We, the undersigned, the Prieur-Curé, and the inhabitants of the parish of Vanvres, having knowledge that Marie Françoise Sommier, wife of Jacques Ferron, has possessed a jackass during the space of four years for the carrying on of their trade, do testify, that during all the while that they have been acquainted with the said ass, no one has seen any evil in him, and he has never injured any one; also, that during the six years that it belonged to another inhabitant, no complaints were ever made touching the said ass, nor was there a breath of a report of the said ass having ever done any wrong in the neighbourhood; in token whereof, we, the undersigned, have given him the present character.
| (Signed) | Pinterel, Prieur et curé de Vanvres. | ||
| Jerome Patin, | } | Inhabitants of Vanvres. | |
| C. Jannet, | |||
| Louis Retore, | |||
| Louis Senlis, | |||
| Claude Corbonnet, | |||
The case was dismissed by the Commissaire. Leclerc had to surrender the ass, and to rest content with the use that had been made of it as payment for its keep, whilst the claim for damages on account of the bite fell to the ground.
But if dismissed by the Commissaire, it was only that it might be taken up by the wits of the day and made the subject of satire and epigram. Some of the pieces in verse originated by this singular action are republished in the series Variétés Historiques et Literaires; allusions to it are not infrequent in the writers of the day.
About the same time an action was brought by a magistrate of position and fortune against the curé of St. Etienne-du-Mont, a M. Coffin, for refusing him the sacrament on account of a gross scandal he had caused. A wag contrasted the conduct of the two priests in the following lines:—
De deux curés portant blanches soutanes,
Le procédé ne se ressemble en rien;
L’un met du nombre des profanes
Le magistrat le plus homme de bien;
L’autre, dans son hameau, trouve jusqu’aux ânes
Tous ses paroissiens gens de bien.
A MYSTERIOUS VALE
In the Gretla, an Icelandic Saga of the thirteenth century, is an account of the discovery of a remarkable valley buried among glacier-laden mountains, by the hero, a certain Grettir, son of Asmund, who lived in the beginning of the eleventh century. Grettir was outlawed for having set fire, accidentally, to a house in Norway, in which were at the time the sons of an Icelandic chief, too drunk to escape from the flames. He spent nineteen years in outlawry, hunted from place to place, with a price on his head. The Saga relating his life is one of the most interesting and touching of all the ancient Icelandic histories.