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At sixteen years of age, he escaped from the paternal mansion, went to Rennes, entered upon a course of adventures, quarrels, challenges, and tourneys, in which he distinguished himself by his strength, his valor, and likewise his sense of honor.
The games of Greece, Isthmian, Olympic, Pythian, Nemean, exercises of a society which produced everything by its slaves; the life of the Spartans and the ancient Cretans, their models; the gymnasiums, playgrounds, horse-races, and disorders of the market-place among the Athenians; the occupations which Plato assigns to the warriors in his Republic, and which but represent the tastes of his century; finally, in our feudal society, the tilts and tourneys, all these inventions, as well as many others which I pass in silence, from the game of chess, invented, it is said, at the siege of Troy by Palamedes, to the cards illustrated for Charles VI. by Gringonneur, are examples of what labor becomes as soon as the serious motive of utility is separated from it.
Thus Ridley made little more attempt to persuade his young lady to come forth to the spectacles of the next fortnight to which he rushed, through crowds and jostling, to behold, with the ardour of an old warrior, the various tilts and tourneys, though he grumbled that they were nothing but child's play and vain show, no earnest in them fit for a man.
The swelling biceps, the coat straining at its buttons over the chest, the air of conscious conviction of the supereminence of the male in the cosmogony of creation, even a calm display of bow legs as subduing and enchanting agents in the gentle tourneys of Cupid these were the approved arms and ammunition of the Clover Leaf gallants.
Thou dost bring honor to me, for I tell thee truly thou dost ride like a knight seasoned in twenty tourneys." "It doth give me tenfold courage to hear thee so say, dear master," answered Myles. "And truly," he added, "I shall need all my courage this bout, for the Sieur de la Montaigne telleth me that he will ride to unhorse me this time." "Did he indeed so say?" said Sir James.
But I came provided with letters from the prince; and de Lorche, whom they honor, protected me from their evil designs. Then came feasts and tourneys in which the Lord Jesus helped me. You have already heard how Ulrych, the brother of the grand master, loved me, and obtained an order from the master himself to surrender Danuska to me."
Of old there was a land which was so much a woodland, that a minstrel thereof said it that a squirrel might go from end to end, and all about, from tree to tree, and never touch the earth: therefore was that land called Oakenrealm. The lord and king thereof was a stark man, and so great a warrior that in his youth he took no delight in aught else save battle and tourneys.
Since everything has a background and it is therefore perfectly right that here, directly behind the peasant's house, the world should begin with its tourneys, and its mountains, its rivers, its fortresses, its vineyards and its forests." He pointed out the various parts of the picture to which he was referring with a little ivory paper-knife. "Do you like it?" he continued.
The capital had been uncommonly brilliant during the winter with banquets and dances, tourneys and masquerades, as if to cast a lurid glare over the unutterable misery of the people and the complete desolation of the country; but this entertainment given by Montmorency in honour of a fair dame with whom he supposed himself desperately in love, the young bride of a very ancient courtier surpassed in splendour every festival that had been heard of for years.
Even in times other than those of war, disputes of succession were settled by jousts and tourneys. This fact is seen in the present day among the lower animals, who in their natural state live in tribes; the leader is usually the strongest, the wisest, and the most courageous.
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