doctrines, when they fail to excite enthusiasm, become exploded as ridiculous. Men's minds were now awakened to other and more important and complicated exercises of the understanding, and were no longer responsive to the subjects which so deeply interested their ancestors of the middle ages. Sciences of various kinds had been rekindled in the course of the sixteenth century; the arts had been awakened in a style of perfection unknown even to classical ages. Above all, religion had become the interesting study of thousands, and the innovating doctrines of the Reformers, while hailed with ecstasy by their followers, rejected as abominations by the Catholics, and debated fiercely by both parties, involved the nobility of Europe in speculations very different from the arrêts of the Court of Love, and demanded their active service in fields more bloody than those of tilt and tournament. When the historians or disputants on either side allude to the maxims of Chivalry, it is in terms of censure and ridicule. Yet, if we judge by the most distinguished authorities on either side, the Reformers rejected as sinful what the Catholics were contented to brand as absurd. It is with no small advantage to the Huguenots,—to that distinguished party which produced Sully, D'Aubigné, Coligni, Duplessis-Mornay, and La Noue, that we contrast the moral severity with which they pass censure on the books of Chivalry, with the licentious flippancy of Brantome, who ridicules the same works, on account of the very virtues which they inculcate. From the books of Amadis de Gaul, refining, as he informs us, upon

the ancient vanities of Perceforest, Tristan, Giron, &c., La Noue contends the age in which he lived derived the recommendation and practice of incontinence, of the poison of revenge, of neglect of sober and rational duty, desperate blood-thirstiness, under disguise of search after honour, and confusion of public order. "They are the instructions," he says, " of Apollyon, who, being a murderer from the beginning, delighteth wholly in promoting murther." Of the tourna

ments, he observes, "that such spectacles, rendering habitual the sight of blows and blood, had made the court of France pitiless and cruel." "Let those," he exclaims," who desire to feed their eyes with blood, imitate the manner of England, where they exercise their cruelty on brute beasts, bringing in bulls and bears to fight with dogs, a practice beyond comparison far more lawful than the justs of Chivalry."

It is curious to contrast the opinions of La Noue, a stern and moral reformer, and a skilful and brave soldier as France ever produced, although condemning all war that did not spring out of absolute necessity, with those of Brantome, a licentious courtier, who mixed the Popish superstitions, which stood him instead of religion, with a leaven of infidelity and blasphemy. From the opinions he has expressed, and from what he has too faithfully handed down as the manners of his court and age, it is plain that all which was valuable in the spirit of Chivalry had been long renounced by the French

1 Discourses, Political and Military, translated out of the French of La Noue, 1587.

noblesse. To mark this declension, it is only necessary to run over the various requisites already pointed out as necessary to form the chivalrous character, and contrast them with the opinions held in the end of the sixteenth century, in the court of the descendants of Saint Louis.

The spirit of devotion which the rules of Chivalry inculcated, was so openly disavowed, that it was assigned as a reason for preferring the character of Sir Tristrem to that of Sir Lancelot, that the former is described in romance as relying, like Mezentius, upon his own arm alone, whereas Lancelot, on engaging in fight, never failed to commend himself to God and the saints, which, in the more modern opinions of the gallants of France, argued a want of confidence in his own strength and valour.

The devotion with which the ancient knights worshipped the fair sex, was held as old-fashioned and absurd as that which they offered to Heaven. The honour paid to chastity and purity in the German forests, and transferred as a sacred point of duty to the sons of Chivalry, was as little to be found in the Court of France, according to Brantome, as the chastity and purity to which it was due. The gross and coarse sensuality which we have seen engrafted upon professions of Platonic sentiment, became finally so predominant, as altogether to discard all marks of sentimental attachment; and from the time of Catharine of Medicis, who trained her maids of honour as courtezans, the manners of the court of France seem to have been inferior in decency to those of a well-regulated bagnio. The sort of

respect which these ladies were deemed entitled to, may be conjectured from an anecdote given by Lord Herbert of Cherbury, whose own character was formed upon the chivalrous model which was now become obsolete. As he stood in the trenches before a besieged place, along with Balagny, a celebrated duellist of the period, between whom and Lord Herbert some altercation had formerly occurred, the Frenchman, in a bravade, jumped over the entrenchment, and, daring Herbert to follow him, ran towards the besieged place, in the face of a fire of grape and musketry. Finding that Herbert outran him, and seemed to have no intention of turning back, Balagny was forced to set the example of retreating. Lord Herbert then invited him to an encounter upon the old chivalrous point, which had the fairer and more virtuous mistress; to which proposition Balagny replied by a jest so coarse as made the Englishman retort, that he spoke like a mean debauchee, not like a cavalier and man of honour. As Balagny was one of the most fashionable gallants of his time, and, as the story shows, ready for the most hare-brained achievements, his declining combat upon the ground of quarrel chosen by Lord Herbert, is a proof how little the former love of Chivalry accorded with the gallantry of these later days.

Bravery, the indispensable requisite of the preux chevalier, continued, indeed, to be held in the same estimation as formerly; and the history of the age gave the most brilliant as well as the most desperate examples of it, both in public war and private encounter. But courage was no longer tempered

with the good faith and courtesy,-La gran bonta die cavalier antichi, so celebrated by Ariosto. There no longer existed those generous knights, that one day bound the wounds of a gallant opponent, guided him to a place of refuge, and defended him on the journey, and who, on the next, hesitated not in turn to commit their own safety to the power of a mortal foe, without fear that he would break the faithful word he had pawned for the safety of his enemy. If such examples occur in the civil wars of France, they were dictated by the generosity of individuals who rose above the vices of their age, and were not demanded, as matters of right, from all who desired to stand well in public opinion. The intercourse with Italy, so fatal to France in many respects, failed not to imbue her nobility with the politics of Machiavel,—the coarse licentiousness of Aretin,—and the barbarous spirit of revenge, which held it wise to seek its gratification, not in fair encounter, but per ogni modo -in what manner soever it could be obtained. Duels, when they took place, were no longer fought in the lists, or in presence of judges of the field, but in lonely and sequestered places. Inequality of arms was not regarded, however great the superiority on one side. "Thou hast both a sword and dagger," said Quelus to Antraguet, as they were about to fight," and I have only a sword."—" The more thy folly," was the answer, "to leave thy dagger at home. We came to fight, not to adjust weapons." The duel accordingly went forward, and Quelus was slain, his left hand (in which he should have had his dagger) being shockingly cut in at