The Lord of La Tirelière (4) hastened back with all speed to pick up what he thought to be a sugar-loaf, and just as he had done so the apothecary’s man also came back looking and asking for his sugar everywhere.
3 M. Duval, archivist of the Orne, states that La
Tirelière, which is situated near St. Germain-du-Corbois,
within three miles of Alençon, is an old gentilhommière or
manor-house, surrounded by a moat. It was originally a
simple vavassonrie held in fief from the Counts and Dukes
of Alençon by the Pantolf and Crouches families, and in the
seventeenth century was merged into the marquisate of
L’Isle.—M.
4 Sugar was at this period sold by apothecaries, and was a
rare and costly luxury. There were loaves of various sizes,
but none so large as those of the present time.—M.
The gentleman, thinking that he had cleverly tricked him, then went in haste to a tavern with his crony, to whom he said—
“Our breakfast has been paid for at the cost of that varlet.”
When he was come to the tavern he called for good bread, good wine and good meat, for he thought that he had wherewith to pay. But whilst he was eating, as he began to grow warm, his sugar-loaf in its turn began to thaw and melt, and filled the whole room with the smell peculiar to it, whereupon he, who carried it in his bosom, grew wroth with the waiting-woman, and said to her—
“You are the filthiest folks that ever I knew in this town, for either you or your children have strewn all this room with filth.”
“By St. Peter!” replied the woman, “there is no filth here unless you have brought it in yourselves.”
Thereupon they rose, by reason of the great stench that they smelt, and went up to the fire, where the gentleman drew out of his bosom a handkerchief all dyed with the melted sugar, and on opening his robe, lined with fox-skin, found it to be quite spoiled.
And all that he was able to say to his crony was this—
“The rogue whom we thought to deceive has deceived us instead.”