Isabeau of Bavaria - Coronation

Coronation

Isabeau's coronation was celebrated with a lavish entry into Paris on 23 August 1389. Her sister-in-law Valentina Visconti, married two years earlier by proxy and papal dispensation to her cousin Louis of Orléans, arrived in style, escorted from Milan by 1300 knights, bringing personal luxuries such as books and a harp. In the procession noble women wearing lavish dresses embroidered with thread-of-gold rode in litters escorted by knights. The Duke of Burgundy was dressed in a doublet embroidered with 40 sheep and 40 swans each wearing a bell of pearls.

Miniature showing Isabeau's entrance in Paris in 1389

The procession lasted from morning to night, with a variety of tableaux lining the streets with scenes from the Crusades, the Deesis, and the Gates of Paradise. Over a thousand burghers stood along the procession route, dressed in green on one side of the street and in red on the other. The procession began at the Porte de St. Denis, passing under a canopy of sky blue cloth beneath which children dressed as angels sang, and then entered Rue de St. Denis and on to Notre Dame for the coronation ceremony.

Tuchman writes of the event that "So many wonders were to be seen and admired that it was evening before the procession crossed the bridge leading to Notre Dame and the climactic display." As she crossed the Grand Pont to Notre Dame an angel descended from the church by mechanical means and "passed through an opening of the blue taffeta with golden fleurs-des-lys, which covered the bridge, and put a crown on her head." The angel was then pulled up again into the church. An acrobat, with two candles, walked along a rope suspended from the spires of the cathedral to the tallest house in the city.

Once Isabeau was crowned, the procession returned from the cathedral along a route lit by 500 candles to a royal feast where the king and queen were presented with a progression of pageants complete with a depiction of the Fall of Troy. Isabeau, who was seven months pregnant, nearly fainted from the heat on the first of the five days of festivities. To pay for the extravagant event, taxes were raised in Paris two months later.