After prayers before the holy relics the procession returned with the same state to the great banquet, after which the King went to bed and the King of Sicily and his brother returned to the church to pass the night in prayer and watching before the altar according to the ancient usage. But young as the children were, and tired with the journey and the fatigues of all these ceremonies, it was evident that they would not be able to sit up all night in church saying prayers, so after a little while they were fetched away to rest until daybreak, when they had to go back; and later in the morning came the imposing function in the church. It was crowded with the courtiers and nobles, all the monks were also present, and when the rest were assembled a door was opened out of the cloisters and two of the chief esquires of the King’s household appeared carrying drawn swords and golden spurs, and followed by the King himself in his royal robes and mantle, accompanied by the two young princes.
Immediately after came the Queens of France and Sicily with their ladies. A solemn mass was then sung, at the conclusion of which the bishop approached the King, and the two boys knelt before him and demanded admission to knighthood. The King received their vows, girded on their swords, and commanded M. de Chauvigny to put on their spurs, the Bishop gave them his blessing, and the picturesque and touching ceremony was at an end.
Every one returned to the abbey, where there was a grand banquet, in fact two, for the monk of St. Denis who gives the account of it says that they dined and supped in the banqueting hall with the King and court and then danced all night.
It may interest some people to know that a granddaughter of the elder of these boys was the famous and unfortunate Marguérite d’Anjou, wife of Henry VI., King of England.
For four days and nights joustes and tournaments went on, at which the Queen gave away the prizes; followed by banquets and balls. The court was in a frenzy of excitement and the fêtes ended with a masked ball more splendid than any, but so licentious and disorderly that of the brilliant crowds that thronged the torch-lighted halls and wandered in the dim, tapestried galleries and rooms of the great abbey, it has been asserted that few escaped the perils of that night of wild, lawless revelry; and the monk of Saint Denis declares that the scenes enacted there desecrated the holiness of the place.[115] A liaison between Isabeau and her brother-in-law the Duc de Touraine was said to be one of the results, and it has certainly been the general opinion that whether or not it originated on that occasion, there could be only one explanation to the relations which from that time until the death of the Duke continued to exist between them.