pt with their race under the ruins of the manor; the chateau had
fallen without the hamlet extending over its ruins; from a bourg of some
importance La Fauconnerie had come down to a small village, and had
nothing remarkable about it but the melancholy ruins of the chateau.

It would be impossible to imagine anything more miserably prosaic than
the houses that bordered the road, in regular order; their one story with
its thatched roof blackened by rain; the sorry garden surrounded by a
little low wall and presenting as vegetables patches of cabbage and a few
rows of beans, gave an idea of the poverty of its inhabitants. Save the
church, which the Bishop of St.-Die had caused to be built, and the manse
that had naturally shared this fortunate privilege, only one house rose
above the condition of a thatched cottage; this was the tavern called 'La
Femme-sans-Tete', and kept by Madame Gobillot, an energetic woman, who
did not suggest in the least the name of her establishment, "The Headless
Woman."

A large sign shared with the inevitable bunch of juniper, the honor of
decorating the entrance and justified an appellation one might have
regarded as disrespectful to the fair sex. The original design had been
repainted in dazzling colors by the artist charged with restoring the
church. This alliance of the profane with the sacred had, it is true,
scandalized the parish priest, but he did not dare say a word too much,
as Madame Gobillot was one of his most important parishioners. A woman in
a rose-colored dress and large panniers, standing upon very high-heeled
shoes, displayed upon this sign the rejuvenated costume of 1750; an
enormous green fan, which she held in her hand, entirely concealed her
face, and it was through this caprice of the painter that the tavern came
to have the name it bore.

At the right of this original figure was painted, in a very appetizing
manner, a pie out of whose crust peeped a trio of woodcocks' heads. A
little farther, upon a bed of watercresses, floated a sort of marine
monster, carp or sturgeon, trout or crocodile. The left of the sign was
none the less tempting; it represented a roast chicken lying upon its
back with its head under its wing, and raising its mutilated legs in the
air with a piteous look; it had for its companion a cluster of crabs, of
a little too fine a red to have been freshly caught. The whole was
interspersed with bottles and glasses brimful of wine. There were stone
jugs