CHAPTER VII.
Let us suppose the welcome given to all, and the guests within the castle of the Count d'Auvergne, who, warned by messengers of his son's approach, had called his cour plenière to welcome the return.
It was one of those gay and lively scenes now seldom met with, where pageant, and splendour, and show were unfettered by cold form and ceremony. The rigid etiquette, which in two centuries after enchained every movement of the French court, was then unknown. Titles of honour rose no higher than Beau Sire, or Monseigneur, and these even were applied more as a mark of reverence for great deeds and splendid virtues, than for wealth and hereditary rank. All was gay and free, and though respect was shown to age and station, it was the respect of an early and unsophisticated age, before the free-will offering of the heart to real dignity and worth had been regulated by the cold rigidity of a law. Yet each person in that day felt his own station, struggled for none that was not his due, and willingly paid the tribute of respect to the grade above his own.
Through the thousand chambers and the ten thousand passages of the château of Vic le Comte, ran backwards and forwards pages, and varlets, and squires, in proportion to the multitude of guests. Each of these attendants, though performing what would be now considered the menial offices of personal service, to the various knightly and noble visiters, was himself of noble birth, and aspirant to the honours of chivalry. Nor was this the case alone at the courts of sovereign princes like the Count D'Auvergne. Parents of the highest rank were in that age happy to place their sons in the service of the poorest knight, provided that his own exploits gave warranty that he would breed them up to deeds of honour and glory. It was a sort of apprenticeship to chivalry.
All these choice attendants, for the half-hour after Count Thibalt's return, hurried, as we have said, from chamber to chamber, offering their services, and aiding the knights who had come to welcome their young lord, to unbuckle their heavy armour, without the defence of which, the act of travelling, especially in Auvergne, was rash and dangerous. Multitudes of fresh guests were also arriving every moment--fair dames and gallant knights, vassals and vavassours;--some followed by a gay train; some bearing nothing but lance and sword; some carrying themselves their lyre, without which, if known as troubadours, they never journeyed; and some accompanied by whole troops of minstrels, jugglers, fools, rope-dancers, and mimics, whom they brought along with them out of compliment to their feudal chief, towards whose cour plenière they took their way.
Numbers of these buffoons also were scattered amongst the tents and booths, which we have mentioned, on the outside of the castle-gate; and here, too, were merchants and pedlars of all kinds, who had hurried to Vic le Comte with inconceivable speed, on the very first rumour of a cour plenière. In one booth might be seen cloth of gold and silver, velvets, silks, cendals, and every kind of fine stuffs; in another, ermines, miniver, and all sorts of furs. Others, again, displayed silver cups and vessels, with golden ornaments for clasping the mantles of the knights and ladies, called fermailles; and again, others exhibited cutlery and armour of all kinds; Danish battle-axes, casques of Poitiers, Cologne swords, and Rouen hauberts. Neither was noise wanting. The laugh, the shout, the call, within and without the castle walls, was mingled with the sound of a thousand instruments, from the flute to the hurdy-gurdy; while, at the same time, every point of the scene was fluttering and alive, whether with gay dresses and moving figures, or pennons, flags, and banners on the walls and pinnacles of the château.
Precisely at the hour of four, a band of minstrels, richly clothed, placed themselves before the great gate of the castle, and performed what was called corner à l'eau, which gave notice to every one that the banquet was about to be placed upon the table. At that sound, all the knights and ladies left the chambers to which they had first been marshalled, and assembled in one of the vast halls of the castle, where the pages offered to each a silver basin and napkin, to wash their hands previous to the meal.
At this part of the ceremony De Coucy, Heaven knows how! found himself placed by the side of Isadore of the Mount; and he would willingly have given a buffet to the gay young page who poured the water over her fair hands, and who looked up in her face with so saucy and page-like a grin, that Isadora could not but smile, while she thanked him for his service.
The old Count d'Auvergne stood speaking with his son; and, while he welcomed the various guests as they passed before him with word and glance, he still resumed his conversation with Count Thibalt. Nor did that conversation seem of the most pleasing character; for his brow appeared to catch the sadness of his son's, from which the light of joy, that his return had kindled up, had now again passed away.
"If your knightly word be pledged, my son," said the old count, as the horns again sounded to table, "no fears of mine shall stay you; but I had rather you had sworn to beard the Soldan on his throne, than that which you have undertaken." The conversation ended with a sigh, and the guests were ushered to the banquet-hall.
It was one of those vast chambers, of which few remain to the present day. One, however, may still be seen at La Brède, the château of the famous Montesquieu, of somewhat the same dimensions. It was eighty feet in length, by fifty in breadth; and the roof, of plain dark oak, rose from walls near thirty feet high, and met in the form of a pointed arch in the centre. Neither columns nor pilasters ornamented the sides; but thirty complete suits of mail, with sword, and spear, and shield, battle-axe, mace, and dagger, hung against each wall; and over every suit projected a banner, either belonging to the house of Auvergne, or won by some of its members in the battle-field. The floor was strewed thickly with green leaves; and on each space left vacant on the wall by the suits of armour was hung a large branch of oak, covered with its foliage. From such simple decorations, bestowed upon the hall itself, no one would have expected to behold a board laid out with as much splendour and delicacy as the most scrupulous gourmand of the present day could require to give savour to his repast.
The table, which extended the whole length of the hall, was covered with fine damask linen--a manufacture the invention of which, though generally attributed to the seventeenth century, is of infinitely older date. Long benches, covered with tapestry, extended on each side of the table; and the place of every guest was marked, even as in the present times, by a small round loaf of bread, covered with a fine napkin, embroidered with gold. By the side of the bread lay a knife, though the common girdle dagger often saved the lord of the mansion the necessity of providing his guests with such implements. To this was added a spoon, of silver; but forks there were none, their first mention in history being in the days of Charles the Fifth of France.
A row of silver cups also ornamented both sides of the board; the first five on either hand being what were called hanaps, which differed from the others in being raised upon a high stem, after the fashion of the chalice. Various vases of water and of wine, some of silver, some of crystal, were distributed in different parts of the table, fashioned for the most part in strange and fanciful forms, representing dragons, castles, ships, and even men, and an immense mass of silver and gold, in the different shapes of plates and goblets, blazed upon two buffets, or dressoirs, as they are called by Helenor de Poitiers, placed at the higher part of the hall, near the seat of the count himself.
Thus far, the arrangements differed but little from those of our own times. What was to follow, however, was somewhat more in opposition to the ideas of the present day. The doors of the hall were thrown open, and the splendid train of knights and ladies, which the cour plenière had assembled, entered to the banquet. The Count d'Auvergne first took his place in a chair with dossier and dais, as it was particularised in those days, or, in other words, high raised back and canopy. He then proceeded to arrange what was called the assiette of the table; namely, that very difficult task of placing those persons together whose minds and qualities were best calculated to assimilate: a task, on the due execution of which the pleasure of such meetings must ever depend, but which will appear doubly delicate, when we remember that then each knight and lady, placed side by side, ate from the same plate, and drank from the same cup.
That sort of quick perception of proprieties, which we now call tact, belongs to no age; and the Count d'Auvergne, in the thirteenth century, possessed it in a high degree. All his guests were satisfied, and De Coucy drank out of the same cup as Isadora of the Mount.
They were deliriating draughts he drank, and he now began to feel that he had never loved before. The glance of her bright eye, the touch of her small hand, the sound of her soft voice, seemed something new, and strange, and beautiful to him; and he could hardly fancy that he had known any thing like it ere then. The scene was gay and lovely; and there were all those objects and sounds around which excite the imagination and make the heart beat high,--glitter, and splendour, and wine, and music, and smiles, and beauty, and contagious happiness. The gay light laugh, the ready jest, the beaming look, the glowing cheek, the animated speech, the joyous tale, were there; and ever and anon, through the open doors, burst a wild swelling strain of horns and flutes--rose for a moment over every other sound, and then died away again into silence.
What words De Coucy said, and how those words were said; and what Isadore felt, and how she spoke it not, we will leave to the imagination of those who may have been somewhat similarly situated. Nor will we farther prolong the description of the banquet--a description perhaps too far extended already--by detailing all the various yellow soups and green, the storks, the peacocks, and the boars; the castles that poured forth wine, and the pyramids of fifty capons, which from time to time covered the table. We have already shown all the remarkable differences between a banquet of that age and one given in our own, and also some of the still more remarkable similarities.
At last, when the rays of the sun, which had hitherto poured through the high windows on the splendid banquet-table, so far declined as no longer to reach it, the old Count d'Auvergne filled his cup with wine, and raised his hand as a sign to the minstrels behind his chair, when suddenly they blew a long loud flourish on their trumpets, and then all was silent. "Fair knights and ladies!" said the count, "before we go to hear our troubadours beneath our ancient oaks, I once more bid you welcome all; and though here be none but true and valiant knights, to each of whom I could well wish to drink, yet there is one present to whom Auvergne owes much, and whom I--old as I am in arms--pronounce the best knight in France. Victor of Ascalon and Jaffa; five times conqueror of the infidel, in ranged battle; best lance at Zara, and first planter of a banner on the imperial walls of Byzantium--but more to me than all--saviour of my son's life--Sir Guy de Coucy, good knight and true, I drink to your fair honour!--do me justice in my cup:" and the count, after having raised his golden hanap to his lips, sent it round by a page to De Coucy.
De Coucy took the cup from the page, and with a graceful abnegation of the praises bestowed upon him, pledged the father of his friend. But the most remarkable circumstance of the ceremony was, that it was Isadore's cheek that flushed, and Isadore's lip that trembled, at the great and public honour shown to De Coucy, as if the whole embarrassment thereof had fallen upon herself.
The guests now rose, and, led by the Count d'Auvergne, proceeded to the forest behind the château, where, under the great feudal oak, at whose foot all the treaties and alliances of Auvergne were signed, they listened to the songs of the various troubadours, many of whom were found amongst the most noble of the knights present.
We are so accustomed to look upon all the details of the age of chivalry as fabulous, that we can scarcely figure to ourselves men whose breasts were the mark and aim of every danger, whose hands were familiar with the lance and sword, and whose best part of life was spent in battle and bloodshed, suddenly casting off their armour, and seated under the shadow of an oak, singing lays of love and tenderness in one of the softest and most musical languages of the world. Yet so it was, and however difficult it may be to transport our mind to such a scene, and call up the objects as distinct and real, yet history leaves no doubt of the fact, that the most daring warriors of Auvergne--and Auvergne was celebrated for bold and hardy spirits--were no less famous as troubadours than knights; and, as they sat round the count, they, one after another, took the citharn, or the rote, and sung with a slight monotonous accompaniment one of the sweet lays of their country.
There is only one, however, whom we shall particularise. He was a slight fair youth, of a handsome but somewhat feminine aspect. Nevertheless, he wore the belt and spurs of a knight; and by the richness of his dress, which glittered with gold and crimson, appeared at least endowed with the gifts of fortune. During the banquet, he had gazed upon Isadore of the Mount far more than either the lady beside whom he sat, or De Coucy, admired; and there was a languid and almost melancholy softness in his eye, which Isadore's lover did not at all like. When called upon to sing, by the name of the Count de la Roche Guyon, he took his harp from a page, and sweeping it with a careless but a confident hand, again fixed his eyes upon Isadore, and sang with a sweet, full, mellow voice, in the Provençal or Langue d'oc, though his name seemed to bespeak a more northern extraction.