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By Root 1302 0

or other rituals allowed that might signify imperial supremacy. The Emperor’s choice of a gray horse was a gesture to mark the distinction from an entry into a town of the Empire, when he customarily rode a white horse. The emphasis placed by the authorized French chronicle on these points of protocol shows that the matter was much on the mind of the French King. Charles V wanted to build up the visit as a showcase for his claim of a just war, but not to leave his people under any illusions about the Emperor as overlord or universal monarch. The elaborate courtesies and festivities he arranged were a measure of the great significance he attached to the visit. In the semi-official chronicle of his reign, no less than eighty pages of detailed account were devoted to it.

At Compiègne near Paris, the Emperor was welcomed by the Duc de Bourbon, brother of the Queen, with a retinue in new liveries of parti-colored white and blue. At Senlis the welcomers were the Dukes of Berry and Burgundy and the Archbishop of Sens with a suite of 500 all dressed alike in gray and black, the knights in velvet and the squires in silk of the same colors. Enjoying this spectacle, the viewer would spread word of the occasion’s grandeur, but its unhappy hero, whose gout took a turn for the worse, had to forgo a planned banquet and proceed the rest of the way by means of the Dauphin’s litter harnessed to two mules and two horses.

At the Abbey of St. Denis, three archbishops, ten bishops, and the entire Royal Council awaited the Emperor for the visit to the royal mausoleum, where he had to be lifted from his litter and carried into the church to pray devoutly at the tomb of St. Louis. Expressing himself as “madly desirous” to see the famous treasure and relics of St. Denis, the Emperor was shown the preserved body of the saint, who, having been martyred by decapitation on the hill of Montmartre (hence its name), had walked with his head in his hands to the site where he laid the head down and founded the abbey. The Emperor gazed for a long time at the relics and the jeweled crown of St. Louis and the royal tombs, especially of Philip VI, his onetime brother-in-law.

His entry into Paris, for which the King had planned to present him with a black war-horse, had to be made instead in the Queen’s litter. The Provost’s Guard and 2,000 merchants, magistrates, and citizens of Paris, all on horseback and uniformly dressed in parti-colored gowns of white and violet, were waiting to escort him to the meeting with the King. Gout or not, this ceremony had to be equestrian. Lifted to the saddle, the Emperor, with his son alongside, awaited the parade advancing toward them from the old palace on the Ile de la Cité. Not for a generation had Paris witnessed such a royal procession. Particular care had been taken that, in spite of great crowds, everyone should be able to see. Guards with mace and sword were placed at every intersection along the route, and, warned by criers a day in advance, people were forbidden to cross the Rue St. Denis. Street barriers were erected and sergeants given precise orders as to where and when pedestrians and riders could or could not cross.

First came Marshal Sancerre and his guard wearing two swords each and ruffled hats, followed by the King’s trumpeters flourishing bright pennants from their silver trumpets. The four dukes—Berry, Burgundy, Bourbon, and the Duc de Bar, husband of the King’s sister and future father-in-law of Marie de Coucy—rode two by two, followed by twelve counts, including Coucy as Count of Soissons, and a long parade of prelates, nobles, judges, councillors, and officers of the royal household, each group uniformly dressed according to function. Chamberlains wore parti-colored velvet or silk in two shades of scarlet, stewards were in velvet of sky blue and fawn, grooms of the King’s armor in blue damask, ushers in blue and red, butlers in white and fawn satin, chefs and squires of the kitchen in fur-lined silk surcoats with pearl buttons, valets de chambre in black striped in white and gray, wine stewards in