rascality these are your blades. The women are trulls. Yonder
she-thing in the man's habit is Huguette du Hamel, a wild wench,
whom men call the Abbess for her nunnery of light o' loves. There be
four of her minions with her now, Jehanneton la belle Heaulmiere as
they name her, Denise the slipper-maker, Blanche and Isabeau. Oh,
they are delectable doxies!"

King Louis pursed his thin lips in austere censure. "They shall be
reproved hereafter," he said. "Who are the men?"

"Worthy Adams of such pestilent Eves," Tristan answered. "That
slender fellow in the purple jerkin is one René de Montigny, of
gentle birth, and a great breaker of commandments. He with the red
hair is Guy Tabarie; they are sworn brothers in bawdry and larceny.
The ferret-faced knave who is tickling the girl's knee is Jehan le
Loup. Bullies and bawds, pandars and parasites: to enumerate their
offenses would be to say the Decalogue backward."

"You have a pithy humour, gossip," and Louis grinned. "Our gallows
shall be busy anon."

Tristan was abcut to open his mouth in approval of a sentiment so
pleasing to his ears when his words and his purpose were alike
arrested by a sound of a voice singing outside the tavern door.

The voice was a man's voice, something rough and strained for fine
music, and yet with a kind of full and florid sweetness that carried
the words clearly through the red-curtained windows. They seemed to
make a complaint of Fortune: