Frost's Laws and By-Laws of American Society

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 th