ch an impoverished purse was little able to honor.
The banquets and jousts, the triumphal arches with their flattering
inscriptions, the shows in which allegory revelled almost to madness--all
have been faithfully narrated with a minuteness worthy of a loftier
theme.[383] This is, however, no place for the detailed description which,
though entertaining, can be read to advantage only on the pages of the
contemporary pamphlets that have come down to us.

Yet, in the discussion of the more serious concerns of a great religious
and political party, we may for a moment pause to gaze at a single show,
neither more magnificent nor more dignified than its fellows; but in which
the youthful figure of a Bearnese destined to play a first part in the
world's drama, but up to this time living a life of retirement in his
ancestral halls, first makes his appearance among the pomps to which as
yet he has been a stranger. The pride of the grandfather whose name he
bore, Henry of Navarre had been permitted, at that whimsical old man's
suggestion, to strengthen an already vigorous constitution by athletic
sports, and by running barefoot like the poorest peasant over the sides of
his native hills. "God designed," writes a companion of his later days who
never rekindles more of his youthful fire than when descanting upon his
master's varied fortunes, "to prepare an iron wedge wherewith to cleave
the hard knots of our calamities."[384] Later in childhood, when both
father and grandfather were dead, he was the object of the unremitting
care of a mother whose virtues find few counterparts or equals in the
women of the sixteenth century; and Jeanne d'Albret, in a remarkable
letter to Theodore Beza, notes with joy a precocious piety,[385] which,
there is reason to fear, was not hardy enough to withstand the withering
atmosphere of a court like that with which he was now making his first
acquaintance.

One evening there was exhibited in a large hall, well lighted by means of
blazing torches, a tournament in which the knights fought on foot.[386]
From a castle where they held an enchanted lady captive, the knights
challengers issued, and "received all comers with a thrust of the pike,
and five blows with the sword." Each champion, on his arrival, endeavored
to enter the castle, but was met at the portal by guards "dressed very
fantastically in black," and repelled with "lighted instruments." Not a
few of the less illustrious were captured here. T