drawn up in a state paper, signed by the queen's regent,
countersigned by the four secretaries of state, and conveyed to
the assembly of nobles by four marshals of France.

The French memoirs of this period (the seventeenth century) abound
with references to just such questions of court etiquette; who
might use an arm-chair at court; who was to be invited to the
royal dinner; who might be kissed by the queen; what degree of
nobility entitled a man to be driven to the Louvre in a coach;
whether all dukes were equal, or whether, as some thought, the
Duke de Bouillon, having once possessed the sovereignty of Sedan,
was superior to the Duke de la Rochefoucauld, who had never
possessed any sovereignty at all; who should give the king his
napkin at dinner, and who might have the honor of assisting at the
toilet of the queen. The question whether the Duke de Beaufort
ought or ought not to enter the council chamber before the Duke de
Nemours, and whether, being there, he ought or ought not to sit
above him, caused a violent quarrel between the two dukes in 1652,
a quarrel which, of course, ended in a duel, and the death of the
Duke de Nemours. The equally grave question, whether a duke should
sign before a marshal was violently disputed between the Duke de
Rohan and one of the marshals of Henry the Fourth, and the king
was obliged to interfere in the matter.

These, of course, are but so many instances of the principle of
etiquette carried to an extravagant length, and simply prove the
danger there is in allowing things of less importance to supersede
or take the precedence of those of greater weight. They serve to
explain, and in some measure to excuse the denunciatory
expressions which many thoroughly well-bred people use against