other hand, as Vérard had every facility for knowing the truth, and some
of the copies must have been purchased by persons who were present when
the stories were told, the mistake would have been rectified in the
subsequent editions that Vérard brought out in the course of the next
few years, when Louis had been long dead and there was no necessity to
flatter his vanity.

On examining the stories related by "Monseigneur," it seems to me that
there is some slight internal evidence that they were told by Louis.

Brantôme says of him that, "he loved to hear tales of loose women,
and had but a poor opinion of woman and did not believe they were all
chaste. (This sounds well coming from Brantôme) Anyone who could relate
such tales was gladly welcomed by the Prince, who would have given all
Homer and Virgil too for a funny story." The Prince must have heard many
such stories, and would be likely to repeat them, and we find the
first half dozen stories are decidedly "broad," (No XI was afterwards
appropriated by Rabelais, as "Hans Carvel's Ring") and we may suspect
that Louis tried to show the different narrators by personal example
what he considered a really "good tale."

We know also Louis was subject to fits of religious melancholy, and
evinced a superstitious veneration for holy things, and even wore
little, leaden images of the saints round his hat. In many of the
stories we find monks punished for their immorality, or laughed at
for their ignorance, and nowhere do we see any particular veneration
displayed for the Church. The only exception is No LXX, "The Devil's
Horn," in which a knight by sheer faith in the mystery of baptism
vanquishes the Devil, whereas one of the knight's retainers, armed
with a battle-axe but not possessing his master's robust faith in the