Philip de la Vache ""The Canterbury Tales"". However, the reference to Vache in Chaucer's poem may on good grounds also be a pun on his own name. The phrase Vache, leve! in the first line of the Envoy corresponds to medieval French Vache, reïs!, 'cow, leave!'. The French phase reïs, Vache!, (REISVACHE), when reversed, becomes CHAVSIER, the French form of the poet's name (this is a so-called palindrome). In the First Book of Kings in the Old Testament, the cows on their way to Beth Shemesh are likened to holy men, or monks on their way to the Heavenly Jerusalem. Chaucer may have regarded
Île-à-Vache of more blacks to the country, but he was also reluctant to rent a piece of Haitian soil to a white man. Still, Kock managed to sign a contract on August 8 which granted him a 10 year lease of Île-à-Vache, with the right to an extension of a further 10 years. The rent was 3.5 gourdes (about $0.35) per hectare. He had to start operations within six months and a number of employee supervisors had to be black. They would be immediately naturalized as Haitians upon arrival. Kock was to provide a percentage of all the wood that he