Such were the habits in private life of the royal princes under Charles VI.; and it can easily be shown that the example of royalty was followed not only by the court, but also in the remotest provinces. The great tenants or vassals of the crown each possessed several splendid mansions in their fiefs; the Dukes of Burgundy, at Souvigny, at Moulins, and at Bourbon l'Archambault; the Counts of Champagne, at Troyes; the Dukes of Burgundy, at Dijon; and all the smaller nobles made a point of imitating their superiors. From the fifteenth to the sixteenth centuries, the provinces which now compose France were studded with castles, which were as remarkable for their interior, architecture as for the richness of their furniture; and it may be asserted that the luxury which was displayed in the dwellings of the nobility was the evidence, if not the resuit, of a great social revolution in the manners and customs of private life. At the end of the fourteenth century there lived a much-respected noble of Anjou, named Geoffroy de Latour-Landry, who had three daughters. In his old age, he resolved that, considering the dangers which might surround them in consequence of their inexperience and beauty, he would compose for their use a code of admonitions which might guide them in the various circumstances of life. [Illustration: A Young Mother's Retinue Representing the Parisian costumes at the end of the fourteenth century. Fac-simile of a miniature from the latin _Terence_ of King Charles VI. From a manuscript in the Bibl. de l'Arsenal.] This book of domestic maxims is most curious and instructive, from the details which it contains respecting the manners and customs, mode of conduct, and fashions of the nobility of the period (Fig. 54). The author mostly illustrates each of his precepts by examples from the life of contemporary personages. [Illustration: Fig. 54.--Dress of Noble Ladies and Children in the Fourteenth Century.--Miniature in the "Merveilles du Monde" (Manuscript, National Library of Paris).]