Note 86 — RABBINICAL LEGENDS, TALES, FABLES, AND APHORISMS.

This story seems to be the original of a French popular tale, in which a gentleman secures his estate for his son by a similar device. The gentleman, dying at Paris while his son was on his travels, bequeathed all his wealth to a convent, on condition that they should give his son “whatever they chose.” On the son’s return he received from the holy fathers a very trifling portion of the paternal estate. He complained to his friends of this injustice, but they all agreed that there was no help for it, according to the terms of his father’s will. In his distress he laid his case before an eminent lawyer, who told him that his father had adopted this plan of leaving his estate in the hands of the churchmen in order to prevent its misappropriation during his absence. “For,” said the man of law, “your father, by will, has left you the share of his estate which the convent should choose (le partie qui leur plairoit), and it is plain that what they chose was that which they kept for themselves. All you have to do, therefore, is to enter an action at law against the convent for recovery of that portion of your father’s property which they have retained, and, take my word for it, you will be successful.” The young man accordingly sued the churchmen and gained his cause. Return