o the poor chamber
of the inn, where an old woman, in black, wearing the cornet head-dress
her ancestors wore in the sixteenth century, waited with a candle to bar
the door as soon as he returned.

"All this," said Durtal to himself, "is the skeleton of a dead keep. To
reanimate it we must revisualize the opulent flesh which once covered
these bones of sandstone. Documents give us every detail. This carcass
was magnificently clad, and if we are to see Gilles in his own
environment, we must remember all the sumptuosity of fifteenth century
furnishing.

"We must reclothe these walls with wainscots of Irish wood or with high
warp tapestries of gold and thread of Arras, so much sought after in
that epoch. Then this hard, black soil must be repaved with green and
yellow bricks or black and white flagstones. The vault must be starred
with gold and sown with crossbows on a field _azur_, and the Marshal's
cross, _sable_ on shield _or_, must be set shining there."

Of themselves the furnishings returned, each to its own place. Here and
there were high-backed signorial chairs, thrones, and stools. Against
the walls were sideboards on whose carved panels were bas-reliefs
representing the Annunciation and the Adoration of the Magi. On top of
the sideboards, beneath lace canopies, stood the painted and gilded
statues of Saint Anne, Saint Marguerite, and Saint Catherine, so often
reproduced by the wood-carvers of the Middle Ages. There were
linen-chests, bound in iron, studded with great nails, and covered with
sowskin leather. Then there were coffers fastened by great metal clasps
and overlaid with leather or fabric on which fair faced angels, cut from
illuminated missal-backgrounds, had been mounted. There were great beds
reached by carpeted steps. There were tasselled pillows and counterpanes
heavily perfumed, and canopies and curtains embroidered with armories or
sprinkled with stars.

So one must reconstruct the decorations of the other rooms, in which
nothing was standing but the walls and the high, basket-funneled
fireplaces, whose spacious hearths, wanting andirons, were still charred
from the old fires. One could easily imagine the dining-rooms and those
terrible repasts which Gilles deplored in his trial at Nantes. Gilles
admitted with tears that he had ordered his diet so as to kindle the
fury of his senses, and these reprobate menus can be easily reproduced.
When he was at table with Eustache Blanchet, Prelati, Gilles