PLATE XI.
THE JOURNEY OF CHARLES VI. OF FRANCE, AND HIS BROTHER THE DUKE OF TOURAINE, FROM MONTPELLIER TO PARIS.
In the year 1389, the King, being then about 21 years of age, visited Toulouse, and many places in the south of France, accompanied by his brother the Duke of Touraine, and a great retinue. He remained three days at Montpellier, for, says Froissart, “the town and the ladies afforded him much pleasure.” However, he was impatient to return to Paris, and the following dialogue with his brother is quaintly narrated:—
“‘Fair brother, I wish we were at Paris, and our attendants where they now are, for I have a great desire to see the Queen, as I suppose you must have to see my sister-in-law.’ ‘My Lord,’ replied the Duke, ‘we shall never get there by wishing it, the distance is too great.’ ‘That is true,’ answered the King, ‘but I think, if I pleased, I could very soon be there.’ ‘Then it must be by dint of hard riding,’ said the Duke of Touraine. ‘I also could do that, but it would be through means of my horse.’ ‘Come,’ said the King, ‘who will be first, you or I?—let us wager on this.’ ‘With all my heart,’ answered the Duke, who would at all times exert himself to get money.”
Our Chronicler goes on to relate, that they quitted Montpellier at the same hour early the next morning, the King attended only by the Lord de Garencières, and the Duke by the Lord de Viefville. All four being young and active, they rode night and day, having themselves occasionally carried forward in carts when they wanted repose.
The King performed the journey in four days and a half; the Duke accomplished it in four days and one third; but it appears that the King would have won but for taking an unreasonable nap of eight hours at Troyes, in Champagne. It is evident that they must have made considerable exertions, as the distance is above 570 miles. Froissart tells us, that “the ladies of the court made great joke of the adventure;” and also adds, “you must know, that the Duke of Touraine insisted on the wager being paid in ready money.” The amount was five hundred francs.
This illumination is very neatly executed, particularly the distant landscape: the houses, seen over the wall, show that, whatever changes have taken place in monumental architecture, the houses of the people, or peasantry, have undergone little change in the simple principles of their construction since the fourteenth century.[Pg 56][Pg 55]
