A week before May Day Hugh de Moreville reached Paris, and did all that he could, on the part of the Anglo-Norman barons, to hasten the preparations, and hurry the departure of Prince Louis. Matters, however, did not go so satisfactorily as he could have wished. Philip Augustus was grave and reluctant; Louis, like his paternal grandfather, was pompous, slow, and somewhat sluggish; and the only person whose ideas on the subject moved as rapidly as those of De Moreville was Blanche of Castile, who inherited energy and intellect that would have made her, if of the other sex, quite equal to the occasion. As it was, however, De Moreville found much difficulty in persuading Louis to take the ultimate step which might expose him to the censures of the Church; and, on the eve of a great banquet, he conceived the project of surprising the prince into one of the vows of chivalry considered too serious to be broken or treated with indifference. Now among the vows of chivalry in fashion at that period the most solemn were known as “the vow of the peacock,” “the vow of the pheasant,” “the vow of the swans,” and “the vow of the cranes.” All these birds were esteemed noble; and the peacock was, in a particular manner, accounted proper food for the valiant and the amorous; and, when the vow was about to be made the bird was roasted, decked in its most beautiful feathers, and made its appearance on a basin of gold and silver, and was carried by ladies, magnificently dressed, to the assembled knights, who with all formality, made their vows over the bird in the presence of the company. But it was neither the vow of the peacock, nor the pheasant, nor the swans, nor the cranes, with which Hugh de Moreville was about to surprise the heir of France.