the laughing-stock of the whole world!"
Eglantine—"What do you mean?"
The Canoness—"You must now make the announcement, Marphise. How many of us have a clerk for their lover?"
Marphise—"Not one, dear languorous girl!"
Eglantine—"And how many are there of us with a knight for lover?"
Marphise—"Not one! (The eleven women look at one another in silent surprise.) Oh, dear friends! We have been shamefully played with. All of us have the identical lover! Yes, the villain Mylio the Trouvere has deceived all the twelve of us!"
Marphise's revelation first stupefies, then enrages the fair assembly. The bevy of pretty women did not have, as Marphise, the advantage of the necessary leisure secretly to habituate their minds to the thought, and to philosophise over their discovery. All the eleven mouths call for vengeance. The canoness invokes the punishment of the saints against the felony of Mylio; in her despair Eglantine declares that she will turn Bernardine nun the very next day. Tearing the chaplet of gladiolas from her hair, Ursine throws it on the ground, tramples upon it, and swears she will be revenged upon the shameless scamp. They then inquire from one another by what diabolical sorcery the infamous fellow managed for so long a time to keep his infidelity a secret. The recollection of his perjured vows adds new fuel to the rage of the noble dames. The anger of Marphise, who at first laughed over the adventure, is rekindled. She cries out:
"Fair friends, our Court of Love will hold its last autumn session to-morrow. It is a fortunate circumstance. The traitor shall be summoned to appear before our tribunal, that he may be tried in his own presence, sentenced and punished according to the enormity of his crimes. The Court of Love will judge the felon, the infamous criminal who has so shamefully deceived us."
Ursine (energetically)—"No! No! Let us pass judgment ourselves! The Court may, due to certain circumstances, display culpable lenity towards the monster."
Several Voices—"Ursine is right! Let us pass judgment ourselves! The felon should be punished by those whom he sinned against."
The Canoness (with unction)—"Dear sisters, why not try persuasion before rigor? Let me take Mylio far from the corrupt haunts of men, into some profound solitude, and there, if God should lend me His grace, I expect to lead the culprit to the repentance of his past sins, and the practice of exemplary fidelity in the future. We should have mercy for human frailty."
Ursine—"Aye, dearest, so that he may practice towards you, no doubt, that exemplary fidelity! Just look at the good soul! No! No! The scamp has deceived us shamefully. Justice and vengeance! Neither grace nor pity for such a felony!"
All the voices, the voice of the merciful canoness excepted, demand with Countess Ursine, "Justice and vengeance!"
Marphise—"My friends, we shall be revenged! The fellow gave me a rendezvous for this very evening at moon-rise. The sun is going down. Let us all remain here. Mylio will come into the orchard thinking I am alone. We shall then have him in our power—and shall act!"
Marphise's proposition is accepted unanimously, and amidst recriminations and imprecations of all sorts, the rage-mad Ursine is heard to pronounce the names of Fulbert and Abelard, and to mumble the words: "We must punish him!"
CHAPTER II.
GOOSE-SKIN THE JUGGLER.
Night has come; the stars shine in the sky; only the moon has not yet risen. In lieu of the laughing orchard of the Marchioness of Ariol, you now see one of the last straggling houses of a suburb of Blois, and far away a thick-leaved oak tree, under whose sheltering branches a stout man lies asleep. He might be taken for Silenus if he were not clad in a coat of brown cloth stained with grease and wine spots. His coat, moreover, is as torn as his linsey-woolsey jonquil hose. His shoes are fastened to his feet with pack-thread. The man's enormous paunch, which rises and falls to the cadence of sonorous snores, has snapped the horn buttons off his coat. His pimpled, shapeless, reddish and blotched nose has, the same as his bald head, taken on the winy hue of the juice of the vine that the sleeper is in the habit of quaffing in large potations.
Near him on the sward lies a chaplet of vine-leaves with which he covers the few grey hairs that are still left to him. Not far from the gay customer is his "rotte," a resonant hurdy-gurdy from which his nimble fingers know how to extract music, because Master Goose-Skin, for that is his name, is a skilful juggler. His Bacchic and licentious songs are unmatched in their efficacy to throw nuns, vagabonds and wenches into the best of humor. So profound is Goose-Skin's sleep that he does not hear the approaching footsteps of a new personage, who has just come out of one of the last houses of the suburb. The personage is Mylio the Trouvere.
Mylio is twenty-five years of age. Why speak of his face? His picture, whether faithfully drawn or not, has been described by Marphise and her companions. The trouvere's stature is robust and tall. On his black and wavy hair he carries, half-drawn to one side, a scarlet camail, the tippet of which falls upon and covers his wide shoulders. His white tunic of fine woven Frisian cloth, held closed over his chest by a row of gold buttons, is embroidered at the collar and sleeves with scarlet silk. Of his double sleeves, the outer ones, slashed and floating, are open almost up to the shoulders, while the inner ones fit tightly over his arms and are held at the wrists with gold buttons. From his embroidered belt hangs, on one side, a short sword, from the other an almoner. Mylio has recently been on horseback. We notice that, instead of the shoes with long points tipped upwards in the shape of ram's horns, as is the fashion of the time, he wears over his hose large boots of yellow leather embroidered in red and reaching up to his thighs. While Goose-Skin continues soundly asleep and snoring sonorously, Mylio stops a few steps away from the old juggler and remarks to himself with an air of no little concern:
"I have not been able to meet the Lombard merchant at Amboise, from where I now come; and he is not yet back at his house. The keeper at the inn where he usually puts up, claims he has gone to Tours to sell some silk goods. I shall have to wait for his return. Seeing he left Languedoc about two months ago, he surely brings me a message from my brother Karvel."
Mylio remains pensive for a moment and proceeds:
"Better than any other, Karvel deserves the name of 'Perfect,' the designation or title given to their pastors by the Albigensian heretics, as the Christian priests call this sect. It was no vain pride that led my brother to accept the title of Perfect. He was led thereto by the solemn determination to justify it by his life; and that life, lived so admirably by him, has been seconded by an incomparable wife, the good and gentle Morise. Never did virtue appear in more enchanting features. Yes, Morise is perfect as my brother is a Perfect. (Smiling.) And yet Karvel and myself are of one blood! Well, can I not, after all, say with the modesty so peculiar to the trouvere, that I am perfect after my own fashion? Have I not, although desperately in love with Florette, respected the girl? (A long interval of silence.) Oh! when I compare her candid love with the brazen love intrigues that have turned modern Gaul into a lupanar—when I compare with the stoic life of my brother the life of adventure into which the ardor of youth and the irresistible taste for enjoyment have cast me for the last five years, when I do that, then I am almost minded to follow the good inspiration that my love for Florette has started in my heart. (He reflects.) Certes, in these days of unbridled corruption, if he only has acquired some little renown, is gifted with as much audacity as recklessness in morals, and is a little better shaped than my friend Goose-Skin, who lies there snoring like a canon at matins, the trouvere who makes the rounds of the monasteries
