ey were being skinned. Others wore dresses
plaited over their loins like women; some had chaperons cut out in points
all round; some had tippets of one cloth, others of another; and some had
their head-dresses and sleeves reaching to the ground, looking more like
mountebanks than anything else. Considering all this, it is not surprising
if God employed the King of England as a scourge to correct the excesses
of the French people."

And this is not the only testimony to the ridiculous and extravagant
tastes of this unfortunate period. One writer speaks with indignation of
the _goats' beards_ (with two points), which seemed to put the last
finishing touch of ridicule on the already grotesque appearance of even
the most serious people of that period. Another exclaims against the
extravagant luxury of jewels, of gold and silver, and against the wearing
of feathers, which latter then appeared for the first time as accessories
to both male and female attire. Some censure, and not without reason, the
absurd fashion of converting the ancient leather girdle, meant to support
the waist, into a kind of heavy padded band, studded with gilded ornaments
and precious stones, and apparently invented expressly to encumber the
person wearing it. Other contemporary writers, and amongst these Pope
Urban V. and King Charles V. (Fig. 422), inveigh against the _poulaines_,
which had more than ever come into favour, and which were only considered
correct in fashion when they were made as a kind of appendix to the foot,
measuring at least double its length, and ornamented in the most
fantastical manner. The Pope anathematized this deformity as "a mockery of
God and the holy Church," and the King forbad craftsmen to make them, and
his subjects to wear them. All this is as nothing in comparison with the
profuse extravagance displayed in furs, which was most outrageous and
ruinous, and of which we could not form an idea were it not for the items
in certain royal documents, from which we gather that, in order to trim
two complete suits for King John, no fewer than six hundred and seventy
martens' skins were used. It is also stated that the Duke of Berry, the
youngest son of that monarch, purchased nearly ten thousand of these same
skins from a distant country in the north, in order to trim only five
mantles and as many surcoats. We read also that a robe made for the Duke
of Orleans, grandson of the same king, required two thousand seven hundred
and