“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 de Sille, all his trusted companions, in the great room, the plates and the ewers filled with water of medlar, rose, and melilote for washing the hands, were placed on credences.  Gilles ate beef-, salmon-, and bream-pies; levert-and squab-tarts; roast heron, stork, crane, peacock, bustard, and swan; venison in verjuice; Nantes lampreys; salads of briony, hops, beard of judas, mallow; vehement dishes seasoned with marjoram and mace, coriander and sage, peony and rosemary, basil and hyssop, grain of paradise and ginger; perfumed, acidulous dishes, giving one a violent thirst; heavy pastries; tarts of elder-flower and rape; rice with milk of hazelnuts sprinkled with cinnamon; stuffy dishes necessitating copious drafts of beer and fermented mulberry juice, of dry wine, or wine aged to tannic bitterness, of heady hypocras charged with cinnamon, with almonds, and with musk, of raging liquors clouded with golden particles—­mad drinks which spurred the guests in this womanless castle to frenzies of lechery and made them, at the end of the meal, writhe in monstrous dreams.