It was from Arras that they chiefly filled their superb store-chambers in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The Arras looms had become famous, far and wide; for, when Philip the Bold’s son was taken prisoner at the Battle of Nicopolis (1396), the Sultan Bajazet said to the Duke of Burgundy’s envoy that he “would be pleased to see some high-warp tapestries worked in Arras and Picardy,” and that “they should represent good old stories.” Philip thereupon sent two pack-horses laden with “high-warp cloths, collected and made at Arras, the finest that could be found on this side of the mountains.” The set he chose was _The History of Alexander_. In 1374, there is an entry in the accounts of the Duke of Burgundy “to Colin Bataille, _tapissier et bourgeois de Paris_,” for six pieces of tapestry “of Arras workmanship,” with the arms of M. the Duke of Burgundy “to cover the pack-horses of Monseigneur when he travelled.” The favourite subjects produced at Arras were romances of chivalry, such as _Charlemagne and his Peers_, _Doon de la Roche_, _Baudouin de Sebourg_, _Percival the Gaul_, _Renaud de Montauban_, _Aubri de Bourguignon_, etc.; stories from Greek mythology, such as _Theseus_, _Jason_, _Paris and Helen_, _The Destruction of Troy_, etc.; and contemporary events such as _The Battle of Rosbeck_, _The Battle of Liège_, _History of Bertrand Duguesclin_, _The Jousts of St. Denis_ and _The Battle of the Thirty_. Hunting scenes and pictures of cavaliers and ladies in everyday life were popular, and stories from the Old and New Testaments, Lives of the Saints and Acts of the Martyrs. Allegory also makes its appearance as a subject for cartoons, such as the _Virtues and Vices_, the _Seven Cardinal Sins_, the _Tree of Life_, _Fountain of Youth_, etc. When Philip the Good married Isabella of Portugal, Le Fèvre de Saint Rémy notes that on each side of the hall there was a _dressoir_ twenty feet long on a platform two feet high and well enclosed by barriers three feet high, on the side of which was a little gate for entrance and exit; and both _dressoirs_ had five stages, each two and a half feet high. The three upper tiers were covered and loaded with vessels of fine gold; and the two lower ones with many great vessels of silver gilt. Again, Chastelain, describing a banquet given by Philip the Good, says: “The Duke had made in the great hall a _dressoir_ constructed in the form of a round castle, ten steps (_degrés_) in height filled with gold plate in pots and flagons of various kinds, amounting to 6,000 marks (_argent doré_) not counting those on the top which were of fine gold set with rich gems of marvellous price.” The above gives some idea of the importance of the _dressoir_, which undoubtedly was the most showy piece of furniture in hall or chamber. It often assumed enormous proportions on great state occasions.