Read The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. II. (of V.) Page 15
A. (Tale VIII., Page i.)
Tales of a similar character to this will be found in the followingworks written prior to Margaret's time:--
Legrand d'Aussy's collection of _Fabliaux ou Contes du XIIeme et XIIIemesiecles_ (vol. iii.).
Boccaccio's _Decameron_ (day viii., story iv.).
Enguerrand d'Oisy's _Le Meunier d'Aleu_.
Poggio's _Facetio ( Vir sibi cornua promovens)_.
Sacchetti's _Novelle_ (vol. ii., No. ccvi.).
Morlini's _Novelle_ (No. lxxix.).
_Les Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles_ (story ix.).
Malespini's _Ducento Novelle_ (part ii., No. xcvi.).
Of the foregoing, says M. de Montaiglon, Margaret could only have beenacquainted with the _Decameron_, the _Cent Nouvelles_, and Poggio's_Facetio_, which had been translated into French by Tardix (see Nos. cv.and ex. of that translation).
A similar story in Latin verse is also contained in a fourteenth centuryMS. at Monte Cassino. See _I codici e le arti a Monte Cassino_, by D.Andrea Caravita (vol. ii. p. 289).
Since Margaret's time stories of the same character have appeared in thefollowing works:--
Melander's _Jocondia_ (p. 298).
Phil. Beroalde's _Contes Latins_ (see _Poggii Imitationes_, Noel's ed.,vol. ii. p. 245).
Guicciardini's _Hore di Recreazione_ (p. 103).
J. Bouchet's _Serees_ (No. 8; Roybet's ed., vol. ii. p. 115).
La Fontaine's _Contes_ (book v., No. viii.:_ Les Quiproquo_). _LePasse-Temps Agreable_ (p. 27).
Moreover, a song written on the same subject will be found, says M.de Lincy, on folio 44 of the _Premier Recueil de toutes les chansonsnouvelles_ (Troyes, Nicholas du Ruau, 1590). It is there called "Thefacetious and recreative story of a certain labourer of a village nearParis, who, thinking that he was enjoying his servant, lay with hiswife." This song was reprinted in various other collections of thesixteenth and seventeenth centuries.