out to his wife--

"I have the ghost!"

His wife immediately rose up and lit the candle, and found that it was
the serving-woman who slept in their room; and she, throwing herself
upon her knees, entreated forgiveness and promised to confess the truth.
This was, that she had long loved a serving-man of the house, and
had taken this fine mystery in hand in order to drive both master and
mistress away, so that she and her lover, having sole charge of the
house, might be able to make good cheer as they were wont to do when
alone. My Lord of Grignaulx, who was a somewhat harsh man, commanded
that they should be soundly beaten so as to prevent them from ever
forgetting the ghost, and this having been done, they were driven away.
In this fashion was the house freed from the plaguy ghosts who for two
years long had played their pranks in it. (5)

5 Talleyrand, who passes for having been the last of the
"Rois des Ribauds" (see the Bibliophile Jacob's historical
novel of that title), was, like his descendant the great
diplomatist, a man of subtle and caustic humour. Brantôme,
in his article on Anne of Brittany in _Les Dames Illustres_,
repeatedly refers to him, and relates that on an occasion
when the Queen wished to say a few words in Spanish to the
Emperor's ambassador--there was a project of marrying her
daughter Claude to Charles V.--she applied to Grignols to
teach her a sentence or two of the Castilian language. He,
however, taught her some dirty expression, but was careful
to warn Louis XII., who laughed at it, telling his wife on
no account to use the Spanish words she had learnt. On