OF SIX MEDIÆVAL WOMEN
were supposed to amuse the unwary guests. One sprinkled them with water, another with black or white powder, as they passed by, and yet another, in the form of a monkey, struck them with a stick, whilst in a bower might be seen a mirror wherein all who looked saw only the distorted semblance of themselves. These unwelcome pleasantries were a part of the miscellaneous borrowings from the East. But for the easily amused folk of the Middle Ages, time passed merrily enough in the midst of such pastimes, and only the shadow on the dial seemed to mark its flight.
But Mahaut, amid the manifold claims on her time and talent, had seen the shadow lengthening. From time to time she had been attacked by illness, to which blood-letting and other remedies of the day had brought relief. But on the 25th November 1329, when in Paris, she was seized with a sudden sickness, so sudden that sinister rumours were noised abroad. Human aid was of no avail. Two days later there was general lamentation. The shadow had lengthened into the night. Mahaut was dead. In accordance with her wishes, she was buried at the foot of her father's grave in the Abbey of Maubuisson, near Paris, her heart being placed in the Church of the Franciscans in Paris, beside the remains of her son, whose tomb there was afterwards removed to St. Denis. Her possession of Artois, for which she had laboured devotedly, became annexed to the Duchy of
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