t he took the Duchess of Burgundy by the arm and led her away, in order
to cut short the ceremonies "about which Madame made so much to do." This,
however, did not prevent the princesses, on their withdrawing, from
kneeling to the ground in order to show their respect for the son of the
King of France.

[Illustration: Fig. 395.--The Entry of Louis XI. into Paris.--Fac-simile
of a Miniature in the "Chroniques" of Monstrelet, Manuscript of the
Fifteenth Century (Imperial Library of Paris).]

We have already seen that the Duchess of Burgundy, when about to appear
before the Queen, took her train from her train-bearer in order that she
might carry it herself. In this she was only conforming to a general
principle, which was, that in the presence of a superior, a person,
however high his rank, should not himself receive honours whilst at the
same time paying them to another. Thus a duke and a duchess amidst their
court had all the things which were used at their table covered--hence the
modern expression, _mettre le couvert_ (to lay the cloth)--even the
wash-hand basin and the _cadenas_, a kind of case in which the cups,
knives, and other table articles were kept; but when they were
entertaining a king all these marks of superiority were removed, as a
matter of etiquette, from the table at which they sat, and were passed on
as an act of respect to the sovereign present.

The book of Dame Alienor, in a series of articles to which we shall merely
allude, speaks at great length and enters into detail respecting the
interior arrangements of the rooms in which princes and other noble
children were born. The formalities gone through on these occasions were
as curious as they were complicated; and Dame Alienor regretted to see
them falling into disuse, "owing to which," she says, "we fear that the
possessions of the great houses of the nobility are getting too large, as
every one admits, and chicanery or concealment of birth, so as to make
away with too many children, is on the increase."

Mourning is the next subject which we shall notice. The King never wore
black for mourning, not even for his father, but scarlet or violet. The
Queen wore white, and did not leave her apartments for a whole year. Hence
the name of _chateau, hotel,_ or _tour de la Reine Blanche_, which many of
the buildings of the Middle Ages still bear, from the fact that widowed
queens inhabited them during the first year of their widowhood. On
occasions of m