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<h2> CHAPTER XIII——THE CEREMONY OF THE INTERVIEW OF PRINCES </h2>
<p>There is no subject so frivolous that does not merit a place in this
rhapsody. According to our common rule of civility, it would be a notable
affront to an equal, and much more to a superior, to fail being at home
when he has given you notice he will come to visit you. Nay, Queen
Margaret of Navarre further adds, that it would be a rudeness in a
gentleman to go out, as we so often do, to meet any that is coming to see
him, let him be of what high condition soever; and that it is more
respectful and more civil to stay at home to receive him, if only upon the
account of missing him by the way, and that it is enough to receive him at
the door, and to wait upon him. For my part, who as much as I can
endeavour to reduce the ceremonies of my house, I very often forget both
the one and the other of these vain offices. If, peradventure, some one
may take offence at this, I can't help it; it is much better to offend him
once than myself every day, for it would be a perpetual slavery. To what
end do we avoid the servile attendance of courts, if we bring the same
trouble home to our own private houses? It is also a common rule in all
assemblies, that those of less quality are to be first upon the place, by
reason that it is more due to the better sort to make others wait and
expect them.</p>
<p>Nevertheless, at the interview betwixt Pope Clement and King Francis at
Marseilles,—[in 1533.]—the King, after he had taken order for
the necessary preparations for his reception and entertainment, withdrew
out of the town, and gave the Pope two or three days' respite for his
entry, and to repose and refresh himself, before he came to him. And in
like manner, at the assignation of the Pope and the Emperor,—[Charles
V. in 1532.] at Bologna, the Emperor gave the Pope opportunity to come
thither first, and came himself after; for which the reason given was
this, that at all the interviews of such princes, the greater ought to be
first at the appointed place, especially before the other in whose
territories the interview is appointed to be, intimating thereby a kind of
deference to the other, it appearing proper for the less to seek out and
to apply themselves to the greater, and not the greater to them.</p>
<p>Not every country only, but every city and every society has its
particular forms of civility. There was care enough to this taken in my
education, and I have lived in good company enough to know the formalities
of our own nation, and am able to give lessons in it. I love to follow
them, but not to be so servilely tied to their observation that my whole
life should be enslaved to ceremonies, of which there are some so
troublesome that, provided a man omits them out of discretion, and not for
want of breeding, it will be every whit as handsome. I have seen some
people rude, by being overcivil and troublesome in their courtesy.</p>
<p>Still, these excesses excepted, the knowledge of courtesy and good manners
is a very necessary study. It is, like grace and beauty, that which begets
liking and an inclination to love one another at the first sight, and in
the very beginning of acquaintance; and, consequently, that which first
opens the door and intromits us to instruct ourselves by the example of
others, and to give examples ourselves, if we have any worth taking notice
of and communicating.</p>
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