THE KNIGHTS OF THE “SAINTE AMPOULE.”
“Mais ce sont des chevaliers pour rire.”— Le Sage.
There have been knights who, like “special constables,” have been created merely “for the nonce;” and who have been as ephemeral as the shortlived flies so called. This was especially the case with the Knights of the Holy “Ampoule,” or anointing oil, used at the coronation of the kings of France.
This oil was said to have been brought to St. Remy (Remigius) by a dove, from Heaven, and to have been placed by the great converter of Clovis, in his own tomb, where it was found, by a miraculous process. St. Remy himself never alluded either to the oil or the story connected with it. Four centuries after the saint’s death the matter was first spoken—nay, the oil was boldly distilled, by Hinckmar, Archbishop of Rheims. This archi-episcopal biographer of St. Remy has inserted wonders in the saint’s life, which staggered, while they amused, the readers who were able to peruse his work by fireside, in castle-hall, or convert refectory. I can only allude to one of these wonders—namely, the “Sainte Ampoule.” Hinckmar actually asserted that when St. Remy was about to consecrate with oil, the humble King Clovis, at his coronation, a dove descended from Heaven, and placed in his hands a small vial of holy oil. Hinckmar defied any man to prove the contrary. As he further declared that the vial of oil was still to be found in the saint’s sepulchre, and as it was so found, accordingly, Hinckmar was allowed to have proved his case. Thenceforward, the chevaliers of the St. Ampoule were created, for a day—that of the crowning of the sovereign. They had charge of the vial, delivered it to the archbishop, and saw it restored to its repository; and therewith, the coronation and their knightly character concluded together. From that time, down to the period of Louis XVI., the knights and the vial formed the most distinguished portion of the coronation procession and doings at the crowning of the kings of France.
Then ensued the Revolution; and as that mighty engine never touched anything without smashing it, you may be sure that the vial of St. Remy hardly escaped destruction.
On the 6th of October, 1793, Citizen Rhull entered the modest apartment of Philippe Hourelle, chief marguillier of the Cathedral of Rheims, and without ceremony demanded that surrender should be made to him of the old glass-bottle of the ci-devant Remy. Philippe’s wig raised itself with horror; but as Citizen Rhull told him that it would be as easy to lift his head from his shoulders as his wig from his head, if he did not obey, the marguillier stammered out an assertion that the reliquary was in the keeping of the curé, M. Seraine, to whom he would make instant application.
“Bring pomatum and all,” said Citizen Rhull, who thus profanely misnamed the sacred balm or thickened oil, which had anointed the head and loins of so many kings from Charles the Bald, downward.
“May I ask,” said Philippe, timidly, “what you will do therewith?”
“Grease your neck, that the knife may slip the easier through it, unless you bring it within a decade of minutes.”
“Too much honor by half,” exclaimed Philippe. “I will slip to the curé as rapidly as if I slid the whole way on the precious ointment itself. Meanwhile, here is a bottle of Burgundy—”
“Which I shall have finished within the time specified. So, despatch; and let us have t’other bottle, too!”
When Philippe Hourelle had communicated the request to the curé, Monsieur Seraine, with a quickness of thought that did justice to his imagination, exclaimed, “We will take the rogues in, and give them a false article for the real one.” But the time was so short; there was no second ancient-looking vial at hand; there was not a pinch of pomatum, nor a spoonful of oil in the house, and the curé confessed, with a sigh, that the genuine relic must needs be surrendered. “But we can save some of it!” cried M. Seraine; “here is the vial, give me the consecrating spoon.” And with the handle of the spoon, having extracted some small portions, which the curé subsequently wrapped up carefully, and rather illegibly labelled, the vial was delivered to Philippe, who surrendered it to Citizen Rhull, who carried the same to the front of the finest cathedral in France, and at the foot of the statue of Louis XV. Citizen Rhull solemnly hammered the vial into powder, and, in the name of the Republic, trod the precious ointment underfoot till it was not to be distinguished from the mud with which it was mingled.
“And so do we put an end to princes and pomatum,” cried he.
Philippe coughed evasively; smiled as if he was of the same way of thinking with the republican, and exclaimed, very mentally indeed, “Vivent les princes et la pommade.” Neither, he felt assured, was irrevocably destroyed.
The time, indeed, did come round again for princes, and Napoleon was to be crowned at Notre Dame. He cared little as to what had become of the Heaven-descended ointment, and he might have anointed, as well as crowned, himself. There were some dozen gentlemen who hoped that excuse might be discovered for creating the usual order of the Knights of the Ampoule; but the Emperor did not care a fig for knights or ointment, and, to the horror of all who hoped to be chevaliers, the imperial coronation was celebrated without either. But then Napoleon was discrowned, as was to be expected from such profanity; and therewith returned the Bourbons, who, having forgotten nothing, bethought themselves of the Saint Ampoule. Monsieur de Chevrières, magistrate at Rheims, set about the double work of discovery and recovery. For some time he was unsuccessful. At length, early in 1819, the three sons of the late Philippe Hourelle waited on him. They made oath that not only were they aware of a portion of the sacred ointment having been in the keeping of their late father, but that his widow succeeded the inheritance, and that she reckoned it as among her choicest treasures.
“She has nothing to do but to make it over to me,” said Monsieur Chevrières; “she will be accounted of in history as the mother of the knights of the Ampoule of the Restoration.”
“It is vexatious,” said the eldest son, “but the treasure has been lost. At the time of the invasion, our house was plundered, and the relic was the first thing the enemy laid his hands on.”
The disappointment that ensued was only temporary. A judge named Lecomte soon appeared, who made oath that he had in his keeping a certain portion of what had at first been consigned to the widow Hourelle. The portion was so small that it required an eye of faith, very acute and ready indeed, to discern it. The authorities looked upon the relic, and thought if Louis XVIII. could not be crowned till a sufficient quantity of the holy ointment was recovered wherewith to anoint him, the coronation was not likely to be celebrated yet awhile.
Then arose a crowd of priests, monks, and ex-monks, all of whom declared that the curé, M. Seraine, had imparted to them the secret of his having preserved a portion of the dried anointing oil, but they were unable to say where he had deposited it. Some months of hesitation ensued, when, in summer, M. Bouré, a priest of Berry-au-Bac, came forward and proclaimed that he was the depositary of the long-lost relic, and that he had preserved it in a portion of the winding-sheet of St. Remy himself. A week later M. Champagne Provotian appeared, and made deposition to the following effect: He was standing near Rhull when the latter, in October, 1793, destroyed the vial which had been brought from Heaven by a dove, at the foot of the statue of Louis XV. When the republican struck the vial, some fragments of the glass flew on to the coat-sleeve of the said M. Champagne. These he dexterously preserved, took home with him, and now produced in court.
A commission examined the various relics, and the fragments of glass. The whole was pronounced genuine, and the chairman thought that by process of putting “that and that together,” there was enough of legend, vial, and ointment to legitimately anoint and satisfy any Christian king.
“There is nothing now to obstruct your majesty’s coronation,” said his varlet to him one morning, after having spent three hours in a service for which he hoped to be appointed one of the knights of the Sainte Ampoule; “there is now absolutely nothing to prevent that august ceremony.”
“Allons donc!” said Louis XVIII. with that laugh of incredulity, that shrug of the shoulders, and that good-humored impatience at legends and absurdities, which made the priests speak of him as an infidel.
“What shall be done with the ointment?” said the knight-expectant.
“Lock it up in the vestry cupboard, and say no more about it.” And this was done with some ceremony and a feeling of disappointment. The gathered relics, placed in a silver reliquary lined with white silk, and enclosed in a metal case under three locks, were deposited within the tomb of St. Remy. There it remained till Charles X. was solemnly crowned in 1825. In that year, positively for the last time, the knights of the Sainte Ampoule were solemnly created, and did their office. As soon as Charles entered the choir, he knelt in the front of the altar. On rising, he was led into the centre of the sanctuary, where a throned chair received his august person. A splendid group half-encircled him; and then approached the knights of the Sainte Ampoule in grand procession, bearing all that was left of what the sacred dove did or did not bring to St. Remy, for the anointing of Clovis. Not less than three prelates, an archbishop and two bishops, received the ointment from the hands of the knights, and carried it to the high altar. Their excellencies and eminences may be said to have performed their office with unction, but the people laughed alike at the knights, the pomatum, and the ceremony, all of which combined could not endow Charles X. with sense enough to keep his place. The knights of the Sainte Ampoule may be said now to have lost their occupation for ever.
Of all the memorabilia of Rheims, the good people there dwelt upon none more strongly than the old and splendid procession of these knights of the Sainte Ampoule. The coronation cortège seemed only a subordinate point of the proceedings; and the magnificent canopy, upheld by the knights over the vial, on its way from the abbey of St. Remy to the cathedral, excited as much attention as the king’s crown.
The proceedings, however, were not always of a peaceable character. The Grand Prior of St. Remy was always the bearer of the vial, in its case or shrine. It hung from his neck by a golden chain, and he himself was mounted on a white horse. On placing the vial in the hands of the archbishop, the latter pledged himself by solemn oath to restore it at the conclusion of the ceremony; and some half-dozen barons were given as hostages by way of security. The procession back to the abbey, through the gayly tapestried streets, was of equal splendor with that to the cathedral.
The horse on which the Grand Prior was mounted was furnished by the government, but the Prior claimed it as the property of the abbey as soon as he returned thither. This claim was disputed by the inhabitants of Chêne la Populeux, or as it is vulgarly called, “Chêne la Pouilleux.” They founded their claim upon a privilege granted to their ancestors. It appeared that in the olden time, the English had taken Rheims, plundered the city, and rifled the tomb of St. Remy, from which they carried off the Sainte Ampoule. The inhabitants of Chêne, however, had fallen upon the invaders and recovered the inestimable treasure. From that time, and in memory and acknowledgment of the deed, they had enjoyed, as they said, the right to walk in the procession with the knights of the Sainte Ampoule, and had been permitted to claim the horse ridden by the Grand Prior. The Prior and his people called these claimants scurvy knaves, and would by no means attach any credit to the story. At the coronation of Louis XIII. they did not scruple to support their claim by violence. They pulled the Prior from his horse, terribly thrashed the monks who came to his assistance, tore the canopy to pieces, thwacked the knights right lustily, and carried off the steed in triumph. The respective parties immediately went to law, and spent the value of a dozen steeds, in disputes about the possession of a single horse. The contest was decided in favor of the religious community; and the turbulent people of Chêne were compelled to lead the quadruped back to the abbey stables. They renewed their old claim subsequently, and again threatened violence, much to the delight of the attorneys, who thought to make money by the dissension. At the coronations of Louis XV. and Louis XVI. these sovereigns issued special decrees, whereby the people of Chêne were prohibited from pretending to any property in the horse, and from supporting any such pretensions by acts of violence.
The history of foreign orders would require a volume as large as Anstis’s; but though I can not include such a history among my gossiping details, I may mention a few curious incidents connected with
THE ORDER OF THE HOLY GHOST.
There is a singular circumstance connected with this order. It was founded by the last of the Valois, and went out with the last of the Bourbons. Louis Philippe had a particular aversion for the orders which were most cherished by the dynasty he so cleverly supplanted. The Citizen King may be said to have put down both “St. Louis” and the “Holy Ghost” cavaliers. He did not abolish the orders by decree; but it was clearly understood that no one wearing the insignia would be welcome at the Tuileries.
The Order of the Holy Ghost was instituted by Henri, out of gratitude for two events, for which no other individual had cause to be grateful. He was (when Duke of Anjou) elected King of Poland, on the day of Pentecost, 1573, and on the same day in the following year he succeeded to the crown of France. Hence the Order with its hundred members, and the king as grand master.
St. Foix, in his voluminous history of the order, furnishes the villanous royal founder with a tolerably good character. This is more than any other historian has done; and it is not very satisfactorily executed by this historian himself. He rests upon the principle that the character of a king, or his disposition rather, may be judged by his favorites. He then points to La Marck, Mangiron, Joyeuse, D’Epernon, and others. Their reputations are not of the best, rather of the very worst; but then St. Foix says that they were all admirable swordsmen, and carried scars about them, in front, in proof of their valor: he evidently thinks that the bellica virtus is the same thing as the other virtues.
On the original roll of knights there are names now more worthy of being remembered. Louis de Gonzague, Duke de Nevers, was one of these. On one occasion, he unhorsed the Huguenot Captain de Beaumont, who, as he lay on the ground, fired a pistol and broke the ducal kneepan. The Duke’s squire bent forward with his knife to despatch the Captain; the Duke, however, told the latter to rise. “I wish,” said he, “that you may have a tale to tell that is worth narrating. When you recount, at your fireside, how you wounded the Duke de Nevers, be kind enough to add that he gave you your life.” The Duke was a noble fellow. Would that his generosity could have restored his kneepan! but he limped to the end of his days.
But there was a nobler than he, in the person of the Baron d’Assier, subsequently Count de Crussol and Duke d’Uzes. He was a Huguenot, and I confess that I can not account for the fact of his being, at any time of his life, a Knight of the Order of the Holy Ghost. Henri III. was not likely to have conferred the insignia even on a pervert. His name, however, is on the roll. He was brave, merciful, pious, and scrupulously honest. When he captured Bergerai, he spared all who had no arms in their hands, and finding the women locked up in the churches, he induced them to return home, on promise of being protected from all molestation. These poor creatures must have been marvellously fair; and the baron’s eulogy on them reminds me of the expression of the soldiers when they led Judith through the camp of Holofernes: “Who could despise this people that have among them such women.”
The baron was not a little proud of his feat, and he thought that if all the world talked of the continence of Scipio, he had a right to claim some praise as the protector of female virtue. Accordingly, in forwarding an account of the whole affair to the Duc de Montpensier, he forwarded also a few samples of the ladies. “I have only chosen twenty of the handsomest of them,” he writes, “whom I have sent you that you may judge if they were not very likely to tempt us to reprisals; they will inform you that they have suffered not the least dishonor.” By sending them to Montpensier’s quarters the ladies were in great danger of incurring that from which the Baron had saved them. But he winds up with a small lecture. He writes to the Duke: “You are a devotee [!]; you have a ghostly father; your table is always filled with monks; your hear two or three masses every day; and you go frequently to confession. I confess myself only to God. I hear no masses. I have none but soldiers at my table. Honor is the sole director of my conscience. It will never advise me to order violence against woman, to put to death a defenceless enemy, or to break a promise once given.” In this lecture, there was, in fact, a double-handed blow. Two birds were killed with one stone. The Baron censured, by implication, both the Duke and his religion. I was reminded of him by reading a review in the “Guardian,” where the same skilful method is applied to criticism. The reviewer’s subject was Canon Wordsworth’s volume on Chevalier Bunsen’s “Hippolytus.” “The canon’s book,” said the reviewer (I am quoting from memory), “reminds us—and it must be a humiliation and degradation to an intelligent, educated, and thoughtful man—of one of Dr. Cumming’s Exeter Hall lectures.” Here the ultra high church critic stunned, with one blow, the merely high-church priest and the no-church presbyterian.
There was generosity, at least, in another knight of this order, Francis Goaffier, Lord of Crèvecœur. Catherine of Medicis announced to him the appointment of his son to the command of a regiment of foot. “Madame,” said the Knight of the Holy Ghost, “my son was beset, a night or two ago, by five assassins; a Captain La Vergne drew in his defence, and slew two of the assailants. The rest fled, disabled. If your majesty will confer the regiment on one who deserves it, you will give it to La Vergne.”—“Be it so,” said Catherine, “and your son shall not be the less well provided for.”
One, at least, of the original knights of this order was famous for his misfortunes; this was Charles de Hallewin, Lord of Piennes. He had been in six-and-twenty sieges and battles, and never came out of one unscathed. His domestic wounds were greater still. He had five sons, and one daughter who was married. The whole of them, with his son-in-law, were assassinated, or died accidentally, by violent deaths. The old chevalier went down to his tomb heart-broken and heirless.
Le Roi, Lord of Chavigny, and who must not be mistaken for an ancestor of that Le Roi who died at the Alma under the title of Marshal St. Arnaud, is a good illustration of the blunt, honest knight. Charles IX. once remarked to him that his mother, Catherine de Medicis, boasted that there was not a man in France, with ten thousand livres a year, at whose hearth she had not a spy in her pay. “I do not know,” said Le Roi, “whether tyrants make spies, or spies tyrants. For my own part, I see no use in them, except in war.”
For honesty of a still higher sort, commend me to Scipio de Fierques, Lord of Lavagne. Catherine de Medicis offered to make this, her distant relative, a marshal of France. “Good Heavens, Madame!” he exclaimed, “the world would laugh at both of us. I am simply a brave gentleman, and deserve that reputation; but I should perhaps lose it, were you to make a marshal of me.” The dignity is taken with less reluctance in our days. It was this honest knight who was asked to procure the appointment of queen’s chaplain for a person who, by way of bribe, presented the gallant Scipio with two documents which would enable him to win a lawsuit he was then carrying on against an obstinate adversary. Scipio perused the documents, saw that they proved his antagonist to be in the right, and immediately withdrew his opposition. He left the candidate for the queen’s chaplaincy to accomplish the object he had in view, in the best way he might.
There was wit, too, as might be expected, among these knights. John Blosset, Baron de Torci, affords us an illustration. He had been accused of holding correspondence with the enemy in Spain, and report said that he was unworthy of the Order of the Holy Ghost. He proved his innocence before a chapter of the order. At the end of the investigation, he wittily applied two passages from the prayer-book of the knights, by turning to the king, and saying, “Domine ne projicias me a facie tuâ, et spiritum sanctum tuum ne auferas a me.” “Lord, cast me out from thy presence, and take not thy ‘Holy Spirit’ from me.” And the king bade him keep it, while he laughed at the rather profane wit of John Blosset.
There was wit, too, of a more practical nature, among these knights of the Holy Spirit. The royal founder used occasionally to retire with the knights to Vincennes. There they shut themselves up, as they said, to fast and repent; but, as the world said, to indulge in pleasures of a very monster-like quality. The royal dukes of a later period in France used to atone for inordinate vice by making their mistresses fast; the royal duchesses settled their little balance with Heaven, by making their servants fast. It appears that there was nothing of this vicarious penance in the case of Henri III. and his knights. Not that all the knights willingly submitted to penance which mortified their appetites. Charles de la Marck, Count of Braine. was one of those impatient penitents. On a day on which rigid abstinence had been enjoined, the king was passing by the count’s apartment, when he was struck by a savory smell. King as he was, he immediately applied his eye to the keyhole of the count’s door, and beheld the knight blowing lustily at a little fire under a chafing-dish, in which there were two superb soles frying in savory sauce. “Brother knight, brother knight,” exclaimed Henri, “I see all and smell much. Art thou not ashamed thus to transgress the holy rule?”—“I should be much more so,” said the count, opening the door, “if I made an enemy of my stomach. I can bear this sort of abstinence no longer. Here am I, knight and gentleman, doubly famished in that double character, and I have been, in my own proper person, to buy these soles, and purchase what was necessary for the most delicious of sauces: I am cooking them myself, and they are now done to a turn. Cooked aux gratins, your majesty yourself can not surely resist tasting. Allow me”—and he pushed forward a chair, in which Henri seated himself, and to the “soles aux gratins,” such as Vefour and Very never dished up, the monarch sat down, and with the hungry count, discussed the merits of fasting, while they enjoyed the fish. It was but meagre fare after all; and probably the repast did not conclude there.
Charity is illustrated in the valiant William Pot (a very ancient name of a very ancient family, of which the late archdeacon of Middlesex and vicar of Kensington was probably a descendant). He applied a legacy of sixty thousand livres to the support of wounded soldiers. Henri III., who was always intending to accomplish some good deed, resolved to erect an asylum for infirm military men; but, of course, he forgot it. Henri IV., who has received a great deal more praise than he deserves, also expressed his intention to do something for his old soldiers; but he was too much taken up with the fair Gabrielle, and she was not like Nell Gwynne, who turned her intimacy with a king to the profit of the men who poured out their blood for him. The old soldiers were again neglected; and it was not till the reign of Louis XIV. that Pot’s example was again recalled to mind, and profitable action adopted in consequence. When I think of the gallant Pot’s legacy, what he did therewith, and how French soldiers benefited thereby, I am inclined to believe that the German troops, less well cared for, may thence have derived their once favorite oath, and that Potz tausend! may have some reference to the sixty thousand livres which the compassionate knight of Rhodes and the Holy Ghost devoted to the comfort and solace of the brave men who had been illustriously maimed in war.
The kings of France were accustomed to create a batch of knights of the Holy Ghost, on the day following that of the coronation, when the monarchs became sovereign heads of the order. The entire body subsequently repaired from the Cathedral to the Church of St. Remi, in grand equestrian procession, known as the “cavalcade.” Nothing could well exceed the splendor of this procession, when kings were despotic in France, and funds easily provided. Cavalry and infantry in state uniforms, saucy pages in a flutter of feathers and ribands, and groups of gorgeous officials preceded the marshals of France, who were followed by the knights of the Holy Ghost, after whom rode their royal Grand Master, glittering like an Eastern king, and nodding, as he rode, like a Mandarin.
The king and the knights performed their devotions before the shrine of Saint Marcoul, which was brought expressly from the church of Corbeni, six leagues distance from Rheims. This particular ceremony was in honor of the celebrated old abbot of Nantua, who, in his lifetime, had been eminently famous for his success in curing the scrofulous disorder called “the king’s evil.” After this devotional service, the sovereign master of the order of the Holy Ghost was deemed qualified to cure the evil himself. Accordingly, decked with the mantle and collar of the order, and half encircled by the knights, he repaired to the Abbey Park to touch and cure those who were afflicted with the disease in question. It was no little labor. When Louis XVI. performed the ceremony, he touched two thousand four hundred persons. The form of proceeding was singular enough. The king’s first physician placed his hand on the head of the patient; upon which a captain of the guard immediately seized and held the patient’s hands closely joined together. The king then advanced, head uncovered, with his knights, and touched the sufferers. He passed his right hand from the forehead to the chin, and from one cheek to the other; thus making the sign of the cross, and at the same time pronouncing the words, “May God cure thee; the king touches thee!”
In connection with this subject, I may add here that Evelyn, in his diary, records that Charles II. “began first to touch for the evil, according to custom,” on the 6th of July, 1660, and after this fashion. “His Majesty sitting under his state in the Banqueting House, the chirurgeons caused the sick to be brought, and led up to the throne, where they kneeling, the king strokes their faces or cheeks with both his hands at once, at which instant a chaplain, in his formalities, says, ‘He put his hands upon them, and He healed them.’ This is said to every one in particular. When they have been all touched, they come up again in the same order, and the other chaplain kneeling, and having angel-gold strung on white riband on his arm, delivers them one by one to his Majesty, who puts them about the necks of the touched as they pass, while the first chaplain repeats, ‘That is the true light who came into the world.’” The French ceremonial seems to me to have been the less pretentious; for the words uttered by the royal head of the order of the Holy Ghost, simply formed a prayer, and an assertion of a fact: “May God heal thee; the king touches thee!” And yet who can doubt the efficacy of the royal hand of Charles II., seeing that, at a single touch, he not only cured a scrofulous Quaker, but converted him into a good churchman?
The history of the last individual knight given in these imperfect pages (Guy of Warwick), showed how history and romance wove themselves together in biography. Coming down to a later period, we may find another individual history, that may serve to illustrate the object I have in view. The Chevalier de Bayard stands prominently forward. But there was before his time, a knight who was saluted by nearly the same distinctive titles which were awarded to Bayard. I allude to Jacques de Lelaing, known as “the knight without fear and without doubt.” His history is less familiar to us, and will, therefore, the better bear telling. Besides, Bayard was but a butcher. If he is not to be so accounted, then tell us, gentle shade of Don Alonzo di Sotomayor, why thy painful spirit perambulates the groves of Elysium, with a scented handkerchief alternately applied to the hole in thy throat and the gash in thy face? Is it not that, with cruel subtlety of fence Bayard run his rapier into thy neck “four good finger-breadths,” and when thou wast past resistance, did he not thrust his dagger into thy nostrils, crying the while, “Yield thee, Signor Alonzo, or thou diest!” The shade of the slashed Spaniard bows its head in mournful acquiescence, and a faint sound seems to float to us upon the air, out of which we distinguish an echo of “The field of Monervyne.”