After this national contest chivalry continued to decline in France. The civil wars had left that country one universal scene of vice and misrule, and the people looked to the King for some measure of protection. So exhausted were the nobility by their wars with England, that they declared their want of power to lead into the field the customary number of knights; and they therefore prayed a remission of military duty. Charles willingly granted this petition; and no opposition was made to his establishing a force which he might either use against the barons themselves or the nation's enemies. The importance of mercenaries had been extending itself ever since the reign of Philip Augustus, when they were first introduced; for the old levies of feudatories and vassals had in France as in England been found insufficient for the great purposes of war. But the new bands of stipendiary adventurers were never a very important branch of the French military force, for the kings could not pay for many; and these hired soldiers were commonly infantry or lightly armed horse, who could not contend in the battle-field with mail-clad knights and squires. National feelings favoured the constitutional levy; and the kings endeavoured to render the country's chivalry of sufficient service by enlarging the time of their attendance. St. Louis increased the period of military duty from forty days to two months, and Philip the Fair doubled the time determined by St. Louis. [Sidenote: Abuses in conferring knighthood.]