Chapter XX: Part 20

Gallini came to England at a time when that part of the world, which was included in the term “people of quality,” stood in need of a little excitement. This was in 1759, when there was the dullest of courts, with the heaviest of mistresses, and an opera, duller and heavier than either. Gallini had just subdued Paris by the magic of his saltatory movements. He thence repaired to London, with his reputation and slight baggage. He did not announce his arrival. It was sufficient that Gallini was there. He had hardly entered his lodgings when he was engaged, on his own terms. He took the town by storm. His _pas seul_ was pronounced divine. The “quality” paid him more honor than if he had invented something useful to his fellow-men. He could not raise his toe, without the house being hushed into silent admiration. His _entrechats_ were performed amidst thundering echoes of delight; his “whirls” elicited shrieks of ecstacy; and when he suddenly checked himself in the very swiftest of his wild career and looked at the house with a complacent smile, which seemed to say--“What do you think of that?” there ensued an explosion of tumultuous homage, such as the spectators would have _not_ vouchsafed to the young conqueror of Quebec. Gallini, as far as opera matters were concerned, was found to be the proper man in the proper place. For four or five years he was despotic master of the ballet. He was resolved to be master of something else.

There was then in London a Lady Elizabeth Bertie. Her father, the Earl of Abingdon, then lately deceased, had, in his youth, married a Signora Collino, daughter to a “Sir John Collins.” The latter knight was not English, but of English descent. His son, Signor Collino, was a celebrated player of the lute in this country. He was indeed the last celebrated player on that instrument in England.

Gallini then, the very head of his profession, ranking therein higher than the Abingdons did in the peerage, was rather condescending than otherwise, when he looked upon the Earl of Abingdon as his equal. The earl whom he so considered was the son of the one who had espoused the Signora Collino, and Lady Elizabeth Bertie was another child of the same marriage. When Gallini the dancer, therefore, began to think of proposing for the hand of that lady, he was merely thinking of marrying the niece of an instrumental performer. Gallini did not think there was derogation in this; but he did think, vain, foolish fellow that he was, that such a union would confer upon him the title of “my lord.”

Gallini was a gentleman, nevertheless, in his way--that is, both in manners and morals. Proud indeed he was, as a peacock, and ambitious as a “climbing-boy,” desirous for ever of being at the top, as speedily as possible, of every branch of his profession. He was the “professor of dancing” in the Abingdon family, where his agreeable person, his ready wit, his amiability, and the modesty beneath which he hid a world of pretension, rendered him a general favorite. He was very soon the friend of the house; and long before he had achieved _that_ rank, he was the very particular friend of Lady Elizabeth Bertie. She loved her mother’s soft Italian as Gallini spoke it; and in short she loved the Italian also, language and speaker. Lady and Signor became one.

When the match became publicly known the “did you evers?” that reached from box to box and echoed along the passages of the opera-house were deafening. “A lady of quality marry a dancer!” Why not, when maids of honor were held by royal coachmen as being bad company for the said coachman’s sons? It was a more suitable match than that of a lady of quality with her father’s footman.

Gallini happened to be in one of the lobbies soon after his marriage, where it was being loudly discussed by some angry beauties. In the midst of their ridicule of the bridegroom he approached, and exclaimed, “Lustrissima, son io! Excellent lady, I am the man!” “And what does the man call himself?” asked they with a giggle, and doubtless also with reference to the story of the bridegroom considering himself a lord by right of his marriage with a “lady”--“what does the man call himself?” “Eccelenza,” replied Gallini with a modest bow, “I am Signor Giovanni Gallini, Esquire.” In the midst of their laughter he turned upon his heel, and went away to dress in flesh-colored tights, short tunic, and spangles.

The marriage was not at first an unhappy one. There were several children, but difficulties also increased much faster than the family. Not pecuniary difficulties, for Gallini was a prudent man, but class difficulties. The signor found himself without a properly-defined position, or what is quite as uneasy probably in itself, he was above his proper position, without being able to exact the homage that he thought was due to him. The brother-in-law of the earl was in the eyes of his own wife, only the dancing-master of their children. Considering that the lady had condescended to be their mother, she might have carried the condescension a little farther, and paid more respect to the father. Dissension arose, and in a _tour de mains_ family interferences rendered it incurable. The quarrel was embittered, a separation ensued, and after a tranquil union of a few years, there were separate households, with common ill-will in both.

He felt himself no longer a “lord,” even by courtesy, but he resolved to be what many lords have tried to be, in vain, or who ruined themselves by being, namely, proprietor and manager of the opera-house. This was in 1786, by which time he had realized a fortune by means of much industry, active heels, good looks, capital benefits, monopoly of teaching, prudence, temperance, and that economy, which extravagant people call parsimony. This fortune, or rather a portion of it, he risked in the opera-house--and lost it all, of course. He commenced his career with as much spirit as if he had only been the steward of another man’s property; and he made engagements in Italy with such generosity and patriotism, that the Pope having leisure for a while to turn his thoughts from divinity to dancing, became as delighted with Gallini as Pio Nono was with Fanny Cerito. We are bound to believe that his holiness was in a fit of infallible enthusiasm, when he dubbed Gallini, Knight of the Golden Spur. The latter returned to London and wrote himself down “Sir John.” Cards were just come into fashion, to enable people to pay what were called “visites en blanc,” and “Sir John Gallini,” was to be seen in every house where the latter had friend or acquaintance. His portrait was in all the shops, with this chivalric legend beneath it, and there are yet to be seen old opera libretti with a frontispiece exhibiting to an admiring public the effigies of “Sir John Gallini.”

The public liked the sound, liked the man, and sanctioned the title, by constantly applying it to the individual, without any mental reserve. They had seen so many fools made knights that they were glad to see a spirited man make one of himself, by application of “Sir” to a papally-conferred title. The law, however, no more allowed it than it did that of the Romanist official who got presented at court as “Monsignore something,” and whose presentation was cancelled as soon as the pleasant trick was discovered. Gallini, however, continued in the uninterrupted title until circumstances brought him, as a witness, into the presence of Lord Kenyon. When the Italian opera-dancer announced himself in the hearing of that judge as Sir John Gallini, the sight of the judge was what Americans call “a caution.” His lordship looked as disgusted as Lord Eldon used to do, when he heard an Irish Romanist Bishop called by a territorial title. As far as the wrath of Lord Kenyon could do it, metaphorically, the great judge un-sir-John’d Sir John and chopped off his golden spurs in open court. Gallini was so good-natured and popular, that the public opinion would not confirm the opinion of the judge, and Sir John remained Sir John, in the popular mouth, throughout the kingdom.

He was growing rich enough to buy up half the knights in the country. He built the music-rooms in Hanover Square, for Bach and Abel’s subscription concerts. That is, he built the house; and let it out to any who required any portion of it, for any purpose of music, dancing, exhibiting, lecturing, or any other object having profit in view. He lodged rather than lived in it himself, for he had reserved only a small cabinet for his own use, magnificently sacrificing the rest of the mansion for the use of others, who paid him liberally for such use. Therewith, Sir John continued his old profession as teacher as well as performer, manager at home as well as at the theatre; wary speculator, saving--avaricious, as they said who failed to cheat him of his money on faith of illusory promises, with an admirable eye for a bargain, and admirable care for the result of the bargain after he had concluded it.

Everything went as merrily with him as it did with Polycrates, and ill-fortune and he seemed never to be acquainted, till one fatal night in 1789, the Opera House was burned to the ground, and the tide that had been so long flowing was now thought to be on the ebb. Sir John was too heroic to be downcast, and he did what many a hero would never even have thought of doing, nor, indeed, any wise man either. He put down thirty thousand pounds in hard cash toward the rebuilding of the opera-house, sent to Italy for the best architectural plans, left no means unemployed to erect a first rate theatre, and worked for that object with as much integrity as if the safety of the universe depended on the building of an opera-house in the Haymarket. What the public lost in one night was thus being made good to them by another.

Meanwhile fashion was in a deplorable state of musical destitution. What was to become of London without an opera? How could the world, the infinitesimal London world, exist without its usual allowance of roulades and rigadoons? Our knight was just the champion to come in beneficially at such an extremity. He opened the little theatre in the Haymarket, and nobody went to it. Fashion turned up its nose in scorn, and kept away; nay, it did worse, it acted ungratefully, and when some speculators established an opera at the Pantheon, Fashion led the way from the Haymarket, and a host of followers went in her train to Oxford street. “I will victoriously bring her back to her old house,” said Sir John. The knight was gallant-hearted, but he did not know that he had other foes besides Fashion.

Sir John got into difficulties through law, lawyers, and false friends. He ruled as monarch at the opera-house, only to fall, with ruin. But he was not a man to be dismayed. His courage, zeal, and industry, were unbounded. He applied all these to good purpose, and his life was not only a useful but an honorable and a prosperous one. It ended, after extending beyond the ordinary allotted time of man, calmly, yet somewhat suddenly; and “Sir John” Gallini died in his house in Hanover Square, leaving a large fortune, the memory of some eccentricities, and a good name and example, to his children. For my part, I can never enter the ancient concert-rooms in Hanover Square, without wishing a “Requiescat!” to the knight of the Golden Spur, by whom the edifice was constructed.

If Sir John Gallini, the dancer, could boast of having been knighted by a pope, Crescentini, the singer, could boast of having been knighted by an emperor. He received this honor at the hands of Napoleon I. He had previously been accustomed to compliments from, or in presence of, emperors. Thus, in 1804, at Vienna, he sang the _Ombra adorata_ in the character of Romeo, with such exquisite grace and tenderness, that, on one occasion, when he had just finished this admirable lyric piece, the whole court forming part of his audience, two doves descended from the clouds, bearing him a crown of laurels, while on every side, garlands and flowers were flung upon the enchanted and enchanting warbler. The Austrian Emperor paid him more honor than his predecessor had ever paid to the Polish king who saved the empire from the Turks. The reputation of Crescentini gained for him an invitation, in 1809, to the imperial court of France. He played in company with Grassini, the two representing Romeo and Juliet. The characters had never been better represented, and Talma, who was present, is said to have wept--an _on dit_ which I do not credit, for there is not only nothing to cry at in the Italian characters, but Talma himself was in no wise addicted to indulgence in the melting mood, nor had he even common courtesy for his own actual Juliet. But the great actor was pleased, and the great emperor was delighted; so much so, that he conferred an honor on Crescentini which he would never grant to Talma--made a chevalier of him. It is true that Talma desired to be made a knight of the Legion of Honor; but the emperor would not place on the breast of a tragedian that cross which was the reward, then, only of men who had played their parts well, in real and bloody tragedies. The French tragedian declined the honor that was now accorded to Crescentini, whom the emperor summoned to his box, and decorated him with the insignia of the knight of the Iron Crown. The singing chevalier was in ecstacies. But the Juliet of the night had more cause to be so, for to her, Napoleon presented a draft on the Treasury, for 20,000 francs. “It will be a nice little dower for one of my nieces,” said the ever-generous Grassini to one of her friends, on the following day. Several years after this, a little niece, for whom she had hitherto done little, came to her, with a contralto voice, and a request for assistance. After hearing her sing, Grassini exclaimed, “You have no contralto voice, and need small help. You will have, with care, one of the finest mezzo-sopranos in the world. Your throat will be to you a mine of gold, and you may be both rich and renowned, my dear Giulietta Grisi.” The niece has excelled the aunt.

Knights of the shire are but sham knights _now_, and they originally sprung from a revolutionary movement. Previous to the reign of Henry III. the people had no voice in the selection of their legislators. In that king’s reign, however, the legislators were at loggerheads. Simon de Montfort, the aristocratic head of a popular party, was opposed to the king; and the great earl and his friends being fearful of being outvoted in the next parliament, succeeded in procuring the issue of a writ in the name of the king, who was then their prisoner, directing the sheriffs of each county to send two knights, and the authorities in cities and boroughs to send citizens and burgesses, to represent them in parliament. This was a fundamental change of a long-established usage. It was, in fact, a revolution; and the foundation at least of that form of a constitution on which our present constitutional substantiality has been erected.

When the king became emancipated, however, although he continued to summon “barons and great men,” he never during his reign issued a writ for the election of knights of the shire. His son, Edward I., summoned the greater and lesser barons, or his tenants in chief, according to the old usage. This he did during, at least, seven years of his reign. The last were not barons, but they were summoned as “barons’ peers, and all these attended in their own persons,” and not as representatives of the people. In the reign of John, indeed, the people’s voice had been heard, but it may be stated generally, that until the forty-ninth of Henry III., the _constituent_ parts of the great council of the nation was composed solely of the archbishops and bishops, the earls, barons, and tenants _in capite_.

It is a singular fact that, in the early elections, the knights of the shire were elected by universal suffrage; and so, indeed, they are now, in a certain way, as I shall explain, after citing the following passage from Hallam’s State of Europe during the Middle Ages: “Whoever may have been the original voters for county representatives, the first statute that regulates their election, so far from limiting the privilege to tenants _in capite_, appears to place it upon a very large and democratical foundation. For (as I rather conceive, though not without much hesitation) not only all freeholders, but all persons whatever present at the county court, were declared, or rendered, capable of voting for the knight of their shire. Such at least seems to be the inference from the expressions of 7 Henry IV., c. 15, ‘all who are there present, as well suitors duly summoned for that cause, as others.’ And this acquires some degree of confirmation from the later statute 8 Henry VI., c. 7, which, reciting that ‘elections of knights of shires have now, of late, been made by very great, outrageous, and excessive number of people dwelling within the same counties, of the which most were people of small substance and of no value,’ confines the elective franchise to freeholders of lands or tenements to the value of forty shillings.”

The original summons to freeholders was, without doubt, by general proclamation, so that, as Mr. Hallam remarks, “it is not easy to see what difference there could be between summoned and unsummoned suitors. And if the words are supposed to glance at the private summonses to a few friends, by means of which the sheriffs were accustomed to procure a clandestine election, one can hardly imagine that such persons would be styled ‘duly summoned.’ It is not unlikely, however,” adds Mr. Hallam, “that these large expressions were inadvertently used, and that they led to that inundation of voters without property which rendered the subsequent act of Henry VI. necessary. That of Henry IV. had itself been occasioned by an opposite evil, the close election of knights by a few persons in the name of the county.”

The same writer proceeds to observe that the consequence of the statute of Henry IV. was not to let in too many voters, or to render election tumultuous in the largest of English counties, whatever it might be in others. Prynne, it appears, published some singular indentures for the county of York, proceeding from the sheriffs, during the intervals between the acts of the fourth and sixth Henry. These “are selected by a few persons calling themselves the attorneys of some peers and ladies, who, as far as it appears, had solely returned the knights of that shire. What degree of weight,” says Mr. Hallam, “these anomalous returns ought to possess, I leave to the reader.”

I have said that the universal suffrage system in the election of these knights (and indeed of others) as far as it can be carried out, in allowing all persons present to have a voice, is still strictly in force. Appeal is made to the popular assembly as to the choice of a candidate. The decision is duly announced by the highest authority present, and then the rejected candidate may, if he thinks proper, appeal from the people present to those who are legally qualified to vote. The first ceremony is now a very unnecessary one, but it is, without doubt, the relic of a time when observation of it bore therewith a serious meaning.

From parliament to the university is no very wide step. Sir Hugh Evans and Sir Oliver Martext were individuals who, with their titles, are very familiar to the most of us. The knightly title thus given to clergymen, was not so much by way of courtesy, as for the sake of distinction. It was “worn” by Bachelors of Arts, otherwise “Domini,” to distinguish them from the Masters of Arts, or “Magistri.” Properly speaking, the title was a local one, and ought not to have been used beyond the bounds of the University: but as now-a-days with the case of “captains” of packet-boats, they are also captains at home; so, in old times, the “Sir” of the University was Sir Something Somebody, everywhere.

We laugh at the French for so often describing our knights only by their surnames, as “Sir Jones.” This, however, is the old English form as it was used at Cambridge. The Cambridge “Sirs” were addressed by Christian and surname in their livings, and in documents connected therewith. This practice continued till the title itself was abandoned some time after the Reformation. The old custom was occasionally revived by the elderly stagers, much to the astonishment of younger hearers. Thus when Bishop Mawson of Llandaff was on one occasion at court, he encountered there a reverend Bachelor of Arts, Fellow of Bene’t College, and subsequently Dean of Salisbury. His name was Greene. The bishop, as soon as he saw the “bachelor” enter the drawing-room, accosted him loudly in this manner: “How do you do, Sir Greene? When did you leave college, Sir Greene?” _Mr._ Greene observing the astonishment of those around him, took upon himself to explain that the bishop was only using an obsolete formula of bygone times. The most recent courtesy title that I can remember, was one given to a blind beggar who was very well known in the vicinity of Trinity College, Dublin, where, indeed, he had been a student some five-and-thirty years ago. He was invariably styled “Domine John,” and he could return a suitable answer in good Latin, to the query, _Quo modo vales?_--or to any other query.

“_Vale!_” is indeed what I ought to utter to the courteous reader; nor will I detain him longer--supposing he has kindly borne with me thus far--than with one brief chapter more, which, being miscellaneous, I may not inaptly call “Pieces of Armor.”

PIECES OF ARMOR.

The word Pieces reminds me of a curious theatrical illustration of Macedonian chivalry. When Barry used to play Alexander the Great, he made a grand spectacle of his chariot entry. But it was highly absurd, nevertheless. When he descended from the vehicle, his attendant knights, bareheaded and unarmed, placed their hands upon it, and in an instant it went to pieces, like a trick in a pantomime, and left in every warrior’s possession, swords, javelins, shields, and helmets, supplied by the spokes of the wheels, the poles, the body of the car and its ornaments. This feat was very highly applauded by our intellectual sires.

This act, however, was hardly more unnatural than the sayings of some real chevaliers, particularly those of Spain.

Among the Spanish Rhodomontades chronicled by Brantome, we find none that have not reference to personal valor. There is the choleric swordsman who walks the street without his weapon, for the good reason that his hand is so ready to fly to his sword, if the wind but blow on him too roughly, he is never able to walk out armed without taking two or three lives. “I will hoist you so high,” says another Spanish cavalier to his antagonist, “that you will die before you can reach the earth again.” It was a fellow of the same kidney who used not only to decapitate dozens of Moorish heads every morning, but was wont afterward to fling them so high into the air, that they were half-devoured by flies before they came down again. Another, boasting of his feats in a naval battle, quietly remarked, that making a thrust downward with his sword, it passed through the sea, penetrated the infernal region, and sliced off a portion of the moustache of Pluto! “If that man be a friend of yours,” said a cavalier to a companion, referring at the same time to a swordsman with whom the cavalier had had angry words, “pray for his soul, for he has quarrelled with me.” The self-complacency also of the following is not amiss. A Spanish captain in Paris, saw the haughty chevalier d’Ambres pass by him. “Is he,” said the Spaniard, “as valiant as he is proud?” The reply was in the affirmative. “Then,” remarked the Iberian, “he is almost as good a man as myself.” We hear of another, less gallant, perhaps, than brave, who made it a great favor to ladies when he put off a combat at their request, and passed a pleasant hour with them, in place of knocking out brains upon the field. It was a knight of similar notions who cudgelled his page for boasting of the knight’s valor. “If thou dost such foolish things, Sir Knave,” said the doughty gentleman, “the whole female sex will perish of love for me, and I shall have no leisure left to take towns and rout armies.” This was a full-developed knight. It was probably his youthful squire who remarked, when some one expressed surprise that one so young had mustaches of such unusual length. “They sprung up,” said the young soldier, “under the smoke of cannon; they grew thus quickly under the same influences.”

Some of the old Spanish cavaliers used to maintain that their very beauty dazzled their enemies. However this may have been, it is a fact that the beauty of Galeozo Maria, Duke of Milan, was sufficiently striking to save him for a while, against the daggers of conspirators. One of these, named Lampugnano, longed to slay him, but did not dare. He was, nevertheless, resolved; and he employed a singular means for giving himself courage. He procured a faithful portrait of the handsome duke, and every time he passed it, he looked steadfastly at the brilliant eyes, and graceful features, and then plunged his dagger into the canvass. He continued this practice until he found himself enabled to look the living duke in the face without being dazzled by his beauty; and this done, he dealt his blow steadily, and destroyed his great and graceful foe.

It has often been asserted that there have been few cavaliers who have carried on war with more indifference and cruelty than the Spanish knights. But war in all times and in all ages has induced the first, at least, if not the last. I may cite among what may be called the more recent instances, one that would hardly have occurred, even at Sebastopol. It is in reference to Schomberg’s army at Dundalk. “The survivors,” says Leland, “used the bodies of their dead comrades for seats or shelter; and when these were carried to interment, murmured at being deprived of their conveniences.” While touching upon Irish matters, I will avail myself of the opportunity to notice that Irish knights were sometimes called “iron knee,” “eagle knee,” and “black knee,” from the armor which was especially needed for that part of the body, the Irish with their dreadful battle-axes making the sorest stroke on the thigh of the horseman. The Irish appellation of the White Knight, was given to the heir of a family wherein gray hairs were hereditary. The Irish knights, it may be observed, were generally more religious than the Spanish. The latter were too ready to ascribe every success to their own might, and not to a greater hand. Even in the case of St. Lawrence, calmly roasting to death on his gridiron, the proud Spaniards would not have this patience ascribed to the grace of God, but only to the true Spanish valor. While speaking of the burning of St. Lawrence, I will add that St. Pierre quotes Plutarch in stating, that when the Roman burners had to reduce to ashes the bodies of several knights and ladies, they used to place one female body among eight or ten males, fancying that with this amalgamation they would burn better. The author of the “Harmonies of Nature” makes upon this the truly characteristic comment, that the Roman fashion was founded on the notion, that “the fire of love still burned within us after death.”

Reverting, for a moment, to the Spaniards, I may notice a fashion among them which is worth mentioning. When a Spanish cavalier entered the presence of a Spanish queen, accompanied by his lady, he did not unbonnet to his sovereign. He was supposed to be so engrossed by his mistress as to forget even the courtesies of loyalty.

Brantome, on the other hand, notices kingly courtesy toward a subject. When describing the battle-acts of the famous M. de Thorannes, he states that the King in acknowledgment that the battle of Rentz had been gained chiefly through his courage, took the collar of his own order from his neck, and placed it on that of the gallant soldier. This was a most unusual act, according to the showing of Brantome, but probably not the first time of a similar occurrence. The author just named complains in piteous terms that, in his time and previously, the honors of chivalry had been bestowed for anything but knightly deeds. They were gained by favor, influence, or money. Some set their wives to exert their fascination over the Christian sovereign, and purchase the honor at any cost. M. de Chateaubriand gave a house and an estate for the order of St. Michael. Ultimately, it was conferred on single captains of infantry, to the great disgust of the better-born gentlemen who had paid dearly for the honor. Brantome declares that he knew many who had never been half a dozen leagues from their houses, who wore the insignia of the order, and who talked of the taking of Loches, as if they had really been present. He angrily adds, that even lawyers were made knights, stripping themselves of their gowns, and clapping swords on their thighs. He appears especially annoyed that the celebrated Montaigne should have followed a similar example: and he adds with a malicious exultation, that the sword did not become him half so well as the pen.

One French Marquis was persecuted by his neighbors to get orders for them, as if they were applying for orders for the theatre. He obtained them with such facility, that he even made a knight of his house-steward, and forced the poor man to go to market in his collar, to the infinite wounding of his modesty. It was, however, one rule of the order that the collar should never, under any pretence whatever, be taken from the neck. The Court had very unsavory names for these mushroom-knights; and Brantome gives us some idea of the aristocratic feeling when he recounts, with a horror he does not seek to disguise, that the order was sold to an old Huguenot gentleman, for the small sum of five hundred crowns. A cheap bargain for the new knight, seeing that membership in the order carried with it exemption from taxation. Luckily for the Huguenot he died just in time to save himself from being disgraced. Some gentlemanly ruffians had agreed to attack this “homme de peu,” as Brantome calls him, to pull the order from his neck, to give him a cudgelling, and to threaten him with another, whenever he dared to wear the knightly insignia.

Brantome wonders the more at what he calls the abuse of the order as it had been instituted by Louis XI., on the ground that the old order of the Star founded by King John, in memory of the star which guided the Kings to the Cradle of Divinity, had become so common, that the silver star of the order was to be seen in the hat and on the mantle of half the men in France. Louis XI., in abolishing the order, conferred its insignia as an ornament of dress, upon the Chevaliers de Guet, or gentlemen of the watch, who looked to the safety of Paris when the stars were shining, or that it was the hour for them to do so. It was an understood thing with all these orders that if a knight went into the service of an enemy to the sovereign head of the order, the knight was bound to divest himself of the insignia and transmit the same directly to the King.

Before the dignity of the order was humbled, the members took pride in displaying it even in battle; although they were put to high ransom, if captured. Some prudent knights, of as much discretion as valor, would occasionally conceal the insignia before going into fight; but they were mercilessly ridiculed, when the absence of the decoration testified to the presence of their discretion. In the earlier years of its formation, a man could with more facility obtain a nomination to be captain of the body-guard than the collar of the order of St. Michael. Louis XI. himself showed a wise reluctance to making the order common, and although he fixed the number of knights at six-and-thirty, he would only, at first, appoint fifteen. Under succeeding kings the order swelled to limitless numbers, until at last, no one would accept it, even when forced upon them. One great personage, indeed, sought and obtained it. He was severely rallied for his bad ambition; but as he remarked, the emblems of the order would look well, engraved upon his plate, and the embroidered mantle would make an admirable covering for his mule.

This sort of satire upon chivalry reminds me that a knight could unknight himself, when so inclined. An instance occurs in a case connected with Jeanne Darc. The chevaliers of the Dauphin’s army had no belief in the inspiration of the Maid of Orleans, until success crowned her early efforts. The female knight, if one may so speak, on the other hand, had no measure whatever of respect, either for knight or friar, who appeared to doubt her heavenly mission. I may just notice, by the way, that a “board” of seven theologians assembled to consider her claims, and examine the maiden herself. One of the members, a “brother Seguin,” a Limousin, who spoke with the strong and disagreeable accent of his birthplace, asked Jeanne in what sort of idiom she had been addressed by the divine voice, by which she professed to be guided: “In a much better idiom than you use yourself,” answered the pert young lady, “or I should have put no trust in it.” Here, by the way, we have, perhaps, the origin of the old story of the stammering gentleman who asked the boy if his m--m--magpie could speak? “Better than you,” said the boy, “or I would wring his neck off.” But to resume. Jeanne was quite as _nonchalante_ to the knights, as she was flippant to the friars. She expressly exhibits this characteristic, in the first council held in her presence within Orleans, when she urged immediate offensive measures, contrary to the opinion of the knights themselves. One of the latter, the Sire de Gamache, was so chafed by the pertinacity of the Pucelle, that, at last, springing to his feet, he exclaimed:--“Since noble princes listen for a moment to the nonsense of a low-bred hussy like this, rather than to the arguments of a chevalier such as I am, I will not trouble myself to give any more opinions. In proper time and place, my good sword will speak, and perchance I may prevail; but the king and my honor so will it. Henceforward, I furl and pull down my banner; from this moment I am only a simple ’squire; but I would much rather have a noble man for master, than serve under a wench who, perhaps, has been a--one really does not know what!” and with these words, he rolled up his banner, placed the same in the hands of Dunois, and walked out of the tent, not Sir John de Gamache, but plain John Gamache, Esquire.

A curious result followed. The first attack on the bastion of Tourelles failed, and Jeanne was slightly wounded and unhorsed. Gamache was near, and he dismounted and offered her his steed. “Jump up,” cried the good fellow, “you are a gallant lass, and I was wrong in calling you ugly names. I will serve and obey you right willingly.” “And you,” said Jeanne, “are as hearty a knight as ever thwacked men or helped a maid.” And so were they reconciled, and remained good friends to the end;--which was not long in coming.

Knights, irregularly made so, were unknighted with little ceremony. Although each duly dubbed knight could confer the same honor on any deserving such distinction, it was necessary that the individual about to be so honored should be a gentleman. In France, if this rule was infringed, the unlucky knight had his spurs hacked off, on a dunghill. Occasionally the unknighted person was fined. It may be observed, however, that the king might make a knight of a villain, if the sovereign were so minded. That is, a king could raise any of his own subjects to the rank, if he thought proper. Not so with sovereigns and persons not their subjects. The Emperor Sigismund, for instance, when visiting Paris, in 1415, knighted a person who was below the rank of gentleman. The French people were indignant at this, as an act of sovereignty in another monarch’s dominions. If this chevalier was not unknighted, the reason, probably, was that the Emperor might not be offended. It is said, that in Naples it has never been necessary for a man to be noble, a gentleman in fact, in order to be a knight. This may readily be credited. In Naples the fact of a man being a brute beast does not incapacitate him from exercising the office even of a king.

After all, there appears to have been some uncertainty in the observance of the law on the subject. In England the custom which allowed knights to dub other knights, very soon fell into disuse, so that there are fewer examples of unknighting in this country than in France, where the custom prevailed down to the middle of the sixteenth century; and its abuses, of course, rendered the unmaking of illegally constituted knights, if not common, at least an occasional occurrence. Henry III., as I have said in another page, summoned tenants _in capite_ to receive knighthood from himself, and authorized tenants of mesne lords to receive the honor from whom they pleased. But there must have been considerable disrating of these last distinguished persons, or such an abuse of creation, so to speak, that the privilege was stopped, except by special permission of the king. Some places, in France, however, declared that they held a prescriptive right for burgesses to receive knighthood at the hands of noblemen, without the royal permission. Hallam, quoting Villaret, says that burgesses, in the great commercial towns, were considered as of a superior class to the roturiers, and possessed a kind of demi-nobility.

Ridiculous as modern knights, whether of town or country, have been made upon the stage, it is indisputable that in some cases the ridicule has not been what painters call “loaded,” and the reality was in itself a caricature. I have read somewhere of one city gentleman, who was knighted during his shrievalty, and who forthwith emancipated himself a little from business, and aired his chivalrous “sir” in gay company. He was once, however, sorely puzzled on receiving a note of invitation from a lady whose soirées were the especial delight of her guests, and whose note ended with the initials, so absurdly placed at the termination of an invitation in English. R. S. V. P., “réponse, s’il vous plait.” The newly-coined knight, after allusions to the pressure of business, accepted the hospitality offered him through the note, remarking at the same time, that “all work and no play made Jack a dull boy,” and that he knew nothing more to his taste, after a long day’s application, than what her ladyship’s note appeared to present to him in the initials at its foot; namely, a Regular Small Vist Party. If this anecdote be not apocryphal, I suspect that the knight’s remark may have sprung less from ignorance than humor, and that his reading of the initials was meant as a censure upon an absurd fashion.

While speaking of city knights at home, and their humor, I will avail myself of the opportunity to give an instance of wit in a poor chevalier of the city of Paris, whose whole wealth consisted of a few unproductive acres near the capital, and whose son had just married a wealthy heiress of very low degree. “Il fait bien,” said the old knight, “il fume mes terres!”

This was hardly courteous; but elevated courtesy was never wanting among true knights, in the very rudest of times.

Strange contrasts of feeling were sometimes exhibited. Thus, when the English were besieging Orleans, they grew suddenly tired of their bloody work, on Christmas-day, and asked for a truce while they ate their pudding. The request was not only readily granted, but the French knights, hearing that the day was dull in the English camp, obtained the permission of the bastard Dunois, to send over some musicians to enliven the melancholy leaguers. The band played lustily during the whole period of the truce, but the last notes had scarcely ceased, and the “Godons” as Jeanne Darc rather corruptively called our great sires, who were too much addicted to swearing, had hardly ceased uttering their thanks for the musical entertainment, when their cannonade was renewed by the besiegers with such vigor, that the French knights swore--harmony had never before been paid in such hard coin.

There was little ill-feeling consequent upon this. The pages in either army were allowed to amuse themselves by slaying each other in a two days’ duel, presided over by the respective generals-in-chief. This was chivalrous proof that neither party bore malice, and they beat out each other’s brains on the occasion, in testimony of universal good-will, with as much delighted feeling as if they had all been Irishmen. A further proof of absence of individual rancor may be seen in the fact, that Suffolk sent a gift of pigs, dates, and raisins, for the _dessert_ of Dunois; and the latter acknowledged the present by forwarding to the English general some fur for his robe--Suffolk having complained bitterly of the cold of that memorable February, 1429.

This reminds me of a similar interchange of courtesy between French and English antagonists, in later times. When brave Elliot was defending Gibraltar from gallant Crillon, the former, who never ate meat, suffered greatly (as did his scurvy-stricken men) from a scarcity of vegetables. Crillon had more than he wanted, and he sent of his superabundance, most liberally, to the foe whom he respected. A whole cart-load of carrots and compliments made general and garrison glad, and Elliot was as profuse in his gratitude as he was bound to be. It may be remembered that similar exchanges of courtesy and creature-comforts took place at Sebastopol. Sir Edmund Lyons sent Admiral Nachimoff a fat buck, a gift which the large-minded hero of the Sinope butchery repaid by a hard Dutch cheese. It may be said too that the buck would have been more appropriately sent to the half-starved English heroes who were rotting in the trenches.

There were some other naval knights of old, touching whom I may here say a word.

The history of the sea-kings or sea-knights, whose noble vocation it was to descend from the north with little but ballast in the holds of their vessels, and to return thither heavily laden with plunder and glory, is tolerably well known to the majority of readers. The story of the Flemish pirates, who, nearly eight centuries ago, carried terror to, and brought spoil from the Mediterranean, is far less familiar. This story is well illustrated in the “Biographie des hommes remarquables de la Flandres Occidentale,” of whom the authors are M. Octave Delepierre, the accomplished Belgian consul in this country, and Mr. Carton.

The period is a warm June evening of the year 1097. Off the coast of Cilicia, two large vessels, belonging to the Emperor Alexis Comnenus, and manned by Constantinopolitan Greeks, were surrounded and attacked by ten fast-sailing but small vessels, belonging to the dreaded “Greek Pirates,” whose name alone brought terror with the sound. On the prow of each light bark was a rudely sculptured figure of a lion; from the summit of the tall mast was displayed a green pennant, which was never hauled down, for the good reason that the pirates never attacked but where success seemed certain; and if defeat menaced them they could easily find safety in flight.

There was scarcely a place on the coast which they had not, for ten years past, visited; and many merchants purchased exemption from attack by paying a species of very liberal black mail. It was beneath the dignity of an emperor to buy safety from piratical rovers, and they had little respect for his vessels, in consequence.

M. Delepierre informs us that these Flemish pirates had been, originally, merchants, but that they thought it more profitable to steal than to barter; and found “skimming the seas,” as the phrase went, far more lucrative than living by the dull precepts of trade. Their three principal chiefs were Zegher of Bruges, Gheraert of Courtrai, and Wimer (whose name still lives in Wimereux) of Boulogne. The force they had under them amounted to four hundred intrepid men, who were at once sailors and soldiers, and who are described as being so skilful that they could with one hand steer the ship, and with the other wield the boarding-hatchet. It will be seen that our Laureate’s exhortation to knavish tradesmen to lay down their weights and their measures, and to mend their ways by taking to the vocation of arms, had here a practical illustration. In the present case, M. Delepierre suggests that the pirates were, probably, not less honest men than the Greeks. The latter were ostensibly on their way to succor the Crusaders, but Alexis was a double dealer, and occasionally despatched forces against the infidel, which forces turned aside to assault those Christian neighbors of his, who were too powerful to be pleasant in such a vicinity, and to get rid of whom was to be devoutly desired, and, at any cost, accomplished. The foreign policy of Alexis was as villanously void of principle as that of any government under a more advanced period of Christian civilization.

The Greek crews had been summoned to surrender. Gheraert of Courtrai had called to them to that effect through his leathern speaking-trumpet. He probably knew little of Greek, and the Orientals could not have comprehended his Flemish. We may conclude that his summons was in a macaronic sort of style; in which two languages were used to convey one idea. The Hellenes replied to it, however it may have sounded, by hurling at the Flemings a very hurricane of stones.

The stout men from Flanders were not long in answering in their turn. “They put into play,” says M. Delepierre, “their mechanical slings. These were large baskets full of stones fastened to the end of an elevated balance, the motion of which flung them to some distance. They had other means of destruction, in enormous engines, which hurled beams covered with iron, and monster arrows wrapped in flaming rosin. With scythe-blades attached to long poles, they severed the ropes and destroyed the sails, and then flinging out their grapnels they made off with their prize.”

To this point the present battle had not yet come. It had lasted an hour, the Greeks had suffered most by the means of attack above noticed; and they had inflicted but trifling injury, comparatively, upon the men of the green pennant. They refused, however, to surrender, but prepared to fly. Wimer saw the preparatory movement, and, in a loud voice, exclaimed:--“A dozen divers!”

Twelve men, quitting their posts, leaped over the side of the boat, carrying enormous _tarières_ (augers) with them. They disappeared beneath the waves; appeared for a moment or two again above the surface, in order to draw breath; once more plunged downward; and, finally, at the end of ten minutes, climbed again into their small vessel, exclaiming, “Master, it is done!”

The twelve divers had established twelve formidable leaks in the larger of the two Greek vessels, and as it began to sink, the crew agreed to surrender. The Green Pirates seized all that was on board that and the other ship. In the latter, stripped of everything of value, they allowed the two Greek crews to sail away; and then proceeded toward the coast with their booty, consisting of rich stuffs, provisions and arms. There was far more than they needed for their own wants; and so, for the nonce, they turned traders again. They sold at a good price what they had unscrupulously stolen, and the profits realized by the Flemish rovers were enough to make all honest, but poor traders, desire to turn corsairs.

Zegher ascended the Cydnus, in order to pay a professional visit to Tarsis, and was not a little surprised, on approaching the city, to see formidable preparations made to resist him. On drawing closer, however, the pirate-leader found that Tarsis was in possession of the army of Flemish crusaders under the great Count Baldwin; and each party welcomed the other with joyous shouts of “Long live Flanders!” “Long live the Lion!” The arrival of the fleet was of the greatest advantage to the Flemings, who, though they had suffered less than the French, Italian, and German legions, by whom they had been preceded, and had been progressively triumphing since they had landed, needed succors both of men and material, and lo! here were the Green Pirates ready to furnish both, for a consideration. There was abundance of feasting that night, and a very heavy sermon in the morning.

Baldwin was himself the preacher. His style was a mixture of exhorting with the threatening; and he was so little complimentary as to tell the Green pirates that they were nothing better than brigands, and were undoubtedly on their way to the devil. He added that he would have treated them as people of such a character, going such a way, only that they were his countrymen. And then he wept at the very thought of their present demerits, and their possible destiny. This practice of weeping was inherited by knights from the old Greek heroes, and a chevalier in complete steel might shed tears till his suit was rusty, without the slightest shame. The exhortation continued without appearing to make any sensible impression upon the rovers. Baldwin, however, pointed his address at the end, with an observation that if they would join him in his career of arms, he would give them lands that should make lords of the whole of them. Upon this observation the Green Pirates, with a little modest allusion to their unworthiness, declared that they were eager, one and all, to turn crusaders.

Each man attached a small green cross, in cloth, to the top of his sleeve; and joyfully followed Baldwin to the field. The count was no more able to keep his word than a recruiting sergeant who promises a recruit that he shall be made a field-marshal. Nor was he to blame, for the greater part of his new allies perished; but enough were left to make a score of very doughty knights.

Admirable sailors were the Northmen, especially the Anglo-Normans, whether with respect to manœuvring or courage. “Close quarters” formed the condition on which they liked to be with an enemy. “Grapple and board” was their system as soon as they had created a little confusion among the enemy with their cross-bows and slings. The “mariners” in those days fought in armor, with heavy swords, spears, and battle-axes. They were well furnished too with bags of quick-lime, the contents of which they flung into the eyes of their adversaries, when they could get to windward of them, an end which they always had in view.