English reader forms one of the most singular contributions extant to the social history of the latter half of the sixteenth century. As a collection of sensational anecdotes of real life, it may be said to stand entirely by itself in continental literature. To Brantome, in his capacity of biographer, we are indeed largely indebted for our knowledge of many of the celebrities of this period, when the enthusiasms of the Renaissance and the Reformation had lost their freshness, when the diseased remains of Chivalry were dying out in an atmosphere of treachery, violence, debauchery, and fanaticism, while France, torn by com plex factions, was struggling through the dark and stormy phases of the Religious Civil Wars.