en and women alike must needs do both. And so the sad
Christine set to work to fit herself, by the study of the best ancient
and modern writers, to produce more serious matter than love-ballads,
turning, in her saddest moments, to Boethius and Dante for inspiration
and solace. "I betook myself," she says, "like the child who at first
is set to learn its A B C, to ancient histories from the beginning of
the world--histories of the Hebrews and the Assyrians, of the Romans,
the French, the Bretons, and diverse others--and then to the
deductions of such sciences as I had time to give heed to, as well as
to a study of the poets." Her master was Aristotle, and she made his
ethics her gospel. "Ancelle de science," she calls herself, and
remains a humble worshipper at the shrine of knowledge, for knowledge,
she says, is "that which can change the mortal into the immortal." We
can picture her to ourselves at work in the library of the Louvre,
amidst its 900 precious MSS., and in the library of the University of
Paris, to which she had access through her friend Gerson, the renowned
Chancellor. In a miniature at the beginning of one of her MSS. she is
seen seated, in a panelled recess, on a carved wooden bench, dressed
in a simple blue gown and a high white coif. She is working at a folio
on a large table covered with tapestry, with a greyhound lying at her
feet. It is quite possible that this may be either a conventional
setting, or one due to the imagination of the artist, but as the
miniaturists of those days were, as far as they could be, realists, it
is more than possible that we here see her represented at work in her
favourite nook in the Louvre library, together with the favourite dog
who shared her lonely hours. Gradually solace came to her through
work, and having found so precious a treasure for herself, she, like
our own modern sage, never tired of preaching to others the gospel of
its blessedness.

Whilst Christine wrote and lived her student life--"son cuer hermit
dans l'ermitage de Pensee"--her fame went forth, and princes sought,
by tempting offers, to attach her to their courts, but without
success. Of these, Henry the Fourth of England, already acquainted
with her poems, and Gian Galleazo Visconti, Duke of Milan, were the
most importunate, and particularly the former, who was unaccustomed to
rebuff and failure. But Christine, with repeated gracious thanks and
guarded refusals, remained firm. No reason for her dec