Philip Augustus; or, The Brothers in Arms - G. P. R. James

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Philip Augustus, or, The brothers in arms by James, G. P. R. (George Payne Rainsford), 1801?-1860
Published 1837
Publisher London: R. Bentley; Edinburgh: Bell and Bradfute
Web Archive: https://archive.org/details/philipaugustusor00jame

STANDARD

NOVELS.

No. LIX.

"No kind of literature is so generally attractive as Fiction. Pictures of life and manners, and Stories of adventure, are more eagerly received by the many than graver productions, however important these latter maybe. Apuleius is better remembered by his fable of Cupid and Psyche than by his abstruser Platonic writings; and the Decameron of Boccaccio has outlived the Latin Treatises, and other learned works of that author."

PHILIP AUGUSTUS.

COMPLETE IN ONE VOLUME.

LONDON:

RICHARD BENTLEY, NEW BURLINGTON STREET;

BELL AND BRADFUTE, EDINBURGH;
J. CUMMING, DUBLIN.

1837.

London:
Printed by A. Spottiswoode,
New-Street-Square.

Philip Augustus

Death of Gallon the Jester

PHILIP AUGUSTUS;

OR,

THE BROTHERS IN ARMS.

"Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown."--Henry IV.

BY THE AUTHOR OF

"DARNLEY," "ATTILA," &c.

REVISED, CORRECTED, AND ILLUSTRATED WITH NOTES, ETC.
BY THE AUTHOR.

LONDON:

RICHARD BENTLEY, NEW BURLINGTON STREET;

BELL AND BRADFUTE. EDINBURGH;
J. CUMMING, DUBLIN.

1837.

TO

ROBERT SOUTHEY, ESQ. LL.D.

My Dear Sir,

Were this book even a great deal better than an author's partiality for his literary offspring can make me believe, I should still have some hesitation in dedicating it to you, if the fact of your allowing me to do so implied any thing but your own kindness of heart. I think now, on reading it again, as I thought twelve months ago when I wrote it, that it is the best thing that I have yet composed; but were it a thousand times better in every respect than any thing I ever have or ever shall produce, it would still, I am conscious, be very unworthy of your acceptance, and very inferior to what I could wish to offer.

Notwithstanding all your present fame, I am convinced that future years, by adding hourly to the reputation you have already acquired, will justify my feelings towards your works, and that your writings will be amongst the few--the very few--which each age in dying bequeaths to the thousand ages to come.

However, it is with no view of giving a borrowed lustre to my book that I distinguish this page by placing in it your name. Regard, esteem, and admiration, are surely sufficient motives for seeking to offer you some tribute, and sufficient apology, though that tribute be very inferior to the wishes of,

My dear Sir,

Your very faithful Servant,

G. P. R. JAMES.

Maxpoffle, near Melrose, Roxburghshire,

May 25, 1831.

TO THE

NEW EDITION IN THE STANDARD NOVELS.

I have little to say regarding this work, which has been received by the public with so much favour, as to dispense with the necessity of any apology on the part of the author for the faults that it contains. Some persons, indeed, have objected to that part of the dedication to the first edition, in which I stated my belief that Philip Augustus was the best romance I had at that time written. I cannot, however, see any presumption in comparing my own works amongst themselves, when I neither make any reference to those of others, nor seek to bow public taste to my individual opinion. I am perfectly sensible that Philip Augustus has many errors; the chief of which, perhaps, is the slender connection between the two stories which run through the book. This I have found it utterly impossible to remedy, and I have, therefore, in this edition, confined my alterations to some verbal corrections, to the addition of some notes, and to the cutting out of some heavy poetry which had nothing to do with the story.

Fair Oak Lodge,
Aug. 15, /1837.

TO

THE FIRST EDITION.

Very few words of preface are necessary to the following work. In regard to the character of Philip Augustus himself, I have not been guided by any desire of making him appear greater, or better, or wiser than he really was. Rigord his physician, William the Breton, his chaplain, who was present at the battle of Bovines, and various other annalists comprised in the excellent collection of memoirs published by Monsieur Guizot, have been my authorities. A different view has been taken of his life by several writers, inimical to him, either from belonging to some of the factions of those times, or to hostile countries; but it is certain, that all who came in close contact with Philip loved the man, and admired the monarch. All the principal events here narrated, in regard to that monarch and his queen, are historical facts, though brought within a shorter space of time than that which they really occupied. The sketch of King John, and the scenes in which he was unavoidably introduced, I have made as brief as possible, under the apprehension of putting my writings in comparison with something inimitably superior. The picture of the mischievous idiot, Gallon the Fool, was taken from a character which fell under my notice for some time in the South of France.

PHILIP AUGUSTUS.

CHAPTER I.

INTRODUCTION.

Although there is something chilling in that sad, inevitable word, the past--although in looking through the thronged rolls of history, and reading of all the dead passions, the fruitless anxieties, the vain, unproductive yearnings of beings that were once as full of thrilling life and feeling as ourselves, and now are nothing, we gain but the cold moral of our own littleness--still the very indistinctness of the distance softens and beautifies the objects of a former epoch that we thus look back upon; and in the far retrospect of the days gone by, a thousand bright and glistening spots stand out, and catch the last most brilliant rays of a sun that has long set to the multitude of smaller things around them.

To none of these bright points does the light of history lend a more dazzling lustre than to the twelfth century, when the most brilliant (if it was not the most perfect) institution of modern Europe, the feudal system, rose to its highest pitch of splendour; when it incorporated with itself the noblest Order that ever the enthusiasm of man (if not his wisdom) conceived--the Order of Chivalry: and when it undertook an enterprise which, though fanatic in design, faulty in execution, and encumbered with all the multitude of frailties that enchain human endeavour, was in itself magnificent and heroic, and in its consequences grand, useful, and impulsive to the whole of Europe--the Crusades.

The vast expenses, however, which the crusades required--expenses not only of that yellow dross, the unprofitable representative of earths real riches, but also expenses of invaluable time, of blood, of energy, of talent--exhausted and enfeebled every christian realm, and left, in each, the nerves of internal policy unstrung and weak, with a lassitude like that which, in the human frame, succeeds to any great and unaccustomed excitement.

Although through all Europe, in that day, the relationships of lord, vassal, and serf, were the grand divisions of society, yet it was in France that the feudal system existed in its most perfect form, rising in gradual progression:--first, serfs, or villains; then vavassors, or vassals holding of a vassal; then vassals holding of a suzerain, yet possessing the right of high justice; then suzerains, great feudatories, holding of the king; and, lastly, the king himself, with smaller domains than many of his own vassals, but with a general though limited right and jurisdiction over them all. In a kingdom so constituted, the crusade, a true feudal enterprise, was, of course, followed with enthusiasm amounting to madness; and the effects were the more dreadful, as the absence of each lord implied in general the absence of all government in his domains.

Unnumbered forests then covered the face of France; or, rather, the whole country presented nothing but one great forest; scattered through which, occasional patches of cultivated land, rudely tilled by the serfs of glebe, sufficed for the support of a thin and diminished population. General police was unthought of; and, though every feudal chief, within his own territory, exercised that sort of justice which to him seemed good, too little distinction existed between the character of robber and judge, for us to suppose that the public benefited much by the tribunals of the barons. The forests, the mountains, and the moors, swarmed with plunderers of every description; and besides the nobles themselves, who very frequently were professed robbers on the highway, three distinct classes of banditti existed in France, who, though different in origin, in manners, and in object, yet agreed wonderfully in the general principle of pillaging all who were unable to protect themselves.

These three classes, the Brabançois, the Cotereaux, and the Routiers, have, from this general assimilating link, been very often confounded; and, indeed, on many occasions they are found to have changed name and profession when occasion served, the same band having been at one moment Brabançois, and the next Cotereaux, wherever any advantage was to be gained by the difference of denomination; and also we find that they ever acted together as friends and allies, where any general danger threatened their whole community. The Brabançois, however, were originally very distinct from the Cotereaux, having sprung up from the various free companies, which the necessities of the time obliged the monarchs of Europe to employ in their wars. Each vassal, by the feudal tenure, owed his sovereign but a short period of military service, and, if personal interest or regard would sometimes lead them to prolong it, anger or jealousy would as often make them withdraw their aid at the moment it was most needful. Monarchs found that they must have men they could command, and the bands of adventurous soldiers, known by the name of Brabançois[^[1]], were always found useful auxiliaries in any time of danger. As long as they were well paid, they were in general brave, orderly, and obedient; the moment their pay ceased, they dispersed under their several leaders, ravaged, pillaged, and consumed, levying on the country in general, that pay which the limited finances of the sovereign always prevented him from continuing, except in time of absolute warfare.[^[2]] Still, however, even in their character of plunderers, they had the dignity of rank and chivalry, were often led by knights and nobles; and though in the army they joined the qualities of the mercenary and the robber to those of the soldier, in the forest and on the moor they often added somewhat of the frank generosity of the soldier to the rapacity of the freebooter.

The Cotereaux were different in origin--at least, if we may trust Ducange--springing at first from fugitive serfs, and the scattered remains of those various bands of revolted peasantry, which, from time to time, had struggled ineffectually to shake off the oppressive tyranny of their feudal lords.

These joined together in troops of very uncertain numbers, from tens to thousands, and levied a continual war upon the community they had abandoned, though, probably, they acted upon no general system, nor were influenced by any one universal feeling, but the love of plunder, and the absolute necessity of self-defence.

The Routier was the common robber, who either played his single stake, and hazarded life for life with any one he met, or banded with others, and shared the trade of the Coterel, with whom he was frequently confounded, and from whom, indeed, he hardly differed except in origin.

While the forests and wilds of France were thus tenanted by men who preyed upon their fellows, the castles and the cities were inhabited by two races, united for the time as lord and serf, but both advancing rapidly to a point of separation; the lord at the very acme of his power, with no prospect on any side but decline; the burgher struggling already for freedom, and growing strong by association.

Tyrants ever, and often simple robbers, the feudal chieftains had lately received a touch of refinement, by their incorporation with the order of chivalry. Courtesy was joined to valour. Song burst forth, and gave a voice to fame. The lay of the troubadour bore the tidings of great actions from clime to clime, and was at once the knight's ambition and his reward; while the bitter satire of the sirvente, or the playful apologue of the fabliau, scourged all that was base and ungenerous, and held up the disloyal and uncourteous to the all-powerful corrective of public opinion.

Something still remains to be said upon the institution of chivalry, and I can give no better sketch of its history than in the eloquent words of the commentator on St Palaye.[^[3]]

"Towards the middle of the tenth century, some poor nobles, united by the necessity of legitimate defence, and startled by the excesses certain to follow the multiplicity of sovereign powers, took pity on the tears and misery of the people. Invoking God and St. George, they gave each other their hand, plighted themselves to the defence of the oppressed, and placed the weak under the protection of their sword. Simple in their dress, austere in their morals, humble after victory, and firm in misfortune, in a short time they won for themselves immense renown.

"Popular gratitude, in its simple and credulous joy, fed itself with marvellous tales of their deeds of arms, exalted their valour, and united in its prayers its generous liberators with even the powers of Heaven. So natural is it for misfortune to deify those who bring it consolation.

"In those old times, as power was a right, courage was of course a virtue. These men, to whom was given, in the end, the name of Knights, carried this virtue to the highest degree. Cowardice was punished amongst them as an unpardonable crime; falsehood they held in horror; perfidy and breach of promise they branded with infamy; nor have the most celebrated legislators of antiquity any thing comparable to their statutes.

"This league of warriors maintained itself for more than a century in all its pristine simplicity, because the circumstances amidst which it rose changed but slowly; but when a great political and religious movement announced the revolution about to take place in the minds of men, then chivalry took a legal form, and a rank amidst authorised institutions.

"The crusades, and the emancipation of the cities which marked the apogee of the feudal government, are the two events which most contributed to the destruction of chivalry. True it is, that then also it found its greatest splendour; but it lost its virtuous independence and its simplicity of manners.

"Kings soon found all the benefit they might derive from an armed association which should hold a middle place between the crown and those too powerful vassals who usurped all its prerogatives. From that time, kings created knights, and bound them to the throne by all the forms used in feudal investiture. But the particular character of those distant times was the pride of privileges; and the crown could not devise any, without the nobility arrogating to itself the same. Thus the possessors of the greater feofs hastened to imitate their monarch. Not only did they create knights, but this title, dear in a nation's gratitude, became their hereditary privilege. This invasion stopped not there, lesser chiefs imitated their sovereigns, and chivalry, losing its ancient unity, became no more than an honourable distinction, the principles of which, however, had for long a happy influence upon the fate of the people."

Such then was the position of France towards the end of the twelfth century. A monarch, with limited revenues and curtailed privileges; a multitude of petty sovereigns, each despotic in his own territories; a chivalrous and ardent nobility; a population of serfs, just learning to dream of liberty; a soil rich, but overgrown with forests, and almost abandoned to itself; an immense body of the inhabitants living by rapine, and a total want of police and of civil government.

The crusade against Saladin was over.--Richard Cœur de Lion was dead, and Constantinople had just fallen into the hands of a body of French knights at the time this tale begins. At the same period, John Lackland held the sceptre of the English kings with a feeble hand, and a poor and dastardly spirit; while Philip Augustus, with grand views, but a limited power, sat firmly on the throne of France; and by the vigorous impulse of a great, though a passionate and irregular mind, hurried forward his kingdom, and Europe along with it, towards days of greatness and civilisation, still remote.

CHAPTER II.

Seven hundred years ago, the same bright summer sun was shining in his glory, that now rolls past before my eyes in all the beneficent majesty of light. It was the month of May, and every thing in nature seemed to breathe of the fresh buoyancy of youth. There was a light breeze in the sky, that carried many a swift shadow over mountain, plain, and wood. There was a springy vigour in the atmosphere, as if the wind itself were young. The earth was full of flowers, and the woods full of voice; and song and perfume shared the air between them.

Such was the morning when a party of travellers took their way slowly up the south-eastern side of the famous Monts d'Or in Auvergne. The road, winding in and out through the immense forest which covered the base of the hills, now showed, now concealed, the abrupt mountain-peaks starting out from their thick vesture of wood, and opposing their cold blue summits to the full blaze of the morning sun. Sometimes, turning round a sharp angle of the rock, the trees would break away and leave the eye full room to roam, past the forest hanging thick upon the edge of the slope, over valleys and hills, and plains beyond, to the far wanderings of the Allier through the distant country. Nor did the view end here; for the plains themselves, lying like a map spread out below, stretched away to the very sky: and even there, a few faint blue shadows, piled up in the form of peaks and cones, left the mind uncertain whether the Alps themselves did not there bound the view, or whether some fantastic clouds did not combine with that bright deceiver, fancy, to cheat the eye.

At other times, the road seemed to plunge into the deepest recesses of the mountains, passing through the midst of black detached rocks and tall columns of grey basalt, broken fragments of which lay scattered on either side; while a thousand shrubs and flowers twined, as in mockery, over them; and the protruding roots of the large ancient trees grasped the fallen prisms of the volcanic pillars, as if vaunting the pride of even vegetable life over the cold, dull, inanimate stone.

Here and there, too, would often rise up on each side high masses of the mountain, casting all in shadow between them; while the bright yellow lights which streamed amidst the trees above, spangling the foliage as if with liquid gold, and the shining of the clear blue sky overhead, were the only signs of summer that reached the bottom of the ravine. Then again, breaking out upon a wide green slope, the path would emerge into the sunshine, or, passing even through the very dew of the cataract, would partake of the thousand colours of the sunbow that hung above its fall.

It was a scene and a morning like one of those days of unmixed happiness that sometimes shine in upon the path of youth--so few, and yet so beautiful. Its very wildness was lovely; and the party of travellers who wound up the path added to the interest of the scene by redeeming it from perfect solitude, and linking it to social existence.

The manner of their advance, too, which partook of the forms of a military procession, made the group in itself picturesque. A single squire, mounted on a strong bony horse, led the way at about fifty yards' distance from the rest of the party. He was a tall, powerful man, of a dark complexion and high features; and from beneath his thick, arched eyebrow gazed out a full, brilliant, black eye, which roved incessantly over the scene, and seemed to notice the smallest object around. He was armed with cuirass and steel cap, sword and dagger; and yet the different form and rude finishing of his arms did not admit of their being confounded with those of a knight. The two who next followed were evidently of a different grade; and, though both young men, both wore a large cross pendant from their neck, and a small branch of palm in the bonnet. The one who rode on the right hand was armed at all points, except his head and arms, in plate armour, curiously inlaid with gold in a thousand elegant and fanciful arabesques, the art of perfecting which is said to have been first discovered at Damascus. The want of his gauntlets and brassards showed his arms covered with a quilted jacket of crimson silk, called a gambesoon, and large gloves of thick buff leather. The place of his casque was supplied by a large brown hood, cut into a long peak behind, which fell almost to his horse's back; while the folds in front were drawn round a face which, without being strikingly handsome, was nevertheless noble and dignified in its expression, though clouded by a shade of melancholy which had channelled his cheek with many a deep line, and drawn his brow into a fixed but not a bitter frown.

In form he was, to all appearance, broad made and powerful; but the steel plates in which he was clothed, of course greatly concealed the exact proportions of his figure; though withal there was a sort of easy grace in his carriage, which, almost approaching to negligence, was but the more conspicuous from the very stiffness of his armour. His features were aquiline, and had something in them that seemed to betoken quick and violent passions; and yet such a supposition was at once contradicted by the calm, still, melancholy of his large dark eyes.

The horse on which the knight rode was a tall, powerful German stallion, jet black in colour; and though not near so strong as one which a squire led at a little distance behind, yet, being unencumbered with panoply itself, it was fully equal to the weight of its rider, armed as he was.

The crusader's companion--for the palm and cross betokened that they both returned from the Holy Land--formed as strong a contrast as can well be conceived to the horseman we have just described. He was a fair, handsome man, round whose broad, high forehead curled a profusion of rich chestnut hair, which behind, having been suffered to grow to an extraordinary length, fell down in thick masses upon his shoulders. His eye was one of those long, full, grey eyes, which, when fringed with very dark lashes, give a more thoughtful expression to the countenance than even those of a deeper hue; and such would have been the case with his, had not its clear powerful glance been continually at variance with a light, playful turn of his lip, that seemed full of sportive mockery.

His age might be four or five and twenty--perhaps more; for he was of that complexion that retains long the look of youth, and on which even cares and toils seem for years to spend themselves in vain:--and yet it was evident, from the bronzed ruddiness of what was originally a very fair complexion, that he had suffered long exposure to a burning sun; while a deep scar on one of his cheeks, though it did not disfigure him, told that he did not spare his person in the battle-field.

No age or land is, of course, without its foppery; and however inconsistent such a thing may appear, joined with the ideas of cold steel and mortal conflicts, no small touch of it was visible in the apparel of the younger horseman. His person, from the shoulders down to the middle of his thigh, was covered with a bright haubert, or shirt of steel rings, which, polished like glass, and lying flat upon each other, glittered and flashed in the sunshine as if they were formed of diamonds. On his head he wore a green velvet cap, which corresponded in colour with the border of his gambesoon, the puckered silk of which rose above the edge of the shirt of mail, and prevented the rings from chafing upon his neck. Over this hung a long mantle of fine cloth of a deep green hue, on the shoulder of which was embroidered a broad red cross, distinguishing the French crusader. The hood, which was long and pointed, like his companion's, was thrown back from his face, and exposed a lining of miniver.

The horse he rode was a slight, beautiful Arabian, as white as snow in every part of his body, except where round his nostrils, and on the tendons of his pastern and hoof, the white mellowed into a fine pale pink. To look at his slender limbs, and the bending pliancy of every step, one would have judged him scarcely able to bear so tall and powerful a man as his rider, loaded with a covering of steel; but the proud toss of his head, the snort of his wide nostril, and the flashing fire of his clear crystal eye, spoke worlds of unexhausted strength and spirit; though the thick dust, with which the whole party were covered, evinced that their day's journey had already been long. Behind each knight, except where the narrowness of the road obliged them to change the order of their march, one of their squires led a battle-horse in his right hand; and several others followed, bearing the various pieces of their offensive and defensive armour.

This, however, was to be remarked, that the arms of the first-mentioned horseman were distributed amongst a great many persons; one carrying the casque upright on the pommel of the saddle, another bearing his shield and lance, another his brassards and gauntlets; while the servants of the second knight, more scanty in number, were fain to take each upon himself a heavier load.

To these immediate attendants succeeded a party of simple grooms leading various other horses, amongst which were one or two Arabians, and the whole cavalcade was terminated by a small body of archers.

For long, the two knights proceeded silently on their way, sometimes side by side, sometimes one preceding the other, as the road widened or diminished in its long tortuous way up the acclivity of the mountains, but still without exchanging a single word. The one whom--though there was probably little difference of age--we shall call the elder, seemed, indeed, too deeply absorbed in his own thoughts, to desire, or even permit of conversation, and kept his eyes bent pensively forward on the road before, without even giving a glance to his companion, whose gaze roamed enchanted over all the exquisite scenery around, and whose mind seemed fully occupied in noting all the lovely objects he beheld. From time to time, indeed, his eye glanced to his brother knight, and a sort of sympathetic shade came over his brow, as he saw the deep gloom in which he was involved. Occasionally, too, a sort of movement of impatience seemed to agitate him, as if there was something that he fain would speak. But then again the cold unexpecting fixedness of his companion's features appeared to repel it, and, returning to the view, he more than once apparently suppressed what was rising to his lips, or only gave it vent in humming a few lines of some lay, or some sirvente, the words of which, however, were inaudible. At length what was labouring within seemed to break through all restraint, and, drawing his rein, he made his horse pause for an instant, while he exclaimed--

"Is it possible. Beau Sire d'Auvergne, that the sight of your own fair land cannot draw from you a word or a glance?" while, as he spoke, he made his horse bound forward again, and throwing his left hand over the whole splendid scene that the opening of the trees exposed to the sight, he seemed to bid it appeal to the heart of his companion, and upbraid him with his indifference.

The Count d'Auvergne raised his eyes, and let them rest for an instant on the view to which his companion pointed; then dropped them to his friend's face, and replied calmly--

"Had any one told me, five years ago, that such would be the case, Guy de Coucy, I would have given him the lie."

Guy de Coucy answered nothing directly, but took up his song again, saying--

"He who tells his sorrow, may find
That he sows but the seed of the empty wind;
But he who keeps it within his breast,
Nurses a serpent to gnaw his rest."

"You sing truly, De Coucy, as I have proved too bitterly," replied the Count d'Auvergne; "but since we have kept companionship together, I have ever found you gay and happy. Why should I trouble your repose with sorrows not your own?"

"Good faith! fair count, I understand you well," replied the other, laughing. "You would say that you have ever held me more merry than wise; more fit to enliven a dull table than listen to a sad tale; a better companion in brawls or merrymaking than in sorrows or solemnities; and 'faith you are right, I love them not; and, therefore, is it not the greatest proof of my friendship, when hating sorrows as much as man well may, I ask you to impart me yours?"

"In truth, it is," answered the Count d'Auvergne; "but yet I will not load your friendship so, De Coucy. Mine are heavy sorrows, which I would put upon no man's light heart. However, I have this day given way to them more than I should do; but it is the very sight of my native land, beautiful and beloved as it is, which, waking in my breast the memory of hopes and joys passed away for ever, has made me less master of myself than I am wont."

"Fie now, fie!" cried his friend; "Thibalt d'Auvergne, wouldst thou make me think the heart of a bold knight as fragile as the egg of a chaffinch, on which if but a cat sets her paw, it is broken never to be mended again? Nay, nay! there is consolation even in the heart of all evils; like the honey that the good knight, Sir Samson, found in the jaws of the lion which he killed when he was out hunting with the king of the Saracens."

"You mean, when he was going down to the Philistines," said his friend with a slight smile; though such mistakes were no way rare in those days; and De Coucy spoke it in somewhat of a jesting tone, as if laughing himself at the ignorance he assumed.

"Be it so, be it so!" proceeded the other. "'Tis all the same. But, as I said, there is consolation in every evil. Hast thou lost thy dearest friend in the battle-field? Thank God! that he died knightly in his harness! Hast thou pawned thy estate to the Jew? Thank God! that thou may'st curse him to thy heart's content in this world, and feel sure of his damnation hereafter!" The count smiled; and his friend proceeded, glad to see that he had won him even for a time from himself:--"Has thy falcon strayed? Say, 'twas a vile bird and a foul feeder, and call it a good loss. Has thy lady proved cold? Has thy mistress betrayed thee. Seek a warmer or a truer, and be happily deceived again."

The colour came and went in the cheek of the Count d'Auvergne; and for an instant his eyes flashed fire; but reading perfect unconsciousness of all offence in the clear open countenance of De Coucy, he bit his lip till his teeth left a deep white dent therein, but remained silent.

"Fie, fie! D'Auvergne!" continued De Coucy, not noticing the emotion his words had produced. "Thou, a knight who hast laid more Saracen heads low than there are bells on your horse's poitral, not able to unhorse so black a miscreant as Melancholy! Thou, who hast knelt at the holy sepulchre," he added in a more dignified tone, "not to find hope in faith, and comfort in the blessed Saviour, for whose cross you've fought!"

The count turned round, in some surprise at the unwonted vein which the last part of his companion's speech indicated; but De Coucy kept to it but for a moment, and then, darting off, he proceeded in the same light way with which he had begun the conversation. "Melancholy!" he cried in a loud voice, at the same time taking off his glove, as if he would have cast it down as a gage of battle--"Melancholy and all that do abet him. Love, Jealousy, Hatred, Fear, Poverty, and the like, I do pronounce ye false miscreants, and defy you all! There lays my glove!" and he made a show of throwing it on the ground.

"Ah, De Coucy!" said D'Auvergne, with a melancholy smile, "your light heart never knew what love is; and may it never know!"

"By the rood! you do me wrong," cried De Coucy--"bitter wrong, D'Auvergne! I defy you, in the whole lists of Europe's chivalry, to find a man who has been so often in love as I have--ay, and though you smile--with all the signs of true and profound love to boot. When I was in love with the Princess of Suabia, did not I sigh three times every morning, and sometimes sneeze as often? for it was winter weather, and I used to pass half my nights under her window. When I was in love with the daughter of Tancred of Sicily, did I not run seven courses for her with all the best champions of England and France, in my silk gambesoon, with no arms but my lance in my hand, and my buckler on my arm? When I was in love with the pretty Marchioness of Syracuse, did not I ride a mare one whole day,[^[4]] without ever knowing it, from pure absence of mind and profound love?--and when I was in love with all the ladies of Cyprus, did not I sing lays and write sirventes for them all?"

"Your fighting in your hoqueton," replied D'Auvergne, "showed that you were utterly fearless; and your riding on a mare showed that you were utterly whimsical; but neither one nor the other showed you were in love, my dear De Coucy. But look, De Coucy! the road bends downwards into that valley. Either I have strangely forgotten my native land, or your surly squire has led us wrong, and we are turning away from the Puy to the valleys of Dome.--Ho, sirrah!" he continued, elevating his voice and addressing the squire, who rode first, "Are you sure you are right?"

"Neither Cotereaux, nor Brabançois, nor Routiers, nor living creatures of any kind, see I, to the right or left, Beau Sire," replied the squire, in a measured man-at-arms-like tone, without either turning his head or slackening his pace in the least degree.

"But art thou leading us on the right road? I ask thee," repeated the count.

"I know not. Beau Sire," replied the squire. "I was thrown out, to guard against danger,--I had no commands to seek the right road." And he continued to ride on the wrong way as calmly as if no question existed in respect to its direction.

"Halt!" cried De Coucy. The man-at-arms stood still; and a short council was held between the two knights in regard to their farther proceedings, when it was determined that, although they were evidently wrong, they should still continue for some way on the same road, rather than turn back after so long a journey. "We must come to some château or some habitation soon," said De Coucy; "or, at the worst, find some of your country shepherds to guide us on towards the chapel. But, methinks, Hugo de Barre, you might have told us sooner, that you did not know the way!"

"Now, good sir knight," replied the squire, speaking more freely when addressed by his own lord, "none knew better than yourself, that I had never been in Auvergne in all my days before. Did you ever hear of my quitting my cot and my glebe, except to follow my good lord the baron, your late father, for a forty days' chevauchée against the enemy, before I took the blessed cross, and went a fool's errand to the Holy Land?"

"How now, sir!" cried De Coucy. "Do you call the holy crusade a fool's errand? Be silent, Hugo, and lead on. Thou art a good scout and a good soldier, and that is all thou art fit for."

The squire replied nothing; but rode on in silence, instantly resuming his habit of glancing his eye rapidly over every object that surrounded him, with a scrupulous accuracy that left scarce a possibility of ambuscade. The knights and their train followed; and turning round a projecting part of the mountain, they found that the road, instead of descending, as they had imagined, continued to climb the steep, which at every step gained some new feature of grandeur and singularity, till the sublime became almost the terrific. The verdure gradually ceased, and the rocks approached so close on each side as to leave no more space than just sufficient for the road, and a narrow deep ravine by its side, at the bottom of which, wherever the thick bushes permitted the eye to reach it, the mountain torrent was seen dashing and roaring over enormous blocks of black lava, which it had channelled into all strange shapes and appearances. High above the heads of the travellers, also, rose on either hand a range of enormous basaltic columns, fringed at the top by some dark old pines that, hanging seventy or eighty feet in the air, seemed to form a frieze to the gigantic colonnade through which they passed.

De Coucy looked up with a smile, not unmixed with awe. "Could you not fancy, D'Auvergne," he said, "that we were entering the portico of a temple built by some bad enchanter to the Evil Spirit? By the holy rood! it is a grand and awful scene! I did not think thy Auvergne was so magnificent."

As he spoke, the squire, who preceded them, suddenly stopped, and, turning round--

"The road ends here. Beau Sire," he cried. "The bridge is broken, and there is no farther passage."

"Light of my eyes!" cried De Coucy; "this is unfortunate! But let us see, at all events, before we turn back:" and, riding forward, he approached the spot where his squire stood.

It was even as he had said, however. All farther progress in a direct line was stopped by an immense mass of lava, which had probably lain there for immemorial centuries. Certainly when the road was made, which was probably in the days of the Romans, the same obstruction had existed; for, instead of attempting to continue the way along the side of the hill any farther in that direction, a single arch had been thrown over the narrow ravine, and the road carried on through a wide breach in the rocks on the other side. This opening, however, offered nothing to the eye of De Coucy and his companions but a vacant space, backed by the clear blue sky. The travellers paused, and gazed upon the broken bridge and the road beyond for a minute or two, before turning back, with that sort of silent pause which generally precedes the act of yielding to some disagreeable necessity. However, after a moment, the younger knight beckoned to one of his squires, crying--"Give me my casque and sword!"

"Now, in the name of Heaven! what Orlando trick are you going to put in practice, De Coucy?" cried the Count d'Auvergne, watching his companion take his helmet from the squire, and buckle on his long, straight sword by his side. "Are you going to cleave that rock of lava, or bridge over the ravine, with your shield?"

"Neither," replied the knight, with a smile; "but I hear voices, brought by the wind through that cleft on the other side, and I am going over to ask the way."

"De Coucy, you are mad!" cried the count. "Your courage is insanity. Neither man nor horse can take that leap!"

"Pshaw! you know not what Zerbilin can do!" said De Coucy, calmly patting the arching neck of his slight Arabian horse: "and yet you have yourself seen him take greater leaps than that!"

"But see you not the road slopes upwards," urged the count. "There is no hold for his feet. The horse is weary."

"Weary!" exclaimed De Coucy: "nonsense! Give me space--give me space!"

And, in spite of all remonstrance, he reined his horse back, and then spurred him on to the leap. The obedient animal galloped onward to the brink, shot forward like an arrow, and reached the other side.[^[5]] But what the Count d'Auvergne had said was just. The road beyond sloped upwards from the very edge, and was composed of loose volcanic scoria, which afforded no firm footing; so that the horse, though he accomplished the leap, slipped backwards the moment he had reached the opposite side, and rolled with his rider down into the ravine below!

"Jesu Maria!" cried the count, springing to the ground, and advancing to the edge of the ravine. "De Coucy, De Coucy!" cried he, "are you in life?"

"Yes, yes!" answered a faint voice from below: "and Zerbilin is not hurt!"

"But yourself, De Coucy!" cried his friend,--"speak of yourself!"

A groan was the only reply.

CHAPTER III.

It was in vain that the Count d'Auvergne gazed down into the ravine, endeavouring to gain a sight of his rash friend. A mass of shrubs overhung the shelving edge of the rock and totally intercepted his view. In the meanwhile, however, Hugo de Barre, the squire who had led the cavalcade, had sprung to the ground, and was already half-way over the brink, attempting to descend to his lord's assistance, when a deep voice from the bottom of the dell exclaimed, "Hold! hold above! Try not to come down there. You will bring the rocks and loose stones upon our heads, and kill us all."

"Who is it speaks?" cried the Count d'Auvergne.

"One of the hermits of Our Lady's chapel of the Mont d'Or," replied the voice. "If ye be this knight's friends, go back for a thousand paces, and ye will find a path down to the left, which leads to the road by the stream. But if ye be his enemies, who have driven him to the dreadful leap he has taken, get ye hence, for he is even now at the foot of the cross."

The Count d'Auvergne, without staying to reply, rode back as the hermit directed, and easily found the path which they had before passed, but which, as it apparently led in a direction different from that in which they wished to proceed, they had hardly noticed at the time. Following this path, they soon reached the bottom of the ravine, where they found a good road, jammed in, as it were, between the rocks over which they had passed, and the small mountain-stream they had observed from above. For some way the windings of the dell and the various projections of the crags, prevented them from seeing for any distance in advance; but at length they came suddenly upon a group of several persons, mounted and dismounted, both male and female, gathered round De Coucy's beautiful Arabian, Zerbilin, who stood in the midst soiled and scratched indeed, and trembling with the fright and exertion of his fall, but almost totally uninjured, and filling the air with his long wild neighings. The group by which he was surrounded consisted entirely of the attendants of some persons not present, squires and varlets in very gay attire; and female servants and waiting women, not a bit behind hand in flutter and finery. A beautiful brown Spanish jennet, such as any fair lady might love to ride, stood near, held by one of those old squires who, in that age, cruelly monopolised the privilege of assisting their lady to mount and dismount, much to the disappointment of many a young page and gallant gentleman, who would willing have relieved them of the task, especially when the lady in question was young and fair. Not far off was placed a strong but ancient horse, waiting for some other person, who was absent with the lady of the jennet.

Above the heads of this group, half-way up the face of the rock, stood a large cross elevated on a projecting mass of stone, and behind it appeared the mouth of a cavern, or rather of an excavation, from which the blocks of lava had been drawn, in order to form the bridge we have mentioned, now fallen from its "high estate," and encumbering the bed of the river. It was easy to perceive the figures of several persons moving to and fro in the cave, and concluding at once that it was thither his unfortunate friend had been borne, the Count d'Auvergne sprang to the ground, and passing through the group of pages and waiting-women, who gazed upon him and his archers with some alarm, he made his way up the little path that led to the mouth of the cave. Here he found De Coucy stretched upon a bed of dry rushes, while a tall, emaciated old man, covered with a brown frock, and ornamented with a long white beard, stood by his side, holding his hand. Between his fingers the hermit held a lancet; and from the strong muscular arm of the knight, a stream of blood was just beginning to flow into a small wooden bowl held by a page.

Several other persons, however, filled the hermit's cave, of whom two are worthy of more particular notice. The first was a short, stout, old man, with a complexion that argued florid health and vigour, and a small, keen, grey eye, the quick movement of which, with a sudden curl of the lip and contraction of the brow on every slight occasion of contradiction, might well bespeak a quick and impatient disposition. The second was a young lady of perhaps nineteen or twenty, slight in figure, but yet with every limb rounded in the full and swelling contour of woman's most lovely age. Her features were small, delicate, and nowhere sharp, yet cut with that square exactness of outline so beautiful in the efforts of the Grecian chisel. Her eyes were long, and full, and dark; and the black lashes that fringed them, as she gazed earnestly on the figure of De Coucy, swept downward and lay upon her cheek. The hair, that fell in a profusion of thick curls round her face, was as black as jet; and yet her skin, though of that peculiar tint almost inseparable from dark hair and eyes, was strikingly fair, and as smooth as alabaster; while a faint but very beautiful colour spread over each cheek, and died away into the clear pure white of her temples.

In days when love was a duty, and coldness a dishonour, on the part of all who enjoyed or aspired to chivalry, no false delicacies, no fear of compromising herself, none of the mighty considerations of small proprieties that now-a-days hamper all the feelings, and enchain all the frankness, of the female heart, weighed on the lady of the thirteenth century. It was her duty to feel and to express an interest in every good knight in danger and misfortune; and the fair being we have just described, before the eyes of her father, who looked upon her with honourable pride, knelt by the side of De Coucy; and while the hermit held the arm from which the blood was just beginning to flow, she kept the small fingers of her soft white hand upon the other sinewy wrist of the insensible knight, and anxiously watched the returning animation.

While the Count d'Auvergne entered the cave in silence, and placed himself beside the hermit, De Coucy's squire, Hugo de Barre, with one of the pages, both devotedly attached to their young lord, had climbed up also, and stood at the mouth of the cavern.

"God's life! Hugo," cried the page, "let them not take my lord's blood. We have got amongst traitors. They are killing him."

"Peace, fool!" answered Hugo; "'tis a part of leech-craft. Did you never see Fulk, the barber, bleed the old baron? Why, he had it done every week. The De Coucys have more blood than other men."

The page was silent for a moment, and then replied in an under-tone, for there was a sort of contagious stillness round the hurt knight. "You had better look to it, Hugo. They are bleeding my lord too much. That hermit means him harm. See, how he stares at the great carbuncle in Sir Guy's thumb-ring! He's murdering my lord to steal it. Shall I put my dagger in him?"

"Hold thy silly prate, Ermold de Marcy!" replied the squire: "think you, the good count would stand by and see his sworn brother in arms bled, without it was for his good? See you now, Sir Guy wakes!--God's benison on you, Sir Hermit!"

De Coucy did indeed open his eyes, and looked round, though but faintly. "D'Auvergne," said he, the moment after, while the playful smile fluttered again round his lips, "by the rood! I had nearly leaped farther than I intended, and taken Zerbilin with me into Paradise. Thanks, hermit!--thanks, gentle lady!--I can rise now. Ho! Hugo, lend me thine arm."

But the hermit gently put his hand upon the knight's breast, saying, in a tone more resembling cynical bitterness than Christian mildness, "Hold, my son! This world is not the sweetest of dwelling-places; but if thou wouldst not change it for a small, cold, comfortable grave, lie still. You shall be carried up to the chapel of Our Lady, by the lake, where there is more space than in this cave; and there I will find means to heal your bruises in two days, if your quick spirit may be quiet for so long."

As he spoke, he stopped the bleeding, and bound up the arm of the knight, who, finding probably even by the slight exertion he had made that he was in no fit state to act for himself, submitted quietly, merely giving a glance to the Count d'Auvergne, half rueful, half smiling, as if he would fain have laughed at himself and his own helplessness, if the pain of his bruises would have let him.

"I prithee, holy father hermit, tell me," said the Count d'Auvergne, "is the hurt of this good knight dangerous? for if it be, we will send to Mont Ferrand for some skilful leech from my uncle's castle--and instantly."

"His body is sufficiently bruised, my son," replied the hermit, "to give him, I hope, a sounder mind for the future, than to leap his horse down a precipice: and as for the leech, let him stay at Mont Ferrand. The knight is bad enough without his help, if he come to make him worse; and if he come to cure him, I can do that without his aid. Leech-craft is as much worse than ignorance, as killing is worse than letting die."

"By my faith and my knighthood," cried the old gentleman, who stood at De Coucy's feet, and who, during the count's question and the hermit's somewhat ungracious reply, had been gazing at d'Auvergne with various looks of recognition--"by my faith and my knighthood! I believe it is the Count Thibalt--though my eyes are none of the clearest, and it is long since--but, yes! it is surely--Count Thibalt d'Auvergne."

"The same, Beau Sire," replied D'Auvergne; "my memory is less true than yours, or I see my father's old arm's fellow, Count Julian of the Mount."

"E'en so, fair sir!--e'en so!" replied the old man: "I and my daughter Isadore are even now upon our way to Vic le Comte to pass some short space with the good count, your father. A long and weary journey have we had hither, all the way from Flanders; and for our safe arrival we go to offer at the chapel of Our Lady of St. Pavin of the Mount D'Or, ere we proceed to taste your castle's hospitality. Good faith! you may well judge 'tis matter of deep import brings me so far. Affairs of policy, young sir--affairs of policy," he added in a low and consequential voice. "Doubtless your father may have hinted--"

"For five long years, fair sir, I have not seen my father's face," replied D'Auvergne. "By the cross I bear, you may see where I have sojourned; and De Coucy and myself were but now going to lay our palms upon the altar of Our Lady of St. Pavin (according to a holy vow we made at Rome), prior to turning our steps towards our castle also. Let us all on together then--I see the holy hermit has commanded the varlets to make a litter for my hurt friend; and after having paid our vows, we will back to Vic le Comte, and honour your arrival with wine and music."

While this conversation passed between D'Auvergne and the old knight, De Coucy's eyes had sought out more particularly the fair girl who had been kneeling by his side, and he addressed to her much and manifold thanks for her gentle tending--in so low a tone, however, that it obliged her to stoop over him in order to hear what he said. De Coucy, as he had before professed to the Count d'Auvergne, had often tasted love, such as it was; and had ever been a bold wooer; but in the present instance, though he felt very sure and intimately convinced, that the eyes which now looked upon him were brighter than ever he had seen, and the lips that spoke to him were fuller, and softer, and sweeter, than ever had moved in his eyesight before, yet his stock of gallant speeches failed him strangely, and he found some difficulty even in thanking the lady as he could have wished. At all events, so lame he thought the expression of those thanks, that he endeavoured to make up for it by reiteration--and repeated them so often, that at length the lady gently imposed silence upon him, lest his much speaking might retard his cure.

The secrets of a lady's breast are a sort of forbidden fruit, which we shall not be bold enough to touch; and therefore, whatever the fair Isadore might think of De Coucy--whatever touch of tenderness might mingle with her pity--whatever noble and knightly qualities she might see, or fancy, on his broad, clear brow, and bland, full lip--we shall not even stretch our hand towards the tree of knowledge, far less offer the fruit thereof to any one else. Overt acts, however, of all kinds are common property; and therefore it is no violation of confidence, or of any thing else, to say that something in the tone and manner of the young knight made the soft crimson grow a shade deeper in the cheek of Isadore of the Mount; and, when the litter was prepared, and De Coucy placed thereon, though she proceeded with every appearance of indifference to mount her light jennet, and follow the cavalcade, she twice turned round to give a quick and anxious look towards the litter, as it was borne down the narrow and slippery path from the cave.

Although that alone which passed between De Coucy and the lady has been particularly mentioned here, it is not to be thence inferred that all the other personages who were present stood idly looking on--that the Count d'Auvergne took no heed of his hurt friend--that Sir Julian of the Mount forgot his daughter, or that the attendants of the young knight were unmindful of their master. Some busied themselves in preparing the litter of boughs and bucklers--some spread cloaks and furred aumuces upon it to make it soft--and some took care that the haubert, head-piece, and sword, of which De Coucy had been divested, should not be left behind in the cave.

In the mean while. Sir Julian of the Mount pointed out his daughter to the Count Thibalt d'Auvergne, boasted her skill in leech-craft, and her many other estimable qualities, and assured him that he might safely intrust the care of De Coucy's recovery to her.

The Count d'Auvergne's eye fell coldly upon her, and ran over every exquisite line of loveliness, as she stood by the young knight, unconscious of his gaze, without evincing one spark of that gallant enthusiasm which the sight of beauty generally called up in the chivalrous bosoms of the thirteenth century. It was a cold, steady, melancholy look--and yet it ended with a sigh. The only compliment he could force his lips to form, went to express that his friend was happy in having fallen into such fair and skilful hands; and, this said, he proceeded to the side of the litter, which, borne by six of the attendants, was now carried down to the bank of the stream, and thence along the road that, winding onward through the narrow gorge, passed under the broken bridge, and gradually climbed to the higher parts of the mountain.

The general cavalcade followed as they might; for the scantiness of the path, which grew less and less as it proceeded, prevented the possibility of any regularity in their march. At length, however, the gorge widened out into a small basin of about five hundred yards in diameter, round which the hills sloped up on every side, taking the shape of a funnel. Over one edge thereof poured a small but beautiful cascade, starting from mass to mass of volcanic rock, whose decomposition offered a thousand bright and singular hues, amidst which the white and flashing waters of the stream agitated themselves with a strange but picturesque effect.

At the bottom of the cascade was a group of shepherds' huts; and as it was impossible for the horses to proceed farther, it was determined to leave the principal part of the attendants also there, to wait the return of the party from the chapel, which was, of course, to take place as soon as De Coucy had recovered from his bruises.

Some difficulty occurred in carrying the litter over the steeper part of the mountain, but at length it was accomplished; and, skirting round part of a large ancient forest, the pilgrims came suddenly on the banks of that most beautiful and extraordinary effort of nature, the Lac Pavin. Before their eyes extended a vast sheet of water, the crystal pureness of which mocks all description, enclosed within a basin of verdure, whose sides, nearly a hundred and fifty feet in height, rise from the banks of the lake with so precipitous an elevation, that no footing, however firm, can there keep its hold. For the space of a league and a half, which the lake occupies, this beautiful green border, with very little variation in its height, may still be seen following the limpid line of the water, into which it dips itself, clear, and at once, without rush or ooze, or water plant of any description, to break the union of the soft turf and the pure wave.

Towards the south and east, however, extends, even now, an immense mass of dark and sombre wood, which, skirting down the precipitous bank, seems to contemplate its own majesty in the clear mirror of the lake. At the same time, all around, rise up a giant family of mountain peaks, which, each standing out abrupt and single in the sunny air, seem frowning on the traveller that invades their solitude.

Here, in the days of Philip Augustus, stood a small chapel dedicated to the Virgin, called Our Lady of St. Pavin; and many a miraculous cure is said to have been operated by the holy relics of the shrine, which caused Our Lady of St. Pavin to be the favourite saint of many of the chief families in France. By the side of the chapel was placed a congregation of small huts or cells, both for the accommodation of the various pilgrims who came to visit the shrine, and for the dwelling of three holy hermits, one of whom served the altar as a priest, while the other two retained the more amphibious character of simple recluse, bound by no vows but such as they chose to impose upon themselves.

At these huts the travellers now paused; and after De Coucy had been carried into one of them, the hermit, who had guided the travellers thither, demanded of the Count d'Auvergne, whether any of his train could draw a good bow, and wing a shaft well home.

"They are all archers, good hermit," replied D'Auvergne; "see you not their bows and quivers?"

"Many a man wears a sword that cannot use it," replied the hermit in the cynical tone which seemed natural to him. "Here, your very friend, whom God himself has armed with eyes and ears, and even understanding, such as it is, does he make use of any when he gallops down a precipice, where he would surely have been killed, had it not been for the aid and protection of a merciful Heaven, and a few stunted hazels? Your archers may make as good use of their bows as he does of his brains--and then what serves their archery? But, however, choose out the best marksman; bid him go up to yonder peak, and take two well-feathered arrows with him: he will shoot no more! Then send all the rest to beat the valley to the right, with loud cries; the izzards will instantly take to the heights. Let your archer choose as they pass, and deliver me his arrows into the two fattest; (though God knows! 'tis a crying sin to slay two wise beasts to save one foolish man;) but let your vassal stay to make no curée, but bring the beasts down here while the life-heat is still in them. Your friend, wrapped in the fresh-flayed hides, shall be to-morrow as whole as if he had never played the fool!"

"I have seen it done at Byzantium," replied D'Auvergne, "when a good knight of Flanders was hurled down from the south tower. It had a marvellous effect:--we will about it instantly."

Accordingly, two of the izzards, which were then common in Auvergne, were soon slain in the manner the hermit directed; and De Coucy, notwithstanding no small dislike to the remedy, was stripped, and wrapped in the reeking hides[^[6]]; after which, stretched upon a bed of dry moss belonging to one of the hermits, he endeavoured to amuse himself with thoughts of love and battles, while the rest went to pay their vows at the shrine of Our Lady of St. Pavin.

De Coucy's mind soon wandered through all the battles, and tournaments, and passes of arms that could possibly be fought; and then his fancy, by what was in those days a very natural digression, turned to love--and he thought of all the thousand ladies he had loved in his life; and, upon recollecting all the separate charms of each, he found that they were all very beautiful: he could not deny it. But yet certainly, beyond all doubt, the fair Isadore of the Mount, with her dark, dark eyes, and her clear, bland brow, and her mouth such as angels smile with, was far more beautiful than any of them.

But still De Coucy asked himself, why he could not tell her so? He had never found it difficult to tell any one they were beautiful before; or to declare that he loved them; or to ask them for a glove, or a bracelet, or a token to fix on his helm, and be his second in the battle: but now, he felt sure that he had stammered like a schoolboy, and spoken below his voice, like a young squire to an old knight. So De Coucy concluded, from all these symptoms, that he could not be in love; and fully convinced thereof, he very naturally fell asleep.

CHAPTER IV.

We must now change the scene, and, leaving wilds and mountains, come to a more busy though still a rural view. From the small, narrow windows of the ancient château of Compiègne might be seen, on the one side, the forest with its ocean of green and waving boughs; and on the other, a lively little town on the banks of the Oise, the windings of which river could be traced from the higher towers, far beyond its junction with the Aisne, into the distant country. Yet, notwithstanding that it was a town, Compiègne scarcely detracted from the rural aspect of the picture. It had, even in those days, its gardens and its fruit-trees, which gave it an air of verdure, and blended it, as it were, insensibly with the forest, that waved against its very walls. The green thatches, too, of its houses, in which slate or tile was unknown, covered with moss, and lichens, and flowering houseleek, offered not the cold, stiff uniformity of modern roofs; and the eye that looked down upon those constructions of art in its earliest and rudest form found all the picturesque irregularity of nature.

Gazing from one of the narrow windows of a large square chamber, in the keep of the château, were two beings, who seemed to be enjoying, to the full, those bright hours of early affection, which are well called "the summer days of existence," yielding flowers, and warmth, and sunshine, and splendour;--hours that are so seldom known;--hours that so often pass away like dreams;--hours which are such strangers in courts, that, when they do intrude with their warm rays into the cold precincts of a palace, history marks their coming as a phenomenon, too often followed by a storm.

Alone, in the solitude of that large chamber, those two beings were as if in a world by themselves. The fair girl, seemingly scarce nineteen years of age, with her light hair floating upon her shoulders in large masses of shining curls, leaned her cheek upon her hand, and gazing with her full, soft, blue eyes over the far extended landscape, appeared lost in thought; while her other hand, fondly clasped in that of her companion, pointed out, as it were, how nearly linked he was to her seemingly abstracted thoughts.

The other tenant of that chamber was a man of thirty-two or thirty-three years of age, tall, well-formed, handsome, of the same fair complexion as his companion, but bronzed by the manly florid hue of robust health, exposure, and exercise. His nose was slightly aquiline, his chin rounded and rather prominent, and his blue eyes would have been fine and expressive, had they not been rather nearer together than the just proportion, and stained, as it were on the very iris, by some hazel spots in the midst of the blue. The effect, however, of the whole was pleasing; and the very defect of the eyes, by its singularity, gave something fine and distinguished to the countenance; while their nearness, joined with the fire that shone out in their glance, seemed to speak that keen and quick sagacity, which sees and determines at once, in the midst of thick dangers and perplexity.

The expression, however, of those eyes was now calm and soft, while sometimes holding her hand in his, sometimes playing with a crown of wild roses he had put on his companion's head, he mingled one rich curl after another with the green leaves and the blushing flowers; and, leaning with his left arm against the embrasure of the window, high above her head, as she sat gazing out upon the landscape, he looked down upon the beautiful creature, through the mazes of whose hair his other hand was straying, with a smile strangely mingled of affection for her, and mockery of his own light employment.

There was grace, and repose, and dignity, in his whole figure, and the simple green hunting tunic which he wore, without robe, or hood, or ornament whatever, served better to show its easy majesty, than would the robes of a king--and yet this was Philip Augustus.

"So pensive, sweet Agnes!" said he, after a moment's silence, thus waking from her reverie the lovely Agnes de Meranie, whom he had married shortly after the sycophant bishops of France had pronounced the nullity of his unconsummated marriage with Ingerburge,[^[7]] for whom he had conceived the most inexplicable aversion:--"So pensive," he said. "Where did those sweet thoughts wander?"

"Far, far, my Philip!" replied the queen, leaning back her head upon his arm, and gazing up in his face with a look of that profound, unutterable affection, which sometimes dwells in woman's heart for her first and only love:--"far from this castle, and this court;--far from Philip's splendid chivalry, and his broad realms, and his fair cities; and yet with Philip still. I thought of my own father, and all his tenderness and love for me; and of my own sweet Istria! and I thought how hard was the fate of princes, that some duty always separated them from some of those they love, and----"

"And doubtless you wished to quit your Philip for those that you love better," interrupted the king, with a smile at the very charge which he well knew would soon be contradicted.

"Oh, no! no!" replied Agnes; "but, as I looked out yonder, and thought it was the way to Istria, I wished that my Philip was but a simple knight, and I a humble demoiselle. Then should he mount his horse, and I would spring upon my palfrey; and we would ride gaily back to my native land, and see my father once again, and live happily with those we loved."

"But tell me, Agnes," said Philip, with a tone of melancholy that struck her, "if you were told, that you might to-morrow quit me, and return to your father, and your own fair land, would you not go?"

"Would I quit you?" cried Agnes, starting up, and placing her two hands upon her husband's arm, while she gazed in his face with a look of surprise that had no small touch of fear in it:--"would I quit you? Never! And if you drove me forth, I would come back and be your servant--your slave; or would watch in the corridors but to have a glance as you passed by;--or else I would die," she added, after a moment's pause, for she had spoken with all the rapid energy of alarmed affection. "But tell me, tell me, Philip, what did you mean? For all your smiling, you spoke gravely. Nay, kisses are no answers."

"I did but jest, my Agnes," replied Philip, holding her to his heart with a fond pressure. "Part with you! I would sooner part with life!"

As he spoke, the door of the chamber suddenly opened, the hangings were pushed aside, and an attendant appeared.

"How now," cried the king, unclasping his arms from the slight, beautiful form round which they were thrown. "How now, villain! Must my privacy be broken at every moment? How dare you enter my chamber without my call?" And his flashing eye and reddened cheek spoke that quick impatient spirit which never possessed any man's breast more strongly than that of Philip Augustus. And yet, strange to say, the powers of his mind were such, that every page of his history affords a proof of his having made even his most impetuous passions subservient to his policy;--not by conquering them, but by giving vent to them in such direction as suited best the exigency of the times, and the interest of his kingdom.

"Sire," replied the attendant with a profound reverence, "the good knight Sir Stephen Guerin has just arrived from Paris, and prays an audience."

"Admit him," said Philip; and his features, which had expanded like an unstrung bow while in the gentler moments of domestic happiness, and had flashed with the broad blaze of the lightning under the effect of sudden irritation, gradually contracted into a look of grave thought as his famous and excellent friend and minister Guerin approached.

He was a tall, thin man, with strong marked features, and was dressed in the black robe and eight-limbed cross of the order of Hospitallers, which habit he retained even long after his having been elected bishop of Senlis. He pushed back his hood, and bowed low in sign of reverence as he approached the king; but Philip advanced to meet, and welcomed him with the affectionate embrace of an equal, "Ha! fair brother!" said the king. "What gives us the good chance of seeing you, from our town of Paris? We left you full of weighty matters."

"Matters of still greater weight, beau sire," replied the Hospitaller, "claiming your immediate attention, have made me bold to intrude upon your privacy. An epistle from the good pope Celestin came yesterday by a special messenger, charging your highness----"

"Hold!" cried Philip, raising his finger as a sign to keep silence. "Come to my closet, brother; we will hear the good bishop's letter in private.--Tarry, sweet Agnes! I have vowed thee three whole days, without the weight of royalty bearing down our hearts; and this shall not detain me long."

"I would not, my lord, for worlds," replied the queen, "that men should say my Philip neglected his kingdom, or his people's happiness, for a woman's smile. I will wait here for your return, be your business long as it may, and think the time well spent.--Rest you well, fair brother," she added, as it were in reply to a beaming smile that for a moment lighted up the harsh features of the hospitaller; "cut not short your tale for me."

The minister bowed low, and Philip, after having pressed his lips on the fair forehead of his wife, led the way through a long passage with windows on either side, to a small closet in one of the angular turrets of the castle. It was well contrived for the cabinet of a statesman, for, placed as it was, a sort of excrescence from one of the larger towers, it was cut off from all other buildings, so that no human ear could catch one word of any conversation which passed therein. The monarch entered; and, making a sign to his minister to close the door, he threw himself on a seat, and stretched forth his hand, as if for the pontiff's letter. "Not a word before the queen!" said he, taking the vellum from the hospitaller,--"not a word before the queen, of all the idle cavilling of the Roman church. I would not, for all the crowns of Charlemagne, that Agnes should dream of a flaw in my divorce from Ingerburge--though that flaw be no greater a matter than a moat in the sore eyes of the church of Rome.--But let me see! What says Celestin?"

"He threatens you, royal sir," replied the minister, "with excommunication, and anathema, and interdict."

"Pshaw!" cried Philip, with a contemptuous smile; "he has not vigour enough to anathematise a flea! 'Tis a good mild priest; somewhat tenacious of his church's rights,--for, let me tell thee, Stephen, had I but craved my divorce from Rome, instead of from my bishops of France, I should have heard no word of anathema or interdict. It was a fault of policy, so far as my personal quiet is concerned; and there might be somewhat of hasty passion in it too; but yet, good knight, 'twas not without forethought. The grasping church of Rome is stretching out her thousand hands into all the kingdoms round about her, and snatching, one by one, the prerogatives of the throne. The time will come,--I see it well,--when the prelate's foot shall tread upon the prince's crown; but I will take no step to put mine beneath the scandal of St. Peter. No! though the everlasting buzzing of all the crimson flies in the conclave should deafen me outright.--But let me read."

The hospitaller bowed, and silently studied the countenance of the sovereign, while he perused the letter of the pontiff. Philip's features, however, underwent no change of expression. His brow knit slightly from the first; but no more than so far as to show attention to what he was reading. His lip, too, maintained its contemptuous curl; but that neither increased nor diminished; and when he had done, he threw the packet lightly on the table, exclaiming--"Stingless! stingless! The good prelate will hurt no one!"

"Too true, sire," replied the impassable Guerin; "he will now hurt no one, for he is dead."

"St. Denis to boot!" cried the king. "Dead! Why told you it not before!--Dead! When did he die?--Has the conclave met?--Have they gone to election?--Whom have they adored.[^[8]]--Who is the pope? Speak, hospitaller! Speak!"

"The holy conclave have elected the cardinal Lothaire, sire," replied the knight. "Your highness has seen him here in France, as well as at Rome: a man of a great and capacious mind."

"Too great!--too great!" replied Philip thoughtfully. "He is no Celistin. We shall soon hear more!" and, rising from his seat, he paced the narrow space of his cabinet backwards and forwards for several minutes; then paused, and placing one hand on his counsellor's shoulder, he laid the forefinger of the other on his breast--"If I could rely on my barons," said he emphatically,--"if I could rely on my barons;--not that I do not reverence the church, Guerin,--God knows! I would defend it from heathens and heretics, and miscreants, with my best blood. Witness my journey to the Holy Land!--witness the punishment of Amaury!--witness the expulsion of the Jews! But this Lothaire----"

"Now Innocent the Third!" said the minister, taking advantage of a pause in the king's speech. "Why he is a great man, sire--a man of a vast and powerful mind: firm in his resolves, as he is bold in his undertakings--powerful--beloved. I would have my royal lord think what must be his conduct, if Innocent should take the same view of the affairs of France as was taken by Celestin."

Philip paused, and, with his eyes bent upon the ground, remained for several minutes in deep thought. Gradually the colour mounted in his cheek, and some strong emotion seemed struggling in his bosom, for his eye flashed, and his lip quivered; and, suddenly catching the arm of the hospitaller, he shook the clenched fist of his other hand in the air, exclaiming--"He will not! He shall not! He dare not!--Oh, Guerin, if I may but rely upon my barons!"

"Sire, you cannot do so," replied the knight firmly. "They are turbulent and discontented; and the internal peace of your kingdom has more to fear from their disloyal practices, than even your domestic peace has from the ambitious intermeddling of pope Innocent. You must not count upon your barons, sire, to support you in opposition to the church. Even now. Sir Julian of the Mount, the sworn friend of the Counts of Boulogne and Flanders, has undertaken a journey to Auvergne, which bodes a new coalition against you, sire. Sir Julian is discontented, because you refused him the feof of Beaumetz, which was held by his sister's husband, dead without heirs. The Count de Boulogne you know to be a traitor. The count of Flanders was ever a dealer in rebellion. The old Count d'Auvergne, though no rebel, loves you not."

"They will raise a lion!" cried the king, stamping with his foot--"ay, they will raise a lion! Let Sir Julian of the Mount beware! The citizens of Albert demand a charter. Sir Julian claims some ancient rights. See that the charter be sealed to-morrow, Guerin, giving them right of watch and ward, and wall--rendering them an untailleable and free commune. Thus shall we punish good Sir Julian of the Mount, and flank his fair lands with a free city, which shall be his annoyance, and give us a sure post upon the very confines of Flanders. See it be done! As to the rest, come what may, my private happiness I will subject to no man's will; nor shall it be my hands that stoop the royal sceptre of France to the bidding of any prelate for whom the earth finds room.--Silence, my friend!" he added sharply; "the king's resolve is taken; and, above all, let not a doubt of the sureness of her marriage reach the ears of the queen. I, Philip of France, say the divorce shall stand!--and who is there shall give me the lie in my own land?" Thus saying, the king turned, and led the way back to the apartment where he had left the queen.

His first step upon the rushes of the room in which she sat woke Agnes de Meraine from her reverie; and though her husband's absence had been but short, her whole countenance beamed with pleasure at his return; while, laying on his arm the small white hand, which even monks and hermits have celebrated, she gazed up in his face, as if to see whether the tidings he had heard had stolen any thing from the happiness they were before enjoying. Philip's eyes rested on her, full of tenderness and love; and then turned to his minister with an appealing, and almost reproachful look. Guerin felt, himself, how difficult, how agonising it would be to part with a being so lovely and so beloved; and with a deep sigh, and a low inclination to the queen, he quitted the apartment.

CHAPTER V.

In Auvergne, but in a different part of it from that where we left our party of pilgrims, rode onward a personage who seemed to think, with Jacques, that motley is the only wear. Not that he was precisely habited in the piebald garments of the professed fool; but yet his dress was as many coloured as the jacket of my ancient friend harlequin; and so totally differed from the vestments of that age, that it seemed as if he had taken a jump of two or three centuries, and stolen some gay habit from the court of Charles the Seventh. He wore long tight silk breeches, of a bright flame-colour; a sky-blue cassock of cloth girt round his waist by a yellow girdle, below which it did not extend above three inches, forming a sort of frill about his middle; while, at the same time, this sort of surcoat being without sleeves, his arms appeared from beneath covered with a jacket of green silk, cut close to his shape, and buttoned tight at the wrists. On his head he wore a black cap, not unlike the famous Phrygian bonnet; and he was mounted on a strong grey mare, then considered a ridiculous and disgraceful equipage.

This strange personage's figure no way corresponded with his absurd dress; for, had one desired a model of active strength, it could nowhere have been found better than in his straight and muscular limbs. His face, however, was more in accordance with the extravagance of his habiliments; for, certainly, never did a more curious physiognomy come from the cunning and various hand of Nature. His nose was long, and was seemingly boneless; for, ever and anon, whether from some natural convulsive motion, or from a voluntary and laudable desire to improve upon the singular hideousness of his countenance, this long, sausage-like contrivance in the midst of his face would wriggle from side to side, with a very portentous and uneasy movement. His eyes were large and grey, and did not in the least discredit the nose in whose company they were placed, though they had in themselves a manifest tendency to separate, never having any fixed and determined direction, but wandering about apparently independent of each other,--sometimes far asunder,--sometimes, like Pyramus and Thisbe, wooing each other across the wall of his nose with a most portentous squint. Besides this obliquity, they were endowed with a cold, leadenness of stare, which would have rendered the whole face as meaningless as a mask, had not, every now and then, a still, keen, sharp glance stolen out of them for a moment, like the sudden kindling up of a fire where all seems cold and dead. His mouth was guarded with large thick lips, which extended far and wide through a black and bushy beard; and, when he yawned, which was more than once the case, as he rode through the fertile valleys of Limagne, a great chasm seemed to open in his countenance, exposing, to the very back, two ranges of very white, broad teeth, with their accompanying gums.

For some way, the traveller rode on in quiet, seeming to exercise himself in giving additional ugliness to his features, by screwing them into every sort of form, till he became aware that he was watched by a party of men, whose appearance had nothing in it very consolatory to the journeyer of those days.

The road through the valley was narrow; the hills, rising rapidly on each side, were steep and rugged; and the party which we have mentioned was stationed at some two or three hundred yards before him, consisting of about ten or twelve archers, who, lurking behind a mass of stones and bushes, seemed prepared to impose a toll upon the highway through the valley.

The traveller, however, pursued his journey, though he very well comprehended their aim and object, nor did he exhibit any sign of fear or alarm beyond the repeated wriggling of his nose, till such time as he beheld one of the foremost of the group begin to fit an arrow to his bowstring, and take a clear step beyond the bushes. Then, suddenly reversing his position on the horse, which was proceeding at an easy canter, he placed his head on the saddle, and his feet in the air; and in this position advanced quietly on his way, not at all unlike one of those smart and active gentlemen who may be seen nightly in the spring-time circumambulating the area of Astley's Amphitheatre.

The feat which he performed, however simple and legitimate at present, was quite sufficiently extraordinary in those days, to gain him the reputation of a close intimacy with Satan, even if it did not make him pass for Satan himself.

The thunderstruck archer dropped his arrow, exclaiming, "'Tis the devil!" to which conclusion most of his companions readily assented. Nevertheless, one less ceremonious than the rest started forward and bent his own bow for the shot. "If he be the devil," cried he, "the more reason to give him an arrow in his liver: what matters it to us whether he be devil or saint, so he have a purse?" As he spoke, he drew his bow to the full extent of his arm, and raised the arrow to his eye. But at the very moment the missile twanged away from the string, the strange horseman we have described let himself fall suddenly across his mare, much after the fashion of a sack of wheat, and the arrow whistled idly over him. Then, swinging himself up again into his natural position, he turned his frightful countenance to the routiers, and burst into a loud horse-laugh that had something in its ringing coppery tone truly unearthly.

"Fools!" cried he, riding close up to the astonished plunderers. "Do you think to hurt me? Why, I am your patron saint, the Devil. Do not you know your lord and master? But, poor fools, I will give you a morsel. Lay ye a strong band between Vic le Comte and the lake Pavin, and watch there till ye see a fine band of pilgrims coming down. Skin them! skin them, if ye be true thieves. Leave them not a besant to bless themselves!"

Here one of the thieves, moved partly by a qualm of conscience, partly by bodily fear at holding a conversation with a person he most devoutly believed to be the Prince of Darkness, signed himself with the cross,--an action, not at all unusual amongst the plunderers of that age, who, so far from casting off the bonds of religion at the same time that they threw off all the other ties of civil society, were often but the more superstitious and credulous from the very circumstances of their unlawful trade. However, no sooner did the horseman see the sign, than he affected to start. "Ha!" cried he. "You drive me away; but we shall meet again, good friends--we shall meet again, and trust me, I will give you a warm reception. Haw, haw, haw, haw!" and, contorting his face into a most horrible grin, he poured forth one of his fiendlike laughs, and galloped off at full speed.

"Jesu Maria!" cried one of the routiers, "it is the fiend certainly--I will give him an arrow, for heaven's benison!" But whether it was that the bowman's hand trembled, or that the horseman was too far distant, certain it is, he rode on in safety, and did not even know that he had been again shot at.

"I will give the half of the first booty I make to our lady of Mount Ferrand," cried one of the robbers, thinking to appease Heaven and guard against Satan, by sharing the proceeds of his next breach of the decalogue with the priest of his favourite saint.

"And I will lay out six sous of Paris on a general absolution!" cried another, whose faith was great in the potency of papal authority.

But, leaving these gentry to arrange their affairs with Heaven as they thought fit, we must follow for a time the person they mistook for their spiritual enemy, and must also endeavour to develope what was passing in his mind, which really did in some degree find utterance; he being one of those people whose lips--those ever unfaithful guardians of the treasures of the heart--are peculiarly apt to murmur forth unconsciously, that on which the mind is busy. His thoughts burst from him in broken murmured sentences, somewhat to the following effect:--"What matters it to me who is killed!--Say the villains kill the men-at-arms.--Haw, haw! haw, haw! 'Twill be rare sport!--And then we will strip them, and I shall have gold, gold, gold! But the men-at-arms will kill the villains. I care not! I will help to kill them:--then I shall get gold too.--Haw, haw, haw! The villains plundered some rich merchants yesterday, and I will plunder them to-morrow. Oh, rare! Then, that Thibalt of Auvergne may be killed in the melée, with his cold look and his sneer.--Oh! how I shall like to see that lip, that called me De Coucy's fool juggler,--how I shall like to see it grinning with death! I will have one of his white fore-teeth for a mouth-piece to my reed flute, and one of his arm bones polished, to whip tops withal.--Haw, haw, haw! De Coucy's fool juggler!--Haw, haw! haw, haw! Ay, and my good Lord de Coucy!--the beggarly miscreant. He struck me, when I had got hold of a lord's daughter at the storming of Constantinople, and forbade me to show her violence.--Haw, haw! I paid him for meddling with my plunder, by stealing his; and, because I dared not carry it about, buried it in a field at Naples:--but I owe him the blow yet. It shall be paid!--Haw, haw, haw! Shall I tell him now the truth of what he sent me to Burgundy for? No, no, no! for then he'll sit at home at ease, and be a fine lord; and I shall be thrust into the kitchen, and called for, to amuse the noble knights and dames.--Haw, haw! No, no! he shall wander yet awhile; but I must make up my tale." And the profundity of thought into which he now fell, put a stop to his solitary loquacity; though ever and anon, as the various fragments of roguery, and villany, and folly, which formed the strange chaos of his mind, seemed, as it were, to knock against each other in the course of his cogitations, he would leer about, with a glance in which shrewdness certainly predominated over idiotcy, or would loll his tongue forth from his mouth, and, shutting one of his eyes, would make the other take the whole circuit of the earth and sky around him, as if he were mocking the universe itself; and then, at last, burst out into a long, shrill, ringing laugh, by the tone of which it was difficult to tell whether it proceeded from pain or from mirth.

CHAPTER VI.

The hermit was as good as his word; and in two days De Coucy, though certainly unable to forget that he had had a severe fall, was yet perfectly capable of mounting on horseback; and felt that, in the field or at the tournament, he could still have charged a good lance, or wielded a heavy mace. The night before, had arrived at the chapel the strange personage, some of whose cogitations we have recorded in the preceding chapter; and who, having been ransomed by the young knight in the holy land, had become in some sort his bondsman.

On a mistaken idea of his folly, De Coucy had built a still more mistaken idea of his honesty, attributing his faults to madness, and in the carelessness of his nature, looking upon many of his madnesses as virtues. That his intellect was greatly impaired, or rather warped, there can be no doubt; but it seemed, at the same time, that all the sense which he had left, had concentrated itself into an unfathomable fund of villany and malice, often equally uncalled for by others, and unserviceable to himself.

Originally one of the jugglers who had accompanied the second crusade to the Holy Land, he had been made prisoner by the infidels; and, after several years' bondage, had been redeemed by De Coucy, who, from mere compassion, treated him with the greater favour and kindness, because he was universally hated and avoided by every one; though, to say the truth, Gallon the fool, as he was called, was perfectly equal to hold his own part, being vigorous in no ordinary degree, expert at all weapons, and joining all the thousand tricks and arts of his ancient profession, to the sly cunning which so often supplies the place of judgment.

When brought into his lord's presence at the chapel of the Lake, and informed of the accident which had happened to him, without expressing any concern, he burst into one of his wild laughs, exclaiming, "Haw, haw, haw!--Oh, rare!"

"How now. Sir Gallon the fool!" cried De Coucy. "Do you laugh at your lord's misfortune?"

"Nay! I laugh to think him nearly as nimble as I am," replied the juggler, "and to find he can roll down a rock of twenty fathom, without dashing his brains out. Why, thou art nearly good enough for a minstrel's fool. Sire de Coucy!--Haw, haw, haw! How I should like to see thee tumbling before a cour plenière!";

The knight shook his fist at him, and bade him tell the success of his errand, feeling more galled by the jongleur's jest before the fair Isadore of the Mount, than he had ever felt upon a similar occasion.

"The success of my errand is very unsuccessful," replied the jongleur, wagging his nose, and shutting one of his eyes, while he fixed the other on De Coucy's face. "Your uncle, Count Gaston of Tankerville, will not send you a livre."

"What! is he pinched with avarice?" cried De Coucy. "Have ten years had power to change a free and noble spirit to the miser's griping slavery? My curse upon time! for he not only saps our castles, and unbends out sinews, but he casts down the bulwarks of the mind, and plunders all the better feelings of our hearts. What say you, lady, is he not a true coterel--that old man with his scythe and hour-glass?"

"He is a bitter enemy, but a true one," replied Isadore of the Mount. "He comes not upon us without warning.--But your man seems impatient to tell out his tale, sir knight; at least, so I read the faces he makes."

"Bless your sweet lips!" cried the jongleur; "you are the first, that ever saw my face, that called me man. Devil or fool are the best names that I get. Prithee, marry my master, and then I shall be your man."

De Coucy's heart beat thick at the associations which the juggler's words called up; and the tell-tale blood stole over the fair face of Isadore of the Mount; while old Sir Julian laughed loud, and called it a marvellous good jest.

"Come!" cried De Coucy, "leave thy grimaces, and tell me, what said my uncle? Why would he not send the sums I asked?"

"He said nothing," replied the juggler. "Haw, haw haw!--He said nothing, because he is dead, and----"

"Hold! hold!" cried De Coucy;--"Dead! God help me, and I taxed him with avarice. Fool, thou hast made me sin against his memory. How did he die?--when--where?"

"Nobody knows when--nobody knows where--nobody knows how!" replied the juggler with a grin which he could not suppress at his master's grief. "All they know is, that he is as dead as the saints at Jerusalem; and the king and the Duke of Burgundy are quarrelling about his broad lands, which the two fools call moveables! He is dead!--quite dead!--Haw, haw, haw! Haw, haw!"

"Laughest thou, villain!" cried De Coucy, starting up, and striking him a buffet which made him reel to the other side of the hut. "Let that teach thee not to laugh where other men weep!--By my life," he added, taking his seat again, "he was as noble a gentlemen, and as true a knight, as ever buckled on spurs. He promised that I should be his heir, and doubtless he has kept his word; but, for all the fine lands he has left me--nay, nor for broad France itself, would I have heard the news that have reached me but now!"

"Haw, haw, haw! Haw, haw, haw!" echoed from the other side of the hut.

"Why laughest thou, fool?" cried De Coucy. "Wilt thou never cease thy idiot merriment?--Why laughest thou, I say?"

"Because," replied the jongleur, "if the fair lands thou wouldst not have, the fair lands thou shalt not have. The good Count of Tankerville left neither will nor charter; so that, God willing! the king, or the Duke of Burgundy, shall have the lands, whichever has the longest arm to take, and the strongest to keep. So the Vidame of Besançon bade me say."

"But how is it, my son," said the hermit, who was present, "that you are not heir direct to your uncle's feof, if there be no other heirs."

"Why, good hermit," replied De Coucy, "uncle and nephew were but names of courtesy between us, because we loved each other. The Count de Tankerville married my father's sister, who died childless; and his affection seemed to settle all in me, then just an orphan. I left him some ten years ago, when but a squire, to take the holy cross; and though I have often heard of him by letter and by message sent across the wide seas, which showed that I was not forgotten, I now return and find him dead, and his lands gone to others. Well! let them go: 'tis not for them I mourn; 'tis that I have lost the best good friend I had."

"You wrong my regard, De Coucy," said the Count d'Auvergne. "None is or was more deeply your friend than Thibalt d'Auvergne; and as to lands and gold, good knight, is not one half of all I have due to the man who has three times saved my life?--in the shipwreck, in the battle-field, and in the mortal plague; even were he not my sworn brother in arms?"

"Nay, nay! D'Auvergne, De Coucy's poor," replied the knight; "but he has enough. He is proud too, and, as you know, no Vavassour; and, though his lands be small, he is lord of the soil, holding from no one, owing homage and man-service to none--no, not to the king, though you smile, fair Sir Julian. My land is the last terre libre in France."

"Send away your fool juggler, De Coucy," said the Count d'Auvergne: "I would speak to you without his goodly presence."

De Coucy made a sign to his strange attendant, who quitted the hut; and the count proceeded. "De Coucy," said he, "was it wise to send that creature upon an errand of such import? Can you rely upon his tale? You know him to be a crackbrained knave. I am sure he has much malice; and though little understanding, yet infinite cunning. Take my advice! Either go thither yourself, or send some more trusty messenger to ascertain the truth."

"Not I!" cried De Coucy,--"not I! I will neither go nor send, to make the good folks scoff, at the poor De Coucy hankering after estates he cannot have; like a beggar standing by a rich man's kitchen, and snuffing the dishes as they pass him by. Besides, you do Gallon wrong. He is brave as a lion, and grateful for kindness. He would not injure me; and if he would, he has not wit to frame a tale like that. He knew not that I was not my uncle's lawful heir. Oh, no, 'tis true! 'tis true! So let it rest. What care I? I have my lance, and my sword, and knightly spurs; and surely I may thus go through the world, in spite of fortune."

D'Auvergne saw that his friend was determined, and urged his point no farther. His own determination, however, was taken, on the very first opportunity to go himself privately, either to Besançon or Dijon, between which places the estates in question lay, and to make those inquiries for his friend which De Coucy was not inclined to do himself. Nothing more occurred that night worthy of notice; and the next morning the whole party descended to the shepherd's hut, where their horses had been left, mounted, and proceeded towards Vic le Comte, the dwelling of the Counts of Auvergne.

The hermit, whose skill had been so serviceable to De Coucy, mounted on a strong mule, accompanied them on their way.

"I will crave your escort, gentle knights," he said, as they were about to depart. "I am called back against my will, to meddle with the affairs of men--affairs which their own wilful obstinacy, their vile passions, or their gross follies, ever so entangle, that it needs the manifest hand of Heaven to lead them even through one short life. I thought to have done with them; but the king calls for me, and, next to Heaven, my duty is to him."

"What! do we see the famous hermit of the forest of Vincennes?"[^[9]] demanded old sir Julian of the Mount, "by whose sage counsels 'tis hoped that Philip may yet be saved from driving his poor vassals to resistance."

"Famous, and a hermit!" exclaimed the recluse. "Good, my son! if you sought fame as little as I do, you would not have come from the borders of Flanders to the heart of Auvergne. I left Vincennes to rid myself of the fame they put on me;--you quitted your castle and your peasants, to meddle in affairs you are not fit for. Would you follow my counsel, you would forget your evil errand. See your friend--but as a friend; and, returning to your hall, sit down in peace and charity with all mankind!"

"Ha! what! how?" cried the obstinate old man angrily, all his complaisant feelings towards the hermit turned into acrimony by this unlucky speech. "Shall I be turned from my purpose by an old enthusiast? I tell thee, hermit, that were it but because thou bidst me not, I would go on to the death! Heaven's life! What I have said, that I will do, is as immoveable as the centre!"

The Count d'Auvergne here interposed; and, promising the hermit safe escort, at least through his father's territories, he led Sir Julian to the front of the cavalcade, and engaged him in a detail of all the important measures which Philip Augustus, during the last five years, had undertaken, and successfully carried through by the advice of that very hermit who followed in their train--measures with which this history has nothing to do, but which may be found faithfully recorded by Rigord, Wilham the Briton, and William of Nangis, as well as many other veracious historians of that age and country.

Sir Julian and the count were followed by the fair Isadore, with De Coucy by her side, in even a more gay and lively mood than ordinary, notwithstanding the sad news he had heard the night before. Indeed, to judge from his conduct then, it would have seemed that his mind was one of those which, deeply depressed by any of those heavy weights that time is always letting drop upon the human heart, rise up the next moment with that sort of elastic rebound, which instantly casts off the load of care, and spring higher than before. Such, however, was not the case. De Coucy was perplexed with new sensations towards Isadore, the nature of which he did not well understand; and, rather than show his embarrassment, he spoke lightly of every thing, making himself appear to the least advantage, where, in truth, he wished the most to please.

Isadore's answers were brief, and he felt that he was not at all in the right road to her favour: and yet he was going on, when something accidentally turned the conversation to the friend he had lost in the Count de Tankerville. Happily for Isadore's prepossession in the young knight's favour, it did so; for then, all the deeper, all the finer feelings of his heart awoke, and he spoke of high qualities and generous virtues, as one who knew them from possessing them himself. Isadore's answers grew longer: the chain seemed taken off her thoughts,--and then, first, that quick and confident communication of feelings and ideas began between her and De Coucy, which, sweet itself, generally ends in something sweeter still. They were soon entirely occupied with each other, and might have continued so, Heaven knows how long! had not De Coucy's squire, Hugo de Barre, who, as before, preceded the cavalcade, suddenly stopped, and, pointing to a confused mass of bushes which, climbing the side of the hill, hid the farther progress of the road, exclaimed--

"I see those bushes, move the contrary way to the wind!"

"Haw, haw, haw!" cried a voice from behind,--"haw, haw, haw!"

All was now hurry, for the signs and symptoms which the squire descried, were only attributable to one of those plundering ambuscades, which were any thing but rare in those good old times; and the narrowness of road, together with the obstruction of the bushes, totally prevented the knights from estimating the number or quality of their enemies. All then was hurry. The squires hastened forward to give the knights their heavy-armed horses, and to clasp their casques; and the knights vociferated loudly for the archers and varlets to advance, and for Isadore and her women to retire to the rear: but before this could be done, a flight of arrows began to drop amongst them, and one would have certainly struck the lady, or at least her jennet, had it not been for the shield of De Coucy, raised above her head.

De Coucy paused. "Take my shield," he cried, "Gallon the fool, and hold it over the lady! Guard my lance too! There is no tilting against those bushes!--St. Michael! St. Michael!" he shouted, snatching his ponderous battle-axe from the saddle-bow, and flourishing it round his head, as if it had been a willow-wand. "A Coucy! A Coucy! St. Michael! St. Michael!" and while the archers of Auvergne shot a close sharp flight of arrows into the bushes, De Coucy spurred on his horse after the Count d'Auvergne, who had advanced with Sir Julian of the Mount, and some of the light armed squires.

His barbed horse thundered over the ground, and in an instant he was by their side, at a spot where the marauders had drawn a heavy iron chain across the road, from behind which they numbered with their arrows every seemingly feeble spot in the count's armour.

To leap the chain was impossible; and though Count Thibalt spurred his heavy horse against it, to bear it down, all his efforts were ineffectual. One blow of De Coucy's axe, however, and the chain flew sharp asunder with a ringing sound. His horse bounded forward; and his next blow lighted on the head of one of the chief marauders, cleaving through steel cap, and skull, and brain, as if nothing had been opposed to the axe's edge.

It was then one might see how were performed those marvellous feats of chivalry, which astonish our latter age. The pikes, the short swords, and the arrows of the cotereaux, turned from the armour of the knights, as waves from a rock; while De Coucy, animated with the thought that Isadore's eyes looked upon his deeds, out-acted all his former prowess;--not a blow fell from his arm, but the object of it lay prostrate in the dust. The cotereaux scattered before him, like chaff before the wind. The Count d'Auvergne followed on his track, and, with the squires, drove the whole body of marauders, which had occupied the road, down into the valley; while the archers picked off those who had stationed themselves on the hill.

For an instant, the cotereaux endeavoured to rally behind some bushes, which rendered the movements of the horses both dangerous and difficult; but at that moment a loud ringing "Haw, haw, haw! haw, haw!" burst forth from behind them; and Gallon the fool, mounted on his mare, armed with De Coucy's lance and shield, and a face whose frightfulness was worth a host, pricked in amongst them; and, to use the phrase of the times, enacted prodigies of valour, shouting between each stroke, "Haw, haw! haw, haw!" with such a tone of fiendish exultation, that De Coucy himself could hardly help thinking him akin to Satan. As to the cotereaux, the generality of them believed in his diabolical nature with the most implicit faith; and, shouting "The devil!--The devil!" as soon as they saw him, fled in every direction, by the rocks, the woods, and the mountains. One only stayed to aim an arrow at him, exclaiming, "Devil! he's no devil, but a false traitor who has brought us to the slaughter, and I will have his heart's blood ere I die." But Gallon, by one of his strange and unaccountable twists, avoided the shaft; and the coterel was fain to save himself by springing up a steep rock with all the agility of fear.

No sooner was this done, than Gallon the fool, with that avaricious propensity, to which persons in a state of intellectual weakness are often subject, sprang from his mare, and very irreverently casting down De Coucy's lance and shield, began plundering the bodies of two of the dead cotereaux, leaving them not a rag which he could appropriate to himself.

Seeing him in this employment, and the disrespectful treatment which he showed his arms, De Coucy spurred up to him, and raised his tremendous axe above his head: "Gallon!" cried he, in a voice of thunder.

The jongleur looked up with a grin, "Haw, haw! haw, haw!" cried he, seeing the battle-axe swinging above his head, as if in the very act of descending. "You cannot make me wink.--Haw, haw!" And he applied himself again to strip the dead bodies with most indefatigable perseverance.

"If it were not for your folly, I would cleave your skull, for daring to use my lance and shield!" cried De Coucy. "But, get up! get up!" he added, striking him a pretty severe blow with the back of the axe. "Lay not there, like a red-legged crow, picking the dead bodies. Where is the lady? Why did you leave her, when I told you to stay?"

"I left the lady, with her maidens, in a snug hole in the rock," replied the juggler, rising unwillingly from his prey; "and seeing you at work with the cotereaux, I came to help the strongest."

There might be more truth in this reply than De Coucy suspected; but, taken as a jest, it turned away his anger; and bidding Hugo de Barre, who had approached, bring his spear and shield, he rode back to the spot where the combat first began. Gallon the fool had, indeed, as he said, safely bestowed Isadore and her women in one of the caves with which the mountains of Auvergne are pierced in every direction; and here De Coucy found her, together with her father. Sir Julian, who was babbling of an arrow which had passed through his tunic without hurting him.

The Count d'Auvergne had gone, in the mean time, to ascertain that the road was entirely cleared of the banditti; and, during his absence, the lady and her attendants applied themselves to bind up the wounds of one or two of the archers who had been hurt in the affray--a purely female task, according to the customs of the times. The hermit returned with the Count d'Auvergne; and, though he spoke not of it, it was remarked that an arrow had grazed his brow; and two rents in his brown robe seemed to indicate that, though he had taken no active part in the struggle, he had not shunned its dangers.

Such skirmishes were so common in those days, that the one we speak of would have been scarcely worth recording, had it not been for two circumstances: in the first place, the effect produced upon the robbers by the strange appearance and gestures of Gallon the fool; and in the next, the new link which it brought between the hearts of Isadore and De Coucy. In regard to the first, it must be remembered that the appearance of all sorts of evil spirits in an incarnate form was so very frequent in the times whereof we speak, that Rigord cites at least twenty instances thereof, and Guillaume de Nangis brings a whole troop of them into the very choir of the church. It is not to be wondered at, then, that a band of superstitious marauders, whose very trade would of course render them more liable to such diabolical visitations, should suspect so very ugly a personage as Gallon of being the Evil One himself: especially when to his various unaccountable contortions he added the very devil-like act of leading them into a scrape, and then triumphing in their defeat.

But to return to the more respectable persons of my cavalcade. The whole party set out again, retaining, as if by common consent, the same order of march which they had formerly preserved. Nor did Isadore, though as timid and feminine as any of her sex in that day, show greater signs of fear than a hasty glance, every now and then, to the mountains. A slight shudder, too, shook her frame, as she passed on the road three cold, inanimate forms, lying unlike the living, and bearing ghastly marks of De Coucy's battle-axe; but the very sight made her draw her rein towards him, as if from some undefined combination in her mind of her own weakness and his strength; and from the tacit admiration which courage and power command in all ages, but which, in those times, suffered no diminution on the score of humanity.

No lady, of the rank of Isadore of the Mount, ever travelled, in the days we speak of, without a bevy of maidens following her; and as the squires and pages of De Coucy and D'Auvergne were fresh from Palestine, where women were hot-house plants, not exposed to common eyes, it may be supposed that we could easily join to our principal history many a rare and racy episode of love-making that went on in the second rank of our pilgrims; but we shall have enough to do with the personages already before us, ere we lay down our pen, and therefore shall not meddle or make with the manners of the inferior classes, except where they are absolutely forced on our notice.

Winding down through numerous sunny valleys and rich and beautiful scenery, the cavalcade soon began to descend upon the fertile plains of Limagne, then covered with the blossoms of a thousand trees, and bathed in a flood of loveliness. The ferry over the Allier soon landed them in the sweet valley of Vic le Comte; and Thibalt d'Auvergne, gazing round him, forgot in the view all the agonies of existence; while stretching forth his arms, as if to embrace it, he exclaimed--"My native land!"

He had seen the south of Auvergne; he had seen, the mountains of D'Or, and the Puy de Dome,--all equally his own; but they spoke but generally to his heart, and could not for a moment wipe out his griefs. But when the scenes of his childhood broke upon his sight; when he beheld every thing mingled in memory with the first, sweetest impressions in being--every thing he had known and joyed in, before existence had a cloud, it seemed as if the last five years had been blotted out of the Book of Fate, and that he was again in the brightness of his youth--the youth of the heart and of the soul, ere it is worn by sorrow, or hardened by treachery, or broken by disappointment.

The valley of Vic is formed by two branches of the mountains of the Forez, which bound it to the east; and in the centre of the rich plain land thus enclosed, stands the fair city of Vic le Comte. It was then as sweet a town as any in the realm of France; and, gathered together upon a gentle slope, with the old castle on a high mound behind, it formed a dark pyramid in the midst of the sunshiny valley, being cast into temporary shadow by a passing cloud at the moment the cavalcade approached; while the bright light of the summer evening poured over all the rest of the scene; and the blue mountains, rising high beyond, offered a soft and airy background to the whole. Avoiding the town. Count Thibalt led the way round by a road to the right, and, in a few minutes, they were opposite to the castle, at the distance of about half a mile.

It was a large, heavy building, consisting of an infinite number of towers, of various sizes, and of different forms--some round, some square, all gathered together, without any apparent order, on the top of an eminence which commanded the town. The platform of each tower, whether square or round, was battlemented, and every angle which admitted of such a contrivance was ornamented with a small turret or watch-tower, which generally rose somewhat higher than the larger one to which it was attached. Near the centre of the building, however, rose two masses of masonry, distinguished from all the others,--the one by its size, being a heavy, square tower, or keep, four times as large as any of the rest; and the other by its height, rising, thin and tall, far above every surrounding object. This was called the beffroy, or belfry, and therein stood a watchman night and day, ready, on the slightest alarm, to sound his horn, or ring the immense bell, called ban cloque, which was suspended above his head.

From the gate of the castle to the walls of the town extended a gentle green slope, which, now covered with tents and booths, resembled precisely an English fair; and from the spot where D'Auvergne and his companions stood, multitudes of busy beings could be seen moving there, in various garbs and colours, some on horseback, some on foot, giving great liveliness to the scene; while the unutterable multitude of weathercocks, with which every pinnacle of the castle was adorned, fluttered, in addition, with a thousand flags, and banners, and streamers, in gay and sparkling confusion.

Before the cavalcade had made a hundred steps beyond the angle of the town, which had concealed them from the castle, the eyes of the warder fell upon them; and, in an instant, a loud and clamorous blast of the trumpet issued from the belfry. It was instantly taken up by a whole band in the castle court-yard.

D'Auvergne knew his welcome home, and raised his horn to his lips in reply. At the same instant, every archer in his train, by an irresistible impulse, followed their lord's example. Each man's home was before him, and they blew together, in perfect unison, the famous Bienvenu Auvergnat, till the walls, and the towers, and the hills echoed to the sound.

At that moment the gates of the castle were thrown open, and a gallant train of horsemen issued forth, and galloped down towards our pilgrims. At their head was an old man richly dressed in crimson and gold. The fire of his eye was unquenched, the rose of his cheek unpaled, and the only effect of seventy summers to be seen upon him was the snowy whiteness of his hair. D'Auvergne's horse flew like the wind to meet him. The old man and the young one sprang to the ground together. The father clasped his child to his heart, and weeping on his iron shoulder, exclaimed, "My son! my son!"

CHAPTER VII.

Let us suppose the welcome given to all, and the guests within the castle of the Count d'Auvergne, who, warned by messengers of his son's approach, had called his cour plenière to welcome the return.

It was one of those gay and lively scenes now seldom met with, where pageant, and splendour, and show were unfettered by cold form and ceremony. The rigid etiquette, which in two centuries after enchained every movement of the French court, was then unknown. Titles of honour rose no higher than Beau Sire, or Monseigneur, and these even were applied more as a mark of reverence for great deeds and splendid virtues, than for wealth and hereditary rank. All was gay and free, and though respect was shown to age and station, it was the respect of an early and unsophisticated age, before the free-will offering of the heart to real dignity and worth had been regulated by the cold rigidity of a law. Yet each person in that day felt his own station, struggled for none that was not his due, and willingly paid the tribute of respect to the grade above his own.

Through the thousand chambers and the ten thousand passages of the château of Vic le Comte, ran backwards and forwards pages, and varlets, and squires, in proportion to the multitude of guests. Each of these attendants, though performing what would be now considered the menial offices of personal service, to the various knightly and noble visiters, was himself of noble birth, and aspirant to the honours of chivalry. Nor was this the case alone at the courts of sovereign princes like the Count D'Auvergne. Parents of the highest rank were in that age happy to place their sons in the service of the poorest knight, provided that his own exploits gave warranty that he would breed them up to deeds of honour and glory. It was a sort of apprenticeship to chivalry.

All these choice attendants, for the half-hour after Count Thibalt's return, hurried, as we have said, from chamber to chamber, offering their services, and aiding the knights who had come to welcome their young lord, to unbuckle their heavy armour, without the defence of which, the act of travelling, especially in Auvergne, was rash and dangerous. Multitudes of fresh guests were also arriving every moment--fair dames and gallant knights, vassals and vavassours;--some followed by a gay train; some bearing nothing but lance and sword; some carrying themselves their lyre, without which, if known as troubadours, they never journeyed; and some accompanied by whole troops of minstrels, jugglers, fools, rope-dancers, and mimics, whom they brought along with them out of compliment to their feudal chief, towards whose cour plenière they took their way.

Numbers of these buffoons also were scattered amongst the tents and booths, which we have mentioned, on the outside of the castle-gate; and here, too, were merchants and pedlars of all kinds, who had hurried to Vic le Comte with inconceivable speed, on the very first rumour of a cour plenière. In one booth might be seen cloth of gold and silver, velvets, silks, cendals, and every kind of fine stuffs; in another, ermines, miniver, and all sorts of furs. Others, again, displayed silver cups and vessels, with golden ornaments for clasping the mantles of the knights and ladies, called fermailles; and again, others exhibited cutlery and armour of all kinds; Danish battle-axes, casques of Poitiers, Cologne swords, and Rouen hauberts. Neither was noise wanting. The laugh, the shout, the call, within and without the castle walls, was mingled with the sound of a thousand instruments, from the flute to the hurdy-gurdy; while, at the same time, every point of the scene was fluttering and alive, whether with gay dresses and moving figures, or pennons, flags, and banners on the walls and pinnacles of the château.

Precisely at the hour of four, a band of minstrels, richly clothed, placed themselves before the great gate of the castle, and performed what was called corner à l'eau, which gave notice to every one that the banquet was about to be placed upon the table. At that sound, all the knights and ladies left the chambers to which they had first been marshalled, and assembled in one of the vast halls of the castle, where the pages offered to each a silver basin and napkin, to wash their hands previous to the meal.

At this part of the ceremony De Coucy, Heaven knows how! found himself placed by the side of Isadore of the Mount; and he would willingly have given a buffet to the gay young page who poured the water over her fair hands, and who looked up in her face with so saucy and page-like a grin, that Isadora could not but smile, while she thanked him for his service.

The old Count d'Auvergne stood speaking with his son; and, while he welcomed the various guests as they passed before him with word and glance, he still resumed his conversation with Count Thibalt. Nor did that conversation seem of the most pleasing character; for his brow appeared to catch the sadness of his son's, from which the light of joy, that his return had kindled up, had now again passed away.

"If your knightly word be pledged, my son," said the old count, as the horns again sounded to table, "no fears of mine shall stay you; but I had rather you had sworn to beard the Soldan on his throne, than that which you have undertaken." The conversation ended with a sigh, and the guests were ushered to the banquet-hall.

It was one of those vast chambers, of which few remain to the present day. One, however, may still be seen at La Brède, the château of the famous Montesquieu, of somewhat the same dimensions. It was eighty feet in length, by fifty in breadth; and the roof, of plain dark oak, rose from walls near thirty feet high, and met in the form of a pointed arch in the centre. Neither columns nor pilasters ornamented the sides; but thirty complete suits of mail, with sword, and spear, and shield, battle-axe, mace, and dagger, hung against each wall; and over every suit projected a banner, either belonging to the house of Auvergne, or won by some of its members in the battle-field. The floor was strewed thickly with green leaves; and on each space left vacant on the wall by the suits of armour was hung a large branch of oak, covered with its foliage. From such simple decorations, bestowed upon the hall itself, no one would have expected to behold a board laid out with as much splendour and delicacy as the most scrupulous gourmand of the present day could require to give savour to his repast.

The table, which extended the whole length of the hall, was covered with fine damask linen--a manufacture the invention of which, though generally attributed to the seventeenth century, is of infinitely older date. Long benches, covered with tapestry, extended on each side of the table; and the place of every guest was marked, even as in the present times, by a small round loaf of bread, covered with a fine napkin, embroidered with gold. By the side of the bread lay a knife, though the common girdle dagger often saved the lord of the mansion the necessity of providing his guests with such implements. To this was added a spoon, of silver; but forks there were none, their first mention in history being in the days of Charles the Fifth of France.

A row of silver cups also ornamented both sides of the board; the first five on either hand being what were called hanaps, which differed from the others in being raised upon a high stem, after the fashion of the chalice. Various vases of water and of wine, some of silver, some of crystal, were distributed in different parts of the table, fashioned for the most part in strange and fanciful forms, representing dragons, castles, ships, and even men, and an immense mass of silver and gold, in the different shapes of plates and goblets, blazed upon two buffets, or dressoirs, as they are called by Helenor de Poitiers, placed at the higher part of the hall, near the seat of the count himself.

Thus far, the arrangements differed but little from those of our own times. What was to follow, however, was somewhat more in opposition to the ideas of the present day. The doors of the hall were thrown open, and the splendid train of knights and ladies, which the cour plenière had assembled, entered to the banquet. The Count d'Auvergne first took his place in a chair with dossier and dais, as it was particularised in those days, or, in other words, high raised back and canopy. He then proceeded to arrange what was called the assiette of the table; namely, that very difficult task of placing those persons together whose minds and qualities were best calculated to assimilate: a task, on the due execution of which the pleasure of such meetings must ever depend, but which will appear doubly delicate, when we remember that then each knight and lady, placed side by side, ate from the same plate, and drank from the same cup.

That sort of quick perception of proprieties, which we now call tact, belongs to no age; and the Count d'Auvergne, in the thirteenth century, possessed it in a high degree. All his guests were satisfied, and De Coucy drank out of the same cup as Isadora of the Mount.

They were deliriating draughts he drank, and he now began to feel that he had never loved before. The glance of her bright eye, the touch of her small hand, the sound of her soft voice, seemed something new, and strange, and beautiful to him; and he could hardly fancy that he had known any thing like it ere then. The scene was gay and lovely; and there were all those objects and sounds around which excite the imagination and make the heart beat high,--glitter, and splendour, and wine, and music, and smiles, and beauty, and contagious happiness. The gay light laugh, the ready jest, the beaming look, the glowing cheek, the animated speech, the joyous tale, were there; and ever and anon, through the open doors, burst a wild swelling strain of horns and flutes--rose for a moment over every other sound, and then died away again into silence.

STANDARD

NOVELS.

No. LIX.

PHILIP AUGUSTUS.

COMPLETE IN ONE VOLUME.

LONDON:

RICHARD BENTLEY, NEW BURLINGTON STREET;

BELL AND BRADFUTE, EDINBURGH;
J. CUMMING, DUBLIN.

1837.

London:
Printed by A. Spottiswoode,
New-Street-Square.

PHILIP AUGUSTUS;

OR,

THE BROTHERS IN ARMS.

BY THE AUTHOR OF

"DARNLEY," "ATTILA," &c.

REVISED, CORRECTED, AND ILLUSTRATED WITH NOTES, ETC.
BY THE AUTHOR.

LONDON:

RICHARD BENTLEY, NEW BURLINGTON STREET;

BELL AND BRADFUTE. EDINBURGH;
J. CUMMING, DUBLIN.

1837.

TO

ROBERT SOUTHEY, ESQ. LL.D.

ADVERTISEMENT

TO THE

NEW EDITION IN THE STANDARD NOVELS.

ADVERTISEMENT

TO

THE FIRST EDITION.

PHILIP AUGUSTUS.

CHAPTER I.

INTRODUCTION.

CHAPTER II.

CHAPTER III.

CHAPTER IV.

CHAPTER V.

CHAPTER VI.

CHAPTER VII.

STANDARD

NOVELS.

No. LIX.

PHILIP AUGUSTUS.

COMPLETE IN ONE VOLUME.

LONDON:

RICHARD BENTLEY, NEW BURLINGTON STREET;

BELL AND BRADFUTE, EDINBURGH;J. CUMMING, DUBLIN.

1837.

London:Printed by A. Spottiswoode,New-Street-Square.

PHILIP AUGUSTUS;

OR,

THE BROTHERS IN ARMS.

BY THE AUTHOR OF

"DARNLEY," "ATTILA," &c.

REVISED, CORRECTED, AND ILLUSTRATED WITH NOTES, ETC.BY THE AUTHOR.

LONDON:

RICHARD BENTLEY, NEW BURLINGTON STREET;

BELL AND BRADFUTE. EDINBURGH;J. CUMMING, DUBLIN.

1837.

TO

ROBERT SOUTHEY, ESQ. LL.D.

ADVERTISEMENT

TO THE

NEW EDITION IN THE STANDARD NOVELS.

ADVERTISEMENT

TO

THE FIRST EDITION.

PHILIP AUGUSTUS.

CHAPTER I.

INTRODUCTION.

CHAPTER II.

CHAPTER III.

CHAPTER IV.

CHAPTER V.

CHAPTER VI.

CHAPTER VII.

BELL AND BRADFUTE, EDINBURGH;
J. CUMMING, DUBLIN.

London:
Printed by A. Spottiswoode,
New-Street-Square.

REVISED, CORRECTED, AND ILLUSTRATED WITH NOTES, ETC.
BY THE AUTHOR.

BELL AND BRADFUTE. EDINBURGH;
J. CUMMING, DUBLIN.