Page:The Waning of the Middle Ages (1924).djvu/134

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Le Livre du Chevalier de la Tour Landry pour l'Enseignement de ses Filles, written at the same epoch. This time we are not concerned with an amorous old poet; we have to do with a father of a rather prosaic turn of mind, an Angevin nobleman, who relates his reminiscences, anecdotes and tales “pour mes filles aprandre à roumancier.” This might be rendered, “to teach my daughters the fashionable conventions in love matters.” The instruction, however, does not turn out romantic at all. The moral of the examples and admonitions which the cautious father recommends to his daughters tends especially to put them on their guard against the dangers of romantic flirtations. Take heed of eloquent people, always ready with their “false long and pensive looks and little sighs, and wonderful emotional faces, and who have more words at hand than other people.” Do not be too encouraging. He himself, when young, was conducted by his father to a castle to make the acquaintance of a young lady to whom they wanted to betroth him. The girl received him very kindly. He conversed with her on all sorts of subjects, so as to probe her character somewhat. They got to talk of prisoners, which gave the knight a chance to pay a neat compliment: "Mademoiselle, it would be better to fall into your hands as a prisoner than into many another’s, and I think your prison would not be so hard as that of the English.’ She replied that she had recently seen one whom she could wish to be her prisoner. And then I asked her, if she would make a bad prison for him, and she said not at all, and that she would hold him as dear as her own person, and I told her that the man would be very fortunate in having such a sweet and noble prison. What shall I say? She could talk well enough, and it seemed, to judge from her conversation, that she knew a good deal, and her eyes had also a very lively and lightsome expression.” When they took leave she begged him two or three times to came back soon, as if she had known him for a long time already. “And when we had departed my lord my father said to me: ‘What do you think of her whom you have seen? Tell me your opinion.’ ‘Monseigneur, she seems to me all well and good, but I shall never be nearer to her than I am now, if you please.’” Her lack of reserve left him without any desire to get better acquainted with her.