On the morning before the royal banquet was to be given on May Day in the palace which Philip Augustus, while embellishing and paving Paris, had built beside the great tower of the Louvre, Hugh de Moreville rode out of the city with a little falcon on his wrist, and a spaniel running at his horse’s feet, as if to recreate himself with sport, and went fowling along the banks of the Seine till he caught a heron, which was the bird of which he was in search. Returning to Paris with the heron, he ordered it to be cooked, and placed between two dishes of silver; and, having pressed into his service two fiddlers, and a man who played the guitar, and secured the assistance of two young ladies--the daughters of a count--to carry the dishes, and to sing songs, he, at the hour appointed for the banquet, proceeded to the Louvre, and entered the great hall, where Louis and Blanche of Castile were presiding at a board, surrounded by young nobles of great name, and dames and demoiselles celebrated for grace and elegance. The prince had what is called the Capet face, with the large, long, straight nose, slanting forward, and hanging over the short upper lip, and was no beauty; but the princess inherited the features of her maternal ancestors, and was fair and fascinating to behold as in the days when, in her youthful widowhood, she won the heart and inspired the muse of Thibault of Champagne. Among the company were the Count of Perche, the Viscount of Melun, the Count of Nevers, and the young Lord Enguerraud De Coucy, one of that proud house whose chiefs had on their banners the motto disclaiming the rank of king:-- “Je suis ni roi, ni prince aussi-- Je suis le Seigneur De Couci.” “Open your ranks, good people,” cried Hugh de Moreville in a loud voice, as he entered the hall of the Louvre, with the two fiddlers and the man who played the guitar and the two noble demoiselles carrying the heron; “I have a heron which my falcon has caught, and which, methinks, is fitting food for the knights who are subject to the ladies, who have such delicate complexions. My lords, there should be no coward sitting at this board, except the gentle lovers; yet I have with me the bird which is the most cowardly of all others; for such is the heron by nature, that, as soon as it sees its own shadow, it is astonished, and gives way to fear; and, since the heron is so timorous, and the timid ought to make their vows on it, I opine that I ought to give it to my Lord Louis, who is so faint-hearted that he allows himself to be deprived of England, the noble country of which his lady and companion is the rightful heir; and, seeing that his heart has failed him, she is like to die disinherited. However, he must vow on the heron to take some step befitting the occasion.” Louis reddened perceptibly as De Moreville and the demoiselles stood before him with the heron, and his eye flashed with pride and ire.