happened, he was met by one as mad as himself, who insisted upon maintaining the superior charms of _his_ dulcinea, a deadly combat ensued. At the beginning of the fourteenth century, a society of ladies and gentlemen was formed at Poictou, called the Penitents of Love. In order to show that love could effect the strangest metamorphoses, they covered themselves with furred mantles, and sat before large fires, in the heat of summer, while in winter they wore the slightest possible covering. Thus chivalry became an absurd and disgusting mockery, and was finally laughed out of the world by the witty Cervantes. But though the form became grotesque, and died in a state of frenzy, the important use performed by the spirit of true chivalry ought not to be forgotten. It stood in the place of laws, when laws could not have been enforced, and it raised woman to a moral rank in society, unknown to the most refined nations of antiquity--a rank she can never entirely lose, and from which her present comparative freedom is derived. It taught Francis the First, that most chivalrous of all monarchs, to lay the foundation of a beautiful social system by introducing the wives and daughters of his nobles at court, where none but bearded men had previously been seen. “A court without ladies,” said he, “is a year without a spring, or a spring without roses.” The Mohammedan religion, which debases woman into a machine, and regards love as a merely sensual passion, was introduced into the East about the same time that chivalry arose in the West, to exalt women into deities, and chasten passion with the purity of sentiment. The military spirit induced by chivalry continued in full force through the whole of its existence, and survived its origin. Philippa, wife of Edward the Third, was the principal cause of the victory gained over the Scots at Neville Cross. In the absence of her husband, she rode among the troops, and exhorted them in the name of God to be of good heart and courage, promising to reward them better than if her lord the king were himself in the field. At the surrender of Calais, she displayed a better quality than courage. Her incensed husband demanded that six of the principal inhabitants should be put to death; and six patriotic citizens voluntarily offered their lives to appease the conqueror. When these heroic men knelt at his feet, to deliver the keys of the city, the queen likewise knelt, and begged their lives as a boon to her. Her tears prevailed; and the grateful inhabitants of Calais exclaimed, “Edward conquers cities, but Philippa conquers hearts!”