ieves, loose women, and vagabond students had fitted him to move in a
society of any dignity and courtliness. Ballades are very admirable
things; and a poet is doubtless a most interesting visitor. But among
the courtiers of Charles there would be considerable regard for the
proprieties of etiquette; and even a duke will sometimes have an eye to
his teaspoons. Moreover, as a poet, I can conceive he may have
disappointed expectation. It need surprise nobody if Villon's ballade on
the theme,

"I die of thirst beside the fountain's edge,"

was but a poor performance. He would make better verses on the lee-side
of a flagon at the sign of the Pomme du Pin, than in a cushioned settle
in the halls of Blois.

Charles liked change of place. He was often not so much travelling as
making a progress; now to join the King for some great tournament; now
to visit King Rene, at Tarascon, where he had a study of his own and saw
all manner of interesting things--Oriental curios, King Rene painting
birds, and, what particularly pleased him, Triboulet, the dwarf jester,
whose skull-cap was no bigger than an orange.[51] Sometimes the journeys
were set about on horseback in a large party, with the _fourriers_ sent
forward to prepare a lodging at the next stage. We find almost
Gargantuan details of the provision made by these officers against the
duke's arrival, of eggs and butter and bread, cheese and peas and
chickens, pike and bream and barbel, and wine both white and red.[52]
Sometimes he went by water in a barge, playing chess or tables with a
friend in the pavilion, or watching other vessels as they went before
the wind.[53] Children ran along the bank, as they do to this day on the
Crinan Canal; and when Charles threw in money they would dive and bring
it up.[54] As he looked on their exploits, I wonder whether that room of
gold and silk and worsted came back into his memory, with the device of
little children in the river, and the sky full of birds?

He was a bit of a book-fancier, and had vied with his brother Angouleme
in bringing back the library of their grandfather Charles V., when
Bedford put it up for sale in London.[55] The duchess had a library of
her own; and we hear of her borrowing romances from ladies in attendance
on the blue-stocking Margaret of Scotland.[56] Not only were books
collected, but new books were written at the court of Blois. The widow
of one Jean Fougere, a book-binder, seems to have done a number of