VII, and was rewarded by that monarch with the dignity of a marshal of
France. But he was extravagant and magnificent in his style of living,
and accustomed from his earliest years to the gratification of every
wish and passion; and this, at last, led him from vice to vice, and
from crime to crime, till a blacker name than his is not to be found
in any record of human iniquity.

In his castle of Champtoce, he lived with all the splendour of an
Eastern Caliph. He kept up a troop of two hundred horsemen to
accompany him wherever he went; and his excursions for the purposes of
hawking and hunting were the wonder of all the country around, so
magnificent were the caparisons of his steeds and the dresses of his
retainers. Day and night, his castle was open all the year round to
comers of every degree. He made it a rule to regale even the poorest
beggar with wine and hippocrass. Every day an ox was roasted whole in
his spacious kitchens, besides sheep, pigs, and poultry sufficient to
feed five hundred persons. He was equally magnificent in his
devotions. His private chapel at Champtoce was the most beautiful in
France, and far surpassed any of those in the richly-endowed
cathedrals of Notre Dame in Paris, of Amiens, of Beauvais, or of
Rouen. It was hung with cloth of gold and rich velvet. All the
chandeliers were of pure gold, curiously inlaid with silver. The great
crucifix over the altar was of solid silver, and the chalices and
incense-burners were of pure gold. He had, besides, a fine organ,
which he caused to be carried from one castle to another, on the
shoulders of six men, whenever he changed his residence. He kept up a
choir of twenty-five young children of both sexes, who were instructed
in singing by the first musicians of the day. The master of his chapel
he called a bishop, who had under him his deans, archdeacons, and
vicars, each receiving great salaries; the bishop four hundred crowns