Make good the loss I cannot, for I have nothing of my own save the clothes I stand up in. And a weary mother have I, and all she owned was a mattress, which they have taken from under her, so she lies on the bare straw. And that’s what irks me most of all! For havings come and go. To-day I’ve lost all. Some other day I might hope to win it back again, and pay for my lost ox, all in good time. I’ld not waste a tear on the business, were it not for my mother. And you weep for a stinking dog! Bad scan to me if I think any the better of ye for that.’
“‘Here is speech of good comfort, fair brother!’ said Aucassin. ‘Good luck to you. And how much might your ox be worth?’
“‘Sire, they ask twenty sols for the price of it, and I’ve not one farthing to the good.’
“‘Now look,’ said Aucassin; ‘here is the money in my purse; take it and pay the fine.’
“‘Sire, many thanks. And may you find the thing you go a-seeking——’”
Were I writing in French, I should make no apology for this long quotation; in French the poem of Aucassin is little known beyond the narrow circle of Romance philologists. Habent sua fata libelli. In England the magic touch of a man of genius has rested for one moment on this mediæval page, leaving it glorious and public. Of late, those gentlemen of learned leisure, who once translated Horace, then Dante, have divided their activity between the Rubaiyàt of Omar Khayyam and this same quaint chante-fable of Aucassin and Nicolette, of which there are several excellent English versions. But let the reader consider the passage we have roughly and literally rendered from Suchier’s edition, not as a literary exercise, but as a plain statement of fact: a portrait of the French peasant, grotesquely faithful, and even to-day a speaking likeness. Observe the shock of black curling hair, the large nose, the broad jowl, the lips thick and ruddy, the stalwart frame; just such may be seen at any fair in Southern or Central France. Doubtless the anonymous author did not draw from life; he lived in an age of convention, and simply took the canon of ugliness; since, to him and his contemporaries, beauty resided only in a tender fairness, slenderness to the point of tenuity, long narrow eyes, slim lips, a neat straight nose, and a delicate pallor flushed with pink. But this is merely removing the picture from reality by one degree. To the cantor’s world of the Middle Ages, the common was unclean, the vulgar ugly, the popular type a thing of repulsion. They confused the idea of comeliness and the idea of race. They admired only the rare. And this peasant had perforce to be all that our Prince Charming so obviously was not—swarthy, squat, red-lipped, hard-featured, rude, and a bit of a poltroon—so that he becomes a living image of his fellows employed in ploughing the glebe or hoeing the vineyard.
With what an airy touch our old poet has disengaged the different ideals of prince and peasant. They are as true to-day as yesterday. Aucassin, with his facile courtesy, his gentle grace, has none the less that fund of quiet reserve which marks distinction: “Certainly, good brother, I will tell you what I seek. I have lost my white greyhound, the loveliest thing alive.” He speaks in a parable, and the secret of his heart remains a fountain sealed: nothing is so vulgar as indiscretion. The peasant, on the contrary, is a churl, with all the quick suspicion of a churl. “Mind your own business,” is his first word of greeting. And yet how swiftly he slides into confidence and a free-and-easy camaraderie! He has none of Aucassin’s delicate dissembling. Each of these men is heart-broken for the sufferings of a woman dependent upon him. But Aucassin goes dreaming of his lost betrothed rapt in an ideal of disinterestedness, poetry, and chivalry; while the hind knows what it costs to bring up a child, and has often seen his mother go hungry in order to give him a second bowl of pottage, so that he cherishes the broken old woman who, for his sake, lies on the bare straw. “A weary mother had I” (une lasse mère avoie). Even to-day, in a French village, such an old, capable, worn-out mother is often the dearest romance of the peasant’s life.
The “vallet” of Aucassin was probably the ploughman of some métayer or peasant farmer on the system of half profits, equally divided between landlord and tenant. In such a case, the lost ox being part of the cheptel, or capital, of the farm, and so belonging to the landlord, would have to be immediately replaced; it was certainly undervalued at twenty sols—which, in purchasing power, represent about four pounds of our money. If the peasant cannot pay his fine, he must e’en take to the woods for an outlaw, like Robin Hood and his merry men. But probably he would not stay there long. From forest to forest, as stealthily as a weasel or a mole, he will put half the length of France between him and his disgrace, hire himself out to some other farmer, lay by, glean, go a-faggoting, and some day, when a good season has filled the barns, byres, vats, and pockets of all the country-side, he will offer his old master the price of his lost ox, and purchase of the king a free pardon, duly paid for. The Lettres de Rémission of Charles V. and Charles VI. are full of such instances.