With such qualifications he came back eager
for the domination, the pleasures, and the display that
befitted his princely birth. A long disuse of all political
activity combined with the flatteries of his new friends to
fill him with an overweening conceit of his own capacity and
influence. If aught had gone wrong in his absence, it seemed
quite natural men should look to him for its redress. Was
not King Arthur come again?
The Duke of Burgundy received him with politic honours. He
took his guest by his foible for pageantry, all the easier as
it was a foible of his own; and Charles walked right out of
prison into much the same atmosphere of trumpeting and bell-
ringing as he had left behind when he went in. Fifteen days
after his deliverance he was married to Mary of Cleves, at
St. Omer. The marriage was celebrated with the usual pomp of
the Burgundian court; there were joustings, and
illuminations, 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.
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