Before he died Du Guesclin charged his captains to remember that in whatever country they made war, women, children, the poor and _les gens de l’église_ were not their enemies. He had all his life been good to the weak and the poor.
The King and Queen showed all honour and affection to Du Guesclin.
Louis de Harcourt had been one of the foremost captains in the English war, and now came to Paris with the King’s brothers. Charles had suspected him sometime before of being in love with the Queen, and had regarded him with jealousy and anger in consequence, but having become convinced that he had been mistaken and unreasonable, _que sans raison il avoit eu cette folle suspicion_, he received him _moult agréablement et joyeusement_.[76]
While there can be no doubt that the court of Charles V. and Jeanne de Bourbon was much more orderly and more intellectual than those of the two first Valois kings, it does not seem so certain that it was equally amusing. It was stately and magnificent; comfort, luxury, and civilisation had greatly increased; there were splendid banquets, balls, and other entertainments, but the accounts of the daily life there, which have come down to us from that time, especially those of Christine de Pisan, who lived among the scenes she describes, show a very different state of things from the brilliant, reckless lives of pleasure and gaiety led by all who belonged to the Court of France in the days of Philippe de Valois and his son Jean.
The King got up at six or seven o’clock in the morning, and when dressed his breviary was brought him and he went to his oratory to hear mass; after which he gave audience to anybody who wished to ask him anything. In these interviews he treated everybody who approached him with the greatest courtesy and kindness. On certain days he then went to the Council Chamber, and at ten o’clock he sat down to dinner, music going on all the time of that repast. When it was over he devoted two hours to interviews with foreign envoys, or with any one bringing news from the seat of war,[77] or of any other matters of importance in different parts of his kingdom. Then he went to lie down for an hour, and after that, one reads with a feeling of relief, that he allowed himself a little pleasure. Christine de Pisan takes care to explain that this was only in order that he might work better afterwards, but one may trust that this absurd suggestion was only an idea of her own, and that the mind of Charles was not so saturated with duty and dulness as she would imply. At any rate, he amused himself during this part of the day by looking at his books, jewels, and different collections, and talking with his friends. Perhaps the most intimate and the one he loved best was Jean de la Rivière. There is a note of a ring he gave him, with a ruby in it _qui tient au violet_.