Dinner, to show his gratitude for this friendly reception, invites the whole party to go to his feast, which is just ready; and Supper invites them to a second repast, and Banquet to a third. They accept the invitation of Dinner, and are served with _friture_, _brouet_, _potage_, _gros pâtés_, &c. Meanwhile Supper and Banquet look upon the party from “some high window,” and converse on the consequences likely to follow their excesses. This scene is represented in the first compartment of the tapestry, as it now exists (for it has undergone considerable mutilation), and is represented in our cut No. 254. It is a good picture of a seignorial repast of the fifteenth century. There are people at table, besides those enumerated in the morality, who are here indicated by their names: Passe-Temps at one end of the table, a lady to his left, and after her Je-Boy-à-Vous, who has Bonne-Compagnie by his side, and to her left Dinner, the host. To the right of Passe-Temps sits the lady Gourmandize, and to her right Je-Vous-Pleige (I pledge you), and next to him Friandize. The cups in which they are drinking are flat-shaped, and appear, by the colours in the original, to be of glass, with the brims, and other parts in some, gilt. The minstrels, in the gallery, are playing with trumpets. Among the attendants, we see the court fool, with his bauble, who had now become an ordinary, and almost a necessary, personage in the household of the rich; it was the result of an increasing taste for the coarse buffoonery which characterised an unrefined state of society. The court fool was licensed to utter with impunity whatever came to his thought, however mordant or however indecent. Beside him are two valets with dogs, which appear to have been usually admitted to the hall, and to have eaten the refuse on the spot. A window above gives us a view of the country, with buildings in the distance, and Supper and Banquet looking in upon the company. An inscription in the upper corner to the right tells us how these two personages came slyly to look at the assembly, and how through envy they conspired to take vengeance upon the feasters-- _Soupper et Bancquet_ _Vindrent l’assemblée adviser,_ _Dont par envie prestement_ _Compindrent de viengence user._ [Illustration: _No. 254. A Dinner Party in grand ceremony._]