[Reynard]: "We live in a perilous time. Lords and prelates set examples for us to follow - everyone can see that. Lesser folk notice what the mighty do. Who does not know that the king himself is a robber and a conniver? . . . No one tells him the truth; neither his chaplain nor his father confessor says to him, 'You have done wrong.' Why don't they? Because they like to enjoy their share of the loot. . . . "Thus our king the lion has sitting in council with him a select band of robbers, whom he holds in great honor and makes the greatest among his nobles. But let the poor wretch Reynard take a chicken, and you'll see them pounce upon him and scream, 'To the gallows with him!' Little crooks are hanged; big crooks govern our lands and cities. I grew wise to this long ago, nephew, which is why I seek my own profit in life. Sometimes I think that, since everybody does it, this is the way it ought to be. . . . "There is hardly a parish where the priest does not have a concubine, living in sin and shame, producing children like husbands in normal wedlock. Such priests are solicitous for their offspring and advance them as best they can, . . . Nowadays money calls the tune, and a priest's bastard is dubbed lord or lady. Show me a country where the priests do not levy the toll or run the village mills. Spreading wickedness by their own examples, they pervert the whole world! . . ." [Reynard's skill at lying and flattery not only gets him off the charges against him at court but also gains him honors. The tale concludes:] He who has not learned Reynard's craft is not made for this world and his advice is not heeded. But with the aid of the art of which Reynard is past master, success and power are within everyone's reach. For this reason our world is full of Reynards, and we find them at the pope's court no less than at the emperor's. Simon is now on the throne. Money counts, and nothing else. He who has money to gve gets the benefice; he who has not does not get it. Whoever knows Reynard's cunning best is on his way to the top.