The husband never failed to return her similar answers, but after Easter
he wrote to her in the preacher's name, begging her to let him know how
he could secretly see her. She, all impatient for the meeting, advised
her husband to go and visit some estates of theirs in the country, and
this he agreed to do, hiding himself, however, in the house of a friend.
Then the lady failed not to write to the preacher that it was time he
should come and see her, since her husband was in the country.

The gentleman, wishing thoroughly to try his wife's heart, then went to
the preacher, and begged him for the love of God to lend him his robe.
The preacher, who was a man of worth, replied that the rules of
his Order forbade it, and that he would never lend his robe for a
masquerade. (4) The gentleman assured him, however, that he would make
no evil use of it, and that he wanted it for a matter necessary to his
happiness and his salvation. Thereupon the Friar, who knew the other
to be a worthy and pious man, lent it to him; and with this robe, which
covered his face so that his eyes could not be seen, the gentleman put
on a false beard and a false nose, each similar to the preacher's. He
also made himself of the same height by means of cork. (5)

4 This may be compared with the episode of Tappe-coue or
Tickletoby in Pantagruel:--"Villon, to dress an old clownish
father grey-beard, who was to represent God the Father [at
the performance of a mystery], begged of Friar Stephen
Tickletoby, sacristan to the Franciscan Friars of the place,
to lend him a cope and a stole. Tickletoby refused him,
alleging that by their provincial statutes it was rigorously
forbidden to give or lend anything to players. Villon
replied that the statute reached no further than farces,