Charles VI.

had always had a taste for masquerading.

When in 1389 the young queen, Isabel of Bavaria, came to Paris to be married, the king, on the morning of her entry, said to his chamberlain, Sire de Savoisy, "Prithee, take a good horse, and I will mount behind thee; and we will dress so as not to be known and go to see my wife cone in." Savoisy did not like it, but the king insisted; and so they went in this guise through the crowd, and got many a blow from the officers' staves when they attempted to approach too near the procession.
In 1393, a year after his first outbreak of madness, the king, during an entertainment at court, conceived the idea of disguising as savages himself and five of his courtiers.

They had been sewn up in a linen skin which defined their whole bodies; and this skin had been covered with a resinous pitch, so as to hold sticking upon it a covering of tow, which made them appear hairy from head to foot.

Thus disguised these savages went dancing into the ball-room; one of those present took up a lighted torch and went up to them; and in a moment several of them were in flames.