iracles of
Our Lady. Philosophy was represented by a French translation of
Boethius (probably a copy of a translation made by order of King
Philip le Bel, by Jean de Meun, the writer of the second portion of
_The Romance of the Rose_), Law by a verse translation of the laws of
Normandy, History by the Chronicles of the Kings of France, and Travel
by _The Romance of the Great Kan_, known to us as _The Travels of
Marco Polo_. But by far the largest category consisted of Romances,
such as that of Oger le Danois from the national Epic, and another of
Tancred, a hero of the first Crusade, the Romance of Troy, Percival le
Gallois, Tristan, Renart, and the Violet, the story which forms the
chief episode in the play of Cymbeline. Of course there was no great
choice, but that Mahaut read them and loved them we may be certain,
since we know that she took some with her on her journeyings, and to
preserve them from the wear and tear of travel, had leather wallets
made to protect them. Mahaut was, in truth, the first wealthy
individual of the age to spend her substance with the express purpose
of surrounding herself with beauty of every kind. The foremost thought
of a man in a like case would probably have been to add to his power.
_Her_ thought was of beauty, a quality much more far-reaching and less
transient, and one which, even like Time itself, triumphs over the
changes of fame and fortune.

[27] The Bible was first translated into French, and reduced
in size so that it could be carried in the hand, between 1200
and 1250.

Though Mahaut did not live the allotted three score years and ten, she
lived long enough to see seven kings on the throne of France, two of
whom--Philip the Fifth and Charles the Fourth--were her sons-in-law.
She was a mere child when her great-uncle, King Louis, died in 1270.
In 1285, the year in which Philip the Fourth, surnamed le Bel,
ascended the throne, she wedded Otho, Count Palatine of Burgundy, a
widower of forty-five, a companion in arms of her father, and a brave
and generous man, who died fighting for his country, but one
absolutely incapable in administration, and, as a consequence, always
in debt and in the clutches of the usurer. There are few documents to
throw any light on her life until after Otho's death in 1303. This may
be due partly to the fact that she only came into her great
possessions on her father's death in 1302, and partly to the
circumstance that the careless and