ouncillors only
surrounded Louis XII, and the chaste Anne de Bretagne authorized around
her only rare and tranquil pleasures. Francois I wished to be followed
always by a troop so numerous that there were counted around the royal
residence rarely less than six thousand and sometimes as many as
eighteen thousand horses." By the brilliancy of its fetes, this court
attracted to itself the chatelaines, up to this time forgotten in the
depths of their feudal castles. "At the beginning," says Mezeray, "this
had an excellent effect, this amiable sex having introduced into the
court politeness and courtesy, and imparting lively impulses of
generosity to those whose souls were more nobly constituted. But the
manners and customs became speedily corrupted; the offices, the
benefices, were distributed according to the whims of the women, and
they were the cause of the adoption of very pernicious maxims by the
government."

The revival of the arts brought about by the Renaissance, and which
Francois I had the intelligence to appreciate and encourage, and the
somewhat greater sense of security in the body politic, combined to give
to this court, and to the wealthy citizens of the capital, such
extravagant luxury of dress and ornament that even this pleasure-loving
monarch felt constrained to promulgate sumptuary laws on various
occasions, an example which was followed by his son and successor, Henry
II. The edict of 1538 proscribed chains of gold of too great weight for
financiers and men of affairs, and it was intimated to them that it
would be better not "to make their daughters too handsome and too rich
when they married them." In 1543, the tissues of gold and silver were
forbidden for men, with the exception of the relatives of the monarch,
and this edict was renewed, four years later, by Henri II, greatly
amended and amplified and extended to all, high and low, excepting the
ladies in the queen's suite and the king's sister. In 1549, it was
renewed, with still greater detail concerning the costumes of the two
sexes.

The abuse of masks was of long standing, Charles VI having been addicted
to their use, and in 1514, under Louis XII, the Parlement directed that
all these false visages in the city, wherever found, should be collected
and burned, and that, by order of the king, no more should be worn.
During the captivity of Francois I in Madrid, the members of the
Parlement set the example of reducing their style of living, limit