weather very sharp, and said to the knights around him: 'Here is but a
small fire for this weather.' The Bourg d'Espaign instantly ran down
stairs; for from the windows of the gallery, which looked into the
court, he had seen a number of asses laden with billets of wood for the
use of the house; and seizing the largest of these asses with his load,
threw him over his shoulders and carried him up stairs, pushing through
the crowd of knights and squires who were around the chimney, and flung
ass and load with his feet upward on the dogs of the hearth, to the
delight of the count and the astonishment of all."


IV.

Gaston himself was a type of the time. He had its virtues and its vices,
both magnified. Hence, hearing an eye-witness draw his character for us
is to gain a direct if but partial insight into the character of his
era. Froissart's moral perspective is often curiously blurred, and in
the light of many of his anecdotes about the count his eulogium perhaps
needs qualification: "Count Gaston Phoebus de Foix, of whom I am now
speaking, was at that time fifty-nine years old; and I must say that
although I have seen very many knights, kings, princes and others, I
have never seen any so handsome, either in the form of his limbs and
shape, or in countenance, which was fair and ruddy, with grey and
amorous eyes that gave delight whenever he chose to express affection.
He was so perfectly formed, one could not praise him too much. He loved
earnestly the things he ought to love, and hated those which it was
becoming him so to hate. He was a prudent knight, full of enterprise and
wisdom. He had never any men of abandoned character with him, reigned
prudently, and was constant in his devotions. There were regular
nocturnals from the Psalter, prayers, from the rituals to the Virgin, to