e as to constitute quite a large assemblage of young
men and women. Under Charles VI., the household of Queen Isabella of
Bavaria alone amounted to forty-five persons, without counting the
almoner, the chaplains, and clerks of the chapel, who must have been very
numerous, since the sums paid to them amounted to the large amount of four
hundred and sixty francs of gold per annum.

[Illustration: Fig. 56.--Court of the Ladies of Queen Anne of Brittany,
Miniature representing this lady weeping on account of the absence of her
husband during the Italian war.--Manuscript of the "Epistres Envoyees au
Roi" (Sixteenth Century), obtained by the Coislin Fund for the Library of
St. Germain des Pres in Paris, now in the Library of St. Petersburg.]

Under Charles VIII., Louis XII., and Francis I., the service of the young
nobility, which was called "apprenticeship of honour or virtue," had
taken a much wider range; for the first families of the French nobility
were most eager to get their children admitted into the royal household,
either to attend on the King or Queen, or at any rate on one of the
princes of the royal blood. Anne of Brittany particularly gave special
attention to her female attendants (Fig. 56). "She was the first," says
Brantome in his work on "Illustrious Women," "who began to form the great
court of ladies which has descended to our days; for she had a
considerable retinue both of adult ladies and young girls. She never
refused to receive any one; on the contrary, she inquired of the gentlemen
of the court if they had any daughters, ascertained who they were, and
asked for them." It was thus that the Admiral de Graville (Fig. 57)
confided to the good Queen the education of his daughter Anne, who at this
school of the Court of Ladies became one of the most distinguished women
of her day. The same Queen, as Duchess of Brittany, created a company of
one hundred Breton gentlemen, who accompanied her everywhere. "They never
failed," says the author of "Illustrious Women," "when she went to mass or
took a walk, to await her return on the little terrace of Blois, which is
still called the _Perche aux Bretons_. She gave it this name herself; for
when she saw them she said, 'There are my Bretons on the perch waiting for
me.'"

We must not forget that this queen, who became successively the wife of
Charles VIII. and of Louis XII., had taken care to establish a strict
discipline amongst the young men and women who compo