The time was drawing near for the great tournament, which would be a high festival for the town and was looked forward to with much eagerness and excitement. The course on which the knights were to fight was surrounded and duly laid out with richly-painted posts. At one side of this enclosed field, stands were put up and made very bright and gay with coloured hangings, carpets, embroidered banners, and escutcheons. It was here that the royal and noble company would sit and watch the proceedings. Meantime, by permission of the King, Messire Claude de Vauldray had caused it to be published and declared throughout the city that he would hold the "pas" against all comers, both on foot and on horseback, on the approaching Monday. A tournament was always a gorgeous and brilliant spectacle, but on this occasion, being held by the King's desire and graced by his presence, it was more splendid than usual. In our day, when it is the custom of men to avoid all show and colour in their dress, we can scarcely picture to ourselves the magnificence of those knights of the Renaissance. When the gallant gentleman actually entered the lists for fighting, he wore his suit of polished armour, often inlaid with gold or silver, a coloured silken scarf across his shoulders richly embroidered with his device, and on his head a shining helmet with a great tuft of flowing plumes. But in the endless stately ceremonies which followed or preceded the tournament, the knight wore his doublet of fine cloth, overlaid with his coat-of-arms embroidered in silk or gold thread, and an outer surcoat of velvet, often crimson slashed with white or violet satin, made without sleeves if worn over the cuirass and finished with a short fluted skirt of velvet. Over this a short cloak of velvet or satin, even sometimes of cloth of gold, was worn lightly over one shoulder.