The compilers of the _Gesta_, however, simplify all these old claims by stating that the king (_i.e._ the duke) gave Geoffrey a sort of carte-blanche to take and keep anything he could get: “dedit Gosfrido comiti quidquid Rex Lotarius in episcopatibus suis habuerat, Andegavensi scilicet et Cenomannensi. Si qua vero alia ipse vel successores sui adquirere poterant, eâ libertate quâ ipse tenebat sibi commendata concessit.” _Gesta Cons._ (Marchegay, _Comtes_), p. 76. [Illustration: Map II. GAUL c. 1027. Key: _Fulk the Black_ _Odo II._ _Royal Domain_ Wagner & Debes’ Geogˡ. Estabᵗ. Leipsic. London, Macmillan & Co. ] CHAPTER III. ANJOU AND BLOIS. 987–1044. One of the wildest of the legends which have gathered round the Angevin house tells how a count of Anjou had wedded a lady of unknown origin and more than earthly beauty, who excited the suspicions of those around her by her marked dislike to entering a church, and her absolute refusal to be present at the consecration of the Host. At last her husband, urged by his friends, resolved to compel her to stay. By his order, when the Gospel was ended and she was about to leave the church as usual, she was stopped by four armed men. As they laid hold of her mantle she shook it from her shoulders; two of her little children stood beneath its folds at her right hand, two at her left. The two former she left behind, the latter she caught up in her arms, and, floating away through a window of the church, she was seen on earth no more. “What wonder,” was the comment of Richard Cœur-de-Lion upon this story; “what wonder if we lack the natural affections of mankind--we who come from the devil, and must needs go back to the devil?”[293] [293] Girald. Cambr. _De Instr. Princ._, dist. iii. c. 27 (Angl. Christ. Soc., p. 154).