There was
something timid and purblind in the view they had of the
world. Morally, they saw nothing outside of traditional
axioms; and little of the physical aspect of things entered
vividly into their mind, beyond what was to be seen on church
windows and the walls and floors of palaces. The reader will
remember how Villon's mother conceived of heaven and hell and
took all her scanty stock of theology from the stained glass
that threw its light upon her as she prayed. And there is
scarcely a detail of external effect in the chronicles and
romances of the time, but might have been borrowed at second
hand from a piece of tapestry. It was a stage in the history
of mankind which we may see paralleled, to some extent, in
the first infant school, where the representations of lions
and elephants alternate round the wall with moral verses and
trite presentments of the lesser virtues. So that to live in
a house of many pictures was tantamount, for the time, to a
liberal education in itself.
(1) Champollion-Figeac's LOUIS ET CHARLES D'ORLEANS, p. 348.
At Charles's birth an order of knighthood was inaugurated in
his honour. At nine years old, he was a squire; at eleven,
he had the escort of a chaplain and a schoolmaster; at
twelve, his uncle the king made him a pension of twelve
thousand livres d'or. (1) He saw the most brilliant and the
most learned persons of France, in his father's Court; and
would not fail to notice that these brilliant and learned
persons were one and all engaged in rhyming.
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