Read "Historia Amoris" by Edgar Saltus online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
The modern history of love opens with laughter, the rich faunesque laugh of Francois I{er}. In Italy he had lost, as he expressed it, everything -- fors l'honneur. For his consolation he found there gallantry, which Montesquieu defined as love's light, delicate and perpetual lie.
Platonism is the melody of love; gallantry the parody. Platonism beautifies virtue, gallantry embellishes vice. It makes it a marquis, gives it brilliance and brio. However it omit to spiritualize it does not degrade. Moreover it improves manners. Gallantry was the direct cause of the French Revolution. The people bled to death to defray the amours of the great sent in their bill. Love in whatever shape it may appear is always educational.