e retained with them no majestie or
authoritie; he rejected all affaires and businesse, and yet if he did
debate and consider in any he showed a weak discretion and judgment. And
if he had anything in him that carried appearance of merite of praise,
yet being thoroughly weighed and sounded, it was found farther off from
vertue than vice. He had an inclination to glory, but it was tempered
more with rashness and fury than with moderation and counsell: his
liberalities were without discretion, measure, or distinction,
immoveable oftentimes in his purposes, but that was rather an
ill-grounded obstinacy than constancie, and that which many call bountie
deserved more reasonably in his the name of coldnesse and slacknesse of
spirit."[54]

The splendours of the court of Milan, and more especially the toilettes
of the Duchess Beatrice and her ladies, amazed the French chroniclers,
who have left us a graphic description of the scene at the castle of
Annona. The poet Andre de la Vigne, in his rhyming chronicle "Le Vergier
d'honneur," describes Beatrice's sumptuous apparel in the following
lines:--

"Avecques luy fist venir sa partie
Qui de Ferrare fille du duc estait;
De fin drap d'or en tout ou en partie
De jour en jour volontiers se vestait
Chaines, colliers, affiquetz, pierrerie,
Ainsi qu'on dit en ung commun proverbe,
Tant en avait que c'etait diablerie.
Brief mieulx valait le lyen que le gerbe.
Autour du col bagues, joyaulx carcaus,
Et pour son chief de richesse estoffer,
Bordures d'or, devises et brocans."

And in his "Histoire de Charles VIII." (1684) Godefroy quotes the
following letter, written by an eye-witness from the French camp to the
king's sister, Anne Duchess of Bourbon, for whose benefit Charles had
Beatrice's portrait painted by Jean Perreal and sent to Moulins:--

"People crowd to meet and welcome the king from all parts, princes and
princesses, dukes and duchesses. Only this morning a new one has
arrived, the description of whose dress will, I am sure, please you.
First of all, when she arrived she was on a horse with trappings of gold
and crimson velvet, and she herself wore a robe of gold and green
brocade, and a fine linen _gorgerette_ turned back over it, and her head
was richly adorned with pearls, and her hair hung down behind in one
long coil with a silk ribbon twisted round it. She wore a crimson silk
hat, made very much like our own, with