“To Etienne de la Groye, gardener, for having made in the said gardens certain trellises, arbours, and hedges all along the walls, inside.”[59]
We hear of some one being paid also for planting a pear tree, and lettuce is mentioned amongst the vegetables that mingled with the flowers growing in the quaint old garden. It must have been a strange place, with its stiff beds of roses, lavender, and sweet herbs, its formal paths and summer-houses, its long trellised walks under the huge, ancient walls, shadowed by a forest of frowning towers.
As the Queen’s apartments in the south wing of the château would not contain all the rooms required, some more were allotted to her looking west; and some to the King, who, out of consideration for the Queen, had given her the first floor and taken the second for himself. One of these was the bedroom of the King, and containing amongst other furniture one of two great beds, “pour le corps du Roy,” furnished by the courtepointier, Richard des Ourmes, at the price of twenty francs of gold each.
The King’s cabinet or study (estude) was lighted by one large window with painted glass, and four small ones, and hung with black drap de Caen. It had a high chair, a bench, a form (escabelle) and two bureaux. Green drapery was thrown over the furniture, and a high chimney with mantelpiece of stone warmed the room, which was most likely between his oratory and library. His chapel, or oratory, was vaulted, and heated by a stove in the winter.[60]
The furniture in the Louvre consisted of enormous cupboards, buffets, and heavy chairs or faudesteuils, all richly carved, illuminated, and sometimes decorated with gold and gems; benches, forms, settles, dossiers or seats with backs, covered with velvet, satin, or cloth of gold; an estendait, or kind of sofa is mentioned as being in one or two of the rooms; the walls were hung with tapestry, and there were plenty of carpets and cushions, some embroidered with pearls. Spanish leather was thrown on the floor in summer.[61]
The house linen seems to have been kept in chests in the bedrooms: a number of white silk sheets are described as being in a square box with two covers in the large window in the King’s room; and later in his palace called Beauté, in a gilded chest (coffre) in the room where the King slept, there were towels, tablecloths, and sheets of toile de Reims; also richly embroidered pillows, one of which had on it a knight, a lady, two fountains and two lions. There were couvertoers, or warm coverings for winter, and couvertures, or sheets of ornamental stuffs thrown over the beds in the day. One of these is mentioned as being of ermine, fastened to an old sheet of marramas, of which the King had caused a breadth to be cut off to make a chasuble.
The chimneys were of course high and open, with great fires on dogs (chenets) on the hearth. There exist bills for three chenets de fer for the Queen’s and other rooms, and for tongs, shovels, and tirtifeux. Also for bellows, “five new bellows carved and ornamented with gold.”
There are also bills from one Marie Lallemande, for blue and white stuff for the window curtains of the King’s and Queen’s bedchambers, and for eighteen feather beds with pillows; and from Jean de Verdelay and Colin de la Baste for six tables of walnut wood and a pair of trestles for the Queen’s rooms, and for the King’s large dining-room an oak bench with columns (un banc de chesne à coulombes) twenty feet long for the King’s larger table, with the daïs of the same length and three feet wide, and a dréçoir with a step round it in the same room (sale),[62] “et enfonsé le viez banc Sainct Louis, et une marche autour.”
The King was anxious to attract to his court any literary or talented persons that could be found, and being himself, like every one else of his day, a believer in astrology, he gladly welcomed a learned man and celebrated astrologer named Thomas de Pisan, a native of Bologna, who, delighted at his reception, sent for his wife and daughter and presented them at the Louvre, 1368. Charles took the whole family under his protection. He gave an income to the astrologer, and his daughter, the celebrated Christine de Pisan, was brought up at court as a demoiselle de qualité. Her father, seeing her talents, bestowed much care on her education. She was taught Latin and French, and not allowed to forget her native Italian; she also studied science and literature. At fifteen she was married to Etienne du Chastel, a young man of good birth and education, but small fortune, who was made one of the King’s secretaries. She became a distinguished writer, and is best known for her life of Charles V., written, after his death, at the command of the Duke of Burgundy. Her style is exceedingly pompous and fulsome, but some interesting details can be gained from her writings, and if they were not crammed with tiresome, prosy moral sentiments, and absurd flattery of the King, they might have been much more interesting and valuable still. After the death of Charles V., the prosperity of the family waned: her father lost most of his pay and died old and poor; her husband died 1402, and one of her sons died young. Her daughter became a nun at Poissy.
On the 16th of April, 1368, Lionel, Duke of Clarence second son of the King of England, passed through Paris on his way to Italy to marry the daughter of Galeazzo Visconti. The Dukes of Berry and Burgundy went to meet him at St. Denis and conducted him to the Louvre, where his room was “moult bien parée et aournée.” He dined and supped that day with the King, and the next day dined with the Queen “en l’ostel du roy près de Saint-Pol, là où elle estoit lors logiée et y fist-en très grant feste.”[63] After dinner when they had played and danced, the Princes returned to the Louvre, where Lionel stayed during the few days he was at Paris, being entertained by the different members of the French royal family. Lionel of England was a handsome and courageous Flemish giant, mild-tempered and amiable, possessing no great vigour of intellect.[64] Through his daughter married to Edmund Mortimer the line of York derived their claim to the English crown.