ficient vividness the Templars and the Hospitallers in the midst of
one of those great battles in the Holy Land in which the fate of the
world was in the balance.

No: painters have not sufficiently portrayed them in the arid plains of
Asia forming an incomparable squadron in the midst of the battle. One
might talk forever and yet not say too much about the charge of the
Cuirassiers at Reichshoffen; but how many times did the Hospitaller
knights and the Templars charge in similar fashion? Those soldier-monks,
in truth, invented a new idea of courage. Unfortunately they were not
always fighting, and peace troubled some of them. They became too rich,
and their riches lowered them in the eyes of men and before heaven. We
do not intend to adopt all the calumnies which have been circulated
concerning the Templars, but it is difficult not to admit that many of
these accusations had some foundation. The Hospitallers, at any rate,
have given no ground for such attacks. They, thank heaven, remained
undefiled, if not poor, and were an honor to that chivalry which others
had compromised and emasculated.

But when all is said, that which best became chivalry, the spice which
preserved it the most surely, was poverty!

Love of riches had not only attacked the chivalrous orders, but in a
very short space of time all knights caught the infection. Sensuality
and enjoyment had penetrated into their castles. "Scarcely had they
received the knightly baldric before they commenced to break the
commandments and to pillage the poor. When it became necessary to go to
war, their sumpter-horses were laden with wine, and not with weapons;
with leathern bottles instead of swords; with spits instead of lances.
One might have fancied, in truth, that they were going out to dinner,
and not to fight. It is true their shields were beautifully gilt, but
they were kept in a virgin and unused condition. Chivalrous combats were
represented upon their bucklers and their saddles, certainly; but that
was all!"

Now who is it who writes thus? It is not, as one might fancy, an author
of the fifteenth century--it is a writer of the twelfth; and the
greatest satirist, somewhat excessive and unjust in his statements, the
Christian Juvenal whom we have just quoted, was none other than Peter of
Blois.

A hundred other witnesses might be cited in support of these indignant
words. But if there is some exaggeration in them, we are compelled to
confess that there i