on the left bank of the
Seine, led by an idle fancy, he ventured as far as that meadow which
has since been called the Pre-aux-Clercs and which at that time was in
the domain of the abbey of St. Germain, and not in that of the
University. There, still strolling on the Touranian found himself in
the open fields, and there met a poor young girl who, seeing that he
was well-dressed, curtsied to him, saying "Heaven preserve you,
monseigneur." In saying this her voice had such sympathetic sweetness
that the silversmith felt his soul ravished by this feminine melody,
and conceived an affection for the girl, the more so as, tormented
with ideas of marriage as he was, everything was favourable thereto.
Nevertheless, as he had passed the wench by he dared not go back,
because he was as timid as a young maid who would die in her
petticoats rather than raise them for her pleasure. But when he was a
bowshot off he bethought him that he was a man who for ten years had
been a master silversmith, had become a citizen, and was a man of
mark, and could look a woman in the face if his fancy so led him, the
more so as his imagination had great power over him. So he turned
suddenly back, as if he had changed the direction of his stroll, and
came upon the girl, who held by an old cord her poor cow, who was
munching grass that had grown on the border of a ditch at the side of
the road.

"Ah, my pretty one," said he, "you are not overburdened with the goods
of this world that you thus work with your hands upon the Lord's Day.
Are you not afraid of being cast into prison?"

"Monseigneur," replied the maid, casting down her eyes, "I have
nothing to fear, because I belong to the abbey. The Lord Abbot has
given me leave to exercise the cow after vespers."

"You love your cow, then, more than the salvation of your soul?"

"Ah, monseigneur, our beast is almost the half of our poor lives."

"I am astonished, my girl, to see you poor and in rags, clothed like a
fagot, running barefoot about the fields on the Sabbath, when you
carry about you more treasures than you could dig up in the grounds of
the abbey. Do not the townspeople pursue, and torment you with love?"

"Oh, never monseigneur. I belong to the abbey", replied she, showing
the jeweller a collar on her left arm like those that the beasts of
the field have, but without the little bell, and at the same time
casting such a deplorable glance at our townsman that he was stricken
quite sad