These have been fully gilt; but now, owing to age, they are cleaned quite bright, the only traces of gilding remaining being on the brayette.
The second suit in the Musée d'Artillerie, G 178 (Fig. 1046), again represents a near counterpart to the Tower of London suit; indeed, save in the cases of the gauntlets, jambs, and sollerets, it appears in proportions the same, except that its surface is enriched with a tubular form of slashed ornamentation, etched and formerly gilt. This harness is probably the work of one of the Negroli of Milan; for appearing on either cuisse plate are etched the letters N. I., surmounted by a crown and compass, a monogram which has been accepted as one of the marks employed by the Negroli. The fashion of such armour for foot combats inclines us to assign it to some date towards the close of the first quarter of the XVIth century.
Just as in old times suits at the Tower of London were described as having been worn by famous monarchs and heroes of the past, so, too, in Paris was this armour formerly credited to the ownership of no less a heroine than Jeanne d'Arc, for on searching the early records of the Musée d'Artillerie we found that this suit, for some unknown reason, was said to have been worn by La Pucelle. The suggestion that this early XVIth century suit could have been in existence at the time Jeanne d'Arc lived is of course absurd.
The reader may say that this fabulous attribution has no direct bearing on our present attempt to portray pictorially the evolution of the armour of the XVIth century. But this particular attribution happens to illustrate in the most marked manner a point on which we should like to insist, and that is the general ignorance existing until recent years on the subject of armour and arms, in contrast with the really scholarly work being done to-day by those who love our subject. It also affords us an excuse to insert an account of an incident that happened in connection with this suit—an account which will help to alleviate the monotony of this very long and technical chapter.
In December 1909 Mr. Charles ffoulkes contributed to the "Burlington Magazine" an interesting article on the armour of Jeanne d'Arc, in which he conclusively contradicted certain most absurd stories as to a representation of her armour supposed to have been found on an incised slab in the cathedral of St. Denis. The suit engraved upon this slab is none other than the one we have been describing and illustrating (Fig. 1046) as a foot tourney harness of about 1525. With Mr. ffoulkes' permission, and that of the editor of the "Burlington Magazine," we quote from the article in question: "About the year 1901 M. Charles Roessler[1] discovered in the crypt of St. Denis an
- ↑ "Jeanne d'Arc, Heroine and Healer," by Charles Roessler, Paris, Picard et Fils, 1909.
