Page:The Waning of the Middle Ages (1924).djvu/337

Rh ment. The desire to describe accurately the allegorical vision caused all demands of artistic style to be lost sight of. The cardinal virtue of Temperance has to carry a clock to represent rule and measure. We see her with this attribute on a tomb, the work of Michel Colombe, in Nantes Cathedral, and on that of the cardinals of Amboise at Rouen. The illuminator of the Eptire d’Othéa, to conform to this rule, simply puts on her head a timepiece resembling the one with which he ornaments the room of Philip the Good.

The allegorical figure can only be justified by a tradition which has become venerable. Invented all of a piece, it is rarely satisfactory. The more realistic the mind which creates it, the more bizarre and factitious its form will be. Chastellain, in his Exposition sur Vérité mal prise, sees four ladies coming to accuse him. They call themselves “Indignation, Reprobation, Accusation, Vindication.” This is how he describes the second. “This dame here appeared to have acrid conditions and very tart and biting reasons; she ground her teeth and bit her lips; often nodded her head; and showing signs of being argumentative, jumped on her feet and turned to this side and to that; she proved to be impatient and inclined to contradict; the right eye was closed and the other open; she had a bag full of books before her, of which she put some into her girdle, as if they were dear to her, the others she threw away spitefully; she tore up papers and leaves; she threw writing-books into the fire furiously; she smiled on some and kissed them; she spat on others out of meanness and trod them underfoot; she had a pen in her hand, full of ink, with which she crossed out many important writings ...; also with a sponge she blackened some pictures, she scratched out others with her nails, and others again she erased wholly and smoothed them as if to have them forgotten; and showed herself a hard and fell enemy to many respectable people, more arbitrarily than reasonably.” Elsewhere he sees Dame Peace spread out her mantle and break up into four new ladies: Peace of Heart, Peace of Mouth, Seeming Peace, Peace of True Effect. Or he invents female figures which he calls ‘‘ Importance of your lands, Various conditions and qualities of your several peoples, The envy and hatred of Frenchmen and of neighbouring nations,” as