[475] See N. C. vol. iii. p. 438.
[476] This was at the siege of Padua in 1509. “Maximilien fit proposer à La Palisse de faire mettre pied à terre à sa gendarmerie pour monter à l’assaut avec les landsknechts. Mais d’après le conseil de Bayard, La Palisse répondit que la gendarmerie française était toute composée de gentilshommes, et qu’il ne serait pas convenable de la faire combattre pêle-mêle avec les fantassins allemands, qui étaient roturiers.” Sismondi, Rép. Ital. xiv. 26.
[477] The story of the massacre of Limoges, the most truly chivalrous deed ever done, is well known. It will be found in Froissart, i. 289 (vol. i. p. 401, ed. Sauvage).
[478] Hallam, who thoroughly understood Henry the Eighth, adds in a note (Const. Hist. i. 36); “After all, Henry was every whit as good a king and man as Francis I, whom there are still some, on the other side of the channel, servile enough to extol; not in the least more tyrannical and sanguinary, and of better faith towards his neighbours.” The famous letter of Francis about all being lost except honour is now disbelieved, but it is characteristic all the same. I have said something about this in the Fortnightly Review, December, 1876.
It is singular enough that in 1546 some reader of the “Normanniæ Nova Chronica,” after the entries about the misdeeds of William Rufus in 1098, bursts out (p. 9) into a fierce invective against the vices and oppressions of Francis the First, as far surpassing those of Rufus. If men murmured in 1098, how much more reason had they to murmur in 1546.
[479] There is nothing special to note as to the authorities for this chapter, except that we now begin to make some little use of the Lives of the Bishops of Le Mans in Mabillon’s Vetera Analecta, of which we shall have to make much larger use in a later chapter.
Since this chapter was written and partly printed, I have come across a book called “Le Dernier des Ducs Normands. Étude de Critique Historique sur Robert Courte-Heuse; par Gaston le Hardy (Caen, 1880).” It is a gallant apology for Duke Robert, who however, it seems, cannot be set up without a cruel setting down both of Orderic and of King Henry. M. le Hardy believes in the false Ingulf and seems to be an enemy to Italian freedom. He has worked with care at his authorities, and I have to thank him for a few references; but his style of criticism is odd. In p. 47 he argues against the last speech of the Conqueror in Orderic—a speech very open to argument against it on other grounds—because William is there made to confess that he had no right to the English crown. This at least cannot be. “Comment croire que le Conquérant, dont les droits légitimes à la couronne d’Angleterre étaient au moins fondés sur des apparences très-respectables, puisqu’elles décidèrent le Pape à se prononcer en sa faveur, se soit appliqué à les désavouer, et à démentir ainsi toute sa vie.” I think more highly both of the intellect and of the conscience of William the Great. I can conceive his being led to repent of his sins, even though the Pope told him that they were no sins. M. le Hardy, like so many of his countrymen, seems unable to understand any English matter, and he seems never to have looked at any English or German book.
I let my estimate of Robert stay where it was. His character is best summed up in the portrait drawn by William of Malmesbury at the end of his fourth book;
“Patria lingua facundus ut sit jocundior nullus; in aliis consiliosus ut nihil excellentius; militiæ peritus ut si quis unquam; pro mollitie tamen animi nunquam regendæ reipublicæ idoneus judicatus.”
I think I have throughout done justice to Robert’s military skill—it was more than mere daring—and to his gifts as a counsellor of others.