Lectures of Lola Montez/Chapter 4

A history of the beginning of the reign of gallantry would carry us back to the creation of the world; for I believe that about the first thing that man began to do after he was created, was to make love to woman.

The Jewish and Christian accounts seem to agree in this matter; and as for the Heathen record, the life of even Jupiter himself was little else than a history of his gallantry. In the service of the fair sex he was converted into a satyr, a shepherd, a bull, a swan, and a golden shower; and so entirely devoted to the cause of love was he, that his wife, Juno, mockingly calls him Cupid's whirligig.

Alas I am much afraid that this old heathen ​divinity has never been wanting for millions of disciples, even among the high and noble of Christian lands. The proudest heroes and the mightiest kings I have met with have been just about as pliant "whirligigs" to Cupid as was the great thunderer of Olympus; and history teaches me that my observations are confirmed by the lives of some of the gravest philosophers and bravest generals of antiquity. If we look to an Alcibiades, a Demosthenes, a Cæsar, or an Alexander, we find that their gallantries form no inconsiderable portion of their histories.

But gallantry, as I propose to treat of it in this lecture, arose more particularly with the institution of chivalry, and formed, we may say, the soul of the most noble and daring exploits of chivalry during its brilliant career. Indeed the eighth and ninth virtues of chivalry which every knight had to swear to obey, were to "Uphold the maiden's right," and "Not see the widow wronged."

In the eleventh century, it was declared by the ​celebrated Council of Clermont, which authorized the first crusade, that every person of noble birth, on attaining twelve years of age, should take a solemn oath before the bishop of his diocese, to defend to the utmost the women of noble birth, both married and single, and to have especial care of widows and orphans. So that to whatever class of duties the candidate for the honors of chivalry was attached, he never forgot that he was the squire of dames, or the knight of the fair ladies.

Since the knights were bound by oath to defend woman, the principle was felt in all its force and spirit by him who aspired to chivalric honors. Love was mixed in the mind of the young knight with images of war, and he therefore thought that his mistress, like honor, could only be gained through difficulties and dangers; and from this feeling proceeded the wild romance of the loves of knighthood. So the courage of the knight of chivalry was chiefly inspired by the lady of his affections.

Women were regarded as the highest incentives to ​valor; and I remember the story of a Danish champion who had lost his chin and one of his cheeks by a single stroke of a sword, who refused to return to his home, because, said he, "The Danish girls will never willingly give me a kiss while I have such a battered face." The knight, whose heart was warmed with the true light of chivalry, never wished that the dominion of his mistress should be less than absolute.

There was no discussion then about "woman's rights," or "woman's influence"—woman had whatever her soul desired, and her will was the watchword for battle or peace. Love was as marked a feature in the chivalric character as valor; and he who understood how to break a lance, and did not understand how to win a lady, was held to be but half a man. He fought to gain her smiles—he lived to be worthy of her love. Gower, who wrote in the days of Edward III., has thus summed up the chivalric devotion to woman:

In those days to be "a servant of the ladies" was no mere figure of the imagination—and to be in love was no idle pastime; but to be profoundly, furiously, almost ridiculously in earnest. In the mind of the cavalier, woman was a being of mystic power. As in the old forests of Germany, she had been listened to like a spirit of the woods, melodious, solemn, and oracular; so when chivalry became an institution, the same idea of something supernaturally beautiful in her character threw a shadow over her life, and she was not only loved but revered. And never were men more constant to their fair ladies than in the proudest days of chivalry.

Fickleness would have been a species of impiety, woman was not a mere toy to be played with, but a divinity who was to be worshipped. And this treatment of woman had its effect on her character, and ​gave to her a nobility of feeling, a heroism of heart which made her the fit companion of men of chivalrous deeds. A damsel, on hearing that her knight had survived his honor, exclaimed, "I should have loved him better dead than alive!" A lady who was reproached for loving an ugly man, replied, "He is so valiant, I have never looked in his face." The gallantry of knighthood certainly acted powerfully in giving elevation and purity to the character of woman.

We behold a further illustration of this kind of gallantry in the history of Tournaments. It was the beauty of woman which inspired the heroic and graceful achievements of the tournaments. The daring knight acquired almost superhuman strength when he saw the lady of his affections smiling upon his gallant skill. And certainly woman did perform a great mission in those days. Under her influence the fierceness of war was mellowed into elegance, and even feudalism abated something of its sternness. The ladies were the supreme judges of tournaments ​and if any complaint was made against a knight, they determined the case without appeal.

Every gallant knight wore the device of his lady-love as his coat of arms, and to gain her approbation was the soul of his noble daring. In the heat of the conflict he would call upon her name as if there were magic in the thought of her beauty to sustain his strength and courage. Thus the air at the tournaments was rent with the names of fair ladies, and "On, valiant knights! fair eyes behold you," was the spirit-stirring cry of old warriors who could no longer join in the conflict themselves.

In those days kingdoms were lost and won, and life itself was thrown away like a worthless bauble, all in the service of the ladies.

In the days of Alphonso XI., King of Spain, in the beginning of the fourteenth century, the gallantry of knighthood made it a rule, that if any knight instituted an action against the daughter of a brother knight, no lady or gentlewoman should ever be his lady-love or wife. If he happened, when riding to ​meet a lady or gentlewoman of the court, it was his duty to alight from his horse, and tender his service, upon pain of losing a month's pay, and the favor of all the dames and damsels. The same statute of gallantry decreed, that he who refused to perform any service which a fair lady commanded, should be branded with the title, "The Discourteous Knight."

At the court of the Scottish kings, the knight was obliged to swear: "I shall defend the just action and quarrel of all the ladies of honor, of all true and friendless widows, of orphans, and of maidens of good fame."

Such was the gallantry of knighthood. It gave woman not only love, but respect and protection.

In this respect there was a great resemblance between the Knights and the Troubadours. Both devoted themselves to the glory of their ladies—the former as heroes, the latter as poets. The knight served his lady with his sword, the troubadour with his songs. In fact, it was the chivalrous devotion to the beauty of woman, that particularly manifested itself ​in the sudden and magical unfolding of that poesy which received among the Provençals the name of "La gaie Science," and which, diffusing its influence over all the intellectual nations of Europe, gave birth to a rich and various literature of chivalrous poetry and love-songs. We find it especially in the literature of the Troubadours. As a specimen let me quote an example from the poetry of Guido Cavalcanti, who with a sort of fine madness sang perpetually of his love for a beautiful Spanish girl of Tobosa.

"Who is this, on whom all men gaze as she approaches; who causeth the air to tremble around her with tenderness; who leadeth love by her side! in whose presence men are dumb, and can only sigh? Ah! Heaven what power in every glance of those eyes! She alone is the lady of gentleness—beside her all others seem ungracious and unkind. Who can describe her sweetness, her loveliness? To her every virtue bows, and beauty points to her as her own divinity."

That, ladies, is the way they used to make love in the age of the Troubadours. Love was certainly a very earnest, and sometimes a very fearful thing in those days.

​We may take as an illustration the tragic fate of the poet Cabestaing, a troubadour of noble birth, who became enamored of the charms of Lady Marguerita, wife of Raimond of Castle Roussillon. The poet declared his love in the following strain—

"Gay is my song; for the softest love inspires me! O thou, whose beauty transports my soul, may I be forsaken, may I be cursed by love if I give my heart to another. Was my faith to heaven equal, I should instantly be received into paradise! I have no power to defend myself against your charms; be honorable therefore and take pity on me. Permit, at least, that I kiss your gloves; I presume not to ask any higher mark of your favor."

To this song the Lady Marguerita replied,

"I swear to thee thou shalt never have cause to change thy opinion. Never, no never will I deceive thee."

Through the imprudence of the lady, this love became known to her husband, Lord Raimond, and in a passion of jealousy he formed a pretext to draw Cabestaing out of the castle, where he stabbed him, cut off his head, and tore out his heart, which he took ​to his cook with orders to have it dressed in the manner of venison, and then had it served up for his wife to eat. After she had partaken of the meal, he asked if she knew what she had been eating. "No," says she, "but it is most delicious." "I believe it," said he, "since it is what you have long delighted in," and exhibiting the head of Cabestaing, exclaimed; "behold him whose heart you have just eaten!" At this shocking sight, at these horrible words, she fainted, but soon recovering her senses, she cried out:—"Yes, barbarian, I have found this meat so exquisite, that lest I should lose the taste of it, I will never eat any other," and she instantly precipitated herself from the balcony, and was dashed to pieces.

But in the gallantry of the Troubadours it was generally the opposite sex which suffered sorrows and death for their love.

The author of the Life of Petrarch relates an interesting story of the unsuccessful love of Richard de Berbesicu, a poet and Troubadour of no mean genius, who fell in love with a rich Baroness, who was the ​wife of Geoffroi de Tours. She received the poet's professions with pride, as there was nothing she wished for so much as to be celebrated by a poet of his genius; but as he soon discovered that this was her only object in encouraging his passion, he complained bitterly of her rigor, and finally quitted her for another lady, who, after encouraging him, expressed the greatest disdain for his caprice. "Go," said she, "you are unworthy of any woman's love. You are the falsest man in the world, to abandon a lady so lovely, so amiable. Go, since you have forsaken her, you will forsake any other."

The poet took her advice and returned and sought the grace of Madame de Tours again, but she scornfully refused him, and in the rage of his disappointment he composed the following invective against women:

"To seek for fidelity in women, is to seek for holy things among the carcasses of dead and putrid dogs—to confide in them is the confidence of the dove in the kite. If they have no children they bestow a supposed offspring, that they may inherit the dowry which belongs only to mothers. What you love the ​most, their arts will cause you to hate; and when they have filled up the measure of their iniquity, they laugh at their disorders, and justify their guilt."

Overwhelmed with despair, our troubadour retired into a wood, where he built himself a cottage, resolving never more to appear in the world unless he could be restored to the favor of Madame de Tours.

All the knights of the country were touched with his fate. When two years had elapsed, they came and besought him to abandon his retreat, but be remained firm to his first resolution. At last, all the knights and ladies assembled, and went to bespeak Madame de Tours to have pity on him; but she answered that she would never grant this request till a hundred ladies and a hundred knights, who were truly in love, came to her with hands joined, and knees bent, to solicit the pardon of Berbesieu. On this condition she promised to forgive him. This news restored hope to the poet, and he gave vent to his grief in a poem which began with this paragraph:

"As an elephant, who is overthrown, cannot be raised up till ​a number of elephants rouse him by their cries, so neither should I have ever been relieved from my distress, if these loyal lovers had not obtained my grace, by beseeching it of her who alone can bestow felicity."

The ladies and knights assembled according to the number prescribed; they went to intercede for this unfortunate lover, and they obtained for him the pardon promised. But Madame de Tours died soon after; and her troubadour not being able to live in a country which called to his mind the sufferings he had undergone, and the loss of his beloved mistress, withdrew into Spain, where he ended his days.

This seems more like a romance than a story of real life, but the history of the Troubadours is full of actual events still more strange and romantic. The student of history will be struck with the sincerity and genuine earnestness of the gallantry of those days.

I have read with admiration the confession of William Magret, a poet of Viennois, who addressed this remarkable message to Peter II. who was killed at the battle of Murot: "Since God has placed you in hea​ven, be mindful of us who are left on earth." But what has most charmed me is the simple manner in which he describes his love: "I am so distracted with love, that being seated, I perceive not those who enter, and do not rise to receive them; and I seek for that I hold in my hand. As I believe in that God who was born on Christmas, I never committed fault or crime to the lady of my love, except it was to extinguish the lights to hide my confusion from her, and lest she should perceive the tears that roll down my cheeks, when I contemplated her sweetness."

It was not uncommon in those days for the lover to fast, and torture himself, and perform incredible feats of self-denial, to prove the sincerity of his love for his mistress. Sometimes during the intense heat of summer, they would wrap themselves in the thickest and warmest clothing and run up the steepest hills, walk bare-foot over the burning sands, and then during the frosts of winter they would clothe themselves in the thinnest garments, and expose themselves to the frosts and biting winds, to prove that "love ​could suffer all things for love." And sometimes these poor fanatics were frozen to death while on these pilgrimages of love.

There can be no doubt that gallantry had, at least, an element of sincerity in it, in those days. The deep, intense earnestness of their love-songs is sufficient proof of this. There was something almost profane in the devotion which these Troubadours exhibited to woman. Take for instance the following extract from Peri Rogier, a troubadour of great poetical genius who flourished in the twelfth century—

"Without doubt God was astonished when I consented to separate myself from my lady: yes, God cannot but have given me much credit, for he is well aware that if I lost her, I could never again know happiness, and that he himself possesses nothing that could console me. Oh sweet friend when the soft breeze comes wafting from the loved spot you inhabit, it seems to me that I inhale the breath of Paradise. Oh, if I can but enjoy the charm of your glances, I do not aspire to any greater favor—I believe myself in possession of God himself."

The object of this profane adoration was the beautiful Ermengarde, the daughter of Viscount Emeric II. ​of Narbonne, who, though she accepted the admiration of the poet, was obliged to send him away from her court, for the protection of her own reputation.

It was not an unfrequent occurrence for these gallant knights of the quill to fall in love with fair ladies whom they had never seen, and to burn with a flame for charms which they had only heard described, and which they would waste their lives in trying to possess.

Thus Jauffre Rudel, having heard a description of the beauty of the Princess Melindeusende, daughter of the Count of Tripoli, and the affianced bride of Manuel, Emperor of Constantinople, became so enamored with the idea of her charms, that he quitted his native land, and established himself near the being whose loveliness he had sung but never seen. But, alas! his heated imagination was undermining his health, and he dropped dead at the very moment he attained the object of his desires, and beheld for the first time the fair phantom of his dreams.

But I must close this sketch of the gallantry of the ​Troubadours with an extract from William Montagnogont, a famous knight of Provence, a fine poet, and a tender lover. The object of his sonnets was the beautiful Jafferaude of the castle of Lunel:

"Love inspires the greatest actions! Love engages the most amiable conduct! Love fills with joy! To act fraudulently in love, is a proof you have never loved. You cannot love, nor ever ought to be loved, if you ask anything of your mistress which virtue condemns. It is not love that seeks dishonor of virtue. Love has no will but that of the beloved object, nor seeks aught but what will augment her glory. True lovers are known by these rales; he who follows them, God will reward; but the deceiver shall come to shame. Never did I form a wish that could wound the heart of my beloved!"

There is an instinct in every true woman's heart, that teaches her that the sentiments of this noble Troubadour are true, and every man who scouts them shows himself unworthy of woman's confidence.

From the time that gallantry arose with the institution of Chivalry, up to the period to which I have now traced it in the literature of the Troubadours, it was a great refiner and softener of manners, and it was ​a great friend to woman. It gave her a character of dignity, truth, refinement, and genuine nobility, which she had never before possessed.

But the good it was destined to do soon reached its meridian; and what was born of the rugged and honest spirit of chivalry soon degenerated into effeminacy, thence it sank into mere voluptuousness, and thence into crime.

Witness, for instance, the slough into which gallantry had fallen at no later day than the times of Charles. Compare the poetry of Thomas Carew, a man of great learning, wit, and genius, attached to the court of this monarch, with the gallant poetry of the Troubadours of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, and it is like descending from the fresh mountain air into the putrid atmosphere of a charnel-house. The following verse from Carew is a fair specimen of the effeminacy of the gallant poetry of that time:

The gallant, who in the days of chivalry was either a bold knight, fighting for the glory of his country and the honor of his fair lady, or a scarcely less chivalrous Troubadour singing her charms in strains that made the age in love with virtue, has here descended to a false, intriguing, and corrupt adulator, whose love is a fever, and whose gallantry is a trap for a woman's honor.

Louis XIV., though he was perhaps the most gallant monarch that ever lived, was still unlike Charles II.; and his court, though one of the gayest in the history of the world, was unstained by many of the excesses that disgraced that of Charles II. Louis XIV. was a gallant without being a roué; though we are able to say these pleasant things of the French king only when we compare him with the ​English Charles. But it may perhaps be passed to the credit of his self-respect and refined taste, that the ladies who were his favorites were among not only the most beautiful, but the most refined and we may almost say the best women of France.

We may refer to the beautiful and gentle-minded Madame de la Vallière, who really loved the man, and not the sovereign, in Louis XIV. When the death of the son she had by that king was announced, she said—"Alas! I have less reason to be grieved for his death than for his birth."

Many years before this accomplished lady died, she retired into a convent, and while there she wrote a devotional treatise entitled "Reflections upon the Mercy of God." The eloquent Bossuet preached a sermon upon her taking the veil, at which were present Louis the Fourteenth's queen and all the court. The text was peculiar, especially for Louis's queen to hear—"And he that sat upon the throne, said, I will renew all things."

A celebrated picture of the Magdalen, painted by ​Le Brun for the convent in which Madame de la Vallière resided, was for a long time supposed to be a portrait of this beautiful and sincere penitent.

Madame de Maintenon, another lady of Louis the Fourteenth, was not less charming and intellectually accomplished. She must have been very beautiful. The Abbé de Choisy dedicated his translation of Thomas A'Kempis to her, with this motto from the Psalms:—

"Hear, my daughter, and see, and incline thine ear, and the king shall desire thy beauty."

This gifted lady once made this confession to her niece. "I was naturally ambitious. I fought against that passion. I really thought I should be happy, when that ambition was gratified. That infatuation lasted only three days." Her influence upon the king was always refining and beneficent. One day she asked him for some alms. "Alas! Madame," replied the Prince, "what I give in alms are merely fresh burdens upon my people. The more I give ​away the more I must take from them." "This, sire, is true," replied Madame de Maintenon, "but it is. right to ease the wants of those whom your former taxes to supply the expenses of your wars and of your buildings have reduced to misery. It is truly just that those who have been ruined by you, should be supported by you."

This lady survived the king several years, and the Regent Duke of Orleans took care that the pension left her by the king should be regularly paid to her. When Peter the Great visited Paris, he was very desirous of seeing Madame de Maintenon. She was very infirm, and in bed when he visited her. He drew aside the curtains to look at that face which had captivated her sovereign. A blush overpowered her pale and withered cheek, and the Czar retired.

Such were the ladies upon whom the gallant Louis XIV. bestowed his love. If we must regard them as fallen, we are compelled to look upon them as beautiful flowers growing in a morass.

Francis the First, another king of France, was also ​a model of gallantry in his way. Indeed he was an accomplished prince in all respects. When, after prodigies of valor, he lost the battle of Pavia, he sent his mother, Louisa of Savoy, the news of his captivity in a dignified and expressive sentence which will ever be remembered, "Tout est perdu, Madame, hormis l'honneur"—"All is lost, Madam, except honor."

When this accomplished prince delivered up his sword to Lannoi, the Spanish general, he said, "Sir, I deliver you the sword of a monarch, who is entitled to some distinction, from having with his own hand killed so many of your soldiers before he surrendered himself, and who is at last a prisoner, from a wretched reverse of fortune, rather than from any cowardice."

This monarch was as gentle and refined as a lover, as he was brave as a soldier, and great as a king. It was he who declared that, "A court without ladies, is like spring without flowers." And yet he once engraved upon a window at Rambouillet, with a diamond, the following verse:

The Spaniards are about the most gallant people of modern nations. Indeed, in Spain, there yet lingers a remnant of the ancient feeling of real gallantry.

Madrid is vocal almost every night in the year with the most charming love-songs chanted under the windows of a thousand fair ladies. It sometimes occurs that two parties happen to meet in honor of the same lady, and then a regular pitched battle is quite likely to follow. A beautiful woman is sure to be respected almost to adoration in Spain. Even the common people will greet her with tokens of admiration in the street, and exclaim, "Blessed be the mother that gave birth to such beauty." I have seen the students throw down their cloaks in the dust to form a carpet for a beautiful woman to cross the street upon; and all this from no affectation of gal​lantry, but from a genuine and honest admiration in this respect there is a wide difference between the Spanish and French. The attachment of the sexes, which in France is a light, variable feeling, is in Spain a serious and lasting sentiment. Similar differences may be observed in the mode in which each nation pursues its amusements, such as music and dancing, which are favorites with both. Spanish music is grave and tender, being in some measure an imitation of the ancient music of the Moors, improved by lessons from the Italian school.

There is no such thing as genuine gallantry either in France or England. In France, the relation between the sexes is too fickle, variable, and insincere, for any nearer approach to gallantry than flirtation; while in England the aristocracy, which is the only class in that country that could have the genuine feeling of gallantry, are turned shop-owners and tradesmen. The Smiths and Jones's who figure on the signboards have the nobility standing behind them as silent partners. The business habits of the United States ​and the examples of rapid fortunes in this country, have quite turned the head of John Bull, and he is very fast becoming a sharp, thrifty, money-getting Yankee. A business and commercial people have no leisure for the cultivation of that feeling and romance which is the foundation of gallantry. The activities of human nature seek other more practical and more useful channels of excitement. Instead of devoting a life to the worship and serviee of the fair ladies, they are building telegraphs, railroads, steamboats, constructing schemes of finance, and enlarging the area of practical civilization.

But still this age has a kind of gallantry, a sort of devotion to the sex, which perhaps deserves no higher name than flirtation, and means, I believe, generally, making a fool of a woman, by attentions which are hollow, fickle, and too often insincere.

This modern gallant, or flirt, is a poor imitation of the genuine gallant of the days of chivalry. He is covered over, as with a cloak, with an outside devotion to woman.

​He is made of nothing but hands and feet to serve her. His eye is practised and quick to see all her wants, even before she knows them herself. If she drops her fan, he catches it before it has time to reach the floor. If she wants a glass of water, he glides over the carpet like a shadow, and places it in her hand even before she has been able to finish the sentence which makes known her wishes. He is the first one to discover any new or rare article of her apparel,—and does not hesitate to point it out at once, and will declare that she never appeared in anything so becoming, and that she really never looked so charming before. And, ten to one, he will whisper her that he is afraid that every woman present will be jealous of her charms. And all this, if she is not one of the "strong-minded," or at least if she is not well instructed in the ways of the world, and especially in the ways of men, will be successful. Mary Wolstoncraft exclaims—"How many women has the cold unmeaning intercourse of gallantry rendered vain and useless!" Alas, I am ashamed to think of ​how many, and yet justice would dictate a word of apology for my sex, for are we not made, from our cradle to our womanhood, to feel that beauty is our sole capital to begin life with? What wonder, then, we should listen approvingly, and at length affectionately, to the one who tells us that we are rich in this? The cold censure of the world may fall heavily upon the poor victim of delusion and flattery, yet I have somehow a feeling that the eye of Omniscience looks down pityingly upon the errors consequent upon those snares which this species of gallantry throws perpetually in the pathway of woman, And this kind of gallantry is getting progressively falser, meaner, and more pernicious, as it comes down further from the age of chivalry that produced the genuine sentiment. Lord Chesterfield makes the following shameless confession. "I will own to you, under the secresy of confession, that my vanity has very often made me take great pains to make many a woman in love with me if I could, for whose person I would not have given a pinch of snuff." There, ladies, is the con​fession of the king of modern gallants, for you. But then, that is a game at which the women can play as well as the men, though as a general thing I am inclined to believe that the women get the worst of it, for they have more heart and natural sincerity, and are therefore more likely to get wounded.

But let no woman deceive herself with the idea that there is any meaning or any sincerity in the thousand sweet and pleasant things, the man of this kind of gallantry breathes in her ear. The feigned respect of this gallantry is a mere over-acted farce. Whatever they may say—and words are never wanting of course—their admiration of woman lies not in their hearts, but in their eyes and on their tongues. These furious worshippers of women would scorn even a Diana herself, were she a little on the wane; and while professing themselves slaves to the whole sex, "the beauteous are their prey, the rest their scorn."

Oh, how they will swear that they love you—love you to distraction—love the very ground you walk upon—dream of you all night, and sigh for you all day ​Without your love, existence has grown a burden the very sky above them is in darkness, and every flower on the earth has withered and lost its fragrance. Your eyes alone are the stars of their sky, your love the only solace of life.

Now is not this very fine, ladies? But then it is all, all deception. It is a mere trap to catch the unwary. The man who truly loves you, never runs on in that style. In real love there is a diffidence, a natural modesty, and a profound and almost silent respect, which never can assume the bold and impudent language of flattery.

So I beg young ladies never to have the least fear that a man who makes love to them after this extravagant fashion, is going to do himself the least harm, if they should refuse his suit. Be sure these gallants have no idea of dashing out their brains for any woman. It will be a great deal for them if they even deign a sigh for the ruined victim of their deception. Like Æneas, they will take their siesta in comfort, though their poor Didos are broken-hearted; and like ​another braggadocio of Troy, they have no gallantry even where their object is achieved—as Mr. Pope translates it:—

In Poland there still lingers; as in Spain, a remnant of the ancient feeling of gallantry. But it often exhibits itself in shapes which would surprise the business-minded lovers of the United States. In Poland I have seen the shoe of a beautiful woman filled with champagne, and passed up and down the table for a drinking-cup for the gentlemen. But this compliment I have never seen paid except to a lady who was celebrated for a beautiful foot.

In that country I also witnessed a very marked little piece of gallantry. A lady was performing a short journey on horseback with several gentlemen, when a heavy rain set in, and the gentlemen all took off their coats and pinned them together, so as to form a mantle, which completely covered her from ​her shoulders to her feet, while they rode for over an hour in their shirt-sleeves, through the pelting rain.

Alas! poor Poland. It is sad to think of so gallant and brave a people, broken up and scattered to the ends of the earth.

There are at the present time in the United States, many exiles from this nation, pursuing in silence, almost in secresy, all kinds of humble toil for a maintenance; men whom I once knew to be among the most wealthy, gallant, and accomplished gentlemen of Europe. But if justice has not forsaken the earth, that wronged and glorious people will one day take its place among the nations.

In Italy there are hardly any remains of the old chivalric spirit of gallantry, and what little there is, is confined to the ladies who become distinguished in the field of art. A beautiful woman who has genius in any line of art, will awaken at least the external show of gallantry; but all other women in that country, however beautiful they may be, must be content with miserable imitations of it.

​The late Emperor Nicholas was one of the most gallant monarchs in modern times, in the new sense of that word. But there was the real old spirit of gallantry in his blood. His marriage with the charming Princess of Prussia had an amusing piece of gallantry in it. It is customary, when a monarch is to be married, to have the whole affair arranged by the courts of the marrying parties. But not so with Nicholas. He determined to pick out his own wife, and he went rambling about among the courts of Europe in search of a woman who had those peculiar personal charms which could captivate his heart. At last he found such a one in the person of the young and beautiful Princess of Prussia. At her father's court he tarried long enough to become well acquainted with her qualities of mind and heart; and one day at dinner he rolled a small ring in a piece of bread, and handed it to the princess, saying to her in an under-tone, "If you will accept my hand, put this ring on your finger." And that is the way he popped the question. She took no time to deliberate, in the fashion ​of cunning prudes, but suffering her heart to tell the truth, at once and instantly put the ring on her finger. Nicholas was one of the finest looking men I ever saw, and at the time of his marriage, he and his spouse were considered the handsomest couple in Europe.

Notwithstanding the innumerable little gallantries of Nicholas, he was always kind, attentive, and affectionate to his wife; and she had the wisdom and amiability never to annoy him with any of the reproaches of jealousy.

In 1830 she lost her beauty by a most singular freak of nature, occasioned by a fright she received at the moment when the Emperor rushed into the presence of the infuriated mob that sought his life, and commanded them to "down on their knees" before him.

It was after this that Nicholas fell in love with that young and beautiful Nellydoff, one of the maids of honor to the Empress. The Empress, though perfectly aware of this affair, always treated Nellydoff ​with the greatest respect in public. This love affair was terminated only by the death of Nicholas; but it did not prevent him from numerous other intrigues.

But in such affairs Prince Paul Esterhazy of Hungary beat Nicholas. He actually settled pensions upon several hundred ladies, all of whom had been his favorites. It was said that his Highness was unable to count the number of his conquests. When I saw him he was sixty years of age, and I remember him as the most richly and splendidly dressed prince I had ever seen.

King Louis, of Bavaria, is one of the most gallant monarchs, as he is one of the most accomplished men of genius in Europe. The intelligent European in this country has had many a hearty laugh at the opinion the press of the United States appears to entertain of this king. He is not only one of the most refined and high-toned gentlemen of the old school of manners, but he is also one of the most learned men, and one of the cleverest men of genius in all Europe. To him art owes more than to any ​other monarch who has ever lived. Not only is it true that some of the most valuable discoveries and improvements in modern arts are due to his patronage, but his greatest service has been felt in the impetus which he has given to the general spirit of art throughout the German States.

In Europe, he has long been called the "artist-king." You will find his name referred to with admiration and praise, in almost every volume of the "Art-Union Journal." In volume X. of 1848, you may read this sentence:—"Till now, history has had no monarch who protected and fostered the arts to such an extent as King Louis; oven the entire illustrious house of Medici did not produce in a whole century, as much as the king alone in less than a fourth part of that time."

When Louis voluntarily descended from the throne, he said:—"It took me about an hour's consideration to resign the crown, but it required two days to separate me from the idea of being protector of the fine arts." On the occasion of his abdication, the artists ​united in an address to the king, expressive of their profound admiration for his genius, and of their regrets that art had lost the patronage of a throne.

King Louis is the author of several volumes of poems, which are evidence of his natural genius, and of his refined and elaborately cultivated tastes. His celebrated poem entitled South, if he had written no others, would have fixed his claim to the right of being considered a poet. And it is conceded that Europe has rarely, if ever, possessed a monarch so classically learned as he.

As a king, he was great in the arts, a friend of peace, abhorrent of war, and adverse to the tricks and stratagems of diplomacy. He was the greatest and best king that Bavaria has ever had. It would take half a million like his son, the present occupant of the throne, to make one like the old king himself. There stands the immortal witness of his greatness, in that Munich, which he raised from a third-class to a first-class capital among the nations of Europe. But Louis had really little admiration for that bauble, a crown. It was the last thing he took ​pride in. His manners and his social habits were rather those of a plain and honest gentleman, than of a king. I never knew him to ride either in a carriage or on horseback; he always went on foot, and almost always unattended and alone. He was always simply and plainly dressed; in fact, he never knew how to dress. In the matter of old coats, he beat one of your own most celebrated editors. He had an old green coat which he was not a little proud of, having worn it eight years.

His manners and his habits are more those of a scholar and a man of genius, than a king. But he is for all this one of the most gallant men in Europe, gallant in the best and most poetical sense of the word. He worships beauty like one of the old Troubadours. In fact, his gallantry is a part of his enthusiastic love of art. I have seen him stand in the street, in the snow and ice, with his hat off, to converse with a fair lady. If she was really very beautiful, he would be quite sure to have her picture painted for his gallery.

​It is impossible for a coarse, unpoetical, and merely animal nature to comprehend that fine adoration which a genuine feeling of gallantry inspires in the breast of a man for a beautiful woman. Indeed, in the philosophy of these lower natures there is no such thing as love in the world—nothing in man or woman to raise them above the beast. What they are incapable of feeling themselves, they find it impossible to comprehend in others, and hence the vulgar inuendoes that babble perpetually from the mouths of lust and sin. What is called "Platonic love," is always sneered at by those who are incapable of the fine feeling themselves. A dog or an ape, whether on two or four legs, find it impossible to imagine in others any feeling they are incapable of realizing themselves.

But those who are acquainted with the history of the chivalrous origin of gallantry, know that its most glorious deeds and greatest sacrifices were inspired by a love that was born of the soul, more than of the senses. I have already intimated that the U. S. is ​too much of a mercantile, too busy, and too practical a nation, to entertain the old spirit of gallantry, which requires leisure, and the cultivation of romance; but when I say this, I do not mean that there is not plenty of courting in this country, though love, like everything else, is a business here; that is I mean that the gentlemen make love in a truly business-like manner. They will manage the heart of a pretty woman as easily as they do the stocks on change, and the panics which they create in the social markets beat even the revolutions and breakdowns in the regions of finance. I believe that the American is regarded a dull fellow who cannot win the heart of a lady, make a thousand dollars, and establish a new bank, with the prospective capital of three millions, before breakfast. And it may not unfrequently happen that he will lose his mistress, his money, and his bank before supper of the same day.

But for all this I believe there is a great deal of genuine truth and honest love of woman, among the lords of creation in the U. S., and it is none the less honor​able to woman if it refuses to adorn itself with the artificial embellishments of gallantry. It is not a whit the less honest, either, for being of a somewhat Davy Crockett style. Love in this country will "dive the deepest, and come up the dryest," of any country on earth, and it is, therefore, quite as brave, honest, and sincere a love, as is found anywhere else; though it often clothes itself in the language of extravagance and exaggeration. What I mean is illustrated by a letter which is still to be seen (or was a few years ago), in one of the public libraries of Paris, in the hand writing of your illustrious countryman, Dr. Franklin. The letter is in very bad French, but in very good gallantry.

While the great man was U. S. Minister to Paris, he formed a friendship with a very charming lady, who was said to be most enthusiastic in her admiration of him; and after he had bid her good-bye, previous to leaving for the U. S., she wrote him a letter entreating him to postpone his departure if possible for a day or two. To this letter the Doctor sent the following reply:

"If Dr. Franklin was engaged to go to Paradise at eight o'clock in the morning, he would put it off till four in the afternoon, for the sake of one hour more in the society of so enchanting a daughter of earth."

A French gentleman who called my attention to this remarkable note, affected to laugh at its bad French, and at the extravagance of the language, but I expressed my surprise that he should think anything too extravagant in love, at the same time assuring him that I had never met a Frenchman in all my life, who would not postpone the idea of Paradise altogether for the sake of a pretty woman.