sense than of real tenderness of heart or generosity of soul. Such is the story of a discontented knight whose ill-will against his sovereign took the grotesque form of a wish that he had the neck of “that red-head Geoffrey” fast between the two hot iron plates used for making a wafer-cake called _oublie_. It chanced that the man whose making of _oublies_--then, as now, a separate trade--had suggested the wish of this knight at St.-Aignan shortly afterwards made some for the eating and in the presence of Count Geoffrey himself, to whom he related what he had heard. The knight and his comrades were presently caught harrying the count’s lands; and the biographer is lost in admiration at Geoffrey’s generosity in forgiving not only their depredations, but the more heinous crime of having, in a fit of ill-temper after dinner, expressed a desire to make a wafer of him.[635] On another occasion we find the count’s wrath averted by the charms of music and verse, enhanced no doubt by the further charm of a little flattery. Four Poitevin knights who had been taken captive in one of the skirmishes so common on the Aquitanian border won their release by the truly southern expedient of singing in Geoffrey’s hearing a rime which they had composed in his praise.[636] A touch of truer poetry comes out in another story. Geoffrey, with a great train of attendants and noble guests, was once keeping Christmas at Le Mans. From his private chapel, where he had been attending the nocturnal services of the vigil, he set out at daybreak at the head of a procession to celebrate in the cathedral church the holy mysteries of the festival. At the cathedral door he met a poorly-dressed young clerk, whom he flippantly saluted: “Any news, sir clerkling?”--“Ay, my lord, the best of good news!”--“What?” cried Geoffrey, all his curiosity aroused--“tell me quick!”--“‘Unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given!’” Abashed, Geoffrey asked the youth his name, bade him join the other clergy in the choir, and as soon as mass was over went straight to the bishop: “For the love of Him Who was born this day, give me a prebend in your church.” It was no sooner granted than taking his new acquaintance by the hand, he begged leave to make him his substitute, and added the further gift of a stall in his own chapel, as a token of gratitude to the poor clerk whose answer to his thoughtless question had brought home to him, perhaps more deeply than he had ever felt them before, the glad tidings of Christmas morning.[637] From another of these anecdotes Geoffrey seems, as far as we can make out, to have been the original hero of an adventure which has since, in slightly varying forms, been attributed to several other princes, from Charles the Great down to James the Fifth of Scotland, and which indeed may easily have happened more than once. Led away by his ardour in pursuit of the chase--next to literature, his favourite recreation--the count one day outstripped all