reading. The account of the trial of Anne de Cornault, wife of
the lord of Kerfol, was long and closely printed. It was, as my
friend had said, probably an almost literal transcription of what
took place in the court-room; and the trial lasted nearly a
month. Besides, the type of the book was detestable. . .

At first I thought of translating the old record literally. But
it is full of wearisome repetitions, and the main lines of the
story are forever straying off into side issues. So I have tried
to disentangle it, and give it here in a simpler form. At times,
however, I have reverted to the text because no other words could
have conveyed so exactly the sense of what I felt at Kerfol; and
nowhere have I added anything of my own.



III


It was in the year 16-- that Yves de Cornault, lord of the domain
of Kerfol, went to the pardon of Locronan to perform his
religious duties. He was a rich and powerful noble, then in his
sixty-second year, but hale and sturdy, a great horseman and
hunter and a pious man. So all his neighbours attested. In
appearance he seems to have been short and broad, with a swarthy
face, legs slightly bowed from the saddle, a hanging nose and
broad hands with black hairs on them. He had married young and
lost his wife and son soon after, and since then had lived alone
at Kerfol. Twice a year he went to Morlaix, where he had a
handsome house by the river, and spent a week or ten days there;