The Miracle of the Great St. Nicolas / 1920

For Astronomy, mother of the Calendar, was Christian in those days. In 1429 Good Friday fell on the Feast of the Annunciation, so that one and the same day combined the commemoration of the two sever

urch of the Annunciation. For many years, by gift of the Popes of Rome, the sanctuary of Mount Anis had possessed the privilege of the plenary indulgences of a great jubilee, and the late

who exacted toll on the confines of their lands. Inasmuch as the mountain districts were especially dangerous, they tarried in the neighbouring towns, Clermont, Issoire, Brioude, Lyons, Issingeaux, Alais, till they were gathered in a great host, and then went forth on their road in the snow. During Holy Week a strange multitude thronged the hilly streets of Le Puy,-pedlars from Languedoc and Provence and Catalonia, leadi

nt Guillaume, looking as long and dry and black as an espalier

te the lace-maker, "look at y

atted beside her bo

beasts, and

ierre Grandmange the tripe-seller was saying as much, where he stood in his tripe-shop, pointing a finger at them. "'T would be sinful," he was crying, "to give an alms to such good-for-no

touch. Even so, he might have won his livelihood by teaching apprentices in his shop at the sign of the Image of Our Lady, under the choir buttresses of The Annunciation, for he was a fellow of good counsel and experience. But having had the ill fortune to borrow of Ma?tre Jacquet Coquedouille the sum of six livres ten sous, and having paid him back at divers terms eighty livres two sous, he had found himself at the last to owe yet six livres two sous to the account of his creditor, which account was approved correct by the judges, for Jac

the history of the beautiful Black Virgin of Le Puy and the ordering of the ceremonies of the great pardon, he had conceived the notion he might serve as guide to the pilgrims, deeming he would surely light on someone compassionate enough to pay him a supper in guerdon of his fine stories. But the first folk he had offered his services to had bidden him begone because his ragged co

al heat. I am sore a-cold. And it is but too true that, man and woman, they judge us by our dress. Th

the pilgrims were elbowing and fighting their way to th

Grand Friday, two hundred persons died stifled under the porch of The Annunciation

s crushed each other to death and departed from this world to the

t him assoiled with the same hot haste as the rest, but kept rolling his wide eyes to right a

o the pardon like a sheep to the slaughter. The rest of the folk go helter-skelter thither, the nose of one under the tai

a scurvy beggarman and could very well find his own way to The Annunciation for to receive pardon for his faults. And th

undred pilgrims have given up the ghost. And this is but a small beginning! Do you not know, messire, that twenty-two years agone, in the year of grace one thousand four hundred and seven, on the selfsame day and at the selfsame hour, under yonder porch, nine thousand six hundred

see the fellow tearing out his hair in fistfuls. In his terror he was for turning back the way he

laims you to be, you would live long and make your peace with God. Hearken to me; I am a scholar, a Bachelor. To-day the holy relics will be borne through the streets and crossways of the city. You will find great solace in touching the carven shrines which enclose the co

osing his hold of the pilgrim's jacket

rthy woman, that she may go buy us wine, for

supped on the leg and wing of a goose, the bones whereof he put in his pocket as a present for Madame

her storeroom wherein she hoarded walnuts and hazel-nuts, almonds and beech-nuts. She had awoke at the noise

oister, Margot of the Nunnery, sable-frocked Abb

goose bones nicely fol

entleman from Limoges gave me. His countrymen are radish eaters; but I have

y other good pilgrim with a well-lined travelling wallet,-fasted a solis ortu usque ad occasum, from rising sun