from treading on them. The Bailly did the best he could in the
circumstances. He made the innkeeper place a whole floor at their
disposal, and told him to provide everything they might desire, and
charge all to the city. Also the Bailly gave them a horse apiece and
furnishings; which so overwhelmed them with pride and delight and
astonishment that they couldn't speak a word; for in their lives they had
never dreamed of wealth like this, and could not believe, at first, that
the horses were real and would not dissolve to a mist and blow away. They
could not unglue their minds from those grandeurs, and were always
wrenching the conversation out of its groove and dragging the matter of
animals into it, so that they could say "my horse" here, and "my horse"
there and yonder and all around, and taste the words and lick their chops
over them, and spread their legs and hitch their thumbs in their armpits,
and feel as the good God feels when He looks out on His fleets of
constellations plowing the awful deeps of space and reflects with
satisfaction that they are His--all His. Well, they were the happiest old
children one ever saw, and the simplest.

The city gave a grand banquet to the King and Joan in mid-afternoon, and
to the Court and the Grand Staff; and about the middle of it Pere D'Arc
and Laxart were sent for, but would not venture until it was promised
that they might sit in a gallery and be all by themselves and see all
that was to be seen and yet be unmolested. And so they sat there and
looked down upon the splendid spectacle, and were moved till the tears
ran down their cheeks to see the unbelievable honors that were paid to
their small darling, and how naively serene and unafraid she sat there
with those consuming glories beating upon her.

But at last her serenity was broken up. Yes, it stood the strain of the
King's gracious speech; and of D'Alencon's praiseful words, and the