“Garde-toi bien d’estre l’inventeresse D’habitz nouveaux; car mainte pécheresse Tantôt sur toy prendrait son exemplaire. Si à Dieu veux et au monde complaire, Porte l’habit qui dénote simplesse Honnestement.”[13] A considerable number of wealthy ladies began to frequent the court, attracted thither by the fascinating manners of Anne of Brittany, “the good queen,” whose whims became a law, according to which all Frenchwomen regulated their dress, whatever might be their position in the social scale. It is worthy of remark that, at the close of the Middle Ages and during the first years of the Renaissance, brides wore red or scarlet on their wedding-day. Anne of Brittany was celebrated for the beauty of her leg and foot, and liked to wear her skirts short. Most women followed her example in that respect. For a long time past ladies had made use of pins, gilt pins even; they now began to outstrip the bounds of moderation in their use. “Oh, ladies!” exclaimed Michel Menot, the Franciscan monk, surnamed the Golden Tongue, “Oh, ladies! who are so dainty, who so often miss hearing the Word of God, though you have only to step across the gutter to enter the church, I am certain it would take less time to clean out a stable for forty-four horses than to wait until all your pins are fastened in their places.... When you are at your toilet you are like a cobbler, whose business is to ‘stop up,’ and to ‘rub,’ and to ‘put to rights,’ and who needs a thousand different articles for bits and patches.” He added: “A shoemaker’s wife wears a tunic like a duchess.” Vainly did the preacher thunder against pins. Fashion could not be in the wrong. Presumptuous were they who attacked her, for her partisans increased with the number of her opponents. We must now point out a change in the mode of wearing mourning. The former queens of France had worn white for mourning. On the death of Charles VIII., Anne of Brittany for the first time wore black. She wore a white silk cord round her waist, and had a similar cord affixed to her coat-of-arms, knotted in four places and twisted into four loops, forming the figure of 8,[14] so as publicly to display her grief for the loss of so beloved a husband. Clément Marot, the son of Jean Marot, has given us the following sketch of a fashionable Parisian lady in the time of Louis XII.:— “O mon Dieu! qu’elle estoit contente De sa personne ce jour-là; Avecques la grâce qu’elle a, Elle vous avoit un corset D’un fin bleu, lacé d’un lacet Jaune, qu’elle avoit faict exprès. Elle vous avoit puis après Mancherons d’escarlate verte, Robe de pers, large et ouverte. ... Chausses noires, petits patins, Linge blanc, ceinture houppée, Le chaperon faict en poupée....”[15] Some commentary is needed on the above description to enable the reader to form an accurate idea of a fine lady in Marot’s time.