WOMAN
VOLUME V
WOMEN OF MEDIÆVAL FRANCE
by
PIERCE BUTLER, PH. D.
OF TULANE UNIVERSITY OF LOUISIANA
ODETTE DE CHAMPDIVERS AND CHARLES VI.
After the painting by Albrecht de Vriendt
The king, now often idiotic when he was not raving,... To amuse anddistract him, and also to strengthen the Burgundian influence, the Dukeof Burgundy provided him with a fair child as playmate and mistress. Tothe sway once held by Valentine over Charles there now succeeded Odette.She was little more than a child, but she became mistress as well asplayfellow of the mad king. Of humble origin (daughter of a horsedealer), she wears in court history a name better than that she was bornto, Odette de Champdivers; and the people, indulgent of the sin of themad king, called her "la petite reine" She was happy, it seems, and kindto the king, amused him, was loved by him; and, more true to him thanwas quite pleasing to the Burgundians, did not play false to France inlater years when Burgundy and England were leagued together.
WOMAN
In all ages and in all countries
VOLUME V
WOMEN OF MEDIÆVAL FRANCE
BY
PIERCE BUTLER, PH. D.
Of Tulane University of Louisiana
Illustrated
PHILADELPHIA
GEORGE BARRIE & SONS, PUBLISHERS
TO
M. L. B. AND J. P. B.
PREFACE
It is the customary privilege of the author to meet you at thethreshold, as it were, bid you welcome, and in his own person explainmore fully and freely than he may elsewhere the plan and intent of hisbook. After you have crossed this imaginary boundary you may judge foryourself, weigh and consider, and condemn even with scant regard for theauthor's feelings; for as a guest it is your privilege. But here outsideI am still speaking as one with authority and unabashed; for I know not,and will not let myself fancy, how the reader will censure me. Thoughthe little that need be said may be said briefly, I trust the readerwill be a reader gentle enough to permit me graciously this word ofgeneral comment upon the whole work.
From the mediaeval Ladies' Book, of a kind that will be referred to inthe following pages, to the very latest volume of Social England, ormore aptly, perhaps, to the most local and frivolous Woman's Worldedited by an Eve in your daily paper, all the little repositories ofebbing gossip help immensely in the composition of a picture of the lifeof any period. They are not history; by the dignified historian of a fewgenerations ago they were neglected if not scorned; but more and moreare they coming to their own as material for history. In like manner thevolume hardly claims to be a formal history, but rather ancillary tohistory. It has been the aim to present pictures from history, scenesfrom the lives of historic women, but above and through all to give asdefinite an idea as might be of the life of women at various periods inthe history of mediaeval France.
The keenness of your appetite for the repast spread will be the measureof the author's success. But whether I have been successful or not, thepurpose was as has been said. Figures mo