Despite inroads of the exotic and all the chances and changes of life and literature in this century, the Portuguese maintained their interest in the romances of chivalry, in which indeed they saw a reflection of their own prowess in the East. Dull as _Clarimundo_ may now seem, it made a great impression in its day, and was eagerly read, from Lisbon to the Moluccas.[543] Even as late as 1589 Bishop Arraez considers it necessary to say that a prince should have better ways of spending his time than _ler por Clarimundo_,[544] while Rodriguez Lobo, thirty years later, brackets it with _Amadis_ and _Palmeirim_.[545] Many a young page and _escudeiro_ must have aspired not only to pore over the _cronicas_ but to write one of his own.[546] The facility of a Barros is, however, given to few, and both Jorge Ferreira’s _Memorial_ and Moraes’ _Palmeirim de Inglaterra_ were written later in life. FRANCISCO DE MORAES (_c._ 1500-72),[547] a well-known courtier in the reign of King João III, whose Treasurer he was, and a _Comendador_ of the Order of Christ, in 1540 accompanied the Portuguese Ambassador, D. Francisco de Noronha, to Paris as Secretary, and at the French Court he fell passionately in love with one of the ladies-in-waiting of Queen Leonor (sister of the Emperor Charles V and widow of King Manuel of Portugal) named Claude Blosset de Torcy. His love was not returned: there was a great discrepancy of age between them, his knowledge of French was very slight, and his passion robbed him of wit and reason. If the Duc de Châtillon was favoured, or if the English Ambassador gave Mademoiselle de Torcy his arm, Moraes would flare up in jealousy, and when in the presence of the queen the elderly lover went down on his knees _la belle Torcy_ (to whom Clément Marot had addressed one of his _Étrennes_ and who eventually married the Baron de Fontaines) prayed him not to continue to make her as well as himself ridiculous. Moraes, after leaving France in 1543, or early in 1544, recovered from his passion and married in Portugal. Of his subsequent life little is known; he appears to have returned to France, and in 1572 he was murdered at the entrance of the Rocio, the central square of Evora. His _Cronica de Palmeirim de Inglaterra_, written in France or Portugal or both, was probably published in 1544, but the earliest existing Portuguese edition is that of Evora, 1567, which contains the dedication to the Infanta Maria, written over twenty years earlier (1544). Chiefly remarkable for the excellence of its style, _Palmeirim_ will always retain its place in Portuguese literature as a masterpiece of prose, musically soft, yet clear and vigorous. Cervantes considered it worthy to be preserved in a golden casket like the works of Homer,[548] but few of its readers will now differ from the more modern and moderate opinion of Menéndez y Pelayo that ‘it requires a real effort’ to read the whole of it. The effort required