The Knights of St. Stephen, an order founded in 1562 by Cosmo de Medicis, Grand Duke of Tuscany, played an active part in the sea-fights of the Mediterranean, where they were constantly chasing the Ottoman galleys or effecting landings on the shores of the surrounding barbarian states. In the middle of the seventeenth century they boasted that they had released, since the creation of the order, upwards of five thousand six hundred Christian captives and fifteen thousand slaves. This order, in its customs and ceremonies, was strikingly like the order of Malta; and, like it, was divided into military and ecclesiastical knights. [Illustration: Fig. 156.--Reception of a Knight of the Order of St. Michael, which was created on August 1, 1469, by Louis XI., at the Castle of Amboise.--Fac-simile of a Miniature in the “Statuts de l’Ordre,” dated from Plessis-les-Tours. Manuscript of the Sixteenth Century, in the Library of M. Ambr. Firmin-Didot.] Several orders of military knighthood existed in France, created by its sovereigns; but their honorary character caused them to be looked upon as rewards bestowed for good service rendered to the monarchy, rather than as solemn engagements to take up arms in any definite cause. It is hardly worth while to mention the Order of the Star, which it has been attempted to trace back to King Robert and to the year 1022, but the real origin of which only dates from King John. The oldest royal military orders of knighthood are those that Louis IX. founded to encourage his nobles to join him in his expeditions beyond the seas, and to take part in the Crusades. The Order of the Cosse de Geneste, instituted in 1254, was bestowed at a later period on the sergeants of the king, a body-guard of a hundred gentlemen specially entrusted with the duty of protecting the sovereign’s person against the assassins sent by the Old Man of the Mountains. The Order of the Ship, instituted in 1269, became extinct shortly after the second crusade of St. Louis, who had conferred it, before his departure, on some of his most illustrious followers. The Order of St. Michael was founded in 1469 by Louis XI. to fulfil a vow made by his father, who had a particular veneration for that saint, the tutelar angel and patron of France (Fig. 156). The image of St. Michael was already embroidered in gold upon the banner of the king, who created a new order of military knighthood “in honour,” say the statutes, “of the first knight who in God’s quarrel fought the ancient enemy of the human race and made him fall from heaven.” The order was composed of thirty-six knights of stainless name and arms, with the sovereign who had appointed them at their head. The collar of the order was composed of golden shells inlaid with the figure of St. Michael overthrowing Satan. The knights, besides this collar, wore on occasions of ceremony a white mantle with a hood of crimson velvet. [Illustration: