curious--to
learn from whom he holds his fief, or to know the names of his vassals;
and I exclaim, "There is the knight!" And how many knights, what
chivalrous virtues, have existed in the Christian world since feudalism
has ceased to exist!

The adoption of arms in the German fashion remains the true origin of
chivalry; and the Franks have handed down this custom to us--a custom
perpetuated to a comparatively modern period. This simple, almost rude
rite so decidedly marked the line of civil life in the code of manners
of people of German origin, that under the Carlovingians we still find
numerous traces of it. In 791 Louis, eldest son of Charlemagne, was only
thirteen years old, and yet he had worn the crown of Aquitaine for three
years upon his "baby brow." The king of the Franks felt that it was time
to bestow upon this child the military consecration which would more
quickly assure him of the respect of his people. He summoned him to
Ingelheim, then to Ratisbon, and solemnly girded him with the sword
which "makes men." He did not trouble himself about the framea or the
buckler--the sword occupied the first place. It will retain it for a
long time.

In 838 at Kiersy we have a similar scene. This time it is old Louis who,
full of sadness and nigh to death, bestows upon his son Charles, whom he
loved so well, the "virile arms"--that is to say, the sword. Then
immediately afterward he put upon his brow the crown of "Neustria."
Charles was fifteen years old.

These examples are not numerous, but their importance is decisive, and
they carry us to the time when the church came to intervene positively
in the education of the German _miles_. The time was rough, and it is
not easy to picture a more distracted period than that in the ninth and
tenth centuries. The great idea of the Roman Empire no longer, in the
minds of the people, coincided with the idea of the Frankish kingdom,
but rather inclined, so to speak, to the side of Germany, where it
tended to fix itself. Countries were on the way to be formed, and people
were asking to which country they could best belong. Independent
kingdoms were founded which had no precedents and were not destined to
have a long life. The Saracens were for the last time harassing the
southern French coasts, but it was not so with the Norman pirates, for
they did not cease for a single year to ravage the littoral which is now
represented by the Picardy and Normandy coasts, until the day it