The vision is exhibited in the illumination after the true conventional style of Catholic legends. The ship and figures in the foreground, with the deeply serpentine waves, forcibly call to mind old engravings in some of our early printed Bibles,[Pg 101] which point to the source of such illustrations in the Catholic missals and illuminated Bibles, from which, with slight alteration, they were frequently copied.
The border is taken from another part of the volume, the one attached to the present subject being very similar to one already given. In the present border the arms of De Commines occur again, and, in this instance, on “a field of France,” as though under the protection of that power.[Pg 102]
The liberation of the Lord de la Riviere.
PLATE XXIII.
THE LORD DE LA RIVIERE.
One of the first acts of the regency of the Dukes of Burgundy and Berri was the imprisonment of nearly all the King’s late ministers and advisers, against whom many heavy charges were brought, but few proved. Sir Oliver de Clisson had the good fortune to receive timely information, and effect his escape. But the Lord de la Riviere and Sir John le Mercier were seized and thrown into prison, and all their estates confiscated. Their subsequent pardon is thus related by Froissart[11]:—
“The Lord de la Riviere and Sir John le Mercier, after having been carried from prison to prison, and to different castles, were at last given up to the provost of the Châtelet, and in daily expectation of being put to death, through the hatred of the Dukes of Berry and Burgundy and their advisers. They had been in this melancholy state for more than two years, without the King being able to assist them. He, however, would not consent to their execution; and the Dukes of Berry and Burgundy perceived that the Duke of Orleans strongly befriended them. The Duchess of Berry was incessant in her entreaties with her lord in their favour, more particularly for the Lord de la Riviere; but they could not condemn one without the other, for they were both implicated in the same accusation. The solicitations of many worthy persons, added to the justice of their cause, were of much weight; and several of the great Barons of France thought they had now sufficiently suffered, and should be set at liberty; for that Sir John le Mercier had wept so continually when in prison, his sight was weakened so, that he could scarcely see, and it was currently reported he was quite blind.