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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