e
square near the fountain where the herb market is. Then the good man
Bruyn clearly and dextrously demonstrated to the others that it would
be a thing most profitable and pleasant to God to gain over this
African soul to the true religion, and if the devil were lodged in
this feminine body the faggots would be useless to burn him, as said
the said order. To which the archbishop sagely thought most canonical
and conformable to Christian charity and the gospel. The ladies of the
town and other persons of authority said loudly that they were cheated
of a fine ceremony, since the Mooress was crying her eyes out in the
jail and would certainly be converted to God in order to live as long
as a crow, if she were allowed to do so, to which the seneschal
replied that if the foreigner would wholly commit herself to the
Christian religion there would be a gallant ceremony of another kind,
and that he would undertake that it should be royally magnificent,
because he would be her sponsor at the baptismal font, and that a
virgin should be his partner in the affair in order the better to
please the Almighty, while himself was reputed never to have lost the
bloom or innocence, in fact to be a coquebin. In our country of
Touraine thus are called the young virgin men, unmarried or so
esteemed to distinguish them from the husbands and the widowers, but
the girls always pick them without the name, because they are more
light-hearted and merry than those seasoned in marriage.

The young Mooress did not hesitate between the flaming faggots and the
baptismal water. She much preferred to be a Christian and live than be
Egyptian and be burned; thus to escape a moment's baking, her heart
would burn unquenched through all her life, since for the greater
surety of her religion she was placed in the convent of nuns near
Chardonneret, where she took the vow of sanctity. The said ceremony
was concluded at the residence of the archbishop, where on this
occasion, in honour of the Saviour or men, the lords and ladies of
Touraine hopped, skipped and danced, for in this country the people
dance, skip, eat, flirt, have more feasts and make merrier than any in
the whole world. The good old seneschal had taken for his associate
the daughter of the lord of Azay-le-Ridel, which afterwards became
Azay-le-Brusle, the which lord being a Crusader was left before Acre,
a far distant town, in the hands of a Saracen who demanded a royal
ransom for him because the s