chamberlain is worth two of you, and I will beat you yet.  My dear Petit, I give you permission to search by night and by day, every nook and cranny of my house.  But come in here alone, search my room, turn the bed over, do what you like.  Only allow me to cover with a cloth or a handkerchief this fair lady, who is at present in the costume of an archangel, in order that you may not know to what husband she belongs.”

“Willingly,” said the provost.  “But I am an old bird, not easily caught with chaff, and would like to be sure that it is really a lady of the court, and not an Englishman, for these English have flesh as white and soft as women, and I know it well, because I’ve hanged so many of them.”

“Well then,” said the lord, “seeing of what crime I am suspected, from which I am bound to free myself, I will go and ask my lady-love to consent for a moment to abandon her modesty.  She is too fond of me to refuse to save me from reproach.  I will beg her to turn herself over and show you a physiognomy, which will in no way compromise her, and will be sufficient to enable you to recognise a noble woman, although she will be in a sense upside down.”

“All right,” said the provost.

The lady having heard every word, had folded up all her clothes, and put them under the bolster, had taken off her chemise, that her husband should not recognise it, had twisted her head up in a sheet, and had brought to light the carnal convexities which commenced where her spine finished.

“Come in, my friend,” said the lord.

The provost looked up the chimney, opened the cupboard, the clothes’ chest, felt under the bed, in the sheets, and everywhere.  Then he began to study what was on the bed.

“My lord,” said he, regarding his legitimate appurtenances, “I have seen young English lads with backs like that.  You must forgive me doing my duty, but I must see otherwise.”

“What do you call otherwise?” said the lord.

“Well, the other physiognomy, or, if you prefer it, the physiognomy of the other.”

“Then you will allow madame to cover herself and arrange only to show you sufficient to convince you,” said the lover, knowing that the lady had a mark or two easy to recognise.  “Turn your back a moment, so that my dear lady may satisfy propriety.”

The wife smiled at her lover, kissed him for his dexterity, arranging herself cunningly; and the husband seeing in full that which the jade had never let him see before, was quite convinced that no English person could be thus fashioned without being a charming Englishwoman.

“Yes, my lord,” he whispered in the ear of his lieutenant, “this is certainly a lady of the court, because the towns-women are neither so well formed nor so charming.”

Then the house being thoroughly searched, and no Englishman found, the provost returned, as the constable had told him, to the king’s residence.