"Very good," said Marguerite. "Then let him set his broken leg with his beautiful imagination. If he can cure his pain by imagining he has none, what must he be if he do not?"
"Well, I know what I should think him. But his father, the Baron de Montluc, will have it just the opposite—that there is no soul, nor anything but what we can see and hear."
"Ah! they will both find out their mistakes when they come to die," said Margot. "Poor blind things! The good God grant that they may find them out a little sooner."
I asked Guy if he did not think the Baron's notion a very dangerous one. But while he said "yes," he added that he thought Messire Renaud's much more so.
"It is so much more difficult to disprove," said he. "It may look more absurd on the surface, but it is more subtle to deal with, and much more profound."
"They both look to me very silly," said I.
"I wish they were no worse," was Guy's answer.
To-day we have been to the Church of the Nativity, at Bethlehem. This is a little city, nearly two leagues from Jerusalem, that is, half a day's ride. The way thither is very fair, by pleasant plains and woods. The city is long and narrow, and well walled, and enclosed with good ditches on all sides. Between the city and the church lies the field Floridus, where of old time a certain maiden was brought to the burning, being falsely accused. But she, knowing her innocence, prayed to our Lord, and He by miracle caused the lighted faggots to turn into red roses, and the unlighted into white roses; which were the first roses that were ever in the world.
The place where our Lord was born is near the choir of the church, down sixteen steps, made of marble and richly painted; and under the cloister, down eighteen steps, is the charnel-house of the holy Innocents. The tomb of Saint Jerome is before the holy place. Here are kept a marble table, on which our Lady ate with the three Kings that came from the East to worship our Lord; and the cistern into which the star fell that guided them. The church, as is meet, is dedicated to our Lady.
Marguerite wanted to know if I were sure that the table was marble. Because, she said, our Lady was a poor woman—only imagine such a fancy!—but she insisted upon it that she had heard Father Eudes read something about it. As if the Queen of Heaven, who was, moreover, Queen of the land, could have been poor! I told Marguerite I was sure she must be mistaken, for our Lady was a Princess born.