Pictures of the old French court

by Mrs. Bearne

A huge wooden hall was built for the occasion in the courtyard of the abbey. It was covered with white outside, lined with white and green and decorated with tapestries and cloth of gold. In it was a large dais, and outside a place for tournaments with wooden galleries for the ladies to look on at the spectacle. On Saturday, May 1st, about sunset, the King arrived, and soon after the Queen of Sicily in an open car accompanied by the princes of the blood, her two sons, the King of Sicily, then about twelve years old, and his brother rode by her side in long grey robes without any gold or ornament, carrying pieces of the same stuff rolled up on their saddles as if for a journey, after an ancient custom of esquires. They escorted their mother to the abbey and then proceeded to the priory de l’Estrée, where they undressed and bathed. At nightfall they went to salute the King, who took them to the church, where they put on the dress of knighthood. It was of red silk lined with vair, long robes and mantles down to the ground, but no covering on the head. Then a great procession was formed, a cortège of nobles going before and behind the young King of Sicily, who walked between the Dukes of Burgundy and Touraine, and his brother, who was accompanied by the Duc de Bourbon and Pierre de Navarre, Comte de Mortaigne.

After prayers before the holy relics the procession returned with the same state to the great banquet, after which the King went to bed and the King of Sicily and his brother returned to the church to pass the night in prayer and watching before the altar according to the ancient usage. But young as the children were, and tired with the journey and the fatigues of all these ceremonies, it was evident that they would not be able to sit up all night in church saying prayers, so after a little while they were fetched away to rest until daybreak, when they had to go back; and later in the morning came the imposing function in the church. It was crowded with the courtiers and nobles, all the monks were also present, and when the rest were assembled a door was opened out of the cloisters and two of the chief esquires of the King’s household appeared carrying drawn swords and golden spurs, and followed by the King himself in his royal robes and mantle, accompanied by the two young princes.

Immediately after came the Queens of France and Sicily with their ladies. A solemn mass was then sung, at the conclusion of which the bishop approached the King, and the two boys knelt before him and demanded admission to knighthood. The King received their vows, girded on their swords, and commanded M. de Chauvigny to put on their spurs, the Bishop gave them his blessing, and the picturesque and touching ceremony was at an end.

Every one returned to the abbey, where there was a grand banquet, in fact two, for the monk of St. Denis who gives the account of it says that they dined and supped in the banqueting hall with the King and court and then danced all night.

It may interest some people to know that a granddaughter of the elder of these boys was the famous and unfortunate Marguérite d’Anjou, wife of Henry VI., King of England.

For four days and nights joustes and tournaments went on, at which the Queen gave away the prizes; followed by banquets and balls. The court was in a frenzy of excitement and the fêtes ended with a masked ball more splendid than any, but so licentious and disorderly that of the brilliant crowds that thronged the torch-lighted halls and wandered in the dim, tapestried galleries and rooms of the great abbey, it has been asserted that few escaped the perils of that night of wild, lawless revelry; and the monk of Saint Denis declares that the scenes enacted there desecrated the holiness of the place.[115] A liaison between Isabeau and her brother-in-law the Duc de Touraine was said to be one of the results, and it has certainly been the general opinion that whether or not it originated on that occasion, there could be only one explanation to the relations which from that time until the death of the Duke continued to exist between them.

It is true that M. Jarry[116] in his interesting work on Louis d’Orléans observes that this has never been proved, and that M. Vallet de Viriville makes the same remark; but he adds “Tout le dit, rien ne le prouve. Louis, duc d’Orléans, etait le vice aimable. Pour cette fille d’Ève, si prête à faillir et trop aisée à charmer, il eut la séduction du Tentateur.”[117] Louis was one of the handsomest, most fascinating, and most dissipated men in France, and his liaisons were innumerable. It was said that he wore a magic ring, and that as long as it was on his finger no woman could resist him. It was, in fact, a reproach made by his enemies that he wore it in the Holy Week. Between such a man as this and a woman like Isabeau, can any one believe that the most constant, intimate, and unrestrained companionship was likely to be of a different nature from what was universally believed?

It may here be remarked that the order of knighthood did not in itself confer the right to raise a banner. This privilege belonged only to such gentlemen as bore the rank of “chevalier banneret” and owned enough land to enable them to support it. The others were called “chevalier bachelier” and bore a pennon or small pointed flag, whereas the banner was square. If a chevalier bachelier were raised to be a chevalier banneret, he had first to prove that his property was sufficient to qualify him for that dignity. When Sir John Chandos, after having long held high military command, though not a knight banneret, asked the Black Prince for the right to raise a banner, he said, “Thank God I have enough and to spare in lands and in inheritance to keep up that rank as it is fitting.”

The next thing of importance that happened at court was a most absurd marriage made by the Duc de Berry, which, however, seems to have turned out very well.

There was a certain Eléonore, daughter and heiress of the Comte de Comminges, who had married the son of that Comte de Boulogne et d’Auvergne, to whom those two provinces had fallen after the death of the young Philippe de Rouvre and the end of the Capétienne house of Burgundy, which, as will be remembered, took place in the reign of Jean.