As you read of the fair knights and the foul knights,--for Froissart tells of both,--it cannot but occur to you that somehow it seems harder to be a good knight nowadays than it was then. This is because we have so many more ways of fighting now than in King Edward the Third’s time. A good deal of what is really combat nowadays is not _called_ combat. Many struggles, instead of taking the form of sword and armor, will present themselves to you after a few years in the following shapes: the strict payment of debts; the utmost delicacy of national honor; the greatest openness of party discussion, and the most respectful courtesy towards political opponents; the purity of the ballot-box; the sacred and liberal guaranty of all rights to all citizens; the holiness of marriage; the lofty contempt for what is small, knowing, and gossipy; and the like. Nevertheless the same qualities which made a manful fighter then make one now. To speak the very truth; to perform a promise to the uttermost; to reverence all women; to maintain right and honesty; to help the weak; to treat high and low with courtesy; to be constant to one love; to be fair to a bitter foe; to despise luxury; to preserve simplicity, modesty, and gentleness in heart and bearing: this was in the oath of the young knight who took the stroke upon him in the fourteenth century, and this is still the way to win love and glory in the nineteenth. You will find all these elements of knighthood which I have just named particularly puzzling in many affairs connected with money. This was always so: indeed, I cannot help somewhat sadly reminding you that as you read along in these Chronicles of Froissart’s you will here and there perceive how money is already creeping into the beautiful institution of knighthood in the fourteenth century and corrupting it. After each battle related in this book, Froissart is pretty apt to say something about the great wealth acquired by this or that fighter through the ransom paid him by or for such prisoners as he took. In other words, war is becoming a trade; and in succeeding centuries of European history the young student will quickly notice that the great organized armies were no whit less thieves and rascals than the rogues who composed the Free Companies about whom Froissart will presently speak. The fair ideal of the knight-errant, as he who goes forth in the world to help every one that may need him, and who despises wealth and personal ease whenever they interfere with this great object--an ideal which is presented to us in Sir Lancelot, and, less finely, in other knights of the Round Table--grows dim.