and present to us, and which seem, as it were, to place this
wonderful woman in a charmed and tranquil circle, in spite of the
trouble and turmoil incidental to her life and her position.

[Illustration: _Photo. Macbeth._

STATUE OF MAHAUT IN ABBEY OF LA THIEULOYE, NEAR ARRAS, NOW DESTROYED.

From a Drawing, now in Brussels, made in 1602.

_To face page 99._]

Amongst Mahaut's many good works was the keeping in repair of existing
religious houses, hospitals, and lazar-houses, and the building and
maintenance of new ones. Of all the religious houses which she
founded, her special care was for the Dominican convent of La
Thieuloye, near Arras, the equipment of which, as set out in the
accounts, may well serve as an example of that of the others. The
items for the furnishing and instalment of the house and chapel
include everything needful for the community, from gold and silver
vessels, silver-gilt images of St. Louis, the Trinity, and St. John,
for the sanctuary, and samite and velvet for chasubles, down to the
bowls and platters for the nuns, the woollen material for their
garments, and all the simple necessaries of everyday life. In the
chapel of this nunnery was preserved a kneeling statue of Mahaut,
representing her as foundress, in the habit of the Order strewn with
the arms of Artois. Jean Aloul, of Tournai, has been suggested as the
sculptor, since it is known from the accounts that he was working for
the Countess at Arras in 1323. This statue (known to us through a
drawing, now at Brussels, made in 1602) is of interest to-day because,
judging from the character expressed in the face, it seems probable
that it was a portrait, and not simply imagery. This conjecture seems
all the more likely when we compare the statue with a miniature
painted more than a hundred years later by Jean Fouquet in _Les
Grandes Chroniques de France_ (Bib. Nat.), portraying the marriage of
King Charles the Fourth with his second wife, Marie de Luxembourg. In
this picture a lady, heavily coiffed, and with features suggestive of
those of the statue, but with anguish written upon them, turns away
from the ceremony as if it were all too painful. If this unwilling
guest represents Mahaut, her woeful look is intelligible when we
recall the sad story connected with Charles's first wife, Mahaut's
daughter Blanche, married when she was but fifteen, and whose beauty
was so dazzling that Froissart records that "she was one of the most
beautif