In the fifteenth century Tours was one of the chief manufacturing towns of the kingdom. The inhabitants excelled in all kinds of trades. They wove tissues of silk, of gold, and of silver. They manufactured coats of mail; and, while not competing with the armourers of Milan, of Nuremberg, and of Augsburg, they were skilled in the forging and hammering of steel.[813] Here it was that, by the King's command, the master armourer made Jeanne a suit of mail.[814] The suit he furnished was of wrought iron; and, according to the custom of that time, consisted of a helmet, a cuirass in four parts, with epaulets, armlets, elbow-pieces, fore-armlets, gauntlets, cuisses, knee-pieces, greaves and shoes.[815] The maker had doubtless no thought of accentuating the feminine figure. But the armour of that period, full in the bust, slight in the waist, with broad skirts beneath the corselet, in its slender grace and curious slimness, always has the air of a woman's armour, and seems made for Queen Penthesilea or for the Roman Camilla. The Maid's armour was white and unadorned, if one may judge from its modest price of one hundred _livres tournois_. The two suits of mail, made at the same time by the same armourer for Jean de Metz and his comrade, were together worth one hundred and twenty-five _livres tournois_.[816] Possibly one of the skilful and renowned drapers of Tours took the Maid's measure for a _houppelande_ or loose coat in silk or cloth of gold or silver, such as captains wore over the cuirass. To look well, the coat, which was open in front, must be cut in scallops that would float round the horseman as he rode. Jeanne loved fine clothes but still more fine horses.[817] [Footnote 813: E. Giraudet, _Histoire de la ville de Tours_, Tours, 1874, 2 vols. in 8vo, _passim_.] [Footnote 814: _Trial_, vol. iii, pp. 67, 94, 210; vol. iv, pp. 3, 301, 363.] [Footnote 815: J. Quicherat, _Histoire du costume en France_, Paris, 1875, large 8vo, pp. 270, 271.] [Footnote 816: _Trial_, vol. iii, pp. 67, 94, 210. _Relation du greffier de La Rochelle_, p. 60. "The white armour of fifteenth century soldiers, simple as it was, was expensive; it cost about ten thousand francs of our present money. But the complete horse's armour was included in this" (Maurice Maindron, _Pour l'histoire de l'armure_, in _Le monde moderne_, 1896). According to the calculation of P. Clement (_Jacques Coeur et Charles VII_, 1873, p. lxvi), 100 livres would be equal to 4000 francs of present money.] [Footnote 817: _Trial_, vol. i, p. 76. Letter from Perceval de Boulainvilliers, _ibid._, vol. v, p. 120. Greffier de la Chambre des comptes of Brabant, _ibid._, vol. iv, p. 428. Le Fevre de Saint-Remy, _ibid._, p. 439.]