Again, if we turn to ‘Les Quarante-Cinq,’ in search of further information touching the qualities of this famous _plaisant_, we find him brave and careless, and yet fully appreciating life generally, which came to him in a very enjoyable form. In this latter work, we find him loving wine, and eccentric in act and speech. He was not close cropped, or shaven, like the earlier jesters. His hair was black and curled, but his brow was bald long before the period of middle age. He brought to perfection, says the author of ‘Les Quarante-Cinq,’ “that art dear to the ancient mimes, which consists in changing, by scientific contractions, the natural play of the muscles, and the habitual play of the physiognomy.”
Chicot cannot be said to have been a graceful fellow. His arms and legs were immoderately long. He was all nerves, muscle, and bone; active, addicted to raillery, ingenious in contrivances, and he laughed silently like an Indian. After having been prodigal, he became parsimonious, and saved a little fortune. He ordinarily spoke with a Gascon accent, but he could change that at will, and it was as easy for him to assume any other as it was for him to assume any rank. He maintained a superiority over his royal master through the fears of the latter, and the author of ‘Les Quarante-Cinq’ represents Henri as having a superstitious dread of his jester, who was occasionally a sort of phantom-buffoon, suddenly appearing and disappearing in a way which perplexed Henri, but which admitted of very natural explanations. We see him in the last-mentioned work, as a scholar and a man of taste, a purist in classical knowledge, able to construe Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, and reading, and sometimes sleeping over, the Essays of Montaigne.
Had this jester not been a man of singular ability, the King would not have employed him on diplomatic missions of some delicacy and difficulty. He went on such missions to Henri of Navarre; and Dumas represents him to us as saving the life of the Béarnais, in his first fight at Cahors, where Henri’s bold soul carried his then cowardly body into the very thickest of the _mêlée_. It is said to have been on this occasion that the King of Navarre induced Chicot to promise to enter his service whenever his old master, Henri III., should die. Flögel, Cardinal Perron, and Sully, only mention Chicot as the court jester of Henri IV.; he was however in the service of both Kings. He was as familiar with his new master as with the old one, and the Bourbon King was as indulgent to him as the old Valois monarch had been. His boldness was especially exhibited in satirical allusions to the King of Navarre being of the reformed religion, and to suggestions touching political matters generally. In the ‘Mémoires pour l’Histoire de France’ (vol. ii. 72), it is stated that when the Duke of Parma came to France, Chicot said to the King, before all the courtiers, “My friend, I see very well that all you do will signify nothing, unless you either turn Catholic, or pretend you are one.” Another time, Chicot said to him, “I am convinced that to be peaceably King of France, you would give both Papists and Huguenots to Lucifer’s clerk.” “I am not surprised,” said he another time to his Majesty, “that so many persons desire to be Kings. It is a good trade, and by working at it only an hour in a day, one may make sufficient provision for the rest of the week, without being obliged to one’s neighbours. But, for Heaven’s sake! my friend, take care, and keep out of the hands of the Leaguers, for if you should fall into them, they would hang you up like a hog’s pudding, and write upon your gibbet--‘Good lodgings to let, at the Crown of France and Navarre.’”