f wonderment, they
were a delirium of joy! She was always pressing her lips to them, and
she could never recover from her amazement at their smallness. She put
them into the tiny shoes, took them out, admired them, marvelled at
them, looked at the light through them, was curious to see them try to
walk on her bed, and would gladly have passed her life on her knees,
putting on and taking off the shoes from those feet, as though they had
been those of an Infant Jesus."

"The tale is fair and good," said Gervaise in a low tone; "but where do
gypsies come into all that?"

"Here," replied Mahiette. "One day there arrived in Reims a very queer
sort of people. They were beggars and vagabonds who were roaming over
the country, led by their duke and their counts. They were browned by
exposure to the sun, they had closely curling hair, and silver rings in
their ears. The women were still uglier than the men. They had blacker
faces, which were always uncovered, a miserable frock on their bodies,
an old cloth woven of cords bound upon their shoulder, and their hair
hanging like the tail of a horse. The children who scrambled
between their legs would have frightened as many monkeys. A band of
excommunicates. All these persons came direct from lower Egypt to
Reims through Poland. The Pope had confessed them, it was said, and had
prescribed to them as penance to roam through the world for seven years,
without sleeping in a bed; and so they were called penancers, and smelt
horribly. It appears that they had formerly been Saracens, which was
why they believed in Jupiter, and claimed ten livres of Tournay from all
archbishops, bishops, and mitred abbots with croziers. A bull from the
Pope empowered them to do that. They came to Reims to tell fortunes in
the name of the King of Algiers, and the Emperor of Germany. You can
readily imagine that no more was needed to cause the entrance to the
town to be forbidden them. Then the whole band camped with good grace
outside the gate of Braine, on that hill where stands a mill, beside the
cavities of the ancient chalk pits. And everybody in Reims vied with his
neighbor in going to see them. They looked at your hand, and told you
marvellous prophecies; they were equal to predicting to Judas that he
would become Pope. Nevertheless, ugly rumors were in circulation in
regard to them; about children stolen, purses cut, and human flesh
devoured. The wise people said to the foolish: "Don't go there!" an