Tale XXV. The Advocate’s Wife attending on the Prince. Tale XXVI. The Lord of Avannes paying His Court in Disguise. Tale XXVII. The Secretary imploring the Lady not To Tell Of His Wickedness. Tale XXVIII. The Secretary Opening the Pasty. Tale XXIX. The Husbandman surprised by the Fall of the Winnowing Fan. Tale XXX. The Young Gentleman embracing his Mother. [Illustration: 001a.jpg The Parting between Pauline and The Gentlemen] [The Parting between Pauline and The Gentlemen] [Illustration: 001.jpg Page Image] _TALE XIX_. _Pauline, being in love with a gentleman no less than he was with her, and finding that he, because forbidden ever again to speak with her, had entered the monastery of the Observance, gained admittance for her own part into the convent of St. Clara, where she took the veil; thus fulfilling the desire she had conceived to bring the gentleman’s love and her own to a like ending in respect of raiment, condition and manner of life. (1)_ In the time of the Marquis of Mantua, (2) who had married the sister of the Duke of Ferrara, there lived in the household of the Duchess a damsel named Pauline, who was greatly loved by a gentleman in the Marquis’s service, and this to the astonishment of every one; for being poor, albeit handsome and greatly beloved by his master, he ought, in their estimation, to have wooed some wealthy dame, but he believed that all the world’s treasure centred in Pauline, and looked to his marriage with her to gain and possess it. 1 The incidents related in this tale appear to have taken place at Mantua and Ferrara. M. de Montaiglon, however, believes that they happened at Lyons, and that Margaret laid the scene of her story in Italy, so that the personages she refers to might not be identified. The subject of the tale is similar to that of the poem called _L’Amant rendu Cordelier à l’Observance et Amour_, which may perhaps have supplied the Queen of Navarre with the plot of her narrative.--M. and Ed.