FAVOURITE RECREATIONS
1. A DIGNIFIED MUSIC PARTY.
2. HAND-BALL AND CHESS
Both from Miniatures in MS., Fourteenth Century, “Valeur Maxime”
British Museum
To face page 50
The pretty legend of St. Martha of Bethany appealed to the young Queen-Duchess. In the crypt of the principal church of Tarascon is the tomb of the saint, and on the walls is her story sculptured. Once upon a time a deadly dragon,—called by the fearful country-folk “Tarasque,”—dwelt in a hollow cave by the Rhone shore, and fed on human flesh. News of the devastation wrought by the monster reached the ears of Lazarus and his sisters at Marseilles, and St. Martha took upon herself to subdue the beast. With nothing in her hand but a piece of the true Cross of Christ and her silken girdle of many ells in length, she sought out the deadly dragon in his lair. Casting around his loathsome body her light cincture, she enabled her companions to slay him. The girdle of St. Martha became the mascot of all the Tarasconnais, and everybody wore a goodly belt or bodice à la Marthe. Such a girdle, in cloth of gold and tasselled, was offered to the young bride by the loyal townsfolk.
The state entry of the Sovereigns into Angers,—the major capital of the King-Duke’s dominions,—was just such another pageant as that which greeted Queen Isabeau of Bavaria in Paris in the summer of 1385. From ancient days Angers had been a place of note—the Andegavi of Gallo-Roman times, a municipium and a castrum combined. In the Carlovingian era the Counts—then Dukes—of the Angevines,—founders of the great Capet family,—and their vigorous consorts nursed stalwart sons, who were the superiors of their neighbour rulers in Frankland. From Geoffrey Plantagenet, titular King of Jerusalem, sprang our English Kings. Louis IX.,—St. Louis of blessed memory,—bestowed the duchy of Anjou upon his brother John with the title of King of the Two Sicilies; hence came the sovereign titles of Louis II. and Yolande.