Well, my Lord of Chester come, which was the week after Holy Cross, we set forth with few days’ delay, and came to Paris, as I said, the eve of Michaelmas. Marvellous weary was I with riding, for I rade of an horse the whole way, and not, as Dame Isabel did, with the Queen in her char. I was so ill tired that I could but eat a two-three wafers (Note 4), and drink a cup of wine, and then hied I to my bed, which, I thank the saints, was not the pallet that night.
The King and Queen of France were then at Compiegne, King Charles having been wed that same summer to his third wife, Dame Jeanne of Evreux: and a good woman I do believe was she, for all (as I said aforetime) there be but few. But I do think, and ever shall, that three wives be more than any man’s share. The next morrow, they came in from Compiegne, to spend Michaelmas in Paris: and then was enough noise and merriment. First, mass in our Lady Church, whereto both Dame Isabel and I waited on the Queen; and by the same token, she was donned of one of the fairest robes that ever she bare, which was of velvet blue of Malyns (Malines), broidered with apple-blossom and with diapering of gold. It did not become her, by reason of her dark complexion, so well as it should have done S—
“Hold! Man spelleth not Cicely with an S.”
“Jack, if thou start me like this any more, then will I turn the key in the lock when I sit down to write,” cried I, for verily mine heart was going pitter-patter to come up in my throat, and out at my mouth, for aught I know. “Thou irksome man, I went about to write ‘some folks,’ not ‘Cicely.’”
“But wherefore?” saith Jack, looking innocent as a year-old babe. “When it meaneth Cicely, then would I put Cicely.”
“But I meant not Cicely, man o’ life, bless thee!”
“I thank thee for thy blessing, Sissot; and I will fain hope thou didst mean that any way. I will go bail thy pen meant not Cicely, good wife; but if it were not in thine heart that Sissot’s fair hair, and rose-red complexion, and grey eyes, should have gone better with that blue velvet gown than Queen Isabel’s dusky hair and brown eyes, then do I know little of man or woman. And I dare be bound it would, belike.”
And Jack lifteth his hat to me right courteously, and is gone afore I well know whether to laugh or to be angered. So I ween I had better laugh.
Where was I, trow? Oh, at mass in our Lady Church of Paris, where that day was a miracle done on two that were possessed of the Devil, whose names were Geoffrey Boder and Jeanne La Petite; and the girdle of Saint Mary being shown on the high altar, they were allowed to touch the same, whereon they were healed straightway. And the Queen, with her own hands, gave them alms, a crown; and her oblation to the image of Saint Mary in the said church, being a festival, was a crown (her daily oblation being seven-pence the day); and to the said holy girdle a crown, and to the holy relics, yet another. Then came we home by the water of Seyne, for which the boatman had twelve pence. (Note 5.)
We dwelt after this full peacefully at Paris for divers weeks, saving that we made short journeys to towns in the neighbourhood; as, one day to the house of the Sisters Predicants of Poissy, and another to God’s House of Loure (Note 6), and another to Villers, where tarried the Queen of France, and so forth. And some days spent we likewise at Reyns and Sessouns. (Note 7.)