



Produced by David Widger










THE MERRIE TALES OF JACQUES TOURNEBROCHE

AND CHILD LIFE IN TOWN AND COUNTRY

By Anatole France

John Lane Company, MCMXIX

Copyright 1909

John Lane Company




THE MERRIE TALES OF JACQUES TOURNEBROCHE




OLIVIER'S BRAG

[Illustration: 016]

The Emperor Charlemagne and his twelve peers, having taken the palmer's
staff at Saint-Denis, made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. They prostrated
themselves before the tomb of Our Lord, and sat in the thirteen chairs
of the great hall wherein Jesus Christ and his Apostles met together
to celebrate the blessed sacrifice of the Mass. Then they fared to
Constantinople, being fain to see King Hugo, who was renowned for his
magnificence.

The King welcomed them in his Palace, where, beneath a golden dome,
birds of ruby, wrought with a wondrous art, sat and sang in bushes of
emerald.

He seated the Emperor of France and the twelve Counts about a table
loaded with stags, boars, cranes, wild geese, and peacocks, served in
pepper. And he offered his guests, in ox-horns, the wines of Greece and
Asia to drink. Charlemagne and his companions quaffed all these wines
in honour of the King and his daughter, the Princess Helen. After supper
Hugo led them to the chamber where they were to sleep. Now this chamber
was circular, and a column, springing in the midst thereof, carried the
vaulted roof. Nothing could be finer to look upon. Against the walls,
which were hung with gold and purple, twelve beds were ranged, while
another greater than the rest stood beside the pillar.

Charlemagne lay in this, and the Counts stretched themselves round about
him on the others. The wine they had drunk ran hot in their veins, and
their brains were afire. They could not sleep, and fell to making brags
instead, and laying of wagers, as is the way of the knights of France,
each striving to outdo the other in warranting himself to do some
doughty deed for to manifest his prowess. The Emperor opened the game.
He said:

"Let them fetch me, a-horseback and fully armed, the best knight King
Hugo hath. I will lift my sword and bring it down upon him in such wise
it shall cleave helm and hauberk, saddle and steed, and the blade shall
delve a foot deep underground."

Guillaume d'Orange spake up after the Emperor and made the second brag.

"I will take," said he, "a ball of iron sixty men can scarce lift, and
hurl it so mightily against the Palace wall that it shall beat down
sixty fathoms' length thereof."

Ogier, the Dane, spake next.

"Ye see yon proud pillar which bears up the vault. To-morrow will I tear
it down and break it like a straw."

After which Renaud de Montauban cried with an oath:

"'Od's life! Count Ogier, whiles you overset the pillar, I will clap the
dome on my shoulders and hale it down to the seashore."

Gerard de Rousillon it was made the fifth brag.

He boasted he would uproot single-handed, in one hour, all the trees in
the Royal pleasaunce.

Aimer took up his parable when Gerard was done.

"I have a magic hat," said he, "made of a sea-calf's skin, which renders
me invisible. I will set it on my head, and to-morrow, whenas King Hugo
is seated at meat, I will eat up his fish and drink down his wine, I
will tweak his nose and buffet his ears. Not knowing whom or what
to blame, he will clap all his serving-men in gaol and scourge them
sore,--and we shall laugh."

"For me," declared Huon de Bordeaux, whose turn it was, "for me, I am
so nimble I will trip up to the King and cut off his beard and eyebrows
without his knowing aught about the matter. 'T is a piece of sport I
will show you to-morrow. And I shall have no need of a sea-calf hat
either!"

Doolin de Mayence made his brag too. He promised to eat up in one
hour all the figs and all the oranges and all the lemons in the King's
orchards.

Next the Due Naisme said in this wise:

"By my faith! _I_ will go into the banquet hall, I will catch up flagons
and cups of gold and fling them so high they will never light down again
save to tumble into the moon."

Bernard de Brabant then lifted his great voice:

"I will do better yet," he roared. "Ye know the river that flows by
Constantinople is broad and deep, for it is come nigh its mouth by then,
after traversing Egypt, Babylon, and the Earthly Paradise. Well, I