The King and Queen showed all honour and affection to Du Guesclin.
Louis de Harcourt had been one of the foremost captains in the English war, and now came to Paris with the King’s brothers. Charles had suspected him sometime before of being in love with the Queen, and had regarded him with jealousy and anger in consequence, but having become convinced that he had been mistaken and unreasonable, que sans raison il avoit eu cette folle suspicion, he received him moult agréablement et joyeusement.[76]
While there can be no doubt that the court of Charles V. and Jeanne de Bourbon was much more orderly and more intellectual than those of the two first Valois kings, it does not seem so certain that it was equally amusing. It was stately and magnificent; comfort, luxury, and civilisation had greatly increased; there were splendid banquets, balls, and other entertainments, but the accounts of the daily life there, which have come down to us from that time, especially those of Christine de Pisan, who lived among the scenes she describes, show a very different state of things from the brilliant, reckless lives of pleasure and gaiety led by all who belonged to the Court of France in the days of Philippe de Valois and his son Jean.
The King got up at six or seven o’clock in the morning, and when dressed his breviary was brought him and he went to his oratory to hear mass; after which he gave audience to anybody who wished to ask him anything. In these interviews he treated everybody who approached him with the greatest courtesy and kindness. On certain days he then went to the Council Chamber, and at ten o’clock he sat down to dinner, music going on all the time of that repast. When it was over he devoted two hours to interviews with foreign envoys, or with any one bringing news from the seat of war,[77] or of any other matters of importance in different parts of his kingdom. Then he went to lie down for an hour, and after that, one reads with a feeling of relief, that he allowed himself a little pleasure. Christine de Pisan takes care to explain that this was only in order that he might work better afterwards, but one may trust that this absurd suggestion was only an idea of her own, and that the mind of Charles was not so saturated with duty and dulness as she would imply. At any rate, he amused himself during this part of the day by looking at his books, jewels, and different collections, and talking with his friends. Perhaps the most intimate and the one he loved best was Jean de la Rivière. There is a note of a ring he gave him, with a ruby in it qui tient au violet.
Next, the King went to vespers and then out into his garden, where generally the Queen was with him, and where curious and beautiful things were often brought to them by the merchants. In winter he had different books read to him; stories from the Scriptures, philosophy, romances, &c., till supper, and during the rest of the evening he amused himself. Jeanne also had some one to read aloud to her while she was at dinner.
The King’s devotion to the Queen had never changed. From his boyish days at the court of his grandfather she had been the only woman he had ever loved. Without consulting her he would take no step of importance, and he cared for no pleasure she could not share. They lived, as Christine de Pisan says, en paix et en amour. Charles delighted in finding and giving her beautiful presents of jewels, curiosities, objects of art, or anything that he thought would please her.
Christine de Pisan describes with enthusiasm the way in which Jeanne held her court, the order and magnificence with which everything was arranged, whether in the daily life of her court and household, or in the splendid entertainments and ceremonies of state. She speaks of the beauty and dignity of Jeanne, as she appeared at these festivities, wearing her crown, her royal mantle of cloth of gold, or of silk covered with precious stones, and a girdle of jewels, accompanied by two or three queens (the two Queens-dowager, Jeanne and Blanche, and the Queen of Navarre), by her mother the Duchesse de Bourbon and by all the members of the royal family and court.
The peers of France in the time of Charles V. were as follows: Original peers ecclesiastical, called Clercs Ducs, i.e., the Archbishop of Reims and the Bishops of Laon and Langres; Clercs Comtes, i.e., the Bishops of Beauvais, Châlons, and Noyon.
Lay peers, i.e., Dukes of Burgundy, Normandy, and Aquitaine; Counts of Toulouse, Flanders, and Champagne.
But the King held in his hands the Counties of Toulouse and Champagne, and the following new ones had been created.