t love?" "It is not
enough to know how to win love, but one must also know how to keep
such love when it has been won." Such-like were the subtle problems
which on these occasions folk set themselves to solve.

But whilst love problems could be treated as a pastime, they also had
their serious side. Of this there is an example in Christine's story
of _The Duke of True Lovers_. Although much in its narration is
evidently the mere invention of the poetess, it is quite possible,
nay even probable, that it has some historical basis. Christine begins
her story by saying that it had been confided to her by a young prince
who did not wish his name to be divulged, and who desired only to be
known as "The Duke of True Lovers." It has been suggested, with much
likelihood, that this is in truth the love-story of Jean, Duc de
Bourbon, and of Marie, Duchesse de Berri, daughter of the famous Jean,
Duc de Berri, and the inheritor of his MSS. When the story opens, the
heroine of it, whoever she may have been, is already wedded. Hence all
the difficulties of the hero, and indeed of both. Christine, with her
womanly sympathy and psychological insight, makes all so intensely
real that we are quite carried away in imagination to the courtly life
of the fifteenth century. We read of the first meeting; of the Duke's
love at first sight; of Castle daily life; of a three days' tournament
given in honour of the lady; of devices for secret meetings and the
interchange of letters; of the inevitable scandal-monger; of a letter
from a former _gouvernante_--whose aid as go-between had been
sought--containing a most comprehensive and remarkable treatise on
feminine morality, the dangers of illicit love, and the satisfaction
of simple wifely duty; of the separation which the position of the
lady, and the gallantry of her lover, alike demanded; of meetings at
intervals; of the mutual solace of short love-poems; and then the
story, perhaps to evade identification, ends vaguely. But as we finish
the story, we cannot help feeling that even if Christine's setting is
fiction, she yet gives us a glance of real life.

[Illustration: _Photo. Macbeth._

LADY IN HORSE-LITTER, RETURNING FROM TOURNAMENT.

Harl. MS. 4431, Brit. Mus.

_To face page 132._]

When Christine turned to her serious work in the cause of womankind,
she began by attacking two books, Ovid's _Art of Love_, and _The
Romance of the Rose_, both of which, in the Middle Ages, it was deemed