OF SIX MEDIÆVAL WOMEN
of war. Robert seems to have been of a most inquiring and intelligent nature, but when he had scarce passed his seventeenth year, Mahaut, with scant warning, saw this her only son stricken in death just as he was about to enter the ranks of knighthood. In the archives of Arras, the Capital of Artois, may be found a discoloured parchment containing the inventory of the equipment provided for the youthful Robert in anticipation of his initiation. What sorrow is enshrined in these faded pages! It is not sorrow for death, but the bitterer sorrow for something that has never lived, or, rather, that has lived only in the heart, like spring blossom blighted ere fruiting-time. In the Church of St. Denis, where modern restoration has but emphasised the transitoriness and vanity of human glory, there can still be seen the tomb of this youth, carved soon after his death by Pepin de Huy, and once painted, as was all such carved work. Even to the mere student it is interesting as being the only existing monument that can with certainty be attributed to this celebrated sculptor, and also as being, in Gothic art, one of the first essays in portraiture in recumbent figures of the dead, as contrasted with mere effigy. For the deeper thinker it has even greater significance. Of all the good and great works that Mahaut conceived and initiated—the churches, castles, hospitals, which she built and enriched for the glory of God and the safety and solace of mankind—all have passed away. This simple
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