It was in vain that the Count d'Auvergne gazed down into the ravine, endeavouring to gain a sight of his rash friend. A mass of shrubs overhung the shelving edge of the rock and totally intercepted his view. In the meanwhile, however, Hugo de Barre, the squire who had led the cavalcade, had sprung to the ground, and was already half-way over the brink, attempting to descend to his lord's assistance, when a deep voice from the bottom of the dell exclaimed, "Hold! hold above! Try not to come down there. You will bring the rocks and loose stones upon our heads, and kill us all."
"Who is it speaks?" cried the Count d'Auvergne.
"One of the hermits of Our Lady's chapel of the Mont d'Or," replied the voice. "If ye be this knight's friends, go back for a thousand paces, and ye will find a path down to the left, which leads to the road by the stream. But if ye be his enemies, who have driven him to the dreadful leap he has taken, get ye hence, for he is even now at the foot of the cross."
The Count d'Auvergne, without staying to reply, rode back as the hermit directed, and easily found the path which they had before passed, but which, as it apparently led in a direction different from that in which they wished to proceed, they had hardly noticed at the time. Following this path, they soon reached the bottom of the ravine, where they found a good road, jammed in, as it were, between the rocks over which they had passed, and the small mountain-stream they had observed from above. For some way the windings of the dell and the various projections of the crags, prevented them from seeing for any distance in advance; but at length they came suddenly upon a group of several persons, mounted and dismounted, both male and female, gathered round De Coucy's beautiful Arabian, Zerbilin, who stood in the midst soiled and scratched indeed, and trembling with the fright and exertion of his fall, but almost totally uninjured, and filling the air with his long wild neighings. The group by which he was surrounded consisted entirely of the attendants of some persons not present, squires and varlets in very gay attire; and female servants and waiting women, not a bit behind hand in flutter and finery. A beautiful brown Spanish jennet, such as any fair lady might love to ride, stood near, held by one of those old squires who, in that age, cruelly monopolised the privilege of assisting their lady to mount and dismount, much to the disappointment of many a young page and gallant gentleman, who would willing have relieved them of the task, especially when the lady in question was young and fair. Not far off was placed a strong but ancient horse, waiting for some other person, who was absent with the lady of the jennet.
Above the heads of this group, half-way up the face of the rock, stood a large cross elevated on a projecting mass of stone, and behind it appeared the mouth of a cavern, or rather of an excavation, from which the blocks of lava had been drawn, in order to form the bridge we have mentioned, now fallen from its "high estate," and encumbering the bed of the river. It was easy to perceive the figures of several persons moving to and fro in the cave, and concluding at once that it was thither his unfortunate friend had been borne, the Count d'Auvergne sprang to the ground, and passing through the group of pages and waiting-women, who gazed upon him and his archers with some alarm, he made his way up the little path that led to the mouth of the cave. Here he found De Coucy stretched upon a bed of dry rushes, while a tall, emaciated old man, covered with a brown frock, and ornamented with a long white beard, stood by his side, holding his hand. Between his fingers the hermit held a lancet; and from the strong muscular arm of the knight, a stream of blood was just beginning to flow into a small wooden bowl held by a page.
Several other persons, however, filled the hermit's cave, of whom two are worthy of more particular notice. The first was a short, stout, old man, with a complexion that argued florid health and vigour, and a small, keen, grey eye, the quick movement of which, with a sudden curl of the lip and contraction of the brow on every slight occasion of contradiction, might well bespeak a quick and impatient disposition. The second was a young lady of perhaps nineteen or twenty, slight in figure, but yet with every limb rounded in the full and swelling contour of woman's most lovely age. Her features were small, delicate, and nowhere sharp, yet cut with that square exactness of outline so beautiful in the efforts of the Grecian chisel. Her eyes were long, and full, and dark; and the black lashes that fringed them, as she gazed earnestly on the figure of De Coucy, swept downward and lay upon her cheek. The hair, that fell in a profusion of thick curls round her face, was as black as jet; and yet her skin, though of that peculiar tint almost inseparable from dark hair and eyes, was strikingly fair, and as smooth as alabaster; while a faint but very beautiful colour spread over each cheek, and died away into the clear pure white of her temples.
In days when love was a duty, and coldness a dishonour, on the part of all who enjoyed or aspired to chivalry, no false delicacies, no fear of compromising herself, none of the mighty considerations of small proprieties that now-a-days hamper all the feelings, and enchain all the frankness, of the female heart, weighed on the lady of the thirteenth century. It was her duty to feel and to express an interest in every good knight in danger and misfortune; and the fair being we have just described, before the eyes of her father, who looked upon her with honourable pride, knelt by the side of De Coucy; and while the hermit held the arm from which the blood was just beginning to flow, she kept the small fingers of her soft white hand upon the other sinewy wrist of the insensible knight, and anxiously watched the returning animation.
While the Count d'Auvergne entered the cave in silence, and placed himself beside the hermit, De Coucy's squire, Hugo de Barre, with one of the pages, both devotedly attached to their young lord, had climbed up also, and stood at the mouth of the cavern.
"God's life! Hugo," cried the page, "let them not take my lord's blood. We have got amongst traitors. They are killing him."
"Peace, fool!" answered Hugo; "'tis a part of leech-craft. Did you never see Fulk, the barber, bleed the old baron? Why, he had it done every week. The De Coucys have more blood than other men."
The page was silent for a moment, and then replied in an under-tone, for there was a sort of contagious stillness round the hurt knight. "You had better look to it, Hugo. They are bleeding my lord too much. That hermit means him harm. See, how he stares at the great carbuncle in Sir Guy's thumb-ring! He's murdering my lord to steal it. Shall I put my dagger in him?"
"Hold thy silly prate, Ermold de Marcy!" replied the squire: "think you, the good count would stand by and see his sworn brother in arms bled, without it was for his good? See you now, Sir Guy wakes!--God's benison on you, Sir Hermit!"
De Coucy did indeed open his eyes, and looked round, though but faintly. "D'Auvergne," said he, the moment after, while the playful smile fluttered again round his lips, "by the rood! I had nearly leaped farther than I intended, and taken Zerbilin with me into Paradise. Thanks, hermit!--thanks, gentle lady!--I can rise now. Ho! Hugo, lend me thine arm."
But the hermit gently put his hand upon the knight's breast, saying, in a tone more resembling cynical bitterness than Christian mildness, "Hold, my son! This world is not the sweetest of dwelling-places; but if thou wouldst not change it for a small, cold, comfortable grave, lie still. You shall be carried up to the chapel of Our Lady, by the lake, where there is more space than in this cave; and there I will find means to heal your bruises in two days, if your quick spirit may be quiet for so long."
As he spoke, he stopped the bleeding, and bound up the arm of the knight, who, finding probably even by the slight exertion he had made that he was in no fit state to act for himself, submitted quietly, merely giving a glance to the Count d'Auvergne, half rueful, half smiling, as if he would fain have laughed at himself and his own helplessness, if the pain of his bruises would have let him.
"I prithee, holy father hermit, tell me," said the Count d'Auvergne, "is the hurt of this good knight dangerous? for if it be, we will send to Mont Ferrand for some skilful leech from my uncle's castle--and instantly."
"His body is sufficiently bruised, my son," replied the hermit, "to give him, I hope, a sounder mind for the future, than to leap his horse down a precipice: and as for the leech, let him stay at Mont Ferrand. The knight is bad enough without his help, if he come to make him worse; and if he come to cure him, I can do that without his aid. Leech-craft is as much worse than ignorance, as killing is worse than letting die."
"By my faith and my knighthood," cried the old gentleman, who stood at De Coucy's feet, and who, during the count's question and the hermit's somewhat ungracious reply, had been gazing at d'Auvergne with various looks of recognition--"by my faith and my knighthood! I believe it is the Count Thibalt--though my eyes are none of the clearest, and it is long since--but, yes! it is surely--Count Thibalt d'Auvergne."
"The same, Beau Sire," replied D'Auvergne; "my memory is less true than yours, or I see my father's old arm's fellow, Count Julian of the Mount."
"E'en so, fair sir!--e'en so!" replied the old man: "I and my daughter Isadore are even now upon our way to Vic le Comte to pass some short space with the good count, your father. A long and weary journey have we had hither, all the way from Flanders; and for our safe arrival we go to offer at the chapel of Our Lady of St. Pavin of the Mount D'Or, ere we proceed to taste your castle's hospitality. Good faith! you may well judge 'tis matter of deep import brings me so far. Affairs of policy, young sir--affairs of policy," he added in a low and consequential voice. "Doubtless your father may have hinted--"
"For five long years, fair sir, I have not seen my father's face," replied D'Auvergne. "By the cross I bear, you may see where I have sojourned; and De Coucy and myself were but now going to lay our palms upon the altar of Our Lady of St. Pavin (according to a holy vow we made at Rome), prior to turning our steps towards our castle also. Let us all on together then--I see the holy hermit has commanded the varlets to make a litter for my hurt friend; and after having paid our vows, we will back to Vic le Comte, and honour your arrival with wine and music."
While this conversation passed between D'Auvergne and the old knight, De Coucy's eyes had sought out more particularly the fair girl who had been kneeling by his side, and he addressed to her much and manifold thanks for her gentle tending--in so low a tone, however, that it obliged her to stoop over him in order to hear what he said. De Coucy, as he had before professed to the Count d'Auvergne, had often tasted love, such as it was; and had ever been a bold wooer; but in the present instance, though he felt very sure and intimately convinced, that the eyes which now looked upon him were brighter than ever he had seen, and the lips that spoke to him were fuller, and softer, and sweeter, than ever had moved in his eyesight before, yet his stock of gallant speeches failed him strangely, and he found some difficulty even in thanking the lady as he could have wished. At all events, so lame he thought the expression of those thanks, that he endeavoured to make up for it by reiteration--and repeated them so often, that at length the lady gently imposed silence upon him, lest his much speaking might retard his cure.
The secrets of a lady's breast are a sort of forbidden fruit, which we shall not be bold enough to touch; and therefore, whatever the fair Isadore might think of De Coucy--whatever touch of tenderness might mingle with her pity--whatever noble and knightly qualities she might see, or fancy, on his broad, clear brow, and bland, full lip--we shall not even stretch our hand towards the tree of knowledge, far less offer the fruit thereof to any one else. Overt acts, however, of all kinds are common property; and therefore it is no violation of confidence, or of any thing else, to say that something in the tone and manner of the young knight made the soft crimson grow a shade deeper in the cheek of Isadore of the Mount; and, when the litter was prepared, and De Coucy placed thereon, though she proceeded with every appearance of indifference to mount her light jennet, and follow the cavalcade, she twice turned round to give a quick and anxious look towards the litter, as it was borne down the narrow and slippery path from the cave.
Although that alone which passed between De Coucy and the lady has been particularly mentioned here, it is not to be thence inferred that all the other personages who were present stood idly looking on--that the Count d'Auvergne took no heed of his hurt friend--that Sir Julian of the Mount forgot his daughter, or that the attendants of the young knight were unmindful of their master. Some busied themselves in preparing the litter of boughs and bucklers--some spread cloaks and furred aumuces upon it to make it soft--and some took care that the haubert, head-piece, and sword, of which De Coucy had been divested, should not be left behind in the cave.
In the mean while. Sir Julian of the Mount pointed out his daughter to the Count Thibalt d'Auvergne, boasted her skill in leech-craft, and her many other estimable qualities, and assured him that he might safely intrust the care of De Coucy's recovery to her.
The Count d'Auvergne's eye fell coldly upon her, and ran over every exquisite line of loveliness, as she stood by the young knight, unconscious of his gaze, without evincing one spark of that gallant enthusiasm which the sight of beauty generally called up in the chivalrous bosoms of the thirteenth century. It was a cold, steady, melancholy look--and yet it ended with a sigh. The only compliment he could force his lips to form, went to express that his friend was happy in having fallen into such fair and skilful hands; and, this said, he proceeded to the side of the litter, which, borne by six of the attendants, was now carried down to the bank of the stream, and thence along the road that, winding onward through the narrow gorge, passed under the broken bridge, and gradually climbed to the higher parts of the mountain.
The general cavalcade followed as they might; for the scantiness of the path, which grew less and less as it proceeded, prevented the possibility of any regularity in their march. At length, however, the gorge widened out into a small basin of about five hundred yards in diameter, round which the hills sloped up on every side, taking the shape of a funnel. Over one edge thereof poured a small but beautiful cascade, starting from mass to mass of volcanic rock, whose decomposition offered a thousand bright and singular hues, amidst which the white and flashing waters of the stream agitated themselves with a strange but picturesque effect.
At the bottom of the cascade was a group of shepherds' huts; and as it was impossible for the horses to proceed farther, it was determined to leave the principal part of the attendants also there, to wait the return of the party from the chapel, which was, of course, to take place as soon as De Coucy had recovered from his bruises.
Some difficulty occurred in carrying the litter over the steeper part of the mountain, but at length it was accomplished; and, skirting round part of a large ancient forest, the pilgrims came suddenly on the banks of that most beautiful and extraordinary effort of nature, the Lac Pavin. Before their eyes extended a vast sheet of water, the crystal pureness of which mocks all description, enclosed within a basin of verdure, whose sides, nearly a hundred and fifty feet in height, rise from the banks of the lake with so precipitous an elevation, that no footing, however firm, can there keep its hold. For the space of a league and a half, which the lake occupies, this beautiful green border, with very little variation in its height, may still be seen following the limpid line of the water, into which it dips itself, clear, and at once, without rush or ooze, or water plant of any description, to break the union of the soft turf and the pure wave.
Towards the south and east, however, extends, even now, an immense mass of dark and sombre wood, which, skirting down the precipitous bank, seems to contemplate its own majesty in the clear mirror of the lake. At the same time, all around, rise up a giant family of mountain peaks, which, each standing out abrupt and single in the sunny air, seem frowning on the traveller that invades their solitude.
Here, in the days of Philip Augustus, stood a small chapel dedicated to the Virgin, called Our Lady of St. Pavin; and many a miraculous cure is said to have been operated by the holy relics of the shrine, which caused Our Lady of St. Pavin to be the favourite saint of many of the chief families in France. By the side of the chapel was placed a congregation of small huts or cells, both for the accommodation of the various pilgrims who came to visit the shrine, and for the dwelling of three holy hermits, one of whom served the altar as a priest, while the other two retained the more amphibious character of simple recluse, bound by no vows but such as they chose to impose upon themselves.
At these huts the travellers now paused; and after De Coucy had been carried into one of them, the hermit, who had guided the travellers thither, demanded of the Count d'Auvergne, whether any of his train could draw a good bow, and wing a shaft well home.
"They are all archers, good hermit," replied D'Auvergne; "see you not their bows and quivers?"
"Many a man wears a sword that cannot use it," replied the hermit in the cynical tone which seemed natural to him. "Here, your very friend, whom God himself has armed with eyes and ears, and even understanding, such as it is, does he make use of any when he gallops down a precipice, where he would surely have been killed, had it not been for the aid and protection of a merciful Heaven, and a few stunted hazels? Your archers may make as good use of their bows as he does of his brains--and then what serves their archery? But, however, choose out the best marksman; bid him go up to yonder peak, and take two well-feathered arrows with him: he will shoot no more! Then send all the rest to beat the valley to the right, with loud cries; the izzards will instantly take to the heights. Let your archer choose as they pass, and deliver me his arrows into the two fattest; (though God knows! 'tis a crying sin to slay two wise beasts to save one foolish man;) but let your vassal stay to make no curée, but bring the beasts down here while the life-heat is still in them. Your friend, wrapped in the fresh-flayed hides, shall be to-morrow as whole as if he had never played the fool!"
"I have seen it done at Byzantium," replied D'Auvergne, "when a good knight of Flanders was hurled down from the south tower. It had a marvellous effect:--we will about it instantly."
Accordingly, two of the izzards, which were then common in Auvergne, were soon slain in the manner the hermit directed; and De Coucy, notwithstanding no small dislike to the remedy, was stripped, and wrapped in the reeking hides[6]; after which, stretched upon a bed of dry moss belonging to one of the hermits, he endeavoured to amuse himself with thoughts of love and battles, while the rest went to pay their vows at the shrine of Our Lady of St. Pavin.
De Coucy's mind soon wandered through all the battles, and tournaments, and passes of arms that could possibly be fought; and then his fancy, by what was in those days a very natural digression, turned to love--and he thought of all the thousand ladies he had loved in his life; and, upon recollecting all the separate charms of each, he found that they were all very beautiful: he could not deny it. But yet certainly, beyond all doubt, the fair Isadore of the Mount, with her dark, dark eyes, and her clear, bland brow, and her mouth such as angels smile with, was far more beautiful than any of them.
But still De Coucy asked himself, why he could not tell her so? He had never found it difficult to tell any one they were beautiful before; or to declare that he loved them; or to ask them for a glove, or a bracelet, or a token to fix on his helm, and be his second in the battle: but now, he felt sure that he had stammered like a schoolboy, and spoken below his voice, like a young squire to an old knight. So De Coucy concluded, from all these symptoms, that he could not be in love; and fully convinced thereof, he very naturally fell asleep.
We must now change the scene, and, leaving wilds and mountains, come to a more busy though still a rural view. From the small, narrow windows of the ancient château of Compiègne might be seen, on the one side, the forest with its ocean of green and waving boughs; and on the other, a lively little town on the banks of the Oise, the windings of which river could be traced from the higher towers, far beyond its junction with the Aisne, into the distant country. Yet, notwithstanding that it was a town, Compiègne scarcely detracted from the rural aspect of the picture. It had, even in those days, its gardens and its fruit-trees, which gave it an air of verdure, and blended it, as it were, insensibly with the forest, that waved against its very walls. The green thatches, too, of its houses, in which slate or tile was unknown, covered with moss, and lichens, and flowering houseleek, offered not the cold, stiff uniformity of modern roofs; and the eye that looked down upon those constructions of art in its earliest and rudest form found all the picturesque irregularity of nature.
Gazing from one of the narrow windows of a large square chamber, in the keep of the château, were two beings, who seemed to be enjoying, to the full, those bright hours of early affection, which are well called "the summer days of existence," yielding flowers, and warmth, and sunshine, and splendour;--hours that are so seldom known;--hours that so often pass away like dreams;--hours which are such strangers in courts, that, when they do intrude with their warm rays into the cold precincts of a palace, history marks their coming as a phenomenon, too often followed by a storm.
Alone, in the solitude of that large chamber, those two beings were as if in a world by themselves. The fair girl, seemingly scarce nineteen years of age, with her light hair floating upon her shoulders in large masses of shining curls, leaned her cheek upon her hand, and gazing with her full, soft, blue eyes over the far extended landscape, appeared lost in thought; while her other hand, fondly clasped in that of her companion, pointed out, as it were, how nearly linked he was to her seemingly abstracted thoughts.
The other tenant of that chamber was a man of thirty-two or thirty-three years of age, tall, well-formed, handsome, of the same fair complexion as his companion, but bronzed by the manly florid hue of robust health, exposure, and exercise. His nose was slightly aquiline, his chin rounded and rather prominent, and his blue eyes would have been fine and expressive, had they not been rather nearer together than the just proportion, and stained, as it were on the very iris, by some hazel spots in the midst of the blue. The effect, however, of the whole was pleasing; and the very defect of the eyes, by its singularity, gave something fine and distinguished to the countenance; while their nearness, joined with the fire that shone out in their glance, seemed to speak that keen and quick sagacity, which sees and determines at once, in the midst of thick dangers and perplexity.
The expression, however, of those eyes was now calm and soft, while sometimes holding her hand in his, sometimes playing with a crown of wild roses he had put on his companion's head, he mingled one rich curl after another with the green leaves and the blushing flowers; and, leaning with his left arm against the embrasure of the window, high above her head, as she sat gazing out upon the landscape, he looked down upon the beautiful creature, through the mazes of whose hair his other hand was straying, with a smile strangely mingled of affection for her, and mockery of his own light employment.
There was grace, and repose, and dignity, in his whole figure, and the simple green hunting tunic which he wore, without robe, or hood, or ornament whatever, served better to show its easy majesty, than would the robes of a king--and yet this was Philip Augustus.
"So pensive, sweet Agnes!" said he, after a moment's silence, thus waking from her reverie the lovely Agnes de Meranie, whom he had married shortly after the sycophant bishops of France had pronounced the nullity of his unconsummated marriage with Ingerburge,[7] for whom he had conceived the most inexplicable aversion:--"So pensive," he said. "Where did those sweet thoughts wander?"
"Far, far, my Philip!" replied the queen, leaning back her head upon his arm, and gazing up in his face with a look of that profound, unutterable affection, which sometimes dwells in woman's heart for her first and only love:--"far from this castle, and this court;--far from Philip's splendid chivalry, and his broad realms, and his fair cities; and yet with Philip still. I thought of my own father, and all his tenderness and love for me; and of my own sweet Istria! and I thought how hard was the fate of princes, that some duty always separated them from some of those they love, and----"
"And doubtless you wished to quit your Philip for those that you love better," interrupted the king, with a smile at the very charge which he well knew would soon be contradicted.
"Oh, no! no!" replied Agnes; "but, as I looked out yonder, and thought it was the way to Istria, I wished that my Philip was but a simple knight, and I a humble demoiselle. Then should he mount his horse, and I would spring upon my palfrey; and we would ride gaily back to my native land, and see my father once again, and live happily with those we loved."
"But tell me, Agnes," said Philip, with a tone of melancholy that struck her, "if you were told, that you might to-morrow quit me, and return to your father, and your own fair land, would you not go?"
"Would I quit you?" cried Agnes, starting up, and placing her two hands upon her husband's arm, while she gazed in his face with a look of surprise that had no small touch of fear in it:--"would I quit you? Never! And if you drove me forth, I would come back and be your servant--your slave; or would watch in the corridors but to have a glance as you passed by;--or else I would die," she added, after a moment's pause, for she had spoken with all the rapid energy of alarmed affection. "But tell me, tell me, Philip, what did you mean? For all your smiling, you spoke gravely. Nay, kisses are no answers."
"I did but jest, my Agnes," replied Philip, holding her to his heart with a fond pressure. "Part with you! I would sooner part with life!"
As he spoke, the door of the chamber suddenly opened, the hangings were pushed aside, and an attendant appeared.
"How now," cried the king, unclasping his arms from the slight, beautiful form round which they were thrown. "How now, villain! Must my privacy be broken at every moment? How dare you enter my chamber without my call?" And his flashing eye and reddened cheek spoke that quick impatient spirit which never possessed any man's breast more strongly than that of Philip Augustus. And yet, strange to say, the powers of his mind were such, that every page of his history affords a proof of his having made even his most impetuous passions subservient to his policy;--not by conquering them, but by giving vent to them in such direction as suited best the exigency of the times, and the interest of his kingdom.
"Sire," replied the attendant with a profound reverence, "the good knight Sir Stephen Guerin has just arrived from Paris, and prays an audience."
"Admit him," said Philip; and his features, which had expanded like an unstrung bow while in the gentler moments of domestic happiness, and had flashed with the broad blaze of the lightning under the effect of sudden irritation, gradually contracted into a look of grave thought as his famous and excellent friend and minister Guerin approached.
He was a tall, thin man, with strong marked features, and was dressed in the black robe and eight-limbed cross of the order of Hospitallers, which habit he retained even long after his having been elected bishop of Senlis. He pushed back his hood, and bowed low in sign of reverence as he approached the king; but Philip advanced to meet, and welcomed him with the affectionate embrace of an equal, "Ha! fair brother!" said the king. "What gives us the good chance of seeing you, from our town of Paris? We left you full of weighty matters."
"Matters of still greater weight, beau sire," replied the Hospitaller, "claiming your immediate attention, have made me bold to intrude upon your privacy. An epistle from the good pope Celestin came yesterday by a special messenger, charging your highness----"
"Hold!" cried Philip, raising his finger as a sign to keep silence. "Come to my closet, brother; we will hear the good bishop's letter in private.--Tarry, sweet Agnes! I have vowed thee three whole days, without the weight of royalty bearing down our hearts; and this shall not detain me long."
"I would not, my lord, for worlds," replied the queen, "that men should say my Philip neglected his kingdom, or his people's happiness, for a woman's smile. I will wait here for your return, be your business long as it may, and think the time well spent.--Rest you well, fair brother," she added, as it were in reply to a beaming smile that for a moment lighted up the harsh features of the hospitaller; "cut not short your tale for me."
The minister bowed low, and Philip, after having pressed his lips on the fair forehead of his wife, led the way through a long passage with windows on either side, to a small closet in one of the angular turrets of the castle. It was well contrived for the cabinet of a statesman, for, placed as it was, a sort of excrescence from one of the larger towers, it was cut off from all other buildings, so that no human ear could catch one word of any conversation which passed therein. The monarch entered; and, making a sign to his minister to close the door, he threw himself on a seat, and stretched forth his hand, as if for the pontiff's letter. "Not a word before the queen!" said he, taking the vellum from the hospitaller,--"not a word before the queen, of all the idle cavilling of the Roman church. I would not, for all the crowns of Charlemagne, that Agnes should dream of a flaw in my divorce from Ingerburge--though that flaw be no greater a matter than a moat in the sore eyes of the church of Rome.--But let me see! What says Celestin?"
"He threatens you, royal sir," replied the minister, "with excommunication, and anathema, and interdict."
"Pshaw!" cried Philip, with a contemptuous smile; "he has not vigour enough to anathematise a flea! 'Tis a good mild priest; somewhat tenacious of his church's rights,--for, let me tell thee, Stephen, had I but craved my divorce from Rome, instead of from my bishops of France, I should have heard no word of anathema or interdict. It was a fault of policy, so far as my personal quiet is concerned; and there might be somewhat of hasty passion in it too; but yet, good knight, 'twas not without forethought. The grasping church of Rome is stretching out her thousand hands into all the kingdoms round about her, and snatching, one by one, the prerogatives of the throne. The time will come,--I see it well,--when the prelate's foot shall tread upon the prince's crown; but I will take no step to put mine beneath the scandal of St. Peter. No! though the everlasting buzzing of all the crimson flies in the conclave should deafen me outright.--But let me read."
The hospitaller bowed, and silently studied the countenance of the sovereign, while he perused the letter of the pontiff. Philip's features, however, underwent no change of expression. His brow knit slightly from the first; but no more than so far as to show attention to what he was reading. His lip, too, maintained its contemptuous curl; but that neither increased nor diminished; and when he had done, he threw the packet lightly on the table, exclaiming--"Stingless! stingless! The good prelate will hurt no one!"
"Too true, sire," replied the impassable Guerin; "he will now hurt no one, for he is dead."
"St. Denis to boot!" cried the king. "Dead! Why told you it not before!--Dead! When did he die?--Has the conclave met?--Have they gone to election?--Whom have they adored.[8]--Who is the pope? Speak, hospitaller! Speak!"
"The holy conclave have elected the cardinal Lothaire, sire," replied the knight. "Your highness has seen him here in France, as well as at Rome: a man of a great and capacious mind."
"Too great!--too great!" replied Philip thoughtfully. "He is no Celistin. We shall soon hear more!" and, rising from his seat, he paced the narrow space of his cabinet backwards and forwards for several minutes; then paused, and placing one hand on his counsellor's shoulder, he laid the forefinger of the other on his breast--"If I could rely on my barons," said he emphatically,--"if I could rely on my barons;--not that I do not reverence the church, Guerin,--God knows! I would defend it from heathens and heretics, and miscreants, with my best blood. Witness my journey to the Holy Land!--witness the punishment of Amaury!--witness the expulsion of the Jews! But this Lothaire----"
"Now Innocent the Third!" said the minister, taking advantage of a pause in the king's speech. "Why he is a great man, sire--a man of a vast and powerful mind: firm in his resolves, as he is bold in his undertakings--powerful--beloved. I would have my royal lord think what must be his conduct, if Innocent should take the same view of the affairs of France as was taken by Celestin."
Philip paused, and, with his eyes bent upon the ground, remained for several minutes in deep thought. Gradually the colour mounted in his cheek, and some strong emotion seemed struggling in his bosom, for his eye flashed, and his lip quivered; and, suddenly catching the arm of the hospitaller, he shook the clenched fist of his other hand in the air, exclaiming--"He will not! He shall not! He dare not!--Oh, Guerin, if I may but rely upon my barons!"
"Sire, you cannot do so," replied the knight firmly. "They are turbulent and discontented; and the internal peace of your kingdom has more to fear from their disloyal practices, than even your domestic peace has from the ambitious intermeddling of pope Innocent. You must not count upon your barons, sire, to support you in opposition to the church. Even now. Sir Julian of the Mount, the sworn friend of the Counts of Boulogne and Flanders, has undertaken a journey to Auvergne, which bodes a new coalition against you, sire. Sir Julian is discontented, because you refused him the feof of Beaumetz, which was held by his sister's husband, dead without heirs. The Count de Boulogne you know to be a traitor. The count of Flanders was ever a dealer in rebellion. The old Count d'Auvergne, though no rebel, loves you not."
"They will raise a lion!" cried the king, stamping with his foot--"ay, they will raise a lion! Let Sir Julian of the Mount beware! The citizens of Albert demand a charter. Sir Julian claims some ancient rights. See that the charter be sealed to-morrow, Guerin, giving them right of watch and ward, and wall--rendering them an untailleable and free commune. Thus shall we punish good Sir Julian of the Mount, and flank his fair lands with a free city, which shall be his annoyance, and give us a sure post upon the very confines of Flanders. See it be done! As to the rest, come what may, my private happiness I will subject to no man's will; nor shall it be my hands that stoop the royal sceptre of France to the bidding of any prelate for whom the earth finds room.--Silence, my friend!" he added sharply; "the king's resolve is taken; and, above all, let not a doubt of the sureness of her marriage reach the ears of the queen. I, Philip of France, say the divorce shall stand!--and who is there shall give me the lie in my own land?" Thus saying, the king turned, and led the way back to the apartment where he had left the queen.
His first step upon the rushes of the room in which she sat woke Agnes de Meraine from her reverie; and though her husband's absence had been but short, her whole countenance beamed with pleasure at his return; while, laying on his arm the small white hand, which even monks and hermits have celebrated, she gazed up in his face, as if to see whether the tidings he had heard had stolen any thing from the happiness they were before enjoying. Philip's eyes rested on her, full of tenderness and love; and then turned to his minister with an appealing, and almost reproachful look. Guerin felt, himself, how difficult, how agonising it would be to part with a being so lovely and so beloved; and with a deep sigh, and a low inclination to the queen, he quitted the apartment.
In Auvergne, but in a different part of it from that where we left our party of pilgrims, rode onward a personage who seemed to think, with Jacques, that motley is the only wear. Not that he was precisely habited in the piebald garments of the professed fool; but yet his dress was as many coloured as the jacket of my ancient friend harlequin; and so totally differed from the vestments of that age, that it seemed as if he had taken a jump of two or three centuries, and stolen some gay habit from the court of Charles the Seventh. He wore long tight silk breeches, of a bright flame-colour; a sky-blue cassock of cloth girt round his waist by a yellow girdle, below which it did not extend above three inches, forming a sort of frill about his middle; while, at the same time, this sort of surcoat being without sleeves, his arms appeared from beneath covered with a jacket of green silk, cut close to his shape, and buttoned tight at the wrists. On his head he wore a black cap, not unlike the famous Phrygian bonnet; and he was mounted on a strong grey mare, then considered a ridiculous and disgraceful equipage.
This strange personage's figure no way corresponded with his absurd dress; for, had one desired a model of active strength, it could nowhere have been found better than in his straight and muscular limbs. His face, however, was more in accordance with the extravagance of his habiliments; for, certainly, never did a more curious physiognomy come from the cunning and various hand of Nature. His nose was long, and was seemingly boneless; for, ever and anon, whether from some natural convulsive motion, or from a voluntary and laudable desire to improve upon the singular hideousness of his countenance, this long, sausage-like contrivance in the midst of his face would wriggle from side to side, with a very portentous and uneasy movement. His eyes were large and grey, and did not in the least discredit the nose in whose company they were placed, though they had in themselves a manifest tendency to separate, never having any fixed and determined direction, but wandering about apparently independent of each other,--sometimes far asunder,--sometimes, like Pyramus and Thisbe, wooing each other across the wall of his nose with a most portentous squint. Besides this obliquity, they were endowed with a cold, leadenness of stare, which would have rendered the whole face as meaningless as a mask, had not, every now and then, a still, keen, sharp glance stolen out of them for a moment, like the sudden kindling up of a fire where all seems cold and dead. His mouth was guarded with large thick lips, which extended far and wide through a black and bushy beard; and, when he yawned, which was more than once the case, as he rode through the fertile valleys of Limagne, a great chasm seemed to open in his countenance, exposing, to the very back, two ranges of very white, broad teeth, with their accompanying gums.
For some way, the traveller rode on in quiet, seeming to exercise himself in giving additional ugliness to his features, by screwing them into every sort of form, till he became aware that he was watched by a party of men, whose appearance had nothing in it very consolatory to the journeyer of those days.
The road through the valley was narrow; the hills, rising rapidly on each side, were steep and rugged; and the party which we have mentioned was stationed at some two or three hundred yards before him, consisting of about ten or twelve archers, who, lurking behind a mass of stones and bushes, seemed prepared to impose a toll upon the highway through the valley.
The traveller, however, pursued his journey, though he very well comprehended their aim and object, nor did he exhibit any sign of fear or alarm beyond the repeated wriggling of his nose, till such time as he beheld one of the foremost of the group begin to fit an arrow to his bowstring, and take a clear step beyond the bushes. Then, suddenly reversing his position on the horse, which was proceeding at an easy canter, he placed his head on the saddle, and his feet in the air; and in this position advanced quietly on his way, not at all unlike one of those smart and active gentlemen who may be seen nightly in the spring-time circumambulating the area of Astley's Amphitheatre.
The feat which he performed, however simple and legitimate at present, was quite sufficiently extraordinary in those days, to gain him the reputation of a close intimacy with Satan, even if it did not make him pass for Satan himself.
The thunderstruck archer dropped his arrow, exclaiming, "'Tis the devil!" to which conclusion most of his companions readily assented. Nevertheless, one less ceremonious than the rest started forward and bent his own bow for the shot. "If he be the devil," cried he, "the more reason to give him an arrow in his liver: what matters it to us whether he be devil or saint, so he have a purse?" As he spoke, he drew his bow to the full extent of his arm, and raised the arrow to his eye. But at the very moment the missile twanged away from the string, the strange horseman we have described let himself fall suddenly across his mare, much after the fashion of a sack of wheat, and the arrow whistled idly over him. Then, swinging himself up again into his natural position, he turned his frightful countenance to the routiers, and burst into a loud horse-laugh that had something in its ringing coppery tone truly unearthly.
"Fools!" cried he, riding close up to the astonished plunderers. "Do you think to hurt me? Why, I am your patron saint, the Devil. Do not you know your lord and master? But, poor fools, I will give you a morsel. Lay ye a strong band between Vic le Comte and the lake Pavin, and watch there till ye see a fine band of pilgrims coming down. Skin them! skin them, if ye be true thieves. Leave them not a besant to bless themselves!"
Here one of the thieves, moved partly by a qualm of conscience, partly by bodily fear at holding a conversation with a person he most devoutly believed to be the Prince of Darkness, signed himself with the cross,--an action, not at all unusual amongst the plunderers of that age, who, so far from casting off the bonds of religion at the same time that they threw off all the other ties of civil society, were often but the more superstitious and credulous from the very circumstances of their unlawful trade. However, no sooner did the horseman see the sign, than he affected to start. "Ha!" cried he. "You drive me away; but we shall meet again, good friends--we shall meet again, and trust me, I will give you a warm reception. Haw, haw, haw, haw!" and, contorting his face into a most horrible grin, he poured forth one of his fiendlike laughs, and galloped off at full speed.
"Jesu Maria!" cried one of the routiers, "it is the fiend certainly--I will give him an arrow, for heaven's benison!" But whether it was that the bowman's hand trembled, or that the horseman was too far distant, certain it is, he rode on in safety, and did not even know that he had been again shot at.
"I will give the half of the first booty I make to our lady of Mount Ferrand," cried one of the robbers, thinking to appease Heaven and guard against Satan, by sharing the proceeds of his next breach of the decalogue with the priest of his favourite saint.
"And I will lay out six sous of Paris on a general absolution!" cried another, whose faith was great in the potency of papal authority.
But, leaving these gentry to arrange their affairs with Heaven as they thought fit, we must follow for a time the person they mistook for their spiritual enemy, and must also endeavour to develope what was passing in his mind, which really did in some degree find utterance; he being one of those people whose lips--those ever unfaithful guardians of the treasures of the heart--are peculiarly apt to murmur forth unconsciously, that on which the mind is busy. His thoughts burst from him in broken murmured sentences, somewhat to the following effect:--"What matters it to me who is killed!--Say the villains kill the men-at-arms.--Haw, haw! haw, haw! 'Twill be rare sport!--And then we will strip them, and I shall have gold, gold, gold! But the men-at-arms will kill the villains. I care not! I will help to kill them:--then I shall get gold too.--Haw, haw, haw! The villains plundered some rich merchants yesterday, and I will plunder them to-morrow. Oh, rare! Then, that Thibalt of Auvergne may be killed in the melée, with his cold look and his sneer.--Oh! how I shall like to see that lip, that called me De Coucy's fool juggler,--how I shall like to see it grinning with death! I will have one of his white fore-teeth for a mouth-piece to my reed flute, and one of his arm bones polished, to whip tops withal.--Haw, haw, haw! De Coucy's fool juggler!--Haw, haw! haw, haw! Ay, and my good Lord de Coucy!--the beggarly miscreant. He struck me, when I had got hold of a lord's daughter at the storming of Constantinople, and forbade me to show her violence.--Haw, haw! I paid him for meddling with my plunder, by stealing his; and, because I dared not carry it about, buried it in a field at Naples:--but I owe him the blow yet. It shall be paid!--Haw, haw, haw! Shall I tell him now the truth of what he sent me to Burgundy for? No, no, no! for then he'll sit at home at ease, and be a fine lord; and I shall be thrust into the kitchen, and called for, to amuse the noble knights and dames.--Haw, haw! No, no! he shall wander yet awhile; but I must make up my tale." And the profundity of thought into which he now fell, put a stop to his solitary loquacity; though ever and anon, as the various fragments of roguery, and villany, and folly, which formed the strange chaos of his mind, seemed, as it were, to knock against each other in the course of his cogitations, he would leer about, with a glance in which shrewdness certainly predominated over idiotcy, or would loll his tongue forth from his mouth, and, shutting one of his eyes, would make the other take the whole circuit of the earth and sky around him, as if he were mocking the universe itself; and then, at last, burst out into a long, shrill, ringing laugh, by the tone of which it was difficult to tell whether it proceeded from pain or from mirth.