The next morning they all went, dressed in
black and with their iron chains twisted like collars round their necks,
to meet the Countess as she was going to church. And as soon as she saw
them thus attired, she began to laugh and asked them--
"Whither go such doleful folk?"
"Madam," said Astillon, "we are come to attend you as poor captive
slaves constrained to do your service."
The Countess, feigning not to understand, replied--
"You are not my captives, and I cannot understand that you have more
occasion than others to do me service."
Thereupon Valnebon stepped forward and said to her--
"After eating your bread for so long a time, we should be ungrateful
indeed if we did not serve you."
She made excellent show of not understanding the matter, thinking by
this seriousness to confound them; but they pursued their discourse
in such sort that she saw that all was discovered. So she immediately
devised a means of baffling them, for, having lost honour and
conscience, she would in no wise take to herself the shame that they
thought to bring upon her. On the contrary, like one who set her
pleasure before all earthly honour, she neither changed her countenance
nor treated them worse than before, whereat they were so confounded,
that they carried away in their own bosoms the shame they had thought to
bring upon her.
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