We decided to go that very day. A place is twice seen that is seen at once. Some discerning person had read me Froissart's account of the scene, and I had never forgotten it; the feastings and festivals that burst forth all over the city, till Lent came; and then the thrilling news that went flying through the country that the Saracens were marching against the Holy Land. This was a threat to all Christendom. It was difficult to imagine what it must have been to fear a possible invasion of those terrible enemies.
But the city was spared. The Pope preached a great sermon to his congregation of kings, exhorting them to take the cross. They all obeyed. And then the visionary pictures became a procession: the King of France with his retinue journeying westward into Languedoc——
"Languedoc?" questioned Barbara.
It was just before us across the Rhone; lovely brown hills on the horizon.
And so the royal company moved in picturesque progress through the provinces of France: Auvergne, Berry, Beauce, and so on, till they reached Paris.
"I should like to have seen it," said Barbara. "I wonder if they wore long robes and ermine."
"Perhaps not quite so beautiful a garb as that, but, thank Heaven, we know they didn't wear tweed suits! When the human race took to doing that they bid goodbye to the charm and romance of life for ever."
"But I think men look quite nice in tweed suits," said Barbara. "I am sure they would look ridiculous now in mantles and ermine."
"Oh, that's another matter. There is always something a little ridiculous about civilised man, 'rough hew him how you may'; but nothing brings it out so fatally as tweed."
Barbara remonstrated, and then wanted to know if I could remember any more.