The late deceased Queen Mother did one day cause to be played, for a Shrove Tuesday interlude, at Paris at the Hôtel de Reims, a very excellent Comedy which Cornelio Fiasco, Captain of the Royal Galleys, had devised. All the Court was present, both men and ladies, and many folk beside of the city. Amongst other matters, was shown a young man which had laid hid a whole night long in a very fair lady’s bedchamber, yet had never laid finger on her. Telling this hap to his friend, the latter asketh him: _Ch’avete fatto?_ (What did you do?), to which the other maketh answer: _Niente_ (Nothing). On hearing this, his friend doth exclaim: _Ah! poltronazzo, senza cuore! non havete fatto niente! che maldita sia la tua poltronneria!_—“Oh! poltroon and spiritless! you did nothing! a curse on your poltroonery then!” The same evening after the playing of this Comedy, as we were assembled in the Queen’s chamber, and were discoursing of the said play, I did ask a very fair and honourable lady, whose name I will not give, what were the finest points she had noted and observed in the Comedy, and which had most pleased her. She told me quite simply and frankly: The best point I noted was when his friend did make answer to the young man called Lucio, who had told him _che non haveva fatto niente_ (that he had done nothing) in this wise, _Ah poltronazzo! non havete fatto niente! che maldita sia la tua poltronneria!_—“Oh! you poltroon! you did nothing! a curse be on your poltroonery!” So you see how this fair lady which did talk with me was in agreement with the friend in reprobating his poltroonery, and that she did in no wise approve of him for having been so slack and unenterprising. Thereafter she and I did more openly discourse together of the mistakes men make by not seizing opportunity and taking advantage of the wind when it bloweth fair, as doth the good mariner.