m in those fairy days--and fling a leg
over a gentleman's charger, behind its owner, and thus ride double to
see the sights. So great was his eagerness to enjoy all the display
that he got a smart reproof from an officer of ceremonies for
trespassing.[12]

When Louis XI was the young king, and had not yet developed the taste
for bloodshed and torture that as a crafty fox he used later to the
horror of his nation, he, too, had similar festivals with similar
decorations. On one occasion the Pont des Changes was made the chief
point in the royal progress through the streets of Paris. The bridge
was hung with superb tapestries of great size, from end to end, and
the king rode to it on a white charger, his trappings set with
turquoise, with a gorgeous canopy supported over his head. Just as he
reached the bridge the air became full of the music of singing birds,
twenty-five hundred of them at that moment released, and all
fluttering, darting, singing amid the gorgeous scene to tickle the
fancy of a king.

[Illustration: DAVID AND BATHSHEBA

German Tapestry, about 1450]

[Illustration: FLEMISH TAPESTRY. ABOUT 1500

Collection of Alfred W. Hoyt, Esq.]

FOOTNOTES:

[7] Canon de Haisnes, "La Tapisserie."

[8] M. de Barante, "Histoire des Ducs de Bourgogne."

[9] Froissart, manuscript of the library of Dijon.

[10] De Barante, "Histoire."

[11] See M. Pinchart, "Roger van der Weyden et les Tapisseries de
Berne."

[12] Enguerrand de Monstrelet, "Chronicles."

CHAPTER V

HIGH GOTHIC

The wonderful time of the Burgundian dukes is gone; Charles le
Temeraire leaves the world at Nancy, where the pitying have set up a
cross in memory of his unkingly death, and where the lover of things
Gothic may wander down a certain way to the exquisite portico of the
Ducal Palace and, entering, find the Gothic room where the duke's
precious tapestries are hung. In this sympathetic atmosphere one may
dream away hours in sheer joy of association with these shadowy hosts
of the past, the relentless slayers in the battle scenes, relentless
moralists in the religious subjects--for morality plays had a parallel
in the morality tapestry, issuing such rigid warnings to those who
make merry as is seen in _The Condemnation of Suppers and Banquets_,
_The Reward of Virtue_, _The Triumph of Right_, _The Horrors of the
Seven Deadly Sins_, all of which were popular subjects for the weaver.

With the artists who might be