e St.
Romain, who passed solemnly out with the fatal missive in his hand,
and the canons at once proceeded to fill up the interval of waiting
with a huge dinner.

Followed by a number of the citizens the chaplain took his way towards
the Palais de Justice. There, too, ever since eight o'clock everyone
had been extremely busy. Two by two the members of the High Court of
Parliament in their scarlet robes had marched out of the Council
Chamber, with their four state officials in violet preceding them, and
a guard of the Cinquantaine before. In this chapel they all heard the
"Messe du Prisonnier," and then sat down to the enormous repast called
the "Festin du cochon," with which (on a smaller scale), every public
body and every household in Rouen fortified themselves for the doings
of that splendid day. By the end of dinner the chaplain and his cartel
had arrived, and the whole courtyard of the Palais was ringed with
crowds of people. Accompanied by his Prevot and four other members of
the Confrerie St. Romain, the chaplain was escorted into the great
hall, the name was solemnly read out, and the officials of the
Parliament went to the particular gaol in which the prisoner happened
to be kept. Bareheaded, with his irons still upon one leg, the man was
brought quickly to the Conciergerie, that his name might be
enregistered as a formal prisoner of the Palais; for all the legal
bodies were particularly touchy about their own prerogatives. When a
man could not walk he was carried, as was Antoine de Lespine in 1602,
who had been wounded in a duel two days before, and could only be got
to the Conciergerie in a clothes-basket.

After certain solemn preliminaries the prisoner was brought into the
great hall, and while all the councillors stood up he knelt before the
president to receive admonition for his past sins and pardon for the
future. Still bareheaded, he was then led out by the "huissiers" of
the court through the great open space in front, and as his foot
touched the pavement of the street beyond, a signal set the great bell
Georges d'Amboise ringing from the Cathedral tower. At the sound,
every steeple in Rouen rocked with answering salutations. "_Rura jam
late venerantur omen._" From every parish church for miles round the
ringers, waiting for the "bourdon's" note, sent out a joyful peal in
chorus, and every villager drank bumpers to the prisoner's health.
Himself, a little dazed we may imagine with this sudden tumult