Adultery is as common in their chronicles as it has always been in fiction--and perhaps in fact. And when the lovers are tired of each other, it is difficult to veil the case less kindly than the Dame des Belles-Cousines, in her behaviour to Jehan de Saintré, or the Chastelain de Coucy when he punishes the Lady of Vermandois. Moreover, the very first beginnings of love were contaminated by a thought of utility, of “subsidy,” as one of our authors does not fear to state. Even in that pure and charming chronicle, the _Livre des Faiz de Jehan Bouciquaut_, we read that on account of her influence and her prestige, “it is much better to love a lady of a station superior to one’s own.” Listen to the counsels which a lady of great position, the Dame des Belles-Cousines, gives to Jehan de Saintré! The lad, a child of thirteen, has refused to tell her the name of his sweetheart: “The tears came into the lad’s eyes, for never in his days had he given thought to such a thing as love or lady-loves. His heart fell, his face turned pale.... He sat a long while in silence, twirling the loose end of his girdle round his thumbs.... At last he cried out in his despair, for all the maids of honour fell to questioning him together and at once: ‘What can I tell her? I have no lady-love! If I had one, I would tell you soon enough!’ “‘Well, whom do you love the best of all in the world?’ asked the maidens. “‘My mother,’ said little Saintré, ‘and after her my sister Jacqueline.’ “Then said my lady: “‘But of them that are nothing to ye, which love ye the best?’ “‘I love none of them,’ said Saintré. “‘What! none of them?’ quoth my lady. ‘Ha! false gentleman! You love none of them? Then by that token I prophesy that you will come to nothing. Faint heart that ye are! whence sprang all noble enterprises, all great achievements and valorous deeds of Launcelot, of Gawain, of Tristan, of the courteous Giron, and the other knights of the Round Table? Also of Ponthus,[65] and innumerable other heroes? What else but love-service? What else but the desire to keep the favour of their much-desired dame? And I myself have known many men who, through their love affairs, have reached the highest possible honours, of whom, but for these, no more talk had been made than of so many simple soldiers.’” Little Saintré left the lady’s presence shamefaced, and when the door was shut, “he ran down the gallery as fast as if he had fifty wolves behind him.” But one day, as he waited at table on the maids of honour, these ladies made him vow to give the promised answer that afternoon. Therefore, when the king and queen retired for their noonday siesta, my lady sought young Saintré in the gallery, and took him to her chamber with her; and there, surrounded by her ladies, she seated him at the foot of her couch and summoned him for a reply. “At last the poor lad bethought him of one of the noble maidens sent to court, who was ten years of age.