e side and his wife on the other."

"Then you cannot have understood the story," said Hircan. "We are told
that he contented them both in the same morning, and I consider it a
highly virtuous thing, both for body and mind, to be able to say and do
that which may make two opposites content."

"It was doubly wicked," said Parlamente, "to satisfy the simplicity of
one by falsehood and the wickedness of the other by vice. But I am
aware that sins, when brought before such judges as you, will always be
forgiven."

"Yet I promise you," said Hircan, "that for my own part I shall never
essay so great and difficult a task, for if I but render _you_ content
my day will not have been ill spent."

"If mutual love," said Parlamente, "cannot content the heart, nothing
else can."

"In sooth," said Simontault, "I think there is no greater grief in the
world than to love and not be loved."

"To be loved," said Parlamente, "it were needful to turn to such as
love. Very often, however, those women who will not love are loved the
most, while those men who love most strongly are loved the least."

"You remind me," said Oisille, "of a story which I had not intended to
bring forward among such good ones."

"Still I pray you tell it us," said Simontault. "That will I do right
willingly," replied Oisille.

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_TALE XLVI. (A)_.

_A Grey Friar named De Vale, being bidden to dinner at the
house of the Judge of the Exempts in Angouleme, perceived
that the Judge's wife (with whom he was in love) went up
into the garret alone; thinking to surprise her, he followed
her thither; but she dealt him such a kick in the stomach
that he fell from the top of the stairs to the bottom, and
fled out of the town to the house of a lady that had such
great liking for those of his Order (foolishly believing
them possessed of greater virtues than belong to them), that
she entrusted him with the correction of her daughter, whom
he lay with by force instead of chastising her for the sin
of sloth-fulness, as he had promised her mother he would
do_. (1)

1 Boaistuau and Gruget omit this tale, and the latter
replaces it by that numbered XLVI. (B). Count Charles of
Angouleme having died on January i, 1496, the incidents
related above must have occurred at an earlier date.--L.

In the town of An