Pictures of the old French court

by Mrs. Bearne

The doublets and justaucorps were of silk or velvet, and sometimes padded with wadding so as not to wrinkle; and worn with jewelled girdle, dagger, and purse. They cut their hair short, and wore pointed beards. Charles VI. wore short jackets with large sleeves and short tunic. One of the most costly, fashionable, and, it would seem, comfortable garments was the houppelande, worn both by men and women. This was an enormously long trailing robe or mantle with loose sleeves, made of cloth, silk, or velvet, and trimmed with fur and rich embroideries; high collar and gold chains.[109] It had not hitherto been customary for the King himself to take part in the games and sports which were the delight of the court, but Charles who had of course as Dauphin been too young to ride in joustes and tournaments, had no idea of being for ever deprived of his favourite amusement, but distinguished himself in the lists like the other young chevaliers of his court.

The King’s uncles (brothers of Charles V.) were, as has been before observed, most deplorable guides and guardians to their nephews and France. The Duc de Bourgogne was by far the best, as he had many noble qualities, and his overwhelming pride and ambition were at any rate not unsuitable to a great soldier and the most powerful prince in France. The favourite son and brother of the two last kings, he had stood by his father’s side at Poitiers at thirteen years old, fighting to the last, had been carried prisoner with him to England, and had been rewarded by the promise of the duchy of Burgundy, which was accordingly conferred on him by his brother, Charles V. At the coronation of his nephew, he had insisted on taking precedence of his elder brother, the Duc d’Anjou, much to the indignation of that prince; as he contended that the duchy of Burgundy made him the premier peer of France. He had married the heiress of Flanders, widow at eleven years old of Philippe de Rouvre, Duc de Bourgogne, and with that haughty and determined princess he lived on terms of such unbroken affection and confidence as to be the wonder of the court. He was much influenced by her, and, unlike most of the princes, no illegitimate child was ever recognised as his.[110]

The Duc de Berry, without the great qualities of his brother, was greedy after money, and a cruel oppressor of the people, but he spent what he wrung from them with royal magnificence in art, literature, splendid palaces, and a great household.

The Duc d’Anjou was the handsomest of the brothers, and the most unpopular, for he was just as cruel and extortionate as the Duc de Berry, and did not spend his money in Paris, but hoarded it up with a view to providing the means of securing that Italian kingdom of which he had always been dreaming, and to which every one in France rejoiced when he had gone. But he died in 1385, and his widow, Marie de Bretagne, Queen-dowager of Sicily, was now at Paris with her two young sons, Louis II. and Charles, whose guardian she was.

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In the early part of 1389, the Pope sent word to her that an attempt was being made by another claimant to get possession of the kingdom of Sicily. She went at once to her nephew, asking for help, which Charles was always ready to give on an occasion of this kind, and before the young King of Sicily and his brother started for that country he resolved to give a magnificent fête in honour of their knighthood.

Great were the preparations for this ceremonial. Proclamations were made and invitations issued all over France, England, and Germany. It was arranged that the fêtes should be at St. Denis, the place around which have gathered for centuries the grandest, holiest, and most solemn associations of the history of France. Founded in 630 by Dagobert, the splendid church was restored and decorated by its great Abbot,[111] Suger, in 1140. There, according to pious tradition, were transported and buried the remains of St. Denis the martyr, there hung the oriflamme, the flame-coloured banner which had so often led the chivalry of France to victory, there were the tombs of the kings, queens, and royal family from Dagobert downwards, there, at the feet of Charles V., was soon to be laid the hero Du Guesclin. The splendour of the treasure of St. Denis, which had delighted the eyes of the Emperor Charles IV., was unsurpassed. Gold and silver statues, crucifixes, and altar plate set with precious stones, books covered with gold and silver, written in letters of gold and ornamented with gems, gorgeous vestments, royal crowns of gold and jewels, the golden sceptre and sword of Charlemagne, the hand of justice, golden spurs, and coronation robes, all were in the keeping of the Abbot of St. Denis, who was independent of any other jurisdiction, and one of the greatest nobles in France. Pope Stephen III. granted to the monks of this great house the privilege of electing one from their number to be consecrated Bishop and receive the power of exercising all episcopal functions in the abbey. The Abbots of St. Denis were also permitted to wear the ring, mitre, and crozier, and the pontifical vestments when they celebrated mass, which on certain high festivals was sung in Greek. From the kings they had the right to pardon criminals, coin money, and hold fairs and markets, and to sit as councillors in the parliament of Paris. Their right, recognised by Louis le Gros, to the country of the Vexin, gave them the oriflamme,[112] which belonged to it, and the war-cry of their feudal castle, “Montjoie Saint Denis,” was the war-cry of France.

Those delightful and invaluable historical works, the “Grandes Chroniques de France,” were written by the monks of St. Denis; of whom one used to be chosen by the abbot to go about with the court on purpose to write them. After the invention of printing they were arranged and printed by the Benedictine Jean Chartier, 1496.[113]

The ceremony of conferring knighthood was one of the most interesting and characteristic of the many spectacles of the Middle Ages. In a former volume relating to the French court were described the magnificent fêtes given by Philippe le Bel on the occasion of the knighthood of his three sons and the young Princes of Burgundy, the fame of which had spread all over Christendom. Charles and Isabeau determined that there should be no falling off either in the splendour or the diversions of those they were about to give. During the seventy-six years that had elapsed between those festivities and the ones now in question, wealth and luxury had greatly increased, there was more general cultivation and no gloomy figure severely moral and remorselessly cruel cast a shadow, like Philippe le Bel, upon the universal rejoicing.

The Queen, the ladies of the court, and princes of the blood, were to lodge in the abbey itself, which was well suited to receive them. The refectory was of enormous size, with two naves divided by a colonnade, the windows were filled with the most gorgeous stained glass and the tables were of stone. In the cloister was an ancient fountain thirty-six feet in circumference, with sculptured figures from heathen mythology, and over it a vault raised on sixteen columns, mostly of marble, which had been put there by Hugues VI. the forty-second abbot, 1197.[114]