CHAPTER X.
In the days we speak of, the city of Paris was just beginning to venture beyond the island, and spread its streets and houses over the country around. During the reign of Louis the Seventh, and especially under the administration of Suger, abbot of St. Denis, the buildings had extended far on the northern bank of the river; and there already might be seen churches and covered market-places, and all that indicates a wealthy and rising city; but in the midst of this suburb, nearly on the spot where stand at present the Rue Neuve and the Rue des Petits Champs, was a vast open space of ground, called the Champeaux, or Little Fields; which, appertaining to the crown, had been reserved for the chivalrous sports of the day. Part of it, indeed, had been given to the halls of Paris, and part had been enclosed as a cemetery; but a large vacant space still remained, and here was appointed the tournament of July, to which Philip Augustus had called all the chivalry of his realm.
It is not my intention here to describe a tournament, which has been so often done--and so exquisitely well done in the beautiful romance of Ivanhoe, that my relation would not only have the tediousness of a twice-told tale, but the disadvantage of a comparison with something far better; but I am unfortunately obliged to touch upon such a theme, as the events that took place at the passe d'armes of Champeaux materially affect the course of my history.
On one side of the plain extended a battlemented building, erected by the minister Guerin, and dedicated, as the term went, to the shelter of the poor passengers. It looked more like a fortress, indeed, than a house of hospitality, being composed entirely of towers and turrets; and as it was the most prominent situation in the neighbourhood, it was appointed for the display of the casques and shields of arms belonging to the various knights who proposed to combat in the approaching tournament. Nor was the effect unpleasant to the eye, for every window on that side of the building which fronted the field had the shield and banner of some particular knight, with all the same gay colours wherewith we now decorate the panels of our carriages. In the cloisters below, from morning unto night-fall, stood one of the heralds in his glittering tabard, with his pursuivants and followers, ready to receive and register complaints against any of the knights whose arms were displayed above, and who, in case of any serious charges, were either prevented from entering, or were driven with ignominy from, the lists.
Side by side, on one of the most conspicuous spots of the building, as knights of high fame and prowess, were placed the shields and banners of Count Thibalt d'Auvergne and Guy de Coucy; and the officers of arms, who, from time to time repeated the names of the various knights, and their exploits and qualities, did not fail to pause long upon the two brothers in arms; giving De Coucy the meed over all others for valour and daring, and D'Auvergne for cool courage and prudent skill.
All the arrangements of the field were as magnificent as if the royal coffers had overflowed. The scaffoldings for the king, the ladies, and the judges, were hung with crimson and gold; the tents and booths were fluttering with streamers of all colours, and nothing was seen around but pageant and splendour.
Such was the scene which presented itself on the evening before the tournament, when De Coucy and his friend, the Count d'Auvergne, whom he had rejoined by this time in Paris, set out, from a lodging which they occupied near the tower of the châtelet, to visit the spot where they were to display their skill the next day. A circumstance, however, occurred by the way, which it may be well to record.
Passing through some of the more narrow and tortuous streets of Paris, and their horses pressed on by the crowd of foot passengers, who were coming from, or going to, the same gay scene as themselves, they could only converse in broken observations to each other, as they for a moment came side by side. And even these detached sentences were often drowned in the various screaming invitations to spend their money, which were in that day poured forth upon passengers of all denominations.
"Methinks the king received us but coldly," said De Coucy, as he gained D'Auvergne's ear for a moment, "after making us wait four days too!--Methinks his hospitality runs dry."
"Wine, will you wine? Good strong wine, fit for knights and nobles," cried a loud voice at the door of one of the houses.
"Cresses!--fresh water-cresses!" shrieked a woman with a basket in her hand.
"The king can scarce love me less than I love him," answered the count in a low tone, as a movement of his horse brought him close to De Coucy.
"And yet," said his friend, in some surprise, "you, principally, determined your father to reject all overtures from the Count of Flanders, brought by Sir Julian of the Mount!"
"Because I admire the king, though I love not the man," replied Count Thibalt.
"Baths! baths! hot baths!" cried a man with a napkin over his arm, and down whose face the perspiration was streaming. "Hot! hot! hot! upon my honour!--Bathe, lords and knights! bathe! 'Tis dusty weather."
"Knight of Auvergne!" cried a voice close by. "Those that soar high, fall farthest. Sir Guy de Coucy, the falcon was slain that checked at the eagle, because he was the king of birds."
A flush came into the cheek of Count Thibalt; and De Coucy started and turned round in his saddle, to see who spoke. No one, however, was near, but a man engaged in that ancient and honourable occupation of selling hot pies, and a woman chaffering for a pair of doves with another of her own sex.
"By all the saints of France!" cried De Coucy, "some one named us. What meant the fool by checking at the eagle? I see him not, or I would check at him!"
Count Thibalt d'Auvergne asked no explanation of the quaint proverb that had been addressed to him; but only inquired of De Coucy, whether 'twas not like the voice of his villain--Gallon the fool.
"No!" replied the knight.--"No! 'twas not so shrill. Besides, he is gone, as he said, to inspect the lists some half-hour ago."
In truth, no sooner did they approach the booths, which had been erected by various hucksters and jugglers, at the end of the cemetery of the Innocents, a short distance from the lists, than they beheld Gallon the fool, with his jerkin turned inside out, amusing a crowd of men, women, and children, with various tricks of his old trade.
"Come to me!--come to me!" cried he, "all that want to learn philosophy! I am the king of cats, and the patron of cock-sparrows. Have any of you a dog that wants gloves, or a goat that lacks a bonnet? Bring him me!--bring him me! and I will fit him to a hair.--Haw, haw! haw, haw!"
His strange laugh, his still stranger face, and his great dexterity, were giving much delight and astonishment to the people, when the appearance of De Coucy, who, he well knew, would be angry at the public exhibition of his powers, put a stop to his farther feats; and shouting, "Haw, haw! haw, haw!" he scampered off, and was safely at home before them.
The day of the tournament broke clear and bright; and long before the hour appointed, the galleries were full, and the knights armed in their tents. Nothing was waited for but the presence of the king; and many was the impatient look of lady and of page, towards the street which led to the side of the river.
At length the sound of trumpets announced his approach; and, winding up towards Champeaux, were seen the leaders of his body-guard--that first small seed from which sprung and branched out in a thousand directions the great body of a standing army. The first institution of these serjeants of arms, as they were called, took place during Philip's crusade in the Holy Land, where, feigning, or believing, his life to be in danger from the poniards of the assassins, he attached to his own person a guard of twelve hundred men, whose sole duty was to watch around the king's dwelling. In France, though the same excuse no longer existed, Philip was too wise to dismiss the corps which he had once established, and which not only offered a nucleus for larger bodies in time of need, but which added that pomp and majesty to the name of king, that neither the extent of the royal domains, nor the prerogatives of sovereignty, limited as they were in those days, could alone either require or enforce.
Slowly winding up through the streets towards the Champeaux, the cavalcade of royalty seemed to delight in exhibiting itself to the gaze of the people, who crowded the houses to the very tops; for, well understanding the barbarous taste of the age in which he lived, no one ever more feasted the public eye with splendour than Philip Augustus.
First came the heralds two and two, with their many-coloured tabards, exhibiting on their breasts the arms of their provinces. Next followed on horseback, Mountjoy king-at-arms, surrounded by a crowd of marshals, pursuivants, and valets on foot. He was dressed in a sleeveless tunic of crimson, which opening in front displayed a robe of violet velvet, embroidered with fleur de lis. On his head was placed his crown, and in his hand a sort of staff or sceptre. He was indeed, as far as personal appearance went, a very kingly person; and being a great favourite amongst the people, he was received with loud shouts of Denis Mountjoy! Denis Mountjoy! Blessings on thee, Sire François de Roussy!
Next appeared a party of the serjeants-at-arms, bearing their gilded quivers and long bows; while each held in his right-hand the baton of his immense brazen mace, the head or ball of which rested on his shoulder. But then came a sight which obliterated all others. It was the party of the king and queen. The monarch himself was mounted on a destrier, or battle-horse, as black as night, whose every step seemed full of the consciousness that he bore royalty. Armed completely, except the casque, which was borne behind him by a page, Philip Augustus moved the warrior, and looked the monarch; and the same man, who had heard the hermit's rebuke with patience, ordered the preparations of a banquet like a Lucullus; and played with the roses in a woman's hair, now looked as if he could have crushed an empire with a frown.
Beside him, on a palfrey--as if for the contrast's sake, milk-white--rode the lovely Agnes de Meranie. All that is known of her dress is, that it also was white; for it seems that no one who looked on her could remark any thing but her radiant beauty. As she moved on, managing with perfect ease a high-spirited horse, whose light movements served but to call out a thousand graces in his rider, the glitter, and the pageant, and the splendour seemed to pass away from the eyes of the multitude, extinguished by something brighter still; and, ever and anon, Philip Augustus himself let his glance drop to the sweet countenance of his queen, with an expression that woke some sympathetic feeling in the bosoms of the people; and a loud shout proclaimed the participation of the crowd in the sensations of the king.
Behind the king and queen rode a long train of barons and ladies, with all the luxury of dress and equipage for which that age was distinguished. Amongst the most conspicuous of that noble train were Constance, Duchess of Brittany, and her son Arthur Plantagenet, of whose character and fate we shall have more to speak hereafter. Each great chieftain was accompanied by many a knight, and vassal, and vavassour, with worlds of wealth bestowed upon their horses and their persons. Following these again, came another large body of the King's men-at-arms, closing the procession, which marched slowly on, and entered the southern end of the lists; after which, traversing the field amidst the shouts and gratulations of the multitude, the whole party halted at the foot of a flight of steps leading to the splendid gallery prepared for the king and queen. Here, surrounded by a crowd of waving crests and glittering arms, Philip himself lifted Agnes from her horse, and led her to her seat; while at the same time the trumpets sounded for the various knights to make a tour round the field, before proceeding to the sports of the day. Each, as he passed by the royal gallery, saluted the king and queen by dropping the point of his lance; and from time to time, Agnes demanded the name of the different knights, whom either she did not know, or whose faces were so concealed by the helmet as to render it difficult to distinguish them.
"Who is he, Philip?" demanded she, as one of the knights passed, "he with the wivern in his casque, and the red scarf,--who is he? He sits his horse nobly."
"'Tis Charles de Tournon," replied the king; "a noble knight, called the Comte Rouge. Here comes also Guillaume de Macon, my fair dame," added the king, smiling, "with a rose on his shield, all for your love."
"Silly knight!" said Agnes. "He had better fix his love where he may hope to win. But who is this next, with the shield sinople, bearing a cross, gules, and three towers in chief?"
"That is the famous Guy de Coucy," replied the King; "a most renowned knight. If report speaks true, we shall see all go down before his lance. And this who follows, and is now coming up, is the no less famous Thibalt Count d'Auvergne"--and the king fixed his eyes upon his wife with a keen, inquiring glance.
Luckily, however, the countenance of Agnes showed nothing which could alarm a mind like Philip's.
"Count Thibalt d'Auvergne!" cried she, with a frank, unembarrassed smile. "Oh! I know him well. He spent many months at my father's court in going to the Holy Land. From him I first heard the praises of my Philip, long, long ere I ever entertained a hope of being his wife. I was scarce more than a child then, not much above fifteen--and yet I forgot not those praises. He was a dear friend too--that Count d'Auvergne--of my poor brother Alberic, who died in Palestine." The queen added, with a sigh--"Poor Alberic! he loved me well!"
"The fool lied!" said Philip internally: "all is frank and fair. The fool lied!--and led me to slight a noble knight and powerful baron by his falsehood!" and bending forward, as if to do away the coldness with which he had at first treated the Count d'Auvergne, he answered his salute with a marked and graceful inclination of the head.
"Is it possible?" cried Agnes, after the Count had passed. "In truth, I should never have known him, Philip, he is so changed. Why, when he was at the court of Istria, he was a fresh young man; and now he is as deadly pale and worn as one sick of the plague. Oh, what a horrible place must be that Holy Land!--Promise me, Philip, on all the Evangelists, never to go there again, let who will preach new crusades:--nay, promise me, my Lord!"
"I do! I do! sweet Agnes!" replied the king: "once in a life is quite enough. I have other warfares now before me."
After the knights had all passed, a short space of time intervened for the various arrangements of the field; and then, the barriers being opened, the tournament really commenced. Into the particulars of the feats performed, as I have already said, I shall not enter: suffice it that, as the king had predicted, all went down before De Coucy's lance; and that Count Thibalt d'Auvergne, though not hurried on by the same quick spirit, was judged, by the old knights, no way inferior to his friend, though his valour bore a different character. The second course had taken place, and left the same result; and many of the fair dames in the galleries began to regret that neither of the two companions in arms had been decorated with their colours; and to determine upon various little arts and wiles, to engage one or other of the two crusaders to bear some mark of theirs in any subsequent tournament.
Thus stood the day, when the voices of the heralds cried to pause, much to the astonishment, not only of the combatants, but of the king himself. The barriers opened, and, preceded by a stout priest bearing a pontifical cross in silver, the cardinal of St. Mary, dressed as Legate à latere, entered the lists, followed by a long train of ecclesiastics.[[14]]
A quick, angry flush mounted into the king's cheek, and his brow knit into a frown, which sufficiently indicated that he expected no very agreeable news from the visit of the legate. The cardinal, however, without being moved by his frowns, advanced directly towards the gallery in which he sat, and, placing himself before him, addressed him thus:--
"Philip, King of France, I, the cardinal of St. Mary's, am charged, and commanded, by our most holy father, the Pope Innocent, to speak to you thus----"
"Hold, Sir Cardinal!" cried the King, "Let your communication be for our private ear. We are not accustomed to receive either ambassadors or legates in the listed field."
"I have been directed, Sir King," replied the legate, "by the superior orders of his holiness, thus publicly to admonish you, wherever I should find you, you having turned a deaf and contemptuous ear to the frequent counsels and commands of the holy church. Know then, king Philip, that with surprise and grief that a king of France should so forget the hereditary piety of his race, his holiness perceives that you still persist in abandoning your lawful wife, Ingerburge of Denmark!"
"The man will drive me mad!" exclaimed the king, grasping his truncheon, as if he would have hurled it at the daring churchman, who thus insulted him before all the barons of his realm. "Will no one stay him?"
Several of the knights and heralds advanced to interpose between the legate and the king; but the cardinal waved them back; and, well knowing that their superstitious veneration for his habit would prevent them from silencing him by force, he proceeded boldly with his speech.
"Perceiving also," continued he, "that, taking advantage of an unlawful and annulled divorce, weakly pronounced by your bishops, you have taken to your bed another woman, who is not, and cannot be, your wife!"
A shriek from the women of the queen here interrupted the harangue of the prelate, and all eyes instantly turned upon her.
Simple surprise and astonishment had been the first emotion of Agnes de Meranie, at seeing any one bold enough to oppose a will that, according to all her ideas, was resistless; but gradually, as she began to comprehend the scope of the legate's discourse, terror and distress took possession of her whole frame. Her eyes strained on him, as on some bad angel come to cross her young happiness; her lip quivered; the warm glow of her cheek waxed faint and pale, like the sunshine fading away from the evening sky; and, at the last terrible words that seemed to seal her fate for ever, she fell back senseless into the arms of her women.
The scene of confusion that ensued is not to be described.
"By the light of heaven! old man!" exclaimed Philip, "were it not for thy grey hairs, I would strike thee dead!--Away with him! Let him speak no more!--Men-at-arms! put him forth from the lists! Away with him!--Agnes, my beloved!" he cried, turning to the queen, and taking her small hand in his, "awake, awake! Fear not, dear Agnes! Is your Philip's love so light as to be shaken by the impotent words of any churchman in Christendom?"
In the mean while the serjeants-at-arms hurried the prelate and his followers from the lists, amidst many a bitter taunt from the minstrels and trouvères, who feared not even then to attack with the most daring satire the vices of the church of Rome. The ladies of Agnes de Meranie pressed round their fair mistress, sprinkling her with all kinds of essences and perfumed waters; some chattering, some still screaming, and all abusing the daring legate, who had so pained the heart of their lovely queen, and put a stop to the sports of the day. The knights and barons all united in the cause of the princess by every motive that had power in the days of chivalry:--youth, beauty, innocence, and distress, shouted loudly, that they acknowledged her for their sovereign, the queen of all queens, and the flower of all ladies!
Philip Augustus, with royal indignation still upon his brow, caught gladly at the enthusiasm of his chivalry; and, standing forward in the front of the gallery, with the inanimate hand of his lovely wife in his left, and pointing to her deathlike cheek with the other, he exclaimed, in a voice that passed all over the field--"Knights and nobles of fair France! shall I suffer my hearth to be invaded by the caprice of any proud prelate? Shall I yield the lady of my love for the menace of any pope on earth? You, good knights!--you only can judge! and, by Heaven's throne! you only shall be the judges!"
"Life to the king!--life to the king! Denis Mountjoy!--Denis Mountjoy!" shouted the barons, as if they were rallying round the royal standard on the battle-field; and, at the same time, the waving of a thousand scarfs, and handkerchiefs, and veils, from the galleries around, announced how deep an interest the ladies of France took in a question where the invaded rights of the queen came so home to the bosoms of all.
"Break up the sports for to-day!" cried Philip, waving his warder. "This has disturbed our happiness for the moment; but we trust our fair queen will be able to thank her loyal knights by the hour of four, when we invite all men of noble birth here present to sup with us in our great hall of the palace. For those who come too late to find a seat in the great hall, a banquet shall be prepared in the tower of the Louvre. Till then, farewell!"
The fainting fit of Agnes de Meranie lasted so long, that it was found necessary to carry her to the palace in a litter, followed, sadly and in silence, by the same splendid train that had conducted her, as if in triumph, to the tournament.
In the mean while, for a short time, the knights who had come to show their prowess and skill, and those noble persons, both ladies and barons, who had graced the lists as spectators, remained in groups, scattered over the field, and through the galleries, canvassing vehemently what had taken place; and not the most priest-ridden of them all, did not, in the first excitement of the moment, declare that the conduct of both pope and cardinal was daring and scandalous, and that the divorce which had been pronounced between Philip and Ingerburge by the bishops of France ought to hold good in the eyes of all Frenchmen.
"Now, by the good Heaven!" cried De Coucy, raising his voice above all the rest, "she is as fair a queen as ever my eyes rested on; and though I cannot wear her colours, and proclaim her the star of my love, because another vow withholds me, yet I will mortally defy any man who says she is not lawfully queen of France.--Sound, trumpets, sound! and you, heralds, cry--Here stands Guy de Coucy in arms, ready to prove upon the bodies of any persons who do deny that Agnes princess de Meranie is lawfully queen of France, and wife of Philip the Magnanimous, that they are false and recreant, and to give them the lie in their throat, wagering against them his body and arms in battle, when and where they will appoint, on horseback or on foot, and giving them the choice of arms!"
The trumpets sounded, and the heralds who remained on the field proclaimed the challenge of the knight: while De Coucy cast his gauntlet on the ground. A moment's profound silence succeeded, and then a loud shout; and no one answering his call, De Coucy bade the heralds take up the glove and nail it on some public place, with his challenge written beneath; for payment of which service, he twisted off three links of a massive gold chain round his neck, and cast it to the herald who raised his glove; after which he turned, and, rejoining the Count d'Auvergne, rode back to throw off his arms and prepare for the banquet to which they had been invited.
"De Coucy," said D'Auvergne, as they passed onward, "I too would willingly have joined in your challenge, had I thought that our lances could ever establish Agnes de Meranie as queen of France; but I tell you no, De Coucy! If the pope be firm, and firm he will be, as her father too well knows, Philip will be forced to resign her, or to trust to his barons for support against the church."
"Well!" cried De Coucy, "and his barons will support him. Saw you not how, but now, they pledged themselves to his support?"
"The empty enthusiasm of a moment!" replied D'Auvergne bitterly; "a flame which will be out as soon as kindled! Not one man in each hundred there, I tell thee, De Coucy, has got one spark of such enthusiasm as yours, which, like the Greek fire, flashes brightly, yet burns for ever; and as few of them, the colder sort of determination, which, like mine, burns without any flame, till all that fed it is consumed."
De Coucy paused. For a moment the idea crossed his mind of proposing to D'Auvergne a plan for binding all the barons present by a vow to support Philip against the church of Rome, while the enthusiasm was yet upon them; but though brave almost to madness where his own person was alone concerned, he was prudent and cautious in no small degree, where the life and happiness of others were involved; and, remembering the strife to which such a proposal, even, might give rise, he paused, and let it die in silence.