OF SIX MEDIEVAL WOMEN 



of war. Robert seems to have been of a most 

 inquiring and intelligent nature, but when he 

 had scarce passed his seventeenth year, Mahaut, 

 with scant warning, saw this her only son 

 stricken in death just as he was about to enter 

 the ranks of knighthood. In the archives of 

 Arras, the Capital of Artois, may be found a 

 discoloured parchment containing the inventory 

 of the equipment provided for the youthful 

 Robert in anticipation of his initiation. What 

 sorrow is enshrined in these faded pages ! It is 

 not sorrow for death, but the bitterer sorrow for 

 something that has never lived, or, rather, that 

 has lived only in the heart, like spring blossom 

 blighted ere fruiting-time. In the Church of 

 St. Denis, where modern restoration has but 

 emphasised the transitoriness and vanity of 

 human glory, there can still be seen the tomb of 

 this youth, carved soon after his death by Pepin 

 de Huy, and once painted, as was all such carved 

 work. Even to the mere student it is interesting 

 as being the only existing monument that can 

 with certainty be attributed to this celebrated 

 sculptor, and also as being, in Gothic art, one of 

 the first essays in portraiture in recumbent figures 

 of the dead, as contrasted with mere effigy. For 

 the deeper thinker it has even greater signifi- 

 cance. Of all the good and great works that 

 Mahaut conceived and initiated the churches, 

 castles, hospitals, which she built and enriched 

 for the glory of God and the safety and solace of 

 mankind all have passed away. This simple 



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