n France.

The aristocracy of the sword, and of ancient birth, had itself to blame
for this degradation. Great alterations in manners or government--such
as give a new character to human affairs--always seem brought about by
some strange relaxation of morals, or atrocity of conduct, which makes
society anxious for the change. The unfortunate custom in France which
gave every male member of a noble family a title equivalent to that of
its chief, so that a simple viscount with ten stalwart and penniless
sons gave ten stalwart and penniless viscounts to the aristocracy of his
country, had filled the whole land with a race of men proud of their
origin, filled with reckless courage, careless of life, and despising
all honest means of employment by which their fortunes might have been
improved. Mounted on a sorry steed and begirt with a sword of good
steel, the young cavalier took his way from the miserable castle on a
rock, where his noble father tried in vain to keep up the appearance of
daily dinners, and wondered how in the world all his remaining sons and
daughters were to be clothed and fed, and made his way to Paris. There
he pushed his fortune--fighting, bullying, gambling, and was probably
stabbed by some drunken companion and flung into the Seine. If he was
lucky or adroit enough, he stabbed his drunken friend and pushed _him_
into the stream; and, after a few months of suing and importunity,
obtained a saddle in the King's Guards, or a pair of boots in the
Musqueteers. At this time it came out that in twenty years of the reign
of Louis XIII. there had been eight thousand fatal duels in different
parts of the realm. Out of the duels which were daily carried on, four
hundred in each year had ended in the death of one of the combatants.
When the fiercest of English wars is shaking every heart in the kingdom,
there would be wailing and misery in every house if it were reported
that four hundred officers had been killed in a year. Yet these young
desperadoes were all of officer's rank, and the quarrel in which they
fell was probably either dishonourable or contemptible. Men fought and
killed each other for a word or a look, or a fashion of dress, or the
mere sake of killing. Where morality is loosened to the extent of a
disregard of life, we may be sure the general behaviour in other
respects is equally to be deplored. There was great and almost universal
depravity in the conduct of high and low. Vice and sensuality foun