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Updated: June 26, 2025
Their bare shoulders were blue with the cold of the great room, and their dresses lay in heaps upon sheets that were spread about the clean floor brocades sewn with pearls, velvets that were inlaid with filagree work, indoor furs and coifs of fine lawn that were delicately edged with black thread. The high sounds of their laughter had reached through the door, but a dead silence fell.
The crowd was dense thereabouts, and the people pushed and jostled one another, leaned forward, and stood on tiptoe to see the brocaded ladies in their jewelled coifs and the men, hooded and strange, in their gay mediæval garb. The Marchesa's cloth of gold drew the prolonged "Oh!" of admiration that is only accorded to the better kind of fireworks, and hearing it, she smiled, well satisfied.
First of all came recollections of the college, the old, dank convent, that extended as far as the town ramparts; the two courtyards with their huge plane trees; the slimy sedge-covered pond, where they had learned to swim, and the class-rooms with dripping plaster walls on the ground floor; then the refectory, with its atmosphere constantly poisoned by the fumes of dish-water; the dormitory of the little ones, famous for its horrors, the linen room, and the infirmary, full of gentle sisters, nuns in black gowns who looked so sweet beneath their white coifs.
In heaven, I grant, replied Homenas; but we have another here on earth, do you see? Ay, marry have we, said Rhizotome; but on my soul I protest I had quite forgot it. Well then, by the virtue of god the pope, their pinners, neck-ruffs, bib, coifs, and other linen turned as black as a charcoal-man's sack. Miracle! cried Homenas.
The Pardon itself, they all agreed, was wonderfully impressive and picturesque, as Baedeker had promised. The little chapel on the cliffs was stuffed with kneeling women in their stiff, starched coifs and heavy velvet-trimmed skirts.
Here is a second sky faintly blue, with a trailing saffron scarf of cloud; there, the inverted silhouettes of two fish-wives are conical shapes, their coifs and wet skirts startlingly distinct in tones; beyond, sails a fantastic fleet, with polychrome sails, each spar, masthead, and wrinkled sail as sharply outlined as if chiselled in relief.
All the cold provisions had been laid upon the table. The serving woman in the kitchen had received full instruction as to those that remained in or about the stove. The ladies had doffed their big aprons, and had donned their Sunday coifs and kerchiefs and better gowns, and were now assembled in the upper parlour, where the spinning wheels stood, ready to receive the guests when they should come.
"The devil! that is worse still," murmured Pollnitz. "And the valet- -with him also does the king remain king?" "Yes, so entirely, that he scarcely allows his valet to touch him. He shaves, coifs, and dresses himself." "My God! who, then, has any influence over him? To whom can I turn to obtain a favor for me?" "To his dogs, dear baron; they are now the only influential dependants!"
Boar-spears, pikes, hunting-knives and horns, fishing-nets, falcon coifs, implements of war, lances, francisques or double edged axes, swords, bucklers and shields painted in garish colors all these are ranged along the walls.
There was much dancing. Cheeks flushed and dark eyes flashed as the brilliant coifs and light-coloured dresses whirled round and round. I found more feminine beauty in this south-eastern corner of the Bordelais than I had seen for a very long time among the French peasants. The young women here are well and delicately formed, and have an erect and graceful carriage.
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