[3] The Talks on the Road show clearly that only one Priest in attendance on the Prioress, and two tales to each narrator, were originally contemplated, but the “Prestes thre” in line 164 of the Prologue, and the bald couplet (line 793 sq.) explaining that each pilgrim was to tell two tales each way, were probably both alterations made by Chaucer in moments of amazing hopefulness. The journey was reckoned a 3½ days’ ride, and eight or nine tales a day would surely have been a sufficient allowance.
[4] The absence of these links necessitates the division of the Canterbury Tales into nine groups, to which, for purposes of quotation, the letters A to I have been assigned, the line numeration of the Tales in each group being continuous.
CHAUDESAIGUES, a village of central France, in the department of Cantal, at the foot of the mountains of Aubrac, 19 m. S.S.W. of St Flour by road. Pop. (1906) town, 937; commune, 1558. It is celebrated for its hot mineral springs, which vary in temperature from 135° to 177° Fahr., and at their maximum rank as the hottest in France. The water, which contains bicarbonate of soda, is employed not only medicinally (for rheumatism, &c.), but also for the washing of fleeces, the incubation of eggs, and various other economic purposes; and it furnishes a ready means of heating the houses of the town during winter. In the immediate neighbourhood is the cold chalybeate spring of Condamine. The warm springs were known to the Romans, and are mentioned by Sidonius Apollinaris.
CHAUFFEUR (from Fr. chauffer), to heat, a term primarily used in French of a man in charge of a forge or furnace, and so of a stoker on a locomotive or in a steamship, but in its anglicized sense more particularly confined to a professional driver of a motor vehicle. (See also [Brigandage].)
CHAULIEU, GUILLAUME AMFRYE DE (1639-1720), French poet and wit, was born at Fontenay, Normandy, in 1639. His father, maître des comptes of Rouen, sent him to study at the Collège de Navarre. Guillaume early showed the wit that was to distinguish him, and gained the favour of the duke of Vendôme, who procured for him the abbey of Aumale and other benefices. Louis Joseph, duke of Vendôme, and his brother Philippe, grand prior of the Knights of Malta in France, at that time had a joint establishment at the Temple, where they gathered round them a very gay and reckless circle. Chaulieu became the constant companion and adviser of the two princes. He made an expedition to Poland in the suite of the marquis de Béthune, hoping to make a career for himself in the court of John Sobieski; he saw one of the Polish king’s campaigns in Ukraine, but returned to Paris without securing any advancement. Saint-Simon says that the abbé helped his patron the grand prior to rob the duke of Vendôme, and that the king sent orders that the princes should take the management of their affairs from him. This account has been questioned by Sainte-Beuve, who regards Saint-Simon as a prejudiced witness. In his later years Chaulieu spent much time at the little court of the duchesse du Maine at Sceaux. There he became the trusted and devoted friend of Mdlle Delaunay, with whom he carried on an interesting correspondence. Among his poems the best known are “Fontenay” and “La Retraite.” Chaulieu died on the 27th of June 1720.
His works were edited with those of his friend the marquis de la Fare in 1714, 1750 and 1774. See also C.A. Sainte-Beuve, Causeries du lundi, vol. i.; and Lettres inédites (1850), with a notice by Raymond, marquis de Berenger.