Collected works > Edinburgh edition, 1894-98 - Works of Robert Louis Stevenson > Volume 5, 1895 - Miscellanies, Volume II

MEN AND BOOKS
tions, and animals that spouted wine ; and many
nobles dined together, comme en brigade, and were
served abundantly with many rich and curious
dishes. 1 It must have reminded Charles not a little
of his first marriage at Compiegne ; only then he
was two years the junior of his bride, and this time
he was five-and- thirty years her senior. It will be
a fine question which marriage promises more : for
a boy of fifteen to lead off with a lass of seventeen,
or a man of fifty to make a match of it with a child
of fifteen. But there was something bitter in both.
The lamentations of Isabella will not have been
forgotten. As for Mary, she took up with one
Jaquet de la Lain, a sort of muscular Methody of
the period, with a huge appetite for tournaments,
and a habit of confessing himself the last thing
before he went to bed.^ With such a hero the
young duchess's amours were most likely innocent ;
and in all other ways she was a suitable partner
for the duke, and well fitted to enter into his
pleasures.
When the festivities at Saint Omer had come to
an end, Charles and his wife set forth by Ghent and
Tournay. The towns gave him offerings of money
as he passed through, to help in the payment of
his ransom. From all sides, ladies and gentlemen
thronged to offer him their services ; some gave him
their sons for pages, some archers for a bodyguard ;
1 Moustrelet.
2 Vallet's Charles VIL, iii. chap. i. But see the chronicle that bears
Jaquet's name : a lean and dreary book.
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