CHAPTER XI.
The banquet passed, like the scene which followed the tournament, in enthusiastic assertions of the fair queen's rights, although she was not present. In this instance, Philip Augustus, all clear-sighted as he was, suffered himself to be deceived by his wishes; and believed fully that his barons would aid him in the resistance he meditated to the usurped authority of the pope.
The promises, however, which wine, and wassail, and festivity call forth, are scarcely more lasting than the feast itself; and, without we can take advantage of the enthusiasm before it dies, and render it irrevocable by urging it into action, little can ever be gained from any sudden emotion of a multitude. If Philip doubted its durability, he did not suffer the shade of such a doubt to appear. The vaunt of every young knight he thanked as a promise; and every expression of admiration and sympathy, directed towards his queen, he affected to look upon as a pledge to espouse her cause.
The Count Thibalt d'Auvergne was the only one that made neither boasts nor promises; and yet the king--whether judging his mind of a more stable fabric than the others, or wishing to counterbalance the coldness he had shown him on his first appearance at the court,--now loaded him with honours, placed him near him, spoke to him on all those subjects on which he deemed the count was best calculated to speak: and affecting to consider his advice and assistance of great import, in arranging the relations to be established between the crown of France and the new French colony, which had taken Constantinople, he prayed him to accompany the court to Compiègne, for which place it set out the next day.
The king's favour and notice fell upon the calm cold brow and dark thoughtful eye of Thibalt d'Auvergne like sunshine in winter, melting in no degree the frozen surface that it touched. The invitation, however, he accepted; saying, in the same unmoved tone, that he was anxious to see the queen, whom he had known in years long gone, and to whom he could give fresh news from Istria, with many a loving greeting from her father, whom he had seen as he returned from Palestine.
The queen, Philip replied, would be delighted to see him, and to hear all that he had to tell; for she had never yet forgot her own fair country--nay, nor let that canker-worm of affection, absence, eat the least bit away of her regard for those she loved.
The very first, Count Thibalt took his leave and departed. De Coucy rose, and was following; but the king detained him for a moment, to thank him for the generous interest he had shown in his queen's rights, which had not failed to reach his ears. He then asked, with a slight shade of concern upon his brow, "Is your companion in arms, beau sire, always so sad? It grieves me truly, to see him look so possessed by sorrow! What is the cause thereof?"
"By my faith! my lord, 'tis love, I believe," replied De Coucy; "some fair dame of Palestine--I wot not whether heathen or Christian, rightly; but all I know is this:--Some five years ago, when he first joined us, then warring near Tyre, he was as cheerful a knight as ever unhorsed a Saracen; never very lively in his mirth, yet loving gaiety in others, and smiling often: when suddenly, about two or three years after, he lost all his cheerfulness, abandoned his smiles, grew wan and thin, and has ever since been the man you see him."
The shade passed away from the king's brow; and saying, "'Tis a sad pity! We will try to find some bright eyes in France that may cure this evil love," he suffered De Coucy to depart.
All that passed, relative to the reception of the legate, was faithfully transmitted to Pope Innocent III.; and the very enthusiasm shown by the barons of France in the cause of their lovely queen made the pontiff tremble for his authority. The immense increase of power which the bishops of Rome had acquired by the victory their incessant and indefatigable intrigues had won, even over the spirit of Frederick Barbarossa, wanted yet the stability of antiquity; and it was on this account that Innocent III. dreaded so much that Philip might successfully resist the domination of the church even in one single instance.
There were other motives, however, which, in the course, of the contest about to be here recorded, mingled with his conduct a degree of personal acrimony towards the king of France. Of an imperious and jealous nature, the pontiff met with resistance first from Philip Augustus, and his ambition came only in aid of his anger. The election of the emperor of Germany was one cause of difference; Philip Augustus supporting with all his power Philip of Suabia; and the pope not only supporting, but crowning with his own hands, Otho, nephew of John, king of England,--although great doubts existed in regard to his legitimate election.
As keen and clear-sighted as he was ambitious, Innocent saw that in Philip Augustus he had an adversary as intent upon increasing his own authority, as he himself could be upon extending the power of the church. He saw the exact point of opposition; he saw the powerful mind and political strength of his antagonist; but he saw also that Philip's power, when acting against his own, must greatly depend upon the progress of the human mind towards a more enlightened state, which advance must necessarily be slow and difficult; while the foundations of his own power had been laid by ages of superstition, and were strengthened by all those habits and ceremonies to which the heart of man clings in every state, but more especially in a state of darkness.
Resolved at once to strike the blow, it happened favourably for the views of the pope, that the first question where his authority was really compromised, was one in which the strongest passions of his adversary were engaged, while his own mind was free to direct its energies by the calm rule of judgment. It is but justice also to say, that though Innocent felt the rejection of his interference as an insult, and beheld the authority of the church despised with no small wrath, yet all his actions and his letters, though firm and decided, were calm and temperate. Still, he menaced not without having resolved to strike; and the only answer he returned to the request of the cardinal of St. Mary's for farther instructions, was an order to call a council of the bishops of France, for the purpose of excommunicating Philip as rebel to the will of the church, and of fulminating an interdict against the whole of the realm. So severe a sentence, however, alarmed the bishops of France; and, at their intercession, the legate delayed for a time its execution, in hopes that, by some concession, Philip might turn away the wrath of the church.
In the meanwhile, as if the blow with which he was menaced but made him cling more closely to the object for whose sake he exposed himself, Philip devoted himself entirely to divert the mind of Agnes de Meranie from contemplating the fatal truth which she had learned at last. He now called to her remembrance the enthusiasm with which his barons had espoused her cause; he pointed out to her that the whole united bishops of France had solemnly pronounced the dissolution of his incomplete marriage with the Princess of Denmark; and he assured her, that were it but to protect the rights of his clergy and his kingdom from the grasping ambition of the see of Rome, he would resist its interference, and maintain his independence with the last drop of his blood.
At other times he strove to win her away even from the recollection of her situation; and he himself seemed almost to forget the monarch in the husband. Sometimes it was in the forests of Compiègne, Senlis, or Fontainbleau, chasing the stag or the boar, and listening to the music of the hounds, the ringing horns, and the echoing woods. Sometimes it was in the banquet and the pageant, the tournament or the cour plenière, with all its crowd, and gaiety, and song. Sometimes it was in solitude and tranquillity, straying together through lovely scenes, where nature seemed but to shine back the sweet feelings of their hearts; and every tone of all summer's gladness seemed to find an echo in their bosoms.
Philip succeeded; and Agnes de Meranie, though her cheek still remained a shade paler than it had been, and her soft eyes had acquired a look of pensive languor, had--or seemed to have--forgotten that there was a soul on earth who disputed her title to the heart of her husband, and the crown of her realm. She would laugh, and converse, and sing, and frame gay dreams of joy and happiness to come, as had been ever her wont; but it was observed that she would start, and turn pale, when any one came upon her suddenly, as if she still feared evil news; and, if any thing diverted her thoughts from the gay current in which she strove to guide them, she would fall into a long reverie, from which it was difficult to wake her.
Thus had passed the time of Philip Augustus and Agnes de Meranie, from their departure for Compiègne, the day after the tournament. The hours of Count Thibalt d'Auvergne, however, had been spent in a very different manner from that which he had anticipated. He had, it is true, made up his mind to a painful duty; but it was a duty of another kind he was called to perform. As his foot was in the stirrup to join the royal cavalcade, for the purpose of proceeding to Compiègne, according to the king's invitation, a messenger arrived from Auvergne, bearing the sad news that his father had been suddenly seized with an illness, from which no hope existed of his recovery; and D'Auvergne, without loss of time, turned his steps towards Vic le Comte.
On his arrival, he found his parent still lingering on the confines between those two strange worlds, the present and the future: the one which we pass through, as in a dream, without knowing the realities of any thing around us; the other, the dreadful inevitability of which we are fond to clothe in a thousand splendid hopes, putting, as it were, a crown of glory on the cold and grimly brow of Death.
'Twas a sad task to watch the flickering of life's lamp, till the flame flew off for ever! The Count d'Auvergne, however, performed it firmly; and having laid the ashes of his father in the earth, he stayed but to receive the homage of his new vassals, and then turned his steps once more towards Paris, leaving the government of Auvergne to his uncle, the famous Count Guy, celebrated both for his jovial humour and his predatory habits.