So I have only to tell you this: that at the moment when the story I am about to tell you begins it is noon, that it is May, that the highway we are going to enter is bordered on the right with furze bushes, on the left by the sea; you know at once all that I have not told you; that is to say, that the bushes are green, that the sea is murmuring, that the sky is blue, that the sun is warm, and that there is dust on the road.
I have only to add that this highway that winds along the coast of Brittany runs from La Poterie to La Piroche; that Piroche is a village about which I know nothing, but which must be more or less like all villages, that we are in the middle of the fifteenth century, in 1418, and that two men, one older than the other, one the father of the other, both peasants, are following the highway mounted on two nags trotting along comfortably enough for two nags under the weight of two peasants.
“Shall we get there in time?” said the son.
“Yes, it is not to take place until two o’clock,” replied the father, “and the sun marks but a quarter after noon.”
“Oh, but I am curious to see that!”
“I can well believe it.”
“So he will be hanged in the armor that he stole?”
“Yes.”
“How the devil did he get the idea of stealing armor?”
“It’s not the idea that is hard to get—”