without lineage! Is one a lady without progeny? Nay! Look! . . . All
my neighbours have it, and I was married to have it, as you to give it
to me; the nobles of Touraine are all amply furnished with children,
and their wives give them lapfuls, you alone have none, they laugh at
you there. What will become of your name and your fiefs and your
seigniories? A child is our natural company; it is a delight to us to
make a fright of it, to fondle it, to swaddle it, to dress and undress
it, to cuddle it, to sing it lullabies, to cradle it, to get it up, to
put it to bed, and to nourish it, and I feel that if I had only the
half of one, I would kiss it, swaddle it, and unharness it, and I
would make it jump and crow all day long, as the other ladies do."

"Were it not that in giving them birth women die, and that for this
you are still too delicate and too close in the bud, you would already
be a mother," replied the seneschal, made giddy with the flow of
words. "But will you buy one ready-made?--that will cost you neither
pain nor labour."

"But," said she, "I want the pain and labour, without which it will
not be ours. I know very well it should be the fruit of my body,
because at church they say that Jesus was the fruit of the Virgin's
womb."

"Very well, then pray God that it may be so," cried the seneschal,
"and intercede with the Virgin of Egrignolles. Many a lady has
conceived after the neuvaine; you must not fail to do one."

Then the same day Blanche set out towards Notre-Dame de l'Egrignolles,
decked out like a queen riding her beautiful mare, having on her a
robe of green velvet, laced down with fine gold lace, open at the