[107] Measured.
We went and saw a stately convent the Benedictines ware building, the oldest and richest order of France. To them it is that Nostre Dame at Saumur belongs; to them belongs the brave bastiments we saw at Tours, in which city as I was on the Loier I told 16 considerable steeples. We saw the relicts of a old Convent, wheirupon enquiring whow it came to be demolished, he replied it was in Calvines tyme, who studied his Law in Poictiers; and then turning preacher he preached in the same very hall wheir we hear our lessons of Law. His chamber also is to be sein wheir he studied on the river syde.
I cannot forgett a story of Calvin which Mr. Alex'r told us saying it was in their Histories, that Calvin once gladly desiring to work a miracle suborned a fellow to feigne himselfe dead that so he might raise him to life. Gods hand was so visible upon the fellow that when he went to do it he verily died and Calvin could not raise him: this was in Poictiers. And it minded me first that I had read almost the like cited out of Gregorious Turonensis History by Bellarmine in his treatise de Christo refuting Arianisine of a Arian bischop who just so suborned one to feinge himselfe blind that he might cure him, but God really strake him blind. Also it minded me of a certain Comoedian (who was to play before the Duc of Florence) who in his part had to act himselfe as dead for a while. He that he might act himselfe as dead wt the more life and vigeur agitated and stirred or rather oppressed his spirits so that when he sould have risen he was found dead in very truth. As also 3ly of a certain Italian painter who being to draw our Saviour as he was upon the Cross in his greatest torment and agony (he caused a comoedian whose main talent was to represent sorrow to the life), he caused one come and sit doune before him and feigne one of the dolfullest countenances that he could that he might draw Christ of him; but he tuise sticked it, wt which being angred he drew out a knife and stobbed the person to the heart; and out of his countenance as he was wrestling wt the pangs of death he drow Christ on the cross more lively then ever any had done, boasting that he cared not to dy for his murder since he had Christ beholden to him for drawing him so livelylie. I remember also of a passage that Howell in a letter he writes from Geneva hes, that Calvin having bein banished once by a prævalent faction from the city again being restored, he sould proudly and blasphemously have applied to himselfe that saying of David, proper to Christ, the stone which the builders refused the same is become the head of the corner. But granting that all thir to be true, as they are not, they ware but personall escapes, neither make they me to think a white worse of his doctrine. But as to the point of miracles its notoriously knowen that the Church of Rome abuses the world wt false miracles more then any: for besydes these fopperies we have discovered of Ste. Radegonde they have also another. Thus once St. Hilary (who was bischop of Poictiers about the 6 century, and who hes a church that bears his name, erected on the wast syde of the toune a little from the Scotes walk), about a league from the toune (thus reportes les annales de Aquitaine), as he was riding on his mule Christ meit him. His beast, as soon as it saw our Saviour, fell doune on the knees of it. As a testimony wheirof that it fell doune they show at this day the impressa both its knee and its foot hes made miracoulously in the rock, but this is fort mal a propos; since they seem to mak their St. Hilary Balaam; and his mulet Balaam his ass which payed reverence to God before its mastre. This fable minded me of the story we have heir at home, that we can show in Leith Wind craigs the impressa that Wallace made wt his foot when he stood their and shoot over the steeple of Edenburgh. Yet their all these things are beleived as they do the bible.
When we was wtout the city we discovered that it would signify litle if it wanted the convents and religious houses, which ware the only ornaments of the city. This much for the 14 of August, I had not bein so much out a fortnight before put it all together.
Heir I most impart a drollery which happened a little before in Poictiers. Some Flamans had come to the toune and taken up the quarters in a certain Innes.[108] While they ware supping, the servant that attended them chanced to let a griveous and horrid fart. The landlady being in the roome and enquiring give she thought not shame to do so, she franckly replied, sont Flamans, madame, sont Flamans, ils n'entendent pas; thinking that because they ware strangers that understood not the language, they understood not also when they hard a fart.
[108] Inn.
O brave consequence, I went one night to the Marché Vieux and saw some puppy playes, as also rats whom they had learned to play tricks on a tow.[109]
[109] Rope.
Just besyde that port that leads to Quatre Picket (de St. Lazare) or Paris is erectcd a monument of stone, something in the fashion of a pyramide. I enquiring what it meant, they informed me the occasion of it was a man that lived about 3 or 4 years ago in the house just forganst it, who keiping a Innes, and receaving strangers or others, used to cut their throats and butcher them for their money; which trade he drave a considerable tyme undiscovered. At lenth it coming to light as they carried him to Paris to receave condigne punishment, they not watching him weill enough he killed himselfe whence they did execution on his body, and erected that before the door, ad æternam rei memoriam. I think they sould have razed his house also, yet their is folk dwelling in it prcsently.
I went also and saw the palais wheir the Advocats used to plead but it had fallen down by meer antiquity about 3 moneths before I came to Poictiers whence the session had translated themselfes to the Jacobines, whom I went and saw their. In the falling of the palais it was observable that no harm redounded to any, and that a certain woman wt a child in hir armes chancing to be their on day raising out of a desk wheir she was sitting she was hardly weill gon when a great jest[110] fell (for it fell by degries) and brok the desk to peices.