IV.

Gaston himself was a type of the time.  He had its virtues and its vices, both magnified.  Hence, hearing an eye-witness draw his character for us is to gain a direct if but partial insight into the character of his era.  Froissart’s moral perspective is often curiously blurred, and in the light of many of his anecdotes about the count his eulogium perhaps needs qualification:  “Count Gaston Phoebus de Foix, of whom I am now speaking, was at that time fifty-nine years old; and I must say that although I have seen very many knights, kings, princes and others, I have never seen any so handsome, either in the form of his limbs and shape, or in countenance, which was fair and ruddy, with grey and amorous eyes that gave delight whenever he chose to express affection.  He was so perfectly formed, one could not praise him too much.  He loved earnestly the things he ought to love, and hated those which it was becoming him so to hate.  He was a prudent knight, full of enterprise and wisdom.  He had never any men of abandoned character with him, reigned prudently, and was constant in his devotions.  There were regular nocturnals from the Psalter, prayers, from the rituals to the Virgin, to the Holy Ghost, and from the burial service.  He had every day distributed as alms at his gate five florins in small coin to all comers.  He was liberal and courteous in his gifts; and well knew how to take when it was proper and to give back where he had confidence.”

There is an obverse to the medallion.  “The Count de Foix was very cruel to any person who incurred his indignation, never sparing them, however high their rank, but ordering them to be thrown over the walls, or confined on bread and water during his pleasure; and such as ventured to speak for their deliverance ran risks of similar treatment.  It is a well-known fact that he confined in a deep dungeon his cousin-german, the Viscount de Chateaubon, during eight days; and he would not give him his liberty until he had paid down forty thousand francs.”

And then in the very chapter with his eulogy, Sir John goes on to relate the count’s brutal killing of his own son in a fit of rage and suspicion, and torturing fifteen retainers as possible accomplices of the innocent lad; and elsewhere tells of his stabbing his half-brother and letting him die in a dungeon of the tower, for refusing the surrender of a fortress.  This was the other side of Gaston’s character, and a side quite as representative.  It was all in line with the time.  His reign was turbulent, magnificent, cruel, devout,—­everything by extremes.  The man is characteristic of the mode, and Orthez in this summarizes much of the life of the France of the Middle Ages.

V.