Note 121 — CHAP. XXXIX.

This is a very striking allusion to a particular custom at tournaments, and sometimes in actual fight, of which Sainte Palaye gives a most interesting account in the ‘Memoires sur l’Ancienne Chevalerie.’

The exclamation, ‘Aux filz des Preux!’ was evidently used to encourage young knights to emulate the glories of their ancestors, and to do nothing unworthy the noble title given them; and in many instances it was attended with the most animating consequences.

The greatest misfortune attending on a translation of french chronicles is the total absence in our language of an expression answerable to the french word ‘preux,’ which conveys in itself whole volumes of meaning. Spencer ventured to adapt the word in its superlative degree to the english tongue. He says somewhere ‘the prowest knight alive.’ In fact, the word ‘preux’ may be considered as summing up the whole catalogue of knightly virtues in one expression.

The exclamation was sometimes varied,—‘Honneur aux filz des preux!’ which seems to be the original expression.