Down to the thirteenth century, however rich their fathers or husbands might be, the women of the bourgeoisie were not permitted, without incurring a fine, to use the ornaments and stuffs exclusively reserved for the nobility.  During the reigns of Philip Augustus and Louis IX., although these arbitrary laws were not positively abolished, a heavy blow was inflicted on them by the marks of confidence, esteem, and honour which these monarchs found pleasure in bestowing on the bourgeoisie.  We find the first of these kings, when on the point of starting for a crusade, choosing six from amongst the principal members of the parloir aux bourgeois (it was thus that the first Hotel de Ville, situated in the corner of the Place de la Greve, was named) to be attached to the Council of Regency, to whom he specially confided his will and the royal treasure.  His grandson made a point of following his grandsire’s example, and Louis IX. showed the same appreciation for the new element which the Parisian bourgeoisie was about to establish in political life by making the bourgeois Etienne Boileau one of his principal ministers of police, and the bourgeois Jean Sarrazin his chamberlain.

Under these circumstances, the whole bourgeoisie gloried in the marks of distinction conferred upon their representatives, and during the following reign, the ladies of this class, proud of their immense fortunes, but above all proud of the municipal powers held by their families, bedecked themselves, regardless of expense, with costly furs and rich stuffs, notwithstanding that they were forbidden by law to do so.

Then came an outcry on the part of the nobles; and we read as follows, in an edict of Philippe le Bel, who inclined less to the bourgeoisie than to the nobles, and who did not spare the former in matters of taxation:—­“No bourgeois shall have a chariot nor wear gold, precious stones, or crowns of gold or silver.  Bourgeois, not being either prelates nor dignitaries of state, shall not have tapers of wax.  A bourgeois possessing two thousand pounds (tournois) or more, may order for himself a dress of twelve sous six deniers, and for his wife one worth sixteen sous at the most.”  The sou, which was but nominal money, may be reckoned as representing twenty francs, and the denier one franc, but allowance must be made for the enormous difference in the value of silver, which would make twenty francs in the thirteenth century represent upwards of two hundred francs of present currency.

[Illustration:  Fig. 59.—­The new-born Child, from a Miniature in the “Histoire de la Belle Helaine” (Manuscript of the Fifteenth Century, National Library of Paris).]