notes, from which one could sing before
or behind; while others placarded themselves with a scrawl of signs and
letters, which, no doubt, said nothing good.... Rational beings did not
hesitate to disguise themselves in the satanic, bestial shapes which
grin down upon us from the eaves of churches. Women wore horns on their
heads, men on their feet the peaks of their shoes were twisted up into
horns, griffins, serpents' tails. The women, above all, would have made
our spirits (of the age of Saint Louis) tremble; with their bosoms
exposed, they haughtily paraded high above the heads of the men their
gigantic hennin (the peaked and horned headdress) with its scaffolding
of horns, requiring them to turn sideways and stoop as often as they
went in or out of a room."

With all this outlandish fashion of dress the young queen was in perfect
accord; and the life of the court was one succession of brilliant
entertainments, wicked in their sensuality no less than in their waste
of the revenues of a kingdom already impoverished by long wars. During
the early years of her presence--we cannot call it her rule--in France,
Isabeau took no part in politics; neither did her husband, for that
matter, since he left the government in the hands of his uncles, chief
of whom was Philippe de Bourgogne. We shall therefore have little to
record at first beyond some of the more noteworthy of the doings at the
court.

The first of these, and one of the most scandalous, occurred in May,
1388; and the occasion which it was intended to celebrate merits some
attention from those who would appreciate the utter incapacity of
Charles VI. even at this period. To understand the circumstances we must
go back to the time when Charles V. lay dying, and his brother, Louis,
Duke of Anjou, waited in an adjoining room till the breath should be out
of the king's body. When the king was really dead, out came Louis to
seize upon the plate and other movables of value. Hearing that Charles
had concealed a considerable treasure in the walls of his palace at
Melun, and being unable to discover the hiding place, this affectionate
brother sent for the treasurer of the late king, and uttered the grim
threat: "You will find that money for me, or off goes your head." The
executioner was there with his ax--the treasure was found; and Louis
carried it off to squander it in prosecuting his claims to the throne of
Naples. Now he was dead, and his two sons were about to leave Fr