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).]

The first advice the knight gives his daughters is, to begin the day with prayer; and, in order to give greater weight to his counsel, he relates the following anecdote:  “A noble had two daughters; the one was pious, always saying her prayers with devotion, and regularly attending the services of the church; she married an honest man, and was most happy.  The other, on the contrary, was satisfied with hearing low mass, and hurrying once or twice through the Lord’s Prayer, after which she went off to indulge herself with sweetmeats.  She complained of headaches, and required careful diet.  She married a most excellent knight; but, one evening, taking advantage of her husband being asleep, she shut herself up in one of the rooms of the palace, and in company with the people of the household began eating and drinking in the most riotous and excessive manner.  The knight awoke; and, surprised not to find his wife by his side, got up, and, armed with a stick, betook himself to the scene of festivity.  He struck one of the domestics with such force that he broke his stick in pieces, and one of the fragments flew into the lady’s eye and put it out.  This caused her husband to take a dislike to her, and he soon placed his affections elsewhere.”

“My pretty daughters,” the moralising parent proceeds, “be courteous and meek, for nothing is more beautiful, nothing so secures the favour of God and the love of others.  Be then courteous to great and small; speak gently with them....  I have seen a great lady take off her cap and bow to a simple ironmonger.  One of her followers seemed astonished.  ‘I prefer,’ she said, ’to have been too courteous towards that man, than to have been guilty of the least incivility to a knight.’”

[Illustration:  Fig. 55.—­Noble Lady and Maid of Honour, and two Burgesses with Hoods (Fourteenth Century), from a Miniature in the “Merveilles du Monde” (Manuscript in the Imperial Library of Paris).]

Latour-Landry also advised his daughters to avoid outrageous fashions in dress.  “Do not be hasty in copying the dress of foreign women.  I will relate a story on this subject respecting a bourgeoise of Guyenne and the Sire de Beaumanoir.  The lady said to him, ’Cousin, I come from Brittany, where I saw my fine cousin, your wife, who was not so well dressed as the ladies of Guyenne and many other places.  The borders of her dress and of her bonnet are not in fashion.’  The Sire answered, ’Since you find fault with the dress