The point of departure is Raoul of Cambrai burning Origni. The point of
arrival is Girard of Roussillon falling one day at the feet of an old
priest and expiating his former pride by twenty-two years of penitence.
These two episodes embrace many centuries between them.

A very interesting study might be made of the gradual transformation
from the redskin to the knight; it might be shown how, and at what
period of history, each of the virtues of chivalry penetrated
victoriously into the undisciplined souls of these brutal warriors who
were our ancestors; it might be determined at what moment the church
became strong enough to impose upon our knights the great duties of
defending it and of loving one another.

This victory was attained in a certain number of cases undoubtedly
toward the end of the eleventh century: and the knight appears to us
perfected, finished, radiant, in the most ancient edition of the
_Chanson of Roland_, which is considered to have been produced between
1066 and 1095.

It is scarcely necessary to observe that chivalry was no longer in
course of establishment when Pope Urban II threw with a powerful hand
the whole of the Christian West upon the East, where the Tomb of Christ
was in possession of the Infidel.

In legendary lore the embodiment of chivalry is Roland: in history it is
Godfrey de Bouillon. There are no more worthy names than these.

The decadence of chivalry--and when one is speaking of human
institutions, sooner or later this word must be used--perhaps set in
sooner than historians can believe. We need not attach too much
importance to the grumblings of certain poets, who complain of their
time with an evidently exaggerated bitterness, and we do not care for
our own part to take literally the testimony of the unknown author of
_La Vie de Saint Alexis_, who exclaims--about the middle of the eleventh
century--that everything is degenerate and all is lost! Thus: "In olden
times the world was good. Justice and love were springs of action in it.
People then had faith, which has disappeared from amongst us. The world
is entirely changed. The world has lost its healthy color. It is
pale--it has grown old. It is growing worse, and will soon cease
altogether."

The poet exaggerates in a very singular manner the evil which he
perceives around him, and one might aver that, far from bordering upon
old age, chivalry was then almost in the very zenith of its glory. The
twelfth century was its