Our hours of refection are singularly changed in little more than two centuries. In the reign of Francis I. (observes the author of Récréations Historiques) they were accustomed to say,-- Lever à cinq, dîner à neuf, Souper à cinq, coucher à neuf, Fait vivre d'ans nonante et neuf. Historians observe of Louis XII. that one of the causes which contributed to hasten his death was the entire change of his regimen. The good king, by the persuasion of his wife, says the history of Bayard, changed his manner of living: when he was accustomed to dine at eight o'clock, he agreed to dine at twelve; and when he was used to retire at six o'clock in the evening, he frequently sat up as late as midnight. Houssaie gives the following authentic notice drawn from the registers of the court, which presents a curious account of domestic life in the fifteenth century. Of the dauphin Louis, son of Charles VI., who died at the age of twenty, we are told, "that he knew the Latin and French languages; that he had many musicians in his chapel; passed the night in vigils; dined at three in the afternoon, supped at midnight, went to bed at the break of day, and thus was _ascertené_ (that is threatened) with a short life." Froissart mentions waiting upon the Duke of Lancaster at five o'clock in the afternoon, when he _had supped_. The custom of dining at nine in the morning relaxed greatly under Francis I., successor of Louis XII. However, persons of quality dined then the latest at ten; and supper was at five or six in the evening. We may observe this in the preface to the Heptameron of the Queen of Navarre, where this princess, describing the mode of life which the lords and ladies whom she assembles at the castle of Madame Oysille, should follow, to be agreeably occupied and to banish languor, thus expresses herself: "As soon as the morning rose, they went to the chamber of Madame Oysille, whom they found already at her prayers; and when they had heard during a good hour her lecture, and then the mass, they went to dine at ten o'clock; and afterwards each privately retired to his room, but did not fail at noon to meet in the meadow." Speaking of the end of the first day (which was in September) the same lady Oysille says, "Say where is the sun? and hear the bell of the abbey, which has for some time called us to vespers; in saying this they all rose and went to the religionists _who had waited for them above an hour_. Vespers heard, they went to supper, and after having played a thousand sports in the meadow they retired to bed." All this exactly corresponds with the lines above quoted. Charles V. of France, however, who lived near two centuries before Francis, dined at ten, supped at seven, and all the court was in bed by nine o'clock. They sounded the curfew, which bell warned them to cover their fire, at six in the winter, and between eight and nine in the summer. Under the reign of Henry IV.