--Ed.
15 This is an allusion to the holy images, medals, and
chaplets which people brought back with them from
pilgrimages.--B. J.
All the company replied that it was not possible to give better advice,
and that they awaited the morning in impatience, in order to begin.
Thus they spent that day joyously, reminding one another of what they
had seen in their time. As soon as the morning was come they went to
the room of Madame Oisille, whom they found already at her prayers. They
listened to her reading for a full hour, then piously heard mass, and
afterwards went to dinner at ten o'clock.(16)
16 At that period ten o'clock was the Court dinner-hour.
Fifty years earlier people used to dine at eight in the
morning. Louis XII., however, changed the hour of his meals
to suit his wife, Mary of England, who had been accustomed
to dine at noon.--B. J.
After dinner each one withdrew to his chamber, and did what he had to
do. According to their plan, at noon they failed not to return to the
meadow, which was so fair and pleasant that it would need a Boccaccio
to describe it as it really was; suffice to say that a fairer was never
seen.
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