“I do not know,” she replied.
“And what is she said to have done?”
She shrugged her white shoulders.
“I know not.”
“Oh, mon Dieu Jésus!” said her mother; “there are so many witches nowadays that I dare say they burn them without knowing their names. One might as well seek the name of every cloud in the sky. After all, one may be tranquil. The good God keeps his register.” Here the venerable dame rose and came to the window. “Good Lord! you are right, Phœbus,” said she. “The rabble is indeed great. There are people on all the roofs, blessed be God! Do you know, Phœbus, this reminds me of my best days. The entrance of King Charles VII., when, also, there were many people. I no longer remember in what year that was. When I speak of this to you, it produces upon you the effect,—does it not?—the effect of something very old, and upon me of something very young. Oh! the crowd was far finer than at the present day. They even stood upon the machicolations of the Porte Sainte-Antoine. The king had the queen on a pillion, and after their highnesses came all the ladies mounted behind all the lords. I remember that they laughed loudly, because beside Amanyon de Garlande, who was very short of stature, there rode the Sire Matefelon, a chevalier of gigantic size, who had killed heaps of English. It was very fine. A procession of all the gentlemen of France, with their oriflammes waving red before the eye. There were some with pennons and some with banners. How can I tell? the Sire de Calan with a pennon; Jean de Châteaumorant with a banner; the Sire de Courcy with a banner, and a more ample one than any of the others except the Duc de Bourbon. Alas! ’tis a sad thing to think that all that has existed and exists no longer!”
The two lovers were not listening to the venerable dowager. Phœbus had returned and was leaning on the back of his betrothed’s chair, a charming post whence his libertine glance plunged into all the openings of Fleur-de-Lys’s gorget. This gorget gaped so conveniently, and allowed him to see so many exquisite things and to divine so many more, that Phœbus, dazzled by this skin with its gleams of satin, said to himself, “How can any one love anything but a fair skin?”
Both were silent. The young girl raised sweet, enraptured eyes to him from time to time, and their hair mingled in a ray of spring sunshine.
“Phœbus,” said Fleur-de-Lys suddenly, in a low voice, “we are to be married three months hence; swear to me that you have never loved any other woman than myself.”
“I swear it, fair angel!” replied Phœbus, and his passionate glances aided the sincere tone of his voice in convincing Fleur-de-Lys.
Meanwhile, the good mother, charmed to see the betrothed pair on terms of such perfect understanding, had just quitted the apartment to attend to some domestic matter; Phœbus observed it, and this so emboldened the adventurous captain that very strange ideas mounted to his brain. Fleur-de-Lys loved him, he was her betrothed; she was alone with him; his former taste for her had re-awakened, not with all its freshness but with all its ardor; after all, there is no great harm in tasting one’s wheat while it is still in the blade; I do not know whether these ideas passed through his mind, but one thing is certain, that Fleur-de-Lys was suddenly alarmed by the expression of his glance. She looked round and saw that her mother was no longer there.