112
NOTES AND QUERIES. [9* s. xii. AUG. s, 1903.
in France, or, at all events, among French
people. I should think that there is no
reasonable ground for calling this point in
question. However, no doubt we are both
at one in our object of trying to trace the
origin of the phrase, and here are some
further remarks I had written before seeing
' N. & Q.' for 11 July.
Although the general opinion seems to be that this phrase refers either to Frederick William I. or his son Frederick (II.) the Great (some preferring the father and some the son), and all agree that it cannot date further back than 1701, when Prussia became a king- dom, yet the origin does not seem, even among Frenchmen, to be definitely settled. The correspondence on the point that has taken place in U Intermediate does not place it beyond question. Therefore it is still open for any one to hazard hypotheses. Here is Loredan Larchey's opinion, and, as I am inclined to agree with him in that the original allusion is not to either king personally, I have hunted up the author M. Larchey quotes, and append the reference to Cogniard to the quotation from Larchey's ' Dictionnaire d'Argot' (1880) and 'Supplement' (1889):
"Prusse (Pour le roi de) : Gratis.* Vient de ce que cet Btat ne payait point le 31 du mois a ses employes. ' S'ils viennent, ce sera pour le roi de Prusse ' (Cogniard, 31f)." P. 299.
Then in the 'Supplement' (p. 242) M' Larchey says :
"Trayailler pour le roi de Prusse: Travailler pour rien. A 1'appui de notre etymologie (?'. Prusse, Diet.) on peut citer la facetie connue entre joueurs de loto : 31, misere en Prusse!"
At the end of " La Cocarde Tricolore ; episode de la guerre d'Alger. Vaudeville en 3 actes, par Hippolyte et Theodore Cogniard" (first acted 19 March, 1831), I find these lines :
On dit qu' 1'Autrichien et le Russe
Veul'nt revenir comm' autrefois.
S'ils vienn'nfe, pa s'ra pour le roi de Prusse,
Et nous leur donn'rons sur les doigts.
Dumanet.
Notice here the word travailler does not occur ; perhaps the phrase began by " pour le roi de Prusse," travailler being added later. I do not know, but it may be so, I think.
Reverting to DK. KRUEGER'S remarks, I think many readers of * N. & Q.' would take exception to the definition that " a winged
- Not, as a correspondent puts it, " labour in
vain " (9 th S. xi. 437). One might, for instance, answer questions in ' N. & Q.' and call it, jokingly, " Travailler pour le roi de Prusse," meaning " gratis," but usefully all the same, and not by any means " labour in vain."
f I.e., 1831.
word is a saying," &c., "of which neither
author nor origin can be traced." Then
what becomes of the large number of " Geflii-
gelte Worte " of which Biichmann gives the
origin ? " I pause for a reply."
EDWARD LATHAM.
DUELS OF CLERGYMEN (9 th S. xi. 28, 92, 353 ; xii. 54). The Rev. Prebendary Hingeston- Randolph, in his most valuable account of the contents of the old Episcopal Registers of Exeter (published by him in several volumes), quotes a Latin version of a fight which took place between a cleric and a shoemaker, in the year 1260, at Bodmin.
I offer here a brief abstract which will explain the circumstances :
"Concerning the fighting of Clergy. [On the 18th of September, 1260] at Bodmin, the Lord Bishop [of Exeter] solemnly excommunicated all those who decreed that William called Blund, a cleric, should undertake and enter into a duel (con- trary to canonical sanctions), and all those who towards it did proffer counsel, aid, favour, or con- sent, also all those who countenanced the same by their presence [a great multitude of knights, youths, and townspeople]."
After reciting that excommunication had taken effect, and had led many to make due acknowledgment of their guilt, and that they had obtained absolution, the record con- tinues that as to the rest,
" he [the Bishop] enjoined on those who came together merely for the sake of what was to be seen, that for penance they, ungirt, unshod, and with heads uncovered, should proceed from the conventual church as far as to the church of the Friars Minor, in humility of spirit, reverently and processionally, there receiving penitential and solemn discipline. And so it was done."
The chief offenders seem to have been three knights who absconded, but submitted two years later. Their submission in 1262 in London is suitably described. The actual combatants were " William Blund, cleric, and Bartholomew a shoemaker."
W. IAGO, B.A.
'BiscLAVRET' (9 th S. xii. 46). See 4 th S. viii. 303, 384 ; 5 th S. x. 107, 176. At the last reference the derivation "bleiz-garo" is given. W. C. B.
LEGEND OF THE SERPENT'S FEET (9 th S. x. 481 ; xi. 70). In Japan it is popularly held that on occasion of the Buddha's entering Nirvana beside the Bhadrika, all animals came to the place to lament over the event, but the earthworm neglected to attend the assembly, on which account it was punished with the enduring loss of its feet.
It is an old usage in many Buddhist churches to exhibit on the 15th of the second moon images of various animals that assembled to
