contagion. To the judge upon his bench, to the
queen in her palace, to the cardinal in his state, to the king at his
high festival, to the very Pope himself, death came as unerringly as
to the ploughman sweating in his furrow. And the rich made haste to
enjoy the little time they had. The best of that old life which
remains to us is its buildings. From them and from the carvings on
them we can imagine the fruitful, busy, breeding existence of that
hurrying sixteenth century. Painters and sculptors worked as in a
frenzy, covering canvas by the acre and striking whole armies of
statues into serried ranks of stone. Men fought with swords that
weaker generations can with difficulty flourish in the air; they wore
armour that would make a cart-horse stagger. Quarrels, duels, riots,
rapes, drinking-bouts, gallantries, and murders followed one another
in a hot succession that takes away the breath of modern strait-laced
commentators. Life that came easily into the world was spent as
recklessly, and blood flowed as plentifully as wine. Rough horseplay
and rude practical joking were of the essence of humorous courtliness.
Immense processions filled with life and colour, jesting at everything
sacred or profane, crowded with symbols decent and indecent, made up
the sum of public happiness. Close at men's elbow lay the heavy hand
of a merciless and blood-stained law. Once beneath the power of
"Justice" the miserable prisoner had little hope of escaping before
the legal Juggernaut had crushed him, and he was lucky who died
quickest at the executioner's hands. The very criminals themselves
sinned in a more stupendous fashion than they have had the courage to
do since.

If I have not wearied you with quotations from the record of the
Fierte St. Romain, I will pick out but two more instances in this
century to show you that I do not speak without book at Rouen. In
1516, Nicolas de la Rue, whose sister had been married in Guernsey,
discovered her in an intrigue with the commandant's son, and slew them
both with one stroke of his sword. Thereon the commandant of the
island called out 120 foot-soldiers, but De la Rue armed the crew of
his vessel, drove them off, killed two with his own hand and sailed
away to Normandy. There he fell desperately in love with a lady near
Surville-sur-Mer, and taking his men with him carried her off from the
Chateau de Commare. After keeping her with him for some time under
promise of marriage, he captured