d
the prerogative of appointment as spiritual prelates as well as officers
and counsellors of state, but only on the condition of the most complete
submission; and then, to satisfy them, it invented the artificial
drinking festivals, of a splendid life at court, and a
temptingly-impressive sovereignty of beauty. In this condition, the
education of the nobles was essentially changed in so far as to cease to
be alone military. To the art of war, which moreover was made so very
much milder by the invention of fire-arms, must be now added an activity
of the mind which could no longer dispense with some knowledge of
History, Heraldry, Genealogy, Literature, and Mythology. Since the
French nation soon enough gave tone to the style of conversation, and
after the time of Louis XIV. controlled the politics of the continent,
the French language, as conventional and diplomatic, became a constant
element in the education of the nobility in all the other countries of
Europe.

--Practically the education of the noble endeavored to make the
individual quite independent, so that he should, by means of the
important quality of an advantageous personal appearance and the
prudence of his agreeable behavior, make himself into a ruler of all
other men, capable of enjoying his own position, i.e. he should copy in
miniature the manners of an absolute sovereign. To this was added an
empirical knowledge of men by means of ethical maxims, so that they
might discover the weak side of every man, and so be able to outwit him.
_Mundus vult decipi, ergo decipiatur._ According to this, every man had
his price. They did not believe in the Nemesis of a divine destiny; on
the contrary, disbelief in the higher justice was taught. One must be so
elastic as to suit himself to all situations, and, as a caricature of
the ancient ataraxy, he must acquire as a second nature a manner
perfectly indifferent to all changes, the impassibility of an
aristocratic repose, the amphibious _sang-froid_ of the "gentleman." The
man in the world as the man of the world sought his ideal in endless
dissimulation, and in this, as the flowering of his culture, he took the
highest interest. Intrigue, in love as well as in politics, was the soul
of the nobleman's existence.--

--They endeavored to complete the refinement of manners by sending the
young man away with a travelling tutor. This was very good, but
degenerated at last into the mechanism of the foolish travelling of th