Page:A record of European armour and arms through seven centuries (Volume 3).djvu/384

 CHAPTER XXVIII

ARMOUR TERMED "FRENCH"

Now that we come to deal with decorated armour intended for use in France, we shall again, as in the case of armour made for use in Spain, have to speak of the works of armourers all of whom were not of the nationality of the country where the armour was made, and whose works are of all styles; but, since the suits we illustrate under this heading have all more or less a reliable French royal provenance, we must accept them as typical French harnesses of the time, or rather such as were supplied to great French personages. We have already alluded to the suit in the Musée d'Artillerie of Paris, always known as that of Francis I, as the work of an Augsburg armourer (Fig. 1048), and have discussed the question of its attribution to that monarch. In the case of this suit, as in those of certain other suits in the same Museum attributed to French royal personages, we could wish that the attribution was based on convincing documentary evidence, such as is cited in the catalogue of the Royal Madrid Armoury, instead of on the mere unconfirmed statements of the guide-book, excellent as is Colonel L. Roberts's catalogue of that institution. There appear to be even more missing links in the chain of the older inventories and annals of that comparatively recent collection than in those of our National Armoury, the Tower of London; and it is unlikely too that many of the treasures of the Royal Armoury of the House of France can have survived the shock of the great Revolution. It is now, however, outside France that we look for the first suit of undoubted Royal French provenance, a suit of armour at the present time in the collection of Viscount Astor at Hever Castle, Kent. That this suit belonged to Henri II of France is proved conclusively by a small miniature portrait of the King, still in existence, attributed to Jean Clouet, a picture once in the collection of the King of Holland, afterwards in the Magniac Collection, No. 87 in the catalogue (Fig. 1089), in which Henri II is represented arrayed in this identical suit of armour, the only difference being that the armour is shown as black with the embossed parts brightened with silver plating. According to Brantôme, Henri II always wore black and