OF SIX MEDIAEVAL WOMEN 



Christine one was found. It has been well said 

 of her, and by a Frenchman too, that " though 

 born a woman and an Italian, she alone at the 

 Court of France seemed to have manly qualities 

 and French sentiments." France was in a sorry 

 plight. There was war in the land, there was 

 war in the palace. The sick King suffered more 

 and more from attacks of madness, and during 

 these periods the Dukes of Orleans and Burgundy 

 fought for the regency. Christine began her 

 patriotic work by fervent appeals to Isabella, the 

 Queen (to whom she offered a MS. now in the 

 British Museum), 1 to use her influence to put 

 an end to these dissensions which so greatly 

 added to the troubles of the kingdom. She also 

 lost no opportunity of proclaiming in her various 

 writings the duties and responsibilities of kings 

 and nobles to the people, and the necessity, if 

 there was ever to be peace and prosperity, of 

 winning their regard. At the command of 

 Philip le Hardi, Duke of Burgundy, and uncle 

 of the King, she wrote in prose, from chronicles 

 of the time and from information obtained from 

 many connected with the King's household, Le 

 Livre des fa its et bonnes mceurs du roi Charles V^ 

 recounting his virtuous life and deeds and their 

 advantage to the realm, and introducing a 

 remarkable dissertation on the benefit to a 

 country of a strong middle-class. She, of course, 

 reasoned from Aristotle. The subject is a 

 commonplace one now, but in the case of any 



1 Harley, 4431. 

 124 



