All this points to some public excitement.  The town gate was opened full early, the booths about it did a great trade; at a quarter before seven Sir Gilles de Gurdun rode in, with his father on his right hand, the prior of Rouen on his left, and half a dozen of his kindred, fair and solid men all.  They were lightly armed, clothed in soft leather, without shields or any heavy war-furniture:  old Gurdun a squarely built, red-faced man like his son, but with a bush of white hair all about his face, and eyebrows like curved snowdrifts; the prior (old Gurdun’s brother’s son) with a big nose, long and pendulous; Gilles’ brother Bartholomew, and others whom it would be tedious to mention.  Gilles himself looked well knit for the business in hand; all the old women agreed that he would make a masterful husband.  They stabled their horses in the inn-yard, and went into the church porch to await the bride’s party.

A trumpet at the gate announced her coming.  She rode on a little ambling horse beside her brother Saint-Pol.  With them were the portentous old lady, Dame Gudule, William des Barres, a very fine French knight, Nicholas d’Eu, and a young boy called Eloy de Mont-Luc, a cousin of Jehane’s, to bear her train.  The gossips at the gate called her a wooden bride; others said she was like a doll, a big doll; and others that they read in her eyes the scorn of death.  She took no notice of anything or anybody, but looked straight before her and followed where she was led.  This was straightway into the church by her brother, who had her by the hand and seemed in a great hurry.  The marriage was to be made in the Lady Chapel, behind the high altar.

Twenty minutes later yet, or maybe a little less, there was another surging to the gate about the arrival of four knights, who came posting in, spattered with mud and the sweat and lather of their horses.  They were quite unknown to the people of Gisors, but seen for great men, as indeed they were.  Richard of Anjou was the first of them, a young man of inches incredible to Gisors.  ’He had a face like King Arthur’s of Britain,’ says one:  ‘A red face, a tawny beard, eyes like stones.’  Behind him were three abreast:  Roussillon, a grim, dark, heavy-eyed man, bearded like a Turk; Beziers, sanguine and loose-limbed, a man with a sharp tongue; Gaston of Bearn, airy hunter of fine phrases, looking now like the prince of a fairy-tale, with roving eyes all a-scare for adventure.  The warders of the gate received them with a flourish.  They knew nothing of them, but were certain of their degree.

By preconcerted action they separated there.  Roussillon and Beziers sat like statues within the gate, one on each side of the way, actually upon the bridge; and so remained, the admired of all the booths.  Gaston, like a yeoman-pricker in this hunting of the roe, went with Richard to the edge of the covert, that is, to the steps of Saint Sulpice, and stood there holding his master’s horse.  What remained to be done was done with extreme swiftness.  Richard alone, craning his head forward, stooping a little, swaying his scabbarded sword in his hand, went with long soft strides into the church.