1897] Froissart's Chronicles 285 



" 23rd Nov. — I have been reading Froissart's ' Chronicles.' He must 

 have lived a happy life, if what his biographers tell of him is true. The 

 age of chivalry, brutal as it was in its fighting aspect, seems to have 

 been sweetened by a good deal of romance, but to this Froissart hardly 

 alludes, and, tells only of battles and sieges, which were most of them 

 ignoble proceedings. Edward Ill's idea of war seems to have been 

 to raid the French towns everywhere, except just where the French 

 army was. Both Cressy and Poitiers were fought by the English 

 because they could not get away from the pursuing French, and the 

 victory in both cases was won by the skill of the English archers on 

 the one side and foolish generalship on the other. As a rule, it was 

 only the unarmed fighters on foot that were killed, the knights and 

 squires surrendered to ransom as soon as they were knocked off their 

 horses. This was all their chivalry of war. 



" 26th Nov. — Sheykh Mohammed Abdu came to see me, and told 

 me the political and court gossip. The latest is about a trial in which 

 a young man is being prosecuted for insulting and libelling the Khedive 

 in verse. The true movers in the matter, Abdu assures me are Mo- 

 harram Pasha Shahin and Sheykh el Bekri in conjunction with Sheykh 

 Abul Huda at Constantinople, and it was done to please the Sultan. 

 Cromer, however, has mixed himself up in it, and in order to obtain 

 a verdict, or rather to screen some persons implicated who are favour- 

 able to English policy, has had the Egyptian Procureur of the native 

 courts replaced by Corbet, an Englishman. The Khedive is still on 

 bad terms with the Sultan, and the poem was written to please his 

 Majesty, but by an unfortunate mistake in the printing, one of the in- 

 sulting epithets applied to the Khedive is ' Turk,' so that it has given 

 almost equal offence at Yildiz. 



" In India, the Afridis I am glad to see are still gallantly maintain- 

 ing themselves against General Lockhart, and our troops are getting 

 nicely ' punished ' in their turn. It is clear from their accounts that 

 but for the superior fighting qualities of the Sikhs and Ghurkas the 

 white regiments could not be got to continue the campaign. Lockhart 

 has had to encourage them publicly not to be ' downhearted.' There is 

 talk in England of conscription for the army, and our people will soon 

 begin to understand that they can't have the amusement of empire 

 without paying the price. The British Empire is a structure that 

 might crumble at any moment, the sooner the better, say I. 



" 29th Nov. — We have a guest with us, Nasr el Mizrab, nephew of 

 that Mijuel el Mizrab, who was Lady Ellenborough's last husband. 

 He is a well-spoken man and has travelled more than once with 

 Frankish explorers in the Syrian desert, Russians and Germans, buying 

 horses for them of his Anazeh kindred. 



" gth Dec. — Young John Evelyn has come to stay with us. His 



