so named because he endeavoured to entangle his adversary in a net (rete) and then stab him with the three-pointed spear or trident; finally there were equestrian gladiators who fought on horseback, but these were rarely exhibited.

But now for the lexical information :

:

Gladiatorial combats are represented in the bas-reliefs on the tomb of Scaurus at Pompeii, and illustrate in many particulars the brief account which has been given in this article of the several classes of gladiators. These barreliefs are represented in the following wood-cuts from Mazois. The figures are made of stucco, and appear to have been moulded separately, and attached to the plaster by pegs of bronze or iron. In various parts of the frieze are written the name of the person to whom the gladiators belonged, and also the names of the gladiators themselves, and the number of their victories. The first pair of gladiators on the left hand represents an equestrian combat. Both wear helmets with vizors, which cover the whole face, and are armed with spears and round bucklers. In the second pair, the gladiator on the left has been wounded; he has let fall his shield, and is imploring the mercy of the people by raising his hand towards them. His antagonist stands behind him, waiting the signal of the people. Like all the other gladiators represented on the frieze, they wear the short apron fixed above the hips. The one on the left appears to be a mirmillo, and the one on the right, with an oblong shield, a Samnite. The third pair consists of a Thracian and a mirmillo, the latter of whom is defeated. The fourth group consists of four figures; two are secutores and two retiarii. The secutor on his knee, appears to have been defeated by the retiarius behind him: but as the fuscina is not adapted for producing certain death, the other secutor is called upon to do it. The retiarius in the distance is probably destined to fight in his turn with the surviving secutor. The last group consists of a mirmillo and a Samnite; the latter is defeated.

ART. X.-Histoire des Francais des divers Etats aux cinq derniers Siecles. Par AMANS-ALEXIS MONTEIL.

THE information contained in this work, is conveyed through the medium of an imaginary correspondence between a Franciscan friar, a cordelier of Tours, and a brother of the same order of Thoulouse. Such a literary stratagem, however, has generally failed in combining the advantages of amusement and instruction in the same work; nor does the present attempt form an exception to the prevailing rule. Still, the author was employed for many years in collecting his facts, and from numerous antiquarian stores; and his has turned out to be not only a work with an attractive title, but one abounding with important details, provided the reader has the patience to gather them out from a vast mass of lumber.

The period selected by M. Monteil commences about the close of the fourteenth century, and at the accession of Charles VI.; and is one well adapted to supply matter for discussion. France was then

emerging from the horrors of feudalism: it had burst the fetters of bondage. A large portion of the people were affranchised; and thereby a third class, viz., of burgesses, were added to the two already existing bodies of nobles and clergy. The cities before deserted by the monarch, the barons, and the church dignitaries, began to increase in opulence and consequence; and their number had gradually risen to two thousand regular and fortified boroughs. And now supported by their respective charters, the citizens of these towns exercised sovereign power over their own distinctive economy,-regulating the pay and number of their garrison troops; and, indeed, performing all the functions, in regard to peace and war, of independent states. The nobles, however, still affected a proud and stiff-necked independence, reckless of kingly coercion; and the institutions of feudalism, although yielding rapidly to the influences of luxury and civilization, were, in some respects, maintained with the tenacity which habit and prejudice had imparted. The nobles, besides, possessed the privilege of refusing, at will, to follow their king to the field, except in case of a defensive war; and the sovereign was prohibited, as yet, from maintaining a standing army. An augmentation of wealth and power to the sovereign was, nevertheless, produced by the law which gave to the Lord Paramount all fiefs, of which the natural heirs had become extinct; and the practice, then recently introduced, of fixing the majority of the king at his fourteenth, instead of his twenty-first year, assigned into the hands of the monarch the authority which would otherwise have been vested in one or more of the proud nobility during the period of a minority. Influenced by these, and other circumstances, the manners of the French began, at this period, to lose those chivalric, or rather barbarous peculiarities which had formerly characterized their civil commotions, their domestic policy, their very literature, and their diversions. The fortified towns, formerly the glory of France, to subdue one of which, of ordinary size, required from Edward the Third almost the erection of another town, had already lost, in some measure, their importance from the invention of gunpowder; and the manufacture of cannons, some of them sixty, or even eighty feet in length, began to restrict the indulgence of warlike propensities to the larger towns, which were alone able to withstand these appalling engines of destruction. These remarkable innovations in the art of war produced an obvious effect upon the condition and consequence of the nobles. Intrenched within their castles, they had been powerful enough to defy the incursions of an enemy, unless able by its numbers to surround the towering edifice, and thus to cut off supplies. Frowning from the brow of an eminence, or raising its proud head amidst the verdure of the plain, the ancient Château presented a miniature representation of the fortified town or burgh. Nor were its internal regulations and construction unworthy of this commanding appearance, for it VOL. II. (1842.) No. IV.

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was surrounded by inclosures of walls; defended by bastions and watch-towers, and possessed the resources of a donjon, which obliged the besieger to ascend stage by stage, as in the citadel of a fortified town; it was moreover furnished with the artifices of false gates and of concealed posterns, from which an unexpected sally could be made upon the enemy; but with the mysterious aid of subterranean passages, branching out into labyrinthine mazes. The manufacture of arms had been hitherto carried on independent of the city mechanic, within the very walls of the castle; and even women were employed in the preparation of arrows, and lances, and several other descriptions of light weapons. But the recent discovery of Roger Bacon had begun to humble the pride of these nobles. Not only was the very existence of their habitations endangered by the new method of artillery, but their capability of infringing upon the demesnes of others diminished by its success. The art of fortification would require from henceforward the sciences of arithmetic and geometry; and as the inhabitants of towns, from their mechanical and commercial occupations, far surpassed, in such knowledge, the prond and ignorant nobility, the importance of the burgesses began, in respect to warlike affairs, to gain the superiority. Toward the beginning of the fifteenth century, another powerful blow was struck against the spirit of feudality, by Charles VI. designating the term SERF "defamatoryand opprobrious;" whilst on the steeple of the cathedral at Orleans, this memorable inscription was placed: "Letbertus factus est liber, teste hâc sanctâ Ecclesiâ."

During the changes which the other orders of society experienced, the clergy preserved, or, perhaps, increased their ascendancy. In some cities the bishop shared the temporal jurisdiction with the lordparamount: it was by no means unusual to see a powerful baron constrained to hold the bridle of an abbé, and at meal-time to stand behind his chair, until the proud ecclesiastic chose to utter the condescending permission to sit down. Rome, therefore, and Italy, were not exclusively blessed with such sights. The same priest who began his sacred functions by saying mass for the poor payment of twopence, was, in the fulness of that dignity which the superstition of the people accorded to him, seen to occupy, in military grandeur, the fortress of the town, where once his lowly origin had excited the compassion or contempt of the burgesses. In Burgundy, the country of great convents, of big cellars, of large fish-ponds, of spacious refectories, the nobles, bestowing on the monastic institutions the greater parts of their wealth, reserved to themselves, and to their successors, the right of "fast," or of giving feasts on certain days of the year. A stranger, in travelling through the vicinage of Paris, would be attracted by the numerous steeples scattered throughout the country. To his enquiries, "what is such or such an edifice?" the answer most commonly would be, "that is a rich priory; yonder

stands an important monastery; that is a celebrated abbey." Over these institutions the king possessed the right of procuration; that is, of breakfasting, dining, or supping, in their refectories; but this privilege was generally commuted for money.

Nor was it merely this usurpation of authority and overweening influence, which the clergy, in those days, peculiarly enjoyed in France. In the councils of princes; in the regulation of finance; in the administration of justice; in all departments of public business, the clergy possessed the predominating influence: for, oftentimes, even the helmet and sword were not considered incompatible with the priestly habit; and when occasion required, or self-interest called, the priestly hand was raised, to strike a sturdy blow, to gain fresh concessions, or defend its already acquired rights.

The personal character of Charles V., on whom his people had conferred the appellation of "The Wise," had endeared him to his subjects; and the veneration of his subjects silently tended to increase monarchial despotism; but, the youth and inefficiency of Charles VI., and the ambition and rapacity of his uncles, who exercised the government during his minority, enveloped the royal authority in an obscurity, which was augmented during the period of a long and unfortunate reign. Ancient customs and privileges were maintained with little alteration; or were changed, about this era, somewhat in favour of royalty. The King, in 1346, first assumed the title of "Majesty," (which was not generally adopted until more than a century later), in a commission relative to the financial department. It was now considered as an abuse, sanctioned, indeed, by precedent, that the princes of the blood royal should be permitted, like their sovereign, to wear the "robe fleurdelisée," or coronation vestment, which manifested royalty in its fullest display. Being resolved to elevate the regal dignity by the force of his own mind, Charles the Wise had acted from the suggestions of reason, rejecting to place that dependence either on his council, or even on the advice of his confessor, which was usually assigned to those offices by the kings of France. Never, at any prior period, had the monarch been invested with a greater degree of external splendour than during the middle and close of the fourteenth century.

"I wish," says the supposed monk of Tours, to his brother of Toulouse, "that you could see this numerous train of courtiers, composed of the civil, the ecclesiastical, and the military orders, and that you could view them when travelling, or in procession. Extended along the country, like a great army of cavalry, gentlemen, lords, esquires, valets, pages, ladies and damsels, magis. trates and lawyers, financiers and priests, monks and bishops, all present themselves to view, mounted on horsebark. In the midst of this assemblage sits the king, surrounded by his officers and his guard, who form a considerable square around him, leaving between themselves and the sovereign a respectful distance before the king are carried the scarf, embroidered with the fleur-de

lis, the ermine mantle, the royal hat, and the sword of state. Around this detachment of equestrians, (amongst whom were pointed out to me from the first day, by my young associates, the pages, who made me readily distinguish them by their splendid equipages, and still more by their gravity, the fools belonging to the king and the royal family,) was another troop composed of valets and of purveyors, who are appointed to exercise in the towns and villages, the right of seizing at will, either furniture or other commodities: and it is diverting to see the landed proprietors, the civil authorities, and even the superiors of convents and of hospitals, standing at the barriers, and unfolding to the wind their long lists of rates, and their charters, the tenor of which is to prevent purveyors from infringing upon their privileges; and if they persist in so doing, they are liable to punishment from those whom they seek to opFress."

Even at this remote period, when plate was not introduced into England, and when the luxury of forks was unknown here, the table of the French monarch, upon state occasions, is said to have been thus served:

Represent to yourself a spacious hall, the walls covered with the finest silken tapestries; imagine, at certain distances, that there are sideboards for wine, laden with decanters of gold and silver; also sideboards for plate, adorned in profusion with rich jewellery, purchased with the fines paid by suitors. Suppose also, under a high canopy of velvet, several tables of different sizes, to which you ascend by steps covered with the richest velvets; in the midst of these, and under a festoon of golden cloth, place a table for the king. Is the picture complete in your mind? Well, then, behold the monarch approach in the centre of his grand train; he is clothed in garments shining with gold and jewels; he sits, the crown on his head, yet placing himself below the archbishops and the bishops, although above all the other persons assembled. By whom think you he is served? By the great nobles of the realm? No: by dignitaries of the church? No: those who attend the king are princes — even his brothers: observe the immense number of officers, either of the hall or kitchen, clad in silken vestments, the colours of their respective functions, in the midst of the serjeants-at-arms, or of guards holding maces and lances in their hands, or surrounded by a crowd of servants who carry torches to illuminate the feast; all these persons come, go, return, pass and repass each other without the slightest disorder or confusion. Meanwhile, the minstrels, according to custom, place their silver trumpets to their lips, and by their flourishes amuse both the guests and the spectators.

Each time that the herald cries aloud "the king drinks," every individual of the assembly exclaims "long live the king;" as in our feast of the Epiphany, when in our banquets we choose a pretty child, and call him king. At the last course of the feast, the hypocras and wine are served; and the king, who had washed before the repast, washes afterwards: grace appropriated to royalty is then said, and wine and spices are handed round. Then the king withdraws, preceded by the ushers and esquires of the body, and followed by the court. Meanwhile the queen takes her repast, on solemn occasions, in a different apartment to that occupied by the king; sits in the midst of the princesses and