The first two walked with the gait peculiar to Parisian women showing Paris to their country friends. The country-woman held by the hand a big boy, who grasped in his hand a large wheaten cake. We regret that we must add that, owing to the severity of the season, his tongue did duty as a pocket-handkerchief.
The child loitered （“non passibus ?quis,” as Virgil has it）， and stumbled constantly, for which his mother scolded him well. True, he paid far more attention to the cake than to the pavement. Undoubtedly he had some grave reason for not biting it （the cake）， for he contented himself with gazing affectionately at it. But his mother should have taken charge of the cake. It was cruel to make a Tantalus of the chubby child.
But the three damsels （for the term “dame” was then reserved for noble ladies） were all talking at once.
“Make haste, Damoiselle Mahiette,” said the youngest of the three, who was also the biggest, to the country-woman. “I am mightily afraid we shall be too late; they told us at the Chatelet that he was to be taken directly to the pillory.”
“Nonsense! What do you mean, Damoiselle Oudarde Musnier?” replied the other Parisian. “He is to spend two hours in the pillory. We have plenty of time. Did you ever see any one pilloried, my dear Mahiette?”
“Yes,” said the country-woman, “at Rheims.”
“Pooh! What’s your pillory at Rheims? A miserable cage, where they turn nothing but peasants! A fine sight, truly!”
“Nothing but peasants!” said Mahiette, “in the Clothmarket! at Rheims! We’ve seen some very fine criminals there,—people who had killed both father and mother! Peasants, indeed! What do you take us for, Gervaise?”
The country-lady was certainly on the verge of losing her temper in defense of her pillory. Fortunately the discreet Damoiselle Oudarde Musnier changed the subject in time:— “By-the-bye, Damoiselle Mahiette, what do you say to our Flemish ambassadors? Have you any as fine at Rheims?”
“I confess,” answered Mahiette, “that there is no place like Paris for seeing such Flemings as those.”
“Did you see among the embassy that great ambassador who is a hosier?” asked Oudarde.
“Yes,” responded Mahiette. “He looks like a regular Saturn.”
“And that fat one with the smooth face?” added Gervaise. “And that little fellow with small eyes and red lids, as ragged and hairy as a head of thistle?”
“Their horses were the finest sight,” said Oudarde, “dressed out in the fashion of their country.”
“Oh, my dear,” interrupted the rustic Mahiette, assuming an air of superiority in her turn, “what would you say if you had seen, in 1461, at the coronation at Rheims, now eighteen years ago, the horses of the princes and of the king’s escort? Housings and trappings of every description: some of damask cloth, of fine cloth of gold, trimmed with sable; others, of velvet, trimmed with ermines’ tails; others, loaded down with goldsmiths’ work and great gold and silver bells! And the money that it must have cost! And the lovely page-boys that rode on them!”
“That does not alter the fact,” drily responded Damoiselle Oudarde, “that the Flemings have very fine horses, and that they had a splendid supper last night given them by the Provost at the H?tel-de-Ville, where they were treated to sugar-plums, hippocras, spices, and other rarities.”
“What are you talking about, neighbor!” cried Gervaise. “It was at the Petit-Bourbon, with the Cardinal, that the Flemings supped.”
“Not at all. At the H?tel-de-Ville!”
“Yes, indeed. At the Petit-Bourbon!”
“So surely was it at the H?tel-de-Ville,” returned Oudarde, sharply, “that Doctor Scourable made them a speech in Latin with which they seemed mightily pleased. It was my husband, who is one of the licensed copyists, who told me so.”
“So surely was it at the Petit-Bourbon,” replied Gervaise, with no whit less of animation, “that I can give you a list of what the Cardinal’s attorney treated them to: Twelve double quarts of hippocras, white, yellow, and red; twenty-four boxes of double-gilt Lyons marchpane; as many wax torches of two pounds each, and six half-casks of Beaune wine, red and white, the best to be found. I hope that’s decisive. I have it from my husband, who is captain of fifty men in the Commonalty Hall, and who was only this morning comparing the Flemish ambassadors with those sent by Prester John and the Emperor of Trebizond, who came from Mesopotamia to Paris during the reign of the last king, and who had rings in their ears.”