"Come, my children," said the seigneur of Chivry, resignedly, "I shall start my song all over again at to-morrow's feast;" and then added: "Let the maids of honor kindly accompany the bride, according to custom, as far as the door of the nuptial chamber." At these words several of the young ladies regretfully quitted the knights near whom they sat and surrounded the bride, while Conrad walked around the immense table to join his wife, and two pages threw open the doors of the bridal chamber, brilliantly lighted by torches of perfumed wax. The nuptial couch was seen at the end of the chamber, surmounted with an armorial canopy, and half concealed behind curtains of tapestry that glistened with silver thread. Suddenly the voice of Gerard of Chaumontel, more and more intoxicated, was heard crying: "Noble dames and damosels, I request leave to prove to you that I am a man ... of singular powers of divination!" "Prove it! Prove it!" gayly came from the guests. "Prove it to us, to-night! We listen! Give us the proof!" "Last year," proceeded Gerard, "on the day of the tourney of Nointel, where all of you were present, and where Jacques Bonhomme kicked some capers, Conrad ordered several of the scamps to be hanged, and to drown the one whom I vanquished in a judicial combat, all according to usage and custom." "I very much would like to see a villein drown," cried a lad of eleven years, son of the Sire of Bourgeuil. "I have seen villeins whipped, I have seen their ears cropped, I have seen them hanged and quartered, but never have I seen any drowned. Father, ... will you not have a villein drowned ... for me to see?... I would like to see a villein drowned.... I have taken the fancy." "My son," the Sire of Bourgeuil answered the child in a magisterial tone, "your interruption is unbecoming. You should have waited till the knight finished before expressing your wish to me." "Well," continued Gerard of Chaumontel, "the rustic whom I vanquished, at the moment of taking his first and last bath, cried out to me with the voice of a devil who has caught cold: 'You cause me to be drowned, you shall be drowned!' and to Conrad: 'You outraged my wife, your wife shall be outraged!'" "The knight of Chaumontel is tipsy," murmured several guests. "Such lugubrious stories about hanging and drowning are out of place at a wedding." "Enough, Sir knight! Enough!" "Drink your wine in peace, good Sir!" "Wait till I prove it to you ... how I am a man of singular powers of divination," continued Gerard. But the hisses drowned his voice, and the Sire of Nointel, shivering despite himself at the mournful recollection now evoked by his friend, took the hand of Gloriande whom the maids of honor surrounded and said to her while marching towards the nuptial chamber: "Listen not to the fool; he is tipsy.... Come, my beloved.... Love awaits us."