(_c_) On this account fidelity and obedience to the feudal lord can very readily clash with private feelings, an exasperated sense of honour, sensitiveness to insult, love, and many other chance incidents of the personal or external life. It is consequently of a highly precarious character. A knight, for example, is loyal to his lord, but a friend of his happens to quarrel with him. He has now to choose between the two objects of his fidelity, and, chief of all, he has to consider himself, the claims of his personal honour and advantage. The most beautiful example of such a conflict we have in the "Cid." He remains as true to himself as he is to his king. If the king acts wisely he assists him with his arm's strength; if his feudal lord acts wrongly or the Cid feels touched on the point of honour this powerful support is withdrawn. The paladins of Charles the Great exhibit much the same attitude. It is a tie of chieftainship and obedience not unlike that which we have already observed between Zeus and the other gods. The superior lord commands, blusters, and scolds, but the independent and powerful individualities resist him precisely when and as they please. We find the most consistent and charming picture of the conditional and easy terms under which this bond is maintained in the "Reinecke Fuchs." Just as the magnates in this kingdom are most really true to their own aims and independence, we find that the German barons and knights in the Middle Ages were not at home when called upon to act for the sake of the general weal and their emperor; and it really looks as though our chief praise of the Middle Ages must consist in this that no man is in such a period justified in his own eyes or a man of honour, except in so far as he runs after his own inclinations, in other words, does precisely that which he is not suffered to do in a State which is organized on a rational basis.