AN HISTORICAL SKETCH OF FRENCH LITERATURE. 475 
upon the model of the sovereign courts.** The decrees of these 
courts were guided by a certain code of love,t which was stated to 
have been found by a Breton knight, while wandering through a 
thick forest, suspended by a golden chain from a tree. This ama- 
tory code, a copy of which was possessed by every tribunal, consisted 
of thirty-one articles, which inculcated, as may be imagined, a very 
easy system of morality, or, to speak more correctly, of refined li- 
bertinism. In the decisions (or, as they were termed, arréts) of 
these singular monuments of love, the unblushing familiarity with 
which the fair ones expressed their amours, and the art with which 
they discussed the tender passion, is truly surprising ; and though 
* The only complete list which we have remaining of the offices of the Court 
of Love, will be found in the Hisé. de ? Acad. des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres ; 
500 persons are there named, with the separate office which each occupied, 
This list has been printed from a manuscript of the end of the 16th century, 
which was transcribed from the original of, at least, fifty years earlier date. 
From the names of the numerous historical personages recorded, it has been 
stated that this court was one held in 1410, by Charles VI. and his 
Queen Isabella, of Bavaria—See Hist. de ? Acad. des Inscrips. etc. tom. Vii, p, 
287; Diez, Beitrage Zur Kenntniss der Romischen Poesie, p. 93. 
+ This code has been recorded by Andrés, a chaplain of the Court of 
France, who has likewise left us a voluminous record of the arréts of the 
Courts of Love. His work, however, though regarded by Raynouard as a 
yeracious authority, consists of a series of fabulous legends, the foundation of 
which, however, is truth. Some of these veracious records are too palpably 
absurd to need refutation. Thus, he tells us that ‘a knight who violated his 
plighted faith, was whipped with rods at Aix ;” and that “ burial was denied 
to a lady who had broken some of the laws of love.” These facts, it is true, 
have startled Raynouard, who, however, gravely satisfies himself by affirm- 
ing that these tribunals were fully empowered to execute these decrees, if 
necessary, by force, otherwise by the laws of honour, which lead a man to 
risk his life ina duel or to pay his debts of honour. Honour, forsooth, must 
have been in those days something more than a “mere escutcheon,” if it 
could thus lead a gallant knight to allow himself to be publicly whipped, or 
the relations of a lady to permit her to remain disinterred. The absurdity 
is palpable, as has been amply proved in a small work by the learned Diez, 
entitled Beitrage zur Kenntniss der Rimischen Poesie. Berlin, 1825. This 
writer, perhaps, carries his objections to too great a length, in denying alto- 
gether the existence of these tribunals; though, in regard to their penal au- 
thority, he is undoubtedly correct. M. de Chasteuil, a learned though cre- 
dulous Frenchman, published in 1701 a work, in which he treats of these 
courts as possessed of unlimited authority and power. His work was, how- 
ever, ably refuted by M. de Haitze in 1702, who at some length exposed the 
visionary theories of Chasteuil. An accurate précis of this literary contro- 
versy will be found in De Sade, Mémoires pour la Vie de Petrarque, tom. ii, 
p. 44, note. 
