Luxury and display followed, as usual, in the train of wealth, and Brussels became a city of pleasure, of fêtes, and gorgeous festivals. The Court of Brabant was one of the most luxurious and dissolute in Europe. The Dukes set an example of extravagance which was followed by the Barons who surrounded them, and also by the rich bourgeois. 'The people alone,' we are told, 'that is to say, the men without leisure, the artisans, remained apart from excesses.' There was luxury in dress, in armour, in furniture. The rich went about clad in gold brocades and other costly stuffs, attended by servants in fine liveries. Their horses were richly caparisoned, and their wives and daughters spent large sums on magnificent robes, and decked themselves with jewels, and garlands from the rose-gardens for which Brussels was already famous. Every occasion for a fête was eagerly welcomed. Not only was there the yearly 'Ommegang,' that time-honoured procession through the streets of triumphal cars, bands of music, and giants, which delighted the people of Brabant and Flanders, but each separate guild and confraternity had its own festival. In private life every event--a birth, a baptism, a marriage, or a death--was an excuse for spending money on display. To such an extent, indeed, was this carried, that rules were made forbidding invitations being sent except to near relatives, to prevent people going to fêtes without being asked, and at length even to put some limit on the value of the presents which it was customary to give to guests. The licentious and wasteful habits of the _jeunesse dorée_ became so notorious, that there was a lock-up at each of the city gates for the benefit of young men who were living too fast. In such a state of society the money-lender saw his chance; but a law was passed making it illegal for anyone to sign a promissory note, or anticipate his inheritance, before reaching the age of twenty-eight. Brussels was full of taverns, and there were parts of the town where every house was occupied by women of easy virtue. Fortunes were recklessly squandered, and most of the nobles are said to have been insolvent, and to have left heavy debts behind them.