Falconry, like venery, had a distinctive and professional vocabulary, which it was necessary for every one who joined in hawking to understand, unless he wished to be looked upon as an ignorant yeoman. "Flying the hawk is a royal pastime," says the Jesuit Claude Binet, "and it is to talk royally to talk of the flight of birds. Every one speaks of it, but few speak well. Many speak so ignorantly as to excite pity among their hearers. Sometimes one says the hand of the bird instead of saying the talon, sometimes the talon instead of the claw, sometimes the claw instead of the nail" &c.

The fourteenth century was the great epoch of falconry. There were then so many nobles who hawked, that in the rooms of inns there were perches made under the large mantel-pieces on which to place the birds while the sportsmen were at dinner. Histories of the period are full of characteristic anecdotes, which prove the enthusiasm which was created by hawking in those who devoted themselves to it.



Emperors and kings were as keen as others for this kind of sport. As early as the tenth century the Emperor Henry I. had acquired the soubriquet of "the Bird-catcher," from the fact of his giving much more attention to his birds than to his subjects. His example was followed by one of his successors, the Emperor Henry VI., who was reckoned the first falconer of his time. When his father, the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa (Red-beard), died in the Holy Land, in 1189, the Archdukes, Electors of the Empire, went out to meet the prince so as to proclaim him Emperor of Germany. They found him, surrounded by dogs, horses, and birds, ready to go hunting. "The day is fine," he said; "allow us to put off serious affairs until to-morrow."

Two centuries later we find at the court of France the same ardour for hawking and the same admiration for the performances of falcons. The Constable Bertrand du Guesclin gave two hawks to King Charles VI.; and the Count de Tancarville, whilst witnessing a combat between these noble birds and a crane which had been powerful enough to keep two greyhounds at bay, exclaimed, "I would not give up the pleasure which I feel for a thousand florins!"

The court-poet, William Cretin, although he was Canon of the holy chapel of Vincennes, was as passionately fond of hawking as his good master Louis XII. He thus describes the pleasure he felt in seeing a heron succumb to the vigorous attack of the falcons:—

"Qui auroit la mort aux dents, Il revivroit d'avour un tel passe-temps!"

("He who is about to die Would live again with such amusement.")



At a hunting party given by Louis XII. to the Archduke Maximilian, Mary of Burgundy, the Archduke's wife, was killed by a fall from her horse. The King presented his best falcons to the Archduke with a view to divert his mind and to turn his attention from the sad event, and one of the historians tells us that the bereaved husband was soon consoled: "The partridges, herons, wild ducks, and quails which he was enabled to take on his journey home by means of the King's present, materially lessening his sorrow."

Falconry, after having been in much esteem for centuries, at last became amenable to the same law which affects all great institutions, and, having reached the height of its glory, it was destined to decay. Although the art disappeared completely under Louis the Great, who only liked stag-kunting, and who, by drawing all the nobility to court, disorganized country life, no greater adept had ever been known than King Louis XIII. His first favourite and Grand Falconer was Albert de Luynes, whom he made prime minister and constable. Even in the Tuileries gardens, on his way to mass at the convent of the Feuillants, this prince amused himself by catching linnets and wrens with noisy magpies trained to pursue small birds.

It was during this reign that some ingenious person discovered that the words LOUIS TREIZIEME, ROY DE FRANCE ET DE NAVARRE, exactly gave this anagram, ROY TRES-RARE, ESTIME DIEU DE LA FAUCONNERIE. It was also at this time that Charles d'Arcussia, the last author who wrote a technical work on falconry, after praising his majesty for devoting himself so thoroughly to the divine sport, compared the King's birds to domestic angels, and the carnivorous birds which they destroyed he likened to the devil. From this he argued that the sport was like the angel Gabriel destroying the demon Asmodeus. He also added, in his dedication to the King, "As the nature of angels is above that of men, so is that of these birds above all other animals."



At that time certain religious or rather superstitious ceremonies were in use for blessing the water with which the falcons were sprinkled before hunting, and supplications were addressed to the eagles that they might not molest them. The following words were used: "I adjure you, O eagles! by the true God, by the holy God, by the most blessed Virgin Mary, by the nine orders of angels, by the holy prophets, by the twelve apostles, &c.... to leave the field clear to our birds, and not to molest them: in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost." It was at this time that, in order to recover a lost bird, the Sire de la Brizardiere, a professional necromancer, proposed beating the owner of the bird with birch-rods until he bled, and of making a charm with the blood, which was reckoned infallible.



Elzear Blaze expressed his astonishment that the ladies should not have used their influence to prevent falconry from falling into disuse. The chase, he considered, gave them an active part in an interesting and animated scene, which only required easy and graceful movements on their part, and to which no danger was attached. "The ladies knowing," he says, "how to fly a bird, how to call him back, and how to encourage him with their voice, being familiar with him from having continually carried him on their wrist, and often even from having broken him in themselves, the honour of hunting belongs to them by right. Besides, it brings out to advantage their grace and dexterity as they gallop amongst the sportsmen, followed by their pages and varlets and a whole herd of horses and dogs."

The question of precedence and of superiority had, at every period, been pretty evenly balanced between venery and falconry, each having its own staunch supporters. Thus, in the "Livre du Roy Modus," two ladies contend in verse (for the subject was considered too exalted to be treated of in simple prose), the one for the superiority of the birds, the other for the superiority of dogs. Their controversy is at length terminated by a celebrated huntsman and falconer, who decides in favour of venery, for the somewhat remarkable reason that those who pursue it enjoy oral and ocular pleasure at the same time. In an ancient Treatise by Gace de la Vigne, in which the same question occupies no fewer than ten thousand verses, the King (unnamed) ends the dispute by ordering that in future they shall be termed pleasures of dogs and pleasures of birds, so that there may be no superiority on one side or the other (Fig. 160). The court-poet, William Cretin, who was in great renown during the reigns of Louis XII. and Francis I., having asked two ladies to discuss the same subject in verse, does not hesitate, on the contrary, to place falconry above venery.



It may fairly be asserted that venery and falconry have taken a position of some importance in history; and in support of this theory it will suffice to mention a few facts borrowed from the annals of the chase.

The King of Navarre, Charles the Bad, had sworn to be faithful to the alliance made between himself and King Edward III. of England; but the English troops having been beaten by Du Guesclin, Charles saw that it was to his advantage to turn to the side of the King of France. In order not to appear to break his oath, he managed to be taken prisoner by the French whilst out hunting, and thus he sacrificed his honour to his personal interests. It was also due to a hunting party that Henry III., another King of Navarre, who was afterwards Henry IV., escaped from Paris, on the 3rd February, 1576, and fled to Senlis, where his friends of the Reformed religion came to join him.



Hunting formed a principal entertainment when public festivals were celebrated, and it was frequently accompanied with great magnificence. At the entry of Isabel of Bavaria into Paris, a sort of stag hunt was performed, when "the streets," according to a popular story of the time, "were full to profusion of hares, rabbits, and goslings." Again, at the solemn entry of Louis XI. into Paris, a representation of a doe hunt took place near the fountain St. Innocent; "after which the queen received a present of a magnificent stag, made of confectionery, and having the royal arms hung round its neck." At the memorable festival given at Lille, in 1453, by the Duke of Burgundy, a very curious performance took place. "At one end of the table," says the historian Mathieu de Coucy, "a heron was started, which was hunted as if by falconers and sportsmen; and presently from the other end of the table a falcon was slipped, which hovered over the heron. In a few minutes another falcon was started from the other side of the table, which attacked the heron so fiercely that he brought him down in the middle of the hall. After the performance was over and the heron was killed, it was served up at the dinner-table."



We shall conclude this chapter with a few words on bird-fowling, a kind of sport which was almost disdained in the Middle Ages. The anonymous author of the "Livre du Roy Modus" called it, in the fourteenth century, the pastime of the poor, "because the poor, who can neither keep hounds nor falcons to hunt or to fly, take much pleasure in it, particularly as it serves at the same time as a means of subsistence to many of them."

In this book, which was for a long time the authority in matters of sport generally, we find that nearly all the methods and contrivances now employed for bird-fowling were known and in use in the Middle Ages, in addition to some which have since fallen into disuse. We accordingly read in the "Roy Modus" a description of the drag-net, the mirror, the screech-owl, the bird-pipe (Fig. 161), the traps, the springs, &c., the use of all of which is now well understood. At that time, when falcons were so much required, it was necessary that people should be employed to catch them when young; and the author of this book speaks of nets of various sorts, and the pronged piece of wood in the middle of which a screech-owl or some other bird was placed in order to attract the falcons (Fig. 162).



Two methods were in use in those days for catching the woodcook and pheasant, which deserve to be mentioned. "The pheasants," says "King Modus," "are of such a nature that the male bird cannot bear the company of another." Taking advantage of this weakness, the plan of placing a mirror, which balanced a sort of wicker cage or coop, was adopted. The pheasant, thinking he saw his fellow, attacked him, struck against the glass and brought down the coop, in which he had leisure to reflect on his jealousy (Fig. 163).

Woodcocks, which are, says the author, "the most silly birds," were caught in this way. The bird-fowler was covered from head to foot with clothes of the colour of dead leaves, only having two little holes for his eyes. When he saw one he knelt down noiselessly, and supported his arms on two sticks, so as to keep perfectly still. When the bird was not looking towards him he cautiously approached it on his knees, holding in his hands two little dry sticks covered with red cloth, which he gently waved so as to divert the bird's attention from himself. In this way he gradually got near enough to pass a noose, which he kept ready at the end of a stick, round the bird's neck (Fig. 164).

However ingenious these tricks may appear, they are eclipsed by one we find recorded in the "Ixeuticon," a very elegant Latin poem, by Angelis de Barga, written two centuries later. In order to catch a large number of starlings, this author assures us, it is only necessary to have two or three in a cage, and, when a flight of these birds is seen passing, to liberate them with a very long twine attached to their claws. The twine must be covered with bird-lime, and, as the released birds instantly join their friends, all those they come near get glued to the twine and fall together to the ground.



As at the present time, the object of bird-fowling was twofold, namely, to procure game for food and to capture birds to be kept either for their voice or for fancy as pets. The trade in the latter was so important, at least in Paris, that the bird-catchers formed a numerous corporation having its statutes and privileges.

The Pont au Change (then covered on each side with houses and shops occupied by goldsmiths and money-changers) was the place where these people carried on their trade; and they had the privilege of hanging their cages against the houses, even without the sanction of the proprietors. This curious right was granted to them by Charles VI. in 1402, in return for which they were bound to "provide four hundred birds" whenever a king was crowned, "and an equal number when the queen made her first entry into her good town of Paris." The goldsmiths and money-changers, however, finding that this became a nuisance, and that it injured their trade, tried to get it abolished. They applied to the authorities to protect their rights, urging that the approaches to their shops, the rents of which they paid regularly, were continually obstructed by a crowd of purchasers and dealers in birds. The case was brought several times before parliament, which only confirmed the orders of the kings of France and the ancient privileges of the bird-catchers. At the end of the sixteenth century the quarrel became so bitter that the goldsmiths and changers took to "throwing down the cages and birds and trampling them under foot," and even assaulted and openly ill-treated the poor bird-dealers. But a degree of parliament again justified the sale of birds on the Pont an Change, by condemning the ring-leader,



Pierre Filacier, the master goldsmith who had commenced the proceedings against the bird-catchers, to pay a double fine, namely, twenty crowns to the plaintiffs and ten to the King.



It is satisfactory to observe that at that period measures were taken to preserve nests and to prevent bird-fowling from the 15th of March to the 15th of August. Besides this, it was necessary to have an express permission from the King himself to give persons the right of catching birds on the King's domains. Before any one could sell birds it was required for him to have been received as a master bird-catcher. The recognised bird-catchers, therefore, had no opponents except dealers from other countries, who brought canary-birds, parrots, and other foreign specimens into Paris. These dealers were, however, obliged to conform to strict rules. They were required on their arrival to exhibit their birds from ten to twelve o'clock on the marble stone in the palace yard on the days when parliament sat, in order that the masters and governors of the King's aviary, and, after them, the presidents and councillors, might have the first choice before other people of anything they wished to buy. They were, besides, bound to part the male and female birds in separate cages with tickets on them, so that purchasers might not be deceived; and, in case of dispute on this point, some sworn inspectors were appointed as arbitrators.

No doubt, emboldened by the victory which they had achieved over the goldsmiths of the Pont an Change, the bird-dealers of Paris attempted to forbid any bourgeois of the town from breeding canaries or any sort of cage birds. The bourgeois resented this, and brought their case before the Marshals of France. They urged that it was easy for them to breed canaries, and it was also a pleasure for their wives and daughters to teach them, whereas those bought on the Pont an Change were old and difficult to educate. This appeal was favourably received, and an order from the tribunal of the Marshals of France permitted the bourgeois to breed canaries, but it forbade the sale of them, which it was considered would interfere with the trade of the master-fowlers of the town, faubourgs, and suburbs of Paris.



Games and Pastimes.



Games of the Ancient Greeks and Romans.—Games of the Circus.—Animal Combats.—Daring of King Pepin.—The King's Lions.—Blind Men's Fights.—Cockneys of Paris.—Champ de Mars.—Cours Plenieres and Cours Couronnees.—Jugglers, Tumblers, and Minstrels.—Rope-dancers.—Fireworks.—Gymnastics.—Cards and Dice.—Chess, Marbles, and Billiards.—La Soule, La Pirouette, &c.—Small Games for Private Society.—History of Dancing.—Ballet des Ardents.—The "Orchesographie" (Art of Dancing) of Thoinot Arbeau.—List of Dances.

People of all countries and at all periods have been fond of public amusements, and have indulged in games and pastimes with a view to make time pass agreeably. These amusements have continually varied, according to the character of each nation, and according to the capricious changes of fashion. Since the learned antiquarian, J. Meursius, has devoted a large volume to describing the games of the ancient Greeks ("De Ludis Graecorum"), and Rabelais has collected a list of two hundred and twenty games which were in fashion at different times at the court of his gay master, it will be easily understood that a description of all the games and pastimes which have ever been in use by different nations, and particularly by the French, would form an encyclopaedia of some size.

We shall give a rapid sketch of the different kinds of games and pastimes which were most in fashion during the Middle Ages and to the end of the sixteenth century—omitting, however, the religious festivals, which belong to a different category; the public festivals, which will come under the chapter on Ceremonials; the tournaments and tilting matches and other sports of warriors, which belong to Chivalry; and, lastly, the scenic and literary representations, which specially belong to the history of the stage.

We shall, therefore, limit ourselves here to giving in a condensed form a few historical details of certain court amusements, and a short description of the games of skill and of chance, and also of dancing.

The Romans, especially during the times of the emperors, had a passionate love for performances in the circus and amphitheatre, as well as for chariot races, horse races, foot races, combats of animals, and feats of strength and agility. The daily life of the Roman people may be summed up as consisting of taking their food and enjoying games in the circus (panem et circenses). A taste for similar amusements was common to the Gauls as well as to the whole Roman Empire; and, were historians silent on the subject, we need no further information than that which is to be gathered from the ruins of the numerous amphitheatres, which are to be found at every centre of Roman occupation. The circus disappeared on the establishment of the Christian religion, for the bishops condemned it as a profane and sanguinary vestige of Paganism, and, no doubt, this led to the cessation of combats between man and beast. They continued, however, to pit wild or savage animals against one another, and to train dogs to fight with lions, tigers, bears, and bulls; otherwise it would be difficult to explain the restoration by King Chilperic (A.D. 577) of the circuses and arenas at Paris and Soissons. The remains of one of these circuses was not long ago discovered in Paris whilst they were engaged in laying the foundations for a new street, on the west side of the hill of St. Genevieve, a short distance from the old palace of the Caesars, known by the name of the Thermes of Julian.

Gregory of Tours states that Chilperic revived the ancient games of the circus, but that Gaul had ceased to be famous for good athletes and race-horses, although animal combats continued to take place for the amusement of the kings. One day King Pepin halted, with the principal officers of his army, at the Abbey of Ferrieres, and witnessed a fight between a lion and a bull. The bull was of enormous size and extraordinary strength, but nevertheless the lion overcame him; whereupon Pepin, who was surnamed the Short, turned to his officers, who used to joke him about his short stature, and said to them, "Make the lion loose his hold of the bull, or kill him." No one dared to undertake so perilous a task, and some said aloud that the man who would measure his strength with a lion must be mad. Upon this, Pepin sprang into the arena sword in hand, and with two blows cut off the heads of the lion and the bull. "What do you think of that?" he said to his astonished officers. "Am I not fit to be your master? Size cannot compare with courage. Remember what little David did to the Giant Goliath."

Eight hundred years later there were occasional animal combats at the court of Francis I. "A fine lady," says Brantome, "went to see the King's lions, in company with a gentleman who much admired her. She suddenly let her glove drop, and it fell into the lions' den. 'I beg of you,' she said, in the calmest way, to her admirer, 'to go amongst the lions and bring me back my glove.' The gentleman made no remark, but, without even drawing his sword, went into the den and gave himself up silently to death to please the lady. The lions did not move, and he was able to leave their den without a scratch and return the lady her missing glove. 'Here is your glove, madam,' he coldly said to her who evidently valued his life at so small a price; 'see if you can find any one else who would do the same as I have done for you.' So saying he left her, and never afterwards looked at or even spoke to her."

It has been imagined that the kings of France only kept lions as living symbols of royalty. In 1333 Philippe de Valois bought a barn in the Rue Froidmantel, near the Chateau du Louvre, where he established a menagerie for his lions, bears, leopards, and other wild beasts. This royal menagerie still existed in the reigns of Charles VIII. and Francis I. Charles V. and his successors had an establishment of lions in the quadrangle of the Grand Hotel de St. Paul, on the very spot which was subsequently the site of the Rue des Lions St. Paul.

These wild beasts were sometimes employed in the combats, and were pitted against bulls and dogs in the presence of the King and his court. It was after one of these combats that Charles IX., excited by the sanguinary spectacle, wished to enter the arena alone in order to attack a lion which had torn some of his best dogs to pieces, and it was only with great difficulty that the audacious sovereign was dissuaded from his foolish purpose. Henry III. had no disposition to imitate his brother's example; for dreaming one night that his lions were devouring him, he had them all killed the next day.

The love for hunting wild animals, such as the wolf, bear, and boar (see chapter on Hunting), from an early date took the place of the animal combats as far as the court and the nobles were concerned. The people were therefore deprived of the spectacle of the combats which had had so much charm for them; and as they could not resort to the alternative of the chase, they treated themselves to a feeble imitation of the games of the circus in such amusements as setting dogs to worry old horses or donkeys, &c. (Fig. 166). Bull-fights, nevertheless, continued in the southern provinces of France, as also in Spain.

At village feasts not only did wrestling matches take place, but also queer kinds of combats with sticks or birch boughs. Two men, blindfolded, each armed with a stick, and holding in his hand a rope fastened to a stake, entered the arena, and went round and round trying to strike at a fat goose or a pig which was also let loose with them. It can easily be imagined that the greater number of the blows fell like hail on one or other of the principal actors in this blind combat, amidst shouts of laughter from the spectators.



Nothing amused our ancestors more than these blind encounters; even kings took part at these burlesque representations. At Mid-Lent annually they attended with their court at the Quinze-Vingts, in Paris, in order to see blindfold persons, armed from head to foot, fighting with a lance or stick. This amusement was quite sufficient to attract all Paris. In 1425, on the last day of August, the inhabitants of the capital crowded their windows to witness the procession of four blind men, clothed in full armour, like knights going to a tournament, and preceded by two men, one playing the hautbois and the other bearing a banner on which a pig was painted. These four champions on the next day attacked a pig, which was to become the property of the one who killed it. The lists were situated in the court of the Hotel d'Armagnac, the present site of the Palais Royal. A great crowd attended the encounter. The blind men, armed with all sorts of weapons, belaboured each other so furiously that the game would have ended fatally to one or more of them had they not been separated and made to divide the pig which they had all so well earned.



The people of the Middle Ages had an insatiable love of sight-seeing; they came great distances, from all parts, to witness any amusing exhibition. They would suffer any amount of privation or fatigue to indulge this feeling, and they gave themselves up to it so heartily that it became a solace to them in their greatest sorrows, and they laughed with that hearty laugh which may be said to be one of their natural characteristics. In all public processions in the open air the crowd (or rather, as we might say, the Cockneys of Paris), in their anxiety to see everything that was to be seen, would frequently obstruct all the public avenues, and so prevent the procession from passing along. In consequence of this the Provosts of Paris on these occasions distributed hundreds of stout sticks amongst the sergeants, who used them freely on the shoulders of the most obstinate sight-seers (see chapter on Ceremonials). There was no religious procession, no parish fair, no municipal feast, and no parade or review of troops, which did not bring together crowds of people, whose ears and eyes were wide open, if only to hear the sound of the trumpet, or to see a "dog rush past with a frying-pan tied to his tail."



This curiosity of the French was particularly exhibited when the kings of the first royal dynasty held their Champs de Mars, the kings of the second dynasty their Cours Plenieres, and the kings of the third dynasty their Cours Couronnees. In these assemblies, where the King gathered together all his principal vassals once or twice a year, to hold personal communication with them, and to strengthen his power by ensuring their feudal services, large quantities of food and fermented liquors were publicly distributed among the people (Fig. 168). The populace were always most enthusiastic spectators of military displays, of court ceremonies, and, above all, of the various amusements which royalty provided for them at great cost in those days: and it was on these state occasions that jugglers, tumblers, and minstrels displayed their talents. The Champ de Mars was one of the principal fetes of the year, and was held sometimes in the centre of some large town, sometimes in a royal domain, and sometimes in the open country. Bishop Gregory of Tours describes one which was given in his diocese during the reign of Chilperic, at the Easter festivals, at which we may be sure that the games of the circus, re-established by Chilperic, excited the greatest interest. Charlemagne also held Champs de Mars, but called them Cours Royales, at which he appeared dressed in cloth of gold studded all over with pearls and precious stones. Under the third dynasty King Robert celebrated court days with the same magnificence, and the people were admitted to the palace during the royal banquet to witness the King sitting amongst his great officers of state. The Cours Plenieres, which were always held at Christmas, Twelfth-day, Easter, and on the day of Pentecost, were not less brilliant during the reigns of Robert's successors. Louis IX. himself, notwithstanding his natural shyness and his taste for simplicity, was noted for the display he made on state occasions. In 1350, Philippe de Valois wore his crown at the Cours Plenieres, and from that time they were called Cours Couronnees. The kings of jugglers were the privileged performers, and their feats and the other amusements, which continued on each occasion for several days, were provided for at the sovereign's sole expense.



These kings of jugglers exercised a supreme authority over the art of jugglery and over all the members of this jovial fraternity. It must not be imagined that these jugglers merely recited snatches from tales and fables in rhyme; this was the least of their talents. The cleverest of them played all sorts of musical instruments, sung songs, and repeated by heart a multitude of stories, after the example of their reputed forefather, King Borgabed, or Bedabie, who, according to these troubadours, was King of Great Britain at the time that Alexander the Great was King of Macedonia. The jugglers of a lower order especially excelled in tumbling and in tricks of legerdemain (Figs. 169 and 170). They threw wonderful somersaults, they leaped through hoops placed at certain distances from one another, they played with knives, slings, baskets, brass balls, and earthenware plates, and they walked on their hands with their feet in the air or with their heads turned downwards so as to look through their legs backwards. These acrobatic feats were even practised by women. According to a legend, the daughter of Herodias was a renowned acrobat, and on a bas-relief in the Cathedral of Rouen we find this Jewish dancer turning somersaults before Herod, so as to fascinate him, and thus obtain the decapitation of John the Baptist.



"The jugglers," adds M. de Labedolliere, in his clever work on "The Private Life of the French," "often led about bears, monkeys, and other animals, which they taught to dance or to fight (Figs. 171 and 172). A manuscript in the National Library represents a banquet, and around the table, so as to amuse the guests, performances of animals are going on, such as monkeys riding on horseback, a bear feigning to be dead, a goat playing the harp, and dogs walking on their hind legs." We find the same grotesque figures on sculptures, on the capitals of churches, on the illuminated margins of manuscripts of theology, and on prayer-books, which seems to indicate that jugglers were the associates of painters and illuminators, even if they themselves were not the writers and illuminators of the manuscripts. "Jugglery," M. de Labedolliere goes on to say, "at that time embraced poetry, music, dancing, sleight of hand, conjuring, wrestling, boxing, and the training of animals. Its humblest practitioners were the mimics or grimacers, in many-coloured garments, and brazen-faced mountebanks, who provoked laughter at the expense of decency."



At first, and down to the thirteenth century, the profession of a juggler was a most lucrative one. There was no public or private feast of any importance without the profession being represented. Their mimicry and acrobatic feats were less thought of than their long poems or lays of wars and adventures, which they recited in doggerel rhyme to the accompaniment of a stringed instrument. The doors of the chateaux were always open to them, and they had a place assigned to them at all feasts. They were the principal attraction at the Cours Plenieres, and, according to the testimony of one of their poets, they frequently retired from business loaded with presents, such as riding-horses, carriage-horses, jewels, cloaks, fur robes, clothing of violet or scarlet cloth, and, above all, with large sums of money. They loved to recall with pride the heroic memory of one of their own calling, the brave Norman, Taillefer, who, before the battle of Hastings, advanced alone on horseback between the two armies about to commence the engagement, and drew off the attention of the English by singing them the song of Roland. He then began juggling, and taking his lance by the hilt, he threw it into the air and caught it by the point as it fell; then, drawing his sword, he spun it several times over his head, and caught it in a similar way as it fell. After these skilful exercises, during which the enemy were gaping in mute astonishment, he forced his charger through the English ranks, and caused great havoc before he fell, positively riddled with wounds.

Notwithstanding this noble instance, not to belie the old proverb, jugglers were never received into the order of knighthood. They were, after a time, as much abused as they had before been extolled. Their licentious lives reflected itself in their obscene language. Their pantomimes, like their songs, showed that they were the votaries of the lowest vices. The lower orders laughed at their coarseness, and were amused at their juggleries; but the nobility were disgusted with them, and they were absolutely excluded from the presence of ladies and girls in the chateaux and houses of the bourgeoisie. We see in the tale of "Le Jugleor" that they acquired ill fame everywhere, inasmuch as they were addicted to every sort of vice. The clergy, and St. Bernard especially, denounced them and held them up to public contempt. St. Bernard spoke thus of them in one of his sermons written in the middle of the twelfth century: "A man fond of jugglers will soon enough possess a wife whose name is Poverty. If it happens that the tricks of jugglers are forced upon your notice, endeavour to avoid them, and think of other things. The tricks of jugglers never please God."



From this remark we may understand their fall as well as the disrepute in which they were held at that time, and we are not surprised to find in an old edition of the "Memoires du Sire de Joinville" this passage, which is, perhaps, an interpolation from a contemporary document: "St. Louis drove from his kingdom all tumblers and players of sleight of hand, through whom many evil habits and tastes had become engendered in the people." A troubadour's story of this period shows that the jugglers wandered about the country with their trained animals nearly starved; they were half naked, and were often without anything on their heads, without coats, without shoes, and always without money. The lower orders welcomed them, and continued to admire and idolize them for their clever tricks (Fig. 173), but the bourgeois class, following the example of the nobility, turned their backs upon them. In 1345 Guillaume de Gourmont, Provost of Paris, forbad their singing or relating obscene stories, under penalty of fine and imprisonment.



Having been associated together as a confraternity since 1331, they lived huddled together in one street of Paris, which took the name of Rue des Jougleurs. It was at this period that the Church and Hospital of St. Julian were founded through the exertions of Jacques Goure, a native of Pistoia, and of Huet le Lorrain, who were both jugglers. The newly formed brotherhood at once undertook to subscribe to this good work, and each member did so according to his means. Their aid to the cost of the two buildings was sixty livres, and they were both erected in the Rue St. Martin, and placed under the protection of St. Julian the Martyr. The chapel was consecrated on the last Sunday in September, 1335, and on the front of it there were three figures, one representing a troubadour, one a minstrel, and one a juggler, each with his various instruments.

The bad repute into which jugglers had fallen did not prevent the kings of France from attaching buffoons, or fools, as they were generally called, to their households, who were often more or less deformed dwarfs, and who, to all intents and purposes, were jugglers. They were allowed to indulge in every sort of impertinence and waggery in order to excite the risibility of their masters (Figs. 174 and 175). These buffoons or fools were an institution at court until the time of Louis XIV., and several, such as Caillette, Triboulet, and Brusquet, are better known in history than many of the statesmen and soldiers who were their contemporaries.



At the end of the fourteenth century the brotherhood of jugglers divided itself into two distinct classes, the jugglers proper and the tumblers. The former continued to recite serious or amusing poetry, to sing love-songs, to play comic interludes, either singly or in concert, in the streets or in the houses, accompanying themselves or being accompanied by all sorts of musical instruments. The tumblers, on the other hand, devoted themselves exclusively to feats of agility or of skill, the exhibition of trained animals, the making of comic grimaces, and tight-rope dancing.



The art of rope dancing is very ancient; it was patronised by the Franks, who looked upon it as a marvellous effort of human genius. The most remarkable rope-dancers of that time were of Indian origin. All performers in this art came originally from the East, although they afterwards trained pupils in the countries through which they passed, recruiting themselves chiefly from the mixed tribe of jugglers. According to a document quoted by the learned Foncemagne, rope-dancers appeared as early as 1327 at the entertainments given at state banquets by the kings of France. But long before that time they are mentioned in the poems of troubadours as the necessary auxiliaries of any feast given by the nobility, or even by the monasteries. From the fourteenth to the end of the sixteenth century they were never absent from any public ceremonial, and it was at the state entries of kings and queens, princes and princesses, that they were especially called upon to display their talents.



One of the most extraordinary examples of the daring of these tumblers is to be found in the records of the entry of Queen Isabel of Bavaria into Paris, in 1385 (see chapter on Ceremonials); and, indeed, all the chronicles of the fifteenth century are full of anecdotes of their doings. Mathieu de Coucy, who wrote a history of the time of Charles VII., relates some very curious details respecting a show which took place at Milan, and which astonished the whole of Europe:—"The Duke of Milan ordered a rope to be stretched across his palace, about one hundred and fifty feet from the ground, and of equal length. On to this a Portuguese mounted, walked straight along, going backwards and forwards, and dancing to the sound of the tambourine. He also hung from the rope with his head downwards, and went through all sorts of tricks. The ladies who were looking on could not help hiding their eyes in their handkerchiefs, from fear lest they should see him overbalance and fall and kill himself." The chronicler of Charles XII., Jean d'Arton, tells us of a not less remarkable feat, performed on the occasion of the obsequies of Duke Pierre de Bourbon, which were celebrated at Moulins, in the month of October, 1503, in the presence of the king and the court. "Amongst other performances was that of a German tight-rope dancer, named Georges Menustre, a very young man, who had a thick rope stretched across from the highest part of the tower of the Castle of Macon to the windows of the steeple of the Church of the Jacobites. The height of this from the ground was twenty-five fathoms, and the distance from the castle to the steeple some two hundred and fifty paces. On two evenings in succession he walked along this rope, and on the second occasion when he started from the tower of the castle his feat was witnessed by the king and upwards of thirty thousand persons. He performed all sorts of graceful tricks, such as dancing grotesque dances to music and hanging to the rope by his feet and by his teeth. Although so strange and marvellous, these feats were nevertheless actually performed, unless human sight had been deceived by magic. A female dancer also performed in a novel way, cutting capers, throwing somersaults, and performing graceful Moorish and other remarkable and peculiar dances." Such was their manner of celebrating a funeral.

In the sixteenth century these dancers and tumblers became so numerous that they were to be met with everywhere, in the provinces as well as in the towns. Many of them were Bohemians or Zingari. They travelled in companies, sometimes on foot, sometimes on horseback, and sometimes with some sort of a conveyance containing the accessories of their craft and a travelling theatre. But people began to tire of these sorts of entertainments, the more so as they were required to pay for them, and they naturally preferred the public rejoicings, which cost them nothing. They were particularly fond of illuminations and fireworks, which are of much later origin than the invention of gunpowder; although the Saracens, at the time of the Crusades, used a Greek fire for illuminations, which considerably alarmed the Crusaders when they first witnessed its effects. Regular fireworks appear to have been invented in Italy, where the pyrotechnic art has retained its superiority to this day, and where the inhabitants are as enthusiastic as ever for this sort of amusement, and consider it, in fact, inseparable from every religious, private, or public festival. This Italian invention was first introduced into the Low Countries by the Spaniards, where it found many admirers, and it made its appearance in France with the Italian artists who established themselves in that country in the reigns of Charles VIII., Louis XII., and Francis I. Fireworks could not fail to be attractive at the Court of the Valois, to which Catherine de Medicis had introduced the manners and customs of Italy. The French, who up to that time had only been accustomed to the illuminations of St. John's Day and of the first Sunday in Lent, received those fireworks with great enthusiasm, and they soon became a regular part of the programme for public festivals (Fig. 176).



We have hitherto only described the sports engaged in for the amusement of the spectators; we have still to describe those in which the actors took greater pleasure than even the spectators themselves. These were specially the games of strength and skill as well as dancing, with a notice of which we shall conclude this chapter. There were, besides, the various games of chance and the games of fun and humour. Most of the bourgeois and the villagers played a variety of games of agility, many of which have descended to our times, and are still to be found at our schools and colleges. Wrestling, running races, the game of bars, high and wide jumping, leap-frog, blind-man's buff, games of ball of all sorts, gymnastics, and all exercises which strengthened the body or added to the suppleness of the limbs, were long in use among the youth of the nobility (Figs. 177 and 178). The Lord of Fleuranges, in his memoirs written at the court of Francis I., recounts numerous exercises to which he devoted himself during his childhood and youth, and which were then looked upon as a necessary part of the education of chivalry. The nobles in this way acquired a taste for physical exercises, and took naturally to combats, tournaments, and hunting, and subsequently their services in the battle-field gave them plenty of opportunities to gratify the taste thus developed in them. These were not, however, sufficient for their insatiable activity; when they could not do anything else, they played at tennis and such games at all hours of the day; and these pastimes had so much attraction for nobles of all ages that they not unfrequently sacrificed their health in consequence of overtaxing their strength. In 1506 the King of Castile, Philippe le Beau, died of pleurisy, from a severe cold which he caught while playing tennis.



Tennis also became the favourite game amongst the bourgeois in the towns, and tennis-courts were built in all parts, of such spacious proportions and so well adapted for spectators, that they were often converted into theatres. Their game of billiards resembled the modern one only in name, for it was played on a level piece of ground with wooden balls which were struck with hooked sticks and mallets. It was in great repute in the fourteenth century, for in 1396 Marshal de Boucicault, who was considered one of the best players of his time, won at it six hundred francs (or more than twenty-eight thousand francs of present currency). At the beginning of the following century the Duke Louis d'Orleans ordered billes et billars to be bought for the sum of eleven sols six deniers tournois (about fifteen francs of our money), that he might amuse himself with them. There were several games of the same sort, which were not less popular. Skittles; la Soule or Soulette, which consisted of a large ball of hay covered over with leather, the possession of which was contested for by two opposing sides of players; Football; open Tennis; Shuttlecock, &c. It was Charles V. who first thought of giving a more serious and useful character to the games of the people, and who, in a celebrated edict forbidding games of chance, encouraged the establishment of companies of archers and bowmen. These companies, to which was subsequently added that of the arquebusiers, outlived political revolutions, and are still extant, especially in the northern provinces of France.



At all times and in all countries the games of chance were the most popular, although they were forbidden both by ecclesiastical and royal authority. New laws were continually being enacted against them, and especially against those in which dice were used, though with little avail. "Dice shall not be made in the kingdom," says the law of 1256; and "those who are discovered using them, and frequenting taverns and bad places, will be looked upon as suspicions characters." A law of 1291 repeats, "That games with dice be forbidden." Nevertheless, though these prohibitions were frequently renewed, people continued to disregard them and to lose much money at such games. The law of 1396 is aimed particularly against loaded dice, which must have been contemporary with the origin of dice themselves, for no games ever gave rise to a greater amount of roguery than those of this description. They were, however, publicly sold in spite of all the laws to the contrary; for, in the "Dit du Mercier," the dealer offers his merchandise thus:—

"J'ay dez de plus, j'ay dez de moins, De Paris, de Chartres, de Rains."

("I have heavy dice, I have light dice, From Paris, from Chartres, and from Rains.")

It has been said that the game of dice was at first called the game of God, because the regulation of lottery was one of God's prerogatives; but this derivation is purely imaginary. What appears more likely is, that dice were first forbidden by the Church, and then by the civil authorities, on account of the fearful oaths which were so apt to be uttered by those players who had a run of ill luck. Nothing was commoner than for people to ruin themselves at this game. The poems of troubadours are full of imprecations against the fatal chance of dice; many troubadours, such as Guillaume Magret and Gaucelm Faydit, lost their fortunes at it, and their lives in consequence. Rutebeuf exclaims, in one of his satires, "Dice rob me of all my clothes, dice kill me, dice watch me, dice track me, dice attack me, and dice defy me." The blasphemies of the gamblers did not always remain unpunished. "Philip Augustus," says Bigord, in his Latin history of this king, "carried his aversion for oaths to such an extent, that if any one, whether knight or of any other rank, let one slip from his lips in the presence of the sovereign, even by mistake, he was ordered to be immediately thrown into the river." Louis XII., who was somewhat less severe, contented himself with having a hole bored with a hot iron through the blasphemer's tongue.



The work "On the Manner of playing with Dice," has handed down to us the technical terms used in these games, which varied as much in practice as in name. They sometimes played with three dice, sometimes with six; different games were also in fashion, and in some the cast of the dice alone decided. The games of cards were also most numerous, but it is not our intention to give the origin of them here. It is sufficient to name a few of the most popular ones in France, which were, Flux, Prime, Sequence, Triomphe, Piquet, Trente-et-un, Passe-dix, Condemnade, Lansquenet, Marriage, Gay, or J'ai, Malcontent, Here, &c. (Figs. 179 and 180). All these games, which were as much forbidden as dice, were played in taverns as well as at court; and, just as there were loaded dice, so were there also false cards, prepared by rogues for cheating. The greater number of the games of cards formerly did not require the least skill on the part of the players, chance alone deciding. The game of Tables, however, required skill and calculation, for under this head were comprised all the games which were played on a board, and particularly chess, draughts, and backgammon. The invention of the game of chess has been attributed to the Assyrians, and there can be no doubt but that it came from the East, and reached Gaul about the beginning of the ninth century, although it was not extensively known till about the twelfth. The annals of chivalry continually speak of the barons playing at these games, and especially at chess. Historians also mention chess, and show that it was played with the same zest in the camp of the Saracens as in that of the Crusaders. We must not be surprised if chess shared the prohibition laid upon dice, for those who were ignorant of its ingenious combinations ranked it amongst games of chance. The Council of Paris, in 1212, therefore condemned chess for the same reasons as dice, and it was specially forbidden to church people, who had begun to make it their habitual pastime. The royal edict of 1254 was equally unjust with regard to this game. "We strictly forbid," says Louis IX., "any person to play at dice, tables, or chess." This pious king set himself against these games, which he looked upon as inventions of the devil. After the fatal day of Mansorah, in 1249, the King, who was still in Egypt with the remnants of his army, asked what his brother, the Comte d'Anjou, was doing. "He was told," says Joinville, "that he was playing at tables with his Royal Highness Gaultier de Nemours. The King was highly incensed against his brother, and, though most feeble from the effects of his illness, went to him, and taking the dice and the tables, had them thrown into the sea." Nevertheless Louis IX. received as a present from the Vieux de la Montagne, chief of the Ismalians, a chessboard made of gold and rock crystal, the pieces being of precious metals beautifully worked. It has been asserted, but incorrectly, that this chessboard was the one preserved in the Musee de Cluny, after having long formed part of the treasures of the Kings of France.

Amongst the games comprised under the name of tables, it is sufficient to mention that of draughts, which was formerly played with dice and with the same men as were used for chess; also the game of honchet, or jonchees, that is, bones or spillikins, games which required pieces or men in the same way as chess, but which required more quickness of hand than of intelligence; and epingles, or push-pin, which was played in a similar manner to the honchets, and was the great amusement of the small pages in the houses of the nobility. When they had not epingles, honchets, or draughtsmen to play with, they used their fingers instead, and played a game which is still most popular amongst the Italian people, called the morra, and which was as much in vogue with the ancient Romans as it is among the modern Italians. It consisted of suddenly raising as many fingers as had been shown by one's adversary, and gave rise to a great amount of amusement among the players and lookers-on. The games played by girls were, of course, different from those in use among boys. The latter played at marbles, luettes, peg or humming tops, quoits, fouquet, merelles, and a number of other games, many of which are now unknown. The girls, it is almost needless to say, from the earliest times played with dolls. Briche, a game in which a brick and a small stick was used, were also a favourite. Martiaus, or small quoits, wolf or fox, blind man's buff, hide and seek, quoits, &c., were all girls' games. The greater part of these amusements were enlivened by a chorus, which all the girls sang together, or by dialogues sung or chanted in unison.



If children had their games, which for many generations continued comparatively unchanged, so the dames and the young ladies had theirs, consisting of gallantry and politeness, which only disappeared with those harmless assemblies in which the two sexes vied with each other in urbanity, friendly roguishness, and wit. It would require long antiquarian researches to discover the origin and mode of playing many of these pastimes, such as des oes, des trois anes, des accords bigarres, du jardin madame, de la fricade, du feiseau, de la mick, and a number of others which are named but not described in the records of the times. The game a l'oreille, the invention of which is attributed to the troubadour Guillaume Adhemar, the jeu des Valentines, or the game of lovers, and the numerous games of forfeits, which have come down to us from the Courts of Love of the Middle Ages, we find to be somewhat deprived of their original simplicity in the way they are now played in country-houses in the winter and at village festivals in the summer. But the Courts of Love are no longer in existence gravely to superintend all these diversions (Fig. 181).

Amongst the amusements which time has not obliterated, but which, on the contrary, seem destined to be of longer duration than monuments of stone and brass, we must name dancing, which was certainly one of the principal amusements of society, and which has come down to us through all religions, all customs, all people, and all ages, preserving at the same time much of its original character. Dancing appears, at each period of the world's history, to have been alternately religions and profane, lively and solemn, frivolous and severe. Though dancing was as common an amusement formerly as it is now, there was this essential difference between the two periods, namely, that certain people, such as the Romans, were very fond of seeing dancing, but did not join in it themselves. Tiberius drove the dancers out of Rome, and Domitian dismissed certain senators from their seats in the senate who had degraded themselves by dancing; and there seems to be no doubt that the Romans, from the conquest of Julius Caesar, did not themselves patronise the art. There were a number of professional dancers in Gaul, as well as in the other provinces of the Roman Empire, who were hired to dance at feasts, and who endeavoured to do their best to make their art as popular as possible. The lightheartedness of the Gauls, their natural gaiety, their love for violent exercise and for pleasures of all sorts, made them delight in dancing, and indulge in it with great energy; and thus, notwithstanding the repugnance of the Roman aristocracy and the prohibitions and anathemas of councils and synods, dancing has always been one of the favourite pastimes of the Gauls and the French.



Leuce Carin, a writer of doubtful authority, states that in the early history of Christianity the faithful danced, or rather stamped, in measured time during religions ceremonials, gesticulating and distorting themselves. This is, however, a mistake. The only thing approaching to it was the slight trace of the ancient Pagan dances which remained in the feast of the first Sunday in Lent, and which probably belonged to the religious ceremonies of the Druids. At nightfall fires were lighted in public places, and numbers of people danced madly round them. Rioting and disorderly conduct often resulted from this popular feast, and the magistrates were obliged to interfere in order to suppress it. The church, too, did not close her eyes to the abuses which this feast engendered, although episcopal admonitions were not always listened to (Fig. 182). We see, in the records of one of the most recent Councils of Narbonne, that the custom of dancing in the churches and in the cemeteries on certain feasts had not been abolished in some parts of the Languedoc at the end of the sixteenth century.

Dancing was at all times forbidden by the Catholic Church on account of its tendency to corrupt the morals, and for centuries ecclesiastical authority was strenuously opposed to it; but, on the other hand, it could not complain of want of encouragement from the civil power. When King Childebert, in 554, forbade all dances in his domains, he was only induced to do so by the influence of the bishops. We have but little information respecting the dances of this period, and it would be impossible accurately to determine as to the justice of their being forbidden. They were certainly no longer those war-dances which the Franks had brought with them, and which antiquarians have mentioned under the name of Pyrrhichienne dances. In any case, war-dances reappeared at the commencement of chivalry; for, when a new knight was elected, all the knights in full armour performed evolutions, either on foot or on horseback, to the sound of military music, and the populace danced round them. It has been said that this was the origin of court ballets, and La Colombiere, in his "Theatre d'Honneur et de Chevalerie," relates that this ancient dance of the knights was kept up by the Spaniards, who called it the Moresque.

The Middle Ages was the great epoch for dancing, especially in France. There were an endless number of dancing festivals, and, from reading the old poets and romancers, one might imagine that the French had never anything better to do than to dance, and that at all hours of the day and night. A curious argument in favour of the practical utility of dancing is suggested by Jean Tabourot in his "Orchesographie," published at Langres in 1588, under the name of Thoinot Arbeau. He says, "Dancing is practised in order to see whether lovers are healthy and suitable for one another: at the end of a dance the gentlemen are permitted to kiss their mistresses, in order that they may ascertain if they have an agreeable breath. In this matter, besides many other good results which follow from dancing, it becomes necessary for the good governing of society." Such was the doctrine of the Courts of Love, which stoutly took up the defence of dancing against the clergy. In those days, as soon as the two sexes were assembled in sufficient numbers, before or after the feasts, the balls began, and men and women took each other by the hand and commenced the performance in regular steps (Fig. 183). The author of the poem of Provence, called "Flamenca," thus allegorically describes these amusements: "Youth and Gaiety opened the ball, accompanied by their sister Bravery; Cowardice, confused, went of her own accord and hid herself." The troubadours mention a great number of dances, without describing them; no doubt they were so familiar that they thought a description of them needless. They often speak of the danse au virlet, a kind of round dance, during the performance of which each person in turn sang a verse, the chorus being repeated by all. In the code of the Courts of Love, entitled "Arresta Amorum," that is, the decrees of love, the pas de Brabant is mentioned, in which each gentleman bent his knee before his lady; and also the danse au chapelet, at the end of which each dancer kissed his lady. Romances of chivalry frequently mention that knights used to dance with the dames and young ladies without taking off their helmets and coats of mail. Although this costume was hardly fitted for the purpose, we find, in the romance of "Perceforet," that, after a repast, whilst the tables were being removed, everything was prepared for a ball, and that although the knights made no change in their accoutrements, yet the ladies went and made fresh toilettes. "Then," says the old novelist, "the young knights and the young ladies began to play their instruments and to have the dance." From this custom may be traced the origin of the ancient Gallic proverb, "Apres la panse vient la danse" ("After the feast comes the dance"). Sometimes a minstrel sang songs to the accompaniment of the harp, and the young ladies danced in couples and repeated at intervals the minstrel's songs. Sometimes the torch-dance was performed; in this each performer bore in his hand a long lighted taper, and endeavoured to prevent his neighbours from blowing it out, which each one tried to do if possible (Fig. 184). This dance, which was in use up to the end of the sixteenth century at court, was generally reserved for weddings.



Dancing lost much of its simplicity and harmlessness when masquerades were introduced, these being the first examples of the ballet. These masquerades, which soon after their introduction became passionately indulged in at court under Charles VI., were, at first, only allowed during Carnival, and on particular occasions called Charivaris, and they were usually made the pretext for the practice of the most licentious follies. These masquerades had a most unfortunate inauguration by the catastrophe which rendered the madness of Charles VI. incurable, and which is described in history under the name of the Burning Ballet. It was on the 29th of January, 1393, that this ballet made famous the festival held in the Royal Palace of St. Paul in Paris, on the occasion of the marriage of one of the maids of honour of Queen Isabel of Bavaria with a gentleman of Vermandois. The bride was a widow, and the second nuptials were deemed a fitting occasion for the Charivaris.



A gentleman from Normandy, named Hugonin de Grensay, thought he could create a sensation by having a dance of wild men to please the ladies. "He admitted to his plot," says Froissart, "the king and four of the principal nobles of the court. These all had themselves sewn up in close-fitting linen garments covered with resin on which a quantity of tow was glued, and in this guise they appeared in the middle of the ball. The king was alone, but the other four were chained together. They jumped about like madmen, uttered wild cries, and made all sorts of eccentric gestures. No one knew who these hideous objects were, but the Duke of Orleans determined to find out, so he took a candle and imprudently approached too near one of the men. The tow caught fire, and the flames enveloped him and the other three who were chained to him in a moment." "They were burning for nearly an hour like torches," says a chronicler. "The king had the good fortune to escape the peril, because the Duchesse de Berry, his aunt, recognised him, and had the presence of mind to envelop him in her train" (Fig. 185). Such a calamity, one would have thought, might have been sufficient to disgust people with masquerades, but they were none the less in favour at court for many years afterwards; and, two centuries later, the author of the "Orchesographie" thus writes on the subject: "Kings and princes give dances and masquerades for amusement and in order to afford a joyful welcome to foreign nobles; we also practise the same amusements on the celebration of marriages." In no country in the world was dancing practised with more grace and elegance than in France. Foreign dances of every kind were introduced, and, after being remodelled and brought to as great perfection as possible, they were often returned to the countries from which they had been imported under almost a new character.



In 1548, the dances of the Bearnais, which were much admired at the court of the Comtes de Foix, especially those called the danse mauresque and the danse des sauvages, were introduced at the court of France, and excited great merriment. So popular did they become, that with a little modification they soon were considered essentially French. The German dances, which were distinguished by the rapidity of their movements, were also thoroughly established at the court of France. Italian, Milanese, Spanish, and Piedmontese dances were in fashion in France before the expedition of Charles VIII. into Italy: and when this king, followed by his youthful nobility, passed over the mountains to march to the conquest of Naples, he found everywhere in the towns that welcomed him, and in which balls and masquerades were given in honour of his visit, the dance a la mode de France, which consisted of a sort of medley of the dances of all countries. Some hundreds of these dances have been enumerated in the fifth book of the "Pantagruel" of Rabelais, and in various humorous works of those who succeeded him. They owed their success to the singing with which they were generally accompanied, or to the postures, pantomimes, or drolleries with which they were supplemented for the amusement of the spectators. A few, and amongst others that of the five steps and that of the three faces, are mentioned in the "History of the Queen of Navarre."



Dances were divided into two distinct classes—danses basses, or common and regular dances, which did not admit of jumping, violent movements, or extraordinary contortions—and the danses par haut, which were irregular, and comprised all sorts of antics and buffoonery. The regular French dance was a basse dance, called the gaillarde; it was accompanied by the sound of the hautbois and tambourine, and originally it was danced with great form and state. This is the dance which Jean Tabouret has described; it began with the two performers standing opposite to each other, advancing, bowing, and retiring. "These advancings and retirings were done in steps to the time of the music, and continued until the instrumental accompaniment stopped; then the gentleman made his bow to the lady, took her by the hand, thanked her, and led her to her seat." The tourdion was similar to the gaillarde, only faster, and was accompanied with more action. Each province of France had its national dance, such as the bourree of Auvergne, the trioris of Brittany, the branles of Poitou, and the valses of Lorraine, which constituted a very agreeable pastime, and one in which the French excelled all other nations. This art, "so ancient, so honourable, and so profitable," to use the words of Jean Tabourot, was long in esteem in the highest social circles, and the old men liked to display their agility, and the dames and young ladies to find a temperate exercise calculated to contribute to their health as well as to their amusement.

The sixteenth century was the great era of dancing in all the courts of Europe; but under the Valois, the art had more charm and prestige at the court of France than anywhere else. The Queen-mother, Catherine, surrounded by a crowd of pretty young ladies, who composed what she called her flying squadron, presided at these exciting dances. A certain Balthazar de Beaujoyeux was master of her ballets, and they danced at the Castle of Blois the night before the Duc de Guise was assassinated under the eyes of Henry III., just as they had danced at the Chateau of the Tuileries the day after St. Bartholomew's Day.



Commerce.



State of Commerce after the Fall of the Roman. Empire.—Its Revival under the Frankish Kings.—Its Prosperity under Charlemagne.—Its Decline down to the Time of the Crusaders.—The Levant Trade of the East.—Flourishing State of the Towns of Provence and Languedoc.—Establishment of Fairs.—Fairs of Landit, Champagne, Beaucaire, and Lyons.—Weights and Measures.—Commercial Flanders. Laws of Maritime Commerce.—Consular Laws.—Banks and Bills of Exchange.—French. Settlements on the Coast of Africa.—Consequences of the Discovery of America.

"Commerce in the Middle Ages," says M. Charles Grandmaison, "differed but little from that of a more remote period. It was essentially a local and limited traffic, rather inland than maritime, for long and perilous sea voyages only commenced towards the end of the fifteenth century, or about the time when Columbus discovered America."

On the fall of the Roman Empire, commerce was rendered insecure, and, indeed, it was almost completely put a stop to by the barbarian invasions, and all facility of communication between different nations, and even between towns of the same country, was interrupted. In those times of social confusion, there were periods of such poverty and distress, that for want of money commerce was reduced to the simple exchange of the positive necessaries of life. When order was a little restored, and society and the minds of people became more composed, we see commerce recovering its position; and France was, perhaps, the first country in Europe in which this happy change took place. Those famous cities of Gaul, which ancient authors describe to us as so rich and so industrious, quickly recovered their former prosperity, and the friendly relations which were established between the kings of the Franks and the Eastern Empire encouraged the Gallic cities in cultivating a commerce, which was at that time the most important and most extensive in the world.

Marseilles, the ancient Phoenician colony, once the rival and then the successor to Carthage, was undoubtedly at the head of the commercial cities of France. Next to her came Arles, which supplied ship-builders and seamen to the fleet of Provence; and Narbonne, which admitted into its harbour ships from Spain, Sicily, and Africa, until, in consequence of the Aude having changed its course, it was obliged to relinquish the greater part of its maritime commerce in favour of Montpellier.



Commerce maintained frequent communications with the East; it sought its supplies on the coast of Syria, and especially at Alexandria, in Egypt, which was a kind of depot for goods obtained from the rich countries lying beyond the Red Sea (Figs. 189 and 190). The Frank navigators imported from these countries, groceries, linen, Egyptian paper, pearls, perfumes, and a thousand other rare and choice articles. In exchange they offered chiefly the precious metals in bars rather than coined, and it is probable that at this period they also exported iron, wines, oil, and wax. The agricultural produce and manufactures of Gaul had not sufficiently developed to provide anything more than what was required for the producers themselves. Industry was as yet, if not purely domestic, confined to monasteries and to the houses of the nobility; and even the kings employed women or serf workmen to manufacture the coarse stuffs with which they clothed themselves and their households. We may add, that the bad state of the roads, the little security they offered to travellers, the extortions of all kinds to which foreign merchants were subjected, and above all the iniquitous System of fines and tolls which each landowner thought right to exact, before letting merchandise pass through his domains, all created insuperable obstacles to the development of commerce.



The Frank kings on several occasions evinced a desire that communications favourable to trade should be re-established in their dominions. We find, for instance, Chilperic making treaties with Eastern emperors in favour of the merchants of Agde and Marseilles, Queen Brunehaut making viaducts worthy of the Romans, and which still bear her name, and Dagobert opening at St. Denis free fairs—that is to say, free, or nearly so, from all tolls and taxes—to which goods, both agricultural and manufactured, were sent from every corner of Europe and the known world, to be afterwards distributed through the towns and provinces by the enterprise of internal commerce.

After the reign of Dagobert, commerce again declined without positively ceasing, for the revolution, which transferred the power of the kings to the mayors of the palace was not of a nature to exhaust the resources of public prosperity; and a charter of 710 proves that the merchants of Saxony, England, Normandy, and even Hungary, still flocked to the fairs of St. Denis.

Under the powerful and administrative hand of Charlemagne, the roads being better kept up, and the rivers being made more navigable, commerce became safe and more general; the coasts were protected from piratical incursions; lighthouses were erected at dangerous points, to prevent shipwrecks; and treaties of commerce with foreign nations, including even the most distant, guaranteed the liberty and security of French traders abroad.

Under the weak successors of this monarch, notwithstanding their many efforts, commerce was again subjected to all sorts of injustice and extortions, and all its safeguards were rapidly destroyed. The Moors in the south, and the Normans in the north, appeared to desire to destroy everything which came in their way, and already Marseilles, in 838, was taken and pillaged by the Greeks. The constant altercations between the sons of Louis le Debonnaire and their unfortunate father, their jealousies amongst themselves, and their fratricidal wars, increased the measure of public calamity, so that soon, overrun by foreign enemies and destroyed by her own sons, France became a vast field of disorder and desolation.

The Church, which alone possessed some social influence, never ceased to use its authority in endeavouring to remedy this miserable state of things; but episcopal edicts, papal anathemas, and decrees of councils, had only a partial effect at this unhappy period. At any moment agricultural and commercial operations were liable to be interrupted, if not completely ruined, by the violence of a wild and rapacious soldiery; at every step the roads, often impassable, were intercepted by toll-bars for some due of a vexatious nature, besides being continually infested by bands of brigands, who carried off the merchandise and murdered those few merchants who were so bold as to attempt to continue their business. It was the Church, occupied as she was with the interests of civilisation, who again assisted commerce to emerge from the state of annihilation into which it had fallen; and the "Peace or Truce of God," established in 1041, endeavoured to stop at least the internal wars of feudalism, and it succeeded, at any rate for a time, in arresting these disorders. This was all that could be done at that period, and the Church accomplished it, by taking the high hand; and with as much unselfishness as energy and courage, she regulated society, which had been abandoned by the civil power from sheer impotence and want of administrative capability.



At all events, thanks to ecclesiastical foresight, which increased the number of fairs and markets at the gates of abbeys and convents, the first step was made towards the general resuscitation of commerce. Indeed, the Church may be said to have largely contributed to develop the spirit of progress and liberty, whence were to spring societies and nationalities, and, in a word, modern organization.

The Eastern commerce furnished the first elements of that trading activity which showed itself on the borders of the Mediterranean, and we find the ancient towns of Provence and Languedoc springing up again by the aide of the republics of Amalfi, Venice, Genoa, and Pisa, which had become the rich depots of all maritime trade.

At first, as we have already stated, the wares of India came to Europe through the Greek port of Alexandria, or through Constantinople. The Crusades, which had facilitated the relations with Eastern countries, developed a taste in the West for their indigenous productions, gave a fresh vigour to this foreign commerce, and rendered it more productive by removing the stumbling blocks which had arrested its progress (Fig. 191).

The conquest of Palestine by the Crusaders had first opened all the towns and harbours of this wealthy region to Western traders, and many of them were able permanently to establish themselves there, with all sorts of privileges and exemptions from taxes, which were gladly offered to them by the nobles who had transferred feudal power to Mussulman territories.

Ocean commerce assumed from this moment proportions hitherto unknown. Notwithstanding the papal bulls and decrees, which forbade Christians from having any connection with infidels, the voice of interest was more listened to than that of the Church (Fig. 192), and traders did not fear to disobey the political and religions orders which forbade them to carry arms and slaves to the enemies of the faith.

It was easy to foretell, from the very first, that the military occupation of the Holy Land would not be permanent. In consequence of this, therefore, the nearer the loss of this fine conquest seemed to be, the greater were the efforts made by the maritime towns of the West to re-establish, on a more solid and lasting basis, a commercial alliance with Egypt, the country which they selected to replace Palestine, in a mercantile point of view. Marseilles was the greatest supporter of this intercourse with Egypt; and in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries she reached a very high position, which she owed to her shipowners and traders. In the fourteenth century, however, the princes of the house of Anjou ruined her like the rest of Provence, in the great and fruitless efforts which they made to recover the kingdom of Naples; and it was not until the reign of Louis XI. that the old Phoenician city recovered its maritime and commercial prosperity (Fig. 193).



[Footnote *: "Mortal man, living in the world, is compared to a vessel on perilous seas, bearing rich merchandise, by which, if it can come to harbour, the merchant will be rendered rich and happy. The ship from the commencement to the end of its voyage is in great peril of being lost or taken by an enemy, for the seas are always beset with perils. So is the body of man during its sojourn in the world. The merchandise he bears is his soul, his virtues, and his good deeds. The harbour is paradise, and he who reaches that haven is made supremely rich. The sea is the world, full of vices and sins, and in which all, during their passage through life, are in peril and danger of losing body and soul and of being drowned in the infernal sea, from which God in His grace keep us! Amen."] ]



Languedoc, depressed, and for a time nearly ruined in the thirteenth century by the effect of the wars of the Albigenses, was enabled, subsequently, to recover itself. Beziers, Agde, Narbonne, and especially Montpellier, so quickly established important trading connections with all the ports of the Mediterranean, that at the end of the fourteenth century consuls were appointed at each of these towns, in order to protect and direct their transmarine commerce. A traveller of the twelfth century, Benjamin de Tudele, relates that in these ports, which were afterwards called the stepping stones to the Levant, every language in the world might be heard.

Toulouse was soon on a par with the towns of Lower Languedoc, and the Garonne poured into the markets, not only the produce of Guienne, and of the western parts of France, but also those of Flanders, Normandy, and England. We may observe, however, that Bordeaux, although placed in a most advantageous position, at the mouth of the river, only possessed, when under the English dominion, a very limited commerce, principally confined to the export of wines to Great Britain in exchange for corn, oil, &c.

La Rochelle, on the same coast, was much more flourishing at this period, owing to the numerous coasters which carried the wines of Aunis and Saintonge, and the salt of Brouage to Flanders, the Netherlands, and the north of Germany. Vitre already had its silk manufactories in the fifteenth century, and Nantes gave promise of her future greatness as a depot of maritime commerce. It was about this time also that the fisheries became a new industry, in which Bayonne and a few villages on the sea-coast took the lead, some being especially engaged in whaling, and others in the cod and herring fisheries (Fig. 194).

Long before this, Normandy had depended on other branches of trade for its commercial prosperity. Its fabrics of woollen stuffs, its arms and cutlery, besides the agricultural productions of its fertile and well-cultivated soil, each furnished material for export on a large scale.

The towns of Rouen and Caen were especially manufacturing cities, and were very rich. This was the case with Rouen particularly, which was situated on the Seine, and was at that time an extensive depot for provisions and other merchandise which was sent down the river for export, or was imported for future internal consumption. Already Paris, the abode of kings, and the metropolis of government, began to foreshadow the immense development which it was destined to undergo, by becoming the centre of commercial affairs, and by daily adding to its labouring and mercantile population (Figs. 195 and 196).

It was, however, outside the walls of Paris that commerce, which needed liberty as well as protection, at first progressed most rapidly. The northern provinces had early united manufacturing industry with traffic, and this double source of local prosperity was the origin of their enormous wealth. Ghent and Bruges in the Low Countries, and Beauvais and Arras, were celebrated for their manufacture of cloths, carpets, and serge, and Cambrai for its fine cloths. The artizans and merchants of these industrious cities then established their powerful corporations, whose unwearied energy gave rise to that commercial freedom so favourable to trade.



More important than the woollen manufactures—for the greater part of the wool used was brought from England—was the manufacture of flax, inasmuch as it encouraged agriculture, the raw material being produced in France. This first flourished in the north-east of France, and spread slowly to Picardy, to Beauvois, and Brittany. The central countries, with the exception of Bruges, whose cloth manufactories were already celebrated in the fifteenth century, remained essentially agricultural; and their principal towns were merely depots for imported goods. The institution of fairs, however, rendered, it is true, this commerce of some of the towns as wide-spread as it was productive. In the Middle Ages religious feasts and ceremonials almost always gave rise to fairs, which commerce was not slow in multiplying as much as possible. The merchants naturally came to exhibit their goods where the largest concourse of people afforded the greatest promise of their readily disposing of them. As early as the first dynasty of Merovingian kings, temporary and periodical markets of this kind existed; but, except at St. Denis, articles of local consumption only were brought to them. The reasons for this were, the heavy taxes which were levied by the feudal lords on all merchandise exhibited for sale, and the danger which foreign merchants ran of being plundered on their way, or even at the fair itself. These causes for a long time delayed the progress of an institution which was afterwards destined to become so useful and beneficial to all classes of the community.

We have several times mentioned the famous fair of Landit, which is supposed to have been established by Charlemagne, but which no doubt was a sort of revival of the fairs of St. Denis, founded by Dagobert, and which for a time had fallen into disuse in the midst of the general ruin which preceded that emperor's reign. This fair of Landit was renowned over the whole of Europe, and attracted merchants from all countries. It was held in the month of June, and only lasted fifteen days. Goods of all sorts, both of home and foreign manufacture, were sold, but the sale of parchment was the principal object of the fair, to purchase a supply of which the University of Paris regularly went in procession. On account of its special character, this fair was of less general importance than the six others, which from the twelfth century were held at Troyes, Provins, Lagny-sur-Marne, Rheims, and Bar-sur-Aube. These infused so much commercial vitality into the province of Champagne, that the nobles for the most part shook off the prejudice which forbad their entering into any sort of trading association.

Fairs multiplied in the centre and in the south of France simultaneously. Those of Puy-en-Velay, now the capital of the Haute-Loire, are looked upon as the most ancient, and they preserved their old reputation and attracted a considerable concourse of people, which was also increased by the pilgrimages then made to Notre-Dame du Puy. These fairs, which were more of a religious than of a commercial character, were then of less importance as regards trade than those held at Beaucaire. This town rose to great repute in the thirteenth century, and, with the Lyons market, became at that time the largest centre of commerce in the southern provinces. Placed at the junction of the Saone and the Rhone, Lyons owed its commercial development to the proximity of Marseilles and the towns of Italy. Its four annual fairs were always much frequented, and when the kings of France transferred to it the privileges of the fairs of Champagne, and transplanted to within its walls the silk manufactories formerly established at Tours, Lyons really became the second city of France.



It may be asserted as an established fact that the gradual extension of the power of the king, produced by the fall of feudalism, was favourable to the extension of commerce. As early as the reign of Louis IX. many laws and regulations prove that the kings were alive to the importance of trade. Among the chief enactments was one which led to the formation of the harbour of Aigues-Mortes on the Mediterranean; another to the publication of the book of "Weights and Measures," by Etienne Boileau, a work in which the ancient statutes of the various trades were arranged and codified; and a third to the enactment made in the very year of this king's death, to guarantee the security of vendors, and, at the same time, to ensure purchasers against fraud. All these bear undoubted witness that an enlightened policy in favour of commerce had already sprung up.

Philippe le Bel issued several prohibitory enactments also in the interest of home commerce and local industry, which Louis X. confirmed. Philippe le Long attempted even to outdo the judicious efforts of Louis XI., and tried, though unsuccessfully, to establish a uniformity in the weights and measures throughout the kingdom; a reform, however, which was never accomplished until the revolution of 1789. It is difficult to credit how many different weights and measures were in use at that time, each one varying according to local custom or the choice of the lord of the soil, who probably in some way profited by the confusion which this uncertain state of things must have produced. The fraud and errors to which this led may easily be imagined, particularly in the intercourse between one part of the country and another. The feudal stamp is here thoroughly exhibited; as M. Charles de Grandmaison remarks, "Nothing is fixed, nothing is uniform, everything is special and arbitrary, settled by the lord of the soil by virtue of his right of justesse, by which he undertook the regulation and superintendence of the weights and measures in use in his lordship."

Measures of length and contents often differed much from one another, although they might be similarly named, and it would require very complicated comparative tables approximately to fix their value. The pied de roi was from ten to twelve inches, and was the least varying measure. The fathom differed much in different parts, and in the attempt to determine the relations between the innumerable measures of contents which we find recorded—a knowledge of which must have been necessary for the commerce of the period—we are stopped by a labyrinth of incomprehensible calculations, which it is impossible to determine with any degree of certainty.

The weights were more uniform and less uncertain. The pound was everywhere in use, but it was not everywhere of the same standard (Fig. 201). For instance, at Paris it weighed sixteen ounces, whereas at Lyons it only weighed fourteen; and in weighing silk fifteen ounces to the pound was the rule. At Toulouse and in Upper Languedoc the pound was only thirteen and a half ounces; at Marseilles, thirteen ounces; and at other places it even fell to twelve ounces. There was in Paris a public scale called poids du roi; but this scale, though a most important means of revenue, was a great hindrance to retail trade.

In spite of these petty and irritating impediments, the commerce of France extended throughout the whole world.



The compass—known in Italy as early as the twelfth century, but little used until the fourteenth—enabled the mercantile navy to discover new routes, and it was thus that true maritime commerce may be said regularly to have begun. The sailors of the Mediterranean, with the help of this little instrument, dared to pass the Straits of Gibraltar, and to venture on the ocean. From that moment commercial intercourse, which had previously only existed by land, and that with great difficulty, was permanently established between the northern and southern harbours of Europe.

Flanders was the central port for merchant vessels, which arrived in great numbers from the Mediterranean, and Bruges became the principal depot. The Teutonic league, the origin of which dates from the thirteenth century, and which formed the most powerful confederacy recorded in history, also sent innumerable vessels from its harbours of Lubeck (Fig. 197) and Hamburg. These carried the merchandise of the northern countries into Flanders, and this rich province, which excelled in every branch of industry, and especially in those relating to metals and weaving, became the great market of Europe (Fig. 198).

The commercial movement, formerly limited to the shores of the Mediterranean, extended to all parts, and gradually became universal. The northern states shared in it, and England, which for a long time kept aloof from a stage on which it was destined to play the first part, began to give indications of its future commercial greatness. The number of transactions increased as the facility for carrying them on became greater. Consumption being extended, production progressively followed, and so commerce went on gaining strength as it widened its sphere. Everything, in fact, seemed to contribute to its expansion. The downfall of the feudal system and the establishment in each country of a central power, more or less strong and respected, enabled it to extend its operations by land with a degree of security hitherto unknown; and, at the same time, international legislation came in to protect maritime trade, which was still exposed to great dangers. The sea, which was open freely to the whole human race, gave robbers comparatively easy means of following their nefarious practices, and with less fear of punishment than they could obtain on the shore of civilised countries. For this reason piracy continued its depredations long after the enactment of severe laws for its suppression.

This maritime legislation did not wait for the sixteenth century to come into existence. Maritime law was promulgated more or less in the twelfth century, but the troubles and agitations which weakened and disorganized empires during that period of the Middle Ages, deprived it of its power and efficiency. The Code des Rhodiens dates as far back as 1167; the Code de la Mer, which became a sort of recognised text-book, dates from the same period; the Lois d'Oleron is anterior to the twelfth century, and ruled the western coasts of France, being also adopted in Flanders and in England; Venice dated her most ancient law on maritime rights from 1255, and the Statutes of Marseilles date from 1254.



The period of the establishment of commercial law and justice corresponds with that of the introduction of national and universal codes of law and consular jurisdiction. These may be said to have originated in the sixth century in the laws of the Visigoths, which empowered foreign traders to be judged by delegates from their own countries. The Venetians had consuls in the Greek empire as early as the tenth century, and we may fairly presume that the French had consuls in Palestine during the reign of Charlemagne. In the thirteenth century the towns of Italy had consular agents in France; and Marseilles had them in Savoy, in Arles, and in Genoa. Thus traders of each country were always sure of finding justice, assistance, and protection in all the centres of European commerce.

Numerous facilities for barter were added to these advantages. Merchants, who at first travelled with their merchandise, and who afterwards merely sent a factor as their representative, finally consigned it to foreign agents. Communication by correspondence in this way became more general, and paper replaced parchment as being less rare and less expensive. The introduction of Arabic figures, which were more convenient than the Roman numerals for making calculations, the establishment of banks, of which the most ancient was in operation in Venice as early as the twelfth century, the invention of bills of exchange, attributed to the Jews, and generally in use in the thirteenth century, the establishment of insurance against the risks and perils of sea and land, and lastly, the formation of trading companies, or what are now called partnerships, all tended to give expansion and activity to commerce, whereby public and private wealth was increased in spite of obstacles which routine, envy, and ill-will persistently raised against great commercial enterprises.

For a long time the French, through indolence or antipathy—for it was more to their liking to be occupied with arms and chivalry than with matters of interest and profit—took but a feeble part in the trade which was carried on so successfully on their own territory. The nobles were ashamed to mix in commerce, considering it unworthy of them, and the bourgeois, for want of liberal feeling and expansiveness in their ideas, were satisfied with appropriating merely local trade. Foreign commerce, even of the most lucrative description, was handed over to foreigners, and especially to Jews, who were often banished from the kingdom and as frequently ransomed, though universally despised and hated. Notwithstanding this, they succeeded in rising to wealth under the stigma of shame and infamy, and the immense gains which they realised by means of usury reconciled them to, and consoled them for, the ill-treatment to which they were subjected.