It is taken from Charbon-neaux-Lassay’s very fine book: Le bestiaire du Christ. “People used to think that the hoopoe bird could hide entirely from the sight of all living creatures, which explains the fact that, at the end of the Middle Ages, it was still believed that there was a multicolored herb in the hoopoe’s nest which made a man invisible when he wore it.”

• Gaston Bachelard