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 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 
 LIBRARY 
 
 Class 
 
 Book 
 
 5"^^ T-^^^ 
 
 Volume 
 
 1831 
 
 V; \ 
 
Return this book on or before the 
 Latest Date stamped below. 
 
 University of Illinois Library 
 
 ■i^y 12 1 
 
 Cu 
 
 L161— H41 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS 
 
 OR, 
 
 THE BROTHERS IN ARMS. 
 
LONDON: 
 
 PRINTED BY SAMUEL BENTLEY, 
 
 Dorset Street, Fleet Street. 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS; 
 
 OR, 
 
 THE BROTHERS IN ARMS. 
 
 BY THE AUTHOR OF " DARNLEY," " DE L'ORME, 
 &c. 
 
 " Uneasy lies the head that wears a crowTi."— -Henry IV. 
 
 IN THREE VOLUMES. 
 VOL. I. 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 HENRY COLBURN AND RICHARD BENTLEY, 
 
 NEW BURLINGTON STREET. 
 
 1831. 
 
v./ 
 
 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 off- 
 spring 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. 
 
VI DEDICATION. 
 
 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 ac- 
 quired, 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 bor- 
 rowed 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, 
 25th May, 1831. 
 
ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 Very few words of preface are necessary to 
 the following work. In regard to the cha- 
 racter of Philip Augustus himself, I have not 
 been guided by any desire of making him ap- 
 pear greater, or better, or wiser than he really 
 was. Rigord, his physician, William the Bre- 
 ton, his chaplain, who was present at the battle 
 of Bovines, and various other annalists com- 
 prised 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, iaimical 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 
 
vm ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 with Philip, loved the man, and admired the 
 monarch. All the principal events here nar- 
 rated, 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 wri- 
 tings 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. 
 
 Notwithstanding that there is something 
 chilling in that sad, inevitable word, the past — 
 notwithstanding that 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 our- 
 selves, — and now are nothing ; notwithstanding 
 that therein we gain but the cold moral of 
 our own littleness, yet still the very indistinct- 
 ness of the distance softens and beautifies the 
 
 VOL. I. B 
 
2 PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 objects that we thus look back upon in a former 
 epoch ; and in the far prospect 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 smal- 
 ler 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 
 institution of modern Europe, the feudal sys- 
 tem, 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 Chi- 
 valry : and when it undertook an enterprise 
 which, though fanatic in design, faulty in exe- 
 cution, and encumbered with all the multitude 
 of frailties that enchain human endeavour, was 
 in itself magnificent and heroic, and in its con- 
 sequences grand, useful, and impulsive to the 
 whole of Europe — the Crusades. 
 
 The vast expenses, however, which the Cru- 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 3 
 
 sades required, — expenses not only of that 
 yellow dross, the unprofitable representative of 
 earth's real riches, but also expenses of inva- 
 luable 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. 
 
 Though 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 progres- 
 sion : — 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 feuda- 
 tories, 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. 
 b2 
 
4 PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 In a kingdom so constituted, the Crusades, a 
 true feudal enterprise, were, of course, fol- 
 lowed to a degree of madness ; and the effects 
 were the more dreadful, where the absence of 
 each lord implied absence of all government in 
 his domains. 
 
 Unnumbered forests 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 popula- 
 tion. General police was unthought of; and 
 though every feudal chief, within his own terri- 
 tory, 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 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 5 
 
 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 Braban^ois, the Co- 
 tereaux, and the Routiers, have, from this 
 general assimilating link, been very often con- 
 founded ; 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 Braban9ois, 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 Bra- 
 ban9ois, however, were originally very distinct 
 from the Cotereaux, having sprung up from 
 the various free companies, which the necessi. 
 ties of the time obliged the monarchs of Eu- 
 
6 PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 rope to employ in their wars. Each vassal, by 
 the feudal tenure, owed his sovereign but a 
 short period of military service, and, if per- 
 sonal interest or regard would sometimes lead 
 them to prolong it, anger or jealousy would as 
 often make them withdraw their aid at the mo- 
 ment 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 Braban9ois, were always found 
 useful auxiliaries in any time of danger. As 
 long as they were well paid, they were in gene- 
 ral brave, orderly, and obedient : the moment 
 their pay ceased, they dispersed under their 
 several leaders, ravaged, pillaged, and consum- 
 ed, levying on the country in general, that pay 
 which the limited finances of the sovereign al- 
 ways prevented him from continuing, except in 
 time of absolute warfare. 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 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 7 
 
 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 ra- 
 pacity 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 re- 
 mains of those various bands of revolted pea- 
 santry, which, from time to time, had strug- 
 gled ineffectually to shake off the oppressive 
 tyranny of their feudal lords. 
 
 These joined together in troops of very un- 
 certain numbers, from tens to thousands, levied 
 a continual war upon the community they had 
 abandoned — not, probably, that they acted 
 upon any system, or were influenced by any one 
 universal feeling, but the general 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, 
 
8 PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 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 de- 
 cline ; the burgher struggling already for free- 
 dom, 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 or- 
 der of chivalry. Courtesy was joined to va- 
 lour. 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 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 9 
 
 all that was base and ungenerous, and held up 
 the disloyal and uncourteous to the all-power- 
 ful 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.* 
 
 " 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 them- 
 selves immense renown. 
 
 " Popular gratitude, in its simple and cre- 
 
 * M. Charles Nodier. 
 
 b5 
 
10 PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 dulous 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 their virtue to the highest de- 
 gree. 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 cele- 
 brated legislators of antiquity any thing com- 
 parable to their statutes. 
 
 " This league of warriors maintained itself for 
 more than a century in all its pristine simpli- 
 city, 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 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 11 
 
 of men, then chivalry took a legal form, and a 
 rank amidst authorized 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 splen- 
 dour ; 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 prero- 
 gatives. 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 
 
12 PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 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 Constan- 
 tinople had just fallen into the hands of a body 
 of French knights, at the time this tale begins. 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 13 
 
 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 for- 
 ward his kingdom, and Europe along with it, 
 towards days of greatness and civilization, still 
 remote. 
 
14 PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 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 vv^as 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. 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 15 
 
 Such was the morning when a party of tra- 
 vellers took their way slowly up the south- 
 eastern side of the famous Monts d'Or in Au- 
 vergne. 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 AUier through the distant 
 country. Nor did the view end here ; for the 
 plains themselves, lying like a map spread out 
 below, skirted 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 
 
16 PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 clouds did not combine with that fond traitor, 
 Fancy, to deceive the eye. 
 
 At other times, the way seemed to plunge 
 into the deepest recesses of the mountains, pass- 
 ing in the midst of black detached rocks and 
 tall columns of grey basalt, broken fragments of 
 which lay scattered on either side ; while a thou- 
 sand 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 streaming amidst the trees above, 
 and decking the foliage as if with liquid gold, 
 and the shining of the clear blue sky over-head, 
 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 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 17 
 
 emerge into the sunshine, and, 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 some- 
 times 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 par- 
 took 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 
 
18 PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 object around. He was armed with cuirass and 
 steel cap, sword and dagger ; and yet the dif- 
 ferent 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 pen- 
 dant 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 fan- 
 
 * I have seen it very ridiculously asserted in a critique 
 on one of Sir Walter Scott's beautiful romances, that plate 
 armour was not used at this particular period. The hau- 
 bert hauberk, or vest of steel links, was very much used, it 
 is true, but plate armour was no less in use. William the 
 Briton, in his poem on Philip Augustus, speaks of one of 
 his heroes wearing not only a cuirass, but a steel plastroon 
 under it. And he still farther describes the various pieces 
 of the arms of the Count de Boulogne, taken at the battle 
 of Bouvines, giving the complete picture of a knight in 
 plate armour. 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 19 
 
 ciful 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 crim- 
 son 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 strik- 
 ingly 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 con- 
 cealed the exact proportions of his figure ; 
 though withal there was a sort of easy grace in 
 his carriage, which, almost approaching to negli- 
 gence, was but the more conspicuous from the 
 
20 PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 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 contra- 
 dicted 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 chesnut hair, which behind, 
 having been suffered to grow to an extraordi- 
 nary length, fell down in thick masses upon his 
 
PHlLfP AUGUSTUS. 21 
 
 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 con- 
 tinually 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 evi- 
 dent, 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 fop- 
 pery ; and however inconsistent such a thing 
 
22 PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 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, glit- 
 tered 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 edging 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 Ara- 
 bian, as white as snow in every part of his body. 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 23 
 
 except where round his nostrils, and 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 dis- 
 tributed amongst a great many persons; one 
 
24 PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 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 Ara- 
 bians, 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, some- 
 times 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 dif- 
 ference 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 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 25 
 
 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 proceeding. Occasionally, too, a 
 sort of movement of impatience seemed to agi- 
 tate him, as if there was something that he fain 
 would speak. But then the cold unexpecting 
 fixedness of his companion's features appeared 
 to repel it, and, turning again 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 sir- 
 vente, the words of which, however, were in- 
 audible. At length it seemed to break through 
 all restraint, and, drawing his rein, he made 
 his horse pause for an instant, while he ex- 
 claimed — 
 
 VOL. L c 
 
26 PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 " 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 
 Jie 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 up- 
 braid 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." 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 27 
 
 " You sing truly, De Coucy, as I have proved 
 too bitterly," replied the Count d'Auvergne; 
 " but since we have kept companionship toge- 
 ther, 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'Au- 
 vergne ; " but yet I will not load your friend- 
 ship 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 
 C.2 
 
28 PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 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 some- 
 what 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 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 29 
 
 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 I that thou may'st curse him to thy heart's 
 content in this world, and feel sure of his dam- 
 nation 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 de- 
 ceived 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 unconscious- 
 ness 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 Cou- 
 cy, not noticing the emotion his words had pro- 
 
30 PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 duced. " Thou, a knight who hast laid more 
 Saracen heads low than there are bells on your 
 horse's poitrul, 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. " Me- 
 lancholy !"" 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. 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 31 
 
 " 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 un- 
 der 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 cham- 
 pions of England and France, in my silk gam- 
 besoon, 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, with- 
 out ever knowing it, from pure absence of mind 
 
32 PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 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, elevat- 
 ing his voice and addressing the squire, who 
 rode first, " Are you sure you are right .^'" 
 
 " Neither Cotereaux, nor Braban^ois, 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. 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 33 
 
 " 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 be- 
 tween the two knights in regard to their far- 
 ther proceedings, when it was determined that 
 they should still continue for some way on tlie 
 same road, rather than turn back after so long 
 a journey. " We must come to some chateau 
 or some habitation soon," said De Coucy ; '^ or, 
 at the worst, find some of your country shep- 
 herds 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 
 c5 
 
34 PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 Lord, " none knew better than yourself, that I 
 had never been in Auvergne in all my days be- 
 fore. Did you ever hear of my quitting ray 
 cot and my glebe, except to follow my good 
 Lord the Baron, your late father, for a forty 
 days' chevauchee 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 fooPs 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 sur- 
 rounded 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, 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 35 
 
 which at every step gained some new feature 
 of grandeur and singularity, till the sublime 
 became almost the terrific. The verdure gra- 
 dually 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 un- 
 mixed with awe. " Could you not fancy, 
 D'Auvergne,"' he said, " that we were entering 
 the portico of a temple built by some bad en- 
 
36 PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 chanter 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 stop- 
 ped by an immense mass of lava, which had 
 probably lain there for immemorial centu- 
 ries. Certainly when the road was made, 
 which was probably in the days of the Ro- 
 mans, 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 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 37 
 
 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 mi- 
 nute or two, before turning back, with that 
 sort of silent pause which generally precedes 
 the act of yielding to some disagreeable neces- 
 sity. 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 Or- 
 lando 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 ; 
 
38 PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 "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 arch- 
 ing 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 V 
 urged the Count. " There is no hold for his 
 feet. The horse is weary." 
 
 " Weary !" exclaimed De Coucy : " non- 
 sense ! 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. But what the Count 
 d'Auvergne had said was just. The road be- 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 39 
 
 yond 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 back- 
 wards the moment he had reached the opposite 
 side, and rolled with his rider down into the 
 ravine below ! 
 
 " Jesu Maria V 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 f answered a faint voice from 
 below ; '' and Zerbilin is not hurt r 
 
 " But yourself, De Coucy !" cried his friend, 
 — " speak of yourself!" 
 
 A groan was the only reply. 
 
40 PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 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 mean 
 while, 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" 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 41 
 
 " Who is it speaks ?" cried the Count d'Au- 
 vergne. 
 
 " 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 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 
 different direction from that in which they 
 wished to proceed, they had hardly noticed at 
 the time. Following this, 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 
 
42 PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 and the various projections of the crags, pre- 
 vented 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 exer- 
 tion of his fall, but almost totally uninjured, 
 and filling the air with his long wild neighings. 
 The group by which he was surrounded, con- 
 sisted entirely of the attendants of some persons 
 not present, squires and varlets in very gay at- 
 tire ; and female servants and waiting women, 
 not a bit behind-hand in flutter and finery. A 
 beautiful 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 mo- 
 nopolized the privilege of assisting their lady to 
 mount and dismount, much to the disappoint- 
 ment of many a young page and squire, who 
 would willingly have relieved them of the 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 4^ 
 
 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 ap- 
 peared the mouth of a cavern, or rather of an 
 excavation, from which had been drawn the 
 blocks of lava to form the bridge we have men- 
 tioned, 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 
 
44 PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 upon a bed of dry rushes, while a tall, emaciated 
 old man, covered with a brown frock, and orna- 
 mented 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 knit of the brow on every 
 slight occasion of contradiction, might well be- 
 speak 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 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 45 
 
 with that square exactness of outline so beau- 
 tiful 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 di^d away into the clear pure white of her 
 temples. 
 
 In those days, when love was a duty, and 
 coldness a dishonour, on the part of all who 
 enjoyed or aspired to chivalry, no false delica- 
 cies, 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. 
 
46 PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 It was her duty to feel and to express an in- 
 terest in every good knight in danger and mis- 
 fortune ; and the fair being we have just de- 
 scribed, 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 leechcraft. Did you never see Fulk, the 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 47 
 
 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 look- 
 ed round, though but faintly. " D'Auvergne,'' 
 said he, the moment after, while the playful 
 smile fluttered again round his lips, " by the 
 
48 PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 rood ! I had nearly leaped farther than I in- 
 tended, and taken Zerbilin with me into Para- 
 dise. Thanks, Hermit! — thanks, gentle lady! 
 — 1 can rise now. Ho I Hugo, lend me thy 
 hand." 
 
 But the hermit gently put his hand upon 
 the knight's breast, saying, in a tone more re- 
 sembling cynical bitterness than Christian mild- 
 ness, " 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 him- 
 self, submitted quietly, merely giving a glance 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 49 
 
 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 
 
 VOL. I. D 
 
50 PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 the Hermit's somewhat ungracious reply, had 
 been gazing at D'Auvergne with various looks 
 of recognition — " by niy faith and my knight- 
 hood ! 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 your's, 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, 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 51 
 
 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 chateau also. Let us all on 
 together then— I see the holy Hermit has com- 
 manded 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 
 ^vith 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, 
 d2 
 
52 PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 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 con- 
 vinced, 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 diffi- 
 culty even in thanking the lady as he could 
 have wished. At all events, so lame he thought 
 the expression of those thanks, that he en- 
 deavoured to make up for it by reiteration,-^and 
 repeated them so often, that at length the lady 
 gently imposed silence upon him, lest his speak- 
 ing 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 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 53 
 
 fair Isadore might think of De Coucy — what- 
 ever 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 
 very indifferently 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 only what passed between De 
 Coucy and the lady has been particularly men- 
 
64 PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 tioned here, it is not to be thence inferred that 
 all the other personages who were present stood 
 idle looking on — that the Count d'Auvergne 
 took no heed of his hurt friend — that Sir Julian 
 of tlie 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 entrust 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 loveli- 
 ness, as she stood by the young knight, uncon- 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 55 
 
 scious 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 gaze — and yet it end- 
 ed 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 pro- 
 ceeded 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 nar- 
 row 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 possibi- 
 lity of any regularity in their march. At length, 
 however, the gorge widened out into a small 
 basin of about five hundred yards in diameter. 
 
56 PHILIP A.UGUSTUS. 
 
 round which the hills sloped up on every side, 
 forming 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 them- 
 selves 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 beau- 
 tiful and extraordinary effort of nature, the 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 57 
 
 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, the sides of which, 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, ex- 
 tends, even now, an immense mass of dark 
 and sombre wood, which, skirting down the 
 precipitate bank, seems to contemplate its own 
 majesty in the clear mirror of the lake. At 
 the same time, all around, rise up a giant fa- 
 mily of mountain peaks, that, each standing 
 d5 
 
58 PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 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 miracu- 
 lous 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 her- 
 mits, one of whom served the altar as a priest, 
 while the other two retained the more amphi- 
 bious 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 the huts, the Hermit, who had guided them 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 59 
 
 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 under- 
 standing, 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 hazles.? 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 
 
60 PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 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 deli- 
 ver 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 curte^ but bring the 
 beasts down here while the life-heat is still in 
 them. Your friend, wrapped in the fresh-flayed 
 hides, — and to-morrow he shall be 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; after which, stretched upon a bed of 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 61 
 
 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 sepa- 
 rate charms of each, he found that they were all 
 very beautiful. He could not deny it ; but yet 
 certainly, beyond all doubt, the fair Isadora of 
 the Mount, with her dark, dark eyes, and her 
 clear, bland brow, and her mouth such as an- 
 gels smile with, was far more beautiful than 
 an}^ 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 be- 
 
62 PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 fore ; 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 bat- 
 tle ; but now, he felt sure that he had stam- 
 mered like a schoolboy, and spoken below his 
 voice, like a young squire to an old knight. 
 So De Coucy concluded, from all these symp- 
 toms, that he could not be in love ; and fully 
 convinced thereof, he very naturally fell asleep. 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 63 
 
 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 chateau of 
 
 Compiegne 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, Compiegne scarcely detracted from 
 
 the rural aspect of the picture. It had, even 
 
 in those days, its gardens and its fruit-trees. 
 
64 PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 which gave it an air of verdure, and blenjded 
 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 pic- 
 turesque irregularity of nature. 
 
 Gazing, then, from one of the narrow win- 
 dows of a large, square chamber in the keep of 
 the chateau, were two beings, who seemed to 
 be enjoying, to the full, those bright hours of 
 early affection, which are 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. 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 65 
 
 Alone, in the solitude of that large chamber, 
 those two beings were as if in a world by them- 
 selves. The fair girl, seemingly scarce nine- 
 teen 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, shadowed out, as it were, how 
 nearly linked he was, to her seemingly abstract- 
 ed 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 com- 
 plexion as his companion, but tinged with 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 ex- 
 pressive, had they not been rather nearer to- 
 gether than the just proportion, and stained, as 
 it were, on the very iris, by some hazel spots 
 
66 PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 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 per- 
 plexity. 
 
 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 em- 
 brasure of the window, high above her head, as 
 she sat gazing out upon the landscape, he look- 
 ed 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. 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS. W 
 
 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 un- 
 consummated marriage with Ingerberge,* for 
 whom he had conceived the most inexplicable 
 
 • Philip Augustus, after the death of his first wife, being 
 still a very young man, married Ingerburge, sister of Ca- 
 nute, King of Denmark ; but on her arrival in France, he 
 was seized with so strong a personal dislike to her, that he 
 instantly convoked a synod of the clergy of France, who, 
 on pretence of kindred in the prohibited degrees, annulled 
 the marriage. Philip afterwards married the beautiful 
 Agnes, or Mary, as she is called by some, daughter of 
 the Duke of Istria and Meranie, at present the Tyrol. 
 —See Rigord Guil. Brit. Lit. Innoc. III. Cart. Philip 
 II. See. 
 
68 PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 aversion :— '' So pensive," he said. " Where 
 did those sweet thoughts wander .f^" 
 
 " 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 woraan''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 loved better,'^ inter- 
 rupted the King, with a smile at the very 
 charge which he well knew would soon be con- 
 tradicted. 
 
 " Oh, no ! no !" replied Agnes ; " but, as I 
 looked out yonder, and thought it was the way 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 69 
 
 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 Phihp, 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, w^ould you not go ?" 
 
 " Would I quit you ?'" cried Agnes, starting 
 up, and placing her two hands upon her hus- 
 band'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 
 
70 PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 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 sud- 
 denly 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 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 71 
 
 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 exiojencv of the 
 times, and the interest of his kingdom. 
 
 " Sire," repHed the attendant with a pro- 
 found reverence, " the good knight Sir Stephen 
 Guerin has just arrived from Paris, and prays 
 an audience." 
 
 " Admit him," said PhiHp ; and his features, 
 which had expanded like an unstrung bow 
 while in the gentler moments of domestic hap- 
 piness, and had flashed with the broad blaze of 
 the lightning under the effect of sudden irrita- 
 tion, 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 mark- 
 ed features, and was dressed in the black robe 
 and eight limbed cross of the Order of Hospi- 
 tallers, which habit he retained even long after 
 his having been elected Bishop of Senlis. He 
 
72 PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 pushed back his hood, and bowed low in sign of 
 reverence as he approached the King ; but Phi- 
 lip 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 imme- 
 diate attention, have made me bold to intrude 
 upon your privacy. An epistle from the good 
 Pope Celestin came yesterday by a special mes- 
 senger, 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 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 73 
 
 neglected his kingdom, or his people's happi- 
 ness, 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 oif from all 
 other buildings, so that no human ear could 
 catch one word of any conversation which pass- 
 ed 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 be- 
 fore the Queen !" said he, taking the vellum 
 
 VOL. I. E 
 
74 PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 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 tha,^ 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 anathe- 
 ma, and interdict."" 
 
 " Pshaw !" cried Philip, with a contemptu- 
 ous smile; " he has not vigour enough to ana- 
 themize a flea ! 'Tis a good mild priest ; some- 
 what tenacious of his Church's rights, — for, let 
 me tell thee, Stephen, had I but craved my di- 
 vorce from Rome, instead of from my Bishops of 
 France, I should have heard no word of ana- 
 thema or interdict. It was a fault of policy, so 
 far as my personal quiet is concerned; and 
 there might be somewhat of h^sty passion in it 
 too ; but yet, good Knight, 'twas not without 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 75 
 
 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 scan- 
 dal 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 per- 
 used 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 a table, exclaiming — 
 " Stingless ! stingless ! The good Prelate will 
 hurt no one !^' 
 
 e2 
 
76 PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 " Too true. Sire," replied the impassible 
 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 ?=^ — Who is the Pope ? Speak, Hospi- 
 taller! Speak!'' 
 
 " The holy Conclave have elected the Cardi- 
 nal 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 1" replied Philip 
 thoughtfully. " He is no Celestin. We shall 
 soon hear more !" and, rising from his seat, he 
 
 * One of the four methods of electing a Pope is called 
 by adoration, which takes place when the first Cardinal 
 who speaks, instantly (as is supposed by the movement of 
 the Holy Ghost) does reverence to the person he names, 
 proclaiming him Pope, to which must be added the instant 
 suffrage of two-thirds of the assembled Conclave. 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 77 
 
 paced the narrow space of his cabinet back- 
 wards and forwards for several minutes ; then 
 paused, and placing one hand on his counsel- 
 lor'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 ! 1 would defend it from 
 heathens and heretics, and miscreants, with my 
 best blood. Witness my journey to the Holy 
 Land! — witness the punishment ofAmaury! 
 — witness the expulsion of the Jews ! But 
 
 this Lothaire 
 
 " Now Innocent the Third !" said the Minis- 
 ter, 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 re- 
 solves, as he is bold in his undertakings — pow- 
 erful — 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." 
 
78 PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 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 ambi- 
 tious intermeddling of Pope Innocent. You 
 must not count upon your Barons, Sire, to sup- 
 port 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 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 79 
 
 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 vi^all, — ren- 
 dering 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 Flan- 
 ders. See it be done ! As to the rest, come 
 what may, my private happiness I will subject 
 
80 PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 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. J, 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 Meranie from 
 her reverie ; and though her husband's absence 
 had been but short, her whole countenance 
 beamed with pleasure at his return ; while, lay- 
 ing 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 AUGUSTUS. 81 
 
 Philip's eyes rested on her, full of tenderness 
 and love ; and then turned to his Minister with 
 an appealing, an almost reproachful look. 
 Guerin felt, himself, how difficult, how agoniz- 
 ing 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. 
 
 E 6 
 
82 PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 In Auvergne, but in a different part of it 
 from that where we left oui 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 an- 
 cient 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 cen- 
 turies, 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 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 83 
 
 by a yellow girdle, below which it did not ex- 
 tend 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 cor- 
 responded with his absurd dress ; for, had one 
 desired a model of active strength, it could no- 
 where 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 
 
84 PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 motion, or from a voluntary and laudable desire 
 to improve upon the singular hideousness of 
 his countenance, this long, sausage-like contri- 
 vance 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 sepa- 
 rate, never having any fixed and determined 
 direction, but wandering about apparently inde- 
 pendent 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 seemed cold and 
 dead. His mouth was guarded with large, 
 thick hps, which extended far and wide through 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 85 
 
 a black and bushy beard ; and, when he yawn- 
 ed, 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 ap- 
 pearance had nothing in it very consolatory to 
 the journey er 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. 
 
86 PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 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 fore- 
 most 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 circumambulat- 
 ing the area of Astley's Amphitheatre. 
 
 The feat which he performed, however sim- 
 ple and legitimate at present, was quite suffi- 
 ciently 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, 
 
PHJLIP AUGUSTUS. 87 
 
 exclaiming, " 'Tis the devil !" to which conclu- 
 sion 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 has 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 him- 
 self up again into his natural position, he 
 turned his frightful countenance to the rou- 
 tiers, 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 
 
88 PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 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 reli- 
 gion at the same time that they threw off all 
 the other ties of civil society, were very 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 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 89 
 
 again, good friends — we shall meet again, and, 
 trust me, I will give you a warm reception. 
 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 pro- 
 ceeds 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 
 
90 PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 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 mur- 
 mured 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 ! '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 vil- 
 lains. I care not ! I will help to kill them : — then 
 I shall get gold too. — Haw, haw, haw ! The 
 villains plundered some rich merchants yester- 
 day, and I will plunder them to-morrow. Oh, 
 rare ! Then, that Thibalt of Auvergne may 
 be killed in the melee, with his cold look and 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 91 
 
 his sneer. — Oh ! how I shall like to see that 
 lip, that called me De Couci/''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 '11 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 
 
92 PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 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 villainy, and folly, which form- 
 ed 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 predomi- 
 nated over idiocy, 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. 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 93 
 
 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 
 
94 PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 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 villainy and malice, often equally uncall- 
 ed for by others, and unserviceable to himself. 
 
 Originally one of the jugglers who had ac- 
 companied the second Crusade to the Holy 
 Land, he had been made prisoner by the In- 
 fidels; 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 pro- 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 95 
 
 fession, to the sly cunning which so often sup- 
 plies 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 misfor- 
 tune r 
 
 " Nay ! I laugh to think him nearly as nim- 
 ble as I am," replied the juggler, " and to find 
 he can roll down a rock of twenty fathom, with- 
 out 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 
 pleniere !" 
 
 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 Isa- 
 
96 PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 dore of the Mount, than he had ever felt upon 
 a similar occasion. 
 
 " The success of my errand is very unsuc- 
 cessful," replied the jongleur, wagging his 
 nose, and shutting one of his eyes, while he fix- 
 ed 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 our 
 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,"" re- 
 plied 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." 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 97 
 
 " 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 he 1/ our man." 
 
 De Coucy's heart beat thick at the associa- 
 tions 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 gri- 
 maces, and tell me, what said my uncle ? Why 
 would he not send the sums I asked .f^" 
 
 " 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 me- 
 mory. — How did he die ? — when ? — where ?'' 
 
 " Nobody knows when — nobody knows where 
 
 VOL. I. F 
 
98 PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 — nobody knows how !" replied the juggler with 
 a grin, which he could not suppress at his mas- 
 ter'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 gentleman, and 
 as true a knight, as ever buckled on spurs. He 
 promised that I should be his heir, and doubt- 
 less 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. 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 99 
 
 " Why laughest thou, fool ?" cried De Coucy. 
 " Wilt xliou 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 
 Tanker ville 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 Besan9on 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 
 F 2 
 
100 PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 squire, to take the holy cross ; and though I 
 have often heard of him by letter and by mes- 
 sage 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 ; His 
 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'Au- 
 vergne ; 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 
 arras ?'' 
 
 ■ " 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, 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 101 
 
 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 attend- 
 ant, who quitted the hut ; and the Count pro- 
 ceeded. " 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. / 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 
 
102 PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 wrong. He is brave as a lion, and grateful for 
 kindness. He would not inj ure 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 ! His 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 deter- 
 mined, and urged his point no farther. His 
 own determination, however, was taken, on the 
 very first opportunity to go himself privately, 
 either to Besan^on or Dijon, between which 
 places the estates in question lay, and to make 
 those enquiries 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. 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 103 
 
 The Hermit, whose skill had been so service- 
 able 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 mani- 
 fest 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 .?" * 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 
 
 * For a fuller account of this singular person, and the 
 effect his counsels had upon the conduct of Philip Augustus, 
 see Rigord. 
 
104 PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 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, return- 
 ing to your hall, sit down in peace and charity 
 with all mankind I" 
 
 " Ha ! what ! how ?" cried the obstinate old 
 man angrily, all his complaisant feelings to- 
 wards 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 I^' 
 
 The Count d'Auvergne here interposed ; 
 and, promising the Hermit safe escort, at least 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 105 
 
 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 v/hicli 
 Philip Augustus, during the last five years, had 
 undertaken, and successfully carried through 
 by the advice of that very Hermit who fol- 
 lowed in their train — measures with which this 
 history has nothing to do, but which may be 
 found faithfully recorded by Rigord, William 
 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 ordi- 
 nary, 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 lieavy weights that Time is 
 always letting drop upon the human heart, rise 
 up the next moment with that sort of elastic 
 f5 
 
106 PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 rebound, which instantly casts off the load of 
 care, and spring higher than before. Such, 
 however, was not the case. De Coucy was per- 
 plexed 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 some- 
 thing accidentally turned the conversation to 
 the friend he had lost in the Count de Tanker- 
 ville. 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 gene- 
 rous virtues, as one who knew them from pos- 
 sessing them himself. Isadore's answers grew 
 longer : the chain seemed taken off her thoughts, 
 — and then, first, that quick and confident com- 
 munication of feelings and ideas began between 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 107 
 
 her and De Coucy, which, sweet itself, gene- 
 rally 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 caval- 
 cade, suddenly stopped, and, pointing to a con- 
 fused 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 be- 
 hind, — " haw, haw, haw !" 
 
 All was now hurry, for the signs and symp- 
 toms which the squire descried, were only 
 attributable to one of those plundering am- 
 buscades, 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 
 
108 PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 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 tilt- 
 ing against those bushes ! — St. Michael ! St. 
 Michael !" he shouted, snatching his ponder- 
 ous 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 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 109 
 
 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 ineffec- 
 tual. 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 perform- 
 ed those marvellous feats of chivalry, which 
 astonish our latter age. The pikes, the short 
 swords, and the arrows of the Cotereaux, turned 
 
110 PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 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 ma- 
 rauders, 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 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS. Ill 
 
 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 a-kin 
 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 
 
112 PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 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 dis- 
 respectful 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 V And he applied himself 
 again to strip the dead bodies with most inde- 
 fatigable 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 
 ^here, like a red-legged crow, picking the dead 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 113 
 
 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 com- 
 bat 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 
 
114 PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 cleared of the banditti; and, during his ab- 
 sence, 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 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 115 
 
 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 won- 
 dered at, then, that a band of superstitious ma- 
 rauders, whose very trade would of course 
 render them more liable to such diabolical visi- 
 tations, should suspect so very ugly a person- 
 age 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 triumph- 
 ing in their defeat. 
 
 But to return to the more respectable per- 
 sons of my cavalcade. The whole party set 
 out again, retaining, as if by common consent, 
 the same order of march which they had for- 
 merly 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. 
 
116 PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 A slight shudder, too, shook her frame, as she 
 passed on the road three cold, inanimate forms, 
 lying so 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 w^ere 
 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 epi- 
 sode 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, 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 117 
 
 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. 
 
 ^yinding down through numerous sunny val- 
 leys 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 loveli- 
 ness. 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 V 
 
 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 
 
118 PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 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 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 119 
 
 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 ap- 
 parent order, on the top of an eminence which 
 commanded the town. The platform of each 
 tower, whether square or round, was battle- 
 mented, 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 
 
120 PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 surrounding object. This was called the bef- 
 froy, 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 tlie 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 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 121 
 
 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 exam- 
 ple. Each man's home was before him, and 
 they blew together, in perfect unison, the fa- 
 mous 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 un- 
 paled, 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 
 
 VOL. I. G 
 
122 PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 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 
 
 I" 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 123 
 
 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 pleniere to 
 welcome his 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 
 G 2 
 
124 PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 and splendid virtues, than for wealth and here- 
 ditary 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, be- 
 fore 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 chateau of Vic le 
 Comte, ran backwards and forwards pages and 
 varlets, and squires, in proportion to the mul- 
 titude of guests. Each of these attendants, 
 though performing what would be now con- 
 sidered the menial offices of personal service, to 
 the various knightly and noble visitors, 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 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 125 
 
 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. Multi- 
 tudes of fresh guests were also arriving every 
 moment — fair dames and gallant knights, vas- 
 sals 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 
 
126 PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 chief, towards whose cour pleniere they took 
 their way. 
 
 Numbers of these buffoons also were scat- 
 tered 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 ru- 
 mour of a cour pleniere. In one booth might 
 be seen cloth of gold and silver, velvets, silks, 
 cendals, and every kind of fine stuffs; in 
 another, ermines, minever, 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 Poi- 
 tiers, 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 ;' 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 127 
 
 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 
 chateau. 
 
 Precisely at the hour of four, a band of 
 minstrels, richly clothed, placed themselves 
 before the great gate of the castle, and per- 
 formed what was called corner a Veau, 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 
 
128 PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 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 vari- 
 ous guests as they passed before him with word 
 and glance, he still resumed his conversation 
 with Count Thibalt. Nor did that conversa- 
 tion 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 re- 
 turn 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. 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 129 
 
 It was one of those vast chambers, of which 
 few remain to the present day. One however 
 may still be seen at La Brede, the chateau 
 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 project- 
 ed 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, be- 
 stowed upon the hall itself, no one would have 
 expected to behold a board laid out with as 
 G 5 
 
130 PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 much splendour and delicacy as the most scru- 
 pulous gourmand of the present day could re- 
 quire 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 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 131 
 
 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 dra- 
 gons, castles, ships, and even men, and an im- 
 mense 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 oppo- 
 sition 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 
 conr pleniere had assembled, entered to the 
 banquet. The Count d'Auvergne first took 
 his place in a chair with dossier and dais, as it 
 was particularized in those days, or in other 
 
132 PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 words, high raised back and canopy. He then 
 proceeded to arrange what was called the 
 assiette of the table ; namely, that very dif- 
 ficult 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 as much of it as a patroness 
 of Almack's. All his guests were satisfied, and 
 De Coucy drank out of the same cup as Isadore 
 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 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 133 
 
 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, 
 was 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. 
 
 What words De Coucy said, and how those 
 words were said ; and what Isadore felt, and 
 how she spoke it not, we will leave to the ima- 
 gination of those who may have been somewhat 
 similarly situated. Nor will we farther prolong 
 the description of the banquet — a description 
 
134 PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 perhaps too far extended already — by detailing 
 all the various yellow soups and green, the 
 storks, the peacocks, and the boars ; the castles 
 that poured forth wine, and the pyramids of 
 fifty capons, which from time to time covered 
 the table. We have already shown all the re- 
 markable differences between a banquet of that 
 age and one given in our own, and also some of 
 the still more remarkable similarities. 
 
 At last, when the rays of the sun, which had 
 hitherto poured through the high windows on 
 the splendid banquet-table, so far declined as 
 no longer to reach it, the old Count d"'Auvergne 
 filled his cup with wine, and raised his hand as 
 a sign to the minstrels behind his chair, when 
 suddenly they blew a long loud flourish on 
 their trumpets, and then all was silent. " Fair 
 Knights and Ladies!'' said the Count, '* before 
 we go to hear our troubadours beneath our an- 
 cient oaks, I once more bid you welcome all ; 
 and though here be none but true and va- 
 liant Knights, to each of whom I could well 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 135 
 
 wish to drink, yet there is one present to 
 whom Auvergne owes much, and whom I — old 
 as I am in arms — pronounce the best Knight 
 in France. Victor of Ascalon and Jaffa ; five 
 times conqueror of the infidel, in ranged battle ; 
 best lance at Zara, and first planter of a banner 
 on the imperial walls of Byzantium— but more 
 to me than all — saviour of my son's life — Sir 
 Guy de Coucy, good Knight and true, I drink 
 to your fair honour! — do me justice in my 
 cup:" and the Count, after having raised his 
 golden hanap to his lips, sent it round by a 
 page to De Coucy. 
 
 De Coucy took the cup from the page, and, 
 with a graceful abnegation of the praises be- 
 stowed upon him, pledged the father of his 
 friend. But the most remarkable circumstance 
 of the ceremony was, that it was Isadore's cheek 
 that flushed, and Isadore's lip that trembled, 
 at the great and public honour shown to De 
 Coucy, as if the whole embarrassment thereof 
 had fallen upon herself. 
 
136 PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 The guests now rose, and, led by the Count 
 d'Auvergne, proceeded to the forest behind the 
 chateau, where under the great feudal oak, at 
 whose foot all the treaties and alliances of Au- 
 vergne were signed, they listened to the songs 
 of the various troubadours, many of whom were 
 found amongst the most noble of the knights 
 present. 
 
 We are so accustomed to look upon all the 
 details of the age of chivalry as fabulous, that 
 we can scarcely figure to ourselves men whose 
 breasts were the mark and aim of every danger, 
 whose hands were familiar with the lance and 
 sword, and whose best part of life was spent in 
 battle and bloodshed, suddenly casting off their 
 armour, and seated under the shadow of an oak, 
 singing lays of love and tenderness in one of the 
 softest and most musical languages of the world. 
 Yet so it was, and however difficult it may be 
 to transport our mind to such a scene, and call 
 up the objects as distinct and real, yet history 
 leaves no doubt of the fact, that the most dar- 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 137 
 
 ing warriors of Auvergne — and Auvergne was 
 celebrated for bold and hardy spirits — were no 
 less famous as troubadours than knights ; and, 
 as they sat round the Count, they, one after 
 another, took the citharn, or the rote, and sung 
 with a slight monotonous accompaniment one 
 of the sweet lays of their country. 
 
 There is only one, however, whom we shall 
 particularize. He was a slight, fair youth, of 
 a handsome but somewhat feminine aspect. 
 Nevertheless, he wore the belt and spurs of a 
 knight; and by the richness of his dress, 
 which glittered with gold and crimson, appear- 
 ed at least endowed with the gifts of fortune. 
 During the banquet, he had gazed upon Isa- 
 dore of the Mount far more than either the 
 lady beside whom he sat, or De Coucy, admired; 
 and there was a languid and almost melancholy 
 softness in his eye, which Isadore's lover did 
 not at all like. When called upon to sing, by 
 the name of the Count de la Roche Guy on, he 
 took his harp from a page, and sweeping it with 
 
138 PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 a careless but a confident hand, again fixed his 
 eyes upon Isadore, and sang with a sweet, full, 
 mellow voice, in the Proven9al or Langue d'oc, 
 though his name smacked of more northern 
 extraction. 
 
 TROUBADOUR'S SONG. 
 
 " My love, my love, my lady love ! 
 
 Oh what is like my joy ? 
 A star of heaven she 's far above, 
 
 A flower is but a toy. 
 
 Her cheek is like the summer eves, 
 
 Before the sun goes down — 
 Faint roses, like the streaks he leaves 
 
 Beneath Night's tresses brown. 
 
 Her eye itself, is like the star 
 
 That sparkles through the sky, 
 And lifts its diamond look afar 
 
 Before Day's blushes die. 
 
 Her lip alone, the new-born rose ; 
 
 Her breath, the breath of Spring ; 
 Her voice is sweet as even those 
 
 Of Angels when they sing. 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 139 
 
 A thousand congregated sweets 
 
 Deck her beyond compare ; 
 And Fancy's self, no image meets 
 
 So wonderfully fair. 
 
 I 'd give my barony to be 
 
 Beloved for a day. 
 But, oh ! her heart is not for me ! 
 
 Her smile is given away." 
 
 " By my faith ! she must be a hard-hearted 
 damsel, then !" said old Sir Julian of the Mount, 
 " if she resist so fair a Troubadour. — But, Sir 
 Guy De Coucy, let not the Langue d'oc carry it 
 off entirely from us of the Langue d'oyl. So 
 gallant a Knight must love the lyre. I pray thee ! 
 sing something, for the honour of ourTrouveres." 
 
 De Coucy would have declined, but the Count 
 Thibalt pressed him to the task, and named 
 the siege of Constantinople as his theme. At the 
 same time, the young troubadour who had just 
 sung, offered him his harp, saying, " I pray 
 you, beau Sire, for the honour of your lady !" 
 
 De Coucy bowed his head, and took the in- 
 
140 PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 strument, over the strings of which he threw 
 his hand, in a bold but not unskilful manner ; 
 and then, joining his voice, sung the taking of 
 Zara and first siege of Constantinople; after 
 which he detailed the delights of Greece, and 
 showed how difficult it was for the knights and 
 soldiers to keep themselves from sinking into 
 the effeminacy of the Greeks, while encamped 
 in the neighbourhood of Byzantium, waiting 
 the execution of their treaty with the Emperor 
 Isaac and his son Alexis. He then spoke of 
 the assassination of Alexis, the usurpation of 
 Murzuphlis, and the preparation of the Francs 
 to punish the usurper. His eye flashed ; his 
 tone became more elevated, and drawing his 
 accompaniment from the lower tones of the- 
 instrument, he sung the Last Day of the Empire 
 of the Greeks. 
 
 " 'Twas night, dark night ! and on the silent shore 
 Of the dim Bosphorus, the sullen roar 
 Of mighty waters was the only sound 
 That broke the silence of the air around. 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 141 
 
 'Twas night, dark night! yet in the camp and fleet 
 Soft-footed Sleep, her kisses light and sweet, 
 Had press'd upon no eyelids, and each knight 
 Gazed on the sable east, and long'd for light : 
 In arras they stood — and many a noble name 
 Look'd for the dawning morn as dawning fame ; 
 While each inspiring thought that mem'ry yields, 
 And the dim shadow of a thousand fields. 
 Rose from the plains of Greece, and spread out fair 
 Visions of glory on the darksome air. 
 Up rose the sun, bright'ning each dome and tower 
 With the fresh splendour of morn's golden hour. 
 And fair Byzantium, like an Eastern queen, 
 Smiled in her sunny loveliness serene : 
 Her towers, her domes, her pinnacles, her walls. 
 Her glittering palaces, her splendid halls, 
 Shovv'd in the lustrous air like some sweet dream 
 Wove by gay Fancy from the morning beam." 
 
 The knight then went on to describe the 
 shining but effeminate display of the Greek 
 warriors on the walls, and the attack of the city 
 by sea and land. In glowing language, he de- 
 picted both the great actions of the assault and 
 
142 PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 of the defence ; the effect of the hell-invented 
 Greek fire; of the catapults, the margonels, 
 the darts of flame shot from the walls ; as well 
 as the repeated repulses of the Francs, and 
 the determined and unconquerable valour with 
 which they pursued their purpose of punishing 
 the treachery of the Greeks. Abridging his 
 lay as he sung, he left out the names of many 
 of the champions, and touched but slightly 
 on the deeds of others. The heroic Doge of 
 Venice, however, he could not refrain from no- 
 ticing. " Lo !" he cried — 
 
 " Lo ! yon old chief, yon sightless hero, borne 
 In battle's front, and never known to turn ! — 
 See ninety years upon his brow have cast 
 The snowy burthen of the wintry blast ; 
 And yet the spirit of that heart sublime 
 Has conquer'd age — and, conq'ring -even Time, 
 Shall win old Dandolo immortal fame, 
 And years unborn shall kindle at his name!" 
 
 With increasing energy at every line, De 
 Coucy proceeded to sing the mixed fight upon 
 the battlements, after the Francs had once sue- 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 143 
 
 ceeded in scaling them, till the Greeks giving 
 way, he concluded — 
 
 " Down stoop the coward Greeks before the blade ; 
 They turn — they faint — they fall — they fly dismay'd. 
 In pour the Gallic bands ; the flying foes 
 Die recreant,, base, beneath dishon'ring blows; 
 France's broad standard glitters in the sun! — 
 Shout ! Host of Glory, shout !— Byzantium 's won !" 
 
 All eyes were bent on De Coucy ; — all ears 
 listened to his lay. The language, or rather 
 dialect, in which he sang, the Langue d'oyl, 
 was not so sweet and harmonious as the Langue 
 d'oc, or Proven9al, it is true, but it had more 
 strength and energy. The subject, also, was 
 more dignified ; and as the young knight pro- 
 ceeded to record the deeds in which he had 
 himself been a principal actor, his whole soul 
 seemed to be cast into his song : — his fine fea- 
 tures assumed a look between the animation of 
 the combatant and the inspiration of the poet. 
 It seemed as if he forgot every thing around, 
 in the deep, personal interest which he felt in 
 
144 PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 the very incidents he recited : his utterance 
 became more rapid ; his hand swept like light- 
 ning over the harp ; and when he ended his 
 song, and laid down the instrument, it was as 
 if he did so, but to lay his hand upon his 
 sword. 
 
 A pause of deep silence succeeded for a mo- 
 ment, and then came a general murmur of ap- 
 plause ; for, in singing the deeds of the Francs 
 at Constantinople, De Coucy touched, in the 
 breast of each person present, that fine chord 
 called national vanity, by which we attach a 
 part of every sort of glory gained by our 
 countrymen, to our own persons, however much 
 we may recognise that we are incompetent to 
 perform the actions by which it was acquired. 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 145 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 Thr existence of a monarch, without his lot 
 be cast amidst very halcyon days indeed, is much 
 like the life of a seaman, borne up upon un- 
 certain and turbulent waves. Exposed to a 
 thousand storms, from which a peasant's cot 
 would be sufficient shelter, his whole being 
 is spent in watching for the tempest, and his 
 whole course is at the mercy of the wind. 
 
 It was with bitterness of heart, and agony of 
 spirit, that Philip Augustus saw gathering on 
 the political horizon around, many a dark cloud 
 that threatened him with a renewal of all those 
 fatigues, anxieties, and pains, from which he 
 had hoped, at least, for some short respite. He 
 VOL. I. H 
 
146 PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 saw it with a wrung and burning bosom, but 
 he saw it without dismay; for, strong in the 
 resources of a mind above his age, he resolved 
 to wreak great and signal vengeance on the 
 heads of those who should trouble his repose ; 
 and, knowing that the sorrow must come, he 
 prepared, as ever with him, to make his re- 
 venge a handmaid to his policy, and, by the 
 punishment of his rebellious vassals, not only 
 to auo^ment his own domains as a feudal sove- 
 reign, but to extend the general force and pre- 
 rogative of the crown, and form a large basis 
 of power on which his successors might build a 
 fabric of much greatness. 
 
 However clearly he might see the approach 
 of danger, and however vigorously he might 
 prepare to repel it, Philip was not of that 
 frame of mind which suffers remote evil long to 
 interfere with present enjoyment. For a short 
 space he contemplated them painfully, though 
 firmly ; but soon the pain was forgotten, and like 
 a veteran soldier who knows he may be attacked 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 147 
 
 during the night, and sleeps with his arms beside 
 him, but still sleeps tranquilly, Philip saw the 
 murmuring threatening of his greater feudato- 
 ries, and took every means of preparation against 
 what he clearly perceived would follow: but this 
 once done, he gave himself up to pleasures and 
 amusements; seeming anxious to crowd into 
 the short space of tranquillity that was left 
 him, all the gaieties and enjoyments which 
 might otherwise have been scattered through 
 many years of peace. Fetes, and pageants, 
 and tournaments, succeeded each other rapidly ; 
 and Philip of France, with his fair Queen, 
 seemed to look upon earth as a garden of smiles, 
 and life as a long chain of unbroken delights. 
 
 Yet, even in his pleasures, Philip was politic. 
 He had returned to Paris, though the summer 
 heat had now completely set in, and June was 
 far advanced ; and sitting in the old palace on 
 the island, he was placed near one of the win- 
 dows, through which poured the free air of the 
 river, while he arranged with his beloved Agnes 
 H 2 
 
148 PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 the ceremonies of a banquet. Philip was famous 
 for his taste in every sort of pageant ; and 
 now he was giving directions himself to various 
 attendants who stood round, repeating with 
 the most scrupulous exactness every particular of 
 his commands, as if the very safety of his king- 
 dom had depended on their correct execution. 
 
 While thus employed, his minister Guerin, 
 now elected Bishop of Senlis, though he still, 
 as I have said, retained the garments of the 
 Knights of St. John, entered the apartment, 
 and stood by the side of the King, while he gave 
 his last orders, and sent the attendants away. 
 
 " Another banquet. Sire !" said the Bishop, 
 with that freedom of speech which in those 
 days was admitted between king and subject ; 
 and speaking in the grave and melancholy tone 
 which converts an observation into a reproach. 
 
 " Ay, good Brother !" replied Philip, looking 
 up smilingly ; *' another banquet in the great 
 Snlle du Palais; and on the tenth of July a 
 tournament at Champeaux. — Sweet Agnes ! 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 149 
 
 laugh at his grave face ! Wouldest thou not 
 say, Dear Lady mine, that I spake to the good 
 Bishop of a defeat and a funeral, instead of a 
 feast and a passe cTarmes V 
 
 " The defeat of your finances, Sire, and the 
 burial of your treasury," replied Guerin coldly. 
 
 " I have other finances that you know not 
 of. Bishop," replied the King, still keeping his 
 good humour. " Ay, and a private treasury 
 too, where gold will not be wanting." 
 
 " Indeed, my Liege !" replied the Bishop. 
 " May I crave where ?" Philip touched the 
 hilt of his sword. '* Here is an unfailing 
 measure of finance !" said he ; " and as for my 
 treasury, 'tis in the purses of revolted Barons, 
 Guerin!" 
 
 " If you -make use of that treasury, Sire,''' 
 answered the Bishop, " for the good of your 
 state, and the welfare of your people, 'tis indeed 
 one that may serve you well ; but if you spend 
 it — '''' The Bishop paused, as if afraid of 
 proceeding, and Philip took up the word. 
 
150 PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 " If I spend it, you would say, in feasting 
 and revelry," said the King, " I shall make the 
 people murmur, and my best friends quit me. — 
 But," continued he in a gayer tone, " let us 
 quit all sad thoughts, and talk of the feast — 
 the gay and splendid feast, — where you shall 
 smile, Guerin, and make the guests believe you 
 the gentlest counsellor that ever king was blest 
 withal. Nay, I will have it so, by my faith ! 
 As to the guests, they are all choice and gay 
 companions, whom I have chosen for their mer- 
 riment. Thou shalt laugh heartily, when 
 placed between Philip of Champagne, late my 
 sworn enemy, but who now becomes my good 
 friend and humble vassal, and brings his ne- 
 phew and ward, the young Thibalt, Count of 
 all Champagne, to grace his Suzerain's feast — 
 when placed between him, I say, and Pierre de 
 Courtenay, whose allegiance is not very sure, 
 and whose brother, the Count of Namur, is 
 in plain rebellion. There shalt thou see also 
 Bartholemi de Roye, and the Count de Perche, 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 151 
 
 both somewhat doubtful in their love to Philip, 
 but who, before that feast is over, shall be his 
 humblest creatures. — Fie, fie, Guerin !" he 
 added, in a more reproachful tone. *' Will you 
 never think that I have a deeper motive for my 
 actions than lies upon the surface?— As to the 
 tournament too, think you I do not propose to 
 try m^n's hearts as well as their corslets, and 
 see if their loyalty hold as firm a seat as they 
 do themselves ?" 
 
 " I never doubt, Sire," replied the Bishop, 
 " that you have good and sufficient motives for 
 all your actions; but, this morning, a sad ac- 
 count has been laid before me of the royal 
 domains ; and when I came to hear of banquets 
 and tournaments, it pained me to think what 
 you. Sire, would feel, when you saw the clear 
 statement." 
 
 " How so ?*" cried Philip Augustus. " It 
 cannot be so very bad ! — Let me see it, Guerin! 
 — let me see it ! 'Tis best to front such things 
 at once. — Let me see it, man, I say !"" 
 
152 PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 " I have it not here, Sire," answered the 
 Bishop ; " but I will send it by the clerk who 
 drew it up ; and who can give you farther 
 accounts, should it be necessary ."" 
 
 "Quick then!" cried the King, — " quick - 
 good Bishop !" And walking up and down 
 the hall, with an unquiet and somewhat irritated 
 air, he repeated, " It cannot be so bad ! The 
 last time I made the calculation, 'twas some- 
 where near a hundred thousand livres. Bad 
 enough, in truth — but I have known that long ! 
 — Now, Sir Clerk," he continued, as a secretary 
 entered, " read me the account, if it be as I see 
 on wax. Was no parchment to be had, that 
 you must draw the charter on wax* to blind 
 me ? Read, read ! 
 
 The King spoke in the hasty manner of one 
 whose brighter hopes and wishes — for Imagina- 
 tion is always a great helpmate of Ambition, and 
 as well as its first prompter, is its indefatigable 
 
 * Later instances exist of wax having been used in the 
 accounts of the royal treasury of France. 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 153 
 
 ally — in the manner of one whose brighter hopes 
 and wishes had been cut across by cold realities ; 
 and the clerk replied in the dull and snuffling 
 tone peculiar to clerks, and monstrously irri- 
 tating to every hasty man. 
 
 '' Accounts of the Prevot de Soissons, Sire," 
 said the clerk : " receipts six hundred livres, 
 seven sous, two deniers. Expenses : eighteen 
 livres, to arm three cross-bowmen ; twenty 
 livres to the holy clerk ; seventy livres for 
 clothing and arming twenty Serjeants on foot. 
 Accounts of the Senechal of Pontoise," conti- 
 nued the clerk, in the same slow and solemn 
 manner: " Receipts, five hundred livres, Parisis. 
 Expences, thirty-three livres, for wax-tapers for 
 the church of the blessed St. Millon ; twenty- 
 eight sous for the carriage to Paris of the 
 two living lions, now at the kennel of the wolf- 
 hounds, without the walls ; twenty livres, spent 
 for the robes for four judges; and baskets for 
 twenty eels — for seventeen young wolves." 
 
 "Death to my soul !"" cried- the impatient 
 H 5 
 
154 PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 King : " make an end, man ! — come to the sum 
 total ! How much remains ?*" 
 
 " Two hundred livres, six sous, one denier,^'* 
 replied the clerk. 
 
 " Villain, you lie !" cried the enraged monarch, 
 striking him with his clenched fist and snatch- 
 ing the tablets from his hand. " What ! am I a 
 beggar ? 'Tis false, by the light of heaven ! — It 
 cannot be," he added, as his eye ran over the 
 sad statement of his exhausted finances, — " it 
 cannot surely be ! — Go, fellow ! bid the Bishop 
 of Senlis come hither ! — I am sorry that I struck 
 thee. Forget it! — Go, bid Guerin hither, — 
 quick !'' 
 
 While this was passing, Agnes de Meranie 
 had turned to one of the windows, and was gaz- 
 ing out upon the river and the view beyond. 
 She would fain have made her escape from the 
 hall, when first she found the serious nature of 
 the business that had arisen out of the prepara- 
 tions for the f6te ; but Philip stood between 
 her and either of the doors, both while he was 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 155 
 
 speaking with his minister, and while he was 
 receiving the statement from the clerk ; and 
 Agnes did not choose, by crossing him, to call 
 his attention from his graver occupation. As 
 soon, however, as the clerk was gone, Philip's 
 eye fell upon her, as she leaned against the 
 casement, with her sUght figure bending in as 
 graceful an attitude as the Pentelican marble 
 was ever taught to show ; and there was some- 
 thing in her very presence reproved the mo- 
 narch for the unworthy passion into which he 
 had been betrayed. When a man loves deeply, 
 he would fain be a god in the eyes of the wo- 
 man that he loves, lest the worship that he shows 
 her should lessen him in his own. Philip was 
 mortified that she had been present; and lest 
 any thing equally mortal should escape him 
 while speaking with his minister, he approach- 
 ed and took her hand. 
 
 " Agnes," said he, " I have forgot myself; 
 but this tablet has crossed me sadly," pointing 
 to the statement. " I shall be no longer able 
 
156 PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 to give festal orders.— Go you, sweet! and in 
 the palace gardens, bid your maidens strip all the 
 fairest flowers to deck the tables and the hall — ^"^ 
 
 " They shall spare enough for one crown, at 
 least," replied Agnes, " to hang on my royal 
 Philip's casque on the tournament-day. But I 
 will speed, and arrange the flowers myself.'*' 
 Thus saying, she turned away, with a gay 
 smile, as if nothing had ruflled the current of 
 the time ; and left the monarch expecting 
 thoughtfully the Bishop of Senlis's return. 
 
 The minister did not make the monarch wait; 
 but he found Philip Augustus in a very dif- 
 ferent mood from that in which he left him. 
 
 " Guerin," said the King, with a grave and 
 careful air, " you have been my physician,, and 
 a wise one. The cup you have given me is 
 bitter, but 'tis wholesome; and I have drunk 
 it to the dregs." 
 
 " It is ever with the most profound sorrow," 
 said the Hospitaller, with that tone of simple 
 persuasive gravity that carries conviction of its 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 157 
 
 sincerity along with it, " that I steal one from 
 the few scanty hours of tranquillity that are al- 
 lotted to you, Sire, in this life. Would it were 
 compatible with your honour and your king- 
 dom's welfare, that I should bear all the more 
 burthensome part of the task which royalty 
 imposes, and that you, Sire, should know but 
 its sweets ! But that cannot be ; and I am 
 often obliged, as you say, to offer my Sovereign 
 a bitter cup that willingly I would have drunk 
 myself." 
 
 " I believe you, good friend — from ni}^ soul, 
 I believe you !" said the King. " I have ever 
 observed in you, my Brother, a self-denying 
 zeal, which is rare in this corrupted age ; or 
 used but as the means of ambition. Raise not 
 your glance as if you thought I suspected you. 
 Guerin, I do not ! I have w^atched you well ; 
 and had I seen your fingers itch to close upon 
 the staff of power, — had you but stretchfd out 
 your hand towards it, — had you sought to have 
 left me in idle ignorance of my affairs — ay ! or 
 
158 PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 even sought to weary me of them with eternal 
 reiteration, you never should have seen the 
 secrets of my heart, as now you shall — I would 
 have used you, Guerin, as an instrument, but 
 you never would have been my friend. Do 
 you understand me, ha .^^ 
 
 " I do. Royal Sir," replied the Knight, " and 
 God help me, as my wish has ever been only to 
 serve you truly I" 
 
 " Mark me, then, Guerin!*' continued the 
 King. " This banquet must go forward — the 
 tournament also — ay, and perhaps another. 
 Not because I love to feast my eyes with the 
 grandeur of a King — no, Guerin, — but because 
 I would be a King indeed ! I have often asked 
 myself," proceeded the Monarch, speaking 
 slowly, and, as was sometimes his wont, laying 
 the finger of his right-hand on the sleeve of the 
 Hospitaller's robe — " I have often asked my- 
 self whether a King would never fill the throne 
 of France, who should find time and occasion 
 fitting to carry royalty to that grand height 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 159 
 
 where it was placed by Charlemagne. Do not 
 start ! I propose not — I hope not — to be the 
 man ; but I will pave the way, tread it who 
 will hereafter. I speak not of acting Charle- 
 magne with this before my eyes ;" and he laid 
 his hand upon the tablets, which showed the 
 state of his finances. " But still I may do 
 much — nay, I have done much." 
 
 Philip paused, and thought for a moment, 
 seeming to recall, one by one, the great steps 
 he had taken to change the character of the 
 feudal system; then raising his eyes, he con- 
 tinued : — " When the sceptre fell into my grasp, 
 I found that it was little more dignified than a 
 jester's bauble. France was not a kingdom, — 
 'twas a republic of nobles, of which the King 
 could hardly be said to be the chief. He had 
 but one prerogative left, — that of demanding 
 homage from his vassals ; and even that homage 
 he was obliged to render himself to his own 
 vassals, for feofs held in their mouvances. At 
 that abuse was aimed my first blow." 
 
160 PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 " I remember it well, Sire," replied the Hos- 
 pitaller, " and a great and glorious blow it 
 was ; for, by that simple declaration that the 
 King could not, and ought not to be vassal to 
 any man ; and that any feof returning to the 
 Crown by what means soever, was no longer a 
 feof, but became domaine of the Crown, you 
 re-established at once the distinction between 
 the King and his great feudatories.'' 
 
 ••''Twas but a step," replied the Monarch; 
 " the next was, Guerin, to declare that all ques- 
 tions of feudal right were referable to our 
 court of Peers. The proud Suzerains thought 
 that there they would be their own judges ; 
 but they found that I was there the King. But, 
 to be short, — Guerin, / have followed loillingly 
 the steps that circumstances imposed upon my 
 father. I have freed the Commons, — I have 
 raised the Clergy, — I have subjected my vassals 
 to my court. So have I broken the feudal 
 hierarchy; — so have I reduced the power of 
 my greater feudatories; and so have I won 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 161 
 
 both their fear and their hatred. It is against 
 that I must guard. The lesser Barons love me 
 — the Clergy — the Burghers : — but that is not 
 enough ; I must have one or two of the Sove- 
 reigns. Then let the rest revolt if they dare ! 
 By the Lord that liveth ! if they do, I will leave 
 the domaines of the Crown to my son, tenfold 
 multiplied from what I found them. But I 
 must have one or two of my Princes. Philip 
 of Champagne is one on whom words and 
 honours work more than real benefits. He must 
 be feasted and set on my right-hand. Pierre 
 de Courtney is one whose heart and soul is on 
 chivalry ; and he must be won by tournaments 
 and lance-breakings. Many, many others are 
 alike; and while I crush the wasps in my 
 gauntlet, Guerin, I must not fail to spread out 
 some honey to catch the flies."" So spake 
 Philip Augustus, with feelings undoubtedly 
 composed of that grand selfishness called am- 
 bition ; but, at the same time, with those supe- 
 rior powers, both of conception and execution, 
 
162 PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 that not only rose above the age, but carried 
 the age along with him. 
 
 " I am not one. Sire," said the Minister, " to 
 deem that great enterprises may not be accom- 
 plished with small means ; but, in the present 
 penury of the royal treasury, I know not what 
 is to be done. I will see, however, what may 
 be effected amongst your good burghesses of 
 Paris." 
 
 " Do so, good Bishop !" replied the King, 
 " and, in the mean time, I will ride forth to the 
 Hermit of Yincennes. He is one of those men, 
 Guerin, of whom earth bears so few, who have 
 new thoughts. He seems to have cast off all 
 old ideas and feelings, when he threw from him 
 the corslet and the shield, and took the frock 
 and sandal. Perhaps he may aid us. But, ere 
 I go, I must take good order that every point 
 of ceremony be observed in our banquet: I 
 would not, for one-half France, that Philip of 
 Champagne should see a fault or a flaw ! I 
 know him well ; and he must be my own, if 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 163 
 
 but to oppose to Ferrand of Flanders, who is 
 the falsest vassal that ever king had !" 
 
 " I trust that the Hermit may suggest the 
 means !" replied Guerin, " and I doubt little 
 that he will ; but, I beseech you. Sire, not to let 
 your blow fall on the heads of the Jews again. 
 The Hermit's advice was wise, to punish them 
 for their crimes, and at the same time to enrich 
 the crown of France ; but having now returned 
 by your royal permission, and having ever since 
 behaved well and faithfully, they should be 
 assured of protection."' 
 
 " Fear not, fear not !" replied the King ; 
 *' they are as safe as my honour can make them." 
 So saying, he turned to prepare for the expedi- 
 tion he proposed. 
 
 Strange state of society ! when one of the 
 greatest monarchs that France ever possessed, 
 was indebted, on many occasions, for the re- 
 establishment of his finances, and for some of 
 his best measures of policy, to an old man 
 living in solitude and abstraction, removed 
 
164 PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 from the scenes and people over whose fate he 
 exercised so extraordinary a control, and evin- 
 cing, on every occasion, his disinclination to 
 mingle with the affairs of the world.* 
 
 But it is time we should speak more fully 
 of a person whose history and influence on the 
 people amongst whom he lived, strongly de- 
 velopes the character of the age. 
 
 * The Chronicle of Alberic des Trois Fontaines gives 
 some curious particulars concerning this personage^ and 
 offers a singular picture of the times. 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 165 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 King Philip rode out of Paris attended 
 like the monarch of a great nation ; but, pausing 
 at the tower of Vincennes, he left his men-at- 
 arms behind ; and, after throwing a brown man- 
 tle over his shoulders, and drawing the aumuce* 
 or furred hood, round his face, he proceeded 
 through the park on foot, followed only by a 
 single page to open the gate, which led out into 
 the vast forest of St. Mande. When this task 
 was performed, the attendant, by order of the 
 monarch, suffered him to proceed alone, and 
 
 * The difference between the chaperon, or hood, and the 
 aumuce was, that the first was formed of cloth or silk, and 
 the latter of fur. — Die. des Franc. 
 
166 PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 waited on the outside of the postern, to admit 
 the King on his return. 
 
 Philip Augustus took a small path that, wan- 
 dering about amidst the old trees, led on into 
 the heart of the forest. All was in thick leaf; 
 and the branches, meeting above, cast a green 
 and solemn shadow over the way. It was occa- 
 sionally crossed, however, with breaks of yellow 
 sunshine where the trees parted ; and there 
 the eye might wander down the long, deep 
 glades, in which sun and shade, and green 
 leaves, and broad stems, and boughs, were all 
 seen mingled together in the dim forest air, 
 with an aspect of wild, original solitude, such 
 as wood scenery alone can display. 
 
 One might have fancied oneself the first 
 tenant of the world, in the sad loneliness of that 
 dark, old wood ; so that, as he passed along, 
 deep thoughts of a solemn, and even melancholy 
 character came thick about the heart of the 
 monarch. The littleness of human grandeur — 
 the evanescence of enjoyment — the emptiness 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 167 
 
 of fame — the grand and awful lessons that soli- 
 tude teaches, and the world wipes out, found 
 their moment then : and, oh ! for that brief 
 instant, how he hated strife, and cursed ambi- 
 tion, and despised the world, and wished him- 
 self the solitary anchorite he went to visit ! 
 
 At about half a league from the tower 
 of Vincennes stood in those days an antique 
 tomb. The name and fame of him whose me- 
 mory it had been intended to perpetuate, had 
 long passed away ; and it stood in the midst of 
 the forest of St. Mande, with its broken tablets 
 and eflPaced inscription, a trophy to oblivion. 
 Near it, Bernard the Hermit had built his hut ; 
 and when the monarch approached, he was 
 seated on one of the large fragments of stone 
 which had once formed part of the monument. 
 His head rested on one hand ; while the other, 
 fallen by his side, held an open book ; and at his 
 feet lay the fragments of an urn in sculptured 
 marble. Over his head, an old oak spread its 
 wide branches; but through a vacant space 
 
168 PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 amidst the foliage, where either age or the light- 
 ning had riven away one of the great limbs of 
 the forest giant, the sunshine poured through, 
 and, touching on the coarse folds of the Her- 
 mit's garments, passed on, and shone bright 
 upon the ruined tomb. 
 
 As Philip approached, the Hermit raised 
 his eyes, but dropped them again immediately. 
 He was known to have, as it were, fits of this 
 sort of abstraction, the repeated interruption of 
 which had so irritated hint, that, for a time, he 
 retired to the mountains of Auvergne, and only 
 returned at the express and repeated request 
 of the King. He was now, if one might judge 
 by the morose heaviness of his brow, buried in 
 one of those bitter and misanthropical reveries 
 into which he often fell ; and the monarch, 
 knowing his cynical disposition, took care not 
 to disturb the course of his ideas, by suddenly 
 presenting any fresh subject to his mind. Nei- 
 ther to say the truth, were the thoughts of the 
 King very discordant with those which probably 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 169 
 
 occupied the person he came to see. Sitting 
 down, therefore, on the stone beside him, with- 
 out giving or receiving any salutation, he re- 
 mained in silence, while the Hermit continued 
 gazing upon the tomb. 
 
 " Beautiful Nature !" said the old man, at 
 last. " How exquisitely fine is every line that 
 thou hast chiseled in yon green ivy that twines 
 amongst those stones ! — Whose tomb was that, 
 my son ?" 
 
 " In truth, I know not, good Father !" re- 
 plied the King ; " and I do not think that in 
 all France there is a man wise enough to tell 
 you." 
 
 " You mock me !" said the Hermit. " Look 
 at the laurel— the never-dying leaf — the ever, 
 ever-green bay, which some curious hand has 
 carved all over the stone, well knowing that 
 the prince or warrior who sleeps there should 
 be remembered till the world is not ! I pray 
 thee, tell me whose is that tomb .?'' 
 
 " Nay, indeed, it is unknown," replied the 
 
 VOL. I. I 
 
170 PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 King. " Heaven forbid that I should mock 
 you ! The inscription has been long effaced — 
 the name for centuries forgot ; and the living, 
 in their busy cares, have taken little heed to 
 preserve the memory of the dead."" 
 
 " So shall it be with thee," said the old man — 
 " so shall it be with thee. Thou shalt do great 
 deeds; thou shalt know great joys, and taste 
 great sorrows ! Magnified in thy selfishness, 
 thy littleness shall seem great. Thou shalt 
 strive and conquer, till thou thinkest thyself 
 immortal ; then die, and be forgot ! Thy very 
 tomb shall be commented upon by idle specu- 
 lation, and men shall come and wonder for 
 whom it was constructed. Do not men call 
 thee Augustus ?*"* 
 
 * The name of Augustus was given to Philip the Second, 
 even in the earlier part of his lifetime, although Mezerai 
 mistakenly attributes it to many centuries afterwards. 
 Rigord, the historian and physician, who died in the 
 twenty-eighth year of Philip's reign, and the forty-second 
 of his age, styles him Augustus, in the very title of his 
 manuscript. 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 171 
 
 " I have heard so," replied the King. '' But 
 I know not whether such a title be general in 
 the mouths of men, or whether it be the flattery 
 of some needy sycophant." 
 
 " It matters not, my son," said the Hermit — 
 " it matters not. Think you, that if Augustus 
 had been written on that tablet, the letters of 
 that word would have proved more durable 
 than those that time has long effaced ? Think 
 you, that it would have given one hour of im- 
 mortality ?" 
 
 '' Good Father, you mistake!" said Philip, 
 " and read me a homily on that where least I 
 sin. None feels more than I the emptiness of 
 fame. Those that least seek it, very often 
 win ; and those that struggle for it with every 
 effort of their soul, die unremembered. 'Tis 
 not fame I seek : I live in the present." 
 
 " What !" cried the Hermit, " and bound 
 
 your hopes to half-a-dozen morrows ? The 
 
 present ! What is the present ? Take away 
 
 the hours of sleep— of bodily, of mental pain — 
 
 I 2 
 
172 PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 of regrets for the past — of fears for the future 
 — of all sorts of cares. And what is the pre- 
 sent ? One short moment of transitory joy — a 
 point in the wide eternity of thought .'—a drop 
 of water to a thirsty man, tasted and then 
 forgot !" 
 
 " 'Tis but too true!" replied the King; 
 " and even now, as I came onward, I dreamed 
 of casting off the load of sovereignty, and seek- 
 ing peace." 
 
 The Hermit gazed at him for a moment, and 
 seeing that he spoke gravely — " It cannot be," 
 he replied. " It must not be !" 
 
 " And why not .?" demanded the King. 
 " All your reasoning has tended but to that. 
 Why should I not take the moral to myself ?" 
 
 " It cannot be," replied the Hermit ; " be- 
 cause the life of your resolution would be but 
 half-an-hour. It must not be, because the 
 world has need of you. — Monarch ! I am not 
 wont to flatter, and you have many a gross and 
 hideous fault about you ; but, according to the 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 178 
 
 common specimens of human kind, you are 
 worthy to be King. It matters little to the 
 world, whether you do good for its sake or 
 your own. If your ambition bring about your 
 fellow-creatures' welfare, your ambition is a 
 virtue : nourish it. You have done good, O 
 King ! and you will do good ; and therefore you 
 must be King, till Heaven shall give you your 
 dismissal. Nor did my reasoning tend, as you 
 say, to make you quit the cares of the world ; 
 but only to make you justly estimate its joys, 
 and look to a better immortality than that of 
 earth — that empty dream of human vanity ! 
 Still you must bear the load of sovereignty you 
 speak of; and, by freeing the people from the 
 yoke of their thousand tyrants, accomplish the 
 work you have begun. — See you not, that I, 
 who have a better right to fly from the affairs 
 of men, have come back from Auvergne at your 
 
 cau r 
 
 " My good Father," answered the King, " I 
 would fain, as you say, take the yoke from the 
 
174 PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 neck of the people ; but I have not means. 
 Even now, my finances are totally exhausted ; 
 and I sit upon my throne a beggar/' 
 
 " Ha !" said the Hermit ; " and therefore 'tis 
 you seek me ? I knew of this before. But say, 
 are your exigencies so great as to touch the 
 present, or only to menace the future ?" 
 
 " 'Tis present — too truly present, my want !" 
 replied the King. " Said I not, I am a beggar ? 
 ' Can a King say more .^" 
 
 '* This must be remedied !" replied the Her- 
 mit. — " Come into my cell, good son ! Strange ! 
 that the ascetic's frock should prove richer than 
 tlie monarch's gown ! — but 'tis so !" 
 
 Philip followed the Hermit into the rude 
 thatched hut, on the cold earthen floor of 
 which was laid the anchorite's bed of straw. 
 It had no other furniture whatever. The mud 
 walls were bare and rough. The window was 
 but an opening to the free air of heaven ; and 
 the thatch seemed scarcely sufficient to keep off 
 the inclemency of the weather. The King 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 175 
 
 glanced his eye round the miserable dwelling, 
 and then to the ashy and withered cheek of the 
 Hermit ; as if he would have asked. Is it pos- 
 sible for humanity to bear such privation ? 
 
 The anchorite remarked his look, and point- 
 ing to a crucifix of ebony hanging against the 
 wall, " There,*" cried he, " is my reward ! — 
 there is the reward of fasting, and penitence, 
 and prayer, and maceration, and all that has 
 made this body the withered and blighted thing 
 it is : — withered indeed ! so that those who 
 loved me best would not know a line in my 
 countenance. But there is the reward !" And 
 casting himself on his knees before the cruci- 
 fix, he poured forth a long, wild, rhapsodical 
 prayer, which, indeed, well accorded with the 
 character of the times, but which was so very 
 unlike the usual calm, rational, and even bitter 
 manner of the anchorite, that Philip gazed on 
 him, in doubt whether his judgment had not 
 suddenly given way under the severity of his 
 ascetic discipline. 
 
176 PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 At length the Hermit rose, and, without 
 noting the King's look of astonishment, turned 
 abruptly from his address to Heaven, to far 
 more mundane thoughts. Pushing back the 
 straw and moss which formed his bed, from the 
 spot where it joined the wall, he discovered, to 
 the King's no small surprise, two large leathern 
 sacks, or bags, the citizen-like rotundity of 
 which evinced their fulness in some kind. 
 
 " In each of those bags," said the Hermit, 
 '' is the sum of one thousand marks of silver. 
 One of them shall be yours, my son ; the other 
 is destined for another purpose. '^ 
 
 It would be looking too curiously into the 
 human heart, to ask whether Philip, who, the 
 moment before, would have thought one of the 
 bags a most blessed relief from his very un- 
 kingly distresses, did not, on the sight of two, 
 feel unsatisfied that one only was to be his 
 portion. However, he was really of too noble 
 a disposition not to feel grateful for the gift, 
 even as it was ; and he was proceeding grace- 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 177 
 
 fully to thank the Hermit, when the old man 
 stopped him. 
 
 " Vanity, vanity ! my son," cried he. "What 
 need of thanks, for giving you a thing that is 
 valueless to me ? — ay, more worthless than the 
 moss amongst which it lies. My vow forbids 
 me either to buy or sell; and though I may use 
 gold, as the beast of burden bears it — but to 
 transfer it to another ; — to me, it is more worth- 
 less than the dust of the earth, for it neither 
 bears the herbs that give me food, nor the leaves 
 that form my bed. Send for it. Sir King, and 
 it is yours. — But now to speak of the future. I 
 heard, by the way, that the Count de Tanker- 
 ville is dead ; and that the Duke of Burgundy 
 claims all his broad lands. Is it so ?'''' 
 
 " Nay," replied the King, '' not so. The 
 Count de Tankerville is wandering in the Holy 
 Land. I have not heard of him since I went 
 thither myself some ten years since : but he is 
 there. At least, no tidings have reached me of 
 his death. — Even were he dead," continued the 
 I 5 
 
178 PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 King, " which is not likely, — for he went but 
 as one of the palmers, to whom, you know, the 
 Soldan shows much favour ; and he was a strong 
 and vigorous man, fitted to resist all climates : — 
 But even were he dead, the Duke of Burgundy 
 has no claim upon his lands ; for, before he 
 went, he drew a charter and stamped it with 
 his ring, whereby, in case of his death, he gives 
 his whole and entire lands, with our royal con- 
 sent, to Guy de Coucy, then a page warring 
 with the men I left to Richard of England, 
 but now a famous Knight, who has done feats 
 of great prowess in all parts of the world. 
 The charter is in our royal treasury, sent by 
 him to our safe keeping about ten years 
 agone." 
 
 " Well, my son," replied the Hermit, " the 
 report goes that he is dead. — Now, follow my 
 counsel. Lay your hand upon those lands ; call 
 in all the sums that for many years are due 
 from all the Count's prevots and senechals ; 
 employ the revenues in raising the dignity of 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 179 
 
 your crown, repressing the wars and plunder- 
 ings of your Barons, and — " 
 
 " But,*" interrupted the King, " my good 
 father, will not what you advise, itself be plun- 
 dering ? Will it not be a notable injustice ?^* 
 
 " Are you one of those. Sir King," asked 
 the Hermit, " who come for advice, resolved to 
 follow their own ; and who hear the counsels of 
 others, but to strengthen their own determina- 
 tion. Do as I tell you, and you shall prosper ; 
 and, by my faith in yon blessed emblem, I 
 pledge myself that, if the Count de Tankerville 
 be alive, I will meet his indignation ; and he 
 shall wreak his vengeance on my old head, if he 
 agree not that the necessity of the case compel- 
 led you. If he'be a good and loyal Baron, he 
 will not hesitate to say you did well, when his 
 revenues were lying unemployed, or only fat- 
 tening his idle servants. If he be dead, on the 
 other hand, this mad-brained De Coucy, who 
 owes me his life, shall willingly acquit you of 
 the sums you have taken.'' 
 
180 PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 The temptation was too strong for the King 
 to resist ; and determining inwardly, merely to 
 employ the large revenues of the Count de 
 Tankerville for the exigencies of the state ; and 
 to repay them, if he or De Coucy did not will- 
 ingly acquiesce in the necessity of the case, — 
 without however remembering that repayment 
 might not be in his power — Philip Augustus 
 consented to what the Hermit proposed. It 
 was also farther agreed between them, that in 
 case of the young knight presenting himself 
 at court, the question of his rights should be 
 avoided, till such time as the death of the 
 Count de Tankerville was positively ascertain- 
 ed ; while, as some compensation, Philip re- 
 solved to give him, in case of war, the leading 
 of all the knights and soldiers furnished by the 
 lands which would ultimately fall to him. 
 
 The Hermit was arranging all these matters 
 with Philip, with as much worldly policy as if 
 he never dreamed of nobler themes, when they 
 were startled by the sound of a horn, which, 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 181 
 
 though at some distance, was evidently in the 
 forest. It seemed the blast of a huntsman; 
 and a flush of indignation came over the coun- 
 tenance of the King, at the very thought of any 
 one daring to hunt in one of the royal forests, 
 almost within sight of the walls of Paris. 
 
 The Hermit saw the angry spot, and giving 
 way to the cynicism which mingled so strangely 
 with many very opposite qualities in his cha- 
 racter — " O God !" cried he, " what strange 
 creatures thou hast made us ! That a great, 
 wise king should hold the right of slaughtering 
 unoffending beasts as one of the best privileges 
 of his crown ! — to be sole and exclusive butcher 
 of God's forests in France ! I tell thee, Mo- 
 narch, that when those velvet brutes, that fly 
 panting at thy very tread heard afar, come and 
 lick my hand, because I feed them and hurt 
 them not, I hold my staff" as much above thy 
 sceptre, as doing good is above doing evil ! 
 But hie thee away quick, and send thy men to 
 search the forest ; for, hark ! the saucy fool 
 
182 PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 blows his horn again, and knows not royal ears 
 are listening to his tell-tale notes !" 
 
 Philip was offended : but the vast reputation 
 for sanctity which the Hermit had acquired; 
 the fasts, the vigils, and the privations, which 
 he himself knew to be unfeigned, — had, in that 
 age of superstition, no small effect even upon 
 the mind of Philip Augustus : — he submitted, 
 therefore, to the anchorite's rebuke with seem- 
 ing patience, but taking care not to reply upon 
 a subject whereon he knew himself to be pecu- 
 liarly susceptible, and which might urge him 
 into anger, he took leave of the Hermit, fully 
 resolved to follow his advice so far as to send 
 out some of his men-at-arms, to see who was 
 bold enough to hunt in the royal chase. 
 
 This trouble, however, was spared him ; for, 
 as he walked back with a rapid pace, along the 
 path that conducted to Vincennes, the sound of 
 the horn came nearer and nearer ; and suddenly 
 the King was startled by an apparition in one 
 of the glades, which was very difficult to com- 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 183 
 
 prehend. It consisted of a strong grey mare, 
 galloping at full speed, with no apparent rider, 
 but with two human legs, clothed in crimson 
 silk, sticking far out before, one on each side of 
 the animal's neck. As it approached, however, 
 Philip began to perceive the body of the horse- 
 man, lying flat on his back, with his head rest- 
 ing on the saddle, and not at all discomposed 
 by his strange position, nor the quick pace of 
 his steed, blowing all sorts of mots.uipon his 
 horn, which was, in truth, the sound that had 
 disturbed the Monarch in his conference with 
 the Hermit. 
 
 We must still remember, that the profound 
 superstition of that age held, as a part of the 
 true faith, the existence and continual appear- 
 ance, in corporeal shape, of all sorts of spirits — 
 " black spirits and white, blue spirits and 
 gray," as the respec5table old lady sings in 
 Macbeth. It was also the peculiar province of 
 huntsmen, and other persons frequenting large 
 forests, to meet with these spirits ; so that not a 
 
184 PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 wood in France, of any extent, but had its 
 appropriate fiend; and never did a chase ter- 
 minate without some of the hunters separating 
 from the rest, and having some evil communi- 
 cation of the kind with the pecuHar demon of 
 the place. 
 
 Now, though the reader may have before 
 met with the personage who, in the present 
 case, approached the King at full gallop, yet 
 as Philip Augustus had never done so, — and 
 as no mind, however strong, is ever without 
 some touch of the spirit of its age, it was not 
 unnatural for the monarch to lay his hand upon 
 his sword, that being the most infallible way he 
 had ever found of exorcising all kinds of spirits 
 whatever. The mare, however, aware that she 
 was in the presence of something more awful 
 than trees and rocks, suddenly stoppedj and, in 
 a moment, our friend Gallon the fool sat boh 
 upright before the King, with his long and 
 extraordinary nose wriggling in all sorts of 
 ways on the blank flat of his countenance, as 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 185 
 
 if it were the only part of his face that was 
 surprised. 
 
 " Who the devil are you ?" exclaimed the 
 Monarch ; " and what do you, sounding your 
 horn in this forest ?''"' 
 
 " I, the devil, am nobody ,"*' replied the jong- 
 leur ; *' and if you ask what 1 do here, I am 
 losing my way as hard as I can. — Haw, haw !" 
 
 " Nobody ! How mean you ?" demanded 
 Philip. " You cannot be nobody." 
 
 " Yes, I am," answered the juggler. " I 
 have often heard the sage Count Thibalt 
 d'*Auvergne say to my master, the valiant Sir 
 Guy de Coucy, that the intellect is the man. 
 Now, I lack intellect ; and therefore am I no- 
 body. — Haw, haw ! Haw, haw !" 
 
 " So thou art but a buffoon," said the King. 
 
 " No, not so either,"' replied Gallon. '* I 
 am, indeed. Sir Guy de Coucy's tame juggler; 
 running wild in this forest, for want of in- 
 struction." 
 
 " And where is now Sir Guy de Coucy," 
 
186 PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 demanded the King, " and the Count Thibalt 
 d'Auvergne you speak of? They were both in 
 the Holy Land when last I heard of them." 
 
 " As for the Count d'Auvergne," replied 
 Gallon the fool, — " he parted from us three 
 days since to go to Paris, to make love to the 
 King's wife, who, they say, has a pretty foot. 
 God help me !" 
 
 " Ha, villain 1" cried the King. " 'Tis well 
 the King hears you not, or your ears would 
 be slit!" 
 
 " So should his hearing spoil my hearing," 
 cried the juggler ; " but I would keep my ears 
 out of his way. I have practice enough, in sav- 
 ing them from my Lord Sir Guy ; but no man 
 has reached them yet, and shall not. — Haw, 
 haw !" 
 
 " And where is Sir Guy .?" demanded the 
 King. " How happen you to have parted 
 from him ?" 
 
 " He is but now sitting a mile hence, sing- 
 ing very doleful ballads under an oak," replied 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 187 
 
 the juggler. " All about the old man and his 
 daughter. — Haw, haw ! Sir Julian of the 
 Mount and the fair Isadore. — Haw, haw, haw ! 
 — You know ?"" 
 
 " No, 'faith. Fool ! I know not," replied Philip. 
 " What do you mean ?" 
 
 " Why, have you not heard," said the jug- 
 gler, " how my good lord and my better self, 
 and five or six varlets and squires, conducted 
 old Sir Julian and the young Lady Isadore, all 
 the way from Vic le Comte to Senlis — and how 
 we lost our way in this cursed forest — and 
 how my lord sent me to seek it ? Oh, 'tis a 
 fine tale, and my lord will write it in verse — 
 Haw, haW; haw ! — and sing it to an old rattling 
 harp ; and make all the folks weep to hear how 
 he has sworn treason against the King, all for 
 the sake of the Lady Isadore. — Haw, haw, haw ! 
 Haw, haw !" And placing his hand against his 
 cheek, the juggler poured forth a mixture of 
 all sorts of noises, in which that of sharpening 
 a saw was alone predominant. 
 
188 PHILIP AUGUSTUS, 
 
 Philip called, and entreated, and commanded 
 him to cease, and to tell him more ; but the 
 malicious juggler only burst out into one of his 
 long shrill laughs, and throwing himself back 
 on his horse, set it off into a gallop, without at 
 all asking his way ; at the same time putting 
 the horn to his mouth, and blowing a blast 
 quite sufficient to drown all the monarch's 
 objurgations. 
 
 Philip turned upon his heel, and pursued his 
 way to Vincennes, and — oh, strange human 
 nature ! — though he saw that his informant 
 was a fool — though he easily guessed him to 
 be a malicious one, he repeated again and again 
 the words that Gallon had made use of — " Gone 
 to make love to the King's wife ! — sworn trea- 
 son against the King ! But the man's a fool — 
 an idiot," added the Monarch. " 'Tis not worth 
 a thought ;" and yet Philip thought of it. 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 189 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 In the days we speak of, the city of Paris 
 was just beginning to venture beyond the is- 
 land, and spread its streets and houses over the 
 country around. During the reign of Louis the 
 Seventh, and especially under the administra- 
 tion of Suger, Abbot of St. Denis, the buildings 
 had , extended far on the northern bank of the 
 river ; and there already might be seen churches 
 and covered market-places, and all that indi- 
 cates a wealthy and rising city ; but in the 
 midst of this suburb, nearly on the spot where 
 stand at present the Rue Neuve and the Rue 
 des Petits Champs, was a vast open space of 
 ground, called the Champeaux, or Little Fields; 
 
190 PHILIP AUGUSTUS, 
 
 which, appertaining to the Crown, had been re- 
 served for the chivalrous sports of the day. 
 Part of it, indeed, had been given to the halls of 
 Paris, and part had been enclosed as a cemetery ; 
 but a large vacant space still remained, and 
 here was appointed the tournament of July, to 
 which Philip Augustus had called all the chi- 
 valry of his realm. 
 
 It is not my intention here to describe a 
 tournament, which has been so often done — and 
 so exquisitely well done in the beautiful ro- 
 mance of Ivanhoe, that my relation would not 
 only have the tediousness of a twice-told tale, 
 but the disadvantage of a comparison with 
 something far better ; but I am unfortunately 
 obliged to touch upon such a theme, as the 
 events that took place at the passe cTarmes of 
 Champeaux materially affect the course of my 
 history. 
 
 On one side of the plain extended a battle- 
 mented building, erected by the minister Gue- 
 rin, and dedicated, as the term went, to the 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 191 
 
 shelter of the poor passengers. It looked more 
 like a fortress, indeed, than a house of hospi- 
 tality, being composed entirely of towers and 
 turrets ; and as it was the most prominent 
 situation in the neighbourhood, it was appointed 
 for the display of the casques and shields of 
 arms belonging to the various knights who pro- 
 posed to combat in the approaching tournament. 
 Nor was the effect unpleasant to the eye, for 
 every window on that side of the building which 
 fronted the field had the shield and banner of 
 some particular knight, with all the same gay 
 colours wherewith we now decorate the pannels 
 of our carriages. In the cloisters below, from 
 morning unto night-fall, stood one of the heralds 
 in his glittering tabard, with his pursuivants and 
 followers, ready to receive and register com- 
 plaints against any of the knights whose arms 
 were displayed above, and who, in case of any se- 
 rious charges, were either prevented from enter- 
 ing, or were driven with ignominy from the Lists. 
 Side by side, on one of the most conspicuous 
 
192 PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 spots of the building, as knights of high fame 
 and prowess, were placed the shields and ban- 
 ners of Count Thibalt d'Auvergne and Guy de 
 Coucy ; and the officers of arms, who, from 
 time to time repeated the names of the various 
 knights, and their exploits and qualities, did 
 not fail to pause long upon the two brothers in 
 arms ; giving De Coucy the meed over all 
 others for valour and daring, and D'Auvergne 
 for cool courage and prudent skill. 
 
 All the arrangements of the field were as mag- 
 nificent as if the royal coffers had overflowed. 
 The scaffoldings for the King, the ladies, and 
 the judges, were hung with crimson and gold ; 
 the tents and booths were fluttering with 
 streamers of all colours, and nothing was seen 
 around but pageant and splendour. 
 
 Such was the scene which presented itself on 
 the evening before the tournament, when De 
 Coucy and his friend, the Count d'Auvergne, 
 whom he had rejoined by this time in Paris, 
 set out, from a lodging which they occupied 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 193 
 
 near the tower of the chatelet, to visit the spot 
 where they were to display their skill the next 
 day. A circumstance, however, occurred by 
 the way, which it may be well to record. 
 
 Passing through some of the more narrow 
 and tortuous streets of Paris, and their horses 
 pressed on by the crowd of foot passengers, 
 who were coming from, or going to, the same 
 gay scene as themselves, they could only con- 
 verse in broken observations to each other, as 
 they for a moment came side by side. And even 
 these detached sentences were often drowned in 
 the various screaming invitations to spend their 
 money, which were in that day poui-ed forth 
 upon passengers of all denominations. 
 
 " Methinks the King received us but coldly,**^ 
 said De Coucy, as he gained D'Auvergne's ear 
 for a moment, " after making us wait four days 
 too ! — Methinks his hospitality runs dry.*" 
 
 " Wine, will you wine ? Good strong wine, 
 fit for Knights and Nobles," cried a loud voice 
 at the door of one of the houses. 
 
 VOL. I. K 
 
194 PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 " Cresses! — fresh water-cresses !" shrieked a 
 woman with a basket in her hand. 
 
 " The King can scarce love me less than I 
 love him/' answered the Count in a low tone, 
 as a movement of his horse brought him close 
 to De Coucy. 
 
 " And yet," said his friend, in some surprise, 
 " you, principally, determined your father to 
 reject all overtures from the Count of Flanders, 
 brought by Sir Julian of the Mount l" 
 
 " Because I admire the King, though I love 
 not the man," replied Count Thibalt. 
 
 " Baths ! baths ! hot baths !" cried a man 
 with a napkin over his arm, and down whose 
 face the perspiration was streaming. " Hot ! 
 hot! hot ! upon my honour ! — Bathe, Lords and 
 Knights ! bathe ! 'Tis dusty weather.*' 
 
 " Knight of Auvergne !" cried a voice close 
 by. " Those that soar high, fall farthest. Sir 
 Guy de Coucy, the falcon was slain that check- 
 ed at the eagle, because he was the king of 
 birds.'' 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 195 
 
 A flush came into the cheek of Count Thi- 
 balt ; and De Coucy started and turned round 
 in his saddle, to see who spoke. No one, 
 however, was near, but a man engaged in that 
 ancient and honourable occupation of selling 
 hot pies, and a woman chaffering for a pair of 
 doves with another of her own sex. 
 
 " By all the saints of France !" cried De 
 Coucy, " some one named us. What meant 
 the fool by checking at the eagle ? I see him 
 not, or I would check at him !" 
 
 Count Thibalt d''Auvergne asked no expla- 
 nation of the quaint proverb that had been ad- 
 dressed to him ; but only inquired of De 
 Coucy, whether 'twas not like the voice of his 
 villain — Gallon the fool." 
 
 " No !" replied the Knight.—" No ! 'twas 
 not so shrill. Besides, he is gone, as he said, 
 to inspect the lists some half-hour ago." 
 
 In truth, no sooner did they approach the 
 booths, which had been erected by various 
 hucksters and jugglers, at the end of the ceme- 
 k2 
 
196 PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 tery of the Innocents, a short distance from the 
 lists, than they beheld Gallon the fool, with 
 his jerkin turned inside out, amusing a crowd 
 of men, women, and children, with various 
 tricks of his old trade. 
 
 " Come to me ! — come to me !*" cried he, 
 '' all that want to learn philosophy ! I am 
 the king of cats, and the patron of cock-spar- 
 rows. Have any of you a dog that wants 
 gloves, or a goat that lacks a bonnet ? Bring 
 him me ! — ^bring him me ! and I will fit him to 
 a hair. — Haw, haw ! haw, haw !" 
 
 His strange laugh, his still stranger face, and 
 his great dexterity, were giving much delight 
 and astonishment to the people, when the ap- 
 pearance of De Coucy, who, he well knew, 
 would be angry at the public exhibition of his 
 powers, put a stop to his farther feats ; and 
 shouting, " Haw, haw ! haw, haw !" he scam- 
 pered off, and was safely at home before them. 
 
 The day of the tournament broke clear and 
 bright ; and, long before the hour appointed. 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 197 
 
 the galleries were full, and the knights armed 
 in their tents. Nothing was waited for but the 
 presence of the King ; and many was the im- 
 patient look of lady and of page, towards the 
 street which led to the side of the river. 
 
 At length the sound of trumpets announced 
 his approach ; and, winding up towards Cham- 
 peaux, were seen the leaders of his body-guard 
 — that first small seed from which sprung and 
 branched out in a thousand directions the great 
 body of a standing army. The first institution 
 of these Serjeants of arms, as they were called, 
 took place during Philip's crusade in the Holy 
 Land, where, feigning, or believing, his life to 
 be in danger from the poniards of the Assassins, 
 he attached to his own person a guard of twelve 
 hundred men, whose sole duty was to w^atch 
 around the King's dwelling. In France, though 
 the same excuse no longer existed, Philip was 
 too wise to dismiss the corps which he had once 
 established, and which not only offered a nu- 
 cleus for larger bodies in time of need, but 
 
198 PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 which added that pomp and majesty to the 
 name of king, that neither the extent of the 
 royal domains, nor the prerogatives of sove- 
 reignty, Umited as they were in those days, 
 could alone either require or enforce. 
 
 Slowly" winding up through the streets to- 
 wards the Champeaux, the cavalcade of royalty 
 seemed to delight in exhibiting itself to the 
 gaze of the people, who crowded the houses to 
 the very tops ; for, well understanding the bar- 
 barous taste of the age in which he lived, no 
 one ever more feasted the public eye with 
 splendour than Philip Augustus. 
 
 First came the heralds two and two, with 
 their many-coloured tabards, exhibiting on their 
 breasts the arms of their provinces. Next fol- 
 lowed on horseback, Mountjoy king at arms, 
 surrounded by a crowd of marshals, pursui- 
 vants, and valets on foot. He was dressed in a 
 sleeveless tunic of crimson, which opening in 
 front, displayed a robe of violet velvet, embroid- 
 ered mthjleurs de lis. On his head was placed 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 199 
 
 his crown, and in liis hand a sort of staff or 
 sceptre. He was indeed, as far as personal ap- 
 pearance went, a very kingly person ; and, be- 
 ing a great favourite amongst the people, he 
 was received with loud shouts of Denis Mount- 
 joy ! Denis Mountjoy ! Blessings on thee. Sire 
 Francis de Roussy ! 
 
 Next appeared a party of the serjeants-at- 
 arms, bearing their gilded quivers and long 
 bows ; while each held in his right-hand the ba- 
 ton of his immense brazen mace, the head or ball 
 of which rested on his shoulder. But then came 
 a sight which obliterated all others — the King 
 himself, mounted on a destrier, or battle-horse, 
 as black as night, whose every step seemed full 
 of the consciousness that he bore royalty. Arm- 
 ed completely, except the casque, which was 
 borne behind him by a page, Philip Augustus 
 moved the warrior, and looked the monarch ; 
 and the same man, who had heard the Hermit's 
 rebuke with patience, ordered the preparations 
 of a banquet like a Lucullus, and played with 
 
200 PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 tlie roses in a woman's hair, now looked as if 
 he could have crushed an empire with a frov/n. 
 
 Beside him, on a palfrey — as if for the con- 
 trast's sake — milk-white, rode the lovely Agnes 
 de Meranie. All that is known of her dress is, 
 that it also was white ; for it seems that no one 
 who looked on her could remark any thing but 
 her exquisite beauty. As she moved on, ma- 
 naging with perfect ease a high-spirited horse, 
 whose light movements served but to call out a 
 thousand graces in his rider, the glitter and the 
 pageant, and the splendour, seemed to pass away 
 from the eyes of the multitude, extinguished 
 by something brighter still; and, ever and 
 anon, Philip Augustus himself let his glance 
 drop to the sweet countenance of his Queen, 
 with an expression that woke some sympa- 
 thetic feeling in the bosoms of the people ; 
 and a loud shout proclaimed the participa- 
 tion of the crowd in the sensations of the 
 King. 
 
 Behind the King and Queen rode a long 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 201 
 
 train of barons and ladies, with all the luxury 
 of dress which was in that age as indispensable 
 in the eyes of the fair on the occasion of a tour- 
 nament, as in the present day for a ball or draw- 
 ing-room. Amongst the most conspicuous of 
 this noble train were Constance, Duchess of 
 Brittany, and her son Arthur Plantagenet, of 
 whose character and fate we shall have more to 
 speak hereafter. Each great chieftain was ac- 
 companied by many a knight, and vavassour, 
 and vassal, with worlds of wealth bestowed upon 
 their horses and their persons. Following these 
 again, came another large body of the King's 
 men-at-arms, closing the procession, which 
 marched slowly on, and entered the southern 
 end of the lists ; after which, partly traversing 
 the field, amidst the shouts and gratulations of 
 the multitude, the whole party halted at the 
 foot of a flight of steps leading to the splendid 
 gallery prepared for the King and Queen. Here, 
 surrounded by a crowd of waving crests and 
 glittering arms, Philip himself lifted Agnes 
 k5 
 
202 PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 from her horse, and led her to her seat ; while, 
 at the same time, the trumpets sounded for 
 the various knights to make, as had been pre- 
 viously arranged, a tour round the field, before 
 proceeding to the sports of the day. Each, as 
 he passed by the royal gallery, saluted the 
 King and Queen by dropping the point of his 
 lance ; and, from time to time, Agnes demand- 
 ed the name of the different knights whom 
 either she did not know, or whose faces were 
 so concealed by the helmet as to render it diffi- 
 ult to distinguish them. 
 
 Who is he, Philip ?" demanded she, as one 
 of the knights passed with the wivern in his 
 casque, and the red scarf, — " who is he ? He 
 sits his horse nobly.*' 
 
 " 'Tis Charles de Tournon,'' replied the King; 
 " a noble knight, called the Comte Rouge. 
 Here comes also Guillaume de Macon, my fair 
 Dame," added the King, smihng, " with a rose 
 on his shield, all for your love." 
 
 « Silly Knight !" said Agnes. " He had bet- 
 
 c 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 203 
 
 ter fix his love where he may hope to win. 
 But who is this next, with the shield sinople, 
 bearing a cross, gules, and three towers in 
 chief?" 
 
 " That is the famous Guy de Coucy," replied 
 the King ; " a most renowned Knight. If report 
 speaks true, we shall see all go down before 
 his lance. And this who follows, and is 
 now coming up, is the no less famous Thibalt 
 Count d'Auvergne" — and the King fixed his 
 eyes upon his wife with a keen, inquiring 
 glance. 
 
 Luckily, however, the countenance of Agnes 
 showed nothing which could alarm a mind like 
 Philip's. 
 
 :: " Count Thibalt d'Auvergne !" cried she, 
 ^ith a frank, unembarrassed smile. " Oh ! I 
 know him well. He spent many months at 
 my father's court in going to the Holy Land. 
 From him I first heard the praises of my Philip, 
 long, long ere I ever entertained a hope of being 
 his wife. I was scarce more than a child then. 
 
204 PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 not much above fifteen — and yet I forgot not 
 those praises. He was a dear friend too — that 
 Count d'Auvergne — of my poor brother Albe- 
 ric, who died in Palestine." The Queen added 
 with a sigh — " Poor Alberic ! he loved me well !" 
 " The fool lied !" said Philip internally : 
 '' all is frank and fair. The fool lied ! — and 
 led me to slight a noble Knight and powerful 
 Baron by his falsehood!" — and bending for- 
 ward, as if to do away the coldness with which 
 he had at first treated the Count d'Auvergne, 
 he answered his salute with a marked and grace- 
 ful inclination of the head. 
 
 " Is it possible .?" cried Agnes, after the 
 Count had passed. " In truth, I should never 
 have known him, Philip, he is so changed. 
 Why, when he was at the Court of Istria, he 
 was a fresh young man ; and now he is as 
 deadly pale and worn as one sick of the plague. 
 Oh, what a horrible place must be that Holy 
 Land ! — Promise me, Philip, on all the Evan- 
 gelists, never to go there again, let who will 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 205 
 
 preach new crusades : — nay, promise me, my 
 Lord !" 
 
 " I do ! I do ! sweet Agnes !" replied the 
 King : " once in a life is quite enough. I have 
 other warfares now before me." 
 
 After the knights had all passed, a short space 
 of time intervened for the various arrangements 
 of the field ; and then, the barriers being opened, 
 the tournament really commenced. Into the par- 
 ticulars of the feats performed, as I have already 
 said, I shall not enter : suffice it that, as the King 
 had predicted, all went down before De Coucy's 
 lance ; and that Count Thibalt d'Auvergne, 
 though not hurried on by the same quick spirit, 
 was judged, by the old knights, no way inferior 
 to his friend, though his valour bore a different 
 character. The second course had taken place, 
 and left the same result ; and many of the fair 
 dames in the galleries began to regret that nei- 
 ther of the two companions in arms had been 
 decorated with their colours ; and to determine 
 upon various little arts and wiles, to engage 
 
206 PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 one or other of the two Crusaders to bear some 
 mark of theirs in any subsequent tournament. 
 
 Thus stood the day, when the voices of the 
 heralds cried to pause, much to the astonish- 
 ment, not only of the combatants, but of the 
 King himself. The barriers opened, and, pre- 
 ceded by a stout priest bearing a pontifical 
 cross in silver, the Cardinal of St. Mary, dress- 
 ed as Legate a latere, entered the lists, followed 
 by a long train of ecclesiastics. 
 
 A quick, angry flush mounted into the King's 
 cheek, and his brow knit into a frown, which 
 sufficiently indicated that he expected no very 
 agreeable news from the visit of the Legate. 
 The Cardinal, however, without being moved 
 by his frowns, advanced directly towards the 
 gallery in which he sat, and, placing himself 
 before him, addressed him thus : — 
 
 " Philip, King of France, I, the Cardinal of 
 St. Mary^s, am charged, and commanded, by 
 our most holy Father, the Pope Innocent, to 
 speak to you thus — " 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 207 
 
 "Hold, Sir Cardinal!" cried the King 
 " Let your communication be for our private 
 ear. We are not accustomed to receive either 
 Ambassadors or Legates in the listed field." 
 
 " I have been directed, Sir King," replied 
 the Legate, " by the superior orders of his 
 Holiness, thus publicly to admonish you, 
 wherever I should find you, you having turned 
 a deaf and contemptuous ear to the frequent 
 counsels and commands of the Holy Church. 
 Know then. King Philip, that with surprise 
 and grief that a King of France should so for- 
 get the hereditary piety of his race, his Holi- 
 ness perceives that you still persist in abandon- 
 ing your lawful wife, Ingerburge of Den- 
 mark !" 
 
 " The man will drive me mad !" exclaimed 
 the King, grasping his truncheon, as if he 
 would have hurled it at the daring churchman, 
 who thus insulted him before all the barons of 
 his realm. " Will no one stay him ?" 
 
 Several of the knights and heralds advanced 
 
208 PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 to interpose between the Legate and the King ; 
 but the Cardinal waved them back ; and, well 
 knowing that their superstitious veneration for 
 his habit would prevent them from silencing 
 him by force, he proceeded boldly with his 
 speech. 
 
 " Perceiving also,"*^ continued he, " that 
 taking advantage of an unlawful and annulled 
 divorce, weakly pronounced by your Bishops, 
 you have taken to your bed another woman, 
 who is not, and cannot be, your wife !" 
 
 A shriek from the women of the Queen, here 
 interrupted the harangue of the prelate, and 
 all eyes instantly turned upon her. 
 
 Simple surprise and astonishment had been 
 the first emotion of Agnes de Meranie, at see- 
 ing any one bold enough to oppose a will that, 
 according to all her ideas, was resistless ; but 
 gradually, as she began to comprehend the 
 scope of the Legate''s discourse, terror and dis- 
 tress took possession of her whole frame. Her 
 eyes strained on him, as on some bad angel 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 209 
 
 come to cross her young happiness ; her lip 
 quivered ; the warm glow of her cheek waxed 
 faint and pale, like the sunshine fading away 
 from the evening sky ; and, at the last terrible 
 words that seemed to seal her fate for ever, she 
 fell back senseless into the arms of her women. 
 
 The scene of confusion that ensued is not to 
 be described. 
 
 " By the light of Heaven ! old man V ex- 
 claimed Philip, " were it not for thy grey 
 hairs, I would strike thee dead ! — Away with 
 him ! Let him speak no more ! —Men-at-arms ! 
 put him forth from the lists ! Away with him ! 
 — Agnes, my beloved !" he cried, turning to 
 the Queen, and taking her small hand in his, 
 " awake, awake ! Fear not, dear Agnes ! Is 
 your Philip's love so light as to be shaken by 
 the impotent words of any churchman in 
 Christendom ?" 
 
 IiV^he mean while the serjeants-at-arms hur- 
 ried the prelate and his followers from the lists, 
 amidst many a bitter taunt from the minstrels 
 
210 PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 and trouveres, who feared not even then to 
 attack with the most daring satire the vices of 
 the Church of Rome. The ladies of Agnes de 
 Meranie pressed round their fair mistress, 
 sprinkhng her with all kinds of essences and 
 perfumed waters ; some chattering, some still 
 screaming, and all abusing the daring Legate, 
 who had so pained the heart of their lovely 
 Queen, and put a stop to the sports of the day. 
 The knights and barons all united in the 
 cause of the Princess by every motive that had 
 power in the days of chivalry : — youth, beauty, 
 innocence, and distress, shouted loudly, that 
 they acknowledged her for their sovereign, the 
 the queen of all queens, and the flower of all 
 ladies ! 
 
 Philip Augustus, with royal indignation still 
 upon his brow, caught gladly at the enthusiasm 
 of his chivalry ; and, standing forward in the 
 front of the gallery, with the inanimate hand 
 of his lovely wife in his left, and pointing to 
 her deathlike cheek with the other, he ex- 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 211 
 
 claimed, in a voice that passed all over the 
 field — " Knights and Nobles of fair France ! 
 shall I suffer my hearth to be invaded by the 
 caprice of any proud Prelate ? Shall I yield 
 the lady of my love for the menace of any Pope 
 on earth ? You, good Knights ! — you only can 
 judge! and, by Heaven's throne! you only shall 
 be the judges !" 
 
 " Life to the King ! — life to the King ! 
 Denis Mountjoy ! — Denis Mountjoy I" shouted 
 the Barons, as if they were rallying round the 
 royal standard on the battle-field ; and, at the 
 same time, the waving of a thousand scarfs, and 
 handkerchiefs, and veils, from the galleries 
 around, announced how deep an interest the 
 ladies of France took in a question where the 
 invaded rights of the Queen came so home to 
 the bosoms of all. 
 
 " Break up the sports, for to-day !"" cried 
 Philip, waving his warder. " This has disturbed 
 our happiness for the moment; but we trust 
 our fair Queen will be able to thank her loyal 
 
2l2 PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 Knights by the hour of four, when we invite 
 all men of noble birth here present to sup with 
 us in our great hall of the palace. For those 
 who come too late to find a seat in the great 
 hall, a banquet shall be prepared in the tower 
 of the Louvre. Till then, farewell !" 
 
 The fainting fit of Agnes de Meranie lasted 
 so long, that it was found necessary to carry 
 her to the palace in a litter, followed, sadly and 
 in silence, by the same splendid train that 
 had conducted her, as if in triumph, to the 
 tournament. 
 
 In the mean while, for a short time, the 
 knights who had come to show their prowess 
 and skill, and those noble persons, both ladies 
 and barons, who had graced the lists as specta- 
 tors, remained in groups, scattered over the 
 field, and through the galleries, canvassing vehe- 
 mently what had taken place ; and not the most 
 priest-ridden of them all, did not, in the first 
 excitation of the moment, declare that the con- 
 duct of both Pope and Cardinal was daring and 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 213 
 
 scandalous, and that the divorce which had 
 been pronounced between Philip and Inger- 
 burge by the bishops of France ought to hold 
 good in the eyes of all Frenchmen. 
 
 " Now, by the good Heaven !" cried De 
 Coucy, raising his voice above all the rest, 
 " she is as fair a Queen as ever my eyes rested 
 on ; and though I cannot wear her colours, and 
 proclaim her the star of my love, because an- 
 other vow withholds me, yet I will mortally 
 defy any man who says she is not lawfully 
 Queen of France. — Sound, trumpets, sound ! 
 and you. Sir Heralds, cry — Here stands Guy de 
 Coucy in arms, ready to prove upon the bodies 
 of any persons who do deny that Agnes Prin- 
 cess de Meranie is lawfully Queen of France, 
 and wife of Philip the Magnanimous, that they 
 are false and recreant ; and to give them the 
 lie in their throat, wagering against them his 
 body and arms in battle, when and where they 
 will appoint, on horseback or on foot, and giv- 
 ing them the choice of arms I" 
 
214 PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 The trumpets sounded, and the heralds who 
 remained on the field proclaimed the challenge 
 of the knight ; while De Coucy cast his gaunt- 
 let on the ground. A moments profound silence 
 succeeded, and then a loud shout ; and no one 
 answering his call, De Coucy bade the heralds 
 take up the glove and nail it on some public 
 place, with his challenge written beneath ; for 
 payment of which service, he twisted off three 
 links of a massive gold chain round his neck, 
 and cast it to the herald who raised his glove ; 
 after which he turned, and, rejoining the Count 
 d'Auvergne, rode back to throw off his arms 
 and prepare for the banquet to which they had 
 been invited. 
 
 " De Coucy,'' said D'Auvergne, as they 
 passed onward, " I too would willingly have 
 joined in your challenge, had I thought 
 that our lances could ever establish Agnes 
 de Meranie as Queen of France; but I tell 
 you no, De Coucy ! If the Pope be firm, 
 and firm he will be, as her father too well 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 215 
 
 knows, Philip will be forced to resign her, 
 or to trust to his Barons for support against 
 the Church." 
 
 " Well !" cried De Coucy, " and his Ba- 
 rons will support him. Saw you not how, 
 but now, they pledged themselves to his 
 support ?'*'' 
 
 " The empty enthusiasm of a moment !" re- 
 plied D'Auvergne bitterly ; " which will be 
 out as soon as kindled ! Not one man in each 
 hundred there, I tell thee, De Coucy, has got 
 one spark of such enthusiasm as yours, 
 which, like the Greek fire, flashes brightly, 
 yet burns for ever ; and as few of them, the 
 colder sort of determination, which, like mine, 
 burns without any flame, till all that fed it is 
 consumed." 
 
 De Coucy paused. For a moment the idea 
 crossed his mind of proposing to D'Auvergne 
 a plan for binding all the barons present by a 
 vow to support Philip against the Church of 
 Rome, while the enthusiasm was yet upon them ; 
 
216 PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 but, though brave almost to madness where his 
 own person was alone concerned, he was pru- 
 dent and cautious in no small degree, where the 
 life and happiness of others were involved ; 
 and, remembering the strife to which such a 
 proposal, even, might give rise, he paused, and 
 let it die in silence. 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 217 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 The banquet passed, like the scene which 
 followed the tournament, in enthusiastic asser- 
 tions of the fair Queen's rights, although she 
 was not present. In this instance, Philip Au- 
 gustus, all clear-sighted as he was, suifered 
 himself to be deceived by his wishes ; and 
 believed fully, that his barons would aid him 
 in the resistance he meditated to the usurped 
 authority of the Pope. 
 
 The promises, however, which wine and 
 wassail, and festivity, call forth, are scarcely 
 more lasting than the feast itself ; and, wdthout 
 we can take advantage of the enthusiasm be- 
 fore it dies, and render it irrevocable by urging 
 
 VOL. I. L 
 
218 PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 it into action, little can ever be gained from 
 any sudden emotion of a multitude. If Philip 
 doubted its durability, he did not suffer the 
 shade of such a doubt to appear. The vaunt 
 of every young knight he thanked as a pro- 
 mise ; and every expression of admiration and 
 sympathy, directed towards his Queen, he 
 affected to look upon as a pledge to espouse 
 her cause. 
 
 The Count Thibalt d'Auvergne was the only 
 one that made neither boasts nor promises ; and 
 yet the King — whether judging his mind of a 
 more stable fabric than the others, or wishing 
 to counterbalance the coldness he had shown 
 him on his first appearance at the court, — now 
 loaded him with honours, placed him near him, 
 spoke to him on all those subjects on which he 
 deemed the Count was best calculated to speak ; 
 and, affecting to consider his advice and assist- 
 ance of great import, in arranging the relations 
 to be established between the crown of France 
 and the new French colony, which had taken 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 219 
 
 Constantinople, he prayed him to accompany 
 the court to Compiegne, for which place it set 
 out the next day. 
 
 The King's favour and notice fell upon the 
 calm cold brow, and dark thoughtful eye of 
 Thibalt d'Auvergne, like sunshine in winter, 
 melting in no degree the frozen surface that it 
 touched. The invitation, however, he^accepted ; 
 saying, in the same unmoved tone, that he was 
 anxious to see the Queen, whom he had known 
 in years long gone, and to whom he could give 
 fresh news from I stria, with many a loving 
 greeting from her father, whom he had seen as 
 he returned from Palestine. 
 
 The Queen, Philip replied, would be de- 
 lighted to see him, and to hear all that he had 
 to tell ; for she had never yet forgot her own 
 fair country — nay, nor let that canker-worm 
 of affection, absence, eat the least bit away 
 of her regard for those she loved. 
 
 The very first. Count Thibalt took his leave 
 and departed. De Coucy rose and was foUow- 
 L 2 
 
220 PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 ing ; but the King detained him for a moment, 
 to thank him for the generous interest he had 
 shown in his Queen's rights, which had not 
 failed to reach his ears. He then asked, with 
 a slight shade of concern upon his brow, " Is 
 your companion in arms, heau Sire^ always so 
 sad ? It grieves me truly, to see him look so 
 possessed by sorrow ! What is the cause 
 thereof?" 
 
 "• By my faith ! my Lord, 'tis love, I believe," 
 replied De Coucy ; " some fair dame of Pales- 
 tine — I wot not whether heathen or Christian, 
 rightly ; but all I know is this : — Some five years 
 ago, when he first joined us, then warring near 
 Tyre, he was as cheerful a knight as ever un- 
 horsed a Saracen — never very lively in his 
 mirth, yet loving gaiety in others, and smiling 
 often ; when suddenly, about two or three 
 years after, he lost all his cheerfulness, aban- 
 doned his smiles, grew wan and thin, and has 
 ever since been the man you see him." 
 
 The shade passed away from the King's brow; 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 221 
 
 and, saying — " "^Tis a sad pity ! We will try 
 to find some bright eyes in France that may 
 cure this evil love,*" — he suffered De Coucy to 
 depart. 
 
 All that passed, relative to the reception of 
 the Legate, was faithfully transmitted to Pope 
 Innocent III. ; and the very enthusiasm shown 
 by the barons of France, in the cause of their 
 lovely Queen, made the Pontiff tremble for his 
 authority. The immense increase of power 
 which the bishops of Rome had acquired by 
 the victory their incessant and indefatigable 
 intrigues had won, even over the spirit of Frede- 
 rick Barbarossa, wanted yet the stability of 
 antiquity ; and it was for this that Innocent III. 
 feared, should Philip successfully resist the 
 domination of the Church even in one single 
 instance. 
 
 There were other motives, however, which, 
 in the course of the contest about to be here 
 recorded, mingled with his conduct a degree of 
 personal acrimony towards the King of France. 
 
222 PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 Of an imperious and jealous nature, the Pontiff 
 met with resistance first from Philip of France ; 
 and his ambition came only in aid of his anger. 
 The election of the Emperor of Germany was 
 one cause of difference ; Philip Augustus sup- 
 porting with all his power Philip of Suabia ; 
 and the Pope not only supporting, but crowning 
 with his own hands, Otho, nephew of John, 
 King of England, — although great doubts and 
 contestations existed in regard to his legitimate 
 election. 
 
 As keen and clear-sighted as he was ambitious. 
 Innocent saw that in Philip Augustus he had 
 an adversary as intent upon increasing his own 
 authority, as he himself could be on extending 
 the power of the Church. He saw the exact 
 point of opposition ; he saw the powerful mind 
 and political strength of his antagonist ; but he 
 saw also that Philip''s power, when acting against 
 his own, must greatly depend upon the progress 
 of the human mind towards a more enlightened 
 state, which advance must necessarily be slow 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 223 
 
 and difficult ; while the foundations of his own 
 power had been laid by ages of superstition,, 
 and were strengthened by all the habits and 
 ceremonies to which the heart of man clings in 
 every state, but more especially in a state of 
 darkness. 
 
 Resolved at once to strike the blow, it hap- 
 pened favourably for the views of the Pope, 
 that the first question where his authority was 
 really compromised, was one in which the strong- 
 est passions of his adversary were engaged, 
 while his own mind was free to direct its ener- 
 gies by the calm rule of judgment. It is but 
 justice also to say, that though Innocent felt 
 the rejection of his interference as an insult, 
 and beheld the authority of the Church despised 
 with no small wrath, yet all his actions and his 
 letters, though firm and decided, were calm and 
 temperate. Still, he menaced not without hav- 
 ing resolved to strike ; and the only answer he 
 returned to the request of the Cardinal of St. 
 Marv's for farther instructions, was to call a 
 
224 PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 council of the bishops of France, to excommu- 
 nicate Philip as rebel to the will of the Church, 
 and to fulminate an interdict against the whole 
 of the realm. So severe a sentence, however, 
 alarmed the bishops of France; and, at their 
 intercession, the Legate delayed for a time its 
 execution, in hopes that, by some concession, 
 Philip might turn away the wrath of the Church. 
 In the mean while, as if the blow with which 
 he was menaced but made him cling more 
 closely to the object for whose sake he exposed 
 himself, Philip devoted himself entirely to 
 divert the mind of Agnes de Meranie from 
 contemplating the fatal truth which she had 
 learned at last. He now called to her mind the 
 enthusiasm with which his barons had espoused 
 her cause ; he pointed out to her, that the 
 whole united bishops of France had solemnly 
 pronounced the dissolution of his incomplete 
 marriage with the Princess of Denmark ; and 
 he assured her, that were it but to protect the 
 rio-hts of his clergy and his kingdom from the 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 225 
 
 grasping ambition of the See of Rome, he would 
 resist its interference, and maintain his inde- 
 pendence with the last drop of his blood. 
 
 At the same time, he strove to win her away 
 even from the remembrance ; and he himself 
 seemed almost to forget the monarch in the 
 husband. Sometimes it was in the forests of 
 Compiegne, Senlis, or Fontainbleau, chasing 
 the stag or the boar, and listening to the music 
 of the hounds, the ringing horns, and the echo- 
 ing woods. Sometimes it was in the banquet 
 and the pageant, the tournament or the cour 
 plenitre, with all its crowd, and gaiety, and 
 song. Sometimes it was in solitude and tran- 
 quillity, straying together through lovely scenes, 
 where nature seemed but to shine back the 
 sweet feelings of their hearts ; and every tone 
 of all summer"*s gladness seemed to find an 
 echo in their bosoms. 
 
 Philip succeeded ; and Agnes de Meranie, 
 though her cheek still remained a shade paler 
 than it had been, and her soft eyes had acquired 
 L 5 
 
226 PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 a look of pensive languor, had, or seemed to 
 have, forgotten that there was a soul on earth 
 who disputed her title to the heart of her hus- 
 band and the crown of her realm. She would 
 laugh, and converse, and sing, and frame gay 
 dreams of joy and happiness to come, as had 
 been ever her wont ; but it was observed that 
 she would start, and turn pale, when any one 
 came upon her suddenly, as if she still feared 
 evil news ; and, if any thing diverted her 
 thoughts from the gay current in which she 
 strove to guide them, she would fall into a 
 long reverie, from which it was difficult to 
 wake her. 
 
 Thus had passed the time of Philip Augustus 
 and Agnes de Meranie, from their departure for 
 Compiegne, the day after the tournament. The 
 hours of Count Thibalt d'Auvergne, however, 
 had been spent in a very different manner from 
 that which he had anticipated. He had, it is 
 true, made up his mind to a painful duty ; but 
 it was a duty of another kind he was called 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 227 
 
 to perform. As his foot was in the stirrup to 
 join the royal cavalcade, for the purpose of 
 proceeding to Compiegne, according to the 
 King's invitation, a messenger arrived from 
 Auvergne, bearing the sad news, that his father 
 had been suddenly seized with an illness, from 
 which no hope existed of his recovery ; and 
 D'Auvergne, without loss of time, turned his 
 steps towards Vic le Comte. 
 
 On his arrival, he found his parent still 
 lingering on the confines between those two 
 strange worlds, the present, and the future : — 
 the one which we pass through, as in a dream, 
 without knowing the realities of any thing 
 around us ; — the other,the dreadful inevitability 
 of which we are fond to clothe in a thousand 
 splendid hopes, putting, as it were, a crown of 
 glory on the cold and grimly brow of Death. 
 
 'Twas a sad task to watch the flickering of 
 life's lamp, till the flame flew off* for ever ! 
 The Count d' Auvergne, however, performed it 
 firmly ; and having laid the ashes of his father 
 
228 PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 in the earth, he stayed but to receive the ho- 
 mage of his new vassals, and then turned his 
 steps once more towards Paris, leaving the 
 government of Auvergne to his uncle, the fa- 
 mous Count Guy, celebrated both for his jovial 
 humour and his predatory habits. 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 229 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 We must now once more go back a little 
 in our history and return to Sir Guy de Coucy, 
 who, on the morning of his friend's departure for 
 Auvergne, stood at the door of their common 
 dwelling, to see him set out. In the hurry of 
 such a moment, there had been no time for 
 many of those arrangements between the two 
 friends, which the Count d'Auvergne much 
 wished to have made. However, as he em- 
 braced De Coucy at parting, according to the 
 custom of the day, he whispered in his ear: "The 
 besants we brought from the Holy Land are in 
 my chamber. If you love me, De Coucy, re- 
 member that we are brothers, and have all things 
 
230 PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 in common. I shall find you here at my return. 
 If I come not soon, I will send you a messenger." 
 De Coucy nodded his head with a smile, and, 
 leaning on his large two-handed sword, saw the 
 Count d'Auvergne mount his horse and depart. 
 
 " Farewell, D'Auvergne !" said he, as he 
 turned to re-enter the house, — " perhaps we 
 may never meet again ; but De Coucy forgets 
 not thy generous kindness, though he will not 
 use it. Our fortunes are far too unequal for 
 us longer to hold a common purse." 
 
 Be it remarked, however, that the scruples 
 which affected De Coucy on this occasion were ra- 
 ther singular in the age in which he lived; for the 
 companionship of arms, which, in their romantic 
 spirit, the knights of even a much later period 
 often vowed to each other, were frequently of a 
 stricter and more generous nature than any of 
 our most solid engagements of life at present ; 
 involving not only community of fortune and 
 of fate, but of friendships and of enmities, of 
 pleasures and pains, and sometimes of life or 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 231 
 
 death.* When once two knights had exchang- 
 ed arms, as was often the case, it became their 
 duty to assist each other on every occasion, 
 with body and goods, during the expedition in 
 which they were engaged ; and sometimes, even 
 for life, to share all wealth between them, both 
 present and to come ; and in case of one dying, 
 while under an engagement to do battle, (or 
 
 * Ducange cites the following formula from a work I can- 
 not meet with. The passage refers to a fraternity of arms 
 between Majon, High Admiral of Sicily, and the Archbishop 
 of Palermo. 
 
 " Dictum est prseterea quod ii, juxta consuetudinem Si- 
 culomm, fraternae fcedus societatis contraxerint, seseque in- 
 vicem jurejurando astrinxerint ut alter alterum modis om- 
 nibus promoveret, et tam in prosperis quam in adversis 
 unius essent animi, unius voluntatis atque consilii ; quis- 
 quis alterum Isederet, ambomm incurreret offensam." 
 
 The same learned author cites a declaration of Louis XI. 
 where he constitutes Charles Duke of Burgundy his sole 
 brother in arms, thereby seeming to imply that this adop- 
 tion of a brother iu arms was restricted to one. 
 
 Dissert. Ducange, xxi. 
 
232 PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 under a wager of battle, as it was called,) his 
 companion, or brother in arms, was bound to fill 
 his place, and maintain his honour in the duel. 
 
 While in the Holy Land, cut off from frequent 
 supplies, and in imminent and continual dangers, 
 De Coucy had found no inequality between him- 
 self and Count Thibalt de Auvergne ? but now, 
 placed amidst the ruinous expense of tourna- 
 ments and courts, he resolved to break off at 
 once an engagement, where no parity of means 
 existed between himself and his companion. 
 
 Slowly, and somewhat sadly, De Coucy re- 
 turned to his own chamber, feeling a touch of 
 care, that his light heart had not often known 
 before. '• Hugo de Barre,*" said he, " give me 
 a flask of wine ; I have not tasted my morning's 
 cup, and I am melancholy." 
 
 " Shall I put some comfits in it, beau Sire ?" 
 demanded the Squire. " I have often known 
 your worship get over a bad fit of love, by a 
 ladle-full of comfits in a cup of Cyprus." 
 
 " As thou wilt, Hugo,'' answered the Knight; 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 233 
 
 *' but 'tis not love I want to cure, now-a- 
 day." 
 
 "Marry ! I thought, Sire Guy," replied Hugo 
 de Barre, " that it was all for love of the Lady 
 Isadore; but then, again, Ifancied it was strange, 
 if you loved her, that you should leave her at 
 Senlis, and not go on with her to her own 
 castle, and strive to win her !" 
 
 " Her father was going to lodge with the Sire 
 de Montmorency, my cousin Enguerand'*s sworn 
 foe," replied De Coucy ; " and even after that, 
 he goes not home, but speeds to Rouen, to mouth 
 it with John, King of England. — By my faith!" 
 he added, speaking to himself, " that old man 
 will turn out a rebel from simple folly. He 
 must needs be meddhng with treason, but to 
 make himself important. Yet, D'Auvergne 
 says he was a good warrior in his day. I wish 
 I could keep his fingers from the fire, were it 
 but for his daughter's love — sweet girl !" 
 
 Had De Coucy been alone, he would pro- 
 bably have thought what he now said, yet 
 
234 PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 would not have spoken it ; but having begun 
 by addressing his attendant, he went on aloud, 
 though the latter part of what he said was, in 
 reality, merely apart of his commune with him- 
 self. Hugo de Barre, however, who had, on 
 more than one occasion, been thus made, as it 
 were, a speaking-block by his master, under- 
 stood the process of De Coucy''s mind, and 
 stood silent till his lord had done. 
 
 " Then you do love the lady, beau Sire ?"" 
 said he at last, venturing more than he usually 
 did upon such occasions. 
 
 " Well, well ! Hugo, what is it to thee ?'' 
 demanded De Coucy. " I will not keep thee 
 out all night, as when I courted the Princess 
 of Syracuse."" 
 
 " Nay, but I love the Lady Isadore better 
 than ever I did the Princess of Syracuse,*" re- 
 plied the Squire ; " and I would stay out 
 willingly many a night for her sake, so she 
 would be my lord's true lady. — Look ye ! my 
 lord. You have seen her wear this bracelet of 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 235 
 
 cloth of gold," he continued, drawing forth a 
 piece of fine linen, in which was wrapped a 
 broad band of cloth of gold, not at all unlike 
 the bracelets of gilded wire, lately so much the 
 mode amongst the fair dames of London and 
 Paris. " I asked one of her maidens to steal it 
 for me." 
 
 " You did not, surely, Hugo !" cried De 
 Coucy. " How dare you be so bold, with any 
 noble lady, sirrah ?" 
 
 " Nay, then, I will give it back," replied 
 the Squire. " I had intended the theft to have 
 profited your lordship; but I will give it 
 back. The Lady Isadore, it is true, knew that 
 her damsel took it ; but still it was a theft ; 
 and I will give it back again. She knew, too, 
 that it was I who asked it; and doubtless 
 guessed it was you, beau Sire, v^^ould have it ; 
 but I had better give it back." 
 
 " Nay, nay ! good Hugo," replied De Cou- 
 cy ; " give it me. I knew not you were so 
 skilful in such matters. I knew you were a 
 
236 PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 good scout, but not in Sir Cupid's army. — Give 
 it me !" 
 
 '' Nay, beau Sire ; I had better give it back," 
 replied the Squire ; " and then I will fall into 
 my duty again, and look for nothing but 
 Routiers, Cotereaux, and the like. But there 
 is something more I wished to tell you. Sir : 
 old Giles, the squire of the good Count Julian, 
 told me, that if his lord keep his mind of going 
 to Rouen, he must needs in three weeks' time 
 pass within sight of our own — that is to say, 
 your own— castle. Now, would it not be fair 
 sport, to lay an ambush for the whole party, 
 and take them prisoners, and bring them to the 
 castle .?" 
 
 " By my faith ! it would," replied the Knight. 
 " But how is this, Hugo ? — thou art a changed 
 man. Ever since I have known thee, which is 
 since I was not higher than my dagger, thou 
 hast shown thyself as stiff and sturdy a piece of 
 old iron, as any of the corslets that hang by the 
 wall ; and now thou art craving bracelets, and 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 237 
 
 laying ambushes for fair ladies, as if thou hadst 
 been bred up in the very palace of Love. Me- 
 thinks that same damsel, who stole the bracelet 
 for thee, must have woke up some new spirit in 
 thy heart of stone, to make thine outward man 
 so pliable. Why, compared to what thou wert, 
 Hugo, thou art as a deer-skin coat to a steel 
 plastron. — Art thou not in love, man ? Answer 
 
 me I 
 
 " Something like, I fear me, beau Sire,"" re- 
 plied the Squire. " And as it is arranged 
 between me and Alixe, that if you win the 
 lady, I am to have the maid, we are resolved 
 to set our wits to work, to help your lord- 
 ship on." 
 
 " By my life ! a hopeful plot," replied De 
 Coucy : " and well do I know, Hugo, that the 
 maid's good word is often as much gained as 
 the mistress's smile. — But go, order to saddle .; 
 leave the bracelet with me; and as soon as the 
 horses be ready, De Coucy will spur on for the 
 home of his fathers." 
 
238 PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 The squire delivered the bracelet to his 
 lord, and left the apartment ; and no sooner 
 was he gone, than De Coucy carried the brace- 
 let to his lips, to his forehead, and his heart, 
 with as much fervour of devotion, as ever monk 
 showed for the most sacred relic of his Church. 
 
 "She knew that her damsel took it! — she 
 knew that it was for me V exclaimed he in an 
 ecstasy of delight, which'every one who can feel, 
 may have felt on discovering some such unlook- 
 ed-for source of happiness. Stretching out his 
 hand, De Coucy then took his rote, which, as 
 a true Trouvere, he made his inseparable com- 
 panion. It was an age when poetry was a lan- 
 guage — the real, not the figurative language of 
 love — when song was in the heart of every one, 
 ready to break forth the moment that passion 
 or enthusiasm called for his aid ; — and, in the 
 acme of his gladness, he sang to it a ballad, 
 composed, indeed, long before ; but the con- 
 cluding verse of which he altered to suit his 
 feelings at the moment. 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 239 
 
 SONG. 
 
 I. 
 " I rode my battle-horse afar — 
 
 A long, a long, and weary way ; 
 Fading I saw night's latest star, 
 
 And morning's prime, and risen day, 
 But still the desert around me lay. 
 
 II. 
 
 On, on, o'er burning sands I rode, 
 
 Beneath a red and angry sky ; 
 Burning, the air around me glow'd ; 
 
 ]My tongue was parch'd, my lip was dry ;— 
 I would have given worlds for the west-wind's sigh 
 
 III. 
 With fever'd blood, and fiery eye. 
 
 And rent and aching brow, I go ; 
 When, oh the rapture to descry 
 
 The palm-trees green, the fountain low, 
 Where welling waters sweetly flow ! 
 
 IV. 
 
 Through life, as o'er that Syrian plain, 
 
 Alone I Ve wander'd from a child, 
 Thirsting for love, yet all in vain, 
 
 Till now, when sweet and undefiled, 
 I find Love's fountain in the wild." 
 
240 PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 De Coucy sang, and then again pressed the 
 token which he had obtained, to his lips, and 
 to his heart ; when suddenly a loud " Haw, 
 haw ! haw, haw !" startled him from his pleas- 
 ing dreams, and he saw Gallon the fool stand- 
 ing beside him. 
 
 " Haw, haw V cried Gallon ; " my master's 
 turned juggler, and is playing with scraps of 
 gold ribbon, and singing songs to them. By 
 my dexterity ! I'll give up the trade : the mys- 
 tery is no longer honourable — every fool can 
 do it." 
 
 '' Take care that one fool does not get his 
 ears slit," answered De Coucy. — " Tell me. Sir, 
 and tell me truly, — for I know thee, Gallon, 
 and that thou art no more fool than may serve 
 thy turn, — where hast thou been since day- 
 break, this morning?" 
 
 " I went out on the road to Compiegne," 
 replied Gallon gravely, " to see how the wolf 
 looked in the sheepfold ; and whether the fal- 
 con comported himself sociably in the dove's 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 241 
 
 nest. Farther, I sought to behold how the 
 shepherd enjoyed the sight of sir wolf toying 
 with the lamb ; and still farther — " 
 
 " Villain !" cried De Coucy, " what mean 
 you ? Speak me no more apologues, or your 
 skin shall suffer for it ! What mean you, I 
 say ?" and De Coucy suddenly seized the jug- 
 gler by the arm, so as to prevent him from 
 escaping by his agility, which he frequently 
 did, from the blow which he menaced to bestow 
 on him with his other hand. 
 
 " Well ! well !" cried Gallon, ever willing to 
 say any thing that he thought might alarm, or 
 mortify, or pain his hearers. " I went first, 
 Beau Sire, to inquire of a dear friend of mine, 
 at the palace — who fell in love with me, because, 
 and on account of, the simple beauty and grace 
 of my snout — whether it be true, that Philip the 
 Magnificent had taken actual possession of the 
 lands of your aunt's husband, the Count de 
 Tankerville ; and I find he has, and called in 
 all the revenues to the royal treasury. Oh ! 
 
 VOL. I. M 
 
242 PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 'tis a great King and an expeditious ! — Haw, 
 haw, haw !" and though within reach of the 
 young Knight's arm, Gallon the fool could not 
 repress his glee at the sight of a slight shade 
 of natural mortification that came over his 
 lord's countenance. 
 
 " Let him," cried De Coucy, — " let him take 
 them all ! I would rather that he had them 
 than the Duke of Burgundy. Better they 
 should go to strengthen a good King, than to 
 nourish a fat and overgrown vassal. — But you 
 escape me not so. Sir Gallon ! You said you 
 went on the road to Compiegne to see how the 
 wolf looked, in the sheepfold ! Translate, Sir 
 Fool ! Translate ! What meant you .''" 
 
 " Simply to see Count Thibalt d'Auvergne, 
 and Queen Agnes de Meranie," replied the 
 Jongleur.—" Haw, haw ! — Is there any harm 
 in that.?" 
 
 De Coucy started, as if some one had struck 
 him, experiencing that sort of astonishment 
 which one feels, when suddenly some fact, to 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 243 
 
 which we have long shut our eyes, breaks upon 
 us at once, in all the sharpness of self-evidency 
 — if one may use the word. " 'Tis impossible !" 
 cried he. " It cannot be ! 'Tis not to be 
 believed !" 
 
 '' Haw, haw, haw I"" cried Gallon the fool. 
 " Not to be doubted. Beau Sire de Coucy ! — - 
 Did he not join your good knighthood as blithe 
 and merry as a lark, after having spent some 
 three months at the Court of Istria and Morar- 
 via? — Did he not go on well and gaily, till the 
 news came that Philip of France had wedded 
 Agnes de Meranie.'* — Then did he not, in your 
 own tent, turn paler than the canvass that 
 covered him ? — And did he not thenceforth 
 wax wan and lack witted, sick and sorrowful ? 
 —Ha, haw ! Ha, haw !" 
 
 "Cease thy grinning, knave !" cried De Coucy 
 sharply, '' and know, that even if he does love 
 the Queen, 'tis in all honour and honesty ; as 
 one may dedicate one's heart and soul, one's 
 lance and song, to the greatest Princess on all 
 M 2 
 
244 PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 the earth, without dreaming aught to her 
 dishonour." 
 
 " Haw, haw, haw ! haw, haw f was all the 
 answer of Gallon the fool ; and darting away 
 from the relaxed grasp of De Coucy, on whose 
 brow he saw clearly a gathering storm, he 
 rushed down, shouting " Haw, haw ! haw, 
 haw !*" with as keen an accent of triumph, as 
 if he had gained a victory. 
 
 " Is it possible .^'" said the Knight to himself, 
 " that I have been blind for nearly two years 
 to what has been discovered by an idiot on the 
 instant ! God bless us all, and the holy saints ! 
 — D'Auvergne! D'Auvergne! I pity thee, from 
 my soul ! for where thou hast loved, and loved 
 so fair a creature, there wilt thou still love, till 
 the death. Nor art thou a man to seek to 
 quench thy love in thy lady's dishonour— to 
 learn to gratify thy passion and to despise its 
 object, as some men would. Here thy very 
 nobleness, like plumes to the ostrich, is thy 
 bane and not thy help. — And Philip too. If 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS. QiiS 
 
 e'er a king was born to be jealous, he is the 
 man. I would not for a dukedom love so 
 hopelessly. However, D"*Auvergne, I will be 
 near thee — near to thy dangers, though not to 
 thy wealth." 
 
 At this point, the contemplations of De Coucy 
 were interrupted by the return of Hugo de 
 Barre, his squire, informing him that the horses 
 were ready ; and at the same time laying down 
 on the table before his lord a small leathern 
 bag, apparently full of money. 
 
 " What is that .'*" demanded De Coucy. 
 
 *' The ransom of the two Knights' horses 
 and armour, overthrown by your lance in the 
 yesterday's tournament," replied the Squire. 
 
 '* Well, then, pay the two hireling grooms," 
 said De Coucy, " whom we engaged to lead the 
 two Arabians from Auvergne, since we dis- 
 charged the Lombards who brought them 
 thither." 
 
 " They will not be paid, beau Sire," replied 
 the Squire. " They both pray you to employ 
 
246 PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 the hire which is their due in furnishing them 
 with each a horse and arms, and then to let 
 them serve under your banner." 
 
 " Well, be it so, good Hugo," replied the 
 Knight. " Where — God knows where I shall 
 find food to cram their mouths withal ! 'Twill 
 add two, however, to my poor following. Then, 
 with thee and the page, and my own two var- 
 lets, we shall make seven : — eight with Gallon 
 the fool. By my faith ! I forgot the Juggler, 
 who is as stout a man-at-arms as any amongst 
 us. But, as I said, get thee gone with the men 
 to the Rue St. Victor, where the Haubergers 
 dwell. Give them each a sword, a shield, a 
 corslet, and a steel bonnet : but make them cast 
 away those long knives hanging by their thighs, 
 which I love not ; — they always make me think 
 of that one wherewith that villain slave of 
 a Mahoun ripped up my good battle-horse 
 Hero ; and would have slain me with it too, if I 
 had not dashed him to atoms with my mace. 
 Ride quick, and overtake me and the rest on 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 247 
 
 the road : we go at a foot-pace." So saying, 
 Guy de Coucy descended the narrow staircase 
 of his dwelling ; and, after having spoken for a 
 few moments with one of the attendants of the 
 Count d'Auvergne, who had remained behind, 
 he mounted his horse, and rode slowly out of 
 the city of Paris. 
 
 There is no possible mode of progression, 
 that I know of, more engendering of melan- 
 choly, than the foot-pace of a horse when one 
 is alone. It is so like the slow and retarded 
 pace which, whether we will or not, we are 
 obliged to pursue on the high-road of life. 
 Every object, as it rises on our view, seems 
 such a long age in its approach, that one feels 
 an almost irresistible desire, at every other step, 
 to give the whip or spur, and accelerate the 
 heart's slow beatings by some more rapid move- 
 ment of the body. Did one wish to cultivate 
 their stupidity, let them ride their horse, at a 
 walk, over one of the long, straight roads of 
 France. 
 
248 PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 The face of the country, however, was in 
 those days very diiferent from what it is at 
 present ; and the narrow, earthy road oVer 
 which De Coucy travelled, wound in and out 
 over hills and through forests : now plunging 
 into the deep wood ; now emerging by the 
 bright stream ; now passing, for a short space, 
 through vineyards and fields, with a hamlet or 
 a village by the road-side ; now losing itself in 
 wilds and solitudes, where one might well sup- 
 pose that Adam's likeness had been never seen. 
 
 The continual changing of the objects around, 
 took, of course, greatly from the monotony of 
 the slow pace at which De Coucy had con- 
 demned himself to proceed, while in expectation 
 of his squire's return ; and a calm sort of melan- 
 choly was all he felt, as he revolved in his 
 mind the various points of his own situation 
 and that of his friend the Count d'Auvergne. 
 
 In regard to himself, new feelings had sprung 
 up in his bosom— feelings that he had heard of, 
 but never known before. He loved, and he 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS* 249 
 
 fancied he was beloved ; and dreams, and hopes, 
 and expectations, softer, calmer, more profound 
 than ever had reached him in camps or courts, 
 flowed in upon his heart, like the stream of 
 some deep, pure river, and washed away all 
 that was rude and light, or unworthy in his 
 bosom. Yet, at the same time, all the torment- 
 ing contentions of hope and fear — the fine hair 
 balancings of doubt and anxiety — the soul tor- 
 turings of that light and malicious imp, Love, 
 took possession of the heart of De Coucy ; and 
 he calculated, within the hundred thousandth 
 part of a line, how much chance there existed 
 of Isadore of the Mount not loving him, — and 
 of her loving some one else, — and of her father, 
 who was rich, rejecting him, who was poor, — « 
 and of his having promised her to some one 
 else ; — and so on to infinity. At length, weary 
 of his own reasonings thereupon, and laughing 
 at himself for combating the chimeras of his 
 own imagination, he endeavoured to turn his 
 thoughts to other things, humming as he went — 
 M 5 
 
250 PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 ' The man 's a fool — the man 's a fool 
 That lets Love use him for a tool : 
 But is that man, the gods above, 
 Himself unused, who uses love" 
 
 —And so will I," continued De Coucy mentally. 
 *' It shall prompt me to great deeds, and to 
 mighty efforts. I will go to every court in 
 Europe, and challenge them all to do battle 
 with me upon the question. I will fight in 
 every combat, and every skirmish that can be 
 met with, till they cannot refuse her to me, out 
 of pure shame." 
 
 Such were the determinations of De Coucy 
 in the age of chivalry, and he was one more 
 likely than most men to keep such determina- 
 tions. They, however, like all resolutions, 
 were of course modified by circumstance ; and, 
 in the mean while, his squire, Hugo, rejoined 
 him with the two varlets, who had been hired 
 in Auvergne to lead his horses, but who were 
 now fitted to make a figure in the train of so 
 warlike a knight. 
 
 Still the prospect of his cold and vacant home. 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 251 
 
 with no smile to give him welcome, and, as he 
 well knew, nothing but poverty for his enter- 
 tainment, sat somewhat heavily upon the young 
 Knight"'s heart. To lodge upon the battle plain, 
 under a covering that scarce excluded the wea- 
 ther ; to feed on the coarsest and most scanty 
 food ; to endure all perils and privations, for 
 chivalry's, religion's, or his country's sake, was 
 nothing to the bold and hardy soldier, whose 
 task and pride it was so to suffer : but, for the 
 Chatelain, De Coucy, to return to the castle 
 where his fathers had lived in splendour, — to 
 the bowers and halls where his infancy had 
 been nursed with tenderness, — and to find all 
 empty and desolate ; the wealth and magni- 
 ficence wasted in the thousand fruitless en- 
 terprizes of the crusades, and the loved and 
 familiar laid low in the melancholy dwellings 
 of the gone, was bitter, sadly bitter, even for 
 a young, light heart, and unquenchable spirit 
 like his. 
 
 One of his ancestors, who, in the reign of 
 Henry the First, had founded the younger 
 
252 PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 branch of the De Coucys, of which he was now 
 the sole representative, had done important 
 services to the crown, and had been rewarded 
 by the hand of Aleonore de Magny, on the 
 Seine, heiress of the last terre libre, or free land, 
 in France ; and this, his race had maintained, in 
 its original freedom, against all the surrounding 
 barons, and even against the repeated efforts of 
 every successive king, who, on every occasion, 
 attempted to exact homage by force, or to win 
 it by policy. His father, indeed, before taking 
 the cross, which he did at the persuasion of 
 Louis the Seventh, had put his lands under 
 the protection of the King, who, on his part, 
 promised to guard its inviolability against all 
 and every one ; and acknowledged by charter 
 under his hand and seal, that it was free and 
 independent of the crown. 
 
 The manoir, or castel, of every baron of the 
 time, was always a building of more or less 
 strength ; but it is to be supposed, of course, 
 that the chateau attached to lands in continual 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 253 
 
 dispute, was fortified with an additional degree 
 of precaution and care. Nor was this wanting 
 in the chateau of De Coucy Magny, as it was 
 called : wall, and battlement, tower, turret, 
 and bartizan, overhung every angle of the hill 
 on which it was placed, and rendered it almost 
 impregnable, according to the mode of warfare 
 of those days. 
 
 When De Coucy had left it, with his father's 
 men-at-arms, though age had blackened it, not 
 one stone was less in the castle-walls, — not a 
 weed was on the battlements; and even the 
 green ivy, that true parasite which sucks the 
 vital strength of that which supports it, was 
 carefully removed from the masonry. 
 
 But, oh ! how fast decay speeds on, even by the 
 neglect of ten short years ! When De Coucy 
 returned, the evening sun was setting behind 
 the hill on which the castle stood ; and, as he 
 led his scanty band of horsemen up the wind- 
 ing and difficult path, he could see, by the 
 rough, uneven outline of the dark mass before 
 
254 PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 him, what ravages time had already made. 
 High above the rest, the donjon, which used to 
 seem proud of its square regularity, now tow- 
 ered with one entire angle of its battlements 
 given way, and many a bush and shrub waving 
 their long feathery foliage from window and 
 from loophole ; while the neglected state of the 
 road, and even the very tameness of the wild 
 animals in the woods near the chateau; the 
 hares and the deer, which stood and gazed with 
 their large, round eyes for many moments, at 
 De Coucy and his followers, before they started 
 away, told, with a sad moral, that man was 
 seldom seen there. 
 
 De Coucy sighed as he rode on ; and stop- 
 ping at the gates of the barbican, which, thickly 
 plated and studded with iron, opposed all en- 
 trance, wound a long blast upon his horn. A 
 moment after, the noise of bolts and bars was 
 heard, as if the doors were about to be thrown 
 open ; but then again came the sound of some 
 old man's voice, exclaiming in a tone of que- 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 255 
 
 rulous anger — " Hold, hold ! Villain Calord ! 
 Will you give up the castle to the Cotereaux ? 
 Hold, I say ! or I will break thy pate I I saw 
 them from the beffroy. They are a band of 
 Cotereaux. Go round to the serfs' sheds, and 
 bid them come and take their bows to the walls. 
 Up you, and ring the bancloche, that we 
 may have the soldiers from Magny !" 
 
 " Onfroy ! Onfroy !" shouted De Coucy. 
 " Open your gates ! 'Tis I, Guy de Coucy ?* 
 
 " Your voice I know not !" roared the old 
 man in reply. " My young lord had a soft, 
 sweet voice ; and your's is as deep as a bell. I 
 know not your voice, fair Sir. — Man the walls, 
 I say, Calord ! 'Tis all a trick,'' he continued 
 speaking to his companion. " Sound the 
 bancloche !" 
 
 " If you know not my voice," cried I>e 
 Coucy, " surely you should know the blast I 
 have sounded on my horn !" 
 
 " Sound again, beau Sire ! — sound again !** 
 cried the old man. " I will know your blast 
 
256 PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 among ten thousand, if you be a De Coucy ; 
 and if you be my young lord, I will know it in 
 all the world." 
 
 De Coucy put his horn to his lips and reite- 
 rated his blast, when instantly the old man 
 exclaimed-—" 'Tis he!— 'tis he, Calord! — Open 
 the gates — open the gates, quick ! lest I die of 
 joy before I see his face again ! 'Tis he himself ! 
 — The Blessed Virgin, Queen of Heaven, be 
 praised for all things ! — Give me the keys ! 
 ^-give me the keys, Calord !" and no sooner 
 were the doors pushed back, than casting him- 
 self on his knees before his lord's horse, with 
 the tears of joy coursing each other rapidly 
 down his withered face, the old seneschal ex- 
 claimed, " Enter, noble Chatelain ! and take 
 your own ; and God be praised, my dear boy ! 
 and the Holy Virgin, and St. John, and St. 
 Peter, but more especially St. Martin of Tours ! 
 for having brought you safe back again from 
 the dangers of Palestine, where your noble 
 father has left his valiant bones ! — Here are the 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 257 
 
 keys, which I offer into your hand, beau Sire," 
 he continued, looking earnestly at De Coucy, 
 and wiping the salt rheum that obscured his 
 sight. "And yet I can scarce believe,'' he 
 added, " that young Guy, the last of the three 
 fair youths, — ^be who was not up to my shoulder 
 when he went, whom I first taught to draw 
 a bow, or wheel a horse — that young Guy, the 
 page— and a saucy stripling he was too, — my 
 blessing on his waggish head ! — that young Guy 
 the page should have grown into so tall and 
 strong a man as you, beau Sire ! — Are you not 
 putting upon me? Was it truly you that 
 blew that blast ?" and his eye ran over the 
 persons who followed behind his lord. — " But 
 no r he added, " it must be he ! I know his 
 blue eye, and the curl of his lip ; and I have 
 heard how he is a great Knight now-a-days, 
 and slays Saracens, and bears away the prizes 
 at tournays : — I have heard it all !" 
 
 De Coucy calmly let the old man finish his 
 speech, without offering to take the keys, which 
 
258 PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 from time to time he proffered, as a sort of in- 
 terjection, between the various parts of his dis- 
 jointed discourse. "It is even I, good On- 
 froy," replied he at last : " keep the keys ! — keep 
 the keys, good old man ! — they cannot be in 
 worthier hands than yours. But now let us in. 
 I bring you, as you see, no great reinforcement ; 
 but I hope your garrison is not so straitened 
 for provisions, that you cannot give us some 
 supper, for we are hungry, though we be few. 
 
 " We will kill a hog — we will kill a hog, 
 beau Sire !" replied the old man. " I have kept 
 chiefly to the hogs, beau Sire, since you were 
 gone, for they cost nothing to keep : the acorns 
 of the forest serve them : and they have increas- 
 ed wonderfully ! Oh, we have plenty of hogs ; 
 but as to cows, and sheep, and things of that 
 kind, that eat much and profit little, I was 
 obliged to abandon them when I sent you the 
 last silver I could get, as you commanded." 
 
 De Coucy signified his perfect indifference 
 as to whether his supper consisted of mutton. 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 259 
 
 beef, or pork ; and riding through the barbi- 
 can, into the enclosure of the walls, he crossed 
 the court and alighted at the great gates of the 
 hall, which were thrown open to receive him. 
 
 Calord, the servant or varlet of the seneschal, 
 had run on before, to light a torch ; for the day 
 was beginning to fail, and the immense apart- 
 ment was of its own nature dark and gloomy ; 
 but still, all within was dim. The rays of the 
 torch, though held high, and waved round and 
 round, scarcely served to show some dark lus- 
 treless suits of armour hung against the walls ; 
 and the figures of some of the serfs, who had 
 stolen into the farther extremity of the hall, to 
 catch a glimpse of their returned lord, seemed 
 like spirits moving about on the dark confines 
 of another world ; while more than one bat, 
 startled even by the feeble light, took wing and 
 fluttered amongst the old banners overhead. 
 At the same time, as if dreary sounds were 
 wanting to complete the gloominess of the 
 young Knight's return, the clanging of his foot- 
 
260 PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 steps upon the pavement of the empty hall, 
 awoke a long, wild echo, which, prolonged 
 through the open doors communicating with 
 untenanted halls and galleries beyond, seemed 
 the very voice of Solitude bewailing her dis- 
 turbed repose. 
 
 It all fell cold upon De Coucy's heart ; and, 
 laying his hand on the old seneschal's shoulder, 
 as he was about to begin one of his long dis- 
 courses : — " Do not speak to me just now, good 
 Onfroy V said the young Knight ; " I am not in 
 a vein to listen to any thing. But throw me on 
 a fire in yon empty hearth ; for, though it be 
 July, this hall has a touch of January. Thou 
 hast the key of the books too :— bring them 
 all down, good Onfroy ; I will seek some moral 
 that may teach contentment. — Set down my 
 harp beside me, good page.'' And having given 
 these directions, De Coucy cast himself into 
 the justice-chair of his ancestors, and, covering 
 his eyes with his hands, gave himself up to no 
 very sweet contemplations. 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 261 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 It would seem a strange command in our 
 day, were any one to order his servant to 
 bring down the library ; and certainly would 
 infer a much more operose undertaking than 
 fell to the lot of old Onfroy, the seneschal, 
 who, while Calord, bis man, cast almost a 
 whole tree in the chimney, and the varlets of 
 De Coucy unloaded his baggage-horses, easily 
 brought down a small wooden box, containing 
 the whole literature of the chateau. And yet, 
 perhaps, had not the De Coucys, from father to 
 son, been distinguished Trouveres, no such trea- 
 sure of letters would their castle haye contain- 
 ed; for, to count the nobles of the kingdom 
 
262. PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 throughout, scarce one in a hundred could read 
 and write. 
 
 De Coucy, however, had wasted — as it was 
 then called — some of his earlier years in the 
 study of profane literature, till the death of his 
 two elder brothers had called him from such 
 pursuits ; from which time, his whole course 
 of reading had been in the romances of the 
 day, where figured either Charlemagne with his 
 peers and paladins, or the heroes, writers, and 
 philosophers of antiquity, all mingled together, 
 and habited as knights and magicians. 
 
 A manuscript however, in those days, was of 
 course much more precious in the eyes of those 
 who could read, than such a thing possibly can 
 be now ; and De Coucy, hoping, as many have 
 done since, to shelter himself behind a book, 
 from the sharp attacks of unpleasant thought, 
 eagerly opened the manifold bars and bucklings 
 of the wooden case, and took out the first vel- 
 lum that his hand fell upon. This proved to 
 be but a collection of tensons, lais, and pas- 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 263 
 
 tourelles, — all of which he knew by heart, so that 
 he was obliged to search farther. The next he 
 came to had nearly shared the same fate, being 
 a copy of the Life of Louis the Fat, written in 
 Latin a few years before, by Suger, Abbot of 
 St. Denis. The Latin, however, was easy, and 
 De Coucy's erudition coming to his aid, he 
 read various passages from those various pages, 
 wherein the great minister who wTote it, gives 
 such animated pictures of all that passed 
 immediately previous to the very age and 
 scenes amidst which the young Knight was 
 then living. At length his eye rested on the 
 epigraph of the sixteenth chapter, " Concerning 
 the treachery committed at the Roche Guyon, 
 by William, brother-in-law of the King; — Con- 
 cerning also the death of Guy ; and the speedy 
 vengeance that overtook William." 
 
 No title could have been more attractive in 
 the eyes of De Coucy ; and skipping very little 
 of his text, where his remembrance of the lan- 
 guage failed him, he went on to read. 
 
264 PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 " Upon a promontory formed by the great 
 river Seine, at a spot difficult of access, is built 
 an ignoble castle, of a frightful aspect, call- 
 ed La Roche Guyon. On the surface of the 
 promontory the castle is invisible, being hol- 
 lowed out of the bowels of the high rock. 
 The skilful hand of him who formed it has 
 cut the high rock itself on the side of the 
 hill, and by a mean and narrow opening has 
 practised a subterranean habitation of immense 
 extent. **#*-:; 
 
 " This subterranean castle, not more hideous 
 in the sight of men than in the sight of God, 
 had about this time for its lord, Guy dela Roche 
 Guyon, — a young man of gentle manners, a 
 stranger to the wickedness of his ancestors. 
 He had indeed interrupted its course, and 
 showed himself resolved to lead a tranquil and 
 honourable life, free from their infamous and 
 greedy rapacity. 
 
 " Surprised by the very position of his wretch- 
 ed castle, and massacred by the treachery of 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 265 
 
 his own father-in-law, the most wicked of the 
 wicked, he lost by an unexpected blow, both 
 his dwelling and his life. 
 
 " William, his father-in-law, was by birth 
 a Norman ; and, unequalled in treachery, he 
 made himself appear the dearest friend of his 
 daughter's husband. This man, tormented by 
 black envy, and brewing wicked designs, un- 
 happily found, on the evening of a certain Sun-> 
 day, an opportunity of executing his diabolical 
 designs. He came then, with his arms covered 
 with a mantle, and accompanied by a handful 
 of assassins ; and mingled himself, though with 
 very different thoughts, amongst a crowd of 
 pious people hastening to a church, which com- 
 municated by a passage in the rock with the 
 subterranean castle of Guy. For some time, 
 while the rest gave themselves up to prayer, he 
 feigned to pray also ; but, in truth, occupied 
 himself in examining attentively the passage 
 communicating with the dwelling of his son-in- 
 law. At that moment, Guy entered the church; 
 
 VOL. I. N 
 
266 PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 when drawing his sword, and seconded by his 
 criminal associates, William, madly yielding to 
 the iniquity of his heart, cast himself into the 
 doorway, and struck down his son-in-law, who 
 was already smiling a welcome upon him, when 
 he felt the edge of his sword. The noble bride 
 of the chatelain, stupified at the sight, tore her 
 hair and her cheeks, after the manner of women 
 in their anger, and running towards her husband, 
 without fearing the fate that menaced her, she 
 cast herself upon him to cover his body from 
 the blows of the murderer, crying, while she 
 received a thousand wounds, — ' Vile butchers ! 
 ^lay me rather than him ! — What has he done 
 to merit death ?' * * # 
 
 " Seizing her by the hair, the assassins dragged 
 her away from her husband, who, crushed by 
 their repeated blows, pierced by their swords, 
 and almost torn in pieces with his various 
 wounds, soon expired under their hands. Not 
 contented yet, with a degree of cruelty worthy 
 of Herod, such of his unhappy children as they 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 267 
 
 could find, they dashed mercilessly against the 
 rock—"* 
 
 " Give me my lance !" cried De Coucy, 
 starting up, with his blood boiling at this pic- 
 ture of an age so near his own — " give me 
 my lance, ho ! By all the saints of France — '^ 
 But at that moment remembering that the 
 event which Suger recounted must have taken 
 place full fifty years before, and therefore that 
 none of the actors therein could be a fit object 
 for the vengeance which he had meditated in- 
 flicting with his own hand, he sat down again, 
 and read out the tale, running rapidly through 
 the murderer's first triumphant contemplation 
 of the property he had obtained by the death 
 of his son-in-law, and even of his own daughter, 
 but pausing with an angry sort of gladness 
 over the detail of the signal punishment in- 
 
 * This singular picture of the barbarism of the age im- 
 mediately preceding that of Philip Augustus is rendered 
 as literally as possible from the Life of Louis le Gros by 
 Suger, Abbot of St. Denis. 
 
 n2 
 
268 PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 flicted on him and his accomplices. Nor did 
 he find the barbarous aggravation of tearing 
 his heart from his bosom, and casting his body, 
 attached to a plank, into the river Seine, to 
 float to his native place, in any degree too 
 horrible an award for so horrible a villain. On 
 the contrary, starting from his chair, with all 
 the circumstances of his own fate forgot, he 
 was striding up and down the hall, wishing 
 that this same blood-thirsty Guillaume had 
 been alive then to meet him in fight ; when 
 suddenly, just as the old seneschal was bustling 
 in to lay out the table for his young lord's 
 supper, the long, loud blast of a horn sounded 
 at the outer gates. 
 
 " Throw open the gates and see who is 
 there !"" cried De Coucy. " By the blessed 
 rood ! I have visitors early !" 
 
 "In the holy Virgin's name ! beau Sire, open 
 not the gates to-night !" cried the old seneschal. 
 " You do not know what you do. All the neigh- 
 bouring Barons have driven the Cotereaux off 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 269 
 
 their own lands on to yours, because it is here 
 a terre libre ; and there are at least two thou- 
 sand in the woods round about. Be ruled, Sir 
 Guy!— be ruled!" 
 
 " Ha, say you .^" cried De Coucy. " But 
 how is it, good Onfroy, that you can then 
 drive out the s\vine you speak of, to feed in 
 the forest ?" 
 
 " Because — because — because, beau Sire,'' 
 replied the old man, hesitating as if he feared 
 the effect of his answer, — " because I agreed 
 with their chief, that if he and his would never 
 show themselves within half a league of the cas- 
 tle, I would pay him a tribute of two fat hogs 
 monthly. 
 
 " A tribute !" thundered De Coucy, striking 
 his clenched fist upon the table — "a tribute V^ 
 Then suddenly lowering his voice, he added : 
 " Oh, my good Onfroy ! what are the means of 
 a De Coucy shrunk to, that his castle, in his 
 absence even, should pay a tribute to thieves 
 and pickpurses ! How many able serfs have 
 
270 PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 you within the walls ? I know your power was 
 small. How many ?" 
 
 *' But nine good men, and three old ones,^' 
 replied the Seneschal, shaking his head sadly ; 
 " and they are but serfs, you know, my Lord — 
 I am but weakling, now-a-day ; and Calord, 
 though a freeman, has known no service." 
 
 " And how many vassals bound to furnish a 
 man ?" demanded De Coucy. — " Throw open 
 the gates, I say V he continued, turning fierce- 
 ly upon Calord, while the horn sounded again. 
 " I would fain see the Coterel who should 
 dare to take two steps in this hall with Guy de 
 Coucy standing by his own hearth. — How many 
 vassals, Onfroy .?" 
 
 " But seven, beau Sire," replied the old man, 
 looking from time to time towards the door of 
 the hall, which led out into the court, and which 
 Calord had left open behind him, — " but seven. 
 Sir Guy ; and they are only bound to a forty 
 days' riding, in the time of war." 
 
 ** And now tell me, Onfroy,'' continued De 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 271 
 
 Coucy, standing as calmy with his back towards 
 the door as if he had been surrounded by a 
 host of friends. " If you have paid this tribute, 
 why are you now afraid of these thieves ?" 
 
 " Because, Sir Guy," replied the Seneschal, 
 " the last month's hogs have not been sent ; there 
 being soldiers of the King's down at the town, 
 within sound of the bancloche. — But see. Sir 
 Guy ! see ! they are pouring into the court ! 
 1 told you how 'twould be ! — See, see ! — 
 torches and all! Well, one can die now, as 
 well as a week hence !" 
 
 De Coucy turned, and at first the number of 
 horsemen that were filing into the court, two at a 
 time, as they mounted the steep and narrow 
 road, almost induced him to bid the gates be 
 shut, that he might deal with them with some 
 equality: but a second glance changed his pur- 
 pose, for though here and there was to be seen 
 a haubert or a plastron glistening in the torch- 
 light, by far the greater part of the horsemen 
 were in the garb of peace. 
 
272 PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 " These are no Cotereaux, good Onfroy," 
 said he, staying the old seneschal, who was in 
 the act of drawing down from the wall some 
 rusty monument of wars long gone. " These are 
 peaceable guests, and must be as well treated 
 as we may. For the Cotereaux, I will take 
 order with them before I be two days older ; 
 and they shall find the woods of De Coucy 
 Magny too hot a home for summer weather. 
 — Who is it seeks De Coucy .?" he continued, 
 advancing as he saw one of the cavalcade dis- 
 mounting at the hall-door. 
 
 " Guillaume de la Roche Guyon," replied 
 the stranger, walking forward into the hall; 
 while De Coucy, with his mind full of all he 
 had just been reading connected with that 
 name, instinctively started back, and laid his 
 hand on his dagger ; but, instantly remember- 
 ing himself, he advanced to meet the cavalier, 
 and welcomed him to the chateau. 
 
 The stranger was a slight young man, with- 
 out other arms than his sword ; but he wore 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 273 
 
 knightly spurs and belt, and in the front of his 
 hat appeared the form of a grasshopper, beau- 
 tifully modelled in gold. His features had 
 instantly struck De Coucy as being familiar to 
 him ; but it was principally this little emblem, 
 joined with a silk scarf hanging from his neck, 
 that fully recalled to his mind the young 
 troubadour he had seen at the chateau of Vic 
 le Comte. 
 
 " I crave your hospitality, beau Sire, for 
 myself and train," said the young stranger. 
 " Hardly acquainted with this part of fair 
 France, for my greater feofs lie in sweet Pro- 
 vence, I have lost my way in these forests. — 
 But methinks we have met before, noble Chate- 
 lain ;"" and as he recognised De Coucy, a slight 
 degree of paleness spread over the youth's face. 
 
 De Coucy, however, remarked it not ; and, 
 of those generous natures, from whose hearts 
 resentments pass like clouds from the summer 
 sun, he forgot entirely a slight feeling of jea- 
 lousy which the young troubadour had excited 
 N 5 
 
274 PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 in his bosom while at Vic le Comte ; and, in- 
 stead of wishing, as he had then done, to have 
 him face to face in deadly arms, he welcomed 
 him to his chateau with every hospitable 
 greeting. 
 
 " 'Tis but an hour since I arrived myself, 
 good Knight," said he ; " and after a ten years'* 
 absence, my castle is scantily furnished for the 
 reception of such an honourable guest. But 
 see thou servest us the best of all we have, 
 Onfroy, and speedily." 
 
 " Haw, haw ! haw, haw !" cried Gallon the 
 fool, with his head protruded through one of 
 the doors, — " haw, haw ! The lion feasted the 
 fox, and the fox got the best of the dinner." 
 
 " I will make thee juggle till thy limbs ache," 
 said De Coucy, " this very night, Sir Gallon ; 
 so will I punish thine insolence. — 'Tis a juggler 
 slave, beau Sire,"" he continued, turning to Guil- 
 laume de la Roche Guyon, who gazed with 
 some astonishment at the juggler's apparition. 
 " I bought him of the Infidels, into whose 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 275 
 
 power he had fallen several years ago. He 
 must have been once a shrewd- witted knave, 
 and wants not sense now when he chooses to 
 employ it ; but for some trick he played his 
 miscreant master, the Saracen tied him by the 
 legs to his horse's tail one day, and dragged 
 him a good league across the sands to sell him 
 at our camp, in time of truce. Poor Gallon 
 himself says his brain was then turned the 
 wrong way, and has never got right again since, 
 so that he breaks his sour jests on every one." 
 
 The tables were soon spread, and the pro- 
 visions, which indeed consisted of little else 
 than pork, or bacon, as it was then called in 
 France, with the addition of two unfortunate 
 fowls, doomed to suffer for their lord's return, 
 were laid out in various trenchers all the way 
 down the middle of the board. De Coucy and 
 his guest took their places, side by side, at the 
 top ; and all the free men in the train of either, 
 were ranged along the sides. No fine dressoir, 
 covered with silver and with gold^ ornamented 
 
276 PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 the hall of the young Knight ; all the plate 
 which the crusades had left in his castle, con- 
 sisting of two large hanaps, or drinking cups, 
 of silver, and a saltcellar in the form of a ship. 
 Jugs of earthenware, and cups of horn, lay 
 ranged by platters of wood and pewter ; and a 
 momentary sting of mortified pride passed 
 through De Coucy's heart, as the poverty of 
 his house stood exposed to the eyes of the 
 young troubadour. 
 
 For his part, however, Guillaume de la Roche 
 seemed perfectly contented with his fare and 
 reception ; praised the wine, which was indeed 
 excellent, and evinced a traveller's appetite 
 towards the hot steaks of pork, and the freshly 
 slaughtered fowls. 
 
 Gradually De Coucy began to feel more at 
 his ease, and, forgetting the poverty of his 
 household display, laughed and jested with his 
 guest. Pledging each other in many a cup, and 
 at last adding thereto many a song, the hours 
 passed rapidly away. Gallon the fool was call- 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 277 
 
 ed ; and a stiff cord being stretched across the 
 apartment, he performed feats thereon, that 
 would have broken the heart of II Diavoio 
 Antonio himself, adding flavour and piquancy 
 to the various contortions of his limbs, by the 
 rich and racy ugliness of his countenance. 
 
 " That cannot be his real nose ?" observed 
 the young Provencal, turning with an inquiring 
 look to De Coucy. 
 
 '^ By all the saints of Heaven ! it is," replied 
 De Coucy ; " at least, I have seen him with 
 no other." 
 
 "It cannot be !" said the Troubadour, almost 
 in the words of Slawkenbergius. " There 
 never was a nose like that ! 'Tis surely a sau- 
 sage of Bijorre — both shape, and colour, and 
 size. I will never believe it to be a true nose !" 
 
 " Ho ! Gallon," cried De Coucy. " Bring 
 thy nose here, and convince this fair Knight 
 that 'tis thine own lawful property." 
 
 Gallon obeyed; and, jumping down from 
 his rope, approached the place where the two 
 
278 PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 Knights sat, swaying his proboscis up and 
 down in such a manner, as to show that it was 
 almost preternaturally under the command of 
 his volition. 
 
 This, however, did not satisfy the young 
 Provencal, who, as he came nearer, was seized 
 with an irresistible desire to meddle with the 
 strange appendix to the jongleur's face; and, 
 giving way to this sort of boyish whim, at the 
 moment when Gallon was nearest, he seized 
 his nose between his finger and thumb, and gave 
 it a tweak fully sufficient to demonstrate its 
 identity with the rest of his flesh. 
 
 Gallon's hand flew to his dagger ; and it 
 was already gleaming half out of the sheath, 
 when a loud " How now !" from De Coucy 
 stayed him ; and affecting to take the matter as 
 a joke, he threw a somerset backwards, and 
 bounded out of the hall. 
 
 " I could not have resisted, had he been an 
 Emperor !" said the young man, laughing. 
 "Oh 'tis a wonderful appendage, and gives 
 great dignity to his countenance !" 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 279 
 
 " The dignity of ugliness," said De Coucy. 
 " But take care that Gallon the Fool comes not 
 across you with his dagger. He is as revenge- 
 ful as an ape." 
 
 " Oh, I will give him some gold," said the 
 Troubadour. " One touch of such a nose as 
 that, is worth all the sheckles of Solomon's 
 Temple." 
 
 De Coucy laughed, and the evening passed 
 on in uninterrupted glee and harmony : but 
 when the young Knight found that his new 
 companion was the grandson of the unfortunate 
 Guy de la Roche Guyon, the account of whose 
 assassination he had just read, his heart seemed 
 to open to him more than ever ; and telling 
 him, with a smile at the remembrance of having 
 called for his lance, how much the history had 
 moved him, Guy de Coucy poured forth his 
 free and generous heart in professions of interest 
 and regard. The young stranger seemed to 
 meet him as frankly; but, to a close observer 
 perhaps, the very rounding of his phrases would 
 have betrayed more study than was consistent 
 
280 PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 with the same effusion of feeling which flowed 
 in all De Coucy's actions. 
 
 The chatelain, however, did not remark it ; 
 but after having commanded a sleeping cup to 
 be brought to the young Proven9ars bedroom, 
 he led him thither himself. Here indeed his 
 pride was somewhat gratified to find that the 
 old seneschal had preserved the sleeping apart- 
 ments with the most heedful care from the 
 same decay that had affected the rest of the 
 castle, and that the rich tapestries over the 
 walls, the hangings of the bed, and its coverings 
 of miniver and sable, attested that the family of 
 De Coucy Magny had once at least known 
 days of splendour. 
 
 The next morning, by sunrise, the whole 
 party in the castle were stirring ; and Guil- 
 laume de la Roche Guyon gave orders to pre- 
 pare his horses. De Coucy pressed his stay, but 
 could not prevail ; and after having adduced 
 a thousand motives to induce his guest to pro- 
 long his visit, he added one, which to his mind 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 281 
 
 was irresistible. " I find," said he,. " that 
 during my absence fighting for the recovery 
 of Christ's cross and sepulchre, a band of 
 lawless Routiers and Cotereaux have refuged 
 themselves in my woods — some two thousand, 
 they are called ; but let us strike off one-half 
 for exaggeration. Now, I propose to drive 
 them out with fire and sword, and doubt not to 
 muster fifty good men-at-arms. Your train 
 amounts to nearly the same number, and I 
 shall be very happy to share the honour and 
 pastime with so fair a Knight, if you be dis- 
 posed to join me." 
 
 The young man coloured slightly, but de- 
 clined. " Important business," he said, " which 
 he was afraid must have suffered by the mishap 
 of his having lost his way the evening before, 
 would utterly prevent him from enjoying the 
 great honour of fighting under Sir Guy de 
 Coucy ; — but he should be most happy," he 
 added, " to leave all the armed men of his 
 train, if they could be of assistance in expelling 
 
282 PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 the banditti from the territories of the Sire de 
 Coucy. As for himself, he no way feared to 
 pursue his journey with merely his unarmed 
 servants." 
 
 De Coucy, however, declined — somewhat dry- 
 ly, too ; his favourable opinion of the young 
 stranger being greatly diminished by his neg- 
 lecting, on any account, so fair an opportunity 
 of exercising his prowess and gaining renown. 
 He conducted him courteously to his horse, 
 notwithstanding, drank the stirrup cup with 
 him at parting, and, wishing him a fair and 
 prosperous journey, returned into his castle. 
 
 Guillaume de la Roche Guyon rode on in 
 silence at the head of his troop, till he had 
 descended to the very bottom of the hill on 
 which the chateau stood ; then, turning to one 
 of his favourite retainers, as they entered the 
 forest — " By the Lord ! Philippeau," cried he, 
 " saw ye ever such beggarly fare ? I slept 
 not all night, half-choked as I was with hog's 
 flesh. And did you hear how he pressed me to 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 283 
 
 my meat, as if he would fain have choked me 
 outright ? The Lord deliver us from such poor 
 chatelains, and send them back to fight in 
 Palestine !" 
 
 " So say I, heaii Sire,''^ replied the retainer : 
 " if they will take ship thither, we will pray 
 for a fair wind." 
 
 '' And the cups of horn, Philippeau," cried 
 his lord, " and the wooden platters — did you 
 mark them ? Oh, they were well worthy the 
 viands they contained !" 
 
 " So say I, beau Sire,'''' replied the living 
 echo. " May they never contain any thing bet- 
 ter ! — for chateau and chatelain, dinner and 
 dishes, were all of a piece.''" 
 
 " And think of his dreaming that I would 
 go against the honest Cotereaux with him !" 
 cried the youth — " risking my horse and my 
 life, and losing my time : all to rid his land of 
 some scores of men as brave as himself, I dare 
 say, and a great deal richer. 'T would have 
 been a rare folly, indeed !"" 
 
284 PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 "So say I, heau Sire,''^ rejoined the inevi- 
 table Philippeau ; " that would have been turn- 
 ing his man before he had shown himself your 
 master. — Ha, ha, ha !" 
 
 " Haw, haw, haw !" shouted a voice in- an- 
 swer, whose possessor remained for a moment 
 invisible. The next instant, however, the legs 
 of a man appeared dangling from one of the 
 trees, a few yards before them ; then down 
 dropped his body at the extent of his arms; 
 and, letting himself fall like a piece of lead, 
 Gallon the fool stood motionless in their way. 
 
 " Ha !'"* cried Guillaume de la Roche, drawing 
 forward what was called his aumoniere,* a sort 
 
 * This part of the dress was a small pouch borne under 
 the arm, and called Escarcelle, or Pera, when carried 
 by pilgrims to the Holy Land. With the utmost reverence 
 for the learning, talent, and patience of Ducange, it ap- 
 pears to me that he was mistaken in his interpretation of a 
 passage of Cassian, relative to this part of the pilgrim's 
 dress. The sentence in Cassian is as follows : " Ultimus 
 est habitus eorum pellis caprina, quse melotes, vel pera 
 appellatur, et baculus ;" which Ducange affirms to mean, 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 285 
 
 of pouch by his side, and taking, out a couple 
 of pieces of gold, "Our good Jongleur come 
 for his guerdon ! — Hold, fellow !'" and he cast 
 the money to Gallon the fool, who caught each 
 piece- before it fell to the ground. 
 
 " Haw, haw ! haw, haw !" cried Gallon. 
 " Gramercy, heau Sire ! gramercy ! Now will 
 I tell thee a piece of news," he continued in 
 his abrupt and unconnected manner — ," a piece 
 of news that never should you have heard but 
 for these two pieces of gold. Your lady love 
 is at the castle of the Sire de Montmorency. 
 Speed thither fast, and you shall win her 
 yet. — Haw, haw ! Do you understand ? Win 
 her old father first. Tell him of your broad 
 
 that they wore a dress of goats' skins, a wallet, and a stick. 
 Embarrassed by taking habitus in the limited sense of a 
 garment, I should rather be inclined to think that the 
 author merely meant that the last part of their (the Monks') 
 dress was what is called a Pera, or Melotes, made of goat- 
 skins and a stick, and not three distinct articles as Du- 
 cange imagines.— 5ee Ducanse, Dissert, xv. 
 
286 PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 lands, and your rich castles ; for old Sir Julian 
 loves gold, as if it paved the way to Heaven. 
 — Haw, haw, haw ! When his love is won, 
 never fear but that his daughter's will come 
 after ; and then, all because thou hast broad 
 lands enough of thine own, thou shalt have 
 all good Count Julian's to back them. — Haw, 
 haw ! haw, haw ! Thus it is we give to those 
 that want not ; and to those who want, we spit 
 in their face — a goodly gift! — -Haw, haw! 
 The world is mad, not I — 'tis but the mishap 
 of being single in one's opinion ! — Haw, haw, 
 haw !" and darting away into the forest with- 
 out staying farther question, he was soon lost 
 to their sight. 
 
 No sooner, however, had Gallon the fool 
 assured himself that he was out of reach of 
 pursuit, than suddenly stopping, he cast himself 
 on the ground, and rolled over and over two or 
 three times, while he made the wood ring with 
 his laughter. " Now have I murdered him ! — 
 now have I slaughtered him ! — now have I given 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 287 
 
 his throat to the butcher !" cried he, " as sure 
 as if I held his head under Knock-me-down 
 T>e Coucy's battle-axe — now will he go and 
 buy the old fool Julian's consent and promise, 
 for gold and rich furniture. — Haw, haw, haw ! 
 Then will Isadore refuse ; and let the De Coucy 
 know. — Haw, haw ! Then will De Coucy 
 come with lance and shield, and provoke my 
 gallant to the fight, which for his knighthood 
 he dare not refuse, — then will my great man- 
 slayer, my iron-fisted singer of songs, crush me 
 this tiny, smooth-faced, quaint apparelled imp 
 of Provence, as I Ve seen a great eater crunch a 
 lark. — Haw, haw ! haw, haw ! And all for 
 having tweaked my nose, though none of them 
 know any thing about it ! He will insult my 
 countenance no more, I trow, when the velvet 
 black moles are digging through his cold heart 
 with their white hands. Ah, cursed counte- 
 nance !" he cried, as if seized with some sudden 
 emotion of rage, and striking his clenched fist 
 hard upon his hideous face — " Ah, cursed 
 
28B PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 countenance ! thou hast brought down upon 
 me mock and mimicry, hatred and contempt ! 
 Every thing is loved — every thing is sought — 
 every thing is admired, but I ; and I am fled 
 from by all that see me. I am hated, and I 
 hate myself — I am the Devil — surely I am the 
 Devil! — and if so, I will enjoy my reign. — Be- 
 ware I beware ! ye that mock me ; for I will 
 live by gnawing your hearts, — I will, I will ! 
 — Haw, haw ! — that I will !" and suddenly 
 bounding up, he caught one of the large boughs 
 above his head, swung himself backward and 
 forward for a minute in the air; ^nd spring- 
 ing forward, with a loud screaming laugh, flew 
 back to the castle like an arrow shot from a 
 bow. 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 289 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 We must now return for a time to the 
 chateau of Compiegne, in one of the principal 
 chambers of which, surrounded by a bevy of 
 fair maids, sat Agnes de Meranie, bending her 
 graceful head over an embroidery frame. As 
 far as one might judge from the lively colours 
 upon the ground of white satin, she was engaged 
 in working a coat of arms ; and she plied her 
 small fingers busily, as if in haste. Her maids 
 also were all fully engaged, each in some 
 occupation which had in a degree a reference 
 to that of the Queen. One richly embroidered 
 a sword belt with threads of gold ; another 
 wove a golden fringe for the coat of arms ; and 
 
 VOL. I. o 
 
290 PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 a third was equally intent in tracing various 
 symbols on a banner. 
 
 From what internal emotion, it is hard to 
 say — for song is not always a sign of joy, — the 
 Queen, as she sat at her work, sung, from time 
 to time, some of the verses of one of the can- 
 nons of the day, in a sweet low voice, and in 
 that sort of indifferent tone, which seemed to 
 show, that while her hands were busy with 
 the embroidery, and her voice was as mecha- 
 nically modulating the song, that nobler part 
 of the mind, which seems to dwell more in 
 the heart than the brain, and whose thoughts 
 are feelings, was busy with very different 
 matter. 
 
 THE SEEKER FOR LOVE. 
 
 " Oh where is Love V the Pilgrim said, 
 *' Is he prisoner, dead, or fled ? 
 
 I 've sought him far, with spear and lance, 
 To meet him, seize and bind him. 
 I Ve sought him in each tower of France, 
 But never yet could find him — 
 
 There.''— 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 291 
 
 " Should these flowers in the treasure, be 
 azure or gold, Blanch ?**' demanded the Queen. 
 
 " Gold, Madam !— Oh, certainly gold !" re- 
 plied the lady, and the Queen resumed her 
 work and her song. 
 
 " Oh where is Love ?" he said again, 
 " Let me not seek, and seek in vain ! 
 In the proud cities have I been, 
 In cottages I've nought him, 
 'Midst lords, 'midst shepherds on the green, 
 But none of them have brought him — 
 
 There." 
 " He is banished," replied the Knight, 
 " By the cold looks of our ladies bright !" — 
 " He is gone," said the Lady fair, 
 " To sport in Eden's arbours. 
 As for men's hearts, his old repair, 
 
 Treason alone now harbours — 
 
 There." 
 " I have found him," the Pilgrim said; 
 " In my heart he has laid his head. 
 
 Though banish'd from knights, and ladies rare, 
 And even shepherds discard him, 
 In my bosom shall be the god's lair, 
 
 And with silken fetters I '11 guard him — 
 
 There." 
 02 
 
292 PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 " Was it not on Thursday the King went ?^* 
 demanded the Queen. 
 
 " No, Madam," answered the lady, who had 
 spoken before. " He went on Friday ; and he 
 cannot be back till the day after to-morrow, 
 if he come then ; for that false, uncourteous 
 King of England is as full of wiles as of villar- 
 nies, and will never give a clear reply ; so that 
 it always costs my Lord the King longer to 
 deal with him than any of his other vassals. 
 Were I his brother, the Earl of Salisbury, 
 who has been twice at Paris, and is as good a 
 knight as ever wore a lady's favour, I would 
 sweep his head off with my long sword, and 
 restore the crown to our little Arthur, who is 
 the rightful King." 
 
 " Where is the young truant .?"" demanded 
 the Queen. " I would fain ask him, whether 
 he would have these straps on the shoulder, 
 of plain silk or of gold. — See for him, good 
 girl r 
 
 But at that moment, a part of the tapestry 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 293 
 
 was suddenly pushed aside, and a slight, grace- 
 ful boy, of about fifteen, sprang into the 
 room. He was gaily dressed in a light tunic 
 of sky-blue silk, and a jewelled bonnet of 
 the same colour, which showed well on his 
 bright, fair skin, and the falling curls of his 
 sunny hair. 
 
 " Not so far off as you thought, fair cousin,^' 
 said he, casting himself on one knee beside the 
 Queen, and kissing one of the small delicate 
 hands that lay on the embroidery frame. 
 
 " Not eaves-dropping, I hope, Arthur," said 
 Agnes de Meranie. " You, who are so soon 
 to become a knight, are too noble for that, I 
 am sure."' 
 
 " Oh, surely !" said the boy, looking up in 
 her face with an ingenuous blush. " I had but 
 been to see my mother ; and, as I came back, 
 I stopped at the window above the stairs to 
 watch an eagle that was towering over the 
 forest so proudly, I could not help wishing I 
 had been an eagle, to rise up like it into the 
 
294^ PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 skies, and see all the world stretched out be- 
 neath me. And then I heard you singing, and 
 there was no harm in staying to listen to that, 
 you know, helle cousine,''' he added, looking up 
 with a smile. 
 
 " And how is the Lady Constance, now ?" 
 demanded the Queen. 
 
 " Oh ! she is somewhat better," replied 
 Arthur. " And she bade me thank you, fair 
 Queen, in her name, as well as my own, for un- 
 dertaking the task which her illness prevented 
 her from accomplishing." 
 
 " No thanks ! no thanks ! Prince Arthur," 
 replied the Queen. " Is it not the duty of 
 every dame in France, to aid in arming a knight 
 when called upon. But tell me. Sir Runaway, 
 for I have been waiting these ten minutes to 
 know, — will you have these straps of cloth of 
 gold, or simple silk .?" 
 
 This question gave rise to a very important 
 discussion, which was just terminated by 
 Arthur'*s predilection for gold, when a page, 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 295 
 
 entering, announced to the Queen, that Gue- 
 rin, the chancellor, desired a few minutes' 
 audience. 
 
 The Queen turned somewhat pale, for the 
 first sting of adversity had gone deep in her 
 heart, and she trembled lest it should be re- 
 peated. She commanded the attendant, how- 
 ever, to admit the Minister, endeavouring, as 
 much as possible, to conceal the alarm and un- 
 easiness which his visit caused her. The only 
 symptom indeed of impatience which escaped 
 her, appeared in her turning somewhat quickly 
 round, and pointing to a falcon that stood on 
 its perch in one of the windows, and amused 
 itself, on seeing some degree of bustle, by ut- 
 tering one or two loud screams, thinking pro- 
 bably it was about to be carried to the field. 
 
 *' Take that bird away, Arthur, good 
 youth," said the Queen ; " it makes my head 
 ache." 
 
 Arthur obeyed ; and as he left the room, the 
 Hospitaller entered, but not alone. He was 
 
296 PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 followed by a tall, thin, wasted man dressed in 
 a brown frock, or hure^ over which his white 
 beard flowed down to his girdle. In fact, it 
 was Bernard the Hermit, that, for the purposes 
 we shall explain, had once more for a time 
 quitted his solitude, and accompanied the 
 minister of Philip Augustus to Compiegne. 
 
 The Hospitaller bowed his head as he ad- 
 vanced towards the Queen ; and the Hermit 
 gave her his blessing ; but still, for a moment, 
 the heart of poor Agnes de Meranie beat so 
 fast, that she could only reply by pointing to 
 two seats which her women left vacant by her 
 side. 
 
 " Madame, we come to speak to you on mat- 
 ters of some importance,"' said Guerin, looking 
 towards the Queen's women, who, though with- 
 drawn from her immediate proximity, still stood 
 at a little distance. " Would it please you to 
 let us have a few minutes of your presence 
 alone. Myself and my brother Bernard are 
 both unworthy members of the Holy Church, 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 207 
 
 and therefore may claim a lady's ear for a 
 short space, without falling into the danger of 
 evil tongues." 
 
 " I fear no evil tongues, good Brother," re- 
 plied Agnes, summoning courage to meet what- 
 ever was to come ; " and though I know of no 
 subject concerning myself that I could wish 
 concealed from the world, yet I will bid these 
 poor girls go at your desire. — Go, Blanche," 
 she continued, turning to her principal attend- 
 ant, — " go, and wait in the anteroom till I call. 
 — Now, good Brother, may I crave what can be 
 your business with so unimportant a person as 
 my poor self?" 
 
 " As far. Madam," replied Guerin, after a 
 moment's pause, " as the weal of this great 
 realm of France is concerned, you are certainly 
 any thing but an unimportant person ; nor can 
 a fair, a noble, and a virtuous lady ever be 
 unimportant, be she queen or not. My brother 
 Bernard, from whom that most excellent Knight 
 and King, your royal husband, has, as doubt- 
 o 5 
 
298 PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 less you know. Lady, received many sage and 
 prudent counsels, has consented to join himself 
 to me for the bold purpose of laying before you 
 a clear view of the state of this realm, risking 
 thereby, we know, to hurt your feelings, and 
 even to offend our Lord the King, who has 
 anxiously kept it concealed from you." 
 
 " Hold, fair Brother !" said Agnes mildly, 
 but firmly ; " and before you proceed, mark 
 me well ! Where the good of my noble Philip, 
 or of his kingdom of France, may be obtained 
 by the worst pain you can inflict on me^ let no 
 fear of hurting my feelings stop you in your 
 course. Agnes gives you leave to hurt Agnes, 
 for her husband's good. But where, in the 
 slightest degree, the confidence you would 
 place in me, is in opposition to the will of 
 Philip, your King and mine, the Queen com- 
 mands you to be silent. — Stay, good Brother, 
 hear me out : I know that you would say, it is 
 for the King's ultimate good, though he may dis- 
 approve of it at present; but to me, good Bishop, 
 and you, Fatlier Hermit, — to me, my husband's 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 299 
 
 wisdom is supreme, as his will to me is law; 
 and though I will listen to your counsel and 
 advice with all humility, yet you must tell me 
 nothing that my Lord would not have me hear, 
 for on his judgment alone will I depend." 
 
 Guerin looked to the Hermit, who instantly 
 replied : " Daughter, you have spoken well, 
 wisely, and nobly, and I — even I, marvel not, 
 though my heart is like a branch long broken 
 from its stem, withered and verdureless — that 
 Philip of France clings so fondly to one, where 
 beauty, and wisdom, and love, are so strangely 
 united — strangely indeed for this world ! where 
 if any two of such qualities meet, 'tis but as 
 that Eastern plant which blossoms but once an 
 age. Let us only to council then, my child, 
 and see what best may be done to save the realm 
 from all the horrors that menace it." 
 
 The Hermit spoke in a tone of such unwont- 
 ed mildness, that Guerin, apparently doubting 
 his firmness in executing the purpose that had 
 brought them thither, took up the discourse. 
 
 " Lady," said he, '* after the ungrateful oc- 
 
300 PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 currence which terminated the tournament of 
 the Champeaux, — forgive me, that I recall what 
 must pain you, — you can hardly doubt that 
 our Holy Father the Pope, in his saintly wis- 
 dom, considers that the decree of the Prelates 
 of France, annulling the marriage of the King 
 with Ingerburge of Denmark, was illegal, and 
 consequently invalid. — Need I — need I, Lady, 
 urge upon you the consequences, if our royal 
 Lord persists in neglecting, or resisting, the re- 
 peated commands of the Supreme Pontiff?" 
 
 Agnes turned deadly pale, and pointed to a 
 crystal cup filled with water, which stood near. 
 The Minister gave it to her ; and, having drunk 
 a few drops, she covered her eyes with her hand 
 for a moment — then raised them, and replied 
 with less apparent emotion than might have 
 been expected : " You do not clothe the truth. 
 Sir, in that soft guise which makes it less terri- 
 ble of aspect to a weak woman's eyes, though 
 not less certain ; but you have been a soldier. 
 Sir, and also a recluse, mingling not with such 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 301 
 
 feeble things as we are ; and, therefore, I must 
 forgive you the hard verities you speak. What 
 is it you wish me to do ? — for I gather from 
 your manner, that there is some task you would 
 fain impose upon me."" 
 
 Pained by the effect his words had had upon 
 the Queen, and feeling uncertain of how far he 
 might venture, without driving her to actual 
 despair, embarrassed also by his small habits of 
 intercourse with women, Guerin turned once 
 more to the Hermit. 
 
 '' The task, my child,'* said the old man, in 
 compliance with the Minister''s look, " is indeed 
 a painful one — bitterly painful ; but, if it ap- 
 proaches to the agony of martyrdom, it is by 
 its self-devotion equally sublime and glorious. 
 Think, daughter, what a name would that wo- 
 man gain in history, who, to save her husband's 
 realm from civil war and interdict, and himself 
 from excommunication and anathema, should 
 voluntarily take upon herself the hard duty 
 of opposing not only his inclinations, but also 
 
302 PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 her own ; should tear herself from all that was 
 dear to her, and thereby restore him to his 
 glory and himself, — his realm to peace ; and 
 tranquillity to the bosom of the Church — 
 think what a name she would gain in his- 
 tory, and what such a sacrifice might merit 
 from Heaven !" 
 
 " Stay ! stay ! Father," said Agnes, raising 
 her hand. " Stay, — let me think ;" and cast- 
 ing down her beautiful eyes, she remained for 
 a few moments in profound thought. After a 
 short pause, Guerin, lest the impression should 
 subside, attempted to fortify the Hermit's argu- 
 ments with his own; but the Queen waved 
 her hand, for silence, thought again, and then 
 raising her eyes, she replied : — 
 
 " I understand you. Father ; and, from my 
 heart, I believe you seek the good of my 
 husband the King. But this thing must not 
 be — it cannot be !" 
 
 " It is painful, Lady," said Guerin, " but to 
 a mind like yours, — to a heart that loves your 
 husband better than yourself — '' 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 303 
 
 " Hold, my good Brother !" said Agnes. "I, 
 a weak, unwise woman, am ill fitted to contend 
 with two wise and learned men like you ; and 
 therefore I will at once tell you why I reject 
 a task that no consideration of my own feelings 
 would have caused me to refuse; — no, not had 
 it slain me !" she added, raising her eyes to 
 Heaven, as if appealing there for the truth of 
 her assertion. *' In the first place, I am the 
 wife of Philip King of France ; and my lips 
 shall never do my fame the dishonour to admit 
 that for an instant I have been aught else, 
 since his hand clasped mine before the altar of 
 St. Denis, in presence of all the Prelates and 
 Bishops of his realm. I should dishonour my- 
 self — I should dishonour my child, did I think 
 otherwise. As his wife, I am bound never to 
 quit him with my good-will; and to submit 
 myself in all things to his judgment and his 
 wisdom. His wisdom then must be the judge ; 
 I will in no one thing oppose it. If but in the 
 slightest degree I see he begins to think the 
 sacrifice of our domestic happiness necessary to 
 
304 PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 the public weal, I will yield without resist- 
 ance, and bear my sorrows alone to the grave 
 that will soon overtake me ; — but never till 
 that grave has closed upon me will I admit 
 that there is another Queen of France ; never 
 will I acknowledge that I am not the lawful 
 wife of Philip Augustus ; nor ever will I op- 
 pose myself to my husband's will, or arrogate 
 to myself the right of judging where he himself 
 has decided. No ! Philip has formed his own 
 determination from his own strong mind ; and 
 far be it from me, his wife, by a word to shake 
 his resolution, or by a thought to impeach his 
 judgment !" 
 
 The Queen spoke calmly, but decidedly ; 
 and though no tone in her voice betrayed any 
 degree of vehemence, yet the bright light of 
 her eye, and the alternate flushing and pale- 
 ness of her cheek, seemed to evince a far more 
 powerful struggle of feeling within, than she 
 suffered to appear in her language. 
 
 " But hear me. Lady, — hear me once more, 
 for all our sakes I" exclaimed Gueriii. 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 305 
 
 " Sir, I can listen no longer !'^ said Agnes, 
 rising from her seat, with a degree of energy 
 and dignity, that her slight form and gentle 
 disposition seemed incapable of displaying. 
 " My resolution is taken — my course is fixed — 
 my path is made ; and nothing on earth shall 
 turn me therefrom. The icy mountains of my 
 native land," she continued, pointing with her 
 hand in the direction, as she fancied, of the 
 Tyrol, " whose heads have stood for imme- 
 morial ages, beaten in vain by storm and tem- 
 pest, are not more immoveable than I am. — 
 But I am not well," she added, turning some- 
 what pale ; — " I pray you, good Sirs, leave me !" 
 
 Guerin bowed his head, yet lingered, saying, 
 " And yet I would fain — " 
 
 " I am not well. Sir,'' said the Queen, turn^ 
 ing paler and paler. — " Send me my women, I 
 beseech you !" 
 
 Guerin made a step towards the door, but 
 suddenly turned, just in time to catch the 
 beautiful Princess in his arms, as, overcome by 
 exdtement and distress of mind, she fell back 
 
306 PHILIP A.UGUSTUS. 
 
 in one of those deathlike fainting fits which 
 had seized her first at the Champeaux. 
 
 Her women were immediately called to her 
 assistance ; and the Minister and the Hermit 
 retired, disappointed indeed in the purpose 
 they had proposed to effect, but hardly less 
 admiring the mingled dignity, gentleness, and 
 firmness with which the Queen had conducted 
 herself in one of the most painful situations 
 wherein ever a good and virtuous woman was 
 placed on earth. 
 
 '* And now, what more can be done ?" said 
 Guerin, pausing on the last step of the stair- 
 case, and speaking in a tone that implied aban- 
 donment of farther effort rather than expecta- 
 tion of counsel. " What can be done ?"" 
 
 " Nothing, my son," replied the Hermit, — 
 " nothing, without thou wouldst again visit 
 yon fair, unhappy girl, to torture her soul 
 without shaking her purpose. For me, I have 
 no call to wring my fellow-creatures' hearts; 
 and therefore I meddle herein no more. — 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 307 
 
 Fare thee well ! I go to De Coucy Magny, as 
 they call it, to see a wild youth whose life I 
 saved, I fear me, to little purpose." 
 
 " But not on foot !" said Guerin ; " 'tis far, 
 good Brother. Take a horse, a mule, from my 
 stable, I pray thee !" 
 
 "And why not on foot?" asked the old 
 man. "Our Lord and Saviour walked on 
 foot, I trow ; and he might have well been 
 prouder than thou or I." 
 
308 PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 The woods of De Coucy Magny stretched 
 far over hill and dale and plain, where now 
 not the root of one ancient tree is to be seen ; 
 and many a vineyard and a cornfield and a 
 meadow are to-day spread fair out in the open 
 sunshine, which were then covered with deep 
 and tangled underwood, or shaded by the broad 
 arms of vast primeval oaks. 
 
 Two straight roads passed through the forest, 
 and a multitude of smaller paths, which, wind- 
 ing about in every different direction, crossing 
 and recrossing each other, now avoiding the 
 edge of a pond and making a large circuit, now 
 taking advantage of a savannah, to proceed 
 straight forward, and now turning sharp round 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 309 
 
 the vast boll of some antique tree, formed 
 altogether an absolute labyrinth, through which 
 it needed a very certain clue, or very long 
 experience, to proceed in safety. 
 
 These paths also, however multiplied and 
 intersected, left between them many a wide 
 unbroken space of forest ground, where appa- 
 rently the foot of man had never trod, nor axe 
 of woodman ever rung, the only tracks through 
 which, seemed to be some slight breaks in the 
 underwood, where the rushing sides of a boar 
 or deer had dashed the foliage aside. Many of 
 these spaces were of the extent of several thou- 
 sand acres ; and if the very intricacy of the gene- 
 ral forest paths themselves would not have af- 
 forded shelter and concealment to men who, like 
 the Cotereaux and Routiers, as much needed a 
 well hidden lair, as ever did the wildest savage 
 of the wood, such asylum was easily to be found 
 in the dark recesses of these inviolate wilds. 
 
 Here, on a bright morning of July, when the 
 grey of the sky was just beginning to warm 
 with the rising day, a single man, armed with 
 
310 PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 sword, corselet, and steel bonnet, all shining 
 with the last polishing touch which they had 
 received at the shop of the armourer, took his 
 way alone down one of the narrowest paths of 
 the forest. In his hand he held an arbalefe,* 
 or cross bow, then a very late invention ; and, 
 by the careful manner in which he examined 
 every bush as he passed, he seemed some 
 huntsman tracing, step by step, the path of 
 a deer. 
 
 " Cursed be the fools V muttered he to him- 
 self; "they have not taken care to mark the 
 brise well ; and, in this strange forest, how am 
 I to track them ? Ah, here is another !" and, 
 passing on from tree to tree, he at length 
 paused where one of the smaller branches, 
 broken across, hung with its leaves just be- 
 
 * Guillaume le Breton says unqualifiedly, that Richard 
 Coeur de Lion invented the arbalete, or cross-bow. Bromp- 
 ton, on the other hand, only declares that he revived the use 
 of it, " hoc genus sagittandi in usum revocavit." Without 
 precisely remembering where, I think I have met with the 
 description of such a weapon prior to the time here re- 
 ferred to. 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 311 
 
 ginning to wither from the interruption of the 
 sap. Here turning from the direct path, he 
 pushed his way through the foliage, stooping 
 his head to prevent the branches striking him 
 in the face, but still taking pains to remark at 
 every step each tree or bush that he passed ; 
 and wherever he perceived a broken branch, 
 keeping it to his right-hand as he proceeded. 
 His eyes nevertheless were now and then turned 
 to the left, as well as the right ; and at length, 
 after he had advanced about four hundred 
 yards in this cautious manner, he found the 
 boughs broken all around, so that the brise, as 
 he called it, terminated there ; and all guide 
 by which to direct his course seemed at an end. 
 At this place he paused ; and, after ex- 
 amining more scrupulously every object in 
 the neighbourhood, he uttered a long whistle, 
 which, after a moment or two, met with a 
 reply, but from such a distance that it was 
 scarcely audible. The cross-bowman whistled 
 again ; and the former sound was repeated, 
 but evidently nearer. Then came a slight 
 
312 PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 rustling in the bushes, as if some large body 
 stirred the foliage, and then for a moment all 
 was still. 
 
 " Ha, Jodelle !" cried a voice at last, from 
 the other side of the bushes. "Is it you ?''"' 
 and pushing through the leaves, which had 
 concealed him while he had paused to examine 
 the stranger, a genuine Routier, if one might 
 judge by his very rude and rusty arms, entered 
 the little open space in which the other had 
 been waiting. He had an unbent bow in his 
 hand, and a store of arrows in his belt, which 
 was garnished still farther with a strong, short 
 sword, and of knives and daggers not a few, 
 from the misericorde of a hand's breadth long, 
 to the thigh knife of a peasant of those days, 
 whose blade of nearly two feet in length ren- 
 dered it a serviceable and tremendous weapon. 
 
 He had on his back, by way of clothing, a 
 light iron haubert, which certainly shone not 
 brightly ; nor possibly was it desirable for him 
 that it should. Though of somewhat more 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 313 
 
 solid materials than a linen gown, it had more 
 than one rent in it, where the rings had either 
 been broken by a blow, or worn through by age : 
 but, in these places, the deficient links had 
 been supplied by cord, which at all events 
 kept the yawning mouths of the gaps together. 
 On his head was placed an iron hat, as it was 
 called, much in the shape of the famous helmet 
 of Mambrino, as described by Cervantes ; and 
 round about it were twined several branches of 
 oak, which rendered his head, when seen through 
 the boughs, scarce distinguishable from the 
 leaves themselves ; while his rugged and dingy 
 haubert might well pass for a part of the trunk 
 of one of the trees. 
 
 "Well met! well met, Jodelle !" cried he, 
 as the other approached. " Come to the halt- 
 ing-place. We have waited for you long, and 
 had scanty fare. But say, what have you done ? 
 Have you slit the devil's weasand, or got the 
 knight's purse ? Do you bring us good news or 
 bad ? Do you come gay or sorry ? Tell me ! 
 
 VOL. I. p 
 
314 PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 tell me, Jodelle ! Thou art our leader, but 
 must not lead us to hell with thy new-fashioned 
 ways." 
 
 " Get thee on to the halt," replied Jodelle. 
 " I will tell all there." 
 
 The two Cotereaux — for such they were — 
 now made their way through the trees and shrubs, 
 to a spot where the axe had been busily plied 
 to clear away about half an acre of ground, 
 round which were placed a range of huts, 
 formed of branches, leaves, and mud, capable 
 of containing perhaps two or three hundred men. 
 
 In the open space in the centre, several per- 
 sonages of the same respectable class as the 
 two we have already introduced to the reader, 
 were engaged in various athletic sports — pitch- 
 ing an immense stone, shooting at a butt, or 
 striking downright blows at a log of wood, to 
 see who could hew into its substance most 
 profoundly. 
 
 Others again were scattered about, fashion- 
 ing bows out of strong beechen poles, pointing 
 arrows and spears, or sharpening their knives 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 315 
 
 and swords ; while one or two lay listlessly 
 looking on, seemingly little inclined to employ 
 very actively either their mental or corporeal 
 faculties. 
 
 The arrival of Jodelle, as he was called, put 
 a stop to the sports, and caused a momentary 
 bustle amongst the whole party, the principal 
 part of whom seemed to recognise in him one of 
 the most distinguished members of their frater- 
 nity, although some of those present appeared 
 to gaze on him as a stranger. 
 
 " Welcome, welcome. Sire Jodelle !" cried 
 one who had been fashioning a bow. " By my 
 faith ! we have much needed thy presence. We 
 are here at poor quarters. Not half so good as 
 we had in the mountains of Auvergne, till that 
 bad day's work we made of it between the Allier 
 and the Puy ; and a hundred thousand times 
 worse than when we served the merry King of 
 England, under that bold knight Mercader. 
 Oh, the quarrel of that cross-bow at Chaluz 
 was the worst shaft ever was shot for us. Those 
 days will never come again." 
 p2 
 
316 PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 " They may, they may !" replied Jodelle, 
 " and before we dream of, — for good, hard wars 
 are spoken of ; and then the detested Cotereaux 
 grow, with these good Kings, into their faithful 
 troops of Braban^ois — their excellent free com- 
 panions ! But we shall see. In the mean time, 
 tell me where is Jean le Borgne .?" 
 
 " He is gone with a party to look for some 
 rich Jews going to Rouen," replied the person 
 who had spoken before. " But we have plenty 
 of men here for any bold stroke, if there be one 
 in the market ; and besides — "" 
 
 " Did you meet with Captain Vanswelder ?''* 
 interrupted Jodelle. " The fools at the castle 
 believe he has two thousand bows with him. 
 Where does he lie ? How many has he ?"'"' 
 
 " He never had above four hundred,*" replied 
 another of the Cotereaux, who by this time 
 had gathered thickly round Jodelle ; " and 
 when your men came — if you are the captain, 
 Jodelle — he took such of us as would go with 
 him down to Normandy, to offer himself to the 
 
PHILfP AUGUSTUS. 317 
 
 bad King John for half the sum of crowns we 
 had before. Now, fifty of us who had served 
 King Richard, and value our honour, agreed 
 not to undersell ourselves after such a fashion 
 as that ; so we joined ourselves to your men, to 
 take the chance of the road.'' 
 
 '' You did wisely and honourably," replied 
 Jodelle ; ^'but you would have been very likely 
 to get hanged or roasted for your pains, if I 
 had not, by chance, stuck myself to the skirts 
 of that Guy de Coucy, who is now at his 
 chateau hard by, menacing fire and sword to 
 every man of us that he finds in his wood. 
 By St. Macrobiusl I believe the mad-headed 
 boy would have attacked Vanswelder and his 
 whole troop, with the few swords he can mus- 
 ter, which do not amount to fifty. A brave 
 youth he is, as ever lived : — pity 'tis he must 
 die ! And yet, when he dashed out my bro- 
 ther's brains with his battle-axe, I vowed to 
 God and St. Nicolas ! that I would die or slay 
 him, as well as that treacherous slave who be- 
 
318 PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 trayed us into attacking a band of men-at-arms 
 instead of a company of pilgrims. It is a firm 
 vow, and must be kept." 
 
 " And yet, good master Jodelle, thou hast 
 been somewhat slow in putting it in execution," 
 said one of the Cotereaux. " Here thou and 
 Gerard Pons have been near a month with him 
 ■^and yet, from all that I can divine, thou hast 
 neither laid thy finger on master or man ! " 
 
 " Ha ! Sir Fool, wouldst thou have done it 
 better ?" demanded Jodelle, turning on the 
 speaker fiercely. " If I slew the fool juggler 
 first, which were easy to do, never should I get 
 a stroke at his lord ; and, let me tell thee, 'tis no 
 such easy matter to reach the master, who has 
 never doffed his steel haubert since 1 have seen 
 him — except when he sleeps, and then a varlet 
 and a page lie across his door — a privilege 
 which he gave them in the Holy Land, where 
 they saved his life from a raw Saracen ; and 
 now, the fools hold it as such an honour, they 
 would not yield it for a golden ring. Besides,'* 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 319 
 
 he added, grinning with a mixture of shrewd 
 malevolence and self-conceit in his countenance, 
 " I have a plot in my head. You know, I bear 
 a brain." 
 
 " Yes, yes !" replied several; " we know thou 
 art rare at a plot. What goes forward now ? 
 I vow a wax-candle to the Virgin Mary if it be 
 a good plot, and succeeds,'' added one of them : 
 but this liberality towards the Virgin, unhap- 
 pily for the priests, met with no imitators. 
 
 '' My plot," replied Jodelle, "is as good a 
 plot as ever was laid — ay, or hatched either — 
 and will succeed too. Wars are coming on 
 thick. We have no commander since our quar- 
 rel with Mercader. This De Coucy has no 
 men. To the wars he must and will ; and sure- 
 ly would rather be followed by a stout band of 
 free companions, than have his banner flutter- 
 ing at the head of half a dozen varlets, like a 
 red rag on a furze bush. I will find means to 
 put it in his head, and means to bring about 
 that you shall be the men. Then shall he lead 
 
320 PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 US to spoil and plunder enough, and leave it all 
 to us when he has got it — for his hand is as free 
 as his heart is bold. My vow will stand over 
 till the war is done, and then the means of exe- 
 cuting it will be in my own hands. What say 
 you.?" 
 
 " A good plot ! — an excellent good plot !" 
 cried several of the Cotereaux ; but neverthe- 
 less, though plunged deep in blood and crime, 
 there were many of the band who knit their 
 brow, and turned down the corner of the mouth, 
 at the profound piece of villany with which 
 master Jodelle finished his proposal. This did 
 not prevent them from consenting, however ; and 
 Jodelle proceeded to make various arrangements 
 for disposing comfortably of the band, during 
 the space of time which was necessarily to elapse 
 before his plan could be put in execution. 
 
 The first thing to be done was to evacuate 
 the woods of De Coucy Magny, that no un- 
 pleasant collision might take place between the 
 Cotereaux and De Coucy ; and the next con- 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 321 
 
 sideration was, where the band was to lie till 
 something more was decided. This difficulty 
 was soon put aside by one of the troop, which 
 had been originally in possession of the forest, 
 proposing as a refuge some woods in the 
 neighbourhood, which they had haunted pre- 
 vious to betaking themselves to their present 
 refuge. They then agreed to divide into two 
 separate bands, and to confine their system of 
 plundering as much as possible to the carrying 
 off of horses; so that no difficulty might be 
 found in mounting the troop, in case of the 
 young Knight accepting of their services. 
 
 " And now,'' cried Jodelle, " how many 
 are you, when all are here ?" 
 
 " One hundred and thirty-three," was the 
 reply. 
 
 " Try to make up three fifties," cried Jo- 
 delle, " and, in the first place, decamp with all 
 speed ; for, this very day, De Coucy, with all 
 the horsemen he can muster, w^ill be pricking 
 through every brake in the forest. Carry off all 
 p 5 
 
322 PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 your goods — unroof the huts — and if there be a 
 clerk amongst you, let him write me a scroll, 
 and leave it on the place, to say you quit it all 
 for the great name of De Coucy. So shall his 
 vanity be tickled." 
 
 " Oh ! there 's Jeremy the Monk can both 
 read and write, you know," cried several ; " and 
 as for parchment, he shall write upon the linen 
 that was in the pedlar's pack." 
 
 " And now," cried Jodelle, " to the work ! 
 But first show me where haunt the deer, for I 
 must take back a buck to the castle to excuse 
 my absence." 
 
 With very little trouble, a fine herd was 
 found, just cropping the morning grass; and 
 Jodelle instantly brought down a choice buck 
 with a quarrel from his cross-bow. He then 
 bade adieu to his companions, and casting the 
 carcase over his shoulders, he took his way 
 back to the castle. 
 
 It may be almost needless here to say, that 
 this very respectable personage, calling himself 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 323 
 
 Jodelle, was one of the two men who had been 
 received into De Coucy*s service in Auvergne, 
 for the purpose of leading to Paris two beautiful 
 Arabian horses he had brought from Palestine. 
 His object in joining the young Knight at all, 
 and for fixing himself in his train more par- 
 ticularly afterwards, having been already ex- 
 plained by himself, we shall not notice; but 
 shall only remark, that personal revenge be- 
 ing in those days inculcated even as a virtue, 
 it was a virtue not at all likely to be so con- 
 fined to the better classes, as not to ornament 
 in a high degree persons of Jodelle's station 
 and profession. 
 
 The gates of the castle were open, and De 
 Coucy himself standing on the drawbridge, as 
 the Coterel returned. 
 
 "^ Ha ! varlet," said he. " Where hast thou 
 been without the gates so early ? I must have 
 none here that stray forth when they may be 
 needed !" 
 
 " I had nought to do, beau Sire," replied 
 
324 PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 Jodelle, " and went but to strike a buck in the 
 wood, that your board might show some veni- 
 son : — I have not been' long, though it led me 
 farther than I thought/** 
 
 " Ha ! canst thou wing a shaft, or a quarrel 
 well ?" demanded De Coucy. " Thou hast 
 brought down indeed a noble buck, and hit 
 him fair in the throat. What distance was 
 your shot." 
 
 " A hundred and twenty yards," answered 
 the Coterel ; " and if I hit not a Normandy 
 pipin at the same, may my bowstring be cut by 
 your mad fool, Sir Knight !" 
 
 " By the blessed saints !" cried De Coucy, 
 " thou shalt try this very day at a better 
 mark ; for thou shalt have a caterers head 
 within fifty steps, before yon same sun, that 
 has just risen, goes down over the wood !" 
 
 " The poor Cotereaux !" cried Jodelle, 
 affecting a look of compassion. " They are 
 hunted from place to place, like wild beasts; 
 and yet there is many a good soldier amongst 
 them, after all." 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 325 
 
 " Out, fellow !" cried the Knight. " Speak- 
 est thou for plunderers and common thieves r^"" 
 
 " Nay, beau Sire ! I speak not for them," 
 replied Jodelle. " Yet what can the poor devils 
 do ? Here, in time of war, they spend their 
 blood and their labour in the cause of one or 
 other of the parties ; and then, the moment 
 they are of no farther use, they are cast off like 
 a mail-shirt after a battle. They have no means 
 of living but by their swords; and when no 
 one will employ them, what can they do.?* — 
 What could I have done myself, beau Sire, if 
 your noble valour had not induced you to take 
 me into your train ? All the money I had got 
 in the wars was spent ; and I must have turned 
 Routier, or starved." 
 
 " But would you say, fellow, that you have 
 been a Coterel ?" demanded De Coucy, eying 
 him from head to foot, as a man might be sup- 
 posed to do on finding himself unexpectedly in 
 company with a wolf, and discovering that it 
 was a much more civilized sort of an animal 
 than he expected. 
 
326 PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 " I will not deny, beau Sire," replied Jo- 
 delle, " that I once commanded two hundred 
 as good free lances as ever served King 
 Richard." 
 
 " Where are they now ?" demanded De 
 Coucy, with some degree of growing interest in 
 the man to whom he spoke. " Are they dis- 
 persed ? What has become of them .?" 
 
 " I do not well know, beau Sire,"" replied the 
 Coterel. " When Peter Gourdun's arblast 
 set Richard, the lion-hearted, on the same long, 
 dark journey that he had sent so many others 
 himself, I quarrelled with Count Mercader, 
 under whom I served. Richard with his dying 
 breath, as you have doubtless heard, fair Sir, 
 ordered the man Gourdun, who had killed him, 
 to be spared and set free ; and Mercader pro- 
 mised to obey : but, no sooner was King Rich- 
 ard as cold as King Pepin, than Mercader had 
 Gourdun tied hand and foot to the harrow of 
 the drawbridge of Chaluz, and saw him skinned 
 alive with his own eyes." 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 327 
 
 " Cruel villain !" cried De Coucy. 
 
 '* Ay ! fair Knight," rejoined the Coterel. 
 " I ventured to say that he was disobedient as a 
 soldier, as well as cruel as a knight ; and that 
 he ought to have obeyed the King's commands, 
 just as much after he was dead, as if he had 
 lived to see them obeyed. What will you 
 have ? There were plenty to tell Mercader 
 what I said : — there were high words followed ; 
 and I left the camp as soon as peace was trum- 
 peted. I had saved some money, and hoped 
 to buy a haubert feof under some noble lord ; 
 but, as evil fortune would have it, I met with a 
 menestrandie, consisting of the chief menestrel, 
 and four or five jongleurs and glee- maidens ; 
 and never did they leave me, till all I had was 
 nearly gone : what lasted, kept me a year at 
 Besan9on; after which I was glad enough to 
 engage myself for hire, to ride your horses 
 from Vic le Corate to Paris." 
 
 " But your troop !" said De Coucy. *' Have 
 you never heard any news of all your men .?" 
 
328 PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 " I have heard, through one of the minstrels,'^ 
 said the Coterel, " that soon after I was gone, 
 they repented and would not take service with 
 King John, as they had at first proposed ; but 
 came to offer themselves to the noble King 
 Philip of France, who however, being at peace, 
 would not entertain them ; and that they are 
 now roaming about, seeking some noble baron 
 who will give them protection, and lead them 
 where they may gain both money and a good 
 name." 
 
 '* By the rood ! they want the last, perhaps, 
 more than the first,"" replied De Coucy, turning 
 to enter the chateau. 
 
 The Coterers brow darkened, and he set 
 his teeth hard, feeling the head of his dagger 
 as he followed the Knight, as if his hand 
 itched to draw it and strike De Coucv from 
 behind ; which indeed he might easily have 
 done, and with fatal effect, at the spot where 
 the haubert ending left his throat and collar 
 bare. 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 329 
 
 It is not improbable that Jodelle would have 
 yielded without hesitation to the temptation of 
 opportunity, especially as his escape over the 
 drawbridge into the wood might have been 
 effected in an instant ; but he saw clearly that 
 his words had made an impression upon the 
 Knight. For the moment indeed they seemed 
 to produce no determinate result, yet it was 
 evident that whenever he found a fitting oppor- 
 tunity, it would be easy to re-awaken the ideas 
 to which he had already given bii'th, and by 
 suggesting a very slight link of connexion, 
 cause De Coucy to make the application to 
 himself. 
 
 One reason, perhaps, why very prudent men 
 are often not so successful as bold ones, may be 
 that, even in the moment of consideration, 
 opportunity is lost. While the Coterel still 
 held his hand upon his dagger, De Coucy 's 
 Squire, Hugo de Barre, approached to tell the 
 young chatelain, that his seven vassals — the 
 poor remains of hundreds — were very willing 
 
330 PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 to ride against the Cotereaux, though such was 
 no part of their actual tenure ; and that, as 
 soon as they could don their armour and 
 saddle their horses, they* would be up at the 
 castle. They promised also to bring with them 
 all the armed men they could get to aid them, 
 in the towns and villages in the neighbourhood, 
 not one of which had escaped, without paying 
 some tribute to the dangerous 'tenants of the 
 young Knight's woods. 
 
 In little less than an hour, De Coucy found 
 himself at the head of near one hundred men ; 
 and, confident in his own powers both of mind 
 and body, he waited not for many others that 
 were still hastening to join him ; but, giving 
 his banner to the wind, set forth to attack the 
 banditti, in whatever numbers he might find 
 them. 
 
 It were uninteresting to detail all the mea- 
 sures that De Coucy took to ensure that no 
 part of the forests should remain unsearched ; 
 especially as we already know, that his perqui- 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 331 
 
 sitions were destined to be fruitless. Nor is it 
 necessary to dwell upon the means that the Co- 
 terel employed to draw the young Knight and 
 his followers, without seeming to do so, towards 
 the spot which his companions had so lately 
 evacuated. 
 
 De Coucy, by nature, was not suspicious ; but 
 yet his eye very naturally strayed, from time to 
 time, to the face of Jodelle, whose fellow feeling 
 for the Cotereaux had been so openly expressed 
 in the morning ; and, as they approached the 
 former halting-place of the Cotereaux, he re- 
 marked somewhat of a smile upon his lip. 
 
 " Ha !"" said he, in an under voice, at the 
 same time turning his horse and riding up to 
 him. " What means that smile. Sir Braban- 
 9ois ?" 
 
 Jodelle's reply was ready. " It means. Sir 
 Knight, that I caji help you, and I will ; for 
 even were these my best friends, the laws by 
 which we are ruled, bind me to render you all 
 service against them, on having engaged with 
 
332 PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 you. — Do you see that broken bough ? Be you 
 sure that means something. The men you seek 
 for are not far oiF." 
 
 " So, my good friend," said De Coucy, 
 " methinks you must have exercised the trade 
 of Braban^ois in the green wood, as well as in 
 the tented field, to know so well all the secret 
 signs of these gentry's hiding places.'"* 
 
 " I have laid many an ambush in the green 
 wood," replied Jodelle undauntedly ; " and the 
 signs that have served me for that, may well 
 lead me to trace others." 
 
 " Here are foot-marks on the moss, both of 
 horse and foot," cried Hugo de Barre, " and 
 lately trodden too, for scarce a fold of the moss 
 has risen since." 
 
 " Coming or going ?" cried De Coucy, spur- 
 ring up to the spot. 
 
 " Both, my Lord,'' replied the Squire. 
 ** Here are hoof marks all ways." 
 
 Without wasting time in endeavouring to 
 ascertain which traces were the last imprinted, 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 333 
 
 De Coucy took such precautions as the scanti- 
 ness of his followers permitted, for ensuring 
 that the Cotereaux did not make their escape 
 by some other point ; and then, boldly plunged 
 in on horseback, following through the bushes, 
 as well as he could, the marks that the band 
 had left behind them when they decamped. 
 He was not long in making his way to the open 
 space which we have before described, sur- 
 rounded with huts. The state of the whole 
 scene at once showed, that it had been but 
 lately abandoned ; though the unroofing of the 
 hovels evinced that its former tenants enter- 
 tained no thought of making it any more their 
 dwelling-place. 
 
 In the centre of the opening, however, stood 
 the staff of a lance, on the end of which was 
 fixed a scroll of parchment written in very fair 
 characters to the following effect : — 
 
 " Sire de Coucy ! hearing of your return to 
 your lands, we leave them willingly — not be- 
 cause we fear you, or any man, but because 
 
334 PHILIP AUGUSTUS, 
 
 we respect your knightly prowess, and would 
 not willingly stand in deadly fight against one 
 of the best Knights in France." 
 
 " By St. Jerome ! the knaves are not with- 
 out their courtesy ! " exclaimed De Coucy. 
 " Well, now they are off my land, God speed 
 them !" 
 
 " Where the devil did they get the parch- 
 ment .?" muttered Jodelle to himself :— and thus 
 ended the expedition with two exclamations 
 that did not shghtly mark the age. 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 335 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 There are no truer cameleons than words, 
 changing hue and aspect as the circumstances 
 change around them, and leaving scarce a shade 
 of their original meaning. Piety has at present 
 many acceptations, according to the various 
 lips that pronounce it, and the ears that hear ; 
 but in the time of the Commonwealth, it meant 
 the grossest fanaticism ; and in the time of 
 Philip Augustus, the grossest superstition. 
 
 An age where knowledge and civilization 
 have made some progress, yet not attained the 
 cold fondness for abstract facts, may be called 
 the period of imagination in a nation ; and then, 
 it will generally be found that, in matters of 
 
336 PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 religion, a brooding, a melancholy, and a fana- 
 tical spirit reigns. Sectarian enthusiasm is then 
 sufficient to keep itself alive in each man''s 
 breast, without imagination requiring any aid 
 from external stimulants : the language of the 
 pulpit is flowery and extravagant, the man- 
 ners are rigid and austere, and the rites simple 
 and unadorned. 
 
 In more remote periods, however, where bru- 
 tal ignorance is the general character of society, 
 the only means of communicating with the dull 
 imagination of the people is by their outward 
 senses. Pomp, pageant and display, music and 
 ceremony, accompany each rite of the Church, 
 to give it dignity in the eyes of the multitude, 
 who, if they do not understand the spirit, at 
 least worship the form. Such was the case in 
 the days of Philip Augustus. The people, with 
 very few exceptions, — barons, knights, serfs, and 
 ecclesiastics, — beheld, felt, and understood little 
 else in religion than the ceremonies of the Church 
 of Rome. Each festival of that Church was 
 for them a day of rejoicing ; each saint was an 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 337 
 
 object of the most profound devotion ; and 
 each genuflexion of the priest (though the 
 priest himself was often bitterly satirized in the 
 sirventes of the trouveres and troubadours,) 
 was a sacred rite, that the populace would not 
 have seen abrogated for the world. The cere.- 
 monies of the Church were the link — the only 
 remaining link — between the noble and the 
 serf ; and, common to all, — the high, the low, 
 the rich, the poor, — were revered and loved by 
 all classes of the community. 
 
 Such was the general state of France, in re- 
 gard to religious feelings, when the kingdom 
 was menaced with interdict by Pope Innocent 
 the Third. The very rumour cast a gloom 
 over the whole nation ; but when the Legate, 
 proceeding according to the rigid injunctions 
 of the Pope, called the bishops, archbishops, 
 and abbots of France to a council at Dijon., 
 for the purpose of putting the threat in execu- 
 tion, the murmurs and lamentations burst forth 
 all over France. 
 
 VOL. I. Q 
 
338 PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 Philip Aug'istus, however, remained inflex- 
 ible in his resolution of resistance ; and, though 
 he sent two -messengers to protest against the 
 proceedings of the Council, he calmly suffered 
 its deliberations to proceed, without a change 
 of purpose. The Pope was equally unmoved ; 
 and the Cardinal of St. Mary's proceeded to 
 the painful task which had been imposed upon 
 him ; declaring to the assembled bishops the 
 will of the Sovereign Pontiff*, and calling upon 
 them to name the day themselves on which the 
 interdict should be pronounced. The bishops 
 and abbots found all opposition in vain, and 
 the day was consequently named. 
 
 It was about this period that Count Thibalt 
 d'Auvergne, having laid the ashes of his father 
 in the earth, prepared to retrace his steps to 
 Paris. His burden upon earth was a heavy 
 one ; yet, like the overloaded camel in the De- 
 sert, he resolutely bore it on without murmur 
 or complaint, waiting till he should drop down 
 underneath it, and death should give him relief. 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 339 
 
 A fresh furrow might be traced on his brow, a 
 deeper shade of stern melancholy in his eye ; 
 but that was all by which one might guess 
 how painfully he felt the loss of what he looked 
 on as his last tie to earth. His voice was calm 
 and firm, his manner clear and collected : no- 
 thing escaped his remembrance ; nothing indi- 
 cated that his thoughts were not wholly in the 
 world wherein he stood, except the fixed con- 
 traction of his brow, and the sunshineless cold- 
 ness of his lip. 
 
 When, as we have before said, he had given 
 his power, as- Suzerain of Auvergne, into the 
 hands of his uncle, he himself mounted his 
 horse, and, followed by a numerous retinue, 
 set out from Vic le Comte. 
 
 He turned not, however, his steps towards 
 Paris in the first instance, but proceeded direct 
 to Dijon. Here he found no small difficulty in 
 obtaining a lodging for himself and train : the 
 monasteries, on whose hospitality he had rec- 
 koned, being completely occupied by the great 
 
340 PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 affluence of prelates, which the Council had 
 brought thither ; and the houses of public en- 
 tertainment being, in that day, unmeet dwell- 
 ings for persons of his rank. Nevertheless, 
 dispersing his followers through the town, with 
 commands to keep his name secret, the Count 
 d'Auvergne took up his abode at the house of 
 a tavernier, or vintner, and proceeded to make 
 the inquiries which had caused him so far to 
 deviate from his direct road. 
 
 These referred entirely to — and he had long 
 before determined to make them — the property 
 of the Count de Tankerville ; on which, how- 
 ever, he soon found that King Philip had 
 laid his hands ; and therefore, the story of 
 Gallon the Fool being confirmed in this point, 
 he gave up all farther questions upon the sub- 
 ject, as not likely to produce any benefit to his 
 friend De Coucy. 
 
 Occupied as he had been in Auvergne, the 
 progress of the Council of Bishops had but 
 reached his ears vaguely ; and he determined 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 341 
 
 that the very next day he would satisfy him- 
 self in regard to its deliberations, which, though 
 indeed they could take no atom from the load 
 on his heart, nor restore one drop of happiness 
 to his cup, yet interested him, perhaps, as much 
 as any human being in France. 
 
 The day had worn away in his other inqui- 
 ries, the evening had passed in bitter thoughts; 
 aud midnight had come without bringing even 
 the hope of sleep to his eyelids ; when suddenly 
 he was startled by hearing the bells of all the 
 churches in Dijon toll, as for the dead. Im- 
 mediately rising, he threw his cloak about him, 
 and, drawing the hood over his head and face, 
 proceeded into the street, to ascertain whether 
 the fears which those sounds had excited in his 
 bosom were well-founded. 
 
 In the street he found a multitude of persons 
 flocking towards the cathedral ; and, hurrying 
 on with the rest, he entered at one of the side- 
 doors, and crossed to the centre of the nave. 
 
 The sight that presented itself was certainly 
 Q3 
 
342 PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 awful. No tapers were lighted at the high 
 altar, not a shrine gave forth a single ray ; but 
 on the steps before the table stood the Cardinal 
 Legate, dressed in the deep purple stole worn 
 on the days of solemn fast in the Church of 
 Rome. On each hand, the steps, and part of 
 the choir, were crowded with bishops and mitred 
 abbots, each in the solemn habiliments appro- 
 priated by his order to the funeral fasts ; and 
 each holding in his hand a black and smoky 
 torch of pitch, which spread through the whole 
 church their ungrateful odour and their red 
 and baleful light. The space behind the altar 
 was crowded with ecclesiastics and monks, on 
 the upper part of whose pale and meagre faces 
 the dim and ill-favouring torch-light cast an 
 almost unearthly gleam ; while streaming down 
 the centre of the church, over the kneeling con- 
 gregation, on whose dark vestments it seemed 
 to have no effect, the red glare spread through 
 the nave and aisles, catching faintly on the tall 
 pillars and Gothic tracery of the cathedral, and 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 343 
 
 losing itself, at last, in the deep gloom all 
 around. 
 
 The choir of the cathedral were in the act of 
 singing the Miserere as the Count d'Auvergne 
 entered ; and the deep and solemn notes of the 
 chant, echoed by the vaulted roofs, and long 
 aisles, and galleries, while it harmonized well 
 with the gloominess of the scene, offered fright- 
 ful discord when the deep toll of the death-bell 
 broke across, with sounds entirely dissonant. 
 No longer doubting that his apprehensions 
 were indeed true, and that the Legate was about 
 to pronounce the realm in interdict, Thibalt 
 d'Auvergne advanced as far as he could towards 
 the choir, and, placing himself by one of the 
 pillars, prepared, with strange and mingled 
 emotions, to hear the stern thunder of the 
 Church launched at two beings whose love had 
 made his misery, and whose happiness was 
 built upon his disappointment. 
 
 It were too cruel an inquest of human nature 
 to ask if, at the thought of Agnes de Meranie 
 
344 PPIILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 being torn from the arms of her royal lover, a 
 partial gleam of undefined satisfaction did not 
 thrill through the heart of the Count d'Auvergne; 
 but this at least is certain, that could he, by 
 laying down his life, have swept away the 
 obstacles between them, and removed the ago- 
 nizing difficulties of Agnes^s situation, Thibalt 
 d'Auvergne would not have hesitated — no, not 
 for a moment ! 
 
 At the end of the Miserere, the Legate ad- 
 vanced, and in a voice that trembled even at 
 the sentence it pronounced, placed the whole 
 realm of France in interdict, — bidding the doors 
 of the churches to be closed ; the images of the 
 saints, and the cross itself, to be veiled ; the 
 worship of the Almighty to be suspended ; 
 marriage to the young, the Eucharist to the 
 old and dying, and sepulture to the dead, to 
 be refused ; all the rites, the ceremonies, and 
 the consolations of religion, to be denied to 
 every one ; and France to be as a dead land, 
 till such time as Philip the King should sepa- 
 rate himself from Agnes his concubine, and 
 
PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 345 
 
 take again to his bosom Ingerburge, his lawful 
 wife. 
 
 At that hard word, concubine, applied to 
 Agnes de Meranie, the Count d'Auvergne's 
 hand naturally grasped his dagger ; but the 
 Legate was secure in his sacred character, and 
 he proceeded to anathematize and excommuni- 
 cate Philip, according to the terrible form of 
 the Church of Rome, calling down upon his 
 head the curses of all the Powers of Heaven ! 
 
 " May he be cursed in the city, and in the 
 field, and in the highway ! in living, and in 
 dying !'" said the Legate ; ^' cursed be his chil- 
 dren, and his flocks, and his domaines ! Let 
 no man call him brother, or give him the kiss 
 of peace ! Let no priest pray for him, or admit 
 him to God's altar ! Let all men flee from him 
 living, and let consolation and hope abandon 
 his death-bed ! Let his corpse remain un- 
 buried, and his bones whiten in the wind ! 
 Cursed be he on earth, and under the earth ! 
 in this life, and to all eternity !" 
 
 Such was in some degree, though far short 
 
346 PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 of the tremendous original, the anathema which 
 the Legate pronounced against Philip Augus- 
 tus — to our ideas, unchristian, and almost blas- 
 phemous ; but then, the people heard it with 
 reverence and trembling ; and even when he 
 summed up the whole, by announcing it in the 
 name of the Holy Trinity — of the Father— of 
 all mercy ! — of the Son — the Saviour of the 
 world ! — and of the Holy Ghost — the Lord and 
 Giver of life ! the people, instead of starting 
 from the impious mingling of Heaven"'s holiest 
 attributes with the violent passions of man, 
 joined the clergy in a loud and solemn Amen ! 
 
 At the same moment, all the sounds ceased, 
 the torches were extinguished ; and in obscu- 
 rity and confusion, the dismayed multitude 
 made their way out of the Cathedral. 
 
 END OF THE FIRST VOLUME. 
 
 PRINTED BY SAMUEL BENTLEY, 
 Dorset Street, Fleet Street.