They were ushered into a lofty-arched apartment on the ground floor, which ordinarily served as an ante-room for the guards on duty; it was for the moment, however, empty. They who have visited the old Palais de Thermes, as it is called, have, doubtlessly, remarked and admired this solid relic of the past.
After entering, the seneschal once more lifted the despatch to the flambeau, read it through, looked at the seal, then at the knights, coughed uneasily, and began to wear an air of dislike for some duty imposed upon him. He repeated, as if he were learning by rote, the names Raoul de Lys and Robert de Quercy. “Those are our names,” observed the first; “we have ridden hither by the king’s orders to announce his coming; and having done so, let us have fire and food, lest we be famished and frozen before he arrives.”
“Hem!” muttered the seneschal, “I am extremely sorry; but, according to this letter, you are my prisoners, and till to-morrow you must remain in this apartment;” and, seeing them about to remonstrate, he added, “You will be quite at liberty here, except, of course, that you can’t get out; you will have separate quarters to-morrow.”
It was in vain that they inquired the reason for their detention, the nature of the charge alleged against them, or what they had further to expect. The seneschal dryly referred them to the monarch. He himself knew nothing more than his orders, and by them he was instructed to keep the two friends in close confinement till the sovereign’s arrival. “On second thoughts,” said the seneschal, “I must separate you at once. There is the bell in the tower of St. Jacques ringing midnight, and to-morrow will be upon us, before its iron tongue has done wagging. I really must trouble one of you gentlemen to follow me.” The voice was not so civil as the words, and after much parleying and reluctance, the two friends parted. Robert bade Raoul be of good cheer; and Raoul, who was left behind, whispered that it would be hard, indeed, if harm was to come to them under such a roof.
The roof, however, of this royal palace, looked very much like the covering of a place in which very much harm might be very quietly effected. But there were dwelling there two beings who might have been taken for spirits of good, so winning, so natural, and so loveable were the two spirits in question. They were no other than the two daughters of Charlemagne, Gisla and Rotrude. The romancers, who talk such an infinite deal of nonsense, say of them that their sweet-scented beauty was protected by the prickles of principle. The most rapid of analysers may see at once that this was no great compliment to the ladies. It was meant, however, to be the most refined flattery; and the will was accepted for the deed.
Now, the two knights loved the two ladies, and if they had not, neither Father Daniel nor Sainte Foix could have alluded to their amorous history; nor Father Pasquale, of the Convent of the Arminians in Venice, have touched it up with some of the hues of romance, nor Roger de Beauvoir have woven the two together, nor unworthy ægomet have applied it to the illustration of daring lovers.
These two girls were marvellously high-spirited. They had been wooed by emperors; but feeling no inclination to answer favorably to the wooing, Charlemagne generously refused to put force upon their affections, and bade them love only where their hearts directed them. This “license” gave courage to numberless nobles of various degrees, but Rotrude and Gisla said nay to all their regular advances. The Princesses were, in fact, something like Miss Languish, thought love worth nothing without a little excitement, and would have considered elopement as the proper preceder of the nuptial ceremony. Their mother, Hildegarda, was an unexceptional woman, but, like good Queen Charlotte, who let her daughters read Polly Honeycombe as well as Hannah More, she was a little confused in the way she taught morals, and the young Princesses fell in love, at the first opportunity, with gallant gentlemen of—as compared with princesses—rather low degree. In this respect, there is a parallel between the house of Karloman and some other houses of more modern times.
Louis le Debonnaire had, as disagreeable brothers will have, an impertinent curiosity respecting his sisters’ affairs. He was, here, the head of his family, and deemed himself as divinely empowered to dispose of the hearts of these ladies, as of the families and fortunes of his people. He had learned the love-passages that had been going on, and he had hinted that when he reached the old palace in Paris, he would make it as calmly cold as a cloister, and that there were disturbed hearts there, which should be speedily restored to a lasting tranquillity. The young ladies did not trouble themselves to read the riddle of a brother who was for ever affecting much mystery. But they prepared to welcome his arrival, and seemed more than ordinarily delighted when they knew that intelligence of his approaching coming had been brought by the two knights then in the castle.
Meanwhile, Raoul de Lys sat shivering on a stone bench in the great guard-room. He subsequently addressed himself to a scanty portion of skinny wild boar, very ill-cooked; drank, with intense disgust, part of a flask of hydromel of the very worst quality; and then having gazed on the miniature of Rotrude, which he took from beneath the buff jerkin under his corslet, he apostrophized it till he grew sleepy, upon which he blew out his lamp, and threw himself on an execrably hard couch. He was surprised to find that he was not in the dark. There was very good reason for the contrary.
As he blew out his lamp, a panel in the stone wall glided noiselessly open, and Robert de Quercy appeared upon the threshold—one hand holding a lamp, the other leading a lady. The lady was veiled; and she and the knight hurriedly approached Raoul, who as hurriedly rushed forward to meet them. He had laid his armor by; and they who recollect Mr. Young in Hotspur, and how he looked in tight buff suit, before he put his armor on, may have some idea of the rather ridiculous guise in which Raoul appeared to the lady. But she was used to such sights, and had not time to remark it even had she not been so accustomed.