an early period,
as a species of blasphemy. The principles of chivalry were cast aside,
and their aid supplied by baser stimulants. Instead of the high spirit
which pressed every man forward in the defence of his country, Louis
XI substituted the exertions of the ever ready mercenary soldier, and
persuaded his subjects, among whom the mercantile class began to make a
figure, that it was better to leave to mercenaries the risks and labours
of war, and to supply the Crown with the means of paying them, than to
peril themselves in defence of their own substance. The merchants were
easily persuaded by this reasoning. The hour did not arrive in the days
of Louis XI when the landed gentry and nobles could be in like manner
excluded from the ranks of war; but the wily monarch commenced that
system, which, acted upon by his successors, at length threw the whole
military defence of the state into the hands of the Crown.

He was equally forward in altering the principles which were wont to
regulate the intercourse of the sexes. The doctrines of chivalry had
established, in theory at least, a system in which Beauty was the
governing and remunerating divinity--Valour, her slave, who caught his
courage from her eye and gave his life for her slightest service. It is
true, the system here, as in other branches, was stretched to fantastic
extravagance, and cases of scandal not unfrequently arose. Still, they
were generally such as those mentioned by Burke, where frailty was
deprived of half its guilt, by being purified from all its grossness.
In Louis XI's practice, it was far otherwise. He was a low voluptuary,
seeking pleasure without sentiment, and despising the sex from whom he
desired to obtain it.... By selecting his favourites and ministers from
among the dregs of the people, Louis showed the slight regard which he
paid to eminent station and high birth; and although this might be
not only excusable but meritorious, where the monarch's fiat promoted
obscure talent, or called forth modest worth, it was very different when
the King made his favourite associates of such men as the chief of his
police, Tristan l'Hermite..

Nor were Louis's sayings and actions in private or public of a kind
which could redeem such gross offences against the character of a man
of honour. His word, generally accounted the most sacred test of a man's
character, and the least impeachment of which is a capital offence
by the code of honour, was forfeite