In a considerable number there are references
to actual personages of the time--references which stand on a very
different footing of identification from the puerile guessings at the
personality of the interlocutors so often referred to. Sometimes these
references are avowed: "Un des muletiers de la Reine de Navarre," "Le
Roi Francois montre sa generosite," "Un President de Grenoble," "Une
femme d'Alencon," and so forth. At other times the reference is somewhat
more covert, but hardly to be doubted, as in the remarkable story of a
"great Prince" (obviously Francis himself) who used on his journeyings
to and from an assignation of a very illegitimate character, to turn
into a church and piously pursue his devotions. There are a few curious
stories in which amatory matters play only a subordinate part or none
at all, though it must be confessed that this last is a rare thing.
Some are mere anecdote plays on words (sometimes pretty free, and then
generally told by Nomer-fide), or quasi-historical, such as that
already noticed of the generosity of Francis to a traitor, or deal with
remarkable trials and crimes, or merely miscellaneous matters, the best
of the last class being the capital "Bonne invention pour chasser le
lutin.
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