[1. "La cour du Parliament, par arrêt, mist l'appellation et la
sentence dont il avoit esté appel au néant, et, néanmoins, ordonna que
le dit Roulet serait mis à l'hospital Saint Germain des Prés, où on a
accoustumé de mettre les folz, pour y demeurer l'espace de deux ans,
afin d'y estre instruit et redressé tant de son esprit, que ramené à
la cognoissance de Dieu, que l'extrême pauvreté lui avoit fait
mescognoistre."]



CHAPTER VII.

JEAN GRENIER


On the Sand-dunes--A Wolf attacks Marguerite Poirier--Jean Grenier
brought to Trial--His Confessions--Charges of Cannibalism proved--His
Sentence--Behaviour in the Monastery--Visit of Del'ancre.

One fine afternoon in the spring, some village girls were tending
their sheep on the sand-dunes which intervene between the vast forests
of pine covering the greater portion of the present department of
_Landes_ in the south of France, and the sea.

The brightness of the sky, the freshness of the air puffing up off the
blue twinkling Bay of Biscay, the hum or song of the wind as it made
rich music among the pines which stood like a green uplifted wave on
the East, the beauty of the sand-hills speckled with golden cistus, or
patched with gentian-blue, by the low growing _Gremille couchée_, the