her of a splendid silver goblet, in payment of the present he had just made her.  This young man had long hair, and was so handsome that the whole town wished to see him hanged, both from regret and out of curiosity.  You may be sure that at this hanging there were more caps than hats.  Indeed, the said young man swung very well; and after the fashion and custom of persons hanged, he died gallantly with his lance couched, which fact made a great noise in the town.  Many ladies said on this subject that it was a murder not to have preserved so fine a fellow from the scaffold.

“Suppose we were to put this handsome corpse in the bed of La Godegrand,” said La Beaupertuys to the king.

“We should terrify her,” replied Louis.

“Not at all, sire.  Be sure that she will welcome even a dead man, so madly does she long for a living one.  Yesterday I saw her making love to a young man’s cap placed on the top of a chair, and you would have laughed heartily at her words and gestures.”

Now while this forty-year-old virgin was at vespers, the king sent to have this young townsman, who had just finished the last scene of his tragic farce, taken down, and having dressed him in a white shirt, two officers got over the walls of La Godegrand’s garden, and put the corpse into her bed, on the side nearest the street.  Having done this they went away, and the king remained in the room with the balcony to it, playing with Beaupertuys, and awaiting an hour at which the old maid should go to bed.  La Godegrand soon came back with a hop, skip, and jump, as the Tourainians say, from the church of St Martin, from which she was not far, since the Rue de Hierusalem touches the walls of the cloister.  She entered her house, laid down her prayer-book, chaplet, and rosary, and other ammunition which these old girls carry, then poked the fire, and blew it, warmed herself at it, settled herself in her chair, and played with her cat for want of something better; then she went to the larder, supping and sighing, and sighing and supping, eating alone, with her eyes cast down upon the carpet; and after having drunk, behaved in a manner forbidden in court society.

“Ah!” the corpse said to her, “‘God bless you!’”

At this joke of luck of La Beaupertuys, both laughed heartily in their sleeves.  And with great attention this very Christian king watched the undressing of the old maid, who admired herself while removing her things—­pulling out a hair, or scratching a pimple which had maliciously come upon her nose; picking her teeth, and doing a thousand little things which, alas! all ladies, virgins or not, are obliged to do, much to their annoyance; but without these little faults of nature, they would be too proud, and one would not be able to enjoy their society.  Having achieved her aquatic and musical discourse, the old maid got in between the sheets, and yelled forth a fine, great, ample, and curious cry, when she saw, when she smelt the fresh vigour of this hanged man and the sweet perfume of his manly youth; then sprang away from him out of coquetry.  But as she did not know he was really dead, she came back again, believing he was mocking her, and counterfeiting death.