If there be any of Brusquet’s descendants living, they belong to their illustrious ancestor through his daughter. It is popularly said, that when Thoni (one of the fools of Henry II.) died, the principal poets of the day applied for the vacant post. This shows, as I have before remarked, that the suggestion of Ménage, that the court poet and court fool often consisted of one and the same person, is not to be summarily rejected. The poets probably were not such fools as to neglect the present opportunity, which offered them the chance of a lucrative social appointment, with that of the less richly paid office of _plaisant_ to the King. I have in a previous page noticed the sharp wit of some of the ladies at the court of Catherine de Medicis. I may here add, that such wit was sometimes very sharply reprehended. Mr. Bayle St. John, in his biography of Montaigne, affords me an illustration of this fact, by there recording the circumstance of one of the maids-of-honour, Mademoiselle de Limeuil, who wrote a laughable satire on the Queen Catherine; by whom it was accounted but a sorry court jest, and the sprightly young authoress was well whipped, like any coarse male fool, for her pains. Mr. St. John records also a fact which proves that the jest of the “fou” was not always the most acceptable sauce at a royal banquet. The fact alluded to refers to Duchatel, who was originally in a printer’s office, was ultimately Grand Almoner of France, and who, as Mr. St. John tells us, was paid by the King to talk to him during meals. It is a singular fact, that while Francis I., who had a great affection for jesters, was mentioned in the funeral oration pronounced over his remains, as a grave, learned, and philosophic prince, Charles IX., who cared nothing for those old, joyous appendages to court, and whose name is associated with everything gloomy and terrible, was celebrated in the sermon preached at _his_ interment by Father Sorbin, as a prince at once tender-hearted and gracious, the bulwark of the faith, and the lover of men of wit: “piteux et débonnaire, propugnateur de la foy, et amateur des bons esprits.” Charles may be said to have been, in some measure, his own fool, for we hear of him figuring at a tournament, with a party of joyous followers, all of whom, King and courtiers, fought in the lists attired as women. Another of his court jests consisted in his hiring ten young thieves, whom he brought to the Louvre, where he set them to rob the guests of their swords, jewellery, and splendid cloaks, laughing heartily the while, as he witnessed their success, or saw the unconsciousness of the victims, or beheld their surprise and indignation, after they had been despoiled. These young thieves, who were amply rewarded for the exercise of their ability, rank among the most singular of hirelings paid to excite laughter in a gloomy king.