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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
Philip Augustus
Gallon
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.
ADVERTISEMENT
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.
ADVERTISEMENT
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 Coeur 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----"
