and friends to be turned into foes. This you will see from the
story that I am minded to relate."

[Illustration: 193.jpg Tailpiece]

[Illustration: 195a.jpg The Young Man beating his Wife]

[The Young Man beating his Wife]

[Illustration: 195.jpg Page Image]

_TALE XLVI.(B)_.

_Concerning a Grey Friar who made it a great crime on the
part of husbands to beat their wives_. (1)

In the town of Angouleme, where Count Charles, father of King Francis,
often abode, there dwelt a Grey Friar named De Valles, (2) the same
being a learned man and a very great preacher. At Advent time this Friar
preached in the town in presence of the Count, whereby his reputation
was still further increased.

1 This is the tale inserted in Gruget's edition in lieu of
the previous one.--Ed.

2 We had thought that Friar Valles might possibly be Robert
de Valle, who at the close of the fifteenth century wrote a
work entitled _Explanatio in Plinium_, but find that this
divine was a Bishop of Rouen, and never belonged to the Grey
Friars. In Gessner's _Biographia Universalis_, continued by
Frisius, mention is made of three learned ecclesiastics of
the name of Valle living in or about Queen Margaret's time:
Baptiste de Valle, who wrote on war and duelling; William de
Valle, who penned a volume entitled _De Anima Sorbono_; and
Amant de Valle, a Franciscan minorite born at Toulouse, who
was the author of numerous philosophical works, the most
important being _Elucidationes Scoti_.--B. J.

It happened also that during Advent a hare-brained young fellow, who had
married a passably handsome young woman, continued none the less to
run at the least as dissolute a course as did those that were still
bachelors. The young wife, being advised of this, could not keep silence
upon it, so that she very often received payment after a different and
a prompter fashion than she could have wished. For all that, she ceased
not to persist in lamentation, and sometimes in railing as well; which
so provoked the young man that he beat her even to bruises and blood.
Thereupon she cried out yet more loudly than before; and in a like
fashion all the women of the neighbourhood, knowing the reason of this,
could not keep silence, but cried out publicly in the streets, saying--

"Shame, shame on such husbands! To the devil with them!"

By good fortune the Grey Friar De Valles wa