[1] Jaqueline is the French rendering of the Dutch Jakobine--the
feminine of Jakob, or James.
As she sat, that day, in the great Hall of the Knights in the
massive castle at The Hague, she could see, among all the knights
and nobles who came from far and near to join in the festivities
at Count William's court, not one that approached her father in
nobility of bearing or manly strength--not even her husband.
Her husband? Yes. For this little maid of thirteen had been for
eight years the wife of the Dauphin of France, the young Prince
John of Touraine, to whom she had been married when she was
scarce five years old and he barely nine. Surrounded by all the
pomp of an age of glitter and display, these royal children lived
in their beautiful castle of Quesnoy, in Flanders,[1] when they
were not, as at the time of our story, residents at the court of
the powerful Count William of Holland.
[1] Now Northeastern France.
Other young people were there, too,--nobles and pages and little
ladies-in-waiting; and there was much of the stately ceremonial
and flowery talk that in those days of knighthood clothed alike
the fears of cowards and the desires of heroes.
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