Stand back then, curs; strike up the music! Silence, bigots; out of
the way, dunces! step forward my merry wags!--my little pages! give
your soft hand to the ladies, and tickle theirs in the centre in a
pretty manner, saying to them, "Read to laugh." Afterwards you can
tell them some mere jest to make them roar, since when they are
laughing their lips are apart, and they make but a faint resistance to
love.



PERSEVERANCE IN LOVE

During the first years of the thirteenth century after the coming of
our Divine Saviour there happened in the City of Paris an amorous
adventure, through the deed of a man of Tours, of which the town and
even the king's court was never tired of speaking. As to the clergy,
you will see by that which is related the part they played in this
history, the testimony of which was by them preserved. This said man,
called the Touranian by the common people, because he had been born in
our merry Touraine, had for his true name that of Anseau. In his
latter days the good man returned into his own country and was mayor
of St. Martin, according to the chronicles of the abbey of that town;
but at Paris he was a great silversmith.

But now in his prime, by his great honesty, his labours, and so forth,
he became a citizen of Paris and subject of the king, whose protection
he bought, according to the custom of the period. He had a house built
for him free of all quit-rent, close the Church of St. Leu, in the Rue
St. Denis, where his forge was well-known by those in want of fine
jewels. Although he was a Touranian, and had plenty of spirit and