Her smile is given away."
"By my faith! she must be a hard-hearted damsel, then!" said old Sir Julian of the Mount, "if she resist so fair a troubadour.--But, Sir Guy de Coucy, let not the Langue d'oc carry it off entirely from us of the Langue d'oyl. So gallant a knight must love the lyre. I pray thee! sing something, for the honour of our Trouvères."
De Coucy would have declined, but the Count Thibalt pressed him to the task, and named the siege of Constantinople as his theme. At the same time the young troubadour who had just sung offered him his harp, saying, "I pray you, beau sire, for the honour of your lady!"
De Coucy bowed his head, and took the instrument, over the strings of which he threw his hand, in a bold but not unskilful manner; and then, joining his voice, sung the taking of Zara and first siege of Constantinople; after which he detailed the delights of Greece, and showed how difficult it was for the knights and soldiers to keep themselves from sinking into the effeminacy of the Greeks, while encamped in the neighbourhood of Byzantium, waiting the execution of their treaty with the Emperor Isaac and his son Alexis. He then spoke of the assassination of Alexis, the usurpation of Murzuphlis, and the preparation of the Francs to punish the usurper. His eye flashed; his tone became more elevated, and drawing his accompaniment from the lower tones of the instrument, he poured forth an animated description of the last day of the empire of the Greeks.
De Coucy then went on to describe the shining but effeminate display of the Greek warriors on the walls, and the attack of the city by sea and land. In glowing language he depicted both the great actions of the assault and of the defence; the effect of the hell-invented Greek fire; of the catapults, the mangonels, the darts of flame shot from the walls; as well as the repeated repulses of the Francs, and the determined and unconquerable valour with which they pursued their purpose of punishing the Greeks. Abridging his lay as he went on, he left out the names of many of the champions, and touched but slightly on the deeds of others.
But with increasing energy at every line, he proceeded to sing the mixed fight upon the battlements, after the Francs had once succeeded in scaling them, till the Greeks gave way, and he concluded by painting the complete triumph of the Francs.
All eyes were bent on De Coucy;--all ears listened to his lay. The language, or rather dialect, in which he sang, the Langue d'oyl, was not so sweet and harmonious as the Langue d'oc, or Provençal, it is true, but it had more strength and energy. The subject, also, was more dignified; and as the young knight proceeded to record the deeds in which he had himself been a principal actor, his whole soul seemed to be cast into his song:--his fine features assumed a look between the animation of the combatant and the inspiration of the poet. It seemed as if he forgot every thing around, in the deep personal interest which he felt in the very incidents he recited: his utterance became more rapid; his hand swept like lightning over the harp; and when he ended his song, and laid down the instrument, it was as if he did so but in order to lay his hand upon his sword.
A pause of deep silence succeeded for a moment, and then came a general murmur of applause; for, in singing the deeds of the Francs at Constantinople, De Coucy touched, in the breast of each person present, that fine chord called national vanity, by which we attach a part of every sort of glory, gained by our countrymen, to our own persons, however much we may recognise that we are incompetent to perform the actions by which it was acquired.
CHAPTER VIII.
The existence of a monarch, without his lot be cast amidst very halcyon days indeed, is much like the life of a seaman, borne up upon uncertain and turbulent waves. Exposed to a thousand storms, from which a peasant's cot would be sufficient shelter, his whole being is spent in watching for the tempest, and his whole course is at the mercy of the wind.