The simple story-tellers of old, singing away before History was born, long, long before she became contradictory and disrespectful, chose the past as a setting for certain beatitudes—love, beauty, valor, fidelity and justice. Theirs was not the harsh justice of the common law, for there was no common law, but true, or, as the world terms it, poetic justice. They strengthened the warp of their story with the noblest deeds done, or almost done, around them, for human beings so often fall just short of great things; this it is the gentle and honorable duty of story to remedy, for “What we would be, that we are for one transcendent moment.”

When they only recorded the prowess of the victor, History and Romance were one and at peace, and the glorious days of which together they sung were known as the Golden Age.

Then History began to feel the heroism of the vanquished. To give them their meed she conceived the idea of recording impartially the good and evil around her, whereat childish Romance turned from her in disgust.

But each claimed the Golden Age: Romance declaring that golden tales that live and grow were hers for all time; History declaring that the fact that a great poet imagined an event to have happened counted for more in the human record than any other given occurrence. And History and Romance quarreled on until it seemed as though the Golden Age would be lost to both of them.

Then Romance, always enterprising to the point of flightiness, suggested that, as the Golden Age had no chronology, it might safely be recast in the future, in which period she, at least, was quite as much at home as in the past.

Politic Old Dame History smiled at the idea of her dealing in futures, but she did make herself responsible for the statement that the real present is infinitely more romantic than the real past. Then waxing bold she declared that, with some trifling digression, she had all along been leading men toward a purer justice more mixed with love. Of this sweeping assertion she calmly cast the burden of proof upon “my most persuasive witness, my dear old friend, Romance.” And Romance, who always begs the question, replies with a smile, “Let me tell some stories. No, I will not commence with the Greeks, they are hardly my people. Great poets may find other themes, but as for me, my humble fancy must rest upon a woman and she should be pure, sweet and gentle and brave men should bow before her.

“The Grecian woman was in no way a free agent. To assert herself at all, she was obliged to be either deceitful or defiant; both attitudes are so unbeautiful! I commence with the days of chivalry, for though women were not free then, it was supposed that they ought to be, which is enough for me.”

“To me,” says History, “the love stories of the days of chivalry, told as fact or as old romance, are one of the saddest issues of its universal tyranny—a tyranny of parent over child, of man over woman, of lord over serf, of king over lord, of emperor over king, of pope over emperor—a tyranny of crazy conventions and mistaken ideals over all, with mortifications of spirit a thousand times harsher than those of the flesh, which made life hideous even to its ideals.

“Analyze the great love story of that era and you find rather a tragedy of tyranny. It runs thus: About the close of the Dark Ages the parents of Pierre Abelard decided, for the future repose of their souls, to repress all their natural desires and shift all mundane duties. Accordingly they retired to separate convents, leaving their son free to follow his natural bent. Argument being his ruling passion, he wandered through France challenging the local theologians in debate, always drawing a following, always making powerful enemies, and, doubtless, very much enjoying the life. At Laon he tackled the great Anselm, and finding him a man ‘of mean genius and great fluency of words without sense,’ Abelard conceived the idea of reading the Bible for himself. Then he made his way to Paris to break a lance with the great Canon Fulbert, where he met the Canon’s niece, Heloise. A love story ensued, like other love stories in many ways, except that Heloise, against all self-interest, physical, social, spiritual, refused to marry her lover, entreat as he might; she would do anything else for him, except state her true reason—but yet a woman. We have it finally in her correspondence, ‘What an injury shall I do the Church if I rob it of such a man!’

“Is it a sacrifice on the altar of the Church on her part, or is it a woman’s sacrifice for the interests of the man she loves better than herself? Had her mother made a like renunciation? No mother appears in the story of this adopted niece of an ecclesiastic. Here is Heloise’s position. In her time the only opening for a clever man was the Church with its conditions; a loving woman should not hamper an ambitious man; she should remember she cannot be to him what he is to her, which is a law of life known to woman, that we find holds true here. Having first given her all to the Church, she enters a convent at Abelard’s suggestion. But in the twelfth century, or any other, the hope of youth dies hard. Heloise does not take the black veil. She cannot burn her ships.

“Thereafter this truly fair woman of Romance figures as a stern disciplinarian reporting the weaker sisters. But she is severe upon herself as well, and confesses having unlawfully opened a letter in which she was sure there was news of her Abelard; though, when in after years Abelard wished to correspond with her, she begged him not. This is the tragedy of Heloise.

“Abelard also entered a convent, but there, as elsewhere, he had a wonderful faculty for carrying his point, and probably led, on the whole, a very congenial life. However, he once overstepped himself, and was summoned to appear before the Council of Soissons and commanded to burn his own book with his own hands. He ungallantly admitted that this was the saddest moment of his life. Here is Abelard’s tragedy. He felt that all was lost. But it was Abelard that the world needed, not his book.

“Brave as Socrates, Abelard returned to the Abbey of Saint Denis, there to raise the first historic doubt. He did not think Saint Denis was the Areopagite of the Scriptures, nor did he believe the saint was ever in Paris. The horrified Abbot accordingly gave Abelard over to the civil authorities ‘for reflections upon the kingdom and the crown.’

“Driven from Paris, he retired to a cloistered order at Troyes, where he built a church and had the pleasure of dedicating it to the Holy Ghost (there being a law against dedicating a temple to the Paraclete). Arguing to the last, Abelard passed away, and while his body was mouldering in the ground, his soul went arguing on in his intellectual descendants, the mediÆval schoolmen who, in their poor way, managed to awaken the mind of Europe, if only to lead it by labyrinths into a cul-de-sac.

“I wonder if Heloise was able to follow her true love’s valiant career without earthly pride? Or by some strange austere resolve did she deny herself that gentle pleasure? For Heloise belongs to the species, omnipotent woman, who carries out her decisions by hook or by crook for the benefit of self and others, never hampered by a doubt of the ultimate excellence of her arrangements.

“Did she do well not to rob the Church of Abelard? Perhaps she builded better than she knew, or she may have made a sad mistake, but God knows, she did her best. That was eight hundred years ago, but her story is tragic today. As to Abelard’s, it is really very interesting.

“And,” continues History, “the favorite romance of this sadly submissive age was ‘The Patient Griselda.’ It was an old, old tale when Boccaccio told it, but, thank fortune, it is dead at last, for we cannot now conceive of the excellence of the heroine.

“A marquis, whose only love is the chase, is forced by his subjects to marry. He compromises on a little country girl, and requires her to promise ‘to study to please him and not to be uneasy at anything whatever he may do or say.’ (A man’s requirements, only this marquis wasn’t a gentleman.) To test her patience, he amuses himself by taking her children from her, one by one, and leading her to suppose that they have been killed, because his people objected to the descendants of a peasant. Griselda blesses her children as she delivers them to his servitor, saying:

“‘Take them; do what my lord and thine has commanded; but, prithee, leave them not to be devoured by fowls or wild beasts unless that be his will.’

“Then the marquis tells her he must annul their marriage.

“She replies, ‘For what I have been I hold myself indebted to Providence and you. I consider it a favor lent me,’ and she acquiescingly returns to the house of her father, who has prudently saved her old garments, never supposing the marquis would ‘keep her long as wife.’ In good time the marquis summons her to prepare his home for a new wife. She affectionately complies. The new wife proves to be herself, the marquis being quite persuaded that her patience ‘proceeds from no want of understanding in her.’ Her children are restored. She weeps for joy, and they all live happily ever after.”

Romance replies, “The chivalry in your instances is confined to the women, which is always pathetic. As to the actual Griselda of Aquitaine, whose name and story grew into the heart of an age, she lived just before the days of chivalry. Indeed, Shades of women like Griselda and Heloise may have inspired the chivalrous attitude toward women.

“One should read Griselda’s story in Chaucer, not in shallow-hearted Boccaccio, even though it was the purest and most popular of his tales. Chaucer would make you feel her kinship with women now, who make sacrifices for love less open and rude but not so different from hers.

“Listen, History,” continues Romance, “to Chaucer’s tale: You have commended bloodier deeds than Griselda’s. The marquis says to Griselda, when he demands the child, ‘In great lordship there is great servitude. I may not do as every ploughman may,’ and Griselda, like a mother, whose son is demanded as a sacrifice on the altar of her country, first consecrates him to God. She is as tender to her child as she is loyal to her husband, but I will say no more; no one but Chaucer should touch that scene.

“I have always suspected that the real marquis in question intended to kill the child for exactly the reasons he stated, and the gentleness of the mother, who could not possibly protect the child, saved it. Life was held very loosely then. You see, History, I tell more truth than I am supposed to and you tell less, my idea being to appear fanciful, yours, to appear truthful. We are all poor sinners. However,” continues Romance, “a sweeter day was dawning. Out of the effort of the soldier to protect the pilgrim grew the Holy Wars, wherein the ideal that the strong should serve the weak was born, and I nursed it into chivalry.”

“And a hideous and lawless state of things you brought forth,” remarked History; for Romance and History, like other old friends that have separated and come together again, cannot collate long in accord.

“In some cases I taught men not to need the law’s control,” retorted Romance. “To make men gentle one must teach them gently, so I sent my troubadours through the land as trusty messengers of chivalry and bid them sing the new ideal into the very heart of the realm. And in song they contended as lustily for the point of honor as ever knight contended with his lance.

“To these simple troubadours that love which is not physical, which begs to serve, not to be served, and poetry, itself, were one, and known by one term alone,—Love. But disputes arose regarding this term for an ideal new under the sun,—disinterested love in its highest and its fullest. Therefore, where the shades of classic refinement lingered latest, in fair Provence, I instituted tribunals before which my troubadours might plead their subtle causes in song, and styled them Courts of Love. My judges were the gentlest of ladies and poets bowed before them, saying:

History interrupts: “Among my humoresques, I happen to have a literal account of one of those old Courts of Love. It was convened by the Countess of Champagne; she had fifteen more women on the bench with her, all decked out in green and gold. Monkey-fashion, those scented ladies (precieuses ridicules) of old had the proceedings of their toy court solemnly recorded. AndrÉ, their scribe, adds that the perfumes on the fair judges kept him sneezing continually while he was taking testimony. At that time chivalry had most absurdly exalted ‘my ladye,’ also the ‘beautiful unseen,’ styled the ‘beautiful unknown,’ and see the things men were expected to do!”

“Yes, and what is more, they did them,” retorted Romance, “and at the bidding of woman without other coercion, and the spirit of her law still rules.”

“I am confining myself to documentary evidence,” says History tartly. “This Chief Justice of Love, Maria of Champagne, was the daughter of that Queen Eleanor of France, who would go on the Second Crusade. Had she only behaved herself in the East, she might have figured as the first New Woman. However, that was not to be. Formal action was brought before the Court of the Chief Justice of Love in the Province of Beauty by plaintiff, a servitor of love, against defendant, a Fair Lady—likewise a married one. Plaintiff had agreed to walk twice a week past defendant’s door, for which service defendant agreed to throw him a bunch of violets. As the weather was cold and the road muddy, plaintiff tired of the job and claimed in legal phraseology, as he did not always get his violets, that breach of contract should release him from further obligation.

“Defendant pleads ecstasy of love and anguish of mind. She said that because of Danger (Court term for husband) she could not always perform her contract, since she frequently had to profess that she was asleep, although she was awake; that it was highly ungallant in defendant to complain of snow and mire. Love should render him invulnerable. She also added that the man had the best of it, for he might repeat his hours and orisons while he was walking up and down before her door; also, he had the privilege of kissing her latch as he passed, whereas (feminine economy) she was obliged to purchase thread to tie up his violets.

“Judgment in favor of the lady.

“Among the celebrated cases recorded in this court are two every-day disagreements between man and woman. A gentleman complains of the refusal of a lady to dance with him, which rendered him ridiculous. The court commanded the lady to dance with him.

“Action was brought by a wife against her husband for restraining her from wearing a hat of the newest fashion.

“Judgment for the lady.

“I will close,” continues History, “by citing a few of the thirty-one rulings of this Court of Maria of Champagne:

• “1. Love and economy do not agree.
• “2. Without good reason no one can be forbidden to love.
• “3. Love is not stationary. If it does not diminish, it will increase.
• “4. It is not loving to kiss and tell.
• “5. No man can love two women at the same time.
• “6. A woman should persist in her choice till all hope be abandoned;
• like persistence cannot be demanded from man.”

“Maria de Champagne was a profound jurist, but I doubt if she was a truly romantic woman,” replies Romance. “Were I not too chivalrous to expose to your commonplace laughter the gentlest yearning of a rude age, their uncertain groping for a vague ideal too noble for their actual conception, I could a sweeter tale unfold of Courts of Love of old.

“But if you will laugh at ideals of romantic love, laugh kindly with me over its merriest comedy, written by the saddest and most chivalrous lover of them all.

“Take down your files, Dame History, and find, if you can, another servitor of love as chivalrous to his lady as MoliÈre was to his wife, a woman belonging to other men; MoliÈre’s patience, like Griselda’s, ‘proceeded from no lack of understanding.’”

“You have wandered far from the romance of the days of chivalry for your chivalrous instance,” sneers History.

“I was following up the seed that chivalry sowed, the idea of the self-effacement of the strong in favor of the weak. But let us turn from the dramatist to the comedy, and by a short consideration of ‘Les Precieuses Ridicules,’ I may be able to make your point for you, ‘that the actual present is as romantic as the romance of the past.’

“At the beginning of this play, Georgebus, a provincial gentleman, has made arrangements with two satisfactory persons to marry respectively his daughter and niece. The girls are brought to Paris, where the candidates for their hands and hearts appear and come to the point at once. It seems the girls have been reading the romances of Mlle. de ScudÉry, who has given them the idea that a lover should fall in love at sight, seek out his lady, woo her, and after gallantly surmounting many obstacles, win her. Georgebus perceives that the men depart in displeasure and investigates. He has observed that the girls are aping the manners of the ladies of the Court, which in MoliÈre’s time were very affected. Georgebus’ daughter states her platform. It is rather romantic, but there are lovers nowadays that might fill the bill. She closes by saying, ‘But to plunge headlong into a proposal of marriage, to make love and marriage settlements go hand in hand, is to begin the romance at the wrong end. Once more, father, there is nothing more shopkeeper-like than such proceedings.’ Georgebus is unable ‘to make out the meaning of her jargon,’ while his niece adds that those gentlemen ‘have never seen the map of the Country of Tenderness.’ She is also dissatisfied with their dress.

“Certainly, MoliÈre did know what young girls crave, which Georgebus was unable to understand.

“In the meantime the disconcerted lovers have dressed their valets up and bidden them address the ladies in the most exaggerated fashion. The young girls are completely taken in, as girls often are by pseudo noblemen. The comedy runs high. Finally the masters appear, strip their valets of their finery, whip them and send them home.

“The bottom falls out of everything. Georgebus cries, ‘Hide yourselves, you idiots, hide yourselves forever,’ and after the girls’ exit, adds, ‘The cause of all the trouble lies in romances, verses, songs, sonnets and lays.’

“But in the long run, romances, verses and songs have won. Twentieth century sentiment goes with the girls though they were fooled once in the days of their youth. Nowadays, my courts sit in secret session. The novel is their organ, but, History, your crude Courts of Love died out six hundred years ago.”

An Ideal of the Gracious
Republic of Venice, Attended by Justice and Peace,
Expressed by Paul Veronese,
Sixteenth Century.