These six entered the tent pitched for the conferencethe hanging of blue velvet embroidered with fleurs-de-lys of gold blurred before the girl's eyes,and there the Earl of Warwick embarked upon a sea of rhetoric.

Hanging to its neck were the King's armsthat is to say, three gold fleur-de-lys on an azure shield....

That line with the monosyllable lys like a sprig, evoked the image of something rigid, slender and white; it rhymed with the substantive ingenuite, allegorically expressing, by a single term, the passion, the effervescence, the fugitive mood of a virgin faun amorously distracted by the sight of nymphs.

[Illustration: CIRQUE OF THE VALLÉE DU LYS NEAR BAGNÈRES-DE LUCHON.]

It also extends beyond the Lys to the little island on which is situated the church of St. Michael, and again to the islet formed between the Lieve and the Lys, which contains the château of the Counts and the Palace Ste.