VIOLANTE.
CHAPTER I.
| “’Twas but for a moment—and yet in that time She crowded the impressions of many an hour: Her eye had a glow, like the sun of her clime, Which waked every feeling at once into flower!” |
The fall of Constantinople had not been without its effect upon eastern politics. The christian Prince of Antioch acknowledged the feudal superiority of Baldwin, the new Emperor, and Saphadin, the Sultan of Syria, justly apprehended that an easy and ready communication being thus opened with Europe through the Greek Empire, the splendid conquest might result in the carrying out of the original plan upon Palestine. To avert this danger, he repaired to Antioch to conclude, if possible, a treaty for six years’ peace with the Christians. The sons of Elsiebede were permitted to accompany the army of their father on his most distant expeditions; and through the enlightened policy of Saphadin, or Saif Addin, during his absence, contrary to the usual Oriental observances, the Moorish European filled the office of regent of Jerusalem. Under her benign administration the pilgrims had access to the holy places, and protection in the practice of all the rites of Christianity. Salaman, whose self-complacency and curiosity gave him a benevolent interest in all matters pertaining to politics, humanity, or religion, was the usual medium of communication between the empress and those who had occasion to solicit favors from her hand. He was the Mercury to convey safe conducts, the Apollo to usher petitioners into her presence.
The garb of the pilgrim had consequently become to her a familiar sight, and it was therefore without surprise that she saw her attendant enter with a toil-worn man leaning upon a palmer’s staff. Her beneficence to the Christians, and her affability towards all her dependents had made her a frequent listener to the tales of pilgrims, and intent upon her own thoughts she heard with an abstracted air the story of the mendicant, till he uttered the name of Richard. Instantly she was all attention.
The old man had been the confessor of Henry II., but won by the cordial frankness and generous impulses of Cœur de Lion, he availed himself of every opportunity afforded by his intimacy with Henry to forward the interests of the young prince. The king had confided to the priest, as his spiritual father, his attachment to the fair and frail Alice of France; and the monk had betrayed the secret of the confessional to Prince Richard. By a law of Henry I., all priests guilty of this crime were condemned to perpetual wandering, and Richard, in his first agony and remorse, at the death of his father, caused the penalty to be strictly enforced. The poor monk, therefore, had for nearly twenty years practised a weary pilgrimage from one holy place to another, resting in monasteries, walking unshod before shrines of peculiar sanctity, and kneeling or watching in every cave or hermitage where the hallowed remains of a saint might be supposed to avail for his absolution. Pursued thus by the furies of remorse, and the curses of the church, he had visited the shrines of St. Wulstan, St. Dunstan, St. Thomas of Canterbury, St. James of Compostella, the crucifix of Lucca, the congregated Saints at Rome, the cave of St. Cyprian in Africa, and had now come to pray God to release his soul at the church of the Holy Sepulchre.