The Great Events by Famous Historians [Volumes 1-14]

From the palace a secret gallery led into a private apartment in Guines castle, along which the royal visitors could pass and repass at pleasure.

The King was attended by squires of the body, sewers, gentlemen-ushers, grooms and pages of the chamber, for all of whom suitable accommodation had to be provided. The lord chamberlain, the lord steward, the lord treasurer of the household, the comptroller, with their numerous staffs, had to be lodged in apartments adapted to their rank and services. As it was one great object of the interview to entertain all comers with masques and banquetings of the most sumptuous kind, the mere rank and file of inferior officers and servants formed a colony of themselves. The bakehouse, pantry, cellar, buttery, kitchen, larder, accatry, were amply provided with ovens, ranges, and culinary requirements, to say nothing of the stables, the troops of grooms, farriers, saddlers, stirrup-makers, furbishers, and footmen. Upward of two hundred attendants were employed in and about the kitchen alone.

Outside the palace gate, on the greensward, stood a quiet fountain, of antique workmanship, with a statue of Bacchus "birlyng the wine." Three runlets, fed by secret conduits hid beneath the earth, spouted claret, hypocras, and water into as many silver cups, to quench the thirst of all comers. On the opposite side was a pillar wreathed in gold, and supported by four gilt lions; and on the top stood an image of blind Cupid, armed with bow and arrows. The gate itself, built in massive style, was pierced with loop-holes. Its windows and recesses were filled with images of Hercules, Alexander, and other ancient worthies, richly gilt and painted. In long array, in the plain beyond, twenty-eight hundred tents stretched their white canvas before the eyes of the spectator, gay with the pennons, badges, and devices of the various occupants; while miscellaneous followers, in tens of thousands, attracted by profit or the novelty of the scene, camped on the grass and filled the surrounding slopes, in spite of the severity of provost-marshal and reiterated threats of mutilation and chastisement. Multitudes from the French frontiers, or the populous cities of Flanders, indifferent to the political significance of the scene, swarmed from their dingy homes to gaze on kings, queens, knights, and ladies dressed in their utmost splendor. Beggars, itinerant minstrels, venders of provisions and small luxuries, mixed with wagoners, ploughmen, laborers, and the motley troop of camp-followers, crowded round, or stretched themselves beneath the summer's sun on bundles of straw and grass, in drunken idleness. No better lodging awaited many a gay knight and lady who had travelled far to be present at the spectacle, and were obliged to content themselves with such open-air accommodation. Backward and forward surged the excited and unwieldy crowd, as every hour brought its fresh contingent of curiosity or criticism in the shape of some new-comer conspicuous for his fantastic bearing or the quaint fashion of his armor. Each new candidate for the love and honor of the ladies, for popular applause, or less noble objects, was greeted with shouts and acclamations as he succeeded in distinguishing himself from the throng by the strangeness or splendor of his appointments. Christendom had never witnessed such a scene. The fantastic usages of the courts of Love and Beauty were revived once more. The Mediæval Age had gathered up its departing energies for this last display of its favorite pastime—henceforth to be consigned, without regret, to "the mouldered lodges of the past."

At the time that Henry set sail for Calais, Francis started from Montreuil for Ardres. It was a meagre old town, long since in ruins, the fosses and castle of which had been hastily repaired. He was attended on his route by a vast and motley multitude. No less than ten thousand of this poor vagrant crew were compelled to turn back, by a proclamation ordering that no person, without special permission, should approach within two leagues of the King's train, "on pain of the halter." As the French had proposed that both parties should lodge in tents erected on the field, they had prepared numerous pavilions, fitted up with halls, galleries, and chambers, ornamented within and without with gold and silver tissue. Amid golden balls and quaint devices glittering in the sun, rose a gilt figure of St. Michael, conspicuous for his blue mantle powdered with golden fleurs-de-lis, and crowning a royal pavilion, of vast dimensions, supported by a single mast. In his right hand he held a dart, in his left a shield emblazoned with the arms of France. Inside, the roof of the pavilion represented the canopy of heaven, ornamented with stars and figures of the zodiac. The lodgings of the Queen, of the Duchess of Alençon, the King's favorite sister, and of other ladies and princes of the blood were covered with cloth of gold. The rest of the tents, to the number of three hundred or four hundred, emblazoned with the arms of the owners, were pitched on the banks of a small river outside the city walls. A large house in the town, built for the occasion, served as a place of reception for royal visitors.