She led him out of the room. "When the queen saw that Queen Blanche was
separating her from her husband, she cried out with a loud voice: 'Alas!
will you let me see my husband neither in life nor in death?' And so
saying she fainted away so that they thought she was dead; and the king,
who thought so too, ran back to her and brought her out of her swoon."
There is nothing in these stories to the credit of Blanche or of her
saintly son.

Let us turn from this unpleasant picture to glance at some of the facts
in the domestic economy of the royal household. The expenditures of the
court were not great; the household was kept on a scale befitting its
rank, but there was no vain display. Besides the queen's children there
were always a number of dependents, ladies and gentlemen in waiting,
etc., and the expenses for the whole establishment were kept in a common
account.

Blanche de Castille loved her native land, which she never saw again
after she left it to become the wife of Louis VIII., and she kept up as
active relations as possible with her relatives, particularly with Queen
Berengere; but she had too much good sense to flood her court with
Spanish dependents and Spanish customs, and, therefore, we do not find a
great number of Spaniards occupying important posts in the court. A
certain number of her special attendants appear to have been Spaniards;
we may note a lady in waiting called Mincia, who is often mentioned in
the accounts, and who is granted money and horses for a journey into
Spain. Then there are two Spaniards to whom gifts of clothing and the
like are made at the time of the coronation of Queen Marguerite. But
these and other Spaniards whose names one can pick out belonged to the
personal suite of the queen, and had nothing to do with politics. There
was nothing like the incursion of foreigners which, the people
complained, Italianized France in the time of the Medicis.

Among the legitimate expenditures of the court, but rather surprising in
the household of a saint, are certain sums set down for the payment of
minstrels. Prince Robert of France loved to give presents to minstrels,
and when he was knighted, in 1237, more than two hundred and twenty
pounds went to the payment of these singers. The horses and their
furnishings form no small item in the expenses, since most of the
travelling had to be done on horseback, and a numerous retinue of
mounted attendants must be provided. Common pack horses were