ight.

Houssaie gives the following authentic notice drawn from the registers
of the court, which presents a curious account of domestic life in the
fifteenth century. Of the dauphin Louis, son of Charles VI., who died at
the age of twenty, we are told, "that he knew the Latin and French
languages; that he had many musicians in his chapel; passed the night in
vigils; dined at three in the afternoon, supped at midnight, went to bed
at the break of day, and thus was _ascertene_ (that is threatened) with
a short life." Froissart mentions waiting upon the Duke of Lancaster at
five o'clock in the afternoon, when he _had supped_.

The custom of dining at nine in the morning relaxed greatly under
Francis I., successor of Louis XII. However, persons of quality dined
then the latest at ten; and supper was at five or six in the evening. We
may observe this in the preface to the Heptameron of the Queen of
Navarre, where this princess, describing the mode of life which the
lords and ladies whom she assembles at the castle of Madame Oysille,
should follow, to be agreeably occupied and to banish languor, thus
expresses herself: "As soon as the morning rose, they went to the
chamber of Madame Oysille, whom they found already at her prayers; and
when they had heard during a good hour her lecture, and then the mass,
they went to dine at ten o'clock; and afterwards each privately retired
to his room, but did not fail at noon to meet in the meadow." Speaking
of the end of the first day (which was in September) the same lady
Oysille says, "Say where is the sun? and hear the bell of the abbey,
which has for some time called us to vespers; in saying this they all
rose and went to the religionists _who had waited for them above an
hour_. Vespers heard, they went to supper, and after having played a
thousand sports in the meadow they retired to bed." All this exactly
corresponds with the lines above quoted. Charles V. of France, however,
who lived near two centuries before Francis, dined at ten, supped at
seven, and all the court was in bed by nine o'clock. They sounded the
curfew, which bell warned them to cover their fire, at six in the
winter, and between eight and nine in the summer. Under the reign of
Henry IV. the hour of dinner at court was eleven, or at noon the latest;
a custom which prevailed even in the early part of the reign of Louis
XIV. In the provinces distant from Paris, it is very common to dine at
nine; they make a second r