Whilst thus the poorer nobles of the country struggled at home against the new _regime_, the more enterprising were led by the old German love of travelling into foreign parts. The noble youths willingly followed the drum, and even before 1618 it was a frequent complaint that the Junkers of the nobility had everywhere promotion in the army, whilst it was difficult for a man of worth and capacity, from the people, to rise from the ranks. Even before 1618 the heirs of rich families of pretension, travelled to France, there to learn the language and the art of war, and to cultivate their minds. Not only in Paris, but in other great cities of France, they congregated in such numbers, as do now the idle Russians and English; they only too often endeavoured to resemble the French in immorality and duels, and were even then notorious as awkward imitators of foreign customs. Even before 1618 most of the western German courts were so devoted to French manners, that French was considered the elegant language for conversation and writing. Thus it was in the court of Frederick the Palatine, the winter king of Bohemia. The cleverest of the nobility, however, sought for fine manners, pleasures, and office in the courts of the numerous German princes. After the abdication of Charles V. a jovial life prevailed not only at the Imperial court, but also in those of the greater princes of the Empire, above all in Electoral Saxony, Bavaria, Wuertemberg, and the Palatinate. Besides great hunting parties and drinking bouts, there were also great court festivals; masquerades, knightly exercises, and prize-shooting had become the fashion, especially at coronations, marriages, christenings, and visits of ceremony. The old tournaments were sham fights, fine scenic representations, in which the costume and the dramatic show were of more importance than the passage of arms itself. As early as 1570 they were arranged according to the Spanish custom, when the new fashion of running at the ring was introduced. Great stages, with mythological and allegorical figures, were drawn in procession on these occasions. The contending parties appeared in wonderful attire; they strove together for prizes, as challengers and knight-errants--_manuten adoren_ and _avantureros_--or married men against bachelors, man against man and troop against troop, not only on horse but on foot But the weapons were blunt, the spears so prepared that they must break at the weakest shock, and the number of thrusts and passes which one could make against another was accurately prescribed. The whole was announced to the spectators by a cartel--written invitation or challenge: it was printed and posted up, and explained to the public. Some of these specimens of the composition of educated people of the court have been preserved to us; for example, a cartel of 1570, when the Emperor Maximilian II. had assembled a large circle of nobles around him, in which a necromancer, Zirfeo, announced