present a custom of France in the time when Charles
VII, the Indolent (and likewise through Jeanne d'Arc, the victorious)
had as his favourite the fascinating Agnes Sorel. During the late
spring, when the roses of France are in fullest flower, various
peers of France had as political duty to present to each member of the
Parliament a rose when the members answered in response to roll call.

[Illustration: LA BAILLEE DES ROSES

French Tapestry, about 1450. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York]

[Illustration: FIFTEENTH CENTURY MILLEFLEUR WITH ARMS

Cathedral of Troyes]

The great chamber where the body met was for the occasion transformed
into a bower; vines and sprays of roses covered all the grim walls, as
the straying vines in the tapestry reveal. The host of the day, who
might be a foreign prince or cardinal, or one of the "children of
France," began the day with giving a great breakfast which took place
in the several chambers. During the feast the noble host paid a
courtly visit to each chamber, accompanied by a servitor who bore a
huge salver on which were the flowers and souvenirs to be presented.
The air was sweet with blossoms and pungent herbs, music penetrated
from the halls outside as the man of conspicuous elegance played mock
humility and served all with the dainty tribute of a fragrant tender
rose. This part of the ceremony over, the company moved on to the
great audience chamber, where mass was said.

Our tapestries show the figures of ladies and gentlemen present at
this pretty ceremony--too pretty to associate with desperate Jeanne
d'Arc, who at that very time was rousing France to war to throw off
the foreign yoke. The ladies fair and masters bold are intensely human
little people, for the most part paired off in couples as men and
women have been wont to pair in gardens since Eden's time. They are
dressed in their best, that is evident, and by their distant,
courteous manners show good society. The faces of the ladies are
childlike, dutiful; those of the men more determined, after the
manner of men.

But the interest of the set centres in the tableau wherein are but
three figures, those of two men and a woman. Here lies a piquant
romance. Who is she, the grand and gracious lady, bending like a lily
stalk among the roses, with a man on either side? A token is being
exchanged between her and the supplicant at her right. He, wholly
elegant, half afraid, bends the knee and fixes her w