I do remember me of an incident connected with the Sieur de Matha,[63*] a brave and gallant gentleman much loved of the King, and a kinsman of Madame de Valentinois, which did ever have some diverting quarrel and complaint against the damsels and dames of the Court, of so merry a complexion was he. One day having attacked one of the Queen’s maids of honour, another, known by the name of “big Méray,” was for taking up the cudgels for her companion. The only reply Matha did vouchsafe her was this: “Go to! I’m not attacking you, Méray; you’re a great war-horse, and should be barded!”[64] For insooth she was the very biggest woman, maid or wife, I have ever seen. She did make complaint of the speech to the Queen, saying the other had called her a mare and a great war-horse to be barded. The Queen was so sore angered that Matha had to quit the Court for some days, spite of all the favour he had with his kinswoman Madame de Valentinois; and for a month after his return durst not set foot in the apartment of the Queen and her maids of honour. The Sieur de Gersay did a much worse thing toward one of the Queen’s maids of honour, to whom he was ill-disposed, for to avenge him upon her, albeit he was never at a loss for ready words; for indeed he was as good as most at saying a witty thing or telling a good story, and above all when spreading a scandal, of which art and mystery he was a past master; only scandal-mongering was at that time strongly forbidden. One day when he was present at the after dinner assembly of the Queen along with the other ladies and gentlemen of her Court, the custom then being that the company should not sit except on the floor when the Queen was present, de Gersay having taken from the pages and lackeys a ram’s pizzle they were playing with in the Office Court of the Palace, sitting down beside her he did slip the same into the girl’s frock, and this so softly as that she did never notice it,—that is not until the Queen did proceed to rise from her chair to retire to her private apartment. The girl, whose name I had better not give, did straight spring up, and as she rose to her feet, right in front of the Queen, doth give so lusty a push to the strange plaything she had about her, as that it did make six or seven good bounces along the floor, for all the world as though it were fain of its own accord to give the company a free exhibition and some gratuitous sport. Who more astonished than the poor girl,—and the Queen to boot, for ’twas well in front of her with naught to prevent her view? “Mother of God!” cried the Queen, “and what is that, my child; what would you be at with that thing?” The unhappy maid of honour, blushing and half fainting with confusion, began to cry out she knew not what it was, that some one who did wish her ill had played this horrid trick on her, and how she thought ’twas none other but de Gersay which had done it. The latter waiting only to see the beginning of the sport and the first