There was a wine-seller's shop, as you went down to the river in the city of the Anti-popes.

There a man was served with good wine of the country and plain country fare; and the place being clean and quiet, with a prospect on the river, certain gentlemen who dwelt in that city in attendance on a great personage made it a practice (when they had any silver in their purses) to come and eat there and be private.
They called the wine-seller Paradou.

He was built more like a bullock than a man, huge in bone and brawn, high in colour, and with a hand like a baby for size.

Marie-Madeleine was the name of his wife; she was of Marseilles, a city of entrancing women, nor was any fairer than herself.
She was tall, being almost of a height with Paradou; full-girdled, point-device in every form, with an exquisite delicacy in the face; her nose and nostrils a delight to look at from the fineness of the sculpture, her eyes inclined a hair's-breadth inward, her colour between dark and fair, and laid on even like a flower's.

A faint rose dwelt in it, as though she had been found unawares bathing, and had blushed from head to foot.