e from the Hotel du Bec, before a large assembly of her father's
friends in their parish church of St. Lo, with sixteen "Farceurs"
dancing before the procession to amuse the people. "She is too
good-looking," said the Captain, "for me to prevent anyone from seeing
her;" and by this brilliant ceremony he gave a decisive check to the
prevailing custom of secret weddings in a private chapel.[39] The
description of the Chateau of Serifontaine, near Rouen, where the
gallant Don first met the old and sickly admiral and his pretty wife,
is as complete as almost any other I have seen, as a picture of a
great French nobleman's house at the beginning of the fifteenth
century.

[Footnote 39: M. de Bellengues lived in Michel Leconte's house, called
the Manoir de la Fontaine, which was disputed by the parishes of St.
Lo and St. Herbland. In it was a little chapel very fashionable for
private weddings, and a mysterious apartment which could be hired for
honeymoons. The Manor was bought in 1429, for the convenience of monks
visiting Rouen, by the Abbaye du Bec, from which the street took its
name.]

I have no space to quote the "Victorial" unfortunately, and from its
pages I can only hint at the abundance you may gather of the ordered
beauty and quiet of the place; of the chapel with its band of
wind-instruments and minstrels; of the gracious orchards and gardens
by the stream; of the lake that could be drained at will, to choose
the best fishes for the Admiral's table; of the five and forty
sporting dogs and the men who cleaned the kennels; of the long rows of
stalls, each with its horse, in the spacious stables; of the falcons
and their perches and their keepers; of the separate lodgings of my
lady, joined to the main building by a drawbridge, and filled with
dainty furniture. There, too, may be read how Madame went forth so
soon as she had risen from her bed, with her ten maids-in-waiting, to
a shrubbery where each sat in silence, with her rosary and her Book of
Hours; how they then set to picking flowers till it was time for Mass;
how breakfast followed, with chickens and roasted game upon a silver
dish, and wine; how they all rode out together of an early afternoon,
taking what gentlemen were there, and singing blithely till the fields
echoed as with the songs of Paradise. Into this delightful abode the
old Admiral had invited the sea-captain, who was a guest of Rouen. The
Spaniard was welcomed with a banquet on his arrival, at