Soon after her accession to Artois, her two daughters married sons of King Philip le Bel, and her little son, Robert, then became her principal care. A little boy of noble family had been chosen as his companion to share in his education and to join with him in play. It would seem that the two were treated on an absolute equality, even to having their doublets cut from the same piece of cloth, and their tunics and cloaks trimmed with the same fur. Beyond their ordinary lessons, they were early taught the games of tables and chess, both of which were considered essential to a knight’s education. They also rode to the chase and attended tournaments, and at the age of fourteen themselves held the lance as part of their training in the art of war. Robert seems to have been of a most inquiring and intelligent nature, but when he had scarce passed his seventeenth year, Mahaut, with scant warning, saw this her only son stricken in death just as he was about to enter the ranks of knighthood. In the archives of Arras, the Capital of Artois, may be found a discoloured parchment containing the inventory of the equipment provided for the youthful Robert in anticipation of his initiation. What sorrow is enshrined in these faded pages! It is not sorrow for death, but the bitterer sorrow for something that has never lived, or, rather, that has lived only in the heart, like spring blossom blighted ere fruiting-time. In the Church of St. Denis, where modern restoration has but emphasised the transitoriness and vanity of human glory, there can still be seen the tomb of this youth, carved soon after his death by Pepin de Huy, and once painted, as was all such carved work. Even to the mere student it is interesting as being the only existing monument that can with certainty be attributed to this celebrated sculptor, and also as being, in Gothic art, one of the first essays in portraiture in recumbent figures of the dead, as contrasted with mere effigy. For the deeper thinker it has even greater significance. Of all the good and great works that Mahaut conceived and initiated—the churches, castles, hospitals, which she built and enriched for the glory of God and the safety and solace of mankind—all have passed away. This simple tomb alone remains. But its very simplicity is eloquent, for around it there seems to hover that never-dying spirit of love and goodness and beauty to which, throughout her life, Mahaut contributed in such large measure, and which was her real and lasting gift to the world.
Life as mirrored in the Castle records gives little else than a pleasing picture of Mahaut’s relations with all her dependants, as well as with those with whom she was connected, whether by ties of friendship, of politics, or of the common courtesies of life. Her immediate household was naturally her first care. Twice a year, at Easter and All Saints, a distribution was made of cloth and furs. Some of these, fine and costly, were for those in personal attendance on the Countess, whilst others were in the nature of liveries. Others, again, of still coarser make, such as Irish serge, with sheep or rabbit skin for warmth in winter, were given to those of lowly service or who had specially rough work to perform. Her ladies-in-waiting, of whom there were always two or three, appear to have received for their services no money payment, but, over and above the cloth and fur already alluded to, gifts, on special occasions, of girdles and satchels (very often jewelled), gold chaplets, and gold and silver braid, jewelled, and used for twining in the hair. In addition to this, presents of jewels and silver cups were made to them by the noble ladies who came to stay with the Countess, just as she, on her part, presented similar gifts to those who accompanied her guests. How well we can picture to ourselves these maidens (for such is all they were), decking themselves in their girdles and jewelled braid, comparing their gifts, and perhaps even standing on some oaken bench the better to get a view of their finery, for the mirrors were small, and the girdles were long, and could not otherwise be seen in all their glory. When they married, the Countess made gifts to them without stint, not only of the beautiful and the needful for their wardrobes, but also of household goods, and sometimes, when she knew their parents or kinsmen to be too poor to provide the usual dowry, even of a sum of money. To the retainers also we find the same kind and helping hand held out. If any were sick they were taken care of, and, if needs be, sent to some place where they could the better be cured, as we read of one who, suffering from gout, was sent to take healing waters. To another retainer was given the necessary money to pay for his son on entering a monastery, another receiving the wherewithal to go to his native village to attend his mother’s burial. Old servants, past work, were cared for in the monasteries or hospitals, or given some post suitable to their years. To a poor knight was given money to enable him to buy a good horse and armour, for poverty of purse was no disgrace in the thirteenth century. At the beginning of winter a distribution, organised by the clergy and stewards of the rural communities in Artois, but superintended by the Countess herself, was made to the poor of blankets, garments, and shoes, and so arranged that the same person did not receive the like gift two years in succession. In truth, no details seemed too small, none too onerous, for Mahaut’s untiring solicitude. She had heart and brain for everything. It is these intimate touches which make the time so living and present to us, and which seem, as it were, to place this wonderful woman in a charmed and tranquil circle, in spite of the trouble and turmoil incidental to her life and her position.
Photo. Macbeth.
STATUE OF MAHAUT IN ABBEY OF LA THIEULOYE, NEAR ARRAS, NOW DESTROYED.
From a Drawing, now in Brussels, made in 1602.
To face page 99.
Amongst Mahaut’s many good works was the keeping in repair of existing religious houses, hospitals, and lazar-houses, and the building and maintenance of new ones. Of all the religious houses which she founded, her special care was for the Dominican convent of La Thieuloye, near Arras, the equipment of which, as set out in the accounts, may well serve as an example of that of the others. The items for the furnishing and instalment of the house and chapel include everything needful for the community, from gold and silver vessels, silver-gilt images of St. Louis, the Trinity, and St. John, for the sanctuary, and samite and velvet for chasubles, down to the bowls and platters for the nuns, the woollen material for their garments, and all the simple necessaries of everyday life. In the chapel of this nunnery was preserved a kneeling statue of Mahaut, representing her as foundress, in the habit of the Order strewn with the arms of Artois. Jean Aloul, of Tournai, has been suggested as the sculptor, since it is known from the accounts that he was working for the Countess at Arras in 1323. This statue (known to us through a drawing, now at Brussels, made in 1602) is of interest to-day because, judging from the character expressed in the face, it seems probable that it was a portrait, and not simply imagery. This conjecture seems all the more likely when we compare the statue with a miniature painted more than a hundred years later by Jean Fouquet in Les Grandes Chroniques de France (Bib. Nat.), portraying the marriage of King Charles the Fourth with his second wife, Marie de Luxembourg. In this picture a lady, heavily coiffed, and with features suggestive of those of the statue, but with anguish written upon them, turns away from the ceremony as if it were all too painful. If this unwilling guest represents Mahaut, her woeful look is intelligible when we recall the sad story connected with Charles’s first wife, Mahaut’s daughter Blanche, married when she was but fifteen, and whose beauty was so dazzling that Froissart records that “she was one of the most beautiful women in the world.” Accused of an intrigue with a gentleman of the Court, she was imprisoned in the Château-Gaillard, where she remained, with shorn head, until, shortly after Charles ascended the throne, the Pope declared the marriage null. Then, whilst the king wedded another, the sad Blanche exchanged her castle prison-house for a convent one, where she died a year after she had taken the vows. There is no reason for supposing that Mahaut was at the wedding of Blanche’s successor save in the imagination of the artist; but for him the inclusion of such a tragic figure would add a dramatic touch to the representation of an otherwise conventional ceremony.