The Earl got audience of the French King at Mezelais.  Walking alone came this Earl of Aquitaine, with a large retinue, into the hall where the barons of France stood according to their rank; in unadorned russet were the big Earl and his attendants, but upon the scarlets and purples of the French lords many jewels shone:  it was as though through a corridor of gayly painted sunlit glass that the grave Earl came to the dais where sat King Philippe.

The King had risen at close sight of the new envoy, and had gulped once or twice, and without speaking, had hurriedly waved his lords out of ear-shot.  The King’s perturbation was very extraordinary.

“Fair cousin,” the Earl now said, without any prelude, “four years ago I was affianced to your sister, Dame Blanch.  You stipulated that Gascony be given up to you in guaranty, as a settlement on any children I might have by that incomparable lady.  I assented, and yielded you the province, upon the understanding, sworn to according to the faith of loyal kings, that within forty days you assign to me its seignory as your vassal.  And I have had of you since then neither my province nor my betrothed wife, but only excuses, Sire Philippe.”

With eloquence the Frenchman touched upon the emergencies to which the public weal so often drives men of high station, and upon his private grief over the necessity—­unavoidable, alas!—­of returning a hard answer before the council; and became so voluble that Sire Edward merely laughed in that big-lunged and disconcerting way of his, and afterward lodged for a week at Mezelais, nominally passing by his minor title of Earl of Aquitaine, and as his own ambassador.

Negotiations became more swift of foot, since a man serves himself with zeal.  In addition, the French lords could make nothing of a politician so thick-witted that he replied to every consideration of expediency with a parrot-like reiteration of the circumstance that already the bargain was signed and sworn to:  in consequence, while daily they fumed over his stupidity, daily he gained his point.  During this period he was, upon one pretext or another, very often in the company of his affianced wife, Dame Blanch.

This lady, I must tell you, was the handsomest of her day; there could nowhere be found a creature more agreeable to every sense; and she compelled the adoring regard of men, it is recorded, not gently but in an imperious fashion.  Sire Edward, who, till this, had loved her merely by report, and, in accordance with the high custom of old, through many perusals of her portrait, now appeared besotted.  He was an aging man, near sixty, huge and fair, with a crisp beard, and the bright unequal eyes of Manuel of Poictesme.  The better-read at Mezelais began to liken this so candidly enamored monarch and his Princess to Sieur Hercules at the feet of Queen Omphale.

The court hunted and slew a stag of ten in the woods of Ermenoueil, which stand thick about the chateau; and at the hunt’s end, these two had dined at Rigon the forester’s hut, in company with Dame Meregrett, the French King’s younger sister.  She sat a little apart from the betrothed, and stared through the hut’s one window.  We know, nowadays, it was not merely the trees she was considering.