When Jacques went forth into the world, his sire gave him as good advice as Polonius threw away on his son Laertes. The sum of it was according to the old French maxim, “Noblesse oblige”--“Inasmuch,” said the old man, “as you are more noble than others by birth, so,” said he, “should you be more noble than they by virtues.” The hearty old father added an assurance, that “few great men gained renown for prowess and virtue who did not entertain love for some dame or damoiselle.” This last, however, was but an equivocal assurance, for by counselling Jacques to fall in love with “some dame or damoiselle,” he simply advised him to do so with any man’s wife or daughter. But it was advice commonly given to young gentlemen in arms, and is, to this day, commonly followed by them. Jacques bettered the paternal instruction, by falling in love with two ladies at the same time. As ambitious youths are wont to do, he passed by the white and pink young ladies whom he met, and paid his addresses, with remarkable success, to two married duchesses. Neither of these suspected that the smooth-chinned young “squire” was swearing eternal fidelity to the other, or that this light-mailed Macheath wooed his madiæval Polly with his pockets full of “favors,” just bestowed on him by an unsuspecting Lucy. Thus has love ever been made by officers and highwaymen. But if Jacques loved two, there was not a lady at the Court of Burgundy who did not love _him_. The most virtuous of them sighingly expressed a wish that their husbands, _or their lovers_, were only like him. The men hated him, while they affected to admire his grace, his bearing, and his irresistible bravery. Jacques very complacently accepted the love of the women and the envy of the men; and feeling that he had something to be thankful for, he repaired to the shrine of the Virgin at Hal, and thanked “Our Lady,” accordingly. Now Philip the Good was good only just as Nicholas the Czar was “good.” He had a fair face and a black heart. Philip, like Nicholas, joined an outward display of conjugal decency with some private but very crapulous indecency; and the Duke, like the Czar, was _the_ appalling liar of his day. Philip had increased the ducal territory of Burgundy by such means as secured Finland to Muscovy, by treachery of the most fiendish quality; and in 1442, affecting to think that Luxembourg was in the sick condition which Nicholas described as the condition of Turkey--when the imperial felon thought he was making a confederate of Sir Hamilton Seymour, the Duke resolved to seize on the territory in question, and young Jacques de Lelaing was in an ecstacy of delight at being permitted to join in this most rascally of expeditions.