And for making a chair of red Cordova leather fringed with silk, gilt nails, and two gold chains, decorated and painted with choice colours.
Isabeau had much more idea of comfort than had hitherto been usual even in the palaces of the Kings of France. Mingled with the splendour that had been more or less customary for some generations we see various attempts at convenience not yet introduced. She is said to have been the first to use a “suspended carriage,” and those she had were luxurious and commodious to a degree never seen before, and drawn by very swift horses. She had one chariot on purpose for thunderstorms, “_pour le tonnerre_,” but in what the safety of it consisted is not stated.[174]
She had _calorifères_ like little iron chariots filled with red-hot ashes wheeled about the cold galleries of the palaces, and hollow balls of gold and silver full of red-hot cinders to hold in the hand as _chaufferettes_. In hot weather she caused herself to be fanned by huge fans to keep her cool and drive away the flies; her rooms were hung with costly tapestry and stuffs which were taken down and went with her from one palace to another. She had one room entirely hung with white satin, another with green satin, and her plate was almost always of gold. She used an Eastern talisman against poison, fastened with a silver gilt chain to her goblet and salt-cellar, and an officer of her household tried every dish before she tasted it. She had a cupboard painted and decorated by a skilful artist, in which she kept her relics and perfumes. For the latter she had a mania. She always kept damask rose water about her, and used also a great quantity of what were called “_oiselets de Chypre_.” These were little bottles something the shape of birds, filled with different Oriental perfumes. She and her ladies were constantly eating all sorts of sweetmeats, of which there seem to have been innumerable kinds.[175]
[Illustration: BEDROOM OF THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY.]
Carpets were sometimes, but not generally used, the floors were still strewn with rushes and fresh boughs, especially the great halls and banqueting rooms. It was, however, usual to lay them on the steps going up to the great beds, and the floors of many of the rooms in the palaces were of wood, often inlaid.