e, as it were, the fresh air of
liberty; and those who had been called upon to fight, returned to
their work in the fields or the towns. We cannot better voice the
feeling of the people than by borrowing the song of a poet of the day:

Le temps a laisse son manteau
De vent, de froidure et de pluie,
Et s'est vetu de broderie,
De soleil rayant, clair et beau;
Il n'y a beste ne oiseau
Qu'en son jargon ne chante ou crie:
Le temps a laisse son manteau.

Now that Agnes had assumed a definite role at Court, she lived
principally at Loches, where the king assigned to her "son quartier de
maison" within the castle, and also gave her a residence without the
walls. Here she shone like a radiant star; for although the king did
not have much personal influence on the movement in art and letters,
his Court was the meeting-place of many distinguished and intellectual
men. Among them we find the name of Alain Chartier, the poet, and
sometime secretary to the king, and one of the ambassadors who went to
Edinburgh to ask the hand of the little Margaret of Scotland for the
Dauphin. We remember him now chiefly in connection with the charming
story told of this girl-wife of the Dauphin Louis. Betrothed to Louis
when she was a child of three, and sent to France to be brought up at
the Court, she was married at twelve to this boy of thirteen, who
could not possibly appreciate her simple, sweet nature which endeared
her to all others. One day as she was passing with her ladies through
a room in the castle, she saw Alain Chartier lying on a bench asleep.
She approached quietly, and kissed him, much to the surprise of her
attendants that she should "kiss so ugly a man." And she made answer:
"I did not kiss the man, but the precious mouth whence so many
beautiful and fair words have issued." Poor little poetess!
Fortunately her life was a short one. She died when she was just
twenty-one, with these words on her lips: "Fi de la vie de ce monde,
ne m'en parlez plus." The scientific historian of to-day is inclined
to dismiss this story as a pleasing though rather foolish romance. But
even so, Alain Chartier may be remembered as a poet and philosopher,
as well as a brave and wise patriot during some of France's darkest
hours--a worthy contemporary of Agnes Sorel and Joan of Arc. Fearing
neither the nobles nor the people, he blames the former for their love
of luxury and personal indulgence, and exhorts both to think of