Historic Tales: The Romance of Reality. Vol. 06 (of 15), French
by Charles Morris · English · Gutenberg #20055 · 502,859 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: Historic Tales: The Romance of Reality. Vol. 06 (of 15), French
Author: Charles Morris
Release date: December 8, 2006 [eBook #20055]
Most recently updated: January 1, 2021
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/20055
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HISTORIC TALES: THE ROMANCE OF REALITY. VOL. 06 (OF 15), FRENCH ***
Produced by Ross Wilburn and the Online Distributed Proofreading
Team at https://www.pgdp.net
Edition d'Élite
Historical Tales
The Romance of Reality
By
CHARLES MORRIS
_Author of "Half-Hours with the Best American Authors," "Tales from the
Dramatists," etc._
IN FIFTEEN VOLUMES
Volume VI
French
J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY
PHILADELPHIA AND LONDON
_CONTENTS_
PAGE
THE HUNS AT ORLEANS 7
THE WOOING OF CLOTILDE 18
THE RIVAL QUEENS 29
ROLAND AT RONCESVALLES 40
CHARLEMAGNE AND THE AVARS 47
THE CROWNING OF CHARLEMAGNE 58
PETER THE HERMIT 69
THE COMMUNE OF LAON 81
HOW BIG FERRÉ FOUGHT FOR FRANCE 94
BERTRAND DU GUESCLIN 103
JOAN OF ARC, THE MAID OF ORLEANS 116
THE CAREER OF A KNIGHT-ERRANT 133
LOUIS THE POLITIC AND CHARLES THE BOLD 147
CHARLES THE BOLD AND THE SWISS 158
BAYARD, THE GOOD KNIGHT 166
EPISODES IN THE LIFE OF A TRAITOR 176
ST. BARTHOLOMEW'S DAY 188
KING HENRY OF NAVARRE 197
THE MURDER OF A KING 210
RICHELIEU AND THE CONSPIRATORS 218
THE PARLIAMENT OF PARIS 233
A MARTYR TO HIS PROFESSION 251
THE MAN WITH THE IRON MASK 257
VOLTAIRE'S LAST VISIT TO PARIS 264
THE DIAMOND NECKLACE 271
THE FALL OF THE BASTILLE 281
THE STORY OF THE SAINTE AMPOULE 287
THE FLIGHT OF THE KING 298
THE END OF THE TERROR 306
THE BURNING OF MOSCOW 316
NAPOLEON'S RETURN FROM ELBA 327
THE PRUSSIAN WAR AND THE PARIS COMMUNE 337
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
FRENCH.
PAGE
FRIEDLAND _Frontispiece_.
CITY OF ORLEANS 8
THE VOW OF CLOVIS 25
THE CORONATION OF CHARLEMAGNE 63
A MARRIAGE FEAST IN BRITTANY 82
COLUMN OF JULY, PLACE DE LA BASTILLE 100
JOAN OF ARC AT ORLEANS 125
A DUEL OF KNIGHTS 133
LOUIS XI 147
THE DUKE OF GUISE AT THE FRENCH COURT 189
EQUESTRIAN STATUE OF HENRY IV 196
CHAMBER OF MARY D' MEDICI 212
CATHEDRAL OF NOTRE DAME, PARIS 242
VOLTAIRE'S LAST VISIT TO PARIS 265
MARIE ANTOINETTE AND HER CHILDREN 274
THE LAST VICTIMS OF THE REIGN OF TERROR 307
THE CITY OF MOSCOW 317
ARC DE TRIOMPHE AND CHAMPS ELYSÉES, PARIS 327
NAPOLEON'S RETURN FROM ELBA 332
SCENE FROM THE FRANCO-PRUSSIAN WAR 340
_THE HUNS AT ORLEANS._
On the edge of a grand plain, almost in the centre of France, rises a
rich and beautiful city, time-honored and famous, for it stood there
before France had begun and while Rome still spread its wide wings over
this whole region, and it has been the scene of some of the most notable
events in French history. The Gauls, one of whose cities it was, named
it Genabum. The Romans renamed it Aurelian, probably from their Emperor
Aurelian. Time and the evolution of the French language wore this name
down to Orleans, by which the city has for many centuries been known.
The broad Loire, the longest river of France, sweeps the foot of the
sloping plain on which the city stands, and bears its commerce to the
sea. Near by grows a magnificent forest, one of the largest in France,
covering no less than ninety-four thousand acres. Within the city
appears the lofty spires of a magnificent cathedral, while numerous
towers rise from a maze of buildings, giving the place, from a distance,
a highly attractive aspect. It is still surrounded by its mediæval
walls, outside of which extend prosperous suburbs, while far and wide
beyond stretches the fertile plain.
Such is the Orleans of to-day. In the past it was the scene of two
striking and romantic events, one of them associated with the name of
Joan of Arc, the most interesting figure in French history; the other,
which we have now to tell, concerned with the terrible Attila and his
horde of devastating Huns, who had swept over Europe and threatened to
annihilate civilization. Orleans was the turning-point in the career of
victory of this all-conquering barbarian. From its walls he was driven
backward to defeat.
Out from the endless wilds of Scythia had poured a vast swarm of nomad
horsemen, ill-favored, fierce, ruthless, the scions of the desert and
seemingly sworn to make a desert of Europe. They were led by Attila, the
"Scourge of God," as he called himself, in the tracks of whose horse's
hoofs the grass could never grow again, as he proudly boasted.
Writers of the time picture to us this savage chieftain as a deformed
monster, short, ill-formed, with a large head, swarthy complexion,
small, deep-seated eyes, flat nose, a few hairs in place of a beard, and
with a habit of fiercely rolling his eyes, as if to inspire terror. He
had broad shoulders, a square, strong form, and was as powerful in body
as he was ready and alert in mind. The man had been born for a
conqueror, and Europe was his prey.
The Scythians adored the god of war, whom they worshipped under the
shape of an iron cimeter. It was through the aid of this superstition
that Attila raised himself to dominion over their savage and tameless
hordes. One of their shepherds, finding that a heifer was wounded in the
foot, followed the track of blood which the animal had made, and
discovered amid the long grass the point of an ancient sword. This he
dug from the earth in which it was buried and presented to Attila. The
artful chief claimed that it was a celestial gift, sent to him by the
god of war, and giving him a divine claim to the dominion of the earth.
Doubtless his sacred gift was consecrated with the Scythian rites,--a
lofty heap of fagots, three hundred yards in length and breadth, being
raised on a spacious plain, the sword of Mars placed erect on its
summit, and the rude altar consecrated by the blood of sheep, horses,
and probably of human captives. But Attila soon proved a better claim to
a divine commission by leading the hordes of the Huns to victory after
victory, until he threatened to subjugate, if not to depopulate, all
Europe. It was in pursuance of this conquering career that he was
brought, in the year 451, to the banks of the Rhine and the borders of
the future realm of France, then still known as Gaul, and held by the
feeble hand of the expiring empire of Rome.
The broad Rhine proved but a feeble obstacle to the innumerable cavalry
of the Huns. A bridge of boats was quickly built, and across the stream
they poured into the fair provinces of Gaul. Universal consternation
prevailed. Long peace had made the country rich, and had robbed its
people of their ancient valor. As the story goes, the degenerate Gauls
trusted for their defence to the prayers of the saints. St. Lupus saved
Troyes. The prayers of St. Genevieve turned the march of Attila aside
from Paris. Unluckily, most of the cities of the land held neither
saints nor soldiers, and the Huns made these their helpless prey. City
after city was taken and ruined. The fate of Metz will serve as an
example of the policy of the Huns. In this city, as we are told, priests
and infants alike were slain, and the flourishing city was so utterly
destroyed that only a chapel of St. Stephen was left to mark its site.
Its able-bodied inhabitants were probably reserved to be sold as slaves.
And now, in the prosecution of his ruinous march, Attila fixed his camp
before the walls of Orleans, a city which he designed to make the
central post of the dominion which he hoped to establish in Gaul. It was
to be his fortified centre of conquest. Upon it rested the fate of the
whole great province.
Orleans lay behind its walls trembling with dread, as the neigh of the
Hunnish horses sounded in its ears, as the standards of the Hunnish host
floated in the air. Yet it was not quite defenceless. Its walls had been
recently strengthened. Behind them lay a force of soldiers, or of armed
citizens, who repelled the first assaults of the foe. An army was known
to be marching to its relief. All was not lost.
Forty years earlier Rome had fallen before Alaric, the Goth. The empire
was now in the last stages of decreptitude. Yet by fortunate chance it
had an able soldier at the head of its armies, Ætius, the noblest son of
declining Rome. "The graceful figure of Ætius," says a contemporary
historian, "was not above the middle stature; but his manly limbs were
admirably formed for strength, beauty, and agility; and he excelled in
the martial exercises of managing a horse, drawing the bow, and darting
the javelin. He could patiently endure the want of food or of sleep; and
his mind and body were alike capable of the most laborious efforts. He
possessed the genuine courage that can despise not only dangers but
injuries; and it was impossible either to corrupt, or deceive, or
intimidate the firm integrity of his soul."
When the Huns invaded Gaul, this skilled and valiant commander flew to
its relief. To his Roman army he added an army of the Visigoths of
Southern Gaul, under their King Theoderic, and marched to the rescue of
the land. But the gathering of this army took precious time, during
which the foe wrought ruin upon the land. The siege of Orleans had begun
by the time Ætius was fairly ready to begin his march.
In that seemingly doomed city all was terror and dismay. A speedy
capture, a frightful massacre, or a no less frightful enslavement to the
savage Huns, was the dread of the trembling inhabitants. They had no
saint to rescue them by his prayers. All their hope lay in the arms of
their feeble garrison and the encouraging words of their bishop, in
whose heart alone courage seemed to keep alive.
Anianus was the name of this valiant and wise churchman, whose counsels
of hope alone sustained the despairing citizens, whose diligence and
earnestness animated the garrison in its defence. The siege was fierce,
the defence obstinate, the army of relief was known to be on its way, if
they could but hold out till it came. Anianus, counting the days and
hours with intense anxiety, kept a sentinel on the lookout for the first
signs of the advancing host of Romans and Goths. Yet hours and days went
by, and no sign of flashing steel or floating banner could be seen,
until the stout heart of the bishop himself was almost ready to give way
to the despair which possessed so many of the citizens.
The Huns advanced point by point. They were already in the suburbs. The
walls were shaking beneath the blows of their battering-rams. The city
could not much longer be held. At length came a day which threatened to
end with Orleans in the hands of the ruthless foe. And still the
prayed-for relief came not. Hope seemed at an end.
While such of the people as could not bear arms lay prostrate in prayer,
Anianus, hopeful to the last, sent his messenger to the ramparts to look
for the banners of the Roman army. Far and wide, from his lofty outlook,
the keen-eyed sentinel surveyed the surrounding country. In vain he
looked. No moving object was visible, only the line of the forest and
the far-off bordering horizon. He returned with this discouraging
tidings.
"Go again," said the bishop. "They should have been here before now. Any
minute may bring them. Go again."
The sentinel returned, and again swept the horizon with his eyes, noting
every visible object, seeing nothing to give him hope. With heavy tread
he returned to the bishop, and reported his failure.
"They must be near!" cried Anianus, with nervous impatience. "Go; look
once more. Let nothing escape your eyes."
Back went the messenger, again mounted the rampart, again swept the
plain with his eyes. Nothing,--ah! what was that, on the horizon, at the
very extremity of the landscape, that small, faint cloud, which he had
not seen before? He watched it; it seemed to grow larger and nearer. In
haste he returned to the bishop with the hopeful news.
"I have seen a distant mist, like a far-off cloud of dust," he said. "It
is moving. It comes nearer."
"It is the aid of God!" burst from the lips of the bishop, his heart
suddenly elate with joy. And from the expectant multitude, through whose
ranks ran like wildfire the inspiring tidings, burst the same glad cry,
"It is the aid of God!"
Crowds ran in all haste to the ramparts; hundreds of eyes were fixed on
the far-off, mist-like object; every moment it grew larger and more
distinct; flashes, as of steel, color, as of standards, were gradually
perceived; at last a favorable wind blew aside the dust, and to their
joyful eyes, under this gray canopy, appeared the waving folds of
banners, and under them, in serried array, the squadrons of the Roman
and Gothic troops, pressing forward in all haste to the relief of the
beleaguered city.
Well might the citizens cry, "It is the aid of God!" The army of Ætius
had come not a day, not an hour, too soon. The walls had given way
before the thundering blows of the battering-rams. A breach had been
made through which the Huns were swarming. Only for the desire of Attila
to save the city, it might have been already in flames. As it was, the
savage foes were breaking into the houses in search of plunder, and
dividing such citizens as they had seized into groups to be led into
captivity, when this cry of glad relief broke loudly upon the air.
The news that had aroused the citizens quickly reached the ears of
Attila. A strong army of enemies was at hand. There was no time to
occupy and attempt to defend the city. If his men were assailed by
citizens and soldiers in those narrow streets they might be slaughtered
without mercy. Prudence dictated a retreat.
Attila was as prudent as he was daring. The sound of trumpets recalled
his obedient hordes. Out they swarmed through the openings which had
permitted their entrance. Soon the army of the Huns was in full retreat,
while the advancing host of Romans and Goths marched proudly into the
open gates of the delivered city, with banners proudly floating and
trumpets loudly blaring, while every heart within those walls was in a
thrill of joy. Orleans had been saved, almost by magic as it seemed, for
never had been peril more extreme, need more pressing. An hour more of
delay, and Orleans, perhaps the whole province of Gaul, had been lost.
We may briefly conclude the story of this invasion of the Huns. Attila,
convinced of the strength and spirit of his enemy, retreated in haste,
foreseeing ruin if he should be defeated in the heart of Gaul. He
crossed the Seine, and halted not until he had reached the plains of
Châlons, whose level surface was well adapted to the evolutions of the
skilled horsemen who formed the strength of his hordes.
As he retreated, the Romans and Goths followed, pressing him sharply,
making havoc in his rear-guard, reaching Châlons so closely upon his
march that the Goths, under Torismond, the young and valiant son of
their king, were able to seize a commanding height in the midst of the
field, driving back the Huns who were ascending from the opposite side.
The battle that followed was one of the decisive battles of history. Had
the Huns won the victory, all western Europe might have become their
prey. The victory of Ætius was the first check received by this mighty
horde in their career of ruin and devastation. The conflict, as
described by the historians of the time, was "fierce, various,
obstinate, and bloody, such as could not be paralleled, either in the
present or in past ages." The number of the slain is variously estimated
at from three hundred thousand to about half that number. Exaggerated as
these estimates undoubtedly are, they will serve to indicate the
ferocity and bloody nature of the struggle. For a time it seemed as if
the Huns would win. Led by their king, they broke through the centre of
the allies, separated their wings, turned their whole strength against
the Goths, and slew Theodoric, their king, at the head of his men.
But the victory which seemed theirs was snatched from them by the
valiant Torismond, who descended from the height he had seized, assailed
the Huns with intrepid courage, and so changed the fortune of the field
that Attila was obliged to retreat,--vanquished for the first time in
his long career. The approach of night alone saved the Huns from a total
defeat. They retired within the circle of their wagons, and remained
there as in a fort, while the triumphant allies encamped upon the field.
That night was one of anxiety for Attila. He feared an attack, and knew
that the Huns, dismounted and fighting behind a barricade, were in
imminent danger of defeat. Their strength lay in their horses. On foot
they were but feeble warriors. Dreading utter ruin, Attila prepared a
funeral pile of the saddles and rich equipments of the cavalry,
resolved, if his camp should be forced, to rush into the flames, and
deprive his enemies of the glory of slaying or capturing the great
barbarian king.
The attack did not come. The army of Ætius was in no condition for an
assault. Nor did it seem safe to them to attempt to storm the camp of
their formidable antagonist, who lay behind his wagons, as the
historians of the time say, like a lion in his den, encompassed by the
hunters, and daring them to the attack. His trumpets sounded defiance.
Such troops as advanced to the assault were checked or destroyed by
showers of arrows. It was at length determined, in a council of war, to
besiege the Huns in their camp, and by dread of starvation to force them
into battle on unequal terms, or to a treaty disgraceful to their king.
For this Attila did not wait. Breaking camp he retreated, and by
crossing the Rhine acknowledged his defeat. The Roman empire had won its
last victory in the west, and saved Gaul for the Franks, whose day of
conquest was soon to come.
_THE WOOING OF CLOTILDE._
A beautiful, wise, and well-learned maiden was Clotilde, princess of
Burgundy, the noblest and most charming of the daughters of the Franks.
Such was the story that the voice of fame whispered into the ear of
Clovis, the first of the long line of Frankish kings. Beautiful she was,
but unfortunate. Grief had marked her for its own. Her father had been
murdered. Her two brothers had shared his fate. Her mother had been
thrown into the Rhone, with a stone around her neck, and drowned. Her
sister Chrona had taken religious vows. She remained alone, the last of
her family, not knowing at what moment she might share their fate,
dwelling almost in exile at Geneva, where her days were spent in works
of charity and piety.
It was to her uncle, Gondebaud, king of the Burgundians, that she owed
these misfortunes. Ambition was their cause. The fierce barbarian, in
whom desire for a throne outweighed all brotherly feeling, had murdered
his brother and seized the throne, leaving of the line of Chilperic only
these two helpless girls, one a nun, the other seemingly a devotee.
To the ears of Clovis, the king of the Franks, came, as we have said,
the story of the beauty and misfortunes of this Burgundian maiden, a
scion like himself of the royal line of Germany, but an heir to sorrow
and exposed to peril. Clovis was young, unmarried, and ardent of heart.
He craved the love of this famed maiden, if she should be as beautiful
as report said, but wisely wished to satisfy himself in this regard
before making a formal demand for her hand. He could not himself see
her. Royal etiquette forbade that. Nor did he care to rouse Gondebaud's
suspicions by sending an envoy. He therefore adopted more secret
measures, and sent a Roman, named Aurelian, bidding him to seek Geneva
in the guise of a beggar, and to use all his wit to gain sight of and
speech with the fair Clotilde.
Clothed in rags, and bearing his wallet on his back, like a wandering
mendicant, Aurelian set out on his mission, travelling on foot to
Geneva. Clovis had entrusted him with his ring, as proof of his mission,
in case he should deem the maiden worthy to be the bride of his king.
Geneva was duly reached, and the seeming pilgrim, learning where the
princess dwelt, and her habits of Christian charity towards strangers,
sought her dwelling and begged for alms and shelter. Clotilde received
him with all kindness, bade him welcome, and, in pursuance of the custom
of the times, washed his feet.
Aurelian, who had quickly made up his mind as to the beauty, grace, and
wit of the royal maiden, and her fitness to become a king's bride, bent
towards her as she was thus humbly employed, and in a low voice said,--
"Lady, I have great matters to announce to thee, if thou wilt deign to
grant me secret speech."
Clotilde looked up quickly, and saw deep meaning in his face. "Surely,"
she thought, "this is no common beggar."
"Say on," she remarked, in the same cautious tone.
"Clovis, king of the Franks, has sent me to thee," said Aurelian. "If it
be the will of God, he would fain raise thee to his high rank by
marriage, and that thou mayst be satisfied that I am a true messenger,
he sendeth thee this, his ring."
Clotilde joyfully took the ring, her heart beating high with hope and
desire for revenge. Dismissing her attendants, she warmly thanked the
messenger for his caution, and declared that nothing could give her
greater joy than to be bride to Clovis, the great and valorous king who
was bringing all the land of Gaul under his rule.
"Take in payment for thy pains these hundred sous in gold and this ring
of mine," she said. "Return promptly to thy lord. If he would have my
hand in marriage, let him send messengers without delay to demand me of
my uncle Gondebaud; and bid him direct his messengers, as soon as they
obtain permission, to take me away in haste. If they delay, I fear all
will fail. Aridius, my uncle's counsellor, is on his way back from
Constantinople. If he should arrive, and gain my uncle's ear, before I
am gone, all will come to naught. Haste, then, and advise Clovis that
there be no delay."
Aurelian was willing enough to comply with her request, but he met with
obstacles on the way. Starting back in the same disguise in which he
had come, he made all haste towards Orleans, where he dwelt, and where
he hoped to learn the location of the camp of the warlike Clovis. On
nearing this city, he took for travelling companion a poor mendicant,
whom fortune threw in his way, and with whom he journeyed for miles in
the intimacy of the highway. Growing weary as night approached, and
having confidence in his companion, Aurelian fell asleep by the wayside,
leaving the beggar to watch.
Several hours passed before he awoke. When he did so it was to find, to
his intense alarm, that his companion had vanished and his wallet had
gone, and with it the gold which it contained and Clotilde's precious
ring. In dismay Aurelian hurried to the city, reached his home, and sent
his servants in all directions in search of the thievish mendicant, whom
he felt sure had sought some lurking-place within the city walls.
His surmise was correct. The fellow was found and brought to him, the
wallet and its valuable contents being recovered intact. What was to be
done with the thief? Those were not days of courts and prisons. Men were
apt to interpret law and administer punishment for themselves. Culprits
were hung, thrashed, or set at liberty. Aurelian weighed the offence and
decided on the just measures of retribution. The culprit, so says the
chronicle, was soundly thrashed for three days, and then set free.
Having thus settled this knotty question of law, Aurelian continued his
journey until Clovis was reached, told him what he had seen and what
heard, and gave him Clotilde's ring and message. Clovis was alike
pleased with the favorable report of his messenger and with the
judicious advice of the maiden. He sent a deputation at once to
Gondebaud, bidding the envoys to make no delay either in going or
returning, and to demand of Gondebaud the hand of his niece in marriage.
They found Gondebaud, and found him willing. The request of the powerful
Clovis was not one to be safely refused, and the Burgundian king was
pleased with the idea of gaining his friendship, by giving him his niece
in marriage. His consent gained, the deputation offered him a denier and
a sou, according to the marriage customs of the Franks, and espoused
Clotilde in the name of Clovis. Word was at once sent to Clovis of their
success, and without delay the king's council was assembled at Châlons,
and preparations made for the marriage.
Meanwhile, news startling to Clotilde had reached Geneva. Aridius was on
his way back. He had arrived at Marseilles, and was travelling with all
speed towards Burgundy. The alarmed woman, in a fever of impatience,
hastened the departure of the Franks, seemingly burning with desire to
reach the court of the king, really cold with fear at the near approach
of the shrewd Aridius, whose counsel she greatly dreaded. Her nervous
haste expedited matters. Gondebaud formally transferred her to the
Franks, with valuable gifts which he sent as a marriage portion, and
the cortege set out, Clotilde in a covered carriage, her attendants and
escort on horseback. And thus slowly moved away this old-time
marriage-train.
But not far had they left the city behind them when Clotilde's
impatience with their slow movement displayed itself. She had kept
herself advised. Aridius was near at hand. He might reach Geneva that
very day. Calling to her carriage the leaders of her escort, she said,--
"Good sirs, if you hope to take me into the presence of your lord, you
must find me better means of speed than this slow carriage. Let me
descend, mount on horseback, and then away as fast as we may. Much I
fear that, in this carriage, I shall never see Clovis, your king."
Learning the reason of her haste, they did as requested, and mounted on
one of their swiftest steeds, Clotilde swept onward to love and
vengeance, leaving the lumbering carriage to follow with her female
attendants at its slow will.
She was none too soon. Not long had she left her uncle's court before
Aridius reached it. Gondebaud, who had unbounded respect for and
confidence in him, received him joyfully, and said, after their first
greetings,--
"I have just completed a good stroke of policy. I have made friends with
the Franks, and given my niece Clotilde to Clovis in marriage."
"You have?" exclaimed Aridius, in surprise and alarm. "And you deem this
a bond of friendship? To my poor wit, Gondebaud, it is a pledge of
perpetual strife. Have you forgotten, my lord, that you killed
Clotilde's father and drowned her mother, and that you cut off the heads
of her brothers and threw their bodies into a well? What think you this
woman is made of? If she become powerful, will not revenge be her first
and only thought? She is not far gone; if you are wise you will send at
once a troop in swift pursuit, and bring her back. She is but one, the
Franks are many. You will find it easier to bear the wrath of one person
than for you and yours to be perpetually at war with all the Franks."
Gondebaud saw the wisdom of these words, and lost no time in taking his
councillor's advice. A troop was sent, with orders to ride at all speed,
and bring back Clotilde with the carriage and the treasure.
The carriage and the treasure they did bring back; but not Clotilde.
She, with her escort, was already far away, riding in haste for the
frontier of Burgundy. Clovis had advanced to meet her, and was awaiting
at Villers, in the territory of Troyes, at no great distance from the
border of Burgundy. But before reaching this frontier, Clotilde gave
vent to revengeful passion, crying to her escort,--
"Ride right and left! Plunder and burn! Do what damage you may to this
hated country from which Heaven has delivered me!"
Then, as they rode away on their mission of ruin, to which they had
obtained permission from Clovis, she cried aloud,--
"I thank thee, God omnipotent, for that I see in this the beginning of
the vengeance which I owe to my slaughtered parents and brethren!"
In no long time afterwards she joined Clovis, who received her with a
lover's joy, and in due season the marriage was celebrated, with all the
pomp and ceremony of which those rude times were capable.
Thus ends the romantic story told us by the chronicler Frédégaire,
somewhat too romantic to be accepted for veracious history, we fear. Yet
it is interesting as a picture of the times, and has doubtless in it an
element of fact--though it may have been colored by imagination.
Aurelian and Aridius are historical personages, and what we know of them
is in keeping with what is here told of them. So the reader may, if he
will, accept the story as an interesting compound of reality and
romance.
But there is more to tell. Clotilde had an important historical part to
play, which is picturesquely described by the chronicler, Gregory of
Tours. She was a Christian, Clovis a pagan; it was natural that she
should desire to convert her husband, and through him turn the nation of
the Franks into worshippers of Christ. She had a son, whom she wished to
have baptized. She begged her husband to yield to her wishes.
"The gods you worship," she said, "are of wood, stone, or metal. They
are nought, and can do nought for you or themselves."
"It is by command of our gods that all things are created," answered
Clovis. "It is plain that your God has no power. There is no proof that
he is even of the race of gods."
Yet he yielded to her wishes and let the child be baptized. Soon
afterwards the infant died, and Clovis reproached her bitterly.
"Had he been dedicated to my gods he would still be alive," he said. "He
was baptized in the name of your God, and you see the end; he could not
live."
A second son was born, and was also baptized. He, too, fell sick.
"It will be with him as with his brother," said Clovis. "You have had
your will in baptizing him, and he is going to die. Is this the power of
your Christ?"
But the child lived, and Clovis grew less incredulous of the God of his
wife. In the year 496 war broke out between him and a German tribe. The
Germans were successful, the Franks wavering, Clovis was anxious. Before
hurrying to the front he had promised his wife--so says Frédégaire--to
become a Christian if the victory were his. Others say that he made this
promise at the suggestion of Aurelian, at a moment when the battle
seemed lost. However that be, the tide of battle turned, the victory
remained with the Franks, the Germans were defeated and their king
slain.
Clotilde, fearing that he would forget his promise, sent secretly to St.
Remy, bishop of Rheims, to come and use his influence with the king. He
did so, and fervently besought Clovis to accept the Christian faith.
"I would willingly listen to you, holy father," said Clovis, "but I fear
that the people who follow me will not give up their gods. I am about to
assemble them, and will repeat to them your words."
He found them more ready than he deemed. The story of his promise and
the victory that followed it had, doubtless, strongly influenced them.
Before he could speak, most of those present cried out,--
"We abjure the mortal gods; we are ready to follow the immortal God whom
Remy preaches."
About three thousand of the Franks, however, refused to give up their
old faith, and deserted Clovis, joining the Frankish King of
Cambrai--who was before long to pay dearly for this addition to his
ranks.
Christmas-day, 496, was fixed by Remy for the ceremony of baptism of the
king and his followers, and on that day, with impressive ceremonies,
Clovis the king and about three thousand of his warriors were made
Christians, and the maker of the French nation was received into the
fold of the Church. From that time forward Clovis won victory after
victory over his surrounding enemies. He had been born leader of a
tribe. He died king of a nation.
As regards Gundebaud, the result proved as Aridius predicted, whether or
not through the personal influence of Clotilde upon her husband. Clovis
broke his truce with Gondebaud, and entered Burgundy with an army.
Gondebaud was met and defeated at Dijon, partly through the treachery of
his brother, whom Clovis had won over. He fled to Avignon and shut
himself up in that stronghold. Clovis pursued and besieged him.
Gondebaud, filled with alarm, asked counsel of Aridius, who told him
that he had brought this upon himself.
"I will save you, though," he said. "I will feign to fly and go over to
Clovis. Trust me to act so that he shall ruin neither you nor your land.
But you must do what I ask."
"I will do whatever you bid," said Gondebaud.
Aridius thereupon sought Clovis, in the guise of a deserter from
Gondebaud. But such was his intelligence, the charm of his conversation,
the wisdom and good judgment of his counsel, that Clovis was greatly
taken with him, and yielded to his advice.
"You gain nothing by ravaging the fields, cutting down the vines, and
destroying the harvests of your adversary," he said, "while he defies
you in his stronghold. Rather send him deputies, and lay on him a
tribute to be paid you every year. Thus the land will be preserved, and
you be lord forever over him who owes you tribute. If he refuse, then do
what pleases you."
Clovis deemed the advice good, did as requested, and found Gondebaud
more than willing to become his tributary vassal. And thus ended the
contest between them, Burgundy becoming a tributary province of France.
_THE RIVAL QUEENS._
From the days of Clovis to the days of Charles Martel and Charlemagne
the history of the Frankish realm, so far as its kingship is concerned,
is almost a blank. It was an era of several centuries of incompetent and
sluggish monarchs, of whom we can say little more than that they were
born and died; they can scarcely be said to have reigned. But from the
midst of this dull interregnum of Merovingian sluggards comes to us the
story of two queens, women of force and power, whose biography is full
of the elements of romance. As a picture of the manners and customs of
the Merovingian epoch we cannot do better than to tell the stories of
these queens, Fredegonde and Brunehild by name, whose rivalry and
enmity, with their consequences, throw a striking light on the history
of those obscure times.
What is now France was at that time divided into three kingdoms,
Austrasia, Neustria, and Burgundy, King Chilperic reigning over
Austrasia; King Sigebert over Neustria. But the power behind the throne
lay in the wives of these kings, with whom alone we have to do.
Contrasted characters they were,--Fredegonde wicked, faithless,
self-seeking; Brunehild patriotic and devoted to the good of her
country; yet in the end wickedness triumphed, and honesty died a
violent and frightful death. With this preliminary we may proceed with
our tale.
Fredegonde was the daughter of poor peasants, who dwelt in the vicinity
of Montdidier in Picardy. But so striking and notable was her beauty
that at an early age she was made, under circumstances of which we are
not informed, one of the ladies in waiting on Queen Andovere, the first
wife of King Chilperic. The poor queen was destined to suffer from the
artfulness of her maid. The beauty of Fredegonde quickly attracted the
attention of the king, and her skilful and unscrupulous arts soon made
her a power in the court. The queen was in her way; but no long time
passed before, on the pretext of a spiritual relationship with her
husband which rendered the marriage illegal, the hapless Andovere was
repudiated and banished to a convent.
But Chilperic was not yet ready to marry a peasant. He chose for his
second wife Galsuinthe, daughter of the king of the Visigoths. This
marriage lasted a still shorter time than the other. Galsuinthe was
found strangled in her bed; and now, no longer able to restrain his
passion for the beautiful and artful maid of honor, Chilperic married
Fredegonde, and raised the peasant maiden to the throne for which she
had so deeply and darkly wrought.
The marriage of Galsuinthe had been preceded by that of her younger
sister, Brunehild, who became the wife of Sigebert, brother of Chilperic
and king of Austrasia. The murder of Galsuinthe was ascribed by
Brunehild to Fredegonde, with excellent reason if we may judge from her
subsequent career, and from that day on an undying hatred existed
between the two queens. To this the stirring incidents of their after
lives were due. War broke out between the two kings, probably inspired
by Brunehild's thirst for revenge for her sister's death on the one
hand, and the ambition and hatred of Fredegonde on the other. Sigebert
was successful in the field, but treachery soon robbed him of the fruits
of victory. He was murdered in his tent (in the year 575) by two
assassins in the pay of Queen Fredegonde.
This murder gave Chilperic the ascendancy. Sigebert's army disbanded,
and Brunehild, as the only means of preserving her life, sought an
asylum in the cathedral of Paris. And now the scene becomes one of rapid
changes, in which the unscrupulous Fredegonde plays the leading part.
Chilperic, not daring to offend the church by slaying the fugitive queen
under its protection, sent her to Rouen. Here the widowed lady, her
beauty rendered more attractive by her misfortunes, was seen and loved
by Merovée, the son of Chilperic by his first wife, then in that town on
a mission from his father. Fired with passion for the hapless queen, he
married her privately, the Bishop of Rouen sealing their union.
This imprudent action soon became known at the court of Chilperic, and
the ambitious Fredegonde hastened to turn it to her advantage. Merovée
was heir to the throne of Chilperic. He was in her way, and had now
given her a pretext for his removal. Chilperic, who seems to have been
the weak slave of her designs, would have seized both Merovée and his
bride but for the Austrasians, who demanded that their queen Brunehild
should be restored to them, and enforced their demands with threats. She
was surrendered; but Merovée, under the influence of his step-mother,
was imprisoned, then shorn and shut up in a monastery, and afterwards
became a fugitive, and was urged to head a rebellion against his father.
Such was the terror, however, which the unhappy youth entertained for
his cruel step-mother, that he put an end to his existence by suicide,
inducing a faithful servant to strike him dead.
Fredegonde's success in getting rid of one of the heirs to the throne,
only partly satisfied her ambitious views. There was another son,
Clovis, brother of Merovée. To rid herself of him the wily queen took
another course. Three of her own children had recently died, and she
ascribed their death to Clovis, whom she accused of sorcery. He was
seized under this charge, thrown into prison, and there ended his
career, a poniard-thrust closing his brief tale of life. The tale of
murders in this direction was completed by that of the repudiated Queen
Andovere, who was soon found strangled in the convent to which she had
been consigned.
Fredegonde had thus rid herself of all claimants to the throne outside
of herself and her descendants, Galsuinthe having left no children.
Though death had recently robbed her of three children, one survived, a
son named Clotaire, then a few months old. Her next act of treachery was
to make away with her weak and confiding husband, perhaps that she might
reign alone, perhaps through fear that Chilperic might discover her
guilty relations with Landry, an officer of the court, and subsequently
mayor of the palace. Whatever the reason, soon after these events, King
Chilperic, while in the act of dismounting on his return from the chase,
was struck two mortal blows by a man who took to rapid flight, while all
around the cry was raised, "Treason! it is the hand of the Austrasian
Childebert against our lord the king!"
The readiness with which this cry was raised seemed evidence of its
falsity. Men ascribed it and the murder to emissaries of Fredegonde.
But, heedless of their opinions, she installed herself as sovereign
guardian of her infant son, and virtual reigning queen of Neustria. It
was now the year 584. Fredegonde had by her beauty, ambition, boldness,
and unscrupulousness raised herself from the lowly rank of a peasant's
daughter to the high position of sovereign over a great dominion, a
queenship which she was to hold during the remainder of her life, her
strong will, effrontery, artifice, skill in deception, and readiness to
strengthen her position by crime, enabling her to overcome all
resistance and maintain her ascendancy over the restless and barbarous
elements of the kingdom she ruled. She was a true product of the times,
one born to become dominant over a barbarous people.
Gregory of Tours tells a story of Chilperic and Fredegonde, which will
bear repetition here. In addition to the sons of Chilperic, of whom the
queen disposed as we have seen, he had a daughter, Rigouthe by name,
whom he promised in marriage to Prince Recared, son of the king of the
Visigoths of Spain.
"A grand deputation of Goths came to Paris to fetch the Frankish
princess. King Chilperic ordered several families in the fiscal domains
to be seized and placed in cars. As a great number of them wept and were
not willing to go, he had them kept in prison that he might more easily
force them to go away with his daughter. It is said that several, in
their despair, hung themselves, fearing to be taken from their parents.
Sons were separated from fathers, daughters from mothers, and all
departed with deep groans and maledictions, and in Paris there reigned a
desolation like that of Egypt. Not a few, of superior birth, being
forced to go away, even made wills whereby they left their possessions
to the churches, and demanded that, so soon as the young girl should
have entered Spain, their wills should be opened just as if they were
already in their graves.
"When King Chilperic gave up his daughter to the ambassadors of the
Goths, he presented them with vast treasures. Queen Fredegonde added
thereto so great a quantity of gold and silver and valuable vestments
that, at the sight thereof, the king thought he must have nought
remaining. The queen, perceiving his emotion, turned to the Franks, and
said to them,--
"'Think not, warriors, that there is here aught of the treasures of
former kings. All that ye see is taken from my own possessions, for my
most glorious king has made me many gifts. Thereto have I added of the
fruits of my own toil, and a great part proceeds from the revenues I
have drawn, either in kind or in money, from the houses that have been
ceded unto me. Ye yourselves have given me riches, and ye see here a
portion thereof; but there is here nought of the public treasure.'
"And the king was deceived into believing her words. Such was the
multitude of golden and silver articles and other precious things that
it took fifty wagons to hold them. The Franks, on their part, made many
offerings; some gave gold, others silver, sundry gave horses, but most
of them vestments.
"At last the young girl, with many tears and kisses, said farewell. As
she was passing through the gate an axle of her carriage broke, and all
cried out 'Alack!' which was interpreted by some as a presage. She
departed from Paris, and at eight miles' distance from the city she had
her tents pitched. During the night fifty men arose and, having taken a
hundred of the best horses, and as many golden bits and bridles, and two
large silver dishes, fled away, and took refuge with King Childebert.
During the whole journey whoever could escape fled away with all that
he could lay hands on. It was required also of all the towns that were
traversed on the way that they should make great preparations to defray
expenses, for the king forbade any contribution from the treasury. All
the charges were met by extraordinary taxes levied upon the poor."
In this story there is probably much exaggeration, but it has its
significance as a picture of life in the dark ages, from one to the
manner born. So far as Fredegonde was concerned, the marriage of
Rigouthe removed from her path one possible future rival for the throne.
Twice in the foregoing pages Childebert of Austrasia has been mentioned.
Who was this Childebert, it may be asked? He was the son of Brunehild,
whom the Austrasians had preserved after the murder of their king, and
as a guardian for whom they had insisted on the return, by Chilperic, of
the captive queen. Brunehild from that time reigned in Austrasia during
the minority of her son, and in a manner in striking contrast with the
reign of her wicked rival.
Unlike the latter, she was a princess by birth, and of that race of
Gothic kings who had preserved some traces of the Roman civilization.
Fredegonde was a barbarian, Brunehild a scion of a semi-civilization and
far superior to her rival in culture and intellectual power. As a queen
she did so much for her country that her name as a public benefactor was
long afterwards remembered in the land. The highways, the bridges, all
the public works of the state received her careful attention, so much so
that the Roman roads in Austrasia received, and long retained, the name
of "Brunehild's Causeways." Her name was associated with many other
things in the land. In a forest near Bourges men long pointed out
"Brunehild's castle," at Etampes was shown "Brunehild's tower," and near
Cahors "Brunehild's fort." A more interesting evidence of her activity
for the good of her people for ages existed in the by-word of
"Brunehild's alms," which long retained the evidence of her abundant
charities. She protected men of letters,--a rare production in that
day,--and in return we find one of them, Fortunatus, bishop of Poitiers,
dedicating poems to her.
But the life of Queen Brunehild was far from being a quiet one. In
addition to her conflicts with her mortal foe, Queen Fredegonde, she had
her own nobles to fight against. They seem to have detested her from the
fact that her palace was filled with royal officers and favorites, whose
presence excited the jealousy of the great landholders and warriors. But
Brunehild protected them, with unyielding courage, against their foes,
and proved herself every inch a queen. It was a semblance of the Roman
imperial monarchy which she wished to establish in Austrasia, and to her
efforts in this direction were due her struggles with the turbulent
lords of the land, whose opposition gave her more and more trouble as
time went on.
A story of this conflict is told by Gregory of Tours. One of the palace
officers of the queen, Lupus, a Roman by birth, but made by her duke of
Champagne, "was being constantly insulted and plundered by his enemies,
especially by Ursion Bertfried. At last, having agreed to slay him, they
marched against him with an army. At the sight, Brunehild,
compassionating the evil case of one of her lieges unjustly presented,
assumed a manly courage, and threw herself among the hostile battalions,
crying, 'Stay, warriors; refrain from this wicked deed; persecute not
the innocent; engage not, for a single man's sake, in a battle which
will desolate the country!' 'Back, woman!' said Ursion to her; 'let it
suffice thee to have ruled under thy husband's sway. Now it is thy son
that reigns, and his kingdom is under our protection, not thine. Back!
if thou wouldst not that the hoofs of our horses trample thee under as
the dust of the ground!' After the dispute had lasted some time in this
strain, the queen, by her address, at last prevented the battle from
taking place."
The words of Ursion were prophetic. To be trampled under horses' hoofs
into the dust was the final fate of the queen, though for many years yet
she was to retain her power and to keep up her strife with the foes who
surrounded her. Far nobler of soul than Fredegonde, she was as strong in
all those qualities which go to make a vigorous queen.
But we must hasten on to the end of these royal rivals. Fredegonde died
quietly in Paris, in 597, powerful to her death, and leaving on the
throne her son Clotaire II., whom she had infected with all her hatred
against the queen of Austrasia. Brunehild lived till 614, thirty-nine
years after the death of her husband Sigebert, and through the reigns of
her son and two of her grandsons, who were but puppets in her hands. Her
later years were marked by lack of womanly virtue, and by an
unscrupulousness in ridding herself of her enemies significant of
barbarous times. At length, when she had reached the advanced age of
eighty years, she was deserted by her army and her people whom the
crimes imputed to her had incensed, and fell into the hands of her
mortal foe, Clotaire II., in whom all the venom of his cruel mother
seemed retained.
After having subjected the aged queen to base and gross insults and
severe tortures, the crowned wretch had her paraded on a camel in front
of his whole army, and then tied by one arm, one foot, and hair of her
head to the tail of an unbroken horse, which dashed and kicked her to
pieces as he rushed away in affright, before the eyes of the ferocious
Clotaire and his army.
By the death of Brunehild and her sons, whom Clotaire also put to death,
this king became master of Austrasia, and thus lord of all the Frankish
realm, the successor in power of the two queens whose story stands out
so prominently in that dark and barbarous age.
_ROLAND AT RONCESVALLES._
From the long, straight ridge of the Pyrenees, stretching from the Bay
of Biscay to the Mediterranean, and dividing the land of France from
that of Spain, there extend numerous side-hills, like buttresses to the
main mountain mass, running far into the plains on either side. Between
these rugged buttresses lie narrow valleys, now spreading into broad
amphitheatres, now contracting into straightened ravines, winding upward
to the passes across the mountain chain. Dense forests often border
these valleys, covering the mountain-sides and summits, and hiding with
their deep-green foliage the rugged rocks from which they spring. Such
is the scene of the celebrated story which we have next to tell.
All these mountain valleys are filled with legends, centring around a
great event and a mighty hero of the remote past, whose hand and sword
made famous the little vale of Roncesvalles, which lies between the
defiles of Sizer and Val Carlos, in the land of the Basques. This hero
was Roland, the nephew of the great emperor Charlemagne, who has been
given by romantic fiction the first place among the legendary Paladins
of France, and made memorable in epic poetry as the hero of the
celebrated "Orlando Furioso" of Ariosto, and the less notable "Orlando
Innamorato" of Boiardo.
All these stories are based upon a very slender fabric of history, which
would have been long since forgotten had not legend clung to it with so
loving a hand, and credited its hero with such a multitude of marvellous
deeds. The history of the event is preserved for us by Eginhard, the
secretary and annalist of Charlemagne. He takes few words to tell what
has given rise to innumerable strophes.
In the year 778, Charlemagne invaded Spain, then almost wholly in the
hands of the Saracens. His march was a victorious one until Saragossa
was reached. Here he found himself before a well-supplied,
strongly-fortified, and fully-garrisoned city, while his own army was
none too well provided with food. In the end he found it expedient to
retreat, leaving Saragossa still in Saracen hands.
The retreat was conducted without loss until the Pyrenees were reached.
These were crossed by the main body of the army without hostile
disturbance, leaving to follow the baggage-train and a rear-guard under
the king's nephew Roland, prefect of the Marches of Brittany, with whom
were Eginhard, master of the household, and Anselm, count of the palace;
while legend adds the names of Oliver, Roland's bosom friend, the
warlike Archbishop Turpin, and other warriors of renown.
Their route lay through the pass of Roncesvalles so narrow at points
that only two, or at most three men could move abreast, while the rugged
bordering hills were covered with dense forest, affording a secure
retreat for an ambushing foe. It was when the main body of the army was
miles in advance, and the rear-guard struggling up this narrow defile,
that disaster came. Suddenly the surrounding woods and mountains
bristled with life. A host of light-armed Basque mountaineers emerged
from the forest, and poured darts and arrows upon the crowded columns of
heavily-armed Franks below. Rocks were rolled down the steep
declivities, crushing living men beneath their weight. The surprised
troops withdrew in haste to the bottom of the valley, death pursuing
them at every step. The battle that followed was doubtless a severe and
hotly-contested one; the prominent place it has gained in tradition
indicates that the Franks must have defended themselves valiantly; but
they fought at a terrible disadvantage, and in the end they were killed
to a man. Then the assailants, rich with the plunder which they had
obtained from the baggage-wagons and the slain bodies, vanished into the
forests whence they came, leaving to Charlemagne, when he returned in
search of Roland and his men, only the silence of death and the livid
heaps of the slain in that terrible valley of slaughter.
Such is the sober fact. Fancy has adorned it with a thousand loving
fictions. In the valleys are told a multitude of tales connected with
Roland's name. A part of his armor has given its name to a flower of the
hills, the _casque de Roland_, a species of hellebore. The _breiche de
Roland_, a deep fissure in the mountain crest, is ascribed to a stroke
of his mighty blade. The sound of his magic horn still seems to echo
around those rugged crests and pulse through those winding valleys, as
it did on the day when, as legend says, it was borne to the ears of
Charlemagne miles away, and warned him of the deadly peril of his
favorite chieftain.
This horn is reputed to have had magical powers. Its sound was so
intense as to split all other horns. The story goes that Roland, himself
sadly wounded, his fellows falling thickly around him, blew upon it so
mighty a blast that the veins and nerves of his neck burst under the
effort. The sound reached the ears of Charlemagne, then encamped eight
miles away, in the Val Carlos pass.
"It is Roland's horn," he cried. "He never blows it except the extremity
be great. We must hasten to his aid."
"I have known him to sound it on light occasions," answered Ganalon,
Roland's secret foe. "He is, perhaps, pursuing some wild beast, and the
sound echoes through the wood. It would be fruitless to lead back your
weary host to seek him."
Charlemagne yielded to his specious argument, and Roland and all his
followers died. Charles afterwards discovered the body with the arms
extended in the form of a cross, and wept over it his bitterest tears.
"There did Charlemagne," says the legend, "mourn for Orlando to the very
last day of his life. On the spot where he died he encamped and caused
the body to be embalmed with balsam, myrrh, and aloes. The whole camp
watched it that night, honoring his corpse with hymns and songs, and
innumerable torches and fires kindled in the adjacent mountains."
At the battle of Hastings the minstrel Taillefer, as we have elsewhere
told, rode before the advancing Norman host, singing the "Song of
Roland," till a British hand stilled his song and laid him low in death.
This ancient song is attributed, though doubtfully, to Turold, that
abbot of Peterborough who was so detested by Hereward the Wake. From it
came many of the stories which afterwards were embodied in the epic
legends of mediæval days. To quote a few passages from it may not be
amiss. The poet tells us that Roland refused to blow his magic horn in
the beginning of the battle. In the end, when ruin and death were
gathering fast around, and blood was flowing freely from his own veins,
he set his lips to the mighty instrument, and filled vales and mountains
with its sound.
"With pain and dolor, groan and pant,
Count Roland sounds his Olifant:
The crimson stream shoots from his lips;
The blood from bursten temple drips;
But far, oh, far, the echoes ring,
And in the defiles reach the king,
Reach Naymes and the French array;
''Tis Roland's horn,' the king doth say;
'He only sounds when brought to bay,'
How huge the rocks! how dark and steep
The streams are swift; the valleys deep!
Out blare the trumpets, one and all,
As Charles responds to Roland's call.
Round wheels the king, with choler mad
The Frenchmen follow, grim and sad;
No one but prays for Roland's life,
Till they have joined him in the strife.
But, ah! what prayer can alter fate?
The time is past; too late! too late!"
The fight goes on. More of the warriors fall. Oliver dies. Roland and
Turpin continue the fight. Once more a blast is sent from the magic
horn.
"Then Roland takes his horn once more;
His blast is feebler than before,
But still it reaches the emperor;
He hears it, and he halts to shout,
'Let clarions, one and all, ring out!'
Then sixty thousand clarions ring,
And rocks and dales set echoing.
And they, too, hear,--the pagan pack;
They force the rising laughter back:
'Charles, Charles,' they cry, 'is on our track!'
They fly; and Roland stands alone,--
Alone, afoot; his steed is gone."
Turpin dies. Roland remains the sole survivor of the host, and he hurt
unto death. He falls on the field in a swoon. A wounded Saracen rises,
and, seeing him, says,--
"Vanquished, he is vanquished, the nephew of Charles! There is his
sword, which I will carry off to Arabia." He knew not the power of the
dying hero.
"And as he makes to draw the steel,
A something does Sir Roland feel;
He opes his eyes, says nought but this,
'Thou art not one of us, I wis,'
Raises the horn he could not quit,
And cracks the pagan's skull with it....
And then the touch of death that steals
Down, down from head to heart he feels;
Under yon pine he hastes away
On the green turf his head to lay;
Placing beneath him horn and sword,
He turns towards the Paynim horde,
And there, beneath the pine, he sees
A vision of old memories;
A thought of realms he helped to win,
Of his sweet France, of kith and kin,
And Charles, his lord, who nurtured him."
And here let us take our leave of Roland the brave, whose brief story of
fact has been rounded into so vast a story of fiction that the actual
histories of few men equal in extent that of this hero of romance.
_CHARLEMAGNE AND THE AVARS._
Striking is the story which the early centuries of modern Europe have to
tell us. After the era of the busy building of empire in which the
sturdy old Romans were the active agents, there came an era of the
overthrow of empire, during which the vast results of centuries of
active civilization seemed about to sink and be lost in the seething
whirlpool of barbarism. The wild hordes of the north of Europe
overflowed the rich cities and smiling plains of the south, and left
ruin where they found wealth and splendor. Later, the half-savage
nomades of eastern Europe and northern Asia--the devastating
Huns--poured out upon the budding kingdoms which had succeeded the
mighty empire of Rome, and threatened to trample under foot all that was
left of the work of long preceding ages. Civilization had swung downward
into barbarism; was barbarism to swing downward into savagery, and man
return to his primitive state?
Against such a conceivable fate of Europe Charlemagne served as a mighty
bulwark, and built by his genius an impermeable wall against the torrent
of savage invasion, saying to its inflowing waves, "Thus far shalt thou
come, and no farther." Attila, the "Scourge of God," in the track of
whose horses' hoofs "no grass could grow," met his only great defeat at
Châlons-sur-Marne, on the soil of Gaul. He died in Hungary; his hordes
were scattered; Europe again began to breathe. But not long had the Huns
of Attila ceased their devastations when another tribe of Hunnish origin
appeared, and began a like career of ravage and ruin. These called
themselves Avars. Small in numbers at first, they grew by vanquishing
and amalgamating other tribes of Huns until they became the terror and
threatened to become the masters of Europe. Hungary, the centre of
Attila's great circle of power, was made their place of abode. Here was
the palace and stronghold of their monarchs, the Chagans, and here they
continued a threat to all the surrounding nations, while enjoying the
vast spoils which they had wrung from ruined peoples.
Time passed on; civilization showed feeble signs of recovery; France and
Italy became its abiding-places; but barbarian invasion still threatened
these lands, and no security could be felt while the hordes of the north
and east remained free to move at will. This was the task that
Charlemagne was born to perform. Before his day the Huns of the east,
the Saxons of the north, the Moors of the south kept the growing
civilization of France in constant alarm. After his day aggression by
land was at an end; only by sea could the north invade the south.
The record of the deeds of Charlemagne is a long one. The Saxons were
conquered and incorporated into the kingdom of the Franks. Then
collision with the Avars took place. The story of how Charlemagne dealt
with these savage hordes is one of the most interesting episodes in the
extended tale of his wars, and we therefore select it for our present
theme. The Avars had long been quiet, but now again began to stir,
making two invasions, one of Lombardy, the other of Bavaria. Both were
repelled. Stung by defeat, they raised a greater army than before, and
in 788 crossed the Danube, determined in their savage souls to teach
these proud Franks a lesson, and write on their land in blood the old
story of the prowess and invincibility of the Huns. To their alarm and
astonishment they found themselves not only checked, but utterly routed,
thousands of them being left dead upon the field, and other thousands
swallowed up by the Danube, in their wild effort to swim that swollen
stream.
This brings us to the record of the dealings of Charlemagne with the
Huns, who had thus dared to invade his far-extending kingdom. Vast had
been the work of this mighty monarch in subduing the unquiet realms
around him. Italy had been made a part of his dominions, Spain invaded
and quieted, and the Saxons, the fiercest people of the north, forced to
submit to the power of the Franks. Now the Avars of Hungary, the most
dangerous of the remaining neighbors of Charlemagne's great empire, were
to be dealt with.
During the two years succeeding their defeat, overtures for peace
passed between the Avars and Charlemagne, overtures which, perhaps, had
their chief purpose in the desire to gain time to prepare for war.
These nomadic hordes were celebrated alike for their cunning and their
arrogance,--cunning when they had an object to gain, arrogance when they
had gained it. In their dealings with Charlemagne they displayed the
same mixture of artfulness and insolence which they had employed in
their dealings with the empire of the East. But they had now to do with
a different man from the weak emperors of Constantinople. Charlemagne
continued his negotiations, but prepared for hostilities, and in the
spring of 791 put himself at the head of a powerful army, prepared to
repay the barbarian hordes with some of the havoc which they had dealt
out to the other nations of Europe.
It was no light task he had undertaken, and the great general made ready
for it with the utmost care and deliberation. He was about to invade a
country of great resources, of remarkable natural and artificial
defences, and inhabited by a people celebrated for their fierceness and
impetuosity, and who had hitherto known little besides victory. And he
was to leave behind him in his march a kingdom full of unquiet elements,
which needed the presence of his strong arm and quick mind to keep it in
subjection. He knew not but that the Saxons might rise upon his march
and spread ruin upon his path. There was one way to avoid this, and that
he took. Years before, he had incorporated the Lombards with his army,
and found them to fight as valiantly for him as against him. He now did
the same with the Saxons, drafting a large body of them into his ranks,
with the double purpose of weakening the fighting power of the nation,
and employing their fierce courage in his own service. All winter the
world of the Franks was in commotion, preparing for war. The chroniclers
of the times speak of "innumerable multitudes" which the great conqueror
set in motion in the early spring.
The army marched in three grand divisions. One entered Bavaria, joined
to itself recruits raised in that country, and descended the Danube in
boats, which carried also an abundance of provisions and military
stores. A second division, under Charlemagne himself, marched along the
southern side of the river; and a third, under his generals Theoderic
and Meginfried, along its northern banks. The emperor had besides sent
orders to his son Pepin, king of Italy, bidding him to lead an army of
Lombards and other Italians to the frontier of Hungary, and co-operate
with the other troops.
Before telling the story of the expedition, it behooves us to give some
account of the country which the king of the Franks was about to invade,
and particularly to describe the extraordinary defences and interior
conditions with which it is credited by the gossipy old Monk of St.
Gall, the most entertaining, though hardly the most credible, writer of
that period. All authors admit that the country of the Avars was
defended by an ingenious and singular system of fortifications. The
account we propose to give, the Monk of St. Gall declares that he wrote
down from the words of an eye-witness, Adelbart by name, who took part
in the expedition. But one cannot help thinking that either this
eye-witness mingled a strong infusion of imagination with his vision, or
that the monk added fiction to his facts, with the laudable purpose of
making an attractive story. Such as it is, we give it, without further
comment.
Nine concentric circles of palisaded walls, says the garrulous old monk,
surrounded the country of the Avars, the outer one enclosing the entire
realm of Hungary, the inner ones growing successively smaller, the
innermost being the central fortification within which dwelt the Chagan,
with his palace and his treasures. These walls were made of double rows
of palisades of oak, beech, and pine logs, twenty feet high and twenty
feet asunder, the interval between them being filled with stone and
lime. Thus was formed a great wall, which at a distance must have
presented a singular appearance, since the top was covered with soil and
planted with bushes and trees.
The outermost wall surrounded the whole country. Within it, at a
distance of twenty Teutonic, or forty Italian, miles, was a second, of
smaller diameter, but constructed in the same manner. At an equal
distance inward was a third, and thus they continued inward, fortress
after fortress, to the number of nine, the outer one rivalling the
Chinese wall in extent, the inner one--the _ring_, as it was
called--being of small diameter, and enclosing a central space within
which the Avars guarded the accumulated wealth of centuries of conquest
and plunder.
The only places of exit from these great palisaded fortifications were
very narrow gates, or sally-ports, opening at proper intervals, and well
guarded by armed sentinels. The space between the successive ramparts
was a well-wooded and thickly-settled country, filled with villages and
homesteads, so close together that the sound of a trumpet could be heard
from one to the other, and thus an alarm from the exterior be conveyed
with remarkable rapidity throughout the whole land.
This and more the veracious Monk of St. Gall tells us. As to believing
him, that is quite another matter. Sufficient is told by other writers
to convince us that the country was guarded by strong and singular
defences, but the nine concentric circles of breastworks, surpassing the
Chinese wall in length and size, the reader is quite privileged to
doubt.
Certainly the defences failed to check the advance of the army of
Charlemagne. Though he had begun his march in the spring, so extensive
were his preparations that it was September before he reached the banks
of the river Enns, the border line between Bavaria and Hungary. Here the
army encamped for three days, engaged in prayers for victory, and here
encouraging news came to Charlemagne. His son Pepin, with the Duke of
Friuli, had already invaded Hungary, met an army of the Avars, and
defeated it with great slaughter. The news of this success must have
invigorated the army under Charlemagne. Breaking camp, they invaded the
country of the Avars, advancing with the usual impetuosity of their
great leader. One after another the Hungarian lines of defence were
taken, until three had fallen, while the country between them was laid
waste. No army appeared in the path of the invaders; sword in hand,
Charlemagne assailed and broke through the strong walls of his foes;
soon he reached the river Raab, which he followed to its junction with
the Danube.
Until now all had promised complete success. Those frightful Huns, who
had so long kept Europe in terror, seemed about to be subdued and made
subjects of the great monarch of the Franks. But, through that fatality
which so often ruins the best-laid plans of men, Charlemagne suddenly
found himself in a perilous and critical situation. His army was
composed almost wholly of cavalry. As he lay encamped by the Danube, a
deadly pestilence attacked the horses, and swept them off with such
rapidity that a hasty retreat became necessary. Nine-tenths of the
horses had perished before the retiring army reached Bavaria. Good
fortune, however, attended the retreat. Had the Avars recovered from the
panic into which their successive defeats had thrown them, they might
have taken a disastrous revenge upon the invaders. But as it was,
Charlemagne succeeded in retiring without being attacked, and was able
to take with him the valuable booty and the host of prisoners which were
the trophies of his victorious progress.
He fully intended to return and complete the conquest of Hungary in the
spring, and, to facilitate his advance, had a bridge of boats
constructed, during the winter, across the Danube. He never returned, as
it happened. Circumstances hindered. But in 794 his subject, the
margrave Eric, Duke of Friuli, again invaded Hungary, which had in the
interval been exhausted by civil wars. All the defences of the Avars
went down before him, and his victorious troops penetrated to that inner
fortress, called the _Ring_, which so long had been the boasted
stronghold of the Chagans, and within whose confines were gathered the
vast treasures which the conquering hordes had accumulated during
centuries of victory and plunder, together with the great wealth in gold
and silver coin which they had wrung by way of tribute from the weak
rulers of the Eastern Empire. A conception of the extent of this spoil
may be gathered from the fact that the Greek emperor during the seventh
century paid the Avars annually as tribute eighty thousand gold solidi,
and that on a single occasion the Emperor Heraclius was forced to pay
them an equal sum.
In a nation that had made any progress towards civilization this wealth
would have been distributed and perhaps dissipated. But the only use
which the half-savage Avars seem to have found for it was to store it
up as spoil. For centuries it had been accumulating within the
treasure-house of the _Ring_, in convenient form to be seized and borne
away by the conquering army which now broke into this long-defiant
stronghold. The great bulk of this wealth, consisting of gold and silver
coin, vessels of the precious metals, garments of great value, rich
weapons and ornaments, jewels of priceless worth, and innumerable other
articles, was taken to Aix-la-Chapelle, and laid at the feet of
Charlemagne, to be disposed of as he saw fit. So extensive was it, that,
as we are told, fifteen wagons, each drawn by four oxen, were needed to
convey it to the capital of the mighty emperor.
Charlemagne dealt with it in a very different manner from that pursued
by the monarchs of the Avars. He distributed it with a liberal hand, the
church receiving valuable donations, including some of the most splendid
objects, a large share being set aside for the pope, and most of the
balance being given to the poor and to the royal officers, nobles, and
soldiers. The amount thus divided was so great that, as we are told, the
nation of the Franks "became rich, whereas they had been poor before."
That treasure which the barbarian invaders had been centuries in
collecting from the nations of Europe was in a few months again
scattered far and wide.
Eric's invasion was followed by one from Pepin, king of Italy, who in
his turn entered the _Ring_, took the wealth which Eric's raiders had
left, demolished the palace of the Chagan, and completely destroyed the
central stronghold of the Avars. They were not, however, fully subdued.
Risings afterwards took place, invading armies were destroyed, and not
until 803 was a permanent conquest made. The Avars in the end accepted
baptism and held themselves as vassals or subjects of the great Frankish
monarch, who permitted them to retain some of their old laws and
governmental forms. At a subsequent date they were nearly exterminated
by the Moravians, and after the year 827 this once powerful people
disappear from history. Part of their realm was incorporated with
Moravia, and remained so until the incursion of the Magyars in 884.
As regards the location of the _Ring_, or central stronghold of the
Avars, it is believed to have been in the wide plain between the Danube
and the Theiss, the probable site being the Pusste-Sarto-Sar, on the
right of the Tatar. Traces of the wonderful circular wall, or of the
palisaded and earth-filled fortifications of the Avars, are said still
to exist in this locality. They are known as Avarian Rings, and in a
measure sustain the old stories told of them, though hardly that of the
legend-loving Monk of St. Gall and his romancing informant.
_THE CROWNING OF CHARLEMAGNE._
Charlemagne, the great king, had built himself an empire only surpassed
by that of ancient Rome. All France was his; all Italy was his; all
Saxony and Hungary were his; all western Europe indeed, from the borders
of Slavonia to the Atlantic, with the exception of Spain, was his. He
was the bulwark of civilization against the barbarism of the north and
east, the right hand of the church in its conflict with paganism, the
greatest and noblest warrior the world had seen since the days of the
great Cæsar, and it seemed fitting that he should be given the honor
which was his due, and that in him and his kingdom the great empire of
Rome should be restored.
Augustulus, the last emperor of the west, had ceased to reign in 476.
The Eastern Empire was still alive, or rather half-alive, for it was a
life without spirit or energy. The empire of the west had vanished under
the flood of barbarism, and for more than three centuries there had been
no claimant of the imperial crown. But here was a strong man, a noble
man, the lord and master of a mighty realm which included the old
imperial city; it seemed fitting that he should take the title of
emperor and rule over the western world as the successor of the famous
line of the Cæsars.
So thought the pope, Leo III., and so thought his cardinals. He had
already sent to Charlemagne the keys of the prison of St. Peter and the
banner of the city of Rome. In 799 he had a private interview with the
king, whose purpose no one knew. In August of the year 800, having
settled the affairs of his wide-spread kingdom, Charlemagne suddenly
announced in the general assembly of the Franks that he was about to
make a journey to Rome. Why he went he did not say. The secret was not
yet ready to be revealed.
On the 23d of November the king of the Franks arrived at the gates of
Rome, a city which he was to leave with the time-honored title of
Emperor of the West. "The pope received him as he was dismounting; then,
on the next day, standing on the steps of the basilica of St. Peter and
amidst general hallelujahs, he introduced the king into the sanctuary of
the blessed apostle, glorifying and thanking the Lord for this happy
event."
In the days that followed, Charlemagne examined the grievances of the
Church and took measures to protect the pope against his enemies. And
while he was there two monks came from Jerusalem, bearing with them the
keys of the Holy Sepulchre and Calvary, and the sacred standard of the
holy city, which the patriarch had intrusted to their care to present to
the great king of the Franks. Charlemagne was thus virtually
commissioned as the defender of the Church of Christ and the true
successor of the Christian emperors of Rome.
Meanwhile, Leo had called a synod of the Church to consider whether the
title of emperor should not be conferred on Charles the Great. At
present, he said, the Roman world had no sovereign. The throne of
Constantinople was occupied by a woman, the Empress Irene, who had
usurped the title and made it her own by murder. It was intolerable that
Charles should be looked on as a mere patrician, an implied subordinate
to this unworthy sovereign of the Eastern Empire. He was the master of
Italy, Gaul, and Germany, said Leo. Who was there besides him to act as
Defender of the Faith? On whom besides could the Church rest, in its
great conflict with paganism and unbelief?
The synod agreed with him. It was fitting that the great king should be
crowned emperor, and restore in his person the ancient glory of the
realm. A petition was sent to Charles. He answered that, however
unworthy the honor, he could not resist the desire of that august body.
And thus was formally completed what probably had been the secret
understanding of the pope and the king months before. Charles, king of
the Franks, was to be given the title and dignity of Charles, Emperor of
the West.
The season of the Feast of the Nativity, Christmas-day of the year 800,
duly came. It was destined to be a great day in the annals of the Roman
city. The chimes of bells which announced the dawning of that holy day
fell on the ears of great multitudes assembled in the streets of Rome,
all full of the grand event that day to be consummated, and rumors of
which had spread far and wide. The great basilica of St. Peter was to be
the scene of the imposing ceremony, and at the hour fixed its aisles
were crowded with the greatest and the most devoted and enthusiastic
assemblage it had ever held, all eager to behold and to lend their
support to the glorious act of coronation, as they deemed it, fixed for
that day, an act which, as they hoped, would restore Rome to the
imperial position which that great city had so many centuries held.
It was a noble pile, that great cathedral of the early church. It had
been recently enriched by costly gifts set aside by Charles from the
spoils of the Avars, and converted into the most beautiful of ornaments
consecrated to the worship of Christ. Before the altar stood the golden
censers, containing seventeen pounds weight of solid gold. Above gleamed
three grand coronas of solid silver, of three hundred and seven pounds
in weight, ablaze with a glory of wax-lights, whose beams softly
illuminated the whole great edifice. The shrine of St. Peter dazzled the
eyes by its glittering "rufas," made of forty-nine pounds of the purest
gold, and enriched by brilliant jewels till they sparkled like single
great gems. There also hung superb curtains of white silk, embroidered
with roses, and with rich and intricate borders, while in the centre was
a splendid cross worked in gold and purple. Suspended from the keystone
of the dome hung the most attractive of the many fine pictures which
adorned the church, a peerless painting of the Saviour, whose beauty
drew all eyes and aroused in all souls fervent aspirations of devoted
faith. Never had Christian church presented a grander spectacle; never
had one held so immense and enthusiastic an audience; for one of the
greatest ceremonies the Christian world had known was that day to be
performed.
Through the wide doors of the great church filed a procession of bronzed
veterans of the Frankish army; the nobility and the leading people of
Rome; the nobles, generals, and courtiers who had followed Charlemagne
thither; warriors from all parts of the empire, with their corslets and
winged helmets of steel and their uniforms of divers colors; civic
functionaries in their gorgeous robes of office; dignitaries of the
church in their rich vestments; a long array of priests in their white
dalmatics, until all Christendom seemed present in its noblest and most
showy representatives. Heathendom may have been represented also, for it
may be that messengers from the great caliph of Bagdad, the renowned
Haroun al Raschid, the hero of the "Arabian Nights' Entertainments,"
were present in the church. Many members of the royal family of
Charlemagne were present to lend dignity to the scene, and towering
above them all was the great Charles himself, probably clad in Roman
costume, his garb as a patrician of the imperial city, which dignity had
been conferred upon him. Loud plaudits welcomed him as he rose into
view. There were many present who had seen him at the head of his army,
driving before him hosts of flying Saracens, Saxons, Lombards, and
Avars, and to them he was the embodiment of earthly power, the mighty
patron of the church, and the scourge of pagans and infidels; and as
they gazed on his noble form and dignified face it seemed to some of
them as if they looked with human eyes on the face and form of a
representative of the Deity.
A solemn mass was sung, with all the impressive ceremony suitable to the
occasion. As the king rose to his feet, or while he still kneeled before
the altar and the "confession,"--the tomb of St. Peter,--the pope, as if
moved by a sudden impulse, took up a splendid crown which lay upon the
altar, and placed it on his brow, saying, in a loud voice,--
"Long life and victory to Charles, the most pious Augustus, crowned by
God the great and pacific Emperor of the Romans!"
At once, as if this were a signal for the breaking of the constrained
silence, a mighty shout rose from the whole vast assembly. Again and
again it was repeated, and then broke out the solemn chant of the
litany, sung by hundreds of voices, while Charlemagne stood in dignified
and patient silence. Whether or not this act of the pope was a surprise
to him we have no assurance. Eginhard tells us that he declared that he
would not have entered the church that day if he had foreseen the pope's
intentions; yet it is not easy to believe that he was ignorant of or
non-consenting to the coming event. At the close of the chant Leo
prostrated himself at the feet of Charlemagne, and paid him adoration,
as had been the custom in the days of the old emperors. He then anointed
him with holy oil. And from that day forward Charles, "giving up the
title of patrician, bore that of emperor and Augustus."
The ceremonies ended in the presentation from the emperor to the church
of a great silver table, and, in conjunction with his son Charles and
his daughters, of golden vessels belonging to the table of five hundred
pounds' weight. This great gift was followed, on the Feast of the
Circumcision, with a superb golden corona to be suspended over the
altar. It was ornamented with gems, and contained fifty pounds of gold.
On the Feast of the Epiphany he added three golden chalices, weighing
forty-two pounds, and a golden paten of twenty-two pounds' weight. To
the other churches also, and to the pope, he made magnificent gifts, and
added three thousand pounds of silver to be distributed among the poor.
Thus, after more than three centuries, the title of Augustus was
restored to the western world. It was destined to be held many centuries
thereafter by the descendants of Charlemagne. After the division of his
empire into France and Germany, the imperial title was preserved in the
latter realm, the fiction--for it was little more--that an emperor of
the west existed being maintained down to the present century.
As to the influence exerted by the power and dominion of Charlemagne on
the minds of his contemporaries and successors, many interesting stories
might be told. Fable surrounded him, legend attached to his deeds, and
at a later date he shared the honor given to the legendary King Arthur
of England, of being made a hero of romance, a leading character in many
of those interminable romances of chivalry which formed the favorite
reading of the mediæval age.
But we need not go beyond his own century to find him a hero of romance.
The monk of the abbey of St. Gall, in Switzerland, whose story of the
defences of the land of the Avars we have already quoted, has left us a
chronicle full of surprising tales of the life and doings of Charles the
Great. One of these may be of interest, as an example of the kind of
history with which our ancestors of a thousand years ago were satisfied.
Charlemagne was approaching with his army Pavia, the capital of the
Lombards. Didier, the king, was greatly disquieted at his approach. With
him was Ogier the Dane (Ogger the monk calls him), one of the most
famous captains of Charlemagne, and a prominent hero of romance. He had
quarrelled with the king and had taken refuge with the king of the
Lombards. Thus goes on the chronicler of St. Gall:
"When Didier and Ogger heard that the dread monarch was coming, they
ascended a tower of vast height, where they could watch his arrival from
afar off and from every quarter. They saw, first of all, engines of war
such as must have been necessary for the armies of Darius or Julius
Cæsar.
"'Is not Charles,' asked Didier of Ogger, 'with this great army?'
"But the other answered, 'No.' The Lombard, seeing afterwards an immense
body of soldiery gathered from all quarters of the vast empire, said to
Ogger, 'Certainly, Charles advances in triumph in the midst of this
throng.'
"'No, not yet; he will not appear so soon,' was the answer.
"'What should we do, then,' rejoined Didier, who began to be perturbed,
'should he come accompanied by a larger band of warriors?'
"'You will see what he is when he comes,' replied Ogger; 'but as to what
will become of us I know nothing.'
"As they were thus parleying, appeared the body of guards that knew no
repose; and at this sight the Lombard, overcome with dread, cried, 'This
time it is surely Charles.'
"'No," answered Ogger, 'not yet.'
"In their wake came the bishops, the abbots, the ordinaries of the
chapels royal, and the counts; and then Didier, no longer able to bear
the light of day or to face death, cried out with groans, 'Let us
descend and hide ourselves in the bowels of the earth, far from the face
and the fury of so terrible a foe.'
"Trembling the while, Ogger, who knew by experience what were the power
and might of Charles, and who had learned the lesson by long consuetude
in better days, then said, 'When you shall behold the crops shaking for
fear in the fields, and the gloomy Po and the Ticino overflowing the
walls of the city with their waves blackened with steel, then may you
think that Charles is coming.'
"He had not ended these words when there began to be seen in the west,
as it were a black cloud raised by the north-west wind or by Boreas,
which turned the brightest day into awful shadows. But as the emperor
drew nearer and nearer, the gleam of arms caused to shine on the people
shut up within the city a day more gloomy than any kind of night. And
then appeared Charles himself, that man of steel, with his head encased
in a helmet of steel, his hands garnished with gauntlets of steel, his
heart of steel and his shoulders of marble protected by a cuirass of
steel, and his left hand armed with a lance of steel which he held aloft
in the air, for as to his right hand, he kept that continually on the
hilt of his invincible sword. The outside of his thighs, which the rest,
for their greater ease in mounting on horseback, were wont to leave
unshackled even by straps, he wore encircled by plates of steel. What
shall I say concerning his boots? All the army were wont to have them
invariably of steel; on his buckler there was naught to be seen but
steel; his horse was of the color and the strength of steel.
"All those who went before the monarch, all those who marched by his
side, all those who followed after, even the whole mass of the army,
had armor of the like sort, so far as the means of each permitted. The
fields and the highways were covered with steel; the points of steel
reflected the rays of the sun; and this steel, so hard, was borne by
people with hearts still harder. The flash of steel spread terror
throughout the streets of the city. 'What steel! alack, what steel!'
Such were the bewildered cries the citizens raised. The firmness of
manhood and of youth gave way at sight of the steel; and the steel
paralyzed the wisdom of graybeards. That which I, poor tale-teller,
mumbling and toothless, have attempted to depict in a long description,
Ogger perceived at one rapid glance, and said to Didier, 'Here is what
you so anxiously sought,' and whilst uttering these words he fell down
almost lifeless."
If our sober chronicler of the ninth century could thus let his
imagination wander in speaking of the great king, what wonder that the
romancers of a later age took Charlemagne and his Paladins as fruitful
subjects for their wildly fanciful themes!
_PETER THE HERMIT._
In the last decade of the eleventh century there might have been seen,
wandering through every part of France and Germany, a man of singular
appearance. Small of stature, almost dwarfish in size, emaciated by
rigid austerities, angular and ungainly in form, clad in a woollen tunic
over which he wore a serge cloak that came down to his heels, his head
and feet bare, and mounted on an ass that seemed to have practised the
same austerities as its master, this singular person rode up and down
the land, rousing everywhere as he went the wildest enthusiasm.
Miserable as he seemed in body, he was a man of active and earnest mind,
of quick intellect, keen and penetrating eye, and an ease, fluency, and
force of speech that gave him the power to sway multitudes and stir up
the soul of Europe as no man before him had ever done.
This man was Peter the Hermit, the father of the Crusades. He had been a
soldier in his youth; afterwards a married man and father of a family;
later a monk and recluse; then a pilgrim to Jerusalem, now he was an
envoy from Simeon, patriarch of Jerusalem, to arouse the nations of
Europe with the story of the cruelties to which Christian pilgrims were
subjected by the barbarous Turks.
The pope, Urban II., had blessed his enterprise; and then, dressed and
mounted as described, and bearing in his arms a huge cross, the
inspired envoy rode throughout the Teutonic lands, everywhere recounting
with vehement speech and with the force of fiery indignation the
sufferings of the Christians and the barbarities of the Turks, and
calling on all pious souls to take arms in defence of the Holy Sepulchre
and for the emancipation of the Holy Land from infidel control.
"We saw him at that time," says Guibert de Nogent; his contemporary,
"scouring city and town, and preaching everywhere. The people crowded
around him, heaped presents upon him, and celebrated his sanctity by
such great praises that I remember not that like honor was ever rendered
to any other person. In all that he did or said he seemed to have in him
something divine, insomuch that people went so far as to pluck hairs
from his mule to keep as relics."
Never had mankind been more excited. All Europe was aroused, indignant,
fiery. The Holy Sepulchre must be rescued, Palestine must be in the
hands of the Christians, the infidel Turks must be driven from that
sacred soil and punished for the indignities they had heaped upon
pilgrims, Europe must march to Asia, and win salvation by driving the
unbelieving barbarian from the land sanctified by the feet of Christ.
Everywhere men rose, seized their arms and prepared for the march, of
whose length and dangers few of them dreamed. "The most distant islands
and savage countries," says William of Malmesbury, "were inspired by
this ardent passion. The Welshman left his hunting, the Scotchman his
fellowship with vermin, the Dane his drinking-party, the Norwegian his
raw fish." So far extended the story of the mission of Peter the Hermit;
while in France, Germany, and the other lands in which he made his
indignant and fiery appeals, the whole population seemed ready to rise
and march _en masse_ to the Holy Land.
In 1095, taking advantage of this enthusiasm, Urban II., the pope,
called a council at Clermont, in Auvergne, where numbers of clergymen
and multitudes of people assembled. Here, after the council, the pope
mounted a platform which rose in the midst of a great open space, and
around which extended a vast throng of knights, nobles, and common
people. Peter the Hermit stood by the pope's side, and told the story of
the miseries and humiliations of the Christians in Jerusalem in that
fiery and fluent oratory which had stirred the soul of all Europe. Pope
Urban followed in an impassioned address, recounting the sufferings of
the Christian pilgrims, and calling upon the people of France to rise
for their deliverance.
"Men of France," he said, "men from beyond the mountains, nations chosen
and beloved of God, right valiant knights, recall the virtues of your
ancestors, the virtue and greatness of King Charlemagne and your other
kings; it is from you above all that Jerusalem awaits the help she
invokes, for to you, above all nations, God has vouchsafed signal glory
in arms. Christians, put an end to your own misdeeds and let concord
reign among you while in those distant lands. If necessary, your bodies
will redeem your souls.... These things I publish and command, and for
their execution I appoint the end of the coming spring."
His eloquent words roused the mass to madness. From the throng rose one
general cry, "God wills it! God wills it!" Again and again it was
repeated as if it would never end, while swords waving in the air,
banners floating on high, and every indication of applause and approval,
attested the excitement and enthusiasm of the crowd.
"If the Lord God were not in your soul, you would not all have uttered
the same words," cried the pope, when he could make himself heard. "In
the battle, then, be those your war-cry, those words that came from God.
In the army of our Lord let nought be heard but that one shout, 'God
wills it! God wills it!' Whosoever hath a wish to enter upon this
pilgrimage, let him wear upon his breast or his brow the cross of the
Lord, and let him who, in accomplishment of his desire, shall be willing
to march away, place the cross behind him, between his shoulders; for
thus he will fulfil the precept of the Lord, who said, 'He that doth not
take up his cross and follow me, is not worthy of me.'"
These words aroused a new enthusiasm. The desire to assume the cross
spread like a contagion through the crowd. Adhemar, bishop of Puy, was
the first to receive it from the pope's hands. This emblem was of red
cloth, sewed on the right shoulder of the coat, or fastened on the front
of the helmet. In haste the crowd sought materials to make it. The
passion for wearing the cross spread like wild fire through Europe.
Peter the Hermit, seconded by the pope, had given birth to the Crusades.
The first outburst of enthusiasm was, as always, the strongest. It has
been said that in the spring of 1096 six million souls took the road to
Palestine. This is, doubtless, a vast exaggeration, but great numbers
set out, and an immense multitude of ignorant and enthusiastic people
pushed tumultuously towards the Holy Land, in advance of the organized
armies of the First Crusade.
As early as the 8th of March, 1096, great mobs--they cannot fairly be
called armies--began their journey towards Palestine. They were not only
composed of armed men; women and children made up part of them; whole
families abandoned their villages; and without organization or
provisions, or a knowledge of what lay before them, the ignorant and
enthusiastic mass pushed onward with unquestioning faith.
The first body of these enthusiasts, led by a poor knight called Walter
the Penniless, was cut to pieces by the natives of Bulgaria, a few only
reaching Constantinople. A second multitude, forty thousand strong, was
headed by Peter the Hermit. It was similar in character to the
preceding. Whenever a town came in sight on their way, the children
eagerly asked if that were Jerusalem. The elders were little better
informed. Onward they went, through Hungary, through Bulgaria, through
the provinces of the Greek empire, everywhere committing excesses,
everywhere treated as enemies by the incensed people, until the line of
march was strewn with their dead bodies. Peter the Hermit sought to
check their excesses, but in vain; and when, at length, a miserable
remnant of them reached Constantinople, the Emperor Alexius hastened to
convey them across the Bosphorus, to save the suburbs of his city from
their ravages.
In Asia Minor they were assailed by the Turks, and numbers of them
slain; and when, in the spring of the next year, Godfrey de Bouillon and
the other Crusader chiefs, with a real army of knights and men-at-arms,
reached that locality, and marched to besiege Nicæa, the first important
Turkish stronghold on their line of march, they saw coming to meet them
a miserable band, with every indication of woful destitution, at whose
head appeared Peter the Hermit. It was the handful of destitute
wanderers that remained from the hundreds of thousands who had set out
with such high hopes a year before.
Thus began that great movement from Europe towards Asia, which was to
continue for several centuries, and end at length in disaster and
defeat. But we are concerned here only with Peter the Hermit, and the
conclusion of his career. He had set the flood in motion; how far was he
to be borne on its waves?
The chiefs of the army welcomed him with respect and consideration, and
heard with interest and feeling his account of the misfortunes of those
under his leadership, and how they were due to their own ignorance,
violence, and insubordination. With the few who survived from the
multitude he joined the crusading army, and regained the ardent hopes
which had almost vanished from his heart.
The army that reached Nicæa is said to have been six hundred thousand
strong, though they were probably not nearly so many. On they went with
many adventures, meeting the Turks in battle, suffering from hunger and
thirst, enduring calamities, losing many by death, until at length the
great city of Antioch was reached and besieged.
Here at first food was plenty and life easy. But the Turks held out,
winter came, provisions grew scarce, life ceased to be agreeable. Such
was the discouragement that succeeded that several men of note deserted
the army of the cross, among them Robert, duke of Normandy, William,
viscount of Melun, called the _Carpenter_, from his mighty battle-axe,
and Peter the Hermit himself. Their flight caused the greatest
indignation. Tancred, one of the leaders, hurried after and overtook
them, and brought them back to the camp, where they, overcome by shame,
swore on the Gospel never again to abandon the cause of the cross.
In time Antioch was taken, and the Turks therein massacred. But, unknown
to the Crusaders, an immense army of Turks was being organized in Syria
for its relief; and four days after its capture the Crusaders found
themselves in their turn besieged, the place being completely enclosed.
Day by day the blockade became more strict. Suffering from want of food
began. Starvation threatened the citizens and the army alike. It seemed
as if the crusade might end there and then, in the death or captivity of
all concerned in it; when an incident, esteemed miraculous, roused the
spirits of the soldiers and achieved their deliverance.
A priest of Marseilles, Peter Bartholomew by name, presented himself
before the chief and said that he had had a marvellous dream. St. Andrew
had thrice appeared to him, saying, "Go into the church of my brother
Peter at Antioch, and hard by the high altar thou wilt find, on digging
up the ground, the head of the spear which pierced our Redeemer's side.
That, carried in front of the army, will bring about the deliverance of
the Christians."
The search was made, a spear-head was found, hope, confidence,
enthusiasm were restored, and with loud shouts the half-starved
multitude demanded that they should be led against the enemy. But before
doing so, the chiefs decided to apprise the leader of the Turks of their
intention, and for this purpose chose Peter the Hermit as their boldest
and ablest speaker.
Peter, therefore, under a flag of truce, sought the Turkish camp,
presented himself without any mark of respect before Corboghâ, the
leader of the Turks, and his captains, and boldly told them the decision
of the crusading chiefs.
"They offer thee," he said, "the choice between divers determinations:
either that thou appear alone in person to fight with one of our
princes, in order that, if victorious, thou mayst obtain all thou canst
demand, or, if vanquished, thou mayst remain quiet; or again, pick out
divers of thine who shall fight, on the same terms, with the same number
of ours; or, lastly, agree that the two armies shall prove, one against
the other, the fortune of battle."
Corboghâ received this challenge as an amusing jest, saying that the
chiefs must be in a desperate state to send him such a proposition. "Go,
and tell these fools," he said, "that all whom I shall find in full
possession of all the powers of the manly age shall have their lives,
and shall be reserved by me for my master's service, and that all others
shall fall beneath my sword, as useless trees, so that there shall
remain of them not even a faint remembrance. Had I not deemed it more
convenient to destroy them by famine than to smite them with the sword,
I should already have gotten forcible mastery of the city, and they
would have reaped the fruits of their voyage hither by undergoing the
law of vengeance."
Corboghâ spoke much too hastily. Before night of the next day he was a
helpless fugitive, his army destroyed or dispersed. Peter the Hermit
returned with his message, but, by the advice of Godfrey de Bouillon,
he simply announced that the Turks desired battle, and that instant
preparation for it must be made. On the next day the whole Christian
army, armed and enthusiastic, issued from the city, a part of the clergy
marching at their head, the miraculous spear-head borne before them, and
attacked the Turks in their camp. The battle was long, fierce, and
stubborn, but in the end the Turks gave way before the fury of Christian
enthusiasm, and fled for their lives, vast multitudes of them being
slain on the field, while the vain-glorious Corboghâ rode in all haste,
with a weak escort, towards far-off Bagdad.
The camp of the Turks was taken and pillaged. It yielded fifteen
thousand camels and an unnamed multitude of horses. The tent of Corboghâ
proved a rich prize. It was laid out in streets, flanked by towers, in
imitation of a fortified town, was everywhere enriched with gold and
precious stones, and was so spacious that it would have contained more
than two thousand persons. It was sent to Italy, where it was long
preserved. So great was the spoil that, says Albert of Aix, "every
Crusader found himself richer than he had been at starting from Europe."
In June, 1099, the Crusaders arrived before Jerusalem, and saw with eyes
of wonder and delight the vision of the Holy City which they had come so
far to gaze upon. After a month of siege the chiefs fixed a day for the
grand assault, and on the day preceding that chosen the whole army
marched, fasting, and preceded by their priests, in slow procession
round the walls, halting at every hallowed spot, listening to the hymns
and exhortations of their priests, and looking upward with wrathful eyes
at the insults heaped by the Islamites upon the cross and other symbols
of the Christian faith.
"Ye see," cried Peter the Hermit, "the blasphemies of God's enemies.
Now, this I swear to you by your faith; this I swear to you by the arms
you carry; to-day these infidels are still full of pride and insolence,
but to-morrow they shall be frozen with fear; those mosques, which tower
over Christian ruins, shall serve for temples to the true God, and
Jerusalem shall hear no longer aught but the praises of the Lord."
His words were received with shouts of applause by the whole army. His
had been the first voice to call Europe to the deliverance of the Holy
City; now, with a strong army to back him, he gazed on the walls of
Jerusalem, still in the hands of the infidels, likely soon to be in the
hands of the Christians. Well might he feel joy and self-gratification,
in thinking that all this was his work, and that he had been the apostle
of the greatest event in modern history.
On the next day, July 14, 1099, the assault began at daybreak. On
Friday, the 15th, Jerusalem fell into the hands of the Crusaders, and
the mission of Peter the Hermit was accomplished, the Holy City was won.
With that great day ended the active part played by Peter the Hermit in
history. He was received with the greatest respect by the Christian
dwellers in Jerusalem, who exerted themselves to render him the highest
honors, and attributed to him alone, after God, their deliverance from
the sufferings which they had so long endured. On his return to Europe
he founded a monastery near Hue, in the diocese of Liége, where he spent
the remainder of his life in retirement, respected and honored by all,
and died there on the 11th of July, 1115.
_THE COMMUNE OF LAON._
The history of the kingdoms of Europe has a double aspect, that of the
arrogant rule of kings and nobles, and that of the enforced submission
and occasional insurrection of the common people, whom the governing
class despised while subsisting on the products of their labor, as a
tree draws its nutriment from the base soil above which it proudly
rises. Insurrections of the peasantry took place at times, we have said,
though, as a rule, nothing was gained by them but blows and bloodshed.
We have described such outbreaks in England. France had its share of
them, all of which were speedily and cruelly suppressed. It was not by
armed insurrection that the peasantry gained the measure of liberty they
now possess. Their gradual emancipation was gained through unceasing
protest and steady pressure, and in no sense by revolt and bloodshed.
A different story must be told of the towns. In these the common people
were concentrated and well organized, and possessed skilled leaders and
strong walls. They understood the political situation, struck for a
definite purpose, and usually gained it. The history of nearly every
town in France tells of some such demand for chartered privileges,
ordinarily ending in the freeing of the town from the tyranny of the
nobles. Each town had its municipal government, the _Commune_. It was
this body which spoke for the burghers, which led in the struggle for
liberty, and which succeeded in gaining for most of the towns a charter
of rights and privileges. Many stirring incidents might be told of this
fight for freedom. We shall confine ourselves to the story of the revolt
of the Commune of Laon, of which a sprightly contemporary description
exists.
At the end of the eleventh century Laon was a bustling and important
city. It was the seat of a cathedral and under the government of a
bishop; was wealthy and prosperous, stirring and turbulent; was the
gathering-place of the surrounding people, the centre of frequent
disturbances. Thierry draws a vivid picture of the state of affairs
existing within its walls. "The nobles and their servitors," he says,
"sword in hand, committed robbery upon the burghers; the streets of the
town were not safe by night nor even by day, and none could go out
without running a risk of being stopped and robbed or killed. The
burghers in their turn committed violence upon the peasants, who came to
buy or sell at the market of the town."
Truly, town life and country life alike were neither safe nor agreeable
in those charming mediæval days when chivalry was the profession of all
and the possession of none, when the nobility were courteous in word and
violent in deed, and when might everywhere lorded it over right, and
conscience was but another word for desire. As for the treatment of the
peasantry by the townsmen, we may quote from Guibert, an abbot of
Nogent-sous-Coucy, to whose lively pen we owe all we have to tell about
Laon.
"Let me give as example," he says, "a single fact, which had it taken
place among the Barbarians or the Scythians would assuredly have been
considered the height of wickedness, in the judgment even of those who
know no law. On Saturday the inhabitants of the country places used to
leave their fields and come from all sides to Laon to get provisions at
the market. The townsfolk used then to go round the place carrying in
baskets or bowls or otherwise samples of vegetables or grain or any
other article, as if they wished to sell. They would offer them to the
first peasant who was in search of such things to buy; he would promise
to pay the price agreed upon; and then the seller would say to the
buyer, 'Come with me to my house to see and examine the whole of the
articles I am selling you.' The other would go; and then, when they came
to the bin containing the goods, the honest seller would take off and
hold up the lid, saying to the buyer, 'Step hither and put your head or
arms into the bin to make quite sure that it is all exactly the same
goods as I showed you outside.' And then when the other, jumping on to
the edge of the bin, remained leaning on his belly, with his head and
shoulders hanging down, the worthy seller, who kept in the rear, would
hoist up the thoughtless rustic by the feet, push him suddenly into the
bin, and, clapping on the lid as he fell, keep him shut up in this safe
prison until he had bought himself out."
This has more the aspect of a practical joke than an act of barbarism.
But withal, between the cheating of the peasantry by the burghers, the
robbery of the burghers by the nobles, and the general turmoil and
terror, there might have been found more delightful places of residence
than the good city of Laon in the eleventh century. The story of this
city is a long one. We are here concerned with but one episode in the
tale.
In the year 1106 the bishopric of Laon, which had been for two years
vacant, was bought by Gaudri, a Norman by birth, and a man of no very
savory reputation. He was a clergyman with the habits of a soldier,
hasty and arrogant in disposition, hurrying through the service of the
mass, and dallying with delight over narratives of fighting and hunting,
one of the churchmen of wickedly worldly tastes of which those days
presented so many examples.
Laon soon learned something of the character of its new bishop. Not long
was he in office before outrages began. He seized one man whom he
suspected of aiding his enemies, and put out his eyes. Another was
murdered in the church itself, with his connivance. In his deeds of
violence or vengeance he employed a black slave, imitating in this some
of the Crusaders, who brought with them such servants from the east. No
lawless noble could have shown more disregard of law or justice than
this dignitary of the church, and the burghers of Laon viewed with
growing indignation his lawless and merciless course.
Taking advantage of the absence of Bishop Gaudri in England, the
burghers bribed the clergy and knights who governed in his stead, and
obtained from them the privilege of choosing their own rulers. "The
clergy and knights," we are told, "came to an agreement with the common
folk in hopes of enriching themselves in a speedy and easy fashion." A
commune was set up, and given the necessary powers and immunities.
Gaudri returned, and heard with fierce wrath of what had been done in
his absence. For several days he stayed outside the walls, clouding and
thundering. Then the burghers applied the same plaster to his wrath as
they had done to the virtue of his representatives. They offered him
money, "enough to appease the tempest of his words." He accepted the
bribe and swore to respect the commune. This done, he entered the city
in state.
The burghers knew him somewhat too well to trust him. There were higher
powers in France than Bishop Gaudri, which were known to be susceptible
to the same mercenary argument. A deputation was therefore sent to King
Louis the Fat at Paris, laden with rich presents, and praying for a
royal confirmation of the commune. The king loved the glitter of cash;
he accepted the presents, swore that the commune should be respected,
and gave Laon a charter sealed with the great seal of the crown. All
that the citizens were to do in return, beyond meeting the customary
crown claims, was to give the king three lodgings a year, if he came to
the town, or in lieu thereof, if he failed to come, twenty livres for
each lodging.
For three years all went well in Laon. The burghers were happy in their
security and proud of their liberty, while clergy and knights were
occupied in spending the money they had received. The year 1112 came.
The bishop and his subordinates had got rid of their money, and craved
again the power they had sold. They began to consider how the citizens
might once more be made serfs. They would not have hesitated long but
for that inconvenient grant of Louis the Fat. But King Louis might be
managed. He was normally avaricious. The bishop invited him to Laon to
take part in the keeping of Holy Week, trusting to get his aid to
overthrow the commune.
The king came. The burghers were not long in suspecting the cause of his
coming. They offered him some four hundred livres to confirm them in
their liberties. The bishop and his party offered him seven hundred
livres to restore their power. The higher offer prevailed. The charter
was annulled, and the magistrates of the commune were ordered to cease
from their functions, to give up the seal and the banner of the town,
and no more to ring the belfry-chimes which indicated the beginning and
the ending of their sessions.
Wrath and uproar succeeded this decree. The burghers had tasted the
sweets of liberty, and were not ready to lose their dearly-bought
independence. So violent were they that the king himself was frightened,
and hastily left his hotel for the stronger walls of the episcopal
palace. At dawn of the next day, partly in fear and perhaps partly in
shame, he departed from Laon with all his train, leaving the Easter
festival to take place without him.
It was destined to be a serious festival for Bishop Gaudri and his crew
of base-souled followers. The king had left a harvest of indignation
behind him. On the day after his going all shops and taverns were kept
closed and nothing was sold; every one remained at home, nursing his
wrath. The next day the anger of the citizens grew more demonstrative. A
rumor spread that the bishop and grandees were busy calculating the
fortunes of the citizens, that they might force from them the sum
promised the king. The burghers assembled in burning indignation, and
forty of them bound themselves by oath to kill the bishop and all those
who had aided him to destroy the commune.
Some rumor of this got afloat. Anselm, the arch-deacon, warned the
bishop that his life was in danger, and urged him not to leave his
house, and, in particular, not to accompany the procession on
Easter-day. Thus Cæsar had been warned, and had contemned the warning.
Gaudri emulated him, and answered, with a sneer of contempt,--
"Pooh! _I_ die by the hands of such fellows!"
Easter-day came. The bishop did not appear at matins, or at the later
church service. But, lest he should be called coward, he joined the
procession, followed by his clergy and domestics, and by a number of
knights with arms and armor concealed under their clothes. Slowly
through the streets moved the procession, the people looking on in
lowering silence. As it passed a dark arch one of the forty rushed
suddenly out, crying, "Commune! commune!" No one joined him; the crowd
seemed intimidated; their feelings subsided in a murmur; the procession
continued on its way undisturbed.
The next day another procession took place. This day the bishop had
filled the town with peasants, who were charged to protect his church,
his palace, and himself. The people kept quiet. All went well. Bishop
Gaudri, satisfied that the talk of danger was all a myth, now dismissed
the peasants, feeling quite secure.
"On the fourth day after Easter," says Guibert of Nogent, "my corn
having been pillaged in consequence of the disorder that reigned in the
town, I repaired to the bishop, and prayed him to put a stop to this
state of violence.
"'What do you suppose,' said he to me, 'these fellows can do with all
their outbreaks? Why, if my blackamoor, John, were to pull the nose of
the most formidable amongst them, the poor devil durst not even grumble.
Have I not forced them to give up what they called their commune, for
the whole duration of my life?'
"I held my tongue," adds Guibert; "many folks besides me warned him of
his danger, but he would not deign to believe anybody."
For three days all kept quiet. The bishop and his myrmidons busied
themselves in calculating how much cash they could squeeze from the
people. The people lowered like a gathering storm. All at once the storm
broke. A sudden tumult arose; crowds filled the streets. "Commune!
commune!" was the general cry; as if by magic, swords, lances, axes,
bows, and clubs appeared in the hands of the people; with wild shouts of
vengeance they rushed through the streets and burst into the bishop's
palace. The knights who had promised to protect him hastened thither and
faced the infuriated populace. The first three who appeared were hotly
attacked and fell before the axes of the burghers. The others held back.
In a few minutes more flames appeared in the palace, and in no long time
it was a mass of seething fire. The day of vengeance had come.
The bishop had fled to the church. Here, having no means of defence, he
hastily put on the dress of one of his servants and repaired to the
church cellar, where were a number of empty casks. One of these he got
into, a faithful follower then heading him in, and even stopping up the
bung-hole. Meanwhile, the crowd were in eager quest for the object of
their wrath. The palace had been searched before being set on fire; the
church and all accompanying buildings now swarmed with revengeful
burghers. Among these was a bandit named Teutgaud, a fellow notorious
for his robberies and murders of travellers, but now hand and glove with
the commune. The bishop had named him _Isengrin_, the by-word then for
wolf.
This worthy made his way into the cellar, followed by an armed crowd.
Through this they went, tapping the casks as they proceeded. Teutgaud
halted in front of that in which the bishop was concealed--on what
suspicion does not appear.
"Knock in the head of this," he ordered.
He was quickly obeyed.
"Is there any one here?" he asked.
"Only a poor prisoner," came a quavering voice from the depths of the
cask.
"Ha! ha!" laughed Teutgaud; "so it is you, Master Isengrin, who are
hiding here!"
Seizing the trembling bishop by the hair, he dragged him without
ceremony from the cask. The frightened culprit fell on his knees and
begged piteously for his life. He would do anything; he would give up
the bishopric, yield them all the money he had, and leave the country.
Insults and blows were the only replies. In a minute more the
unfortunate man was dead. Teutgaud, true to his profession, cut off his
finger to obtain the episcopal ring that glittered on it. Stripped of
its clothing, the body was hurled into a corner, and the furious throng
flung stones and mud at it, as the only vent remaining to their
revengeful passions.
All that day and the night that followed the armed and maddened townsmen
searched the streets and houses of Laon for the supporters of the
murdered bishop, and numbers of them shared his fate. Not the guilty
alone, but many of the innocent, perished before the blind wrath of the
multitude. "The progress of the fire," says Guibert, "kindled on two
sides at once, was so rapid, and the winds drove the flames so furiously
in the direction of the convent of St. Vincent, that the monks were
afraid of seeing all they possessed become the fire's prey, and all the
persons who had taken refuge in this monastery trembled as if they had
seen swords hanging over their heads."
It was a day and night of frightful excess, one of those dread occasions
which arise when men are roused to violence by injustice, and for the
time break all the bonds of mercy and moderation which ordinarily
control them. Regret at their insensate rage is sure to succeed all such
outbreaks. Retribution is likely to follow. Consternation came to the
burghers of Laon when calm thought returned to them. They had defied the
king. What would he do? To protect themselves they added to the burden
of their offences, summoning to their aid Thomas de Marle, the son of
Lord Enguerraud de Coucy, a man who was little better than a brigand,
and with a detestable reputation for cruelty and ferocity.
De Marle was not quite ready to undertake this task. He consulted his
people, who declared that it would be folly for their small force to
seek to defend such a city against the king. He thereupon induced the
burghers to meet him in a field, about a mile from the city, where he
would make answer to their request. When they had come, he said,--
"Laon is the head of the kingdom; it is impossible for me to keep the
king from making himself master of it. If you fear his arms, follow me
to my own land, and you will find in me a protector and a friend."
Their consternation was extreme at this advice. For the time being they
were in a panic, through fear of the king's vengeance, and the
conference ended in many of them taking the advice of the Lord of Marle,
and flying with him to his stronghold. Teutgaud was among the number
that accepted his protection.
The news of their flight quickly spread to the country places around
Laon. The story went that the town was quite deserted. The peasants,
filled with hopes of plunder, hastened to the town, took possession of
what empty houses they found, and carried off what money and other
valuables they could discover. "Before long," says Guibert, "there arose
between the first and last comers disputes about the partition of their
plunder; all that the small folks had taken soon passed into the hands
of the powerful; if two men met a third quite alone they stripped him;
the state of the town was truly pitiable. The burghers who had quitted
it with Thomas de Marle had beforehand destroyed and burnt the houses
of the clergy and grandees whom they hated; and now the grandees,
escaped from the massacre, carried off in their turn from the houses of
the fugitives all means of subsistence and all movables to the very
hinges and bolts."
What succeeded must be briefly told. The story of the events here
described spread through the kingdom. Thomas de Marle was put under ban
by the king and excommunicated by the church. Louis raised an army and
marched against him. De Marle was helpless with illness, but truculent
in temper. He defied the king, and would not listen to his summons.
Louis attacked his castles, took two of them, Crecy and Nogent, and in
the end forced him to buy pardon by a heavy ransom and an indemnity to
the church. As for the burghers who had taken refuge with him, the king
showed them no mercy. They had had a hand in the murder of Bishop
Gaudri, and all of them were hung.
The remaining story of Laon is too long for our space. The burghers
continued to demand their liberties, and in 1128 a new charter was
granted them. This they retained, except during some intervals, until
that later period when the mediæval system of municipal government came
to an end, and all the cities and towns fell under the direct control of
the deputies of the king.
_HOW BIG FERRÉ FOUGHT FOR FRANCE._
It was in the heart of the Hundred Years' War. Everywhere France lay
desolate under the feet of the English invaders. Never had land been
more torn and rent, and never with less right and justice. Like a flock
of vultures the English descended upon the fair realm of France,
ravaging as they went, leaving ruin behind their footsteps, marching
hither and thither at will, now victorious, now beaten, yet ever
plundering, ever desolating. Wherever they came the rich were ruined,
the poor were starved, want and misery stared each other in the face,
happy homes became gaping ruins, fertile fields became sterile wastes.
It was a pandemonium of war, a frightful orgy of military license, a
scene to make the angels weep and demons rejoice over the cruelty of
man.
In the history of this dreadful business we find little to show what
part the peasantry took in the affair, beyond that of mere suffering.
The man-at-arms lorded it in France; the peasant endured.
Yet occasionally this down-trodden sufferer took arms against his
oppressors, and contemporary chronicles give us some interesting insight
into brave deeds done by the tiller of the soil. One of these we propose
to tell,--a stirring and romantic one. It is half legendary, perhaps,
yet there is reason to believe that it is in the main true, and it
paints a vivid picture of those days of blood and violence which is well
worthy of reproduction.
In 1358 the king of Navarre, who had aided the English in their raids,
suddenly made peace with France. This displeased his English allies, who
none the less, however, continued their destructive raids, small parties
marching hither and thither, now victorious, now vanquished, an
interminable series of minor encounters taking the place of large
operations. Both armies were reduced to guerilla bands, who fought as
they met, and lived meanwhile on the land and its inhabitants. The
battle of Poitiers had been recently fought, the king of France was a
prisoner, there was no organization, no central power, in the realm, and
wherever possible the population took arms and fought in their own
defence, seeking some little relief from the evils of anarchy.
The scene of the story we propose to tell is a small stronghold called
Longueil, not far from Compiègne and near the banks of the Oise. It was
pretty well fortified, and likely to prove a point of danger to the
district if the enemy should seize it and make it a centre of their
plundering raids. There were no soldiers to guard it, and the peasants
of the vicinity, Jacques Bonhomme (Jack Goodfellow) as they were called,
undertook its defence. This was no unauthorized action. The lord-regent
of France and the abbot of the monastery of St. Corneille-de-Compiègne,
near by, gave them permission, glad, doubtless, to have even their poor
aid, in the absence of trained soldiery.
In consequence, a number of the neighboring tillers of the soil
garrisoned the place, providing themselves with arms and provisions, and
promising the regent to defend the town until death. Hither came many of
the villagers for security, continuing the labors which yielded them a
poor livelihood, but making Longueil their stronghold of defence. In all
there were some two hundred of them, their chosen captain being a tall,
finely-formed man, named William a-Larks (_aux Alouettes_). For servant,
this captain had a gigantic peasant, a fellow of great stature,
marvellous strength, and undaunted boldness, and withal of extreme
modesty. He bore the name of Big Ferré.
This action of the peasants called the attention of the English to the
place, and roused in them a desire to possess it. _Jacques Bonhomme_ was
held by them in utter contempt, and the peasant garrison simply brought
to their notice the advantage of the place as a well-fortified centre of
operations. That these poor dirt delvers could hold their own against
trained warriors seemed a matter not worth a second thought.
"Let us drive the base-born rogues from the town and take possession of
it," said they. "It will be a trifle to do it, and the place will serve
us well."
Such seemed the case. The peasants, unused to war and lacking all
military training, streamed in and out at pleasure, leaving the gates
wide open, and taking no precautions against the enemy. Suddenly, to
their surprise and alarm, they saw a strong body of armed men entering
the open gates and marching boldly into the court-yard of the
stronghold, the heedless garrison gazing with gaping eyes at them from
the windows and the inner courts. It was a body of English men-at-arms,
two hundred strong, who had taken the unguarded fortress by surprise.
Down came the captain, William a-Larks, to whose negligence this
surprise was due, and made a bold and fierce assault on the invaders,
supported by a body of his men. But the English forced their way inward,
pushed back the defenders, surrounded the captain, and quickly struck
him to the earth with a mortal wound. Defence seemed hopeless. The
assailants had gained the gates and the outer court, dispersed the first
party of defenders, killed their captain, and were pushing their way
with shouts of triumph into the stronghold within. The main body of the
peasants were in the inner court, Big Ferré at their head, but it was
beyond reason to suppose that they could stand against this compact and
well-armed body of invaders.
Yet they had promised the regent to hold the place until death, and they
meant it.
"It is death fighting or death yielding," they said. "These men will
slay us without mercy; let us sell them our lives at a dear price."
"Gathering themselves discreetly together," says the chronicler, "they
went down by different gates, and struck out with mighty blows at the
English, as if they had been beating out their corn on the
threshing-floor; their arms went up and down again, and every blow dealt
out a mighty wound."
Big Ferré led a party of the defenders against the main body of the
English, pushing his way into the outer court where the captain had
fallen. When he saw his master stretched bleeding and dying on the
ground, the faithful fellow gave vent to a bitter cry, and rushed with
the rage of a lion upon the foe, wielding a great axe like a feather in
his hands.
The English looked with surprise and alarm on this huge fellow, who
topped them all in height by a head and shoulders, and who came forward
like a maddened bull, uttering short, hoarse cries of rage, while the
heavy axe quivered in his vigorous grasp. In a moment he was upon them,
striking such quick and deadly blows that the place before him was soon
void of living men. Of one man the head was crushed; of another the arm
was lopped off; a third was hurled back with a gaping wound. His
comrades, seeing the havoc he was making, were filled with ardor, and
seconded him well, pressing on the dismayed English and forcing them
bodily back. In an hour, says the chronicler, the vigorous fellow had
slain with his own hand eighteen of the foe, without counting the
wounded.
This was more than flesh and blood could bear. The English turned to
fly; some leaped in terror into the ditches, others sought to regain the
gates; after them rushed Big Ferré, still full of the rage of battle.
Reaching the point where the English had planted their flag, he killed
the bearer, seized the standard, and bade one of his followers to go
and fling it into the ditch, at a point where the wall was not yet
finished.
"I cannot," said the man; "there are still too many English there."
"Follow me with the flag," said Big Ferré.
Like a woodman making a lane through a thicket, the burly champion
cleared an avenue through the ranks of the foe, and enabled his follower
to hurl the flag into the ditch. Then, turning back, he made such havoc
among the English who still remained within the wall, that all who were
able fled in terror from his deadly axe. In a short time the place was
cleared and the gates closed, the English--such of them as were
left--making their way with all haste from that fatal place. Of those
who had come, the greater part never went back. It is said that the axe
of Big Ferré alone laid more than forty of them low in death. In this
number the chronicler may have exaggerated, but the story as a whole is
probably true.
The sequel to this exploit of the giant champion is no less interesting.
The huge fellow whom steel could not kill was slain by water,--not by
drowning, however, but by drinking. And this is how it came to pass.
The story of the doings at Longueil filled the English with shame and
anger. When the bleeding and exhausted fugitives came back and reported
the fate of their fellows, indignation and desire for revenge animated
all the English in the vicinity. On the following day they gathered
from all the camps in the neighborhood and marched in force on Longueil,
bent on making the peasants pay dearly for the slaughter of their
comrades.
This time they found entrance not so easy. The gates were closed, the
walls well manned. Big Ferré was now the captain of Longueil, and so
little did he or his followers fear the assaults of their foes, that
they sallied out boldly upon them, their captain in the lead with his
mighty axe.
Fierce was the fray that followed. The peasants fought like tigers,
their leader like a lion. The English were broken, slaughtered, driven
like sheep before the burly champion and his bold followers. Many were
slain or sorely wounded. Numbers were taken, among them some of the
English nobles. The remainder fled in a panic, not able to stand against
that vigorous arm and deadly axe, and the fierce courage which the
exploits of their leader gave to the peasants. The field was cleared and
Longueil again saved.
Big Ferré, overcome with heat and fatigue, sought his home at the end of
the fight, and there drank such immoderate draughts of cold water that
he was seized with a fever. He was put to bed, but would not part with
his axe, "which was so heavy that a man of the usual strength could
scarcely lift it from the ground with both hands." In this statement one
would say that the worthy chronicler must have romanced a little.
The news that their gigantic enemy was sick came to the ears of the
English, and filled them with joy and hope. He was outside the walls of
Longueil, and might be assailed in his bed. Twelve men-at-arms were
chosen, their purpose being to creep up secretly upon the place,
surround it, and kill the burly champion before aid could come to him.
The plan was well laid, but it failed through the watchfulness of the
sick man's wife. She saw the group of armed men before they could
complete their dispositions, and hurried with the alarming news to the
bedside of her husband.
"The English are coming!" she cried. "I fear it is for you they are
looking. What will you do?"
Big Ferré answered by springing from bed, arming himself in all haste
despite his sickness, seizing his axe, and leaving the house. Entering
his little yard, he saw the foe closing covertly in on his small
mansion, and shouted, angrily,--
"Ah, you scoundrels! you are coming to take me in my bed. You shall not
get me there; come, take me here if you will."
Setting his back against a wall, he defended himself with his usual
strength and courage. The English attacked him in a body, but found it
impossible to get inside the swing of that deadly axe. In a little while
five of them lay wounded upon the ground, and the other seven had taken
to flight.
Big Ferré returned triumphantly to his bed; but, heated by his
exertions, he drank again too freely of cold water. In consequence his
fever returned, more violently than before. A few days afterwards the
brave fellow, sinking under his sickness, went out of the world,
conquered by water where steel had been of no avail. "All his comrades
and his country wept for him bitterly, for, so long as he lived, the
English would not have come nigh this place."
And so ended the short but brilliant career of the notable Big Ferré,
one of those peasant heroes who have risen from time to time in all
countries, yet rarely have lived long enough to make their fame
enduring. His fate teaches one useful warning, that imprudence is often
more dangerous than armed men.
We are told nothing concerning the fate of Longueil after his death.
Probably the English found it an easy prey when deprived of the peasant
champion, who had held it so bravely and well; though it may be that the
wraith of the burly hero hung about the place and still inspired his
late companions to successful resistance to their foes. Its fate is one
of those many half-told tales on which history shuts its door, after
revealing all that it holds to be of interest to mankind.
_BERTRAND DU GUESCLIN._
In the castle of Motte-Broon, near Rennes, France, there was born about
the year 1314 "the ugliest child from Rennes to Dinan," as an
uncomplimentary chronicle says. He was a flat-nosed, swarthy,
big-headed, broad-shouldered fellow, a regular wretch, in his own
mother's words, violent in temper, using his fist as freely as his
tongue, driving his tutor away before he could teach him to read, but
having no need to be taught to fight, since this art came to him by
nature. At sixteen he fled from home to Rennes, where he entered into
adventures, quarrels, and challenges, and distinguished himself by
strength, courage, and a strong sense of honor.
He quickly took part in the wars of the time, showed his prowess in
every encounter, and in the war against Navarre, won the highest honors.
At a later date he engaged in the civil wars of Spain, where he headed
an army of thirty thousand men. In the end the adventurers who followed
him, Burgundian, Picard, Champagnese, Norman, and others, satisfied with
their spoils, left him and returned to France. Bertrand had but some
fifteen hundred men-at-arms remaining under his command when a great
peril confronted him. He was a supporter of Henry of Transtamare, who
was favorable to France, and who had made him Constable of Castile.
This was not pleasing to Edward III. of England. Don Pedro the Cruel, a
king equally despised and detested, had been driven from Castile by the
French allies of his brother Henry. Edward III. determined to replace
him on the throne, and with this intent sent his son, the Black Prince,
with John Chandos, the ablest of the English leaders, and an army of
twenty-seven thousand men, into the distracted kingdom.
A fierce battle followed on April 3, 1367. The ill-disciplined soldiers
of Henry were beaten and put to rout. Du Guesclin and his men-at-arms
alone maintained the fight, with a courage that knew no yielding. In the
end they were partly driven back, partly slain. Du Guesclin set his back
against a wall, and fought with heroic courage. There were few with him.
Up came the Prince of Wales, saw what was doing, and cried,--
"Gentle marshals of France, and you too, Bertrand, yield yourselves to
me."
"Yonder men are my foes," exclaimed Don Pedro, who accompanied the
prince; "it is they who took from me my kingdom, and on them I mean to
take vengeance."
He came near to have ended his career of vengeance then and there. Du
Guesclin, incensed at his words, sprang forward and dealt him so furious
a blow with his sword as to hurl him fainting to the ground. Then,
turning to the prince, the valiant warrior said, "Nathless, I give up my
sword to the most valiant prince on earth."
The prince took the sword, and turning to the Captal of Buch, the
Navarrese commander, whom Bertrand had years before defeated and
captured, bade him keep the prisoner.
"Aha, Sir Bertrand," said the Captal, "you took me at the battle of
Cocherel, and to-day I've got you."
"Yes," retorted Bertrand; "but at Cocherel I took you myself, and here
you are only my keeper."
Pedro was restored to the throne of Castile,--which he was not long to
hold,--and the Prince of Wales returned to Bordeaux, bringing him his
prisoner. He treated him courteously enough, but held him in strict
captivity, and to Sir Hugh Calverley, who begged that he would release
him at a ransom suited to his small estate, he answered,--
"I have no wish for ransom from him. I will have his life prolonged in
spite of himself. If he were released he would be in battle again, and
always making war."
And so Bertrand remained in captivity, until an event occurred of which
the chroniclers give us an entertaining story. It is this event which it
is our purpose to relate.
A day came in which the Prince of Wales and his noble companions, having
risen from dinner, were amusing themselves with narratives of daring
deeds of arms, striking love-passages, and others of the tales with
which the barons of that day were wont to solace their leisure. The talk
came round to the story of how St. Louis, when captive in Tunis, had
been ransomed with fine gold, paid down by weight. At this point the
prince spoke, somewhat unthinkingly.
"When a good knight is made prisoner in fair feat of arms," he said,
"and sworn to abide prisoner, he should on no account depart without his
master's leave. But one should not demand such portion of his substance
in ransom as to leave him unable to equip himself again."
The Sire de Lebret, who was friendly to Du Guesclin, answered,--
"Noble sire, be not angry if I relate what I have heard said of you in
your absence."
"By my faith," said the prince, "right little should I love follower of
mine, sitting at my table, if he heard a word said against my honor and
apprised me not of it."
"Sire," answered he of Lebret, "men say that you hold in prison a knight
whose name I well know, whom you dare not deliver."
"That is true," broke in Oliver de Clisson; "I have heard the same
said."
The prince heard them with a countenance that reddened with anger.
"I know no knight in the world," he declared, "who, if he were my
prisoner, I would not put to a fair ransom, according to his ability."
"How, then, do you forget Bertrand du Guesclin?" said Lebret.
The prince doubly changed color on hearing this. He felt himself fairly
caught, and, after a minute's indecision, he gave orders that Bertrand
should be brought before him.
The knights who went in search found Bertrand talking with his
chamberlain, as a relief to his weariness.
"You are come in good time," he said to his visitors, and bade the
chamberlain bring wine.
"It is fitting that we should have good and strong wine," said one of
the knights, "for we bring you good and pleasant tidings, with the best
of good-will."
"The prince has sent us for you," said another. "We think you will be
ransomed by the help of the many friends you have in court."
"What say you?" answered Bertrand. "I have not a half-penny to my purse,
and owe more than ten thousand livres in this city, which have been lent
me since I have been held prisoner here. I cannot well ask more from my
friends."
"How have you got rid of so much?" asked one of his visitors.
"I can easily answer for that," said Bertrand, with a laugh. "I have
eaten, drunk, given, and played at dice. A little money is soon spent.
But that matters not; if once free I shall soon pay it. He who, for my
help, lends me the keys of his money, has it in the best of keeping."
"Sir, you are stout-hearted," answered an officer. "It seems to you that
everything which you would have must happen."
"By my faith, you are right," said Bertrand, heartily. "In my view a
dispirited man is a beaten and discomfited one."
"Surely there is enchantment in your blood," rejoined the officer, "for
you seem proof against every shock."
Leaving Bertrand's chamber, they sought that in which was the prince and
his companions. The prisoner was dressed in a rough gray coat, and bore
himself with manly ease and assurance. The prince laughed pleasantly on
seeing him.
"Well, Bertrand, how are you?" he asked.
"Sir, when it shall please you, I may fare better," answered Bertrand,
bowing slightly. "Many a day have I heard the rats and mice, but it is
long since I have heard the song of birds. I shall hear them when it is
your pleasure."
"That shall be when you will, Bertrand," said the prince. "I require you
only to swear never to bear arms against me nor these with me, nor to
assist Henry of Spain. If you consent to this, we shall set you free,
pay your debts, and give ten thousand florins to equip you anew. If you
refuse, you shall not go."
"Then, sir," answered Bertrand, proudly, "my deliverance will not come
to pass, for before I do this, may I lie chained by the leg in prison
while I live. With God's will, I shall never be a reproach to my
friends, but shall serve with my whole heart the good king of France,
and the noble dukes of Anjou, Berry, Burgundy, and Bourbon, whose
subject I have been. But, so please you, worthy prince, suffer me to
go. You have held me too long in prison, wrongfully and without cause.
Had I been free I had intended to go from France, to work out my
salvation by fighting the Saracens."
"Why, then, went you not straight, without stopping?" asked the prince.
"I will tell you," exclaimed Bertrand, in a loud and fierce tone. "We
found Peter,--the curse of God confound him!--who had long since thrice
falsely murdered his noble queen, who was of the royal blood of France
and your own cousin. I stopped to take revenge for her, and to help
Henry, whom I believe to be the rightful king of Spain. But you, through
pride and covetousness of gold and silver, came to Spain, thinking to
have the throne after the death of Peter. In this you injured your own
blood and troubled me and my people, ruined your friends and famished
your army, and for what? After all this, Peter has deceived you by
cheating and trickery, for he has not kept faith nor covenant with you.
But for this, by my soul and faith, I thank him heartily."
These bold words were listened to by the prince with a changeful face.
Seldom had he heard the truth spoken so bluntly, or with such firm
composure in the speaker. When he had ceased, the prince rose, and with
a somewhat bitter laugh declared that, on his soul, Bertrand had spoken
but the truth. The barons around repeated the same among themselves,
and, fixing their eyes on Bertrand, said,--"A brave fellow, the
Breton."
"Whether this be truth or no, Bertrand," continued the prince, "you have
rejected my offer, and shall not escape without a good ransom. It vexes
me to let you go at all, for your king has none like you; but as men say
that I keep you prisoner because I fear you, you shall go free on
payment of sufficient ransom. Men shall learn that I neither fear nor
care for you."
"Sir, I thank you," said Bertrand. "But I am a poor knight of little
name and small means. What estate I have is deeply mortgaged for the
purchase of war-horses, and I owe besides in this town full ten thousand
florins. I pray you, therefore, to be moderate, and deliver me."
"Where will you go, fair sir?" asked the prince.
"Where I may regain my loss," answered Bertrand. "More than that, I say
not."
"Consider, then," said the prince, "what ransom you will give me. What
sum you name shall be enough for me."
"I trust you will not stoop to retract your meaning," rejoined Bertrand.
"And since you are content to refer it to my pleasure, I ought not to
value myself too low. So I will give and engage for my freedom one
hundred thousand double golden florins."
These words roused the greatest surprise and excitement in the room.
Many of those present started, and the prince changed color, as he
looked around at his knights.
"Does he mean to make game of me, that he offers such a sum?" asked the
prince. "I would gladly free him for the quarter."
Then, turning again to Bertrand, who stood with impassive countenance,
he said,--
"Bertrand, neither can you pay, nor do I wish such a sum. So consider
again."
"Sir," answered Bertrand, with grave composure, "since you wish not so
much, I place myself at sixty thousand double florins; you shall not
have less, if you but discharge me."
"Be it so," said the prince. "I agree to it."
Then Bertrand looked round him with glad eyes, and drew up his form with
proud assurance.
"Sir," he said, "Prince Henry may truly vaunt that he will die king of
Spain, cost him what it may, if he but lend me half my ransom, and the
king of France the other. If I can neither go nor send to these two, I
will get all the spinstresses in France to spin it, rather than that I
should remain longer in your hands."
"What sort of man is this?" said the prince, aside to his lords. "He is
startled by nothing, either in act or thought; no more than if he had
all the gold in the world. He has set himself at sixty thousand double
florins, when I would have willingly accepted ten thousand."
The barons talked among one another, lost in astonishment. Bertrand
stood aside, his eyes fixed quietly upon the prince.
"Am I then at liberty?" he asked.
"Whence shall the money come?" queried Chandos.
"Trust me to find it," said Bertrand. "I have good friends."
"By my faith," answered Chandos, heartily, "you have one of them here.
If you need my help, thus much I say: I will lend you ten thousand."
"You have my thanks," answered Bertrand. "But before accepting your
offer, I will try the people of my own country."
The confidence of the gallant soldier was not misplaced. Part of the sum
was raised among his Breton friends, and King Charles V. of France lent
him thirty thousand Spanish doubloons. In the beginning of 1368 the
Prince of Wales set him at liberty.
The remaining story of the life of Du Guesclin is a stirring and
interesting one. War was the only trade he knew, and he plunged boldly
into it. First he joined the Duke of Anjou, who was warring in Provence
against Queen Joan of Naples. Then he put his sword again at the service
of Henry of Transtamare, who was at war once more with Pedro the Cruel,
and whom he was soon to dethrone and slay with his own hand. But shortly
afterwards war broke out again between France and England, and Charles
V. summoned Du Guesclin to Paris.
The king's purpose was to do the greatest honor to the poor but proud
soldier. He offered him the high office of Constable of
France,--commander-in-chief of the army and the first dignitary under
the crown. Du Guesclin prayed earnestly to be excused, but the king
insisted, and he in the end felt obliged to yield. The poor Breton had
now indeed risen to high estate. The king set him beside himself at
table, showed him the deepest affection, and showered on him gifts and
estates. His new wealth the free-handed soldier dispensed lavishly,
giving numerous and sumptuous dinners, where, says his poet
chronicler,--
"At Bertrand's plate gazed every eye,
So massive, chased so gloriously."
This plate proved a slippery possession. More than once he pledged it,
and in the end sold great part of it, to pay "without fail the knights
and honorable fighting-men of whom he was the leader."
The war roused a strong spirit of nationality through France. Towns,
strongholds, and castles were everywhere occupied and fortified. The
English marched through the country, but found no army in the field, no
stronghold that was to be had without a hard siege. Du Guesclin adopted
the waiting policy, and kept to it firmly against all opposition of lord
or prince. It was his purpose to let the English scatter and waste
themselves in a host of small operations and petty skirmishes. For eight
years the war continued, with much suffering to France, with no gain to
England. In 1373 an English army landed at Calais, which overran nearly
the whole of France without meeting a French army or mastering a French
fortress, while incessantly harassed by detached parties of soldiers. On
returning, of the thirty thousand horses with which they had landed,
"they could not muster more than six thousand at Bordeaux, and had lost
full a third of their men and more. There were seen noble knights who
had great possessions in their own country, toiling along afoot, without
armor, and begging their bread from door to door without getting any."
Such were the happy results for France of the Fabian policy of the
Constable Du Guesclin.
A truce was at length signed, that both parties might have time to
breathe. Soon afterwards, on June 8, 1376, the Black Prince died, and in
June of the following year his father, Edward III., followed him to the
tomb, and France was freed from its greatest foes. During his service as
constable, Bertrand had recovered from English hands the provinces of
Poitou, Guienne, and Auvergne, and thus done much towards the
establishment of a united France.
Du Guesclin was not long to survive his great English enemies. The king
treated him unjustly, and he threw up his office of constable, declaring
that he would seek Spain and enter the service of Henry of Castile. This
threat brought the king to his senses. He sent the Dukes of Anjou and
Bourbon to beg Du Guesclin to retain his office. The indignant soldier
yielded to their persuasions, accepted again the title of Constable of
France, and died four days afterwards, on July 13, 1380. He had been
sent into Languedoc to suppress disturbances and brigandage, provoked by
the harsh government of the Duke of Anjou, and in this service fell
sick while besieging Châteauneuf-Randon, in the Gévandan, a fortress
then held by the English. He died at sixty-six years of age, with his
last words exhorting the captains around him "never to forget that, in
whatsoever country they might be making war, churchmen, women, children,
and the poor people were not their enemies."
He won victory even after his death, so say the chronicles of that day.
It is related that an agreement had been made for the surrender of the
besieged fortress, and that the date fixed was July 14, the day after Du
Guesclin died. The new commander of the army summoned the governor to
surrender, but he declared that he had given his word to Du Guesclin,
and would yield the place to no other. He was told that the constable
was dead.
"Very well;" he replied, "I will carry the keys of the town to his
tomb."
And so he did. He marched out of the place at the head of his garrison,
passed through the lines of the besieging army, knelt before Du
Guesclin's corpse, and laid the keys of Châteauneuf-Randon on his bier.
And thus passed away one of the greatest and noblest warriors France had
ever known, honored in life and triumphant in death.
_JOAN OF ARC, THE MAID OF ORLEANS._
At the hour of noon, on a sunny summer's day in the year of our Lord
1425, a young girl of the little village of Domremy, France, stood with
bent head and thoughtful eyes in the small garden attached to her
father's humble home. There was nothing in her appearance to attract a
second glance. Her parents were peasants, her occupation was one of
constant toil, her attire was of the humblest, her life had been
hitherto spent in aiding her mother at home or in driving her father's
few sheep afield. None who saw her on that day could have dreamed that
this simple peasant maiden was destined to become one of the most famous
women whose name history records, and that this day, was that of the
beginning of her career.
She had been born at a critical period in history. Her country was in
extremity. For the greater part of a century the dreadful "Hundred
Years' War" had been waged, desolating France, destroying its people by
the thousands, bringing it more and more under the dominion of a foreign
foe. The realm of France had now reached its lowest depth of disaster,
its king uncrowned, its fairest regions overrun,--here by the English,
there by the Burgundians,--the whole kingdom in peril of being taken and
reduced to vassalage. Never before nor since had the need of a
deliverer been so vitally felt. The deliverer chosen of heaven was the
young peasant girl who walked that summer noon in her father's humble
garden at Domremy.
Young as she was, she had seen the horrors of war. Four years before the
village had been plundered and burnt, its defenders slain or wounded,
the surrounding country devastated. The story of the suffering and peril
of France was in all French ears. Doubtless little Joan's soul burned
with sympathy for her beloved land as she moved thoughtfully up and down
the garden paths, asking herself if God could longer permit such wrongs
and disasters to continue.
Suddenly, to her right, in the direction of the small village church,
Joan heard a voice calling her, and, looking thither, she was surprised
and frightened at seeing a great light. The voice, continued; her
courage returned; "it was a worthy voice," she tells us, one that could
come only from angels. "I saw them with my bodily eyes," she afterwards
said. "When they departed from me I wept and would fain have had them
take me with them." Again and again came to her the voices and the
forms; they haunted her; and still the burden of their exhortation was
the same, that she should "go to France to deliver the kingdom." The
girl grew dreamy. She became lost in meditation, full of deep thoughts
and budding purposes, wrought by the celestial voices into high hopes
and noble aspirations, possessed with the belief that she had been
chosen by heaven to deliver France from its woes and to disconcert its
enemies.
The times were fitting for such a conception. Two forces ruled mens'
minds,--ambition and trust in the supernatural. The powerful
depended upon their own arms for aid; the weak and miserable turned to
Christ and the Virgin for support; there were those who looked to see
God in bodily person; His angels and ministers were thought to deal
directly with man; it was an age in which force and fraud alike were
dominant, in which men were governed in their bodies by the sword, in
their souls by their belief in and dread of the supernatural, and in
which enthusiasm had higher sway than thought. It was enthusiastic
belief in her divine mission that moved Joan of Arc. It was trust in her
as God's agent of deliverance that filled the soul of France with new
spirit, and unnerved her foes with enfeebling fears. Joan's mission and
her age were well associated. In the nineteenth century she would have
been covered with ridicule; in the fifteenth she led France to victory.
Three years passed away. Joan's faith in her mission had grown with the
years. Some ridiculed, many believed her. The story of her angelic
voices was spreading. At length came the event that moved her to action.
The English laid siege to Orleans, the most important city in the
kingdom after Paris and Rouen. If this were lost, all might be lost.
Some of the bravest warriors of France fought in its defence; but the
garrison was weak, the English were strong, their works surrounded the
walls; daily the city was more closely pressed; unless relieved it must
fall.
"I must go to raise the siege of Orleans," said Joan to Robert de
Baudricourt, commander of Vaucouleurs, with whom she had gained speech.
"I will go, should I have to wear off my legs to the knee."
"I must be with the king before the middle of Lent," she said later to
John of Metz, a knight serving with Baudricourt; "for none in the world,
nor kings, nor dukes, nor daughter of the Scottish king can recover the
kingdom of France; there is no help but in me. Assuredly I would far
rather be spinning beside my poor mother, for this other is not my
condition; but I must go and do my work because my Lord wills that I
should do it."
"Who is your Lord?" asked John of Metz.
"The Lord God."
"By my faith," cried the knight, as he seized her hands. "I will take
you to the king, God helping. When will you set out?"
"Rather now than to-morrow; rather to-morrow than later," said Joan.
On the 6th of March, 1429, the devoted girl arrived at Chinon, in
Touraine, where the king then was. She had journeyed nearly a hundred
and fifty leagues, through a country that was everywhere a theatre of
war, without harm or insult. She was dressed in a coat of mail, bore
lance and sword, and had a king's messenger and an archer as her train.
This had been deemed necessary to her safety in those distracted times.
Interest and curiosity went before her. Baudricourt's letters to the
king had prepared him for something remarkable. Certain incidents which
happened during Joan's journey, and which were magnified by report into
miracles, added to the feeling in her favor. The king and his council
doubted if it were wise to give her an audience. That a peasant girl
could succor a kingdom in extremity seemed the height of absurdity. But
something must be done. Orleans was in imminent danger. If it were
taken, the king might have to fly to Spain or Scotland. He had no money.
His treasury, it is said, held only four crowns. He had no troops to
send to the besieged city. Drowning men catch at straws. The people of
Orleans had heard of Joan and clamored for her; with her, they felt
sure, would come superhuman aid. The king consented to receive her.
It was the 9th of March, 1429. The hour was evening. Candles dimly
lighted the great hall of the king's palace at Chinon, in which nearly
three hundred knights were gathered. Charles VII., the king, was among
them, distinguished by no mark or sign, more plainly dressed than most
of those around him, standing retired in the throng.
Joan was introduced. The story--in which we cannot put too much
faith--says that she walked straight to the king through the crowd of
showily-dressed lords and knights, though she had never seen him
before, and said, in quiet and humble tones,--
"Gentle dauphin" (she did not think it right to call him king until he
had been crowned), "my name is Joan the maid; the King of Heaven sendeth
you word by me that you shall be anointed and crowned in the city of
Rheims, and shall be lieutenant of the King of Heaven, who is king of
France. It is God's pleasure that our enemies, the English, should
depart to their own country; if they depart not, evil will come to them,
and the kingdom is sure to continue yours."
What followed is shrouded in doubt. Some say that Joan told Charles
things that none but himself had known. However this be, the king
determined to go to Poitiers and have this seeming messenger from Heaven
questioned strictly as to her mission, by learned theologians of the
University of Paris there present.
"In the name of God," said Joan, "I know that I shall have rough work
there, but my Lord will help me. Let us go, then, for God's sake."
They went. It was an august and learned assembly into which the
unlettered girl was introduced, yet for two hours she answered all their
questions with simple earnestness and shrewd wit.
"In what language do the voices speak to you?" asked Father Seguin, the
Dominican, "a very sour man," says the chronicle.
"Better than yours," answered Joan. The doctor spoke a provincial
dialect.
"Do you believe in God?" he asked, sharply.
"More than you do," answered Joan, with equal sharpness.
"Well," he answered, "God forbids belief in you without some sign
tending thereto; I shall not give the king advice to trust men-at-arms
to you and put them in peril on your simple word."
"In the name of God," replied Joan, "I am not come to Poitiers to show
signs. Take me to Orleans and I will give you signs of what I am sent
for. Let me have ever so few men-at-arms given me and I will go to
Orleans."
For a fortnight the questioning was continued. In the end the doctors
pronounced in Joan's favor. Two of them were convinced of her divine
mission. They declared that she was the virgin foretold in ancient
prophecies, notably in those of Merlin. All united in saying that "there
had been discovered in her naught but goodness, humility, devotion,
honesty, and simplicity."
Charles decided. The Maid should go to Orleans. A suit of armor was made
to fit her. She was given the following of a war-chief. She had a white
banner made, which was studded with lilies, and bore on it a figure of
God seated on clouds and bearing a globe, while below were two kneeling
angels, above were the words "Jesu Maria." Her sword she required the
king to provide. One would be found, she said, marked with five crosses,
behind the altar in the chapel of St. Catharine de Fierbois, where she
had stopped on her arrival in Chinon. Search was made, and the sword was
found.
And now five weeks were passed in weary preliminaries, despite the fact
that Orleans pleaded earnestly for succor. Joan had friends at court,
but she had powerful enemies, whose designs her coming had thwarted, and
it was they who secretly opposed her plans. At length, on the 27th of
April, the march to Orleans began.
On the 29th the army of relief arrived before the city. There were ten
or twelve thousand men in the train, guarding a heavy convoy of food.
The English covered the approach to the walls, the only unguarded
passage being beyond the Loire, which ran by the town. To the surprise
and vexation of Joan her escort determined to cross the stream.
"Was it you," she asked Dunois, who had left the town to meet her, "who
gave counsel for making me come hither by this side of the river, and
not the direct way, over there where Talbot and the English are?"
"Yes; such was the opinion of the wisest captains," he replied.
"In the name of God, the counsel of my Lord is wiser than yours. You
thought to deceive me, and you have deceived yourselves, for I am
bringing you the best succor that ever had knight, or town, or city, and
that is, the good-will of God and succor from the King of Heaven; not,
assuredly, for love of me; it is from God only that it proceeds."
She wished to remain with the troops until they could enter the city,
but Dunois urged her to cross the stream at once, with such portion of
the convoy as the boats might convey immediately.
"Orleans would count it for naught," he said, "if they received the
victuals without the Maid."
She decided to go, and crossed the stream with two hundred men-at-arms
and part of the supplies. At eight o'clock that evening she entered the
city, on horseback, in full armor, her banner preceding her, beside her
Dunois, behind her the captains of the garrison and several of the most
distinguished citizens. The population hailed her coming with shouts of
joy, crowding on the procession, torch in hand, so closely that her
banner was set on fire. Joan made her horse leap forward with the skill
of a practised horseman, and herself extinguished the flame.
It was a remarkable change in her life. Three years before, a simple
peasant child, she had been listening to the "voices" in her father's
garden at Domremy. Now, the associate of princes and nobles, and the
last hope of the kingdom, she was entering a beleaguered city at the
head of an army, amid the plaudits of the population, and followed by
the prayers of France. She was but seventeen years old, still a mere
girl, yet her coming had filled her countrymen with hope and depressed
their foes with dread. Such was the power of religious belief in that
good mediæval age.
The arrival of the Maid was announced to the besiegers by a herald, who
bore a summons from her to the English, bidding them to leave the land
and give up the keys of the cities which they had wrongfully taken,
under peril of being visited by God's judgment. They detained and
threatened to burn the herald, as a warning to Joan, the sorceress, as
they deemed her. Yet such was their terror that they allowed the armed
force still outside the city to enter unmolested, through their
intrenchments.
The warning Joan had sent them by herald she now repeated in person,
mounting a bastion and bidding the English, in a loud voice, to begone,
else woe and shame would come upon them.
The commandant of the bastille opposite, Sir William Gladesdale,
answered with insults, bidding her to go back and mind her cows, and
saying that the French were miscreants.
"You speak falsely!" cried Joan; "and in spite of yourselves shall soon
depart hence; many of your people shall be slain; but as for you, you
shall not see it."
Nor did he; he was drowned a few days afterwards, a shot from Orleans
destroying a drawbridge on which he stood, with many companions.
What succeeded we may tell briefly. Inspired by the intrepid Maid, the
besieged boldly attacked the British forts, and took them one after
another. The first captured was that of St. Loup, which was carried by
Joan and her troops, despite the brave defence of the English. The next
day, the 6th of May, other forts were assailed and taken, the men of
Orleans, led by Joan, proving irresistible. The English would not face
her in the open field, and under her leadership the French intrepidly
stormed their ramparts.
A memorable incident occurred during the assault on the works south of
the city. Here Joan seized a scaling ladder, and was mounting it herself
when an arrow struck and wounded her. She was taken aside, her armor
removed, and she herself pulled out the arrow, though with some tears
and signs of faintness. Her wound being dressed, she retired into a
vineyard to rest and pray. Discouraged by her absence, the French began
to give way. The captains ordered the retreat to be sounded.
"My God, we shall soon be inside," cried Joan to Dunois. "Give your
people a little rest; eat and drink."
In a short time she resumed her arms, mounted her horse, ordered her
banner to be displayed, and put herself at the head of the storming
party. New courage inspired the French; the English, who had seen her
fall, and were much encouraged thereby, beheld her again in arms with
superstitious dread. Joan pressed on; the English retreated; the fort
was taken without another blow. Back to Orleans marched the triumphant
Maid, the people wild with joy. All through the night the bells rang out
glad peals, and the _Te Deum_ was chanted. Much reason had they for joy:
Orleans was saved.
It was on a Saturday that these events had taken place. At daybreak of
the next day, Sunday, May 8, the English advanced to the moats of the
city as if to offer battle. Some of the French leaders wished to accept
their challenge, but Joan ran to the city gates, and bade them desist
"for the love and honor of holy Sunday."
"It is God's good-will and pleasure," she said, "that they be allowed to
get them gone if they be minded to go away; if they attack you, defend
yourselves boldly; you will be the masters."
An altar was raised at her suggestion; mass was celebrated, and hymns of
thanksgiving chanted. While this was being done, the English turned and
marched away, with banners flying. Their advance had been an act of
bravado.
"See," cried Joan, "are the English turning to you their faces, or
verily their backs? Let them go; my Lord willeth not that there be any
fighting this day; you shall have them another time."
Her words were true; the English were in full retreat; the siege of
Orleans was raised. So hastily had they gone that they had left their
sick and many of their prisoners behind, while the abandoned works were
found to be filled with provisions and military supplies. The Maid had
fulfilled her mission. France was saved.
History contains no instance to match this. A year before, Joan of Arc,
a low-born peasant girl, had occupied herself in tending sheep and
spinning flax; her hours of leisure being given to dreams and visions.
Now, clad in armor and at the head of an army, she was gazing in triumph
on the flight of a hostile army, driven from its seemingly assured prey
by her courage, intrepidity, and enthusiasm, while veteran soldiers
obeyed her commands, experienced leaders yielded to her judgment. Never
had the world seen its like. The Maid of Orleans had made her name
immortal.
Three days afterward Joan was with the king, at Tours. She advanced to
meet him with her banner in her hand, her head uncovered, and making a
deep obeisance over her horse's head. Charles met her with the deepest
joy, taking off his cap and extending his hand, while his face beamed
with warm gratitude.
She urged him to march at once against his flying enemies, and to start
without delay for Rheims, there to be crowned, that her mission might be
fulfilled.
"I shall hardly last more than a year," she said, with prophetic
insight; "we must think of working right well this year, for there is
much to do."
Charles hesitated; hesitation was natural to him. He had many advisers
who opposed Joan's counsel. There were no men, no money, for so great a
journey, they said. Councils were held, but nothing was decided on. Joan
grew impatient and impetuous. Many supported her. Great lords from all
parts of France promised their aid. One of these, Guy de Laval, thus
pictures the Maid:
"It seems a thing divine to look on her and listen to her. I saw her
mount on horseback, armed all in white armor, save her head, and with a
little axe in her hand, on a great black charger, which, at the door of
her quarters, was very restive and would not let out her mount. Then
said she, 'Lead him to the cross,' which was in front of the neighboring
church, on the road. There she mounted him without his moving, and as if
he were tied up; and turning towards the door of the church, which was
very nigh at hand, she said, in quite a womanly voice, 'You priests and
churchmen, make procession and prayers to God!' Then she resumed her
road, saying, 'Push forward, push forward!'"
Push forward it was. The army was infected with her enthusiasm,
irresistible with belief in her. On the 10th of June she led them to the
siege of the fortified places which lay around Orleans. One by one they
fell. On Sunday, June 12, Jargeau was taken. Beaugency next fell.
Nothing could withstand the impetuosity of the Maid and her followers,
Patay was assailed.
"Have you good spurs?" she asked her captains.
"Ha! must we fly, then!" they demanded.
"No, surely; but there will be need to ride boldly; we shall give a good
account of the English, and our spurs will serve us famously in pursuing
them."
The French attacked, by order of Joan.
"In the name of God, we must fight," she said. "Though the English were
suspended from the clouds, we should have them, for God has sent us to
punish them. The gentle king shall have to-day the greatest victory he
has ever had; my counsel has told me that they are ours."
Her voices counselled well. The battle was short, the victory decisive.
The English were put to flight; Lord Talbot, their leader, was taken.
"Lord Talbot, this is not what you expected this morning," said the Duke
d'Alençon.
"It is the fortune of war," answered Talbot, coolly.
Joan returned to the king and demanded that they should march instantly
for Rheims. He hesitated still. His counsellors advised delay. The
impatient Maid left the court and sought the army. She was mistress of
the situation. The king and his court were obliged to follow her. On
June 29 the army, about twelve thousand strong, began the march to
Rheims.
There were obstacles on the road, but all gave way before her. The
strong town of Troyes, garrisoned by English and Burgundians, made a
show of resistance; but when her banner was displayed, and the assault
began, she being at the head of the troops, the garrison lost heart and
surrendered. On went the army, all opposition vanishing. On the 16th of
July, King Charles entered Rheims. The coronation was fixed for the
following day. "Make good use of my time," Joan repeated to the king,
"for I shall hardly last longer than a year."
In less than three months she had driven the English from before
Orleans, captured from them city after city, raised the sinking cause of
France into a hopeful state, and now had brought the prince to be
crowned in that august cathedral which had witnessed the coronation of
so many kings. On the 17th the ceremony took place with much grandeur
and solemnity. Joan rode between Dunois and the Archbishop of Rheims,
while the air rang with the acclamations of the immense throng.
"I have accomplished that which my Lord commanded me to do," said Joan,
"to raise the siege of Orleans and have the gentle king crowned. I
should like it well if it should please Him to send me back to my father
and mother, to keep their sheep and their cattle and do that which was
my wont."
It would have been well for her if she had done so, for her future
career was one of failure and misfortune. She kept in arms at the king's
desire. In September she attacked Paris, and was defeated, she herself
being pierced through the thigh with an arrow. It was her first repulse.
During the winter we hear little of her. Her family was ennobled by
royal decree, and the district of Domremy made free from all tax or
tribute. In the spring the enemy attacked Compiègne. Joan threw herself
into the town to save it. She had not been there many hours when, in a
sortie, the French were repulsed. Joan and some of her followers
remained outside fighting, while the drawbridge was raised and the
portcullis dropped by the frightened commandant. The Burgundians crowded
around her. Twenty of them surrounded her horse. One, a Picard archer,
"a tough fellow and mighty sour," seized her and flung her to the
ground. She was a prisoner in their hands.
The remaining history of Joan of Arc presents a striking picture of the
character of the age. It is beyond our purpose to give it. It will
suffice to say that she was tried by the English as a sorceress, dealt
with unfairly in every particular, and in the end, on May 30, 1431, was
burned at the stake. Even as the flames rose she affirmed that the
voices which she had obeyed came from God. Her voice was raised in
prayer as death approached, the last word heard from her lips being
"Jesus!"
"Would that my soul were where I believe the soul of that woman is!"
cried two of her judges, on seeing her die.
And Tressart, secretary to Henry VI. of England, said, on his return
from the place of execution, "We are all lost; we have burned a saint!"
A saint she was, an inspired one. She died, but France was saved.
_THE CAREER OF A KNIGHT-ERRANT._
Mediæval history would be of greatly reduced interest but for its
sprightly stories of knights and their doings. In those days when men,
"clad in complete steel," did their fighting with spear, sword, and
battle-axe, and were so enamoured of hard blows and blood-letting that
in the intervals of war they spent their time seeking combat and
adventure, much more of the startling and romantic naturally came to
pass than can be looked for in these days of the tyranny of commerce and
the dominion of "villanous saltpetre." This was the more so from the
fact that enchanters, magicians, demons, dragons, and all that uncanny
brood, the creation of ignorance and fancy, made knighthood often no
sinecure, and men's haunting belief in the supernatural were frequently
more troublesome to them than their armed enemies. But with this
misbegotten crew we have nothing to do. They belong to legend and
fiction, not to history, and it is with the latter alone that we are
here concerned. But as more than one example has been given of how
knights bore themselves in battle, it behooves us to tell something of
the doings of a knight-errant, one of those worthy fellows who went
abroad to prove their prowess in single combat, and win glory in the
tournament at spear's point.
Such a knight was Jacques de Lelaing, "the good knight without fear and
without doubt," as his chroniclers entitle him, a Burgundian by birth,
born in the château of Lelaing early in the fifteenth century. Jacques
was well brought up for a knight. Literature was cultivated in Burgundy
in those days, and the boy was taught the arts of reading and writing,
the accomplishments of French and Latin, and in his later life he
employed the pen as well as the sword, and did literary work of which
specimens still survive.
In warlike sports he excelled. He was still but a youth when the nephew
of Philip the Good of Burgundy (Philip the _Bad_ would have hit the mark
more nearly) carried him off to his uncle's court to graduate in
knighthood. The young adventurer sought the court of Philip well
equipped for his new duties, his father, William de Lelaing, having
furnished him with four fine horses, a skilful groom, and a no less
skilful valet; and also with some good advice, to the effect that,
"Inasmuch as you are more noble than others by birth, so should you be
more noble than they by virtues," adding that, "few great men have
gained renown for prowess and virtue who did not entertain love for some
dame or damoiselle."
The latter part of the advice the youthful squire seemed well inclined
to accept. He was handsome, gallant, bold, and eloquent, and quickly
became a favorite with the fair sex. Nor was he long in gaining an
opportunity to try his hand in battle, a squabble having arisen between
Philip and a neighboring prince. This at an end, our hero, stirred by
his "errant disposition," left Philip's court, eager, doubtless, to win
his spurs by dint of battle-axe and blows of blade.
In 1445 he appeared at Nancy, then occupied by the French court, which
had escorted thither Margaret of Anjou, who was to be taken to England
as bride to Henry VI. The occasion was celebrated by festivals, of which
a tournament was the principal feature, and here the Burgundian squire,
piqued at some disparaging remarks of the French knights, rode into the
lists and declared his purpose to hold them against all comers,
challenging the best knight there to unhorse him if he could.
The boastful squire was richly adorned for the occasion, having already
made friends among the ladies of the court, and wearing favors and
jewels received at the hands of some of the fairest there. Nor was his
boast an empty one. Not a man who faced him was able to hurl him from
the saddle, while many of them left the lists with bruised bodies or
broken bones.
"What manner of man will this be," said the onlookers, "who as a boy is
so firm of seat and strong of hand?"
At the banquet which followed Jacques was as fresh and gay as if newly
risen from sleep, and his conquests among the ladies were as many as he
had won among the knights. That night he went to his couch the owner of
a valuable diamond given him by the Duchess of Orleans, and of a ring
set with a precious ruby, the gift of the Duchess of Calabria. Verily,
the squire of Burgundy had made his mark.
The end of the year found our bold squire in Antwerp. Here, in the
cathedral of Notre Dame, he met an arrogant Sicilian knight named
Bonifazio, whose insolent bearing annoyed him. The Sicilian wore on his
left leg a golden fetter-ring fastened by a chain of gold to a circlet
above his knee, while his shield bore the defiant motto, "Who has fair
lady, let him look to her well."
Jacques looked at the swaggering fellow, liked his bearing but little,
and touched his shield by way of challenge, saying, "Thine is an
impertinent device."
"And thou art but a sorry squire, though with assurance enough for a
tried knight," answered the Sicilian.
"That is to prove," said Jacques, defiantly. "If my master, Duke Philip,
will give me leave to fight, thou durst not deny me, being, as we are,
on his Grace's territory."
Bonifazio accepted the challenge, and as the duke gave consent, a battle
between squire and knight was arranged, Ghent being the chosen place of
combat.
Two days it lasted, the first day's fight being a sort of horseback
prelude to the main combat. In this the squire bore himself so well
against his experienced antagonist, that Duke Philip judged he had
fairly won his spurs, and on the next day he was formally made a
knight, with the accolade and its attendant ceremonies.
This day the work displayed worthily followed the promising preface.
After a preliminary bout with spears, the combatants seized their
battle-axes, and hewed at each other with the vigor of two woodmen
felling a mighty oak. The edges of the axes being spoiled, the knights
drew their well-tempered swords and renewed the combat with the
lustihood of the heroes of the Round Table, fighting so fiercely that it
was not easy to follow the gleam of the swift-flashing blades. In the
end the Burgundian proved himself more than a match for the Sicilian,
driving him back, hewing rents in his armor, and threatening him with
speedy death. At this stage of the affray Duke Philip, at the request of
the Duke of Orleans, flung his truncheon into the lists and ended the
fight, in time to save the Sicilian knight.
His signal victory won Sir Jacques much fame. His antagonist was a man
of mark, and the Burgundian knight gained from his prowess the
appellation of "The Good Knight," which he maintained throughout his
career. He now determined to take up the profession of knight-errant,
travelling from court to court, and winning smiles and fame wherever
lists were set up or men of prowess could be found. But first he sought
his home and the approval of his parents.
"Go on thy way, with God's blessing," said his stout sire, who had
cracked skulls in his day and was proud of his doughty son.
"Yes, go on thy way, Jacques," said his mother in milder tone, and with
moist eyes. "I have put a healing ointment in thy valise, that will cure
bruises. If thou shouldst break a bone, Heaven send thee a skilful
surgeon."
Into France rode Sir Jacques, well mounted, and with squire and page in
his train, in search of adventures and opponents, eager for fame and
profit. From his left arm, fastened by a chain of gold, hung a splendid
helmet, which he offered as a prize to any knight who could overcome him
in single combat. To this he added a diamond, which he agreed to present
to any lady whom his victor should name. Whoever should first drop his
axe in the combat was to bestow a bracelet on his opponent. To this
Jacques added a singular stipulation, significant of queer doings in
those days, that neither knight should be fastened to his saddle. For
all else, he put his trust in God and his own right arm, and in the aid
that came to him from the love of "the fair lady who had more power over
him than aught besides throughout the entire world."
Thus prepared and thus defying, Sir Jacques rode through Paris and the
other cities of France without meeting a knight ready to accept his
challenge. This was due to the king, however, rather than to his
knights; Charles VII. had forbidden any of his chevaliers to fight the
bold Burgundian, the fame of whose strength and prowess was already
wide-spread. Through southern France, then in the hands of the English,
rode our hero, with the same fortune. Many were ready to meet him at
the board, none in the field. Into Spain he passed on, still without an
adversary, and sore in temper despite his pride in his reputation.
At last, in the realm of the Dons, he found a knight ready to break
lances with him in the field, out of pure duty to his "much loved lady,"
as he affirmed. This was Don Diego de Guzman, grand master of Calatrava,
whom he met on the borders of Castile, and who at once accepted his
challenge. Yet single combat in those days was not quite the easy affair
we might imagine it, if we judged from fiction and legend. Before a
knight could indulge in mortal affray he was obliged to obtain the
consent of his sovereign, provided that peace ruled between his country
and that of his antagonist, as was the case between Spain and Burgundy.
The king of Spain was absent. An answer could not be had immediately.
While awaiting it, Sir Jacques rode into Portugal, followed by a
splendid retinue, and offered an open challenge to the knights of that
kingdom to take the field against him.
His ride was almost a royal procession. The story of his one combat
seemed to have gained Jacques world-wide fame. From the frontier to
Lisbon he was met with a continuous ovation, and in the capital, where a
ball was given in his honor, he was invited to open the dance with the
queen for partner. And so it went,--an abundance of merry-making,
unlimited feasting and dancing, but no fighting. Sir Jacques grew
melancholy. He pleaded with King Alphonso.
"I have had a turn in the dance with your queen," he said; "now let me
have a tourney with your knights."
"Burgundy is my good friend," answered the king, "and Heaven forbid that
a knight from that court should be roughly treated by any knights of
mine."
"By all the saints, I defy the best of them!" cried the irate knight.
"And so let it rest," said Alphonso, placably. "Ride back to Castile,
and do thy worst upon Guzman's hard head and strong ribs."
There being nothing better to do, Jacques complied, and made his way to
Valladolid, having learned that the king of Spain had graciously
consented to the combat. The 3d of February, 1447, was the day which had
been fixed for the battle between the two knights, "for the grace of God
and the love of their ladies," and on the advent of that day the city
named was so crowded with sport-loving Spaniards that its streets were
barely passable. A great day in the history of knight-errantry was
promised, and gentles and simples, lords and ladies alike, were anxious
to see the spectacle.
When the morning of the eventful day dawned all was bustle and
excitement in Valladolid, and multitudes gathered at the lists. The
Burgundian was on the ground and ready by ten o'clock, but it was three
before Don Guzman appeared, and then he came armed with an axe so
portentously long in the handle that the Spanish umpires themselves,
anxious as they were for his success, forbade its use. Yet the truculent
Don gave them no small trouble before he would consent to choose
another. This done, the knights were conducted to their tents, which
they were not to leave till the clarions had thrice sounded the signal
of battle.
Don Guzman, however, proved inconveniently brave and eager. At the first
trumpet blast out he sprang, and muttered fiercely when ordered back.
The second blast brought him out again, and this time the king himself
sent him back "with an ugly word." The third blast sounded. Out now flew
both combatants. Battle-axe in hand, they made at each other, and soon
the ring of axe on helmet delighted the ardent souls of the thousands of
lookers-on. At length, Diego's axe was hurled from his hand. Jacques,
with knightly courtesy, threw down his, and an interval of wrestling for
the mastery followed. Then they drew their swords, and assailed each
other with undiminished fierceness. What might have been the result it
is not easy to say; Sir Jacques had no carpet knight to deal with in Don
Diego; but the king ended the business by throwing his truncheon into
the lists, and refusing permission to the combatants to finish their
fight on horseback, as they wished. They thereupon shook hands, while
the air rang with the shouts of the spectators.
In the end Don Guzman behaved well. He praised the skill and courage of
his antagonist, and presented him with an Andalusian horse, covered
with rich trappings. In this Jacques was not to be outdone. He sent the
Don a charger of great beauty and value, whose coverings were of blue
velvet embroidered in gold, and the saddle of violet velvet. Banquets
and balls followed the combat; the combatants were feasted to their
hearts' content; and Sir Jacques at length left the court of Spain
loaded with presents and covered with honor.
And now the "good knight" turned his steps homeward, challenging all
champions as he went, but without finding an opponent. Feasting he found
in abundance; but no fighting. Stopping at Montpelier, he became the
guest of Jacques Coeur, silversmith and banker to Charles VII. His
worthy host offered him money freely, and engaged to redeem any
valuables which the wandering knight might have found it necessary to
pawn. Sir Jacques thanked him, but said,--
"My good master, the Duke of Burgundy, provides all that is necessary
for me, and allows me to want for nothing."
Soon after, our errant knight reached Philip's court, where he was
received with the highest honors. Then to his paternal castle he wended
his way, to be welcomed by his proud parents as gladly as if he had won
the Holy Grail. Dancing and rejoicing followed, in which all the
neighboring noble families participated, and many a fair damsel shed her
smiles--in vain it seems--on the famous and heart-whole knight.
We next hear of Jacques de Lelaing in 1449. In that year the herald
Charolais made his advent at the Scottish court, bearing a challenge
from the Burgundian knight to the whole clan of the Douglases. James
Douglas accepted the challenge, and Sir Jacques appeared in due time at
Stirling, where a battle took place in which the Burgundian again came
off victor. From Scotland Jacques sought England but failed to find in
that kingdom any knight willing to accept his challenge. Yet he had but
fairly got home again when an English knight, Sir Thomas Karr by name,
appeared at the court of Philip the Good, and challenged Jacques de
Lelaing to combat for the honor of old England.
As may well be imagined, this challenge was speedily accepted, the lists
being set in a field near Bruges. The English knight was the heavier,
but Jacques was the favorite, for once again he was fighting on his
native soil. Fierce was the combat. It ended in the Burgundian's favor.
Karr struck him a blow on the arm with his battle-axe which rendered
that arm useless, it being paralyzed or broken. But the valiant Jacques
dropped his axe, closed with his foe, and with the aid of his one arm
flung him to the ground, falling upon him. This ended the combat, the
Burgundian being pronounced victor. But as he had been the first to drop
his battle-axe, he presented Sir Thomas with a rich diamond, as he had
agreed in his challenge.
Jacques had been sorely hurt. His wound took a long time to heal. When
his arm had grown strong again he repaired to Châlons, where he opened
a tournament of his own, in which he held the lists against all comers.
This was in fulfilment of a vow which he had made that he would appear
in the closed lists thirty times before the completion of his thirtieth
year. Much fighting was done, much blood spilt, and much honor gained by
Sir Jacques. We cannot tell all that took place, but the noble
tournament at Châlons was long afterwards the talk of the country-side.
As for Sir Jacques, he was now at the height of fame, and Philip the
Good, to do him the highest honor in his power, created him a knight of
the illustrious order of the Golden Fleece. Of his single combats
afterwards we shall but speak of one fought at Brussels, in honor of the
son of the Duke of Burgundy, then eighteen years old. Jacques de Lelaing
was selected to tilt with the young count,--doubtless with the idea that
he could be trusted not to harm him. In the first course that was run
the count shattered his spear against the shield of Jacques, who raised
his own weapon and passed without touching his adversary. This
complaisance displeased the duke, who sent word to the knight that if he
proposed to play with his adversary he had better withdraw at once. They
ran again. This time both splintered their spears, and both kept their
seats, much to the delight of Duke Philip.
On the next day the grand tourney came off. To behold it there were
present no less than two hundred and twenty-five princes, barons,
knights, and squires. That day the youthful Count de Charolais
acquitted himself nobly, breaking eighteen spears,--and possibly some
bones of his antagonists. He carried off the prize, which wa
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