[Sidenote:
_Wool and Silk._
H. 4 _ft._ 6 _in._
W. 3 _ft._
]
MILLEFLEURS ARMORIAL WITH WILD MEN: _On a delicate millefleurs ground a
wild man and woman hold an armorial shield surmounted by a winged helmet._
[Sidenote: Formerly in the C. D. Barney Collection.]
[Sidenote: Lent by _P. W. French & Company_.]
The wild men, probably a modified revival of the classical satyrs in
modified form, were very popular in France in the XIIIth and XIVth
centuries. There are tapestries extant depicting the balls where all
the company came dressed in hairy tights to represent these creatures.
Froissart recounts an episode of a ball at the Hotel St. Pol in Paris in
1392 when the king and five of his companions came in such costumes, all
chained together, and the flax used to imitate the hair caught fire from
a torch, so that in an instant all were enveloped in flames. The king
was saved by the presence of mind of his cousin, who enveloped him in
her skirts, and another was saved by jumping into a tub of water he had
noticed earlier in the evening in an adjacent service-room. The others
were burned to death.
[Sidenote: 10]