ss, and have seen men who were deemed rustic
blockheads deceive very shrewd people. None can be more foolish than
he who thinks himself shrewd, nor wiser than he who knows his own
nothingness."

"Still," said Parlamente, "a man who knows that he knows nothing, knows
something after all."

"Now," said Simontault, "for fear lest time should fail us for our
discourse, I give my vote to Nomerfide, for I am sure that her rhetoric
will keep us no long while."

"Well," she replied, "I will tell you a tale such as you desire.

"I am not surprised, ladies, that love should afford Princes the means
of escaping from danger, for they are bred up in the midst of so many
well-informed persons that I should marvel still more if they were
ignorant of anything. But the smaller the intelligence the more clearly
is the inventiveness of love displayed, and for this reason I will
relate to you a trick played by a priest through the prompting of love
alone. In all other matters he was so ignorant that he could scarcely
read his mass."

[Illustration: 183.jpg Tailpiece]

[Illustration: 185a.jpg The Husbandman surprised by the Fall of the Winnowing Fan]

[The Husbandman surprised by the Fall of the Winnowing Fan]

[Illustration: 185.jpg Page Image]

_TALE XXIX_.

_A parson, surprised by the sudden return of a husbandman
with whose wife he was making good cheer, quickly devised a
means for saving himself at the expense of the worthy man,
who was never any the wiser_. (1)

1 Etienne brings this story into his _Apologie pour
Herodote_, ch xv.--B. J.

At a village called Carrelles, (2) in the county of Maine, there dwelt
a rich husbandman who in his old age had married a fair young wife. She
bore him no children, but consoled herself for this disappointment with
several lovers.

2 Carrelles is at six leagues from Mayenne, in the canton of
Gorron. Margaret's first husband, the Duke of Alencon, held
various fiefs in this part of Maine, which would account for
the incident related in the story coming to her knowledge.--
M. and Ed.

When gentlemen and persons of consequence failed her, she turned as a
last resource to the Church, and took for companion in her sin him who
could absolve her of it--that is to say, the parson, who often came to
visit his pet ewe. The husband, who was dull and old, had no suspicion
of the truth; but, as he was a stern and sturdy man, his wife