IV.
This Le Mengeant, the worthy killed in his armor, as above recorded, at the Pass of Marteras, had been the hero of more than one bedeviling exploit during his career thus untimely cut off. One I cannot forbear giving, told in these Chronicles and retold with charming gusto by the writer above mentioned. Le Mangeant, it would seem, had evidently "a strong notion of the humorous in his composition. One time, he set out, accompanied by four others, all with shaven crowns and otherwise disguised as an abbot and attendants going from upper Gascony to Paris on business. Having reached the Sign of the Angel at Montpelier, a suitable hostelry for such holy men, they soon gained much credit for their saintly deportment and conversation; insomuch that a rich man of the city, Sir Béranger, was fain to avail himself of their company and ghostly comfort by the way. We say nothing of the generosity which prompted the holy father to offer Sir Béranger an escort free of all expense, so much was he captivated by that gentleman's charming society. One can imagine the sly winks and contortions interchanged by this pious party as the victim fell into the trap. But no amount of imagination can ever do justice to the features of Sir Béranger, when, three leagues from the city, the right reverend prelate and his apostolic brethren threw off the mask with peals of un-canonical laughter, led the wretched cit off to Lourdes through crooked by-roads, and there extracted from his disconsolate relatives five thousand francs of ransom,—which they, holy men, doubtless devoted to the purposes of their order. There is a story for a rhymer Sherwood forest could not beat!
"It is but proper to set society right as to those gallant days of chivalry, when knights fought for the love of ladies' eyes and glory that lived for ever. More practical men are hardly to be found in business to-day, for they never lost sight of that grand maxim, to 'get money.' 'Quærenda pecunia primum, virtus post nummos' was a motto each knight might have much more truly borne upon his shield than the charming bits of brag and sentiment cunningly designed for that purpose by accommodating heraldry. Money they got, honestly if they could, but they got it; and to do them justice they spent it right jovially, as all such gallant spirits do when they are disbursing what does not belong to them. After all, time only alters the characters in the Drama,—the plot is pretty much the same; and with a suburban villa for a château, a face of brass for a coat of iron, and a steel pen for a steel sword, your gallant knight of to-day storms his bank or plunders his neighbors from an entrenched joint-stock fortress or leads on his band to surprise the public pocket from some tangled thicket of swindling,—just upon the same principles as our old Pyrenean friends."
CHAPTER XVI.
THE INTERLAKEN OF THE PYRENEES.
"Perle enchâssée au sein des Pyrénées
Par l'ouvrier qu'on nomme l'Éternel,
Je te prédis de belles destinées;