Page:Lives of Fair and Gallant Ladies Volume II.djvu/124

Rh The late Grand Prior, M. de Lorraine, did one time conceive the wish to send a pair of his Galleys on an expedition to the Levant under the command of Captain Beaulieu, one of his Lieutenants, of the which I have spoke somewhat in another place. Beaulieu went readily enough, being a brave and valiant sailor. When he was toward the Archipelago, he did fall in with a great Venetian ship, well armed and well found, which he set him to fire upon. But the ship did return his salute to some purpose; for at the first volley she did carry clean away two of his banks of oars, galley-slaves and all. Amongst other sore wounded was his Lieutenant, a man named Captain Panier ("Basket") and a good fellow enough, which had time to cry out this word only before he died: "Good-bye baskets all, the harvest is done,"—a merry and a pleasant jest to enliven his death withal! The end was, M. de Beaulieu had to retire, this big ship proving beyond his power to overcome.

The first year King Charles IX. was King, at the time of the July edict when he was yet residing in the Faubourg St. Germain, we did see the hanging of a certain gallowsbird in that quarter, which had stolen six silver goblets from the kitchen of the Prince de La Roche-sur-Yonne. So soon as he was on the ladder, he did beg the hangman to grant him a little space for a dying speech, and did take up his parable, remonstrating with the folk and telling them he was unjustly put to death, "for never," said he, "have I practised my thievings on the poor, on beggars and the vulgar herd, but only on Princes and great Lords, which be greater thieves than we, and do rob us every day of their lives; and 'tis a good deed to recover again of these folk what they do rob and filch from us." Much