The Abbess and the Breeches
Intro
- Storyteller: Elissa
- Everyone agrees that Madonna Francesca got rid of her two foolish suitors perfectly.
- Elissa has a similar story of a young nun who also used her wits to get out of a bad situation.
- Elissa tells us that many people are hypocritical and would like to correct people even though they share in the same fault or sin.
- This is the story of an Abbess who does just this and a nun who puts her to shame.
Story
- A beautiful gentlewoman named Isabetta is a nun in a convent in Lombardy. Despite her professional situation, she falls in love with a man who accompanies a kinsman of hers on a visit.
- They're both intelligent people, so they quickly find a way to be together inside the convent walls.
- But they're not all that careful in their meetings, so the other nuns catch wind of what's going on. The nuns decide to keep watch on Isabetta's room so that they can catch the lovers in flagrante. One night, the young lovers are meeting and the nuns rush to the Abbess' room to inform her. But the Abbess is entertaining her own company: a priest who she smuggles into her room in a chest.
- The Abbess is so worried about getting out into the hall before the nuns break down the door and find her "friend" that she doesn't realize that she's grabbed her lover's pants and put them on her head instead of her veils.
- The nuns don't notice, either. They're too excited to catch Isabetta in the act.
- So the two lovers are surprised and Isabetta's dragged off to be scolded by the Abbess.
- At first, Isabetta's utterly mortified and can't take her eyes off the floor. But as the shaming goes on, she looks up and sees the breeches (with suspenders) on top of the Abbess' head.
- Isabetta knows how they got there and has the Abbess right where she wants her. She asks the Abbess to "tie up her bonnet" before continuing with the scolding.
- The Abbess has to be told twice before she sees Isabetta's point. She knows that the entire convent of nuns, including Isabetta, now knows what she's been doing in her own cell.
- The Abbess changes her tune and tells the girls that such passions are natural and must be obeyed.
- She pretty much makes an open bed policy from then on, allowing lovers to visit anytime as long as they're discreet about it.