But, before I tell of modern Dijon, I must say something of the first of the four great Dukes of the house of Valois, who were to lead Burgundy through its brief, meteoric career of greatness.[144]
Philip, brother of Charles V. of France, and uncle of his successor the mad Charles VI., had deservedly won his title of "Hardi" at the battle of Poictiers, as Froissart has told us. He was a bold, determined, somewhat imprudent prince; kindly and good-natured, as is evident from a glance at the statue upon his tomb; but proud, ambitious, and so addicted to magnificence that he could leave to his son only debts and the dukedom.[145] His clothing was wonderful to see, as we may judge by some of the details that have come down to us. In 1391, when engaged in treaty with the Duke of Lancaster, uncle of the King of England, he had two coats made for him. One, of black velvet, was embroidered, on the left sleeve and collar with a bunch of roses, upon which were growing twenty-two blossoms, of rubies, or of a single sapphire, surrounded with pearls; and rose-buds also of pearls. The buttonholes were made with a running embroidery of broom, with the pods worked in pearls and sapphires—a souvenir of the ancient order of the Cosse (Broom-pod),[146] instituted by the Kings of France, and sometimes bestowed by them as a reward for loyal service. One of the coats was embroidered also with P and Y interlaced, while the other, of crimson velvet, showed, on each side, a silver bear, outlined in sapphires and rubies.[143]
These bears were more than characteristic of the extravagance of the time; they were symbolical of the spirit that, possessing France in the closing years of the thirteenth century, departed only before the exorcisms of La Pucelle.
The wise and noble kings, Edward IV. of England, and Charles V. of France, had given place to a dullard and a madman; and the people, no less than the princes, had lost their reason. The feudal system was passing, had passed; and no new political nor social order had as yet developed in its place. Nobles of the day, looking back upon the monkish régime and the early chivalry, could only ape and burlesque the outward splendours of the movements whose inward spirit and ideals they were wholly incapable of understanding. It seemed that God, even, to borrow Luther's phrase, weary of the game, had thrown his cards upon the table.
Such is the significance of the bear upon Philip's mantle. Everywhere ranged these strange and uncouth beasts. They grinned in long lines from the eaves of the Churches; with a thousand other fantastic fancies of disordered imaginations, they met the eye, at every turn, in corridors of royal palaces, in the reception rooms of baronial halls. Foul jests and foul shapes leered at the passer-by from the fringes of a scarlet skirt. On a high dame's rustling sleeve, whose folds swept the ground, were set the notes of a song; rich doublets blazed with lewd figures, or with strange symbols, improper, if well understood. Great ladies, wearing long horns upon their heads, jested with lords whose pointed toes wriggled up into serpent shapes. Art, sanity, religion were no longer at one. All the pure and natural ornament of early Gothic work, filched from church and cathedral for the service of base needs, flaunted, in horrible disguise, in houses of pleasure and ill fame.[148]
Small wonder that distracted souls, searching in thick darkness for guidance, for God, and not finding him in life, turned, at last, in despair, to the great negations, Death and the Devil. God had failed them; evil, at least, shall not fail them. In a frenzy of false joy they danced the "danse des morts" in the cemeteries of Paris.[149]
