And this is not the only testimony to the ridiculous and extravagant tastes of this unfortunate period.  One writer speaks with indignation of the goats’ beards (with two points), which seemed to put the last finishing touch of ridicule on the already grotesque appearance of even the most serious people of that period.  Another exclaims against the extravagant luxury of jewels, of gold and silver, and against the wearing of feathers, which latter then appeared for the first time as accessories to both male and female attire.  Some censure, and not without reason, the absurd fashion of converting the ancient leather girdle, meant to support the waist, into a kind of heavy padded band, studded with gilded ornaments and precious stones, and apparently invented expressly to encumber the person wearing it.  Other contemporary writers, and amongst these Pope Urban V. and King Charles V. (Fig. 422), inveigh against the poulaines, which had more than ever come into favour, and which were only considered correct in fashion when they were made as a kind of appendix to the foot, measuring at least double its length, and ornamented in the most fantastical manner.  The Pope anathematized this deformity as “a mockery of God and the holy Church,” and the King forbad craftsmen to make them, and his subjects to wear them.  All this is as nothing in comparison with the profuse extravagance displayed in furs, which was most outrageous and ruinous, and of which we could not form an idea were it not for the items in certain royal documents, from which we gather that, in order to trim two complete suits for King John, no fewer than six hundred and seventy martens’ skins were used.  It is also stated that the Duke of Berry, the youngest son of that monarch, purchased nearly ten thousand of these same skins from a distant country in the north, in order to trim only five mantles and as many surcoats.  We read also that a robe made for the Duke of Orleans, grandson of the same king, required two thousand seven hundred and ninety ermines’ skins.  It is unnecessary to state, that in consequence of this large consumption, skins could only be purchased at the most extravagant prices; for example, fifty skins cost about one hundred francs (or about six thousand of present currency), showing to what an enormous expense those persons were put who desired to keep pace with the luxury of the times (Fig. 424).

[Illustration:  Fig. 422.—­Costume of Charles V., King of France.—­From a Statue formerly in the Church of the Celestins, Paris.]

[Illustration:  Fig. 423.—­Costume of Jeanne de Bourbon, Wife of Charles V.—­From a Statue formerly in the Church of the Celestins, Paris.]