Knights and their days

by Dr. Doran

Karr had terribly wounded Jacques, and the wound of the latter took long to cure. The Duke Philip hastened his convalescence by naming him counsellor and chamberlain; and as soon as the man so honored by his master, had recovered from his wounds, he repaired to Chalons on Saone, where he opened a “tourney,” which was talked of in the country for many a long year afterward. Jacques had vowed that he would appear in the closed lists thirty times before he had attained his thirtieth year; and this tourney at Chalons was held by him against all comers, in order the better to enable him to fulfil his vow. The detail would be tedious; suffice it to say that the affair was of barbarian magnificence, and that knights smashed one another’s limbs, for personal honor, ladies’ love, and the glory of Our Lady in Tears! Rich prizes were awarded to the victors, as rich forfeits were exacted from the vanquished, and there was not only a sea of good blood spilt in this splendidly atrocious fray, but as much bad blood made as there was good blood shed. But then there was empty honor acquired, a frail sort of affection gained, and an impalpable glory added to the non-existent crown of an imaginary Venus Victrix, decorated with the name of Our Lady of Tears! What more could true knights desire? Chivalry was satisfied; and commonplace men, with only common sense to direct them, had to look on in admiring silence, at risk of being cudgelled if they dared to speak out.

Jacques was now at the height of his renown. He was “the good knight without fear and without doubt;” and Duke Philip placed the last rose in his chaplet of honor, by creating him a knight of the illustrious order of the Golden Fleece. Thus distinguished, he rode about Europe, inviting adversaries to measure swords with him, and meeting with none willing to accept the invitation. In 1451 he was the embassador of Burgundy at Rome, charged to negotiate a project of crusade against the Turks. M. Alexander Henne, the author of the best compendium, gathered from the chronicles, of the deeds of Jacques de Lelaing—says that after the knight’s mission to Rome, he appeared at a passage of arms held in the park at Brussels, in honor of the Duke of Burgundy’s son, the Count of Charolais, then eighteen years of age, and about to mate his first appearance in the lists. The Duchess, tender of her son as the Dowager Czarina who kept her boys at home, and had not a tear for other mothers, whose children have been bloodily sacrificed to the savage ambition of Nicholas—the Duchess careful of the young Count, was desirous that he should make essay before he appeared in the lists. Jacques de Lelaing was accordingly selected to run a lance with him. “Three days before the fete, the Duke, the Duchess, and the Court repaired to the park of Brussels, where the trial was to be made. In the first onset, the Count de Charolais shattered his lance against the shield of Jacques, who raised his own weapon, and passed without touching his adversary. The Duke perceived that the good knight had spared his young adversary; he was displeased thereat, and sent Jacques word that if he intended to continue the same course, he would do well to meddle no further in the matter. Other lances were then brought, and Jacques, running straight against the Count, both lances flew into splinters. At this incident, the Duchess, in her turn, gave expression to her discontent; but the Duke only laughed; and thus mother and father were of different opinions; the one desiring a fair trial, the other security for her son.” On the day of the great tourney, there were assembled, with the multitude, on the great square at Brussels, not less than two hundred and twenty-five princes, barons, knights, and squires. Some of the noblest of these broke a lance with, and perhaps the limbs of, their adversaries. The Count de Charolais broke eighteen lances on that day, and he carried off the the prize, which was conferred upon him by the ladies.

This was the last of the show-fights in which Jacques de Lelaing exhibited himself. The bloodier conflicts in which he was subsequently engaged, were far less to his credit. They formed a part of the savage war which the despotic Duke and the nobles carried on against the free and opulent cities, whose spirit of liberty was an object of hatred, and whose wealth was an object of covetous desire, to the Duke and his body of gentleman-like assassins. Many a fair town was devastated by the Duke and his followers, who affected to be inspired by religious feelings, a desire for peace, and a disinclination to make conquests. Whereby it may be seen that the late Czar was only a Burgundian duke enlarged, impelled by much the same principle, and addicted to a similar sort of veracity. It was a time of unmitigated horrors, when crimes enough were committed by the nobles to render the name of aristocracy for ever execrable throughout Belgium; and atrocities were practised by the enraged commons, sufficient to insure, for the plebeians, the undying hatred of their patrician oppressors. There was no respect on either side for age, sex, or condition. The people, of every degree, were transformed into the worst of fiends—slaying, burning, violating, and plundering; and turning from their accursed work to kneel at the shrine of that Mary whose blessed Son was the Prince of Peace. Each side slaughtered, hung, or drowned its prisoners; but the nobles gave the provocation by first setting the example, and the commons were not cruel till the nobility showed itself alike destitute of honor and of mercy. The arms of the popular party were nerved by the infamy of their adversaries, but many an innocent man on either side was condemned to suffer, undeservedly, for the sins of others. The greatest efforts were made against the people of the district and city of Ghent, but all Flanders sympathized with them in a war which was considered national. In the struggle, the Duke won no victory over the people for which the latter did not compel him to pay a frightful price; he was heartily sick of the war before it was half concluded—even when his banner was being most successfully upheld by the strong arm and slender scruples of Jacques de Lelaing.

The good knight was however, it must be confessed, among the few—if he were not the only one—of the betterminded nobles. He had been commissioned by the Duke to set fire to the Abbey of Eenaeme, and he obeyed without hesitation, and yet with reluctance. He destroyed the religious edifice with all which it contained, and which could be made to burn; but having thus performed his duty as a soldier, he forthwith accomplished his equally bounden duty, as a Christian—and, after paying for three masses, at which he devoutly assisted, he confessed himself to a predicant friar, “making a case of conscience,” says one of his biographers, “of having, out of respect for discipline, committed an act which the uprightness of his heart compelled him to condemn as criminal.” Never was there a better illustration of that so-called diverse condition of things which is said to represent a distinction without a difference.

The repentance of Jacques de Lelaing came, it is hoped, in time. He did well, at all events, not to defer it any longer, for he was soon on the threshold of that world where faith ceases and belief begins. He was engaged, although badly wounded, in inspecting the siege-works in the front of the Chateau de Pouckes, that Flemish cradle of the Pooks settled in England. It was on a June afternoon of the year 1453, that Jacques, with a crowd of nobles half-encircling him, rode out, in spite of the protest of his doctors (because, as he said, if he were to remain doing nothing he should certainly die), in order that he might have something to do. There was a famous piece of artillery on the Burgundian side, which was sorely troublesome to the stout little band that was defending Pouckes. It was called the “Shepherdess,” but never did shepherdess speak with so thundering-unlovely a voice, or fling her favors about her with such dire destruction to those upon whom they were showered. Jacques drew up behind the manteau of this cannon, to watch (like our gallant seamen at Sebastopol) the effects of the shot discharged from it. At the same moment a stone projectile, discharged from a culverin by the hand of a young artilleryman of Ghent, who was known as the son of Henry the Blindman, struck Jacques on the forehead, carrying away the upper part of his head, and stretched him dead upon the field. A Carmelite brother rushed up to him to offer the succor and consolation of religion, but it was too late. Jacques had sighed out his last breath, and the friar decently folded the dead warrior’s arms over his breast. A mournful troop carried the body back to the camp.

The hero of his day died in harness. He had virtues that fitted him for a more refined, a more honest, in short, a more Christian, period. These he exercised whenever he could find opportunity, but such opportunity was rare. He lived at a period when, as M. de Sismondi has remarked, “Knights thought of nothing but equalling the Rolands and Olivers of the days of Charlemagne, by the destruction of the vile canaille”—a sort of pastime which has been recently recommended in our senate, although the days of chivalry be gone. The noble comrades of Jacques, as M. Henne observes, acknowledged but one species of supreme pleasure and glory, which consisted in making flow abundantly the blood of villains—or, as they are now called, the lower orders. But in truth the modern “villain” or the low-class man is not exclusively to be found in the ranks which have had such names applied to them. As Bosquier-Gavaudan used so joyously to sing, some thirty years ago, in the Ermite de St. Avelle:—

“Les gens de bien

Sont souvent des gens de rien;

Et les gens de rien

Sont souvent des gens de bien!”