Part 7

After the death of the pious Jeanne de Navarre, to whom perhaps we must attribute the wise measures of her husband, Philip le Bel, the expenses of the royal household materially increased, especially on the occasions of the marriages of the three young sons of the King, from 1305 to 1307. Gold, diamonds, pearls, and precious stones were employed profusely, both for the King's garments and for those of the members of the royal family. The accounts of 1307 mention considerable sums paid for carpets, counterpanes, robes, worked linen, &c. A chariot of state, ornamented and covered with paintings, and gilded like the back of an altar, is also mentioned, and must have been a great change to the heavy vehicles used for travelling in those days.

Down to the reign of St. Louis the furniture of castles had preserved a character of primitive simplicity which did not, however, lack grandeur. The stone remained uncovered in most of the halls, or else it was whitened with mortar and ornamented with moulded roses and leaves, coloured in distemper. Against the wall, and also against the pillars supporting the arches, arms and armour of all sorts were hung, arranged in suits, and interspersed with banners and pennants or emblazoned standards. In the great middle hall, or dining-room, there was a long massive oak table, with benches and stools of the same wood. At the end of this table, there was a large arm-chair, overhung with a canopy of golden or silken stuff, which was occupied by the owner of the castle, and only relinquished by him in favour of his superior or sovereign. Often the walls of the hall of state were hung with tapestry, representing groves with cattle, heroes of ancient history, or events in the romance of chivalry. The floor was generally paved with hard stone, or covered with enamelled tiles. It was carefully strewn with scented herbs in summer, and straw in winter. Philip Augustus ordered that the Hôtel Dieu of Paris should receive the herbs and straw which was daily removed from the floors of his palace. It was only very much later that this troublesome system was replaced by mats and carpets.

The bedrooms were generally at the top of the towers, and had little else by way of furniture, besides a very large bed, with or without curtains, a box in which clothes were kept, and which also served as a seat, and a _priedieu_ chair, which sometimes contained prayer and other books of devotion. These lofty rooms, whose thick walls kept out the heat in summer, and the cold in winter, were only lighted by a small window or loophole, closed with a square of oiled paper or of thin horn.

A great change took place in the abodes of the nobility in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries (Fig. 51). We find, for instance, in Sauval's "History and Researches of the Antiquities of the City of Paris," that the abodes of the kings of the first dynasty had been transformed into Palaces of Justice by Philip le Bel; the same author also gives us a vivid description of the Château du Louvre, and the Hôtel St. Paul, which the kings inhabited when their court was in the capital. But even without examining into all the royal abodes, it will suffice to give an account of the Hôtel de Bohême, which, after having been the home of the Sires de Nesles, of Queen Blanche of Castille, and other great persons, was given by Charles VI., in 1388, to his brother, the famous Duke Louis of Orleans.

[Illustration: Fig. 51.--The Knight and his Lady.--Costumes of the Court of Burgundy in the Fourteenth Century; Furnished Chamber.--Miniature in "Othea," Poem by Christine de Pisan (Brussels Library).]

"I shall not attempt," says Sauval, "to speak of the cellars and wine-cellars, the bakehouses, the fruiteries, the salt-stores, the fur-rooms, the porters' lodges, the stores, the guard-rooms, the wood-yard, or the glass-stores; nor of the servants; nor of the place where _hypocras_ was made; neither shall I describe the tapestry-room, the linen-room, nor the laundry; nor, indeed, any of the various conveniences which were then to be found in the yards of that palace as well as in the other abodes of the princes and nobles.

"I shall simply remark, that amongst the many suites of rooms which composed it, two occupied the two first stories of the main building; the first was raised some few steps above the ground-floor of the court, and was occupied by Valentine de Milan; and her husband, Louis of Orleans, generally occupied the second. Each of these suites of rooms consisted of a great hall, a chamber of state, a large chamber, a wardrobe, some closets, and a chapel. The windows of the halls were thirteen and a half feet[A] high by four and a half wide. The state chambers were eight 'toises,' that is, about fifty feet and a half long. The duke and duchess's chambers were six 'toises' by three, that is, about thirty-six feet by eighteen; the others were seven toises and a half square, all lighted by long and narrow windows of wirework with trellis-work of iron; the wainscots and the ceilings were made of Irish wood, the same as at the Louvre."

[Footnote A: French feet.]

In this palace there was a room used by the duke, hung with cloth of gold, bordered with vermilion velvet embroidered with roses; the duchess had a room hung with vermilion satin embroidered with crossbows, which were on her coat of arms; that of the Duke of Burgundy was hung with cloth of gold embroidered with windmills. There were, besides, eight carpets of glossy texture, with gold flowers; one representing "The Seven Virtues and the Seven Vices;" another the history of Charlemagne; another that of St. Louis. There were also cushions of cloth of gold, twenty-four pieces of vermilion leather of Aragon, and four carpets of Aragon leather, "to be placed on the floor of rooms in summer." The favourite arm-chair of the princess is thus described in an inventory:--"A chamber chair with four supports, painted in fine vermilion, the seat and arms of which are covered with vermilion morocco, or cordovan, worked and stamped with designs representing the sun, birds, and other devices, bordered with fringes of silk and studded with nails."

Among the ornamental furniture were--"A large vase of massive silver, for holding sugar-plums or sweetmeats, shaped like a square table, supported by four satyrs, also of silver; a fine wooden casket, covered with vermilion cordovan, nailed, and bordered with a narrow gilt band, shutting with a key."

[Illustration: Fig. 52.--Bronze Chandeliers of the Fourteenth Century (Collection of M. Ach. Jubinal).]

In the daily life of Louis of Orleans and his wife, everything corresponded with the luxury of their house. Thus, for the amusement of their children, two little books of pictures were made, illuminated with gold, azure, and vermilion, and covered with vermilion leather of Cordova, which cost sixty _sols parisis, i.e. four hundred francs. But it was in the custom of New Year's gifts that the duke and duchess displayed truly royal magnificence, as we find described in the accounts of their expenses. For instance, in 1388 they paid four hundred francs of gold for sheets of silk to give to those who received the New Year's gifts from the King and Queen. In 1402, one hundred pounds (tournois) were given to Jehan Taienne, goldsmith, for six silver cups presented to Jacques de Poschin, the Duke's squire. To the Sire de la Trémouille Valentine gives "a cup and basin of gold;" to Queen Isabella, "a golden image of St. John, surrounded with nine rubies, one sapphire, and twenty-one pearls;" to Mademoiselle de Luxembourg, "another small golden sacred image, surrounded with pearls;" and lastly, in an account of 1394, headed, "Portion of gold and silver jewels bought by Madame la Duchesse d'Orleans as a New Year's gift," we find "a clasp of gold, studded with one large ruby and six large pearls, given to the King; three paternosters for the King's daughters, and two large diamonds for the Dukes of Burgundy and Berry."

[Illustration: Fig. 53.--Styli used in writing in the Fourteenth Century.]

Such were the habits in private life of the royal princes under Charles VI.; and it can easily be shown that the example of royalty was followed not only by the court, but also in the remotest provinces. The great tenants or vassals of the crown each possessed several splendid mansions in their fiefs; the Dukes of Burgundy, at Souvigny, at Moulins, and at Bourbon l'Archambault; the Counts of Champagne, at Troyes; the Dukes of Burgundy, at Dijon; and all the smaller nobles made a point of imitating their superiors. From the fifteenth to the sixteenth centuries, the provinces which now compose France were studded with castles, which were as remarkable for their interior, architecture as for the richness of their furniture; and it may be asserted that the luxury which was displayed in the dwellings of the nobility was the evidence, if not the resuit, of a great social revolution in the manners and customs of private life.

At the end of the fourteenth century there lived a much-respected noble of Anjou, named Geoffroy de Latour-Landry, who had three daughters. In his old age, he resolved that, considering the dangers which might surround them in consequence of their inexperience and beauty, he would compose for their use a code of admonitions which might guide them in the various circumstances of life.

[Illustration: A Young Mother's Retinue

Representing the Parisian costumes at the end of the fourteenth century. Fac-simile of a miniature from the latin _Terence_ of King Charles VI. From a manuscript in the Bibl. de l'Arsenal.]

This book of domestic maxims is most curious and instructive, from the details which it contains respecting the manners and customs, mode of conduct, and fashions of the nobility of the period (Fig. 54). The author mostly illustrates each of his precepts by examples from the life of contemporary personages.

[Illustration: Fig. 54.--Dress of Noble Ladies and Children in the Fourteenth Century.--Miniature in the "Merveilles du Monde" (Manuscript, National Library of Paris).]

The first advice the knight gives his daughters is, to begin the day with prayer; and, in order to give greater weight to his counsel, he relates the following anecdote: "A noble had two daughters; the one was pious, always saying her prayers with devotion, and regularly attending the services of the church; she married an honest man, and was most happy. The other, on the contrary, was satisfied with hearing low mass, and hurrying once or twice through the Lord's Prayer, after which she went off to indulge herself with sweetmeats. She complained of headaches, and required careful diet. She married a most excellent knight; but, one evening, taking advantage of her husband being asleep, she shut herself up in one of the rooms of the palace, and in company with the people of the household began eating and drinking in the most riotous and excessive manner. The knight awoke; and, surprised not to find his wife by his side, got up, and, armed with a stick, betook himself to the scene of festivity. He struck one of the domestics with such force that he broke his stick in pieces, and one of the fragments flew into the lady's eye and put it out. This caused her husband to take a dislike to her, and he soon placed his affections elsewhere."

"My pretty daughters," the moralising parent proceeds, "be courteous and meek, for nothing is more beautiful, nothing so secures the favour of God and the love of others. Be then courteous to great and small; speak gently with them.... I have seen a great lady take off her cap and bow to a simple ironmonger. One of her followers seemed astonished. 'I prefer,' she said, 'to have been too courteous towards that man, than to have been guilty of the least incivility to a knight.'"

[Illustration: Fig. 55.--Noble Lady and Maid of Honour, and two Burgesses with Hoods (Fourteenth Century), from a Miniature in the "Merveilles du Monde" (Manuscript in the Imperial Library of Paris).]

Latour-Landry also advised his daughters to avoid outrageous fashions in dress. "Do not be hasty in copying the dress of foreign women. I will relate a story on this subject respecting a bourgeoise of Guyenne and the Sire de Beaumanoir. The lady said to him, 'Cousin, I come from Brittany, where I saw my fine cousin, your wife, who was not so well dressed as the ladies of Guyenne and many other places. The borders of her dress and of her bonnet are not in fashion.' The Sire answered, 'Since you find fault with the dress and cap of my wife, and as they do not suit you, I shall take care in future that they are changed; but I shall be careful not to choose them similar to yours.... Understand, madam, that I wish her to be dressed according to the fashion of the good ladies of France and this country, and not like those of England. It was these last who first introduced into Brittany the large borders, the bodices opened on the hips, and the hanging sleeves. I remember the time, and saw it myself, and I have little respect for women who adopt these fashions.'"

Respecting the high head-dresses "which cause women to resemble stags who are obliged to lower their heads to enter a wood," the knight relates what took place in 1392 at the fête of St. Marguerite. "There was a young and pretty woman there, quite differently dressed from the others; every one stared at her as if she had been a wild beast. One respectable lady approached her and said, 'My friend, what do you call that fashion?' She answered, 'It is called the "gibbet dress."' 'Indeed; but that is not a fine name!' answered the old lady. Very soon the name of 'gibbet dress' got known all round the room, and every one laughed at the foolish creature who was thus bedecked." This head-dress did in fact owe its name to its summit, which resembled a gibbet.

These extracts from the work of this honest knight, suffice to prove that the customs of French society had, as early as the end of the fourteenth century, taken a decided character which was to remain subject only to modifications introduced at various historical periods.

Amongst the customs which contributed most to the softening and elegance of the feudal class, we must cite that of sending into the service of the sovereign for some years all the youths of both sexes, under the names of varlets, pages, squires, and maids of honour. No noble, of whatever wealth or power, ever thought of depriving his family of this apprenticeship and its accompanying chivalric education.

Up to the end of the twelfth century, the number of domestic officers attached to a castle was very limited; we have seen, for instance, that Philip Augustus contented himself with a few servants, and his queen with two or three maids of honour. Under Louis IX. this household was much increased, and under Philippe le Bel and his sons the royal household had become so considerable as to constitute quite a large assemblage of young men and women. Under Charles VI., the household of Queen Isabella of Bavaria alone amounted to forty-five persons, without counting the almoner, the chaplains, and clerks of the chapel, who must have been very numerous, since the sums paid to them amounted to the large amount of four hundred and sixty francs of gold per annum.

[Illustration: Fig. 56.--Court of the Ladies of Queen Anne of Brittany, Miniature representing this lady weeping on account of the absence of her husband during the Italian war.--Manuscript of the "Epistres Envoyées au Roi" (Sixteenth Century), obtained by the Coislin Fund for the Library of St. Germain des Pres in Paris, now in the Library of St. Petersburg.]

Under Charles VIII., Louis XII., and Francis I., the service of the young nobility, which was called "apprenticeship of honour or virtue," had taken a much wider range; for the first families of the French nobility were most eager to get their children admitted into the royal household, either to attend on the King or Queen, or at any rate on one of the princes of the royal blood. Anne of Brittany particularly gave special attention to her female attendants (Fig. 56). "She was the first," says Brantôme in his work on "Illustrious Women," "who began to form the great court of ladies which has descended to our days; for she had a considerable retinue both of adult ladies and young girls. She never refused to receive any one; on the contrary, she inquired of the gentlemen of the court if they had any daughters, ascertained who they were, and asked for them." It was thus that the Admiral de Graville (Fig. 57) confided to the good Queen the education of his daughter Anne, who at this school of the Court of Ladies became one of the most distinguished women of her day. The same Queen, as Duchess of Brittany, created a company of one hundred Breton gentlemen, who accompanied her everywhere. "They never failed," says the author of "Illustrious Women," "when she went to mass or took a walk, to await her return on the little terrace of Blois, which is still called the _Perche aux Bretons_. She gave it this name herself; for when she saw them she said, 'There are my Bretons on the perch waiting for me.'"

We must not forget that this queen, who became successively the wife of Charles VIII. and of Louis XII., had taken care to establish a strict discipline amongst the young men and women who composed her court. She rightly considered herself the guardian of the honour of the former, and of the virtue of the latter; therefore, as long as she lived, her court was renowned for purity and politeness, noble and refined gallantry, and was never allowed to degenerate into imprudent amusements or licentious and culpable intrigues.

Unfortunately, the moral influence of this worthy princess died with her. Although the court of France continued to gather around it almost every sort of elegance, and although it continued during the whole of the sixteenth century the most polished of European courts, notwithstanding the great external and civil wars, yet it afforded at the same time a sad example of laxity of morals, which had a most baneful influence on public habits; so much so that vice and corruption descended from class to class, and contaminated all orders of society. If we wished to make investigations into the private life of the lower orders in those times, we should not succeed as we have been able to do with that of the upper classes; for we have scarcely any data to throw light upon their sad and obscure history. Bourgeois and peasants were, as we have already shown, long included together with the miserable class of serfs, a herd of human beings without individuality, without significance, who from their birth to their death, whether isolated or collectively, were the "property" of their masters. What must have been the private life of this degraded multitude, bowed down under the most tyrannical and humiliating dependence, we can scarcely imagine; it was in fact but a purely material existence, which has left scarcely any trace in history.

[Illustration: Fig. 57.--Louis de Mallet, Lord of Graville, Admiral of France, 1487, in Costume of War and Tournament, from an Engraving of the Sixteenth Century (National Library of Paris, Cabinet des Estampes).]

Many centuries elapsed before the dawn of liberty could penetrate the social strata of this multitude, thus oppressed and denuded of all power of action. The development was slow, painful, and dearly bought, but at last it took place; first of all towns sprang up, and with them, or rather by their influence, the inhabitants became possessed of social life. The agricultural population took its social position many generations later.

As we have already seen, the great movement for the creation of communes and bourgeoisies only dates from the unsettled period ranging from the eleventh to the thirteenth centuries, and simultaneously we see the bourgeois appear, already rich and luxurious, parading on all occasions their personal opulence. Their private life could only be an imitation of that in the châteaux; by degrees as wealth strengthened and improved their condition, and rendered them independent, we find them trying to procure luxuries equal or analogous to those enjoyed by the upper classes, and which appeared to them the height of material happiness. In all times the small have imitated the great. It was in vain that the great obstinately threatened, by the exercise of their prerogatives, to try and crush this tendency to equality which alarmed them, by issuing pecuniary edicts, summary laws, coercive regulations, and penal ordinances; by the force of circumstances the arbitrary restrictions which the nobility laid upon the lower classes gradually disappeared, and the power of wealth displayed itself in spite of all their efforts to suppress it. In fact, occasions were not wanting in which the bourgeois class was able to refute the charge of unworthiness with which the nobles sought to stamp it. When taking a place in the council of the King, or employed in the administration of the provinces, many of its members distinguished themselves by firmness and wisdom; when called upon to assist in the national defence, they gave their blood and their gold with noble self-denial; and lastly, they did not fail to prove themselves possessed of those high and delicate sentiments of which the nobility alone claimed the hereditary possession.

[Illustration: Fig. 58.--Burgess of Ghent and his Wife, in ceremonial Attire, kneeling in Church, from a painted Window belonging to a Chapel in that Town (Fifteenth Century).]

"The bourgeois," says Arnaud de Marveil, one of the most famous troubadours of the thirteenth century, "have divers sorts of merits: some distinguish themselves by deeds of honour, others are by nature noble and behave accordingly. There are others thoroughly brave, courteous, frank, and jovial, who, although poor, find means to please by graceful speech, frequenting courts, and making themselves agreeable there; these, well versed in courtesy and politeness, appear in noble attire, and figure conspicuously at the tournaments and military games, proving themselves good judges and good company."

Down to the thirteenth century, however rich their fathers or husbands might be, the women of the bourgeoisie were not permitted, without incurring a fine, to use the ornaments and stuffs exclusively reserved for the nobility. During the reigns of Philip Augustus and Louis IX., although these arbitrary laws were not positively abolished, a heavy blow was inflicted on them by the marks of confidence, esteem, and honour which these monarchs found pleasure in bestowing on the bourgeoisie. We find the first of these kings, when on the point of starting for a crusade, choosing six from amongst the principal members of the _parloir aux bourgeois_ (it was thus that the first Hôtel de Ville, situated in the corner of the Place de la Grève, was named) to be attached to the Council of Regency, to whom he specially confided his will and the royal treasure. His grandson made a point of following his grandsire's example, and Louis IX. showed the same appreciation for the new element which the Parisian bourgeoisie was about to establish in political life by making the bourgeois Etienne Boileau one of his principal ministers of police, and the bourgeois Jean Sarrazin his chamberlain.