her husband's house she
was met by the Seigneur's mother, who received her graciously, but
only one word did Azenor speak, that old refrain that runs through all
ballad poetry.

"Tell me, O my mother," she said, "is my bed made?"

"It is, my child," replied the chatelaine. "It is next the Chamber of
the Black Cavalier. Follow me and I will take you thither."

Once within the chamber, Azenor, wounded to the soul, fell upon her
knees, her fair hair falling about her.

"My God," she cried, "have pity upon me!"

The Seigneur Yves sought out his mother.

"Mother of mine," said he, "where is my wife?"

"She sleeps in her high chamber," replied his mother. "Go to her and
console her, for she is sadly in need of comfort."

The Seigneur entered. "Do you sleep?" he asked Azenor.

She turned in her bed and looked fixedly at him. "Good morrow to you,
widower," she said.

"By the saints," cried he, "what mean you? Why do you call me
widower?"

"Seigneur," she said meaningly, "it is true that you are not a widower
yet, but soon you will be."

Then, her mind wandering, she continued: "Here is my wedding gown;
give it, I pray you, to my little servant, who has been so good to me
and who carried my letters to the Clerk of Mezlean. Here is a new
cloak which my mother broidered; give it to the priests who will sing
Masses for my soul. For yourself you may take my crown and chaplet.
Keep them well, I pray, as a souvenir of our wedding."

Who is that who arrives at the hamlet as the clocks are striking the
hour? Is it the Clerk of Mezlean? Too late! Azenor is dead.

"I have seen the fountain beside which Azenor plucked flowers to make
a bouquet for her 'sweet Clerk of Mezlean,'" says the Vicomte Hersart
de la Villemarque, "when the Seigneur of Kermorvan passed and withered
with his glance her happiness and these flowers of love. Mezlean is in
ruins, no one remains within its gates, surmounted by a crenellated
and machicolated gallery."

There is a subscription at the end of the ballad to the effect that it
was written on a round table in the Manor of Henan, near Pont-Aven, by
the "bard of the old Seigneur," who dictated it to a damsel. "How
comes it," asks Villemarque, "that in the Middle Ages we still find a
seigneur of Brittany maintaining a domestic bard?" There is no good
reason why a domestic bard should not have been found in the Brittany
of medieval times, since such singers of the household were maintained
in Ir