The story of the famous kiss bestowed by Margaret of Scotland on la precieuse bouche de laquelle sont issus et sortis taut de bons mots et vertueuses paroles is mythical, for Margaret did not come to France till 1436, after the poet's death; but the story, first told by Guillaume Bouchet in his Annales d'Aquitaine (1524), is interesting, if only as a proof of the high degree of estimation in which the ugliest man of his day was held.
For about three months following this event he was held as a prisoner on parole within the limits of Charleston; then, because of his influence in deterring others from exchanging their paroles for the privileges of British subjects, he was seized, taken to St Augustine, Florida, and there, because he would not give another parole to those who had violated the former agreement affecting him, he was confined for forty-two weeks in a dungeon.
Besides a number of archaeological works, especially in the department of numismatics, he published a compilation from the Arabic, Persian and Turkish, entitled Paroles remarquables, bons mots et maximes des orientaux (1694), and a translation from an Arabic manuscript, De l'origine et du progres du café (1699).
The policy of indeterminate sentence and paroles was adopted in 1897 in the two prisons and the reformatory.
The introduction to his first volume of Actes et paroles, ranging in date from 1841 to 1851, is dated in June 1875; it is one of his most earnest and most eloquent appeals to the conscience and intelligence of the student.
