Louis XI. took into his service the fool of his deceased brother Charles, Duke de Guyenne; and amongst the many amusing anecdotes told of the famous “Le Glorieux,” fool to Charles the Bold, who used to compare himself with Hannibal, it is related how, after the overthrow at Granson, as the two were riding in search of safety, Le Glorieux exclaimed to Charles, “This is the prettiest way of being like Hannibal that I ever saw.”
With Francis I. are associated two of the most famous fools—Caillette and Triboulet—to whom all kinds of good stories have been attributed. Thus one day, when the latter complained to Francis that a nobleman had threatened his life for some impertinent lie, the King exclaimed, “If he does I will hang him a quarter of an hour afterwards.”
“Ah, sire!” replied Triboulet, “couldn’t you contrive to hang him a quarter of an hour previously?”
On the death of the Duke of Orleans, Henry II. raised his fool Thony to the rank of patented buffoon; and a personage who, without being a professional fool, was the source of much merriment at Henry’s Court, was Mendoza. It appears that Henry celebrated the obsequies of his predecessor in a grand manner, and, when the priest in his funeral oration asserted that the soul of King Francis had gone to Paradise without passing through Purgatory, he was accused of heresy. But Mendoza, then a chief officer of the Court, by a witty speech turned into a humorous ending what might have been just the reverse, remarking, “Gentlemen, if you had known the good King Francis as well as I did, you would better have understood the words of the preacher. Francis was not a man to tarry long anywhere; and if he did take a turn in Purgatory, believe me, the devil himself could not persuade him to make anything like a sojourn”—words which were greeted with general laughter.
A jester to three kings—Henry II., Francis II., and Charles IX.—was Brusquet, originally, as some say, a hard-up lawyer, and, according to others, a quack doctor. By his wit he managed to gain Court favour, being made by Henry Posting-Master-General of Paris. When on a visit to Flanders at the peace of Cateau-Cambresis, Brusquet met the ex-Emperor Charles V., who, recognising him, said, “Brusquet, do you remember the day when the Constable de Montmorency wanted to have you hanged?” “Right well do I remember it,” he replied. “It was the day on which your Majesty purchased those splendid rubies and carbuncles which now adorn your imperial hand”—alluding to the inflamed gouty swellings which disfigured the Emperor’s fingers. Philip II. of Spain was so delighted with Brusquet that he sent his own fool to France to learn wit from associating with him; and during this visit Brusquet seems to have used every opportunity for imposing on and cheating him. But Brusquet in turn met his match in Strozzi, the son of a Princess de Medicis, his great antagonist, to whom he probably owed his fall in 1562, when he was obliged to fly, accused of being a Huguenot, and of suppressing despatches which contained news unfavourable to the Huguenot cause.
A noted fool of Henri III. was Chicot, who, indeed, was not only his jester but his friend, and, according to Dumas, his protector. In the same capacity he entered the service of Henri IV.; and it was his bravery at the siege of Rouen that cost him his life. It appears that he made Henri of Lorraine, Count of Chaligny, prisoner, and leading him to the King, said, “Here I make you a present of the Count, keep what I took and now give you!” So enraged was the Count at being captured by a Court fool that he gave Chicot a violent blow on the head with the hilt of his sword, from the effects of which he died.
Jeanne, Queen of Charles I. of France, maintained a female fool named Artaude du Puy.
At the Court of Henri IV. there was a Mathurine who held the office of female fool for the amusement of the Court, and who is said to have employed her wit in laughing people out of the Huguenot faith into Roman Catholicism. But this sort of foolery almost cost her her life. It seems she was present in 1594 when Jean Chastel wounded the King, and almost shared the fate of the would-be assassin. Henri, well aware of her zeal for the Roman Catholic Church, and that she only regarded him as half a Romanist, ordered her arrest as an accomplice, but she proved her innocence, and was set free.
Much merriment was caused at the Court of Louis XIII. by Maret, who imitated the Gascon twang of Gascon nobles; and with Louis XIV. we come to the last of the official jesters, L’Angeli, originally a stable-boy, and whose memory has been thus immortalised by Boileau:—
“Un poête à la cour fut jadis à la mode,
Mais des Fous aujourd’hui c’est le plus incommode,
Et l’esprit le plus beau, l’auteur le plus poli,
Ne parviendra jamais au sort de l’angeli.”