The Project Gutenberg EBook of Chivalry, by James Branch Cabell

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Title: Chivalry

Author: James Branch Cabell

Illustrator: Howard Pyle
William Hurd Lawrence
Elizabeth Shippen Green

Release Date: August 26, 2008 [EBook #22463]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CHIVALRY ***

Produced by Al Haines

[Illustration: Cover art]

[Frontispiece: "'I SING OF DEATH'" _Painting by Howard Pyle_]

[Illustration: Title page]

Chivalry

By

James Branch Cabell

"_And I, according to my copy, and
after the simple cunning that God hath
sent to me, have down set this in print,
to the intent that noble men may see and
learn the noble acts of chivalry._"

Illustrated

New York and London

Harper & Brothers Publishers

1909

Copyright, 1909, by HARPER & BROTHERS.

_All rights reserved._

Published October, 1909.

TO

Anne Branch Cabell

"AINSI A VOUS, MADAME, A MA TRES HAULTE ET
TRES NOBLE DAME, A QUI J'AYME A DEVOIR
ATTACHEMENT ET OBEISSANCE,
J'ENVOYE CE LIVRET."

Precautional

_Imprimis, as concerns the authenticity of these tales perhaps the less
debate may be the higher wisdom, if only because this Nicolas de Caen,
by common report, was never a Gradgrindian. And in this volume in
particular, writing it (as Nicolas is supposed to have done) in _1470_,
as a dependant on the Duke of Burgundy, it were but human nature should
our author be a little niggardly in his ascription of praiseworthy
traits to any member of the house of Lancaster or of Valois. Rather
must one in common reason accept him as confessedly a partisan writer,
who upon occasion will recolor an event with such nuances as will be
least inconvenient to a Yorkist and Burgundian bias._

_The reteller of these stories needs in addition to plead guilty of
having abridged the tales with a free hand. Item, these tales have
been a trifle pulled about, most notably in _"THE STORY OF THE
SATRAPS,_" where it seemed advantageous, on rejection, to put into
Gloucester's mouth a history which in the original version w