CHARLES THE RASH.
“His surname is a picture of his character, and it seems strange that so good a duke as Philip should have had so bad a son. To wage war, harry and burn, to be engaged always in some work of destruction, was the passion of his life. He devastated Normandy, destroying more than two hundred castles and towns. He filled the land with smoke, and colored the rivers with blood.
“He succeeded to the ducal crown of Burgundy in 1467. Being the richest prince of the times, he immediately began to make preparations for war on a gigantic scale, which should add all the neighboring territories and provinces to Burgundy. He desired to extend his personal power at any expense of blood and treasure, and he mapped out plans of conquest and dreamed dazzling dreams.
“While he was getting ready for war, Louis XI. of France invited him to a conference: he hesitated, and Louis, through his partisans, incited the citizens of Liége to revolt against him. Charles then consented to the conference, but as soon as Louis arrived, he treacherously seized him and made him his prisoner. He forced him to swear a treaty on a box which was believed to contain pieces of the true cross, and which had belonged to Charlemagne. He then compelled him to go with him to Liége, and apparently to sanction the punishment of the people for the very revolt he had incited them to make.
“He conquered Lorraine, and planned to subdue Switzerland and add it to Burgundy. He entered Switzerland, captured Grandson, and hanged and drowned the garrison. The Swiss rose unitedly against such a merciless foe, and utterly defeated him. But he raised another army and again entered Switzerland, full of visions of conquest. He was again defeated.
CHARLES THE RASH DISCOVERED.
“He came back to Burgundy, morose and gloomy. His nails and beard grew long; he looked like a wild man; the people recoiled from [!-- original location of 'Charles the Rash discovered' --] [!-- blank page --] him, and his dark character seemed to throw a shadow around him wherever he appeared.
“Lorraine, which he had conquered, rose against him. This roused him again to action: he hired soldiers, and led the way to war. He met the rebellious Lorrainers in the plain of Nancy. Here the rash duke made his last fight. It was a snowy day, and the battle was a short one,—the soldiers of Charles flying quickly before the enemy.
“When the duke was preparing himself for the battle, the gilt lion which formed the crest of his helmet fell off.
“‘It is a sign from God,’ said he, smitten in conscience.
“When the battle was over his body was nowhere to be found.
“They searched for it in the snow-covered fields. At last a Roman page said he had seen the duke fall. He led the people towards a frozen pond, where were some bodies lying, stripped. A washerwoman who had joined in the search, saw the glitter of a jewel on the hand of a corpse whose face was not visible. The head was frozen in the ice. The position of the body was changed. It was Charles the Rash. He was finally buried in the church of Notre Dame, whose spire you may already see shining in the sun.”
The story of Charles the Rash led the Class to visit the old church of Notre Dame soon after their arrival in the courtly old city. It had a greater charm for the boys than the ornate town-hall with its famous belfry and its many bells. In a side chapel was the tomb of the rash duke and that of his daughter, Mary of Burgundy.
“I can only think of the snowy field, and the naked body frozen in the ice,” said Ernest Wynn, as he left the solemn chapel.
The belfry of Bruges, of which so much has been said and sung, is really only about three hundred feet high, but affords a grand view of the surrounding country. Its chimes play by machinery four times an hour, and are regarded the finest in Europe.
We must let Longfellow tell the charming story of his visit to the old tower:—
In the market-place of Bruges stands the belfry old and brown;
Thrice consumed and thrice rebuilded, still it watches o’er the town.
As the summer morn was breaking, on that lofty tower I stood,
And the world threw off the darkness, like the weeds of widowhood.
Thick with towns and hamlets studded, and with streams and vapors gray,
Like a shield embossed with silver, round and vast the landscape lay.
At my feet the city slumbered. From its chimneys, here and there,
Wreaths of snow-white smoke, ascending, vanished, ghost-like, into air.
Not a sound rose from the city at that early morning hour,
But I heard a heart of iron beating in the ancient tower.
From their nests beneath the rafters sang the swallows wild and high;
And the world, beneath me sleeping, seemed more distant than the sky.
Then most musical and solemn, bringing back the olden times,
With their strange, unearthly changes rang the melancholy chimes,
Like the psalms from some old cloister, when the nuns sing in the choir;
And the great bell tolled among them, like the chanting of a friar.
Visions of the days departed, shadowy phantoms filled my brain;
They who live in history only seemed to walk the earth again;
All the Foresters of Flanders,—mighty Baldwin Bras de Fer,
Lyderick du Bucq and Cressy Philip, Guy de Dampierre.
I beheld the pageants splendid that adorned those days of old;
Stately dames, like queens attended, knights who bore the Fleece of Gold.
Lombard and Venetian merchants with deep-laden argosies;
Ministers from twenty nations; more than royal pomp and ease.
I beheld proud Maximilian, kneeling humbly on the ground;
I beheld the gentle Mary, hunting with her hawk and hound;
And her lighted bridal-chamber, where a duke slept with the queen,
And the armed guard around them, and the sword unsheathed between.
I beheld the Flemish weavers, with Namur and Juliers bold,
Marching homeward from the bloody battle of the Spurs of Gold;
Saw the fight at Minnewater, saw the White Hoods moving west,
Saw great Artevelde victorious scale the Golden Dragon’s nest.
And again a whiskered Spaniard all the land with terror smote;
And again the wild alarum from the tocsin’s throat,—
Till the bell of Ghent responded o’er lagoon and dike of sand,
“I am Roland! I am Roland! there is victory in the land!”
Then the sound of drums aroused me. The awakened city’s roar
Chased the phantoms I had summoned back into their graves once more.
Hours had passed away like minutes; and, before I was aware,
Lo! the shadow of the belfry crossed the sun-illumined square.
On entering Normandy, Master Lewis engaged passages on diligences, wherever a promise of a route amid pleasant scenery offered itself. It seemed to be the boys’ greatest delight to ride on the top of a diligence.
These French stage-coaches are lofty, lumbering vehicles, composed of three parts. The front division is called coupé, and is shaped somewhat like an old-time chariot. It holds three persons. Next is the intérieur or inside, holding six persons, an apartment much shunned in pleasant weather in summer time. Behind is the rotonde which collects “dust, dirt, and bad company.” Over all is the banquette, a castle-like position on the top of the coupé, a seat protected by a hood, or head, and leather apron.
To secure this seat beside the “driver” was Tommy Toby’s highest ambition, when about to leave a newly visited place.
In one of these rides, when Tommy and Wyllys Wynn occupied this high seat, Tommy said to the driver,—
“It seems strange to me to find such great forests in old countries like England, Belgium, and France. I fancied that great tracts of wood only existed in new lands like America, or half-civilized places. Are there wild animals in the woods here?”
The driver was a French soldier, quite advanced in life. He spoke English well, and seemed to enjoy giving the largest possible information to his seat companions.
“Yes, there are some wild animals left in the forest,” he said,—“of the harmless kind. Wild people have sometimes been found in the largest tracts of forest.”
“Wild people?” asked Tommy, his curiosity greatly excited. “Did you ever see a wild man?”
“No, not myself. Did you ever hear of Peter the Wild Boy found in the woods in Hanover?”
“Yes,” said Tommy.
“There was a wild girl found in the French woods, not far from Paris, about the same time.”
“Will you not tell us the story?” asked Tommy.
The diligence lumbered along among the cool forest scenery, between the walls of green trees which now and then, like suddenly opened windows, afforded extended views; and the good-natured, well-informed driver told the two boys the story of