In the year 1180, the valley had again become a fertile and prosperous district. Several villages had arisen along the course of the river; and a town of some importance covered, as in former times, the western slopes of the old cité Juliana, and extended on the opposite shore. This town was then called Saint Julien. How was it that the cité founded by the Emperor Julian the Apostate had changed its appellation of Juliana for that of Saint Julien? We shall not attempt to explain the fact. It will suffice to say, that about the eighth century a legend arose respecting a companion of Lucian, Bishop of Beauvais, named Julian, a native of the Val d'Abonia, who had been martyred with Maximian a short time before his holy bishop. His body, transferred to the place of his birth, had there wrought numerous miracles, and was then resting in the crypt of the church placed under his invocation, and which was the appanage of a rich abbey, situated at the northern extremity of the plateau. On the site in question, therefore, was to be found the city and abbey of Saint Julien, and the castle of Roche-Pont, occupied by the lords of Roche-Pont. As for the valley, it had preserved pretty nearly its old name; it was the Val d'Abonia. Ever since the ninth century the lords of Roche-Pont had been possessors of the vale, the town, the lands contiguous, and the forests stretching northwards on the plateaux; they claimed descent by the female side from the ancient kings of Burgundy, and were rich and powerful. One of their ancestors engaged in a war against King Robert, in the year 1005, and had contributed greatly to the failure of that prince's expedition into Burgundy. On the submission of this province at a later date to the king, the lord of Roche-Pont had made conditions that had notably improved his domain. This lord was the founder of the Clunisian abbey which stood on the north of the plateau; he had endowed it with the uncultivated lands of the rivulet valley. The monks soon made a capital domain of this valley, by taking advantage of the little water-course, which never failed. With the aid of dams they secured very productive pools; waterfalls turned mills, worked forges, and irrigated fair meadows for flocks and herds, and, on the slope of southern aspect, vineyards renowned for their fine produce.
There were occasional misunderstandings between the abbots of Saint Julien and the lords of Roche-Pont. According to their foundation charter, they claimed to be perfectly independent of the lordship of Roche-Pont—indeed, of all superiority but that of Rome—and to have complete suzerainty over the lands they possessed; they refused to render feudal dues to the castle, and on several occasions disputes resulted in acts of violence. Then the abbots appealed to the Duke of Burgundy; men of war interfered in the contest; and, as a matter of course, the vassals had to pay the costs.
One of the abbots, a restless and ambitious man, had presumed to commence fortifying the abbey, and had persisted in doing so in spite of the opposition of the lord of Roche-Pont. The lord had consequently laid waste the abbey domain. The fraternity then appealed to the king of France, who had intervened in the dispute. After much litigation and cost to both sides, it had been decided that the abbey might be surrounded by a wall without towers, and that in the event of a war in which the interests of the suzerain were concerned, the lord of Roche-Pont should garrison the abbey at the expense of the latter.
The retainers of the abbey and those of the lord continued, nevertheless, in a permanent state of antagonism; and not a year passed in which there were not differences to be settled on this score at the court of the duke.
The castle of the lords of Roche-Pont was built on the remains of the castellum of the cité Juliana, and about the year 1182 it was very old and dilapidated.
Anseric de la Roche-Pont was at that time its owner. He was a young man of ardent temperament and ambitious disposition, married to a niece of the Count of Nevers, deceased in 1176—an alliance which had increased his possessions. He bore with impatience his subjection to the Duke of Burgundy, and in endeavouring to shake it off, his first step was to rebuild his old castle, and put it in a condition to defy every attack. Anseric de la Roche-Pont was encouraged in these ideas of independence by one of his uncles, an old seigneur, who, having spent fifteen years of fighting in Syria, had returned, worn out and impoverished, to Burgundy. Anseric had given him an asylum in his declining years, and he soon acquired an influence over the mind of his nephew, and even of his niece. During the long winter evenings, the recital of adventures beyond seas, to which the Baron Guy knew how to give a life-like interest, would inflame the breast of the young lord. Often on such occasions the latter would rise and pace the hall, with sparkling eyes and clenched hands, stung with shame at his own inactivity, and consumed by the desire of some nobler occupation than killing boars, and disputing with monks concerning mill or fishery rights. At such moments the old baron, far from seeking to calm his nephew's ardour, would seek to direct it to a more attainable end than the conquest of towns in Syria. The Baron Guy was a personage of remarkable idiosyncrasy—physically an elderly man, tall and angular, and somewhat bent by the weight of arms: his head, still covered with rough grey locks, square in the crown, exhibiting projecting cheek-bones, and—beneath shaggy eyebrows—eyes of sombre green, deeply sunk in their orbits. His wide mouth with its thin lips showed, when he laughed—which rarely happened—rows of sharp white teeth. When he was relating long stories, seated, his hands on his knees and his head bent down, the light of the wax tapers fell only on his bushy hair, his high cheek-bones, and nose. Sometimes, at exciting passages in the recital, his head would slowly rise and, still in shade, his eyes would send forth flashes which reminded one of distant lightning.
Morally, the Baron Guy is not so easily described. He hated monks—but that is neither here nor there—and adored children; which is proof of a happily constituted disposition. But the baron had seen so much of men and things that it is not to be wondered at that there existed in his mind a shade of scepticism, if such a term can be applied to the désenchantement of a noble at the end of the twelfth century. The baron had, we say, acquired a marked influence over the mind of his nephew; but to Anseric's two children their great-uncle was as indulgent as possible. He was no less complaisant to his niece; she alone could succeed in lighting up that stern visage with a ray of cheerfulness.
The very high and noble dame Jeanne Eleanor de la Roche-Pont was a woman of middle height. When animated, her somewhat oval face reflected a lively intelligence; her eyes of light azure then assumed the hue of the lapis-lazuli, and her complexion, habitually pale, was suffused with a rosy flush. She had a bewitching smile, though her mouth was slightly drooping; her swan-like neck, and the exquisite contour of her figure, lent to all her movements a perfect grace, rendered still more charming by an address and vivacity which was the delight of the old baron.
The baron, therefore, would pass whole hours with his eyes fixed on his niece, as if he wished to study the least gestures of the Lady de la Roche-Pont, and discover the marvellous mechanism in which their grace and beauty originated. High-spirited on occasions, Eleanor was capable of the greatest devotion and absolute self-sacrifice for those dear to her. Her vassals loved her, and used to call her la Gentil-Dame.