When at last, in the fifteenth century, the custom of the judicial duel fell into disuse, the nobility still retained and practised single combat (Fig. 129). A personal affront, often an extremely slight one, a quarrel, a slight to be avenged, were enough to bring two rivals or two enemies to blows. This combative custom, which made a man’s strength and personal skill the guardians of his honour, was sustained and encouraged by the spirit of chivalry and by that of German feudalism. Sometimes, however, the practice was considered justifiable on other grounds. History, for instance, has honourably recorded the “Battle of the Thirty,” which took place in 1351, between thirty knights of Brittany, under the Sire de Beaumanoir, and thirty English knights; and another equally bloody struggle of the same kind between Bayard and ten other French knights, and eleven Spaniards, before the walls of Tranni. The national honour alone was the motive of these two celebrated duels; but they were only the exceptions to the rule. It almost seems as if the nobility, in their efforts to cling to the shadow and the memory of the rapidly-expiring traditions of chivalry, became more inveterate in their adherence to the cruel system of duelling. In the sixteenth century, under the last monarchs of the house of Valois, the Place Royale and the Pré aux Clercs were often watered with the blood of the best families of France. In vain did Henry IV. and Louis XIII. issue the most stringent edicts against this barbarous custom; in vain did the decree, called the decree of Blois, render nugatory all letters of pardon granted to duellists, “even if they were signed by the king himself.” In spite of everything, the nobles, upon whose privileges the monarchy daily made fresh encroachments, had recourse to duelling as if to assert their connection with a chivalric and adventurous past, and the most trivial, ridiculous, and shameful motives served as pretexts for a renewal of the sanguinary struggles, which had been originally inspired by a generous courage and a loyal sympathy with justice. [Illustration: Fig. 129.--Single Combat to be decided by the judgment of God.--From a Miniature in the “Conquêtes de Charlemagne,” a Manuscript of the Fifteenth Century, in the National Library of Paris.]