His education was her sole care; his mornings were spent at a monastery, where the monks instructed the sons of such of the nobles and gentry of the neighbourhood as cared that they should be able to read and write.

In the afternoon he had the best masters in the town in military exercises.

His evenings he spent with his mother, who strove to instill in him the virtues of patience, mercy to the vanquished, and valour, by stories of the great characters of history.

She herself spent her days in pious exercises, in attending the services of the Church, and in acts of charity and kindness to her poorer neighbours.

But her strength failed rapidly, and she was but a shadow of her former self when, two years and a half after her arrival at Honfleur, she felt that if she was herself to hand Gervaise over to the Order of St.John, she must no longer delay.