two hundred and twenty-two feet in
length and twenty in width. It is worked in different-colored worsteds
on white cloth, now brown with age. The attempts to represent the human
figure are very rude, and it is merely given in outline. Matilda
evidently had very few colors at her disposal, as the horses are
depicted of any hue,--blue, green, or yellow; the arabesque patterns
introduced are rich and varied.

During the French Revolution, this tapestry was demanded by the
insurgents to cover their guns; but a priest succeeded in concealing it
until the storm had passed. Bonaparte knew its value. He caused it to be
brought to Paris and displayed, after which he restored the precious
relic to Bayeux.

We have many records of royal ladies who practised and patronized
needle-work. Anne of Brittany, first wife of Louis XII. of France,
caused three hundred girls, daughters of the nobility, to be instructed
in that art under her personal supervision. Her daughter Claude pursued
the same laudable plan. Jeanne d'Albret, queen of Navarre, and mother of
Henry IV. of France, a woman of vigorous mind, was skilled also in the
handicraft of the needle, and wrought a set of hangings called "The
Prison Opened," meaning that she had broken the bonds of the Pope.

The practice of teaching needle-work continued long at the French court,
and it was there that Mary of Scotland learned the art in which she so
much excelled. When cast into prison, she beguiled the time, and soothed
the repentant anxieties of her mind, with the companionship of her
needle. The specimens of her work yet existing are principally
bed-trimmings, hangings, and coverlets, composed of dark satin, upon
which flowers, separately embroidered, are transferred.

The romances and lays of chivalry contain many descriptions of the
ornamental needle-work of those early days. In one of the ancient
ballads, a knight, after describing a fair damsel whom he had rescued
and carried to his castle, adds that she "knewe how to sewe and marke
all manner of silken worke," and no doubt he made her repair many of his
mantles and scarfs frayed and torn by time and tourney.

The beautiful Elaine covered the shield of Sir Launcelot with a case of
silk, upon which devices were braided by her fair hands, and added, from
her own design,

"A border fantasy of branch and flower,
And yellow-throated nestling in the nest."

When he went to the tourney she gave him a red sleeve "broider