g's court or a robber's den. Chivalry, as epitomized in
the celebrated oath imposed by Arthur on his peers of the Round Table,
was a northern, a Teutonic, institution. The sense of honor which formed
its very essence was further developed by the social atmosphere of a
monarch's court. It became the virtue of the nobly born and chivalrously
nurtured, as appears very remarkably in this passage from Rabelais[3]:
'En leur reigle n'estoit que ceste clause: Fay ce que vouldras. Parce
que gens liberes, bien nayz, bien instruictz, conversans en compaignies
honnesties, ont par nature ung instinct et aguillon qui toujours les
poulse a faitctz vertueux, et retire de vice: lequel ils nommoyent
honneur.' Now in Italy not only was Chivalry as an institution weak; but
the feudal courts in which it produced its fairest flower, the knightly
sense of honor, did not exist.[4] Instead of a circle of peers gathered
from all quarters of the kingdom round the font of honor in the person
of the sovereign, commercial republics, forceful tyrannies, and the
Papal Curia gave the tone to society. In every part of the peninsula
rich bankers who bought and sold cities, adventurers who grasped at
principalities by violence or intrigue, and priests who sought the
aggrandizement of a sacerdotal corporation, were brought together in the
meshes of diplomacy. The few noble families which claimed a feudal
origin carried on wars for pay by contract in the interest of burghers,
popes, or despots. Of these conditions not one was conducive to the
sense of honor as conceived in France or England. Taken altogether and
in combination, they could not fail to be eminently unfavorable to its
development. In such a society Bayard and Sir Walter Manny would have
been out of place: the motto _noblesse oblige_ would have had but little
meaning.[5] Instead of Honor, Virtu ruled the world in Italy. The moral
atmosphere again was critical and highly intellectualized. Mental
ability combined with personal daring gave rank. But the very subtlety
and force of mind which formed the strength of the Italians proved
hostile to any delicate sentiment of honor. Analysis enfeebles the tact
and spontaneity of feeling which constitute its strongest safeguard. All
this is obvious in the ethics of the _Principe_. What most astounds us
in that treatise is the assumption that no men will be bound by laws of
honor when utility or the object in view require their sacrifice. In
conclusion; alth