It was the eve of the Holy Innocents when the Dauphin died, and he was carried that night by torchlight, with a grand procession of nobles, to St. Denis, and buried there in the chapel of his grandfather, Charles V. A daughter was Isabeau’s next child, born at the Louvre in 1387. She was called Isabelle, and married Richard II., King of England. In 1388 was born a second daughter, Jeanne, at the Maison Royale de St. Ouen, _à l’heure de prime_. She died in infancy.
In his interesting study of Isabeau de Bavière, M. Vallet de Viriville says that in the portrait painted of her in 1383 we see a young girl “_qui rayonnait d’innocence: telle elle était sortie des mains de l’universel auteur_,”[106] and goes on to ask by what means she could have fallen from such a height to such a depth of infamy. But it seems improbable that this description could ever have applied to Isabeau de Bavière. Except that she was remarkably beautiful, we hear very little about her childhood. The chroniclers of her father’s court indeed said that she possessed admirable beauty, elegant manners, and exquisite virtue. But at the time this was written, Isabeau was probably twelve or thirteen years old; and could hardly have done any great good or harm. During her whole career, beginning at the day when, at fourteen years old, she became Queen of France, there does not seem to have been any great difference in her way of going on; by which we may gather that she was one of the sort of women one meets every now and then who are always surrounded with a turmoil of quarrels, discredit, and difficulties caused by themselves, into which everybody who goes near them is sure to be drawn. We meet them in novels, we meet them in history, we meet them in real life; and when we do, we know that there will be no more peace till they are gone. But, fortunately, we do not meet them as powerful and irresponsible rulers, like Isabeau de Bavière. And we can perhaps imagine what a calamity such a head of society was for France.
Inordinately vain, selfish, capricious, too shallow either really to love or hate, extravagant and yet avaricious, with no sense and no scruples, this young girl, scarcely out of childhood, not knowing a word of French, and having been brought up in the distant castle of a Bavarian noble, was suddenly placed at the head of the court of France, the gayest and most splendid in Europe, with every one at her feet, her will supreme except for the nominal control of a dissipated, extravagant boy only two years older than herself, and very much in love with her. Isabeau began by introducing many foolish and exaggerated fashions in dress which, with all their richness, had neither the grace nor the distinction of the costume of the last two or three reigns. For instance, she increased the height of the tall headdresses called _hennins_ so enormously that those who wore them could not get through the doors without stooping; some of them also had horns. Very long pointed open sleeves were worn, large wide sashes of silk or cloth of silver, and a _surcot_, which was a sort of garment something like a chasuble. Sometimes the _surcots_ had slits and openings to show the dress underneath, of which the preachers loudly complained. These _surcots_ had been worn in the former reigns. Dogskin and chamois-skin boots and gloves lined with fur were also worn. One of the court costumes was a _surcot_ open at the sides and a corsage of cloth of gold.[107] Evening dresses were worn for the first time open at the neck and bosom, and arms were no longer blazoned upon the robes.