To form an idea of the manners of chivalry, we have but to glance at the tournaments, which owed their origin to it, and which were as schools of courtesy and festivals of bravery. At this period, the nobility were dispersed, and lived isolated in their castles. Tournaments furnished them with opportunities for assembling; and it was at these brilliant meetings that the memory of ancient gallant knights was revived,—that youth took them for models, and imbibed chivalric virtues by receiving rewards from the hands of beauty. As the ladies were the judges of the actions and the bravery of the knights, they exercised an absolute empire over the minds of the warriors; and I have no occasion to say that this ascendancy of the softer sex threw a charm over the heroism of the _preux_ and the _paladins_. Europe began to escape from barbarism from the moment the most weak commanded the most strong,—from the moment when the love of glory, when the noblest feelings of the heart, the tenderest affections of the soul, everything that constitutes the moral force of society, was able to triumph over every other force. Louis IX., a prisoner in Egypt, replies to the Saracens, that he will do nothing without Queen Marguerite, “who is his lady.” The orientals could not comprehend such deference; and it is because they did not comprehend this deference, that they have remained so far in the rear of the nations of Europe, in nobleness of sentiment, purity of morals, and elegance of manners. Heroes of antiquity wandered over the world to deliver it from scourges and monsters; but these heroes were not actuated by religion, which elevates the soul, nor by that courtesy which softens the manners. They were acquainted with friendship, as in the cases of Theseus and Pirithous, and Hercules and Lycas; but they knew nothing of the delicacy of love. The ancient poets take delight in representing the misfortunes of certain heroines abandoned by their lovers; but, in their touching pictures, there never escapes from their plaintive muse the least expression of blame against the hero, who thus caused the tears of beauty to flow. In the middle ages, or according to the manners of chivalry, a warrior who should have imitated the conduct of Theseus to Ariadne, or that of the son of Anchises towards Dido, would not have failed to incur the reproach of treachery.