e supposed to amuse the unwary guests. One
sprinkled them with water, another with black or white powder, as they
passed by, and yet another, in the form of a monkey, struck them with
a stick, whilst in a bower might be seen a mirror wherein all who
looked saw only the distorted semblance of themselves. These unwelcome
pleasantries were a part of the miscellaneous borrowings from the
East. But for the easily amused folk of the Middle Ages, time passed
merrily enough in the midst of such pastimes, and only the shadow on
the dial seemed to mark its flight.

But Mahaut, amid the manifold claims on her time and talent, had seen
the shadow lengthening. From time to time she had been attacked by
illness, to which blood-letting and other remedies of the day had
brought relief. But on the 25th November 1329, when in Paris, she was
seized with a sudden sickness, so sudden that sinister rumours were
noised abroad. Human aid was of no avail. Two days later there was
general lamentation. The shadow had lengthened into the night. Mahaut
was dead. In accordance with her wishes, she was buried at the foot of
her father's grave in the Abbey of Maubuisson, near Paris, her heart
being placed in the Church of the Franciscans in Paris, beside the
remains of her son, whose tomb there was afterwards removed to St.
Denis. Her possession of Artois, for which she had laboured devotedly,
became annexed to the Duchy of Burgundy through the marriage of her
granddaughter with its Duke.

Here, though only a tithe has been told, we must take leave of this
cultivated woman of the fourteenth century, a type of the time and for
all time. Her aim was the aim of all culture--the attainment of as
complete a life as possible. To this she aspired, and to this in large
measure she attained. What more can be said of even those we count the
greatest?

A FIFTEENTH-CENTURY FEMINISTE, CHRISTINE DE PISAN

Christine de Pisan, Italian by birth, French by adoption, may be
regarded not merely as a forerunner of true feminism, but also as one
of its greatest champions, seeing that in her judgment of the sexes
she endeavours to hold the scales evenly. Possessed of profound common
sense and of a generous-hearted nature, she is wholly free from that
want of fairness in urging woman's claims which is so fatally
prejudicial to their just consideration. Although, strictly speaking,
Christine was not original, she was representative, and interests us
for that very