Knights and their days

by Dr. Doran

“All right!” nodded Jack.

“Then I will,” said the sergeant; “and now, Jack, hand over the tin.”

The agreement was rigidly fulfilled; but had not the minister thought of the means which solved the difficulty, Sergeant Jones would have been nearly as ungallant to his lady as Abraham, Silvin, and Licinius, had been to theirs.

But to return to Abraham. I have said this knight, on assuming his monkly character, had caused himself to be walled up in his cell. I have my suspicions, however, that it was a theatrical sort of wall, for it is very certain that the saint could pass through it. Now, there resided near him a lady recluse who was his “niece,” and whose name was Mary. The two were as inseparable as the priest Lacombe and Madame Guyon; and probably were as little deserving of reproach. This Mary was the original of “Little Red Riding Hood.” She used to convey boiled milk and butter, and other necessary matters to her uncle Abraham. Now it happened that the ex-knight used also to be visited by a monk whose name was Wolf, or who, at all events, has been so called by hagiographers, on account of his being quite as much of a beast as the quadruped so called. The monk was wont to fall in with Mary as she was on her way to her uncle’s cell with pleasant condiments under a napkin, in a wicker-basket. He must have been a monk of the Count Ory fashion, and he was as seductive as Ponchard, when singing “Gentille Annette” to the “Petit Chaperon Rouge,” in Boieldieu’s Opera. The result was, that the monk carried off Mary to a neighboring city—Edessa, if I remember rightly—and if I am wrong, Mr. Mitchell Kemble will, perhaps, set me right, in his bland and gentleman-like way. The town-life led by these two was of the most disgraceful nature; and when the monk had grown tired of it, he left Mary to lead a worse, without him. Mary became the “Reine Pomare,” the “Mogadore,” the “Rose Pomponne” of Edessa, and was the terror of all families where there were elder sons and latch-keys. Her doings and her whereabouts at length reached the ears of her uncle Abraham, and not a little astonished were those who knew the recluse to see him one morning, attired in a pourpoint of rich stuff, with a cloak like Almaviva’s, yellow buskins with a fall of lace over the tops, a jaunty cap and feather on his head, a rapier on his thigh, and a steed between his legs, which curveted under his burden as though the fun of the thing had given it lightness. At Mary’s supper, this cavalier was present on the night of his arrival in Edessa. He scattered his gold like a Crœsus, and Mary considered him worth all the more penniless knights put together. When these had gone, as being less welcome, Abraham declared his relationship, and acted on the right it gave him to rate a niece who was not only an ungrateful minx, but who was as mendacious as an ungrateful niece could well be. The old gentleman, however, had truth on his side, and finally so overwhelmed Mary with its terrible application, that she meekly followed him back to the desert, and passed fifteen years in a walled-up cell close to that of her uncle. The miracles the two performed are adduced as proofs of the genuineness of the personages and their story; matters which I would not dispute even if I had room for it.

The next knight whom I can call to mind as having been frightened by marriage into monkery, is St. Vandrille, Count of the Palace to King Dagobert. During the period of his knightship he was a very Don Juan for gallantry, and railed against matrimony as conclusively as a Malthusian. His friends pressed him to marry nevertheless; and introduced him to a lady with a hundred thousand golden qualities, and prospects as auriferous as those of Miss Kilmansegg. He took the lady’s hand with a reluctance that might be called aversion, and which he did not affect to conceal. When the nuptial ceremony was concluded, Knight Vandrille, as eccentric as the cavaliers whose similar conduct I have already noticed, mildly intimated that it was not his intention to proceed further, and that for his part, he had renounced the vanities of this world for aye. Taking the lady apart, he appears to have produced upon her a conviction that the determination was one he could not well avoid; and we are not told that she even reproached him for a conduct which seems to me to have been a thousand times more selfish and inexcusable than that of the clever but despicable Abelard. The church, however, did not disapprove of the course adopted, and St. Vandrille, despite his worse than breach of promise, has been forgiven as knight, and canonized as saint.

Far more excusable was that little Count of Arian, Elzear, the boy-knight at the court of Charles II., King of Sicily, whom that monarch married at the age of thirteen years, to Delphina of Glandeves, a young lady of fifteen. When I say far more excusable, I do Elzear some injustice, for the boy was willing enough to be wed, and looked forward to making his lady proud of his own distinction as a knight. Delphina, however, it was who proposed that they should part at the altar, and never meet again. She despised the boy, and the little cavalier took it to heart—so much so, that he determined to renounce the career of arms and enter the church. Thereby chivalry lost a worthy cavalier, and the calendar gained a very active saint.

Elzear might well feel aggrieved. There have been knights even younger than he, who have carried spurs before they were thirteen. This reminds me of a paragraph in an article which I contributed to “Fraser’s Magazine,” in March, 1844, under the title of “A Walk across Bohemia,” in which, speaking of the Imperial Zeughaus at Vienna, I noticed “the suit of armor of that little hero, the second Louis of Hungary, he who came into this breathing world some months before he was welcome, and who supported his character for precocity by marrying at twelve, and becoming the legitimate bearer of all the honors of paternity as soon as he entered his teens; who moreover maintained his consistency by turning a gray old man at sixteen, and finally terminated his ephemeral course on the field of battle before he became of age.” Elzear then was not, perhaps, so poor a knight as his older lady seemed disposed to count him.

I must be briefer with noticing the remaining individuals who either flung up chivalry for the Church, or who preferred the latter to following a knightly career. First, there was St. Anscharius, who after he had made the change alluded to, was standing near the easy Olas, King of Sweden, when the latter cast lots to decide whether Christianity should be the religion of the state, or not. We are told that the prayers of St. Anscharius caused the king to throw double-sixes in favor of the better cause.

St. Andrew Cossini made an admirable saint after being the most riotous of cavaliers. So St. Amandus of Nantes won his saintship by resigning his lordship over men-at-arms. Like him was that St. Romuald of the family of the Dukes of Ravenna, who, whether fighting or hunting, loved to retire from the fray and the chase, to pray at peace, in shady places. St. John of Malta and St. Stephen of Grandmont were men of the like kidney. St. Benedict of Anian was that famous cup-bearer of Charlemagne, who left serving the Emperor in hall and field, to serve a greater master with less ostentation. He followed the example of that St. Auxentius, who threw up his commission in the equestrian guard of Theodosius the Younger, to take service in a body of monks.

Many of those who renounced arms, or would not assume military service when opportunity offered itself, profited personally by the adoption of such a course. Thus St. Porphyrius was a knight till he was twenty-five years of age, and he died Bishop of Gaza. The knight St. Wulfran became Bishop of Sens. St. Hugh won the bishopric of Grenoble, by not only renouncing knighthood himself, but by inducing his father to follow his example. St. Norbert became Archbishop of Magdeburg, after leading a jolly life, not only as a knight but as priest. A fall from his horse brought him to a sense of decency. A prophecy of a young maiden to St. Ulric gained him his saintship and the bishopric of Augsburg. Had she not foretold he would die a bishop, he would have been content to carry a banner. Examples like these are very numerous, but I have cited enough.