28 



UNIVERSITIES, SCHOOLS, STUDENTS. 



Thus, for instance, in the schools at Troyes, the primiticcs, so called because 

 of the early morning work they had to do, were exempted from the payment 

 of any fees, in return -for which they had to clean and sweep out the school- 

 rooms twice a week. 



We learn from an inventory of the silver plate of Marie d'Anjou, wife of 

 Charles VII., for the years 1454-55 an inventory in which are mentioned 

 the school books used by Charles, Duke of Berry, their second son what were 



Tig. 24. The Schoolmaster, from the Danse macabre, Guyot Marchant edition (U90). 



the works used for the elementary classes previously to the invention of 

 printing. These books, which had already been used for the education of 

 the Dauphin, afterwards Louis XI., are : 1st, an A, B, C ; 2nd, a psalter, 

 called the Seven Psalms, which children had to get, by heart ; 3rd, a Donat, 

 or treatise of the eight parts of the discourse by ^Elius Donatus, a gram- 

 marian of the fourth century ; 4th, an Accident, another grammar treating of 

 the cases and conjugations of verbs ; 5th, a Cafo, a collection of moral 

 distichs in Latin, with a French translation, attributed to Valerius Cato, a 



