We have a very curious illustration of the extravagant living at table of the latter half of the fifteenth century, in the curious allegorical tapestry long preserved at Nancy, in Lorrain, and said by tradition, probably with truth, to have been the ornament of the tent of Charles le Téméraire, duke of Burgundy, when he laid siege to Nancy in 1477, and was defeated and slain. It is of Flemish workmanship, and no doubt pictures the manners of the Burgundian nobles and gentry, but at that time the court of Burgundy was the model of the fashionable life of western Europe. It happens, curiously enough, that a few years later a rather obscure French writer, named Nicole de La Chesnaye, compiling one of those allegorical dramas then so popular under the title of “Moralities,” took the story of this tapestry as his subject, and has thus left us the full explanation of what might otherwise have been not easily understood. The title of this morality is “La Nef de Santé” (the ship of health), and a second title is “La condamnacion des bancquetz” (the condemnation of banquets); and its object is to show the unhappy consequences of the extravagance in eating and drinking, which then prevailed. It opens with a conversation between three allegorical personages named Dinner, Supper, and Banquet, who declare their intention to lead joyous life evening and morning, and they resolve on imitating Passe-Temps (pastime) and Bonne-Compagnie (good company). At this moment Bonne-Compagnie herself, who is described as a dashing damsel (_gorrière damoiselle_), enters with all her people, namely, Gourmandize (greediness), Friandize (daintiness), Passe-Temps, already mentioned, Je-Boy-à-Vous (I drink to you), Je-Pleige-d’Autant (I pledge the same), and Acoustumance (custom). Each names what he prefers in good cheer, and Bonne-Compagnie, to begin the day, orders a collation, at which, among other things, are served damsons (_prunes de Damas_), which appear at this time to have been considered as delicacies. There is here a marginal direction to the purport that, if the morality should be performed in the season when real damsons could not be had, the performers must have some made of wax to look like real ones. They now take their places at table, and, while they are eating, Je-Boy-à-Vous calls the attention of the company to the circumstance that Gourmandize, in his haste to eat the damsons, had swallowed a snail. Passe-Temps next proposes a dance, and chooses for his partner the lady Friandize, comparing her to Helen, and telling her that he was Paris. She, in reply, compares herself to Medea, and her partner to Jason. Then the musicians, “placed on a stage or some higher place,” are to play a measure “pretty short.” Dinner, Supper, and Banquet next make their appearance, and, addressing Bonne-Compagnie, make their apology for entering without being invited; but the lady receives them well, asks their names, and, in return, tells them those of her people.