From this marriage of the barbaric vigor of the North with the delicate and infinitely pliable sensuousness of the South, the classic union of Strength and Desire, Chivalry was born. Leaping forth to light and power, a majestic creation, glittering in the knightly panoply, noble by its knightly vows, it stood resplendent against the dark background of the past ages, the inevitable and legitimate offspring of the times and circumstances that gave it birth. The courtly baptism was eagerly sought, its requirements rigidly obeyed. The lands bristled with the lances of their valiant sons, and Quixotic expeditions were the order of the age. But not alone with sword and spear were gallant contests decided; the gauntlet thrown at the feet of a proud foe was not always of iron. _El gai saber_, the _gaye science_, held its august courts, where princesses entered the lists and vanquished gallant troubadours with the concord of their sweet measures. Slowly, yet with resistless strength, a new social world was rising upon the splendid ruins of the old. Its principles were just, if their garb was fantastical. It began with that almost superstitious reverence for woman, which had borrowed its religion from the Teuton, its romance from the Minnesinger and the Trouveur: it will end in the honesty and freedom of a world mature for its enjoyment. Thus, while the kingdoms of Europe were rising to a height where to oppress, to torture, to fight, were to seem their sole aim and purpose, in a hitherto obscure corner of the great theatre of modern life an unknown element was developing itself, which was in time to shake the greatest nations with its power, to inflame all Europe with jealousy and cupidity, and to dictate to empires the very terms of their existence. And this element was LABOR. The rich lowlands of the 'double-armed' Rhine teemed with a busy life, that, king-like, demanded a tribute of the sea, and wrenched from the greedy waves a treasure that its industry made priceless. Each man became a prince in his own divine right, and every occupation had its lords and its lore, its 'mysteries,' and its social rights. The seamen, merchants, and artisans of the Netherlands had made their country the richest in Europe. They ranged the seas and learned the value of the land; and while they fed the great despot of the Middle Ages, the light of intelligence, born of energy and nurtured by activity, cast its benignant gleams from the central island of the Rhine, and drove from their mountain nooks the owls and bats of tyranny and superstition. They fought first, these lords of the soil, among themselves, for local privileges, advancing in their continuous struggles upon the very threshold of the church. By strong alliances they kept at bay their feudal lords, and fettered the ecclesiastical power with the yoke of a justice, meagre, indeed, and sadly unfruitful, but still ominous of a better day. Within the alabaster vase of