fourth day, he took his leave and departed.  The count made many presents to the knights and squires attached to the duke, and to such an extent that I was told this visit of the Duke of Bourbon cost him ten thousand francs....  Such knights and squires as returned through Foix and waited on the count were well received by him and received magnificent presents.  I was told that this expedition, including the going to Castile and return, cost the Count de Foix, by his liberalities, upwards of forty thousand francs.”

The King of France was entertained by Gaston at a dazzling banquet where no less than two hundred and fifty dishes covered the tables.  But a succeeding Gaston outdid this in a lavish dinner, likewise to visiting royalty, of which a faithful record has come down to us from old documents.  There were twelve wide tables, each seven yards long.  At the first, the count presiding, were seated the king and queen and the princes of the blood, at the others foreign knights and lords according to their rank and dignity.  There were served seven elaborate courses, each course requiring one hundred and forty plates of silver.  There were seven sorts of soup, then patties of capon, and the ham of the wild boar; then partridge, pheasant, peacock, bittern, heron, bustard, gosling, woodcock and swan.  This was the third course, concluding with antelope and wild horse.  An entremet or spectacle followed, and then a course of small birds and game, this served on gold instead of silver.  Next appeared tarts and cakes and intricate pastries, and later, after another spectacle, comfits and great moulds of conserves in fanciful and curious forms,—­the whole liberally helped down with varied wines, and joyously protracted with music, dancing and tableaux.

VII.

Gaston Phoebus died suddenly as he had lived violently.  He was hunting near Orthez, three years after Froissart’s visit, and to ward evening stopped at a country inn at Rion to sup.  Within, the room was “strewed with rushes and green leaves; the walls were hung with boughs newly cut for perfume and coolness, as the weather was marvelously hot even for the month of August.  He had no sooner entered this room than he said:  ’These greens are very agreeable to me, for the day has been desperately hot.’  When seated, he conversed with Sir Espaign du Lyon on the dogs that had best hunted; during which conversation his son Sir Evan and Sir Peter Cabestan entered the apartment, as the table had been there spread.”  He called for water to wash, and two squires advanced; a knight, the Bourg d’Espaign, (the hero of the Christmas Day exploit,) took the silver basin and another knight the napkin.  “The count rose from his seat and stretched out his hands to wash; but no sooner had his fingers, which were handsome and long, touched the cold water, than he changed color, from an oppression at his heart, and his legs failing him, fell back on his seat, exclaiming, ’I am a dead man:  Lord God, have mercy on me!’”