The expression that they came down the stairs and into the house shews that here also the staircase was outside.
In another fabliau De la borgoise d'Orliens (Barbazan, iii. 161), the burgher comes to his wife in the disguise of her gallant, and the lady discovering the fraud locks him up in the soler, pretending he is to wait there till the household is in bed:—
Je vous metrai privéement
En un solier dont j'ai la clef.
She then goes to meet her ami, and they come from the garden (vergier) direct into the chambre, without entering the hall. She tells him to wait there while she goes in there (là dedans) to give her people their supper:—
Amis, fet-ele, or remaindrez
Un petit, et çi m'atendrez;
Quar je m'en irai là dedens,
Por fere mangier cele gens.
She then goes into the hall:—
Vint en la sale à sa mesnie.
She afterwards sends her servants to beat her husband, pretending him to be an importunate suitor whom she wishes to punish: "he waits for me up there in that room:"—
Là sus m'atent en ce perin.
.....
Ne souffrez pas qvie il en isse,
Ainz l'acueillier al solier haut.
They beat him as he descends the stairs, and pursue him into the garden, all which passes without entering the lower apartments of the house.
The soler or upper part of the house appears to have been considered the place of greatest security—in fact it could only be entered by one door, which was approached by a flight of steps, and was therefore more easily defended. In the beautiful story De l'ermite qui s'acompaigna à l'ange (Meon. ii. 216), the hermit and his companion seek a night's lodging at the house of a rich but miserly usurer, who refuses them admittance into the house, and will only permit them to sleep under the stair-case, in what the story terms an auvent or shed. The next morning the youth (vallet) goes up stairs into the soler to find the usurer, who appears to have slept there for security:—
Le vallet les degrez monta,
El solier son hoste trova.
