The Headswoman

"It was a bland; sunny morning of a mediæval May;—an old-style May of the most typical quality; and the Council of the little town of St. Radegonde were assembled; as was their wont at that hour; in the picturesque upper chamber of the Hôtel de Ville; for the dispatch of the usual municipal business. Though the date was early sixteenth century; 2the members of this particular town-council possessed considerable resemblance to those of similar assemblies in the seventeenth; eighteenth; and even the nineteenth centuries; in a general absence of any characteristic at all—unless a pervading hopeless insignificance can be considered as such."
an excerpt
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