The _Livre des Faiz de Messire Jehan Bouciquaut_ gives us an admirable picture of a pattern of chivalry. The great Governor of Genoa (whom the documents of the Florentine archives reveal to us as an insupportable martinet, dogmatic, obstinate, and tyrannical, despite his virtues) appears in these pages in the inner splendour of a noble soul. Every morning he rose at dawn, “that the first-fruits of his day might be consecrate to God,” and we learn with some surprise that this poet of courtly ballads, this soldier, this statesman, gave every morning of his life three consecutive hours to his “œuvre d’oraison,” as infallibly renewed at night. At table, while his household were served in gold and silver, he ate and drank from pewter, glass, or wood; however rich the banquet, he partook but of one dish, the first served, with one glass of wine and water. “He loves to read the fair books of God, the lives of the saints, the deeds of the Romans, and ancient history; but he talks little and will listen to no slander.... Marvellously hateth he liars and flatterers, and driveth them from him.... Marvellously hateth he also all games of chance and fortune, and never consenteth to them.... Those virtues which be contrary to lubricity are steadfast in him.... He is stern and to the point in justice, yet faileth he not in mercy and compassion.... He is very piteous to the ancient men-at-arms who can no longer help themselves, who have been good blades in their time, but have laid by nothing, and so are sore distressed in their old age.... And with all his heart loveth he those who are of good life, fearing and serving our Lord Jesus Christ.... He oweth no debts.... He never lies; and all that he promiseth, so much doth he perform.” We are content to end our studies with the portrait of so true a knight. THE END PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, LONDON AND BECCLES. FOOTNOTES: [1] “Flour de Brousso,” par Arsène Vermenouze. [Imprimerie Moderne. Aurillac. 1896.] [2] _Pages Libres_, No. 103. [3] See the _Comptes des Frères Bonis_, merchants at Montauban during the second half of the fourteenth century, published (1890) by M. Ed. Forestier. Bonis himself possessed in the vicinity of Montauban lands and houses to the value of sixty or seventy thousand pounds sterling, modern value;--which did not prevent his selling his goods with his own hands, down to the smallest detail. [4] See _Bonis_, ccviii. Among Bonis’ servants the swineherd, Jean Chaussenoire, bought a vineyard; the neatherd, Salona, two houses in town; another neatherd, a house on the banks of the Aveyron. In 1366, under the English, a shepherdess comes to Bonis and entrusts him with her savings: three and thirty pounds! Bonis’s valet, a man at wages of five pounds a year, possessed enough land to take 430 litres (two septiers) of wheat at the sowing: from six to eight acres of land.