Decameron First Day, Fifth Story Summary

The Marchioness of Montferrat and the French King

Storyteller: Fiammetta
Fiammetta begins with a standard piece of courtly love wisdom: if a man is right-thinking, he'll always look for a woman of a higher social station to love.
And women will always make sure they don't choose someone of a higher rank.
Her story features a woman who played by these rules and a man who tried to overlook them to his discredit.

The Marquis of Montferrat has a wife who (surprise!) is beautiful and virtuous beyond every other woman in the world.
The King of France hears about her and decides to take a slight detour on his way to join a crusade to the Holy Land.
And since the Marquis is already on his way east, the king hopes to have his way with the Marquess.
But the Marquess is onto him. She figures out pretty quickly that a king who wants to visit her in her husband's absence is up to no good.
So she consults with the few male advisors she has left (most are off fighting) and comes up with a plan.
The Marquess gathers up as many hens as she can find and has them prepared in various dishes for the king's dinner.
When the king meets her, he is immediately struck by the arrow of love. He can't wait to sweet-talk her into doing what he wants.
But as he's eating dinner, he realizes that all the dishes are chicken.
He's perplexed, so he asks the Marquess what's up with all the hens? No cocks?
The Marquess explains that like the hens, the women of her "neighborhood" may be dressed differently, but they are really the same as women everywhere.
Translation: you don't need to go fishing for a woman around here, king, since beautiful women are everywhere.
The king's immediately ashamed of his intentions and gets on his way to the Crusade as quickly as he can.