was more splendid than usual. In our day, when it is the custom of men to
avoid all show and colour in their dress, we can scarcely picture to
ourselves the magnificence of those knights of the Renaissance. When the
gallant gentleman actually entered the lists for fighting, he wore his suit
of polished armour, often inlaid with gold or silver, a coloured silken
scarf across his shoulders richly embroidered with his device, and on his
head a shining helmet with a great tuft of flowing plumes. But in the
endless stately ceremonies which followed or preceded the tournament, the
knight wore his doublet of fine cloth, overlaid with his coat-of-arms
embroidered in silk or gold thread, and an outer surcoat of velvet, often
crimson slashed with white or violet satin, made without sleeves if worn
over the cuirass and finished with a short fluted skirt of velvet. Over
this a short cloak of velvet or satin, even sometimes of cloth of gold, was
worn lightly over one shoulder.

If this was the usual style of costume, which had also to be varied on
different festivals, we can easily understand how impossible it was for
young Bayard to procure such costly luxuries on his small means, and we can
almost forgive him for the audacious trick he played on his rich relation
the Abbé of Ainay. Not only was the knight himself richly clad, but we are
told that to appear in a grand tournament even the horse had to have
sumptuous trappings of velvet or satin made by the tailor. We have not
mentioned the suit of armour, which was the most expensive item of all;
being made at this period lighter and more elaborate, with its flexible
over-lying plates of thin, tempered steel, it was far more costly than it
had ever been before. The bravest knights at the Court were proud to try
their fortune against Messire Claude. It was the rule that after the
contest each champion was to ride the whole length of the lists, with his
visor raised and his face uncovered, that it might be known who had done
well or ill. Bayard, who was scarcely eighteen and had not done growing,