crave political independence or renown in arms, the common passions of the powerful and high-born.

Instead of sundering the feeble ties that bound them to their allegiance, and raising their princely domains to the independence of the crown, they congregated at Paris, then, as now, the Paradise of the devotees to pleasure, and surrendered themselves, as their chroniclers quaintly express it, to "fes tins, mascarades, danses, caroles et ébattemens,” (every species of diversion,) varied by an occasional affray, an ambuscade, or an assassination. The talent, that is now employed upon the arts of life, in inventing new machines, and contriving new fabrics, was then exhausted in originating new pastimes. Games of cards, and the revival of dramatic entertainments, date from the period of our story-the beginning of the fifteenth century.

There shone at Charles's court one of those stars, that occasionally cross the orbit of royalty, whose brilliancy obscured the splendour of the hereditary nobility, the lights, that, according to conservative opinion, are set in the firmament to rule the day and night of the plebeian world.

In the month of September, of the year 1409, a stranger, attended by a servant with a small travelling-sack, knocked at the gate of a magnificent hôtel in Paris. He was answered by a porter, who cast on him a glance of inquiry as keen as a bank clerk's upon the face of an unknown bank-note, and, seeing neither retinue, livery, nor other insignia of rank, he was gruffly dismissing him, when the stranger said, "Softly, my friend; present this letter to the Grand-Master, and tell him the bearer awaits his pleasure! Throw the sack down within the gate, Luigi!" he added to his attendant, "and come again at twelve ;" and, without more ado, he took his station within the court, a movement in which the porter ac

quiesced, seeing that in the free bearing of the stranger, and in the flashing of his dark eye, which indicated, it were wise not to question an authority that had nature's seal. On one side of the court was a fountain, and on the other a group of Fauns, rudely carved in wood. Adornings of sculpture were then unknown in France ;-the art was just reviving, and the ancient models still lay buried under barbaric ruins. Two grooms appeared, conducting, in front of the immense flight of steps that led up to the hôtel, four horses caparisoned for their riders, two for females, as was indicated by the form of the saddles, and the gay silk knots that decked the bridles, one of them being studded with precious stones. At the same moment, there issued from the grand entrance a gentleman, and a lady who had the comely embonpoint befitting her uncertain "certain age." She called her companion "mon mari," and he assisted her to mount, with that nonchalant, conjugal air, which indicate that gallantry had long been obsolete in their intercourse.

The interest the wife did not excite, was directed to another quarter. Mon mari's eye was constantly reverting to the door, with an expression of eager expectation. "Surely," said the lady, "Violette has had time to find my eau-derose; let us go, my husband,- -we are losing the freshness of the morning. She may follow with Edouard."

"Mount,

"Go you, ma chère amie," replied her husband. Edouard, and attend your mistress,-my stirrup wants adjusting,—I'll follow presently. How slow she rides! a plague on old women's fears!" he muttered, as she ambled off. “Ah, there you are, my morning star," he cried, addressing a young girl who darted through the door, and appeared well to warrant a comparison to the most beautiful of the celestial lights. She wore a Spanish riding-cap, a cloth dress, the waist neatly

fitted to her person, and much in the fashion of the riding costume of the present day, save that it was shorter by some half-yard, and thus showed to advantage a rich Turkish pantalette and the prettiest feet in the world, laced in boots. "Is my lady gone?" she exclaimed, dropping her veil over

her face.

"Yes, Violette, your lady is gone, but your lord is waiting for my lady's mignonne. Come, mistress of my heart! here is my hand for your stepping-stone." He then threw his arm around her waist, under the pretext of assisting her to mount; but she darted away like a butterfly from a pursuer's grasp, and, snatching the rein from the groom's hand, and saying, "My lord, I am country bred, and neither need nor like your gallantries," she led the horse to the platform on which the Fauns were placed, and, for the first time seeing the stranger, who stood, partly obscured by them, looking curiously upon this little scene, she blushed, and he involuntarily bowed. It was an instinctive homage, and she requited it with a look as different from that which she returned to the libertine gaze of the Count de Roucy, as the reflection in a mirror of two such faces, the one bloated and inflamed, the other pure and deferential, would have been. Availing herself of the slight elevation of the platform, she sprang into the saddle and set off at a speed that, in De Roucy's eye, provokingly contrasted with her mistress's cautious movement. "Who are you, and what do you here?" he said, turning to the stranger.

"My name," replied the stranger, without condescending to notice the insolent manner of the question, "is Felice Montano, and I am here on business with the Grand-Master." "Did ye not exchange glances with that girl?"

"I looked on her, and the saints reward her, she looked on me."

"Par amour ?"

"I stand not here to be questioned;-I ne'er saw the lady before, but, with Heaven's kind leave, I shall see her again !"

"Take care, the girl is my wife's minion, the property of the house, ye shall be watched!" muttered De Roucy, and, mounting his horse, he rode off, just as the porter reappeared, attended by a valet-de-place, whose obsequious address indicated that a flattering reception awaited Montano.

Montano was conducted up a long flight of steps, and through a corridor to an audience-room, whose walls were magnificently hung with tapestry, and its windows curtained with the richest Oriental silk. Silver vases, candelabra of solid gold, and various costly furniture, were displayed with dangerous profusion, offering a tempting spoil to the secret enemies of their proprietor.

There were already many persons of rank assembled, and others entering. Montano stood apart, undaunted by their half insolent, half curious glances. He had nothing to ask, and therefore feared nothing. He felt among these men, notorious for their ignorance and their merely animal lives, the conscious superiority of an enlightened man, that raised him far above the mere hereditary distinction, stigmatized by a proud plebeian as the "accident of an accident." Montano was an Italian, and proudly measured the eminence from which his instructed countrymen looked down upon their French neighbours.

As he surveyed the insolent nobles, he marvelled at the ascendency which Jean de Montagu, the Grand-Master of the Palace, had maintained over them for nearly half a century.

The son of a humble notary of Paris, he had been ennobled by King John, had been the prime and trusted favourite of three successive monarchs, had maintained through all his capricious changes the favour of Charles, had allied his children to nobles and kings, had liberally expended riches, that the proudest of them all did not possess, had encouraged and defended the labouring classes, and was not known to have an enemy, save Burgundy, the fearful "Jean sans peur."

The suitors to the Grand-Master had assembled early, as it was his custom to receive those who had pressing business before breakfast, it being his policy not to keep his suitors in vexing attendance. He knew his position, even while it seemed firmest, to be an uncertain one; and he warily practised those arts which smooth down the irritable surface of men's passions, and lull to sleep the hydra, vanity.

"The Grand-Master is true as the dial!" said a person standing near Montano; "the clock is on the stroke of nine; -mark me! as it striketh the last stroke, he will appear."

Montano fixed his eyes on the grand entrance to the saloon, expecting, that, when the doors "wide open flew," he should see that Nature had put the stamp of her nobility on the plebeian who kept these lawless lords in abeyance. The portal remained closed, there was no flurishing of trumpets, but, at a low side-door, gently opened and shut, entered a man of low stature, and so slender and shrunken, that it would seem Nature and time had combined to compress him within the narrowest limits of the human frame. His features were small, his chin beardless, and the few locks that hung, like silver fringe around his head, were soft and curling as an infant's. He wore a Persian silk dressing-gown over a citizen's simple under-dress, and his tread was so light, his manner so unpretending and unclaiming, that Montano would