turn--to amass, first, as big a ransom as could be
raised; this, if in the Turk's demanding eyes it appeared sufficient,
he would accept in exchange for the remaining unhappy nobles.

Added to the money which de Helly was able to collect, were superb
tapestries of Arras contributed by the Burgundian duke, Philip the
Hardy. It was argued that of these luxurious hangings, Bajazet had
none, for the looms of his country had not the craft to make
tapestries of personages. Cloth of gold and of silver, considered an
extreme elegance in France, they argued was no rarity to the terrible
Turk, for it was from Damascus in his part of the world that this
precious fabric came most plentifully. So de Helly took Arras
tapestries into Turkey, a suite representing the history of Alexander
the Great, and the avaricious monarch was persuaded by reason of this
and other ransom to let his prisoners free.[9]

After the death of Philip the Hardy in 1404, his accumulated luxuries
had to be sold to help pay his fabulous debts. To this end his son
sold, among other things, his superb tapestries, and thus they became
distributed in Paris. And yet John without Fear, who succeeded Philip,
continued to stimulate the Arras weavers. In 1409 he ordered five big
hangings representing his victories of Liege, all battle subjects.[10]

Philip the Good was the next head of the Burgundian house, and he it
was who assisted in the sumptuous preparations for the entry of the
king, Louis XI, into Paris. The king himself could scarcely equal in
magnificence this much-jewelled duke, whose splendour was a matter of
excitement to the populace. People ran to see him in the streets or to
the church, to feast their eyes on his cortege, his mounted escort of
a hundred knights who were themselves dukes, princes and other nobles.

His house, in the old quarter of Paris, where we are wont to wander
with a Baedeker veiled, was the wonder of all who were permitted to
view its interior. Here he had brought his magnificent Arras
tapestries and among them the set of the _History of Gideon_, which he
had had made in honour of the order of the Golden Fleece founded by
him at Bruges, in 1429, for, he said, the tale of Gideon was more
appropriate to the Fleece than the tale of Jason, who had not kept his
trust--a bit of unconventionalism appreciable even at this distance of
time.

Charles le Temeraire--the Bold or rather the foolhardy--how he used
and lost his tapestries is of