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The Project Gutenberg EBook of Quentin Durward, by Sir Walter Scott This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org Title: Quentin Durward Author: Sir Walter Scott Release Date: April, 2005 [EBook #7853] Posting Date: July 25, 2009 Language: English Character set encoding: ASCII *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK QUENTIN DURWARD *** Produced by Martin Robb QUENTIN DURWARD by Sir Walter Scott, Bart. AUTHOR'S INTRODUCTION The scene of this romance is laid in the fifteenth century, when the feudal system, which had been the sinews and nerves of national defence, and the spirit of chivalry, by which, as by a vivifying soul, that system was animated, began to be innovated upon and abandoned by those grosser characters who centred their sum of happiness in procuring the personal objects on which they had fixed their own exclusive attachment. The same egotism had indeed displayed itself even in more primitive ages; but it was now for the first time openly avowed as a professed principle of action. The spirit of chivalry had in it this point of excellence, that, however overstrained and fantastic many of its doctrines may appear to us, they were all founded on generosity and self denial, of which, if the earth were deprived, it would be difficult to conceive the existence of virtue among the human race. Among those who were the first to ridicule and abandon the self denying principles in which the young knight was instructed and to which he was so carefully trained up, Louis XI of France was the chief. That sovereign was of a character so purely selfish--so guiltless of entertaining any purpose unconnected with his ambition, covetousness, and desire of selfish enjoyment--that he almost seems an incarnation of the devil himself, permitted to do his utmost to corrupt our ideas of honour in its very source. Nor is it to be forgotten that Louis possessed to a great extent that caustic wit which can turn into ridicule all that a man does for any other person's advantage but his own, and was, therefore, peculiarly qualified to play the part of a cold hearted and sneering fiend. The cruelties, the perjuries, the suspicions of this prince, were rendered more detestable, ra
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