For Centuries The Marks Of A Gentleman Had Been Bravery, Courtesy
And A Good Seat In The Saddle, And It
Was not to be supposed that a
sudden fashionable enthusiasm for literature could change all that.
Ascham had declared that
The Elizabethan young bloods thought it
shameful to be learned because the "Jentlemen of France" were not
so.[208] When with the general relaxation of high effort which appeared
in so many ways at the Court of James I., the mastery of Greek authors
was no longer an ideal of the courtier, the Jacobean gallant was hardly
more intellectual than the mediaeval page. Henry Peacham, in 1623,
described noblemen's flagging faith in a university education. They sent
their sons to Oxford or Cambridge at an early age, and if the striplings
did not immediately lay hold on philosophy, declared that they had no
aptitude for learning, and removed them to a dancing school. "These
young things," as he calls the Oxford students "of twelve, thirteene, or
foureteene, that have no more care than to expect the next Carrier, and
where to sup on Fridayes and Fasting nights" find "such a disproportion
betweene Aristotles Categories, and their childish capacities, that what
together with the sweetnesse of libertie, varietie of companie, and so
many kinds of recreation in towne and fields abroad," they give over any
attempt to understand "the crabbed grounds of Arts." Whereupon, the
parents, "if they perceive any wildnesse or unstayednesse in their
children, are presently in despaire, and out of all hope of them for
ever prooving Schollers, or fit for anything else; neither consider the
nature of youth, nor the effect of time, the Physitian of all. But to
mend the matter, send them either to the Court to serve as Pages, or
into France and Italy to see fashions, and mend their manners, where
they become ten times worse."[209]
The influence of France would not be towards books, certainly. Brave,
gallant, and magnificent were the Gallic gentlemen; but not learned.
Reading made them positively ill: "la tete leur tourne de lire," as
Breze confessed.[210] Scorning an indoor sedentary life, they left all
civil offices to the bourgeoisie, and devoted themselves exclusively to
war. As the Vicomte D'Avenel has crisply put it:
"It would have seemed as strange to see a person of high rank the
Treasurer of France, the Controller of Finance, or the Rector of a
University, as it would be to see him a cloth-merchant or maker of
crockery.... The poorest younger son of an ancient family, who would not
disdain to engage himself as a page to a nobleman, or as a common
soldier, would have thought himself debased by accepting the post of
secretary to an ambassador."[211]
Brute force was still considered the greatest power in the world, even
when Sully was Conseiller d'Etat, though divining spirits like Eustache
Deschamps had declared that the day would come when serving-men would
rule France by their wits, all because the noblesse would not learn
letters.[212] In vain the wise Bras-de-Fer warned his generation that
glory and strength of limb were of short duration, while knowledge was
the only immortal quality.[213] As long as parents saw that the honours
at Court went to handsome horsemen, they thought it mistaken policy to
waste money on book-learning for their sons. When a boy came from the
university to Court, he found himself eclipsed by young pages, who
scarcely knew how to read, but had killed their man in a duel, and
danced to perfection.[214] A martial training, with physical
accomplishments, was the most effective, apparently.
The martial type which France evolved dazzled other nations, and it is
not surprising that under the Stuarts, who had inherited French ways,
the English Court was particularly open to French ideals. Our directions
for travellers reflect the change from the typical Elizabethan courtier,
"somewhat solemn, coy, big and dangerous of look," to the easy manners
of the cavalier. A Method for Travell, written while Elizabeth was
still on the throne, extols Italian conduct. "I would rather," it says
of the traveller, "he should come home Italianate than Frenchified: I
speake of both in the better sense: for the French is stirring, bold,
respectless, inconstant, suddaine: the Italian stayed, demure,
respective, grave, advised."[215] But Instructions for Forreine
Travell in 1642 urges one to imitate the French. "For the Gentry of
France have a kind of loose, becoming boldness, and forward vivacity in
their manners."[216]
The first writer of advice to travellers who assumes that French
accomplishments are to be a large part of the traveller's education, is
Sir Robert Dallington, whom we have already quoted. His View of
France[217] to which the Method for Travel is prefixed, deserves a
reprint, for both that and his Survey of Tuscany,[218] though built on
the regular model of the Elizabethan traveller's "Relation," being a
conscientious account of the chief geographical, economic,
architectural, and social features of the country traversed, are more
artistic than the usual formal reports. Dallington wrote these Views in
1598, a little before the generation which modelled itself on the French
gallants, and his remarks on Frenchmen may well have served as a warning
to courtiers not to imitate the foibles, along with the admirable
qualities, of their compeers across the Channel. For instance, he is
outraged by the effusiveness of the "violent, busy-headed and impatient
Frenchman," who "showeth his lightness and inconstancie ... in nothing
more than in his familiaritie, with whom a stranger cannot so soone be
off his horse, but he will be acquainted: nor so soone in his Chamber,
but the other like an Ape will bee on his shoulder: and as suddenly and
without cause ye shall love him also. A childish humour, to be wonne
with as little as an Apple and lost with lesse than a Nut."[219] The
King of France himself is censured for his geniality. Dallington deems
Henry of Navarre "more affable and familiar than fits the Majesty of a
great King." He might have found in current gossip worse lapses than the
two he quotes to show Henry's lack of formality, but it is part of
Dallington's worth that he writes of things at first-hand, and gives us
only what he himself saw; how at Orleans, when the Italian commedians
were to play before him, the king himself, "came whiffling with a small
wand to scowre the coast, and make place for the rascall Players,... a
thing, me thought, most derogatory to the Majesty of a King of France."
"And lately at Paris (as they tell us) when the Spanish Hostages were to
be entertayned, he did Usher it in the great Chamber, as he had done
here before; and espying the Chayre not to stand well under the State,
mended it handsomely himselfe, and then set him downe to give them
audience."[220]
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