Heptameron

The group starts the next day in eager anticipation of their storytelling. They listen to Oisille’s lesson and go to mass. After lunch, they join in the meadow, and Parlamente, who ended the previous stories, chooses the youngest to start, since the oldest (Oisille) began the first day. As such, Nomerfide begins the storytelling. 

Told by Nomerfide, Story 11 tells of the lady Roncex, who was visiting the Franciscan house at Thouars. Feeling the urgent need to use the toilets, she rushes to the latrines, which are filthy from use by overindulgent Franciscan friars, showing “ample evidence that Franciscan bellies had been doing justice to the fruits of Bacchus and Ceres” (156). The room is dark, and when the lady chooses the dirtiest toilet, she becomes stuck to it “as if held on by glue” (156). She cries for her maid, La Mothe, who, having heard the worst stories about Franciscans, assumes the worst—“that some of them must have been lying in wait, and that they must be trying to rape Madame de Roncex” (156). She runs to her lady’s aid with a crowd of men to help her defend her lady.