CHAPTER VIII.
The existence of a monarch, without his lot be cast amidst very halcyon days indeed, is much like the life of a seaman, borne up upon uncertain and turbulent waves. Exposed to a thousand storms, from which a peasant's cot would be sufficient shelter, his whole being is spent in watching for the tempest, and his whole course is at the mercy of the wind.
It was with bitterness of heart, and agony of spirit, that Philip Augustus saw gathering on the political horizon around many a dark cloud that threatened him with a renewal of all those fatigues, anxieties, and pains, from which he had hoped, at least, for some short respite. He saw it with a wrung and burning bosom, but he saw it without dismay; for, strong in the resources of a mind above his age, he resolved to wreak great and signal vengeance on the heads of those who should trouble his repose; and, knowing that the sorrow must come, he prepared, as ever with him, to make his revenge a handmaid to his policy, and, by the punishment of his rebellious vassals, not only to augment his own domains as a feudal sovereign, but to extend the general force and prerogative of the crown, and form a large basis of power on which his successors might build a fabric of much greatness.
However clearly he might see the approach of danger, and however vigorously he might prepare to repel it, Philip was not of that frame of mind which suffers remote evil long to interfere with present enjoyment. For a short space he contemplated them painfully, though firmly; but soon the pain was forgotten, and like a veteran soldier who knows he may be attacked during the night, and sleeps with his arms beside him, but still sleeps tranquilly, Philip saw the murmured threatening of his greater feudatories, and took every means of preparation against what he clearly perceived would follow: but this once done, he gave himself up to pleasures and amusements; seeming anxious to crowd into the short space of tranquillity that was left him, all the gaieties and enjoyments which might otherwise have been scattered through many years of peace. Fêtes, and pageants, and tournaments succeeded each other rapidly; and Philip of France, with his fair queen, seemed to look upon earth as a garden of smiles, and life as a long chain of unbroken delights.
Yet, even in his pleasures, Philip was politic. He had returned to Paris, though the summer heat had now completely set in, and June was far advanced; and sitting in the old palace on the island, he was placed near one of the windows, through which poured the free air of the river, while he arranged with his beloved Agnes the ceremonies of a banquet. Philip was famous for his taste in every sort of pageant; and now he was giving directions himself to various attendants who stood round, repeating with the most scrupulous exactness every particular of his commands, as if the very safety of his kingdom had depended on their correct execution.
While thus employed, his minister Guerin, now elected bishop of Senlis, though he still, as I have said, retained the garments of the knights of St. John, entered the apartment, and stood by the side of the king, while he gave his last orders, and sent the attendants away.
"Another banquet, sire!" said the bishop, with that freedom of speech which in those days was admitted between king and subject; and speaking in the grave and melancholy tone which converts an observation into a reproach.
"Ay, good brother!" replied Philip, looking up smilingly; "another banquet in the great salle du palais; and on the tenth of July a tournament at Champeaux. Sweet Agnes! laugh at his grave face! Wouldest thou not say, dear lady mine, that I spake to the good bishop of a defeat and a funeral, instead of a feast and a passe d'armes?"
"The defeat of your finances, sire, and the burial of your treasury," replied Guerin coldly.
"I have other finances that you know not of, bishop," replied the king, still keeping his good humour. "Ay, and a private treasury too, where gold will not be wanting."
"Indeed, my liege!" replied the bishop. "May I crave where?" Philip touched the hilt of his sword. "Here is an unfailing measure of finance!" said he; "and as for my treasury, 'tis in the purses of revolted barons, Guerin!"
"If you make use of that treasury, sire," answered the bishop, "for the good of your state, and the welfare of your people, 'tis indeed one that may serve you well; but if you spend it----." The bishop paused, as if afraid of proceeding, and Philip took up the word.
"If I spend it, you would say, in feasting and revelry," said the king, "I shall make the people murmur, and my best friends quit me. But," continued he in a gayer tone, "let us quit all sad thoughts, and talk of the feast,--the gay and splendid feast,--where you shall smile, Guerin, and make the guests believe you the gentlest counsellor that ever king was blest withal. Nay, I will have it so, by my faith! As to the guests, they are all choice and gay companions, whom I have chosen for their merriment. Thou shalt laugh heartily when placed between Philip of Champagne, late my sworn enemy, but who now becomes my good friend and humble vassal, and brings his nephew and ward, the young Thibalt, count of all Champagne, to grace his suzerain's feast--when placed between him, I say, and Pierre de Courtenay, whose allegiance is not very sure, and whose brother, the Count of Namur, is in plain rebellion. There shalt thou see also Bartholemi de Roye, and the Count de Perche, both somewhat doubtful in their love to Philip, but who, before that feast is over, shall be his humblest creatures. Fie, fie, Guerin!" he added, in a more reproachful tone, "will you never think that I have a deeper motive for my actions than lies upon the surface? As to the tournament, too, think you I do not propose to try men's hearts as well as their corslets, and see if their loyalty hold as firm a seat as they do themselves?"
"I never doubt, sire," replied the bishop, "that you have good and sufficient motives for all your actions; but, this morning, a sad account has been laid before me of the royal domains; and when I came to hear of banquets and tournaments, it pained me to think what you, sire, would feel, when you saw the clear statement."
"How so?" cried Philip Augustus. "It cannot be so very bad!--Let me see it, Guerin!--let me see it. 'Tis best to front such things at once.--Let me see it, man, I say!"
"I have it not here, sire," answered the bishop; "but I will send it by the clerk who drew it up; and who can give you farther accounts, should it be necessary."
"Quick then!" cried the king,--"quick, good bishop!" And walking up and down the hall, with an unquiet and somewhat irritated air, he repeated, "It cannot be so bad! The last time I made the calculation, 'twas somewhere near a hundred thousand livres. Bad enough, in truth--but I have known that long! Now, sir clerk," he continued, as a secretary entered, "read me the account, if it be as I see on wax. Was no parchment to be had, that you must draw the charter on wax[10] to blind me? Read, read!"
The king spoke in the hasty manner of one whose brighter hopes and wishes--for Imagination is always a great helpmate of Ambition, and as well as its first prompter, is its indefatigable ally--in the manner of one whose brighter hopes and wishes had been cut across by cold realities; and the clerk replied in the dull and snuffling tone peculiar to clerks, and monstrously irritating to every hasty man.
"Accounts of the Prévôt de Soissons, sire," said the clerk: "Receipts: six hundred livres, seven sous, two deniers. Expenses: eighteen livres, to arm three cross-bowmen; twenty livres to the holy clerk; seventy livres for clothing and arming twenty serjeants on foot. Accounts of the sénéchal of Pontoise," continued the clerk, in the same slow and solemn manner: "Receipts: five hundred livres, Parisis. Expenses: thirty-three livres, for wax-tapers for the church of the blessed St. Millon; twenty-eight sous for the carriage to Paris of the two living lions, now at the kennel of the wolf-hounds, without the walls; twenty livres, spent for the robes for four judges; and baskets for twenty eels--for seventeen young wolves."
"Death to my soul!" cried the impatient king: "make an end, man!--come to the sum total! How much remains?"
"Two hundred livres, six sous, one denier," replied the clerk.
"Villain, you lie!" cried the enraged monarch, striking him with his clenched fist, and snatching the tablets from his hand. "What! am I a beggar? 'Tis false, by the light of heaven!--It cannot be," he added, as his eye ran over the sad statement of his exhausted finances,--"it cannot surely be! Go, fellow! bid the bishop of Senlis come hither! I am sorry that I struck thee. Forget it! Go, bid Guerin hither,--quick!"
While this was passing, Agnes de Meranie had turned to one of the windows, and was gazing out upon the river and the view beyond. She would fain have made her escape from the hall, when first she found the serious nature of the business that had arisen out of the preparations for the fête; but Philip stood between her and either of the doors, both while he was speaking with his minister, and while he was receiving the statement from the clerk; and Agnes did not choose, by crossing him, to call his attention from his graver occupation. As soon, however, as the clerk was gone, Philip's eye fell upon her, as she leaned against the casement, with her slight figure bending in as graceful an attitude as the Pentelican marble was ever taught to show; and there was something in her very presence reproved the monarch for the unworthy passion into which he had been betrayed. When a man loves deeply, he would fain be a god in the eyes of the woman that he loves, lest the worship that he shows her should lessen him in his own. Philip was mortified that she had been present; and lest any thing equally mortal should escape him while speaking with his minister, he approached and took her hand.
"Agnes," said he, "I have forgot myself; but this tablet has crossed me sadly," pointing to the statement. "I shall be no longer able to give festal orders. Go you, sweet! and, in the palace gardens, bid your maidens strip all the fairest flowers to deck the tables and the hall----"
"They shall spare enough for one crown, at least," replied Agnes, "to hang on my royal Philip's casque on the tournament-day. But I will speed, and arrange the flowers myself." Thus saying, she turned away, with a gay smile, as if nothing had ruffled the current of the time; and left the monarch expecting thoughtfully the bishop of Senlis's return.
The minister did not make the monarch wait; but he found Philip Augustus in a very different mood from that in which he left him.
"Guerin," said the king, with a grave and careful air, "you have been my physician, and a wise one. The cup you have given me is bitter, but 'tis wholesome; and I have drunk it to the dregs."
"It is ever with the most profound sorrow," said the hospitaller, with that tone of simple persuasive gravity that carries conviction of its sincerity along with it, "that I steal one from the few scanty hours of tranquillity that are allotted to you, sire, in this life. Would it were compatible with your honour and your kingdom's welfare, that I should bear all the more burthensome part of the task which royalty imposes, and that you, sire, should know but its sweets! But that cannot be; and I am often obliged, as you say, to offer my sovereign a bitter cup that willingly I would have drunk myself."
"I believe you, good friend--from my soul, I believe you!" said the king. "I have ever observed in you my brother, a self-denying zeal, which is rare in this corrupted age; or used but as the means of ambition. Raise not your glance as if you thought I suspected you. Guerin, I do not! I have watched you well; and had I seen your fingers itch to close upon the staff of power,--had you but stretched out your hand towards it,--had you sought to have left me in idle ignorance of my affairs,--ay! or even sought to weary me of them with eternal reiteration, you never should have seen the secrets of my heart, as now you shall--I would have used you Guerin, as an instrument, but you never would have been my friend. Do you understand me, ha?
"I do, royal sir," replied the knight, "and God help me, as my wish has ever been only to serve you truly!"
"Mark me, then, Guerin!" continued the king. "This banquet must go forward--the tournament also--ay, and perhaps another. Not because I love to feast my eyes with the grandeur of a king--no, Guerin,--but because I would be a king indeed! I have often asked myself," proceeded the monarch, speaking slowly, and, as was sometimes his wont, laying the finger of his right-hand on the sleeve of the hospitaller's robe--"I have often asked myself whether a king would never fill the throne of France, who should find time and occasion fitting to carry royalty to that grand height where it was placed by Charlemagne. Do not start! I propose not--I hope not--to be the man; but I will pave the way, tread it who will hereafter. I speak not of acting Charlemagne with this before my eyes;" and he laid his hand upon the tablets, which showed the state of his finances, "But still I may do much--nay, I have done much."
Philip paused, and thought for a moment, seeming to recall, one by one, the great steps he had taken to change the character of the feudal system; then raising his eyes, he continued:--"When the sceptre fell into my grasp, I found that it was little more dignified than a jester's bauble. France was not a kingdom,--'twas a republic of nobles, of which the king could hardly be said to be the chief. He had but one prerogative left,--that of demanding homage from his vassals; and even that homage he was obliged to render himself to his own vassals, for feofs held in their mouvances. At that abuse was aimed my first blow."
"I remember it well, sire," replied the hospitaller, "and a great and glorious blow it was; for, by that simple declaration, that the king could not and ought not to be vassal to any man, and that any feof returning to the crown by what means soever, was no longer a feof, but became domaine of the crown, you re-established at once the distinction between the king and his great feudatories."
"'Twas but a step," replied the monarch; "the next was, Guerin, to declare that all questions of feudal right were referable to our court of peers. The proud Suzerains thought that there they would be their own judges; but they found that I was there the king. But, to be short,--Guerin I have followed willingly the steps that circumstances imposed upon my father. I have freed the commons,--I have raised the clergy,--I have subjected my vassals to my court. So have I broken the feudal hierarchy;--so have I reduced the power of my greater feudatories; and so have I won both their fear and their hatred. It is against that I must guard. The lesser barons love me--the clergy--the burghers;--but that is not enough; I must have one or two of the sovereigns. Then let the rest revolt if they dare! By the Lord that liveth! if they do, I will leave the domaines of the crown to my son, tenfold multiplied from what I found them. But I must have one or two of my princes. Philip of Champagne is one on whom words and honours work more than real benefits. He must be feasted and set on my right-hand. Pierre de Courtney is one whose heart and soul is on chivalry; and he must be won by tournaments and lance-breakings. Many, many others are alike; and while I crush the wasps in my gauntlet, Guerin, I must not fail to spread out some honey to catch the flies." So spake Philip Augustus, with feelings undoubtedly composed of that grand selfishness called ambition; but, at the same time, with those superior powers, both of conception and execution that not only rose above the age, but carried the age along with him.
"I am not one, sire," said the minister, "to deem that great enterprises may not be accomplished with small means; but, in the present penury of the royal treasury, I know not what is to be done. I will see, however, what may be effected amongst your good burghesses of Paris."
"Do so, good bishop!" replied the king, "and in the mean time I will ride forth to the hermit of Vincennes. He is one of those men, Guerin, of whom earth bears so few, who have new thoughts. He seems to have cast off all old ideas and feelings, when he threw from him the corslet and the shield, and took the frock and sandal. Perhaps he may aid us. But, ere I go, I must take good order that every point of ceremony be observed in our banquet: I would not, for one half France, that Philip of Champagne should see a fault or a flaw! I know him well; and he must be my own, if but to oppose to Ferrand of Flanders, who is the falsest vassal that ever king had!"
"I trust that the hermit may suggest the means!" replied Guerin, "and I doubt little that he will; but I beseech you, sire, not to let your blow fall on the heads of the Jews again. The hermit's advice was wise, to punish them for their crimes, and at the same time to enrich the crown of France; but having now returned by your royal permission, and having ever since behaved well and faithfully, they should be assured of protection."
"Fear not, fear not!" replied the king; "they are as safe as my honour can make them." So saying, he turned to prepare for the expedition he proposed.
Strange state of society! when one of the greatest monarchs that France ever possessed was indebted, on many occasions, for the re-establishment of his finances, and for some of his best measures of policy, to an old man living in solitude and abstraction, removed from the scenes and people over whose fate he exercised so extraordinary a control, and evincing, on every occasion, his disinclination to mingle with the affairs of the world.[11]
But it is time we should speak more fully of a person whose history and influence on the people amongst whom he lived, strongly developes the character of the age.
CHAPTER IX.
King Philip rode out of Paris attended like the monarch of a great nation; but, pausing at the tower of Vincennes, he left his men-at-arms behind; and, after throwing a brown mantle over his shoulders, and drawing the aumuce,[12] or furred hood, round his face, he proceeded through the park on foot, followed only by a single page to open the gate, which led out into the vast forest of St. Mandé. When this task was performed, the attendant, by order of the monarch, suffered him to proceed alone, and waited on the outside of the postern, to admit the king on his return.
Philip Augustus took a small path that, wandering about amidst the old trees, led on into the heart of the forest. All was in thick leaf; and the branches, meeting above, cast a green and solemn shadow over the way. It was occasionally crossed, however, with breaks of yellow sunshine where the trees parted; and there the eye might wander down the long, deep glades, in which sun and shade, and green leaves, and broad stems, and boughs, were all seen mingled together in the dim forest air, with an aspect of wild, original solitude, such as wood scenery alone can display.
One might have fancied oneself the first tenant of the world, in the sad loneliness of that dark, old wood; so that, as he passed along, deep thoughts of a solemn, and even melancholy character came thick about the heart of the monarch. The littleness of human grandeur--the evanescence of enjoyment--the emptiness of fame--the grand and awful lessons that solitude teaches, and the world wipes out, found their moment then: and, oh! for that brief instant, how he hated strife, and cursed ambition, and despised the world, and wished himself the solitary anchorite he went to visit!
At about half a league from the tower of Vincennes stood in those days an antique tomb. The name and fame of him whose memory it had been intended to perpetuate, had long passed away; and it remained in the midst of the forest of St. Mandé, with its broken tablets and effaced inscription, a trophy to oblivion. Near it, Bernard the hermit had built his hut; and when the monarch approached, he was seated on one of the large fragments of stone which had once formed part of the monument. His head rested on one hand; while the other, fallen by his side, held an open book; and at his feet lay the fragments of an urn in sculptured marble. Over his head, an old oak spread its wide branches; but through a vacant space amidst the foliage, where either age or the lightning had riven away one of the great limbs of the forest giant, the sunshine poured through, and touching on the coarse folds of the Hermit's garments, passed on, and shone bright upon the ruined tomb.
As Philip approached, the hermit raised his eyes, but dropped them again immediately. He was known to have, as it were, fits of this sort of abstraction, the repeated interruption of which had so irritated him, that, for a time, he retired to the mountains of Auvergne, and only returned at the express and repeated request of the king. He was now, if one might judge by the morose heaviness of his brow, buried in one of those bitter and misanthropical reveries into which he often fell; and the monarch, knowing his cynical disposition, took care not to disturb the course of his ideas, by suddenly presenting any fresh subject to his mind. Neither, to say the truth, were the thoughts of the king very discordant with those which probably occupied the person he came to see. Sitting down, therefore, on the stone beside him, without giving or receiving any salutation, he remained in silence, while the hermit continued gazing upon the tomb.
"Beautiful nature!" said the old man at last. "How exquisitely fine is every line thou hast chiseled in yon green ivy that twines amongst those stones!--Whose tomb was that, my son?"
"In truth, know not, good father!" replied the king; "and I do not think that in all France there is a man wise enough to tell you."
"You mock me!" said the hermit. "Look at the laurel--the never-dying leaf--the ever, ever-green bay, which some curious hand has carved all over the stone, well knowing that the prince or warrior who sleeps there should be remembered till the world is not! I pray thee, tell me whose is that tomb?"
"Nay, indeed, it is unknown," replied the king. "Heaven forbid that I should mock you! The inscription has been long effaced--the name for centuries forgot; and the living in their busy cares have taken little heed to preserve the memory of the dead."
"So shall it be with thee," said the old man--"so shall it be with thee. Thou shalt do great deeds; thou shalt know great joys, and taste great sorrows! Magnified in thy selfishness, thy littleness shall seem great. Thou shalt strive and conquer, till thou thinkest thyself immortal; then die, and be forgot! Thy very tomb shall be commented upon by idle speculation, and men shall come and wonder for whom it was constructed. Do not men call thee Augustus?"[13]
"I have heard so," replied the king. "But I know not whether such a title be general in the mouths of men, or whether it be the flattery of some needy sycophant."
"It matters not, my son," said the hermit--"it matters not. Think you, that if Augustus had been written on that tablet, the letters of that word would have proved more durable than those that time has long effaced? Think you, that it would have given one hour of immortality?"
"Good father, you mistake!" said Philip, "and read me a homily on that where least I sin. None feels more than I the emptiness of fame. Those that least seek it, very often win; and those that struggle for it with every effort of their soul, die unremembered. 'Tis not fame I seek: I live in the present."
"What!" cried the hermit, "and bound your hopes to half-a-dozen morrows? The present! What is the present? Take away the hours of sleep--of bodily, of mental pain--of regrets for the past--of fears for the future--of all sorts of cares. And what is the present? One short moment of transitory joy--a point in the wide eternity of thought!--a drop of water to a thirsty man, tasted and then forgot!"
"'Tis but too true!" replied the king; "and even now, as I came onward, I dreamed of casting off the load of sovereignty, and seeking peace."'
The hermit gazed at him for a moment, and seeing that he spoke gravely--"It cannot be," he replied. "It must not be!"
"And why not?" demanded the king. "All your reasoning has tended but to that. Why should I not take the moral to myself?"
"It cannot be," replied the hermit; "because the life of your resolution would be but half an hour. It must not be, because the world has need of you.--Monarch! I am not wont to flatter, and you have many a gross and hideous fault about you; but, according to the common specimens of human kind, you are worthy to be king. It matters little to the world, whether you do good for its sake or your own. If your ambition bring about your fellow-creatures' welfare, your ambition is a virtue: nourish it. You have done good, O king! and you will do good; and therefore you must be king, till Heaven shall give you your dismissal. Nor did my reasoning tend, as you say, to make you quit the cares of the world; but only to make you justly estimate its joys, and look to a better immortality than that of earth--that empty dream of human vanity! Still you must bear the load of sovereignty you speak of; and, by freeing the people from the yoke of their thousand tyrants, accomplish the work you have begun. See you not that I, who have a better right to fly from the affairs of men, have come back from Auvergne at your call?"
"My good father," answered the king, "I would fain, as you say, take the yoke from the neck of the people; but I have not means. Even now, my finances are totally exhausted; and I sit upon my throne a beggar."
"Ha!" said the hermit; "and therefore 'tis you seek me? I knew of this before. But say, are your exigencies so great as to touch the present, or only to menace the future?"
"'Tis present--too truly present, my want!" replied the king. "Said I not, I am a beggar? Can a king say more?"
"This must be remedied!" replied the hermit.--"Come into my cell, good son! Strange! that the ascetic's frock should prove richer than the monarch's gown!--but 'tis so!"
Philip followed the hermit into the rude thatched hut, on the cold earthen floor of which was laid the anchorite's bed of straw. It had no other furniture whatever. The mud walls were bare and rough. The window was but an opening to the free air of heaven; and the thatch seemed scarcely sufficient to keep off the inclemency of the weather. The king glanced his eye round the miserable dwelling, and then to the ashy and withered cheek of the hermit! as if he would have asked, Is it possible for humanity to bear such privation?
The anchorite remarked his look, and pointing to a crucifix of ebony hanging against the wall, "There," cried he, "is my reward!--there is the reward of fasting, and penitence, and prayer, and maceration, and all that has made this body the withered and blighted thing it is:--withered indeed! so that those who loved me best would not know a line in my countenance. But there is the reward!" And casting himself on his knees before the crucifix, he poured forth a long, wild, rhapsodical prayer, which, indeed, well accorded with the character of the times, but which was so very unlike the usual calm, rational, and even bitter manner of the anchorite, that Philip gazed on him, in doubt whether his judgment had not suddenly given way under the severity of his ascetic discipline.
At length the hermit rose, and, without noting the king's look of astonishment, turned abruptly from his address to heaven, to far more mundane thoughts. Pushing back the straw and moss which formed his bed, from the spot where it joined the wall, he discovered, to the king's no small surprise, two large leathern sacks or bags, the citizen-like rotundity of which evinced their fulness in some kind.
"In each of those bags," said the hermit, "is the sum of one thousand marks of silver. One of them shall be yours, my son; the other is destined for another purpose."
It would be looking too curiously into the human heart to ask whether Philip, who, the moment before, would have thought one of the bags a most blessed relief from his very unkingly distresses, did not, on the sight of two, feel unsatisfied that one only was to be his portion. However, he was really of too noble a disposition not to feel grateful for the gift, even as it was; and he was proceeding gracefully to thank the hermit, when the old man stopped him.
"Vanity, vanity! my son," cried he. "What need of thanks, for giving you a thing that is valueless to me?--ay, more worthless than the moss amongst which it lies. My vow forbids me either to buy or sell; and though I may use gold, as the beast of burden bears it--but to transfer it to another,--to me, it is more worthless than the dust of the earth, for it neither bears the herbs that give me food, nor the leaves that form my bed. Send for it, sir king, and it is yours.--But now, to speak of the future. I heard by the way that the Count de Tankerville is dead, and that the Duke of Burgundy claims all his broad lands. Is it so?"
"Nay," replied the king, "not so. The Count de Tankerville is wandering in the Holy Land. I have not heard of him since I went thither myself some ten years since: but he is there. At least, no tidings have reached me of his death. Even were he dead," continued the King, "which is not likely,--for he went but as one of the palmers, to whom, you know, the Soldan shows much favour; and he was a strong and vigorous man, fitted to resist all climates:--but even were he dead, the Duke of Burgundy has no claim upon his lands; for, before he went, he drew a charter and stamped it with his ring, whereby, in case of his death, he gives his whole and entire lands, with our royal consent, to Guy de Coucy, then a page warring with the men I left to Richard of England, but now a famous knight, who has done feats of great prowess in all parts of the world. The charter is in our royal treasury, sent by him to our safe keeping about ten years agone."
"Well, my son," replied the hermit, "the report goes that he is dead.--Now, follow my counsel. Lay your hand upon those lands; call in all the sums that for many years are due from all the count's prévôts and sénéchals; employ the revenues in raising the dignity of your crown, repressing the wars and plunderings of your barons, and----"
"But," interrupted the King, "my good father, will not what you advise itself be plundering? Will it not be a notable injustice?"
"Are you one of those, sir king," asked the hermit, "who come for advice, resolved to follow their own: and who hear the counsels of others, but to strengthen their own determination? Do as I tell you, and you shall prosper; and, by my faith in yon blessed emblem, I pledge myself that, if the Count de Tankerville be alive, I will meet his indignation; and he shall wreak his vengeance on my old head, if he agree not that the necessity of the case compelled you. If he be a good and loyal baron, he will not hesitate to say you did well, when his revenues were lying unemployed, or only fattening his idle servants. If he be dead, on the other hand, this mad-brained De Coucy, who owes me his life, shall willingly acquit you of the sums you have taken."
The temptation was too strong for the king to resist; and determining inwardly, merely to employ the large revenues of the Count de Tankerville for the exigencies of the state, and to repay them, if he or de Coucy did not willingly acquiesce in the necessity of the case,--without however remembering that repayment might not be in his power,--Philip Augustus consented to what the hermit proposed. It was also farther agreed between them, that in case of the young knight presenting himself at court, the question of his rights should be avoided, till such time as the death of the Count de Tankerville was positively ascertained; while, as some compensation, Philip resolved to give him, in case of war, the leading of all the knights and soldiers furnished by the lands which would ultimately fall to him.
The hermit was arranging all these matters with Philip, with as much worldly policy as if he never dreamed of nobler themes, when they were startled by the sound of a horn, which, though at some distance, was evidently in the forest. It seemed the blast of a huntsman; and a flush of indignation came over the countenance of the king, at the very thought of any one daring to hunt in one of the royal forests, almost within sight of the walls of Paris.
The hermit saw the angry spot, and giving way to the cynicism which mingled so strangely with many very opposite qualities in his character--"O God!" cried he, "what strange creatures thou hast made us! That a great, wise king should hold the right of slaughtering unoffending beasts as one of the best privileges of his crown!--to be sole and exclusive butcher of God's forests in France! I tell thee, monarch, that when those velvet brutes, that fly panting at thy very tread heard afar, come and lick my hand, because I feed them and hurt them not, I hold my staff as much above thy sceptre, as doing good is above doing evil! But hie thee away quick, and send thy men to search the forest; for, hark! the saucy fool blows his horn again, and knows not royal ears are listening to his tell-tale notes!"
Philip was offended: but the vast reputation for sanctity which the hermit had acquired; the fasts, the vigils, and the privations, which he himself knew to be unfeigned,--had, in that age of superstition, no small effect even upon the mind of Philip Augustus:--he submitted, therefore, to the anchorite's rebuke with seeming patience, but taking care not to reply upon a subject whereon he knew himself to be peculiarly susceptible, and which might urge him into anger, he took leave of the hermit, fully resolved to follow his advice so far as to send out some of his men-at-arms, to see who was bold enough to hunt in the royal chase.
This trouble, however, was spared him; for, as he walked back with a rapid pace, along the path that conducted to Vincennes, the sound of the horn came nearer and nearer; and suddenly the king was startled by an apparition in one of the glades, which was very difficult to comprehend. It consisted of a strong grey mare, galloping at full speed, with no apparent rider, but with two human legs, clothed in crimson silk, sticking far out before, one on each side of the animal's neck. As it approached, however, Philip began to perceive the body of the horseman, lying flat on his back, with his head resting on the saddle, and not at all discomposed by his strange position, nor the quick pace of his steed, blowing all sorts of mots upon his horn, which was, in truth, the sound that had disturbed the monarch in his conference with the hermit.
We must still remember, that the profound superstition of that age held, as a part of the true faith, the existence and continual appearance, in corporeal shape, of all sorts of spirits. It was also the peculiar province of huntsmen, and other persons frequenting large forests, to meet with these spirits; so that not a wood in France, of any extent, but had its appropriate fiend; and never did a chase terminate without some of the hunters separating from the rest, and having some evil communication of the kind with the peculiar demon of the place.
Now, though the reader may have before met with the personage who, in the present case, approached the king at full gallop, yet as Philip Augustus had never done so,--and as no mind, however strong, is ever without some touch of the spirit of its age, it was not unnatural for the monarch to lay his hand upon his sword, that being the most infallible way he had ever found of exorcising all kinds of spirits whatever. The mare, however, aware that she was in the presence of something more awful than trees and rocks, suddenly stopped, and, in a moment, our friend Gallon the fool sat bolt upright before the king, with his long and extraordinary nose wriggling in all sorts of ways on the blank flat of his countenance, as if it were the only part of his face that was surprised.
"Who the devil are you?" exclaimed the monarch; "and what do you, sounding your horn in this forest?"
"I, the devil, am nobody," replied the jongleur; "and if you ask what I do here, I am losing my way as hard as I can--Haw, haw!"
"Nobody! How mean you?" demanded Philip. "You cannot be nobody."
"Yes, I am," answered the juggler. "I have often heard the sage Count Thibalt d'Auvergne say to my master, the valiant Sir Guy de Coucy, that the intellect is the man. Now, I lack intellect; and therefore am I nobody.--Haw, haw! Haw, haw!"
"So thou art but a buffoon," said the king,
"No, not so either," replied Gallon. "I am, indeed. Sir Guy de Coucy's tame juggler; running wild in this forest, for want of instruction."
"And where is now Sir Guy de Coucy," demanded the king, "and the Count Thibalt d'Auvergne you speak of? They were both in the Holy Land when last I heard of them."
"As for the Count d'Auvergne," replied Gallon the fool,--"he parted from us three days since to go to Paris, to make love to the king's wife, who, they say, has a pretty foot. God help me!"
"Ha, villain!" cried the king. "'Tis well the king hears you not, or your ears would be slit!"
"So should his hearing spoil my hearing," cried the juggler; "but I would keep my ears out of his way. I have practice enough, in saving them from my Lord Sir Guy; but no man has reached them yet, and shall not.--Haw, haw!"
"And where is Sir Guy?" demanded the king. "How happen you to have parted from him?"
"He is but now sitting a mile hence, singing very doleful ballads under an oak," replied the juggler. "All about the old man and his daughter.--Haw, haw! Sir Julian of the Mount and the fair Isadore.--Haw, haw, haw!--You know?"
"No, 'faith, fool! I know not," replied Philip. "What do you mean?"
"Why, have you not heard," said the juggler, "how my good lord and my better self, and five or six varlets and squires, conducted old Sir Julian and the young Lady Isadore all the way from Vic le Comte to Senlis----and how we lost our way in this cursed forest--and how lord sent me to seek it? Oh, 'tis a fine tale, and my lord will write it in verse--Haw, haw, haw!--and sing it to an old rattling harp; and make all the folks weep to hear how he has sworn treason against the king, all for the sake of the Lady Isadore.--Haw, haw, haw! Haw, haw!" And placing his hand against his cheek, the juggler poured forth a mixture of all sorts of noises, in which that of sharpening a saw was alone predominant.
Philip called, and entreated, and commanded him to cease, and to tell him more; but the malicious juggler only burst out into one of his long shrill laughs, and throwing himself back on his horse, set it off into a gallop, without at all asking his way; at the same time putting the horn to his mouth, and blowing a blast quite sufficient to drown all the monarch's objurgations.
Philip turned upon his heel, and pursued his way to Vincennes, and--oh, strange human nature!--though he saw that his informant was a fool--though he easily guessed him to be a malicious one, he repeated again and again the words that Gallon had made use of--"Gone to make love to the king's wife!--sworn treason against the king! But the man's a fool--an idiot," added the monarch. "'Tis not worth a thought;" and yet Philip thought of it.
CHAPTER X.
In the days we speak of, the city of Paris was just beginning to venture beyond the island, and spread its streets and houses over the country around. During the reign of Louis the Seventh, and especially under the administration of Suger, abbot of St. Denis, the buildings had extended far on the northern bank of the river; and there already might be seen churches and covered market-places, and all that indicates a wealthy and rising city; but in the midst of this suburb, nearly on the spot where stand at present the Rue Neuve and the Rue des Petits Champs, was a vast open space of ground, called the Champeaux, or Little Fields; which, appertaining to the crown, had been reserved for the chivalrous sports of the day. Part of it, indeed, had been given to the halls of Paris, and part had been enclosed as a cemetery; but a large vacant space still remained, and here was appointed the tournament of July, to which Philip Augustus had called all the chivalry of his realm.
It is not my intention here to describe a tournament, which has been so often done--and so exquisitely well done in the beautiful romance of Ivanhoe, that my relation would not only have the tediousness of a twice-told tale, but the disadvantage of a comparison with something far better; but I am unfortunately obliged to touch upon such a theme, as the events that took place at the passe d'armes of Champeaux materially affect the course of my history.
On one side of the plain extended a battlemented building, erected by the minister Guerin, and dedicated, as the term went, to the shelter of the poor passengers. It looked more like a fortress, indeed, than a house of hospitality, being composed entirely of towers and turrets; and as it was the most prominent situation in the neighbourhood, it was appointed for the display of the casques and shields of arms belonging to the various knights who proposed to combat in the approaching tournament. Nor was the effect unpleasant to the eye, for every window on that side of the building which fronted the field had the shield and banner of some particular knight, with all the same gay colours wherewith we now decorate the panels of our carriages. In the cloisters below, from morning unto night-fall, stood one of the heralds in his glittering tabard, with his pursuivants and followers, ready to receive and register complaints against any of the knights whose arms were displayed above, and who, in case of any serious charges, were either prevented from entering, or were driven with ignominy from, the lists.
Side by side, on one of the most conspicuous spots of the building, as knights of high fame and prowess, were placed the shields and banners of Count Thibalt d'Auvergne and Guy de Coucy; and the officers of arms, who, from time to time repeated the names of the various knights, and their exploits and qualities, did not fail to pause long upon the two brothers in arms; giving De Coucy the meed over all others for valour and daring, and D'Auvergne for cool courage and prudent skill.
All the arrangements of the field were as magnificent as if the royal coffers had overflowed. The scaffoldings for the king, the ladies, and the judges, were hung with crimson and gold; the tents and booths were fluttering with streamers of all colours, and nothing was seen around but pageant and splendour.
Such was the scene which presented itself on the evening before the tournament, when De Coucy and his friend, the Count d'Auvergne, whom he had rejoined by this time in Paris, set out, from a lodging which they occupied near the tower of the châtelet, to visit the spot where they were to display their skill the next day. A circumstance, however, occurred by the way, which it may be well to record.
Passing through some of the more narrow and tortuous streets of Paris, and their horses pressed on by the crowd of foot passengers, who were coming from, or going to, the same gay scene as themselves, they could only converse in broken observations to each other, as they for a moment came side by side. And even these detached sentences were often drowned in the various screaming invitations to spend their money, which were in that day poured forth upon passengers of all denominations.
"Methinks the king received us but coldly," said De Coucy, as he gained D'Auvergne's ear for a moment, "after making us wait four days too!--Methinks his hospitality runs dry."
"Wine, will you wine? Good strong wine, fit for knights and nobles," cried a loud voice at the door of one of the houses.
"Cresses!--fresh water-cresses!" shrieked a woman with a basket in her hand.
"The king can scarce love me less than I love him," answered the count in a low tone, as a movement of his horse brought him close to De Coucy.
"And yet," said his friend, in some surprise, "you, principally, determined your father to reject all overtures from the Count of Flanders, brought by Sir Julian of the Mount!"
"Because I admire the king, though I love not the man," replied Count Thibalt.
"Baths! baths! hot baths!" cried a man with a napkin over his arm, and down whose face the perspiration was streaming. "Hot! hot! hot! upon my honour!--Bathe, lords and knights! bathe! 'Tis dusty weather."
"Knight of Auvergne!" cried a voice close by. "Those that soar high, fall farthest. Sir Guy de Coucy, the falcon was slain that checked at the eagle, because he was the king of birds."
A flush came into the cheek of Count Thibalt; and De Coucy started and turned round in his saddle, to see who spoke. No one, however, was near, but a man engaged in that ancient and honourable occupation of selling hot pies, and a woman chaffering for a pair of doves with another of her own sex.
"By all the saints of France!" cried De Coucy, "some one named us. What meant the fool by checking at the eagle? I see him not, or I would check at him!"
Count Thibalt d'Auvergne asked no explanation of the quaint proverb that had been addressed to him; but only inquired of De Coucy, whether 'twas not like the voice of his villain--Gallon the fool.
"No!" replied the knight.--"No! 'twas not so shrill. Besides, he is gone, as he said, to inspect the lists some half-hour ago."
In truth, no sooner did they approach the booths, which had been erected by various hucksters and jugglers, at the end of the cemetery of the Innocents, a short distance from the lists, than they beheld Gallon the fool, with his jerkin turned inside out, amusing a crowd of men, women, and children, with various tricks of his old trade.
"Come to me!--come to me!" cried he, "all that want to learn philosophy! I am the king of cats, and the patron of cock-sparrows. Have any of you a dog that wants gloves, or a goat that lacks a bonnet? Bring him me!--bring him me! and I will fit him to a hair.--Haw, haw! haw, haw!"
His strange laugh, his still stranger face, and his great dexterity, were giving much delight and astonishment to the people, when the appearance of De Coucy, who, he well knew, would be angry at the public exhibition of his powers, put a stop to his farther feats; and shouting, "Haw, haw! haw, haw!" he scampered off, and was safely at home before them.
The day of the tournament broke clear and bright; and long before the hour appointed, the galleries were full, and the knights armed in their tents. Nothing was waited for but the presence of the king; and many was the impatient look of lady and of page, towards the street which led to the side of the river.
At length the sound of trumpets announced his approach; and, winding up towards Champeaux, were seen the leaders of his body-guard--that first small seed from which sprung and branched out in a thousand directions the great body of a standing army. The first institution of these serjeants of arms, as they were called, took place during Philip's crusade in the Holy Land, where, feigning, or believing, his life to be in danger from the poniards of the assassins, he attached to his own person a guard of twelve hundred men, whose sole duty was to watch around the king's dwelling. In France, though the same excuse no longer existed, Philip was too wise to dismiss the corps which he had once established, and which not only offered a nucleus for larger bodies in time of need, but which added that pomp and majesty to the name of king, that neither the extent of the royal domains, nor the prerogatives of sovereignty, limited as they were in those days, could alone either require or enforce.
Slowly winding up through the streets towards the Champeaux, the cavalcade of royalty seemed to delight in exhibiting itself to the gaze of the people, who crowded the houses to the very tops; for, well understanding the barbarous taste of the age in which he lived, no one ever more feasted the public eye with splendour than Philip Augustus.
First came the heralds two and two, with their many-coloured tabards, exhibiting on their breasts the arms of their provinces. Next followed on horseback, Mountjoy king-at-arms, surrounded by a crowd of marshals, pursuivants, and valets on foot. He was dressed in a sleeveless tunic of crimson, which opening in front displayed a robe of violet velvet, embroidered with fleur de lis. On his head was placed his crown, and in his hand a sort of staff or sceptre. He was indeed, as far as personal appearance went, a very kingly person; and being a great favourite amongst the people, he was received with loud shouts of Denis Mountjoy! Denis Mountjoy! Blessings on thee, Sire François de Roussy!
Next appeared a party of the serjeants-at-arms, bearing their gilded quivers and long bows; while each held in his right-hand the baton of his immense brazen mace, the head or ball of which rested on his shoulder. But then came a sight which obliterated all others. It was the party of the king and queen. The monarch himself was mounted on a destrier, or battle-horse, as black as night, whose every step seemed full of the consciousness that he bore royalty. Armed completely, except the casque, which was borne behind him by a page, Philip Augustus moved the warrior, and looked the monarch; and the same man, who had heard the hermit's rebuke with patience, ordered the preparations of a banquet like a Lucullus; and played with the roses in a woman's hair, now looked as if he could have crushed an empire with a frown.
Beside him, on a palfrey--as if for the contrast's sake, milk-white--rode the lovely Agnes de Meranie. All that is known of her dress is, that it also was white; for it seems that no one who looked on her could remark any thing but her radiant beauty. As she moved on, managing with perfect ease a high-spirited horse, whose light movements served but to call out a thousand graces in his rider, the glitter, and the pageant, and the splendour seemed to pass away from the eyes of the multitude, extinguished by something brighter still; and, ever and anon, Philip Augustus himself let his glance drop to the sweet countenance of his queen, with an expression that woke some sympathetic feeling in the bosoms of the people; and a loud shout proclaimed the participation of the crowd in the sensations of the king.
Behind the king and queen rode a long train of barons and ladies, with all the luxury of dress and equipage for which that age was distinguished. Amongst the most conspicuous of that noble train were Constance, Duchess of Brittany, and her son Arthur Plantagenet, of whose character and fate we shall have more to speak hereafter. Each great chieftain was accompanied by many a knight, and vassal, and vavassour, with worlds of wealth bestowed upon their horses and their persons. Following these again, came another large body of the King's men-at-arms, closing the procession, which marched slowly on, and entered the southern end of the lists; after which, traversing the field amidst the shouts and gratulations of the multitude, the whole party halted at the foot of a flight of steps leading to the splendid gallery prepared for the king and queen. Here, surrounded by a crowd of waving crests and glittering arms, Philip himself lifted Agnes from her horse, and led her to her seat; while at the same time the trumpets sounded for the various knights to make a tour round the field, before proceeding to the sports of the day. Each, as he passed by the royal gallery, saluted the king and queen by dropping the point of his lance; and from time to time, Agnes demanded the name of the different knights, whom either she did not know, or whose faces were so concealed by the helmet as to render it difficult to distinguish them.
"Who is he, Philip?" demanded she, as one of the knights passed, "he with the wivern in his casque, and the red scarf,--who is he? He sits his horse nobly."
"'Tis Charles de Tournon," replied the king; "a noble knight, called the Comte Rouge. Here comes also Guillaume de Macon, my fair dame," added the king, smiling, "with a rose on his shield, all for your love."
"Silly knight!" said Agnes. "He had better fix his love where he may hope to win. But who is this next, with the shield sinople, bearing a cross, gules, and three towers in chief?"
"That is the famous Guy de Coucy," replied the King; "a most renowned knight. If report speaks true, we shall see all go down before his lance. And this who follows, and is now coming up, is the no less famous Thibalt Count d'Auvergne"--and the king fixed his eyes upon his wife with a keen, inquiring glance.
Luckily, however, the countenance of Agnes showed nothing which could alarm a mind like Philip's.
"Count Thibalt d'Auvergne!" cried she, with a frank, unembarrassed smile. "Oh! I know him well. He spent many months at my father's court in going to the Holy Land. From him I first heard the praises of my Philip, long, long ere I ever entertained a hope of being his wife. I was scarce more than a child then, not much above fifteen--and yet I forgot not those praises. He was a dear friend too--that Count d'Auvergne--of my poor brother Alberic, who died in Palestine." The queen added, with a sigh--"Poor Alberic! he loved me well!"
"The fool lied!" said Philip internally: "all is frank and fair. The fool lied!--and led me to slight a noble knight and powerful baron by his falsehood!" and bending forward, as if to do away the coldness with which he had at first treated the Count d'Auvergne, he answered his salute with a marked and graceful inclination of the head.
"Is it possible?" cried Agnes, after the Count had passed. "In truth, I should never have known him, Philip, he is so changed. Why, when he was at the court of Istria, he was a fresh young man; and now he is as deadly pale and worn as one sick of the plague. Oh, what a horrible place must be that Holy Land!--Promise me, Philip, on all the Evangelists, never to go there again, let who will preach new crusades:--nay, promise me, my Lord!"
"I do! I do! sweet Agnes!" replied the king: "once in a life is quite enough. I have other warfares now before me."
After the knights had all passed, a short space of time intervened for the various arrangements of the field; and then, the barriers being opened, the tournament really commenced. Into the particulars of the feats performed, as I have already said, I shall not enter: suffice it that, as the king had predicted, all went down before De Coucy's lance; and that Count Thibalt d'Auvergne, though not hurried on by the same quick spirit, was judged, by the old knights, no way inferior to his friend, though his valour bore a different character. The second course had taken place, and left the same result; and many of the fair dames in the galleries began to regret that neither of the two companions in arms had been decorated with their colours; and to determine upon various little arts and wiles, to engage one or other of the two crusaders to bear some mark of theirs in any subsequent tournament.
Thus stood the day, when the voices of the heralds cried to pause, much to the astonishment, not only of the combatants, but of the king himself. The barriers opened, and, preceded by a stout priest bearing a pontifical cross in silver, the cardinal of St. Mary, dressed as Legate à latere, entered the lists, followed by a long train of ecclesiastics.[14]
A quick, angry flush mounted into the king's cheek, and his brow knit into a frown, which sufficiently indicated that he expected no very agreeable news from the visit of the legate. The cardinal, however, without being moved by his frowns, advanced directly towards the gallery in which he sat, and, placing himself before him, addressed him thus:--
"Philip, King of France, I, the cardinal of St. Mary's, am charged, and commanded, by our most holy father, the Pope Innocent, to speak to you thus----"
"Hold, Sir Cardinal!" cried the King, "Let your communication be for our private ear. We are not accustomed to receive either ambassadors or legates in the listed field."
"I have been directed, Sir King," replied the legate, "by the superior orders of his holiness, thus publicly to admonish you, wherever I should find you, you having turned a deaf and contemptuous ear to the frequent counsels and commands of the holy church. Know then, king Philip, that with surprise and grief that a king of France should so forget the hereditary piety of his race, his holiness perceives that you still persist in abandoning your lawful wife, Ingerburge of Denmark!"
"The man will drive me mad!" exclaimed the king, grasping his truncheon, as if he would have hurled it at the daring churchman, who thus insulted him before all the barons of his realm. "Will no one stay him?"
Several of the knights and heralds advanced to interpose between the legate and the king; but the cardinal waved them back; and, well knowing that their superstitious veneration for his habit would prevent them from silencing him by force, he proceeded boldly with his speech.
"Perceiving also," continued he, "that, taking advantage of an unlawful and annulled divorce, weakly pronounced by your bishops, you have taken to your bed another woman, who is not, and cannot be, your wife!"
A shriek from the women of the queen here interrupted the harangue of the prelate, and all eyes instantly turned upon her.
Simple surprise and astonishment had been the first emotion of Agnes de Meranie, at seeing any one bold enough to oppose a will that, according to all her ideas, was resistless; but gradually, as she began to comprehend the scope of the legate's discourse, terror and distress took possession of her whole frame. Her eyes strained on him, as on some bad angel come to cross her young happiness; her lip quivered; the warm glow of her cheek waxed faint and pale, like the sunshine fading away from the evening sky; and, at the last terrible words that seemed to seal her fate for ever, she fell back senseless into the arms of her women.
The scene of confusion that ensued is not to be described.
"By the light of heaven! old man!" exclaimed Philip, "were it not for thy grey hairs, I would strike thee dead!--Away with him! Let him speak no more!--Men-at-arms! put him forth from the lists! Away with him!--Agnes, my beloved!" he cried, turning to the queen, and taking her small hand in his, "awake, awake! Fear not, dear Agnes! Is your Philip's love so light as to be shaken by the impotent words of any churchman in Christendom?"
In the mean while the serjeants-at-arms hurried the prelate and his followers from the lists, amidst many a bitter taunt from the minstrels and trouvères, who feared not even then to attack with the most daring satire the vices of the church of Rome. The ladies of Agnes de Meranie pressed round their fair mistress, sprinkling her with all kinds of essences and perfumed waters; some chattering, some still screaming, and all abusing the daring legate, who had so pained the heart of their lovely queen, and put a stop to the sports of the day. The knights and barons all united in the cause of the princess by every motive that had power in the days of chivalry:--youth, beauty, innocence, and distress, shouted loudly, that they acknowledged her for their sovereign, the queen of all queens, and the flower of all ladies!
Philip Augustus, with royal indignation still upon his brow, caught gladly at the enthusiasm of his chivalry; and, standing forward in the front of the gallery, with the inanimate hand of his lovely wife in his left, and pointing to her deathlike cheek with the other, he exclaimed, in a voice that passed all over the field--"Knights and nobles of fair France! shall I suffer my hearth to be invaded by the caprice of any proud prelate? Shall I yield the lady of my love for the menace of any pope on earth? You, good knights!--you only can judge! and, by Heaven's throne! you only shall be the judges!"
"Life to the king!--life to the king! Denis Mountjoy!--Denis Mountjoy!" shouted the barons, as if they were rallying round the royal standard on the battle-field; and, at the same time, the waving of a thousand scarfs, and handkerchiefs, and veils, from the galleries around, announced how deep an interest the ladies of France took in a question where the invaded rights of the queen came so home to the bosoms of all.
"Break up the sports for to-day!" cried Philip, waving his warder. "This has disturbed our happiness for the moment; but we trust our fair queen will be able to thank her loyal knights by the hour of four, when we invite all men of noble birth here present to sup with us in our great hall of the palace. For those who come too late to find a seat in the great hall, a banquet shall be prepared in the tower of the Louvre. Till then, farewell!"
The fainting fit of Agnes de Meranie lasted so long, that it was found necessary to carry her to the palace in a litter, followed, sadly and in silence, by the same splendid train that had conducted her, as if in triumph, to the tournament.
In the mean while, for a short time, the knights who had come to show their prowess and skill, and those noble persons, both ladies and barons, who had graced the lists as spectators, remained in groups, scattered over the field, and through the galleries, canvassing vehemently what had taken place; and not the most priest-ridden of them all, did not, in the first excitement of the moment, declare that the conduct of both pope and cardinal was daring and scandalous, and that the divorce which had been pronounced between Philip and Ingerburge by the bishops of France ought to hold good in the eyes of all Frenchmen.
"Now, by the good Heaven!" cried De Coucy, raising his voice above all the rest, "she is as fair a queen as ever my eyes rested on; and though I cannot wear her colours, and proclaim her the star of my love, because another vow withholds me, yet I will mortally defy any man who says she is not lawfully queen of France.--Sound, trumpets, sound! and you, heralds, cry--Here stands Guy de Coucy in arms, ready to prove upon the bodies of any persons who do deny that Agnes princess de Meranie is lawfully queen of France, and wife of Philip the Magnanimous, that they are false and recreant, and to give them the lie in their throat, wagering against them his body and arms in battle, when and where they will appoint, on horseback or on foot, and giving them the choice of arms!"
The trumpets sounded, and the heralds who remained on the field proclaimed the challenge of the knight: while De Coucy cast his gauntlet on the ground. A moment's profound silence succeeded, and then a loud shout; and no one answering his call, De Coucy bade the heralds take up the glove and nail it on some public place, with his challenge written beneath; for payment of which service, he twisted off three links of a massive gold chain round his neck, and cast it to the herald who raised his glove; after which he turned, and, rejoining the Count d'Auvergne, rode back to throw off his arms and prepare for the banquet to which they had been invited.
"De Coucy," said D'Auvergne, as they passed onward, "I too would willingly have joined in your challenge, had I thought that our lances could ever establish Agnes de Meranie as queen of France; but I tell you no, De Coucy! If the pope be firm, and firm he will be, as her father too well knows, Philip will be forced to resign her, or to trust to his barons for support against the church."
"Well!" cried De Coucy, "and his barons will support him. Saw you not how, but now, they pledged themselves to his support?"
"The empty enthusiasm of a moment!" replied D'Auvergne bitterly; "a flame which will be out as soon as kindled! Not one man in each hundred there, I tell thee, De Coucy, has got one spark of such enthusiasm as yours, which, like the Greek fire, flashes brightly, yet burns for ever; and as few of them, the colder sort of determination, which, like mine, burns without any flame, till all that fed it is consumed."
De Coucy paused. For a moment the idea crossed his mind of proposing to D'Auvergne a plan for binding all the barons present by a vow to support Philip against the church of Rome, while the enthusiasm was yet upon them; but though brave almost to madness where his own person was alone concerned, he was prudent and cautious in no small degree, where the life and happiness of others were involved; and, remembering the strife to which such a proposal, even, might give rise, he paused, and let it die in silence.