The History of Court Fools. Dr. Doran
a marvellous thing that noble personages, who have been brought up all their lives with the parrots and apes of the Louvre, and who do not less belong to the Court than Mathurine did, or the Queen-Mother’s dwarfs do, should not have learnt in their cabinets to write reasonably.”
Thirty-four years after this was written, a Spanish folle appeared at the French Court, and in rather suspicious society; that of Don John of Austria, who accompanied the famous Pimentel to Paris, to negotiate the marriage of Maria Theresa of Spain with the young Louis XIV. (a marriage which, as it was to put an end to the war, was more cared for by Mazarin than a union which might have taken place between the Cardinal’s most clever niece, Marie Mancini, and the French king). Don John had the impudence to present at court this woman, whom he called his “Folle.” She was full of fun and wit, and every one sought to excite both. Louis enjoyed her jokes with wonderful zest. Her name was Capiton, and no party was thought complete without the presence of the Don’s Folle. The cudgelling of brains between her and Marie Mancini was a gladiatorial fight. Poor Marie had loved Louis, and Louis was warmly attached to a woman who had awakened in him the only good qualities he ever possessed, and who saved him from being such a mere beast as his successor was. Capiton loved to provoke Marie, by singing the praises of the Spanish Infanta, and Marie, sharp-witted, as well as sharply wounded by these praises of a rival who was to triumph over her, replied by sarcasms that were repeated with intense delight throughout France. The haughty, eccentric, coarse, and sensual Don John was proud of his Folle Capiton.
The official female fool survived as late as the year 1722, when we meet with a certain Kathrin Lise. She was the duly-appointed jokeress, if I may so speak, to the Duchess von Sachsen-Weissenfels-Dahme, who resided in the castle of Drehna, and depended upon Kathrin for her mirth. This is all we know of the last of the line of female jesters.
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Before proceeding to sketch an historical outline of our own English fools, I propose to treat briefly of the Eastern buffoons. These may fairly claim precedence, on the ground that in the East the fashion of maintaining household fools is supposed to have originated, and that it has not yet expired in that locality. Further, there is, in connection with barbaric Courts, both in the East and the West, some legendary matter connected with the Fool, of which it may be as well finally to dispose, prior to dealing with the English jester as an historical character.
THE ORIENTAL “NOODLE.”
As I have just stated, the court or household fool probably originated in the East. The close of this Chapter will show that in the East that pleasant or pretentious official still survives. In a region where aberration of mind is taken to be a sort of divine inspiration, we need not wonder at finding the professional jester still attached to certain families, and himself and his vocation treated with a certain degree of respect.
I have already spoken of the buffoons who could not move the gravity of their own solemn master Attila; and we know that Timour rather kept these people for the amusement of his guests, than that he experienced any satisfaction himself in the exercise of their craft. They were not wanting in the Courts of the Caliphs, and the name of Bahalul conspicuously figures among the cap-and-bell favourites of Haroon Al-Raschid. It was to him that the Caliph once said, “Fool, give me a list of all the blockheads in Bagdad.” To which Bahalul answered, “That were not so easy, and would take too long; but if you want a list of the wise men, you shall have it in two minutes.”
It was in jest that Haroon presented him a document, by which he was constituted governor of all the bears, wolves, foxes, apes, and asses, in the Caliphate. “It is too much for me,” said the fool; “I am not ambitious enough to desire to rule all your holiness’s subjects.”
Bahalul one day, finding no one in the throne-room of the sovereign father of the faithful, seated himself on the cushions of the priest-monarch. The guards near were horror-stricken at beholding the jester on the sacred couch of authority, imitating the manners of Haroon himself; just as Chicot, long after, used to mimic those of Henri III. They speedily dragged him from the throne of cushions, and began bastinadoing him with such violence that the Caliph, hearing his cries, entered the hall and demanded the reason of the outcry. “Uncle,” said Bahalul, “I am not screaming on my own account, but on yours. I pity you. I have only tried royalty for five minutes, and I am already in a fever with pain inflicted by these fellows. What must you endure, then, who occupy the same distinguished seat every day!”
Bahalul seems to have been a dissipated fellow, and the Caliph enjoined him to marry and live discreetly, loving his wife, and bringing up his family in honour. The jester so far obeyed as to go through the nuptial ceremony; but as he was conducting his wife to her apartment, the uncourteous bridegroom suddenly paused, looked as if he were petrified, and declaring that he had never heard such a tumult in his life, took to his heels, and did not re-appear for months. Meanwhile, the deserted bride had procured a divorce, and then Bahalul made his rentrée at Court.
“So!” exclaimed the Caliph, with an inquiring air.
“Ay, ay!” cried the fool, “you would have done as I did. The tumult scared me away beyond the hills.”
“What tumult?” asked Haroon.
“Why,” said Bahalul, “as my wife was entering her room, there came from her, sounds as of a thousand voices. Amid them, I could distinguish the cries of ‘rent! taxes! doctors! sons! daughters! schooling! dress! silks! satins! muslins! drawers! slippers! money! more money! debt! imprisonment! and Bahalul has drowned himself in the Caliph’s bath!—therewith,” added the jester, “terrified at the solemn warning, and wishing to avoid the profanity of plunging my person into your brightness’s bath, I fled, till the danger was over, and—here I am; owing nothing, and disinclined to drown myself.”
Bahalul, however, was not the most favourite jester of this Caliph. There is no doubt that the most renowned of these was Ebn Oaz. We have indeed but one sample of his quality, but that is excellent. Unfortunately, it is also well known; but it must not be omitted in this record of the fraternity. Haroon, it is said, desired to exhibit the best qualities of the wit in presence of the young Sultana and her brilliant court; and he suddenly ordered Ebn Oaz to make some excuse which should be more offensive than the crime it was to extenuate. After considerable thought, Oaz slunk away, and the disappointed spectators were speaking of him as “incapable,” when the Caliph, suddenly starting up from his seat, with a roar and a look of exquisite anguish, set the whole court in confusion. The fact was, that Ebn Oaz had gone behind the curtains of the throne, and, opening them gently, had given the Caliph so astounding a pinch in the rear, that he sprang up as if a javelin had pierced him. Looking on the offender with rage and anguish, he ordered him to be slain for the treasonable and intolerable assault. “Stay!” said Oaz to the too-ready officials, who were already fingering their bow-strings. “Hear my excuse,” added he, turning to the Caliph; “I declare, by way of apology, that when I pinched your Holiness behind, I thought I was pinching the Sultana, your wife.” Haroon saw at once that the excuse was worse than the crime, and that he ought to be delighted; but he only laughed in a forced way, remarking to the Sultana, before he resumed his seat, that he felt he should not forget the joke for some time to come.
This story has been made wonderful use of, and has been dished up in a hundred different ways in a hundred different localities. It belongs, however, originally to the East, as do so many other of our most ancient and accepted anecdotes. I believe that all the facetiæ of Hierocles were old Indian, before they were new Greek stories, and that the “simpleton” who clung to the anchor when the ship was sinking—who stood before a mirror with his eyes closed, to see how he looked when asleep—who carried about with him a brick of his house, as a specimen of the building—who made the experiment of keeping a horse alive without food, only failing to succeed by the premature death of the steed;—all these, and some dozens of others like them, had all drawn laughter from Eastern potentates before they began to raise a smile in the fairer faces of the Hellenes. But these stories only amused; and the jester had the prerogative of being free, as well