OF SIX MEDIEVAL WOMEN 



The change which came over France after 

 the Treaty of Tours was marvellous, alike in 

 its extent and its rapidity. Commerce was 

 again resumed between the two nations ; men 

 and women once again ventured without the 

 city walls, to breathe, as it were, the fresh air 

 of liberty ; and those who had been called 

 upon to fight, returned to their work in the 

 fields or the towns. We cannot better voice 

 the feeling of the people than by borrowing the 

 song of a poet of the day : 



Le temps a laisse son manteau 

 De vent, de froidure et de pluie, 

 Et s'est ve'tu de broderie, 

 De soleil rayant> clair et beau ; 

 II n'y a beste ne oiseau 



gu'en son jargon ne chante ou crie : 

 e temps a laisse son manteau. 



Now that Agnes had assumed a definite 

 role at Court, she lived principally at Loches, 

 where the king assigned to her " son quartier de 

 maison " within the castle, and also gave her a 

 residence without the walls. Here she shone 

 like a radiant star ; for although the king did 

 not have much personal influence on the move- 

 ment in art and letters, his Court was the 

 meeting - place of many distinguished and in- 

 tellectual men. Among them we find the 

 name of Alain Chartier, the poet, and sometime 

 secretary to the king, and one of the ambassadors 

 who went to Edinburgh to ask the hand of the 

 little Margaret of Scotland for the Dauphin. 

 We remember him now chiefly in connection 



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