she should enter.... When the Duchess came to the door she took the
train of her dress from the lady who bore it and let it trail on the
ground, and as she entered she knelt and then adyanced to the middle of
the room. There she made the same obeisance, and moved straight towards
the Queen, who was standing close to the foot of her throne. When the
Duchess had performed a further act of homage, the Queen advanced two or
three steps, and the Duchess fell on her knees; the Queen then put her
hand on her shoulder, embraced her, kissed her, and commanded her to
rise."

The Duchess then went up to Margaret of Scotland, wife of the Dauphin,
afterwards Louis XI., "who was four or five feet from the Queen," and paid
her the same honours as she had done to the Queen, although the Dauphine
appeared to wish to prevent her from absolutely kneeling to her. After
this she turned towards the Queen of Sicily (Isabelle de Lorraine, wife of
Rene of Anjou, brother-in-law of the King), "who was two or three feet
from the Dauphine," and merely bowed to her, and the same to another
Princess, Madame de Calabre, who was still more distantly connected with
the blood royal. Then the Queen, and after her the Dauphine, kissed the
three maids of honour of the Duchess and the wives of the gentlemen. The
Duchess did the same to the ladies who accompanied the Queen and the
Dauphine, "but of those of the Queen of Sicily the Duchess kissed none,
inasmuch as the Queen had not kissed hers. And the Duchess would not walk
behind the Queen, for she said that the Duke of Burgundy was nearer the
crown of France than was the King of Sicily, and also that she was
daughter of the King of Portugal, who was greater than the King of
Sicily."

Further on, from the details given of a similar reception, we learn that
etiquette was not at that time regulated by the laws of politeness as now
understood, inasmuch as the voluntary respect paid by men to the gentle
sex was influenced much by social rank. Thus, at the time of a visit of
Louis XI., then Dauphin, to the court of Brussels, to which place he went
to seek refuge against the anger of his father, the Duchesses of Burgundy,
of Charolais, and of Cleves, his near relatives, exhibited towards him all
the tokens of submission and inferiority which he might have received from
a vassal. The Dauphin, it is true, wished to avoid this homage, and a
disussion on the subject of "more than a quarter of an hour ensued;" at
las