many to be ready to accept anything and to sacrifice anything to be rid of them, admonish us that we need another rebirth of patriotism; and they show us that we should cherish more and more everything which fosters noble and national sentiments. And when this war is over and the land is redeemed, and we come to ask what things have strengthened us to meet and overcome our common peril, may we not prophesy that high among the instrumentalities which have husbanded our strength and fed our patriotism, and knit more closely the distant parts of our land and its divided interests, will be placed the United States Sanitary Commission? CHEVALIER BAYARD: A SAINT AND HERO OF THE MIDDLE AGES. LECTURE DELIVERED BEFORE THE CONCORD LYCEUM, WHEN your committee kindly asked me to lecture once more before the Concord Lyceum, I would gladly, had time and strength permitted, have chosen some person, or some subject, connected with our noble town life. For I count it a duty, as it should be a pleasure, for every citizen, and even for those who are only citizens by adoption, to do what they can to make clear the process by which the tangled wilderness has been made the home of civilized life. For nothing does us more good than really to understand what our privileges have cost. So I should of preference have chosen some local topic, which would in itself have enlisted your interest. But it was impossible. I turn to what is possible, and ask your attention to a subject, to which heretofore I have given an imperfect treatment, A Saint and Hero of the Middle Ages! Such is the title. In other words we speak of the life, the exploits, the pure and noble qualities, of one widely enough known by fame, little known in fact, Pierre du Terrail, commonly called "Bayard, the knight without fear and without reproach," a man who, with all his ability, valor, and trustworthiness, was never called to a high command, but whose name survives when the names of the nominally great commanders have sunk into merited oblivion. I am well aware that this career fell, as we might say, on the outer edge of the Middle Ages. Chronologically speaking, it might be more correct to say a saint and hero of the opening modern time. But Bayard was so essentially the result of influences and tendencies which then were waning, — in his breast the principles and vows of that chivalry, which in all other bosoms seemed to have fallen into shameful decay, were so vital,- that we must hold fast to the title "a saint and hero of the Middle Ages." He was as one born out of due time. He was like that last bright ray that darts across the horizon beneath which the sun itself has gone down. Let us pause a moment to sketch the dark background on which this bright career was cast. That is, let us seek to comprehend that general condition of thought and action, which makes this life wellnigh unique in its purity, its unselfishness, and its contempt of rapine and lawless violence. Note first the decay of chivalry, which was itself the glory of the Dark Ages, and one of the influences which kept society from falling asunder, and men from flying at one another's throats like wolves. At its heart what was chivalry? Read the word of its latest historian: "It was the Christian form of the military profession. The knight was a Christian soldier." He entered the ranks through vigils and prayer. He was to serve God and the Church. He was to abide by the truth and keep his pledge. The weak must look to him for defence. The love of gold must not corrupt him. The Right and the Good must find in him a champion against Injustice and Evil. The theory perhaps was better than the practice. Still in that long period of darkness and bloodshed one of the few bright spots was the institution of chivalry. If you wish to read the story of true and false knighthood told as only the Northern Magician could tell it, take down your Ivanhoe, and compare Richard the Lion-hearted and the son of Cedric with the mean and crafty Prince John and the cruel and sensual Knight Templar. But when Bayard came on the stage the glamour and the good of chivalry had alike departed. There was temerity enough; thirst enough for adventure and glory; but little of consecrated valor, little care for the weak and helpless, less devotion to the things which were true and just. This is the first point to be noted. Incessant warfare was another condition of the times. Green, in his History of the English People, calls the period from 1336 to 1431 the Hundred Years' War. Not, I suppose, that the conflict of arms was absolutely unbroken; but that peace, when it came, was a hollow, precarious, and always brief truce, hardly a breathing spell between strife and strife. From 1504 to 1542 France was in a state of almost continuous warfare; rarely with entire success, rarely with complete failure; but all the time the sapping of her strength, the decrease of her prosperity, the debasement of her people, went on. By name the Thirty Years' War in Germany is widely known. It involved in its fatal embrace half the so called civilized world. But who shall count up the almost innumerable battles which drenched with fraternal blood the fatherland? Who shall enumerate the towns that were burned, the cities that were stormed and desolated, the citizens that were slain, the women that were dishonored? A well informed writer tells us, that the crowd of lost women which followed an army were more in number than the soldiery, that in a district, more than usually favored by distance from the principal seats of war, before the conflict began 1,733 families dwelt peacefully in 1,716 houses, while after the war only 627 houses were left standing and but 316 families to occupy them, and that of flocks of many thousand sheep not one was left. "Two centuries later," he adds, "the losses thus suffered were scarcely recovered. In all ranks, life was meaner, poorer, and harder," while intellectual and moral decadence kept pace with the physical misery. The atrocity which marked warfare cannot be overlooked. The restraints which chivalry in its best days imposed on cruelty had passed away; those of the modern code of war had not come into existence. The wealth, honor, life, of the conquered depended upon the stern will of prince or commander, or the mercy of a rude and passionate soldiery. In 1466, Philip the Good of Burgundy (I think the title must have been an ironical one) besieged Dinant, a flourishing town in the Low Countries. Its chief offence was, that a few of its rabble had insulted the Duchess by carrying about an effigy and using vile language. After a brief resistance the town surrendered at discretion. With a cool malignity the Good Duke took his revenge. Eight hundred of the citizens were tied back to back by twos and cast into the Meuse. All the rest of the males were sold into slavery. The women and children were driven out to live or die as it might happen. Every particle of personal property was seized. Then the town was set on fire and wholly consumed. Finally, contractors spent seven months demolishing walls, bridges, and towers. So at last the good duke carried out his threat. Men no longer said, "Dinant is," but "Dinant was." This was the mercy granted by the great. What was the clemency of the soldiery? Fifty |