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Mahaut was, in truth, the first wealthy individual of the age to spend her substance with the express purpose of surrounding herself with beauty of every kind. The foremost thought of a man in a like case would probably have been to add to his power.
In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries a renewed impetus had been given to the arts of writing and illumination. This created a fresh want, and at the same time supplied a number of new subjects in which the artist could reveal his skill. Arras was one of the chief centres of this new movement, a movement which Mahaut continued and stimulated.
But on the 25th November 1329, when in Paris, she was seized with a sudden sickness, so sudden that sinister rumours were noised abroad. Human aid was of no avail. Two days later there was general lamentation. The shadow had lengthened into the night. Mahaut was dead.
In the chapel of this nunnery was preserved a kneeling statue of Mahaut, representing her as foundress, in the habit of the Order strewn with the arms of Artois. Jean Aloul, of Tournai, has been suggested as the sculptor, since it is known from the accounts that he was working for the Countess at Arras in 1323.
At the same time colonel Crump was detached with seven hundred men to the bay of Mahaut, where he burned the town and batteries which he found abandoned, together with a vast quantity of provisions which had been brought from the island of St. Eustatia. Colonel Clavering, having left a small garrison at Petitbourg, began his march on the twentieth day of the month towards St.
Of all the good and great works that Mahaut conceived and initiated the churches, castles, hospitals, which she built and enriched for the glory of God and the safety and solace of mankind all have passed away. This simple tomb alone remains.
At one side of the room was a large oak chair of state with a cushioned seat, and possibly canopied, and close to it a lectern, with hinged candle-brackets, from which Mahaut could the more easily read her MSS., which were often rolled, and difficult to manipulate.
Others passed to and fro, thus creating that constant interchange of thought which is essential to vitality, so that it was said that “the goddess of Wisdom, after having dwelt in Athens and Rome, had taken up her abode in Paris.” There, at least twice a year, came Mahaut to her sumptuous dwelling, the Hôtel d’Artois, situated near the Temple, and extending with its gardens and its outbuildings to the walls built by Philip Augustus.
In addition to such caskets, often painted, Mahaut had, to hang from her girdle, as was customary with all ladies in the Middle Ages, a daintily wrought ivory writing-tablet, and a small mirror in an ivory case.
Though Mahaut did not live the allotted three score years and ten, she lived long enough to see seven kings on the throne of France, two of whom Philip the Fifth and Charles the Fourth were her sons-in-law. She was a mere child when her great-uncle, King Louis, died in 1270.
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