ble with death;
despite which it flourished to such an extent that one nobleman, the
Chevalier d'Andrieux, enjoyed the reputation of having slain
seventy-two antagonists.

Where duelling is a habitual and honourable exercise, men do not take
the trouble to restrain primitive passions. Even in dealings with
ladies of their own rank, French nobles often stepped over the line
where rudeness {32} ends and insult begins. When Malherbe boxed the
ears of a viscountess he did nothing which he was unwilling to talk
about. Ladies not less than lords treated their servants like dirt,
and justified such conduct by the statement that the base-born deserve
no consideration. There was, indeed, no class--not even the
clergy--which was exempt from assault by wrathful nobles. In the
course of an altercation the Duc d'Epernon, after striking the
Archbishop of Bordeaux in the stomach several times with his fists and
his baton, exclaimed: 'If it were not for the respect I bear your
office, I would stretch you out on the pavement!'

In such an atmosphere was Frontenac reared. He had the manners and the
instincts of a belligerent. But he also possessed a soul which could
rise above pettiness. And the foes he loved best to smite were the
enemies of the king.

[1] As an illustration of their intimacy, there is a story that one day
when Henry IV was indisposed he had these two boys on his bed, and
amused himself by making them fight with each other.

[2] Charles V held all his Spanish, Burgundian, and Austrian
inheritance in his own hand from 1519 to 1521. In 1521 he granted the
Austrian possessions to his brother Ferdinand. Thenceforth Spain and
Austria were never reunited, but their association in politics
continued to be intimate until the close of the seventeenth century.

[3] Gaston d'Orleans was the younger brother of Louis XIII, and
heir-presumptive until the birth of Louis XIV in 1638. His vanity and
his complicity in plots to overthrow Richelieu are equally famous.

[4] This was not the first time that Frontenac had fought against the
Turks. Under La Feuillade and Coligny he had taken part in
Montecuculli's campaign in 1664 against the Turks in Hungary, and was
present at the great victory of St Gothard on the Raab. The regiment
of Carignan-Salieres was also engaged on this occasion. In the next
year it came to Canada, and Lorin thinks that the association of
Frontenac with the Carignan regiment in this campaign