It was just that hour.
Opposite the lofty cathedral, reddened by the setting sun, upon the stone balcony built over the porch of a handsome Gothic house at the corner of the square and the Rue du Parvis, a group of lovely young girls were laughing and chatting gracefully and playfully. By the length of the veil which hung from the peak of their pointed coif, twined with pearls, down to their heels, by the fineness of the embroidered tucker which covered their shoulders, but still revealed, in the pleasing fashion of the day, the swell of their fair virgin bosoms, by the richness of their under petticoats, even costlier than their upper garments （wonderful refinement!）， by the gauze, the silk, the velvet in which they were arrayed, and especially by the whiteness of their hands, which proved that they led a life of idle ease, it was easy to guess that these were rich heiresses. They were in fact Damoiselle Fleur-de-Lys de Gondelaurier and her companions, Diane de Christeuil, Amelotte de Montmichel, Colombe de Gaillefontaine, and the little De Champchevrier, all daughters of noble houses, just now visiting the widowed Madame de Gondelaurier, on account of Monseigneur de Beaujeu and his wife, who were coming to Paris in April to choose maids of honor to meet the Dauphiness Marguerite in Picardy and receive her from the hands of the Flemings. Now, all the country squires for thirty miles around aspired to win this favor for their daughters, and many of them had already been brought or sent to Paris. The damsels in question were intrusted by their parents to the discreet and reverend care of Madame Alo?se de Gondelaurier, the widow of a former officer of the king’s cross-bowmen, living in retirement, with her only daughter, in her house on the square in front of Notre-Dame.
The balcony upon which the young girls sat opened from a room richly hung with fawn-colored Flemish leather stamped with golden foliage. The transverse beams on the ceiling diverted the eye by countless grotesque carvings, painted and gilded. Splendid enamels glittered here and there upon sculptured presses. A boar’s head made of earthenware crowned a superb sideboard, the two steps of which showed that the mistress of the house was the wife or widow of a knight banneret. At the end of the room, beside a tall chimney-piece covered with armorial bearings and escutcheons, sat, in a rich red velvet arm-chair, Madame de Gondelaurier, whose fifty-five years were as plainly written in her garments as on her face. Near her stood a young man of aristocratic though somewhat arrogant and swaggering mien,—one of those fine fellows about whom all women agree, although serious men and physiog nomists shrug their shoulders at them. This youthful cavalier wore the brilliant uniform of a captain of the archers of the household troops, which is too much like the dress of Jupiter, described in the first part of’ this story, for us to inflict a second description of it upon the reader.
The damsels were seated, some in the room, some upon the balcony, the former upon squares of Utrecht velvet with golden corner-pieces, the latter on oaken stools carved with flowers and figures. Each held upon her knees a portion of a large piece of tapestry, at which they were all working together, and a long end of which trailed over the matting that covered the floor.
They talked together in the undertone and with the suppressed laughter common to a group of young girls when there is a young man among them. The young man whose presence sufficed to call forth all these feminine wiles seemed, for his part, to pay but little heed to them; and while these lovely girls vied with one another in trying to attract his attention, he seemed chiefly occupied in polishing his belt-buckle with his buckskin glove.
From time to time the elderly lady addressed some remark to him in a very low voice, and he replied as best he could, with awkward and forced courtesy. By Madame Alo?se’s smiles and little significant signs, as well as by the glances which she cast at her daughter Fleur-de-Lys while she whispered to the captain, it was easy to see that she was talking of the recent betrothal, and of the marriage, doubtless to come off soon, between the young man and Fleur-de-Lys; and by the officer’s coldness and embarrassment, it was plain that on his side at least there was no question of love. His whole manner expressed a weariness and constraint such as the young officers of our day would aptly translate by saying that he was “horribly bored!”
The good lady, utterly infatuated with her daughter, like the silly mother that she was, did not perceive the officer’s lack of enthusiasm, and did her best to point out to him in a whisper the infinite perfection with which Fleur-de-Lys plied her needle or wound her skeins of silk.
“There, cousin,” she said, plucking him by the sleeve that she might speak in his ear, “just look at her now! See how gracefully she stoops!”