[Fig. 394.]--Interview of King Charles V. with the Emperor Charles IV. in Paris in 1378.--Fac-simile of a Miniature in the Description of this Interview, Manuscript of the Fifteenth Century, in the Library of the Arsenal of Paris.

The authoress of the "Honneurs de la Cour" specially mentions the respect which Queen Mary of Anjou paid to the Duchess of Burgundy when she was at Châlons in Champagne in 1445: "The Duchess came with all her retinue, on horseback and in carriages, into the courtyard of the mansion where the King and Queen were, and there alighted, her first maid of honour acting as her train-bearer. M. de Bourbon gave her his right hand, and the gentlemen went on in front. In this manner she was conducted to the hall which served as the ante-chamber to the Queen's apartment. There she stopped, and sent in M. de Crequi to ask the Queen if it was her pleasure that she should enter.... When the Duchess came to the door she took the train of her dress from the lady who bore it and let it trail on the ground, and as she entered she knelt and then adyanced to the middle of the room. There she made the same obeisance, and moved straight towards the Queen, who was standing close to the foot of her throne. When the Duchess had performed a further act of homage, the Queen advanced two or three steps, and the Duchess fell on her knees; the Queen then put her hand on her shoulder, embraced her, kissed her, and commanded her to rise."

The Duchess then went up to Margaret of Scotland, wife of the Dauphin, afterwards Louis XI., "who was four or five feet from the Queen," and paid her the same honours as she had done to the Queen, although the Dauphine appeared to wish to prevent her from absolutely kneeling to her. After this she turned towards the Queen of Sicily (Isabelle de Lorraine, wife of René of Anjou, brother-in-law of the King), "who was two or three feet from the Dauphine," and merely bowed to her, and the same to another Princess, Madame de Calabre, who was still more distantly connected with the blood royal. Then the Queen, and after her the Dauphine, kissed the three maids of honour of the Duchess and the wives of the gentlemen. The Duchess did the same to the ladies who accompanied the Queen and the Dauphine, "but of those of the Queen of Sicily the Duchess kissed none, inasmuch as the Queen had not kissed hers. And the Duchess would not walk behind the Queen, for she said that the Duke of Burgundy was nearer the crown of France than was the King of Sicily, and also that she was daughter of the King of Portugal, who was greater than the King of Sicily."

Further on, from the details given of a similar reception, we learn that etiquette was not at that time regulated by the laws of politeness as now understood, inasmuch as the voluntary respect paid by men to the gentle sex was influenced much by social rank. Thus, at the time of a visit of

[Fig. 395.]--The Entry of Louis XI. into Paris.--Fac-simile of a Miniature in the "Chroniques" of Monstrelet, Manuscript of the Fifteenth Century (Imperial Library of Paris).

Louis XI., then Dauphin, to the court of Brussels, to which place he went to seek refuge against the anger of his father, the Duchesses of Burgundy, of Charolais, and of Clèves, his near relatives, exhibited towards him all the tokens of submission and inferiority which he might have received from a vassal. The Dauphin, it is true, wished to avoid this homage, and a disussion on the subject of "more than a quarter of an hour ensued;" at last he took the Duchess of Burgundy by the arm and led her away, in order to cut short the ceremonies "about which Madame made so much to do." This, however, did not prevent the princesses, on their withdrawing, from kneeling to the ground in order to show their respect for the son of the King of France.

We have already seen that the Duchess of Burgundy, when about to appear before the Queen, took her train from her train-bearer in order that she might carry it herself. In this she was only conforming to a general principle, which was, that in the presence of a superior, a person, however high his rank, should not himself receive honours whilst at the same time paying them to another. Thus a duke and a duchess amidst their court had all the things which were used at their table covered--hence the modern expression, mettre le couvert (to lay the cloth)--even the wash-hand basin and the cadenas, a kind of case in which the cups, knives, and other table articles were kept; but when they were entertaining a king all these marks of superiority were removed, as a matter of etiquette, from the table at which they sat, and were passed on as an act of respect to the sovereign present.

The book of Dame Aliénor, in a series of articles to which we shall merely allude, speaks at great length and enters into detail respecting the interior arrangements of the rooms in which princes and other noble children were born. The formalities gone through on these occasions were as curious as they were complicated; and Dame Aliénor regretted to see them falling into disuse, "owing to which," she says, "we fear that the possessions of the great houses of the nobility are getting too large, as every one admits, and chicanery or concealment of birth, so as to make away with too many children, is on the increase."

Mourning is the next subject which we shall notice. The King never wore black for mourning, not even for his father, but scarlet or violet. The Queen wore white, and did not leave her apartments for a whole year. Hence the name of château, hôtel, or tour de la Reine Blanche, which many of the buildings of the Middle Ages still bear, from the fact that widowed queens inhabited them during the first year of their widowhood. On occasions of mourning, the various reception rooms of a house were hung with black. In deep mourning, such as that for a husband or a father, a lady wore neither gloves, jewels, nor silk. The head was covered with a low black head-dress, with trailing lappets, called chaperons, barbettes, couvre-chefs, and tourets. A duchess and the wife of a knight or a banneret, on going into mourning, stayed in their apartments for six weeks; the former, during the whole of this time, when in deep mourning, remained lying down all day on a bed covered with a white sheet; whereas the latter, at the end of nine days, got up, and until the six weeks were over, remained sitting in front of the bed on a black sheet. Ladies did not attend the funerals of their husbands, though it was usual for them to be present at those of their fathers and mothers. For an elder brother, they wore the same mourning as for a father, but they did not lie down as above described.

[Fig. 396.]--"How the King-at-Arms presents the Sword to the Duke of Bourbon."--From a Miniature in "Tournois du Roi René," Manuscript of the Fifteenth Century (Imperial Library of Paris).