THE READ-UP, OR JAMESONIAN.
If we examine closely the records of the past, we shall find that the principal source of the public morality, or vice, springs in most cases from the acts or institutions of the government; and this was especially remarkable at the commencement of the seventeenth century, in France. The youth of Louis XIII.; the feebleness of his character, even in advanced age; his incapacity, and that of his regent mother, gave rise to all kinds of imperfections, and opened the career to excesses of feudality, and all sorts of lawless ambitions. Evil, departing from this centre, spread amongst all classes of people: the organization of the clergy affected the position of the laity; and the intrigues of the Count de Soissons, Condé, and others, favoured the general corruption.
Things stood thus when, one fine spring morning, two horsemen in military attire were slowly traversing one of the large tracts of forest land which then stretched between Compiègne and Beauvais.
[At this point search the British Museum, and get up the costumes from pictures. The "low countries" is effective.]