In the town of Amboise there lived one Brimbaudier, (1) saddler to the
Queen of Navarre, and a man whose colour of feature showed him to be
by nature rather a servant of Bacchus than a priest of Diana. He had
married a virtuous woman who controlled his household very discreetly,
and with whom he was well content.
1 Boaistuau gives the name as Bruribandier, and Gruget
transforms it into Borribaudier. M, Pifteau, after examining
the MSS., is doubtful whether Brimbaudier is the correct
reading. Bromardier, which in old French meant a tippler
(Ducange, _Briemardum_), would have been an appropriate name
for the individual referred to.--Ed.
One day it was told him that his good wife was sick and in great danger,
at which tidings he was in the greatest trouble imaginable. He went with
all speed to her aid, and found her so low, poor woman, that she had
more need of a confessor than a doctor. Thereupon he made the most
pitiful lamentation that could be, but to represent it well 'twere
needful to speak thickly as he did, (2) and better still to paint one's
face like his.
2 Curiously enough, the transcriber of MS.
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