that. This she had come to see after trying to love a robber—the only man who would have anything to do with her—but in a little while she found that even the robber despised her. These light-o’-loves must needs always have a lover or a child to fill their hearts, or they are most unhappy. As she could not get a lover, all her desire turned towards having a child; and, as she had all along been pious, she prayed unceasingly to God to send her one. So God took compassion on her and sent her a little girl. I will. not try to describe to you her joy—it was a passion of tears and kisses and caresses. She suckled it herself, and made swaddling-bands for it out of her coverlet—the only one she had upon her bed, but now she felt neither cold nor hunger. Her beauty came back to her—an old maid makes a young mother—and poor Chantefleurie went back to her old trade and found customers for her wares, and laid out the wages of her sin in swaddling-clothes and bibs and tuckers, lace robes, and little satin caps—without so much as a thought for a new coverlet for herself.
“Master Eustache, did I not tell you not to eat that cake? —In truth, the little Agnès, that was the child’s name—its baptismal name, for, as to a surname, it was long since Chantefleurie had lost hers—in very truth, the little one was more of a mass of ribbons and broideries than ever a dauphiness of Dauphiny! Among other things, she had a pair of little shoes such as King Louis himself never had the like. Her mother had stitched them and embroidered them herself, bestowing upon them all her art and the ornament that ought more properly to belong to a robe for Our Lady. In good sooth, they were the prettiest little rose-coloured shoes that ever were seen; no longer at most than my thumb, and unless you saw the babe’s little feet come out of them, you never would have believed that they could get in. To be sure the little feet were so small, so pretty, so rosy!—rosier than the satin of the shoes! When you have children of your own, Oudarde, you will know that there is nothing in the world so pretty as those little hands and feet.”
“I ask nothing better,” said Oudarde with a sigh; “but I must await the good pleasure of M. Andry Musnier.”
“However,” resumed Mahiette, “pretty feet were not the only beauty that Paquette’s child possessed. I saw her when she was four months old—a chuck!—with eyes bigger than her mouth, and beautiful soft, black hair that curled already. She would have made a fine brunette at sixteen! Her mother loved her more day by day. She hugged and kissed and fondled her, washed her, tricked her out in all her finery, devoured her—one moment half-crazed, the next thanking God for the gift of this babe. But its pretty rosy feet were her chief delight and wonder—a very delirium of joy! She was forever pressing her lips to them, forever marvelling at their smallness. She would put them into the little shoes, take them out again, wonder at them, hold them up to the light; she was sorry even to teach them to take a step or two on her bed, and would gladly have passed the rest of her life on her knees, covering and uncovering those little feet, like those of an Infant Jesus.”
“The tale is all very well,” said Gervaise, half to herself; “but where is Egypt in all this?”
“Here,” replied Mahiette. “One day there came to Reims some very outlandish sort of gentry—beggars and vagabonds—wandering about the country, led by their dukes and counts. Their faces were sun- burnt, their hair all curling, and they had silver rings in their ears. The women were even more ill-favoured than the men. Their faces were blacker and always uncovered, their only clothing an old woollen cloth tied over their shoulders, and a sorry rocket under that, and the hair hanging loose like a horse’s tail. The children that scrambled about between their feet would have frightened the monkeys. An excommunicated band! They had come direct from Lower Egypt to Reims by way of Poland. The Pope had confessed them, so they said, and had laid on them the penance of wandering for seven years through the world without ever sleeping in a bed. So they called themselves penitents and stank most horribly. It would seem they had formerly been Saracens, and that is why they believed in Jupiter, and demanded ten livres tournois from all Arch-bishops, Bishops, and Abbots endowed with crosier and mitre. It was a bull of the Pope that got them that. They came to Reims to tell fortunes in the name of the King of Algiers, and the Emperor of Germany. As you may suppose, that was quite enough for them to be forbidden to enter the town. Then the whole band encamped without demur near the Braine gate, upon that mound where there’s a wind-mill, close by the old chalk-pits. And of course all Reims was agog to see them.