r 1
 
 
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 GYPTIS AND EUXENES 
 
 France, Frontispiece, vol. one.
 
 FRANCE 
 
 BY 
 
 M. GUIZOT 
 
 AND • 
 
 MADAME GUIZOT DE WITT 
 
 TRANSLATED BY ROBERT BLACK 
 IN EIGHT VOLUMES 
 
 WITH A SUPPLEMENTARY CHAPTER OF RECENT EVENTS 
 
 Bv MAYO W. HAZELTINE 
 
 ILLUSTRATED 
 
 VOL. I 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 PETER FENELON COLLIER 
 
 A\DCCCXCV1I!
 
 DC 
 3% 
 
 LETTER TO THE PUBLISHERS. 
 
 Gentlemen, 
 
 You were given to understand that for some years past I 
 have been doing myself the paternal pleasure of telling my 
 grandchildren the History of France, and you ask if I have 
 any intention of pubHshing these family studies of our country's 
 grand life. I had no such idea at the outset; it was of my 
 grandchildren, and of them alone, that I was thinking. What 
 I had at heart was to make them really comprehend our his- 
 tory, and to interest them in it by doing justice to their under- 
 standing and, at the same time, to their imagination, by set- 
 ting it before them clearly and, at the same time, to the life. 
 Every history, and especially that of France, is one vast, long 
 drama, in which events are linked together according to de- 
 fined laws, and in which the actors play parts not ready made 
 and learnt by heart, parts depending, in fact, not only upon 
 the accidents of their birth but also upon their own ideas and 
 their own will. There are, in the history of peoples, two sets of 
 causes essentially different and, at the same time, closely con- 
 nected; the natural causes which are set over the general 
 com^e of events, and the unrestricted causes which are inci- 
 dental. Men do not make the whole of history ; it has laws of 
 higher origin; but, in history, men are unrestricted agents 
 who produce for it results and exercise over it an influence for 
 which they are responsible. The fated causes and the unre- 
 stricted causes, the defined laws of events and the spontaneous 
 actions of man's free agency — herein is the whole of history. 
 And in the faithful reproduction of these two elements consist 
 the truth and the moral of stories from it. 
 
 Never was I more struck with this twofold character of his- 
 tory than in my tales to my grandchildren. When I com- 
 menced these lessons with them, they, beforehand, evinced a 
 lively interest, and they began to listen to me with serious 
 good will; but when they did not weU apprehend the length- 
 
 1 54701?
 
 4 LETTER TO THE PUBLISHERS. 
 
 ening chain of events, or when historical personages did not 
 become, in their eyes, creatures real and free, worthy of 
 sympathy or reprobation, when the drama was not developed 
 before them with clearness and animation, I saw theii' atten- 
 tion grow fitfiil and flagging; they requii-ed hght and hfe to- 
 gether; they wished to be illumined and excited, instructed 
 and amused. 
 
 At the same time that the difficulty of satisfying this two- 
 fold desire was painfully felt by me, I discovered therein more 
 means and chances than I had at first foreseen of succeeding 
 in making my young audience comprehend the history of 
 France in its comphcation and its grandeur. When Corneille 
 4>hserved, — 
 
 " In the well-born soul 
 
 Valor ne'er lingers till due seasons roll," 
 
 he spoke as truly for intelligence as for valor. When once 
 awakened and really attentive, young minds are more earnest 
 and more capable of complete comprehension than any one 
 would suppose. In order to explain fully to my gi^andchildren 
 the connection of events and the influence of historical person- 
 ages, I was sometimes led into very comprehensive consider- 
 ations and into pretty deep studies of character. And in such 
 cases I was nearly always not only perfectly understood but 
 keenly appreciated. I put it to the proof in the sketch of 
 Charlemagne's reign and character ; and the two great objects 
 of that great man, who succeeded in one and failed in the other, 
 received from my youthful audience the most rivetted attention 
 and the most clear comprehension. Youthful minds have 
 greater grasp than one is disposed to give them credit for, and, 
 perhaps, men would do well to be as earnest in their lives as 
 children are in their studies. 
 
 In order to attain the end I had set before me, I always took 
 care to connect my stories or my reflections with the great 
 events or the great personages of history. When we wish to 
 examine and describe a district scientifically, we traverse it in 
 all its divisions and in every direction ; we visit plains as well 
 as mountains, villages as well as cities, the most obscure cor- 
 ners as well as the most famous spots ; this is the way of pro- 
 ceeding with the geologist, the botanist, the archaeologist, the 
 statistician, the scholar. But when we wish particularly to 
 get an idea of the chief features of a country, its fixed outhnes, 
 its general conformation, its special aspects, its great roads,
 
 LETTER TO THE PUBLISHERS. 6 
 
 we mount the heights ; we place ourselves at points whence 
 we can best take in the totahty and the physiognomy of the 
 landscape. And so we must proceed in history when we wish 
 neither to reduce it to the skeleton of an abridgment nor ex^ 
 tend it to the huge dimensions of a learned work. Great events 
 and great men are the fixed points and the peaks of history, 
 and it is thence that we can observe it in its totality, and fol- 
 low it along its highways. In my tales to my grandchildren I 
 sometimes lingered over some particular anecdote which gave 
 me an opportunity of setting in a vivid Hght the dominant 
 spirit of an age or the characteristic manners of a people; but, 
 with rare exceptions, it is always on the great deeds and the 
 great personages of history that I have relied for making oi 
 them in my tales what they were in reality, the centre and the 
 focus of the hfe of France. 
 
 At the outset, in giving these lessons, I took merely short 
 notes of dates and proper names. When I had reason given 
 me to believe that they might be of some service and interest 
 to other children than my own, and even, I was told, to others 
 besides children, I undertook to put them together in the form 
 in which I had developed them to my youthful audience. I 
 will send you, gentlemen, some portions of the work, and if it 
 really appears to you advisable to enlarge the circle for which 
 it was originally intended, I will most gladly entrust to you 
 the care of its publication. 
 
 Accept, gentlemen, the assurance of my most distinguished 
 sentiments. 
 
 GUIZOT. 
 
 Val-Richer, December, 1869l
 
 TABLE or CONTENTS-VOL. I. 
 
 PA8B 
 
 Chapter I.Gaul 9 
 
 n. The Gauls out of Gaul 29 
 
 m. The Romans in Gaul 37 
 
 IV. Gaul conquered by Julius Caesar 47 
 
 V. Gaul under Roman Dominion 65 
 
 TI. Establishment of Christianity in Gaul 87 
 
 Tn. The Germans in Gaul. The Franks and Clovis 102 
 
 ym. The Merovingians 134 
 
 IX. The Mayors of the Palace. The Pepins and the Change of Dynasty. 143 
 
 X. Charlemagne and his "Wars 166 
 
 ;XI. Charlemagne and his Government 185 
 
 Xn. Decay and Fall of the Carlovingians 201 
 
 ym. Feudal France and Hugh Capet 22? 
 
 XTV. The Capetlans to the Time of the Crusades 243 
 
 XV. Conquest of England by the Normans 264 
 
 XVI. The Crusades, their Origin and Success 296 
 
 XVn. The Crusades, their Dechne and End 335 
 
 XVm. Thfl Kingship in France , 380
 
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 FRANCE 
 
 VOL. I 
 
 • 
 
 Frontispiece — Gyptis and Euxenes 
 
 "Thus Diddest Thou to the Vase of Soissons" . . . = • 
 
 William the Conqueror -. . 
 
 Death of De Montfort 
 
 s
 
 THE HISTORY OF FRANCE. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 GAUL. 
 
 Young France inhabits a country, long ago civilised and 
 Christianized, where, despite of much imperfection and much 
 social misery, thirty-eight millions of men hve in security and 
 peace, under laws equal for all and efficiently upheld. There 
 is every reason to nourish great hopes of such a coimtry, and 
 to wish for it more and more of freedom, glory, and prosperity ; 
 but one must be just towards one's own times, and estimate at 
 their true value advantages already acquii-ed and progress 
 already accomplished. If one were suddenly carried twenty 
 or thirty centuries backward, into the midst of that which was 
 then called Gaul, one would not recognize France. The same 
 mountains reared their heads; the same plains stretched far 
 and wide ; the same rivers rolled on their course ; there is no 
 alteration in the physical formation of the country ; but its 
 aspect was very different. Instead of the fields all trim with 
 cultivation, and aU covered with various produce, one would 
 see inaccessible morasses and vast forests, as yet uncleared, 
 given up to the chances of primitive vegetation, peopled with 
 wolves and bears, and even the urus, or huge wild ox, and with 
 elks too— a kind of beast that one finds no longer now-a- 
 days, save in the colder regions of north-eastern Europe, such 
 as Lithuania and Courland. Then wandered over the cham- 
 paign great herds of swine, as fierce almost as wolves, tamed 
 only so far as to know the sound of their keeper's horn. The 
 better sort of fruits and of vegetables were quite imknown; 
 they were imported into Gaul— the greatest part from Asia, a 
 portion from Africa and the islands of the Mediterranean ; and 
 others, at a later period, from the New World. Cold and
 
 10 HI8T0BT OF FRANCE. [oh. I. 
 
 rough was the prevaihng temperature. Nearly every winter 
 the rivers froze sufficiently hard for the passage of cars. And 
 three or four centuries before the Christian era, on that vast 
 territory comprised between the ocean, the Pyrenees, the 
 Mediterranean, the Alps, and the Rhine, lived six or seven 
 millions of men a bestial life, enclosed in dwellings dark and 
 low, the best of them bmlt of wood and clay, covered with 
 branches or straw, made in a single round piece, open to day- 
 Ught by the door alone, and confusedly heaped together be- 
 hind a rampart, not inartistically composed, of timber, earth, 
 and stone, which surrounded and protected what they were 
 pleased to call a town. 
 
 Of even such towns there were scarcely any as yet, save in 
 the most populous and least uncultivated portion of Gaul ; that 
 is to say, in the southern and eastern regions, at the foot of 
 the mountaias of Auvergne and the Cevennes, and along the 
 coasts of the Mediterranean. In the north and the west were 
 paltry hamlets, as transferable almost as the people them- 
 selves ; and on some islet amidst the morasses, or in some hid- 
 den recess of the forest, were huge entrenchments formed of 
 the trees that were felled, where the population, at the first 
 soimd of the war-cry, ran to shelter themselves, with their 
 flocks and all their movables. And the war-cry was often 
 heard : men hviag grossly and idly are very prone to quarrel 
 and fight. Gaul, moreover, was not occupied by one and the 
 same nation, with the same traditions and the same chiefs. 
 Tribes, very different in origin, habits, and date of settlement, 
 were continually disputing the territory. In the south were 
 Iberians or Aquitanian, Phoenicians and Greeks ; in the north 
 and north-west Kymrians or Belgians ; everywhere else, Gauls 
 or Celts, the most numerous settlers, who had the honor of 
 giving their name to the country. Who were the first to 
 come, then? and what was the date of the first settlement? 
 Nobody knows. Of the Greeks alone does history mark with 
 any precision the arrival in southern Gaul. The Phoenicians 
 preceded them by several centuries ; but it is impossible to fix 
 any exact time. The information is equally vague about the 
 period when the Kymrians invaded the north of Gaul. As for 
 the Gauls and the Iberians, there is not a word about their first 
 entrance into the country, for they are discovered there al- 
 ready at the first appearance of the country itself in the domain 
 of history. 
 
 The Iberians, whom Roman writers call Aquitanians, dwelt
 
 CH. I.] QAUL. 11 
 
 at the foot of the Pyrenees, in the territory comprised between 
 the mountains, the Garonne, and the ocean. They belonged 
 to the race which, mider the same appellation, had peopled 
 Spain; but by what route they came into Gaul is a problem 
 which we cannot solve. It is much the same in tracing the 
 origin of every nation ; for in those barbarous times men lived 
 and died without leaving any enduring memorial of their deeds 
 and their destinies ; no monuments ; no writings ; just a few 
 oral traditions, perhaps, which are speedUy lost or altered. It 
 is in proportion as they become erdightened and civilized, that 
 men feel the desu-e and discover the means of extending their 
 memorial far beyond their own lifetime. That is the begin- 
 ing of history, the offspring of noble and useful sentiments, 
 which cause the mind to dwell upon the future, and to yearn 
 for long continuance; sentiments which testify to the supe- 
 riority of man over all other creatures hving upon our earth, 
 which foreshadow the immortality of the soul, and which are 
 warrant for the progress of the human race by preserving for 
 the generations to come what has been done and learned by 
 the generations that disappear. 
 
 By whatever route and at whatever epoch the Iberians came 
 Into the south-west of Gaul, they abide there still in the de- 
 partment of the Lower Pyrenees, under the name of Basques; 
 a peoplet * distinct from all its neighbors in features, costume, 
 and especially language, which resembles none of the present 
 languages of Europe, contains many words which are to be 
 found in the names of rivers, momitains, and towns of olden 
 Spain, and which presents a considerable analogy to the 
 idioms, ancient and modern, of certain peoples of northern 
 Africa. The PhcBnicians did not leave, as the Iberians did, in 
 the south of France distinct and well-authenticated descend- 
 ants. They had begun about 1100 B.C. to trade there. They 
 went thither in search of furs, and gold and silver, which were 
 got either from the sand of certain rivers, as for instance the 
 Ariege (in Latin Aurigera), or from certain mines of the Alps, 
 the Cevennes, and the Pyrenees; they brought in exchange 
 stuffs dyed with purple, necklaces and rings of glass, and, 
 above all, arms and wine ; a trade like that which is now-a- 
 days carried on by the civilized peoples of Europe with the 
 savage tribes of Africa and America. For the purpose of ex- 
 tending and securing their commercial expeditions, the Plioenl- 
 
 * Fr. " peuplade," from people, on the analogy of circlet 'rom circte.— Trans.
 
 12 HISTORY OF FRANCE. [ch. i. 
 
 cians founded colonies in several parts of Gaul, and to them is 
 attributed the earliest origin of Nemausus (Nimes), and of 
 Alesia, near Semur. But, at the end of three or four centuries, 
 these colonies feU into decay ; the trade of the Phoenicians was 
 withdrawn from Gaul, and the only important sign it pre- 
 served of their residence was a road which, starting from the 
 eastern Pyrenees, skirted the Gallic portion of the Mediter- 
 ranean, crossed the Alps by the pass of Tenda, and so united 
 Spain, Gaul, and Italy. After the withdrawal of the Phoeni- 
 cians this road was kept up and repaired, at first by the Greeks 
 of Marseilles, and subsequently by the Romans. 
 
 As merchants and colonists, the Greeks were, in Gaul, the 
 successors of the Phoenicians, and Marseilles was one of their 
 first and most considerable colonies. At the time of the 
 Phoenicians' decay in Gaul, a Greek peoplet, the Rhodians, had 
 pushed their commercial enterprises to a great distance, and, 
 in the words of the ancient historians, held the empire of the 
 sea. Their ancestors had, in former times, succeeded the 
 Phoenicians in the island of Rhodes, and they likewise suc- 
 ceeded them, in the south of Gaul, and founded, at the mouth 
 of the Rhone, a colony called Rhodanusia or Rhoda, with the 
 same name as that which they had already founded on the 
 north-east coast of Spain, and which is now-a-days the town of 
 Rosas, in Catalonia. But the importance of the Rhodians on 
 the southern coast of Gaul was short-lived. It had already 
 sunk very low in the year 600 B.C., when Euxenes, a, Greek 
 trader, coming from Phocea, an Ionian town of Asia Minor, to 
 seek his fortune, landed from a bay eastward of the Rhone. 
 The Segobrigians, a tribe of the Gallic race, were in occupation 
 of the neighboring country. Nann, their chief, gave the 
 strangers kindly welcome, and took them home with him to a 
 great feast which he was giving for his daughter's marriage, 
 who was called Gyptis, according to some, and Petta, accord- 
 ing to other historians. A custom, which exists still in 
 several cantons of the Basque country, and even at the 
 centre of France, in Morvan, a mountainous district of the 
 department of the Nievre, would that the maiden should 
 appear only at the end of the banquet and holding in her 
 hand a filled wine-cup, and that the guest to whom she 
 should present it should become the husband of her choice. 
 By accident, or quite another cause, say the ancient legends, 
 Gyptis stopped opposite Euxenes, and handed him the cup. 
 Great was the surprise, and, probably, anger amongst the
 
 CH. I.] GAUL. 13 
 
 Gauls who were present; but Nann, believing he recognized a 
 commandment from his gods, accepted the Phocean as his son- 
 in-law, and gave him as dowry the bay where he had landed, 
 with some cantons of the teri'itory around. Euxenes, in 
 gratitude, gave his wife the Greek name of Aristoxena (that 
 is, "the best of hostesses"), sent away his ship to Phocea for 
 colonists, and, whilst waiting for them, laid in the centre of the 
 bay, on a peninsula hollowed out harbor -wise, towards the 
 south, the foundations of a town, which he called Massilia — 
 thence Marseilles, 
 
 Scarcely a year had elapsed when Euxenes' ship arrived from 
 Phocea, and with it several galleys, bringing colonists full of 
 hope, and. laden with provisions, utensils, arms, seeds, vine- 
 cuttings, and ohve-cuttings, and, moreover, a statue of Diana, 
 which the colonists had gone to fetch from the celebrated 
 temple of that goddess at Ephesus, and wliich her priestess, 
 Aristarche, accompanied to its new coimtry. 
 
 The activity and prosperity of Marseilles, both within and 
 without, were rapidly developed. She carried her commerce 
 wherever the Phoenicians and the Ehodians had marked out a 
 road; she repaired their forts; she took to herself their 
 establishments; and she placed on her medals, to signify 
 dominion, the rose, the emblem of Rhodes, beside the Hon of 
 Marseilles. But Nann, the GaUic chieftain, who had protected 
 her infancy, died; and his son, Coman, shared the jealousy 
 felt by the Segobrigians and the neighboring peoplets towards 
 the new comers. He promised and really resolved to destroy 
 the new city. It was the time of the flowering of the vine, a 
 season of great festivity amongst the Ionian Greeks, and 
 Marseilles thought solely of the preparations for the feast. 
 The houses and public places were being decorated with 
 branches and flowers. No guard was set ; no work was done. 
 Coman sent into the town a number of his men, some openly, 
 as if to take part in the festivities ; others hidden at the bot- 
 tom of the cars wnich conveyed into Marseilles the branches 
 and f ohage from the outskirts. He himself went and lay in 
 ambush in a neighboring glen, with seven thousand men, they 
 say, but the number is probably exaggerated, and waited for 
 his emissaries to open the gates to him during the night. But 
 once more a woman, a near relation of the Gallic chieftain, 
 was the guardian angel of the Greeks, and revealed the plot 
 to a young man of Marseilles, with whom she was in love. 
 The gates were immediately shut, and so many Segobrigians
 
 14 HISTORY OF FRANCE. [ch. l 
 
 as happened to be in the town were massacred. Then, when 
 night came on, the inhabitants, armed, went forth to surprise 
 Coman in the ambush where he was awaiting the moment to 
 surprise them. And there he fell with all his men. 
 
 DeUvered as they were from this danger, the MassOians 
 nevertheless remained in a difficult and disquieting situation. 
 The peoplets around, in coalition against them, attacked them 
 often and threatened them incessantly. But whilst they were 
 struggling against these embarrassments, a grand disaster, 
 happening in the very same spot whence they had emigrated 
 half a centm-y before, was procuring them a gi*eat accession of 
 strength and the surest means of defence. In the year 542 B.C., 
 Phocea succumbed beneath the efforts of Cyrus, King of Per- 
 sia, and her inhabitants, leaving to the conqueror empty 
 streets and deserted houses, took to their ships in a body, to 
 transfer their homes elsewhither. A portion of this floating 
 population made straight for Marseilles; others stopped at 
 Corsica, in the harbor of Alalia, another Phocean colony. 
 But at the end of five years they too, tired of piratical life 
 and of the incessant wars they had to sustain against the 
 Carthaginians, quitted Corsica, and went to rejoin their com- 
 patriots in Gaul. 
 
 Thenceforward Marseilles found herself in a position to face 
 her enemies. She extended her walls all round the bay and 
 her enterprises far away. She founded on the southern coast 
 of Gaul and on the eastern coast of Spain, permanent settle- 
 ments, which are to this day towns : eastward of the Rhone, 
 Hercules' harbor, Monoeciis (Monaco), Niccea (Nice), Antipolis 
 (Antibes) ; westward, Heraclea Cacaharia (Saint-Gdles), 
 Agatha (Agde), Emporim (Ampurias in Catalonia), etc., etc. 
 In the valley of the Rhone, several towns of the (>auls, 
 Cabellio (CavaiUon), Avenio (Avignon), Arelate (Aries), for 
 instance, were like Greek colonies, so great there was the num- 
 ber of travellers or established merchants who spoke Greek. 
 With this commercial activity Marseilles united intellectual 
 and scientific activity; her grammarians were among the 
 first to revise and annotate the poems of Homer; and bold 
 travellers from Marseilles, Euthymenes and Pytheas by name, 
 cruised, one along the western coast of Africa beyond the 
 Straits of Gibraltar, and the other the southern and western 
 coasts of Europe, from the mouth of the Tanais (Don), in the 
 Black Sea, to the latitudes and perhaps into the interior of the 
 Baltic. They lived, both of them, in the second half of the
 
 CH.I,' GAUL. 16 
 
 fourth century b,o., and they wrote eaxih a PeHplits, or tales 
 of their travels, which have unfortunately been almost 
 entirely lost. 
 
 But whatever may have been her intelligence and activity, a 
 single town situated at the extremity of Gaul and peopled 
 with foreigners could have but httle influence over so vast a 
 coimtry and its inhabitants. At first civilization is very hard 
 and very slow ; it requires many centuries, many great events, 
 and many yeare of toil to overcome the early habits of a 
 people, and cause them to exchange the pleasures, gross indeed, 
 but accompanied with the idleness and freedom of barbarian 
 life, for the toilful advantages of a regulated social condition. 
 By dint of foresight, perseverance, and courage, the merchants 
 of Marseilles and her colonies crossed by two or three main 
 lines the forests, morasses, and heaths through the savage 
 tribes of Gauls, and there effected their exchanges, but to the 
 right and left they penetrated but a short distance ; even on 
 their main lines their traces soon disappeared ; and at the com- 
 mercial settlements which they estabhshed here and there 
 they were often far more occupied in self-defence than in 
 spreading their example. Beyond a strip of land of uneven 
 breadth, along the Mediterranean, and save the space 
 peopled towards the south-west by the Iberians, the country, 
 which received its name from the former of the two, was occu- 
 pied by the Gauls and the Kymrians; by the Gauls iu the 
 centre, south-east, and east, in the highlands of modem France, 
 between the Alps, the Vosges, the mountains of Auvergne 
 and the Cevennes; by the Kymrians in the north, north west, 
 and west, in the lowlands, from the western boundary of the 
 Gauls to the Ocean. 
 
 Whether the Gauls and the Kymrians were originally of the 
 same race, or at least of races closely connected ; whether they 
 were both anciently comprised under the general name of 
 Celts; and whether the Kymrians, if they were not of the 
 same race as the Gauls, belonged to that of the Germa n s, the 
 final conquerors of the Roman Empu'e, are questions which 
 the learned have been a long, long while discussing without 
 deciding. The only facts which seem to be clear and certain 
 are the following. 
 
 The ancients for a long while appHed without distinction 
 the name of Celts to the peoples who lived in the west and 
 north of Europe, regardless of precise limits, language, or 
 origin. It was a geogi'aphical title apphcable to a vast but ill'
 
 16 HISTORY OF FRANCE. [CH. i 
 
 explored territory, rather than a real historical name of race 
 or nation. And so, in the earliest times, Gauls, Grermans, 
 Bretons, and even Iberians, appear frequently confounded 
 under the name of Celts, peoples of Celtica. 
 
 Little by little this name is observed to become more re- 
 stricted and more precise. The Iberians of Spain are the first 
 to be detached ; then the Germans. In the century preceding 
 the Christian era, the Gauls, that is, the peoples inhabiting 
 Gaul, are alone called Celts. We begin even to recognize 
 amongst them diversities of race, and to distinguish the Iberians 
 of Gaul alias Aquitanians and the Kymrians or Belgians from 
 the Gauls, to whom the name of Celts is confined. Sometimes 
 even it is to a confederation of certain Gallic tribes that the 
 name specially applies. However it be, the Gauls appear to 
 have been the first inhabitants of western Europe. In the 
 most ancient historical memorials they are found there, and 
 not only in Gaul, but in Great Britain, in Ireland, and in the 
 neighboring islets. In Gavil, after a long predominance, their 
 race commingled with other races to form the French nation. 
 But, in this commingling, numerous traces of their language, 
 monuments, manners, and names of persons and places, sur- 
 vived and still exist, especially to the east and south-east, in 
 local customs and vernacular dialects. In Ireland, in the 
 highlands of Scotland, in the Hebrides and the Isle of Man, 
 Gauls (Gaels) stiU hve under their primitive name. There 
 we still have the GaeUc race and tongue, free, if not from any 
 change, at least from absorbent fusion. 
 
 From the seventh to the fourth century B.C., a new population 
 spread over Gaul, not at once, but by a series of invasions, of 
 which the two principal took place at the two extremes of that 
 epoch. They called themselves Kymrians or Kimrians, whence 
 the Romans made the Cimbrians, which recalls Cimmeni or 
 Cimmerians, the name of a people whom the Greeks placed 
 on the western bank of the Black Sea and in the Cimmerian pen- 
 insula, called to this day Crimea. During these irregular and 
 successively repeated movements of wandering populations, it 
 often happened that tribes of different races met, made terms, 
 united, and finished by amalgamation under one name. All 
 the peoples that successively invaded Europe, Gauls, Kymri- 
 ans, Germans, belonged at first, in Asia, whence they came, 
 to a common stem; the diversity of their languages, tradi- 
 tions, and manners, great as it already was at the time of 
 their appearance in the West, was the work of time and of the
 
 CH. I.] GA UL. Yi 
 
 diverse circumstances in the midst of -whicli they had hved; 
 but there always remained amongst them traces of a primitive 
 affinity which allowed of sudden and frequent comminglings, 
 amidst their tumultuous dispersion. 
 
 The Kymrians, who crossed the Rhine and flung themselves 
 into northern Gaul towards the middle of the fourth century 
 B.C., called themselves Bolg, or Belg^ or Belgians, a name 
 which indeed is given to them by Eoman writers, and which 
 has remained that of the country they first invaded.. They 
 descended southwards, to the banks of the Seine and the 
 Marne. There they encountered the Kymrians of former 
 invasions, who not only had spread over the country com- 
 prised between the Seine and the Loire, to the very heart o{ 
 the peninsula bordered by the latter river, but had crossed the 
 sea, and occupied a portion of the large island opposite Gaul, 
 crowding back the Gauls, who had preceded them.; upon 
 Ireland and the highlands of Scotland. It was from one of 
 these tribes and its chieftain, called Pryd or Prydain, Brit or 
 Britain, that Great Britain and Brittany in France received 
 the name which they have kept. 
 
 Each of these races, far from forming a single people bound 
 to the same destiny and under the same chieftains, split into 
 peoplets, more or less independent, who foregathered or sepa- 
 rated according to the shifts of circumstances, and who pur- 
 sued, each on their own account and at their own pleasure, 
 their fortunes or their fancies. The Ibero-Aquitanians num- 
 bered twenty tribes ; the Gauls twenty-two nations ; the origi- 
 nal Kymrians, mingled with the Gauls between the Loire and 
 the Garonne, seventeen; and the Kymro-Belgians twenty- 
 three. These sixty-two nations were subdivided into several 
 hundreds of tribes ; and these petty agglomerations were dis- 
 tributed amongst rival confederations or leagues, which dis- 
 puted oncwith another the supremacy over such and such a 
 portion of territory. Three grand leagues existed amongst the 
 Gauls ; that of the Arvemians, formed of peoplets established 
 In the country which received from them the name of 
 Auv&rgne; that of the ^duans, in Burgundy, whose centre 
 was Bibracte (Autrm); and that of the Sequanians, in 
 Franche-Comte, whose centre was Vesontio (Besangon). 
 Amongst the Kymrians of the West, the Armoric league 
 bound together the tribes of Brittany and lower Normandy. 
 From these aUiances, intended to group together scattered 
 forces, sprang fresh passions or interests, which became so
 
 18 BISTORT OF FRANCE. [CH. j, 
 
 many fresh causes of discord and hostility. And, in these 
 divers agglomerations, government was every where almost 
 equally irregular and powerless to maintain order or found an 
 enduring state. Kymrians, Gauls, or Iberians were nearly 
 equally ignorant, improvident, slaves to the shiftings of their 
 ideas and the sway of their passions, fond of war and idleness 
 and rapine and feasting, of gross and savage pleasiu*es. All 
 gloried in hanging from the breast-gear of their horses, or 
 nailing to the doors of their houses, the heads of their enemies. 
 AH sacrificed human victims to their gods; aU tied their 
 prisoners to trees, and burned or flogged them to death ; all 
 took pleasure in wearing upon their heads or round their 
 arms, and depicting upon their naked bodies fantastic orna- 
 ments, which gave them, a wild appearance. An unbridled 
 passion for wine and strong hquors was general amongst 
 them: the traders of Italy, and especially of Marseilles, 
 brought supphes into every part of Gaul; from interval to 
 interval there were magazines established, whither the Gauls 
 flocked to sell for a flask of wine their furs, their grain, their 
 cattle, their slaves. "It was easy," says an ancient historian, 
 "to get the Ganymede for the liquor." Such are the essential 
 characteristics of barbaric life, as they have been and as they 
 still are at several points of our globe, amongst people of the 
 same grade in the scale of civilization. They existed in nearly 
 an equal degree amongst the different races of ancient Gaul, 
 whose resemblance was rendered much stronger thereby than 
 their diversity in other respects by some of their customs, 
 traditions, or ideas. 
 
 In then* case, too, there is no sign of those permanent de- 
 marcations, those rooted antipathies, and that impossibility of 
 unity which are observable amongst peoples whose original 
 moral condition is really very different. In Asia, Africa, and 
 America, the Enghsh, the Dutch, the Spanish, and the French 
 have been and are still in frequent contact with the natives of 
 the country — Hindoos, Malays, Negroes, and Indians; and, in 
 spite of this contact, the races have remained widely separa- 
 ted one from another. In ancient Gaul not only did Gauls, 
 Kymrians, and Iberians hve frequently in aUiance and 
 almost intimacy, but they actually commingled and cohabited 
 without scruple on the same territory. And so we find in the 
 midst of the Iberians, towards the mouth of the Garonne, a 
 GaUic tribe, the Viviscan Biturigians, come from the neigh- 
 borhood of Bourges, where the bulk of the nation was settled'
 
 CH. rl GAUL. 19 
 
 they had been driven thither by one of the first invasions of 
 the Kymrians, and peabeably taken root there; Burdigala, 
 afterwards Bordeaux, was the chief settlement of this tribe, 
 and even then a trading-place between the Mediterranean and 
 the ocean. A httle farther on, towards the south, a Kjonrian 
 tribe, the Bo'ians, hved isolated from its race, in the waste- 
 lands of the Iberians, extracting the resin from the pines 
 which grew in that territory. To the south-west, in the 
 country situated between the Garonne, the eastern Pyrenees, 
 the Cevennes, and the Rhone, two great tribes of Kymro- 
 Belgians, the Bolg, Volg, Volk, or Voles, Arecomican and 
 Tectosagian, came to settle towards the end of the fourth cen- 
 tury B.C., in the midst of the Iberian and GalHc peoplets; and 
 there is nothing to show that the new comers lived worse with 
 their neighbors than the latter had previously hved together. 
 
 It is evident that amongst all these peoplets, whatever may 
 have been their diversity of origin, there was sufficient simili- 
 tude of social condition and manners to make agreement a 
 matter neither very difficult nor very long to accomphsh. 
 
 On the other hand, and as a natural consequence, it was 
 precarious and often of short duration: Iberian, GaUic, or 
 Kynu'ian as they might be, these peoplets underwent frequent 
 displacements, forced or voluntary, to escape from the attacks 
 of a more powerful neighbor; to find new pasturage; in conse- 
 quence of internal dissension; or, perhaps, for the mere 
 pleasure of warfare and running risks, and to be delivered 
 from the tediousness of a monotonous life. From the earhest 
 times to the first century before the Christian era, Gaul 
 appears a prey to this incessant and disorderly movement of 
 the population; they change settlement and neighborhood; 
 disappear from one point and reappear at another ; cross one 
 another ; avoid one another ; absorb and are absorbed. And 
 the movement was not confined within Gaul; the Gauls of 
 every race went, sometimes in very numerous hordes, to seek 
 far away plunder and a settlement. Spain, Italy, Germany, 
 Greece, Asia Minor, and Africa have been in turn the theatre 
 of those Gallic expeditions which entailed long wars, grand 
 displacements of peoples, and sometimes the formation of new 
 nations. Let us make a slight acquaintance -with this outer 
 history of the Gauls; for it is well worth while to follow them 
 a space upon their distant wanderings. We will then return 
 to the soil of France and concern ourselves only with what 
 has passed within her boundaries.
 
 30 HISTORY OF FRANCE. [cH 
 
 CHAPTER n. 
 THE GAULS OUT OF GAUL. 
 
 About three centuries B.C. numerous hordes of Gauls crossed 
 the Alps and penetrated to the centre of Etruria, which is 
 now-a-days Tuscany. The Etruscans, being then at war with 
 Rome, proposed to take them, armed and equipped as they 
 had come, into their own pay. "If you want our hands," 
 answered the Gauls, " against your enemies the Romans, here 
 they are at your service — but on one condition: give tis lands.'* 
 
 A century afterwards other Gallic hordes, descending in like 
 manner upon Italy, had commenced building houses and tilling 
 fields along the Adriatic, on the territory where afterwards 
 was Aquileia. The Roman Senate decreed that their settle- 
 ment should be opposed, and that they should be summoned to 
 give up their implements and even their arms. Not being in a 
 position to resist, the Gauls sent representatives to Rome. 
 They, being introduced into the Senate, said, " The multitude 
 of people in Gaul, the want of lands, and necessity forced us 
 to cross the Alps to seek a home. We saw plains uncultivated 
 and uninhabited. We settled there without doing any one 
 harm. . . . We ask nothing but lands. We wiU hve peace- 
 fully on them under the laws of the republic." 
 
 Again, a century later, or thereabouts, some Gallic Kymrians, 
 mingled with Teutons or Germans, said also to the Roman 
 Senate, " Give us a httle land as pay; and do what you please 
 with our hands and weapons." 
 
 Want of room and means of subsistence have, in fact, been 
 the principal causes which have at all times thrust barbarous 
 people, and especially the Gauls, out of their fatherland. An 
 immense extent of country is required for indolent hordes who 
 live chiefly upon the produce of the chase and of their flocks; 
 and when there is no longer enough of forest or pastm-age for 
 the families that become too numerous, there is a swarm from 
 the hive and a search for hvelihood elsewhere. The Gauls emi- 
 grated in every direction. To find, as they said, rivers and 
 lands, they marched from north to south, and from east to 
 ■west. They crossed at one time the Rhine, at another the Alps,
 
 CH. n.] THE GAULS OUT OF GAUL. 21 
 
 at another the Pyrenees. More than fifteen centuries B.C. they 
 had already thrown themselves into Spain, after many fights, 
 no doubt, with the Iberians estabhshed between the Pyrenees 
 and the Garonne. They penetrated north-westwards to the 
 northern point of the Peninsula, into the province which re- 
 ceived from them and still bears the name of Galicia ; south- 
 eastwards to the southern point, between the river Anas (now- 
 a-days Guadiana) and the ocean, where they founded a Little 
 Celtica; and centrewards and southwards from CastUe to An- 
 dalusia, where the amalgamation of two races brought about 
 the creation of a new people, that found a place in history as 
 Celtiberians. And twelve centuries after those events, about 
 220 B.C., we find the Gallic peoplet, which had planted itself in 
 the south of Portugal, energetically defending its independence 
 against the neighboring Carthaginian colonies, Indortius, 
 their chief, conquered and taken prisoner, was beaten with 
 rods and himg upon the cross, in the sight of his army, after 
 having had his eyes put out by command of Hamilcar-Barca, 
 the Carthaginian general; but a Gallic slave took care to 
 avenge him by assassinating, some years after, at a hunting- 
 party, Hasdrubal, son-in-law of Hamilcar, who had succeeded 
 to the command. The slave was put to the torture ; but, in- 
 domitable in his hatred, he died insulting the Africans. 
 
 A little after the Gallic invasion of Spain, and by reason per- 
 haps of that very movement, in the first half of the fourteenth 
 century B.C., another vast horde of Gauls, who called them- 
 m\vB Anihra, Ambra, Anibrons, that is, " braves, " crossed the 
 Alps, occupied northern Italy, descended even to the brink of 
 the Tiber, and conferred the name of Ambina or Umbria on 
 the country where they founded their dominion. If ancient 
 accounts might be tnisted, this dominion was glorious and 
 flourishing, for Umbria numbered, they say, 358 towns; but 
 falsehood, according to the Eastern proverb, lurks by the cra- 
 dle of nations. At a much later epoch, in the second century 
 B.C., fifteen towns of Liguria contained altogether, as we learn 
 from Livy, but 20,000 souls. It is plain, then, what must 
 really have been — even admitting their existence — the 358 towns 
 of Umbria. However, at the end of two or three centuries, 
 this GaUic colony succumbed beneath the superior power of 
 the Etruscans, another set of invaders from eastern Europe, 
 perhaps from the north of Greece, who founded in Italy a 
 mighty empire. The Umbrians or Ambrons were driven out 
 or subjugated. Nevertheless some of their peoplets, preserv-
 
 22 HISTORY OF FRANCE. [ch. a 
 
 ing their name and manners, remained in the mountains of 
 Upper Italy, where they were to be subsequently discovered by 
 fresh and more celebrated Gallic invasions. 
 
 Those just spoken of are of such antiquity and obscurity, 
 that we note their place in history without being able to say 
 how they came to fiU it. It is only with the sixth century be- 
 fore our era that we hght upon the really historical expeditions 
 of the Gauls away from Gaul, those, in fact, of which we may 
 follow the course and estimate the efEects. 
 
 Towards the year 587 B.C., almost at the very moment when 
 the Phoceans had just founded Marseilles, two great GaUic 
 hordes got in motion at the same time and crossed, one the 
 Ehine, the other the Alps, making one for Germany, the other 
 for Italy. The former followed the course of the Danube and 
 settled in Illyria, on the right bank of the river. It is too 
 much, perhaps, to say that they settled ; the greater part of 
 them continued wandering and fighting, sometimes amalga- 
 mating with the peoplets they encountered, sometimes chasing 
 them and exterminating them, whilst themselves were inces- 
 santly pushed forward by fresh bands coming also from GauL 
 Thus marching and spreading, leaving here and there on their 
 route, along the rivers and in the valleys of the Alps, tribes 
 that remained and founded peoples, the Gauls had arrived, 
 towards the year 340 e.g., at the confines of Macedonia, at the 
 time when Alexander, the son of PhUip, who was already 
 famous, was advancing to the same point to restrain the 
 ravages of the neighboring tribes, perliaps of the Gauls them- 
 selves. From curiosity, or a desire to make terms with Alex- 
 ander, certain Gauls betook themselves to his camp. He 
 treated them weU, made them sit at his table, took pleasure in 
 exhibiting his magnificence before them, and in the midst of 
 his carouse made his interpreter ask them what they were most 
 afraid of. "We fear naught," they answered, "imless it be 
 the fall of heaven ; but we set above every thing the friend- 
 ship of a man like thee." "The Celts are proud," said Alex, 
 anier to his Macedonians ; and he promised them his friend- 
 ship. On the death of Alexander the Gauls, as mercenaries, 
 entered, in Europe and Asia, the service of the kings who had 
 been his generals. Ever greedy, fierce, and passionate, they 
 were almost equally dangerous as auxiliaries and as neighbors. 
 Antigonus, King of Macedonia, was to pay the band he had 
 enrolled a gold piece ahead. They brought their wives and 
 children with them, and at the end of the campaign they
 
 CH. n.] TEB GAULS OUT OF GAUL. 23 
 
 claimed pay for their following as well as for themselves : ** We 
 were promised," said they, "a gold piece a-head for each Graul; 
 and these are also Gauls." 
 
 Before long they tired of fighting the battles of another; 
 their power accumulated ; fresh hordes, in great numbers, ar- 
 rived amongst them about the year 281 B.C. They had before 
 them Thrace, Macedonia, Thessaly, Greece, rich, but distracted 
 and weakened by civil strife. They effected an entrance at 
 several. points, devastating, plundering, loading their cars 
 with booty, and dividing their prisoners into two parts ; one 
 offered in sacrifice to their gods, the other strung up to trees 
 and abandoned to the gais and matars, or javelins and pikes 
 of the conquerors. 
 
 Like all barbarians, they, both for pleasure and on principle, 
 added insolence to ferocity. Their Brenn, or most famous 
 chieftain, whom the Latins and Greeks caU Brennus, dragged 
 in his train Macedonian prisoners, short, mean, and with 
 shaven heads, and, exhibiting them beside Gallic warriors, 
 tail, robust, long-haired, adorned with chains of gold, said, 
 " This is what we are, that is what our enemies are." 
 
 Ptolemy the Thunderbolt, King of Macedonia, received with 
 haughtiness their first message requiring of him a ransom for 
 his dominions, if he wished to preserve peace. "Tell those 
 who sent you," he rephed to the Gallic deputation, "[to lay 
 down their arms and give up to me their chieftains. I will 
 then see what peace I can grant them." On the return of 
 the deputation, the Gauls were moved to laughter. ' ' He 
 shaU soon see," said they, " whether it was in his interest or 
 our own that we offered him peace." And, indeed, in the 
 first engagement, neither the famous Macedonian phalanx, nor 
 the elephant he rode, could save King Ptolemy ; the phalanx 
 was broken, the elephant riddled with javelins, the king him- 
 self taken, killed, and his head marched about the field of bat- 
 tle on the top of a pike. 
 
 Macedonia was in consternation ; there was a general flight 
 from the open country, and the gates of the towns were closed. 
 "The people," says an historian, "cursed the foUy of King 
 Ptolemy, and invoked the names of Phihp and Alexander, the 
 guardian deities of their land." 
 
 Three years later, another and a more formidable invasion 
 came bursting upon Thessaly and Greece. It was, according 
 to the imquestionably exaggerated account of the ancient 
 historians, 200,000 strong, and commanded by that £amou% 
 (2) HF Vol. 1
 
 24 HISTORY OF FRANCE. [cH. n. 
 
 ferocious, and insolent Brennus mentioned before. His idea 
 was to strike a blow which should simultaneously enrich the 
 Gauls and stun the Greeks. He meant to plunder the temple 
 at Delphi, the most venerated place in all Greece, whither 
 flowed from century to century all kinds of offerings, and 
 where, no doubt, enormous treasure was deposited. Such 
 was, in the opinion of the day, the sanctity of the place, that, 
 on the rumor of the projected profanation, several Greeks es- 
 sayed to divert the Gallic Brenn himseK, by appealing to his 
 superstitious fears; but his answer was, "The gods have no 
 need of wealth; it is they who distribute it to men." 
 
 AU Greece was moved. The nations of the Peloponnese 
 closed the isthmus of Corinth by a wall. Outside the isthmus, 
 the Boeotians, Phocidians, Locrians, Megarians, and -^toHans 
 formed a coalition under the leadership of the Athenians ; and, 
 as their ancestors had done scarcely two hundred years before 
 against Xerxes and the Persians, they advanced in all haste to 
 the pass of Thermopylae, to stop there the new barbarians. 
 
 And for several days they did stop them; and instead of 
 three hundred heroes, as of yore in the case of Leonidas and 
 his Spartans, only forty Greeks, they say, fell in the first 
 engagement. Amongst them was a young Athenian, Cydias 
 by name, whose shield was htmg in the temple of Zeus the 
 saviour, at Athens, with this inscription : 
 
 THIS SHIELD, DEDICATED TO ZETJS, IS 
 
 THAT OF A VALIANT MAN, 
 
 CTDIAS, IT STILL BEWAILS ITS 
 
 TOtTNG MASTER. FOB THE FIRST TIMB 
 
 HE BARE IT ON HIS LEFT ARM 
 
 WHEN TERRIBLE ARES CRUSHED 
 
 THE GAULS. 
 
 But soon, just as in the case of the Persians, traitors guided 
 Brennus and his Gauls across the mountain -paths ; the posi- 
 tion of Thermopylae was turned; the Greek army owed its 
 safety to the Athenian galleys ; and by evening of the same 
 day the barbarians appeared in sight of Delphi. 
 
 Brennus would have led them at once to the assault. He 
 showed them, to excite them, the statues, vases, cars, monu- 
 ments of every kind, laden with gold, which adorned the 
 approaches of the town and of the temple: *"Tis pure gold, 
 massive gold," was the news he had spread in every direction. 
 But the very cupidity he provoked was against his plan ; for
 
 CH. n.] • TEE GAULS OUT OF GAUL. 25 
 
 the Gauls fell out to plunder. He had to put off the assault 
 until to-morrow. The night was passed in irregularities and 
 orgies. 
 
 The Greeks, on the contrary, prepared with ardor for the 
 fight. Their enthusiasm was intense. Those barbarians, with 
 their half -nakedness, their grossness, their ferocity, their igno- 
 rance and their impiety, were revolting. They committed 
 murder and devastation like dolts. They left their dead on 
 the field, without burial. They engaged in battle without con- 
 sulting priest or augur. It was not only their goods but their 
 families, their life, the honor of theii* country and the sanctu- 
 ary of their religion that the Greeks were defending, and they 
 might rely on the protection of the gods. The oracle of Apollo 
 had answered, " I and the white virgins will provide for this 
 matter." The people surrounded the temple, and the priests 
 supported and encouraged the people. During the night small 
 bodies of ^tolians, Amphisseans and Phocidians arrived one 
 after another. Four thousand men had joined within Delphi, 
 when the Gallic bands, in the morning, began to mount the 
 narrow and rough inchne which led up to the town. The 
 Greeks rained down from above a deluge of stones and other 
 missiles. The Gauls recoiled, but recovered themselves. The 
 besieged fell back on the nearest streets of the town, leaving 
 open the approach to the temple, upon which the barbarians 
 threw themselves. The pillage of the shrines had just com- 
 menced when the sky looked threatening; a storm burst forth, 
 the thunder echoed, the rain fell, the hail rattled. Readily 
 taking advantage of this incident, the priests and the augurs 
 salUed from the temple clothed in their sacred garments, with 
 hair dishevelled and sparkling eyes, proclaiming the advent 
 of the god: "'Tishe! we saw him shoot athwart the temple's 
 vault, which opened under his feet; and with him were two 
 virgins, who issued from the temples of Artemis and Athena. 
 We saw them with our eyes. We heard the twang of their 
 bows, and the clash of their armor." Hearing these cries and 
 the roar of the tempest, the Greeks dash on, the Gauls are 
 panic-stricken, and rush headlong down the hill. JThe Greeks 
 push on in pursuit. Rumors of fresh apparitions are spread : 
 three heroes, Hyperochus, Laodocus, and Pyrrhus, son of 
 Achilles, have issued from their tombs hard by the temple, 
 and are thrusting at the Gauls with their lances. The rout 
 was speedy and general ; the barbarians rushed to the cover 
 of their camp ; but the camp was attacked next morning by
 
 26 HISTORY OF FRANCE. ^CH. n. 
 
 the Greeks from the town and by reinforcements from the 
 country places. Brennus and the picked warriors about him 
 made a gallant resistance, but defeat was a foregone conclu^ 
 sion. Brennus was wounded, and his comrades bore him off 
 the field. The barbarian army passed the whole day in flight. 
 During the ensuing night a new access of terror seized them ; 
 they again took to flight, and four days after the pasyage of 
 Thermopylae some scattered bands, forming scarcely a third 
 of those who had marched on Delphi, rejoined the division 
 which had remained behind, some leagues from the town, in 
 the plains watered by the Cephissus. Brennus summoned his 
 comrades; ''Kill all the wounded and me," said he; "bum 
 your cars; make Cichor king; and away at full speed." Then 
 he called for wine, drank himself drunk, and stabbed himself. 
 Cichor did cut the throats of the wounded, and traversed, fly- 
 ing and fighting, Thessaly and Macedonia; and on returning 
 whence they had set out, the Gaiols dispersed, some to settle 
 at the foot of a neighboring mountain under the command of 
 a chieftain named Batliayiat or Baedhannat, i.e. son of the 
 wild boar; others to march back towards their own country ; 
 the greatest part to resume the same Ufe of incursion and 
 adventure. But they changed the scene of operations. Greece, 
 Macedonia, and Thrace were exhausted by pillage, and made a 
 league to resist. About 278 B.C. the Gauls crossed the Helles- 
 pont and passed into Asia Minor. There, at one time in the 
 pay of the kings of Bithynia, Pergamos, Cappadocia, and 
 Syria, or of the free commercial cities which were struggling 
 against the kings, at another carrying on wars on their own 
 account, they wandered for more than thirty years, divided 
 Into three great hordes which parcelled out the territories 
 among themselves, overran and plundered them during the 
 fine weather, entrenched themselves during winter in their 
 camp of cars, or in some fortified place, sold their services to 
 the highest bidder, changed masters according to interest or 
 inclination, and by their bravery became the terror of these 
 effeminate populations and the arbiters of these petty states. 
 
 At last Ijoth princes and people grew weary. Antiochus, 
 King of Syria, attacked one of the three bands— that of the 
 Tectosagians, conquered it, and cantoned it in a district of 
 Upper Phrygia. Later still, about 241 B.C., Eumenes, sover- 
 eign of Pergamos, and Attains, his successor, drove and shut 
 up the other two bands, the Tolistoboians and Trocmians, 
 likewise in the same region. The victories of Attains over the
 
 CH. ir.] THE OAULS OUT OF GAUL. 27 
 
 Gauls excited veritable enthusiasm. He was celebrated as a 
 si)ecial envoy from Zeus. He took the title of King, which his 
 predecessors had not hitherto borne. He had his battles 
 showily painted ; and that he might triumph at the same time 
 both in Em"ope and Asia, he sent one of the pictures to Athens, 
 where it was still to be seen three centuries afterwards, hang- 
 ing upon the wall of the citadel. Forced to remain stationary, 
 the Gallic hordes became a people — the Galatians — and the 
 country they occupied was called Galatia. They hved there 
 some fifty years, aloof from the indigenous population of 
 Greeks and Phrygians, whom they kept in an almost servile 
 condition, preserving their warlike and barbarous habits, 
 resuming sometimes their mercenary service, and becoming 
 once more the biilwark or the terror of neighboring states. 
 But at the beginning of the second century before our era, the 
 Romans had entered Asia, in pursuit of their great enemy, 
 Hannibal. They had just beaten, near Magnesia, Antiochus, 
 King of Syria. In his army they had encoiintered men of 
 lofty stature, with hair light or dyed red, half naked, march- 
 ing to the fight with loud cries, and terrible at the fii'st onset. 
 They recognized the Gauls, and resolved to destroy or subdue 
 them. The consul, Cn. Manlius, had the duty and the honor. 
 Attacked in their strongholds on Mount Olympus and Mount 
 Magaba, 189 B.C., the three GaUic bands, after a short but 
 stout resistance, were conquered and subjugated ; and thence- 
 forth losing all national importance, they amalgamated Mttle 
 by httle with the Asiatic populations around them. From 
 time to time they are still seen to reappear with theii- primi- 
 tive manners and passions. Rome humored them; Mithri- 
 dates had them for allies in his long struggle with the Romans. 
 He kept by him a Galatian guard ; and when he sought death, 
 and poison failed him ; it wasthe captain of the guard, a G aul 
 named Bituitus, whom he asked to run him through. That 
 is the last historical event with which the Gallic name is found 
 associated in Asia. 
 
 Nevertheless the amalgamation of the Gauls of Galatia with 
 the natives always remained very imperfect ; for towards the 
 end of the fourth century of the Christian era they did not 
 speak Greek, as the latter did, but their national tongue, that 
 of the Eymro-Belgians; and St. Jerome testifies that it differed 
 very Httle from that which was spoken in Belgica itself, in the 
 region of Treves. 
 
 The Romans had good groimd for keeping a watchful eye,
 
 28 BISTORT OF FRANCE. [CH. n 
 
 from the time they met them, upon the Gauls, and for dread- 
 ing them particularly. At the time when they determined to 
 pursue them into the mountains of Asia Minor, they were just 
 at the close of a desperate struggle, maintained against them 
 for 400 years, in Italy itself; "a struggle," says Sallust, "in 
 ■which it was a question not of glory, but of existence, for 
 Rome." It was but just now remarked that at the beginning 
 of the sixth century before our era, whilst, under their chief- 
 tain Sigovesus, the GalHc bands whose history has occupied 
 the last few pages were crossing the Rhine and entering Ger- 
 many, other bands, under the command of Bellovesus, were 
 traversing the Alps and swarming into Italy. From 587 to 
 521 B.C. five Gallic expeditions, formed of Gallic, Kymric, and 
 Ligurian tribes, followed the same route and invaded succes- 
 sively the two banks of the Vo—the bottomless river, as they 
 called it. The Etruscans, who had long before, it will be re- 
 membered, themselves wrested that country from a people of 
 Gallic origin, the Umbrians or Ambrons, could not make head 
 against the new conquerore, aided, may be, by the remains of 
 the old population. The well-built towns, the cultivation of 
 the country, the ports and canals that had been dug, nearly all 
 these labors of Etruscan civilization disappeared beneath the 
 footsteps of these barbarous hordes that knew only how to de- 
 stroy, and one of which gave its chieftain the name of Hurri- 
 cane {Elitorius, Ele-Dov) . Scarcely five Etruscan towns, Mantua 
 and Ravenna amongst others, escaped disaster. The Gauls also 
 foiuided towns, such as Mediolamim (MUan), Brixia (Brescia), 
 Verona, Bononia (Bologna), Sena-GalUca (SinigagUa), etc. 
 But for a long while they were no more than entrenched 
 camps, fortified places, where the population shut themselves 
 up in case of necessity. "They, as a general rule, straggled 
 about the country," says Polybius, the most correct and clear- 
 sighted of the ancient historians, " sleeping on grass or straw, 
 living on nothing but meat, busying themselves about nothing 
 but war and a little husbandry, and counting as riches nothing 
 but flocks and gold, the only goods that can be carried away at 
 pleasure and on every occasion. " 
 
 During nearly thirty years the Gauls thus scoured not only 
 Upper Italy, which they had almost to themselves, but all the 
 eastern coast, and up to the head of the peninsula, encounter- 
 ing along the Adriatic, and in the rich and effeminate cities of 
 Magna Grsecia, Sybaris, Tarentum, Crotona, and Locri, no 
 enemy capable of resisting them. But in the year 391 B.C.,
 
 CH. n.] THE QAVLS OUT OF GAUL. 29 
 
 finding themselves cooped up in their territory, a strong band 
 of Gauls crossed the Apennines, and went to demand from 
 the Etruscans of Clusium the cession of a portion of their 
 lands. The only answer Clusium made was to close her gates. 
 The Gauls formed up aroimd the walls. Clusium asked help 
 from Rome, with whom, notwithstanding the rivalry between 
 the Etruscan and Roman nations, she had lately been on good 
 terms. The Romans promised first their good oflEices with the 
 Gauls, afterwards material support; and thus were brought 
 face to face those two peoples, fated to continue for four cen- 
 turies a struggle wliich was to be ended only by the complete 
 subjection of Gaul. 
 
 The details of that struggle belong specially to Roman his- 
 tory ; they have been transmitted to us only by Roman histo- 
 rians; and the Romans it was who were left ultimately in 
 possession of the battle-field, that is, of Italy. It will suffice 
 here to make known the general march of events and the most 
 characteristic incidents. 
 
 Four distinct periods may be recognized in this history ; and 
 each marks a different phase in the coui-se of events, and, so 
 to speak, an act of the drama. During the first period, which 
 lasted forty-two years, from 391 to 349 B.C., the Gauls carried 
 on a war of aggression and conquest against Rome. Not that 
 such had been their original design; on the contrary, they 
 replied, when the Romans offered intervention between them 
 and Clusimn, "We ask only for lands, of which we are in 
 need ; and Clusium has more than she can cultivate. Of the 
 Romans we know very little ; but we believe them to be a brave 
 people, since the Etruscans put themselves under their protec- 
 tion. Remain spectators of our quarrel ; we will settle it before 
 your eyes, that you may report at home how far above other 
 men the Gauls are in valor." 
 
 But when they saw their pretensions repudiated and them- 
 selves treated with outrageous disdain, the Gauls left the siege 
 of Clusium on the spot, and set out for Rome, not stopping for 
 plunder, and proclaiming every where on their march, "We 
 are bound for Rome ; we make war on none but Romans ;" and 
 when they encountered the Roman army, on the 16th of July, 
 390 B.C., at the confluence of the Allia and the Tiber, half a day's 
 march from Rome, they abruptly struck up their war-chaunt, 
 and threw themselves upon their enemies. It is well known 
 how they gained the day ; how they entered Rome, and found 
 none but a few grey-beards, who, being unable or unwilling to
 
 30 HI8T0R7 OF FRANCE. [CH. n. 
 
 leave their abode, had remained seated in the vestibule on 
 their chairs of ivory, with truncheons of ivory in their hands, 
 and decorated with the insignia of the public offices they had 
 filled. All the people of Rome had fled, and were wandering 
 over the country or seeking a refuge amongst neighboring peo- 
 ples. Only the senate and a thousand warriors had shut them- 
 selves up in the Capitol, a citadel which commanded the city. 
 The Gauls kept them besieged there for seven months. The 
 circumstances of this celebrated siege are well known, though 
 they have been a Httle embeUished by the Roman historians. 
 Not that they have spoken too highly of the Romans them- 
 selves, who, in the day of their country's disaster, showed 
 admirable courage, perseverance, and hopefulness. Pontius 
 Cominius, who traversed the GaUic camp, swam the Tiber, and 
 scaled by night the heights of the Capitol, to go and carry 
 news to the senate; M. Manhus, who was the first, and for 
 some moments the only one, to hold in check, from the cita- 
 del's walls, the Gauls on the point of effecting an entrance; 
 and M. Furius Camillus, who had been banished from Rome 
 the preceding year, and had taken refuge in the town of Ai'dea, 
 and who instantly took the field for his country, ralliea the 
 Roman fugitives, and incessantly hai*rassed the Gauls — are 
 true heroes, who have earned their meed of glory. Let no 
 man seek to lower them in pubhc esteem. Noble actions are 
 so beautiful, and the actors often receive so httle recompense, 
 that we are at least bound to hold sacred the honor attached 
 to their name. The Roman historians have done no more than 
 justice in extolling the saviours of Rome. But their memory 
 would have suffered no loss had the whole truth been made 
 known ; and the claims of national vanity are not of the same 
 weight as the duty one owes to truth. Now it is certain that 
 Camillus did not gain such decisive advantages over the Gauls 
 as the Roman accounts would lead one to beheve, and that the 
 dehverance of Rome was much less complete. On the 13th of 
 February, 389 B.C., the Gauls, it is true, allowed their retreat 
 to be purchased by the Romans ; and they experienced, as they 
 retired, certain checks whereby they lost a part of their booty. 
 But twenty -three years afterwards they are foimd in Latium 
 scouring in every direction the outlying country of Rome, 
 ■without the Romans daring to go out and fight them. It was 
 only at the end of five years, in the year 361 B.C., that, the very 
 city being menaced anew, the legions marched out to meet the 
 enemy. ' ' Surprised at this audacity, " says Polybius, the Gauls
 
 CH. n.] TEE GAULS OUT OF GAUL. 31 
 
 fell back, but merely a few leagues from Rome, to the environs 
 of Tibur ; and thence, for the space of twelve years, they at- 
 tacked the Roman territory, renewing the campaign every 
 year, often reaching the very gates of the city, and being re- 
 pulsed indeed, but never farther than Tibm- and its slopes. 
 Rome, however, made great efforts ; every war with the Gauls 
 was previously proclaimed a tumult, which involved a levy in 
 mass of the citizens, without any exemption, even for old men 
 and priests. A treasure, specially dedicated to Gallic wai^, 
 was laid by in the Capitol, and rehgious denunciations of the 
 most awful kind hung over the head of whoever should dare 
 to touch it, no matter what the exigency might be. To this 
 epoch belonged those marvels of daring recorded in Roman 
 tradition, those acts of heroism tinged with fable, which are 
 met with amongst so many peoples, either in theu' earhest age 
 or in their days of great peril. In the year 361 B.C., Titus 
 Manhus, son of him who had saved the Capitol from the night 
 attack of the Gauls, and twelve years later M. Valerius, a 
 young mihtary tribune, were, it will be remembered, the two 
 Roman heroes who vanquished in single combat the two Gallic 
 giants who insolently defied Rome. The gratitude towards 
 them was general and of long duration, for two centuries after- 
 wards (in the year 167 B.C.) the head of the Gaul with his 
 tongue out still appeared at Rome, above the shop of a money- 
 changer, on a circular sign-board, called "the Kymrian shield" 
 {scutum Cimhricum). After seventeen years' stay in Latium, 
 the Gauls at last withdrew, and returned to their adopted coun- 
 try in those lovely valleys of the Po which already bore the name 
 of Cisalpine Gaul. They began to get disgusted with a wan- 
 dering life. Their population multiplied ; their towns spread ; 
 their fields were better cultivated ; their manners became less 
 barbarous. For fifty years there was scarcely any trace of 
 hostihty or even contact between them and the Romans. But 
 at the beginning of the third century before our era, the coali- 
 tion of the Samnites and Etruscans against Rome was near its 
 climax; they eagerly pressed the Gauls to join, and the latter 
 assented easily. Then commenced the second period of strug- 
 gles between the two peoples. Rome had taken breath, and 
 had grown much more rapidly than her rivals. Instead of 
 shutting herself up, as heretofore, within her walls, she forth- 
 with raised three armies, took the offensive against the coali- 
 tionists, and carried the war into their territory. The Etrus- 
 cans rushed to the defence of their hearths. The two consuls,
 
 32 HISTORY OF FRANCE. [cH. n. 
 
 Fabius and Decius, immediately attacked the Samnites and 
 Gauls at the foot of the Apennines, close to Sentinum (now 
 Sentina). The battle was just beginning, when a hind, pur- 
 sued by a woK from the mountains, passed in flight between 
 the two armies and threw herself upon the side of the Gauls, 
 who slew her ; the wolf turned towards the Romans, who let 
 him go. "Comrades," cried a soldier, "flight and death are 
 on the side where you see stretched on the groimd the hind of 
 Diana; the wolf belongs to Mars; he is imwoimded, and re- 
 minds us of our father and founder ; we shall conquer even as 
 he." Nevertheless the battle went badly for the Romans; 
 several legions were in fhght, and Decius strove vainly to rally 
 them. The memory of his father came across his mind. There 
 was a belief amongst the Romans that if in the midst of an un- 
 successful engagement the general devoted himself to the in- 
 fernal gods, ' ' panic and flight" passed forthwith to the enemies' 
 ranks. "Why dally?" said Decius to the grand pontiff, whom 
 he had ordered to follow him and keep at his side in the flight; 
 " 'tis given to our race to die to avert public disasters." He 
 halted, placed a javehn beneath his feet, and, covering his 
 head with a fold of his robe and supporting his chin on his 
 right hand, repeated after the pontiff this sacred form of 
 words : 
 
 "Janus, Jupiter, our father Mars, Quirinus,Bellona, Lares. . . 
 ye gods in whose power are we, we and our enemies, gods 
 Manes, ye I adore ; ye I pray, ye I adjure to give strength and 
 victory to the Roman people, the children of Quirinus, and to 
 send confusion, panic, and death amongst the enemies of the 
 Roman people, the children of Quirinus. And, in these words, 
 for the republic of the children of Quirinus, for the army, for 
 the legions, and for the aUies of the Roman people, I devote to 
 the gods Manes and to the grave the legions and the allies ot 
 the enemy and myself." 
 
 Then remounting, Decius charged into the middle of the 
 Gauls, where he soon fell pierced with wounds ; but the Romans 
 recovered courage and gained the day ; for heroism and piety 
 have power over the hearts of men, so that at the moment of 
 admiration they become capable of imitation. 
 
 During this second period Rome was more than once in dan- 
 ger. In the year 283 b.o. the Gauls destroyed one of her armies 
 near Aretium (Arezzo), and advanced to the Roman frontier, 
 saying, "We are bound for Rome; the Gauls know how to 
 take it." Seventy-two years afterwards the Cisalpine Gauls
 
 CH. n.] THE GAULS OUT OF GAUL. 33 
 
 Bwore they would not put ofE their baldricks till they had 
 mounted the Capitol, and they arrived -within three days' 
 march of Rome. At every appearance of this formidable 
 enemy the alarm at Eome was great. The senate raised all its 
 forces and summoned its aUies. The people demanded a con- 
 sultation of the Sibylline books, sacred volumes sold, it was 
 said, to Tarquinius Priscus by the sibyl Amalthea, and contain- 
 ing the secret of the destinies of the EepubUc. They were 
 actually opened in the year 228 B.C., and it was with terror 
 found that the Gauls would twice take possession of the soU of 
 Rome. On the advice of the priests, there was dug within the 
 city, in the middle of the cattle-market, a huge pit, in which 
 two Gauls, a man and a woman, were entombed ahve ; for thus 
 they took possession of the soil of Rome, the oracle was fulfilled, 
 and the mishap averted. Thirteen years afterwards, on occa- 
 sion of the disaster at Cannae, the same atrocity was again 
 committed, at the same place and for the same cause. And by 
 a strange contrast, there was at the committing of this barbar- 
 ous act, ' ' which was against Roman usage, " says Li vy , a secret 
 feeling of horror, for, to appease the manes of the victims, a 
 sacrifice was instituted, which was celebrated every year at 
 the pit, in the month of November. 
 
 In spite of sometimes urgent peril, in spite of popular alarms, 
 Rome, during the course of this period, from 299 to 258 b. c, 
 maintained an increasing ascendency over the Gauls. She 
 always cleared them off her territory, several times ravaged 
 theii*s, on the two banks of the Po, called respectively Trans- 
 padan and Cispadan Gaul, and gained the majority of the great 
 battles she had to fight. Finally in the year 283 B.C. the pro- 
 prsetor Drusus, after having ravaged the country of the Se- 
 nonic Gauls, carried off the very ingots and jewels, it was said, 
 which had been given to their ancestors as the price of their 
 retreat. Solemn proclamation was made that the ransom of 
 the capitol had returned within its walls; and, sixty years 
 afterwards, the Consul M. CI. Marcellus having defeated at 
 Olastidium a numerous army of Gauls, and with his own hand 
 slain their general, Virdumar, had the honor of dedicating to 
 the temple of Jupiter the third " grand spoils" taken since the 
 foundation of Rome, and of ascending the Capitol, himself con- 
 veying the armor of Virdumar, for he had got hewn an oaken 
 trunk, round which he had arranged the helmet, tunic, and 
 breast-plate of the barbarian king. 
 
 Nor was war Rome's only weapon against her enemies. Be-
 
 34 HISTORY OF FRANCE. [CH. ll. 
 
 sides the ability of her generals and the discipline of her legions, 
 she had the sagacity of her Senate. The Gauls were not want- 
 ing in intelligence or dexterity, but being too free to go quietly 
 under a master's hand, and too barbarous for self-government, 
 carried away, as they were, by the interest or passion of the 
 moment, they could not long act either in concert or with 
 sameness of purpose. Far-sightedness and the spirit of persist- 
 ence were, on the contrary, the familiar virtues of the Roman 
 Senate. So soon as they had penetrated Cisalpine Gaul, they 
 labored to gain there a permanent footing, either by sowing 
 dissension amongst the Gallic peoplets that lived there, or by 
 founding Roman colonies. In the year 283 B.C. several Roman 
 famiUes arrived, with colors flying and imder the guidance of 
 three triumvirs or commissioners, on a territory to the north- 
 east, on the borders of the Adriatic. The triumvirs had a 
 round hole dug, and there deposited some fruits and a handful 
 of earth brought from Roman soil ; then yoking to a plough, 
 having a copper share, a white bull and a white heifer, they 
 marked out by a furrow a large enclosure. The rest followed, 
 flinging within the line the ridges thrown up by the plough. 
 When the hne was finished, the bull and the heifer were sacri- 
 ficed with due pomp. It was a Roman colony come to settle at 
 Sena, on the very site of the chief town of those Senonic Gauls 
 who had been conquered and driven out. Fifteen years after- 
 wards another Roman colony was founded at Ariminum 
 (Rimini) on the frontier of the Boian Gauls. Fifty years later 
 still two others, on the two banks of the Po, Cremona and 
 Placentia (Plaisance). Rome had then, in the midst of her 
 enemies, garrisons, magazines of arms and provisions, and 
 means of supervision and communication. Thence proceeded 
 at one time troops, at another intrigues, to carry dismay or 
 disunion amongst the Gauls. 
 
 Towards the close of the third century before our era, the 
 triumph of Rome in Cisalpine Gaul seemed nigh to accomplish- 
 ment, when news arrived that the Romans' most formidable 
 enemy, Hannibal, meditating a passage from Africa Into Italy 
 by Spain and Gaul, was already at work, by his emissaries, to 
 ensure for his enterprise the concurrence of the Transalpine 
 and Cisalpine Gauls. The Senate ordered the envoys they had 
 just then at Carthage to traverse Gaul on returning, and seek 
 out aUies there against Hannibal. The envoys halted amongst 
 the Gallo-Iberian peoplets who lived at the foot of the eastern
 
 CH. n.] THE GAULS OUT OF GAUL. 35 
 
 Pyrenees. There, in the midst of the warriors assembled in 
 arms, they charged them in the name of the great and power- 
 ful Roman people, not to suffer the Carthaginians to pass 
 through their territory. Tumultuous laughter arose at a re- 
 quest that appeared so strange. " You wish us," was the an- 
 swer, "to draw down war upon ourselves to avert it from 
 Italy, and to give our own fields over to devastation to save 
 yours. We have no cause to complain of the Carthaginians or 
 to be pleased with the Romans, or to take up arms for the 
 Romans and against the Carthaginians. We, on the contrary, 
 hear that the Roman people drive out from their lands, in Italy, 
 men of our nation, impose tribute upon them, and make them 
 undergo other indignities." So the envoys of Rome quitted 
 Gaul without allies. 
 
 Hannibal, on the other hand, did not meet with aU the favor 
 and all the enthusiasm he had anticipated. Between the Pyre- 
 nees and the Alps several peoplets united with him; and 
 several showed coldness, or even hostihty. In his passage of 
 the Alps the mountain tribes harassed him incessantly. In- 
 deed, in Cisalpine Gaul itself there was great division and hesi- 
 tation ; for Rome had succeeded in inspiring her partisans with 
 confidence and her enemies with fear. Hannibal was often 
 obliged to resort to force even against the Gauls whose alliance 
 he courted, and to i*avage their lands in order to drive them to 
 take up arms. Nay, at the conclusion of an alliance, and in the 
 very camp of the Carthaginians, the Gauls sometimes hesitated 
 still, and sometimes rose against Hannibal, accused him of 
 ravaging their country, and refused to obey his orders. How- 
 ever, the delights of victory and of pillage at last brought into 
 full play the Cisalpine Gauls' natural hatred of Rome. After 
 Ticinus and Trebia, Hannibal had no more zealous and devoted 
 troops. At the battle of Lake Trasimene he lost 1500 men, 
 nearly aU Gatds ; at that of Cannse he had 30,000 of them, form- 
 ing two-thirds of his army ; and at the moment of action they 
 cast away their tunics and chequered cloaks (similar to the 
 plaids of the Gaels or Scottish Highlanders) and fought naked 
 from the belt upwards, according to their custom when they 
 meant to conquer or die. Of 5500 men that the victory of 
 Cannae cost Hannibal, 4000 were Gauls. All Cisalpine Gaul 
 was moved ; enthusiasm was at its height ; new bands hurried 
 off to recruit the army of the Carthaginian who, by dint of pa- 
 tience and genius, brought Rome within an ace of destruction,
 
 36 HISTORY OF FRANCE. [ch. ii. 
 
 with the assistance almost entii-ely of the barbarians he had 
 come to seek at her gates, and -whom he had at first found so 
 cowed and so vacillating. 
 
 When the day of reverses came, and Rome had recovered her 
 ascendency, the Gauls were faithful to Hannibal ; and when at 
 length he was forced to return to Africa, the GalUc bands, 
 whether from despair or attachment, followed him thither. In 
 the year 200 B.C., at the famous battle of Zama, which decided 
 matters between Home and Carthage, they again formed a 
 third of the Carthaginian army, and showed that they were, in 
 the words of Livy, "inflamed by that innate hatred towards 
 the Eomans which is pecuhar to theii' race. " 
 
 This was the third period of the struggle between the Gatds 
 and the Romans in Italy. Rome, weU advised by this terrible 
 war of the danger with which she was ever menaced by the 
 Cisalpine Gauls, foi*med the resolution of no longer restraining 
 them, but of subduing them and conquering their territory. 
 She spent thirty years (from 200 to 170 B.C.) in the execution of 
 this design, proceeding by means of war, of founding Roman 
 colonies, and of sowing dissension amongst the Gallic peoplets. 
 In vain did the two principal, the Boians and the Insubrians, 
 endeavor to rouse and rally all the rest : some hesitated ; some 
 absolutely refused, and remained neutral. The resistance was 
 obstinate. The Gauls, driven from their fields and their towns, 
 estabUshed themselves, as their ancestors had done, in the for- 
 ests, whence they emerged only to fall furiously upon the Ro- 
 mans. And then, if the engagement were indecisive, if any 
 legions wavered, the Roman centurions hurled their colors into 
 the midst of the enemy, and the legionaries dashed on at aU 
 risks to recover them. At Parma and Bologna, in the towns 
 taken from the Gauls, Roman colonies came at once and planted 
 themselves. Day by day did Rome advance. At length, in 
 the year 190 B.C., the wrecks of the 112 tribes which had formed 
 the nation of the Boians, unable any longer to resist, and vm- 
 willing to submit, rose as one man, and departed from Italy. 
 
 The Senate, with its usual wisdom, multiplied the number of 
 Roman colonies in the conquered territory, treated with mod- 
 eration the tribes that submitted, and gave to Cisalpine Gaul 
 the name of the Cisalpine or Hither Gallic Province, which was 
 afterwards changed for that of Gallia Togata or Roman Gaul. 
 Then, declaring that nature herself had placed the Alps between 
 Gaul and Italy as an insurmountable barrier, the Senate pro- 
 nounced " a curse on whosoever should attempt to cross it."
 
 CH. ni.] TEE ROMANS IN GAUL. 87 
 
 CHAPTER m. 
 THE ROMANS IN GAUL. 
 
 It -was Rome herself that soon crossed that barrier of the 
 Alps which she had pronounced fixed by nature and insur- 
 mountable. Scarcely was she mistress of Cisalpine Gaul when 
 she entered upon a quarrel with the tribes which occupied the 
 mountain-passes. With an unsettled frontier, and between 
 neighbors of whom one is ambitious and the other barbarian, 
 pretexts and even causes are never wanting. It is hkely that 
 the Gallic mountaineers were not careful to abstain, they and 
 their flocks, from descending upon the territory that had be- 
 come Roman. The Romans, in turn, penetrated into the ham- 
 lets, carried off flocks and people, and sold them in the pubUc 
 markets at Cremona, at Placentia, and in all their colonies. 
 
 The Gauls of the Alps demanded succor of the Transalpine 
 Gauls, applying to a powerful chieftain, named CincibO, whose 
 influence extended throughout the mountains. But the terror 
 of the Roman name had reached across. Cincibil sent to Rome 
 a deputation, with his brother at their head, to set forth the 
 grievances of the mountaineers, and especially to complain of 
 the consvd Cassius, who had carried off and sold several thou- 
 sands of Gauls. Without making any concession, the Senate 
 was gracious. Cassius was away; he must be waited for. 
 Meanwhile the Gauls were well treated; Cincibil and his 
 brother received as presents two golden coUars, five silver 
 vases, two horses fully caparisoned, and Roman dresses for all 
 their suite. Still nothing was done. 
 
 Another, a greater and more decisive opportunity offered 
 itself. Marseilles was an ally of the Romans. As the rival of 
 Carthage, and with the Gauls for ever at her gates, she had 
 need of Rome by sea and land. She pretended, also, to the 
 most eminent and intimate friendship with Rome. Her 
 founder, the Phocean Euxenes, had gone to Rome, it was said, 
 and concluded a treaty with Tarquinius Prisons. She had 
 gone into moiuming when Rome was burnt by the Gaids ; she 
 had ordered a pubhc levy to aid towards the ransom of the 
 capitol. Rome did not dispute these claims to remembrance. 
 The friendship of Marseilles was of great use to her. In the
 
 88 BISTORT OF FRANCE. [ch. m. 
 
 whole course of her struggle with Carthage, and but lately, at 
 the passage of Hannibal through Gaul, Rome had met with 
 the best of treatment there. She granted the Massihans a 
 place amongst her senators at the festivals of the Repubhc, 
 and exemption from aU duty in her ports. Towards the mid- 
 dle of the second century B.C. Marseilles was at war with cer- 
 tain Gallic tribcE. her neighbors, whose territory she coveted. 
 Two of her colonies, Nice and Antibes, were threatened. She 
 called on Rome for help. A Roman deputation went to decide 
 the quarrel ; but the Gauls refused to obey its summons, and 
 treated it with insolence. The deputation returned with an 
 army, succeeded in beating the refractory tribes, and gave 
 their land to the Massilians. The same thing occurred re- 
 peatedly with the same result. Within the space of thirty 
 years nearly all the tribes between the Rhone and the Var, in 
 the country which was afterwards Provence, were subdued 
 and driven back amongst the mountains, Avith notice not to 
 approach within a mile of the coast in general, and a mile and 
 a half of the places of disembarkation. But the Romans did 
 not stop there. They did not mean to conquer for Marseilles 
 alone. In the year 123 B.C., at some leagues to the north of the 
 Greek city, near a little river, then called the Coenus and now- 
 a-days the Arc, the consul C. Sextius Calvinus had noticed, 
 during his campaign, an abundance of thermal springs, agi-ee- 
 ably situated amidst wood-covered hiUs. There he constructed 
 an enclosure, aqueducts, baths, houses, a town in fact, which 
 he called after himself, AqiuB Sextice, the modern Aix, the 
 first Roman establishment in Transalpine Gaul. As in the 
 case of Cisalpine Gaul, with Roman colonies came Roman 
 intrigue and dissensions got up and fomented amongst the- 
 Gauls. And herein Marseilles was a powerful seconder; for 
 she kept up communications with all the neighboring tribes, 
 and fanned the spirit of faction. After his victories, the con- 
 sul C. Sextius, seated at his tribunal, was selling his prisoners 
 by auction, when one of them came up to him and said, ' ' I 
 have always liked and served the Romans ; and for that reason 
 I have often incurred outrage and danger at the hands of my 
 countrymen." The consul had him set free— him and his 
 family — and even gave him leave to point out amongst the 
 captives any for whom he would Hke to procure the same kind- 
 ness. At his request nine hundred were released. The man's 
 name was Crato, a Greek name, which points to a connection 
 with Marseilles or one of her colonies. The Gauls, moreover,
 
 CH. in.] THE ROMANS IN GA UL. 39 
 
 ran of themselves into the Roman trap. Two of their confed- 
 erations, the ^duans, of whom mention has ah-eady been made, 
 and the Allobrogians, who were settled between the Alps, the 
 Isere, and the Rhone, were at war. A third confederation, 
 the most powerful in Gaul at this time, the Arvemians, who 
 were rivals of the -iEduans, gave their countenance to the Al- 
 lobrogians. The ^duans, with whom the Massilians had 
 commercial deahngs, soMcited through these latter the assist- 
 ance of Rome. A treaty was easily concluded. The ^duans 
 obtained from the Romans the title of friends and allies ; and 
 the Romans received from the ^duans that of brothers, which 
 amongst the Gauls imphed a sacred tie. The consul Domitius 
 forthwith commanded the Allobrogians to respect the terri- 
 tory of the allies of Rome. The Allobrogians rose up in arms 
 and claimed the aid of the Arvernians. But even amongst 
 them, in the very heart of Gaul, Rome was much dreaded ; 
 she was not to be encountered without hesitation. So Bitui- 
 tus, King of the Ai-vernians, was for trying accommodation. 
 He was a powerful and wealthy chieftain. His father Luem 
 used to give amongst the mouncains magnificent entertain- 
 ments ; he had a space of twelve square furlongs enclosed, and 
 dispensed wine, mead, and beer from cisterns made within the 
 enclosure; and aU the Arvernians crowded to his feasts. Bi- 
 tuitus displayed before the Romans his barbaric splendor. A 
 numerous escort, superbly clad, surrounded his ambassador; 
 in attendance were packs of enormous hounds ; and in front 
 went a bard, or poet, who sang with rotte or harp in hand, the 
 glory of Bituitus and of the Arvernian people. Disdainfully 
 the consul received and sent back the embassy. War broke 
 out ; the Allobrogians, with the usual confidence and hastiness 
 of all barbarians, attacked alone, without waiting for the Ar- 
 vemians, and were beaten at the confluence of the Rhone and 
 the Sorgue, a httle above Avignon. The next year, 121 B.C., 
 the Arvemians in their tum descended from the mountains, 
 and crossed the Rhone with all their tribes, diversely armed 
 and clad, and ranged each about its own chieftain. In his 
 barbaric vanity, Bituitus marched to war with the same pomp 
 that he had in vain displayed to obtain peace. He sat upon a 
 car ghttering with silver; he wore a plaid of striking colors; 
 and he brought in his train a pack of war-homids. At the 
 sight of the Roman legions, few in number, ii-on-clad, in ser- 
 ried ranks that took up little space, he contemptuously cried, 
 "There is not a meal for my hounds."
 
 40 HISTORY OF FRANCE. [ch. m. 
 
 The Arvernians were beaten, as the Allobrogians had been. 
 The hounds of Bituitus were of Httle use to him against the 
 elephants which the Romans had borrowed from Asiatic usage, 
 and which spread consternation amongst the Gauls. The 
 Eoman historians say that the Arvernian army was 200,000 
 strong, and that 120,000 were slain; but the figiu-es are absurd, 
 like most of those found in ancient chronicles. We know 
 now-a-days, thanks to modern civilization, which shows every 
 thing in broad day-Ught and measures every thing with proper 
 caution, that only the most populous and powerful nations, 
 and that at gTeat expenditure of trouble and time, can succeed 
 in moving armies of 200,000 men, and that no battle, however 
 murderous it may be, ever costs 120, 000 lives. 
 
 Rome treated the Arvernians with consideration; but the 
 Allobrogians lost their existence as a nation. The Senate de- 
 clared them subject to the Roman people ; and aU the country 
 comprised between the Alps, the Rhone from its entry into the 
 Lake of Geneva to its mouth, and the Mediterranean, was 
 made a Roman consular province, which means that every 
 year a consul must march thither with his army. In the 
 three following years, indeed, the consuls extended the boun- 
 daries of the new province, on the right bank of the Rhone, to 
 the frontier of the Pyrenees southward. In the year 115 B.C. 
 a colony of Roman citizens was conducted to Narbonne, a 
 town even then of importance, in spite of the objections made 
 by certain senators who were unwiUing, say the historians, so 
 to expose Roman citizens "to the waves of barbarism." This 
 was the second colony which went and estabUshed itself out of 
 Italy ; the first had been founded on the ruins of Carthage. 
 
 Having thus completed their conquest, the Senate, to render 
 possession safe and sure, decreed the occupation of the passes 
 of the Alps which opened Gaul to Italy. There was up to that 
 time no communication with Gaul save along the Mediterranean, 
 by a narrow and diflBcult path which has become in our time 
 the beautiful route called the Corniche. The mountain tribes 
 defended their independence with desperation; when that of 
 the Staenians, who occupied the pass of the maritime Alps, 
 saw their inability to hold their own, they cut the throats of 
 their wives and children, set fire to their houses, and threw 
 themselves into the flames. But the Senate pursued its course 
 imperturbably. All the chief defiles of the Alps feU into its 
 hands. The old Phoenician road, restored by the consul Do- 
 mitius, bore thenceforth his name {Via Domitia), and less than
 
 CH. III.] TEE ROMANS IN OA UL. 41 
 
 sixty years after Cisalpine Gaul had been reduced to a Eoman 
 province, Eome possessed, in Transalpine Gatil, a second 
 province, whither she sent her armies, and where she estab- 
 lished her citizens without obstruction. But Providence sel- 
 dom allows men, even in the midst of their successes, to forget 
 foi long how precarious they are ; and when He is pleased to 
 remind them, it is not by words, as the Persians reminded 
 their king, but by fearful events that He gives His warnings. 
 At the very moment when Rome believed herself set free from 
 GalUc invasions and on the point of avenging herself by a 
 course of conquest, a new invasion, more extensive and more 
 barbarous, came bursting upon Rome and upon Gaul at the 
 same time, and plunged them together in the same troubles 
 and the same perils. 
 
 In the year 113 B.C. there appeared to the north of the Adri- 
 atic, on the right bank of the Danube, an immense multitude 
 of barbarians, ravaging Noricmn and threatening Italy. Two 
 nations predominated; the Kymrians or Cimbrians, and the 
 Teutons, the national name of the Germans. They came from 
 afar, northward, from the Cimbrian peninsula, now-a-days 
 Jutland, and from the countries bordering on the Baltic which 
 now-a-days form the duchies of Holstein and Schleswig. A 
 violent shock of earthquake, a terrible inundation, had driven 
 them, they said, from their homes ; and those countries do in- 
 deed show traces of such events. And Cimbrians and Teutons 
 had been for some time roaming over Germany. 
 
 The consul Papirius Carbo, despatched in all haste to defend 
 the frontier, bade them, in the name of the Roman people, to 
 withdraw. The barbarians modestly repUed that "they had 
 no intention of settling in Noricum, and if the Romans had 
 rights over the country, they would carry their arms else- 
 whither." The consul, who had found haughtiness succeed, 
 thought he might also employ perfidy against the barbarians. 
 He offered guides to conduct them out of Noricum ; and the 
 guides misled them. The consul attacked them unexpectedly 
 duaing the night, and was beaten. 
 
 However, the barbarians, still fearful, did not venture into 
 Italy. They roamed for three years along the Danube, as far 
 as the mountains of Macedonia and Thrace. Then retracing 
 their steps, and marching eastward, they inundated the valleys 
 of the Helvetic Alps, now Switzerland, having their mmibers 
 swelled by other tribes, Gallic or German, who preferred join- 
 ing in pillage to undergoing it. The Ambrons, among others,
 
 42 EISTORY OF FRANCE. rcH. to. 
 
 a Gallic peoplet that had taken refuge in Helvetia after the ex- 
 pulsion of the Umbrians by the Etruscans from Italy, joined 
 the Cimbrians and Teutons; and in the year 110 B.C. all to- 
 gether entered Gaul, at first by way of Belgica, and then, con- 
 tinuing their wanderings and ravages in central Gaul, they 
 at last reached the Rhone, on the frontiers of the Roman 
 province. 
 
 There the name of Rome again arrested their progress ; they 
 appUed to her anew for lands, with the ofiEer of their services. 
 ' ' Rome," answered M. Silanus, who commanded in the prov- 
 ince, "has neither lands to give you nor sei*vices to accept 
 from you." He attacked them in their camp, and was beaten. 
 
 Three consuls, L. Cassius, C. Servihus Caepio, and Cn. Man- 
 lius, successively experienced the same fate. With the bar- 
 barians victory bred presumption. Their chieftains met, and 
 deliberated whether they should not forthwith cross into Italy, 
 to exterminate or enslave the Romans, and make Kymrian 
 spoken at Rome. Scaurus, a prisoner, was in the tent, loaded 
 with fetters, during the deUberation. He was questioned about 
 the resources of his coimtry. "Cross not the Alps," said he; 
 "go not into Italy: the Romans are invincible," In a trans- 
 port of fury the chieftain of the Kymrians, Boiorix by name, 
 fell upon the Roman, and ran him through, Howbeit the ad- 
 vice of Scaurus was followed. The barbarians did not as yet 
 dare to decide upon invading Italy ; but they freely scoured 
 the Roman province, meeting here with repulse, and there 
 with reinforcement from the peoplets who formed the inhabi- 
 tants. The Tectosagian Voles, Kymrian in origin and mal- 
 treated by Rome, joined them. Then, on a sudden, whilst the 
 Teutons and Ambrons remained in Gaul, the Kymrians passed 
 over to Spain, without apparent motive, and probably as an 
 overswoUen torrent divides, and disperses its waters in all 
 directions. The commotion at Rome was extreme ; never had 
 so many or such wild barbarians threatened the RepubUc; 
 never had so many or such large Roman armies been beaten 
 in succession. There was but one man, it was said, who could 
 avert the danger, and give Rome the ascendency. It was 
 Marius, low-born, but already illustrious; esteemed by the 
 Senate for his genius as a conunander and for his victories ; 
 swaying at his will the people, who saw in him one of them- 
 selves, and admired without envying him ; beloved and feared 
 by the army for his bravery, his rigorous discipline, and his 
 readiness to share their toils and dangers; stem and rugged;
 
 CH. in.] THE ROMANS IN GA UL 43 
 
 without education, eloquence, or riches; ill-suited for shining 
 in public assemblies, but resolute and dexterous in action; 
 verily" made to dominate the vigorous but unrefined multitude, 
 whether in camp or city, partly by participating their feelings, 
 partly by giving them in his own person a specimen of the 
 deserts and sometimes of the virtues which they esteem but 
 do not possess. 
 
 He was consul in Africa, where he was putting an end to the 
 war with Jugurtha. He was elected a second time consul, 
 without interval and in his absence, contrary to all the laws of 
 the Republic. Scarcely had he returned, when, on descending 
 from the Capitol, where he had just received a triimiph for 
 having conquered and captured Jugurtha, he set out for Gaul. 
 On his arrival, instead of proceeding, as his predecessors, to 
 attack the barbarians at once, he confined himself to organizing 
 and inuring his troops, subjecting them to frequent marches, 
 all kinds of military exercises, and long and hard labor. To 
 instire supphes he made them dig, towards the mouths of the 
 Rhone, a large canal which formed a junction with the river a 
 little above Aries, and which, at its entrance into the sea, 
 offered good harborage for vessels. This canal, which existed 
 for a long while under the name of Fossce Mariance (the dykes 
 of Marius), is filled up now-a-days; but at its southern extrem- 
 ity the village of Foz still preserves a remembrance of it. 
 Trained in this severe school, the soldiers acquired such a 
 reputation for sobriety and laborious assiduity, that they were 
 proverbially called Marius' mules. 
 
 He was as careful for their moral state as for their physical 
 fitness, and labored to exalt their imaginations as well as to 
 harden their bodies. In that camp, and amidst those toils m 
 which he kept them strictly engaged, frequent sacrifices, and 
 scrupulous care in consulting the oracles, kept superstition at 
 a white heat. A Syrian prophetess, named Martha, who had 
 been sent to Marius by his wife Juha, the aunt of Juhus Csesar, 
 was ever with him, and accompanied him at the sacred cere- 
 monies and on the march, being treated with the gi-eatest 
 respect, and having vast influence over the minds of the 
 soldiers. 
 
 Two years rolled on in this fashion ; and yet Marius would 
 not move. The increasing devastation of the coimtry, fire, and 
 famine, the despair and complaints of the inhabitants, did not 
 shake his resolution. Nor was the confidence he inspired both 
 in the camp and at Rome a whit shaken: he was twice re-
 
 44 BISTORT OF FRANCE. [ch. ra. 
 
 elected consul, once while he was still absent, and once during 
 a visit he paid to Rome to give directions to his party in person. 
 
 It was at Rome, in the year 102 B.C., that he learned how the 
 Kymrians, weary of Spain, had recrossed the Pyrenees, re- 
 joined their old comrades, and had at last resolved, in concert, 
 to invade Italy; the Kymrians from the north, by way of 
 Helvetia and Noricum, the Teutons and Ambrons from the 
 south, by way of the maritime Alps. They were to form a 
 junction on the banks of the Po, and thence march together on 
 Rome. At this news Marius returned forthwith to Gaul, and^ 
 without troubling himself about the Kymrians, who had really 
 put themselves in motion towards the north-east, he placed 
 his camp so as to cover at one and the same time the two 
 Roman roads which crossed at Aries, and by one of which the 
 Ambro-Teutons must necessarily pass to enter Italy on the 
 south. 
 
 They soon appeared "in immense numbers," say the his- 
 torians, " with their hideous looks and their wild cries," draw- 
 ing up their chariots and planting their tents in front of the 
 Roman camp. They showered upon Marius and his soldiers 
 continual insult and defiance. The Romans, in their irritation, 
 woiild fain have rushed out of theii* camp, but Marius re- 
 strained them. "It is no question," said he, with his simple 
 and convincing common sense, "of gaining triumphs and 
 trophies ; it is a question of averting this storm of war and of 
 saving Italy." A Teutonic chieftain came one day up to the 
 veiy gates of the camp, and challenged him to fight. Marius 
 had him informed that if he were tired of life he could go and 
 hang himself. As the barbarian still ^persisted, Marius sent 
 him a gladiator. 
 
 However, he made his soldiers, in regular succession, mount 
 the ramparts, to get them f amiharized with the cries, looks, 
 arms, and movements of the barbarians. The most distin- 
 guished of his officers, young Sertorius, who imderstood and 
 spoke Gallic well, penetrated, in the disguise of a Gaul, into 
 the camp of the Ambrons, and informed Marius of what was 
 going on there. 
 
 At last the barbarians, in their impatience, having vainly 
 attempted to storm the Roman camp, struck their own, and 
 put themselves in motion towards the Alps. For six whole 
 days, it ie said, their bands were defiling beneath the rampartd 
 of the Romans, and crying, " Have you any message for your 
 wives? We shall soon be with them."
 
 CH. m.] THE ROMANS IN GA UL. 45 
 
 Marius, too, struck his camp, and followed them. They 
 halted, both of them, near Aix, on the borders of the Coenus, 
 the barbarians in the valley, Marius on a hiU which com- 
 manded it. The ardor of the Romans was at its height ; it 
 was warm weather; there was a want of water on the hill, and 
 the soldiers murmured. "You are men," said Marius, point- 
 ing to the river below, "and there is water to be bought with 
 blood." " Why don't you lead us against them at once, then," 
 said a soldier, " whUst we still have blood in our veins?" " We 
 must first fortify our camp, " answered Marius quietly. 
 
 The soldiers obeyed : but the hour of battle had come, and 
 well did Marius know it. It commenced on the brink of the 
 Coenus, between some Ambrons who were bathing and some 
 Roman slaves gone down to draw water. When the whole 
 horde of Ambrons advanced to the battle, shouting their war- 
 cry of Ambra! Ambra! a body of GaUic auxiliaries in the 
 Roman army, and in the first rank, heard them with great 
 amazement; for it was their own name and their own cry; 
 there were tribes of Ambrons in the Alps subjected to Rome 
 as well as in the Helvetic Alps ; and Ambra! Ambra! resounded 
 on both sides. 
 
 The battle lasted two days, the first against the Ambrons, 
 the second against the Teutons. Both were beaten, in spite of 
 their savage bravery, and the equal braveiy of their women, 
 who defended, with indomitable obstinacy, the cars with which 
 they had remained almost alone, in charge of the children and 
 the booty. After the women, it was necessary to exterminate 
 the hounds who defended their masters' bodies. Here again 
 the figures of the historians are absurd, although they differ ; 
 the most extravagant raise the number of barbarians slain to 
 200,000, and that of the prisoners to 80,000, the most moderate 
 stop at 100,000. In any case, the carnage was great, for the 
 battle-field, where all these corpses rested without burial, rot- 
 ting in the sun and rain, got the name of Campi Putridi, or 
 Fields of Putrefaction, a name traceable even now-a-days in 
 that of Pourridres, a neighboring village. 
 
 As to the booty, the Roman army with one voice made » 
 free gift of it to Marius; but he, remembering perhaps what 
 had been lately done by the barbarians after the defeat of the 
 constds Manlius and Caepio, determined to have it all burned 
 in honor of the gods. He had a great sacrifice prepared. The 
 soldiers, crowned with laurel, were ranged about the pyre; 
 their general, holding on high a blazing torch, was about to
 
 46 HISTORY OF FRANCE. [en. m 
 
 apply the light with his own hand, when suddenly, on the very 
 epot, whether by design or accident, came from Rome the 
 news that Marius had just been for the fifth time elected 
 consul. In the midst of acclamations from his army, and with 
 a fresh chaplet bound upon his brow, he apphed the torch in 
 person, and completed the sacrifice. 
 
 Were we travelling in Provence, in the neighborhood of Aix, 
 we should encounter, peradventure, some peasant who, whilst 
 pointing out to us the summit of a hill whereon, in all prob- 
 ability, Marius offered, 1940 years ago, that glorious sacrifice, 
 would say to us in his native dialect, '' Aqui es lou deloubre de 
 laVittoria:" " There is the temple of victory. " There, indeed, 
 was built, not far from a pyramid erected in honor of Marius, 
 a Uttle temple dedicated to Victory. Thither, every year, ia 
 the month of May, the population used to come and celebrate 
 a festival and hght a bonfire, answered by other bonfires on 
 the neighboring heights. When Gaul became Chidstian, 
 neither monument nor festival perished ; a saint took the place 
 of the goddess, and the temple of Victory became the church of 
 St. Victoire. There are still ruins of it to this day ; the rehg- 
 ious procession which succeeded the pagan festival ceased only 
 at the first outburst of the Revolution ; and the vague memory 
 of a great national event still mingles in popular tradition with 
 the legends of the saint. 
 
 The Ambrons and Teutons beaten, there remained the Kym- 
 rians, who, according to agreement, had repassed the Helvetic 
 Alps and entered Italy on the north-east, by way of the Adige. 
 Marius marched against them in July of the following year, 
 101 B.C. Ignorant of what had occurred ia Gaul, and possessed, 
 as ever, with the desire of a settlement, they again sent to him 
 a deputation, saying, "Give us lands and towns for us and 
 oiu' brethren." "What brethren?" asked Marius. "The Teu- 
 tons." The Romans who were about Marius began to laugh. 
 "Let your brethren be," said Marius; "they have land, and 
 will always have it ; they received it from us. " The Kymrians, 
 perceiving the irony of his tone, burst out into threats, telling 
 Marius that he should suffer for it at their hands first, and after 
 wards at those of the Teutons when they arrived. "They are 
 here, " rejoined Marius ; ' ' you must not depart without saluting 
 your brethren;" and he had Teutobod, King of the Teutons, 
 brought out with other captive chieftains. The envoys re 
 ported the sad news in then' own camp, and three days after* 
 wards, July 30th, a great battle took place between the Kym-
 
 CH. IV.1 GAUL CONQUERED BY JULIUS C^SAR. 47 
 
 rians and the Romans in the Eaudine Plains, a large tract near 
 Verceil. 
 
 It were unnecessary to dwell on the details of the battle, 
 which resembled that of Aix ; besides, fought as it was in Italy 
 and by none but Romans, it has but httle to do with the history 
 of Gaul. It has been mentioned only to make known the issue 
 of that famous invasion, of which Gaul was the principal 
 theatre. For a moment it threatened the very existence of 
 the Roman Eepubhc. The victories of Marius arrested the tor- 
 rent, but did not dry up its source. The great movement 
 which drove from Asia to Europe, and from eastern to western 
 Europe, masses of roving populations, followed its course, 
 bringing incessantly upon the Roman frontiers new comera 
 and new perils. A greater man than Marius, Julius Caesar in 
 fact, saw that to effectually resist these clouds of barbaric assail- 
 ants, the country into which they poured must be conquered 
 and made Roman. The conquest of Gaul was the accomplish- 
 ment of that idea, and the decisive step towards the transforma- 
 tion of the Roman republic into a Roman empire. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 GAUL CONQUERED BY JULTOS CaSAE. 
 
 Historians, ancient and modem, have attributed to the 
 Roman Senate, from the time of the establishment of the 
 Roman province in Gaul, a long-premeditated design of con- 
 quering (j2kvl altogether. Others have said that when Julius 
 Csesar, in the year of Rome 696, got himself appointed procon- 
 sul in Gaul, his single aim was to form for himself there an 
 an army devoted to his person, of which he might avail him- 
 self to satisfy his ambition and make himseK master of Rome. 
 We should not be too ready to beheve in these far-reaching and 
 precise plans, conceived and settled so long beforehand, 
 whether by a senate or a sin^e man. Prevision and exact 
 calculation do not count for so much in the lives of govern- 
 ments and of peoples. It is miexpected events, inevitable sit- 
 uations, the imperious necessities of successive epochs, which 
 most often decide the conduct of the greatest powers and the 
 (3) HF Vol. 1
 
 48 mSTORY OF FRANCE. [cE iv. 
 
 most able politicians. It is after the fair, when the course of 
 facts and their consequences has received full development, 
 that, amidst their tranquil meditations, annalists and histori- 
 ans in their learned way, attribute everything to systematic 
 plans and personal calculations on the part of the chief actors. 
 There is much less of combination than of momentary inspira- 
 tion, derived from circumstances, in the resolutions and con- 
 duct of pohtical chiefs, kings, senators, or great men. From 
 the time that discord and corruption had turned the Roman 
 Eepubhc into a bloody and tyrannical anarchy, the Roman 
 Senate no longer meditated grand designs, and its members 
 were preoccupied only with the question of escaping or aveng- 
 ing proscriptions. When Caesar procured for himself the gov- 
 ernment for five years of the Gauls, the fact was, that, not de 
 siring to be a sanguinary dictator like Scylla, or a gala chief- 
 tain Like Pompey, he went and soxight abroad, for his own 
 glory and fortune's sake, in a war of general Roman interest, 
 the means and chances of success which were not furnished to 
 him in Rome itself by the dogged and monotonous struggle of 
 the factions. 
 
 In spite of the victories of Marius, and the destruction or 
 dispersion of the Teutons and Cimbrians, the whole of Gaul re- 
 mained seriously disturbed and threatened. At the north-east, 
 in Belgica, some bands of other Teutons, who had begun to be 
 called Germans (men of war), had passed over the left bank of 
 the Rhine, and were setthng or wandering there without defi- 
 nite purpose. In eastern and central Gaul, in the valleys of 
 the Jura and Auvergne, on the banks of the Saone, the Allier, 
 and the Doubs, the two great GaUic confederations, that of the 
 .^duans and that of the Arvemians, were disputing the pre- 
 ponderance, and making war one upon another, seeking the 
 aid, respectively, of the Romans and of the Germans. At the 
 foot of the Alps, the Httle nation of Allobrogians, having 
 fallen a prey to civil dissension, had given up its independence 
 to Rome. Even in southern and western Gaul the populations 
 of Aquitania were rising, vexing the Roman province, and 
 rendering necessary, on both sides of the Pyrenees, the inter- 
 vention of Roman legions. Everywhere floods of barbaric 
 populations were pressing upon Gaul, were carrying dis- 
 quietude even where they had not themselves yet penetrated, 
 and causing presentiments of a general commotion. The 
 danger burst before long upon particular places and in con- 
 nection with particular names which have remained historical.
 
 CH. IV.] OAUL CONQUERED BT JULIUS C^SAR. 49 
 
 In the war with the confederation of the JBlduans, that of the 
 Arvemians called to their aid the German Ariovistus, chieftain 
 of a confederation of tribes which, under the name of Suevians, 
 were roving over the right bank of the Ehine, ready at any 
 time to cross the river. Aiiovistus, with 15,000 warriors at his 
 back, was not slow in responding to the appeal. The -iSduans 
 were beaten ; and Ariovistus settled amongst the Gauls who 
 had been thoughtless enough to appeal to him. Numerous 
 bands of Suevians came and rejoined him; and in two or three 
 yeai's after his victory he had about him, it was said, 120,000 
 warriors. He had appropriated to them a third of the tei-ri- 
 tory of his Gallic allies, and he imperiously demanded another 
 third to satisfy other 25,000 of his old German comi-ades, who 
 asked to share his booty and his new country. One of the 
 foremost -lEduans, Divitiacus by name, went and invoked the 
 succor of the Eoman people, the patrons of his confederation. 
 He was admitted to the presence of the Senate, and invited to 
 be seated; but he modestly declined, and standing, leaning 
 upon his shield, he set forth the sufferings and the claims of 
 hk country. He received kindly promises, which at first re- 
 mained without fruit. He, however, remained at Rome, per- 
 sistent in his soUcitations, and carrying on intercourse with 
 several Eomans of consideration, notably with Cicero, who 
 says of him, "I knew Divitiacus, the .^duan, who claimed 
 proficiency in that natural science which the Greeks call phys- 
 iology, and he predicted the future, either by augury or his 
 own conjecture." The Roman Senate, with the indecision and 
 indolence of all declining powers, hesitated to engage, for the 
 ^duans' sake, in a war against the invaders of a corner of 
 Gallic tenutory. At the same time that they gave a cordial 
 welcome to Divitiacus, they entered into negotiations with 
 Ariovistus himself; they gave liim beautiful presents, the title 
 of King, and even oifnend; the only demand they made was 
 that he should live peaceably in his new settlement, and not 
 lend his support to the " fresh invasions of which there were 
 symptoms in Gaul, and which were becoming too serious for 
 resolutions not to be taken to repel them. 
 
 A people of Gallic race, the Helvetians, who inhabited pres- 
 ent Switzerland, where the old name still abides beside the 
 modem, found themselves, incessantly threatened, ravaged, 
 and invaded by the German tribes which pressed upon their 
 frontiers. After some years of perplexity and internal dis- 
 cord, the whole Helvetic nation decided upon abandoning itft
 
 50 HISTORY OF FRANCE. [ch. m 
 
 territory, and going to seek in Gaul, westward, it is said, on 
 the borders of the ocean, a more tranquil settlement. Being 
 informed of this design, the Eoman Senate and Csesar, at that 
 time consul, resolved to protect the Roman province and their 
 Gallic allies, the ^duans, against this inundation of roving 
 neighbors. The Helvetians none the less persisted in their 
 plan; and in the spring of the year of Rome 696 (58 B.C.) they 
 committed to the flames, in the country they were about to 
 leave, twelve towns, four hundred villages, and all their 
 houses; loaded their cars with provisions for three months, 
 and agreed to meet at the southern point of the Lake of 
 Geneva. They found on their reunion, says Caesar, a total of 
 368,000 emigrants, including 92,000 men-at-arms. The Switzer- 
 land which they abandoned numbers now 2, 500, 000 inhabitants. 
 But when the Helvetians would have entered Gaid, they found 
 there Csesar, who, after having got himself appointed pro- 
 consul for five years, had arrived suddenly at Geneva, pre- 
 pared to forbid their passage. They sent to him a deputation, 
 to ask leave, they said, merely to traverse the Roman prov- 
 ince without causing the least damage. Csesar knew as well 
 how to gain time as not to lose any ; he was not ready, so he 
 put off the Helvetians to a second conference. In the interval 
 he employed his legionaries, who could work as well as fight, 
 in erecting upon the left bank of the Rhone a wall sixteen feet 
 high and ten miles long, which rendered the passage of the 
 river very difficult, and, on the return of the Helvetian en- 
 voys, he formally forbade them to pass by the road they had 
 proposed to follow. They attempted to take another, and to 
 cross not the Rhone but the Saone, and march thence towards 
 western Gaul. But whUst they were arranging for the execu- 
 tien of this movement, Caesar, who had up to that time only 
 four legions at his disposal, returned to Italy, brought away 
 five fresh legions, and arrived on the left bank of the Saone at 
 the moment when the rear-guard of the Helvetians was em- 
 barking to rejoin the main body which had already pitched its 
 camp on the right bank. Csesar cut to pieces this rear-guard, 
 crossed the river, in his turn, with his legions, pursued the 
 emigrants without relaxation, came in contact with them on 
 several occasions, at one time attacking them or repelling their 
 attacks, at another receiving and giving audience to their en- 
 voys without ever consenting to treat with them, and before 
 the end of the year he had so completely beaten, decimated, 
 dispersed and driven them back, that of 368,000 Helvetians
 
 CH. IV.] OAUL CONQUERED BT JULIUS CJESAJi. 61 
 
 who had entered Gaul, but 110,000 escaped from the Romans, 
 and were enabled, by flight, to regain their country. 
 
 JEduans, Sequanians, or Arvernians, all the Gaiils interested 
 in the struggle thus terminated, were eager to congratulate 
 Caesar upon his victory ; but if they were delivered from the 
 invasion of the Helvetians, another scourge fell heavily upon 
 them ; Ariovistus and the Germans, who were settled upon their 
 territory, oppressed them cruelly, and day by day fresh bands 
 were continually coming to aggravate the evil and the danger. 
 They adjured Caesar to protect them from these swarms of 
 barbai'ians. "In a few years,'' said they, "all the Germans 
 will have crossed the Rhine, and all the Gauls wiU be driven 
 from Gaul, for the soil of Germany cannot compare with that 
 of Gaul, any more than the mode of hfe. If Caesar and the 
 Roman people refuse to aid us, there is nothing left for us but 
 to abandon our lands, as the Helvetians would have done in 
 their case, and go seek, afar, from the Germans, another 
 dwelling-place." Caesar, touched by so prompt an appeal to 
 the power of his name and fame, gave ear to the prayer of the 
 Gauls. But he was for trying negotiation before war. He 
 proposed to Ariovistus an interview "at which they might 
 treat in common of affairs of importance for both." Ario- 
 vistus replied that " if he wanted anything of Caesar, he would 
 go in search of him ; if Caesar had business with him, it was 
 for Caesar to come." Caesar thereupon conveyed to him by 
 messenger his express injunctions, "not to summon any more 
 from the borders of the Rhine fresh multitudes of men, and to 
 cease from vexing the ^duans and making war on them, them 
 and their allies. Otherwise, Caesar would not fail to avenge 
 their wrongs." Ariovistus repUed that "he had conquered 
 the ^duans. The Roman people were in the habit of treating 
 the vanquished after their own pleasure, and not the advice of 
 another ; he too, himself, had the same right. Caesar said he 
 would avenge the wrongs of the -lEduans ; but no one had ever 
 attacked him with impunity. If Caesar would like to try it, 
 let him come; he would learn what could be done by the 
 bravery of the Germans, who were as yet unbeaten, who were 
 trained to arms, who for fom-teen years had not slept beneath 
 a roof. " At the moment he received this answer Caesar had 
 just heard that fresh bands of Suevians were encamped on the 
 right bank of the Rhine, ready to cross, and that Ariovistus 
 with all his forces was making towards Vesontio (Besangon), 
 the chief town of the Sequanians. Caesar forthwith put him'
 
 52 BISTORT OF FRANCE. ICH. it. 
 
 self in motion, occupied Vesontio, established there a strong 
 garrison, and made his arrangements for issuing from it with 
 his legions to go and anticipate the attack of Ariovistus. Then 
 came to him word that no little disquietude was showing itself 
 among the Roman troops ; that many soldiers and even officers 
 appeared anxious about the struggle with the Germans, their 
 ferocity, the vast forests that must be traversed to reach them, 
 the difficult roads, and the transport of provisions ; there was 
 an apprehension of broken courage, and perchance of numer- 
 ous desertions. Caesar summoned a great council of war, to 
 which he called the chief officers of his legions ; he complained 
 bitterly of their alarm, recalled to their memory their recent 
 success against the Helvetians, and scoffed at the rumors 
 spread about the Germans, and at the doubts with which there 
 was an attempt to inspire him about the fidehty and obedience 
 of his troops. "An army," said he, "disobeys only the com- 
 mander who leads them badly and has no good fortune, or is 
 found guilty of cupidity and malversation. My whole life shows 
 my integrity, and the war against the Helvetians my good 
 fortune. I shall oi'der forthwith the departure I had intended 
 to put off. I shall strike the camp the very next night, at the 
 fourth watch ; I wish to see as soon as possible whether honor 
 and duty or fear prevail in your ranks. If there be any re- 
 fusal to follow me, I shall march with only the tenth legion, of 
 which I have no doubt; that shall be my praetorian cohort." 
 
 The cheers of the troops, officers and men, were the answer 
 given to the reproaches and hopes of their general ; all hesita- 
 tion passed away; and Caesar set out with his army. He 
 fetched a considerable compass, to spare them the passage of 
 thick forests, and, after a seven days' march, arrived at a 
 short distance from the camp of Ariovistus. On learning that 
 Ceaesar was already so near, the German sent to him a mes- 
 senger with proposals for the interview which was but lately 
 demanded, and to which there was no longer any obstacle, 
 since Caesar had himself arrived upon the spot. And the in- 
 terview really took place, with mutual precautions for safety 
 and warlike dignity. Caesar repeated all the demands he had 
 made upon Ariovistus, who, in his turn, maintained his re- 
 fusal, asking, "What was wanted? Why had foot been set 
 upon his lands? That part of Gaul was hie province, just as 
 the other was the Moman province. If Caesar did not retire, 
 and withdraw his troops, he should consider him no more a 
 friend but an enemy. He knew that if he were to slay Caesar,
 
 CH. IV.] GAUL CONQUERED BY JULIUS CJE8AR. 63 
 
 he would recommend himself to many nobles and chiefs 
 amongst the Roman people; he had learned as much from 
 their own envoys. But if Caesar retired and left him, Ariovis- 
 tus, in free possession of Gaul, he would pay liberally in re- 
 turn, and would wage on Caesar's behalf without trouble or 
 danger to him, any wars he might desire." During this inter- 
 view it is probable that Caesar smiled more than once at the 
 boldness and shrewdness of the barbarian. Ultimately some 
 horsemen in the escort of Ariovistus began to caracole towards 
 the Romans, and to hurl at them stones and darts. Caesar or- 
 dered his men to make no reprisals, and broke off the confer- 
 ence. The next day but one Ariovistus proposed a renewal; 
 but Caesar refused, having decided to bring the quarrel to an 
 issue. Several days in succession he led out his legions from 
 their camp, and offered battle ; but Ariovistus remained within 
 his lines. Caesar then took the resolution of assailing the 
 German camp. At his approach, the Germans at length 
 moved out from their entrenchments, arrayed by peoplets, 
 and defiling in front of cars filled with their women, who im- 
 plored them with tears not to deliver them in slavery to the 
 Romans. The struggle was obstinate, and not without mo 
 ments of anxiety and partial check for the Romans ; but the 
 genius of Caesar and strict discipline of the legions carried the 
 day. The rout of the Germans was complete ; they fled towards 
 the Rhine, which was only a few leagues from the field of bat- 
 tle. Ariovistus himseK was amongst the fugitives; he found 
 a boat by the river-side, and re-crossed into Germany, where 
 he died shortly afterwards, "to the great grief of the Ger- 
 mans," says Caesar. The Suevian bands, who were awaiting 
 on the right bank the result of the struggle, plunged back 
 again within their own territory. And so the invasion of the 
 Germans was stopped as the emigration of the Helvetians had 
 been; and Caesar had only to conquer Gaul. 
 
 It is uncertain whether he had from the very first deter- 
 mined the whole plan ; but so soon as he set seriously to work, 
 he felt all the difficulties. The expulsion of the Helvetian 
 emigrants and of the German invaders left the Romans and 
 Gauls alone face to face ; and from that moment the Romans 
 were, in the eyes of the Gauls, foreigners, conquerors, op- 
 pressors. Their deeds aggravated day by day the feelings 
 excited by the situation ; they did not ravage the country as 
 the Germans had done; they did not appropriate such and 
 such a piece of land; but every where they assiuned the
 
 54 HISTORY OF FRANCE. [cH. tv. 
 
 mastery : they laid heavy burdens upon the population ; they 
 removed the rightful chieftains who were opposed to them, 
 and forcibly placed or maintained in power those only who 
 were subservient to them. Independently of the Roman em- 
 pire, Caesar estabHshed every where his own personal influ- 
 ence; by turns gentle or severe, caressing or threatening, he 
 sought and created for himself partisans amongst the GauJs, 
 as he had amongst his army, showing favor to those only 
 whose devotion was assured to him. To national antipathy 
 towards foreigners must be added the intrigues and personal 
 rivalry of the conquered in their relations with the conqueror. 
 Conspu-acies were hatched, insurrections soon broke out in 
 nearly every part of Gaul, in the heart even of the peoplets 
 most subject to Roman dominion. Every movement of the 
 kind was for Caesar a provocation, a temptation, almost an 
 obligation to conquest. He accepted them and profited by 
 them, with that promptitude in resolution, boldness and ad- 
 dress in execution, and cool indifference as to the means em- 
 ployed, which were characteristic of his genius. During nine 
 years, from a.u.c. 696 to 705, and in eight successive campaigns, 
 he carried his troops, his lieutenants, himself, and, ere long, 
 war or negotiation, corruption, discord, or destruction in his 
 path, amongst the different nations and confederations of Gaul, 
 Celtic, Kymric, Germanic, Iberian or Hybrid, northward and 
 eastward, in Belgica, between the Seine and the Rhine ; west- 
 ward, in Armorica, on the borders of the Ocean ; south-west- 
 ward, in Aquitania; centre- ward, amongst the peoplets estab- 
 hshed between the Seine, the Loire, and the Saone. He was 
 nearly always victorious, and then at one time he pushed his 
 victory to the bitter end, at another stopped at the right mo- 
 ment, that it might not be compromised. When he experienced 
 reverses, he bore them without repining, and repaired them 
 with inexhaustible ability and courage. More than once, to 
 revive the sinking spirits of his men, he was rashly lavish of 
 his person ; and on one of those occasions, at the raising of the 
 siege of Gergovia, he was all but taken by some Arvemian 
 horsemen, and left his sword in their hands. It was found, a 
 while afterwards, when the war was over, in a temple in which 
 the Gauls had hung it. Caesar's soldiers would have torn it 
 down, and returned it to him; but "let it be," said he, "'tis 
 sanctified." In good or evil fortune, the hero of a triumph at 
 Rome or a prisoner in the hands of Mediterranean pirates, he 
 was unrivalled in striking the imaginations of men and grow*
 
 €B. IV.] GAUL CONQUERED BY JULIUS C^SAR. 55 
 
 ing great in their eyes. He did not confine himself to con- 
 quering and subjecting the Gauls in Gaul ; Ms ideas were ever 
 outstripping his deeds, and he knew how to make his power 
 felt even where he had made no attempt to establish it. Twice 
 he crossed the Rhine to hurl back the Germans beyond their 
 river, and to strike to the very hearts of their forests the terror 
 of the Eoman name (a.u.c. 699, 700). He equipped two fleets, 
 made two descents on Great Britain (a.u.c. 699, 700), several 
 times defeated the Britons and their principal chieftain Cas- 
 wallon (CassiveUaunus), and set up, across the channel, the 
 first land-marks of Roman conquest. He thus became more 
 and more famous and terrible, both in Gaul, whence he some- 
 times departed for a moment, to go and look after his political 
 prospects in Italy, and in more distant lands, where he was 
 but an apparition. 
 
 But the greatest minds are far from foreseeing all the conse- 
 quences of their deeds, and aU the perils proceeding from their 
 successes. Caesar was by nature neither violent nor cruel ; but 
 he did not trouble himself about justice or humanity, and the 
 Buccess of his enterprises, no matter by what means or at what 
 price, was his sole law of conduct. He could show, on occa- 
 sion, moderation and mercy ; but when he had to put down an 
 obstinate resistance, or when a long and arduous effort had 
 irritated him, he had no hesitation in employing atrocious 
 severity and perfidious promises. During his first campaign 
 in Belgica (a.u.c. 697 and 57 B.C.), two peoplets, the Nervians 
 and the Aduaticans, had gallantly stiniggled, with brief mo- 
 ments of success, against the Roman legions. The Nervians 
 were conquered and almost annihilated. Their last remnants, 
 huddled for refuge in the midst of their morasses, sent a depu- 
 tation to Csesar, to make submission, saying, " Of six hundred 
 senators three only are left, and of sixty thousand men that 
 bore arms scarce five hundred have escaped." Caesar received 
 them kindly, returned to them their lands, and warned their 
 neighbors to do them no harm. The Aduaticans, on the con- 
 trary, defended themselves to the last extremity. Caesar, 
 having slain four thousand, had all that remained sold by 
 auction; and fifty-six thousand human beings, according to 
 his own statement, passed as slaves into the hands of their 
 piu'chasers. Some years later, another Belgian peoplet, the 
 Ebm-ons, settled between the Meuse and the Rhine, rose and 
 inflicted great losses upon the Roman legions. Caesar put 
 them beyond the pale of military and hvunan law, and had all
 
 66 EISTORY OF FRANCE. [ch. iv. 
 
 the neighboring peoplets and all the roving bands invited to 
 come and pillage and destroy "that accursed race," promising 
 to whoever would join in the work the friendship of the Roman 
 people. A little later still, some insurgents in the centre of 
 Gaul had concentrated in a place to the south-west, called 
 Uxellodunum (now-a-days, it is said, Puy d'Issoia, in the de- 
 partment of the Lot, between Vayrac and Martel). After a 
 long resistance they were obliged to surrender, and Caesar had 
 all the combatants' hands cut off, and sent them, thus muti- 
 lated, to Hve and rove throughout Gaul, as a spectacle to all 
 the country that was or was to be brought to submission. Nop 
 were the rigors of administration less than those of warfare. 
 Caesar wanted a great deal of money, not only to maintain 
 satisfactorily his troops in Gaul, but to defray the enormous 
 expenses he was at in Italy, for the purpose of enriching hia 
 partisans, or securing the favor of the Roman people. It was 
 with the produce of imposts and plunder in Gaul that he un- 
 dertook the reconstruction at Rome of the basiKca of the Forum, 
 the site whereof, extending to the temple of Liberty, was valued, 
 it is said, at more than twenty million five hundred thousand 
 francs (820,000?.). Cicero, who took the direction of the works, 
 wrote to his friend Atticus, " We shall make it the most glor- 
 ious thing in the world." Cato was less satisfied; three years 
 previously despatches from Caesar had announced to the Senate 
 his victories over the Belgian and German insurgents. The 
 Senators had voted a general thanksgiving, but "Thanks- 
 giving I" cried Cato, "rather expiation! Pray the gods not to 
 visit upon our armies the sin of a guilty general. Give up 
 Caesar to the Germans, and let the foreigner know that Rome 
 does not enjoin perjury, and rejects with horror the fruit 
 thereof !" 
 
 Caesar had all the gifts, all the means of success and empire, 
 that can be possessed by man. He was great in poHtics and ia 
 war ; as active and as full of resource amidst the intrigues of 
 the Forum as amidst the combinations and surprises of the 
 battle-field ; equally able to please and to terrify. He had a 
 double pride, which gave him double confidence in himself, 
 the pride of a great noble and the pride of a great man. He 
 was fond of saying, "My aunt Julia is, maternally, the daugh- 
 ter of kings ; paternally, she is descended from the immortal 
 gods ; my family unites, to the sacred character of kings who 
 are the most powerful amongst men, the awful majesty of the 
 gods who have even kings m their keeping." Thus, bybirtb
 
 CH. IT.] GAUL CONQUERED BY JULIUS C^SAR, 57 
 
 as well as nature, Caesar felt called to dominion ; and, at the 
 same time, he was perfectly aware of the decadence of the 
 Roman patriciate, and of the necessity for being popular in 
 order to become master. With this double instinct he under- 
 took the conquest of the Gauls as the surest means of achieving 
 conquest at Rome. But owing either to his own vices or to 
 the difficulties of the situation, he displayed in his conduct 
 and his work in Gaul so much violence and oppression, so 
 much iniquity and cruel indifference, that, even at that time, 
 in the midst of Roman harshness, pagan corruption, and Galhc 
 or German barbarism, so great an infliction of moral and ma- 
 terial harm could not but be followed by a formidable reaction. 
 Where there is strength and ability, the want of foresight, the 
 fears, the weaknesses, the dissensions of men, whether indi- 
 viduals or peoples, may be for a long while calculated upon ; 
 but it may be carried too far. After six years' struggling 
 Csesar was victor; he had successively dealt with all the 
 different populations of Gaiil ; he had passed through and sub- 
 jected them all, either by his own strong arm, or thanks to 
 their rivalries. In the year of Rome 702 he was suddenly in- 
 formed in Italy, whither he had gone on his Roman business, 
 that most of the Galhc nations, united under a chieftain 
 hitherto unknown, were rising with one common impulse, and 
 recommencing war. 
 
 The same perils and the same reverses, the same sufferings 
 and the same resentments, had stirred up amongst the Gauls, 
 without distinction of race and name, a sentiment to which 
 they had hitherto been almost strangers, the sentiment of 
 Gallic nationality and the passion for independence, not loca) 
 any longer, but national. This sentiment was first manifested 
 amongst the populace and under obscure chieftains ; a band of 
 jLJamutian peasants (people of Chartrain) rushed upon the town 
 of Genabum TGien), roused the inhabitants, and massacred the 
 Italian traders and a Roman knight, C. Fusius Cita, whom 
 Caesar had commissioned to buy com there. In less than 
 twenty-four hours the signal of insurrection against Rome was 
 borne across the country as far as the Arvemians, amongst 
 whom conspiracy had long ago been waiting and paving the 
 way for insurrection. Amongst them Hved a young Gaul 
 whose real name has remained unknown, and whom history 
 has called Vercingetorix, that is, chief over a hundred heads, 
 chief -in-general. He came of an ancient and powerful family 
 of Arvemians, and his father had been put to death in his own
 
 58 HISTORY OF FRANCE. fcH. iv. 
 
 city for attempting to make himself king. Caesar knew him, 
 and had taken some pains to attach him to himself. It does 
 not appear that the Ai'vernian aristocrat had absolutely de- 
 clined the overtures ; but when the hope of national independ- 
 ence was aroused, Vercingetorix was its representative and 
 chief. He descended with his followers from the mountain, 
 and seized Gergovia, the capital of his nation. Thence his 
 messengers spread over the centre, north-west, and west of 
 Gaul; the greater part of the peoplets and cities of those 
 regions pronounced from the first moment for insurrection; 
 the same sentiment was working amongst others more com- 
 promised with Rome, who waited only for a breath of success 
 to break out. Vercingetorix was immediately invested with 
 the chief command, and he made use of it with all the passion 
 engendered by patriotism and the possession of power; he 
 regulated the movement, demanded hostages, fixed the con- 
 tingents of troops, imposed taxes, inflicted summary punish- 
 ment on the traitors, the dastards, and the indifferent, and 
 subjected those who turned a deaf ear to the appeal of their 
 common country to the same pains and the same mutilations 
 that Caesar inflicted on those who obstinately resisted the 
 Roman yoke. 
 
 At the news of this great movement Caesar immediately left 
 Italy, and returned to Gaul. He had one quality, rare even 
 amongst the greatest men, he remained cool amidst the very 
 hottest alarm; necessity never hurried him into precipi- 
 tation, and he prepared for the struggle as if he were always 
 sure of arriving on the spot in time to sustain it. He was 
 always quick, but never hasty ; and his activity and patience 
 «v^ere equally admirable and efficacious. Starting from Italy 
 at the beginning of 702 a.u.C, he passed two months in trav- 
 ereing within Gaul the Roman province and its neighborhood, 
 in visiting the points threatened by the insurrection, and the 
 openings by which he might get at it, in assembling his troops, 
 in confirming his wavering allies ; and it was not before the 
 early part of March that he moved with his whole army to 
 Agendicum (Sens), the very centre of revolt, and started thence 
 to push on the war with vigor. In less than three months he 
 had spread devastation throughout the insurgent country; 
 he had attacked and taken its principal cities, VeUaunodunum 
 (Trigueres), Genabum (Gien), Noviodunum (Sancerre), and 
 Avaricum (Bourges), delivering up every where country and 
 city, lands and inhabitants, to the rage of the Roman soldiery,
 
 CH. IV.] GAVL CONQUERED BY JULIUS C^SAIi. 59 
 
 maddened at having again to conquer enemies so often con- 
 quered. To strike a decisive blow, he penetrated at last to the 
 heart of the country of the Arvemians, and laid siege to 
 Gergovia, their capital and the birthplace of Vercingetorix. 
 
 The firmness and the ability of the Gallic chieftain were not 
 inferior to such a struggle. He understood from the outset 
 that he could not cope in the open field with Csesar and the 
 Roman legions; he therefore exerted himself in getting to- 
 gether a body of cavalry numerous enough to harass the 
 Romans during their movements, to attack their scattered 
 detachments, to bear his orders swiftly to all quarters, and to 
 keep up the excitement amongst the different peoplets with 
 some hope of success. His plan of campaign, his repeated in- 
 structions, his passionate entreaties to the confederates were 
 to avoid any general action, to anticipate by their own ravages 
 those of the Romans, to destroy every where, at the approach 
 of the enemy, stores, springs, bridges, trees, and habitations: 
 he wanted Caesar to find in his front nothing but ruins and 
 clouds of warriors relentless in pursuing him without getting 
 within reach. Frequently he succeeded in obtaining from the 
 people those painful sacrifices in the interest of the common 
 safety ; as when the Biturigians (inhabitants of the district of 
 Bourges) burned in one day twenty of their towns or villages. 
 Vercingetorix adjured them also to burn Avaricum (Bourges), 
 theu' capital ; but they refused, and the capture of Avaricum, 
 though gallantly defended, justified the urgency of Ver- 
 cingetorix, seeing that it was an important success for Csesar 
 and a serious blow for the Gauls. Out of 40,000 combatants 
 within the walls, it is said, scarcely 800 escaped the slaughter 
 and succeeded in joining Vercingetorix, who had hovered con- 
 tinually in the neighborhood without being able to offer the 
 besieged any effectual assistance. Nor was it only against the 
 Romans that he had to struggle ; he had to fight amongst his 
 own people, against rivalry, mistrust, impatience, and dis- 
 couragement; he was accused of desiring, beyond every 
 thing, the mastery; he was even suspected of keeping up, with 
 the view of assuring his own future, secret relations with 
 Caesar ; he was called upon to attack the enemy in front, and 
 80 bring the war to a decisive issue. It is all very fine to be 
 summoned by the popular voice to accomplish a great and 
 arduous work; but you cannot be, with impunity, the most 
 far-sighted, the most able, and the most in danger, because the 
 most devoted. Vercingetorix was bearing the burden of his
 
 60 BISTORT OF FRANCE. [CH. iv. 
 
 superiority and influence, until he should suffer the penalty 
 and pay with his life for his patriotism and his glory. He was 
 approaching the happiest moment of his enterprise and his 
 destiny. In spite of reverses, in spite of Caesar's presence and 
 activity, the insurrection was gaining ground and strength ; in 
 the north, west, and south-west, on the banks of the Rhine, 
 the Seine, and the Loire, the idea of GaUic nationahty and the 
 hope of independence was spreading amongst people far 
 removed from the centre of the movement, and were bringing 
 to Vercingetorix declarations of sympathy or material rein- 
 forcements. An event of more importance took place in the 
 centre itself. The >:Eduans, the most ancient allies and clients 
 the Romans had in Gaul, being divided amongst themselves, 
 and feeling, besides, the national instinct, ended, after much 
 hesitation, by taking part in the uprising. Caesar, for all his 
 care, could neither prevent nor stifle this defection, which 
 threatened to become contagious, and detach from Rome the 
 neighboring peoplets that were still faithful. Caesar, engaged 
 upon the siege of Gergovia, encountered an obstinate resist- 
 ance ; whilst Vercingetorix, encamped on the heights which sur- 
 rounded his birthplace, every where embarrassed, sometimes 
 attacked, and incessantly threatened the Romans. The eighth 
 legion, drawn on one day to make an imprudent assault, was 
 rentdsed, and lost forty-six of its bravest centurions. Caesar 
 determined to raise the siege, and to transfer the struggle to 
 places where the population could be more safely depended 
 upon. It was the first decisive check he had experienced in 
 Gaul, the first GalHc town that he had been unable to take, 
 the first retrograde movement he had executed in the face of 
 the Gallic insurgents and their chieftain. Vercingetorix could 
 not and would not restrain his joy; it seemed to him that 
 the day had dawned and an excellent chance arrived for at- 
 tempting a decisive blow. He had under his orders, it is said, 
 80,000 men, mostly his own Arvemians, and a numerous cav- 
 alry furnished by the different peoplets his allies. He followed 
 all Caesar's movements in retreat towards the Saone, and, 
 on arriving at Longeau not far from Langres, near a 
 little river called the Vingeanne, he halted, pitched his camp 
 about nine miles from the Romans, and assembling the chiefs 
 of his cavalry, said, "Now is the hour of victory; the Romans 
 are flying to their province and leaving Gaul ; that is enough 
 for our liberty to-day, but too little for the peace and repose 
 of the future; for they will return with greater armies, and
 
 CH. IV.] GAUL CONQUERED BT JULIUS C^SAR. Q\ 
 
 the war will be without end. Attack we them amid the diffi- 
 culties of their march; if their foot support the cavahy, they 
 will not be able to pursue their route; if, as I fully trust, they 
 leave their baggage, to provide for their safety, they will lose 
 both their honor and the suppUes whereof they have need. 
 None of the enemy's horse will dare to come forth from their* 
 lines. To give ye courage and aid, I will order forth from the 
 camp and place in battle-array all our troops, and they will 
 strike the enemy with terror." The G-aUic horsemen cried out 
 that they must all bind themselves by the most sacred of 
 oaths, and swear that none of them would come again under 
 roof, ::• see again wife, or children, or parent, unless he had 
 twice pierced through the ranks of the enemy. And all did 
 take this oath, and so prepared for the attack. Vercingetorix 
 knew not that Caesar, with his usual foresight, had summoned 
 and jomed to his legions, a great number of horsemen from 
 the German tribes roving over the banks of the Ehine, with 
 which he had taken care to keep up friendly relations. Not 
 only had he promised them pay, plunder, and lands, but, find- 
 ing theu- horses ill trained, he had taken those of his officers, 
 even those of the Roman knights and veterans, and distributed 
 them amongst his barbaric auxiliaries. The action began be- 
 tween the cavalry on both sides ; a portion of the GalHc had 
 taken up position on the road followed by the Roman anny, 
 to bar its passage ; but whilst the fighting at this point was 
 getting more and more obstinate, the Gei'man horse in Caesar's 
 service gained a neighboring height, drove off the Gallic horse 
 that were in occupation, and pursued them as far as the river, 
 near which was Vercingetorix with his infantry. Disorder 
 took place amongst this infantry so unexpectedly attacked. 
 Csesar lavmched his legions at them, and there Avas a general 
 panic and rout among the GauLs. Vercingetorix had gi-eat 
 trouble m rallying them, and he rallied them only to order a 
 general retreat, for which they clamored. Hurriedly striking 
 his camp, he made for Alesia (Semur in Auxois), a neighboring 
 town and the capital of the Mandubians, a pcoplet in chentship 
 to the .^duans. Caesar immediately went in pursuit of the 
 Gauls; killed, he says, 3000; made important prisoners; and 
 encamped with his legions before Alesia the day but one after 
 Vercingetorix, with his fugitive army, had occupied the place 
 as well as the neighboring hills and was hard at work in- 
 trenching himseK, probably without any clear idea as yet of 
 what he should do to continue the struggle.
 
 62 HISTORY OF FRANCE. [ch. iv. 
 
 Caesar at once took a resolution as unexpected as it was dis- 
 creetly bold. Here was the whole Gallic insurrection, 
 chieftain and soldiery, united together within or beneath the 
 walls of a town of moderate extent. He undertook to keep it 
 there and destroy it on the spot, instead of having to pursue it 
 every whither without ever being sure of getting at it. He 
 had at his disposal eleven legions, about 50,000 strong, and 
 5000 or 6000 cavalry, of which 3000 were Germans. He placed 
 them round about Alesia and the Gallic camp, caused to be 
 dug a circuit of deep ditches, some filled with water, others 
 bristling with palisades and snares, and added, from interval 
 to interval, twenty-three little forts, occupied or guarded night 
 and day by detachments. The result was a line of investment 
 about ten miles in extent. To the rear of the Roman camp, 
 and for defence against attacks from without, Caesar caused to 
 be dug similar intrenchments, which formed a hne of circum- 
 vallation of about thirteen miles. The troops had provisions 
 and forage for thirty days. Vercingetorix made frequent 
 sallies to stop or destroy these works; but they were repulsed, 
 and only resulted in getting his army more closely cooped up 
 within the place. Eighty thousand Gallic insurgents were, as 
 it were, in prison, guarded by fifty thousand Roman soldiers. 
 Vercingetorix was one of those who persevere and act in the 
 days of distress just as in the spring-tide of their hopes. 
 Before the works of the Romans were firdshed, he assembled 
 his horsemen, and ordered them to sally briskly from Alesia, 
 return each to his own land, and summon the whole population 
 to arms. He was obeyed; the Gallic horsemen made their 
 way, during the night, through the intervals left by the 
 Romans' still imperfect lines of investment, and dispersed 
 themselves amonst their various peoplets. Nearly every 
 where irritation and zeal were at their height ; an assemblage 
 of delegates met at Bibracte (Autun) , and fixed the amount of 
 the contingent to be furnished by each nation, and a point 
 was assigned at which all those contingents should unite for 
 the purpose of marching together towards Alesia, and attack- 
 ing the besiegers. The total of the contingents thus levied on 
 forty-three Gallic peoplets amounted, according to Caesar, to 
 283,000 men; and 240,000 men, it is said, did actually hurry up 
 to the appointed place. Mistrust of such enormous numbers 
 has already been expressed by one who has Hved through the 
 greatest European wars, and has heard the ablest generals 
 reduce to their real strength the largest armies. We find in
 
 CH. IV.] GAUL CONQUERED BY JULIUS Cj^SAR. 63 
 
 M. Thiers' History of the Consulate and Empire, that at 
 Austerlitz, on the 2nd of December, 1805, Napoleon had but 
 from 65,000 to 70,000 men, and the combined Austrians and 
 Russians, but 90,000. At Leipzig, the biggest of modern bat- 
 tles, when all the French forces on the one side, and the 
 Austrian, Prussian, Eussian and Swedish on the other, were 
 face to face on the 18th of October, 1813, they made altogether 
 about 500,000 men. How can we believe, then, that nineteen 
 centuries ago, Gaul, so weakly populated and so slightly or- 
 ganized, suddenly sent 240,000 men to the assistance of 80,000 
 Gauls besieged in the httle town of Alesia by 50,000 or 60,000 
 Romans? But whatever may be the case with the figures, it is 
 certain that at the very first moment the national impulse an- 
 swered the appeal of Vercingetorix, and that the besiegers of 
 Alesia, Caesar and his legions, found that they were them- 
 selves all at once besieged in their intrenchments by a cloud of 
 Gauls hm-rying up to the defence of their compatriots. The 
 struggle was fierce, but short. Every time that the fresh 
 Gallic army attacked the besiegers, Vercingetorix and the 
 Gauls of Alesia sallied forth, and joined in the attack. Caesar 
 and his legions, on their side, at one time repulsed these double 
 attacks, at another themselves took the initiative, and as- 
 sailed at one and the same time the besieged and the auxilia- 
 ries Gaul had sent them. The feeling was passionate on both 
 sides : Roman pride was pitted against Gallic patriotism. But 
 in four or five days the strong organization, the disciplined 
 valor of the Roman legions, and the genius of Caesar carried 
 the day. The Gallic reinforcements, beaten and slaughtered 
 without mercy, dispersed; and Vercingetorix and the be- 
 sieged were crowded back within their walls without hope of 
 escape. We have two accounts of the last moments of this 
 great Gallic insurrection and its chief ; one, written by Caesar 
 himself, plain, cold, and harsh as its author ; the other, by two 
 later historians, who were neither statesmen nor warrriors, 
 Plutarch and Dion Cassius, has more detail and more orna- 
 ment, following either popular tradition or the imagination of 
 the writers. It may be well to give both. ' ' The day after the 
 defeat," says Caesar, "Vercingetorix convokes the assembly; 
 and shows that he did not undertake the war for his own per- 
 gonal advantage but for the general freedom. Since submis- 
 sion must be made to fortune, he offers to satisfy the Romans 
 either by instant death or by being delivered to them alive. A 
 deputation there anent is sent to Caesar, who orders the arms
 
 64 HI8T0BY OF FRANCE. [ch. iv, 
 
 to be given up and the chiefs brought to him. He seats him- 
 self on his tribunal, in front of his camp. The chiefs are 
 brought ; Vercingetorix is delivered over ; the arms are cast at 
 Caesar's feet. Except the JEduans and Arvernians, -whom 
 Caesar kept for the purpose of trying to regain their people, 
 he had the prisoners distributed, head by head, to his army as 
 booty of war." 
 
 The account of Dion Cassius is more varied and dramatic. 
 "After the defeat," says he, "Vercingetorix, who was neither 
 captured nor wounded, might have fled ; but, hoping that the 
 friendship that had once bound him to Csesar might gain him 
 grace, he repaired to the Eoman without previous demand of 
 peace by the voice of a herald, and appeared suddenly in his 
 presence, just as Csesar was seating himself upon his tribunal. 
 The apparition of the GalUc chieftain inspired no little terror, 
 for he was of lofty stature, and had an imposing appearance in 
 arms. There was a deep silence. Vercingetorix fell at Caesar's 
 feet, and made supplication by touch of hand without speaking 
 a word. The scene moved those present with pity, remember- 
 ing the ancient fortunes of Vercingetorix and comparing them 
 with his present disaster. Caesar, on the contrary, found 
 proof of criminality in the very memories relied upon for salva- 
 tion, contrasted the late struggle with the friendship appealed 
 to by Vercingetorix, and so put in a more hideous light the 
 odiousness of his conduct. And thus, far from being moved by 
 his misfortunes at the moment, he threw him in chains forth- 
 with, and subsequently had him put to death, after keeping 
 him to adorn his triumph." 
 
 Another historian, contemporary with Plutarch. Florus, 
 attributes to Vercingetorix, as he fell down and cast his arms 
 at Caesar's feet, these words : ' ' Bravest of men, thou hast con- 
 quered a brave man." It is not necessary to have faith in 
 the rhetorical compliment : or to likewise reject the mixture 
 of pride and weakness attributed to Vercingetorix in the 
 account of Dion Cassius. It would not be the only example 
 of a hero seeking yet some chance of safety in the extremity 
 of defeat, and abasing himself for the sake of preserving at 
 any price a life on which fortune might still smile. However 
 it be, Vercingetorix vanquished, dragged out, after ten years' 
 imprisonment, to grace Caesar's triumph, and put to death 
 immediately afterwards, lives as a glorious patriot in the 
 pages of that history in which Caesar appears, on this occasion, 
 as a peevish conqueror who took pleasure in cmshing, with
 
 CH. T.] OAUL UNDER ROMAN DOMINION. 65 
 
 cruel disdain, the enemy he had been at so much pains to 
 conquer, 
 
 Alesia taken, and Vercingetorix a prisoner, Gaul was sub- 
 dued. Csesar, however, had in the following year (a.u.c. 703) 
 a campaign to make to subjugate some peoplets who tried to 
 maintain their local independence. A year afterwards, again, 
 attempts at insurrection took place in Belgica, and towards 
 the mouth of the Loire \ but they were easily repressed ; they 
 had no national or formidable characteristics ; Csesar and his 
 lieutenants wilhngly contented themselves with an apparent 
 submission, and in the year 705 a.u.c. the Roman legions, 
 after nine years' occupation in the conquest of Gaul, were able 
 to depart therefrom to Italy and the East for a plunge into 
 civil war. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 GAUL UNDER ROMAN DOMINION. 
 
 From the conquest of Gaul by Caesar, to the establishment 
 there of the Franks under Clovis, she remained for more than 
 five centuries under Roman dominion ; first under the Pagan, 
 afterwards under the Christian empire. In her primitive 
 state of independence she had struggled for ten years against 
 the best armies and the greatest man of Rome ; after five cen- 
 turies of Roman dominion she opposed no resistance to the 
 invasion of the barbarians, Germans, Goths, Alans, Burgun- 
 dians, and Franks, who destroyed bit by bit the Roman 
 empire. In this humiliation and, one might say, annihilation 
 of a population so independent, so active, and so valiant at its 
 first appearance in history, is to be seen the characteristic of 
 this long epoch. It is worth while to learn and to understand 
 how it was. 
 
 Gaul lived, during those five centuries, under very different 
 rules and rulers. They may be summed up under five names 
 which correspond with governments very unequal in merit 
 and defect, in good and evil wrought for their epoch : 1st, the 
 Caesars from Julius to Nero (from 49 b.c to a.d. 68) ; 2nd, the 
 Flavians, from Vespasian to Domitian (from a.d. 69 to 95) ; 
 3rd, the Antonines, from Nerva to Marcus Aurelius (from a.d. 
 96 to 180) ; 4th, the imperial anarchy, or the thirty-nine enar
 
 66 HISTORY OF FRANCE. [CH. v. 
 
 perors and the thirty-one tyrants, from Commodus to Carinufl 
 and Numerian (from a.d 180 to 284) ; 5th, Diocletian (from a.d. 
 284 to 305). Througli all these govermnents, and in spite of 
 their different results for theii' contempox-ary subjects, the 
 fact already pointed out as the general and definitive charac- 
 teristic of that long epoch, to wit, the moral and social deca- 
 dence of Gaul as well as of the Roman empire, never ceased to 
 continue and spread. 
 
 On quitting conquered Gaul to become master at Rome, 
 Caesar neglected nothing to assure his conquest and make it 
 conducive to the establishment of his empire. He formed, of 
 aU the GaUic districts that he had subjugated, a special 
 province which received the name of Gallia Coniata (Gaul of 
 the long-hair), whilst the old province was Gallia Togata 
 (Gaul of the toga). Caesar caused to be eni-oUed amongst his 
 troops a multitude of Gauls, Belgians, Arvernians, and Aqui- 
 tanians, of whose bravery he had made proof. He even 
 formed, almost entirely of Gauls, a special legion, called 
 Alauda (lark), because it bore on the helmets a lark with out- 
 spread wings, the symbol of wakefulness. At the same time 
 he gave in Gallia Comata, to the towns and families that 
 declared for him, all kinds of favors, the rights of Roman 
 citizenship, the title of allies, clients, and fi'iends, even to the 
 extent of the Julian name, a sign of the most powerful Roman 
 patronage. He had, however, in the old Roman province, 
 formidable enemies, especially the town of Marseilles, which 
 declared against him and for Pompey. Caesar had the place 
 besieged by one of his lieutenants, got possession of it, caused 
 to be delivered over to him its vessels and treasure, and left 
 in it a garrison of two legions. He established at Narbomie, 
 Aries, Biterroe (Beziers) three colonies of veteran legionaries 
 devoted to his cause, and near Antipolis (Antibes) a maritime 
 colony called Forum Julii, now-a-days Frejus, of which he pro- 
 posed to make a rival to Marseilles. Much money was neces- 
 sary to meet the expenses of such patronage and to satisfy the 
 troops, old and new, of the conqueror of Gaul and Rome. Now 
 there was at Rome an ancient treasure, founded more than four 
 centuries previously by the Dictator CamiUus, when he had 
 dehvered Rome from the Gauls, a treasure reserved for the 
 expenses of Gallic wars, and guarded with religious respect as 
 sacred money. In the midst of all discords and disorders at 
 Rome, none had touched it. After his return from Gaul, 
 Csesar one day ascended the Capitol with his soldiers, and
 
 CH. v.] QAUL UNDER ROMAN DOMINION. QJ 
 
 finding, in the temple of Satuni, the door closed of the place 
 where the treasure was deposited, ordered it to be forced. 
 L. Metellus, tribune of the people, made strong opposition, 
 conjuring Caesar not to bring on the Repubhc the penalty of 
 such sacrilege : but ' ' the Republic has nothing to fear, " said 
 Caesar ; " I have released it from its oaths by subjugating 
 Gaul. There are no more Gauls. " He caused the door to be 
 forced, and the treasure was abstracted and distributed to the 
 troops, GaUic and Roman. Whatever Caesar may have said, 
 there were still Gauls, for at the same time that he was dis- 
 tributing to such of them as he had turned into his own 
 soldiers the money reserved for the expense of fighting them, 
 he was imposing upon Gallia Comato., iinder the name of 
 stipendium (soldier's pay), a levy of forty miUions of sesterces 
 (328,000/.), a considerable amount for a devastated country 
 which, according to Plutarch, did not contain at that time 
 more than three miUions of inhabitants, and almost equal to 
 that of- the levies paid by the rest of the Roman provinces. 
 
 After Caesar, Augustus, left sole master of the Roman 
 world, assumed in Gaul, as elsewhere, the part of pacificator, 
 repairer, conservator, and organizer, whilst taking care, with 
 all his moderation, to remain always the master. He divided 
 the provinces into imperial and senatorial, reserving to him- 
 self the entire government of the former, and leaving the 
 latter under the authority of the senate. Gavd ' ' of the long 
 hail'," all that Caesar had conquered, was imperial province. 
 Augustus divided it into three provinces, Lugdunensian 
 (Lyonese), Belgian, and Aquitanian. He recognized therein 
 sixty nations or distinct cityships which continued to have 
 themselves the government of their own affairs, according to 
 their traditions and manners, whilst conforming to the gen- 
 eral laws of the empire and abiding under the supervision of 
 imperial governors, charged with maintaining every where, in 
 the words of Pliny the Younger, "the majesty of Roman 
 peace." Lugudnum (Lyons), which had been up to that time 
 of small importance and obscure, became the g:reat town, the 
 favorite cityship and ordinary abiding-place of the emperors 
 when they visited Gaul. After having held at Narbonne 
 (27 B.C.) a meeting of representatives from the different GaUie 
 nations, Augustus went several times to Lyons, and even lived 
 there, as it appears, a pretty long whUc, to superintend, no 
 doubt, from thence and to get into working order the new 
 government of Gaul. After the departure of Augustus, liis
 
 68 BISTORT OF FRANCE. [cH. v. 
 
 adopted son Drusus, who had just fiilfilled, in Belgica and on 
 the Rhine, a mission at the same time military and adminis- 
 trative, called together at Lyons delegates from the sixty 
 GaUic city ships, to take part (B.C. 12 or 10) in the inaugura- 
 tion of a magnificent monument raised, at the confluence of 
 the Rhone and Saone, in honor of Rome and Augustus as the 
 tutelary deities of Gaul. In the middle of a vast enclosure 
 was placed a huge altar of white marble, on which were en- 
 gi-aved the names of the sixty cityships "of the long hair." 
 A colossal statue of the Gauls and sixty statues of the Gallic 
 cityships occupied the enclosure. Two columns of granite, 
 twenty- five feet high, stood close by the altar, and were sur- 
 mounted by two colossal Victories, in white marble, ten feet 
 high. Solemn festivals, gymnastic games, and oratorical and 
 literary exercitation accompanied the inauguration; and dm*- 
 ing the ceremony it was amiounced, amidst popular acclama- 
 tion, that a son had just been born to Diiisus at Lyons itself, 
 in the palace of the emperor, where the child's mother, An- 
 tonia, daughter of Mark Antony and Octavia (sister of 
 Augustus), had been staying for some months. This child 
 was one day to be the emperor Claudius. 
 
 The administrative energy of Augustus was not confined to 
 the erection of monuments and to festivals ; he applied him- 
 self to the development in Gaul of the material elements of 
 civilization and social order. His most intimate and able ad- 
 viser, Agrippa, being settled at Lyons as governor of the Gauls, 
 caused to be opened four great roads, starting from a mile- 
 stone placed in the middle of the Lyonese forum, and going 
 one centre wards to Saintes and the ocean, another south 
 wards and to Narbonne and the Pyrenees, the third north- 
 westwards and towards the Channel by Amiens and Boulogne, 
 and the fourth north-westwards and towards the Rhine. 
 Agi'ippa founded several considerable colonies, amongst othera 
 Cologne, which bore his name; and he admitted to Gallic 
 territory bands of Germans who asked for an establishment 
 there. Thanks to public seciu'ity, Romans became proprie- 
 tors in the Galhc provinces and introduced to them Italian 
 cultivation. The GaUic chieftains, on their side, began to 
 cultivate lands which had become their personal property. 
 Towns were built or grew apace and became encircled by 
 ramparts, under protection of which the popidations came and 
 placed themselves. The most learned and attentive observer 
 of nature and Roman society, Pliny the Elder, attests that
 
 CH. v.] GAUL UNDER ROMAN DOMINION. 69 
 
 under Augustus Gallic agriculture and industry made vast 
 progress. 
 
 But side by side with this work in the cause of ci^olization 
 and organization, Augustus and his Roman agents were pur- 
 suing a work of quite a contrary tendency. They labored to 
 extii'pate fi'om Gaul the spirit of nationality, independence 
 and freedom; they took every pains to efface every where 
 Gallic meraories and sentiments. Gallic towns were losing 
 their old and receiving Roman names: Augustonemetum, 
 Augusta, and Augustodunum took the place of Gergovia, 
 Noviodununi, and Bibracte. The national Gallic rehgion, 
 which was Druidism, was attacked as well as the Gallic father- 
 land, with the same design and by the same means; at one 
 time Augustus prohibited this worship amongst the Gauls 
 converted into Roman citizens, as being contrary to Roman 
 belief ; at another Roman Paganism and Gallic Druidism were 
 fused together in the same temples and at the same altars, as 
 if to fuse them in the same common indifference ; Roman and 
 Gallic names became applied to the same reUgious personifica- 
 tion of such and such a fact or such and such an idea ; 3Iars 
 and Camul were equally the god of war; Belen and AjdoUo the 
 god of light and healing ; Diana and Arduinna the goddess of 
 the chase. Every where, whether it was a question of the 
 terrestrial fatherland or of rehgious faith, the old moral 
 machiaery of the Gauls was broken up or condemned to rust, 
 and no new moral machinery was allowed to replace it; it was 
 every where Roman and imperial authority that was substi- 
 tuted for the free, national action of the Gauls. 
 
 It is incredible that this hostility on the part of the powers 
 that be towards moral sentiments, and this absence of freedom 
 should not have gravely compromised the material interest of 
 the GaUic population. .Public administration, however ex- 
 tensive its organization and energy, if it be not under the 
 superintendence and restraint of public freedom and morality, 
 soon falls into monstrous abuses, which itself is either igno- 
 rant of or wittingly suffers. Examples of this evil, inhei-ent 
 in despotism, abound even under the intelligent and Aratchful 
 8way of Augustus. Here is a case in point. He had ap- 
 pointed as procurator, that is, financial commissioner, in 
 "long-haired" Gaul, a native who, having been originally a 
 slave and afterwards set free by Jidius Caesar, had taken the 
 Roman name of Licinius. This man gave himself up, during 
 his administration, to a course of the most shameless extor*
 
 70 BISTORT OF FRANCE. [CH. ^ 
 
 tion. The taxes were collected monthly ; and so, taking ad- 
 vantage of the change of name which flattery had caused in 
 the two months of July and August, sacred to Julius Caesar 
 and Augustus respectively, he made his year consist of four* 
 teen months, so that he might squeeze out fourteen contribu- 
 tions instead of twelve. "December," said he, " is surely, as 
 its name indicates, the tenth month of the year, " and he added 
 thereto, in honor of the emperor, two others which he called 
 the eleventh and twelth. During one of the trips which 
 Augvistus made mio Gaul, strong complaints were made 
 against Licinius, and his robberies were denounced to the 
 emperor. Augustus dared not support him, and seemed upon 
 the point of deciding to bring hun to justice, when Licinius 
 conducted him to the place where was deposited all the treas- 
 ure he had extorted, and, "See, my lord," said he, "what I 
 have laid up for thee and for the Roman people, for fear lest 
 the Gauls possessing so much gold snould employ it against 
 you both; for thee I have kept it, and to thee I dehver it." 
 (Thierry, Histoire des Gaiilois, t. iii., p. 295; Clerjon, Histoire 
 de Lyon., t. i., p. 178-180.) Augustus accepted the treasure, 
 and Licinius remained unpunished. In the case of financial 
 abuses or other acts, absolute power seldom resists such 
 temptations. 
 
 We may hear it said, and we may read in the ^vriting8 of 
 certain modern philosophers and scholars, that the victorious 
 despotism of the Roman empire was a necessary and salutary 
 step in advance, and that it brought about the unity and 
 enfranchisement of the human race. Believe it not. There is 
 mingled good and evil in all the events and governments of 
 this world, and good often arises side by side with or in the 
 wake of evil, but it is never from the evil that the good 
 comes; injustice and tyrflnny have never produced good 
 fruits. Be assured that whenever they have the dominion, 
 whenever the moral rights and personal hberties of men are 
 trodden under foot by material force, be it barbaric or be it 
 scientific, there can result only prolonged evils and deplorable 
 obstacles to the return of moral right and moral force, which, 
 God be thanked, can never be obliterated from the nature and 
 the history of man. The despotic imperial administration 
 upheld for a long while the Roman empire, and not without 
 renown; but it con'upted, enervated, and impoverished the 
 Roman populations, and left them, after five centuries, as 
 incapable of defending themselves as they were of governing.
 
 CH. v.] QA UL UNDER ROMAN DOMINION. 71 
 
 Tiberius pursued in Gaul, but with less energy and less care 
 for the provincial administration, the pacific and moderate 
 policy of Augustus. He had to extinguish in Belgica, and 
 even in the Lyonnese province, two insurrections kindled by 
 the sparks that remained of national and Druidic spirit. He 
 repressed them effectually, and without any violent display of 
 vengeance. He made a trip to Gaul, took measures, quite 
 insufficient however, for defending the Rhine frontier from 
 the incessantly repeated incursions of the Germans, and 
 hastened back to Italy to resume the course of suspicion, 
 perfidy, and cruelty which he pursued against the Eepublican 
 pride and moral dignity remaining amongst a few remnants 
 of the Eoman senate. He was succeeded by Germanicus' un- 
 worthy son, Caligula. After a few days of hypocrisy on the 
 part of the Emperor, and credulous hope on that of the people, 
 they foiuid a madman let loose to take the place of an un- 
 fathomable and gloomy tyrant. Cahgula was much taken up 
 with Gaul, plundering it and giving free rein in it to his 
 frenzies, by turns disgusting or ridiculous. In a short and 
 fruitless campaign on the banks of the Ehine, he had made too 
 few prisoners for the pomp of a triumph ; he therefore took 
 some Gauls, the tallest he could find, of triumphal size, as he 
 said; put them in German clothes, made them learn some 
 Teutonic words, and sent them away to Rome to await in 
 prison his return and his ovation. Lyons, where he stayed 
 some time, was the scene of his extortions and strangest 
 freaks. He was playing at dice one day with some of his 
 courtiers, and lost ; he rose, sent for the tax-list of the prov- 
 ince, marked down for death and confiscation some of those 
 who were most highly rated, and said to the company, "You 
 people, you play for a few drachmas ; but as for me I have just 
 won by a single throw 150 millions." At the rumor of a plot 
 hatched against him in Italy, by some Roman nobles, he sent 
 for and sold, pubHcly, their furniture, jewels, and slaves. As 
 the sale was a success, he extended it to the old furniture of 
 his own palaces in Italy: "I wish to fit out the Gauls, " said 
 he; " it is a mark of friendship I owe to the brave aUies of the 
 Roman people." He himself, at these sales performed the part 
 of salesman and auctioneer, telhng the history of each article 
 to enhance the price. ' ' This belonged to my father, Germani- 
 cus; that comes to roe from Agrippa; this vase is Egyptian, 
 it was Antony's, Augustus took it at the battle of Actium." 
 The imperial sales wei'e succeeded by hterary games, at which 
 (4) HF Vol. 1
 
 72 HISTORY OF FRANCE. [cti. r. 
 
 the losers had to pay the expenses of the prizes and celebrate, 
 in verse or prose, the praises of the winnei-s; and if their 
 compositions "were pronounced bad, they were bound to wipe 
 them out ^vith a sponge or even with their tongues, imless 
 they preferred to be beaten wdth a rod or soused in the Rhone. 
 One day, when Caligula, in the character of Jupiter, was 
 seated at his tribunal and delivering oracles in the middle of 
 the pubhc thoroughfare, a man of the people remained motion- 
 less in front of him, with eyes of astonishment fixed upon 
 him. "What seem I to thee?" asked the Emperor, flattered, 
 no doubt, by this attention of the mob: "A great mon- 
 strosity," answered the Gaul. And that, at the end of about 
 four years, was the universal cry : and against a mad emperor 
 the only resource of the Roman world was at that time assassi- 
 nation. The captain of Caligula's guards rid Rome and the 
 provinces of him. 
 
 He did just one sensible and useful thing during the whole 
 of his stay in Gaul: he had a light-house constructed to il- 
 lumine the passage between Gaul and Great Britain. Some 
 traces of it, they say, have been discovered. 
 
 His successor, Claudius, brother of the great Germanicus, 
 and married to liis own niece, the second Agrippina, was, as 
 has been already stated, born at Lyons, at the very moment 
 when his father, Drusus, was celebrating there the erection of 
 an altar to Augustus. During his whole reign he showed to 
 the city of his birth the most lively good-will, and the con- 
 stant aim as well as principal result of this good-wUl was to 
 render the city of Lyons more and more Roman by effacing 
 all GaUic characteristics and memories. She was endowed with 
 Roman rights, monuments, and names, the most important or 
 the most ostentatious; she became the colony super-emi- 
 nently, the great mimicipal towm of the Gauls, the Claudian 
 town; but she lost what had remained of her old municipal 
 government, that is of her administrative and commercial 
 independence. Nor was she the only one in Gaul to experi- 
 ence the good-will of Claudius. This emperor, the mai'k of 
 •corn from his infancy, whom his mother, Antonia, called "a 
 shadow of a man, an unfinished sketch of nature's drawing," 
 and of whom his grand-uncle, Augustus, used to say ' ' we 
 shall be for ever in doubt, without any certainty of knowing 
 whether he be or be not equal to public duties. " Claudius, 
 the most feeble indeed of the Csesars, in body, mind, and 
 character, was nevertheless he who had intermittent glimpses
 
 CH. T.] QAUL UNDER ROMAN DOMlNIOir. 73 
 
 of the most elevated ideas and the most righteous sentiments, 
 and who strove the most sincerely to make them take the 
 form of deeds. He undertook to assure to all free men of 
 "long-haired" Gaul the same Roman privileges that were 
 enjoyed by the inhabitants of Lyons; and amongst others, 
 that of entering the senate of Rome and holding the great 
 public offices. He made a formal proposal to that effect to 
 the Senate, and succeeded, not without difficulty, in getting 
 it adopted. The speech that he deUvered on this occasion has 
 been to a great extent preserved to us, not only in the sum- 
 mary given by Tacitus, but also in an inscription on a bronze 
 tablet, which split into many fragments at the time of the 
 destruction of the buUding in which it was placed. The two 
 principal fragments were discovered at Lyons, in 1528, and 
 they are now deposited in the Museum of that city. They 
 fully confirm the most equitable and, it may be readily 
 allowed, the most liberal act of policy that emanated from the 
 earlier Roman emperors. "Claudius had taken it into his 
 head," says Seneca, "to see all Greeks, Gauls, Spaniards, and 
 Britons clad in the toga." But at the same time he took great 
 care to spread every where the Latin tongue, and to make it 
 take the place of the different national idioms. A Roman 
 citizen, originally of Asia Minor, and sent on a deputation to 
 Rome by his compatriots, could not answer in Latin the 
 emperor's questions. Claudius took away his privileges, say- 
 ing, " He is no Roman citizen who is ignorant of the language 
 of Rome." 
 
 Claudius, however, was neither hberal nor humane towards 
 a notable portion of the GaUic populations, to wit, the Druids. 
 During his stay in Gaul he proscribed them and persecuted 
 them without intermission; forbidding, under pain of death, 
 their form of worship and every exterior sign of their cere- 
 monies. He drove them away and pursued them even into 
 Great Britain, whither he conducted, a.d. 43, a military ex- 
 pedition, almost the only one of his reign, save the continued 
 struggle of his lieutenants on the Rhine against the Germans. 
 It was evidently amongst the corporation of Druids and under 
 the influence of rehgious creeds and traditions, that there was 
 BtUl pursued and harbored some of the old Galhc spirit, some 
 passion for national independence and some hatred of the 
 Roman yoke. In proportion as Claudius had been popular in 
 Gaul did his adopted son and successor, Nero, quickly become 
 hated. There is nothing to show that he even went thither,
 
 74 HISTORY OF FRANCE. [ch. v. 
 
 either on the business of government or to obtain the momen- 
 tary access of fa^'o always excited in the mob by the presence 
 and prestige of pov> er. It was towards Greece and the East 
 that a tendency was shown in the tastes and trips of Nero, 
 imperial poet, musician, and actor. L. Verus, one of the 
 military commandants in Belgica, had conceived a project of 
 a canal to unite the Moselle to the Saone, and so the Mediter- 
 ranean to the ocean; but intrigues in the province and the 
 palace prevented its execution, and in the place of pubHc 
 works useful to Gaul, Nero caused a new census to be made 
 of the population whom he required to squeeze to pay for his 
 extravagance. It was in his reign, as is well known, that a 
 fierce fire consumed a great part of Rome and her monu- 
 ments. The majority of historians accuse Nero of having 
 himself been the cause of it ; but at any rate he looked on with 
 cynical indifference, as if amused at so grand a spectacle, and 
 taking pleasure in comparing it to the burning of Troy, He 
 did more : he profited by it so far as to have built for himself, 
 free of expense, that magnificent palace called "The palace of 
 gold," of which he said, when he saw it completed, "At last I 
 am going to be housed as a man should be." Five years 
 before the burning of Eome, Lyons had been a prey to a 
 similar scourge, and Seneca wrote to his friend Lucihus: 
 ^^ Lugdunum, which was one of the show-places of Gaul, is 
 sought for in vain to-day : a single night suificed for the dis- 
 appearance of a vast city ; it perished in less tune than I take 
 to tell the tale." Nero gave upwards of 30,000Z. towards the 
 reconstruc ' ^n of Lyons, a gift that gained him the city's 
 gratitude which was manifested, it is said, when his fall 
 became imminent. It was, however, J. Vindex, a Gaul of 
 Vienne, governor of the Lyonnese province, who was the 
 instigator of the insurrection which was fatal to Nero, and 
 which put Galba in his place. 
 
 When Nero was dead there was no other Csesar, no natu- 
 rally indicated successor to the empire. The influence of the 
 name of Ccesar had spent itself in the crimes, madnesses, and 
 incapacity of his descendants. Then began a general search 
 for emperors ; and the ambition to be created spread abroad 
 amongst the men of note in the Roman world. During the 
 eighteen months that followed the death of Nero, three pre- 
 tenders — Galba, Otho, and Vitellius— ran this formidable risk. 
 Galba was a worthy old Roman senator, who frankly said, "If 
 the vast body of the empire could be kept standing in equir
 
 CH. v.] &AUL UNDER ROMAN DOMINION. 75 
 
 Hbrium without a head, I were worthy of the chief place in 
 the state." Otho and Vitellius were two epicures, both indo- 
 lent and debauched, the former after an elegant, and the 
 latter after a beastly fashion. G-alba was raised to the purple 
 by the Lyonnese and Narbonnese provinces, ViteUius by the 
 legions cantoned in the Belgic province : to such an extent did 
 Gaul already influence the destinies of Rome. All three met 
 disgrace and death within the space of eighteen months ; and 
 the search for an emperor took a turn towards the East, 
 where the command was held by Vespasian (Titus Flaviua 
 Vespasianus, of Rieti in the duchy of Spoleto), a general 
 sprung from a humble ItaHan family, who had won great 
 military distinction, and who, having been proclaimed first at 
 Alexandria, in Judea, and at Antioch, did not arrive until 
 many months afterwards at Rome, where he commenced the 
 twenty-six years' reign of the Flavian family. 
 
 Neither Vespasian nor his sons, Titus and Domitian, visited 
 Gaul as their predecessors had. Domitian alone put in a 
 short appearance. The eastern provinces of the empire and 
 the wars on the frontier of the Danube, towards which the 
 invasions of the Germans were at that time beginning to be 
 directed, absorbed the attention of the new emperors. Gaul 
 was far, however, from remaining docile and peaceful at this 
 epoch. At the vacancy that occurred after Nero and amid the 
 claintis of various pretenders, the authority of the Roman name 
 and the pressure of the imperial power diminished rapidly ; and 
 the memory and desire of independence were reawakened. In 
 Belgica the German peoplets, who had been allowed to settle 
 on the left bank of the Rhine, were very imperfectly subdued, 
 and kept up close communication with the independent people te 
 of the right bank. The eight Roman legions cantoned in that 
 province were themselves much changed; many barbarians 
 had been enlisted amongst them and did gallant service, but 
 they were indifferent, and always ready for a new master and 
 a new country. There were not wanting symptoms, soon fol- 
 lowed by opportunities for action, of this change in sentiment 
 and fact. In the very centre of Gaul, between the Loire and 
 the Alher, a peasant, who has kept in history his GaUic name 
 of Marie or Maricus, formed a band, and scoured the country, 
 proclaiming national independence. He Avas arrested by the 
 local authorities and handed over to Vitelhus, who had him 
 thrown to the beasts. But in the northern part of Belgica, 
 towards the mouths of the Rhine, where a Batavian peoplet
 
 76 hISTORT OF FRANCE. [cH. v. 
 
 lived, a man of note amongst his compatriots and in the service 
 of the Romans, amongst whom he had received the name of 
 Claudius CiviHs, embraced first secretly, and afterwards 
 openly, the cause of insurrection. He had vengeance to take 
 for Nero's treatment, who had caused his brother, Julius 
 Paulus, to be beheaded, and himself to be put in prison, whence 
 he had been liberated by Galba. He made a vow to let his hair 
 grow until he was revenged. He had but one eye and gloried 
 in the fact, saying that it had been so with Hannibal and with 
 Sertorius, and that his highest aspiration was to be Uke them. 
 He pronounced first for ViteUius against Otho, then for Ves- 
 pasian against Vitelhus, and then for the complete independ- 
 ence of his nation against Vespasian. He soon had, amongst 
 the Grermans on the two banks of the Rhine and amongst the 
 Gauls themselves, secret or declared aUies. He was joined by 
 a young Gaul from the district of Langres, Jidius Sabinus, who 
 boasted that, during the great war with the Gauls, his great 
 grandmother had taken the fancy of Julius Caesar, and that he 
 owed his name to him. News had just reached Gaul of the 
 burning down, for the second time, of the Capitol during the 
 disturbances at Rome on the death of Nero. The Druids came 
 forth from the retreats where they had hidden since Claudius' 
 proscription, and re-appeared in the towns and country-places, 
 proclaiming that ' ' the Roman empire was at a-n end, that the 
 Galhc empire was beginning, and that the day had come when 
 the possession of all the world should pass into the hands of the 
 transalpine nations. " The insurgents rose in the name of the 
 Gallic empire, and Juhus Sabinus assumed the title of Ccesar. 
 War commenced. Confusion, hesitation, and actual desertion 
 reached the colonies and extended positively to the Roman 
 legions. Several towns, even Treves and Cologne, submitted 
 or fell into the hands of the insurgents. Several legions, yield- 
 ing to bribery, persuasion, or intimidation, went over to them, 
 some with a bad grace, others with the blood of their officers 
 on their hands. The gravity of the situation was not misun» 
 derstood at Rome. Petilius Cerealis, a commander of renown 
 for his campaigns on the Rhine, was sent off to Belgica with 
 seven fresh legions. He was as skUful in negotiation and per- 
 suasion as he was in battle. The struggle that ensued was 
 fierce, but brief; and nearly all the towns and legions that had 
 been guilty of defection returned to their Roman allegiance. 
 Civilis, though not more than half vanquished, himself asked 
 leave to surrender. The Batavian might, as was said at the
 
 (CH. v.] OAUL UNDER ROMAN DOMINION. 77 
 
 time, have inundated the country, and drowned the Roman 
 armies. Vespasian, therefore, not being inchned to drive men 
 or matters to extremity, gave CivQis leave to go into retirement 
 and Hve in peace amongst the marshes of his own land. The 
 Gallic chieftains alone, the projectors of a Galhc empire, were 
 rigorously pursued and chastised. There was especially one, 
 Julius Sabinus, the pretended descendant of JuUus Caesar, 
 whose capture was heartily desired. After the ruin of his 
 hopes he took refuge in some vaults connected with one of his 
 country houses. The way in was known only to two devoted 
 freedmen of his, who set fire to the buildings, and spread a re- 
 port that Sabinus had poisoned himself, and that his dead body 
 had been devoured by the flames. He had a wife, a young 
 Gaul named Eponina, who was in frantic despair at the rumor; 
 but he had her informed, by the mouth of one of his freedmen, 
 of his place of concealment, begging her at the same time to keep 
 up a show of widowhood and mourning, in order to confirm the 
 report already in cii'culation. "Well did she play her part," 
 to use Plutarch's expression, "in her tragedy of woe." She 
 went at night to visit her husband in his retreat, and departed 
 at break of day ; and at last would not depart at all. At the 
 end of seven months, hearing great talk of Vespasian's clem- 
 ency, she set out for Rome, taking with her her husband, dis- 
 guised as a slave, with shaven head and a dress that made him 
 unrecognizable. But the friends who were in their confidence, 
 advised them not to risk as yet the chance of imperial clemency, 
 and to return to their secret asylum. There they lived for nine 
 years, during which " as a honess in her den, neither more nor 
 less," says Plutarch, "Eponina gave birth to two young 
 whelps, and suckled them herself at her teat. " At last they 
 were discovered and brought before Vespasian at Rome; 
 "Caesar," said Eponina, showing him her children, "I con- 
 ceived them and suckled them in a tomb that there might be 
 more of us to ask thy mercy." But Vespasian was merciful 
 only from prudence, and not by nature or from magnanimity ; 
 and he sent Sabinus to execution. Eponina asked that she 
 might die with her husband, saying, ' ' Caesar, do me this grace ; 
 for I have lived more happily beneath the earth and in the 
 darkness than thou in the splendor of thy empire." Vespasian 
 fulfilled her desire by sending her also to execution ; and Plu- 
 tarch, their contemporary, undoubtedly expressed the general 
 feeling, when he ended his tale with the words, "in all the 
 long reign of this emperor there was no deed so cruel or so
 
 78 HISTORY OF FRANCE. [CH. U 
 
 piteous to see ; and he was afterwards punished for it, for in a 
 short time all his posterity was extinct." 
 
 In fact the Caesars and the Flavians met the same fate ; the 
 two lines began and ended alike ; the former with Augustus 
 and Nero, the latter with Vespasian and Domitian; first a 
 despot, able, cold, and as capable of cruelty as of moderation, 
 then a tyrant, atrocious and detested. And both were extin- 
 guished without a descendant. Then a rare piece of good fort- 
 une befell the Roman world. Domitian, two years before he 
 was assassinated by some of his servants whom he was about 
 to put to death, grew suspicious of an aged and honorable 
 senator, Cocceius Nerva, who had been twice consul, and whom 
 he had sent into exile, first to Tarentum, and then in Gaul, pre- 
 paratory, probably, to a worse fate. To this victim of pro- 
 scription application was made by the conspirators who had 
 just got rid of Domitian and had to get another emperor. 
 Nerva accepted, but not without hesitation, for he was sixty- 
 four years old ; he had witnessed the violent death of six em- 
 perors, and his grandfather, a celebrated jurist, and for a long 
 while a friend of Tiberius, had killed himself, it is said, for 
 grief at the iniquitous and cruel government of his friend. The 
 short reign of Nerva was a wise, a just, and a humane, but a 
 sad one, not for the people, but for himself. He maintained 
 peace and order, recalled exiles, suppressed informers, re-estab- 
 lished respect for laws and morals, turned a deaf ear to self-in- 
 terested suggestions of vengeance, spoHation and injustice, pro- 
 ceeding at one time from those who had made him emperor, at 
 another from the Praetorian soldiers and the Roman mob, who 
 regretted Domitian just as they had Nero. But Nerva did not 
 succeed in putting a stop to mob-violence or murders prompted 
 by cupidity or hatred. Finding his authority insulted and his 
 life threatened, he fonned a resolution which has been de- 
 scribed and explained by a learned and temperate historian of 
 the last century, Lenain de Tillemont {Histoire des Empereurs, 
 etc., t. ii., p. 59), with so much justice and precision that it is a 
 pleasure to quote his own words. " Seeing, " says he, "that 
 his age was despised, and that the empu-e required some one 
 who combined strength of mind and body, Nerva, being free 
 from that blindness which prevents one from discussing and 
 measuring one's own powers, and from that thirst for dominion 
 which often prevails over even those who are nearest to the 
 grave, resolved to take a partner in the sovereign power, and 
 showed his wisdom by making choice of Trajan." By this
 
 CK. v.] OAUL UNDER ROMAN DOMINION. 79 
 
 choice, indeed, Nerva commenced and inaugurated the finest 
 period of the Roman empire, the period that contemporaries 
 entitled the golden age, and that history has named the age of 
 the Antonines. It is desirable to become acquainted with the 
 real character of this period, for to it belong the two greatest 
 historical events, the dissolution of ancient pagan, and the 
 birth of modern Christian society. 
 
 Five notable sovereigns, Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, Antoninus 
 Pius, and Marcus Aurehus swayed the Roman empire during 
 this period (a.d. 96-180). What Nerva was has just been de- 
 scribed; and he made no mistake in adopting Trajan as his 
 successor. Trajan, unconnected by origin, as Nerva also had 
 been, with old Rome, was born in Spain, near Seville, and by 
 military service in the East had made his first steps towards 
 fortune and renown. He was essentially a soldier, a moral and 
 a modest soldier ; a friend to justice and the pubhc weal ; grand 
 in wliat he undertook for the empire he governed ; simple and 
 modest on his own score ; respectful towards the civil authority 
 and the laws ; untiriag and equitable in the work of provincial 
 administration; without any philosophical system or preten- 
 sions; full of energy and boldness, honesty and good sense. 
 He stoutly defended the empire against the Germans on the 
 banks of the Danube, won for it the province of Dacia, and, 
 being more taken up with the East than the West, made many 
 Asiatic conquests, of which his successor, Hadrian, lost no time 
 in abandoning, wisely no doubt, a portion. Hadrian, adopted 
 by Trajan, and a Spaniard too, was intellectually superior and 
 morally very inferior to him. He was full of ambition, vanity, 
 invention and restlessness; he was sceptical in thought and 
 cynical in manners; and he was overflowing with poUtical, 
 philosophical and literary views and pretensions. He passed 
 the twenty -one years of his reign chiefly in travelling about the 
 empire, in Asia, Africa, Greece, Spain, Gaul, and Great Britain, 
 opening roads, raising ramparts and monuments, founding 
 schools of learning and museums, and encouraging among the 
 provinces, as well as at Rome, the march of administration, 
 legislation, and intellect, more for his own pleasure and his own 
 glorification than in the interest of his country and of society. 
 At the close of this active career, when he was ill and felt that 
 he was dying, he did the best deed of his life. He had proved 
 in the discharge of high offices, the calm and clear-sighted wis- 
 dom of Titus Antoninus, a Gaul, whose family came originally 
 from Nimes ; he had seen him one day coming to the senate
 
 80 HISTORY OF FRANCE . [cH. v. 
 
 and respectfully supporting the tottering steps of his aged 
 father (or father-in-law, according to Aurehus Victor); and 
 he adopted him as his successor. Antoninus Pius, as a civihan, 
 was just what Trajan had been as a warrior ; moral and modest ; 
 just and frugal ; attentive to the public weal ; gentle towards 
 individuals ; full of respect for laws and rights ; scrupulous in 
 justifying his deeds before the senate and making them known 
 to the populations by carefully posted edicts ; and more anxious 
 to do no wrong or harm to any body than to gain lustre from 
 brilliant or popular deeds. "He surpasses all men in good- 
 ness," said his contemporaries, and he conferred on the empire 
 the best of gifts, for he gave it Marcus Aurehus for its ruler. 
 
 It has been said that Marcus Am-ehus was philosophy en- 
 throned. Without any desire to contest or detract from that 
 compliment, let it be added that he was conscientiousness en- 
 throned. It is his grand and original characteristic that he 
 governed the Roman empire and himself with a constant moral 
 soUcitude, ever anxious to reahze that ideal of personal virtue 
 and general justice which he had conceived, and to which he 
 aspired. His conception, indeed, of virtue and justice was in- 
 complete and even false in certain cases ; and in more than one 
 instance, such as the persecution of the Christians, he com- 
 mitted acts quite contrary to the moral law which he intended 
 to put in practice towards all men; but his respect for the 
 moral law was profound, and his intention to shape his acts 
 according to it, serious and sincere. Let us cull a few phrases 
 from that collection of his private thoughts, which he entitled 
 For self, and which is really the most faithful picture man ever 
 left of himself and the pains he took with himself. * ' There is, " 
 says he, "relationship between all beings endowed with reason. 
 The world is Uke a superior city within which the other cities 
 are but families. ... I have conceived the idea of a govern- 
 ment founded on laws of general and equal application. Be- 
 ware lest thou Ccesarize thyself, for it is what happens only 
 too often. Keep thyself simple, good, unaltered, worthy, 
 grave, a friend to justice, pious, kindly disposed, courageous 
 enough for any duty. . . Reverence the gods, preserve man- 
 kind. Life is short ; the only possible good fruit of our earthly 
 existence is holiness of intention and deeds that tend to the 
 common weal. . . My soul, be thou covered with shame ! Thy 
 life is well-nigh gone, and thou hast not yet learned how to 
 live." Amongst men, who have ruled great states, it is not easy 
 to mention more than two, Marcus Aurehus and Saint Louig^
 
 m. v.] GA UL UNDER ROMAN DOMINION. gl 
 
 who have been thus passionately concerned about tlic moral 
 condition of their souls and the moral conduct of their lives. 
 The mind of Marcus Aurehus was superior to that of Saint 
 Louis ; but Saint Louis was a Christian, and liis moral ideal was 
 more pure, more complete, more satisfying, and more strength- 
 ening for the soul than the philosophical ideal of Marcus Aur 
 relius. And so Saint Louis was serene and confident as to hfc; 
 fate and that of the hmnan race, whilst Marcus Aurelius was 
 disquieted and sad— sad for himself and also for humanity, foi- 
 his country and for his times: "O my soul," was his cry, 
 *' wherefore art thou troubled, and why am I so vexed? " 
 
 We are here brought closer to the fact which has already 
 been foreshadowed, and which characterizes the moral and 
 social condition of the Eoman world at this period. It would 
 be a great error to take the five emperors just spoken of — 
 Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, Antoninus Pius, and Marcus Aurehus 
 — as representatives of the society amidst which they lived, 
 and as giving, in a certain degree, the measure of its enlighten- 
 ment, its morahty, its prosperity, its disposition and condition 
 in general. Those five princes were not only picked men, 
 superior in mind and character to the majority of their con- 
 temporaries, but they were men almost isolated in their gener- 
 ation: in them there was a resumption of all that had been 
 acquired by Grreek and Roman antiquity of ehhghtenment and 
 virtue, practical wisdom and philosophical morahty: they 
 were the heirs and the survivors of the great minds and the 
 great politicians of Athens and Rome, of the Areopagus and the 
 Senate. They were not in intellectual and moral hannony 
 with the society they governed, and their action upon it served 
 hardly to preserve it partially and temporarily from the evils 
 to which it was committed by its own vices and to break its 
 fall. When they were thoughtftd and modest as Marcus Aure- 
 lius was, they were gloomy and disposed to discouragement, 
 for they had a secret foreboding of the uselessness of their 
 efforts. 
 
 Nor was their gloom groundless: in spite of their honest 
 plans and of brilhant appearances, the degradation, material 
 as well as moral, of Roman society went on increasing. The 
 wars, the luxury, the dilapidations, and the disturbances of 
 the empire always raised its expenses much above its receipts. 
 The rough miserhness of Vespasian and the wise economy of 
 Antoninus Pius were far from sufficient to restore the balance; 
 the aggravation of imposts was incessant; and the population,
 
 82 HISTORY OF FRANCE. [ch. v. 
 
 especially the agricultual population, dwindled away more and 
 more, in Italy itself, the centre of the State. This evil dis- 
 quieted the emperors when they were neither idiots nor mad- 
 men ; Claudius, Vespasian, Nerva, and Trajan labored to sup- 
 ply a remedy, and Augustus himself had set them the example. 
 They estabhshed in Italy colonies of veterans to whom they 
 assigned lands; they made gifts thereof to iudigent Roman 
 citizens ; they attracted by the title of senator rich citizens 
 from the provinces, and when they had once installed them aa 
 landholders in Italy, they did not permit them to depart with- 
 out authorization. Trajan decreed that every candidade for 
 the Roman magistracies should be bound to have a third of his 
 fortune invested in Italian land, "in order," says Pliny the 
 Younger, "that those who sought the public dignities should 
 regard Rome and Italy not as an inn to put up at in travelling, 
 but as their home." And PHny the Elder, going as a philoso- 
 phical observer to the very root of the evU, says in his pom- 
 pous manner: "In former times our generals tilled their fields 
 with their own hands; the earth, we may suppose, opened 
 graciously beneath a plough crowned with laurels and held by 
 triumphal hands, maybe because those great men gave to till- 
 age the same care that they gave to war, and that they sowed 
 seed with the same attention with which they pitched a camp, 
 or maybe, also, because every thing finictifies best in honorable 
 hands, because every thing is done with the most scrupulous 
 
 exactitude Now-a-days these same fields are given over 
 
 to slaves in chains, to malefactors who are condemned to penal 
 servitude, and on whose brow there is a brand. Earth is not 
 deaf to our prayers ; we give her the name of mother; culture 
 is what we call the pains we bestow on her .... but can we 
 be surprised if she render not to slaves the recompense she 
 paid to generals ? " 
 
 What must have been the decay of population and of agri- 
 culture in the provinces, when even in Italy there was need of 
 such strong protective efforts, which were, nevertheless, so 
 slightly successful? 
 
 Pliny had seen what was the fatal canker of the Roman em- 
 pire in the country as well as in the towns: slavery or semi- 
 elavery. 
 
 Landed property was overwhelmed "svith taxes, was subject 
 to conditions which branded it with a sort of servitude, and 
 was cultivated by a servile population, in whose hands it be- 
 came almost barren. The large holders were thus disgusted,
 
 CH. v.] OAUL UNDER ROMAN DOMINION. 83 
 
 and the small ruined or reduced to a condition more and more 
 degraded. Add to this state of things in the civil department 
 a complete absence of freedom and vitality in the political ; no 
 elections, no discussion, no public responsibility, characters 
 weakened by indolence and silence, or destroyed by despotic 
 power, or corrupted by the intrigues of court or army. Take 
 a step farther ; cast a glance over the moral department ; no 
 religious creeds and nothing left of even Paganism but its festi- 
 vals and frivolous or shameful superstitions. The philosophy 
 of Greece and the old Roman manner of hfe had raised up, it 
 is true, in the higher ranks of society Stoics and jurists, the 
 former the last champions of morality and the dignity of hu- 
 man nature, the latter the last enlightened servants of the 
 civil community. But neither the doctrines of the Stoics nor 
 the science and able reasoning of the jurists were lights and 
 guides within the reach and for the use of the populace, who 
 remaiued a prey to the vices and miseries of servitude or pub- 
 lic disorders, oscillating between the wearisomeness of barren 
 ignorance and the cori-uptiveness of a life of adventure. All 
 the causes of decay were at this time spreading throughout Ro- 
 man society ; not a single preservative or regenerative princi- 
 ple of national life was in any force or any esteem. 
 
 After the death of Marcus Aurelius the decay manifested 
 and developed itself, almost without interruption for the space 
 of a centiiry, the outward and visible sign of it being the dis- 
 organization and repeated falls of the government itself. The 
 series of emperors given to the Roman world by heirship or 
 adoption, from Augustus to Marcus Aurelius, was succeeded by 
 what maybe termed an imperial anarchy; in the course of 
 one hundred and thirty -two years the sceptre passed into the 
 hands of thirty-nine sovereigns with the title of emperor 
 (Augustus) and was clutched at by thirty-one pretenders, whom 
 history has dubbed tyrants, without other claim than their 
 fiery ambition and their trials of strength, supported at one 
 time in such and such a province of the empire by certain 
 legions or some local uprising, at another, and most frequently 
 in Italy itself, by the Praetorian guards, who had at tlieir dis- 
 posal the name of Rome and the shadow of a senate. There 
 were Italians, Africans, Spaniards, Gauls, Britons, Illyrians, 
 and Asiatics ; and amongst the number were to be met with 
 some cases of eminence in war and politics and some even of 
 rare virttie and patriotism, such as Pertinax, Septimius Severus, 
 Alexander Severus, Decius, Claudius Gothicus, Aurelian, Taci*
 
 84 HISTORY OF FRANCE. [CH. T. 
 
 tus, and Probus. They made great efforts, some to protect 
 the empire against the barbarians, growing day by day more 
 aggressive, others to re-estabhsh within it some sort of order, 
 and to restore to the laws some sort of force. All failed, and 
 nearly all died a violent death, after a short-Uved guai-dian- 
 ship of a fabric that was crumbling to pieces in every part, but 
 still under the grand name of Roman empire. Gaul had her 
 share in this series of ephemeral emperors and tyrants ; one of 
 the most wicked and most insane, though issue of one of the 
 most valorous and able. Caracal] a, son of Septimius Severus, 
 was born at Lyons, four years after the death of Marcus Aure- 
 lius. A hundred years later Narbonne gave, in two years, to 
 the Roman world three emperors, Carus and his two sons, 
 Carinus and Numerian. Amongst the thirt^'-one tyrants who 
 did not attain to the title of Augustus, six were Gauls; and 
 the last two, Amandus and ^Hanus, were, a.d. 285, the chiefs 
 of that great insurrection of peasants, slaves or half-slaves, 
 who, under the name of Bagaudians (signifying, according to 
 Ducange, a wandering troop of insurgents from field and for- 
 est), spread themselves over the north of Gaul, between the 
 Rhine and the Loire, pillaging and ravaging in aU directions, 
 after having themselves endured the pillaging and ravages of 
 the fiscal agents and soldiers of the Empire. A contemporary 
 witness, Lactantius, describes the causes of this popular out- 
 break in the following words:—" So enormous had the imposts 
 become, that the tillers' strength was exhausted ; fields became 
 deserts and farms were changed into forests. The fiscal agents 
 measured the land by the clod; trees, vine-stalks, were aU 
 counted. The cattle were marked ; the people registered. Old 
 age or sickness was no excuse ; the sick and the infirm were 
 brought up; every one's age was put down; a few years were 
 added on to the children's, and taken off from the old men's. 
 Meanwhile the cattle decreased, the people died, and there was 
 no deduction made for the dead." 
 
 It is said that to excite the confidence and zeal of their 
 bands, the two chiefs of the Bagaudians had medals struck, 
 and that one exhibited the head of Amandus, "Emperor, 
 Caesar, Augustus, pious and prosperous" with the word 
 " Hope" on the other side. 
 
 When public evils have reached such a pitch, and neverthe- 
 less the day has not yet arrived for the entire disappearance of 
 the system that causes them, there arises nearly always a new 
 power which, in the name of necessity, applies some remedy
 
 CH. T.J QAUL UNDER ROMAN DOMINION. 85 
 
 to an intolerable condition. A legion cantoned amongst the 
 Tungrians (Tongres), in Belgica, had on its muster-roll a Dal- 
 matian named Diocletian, not yet very high in rank, but al- 
 ready much looked up to by his comrades on account of his 
 intelligence and his bravery. He lodged at a woman's, who 
 was, they said, a Druidess, and had the prophetic faculty. 
 One day when he was settling his account with her, she com- 
 plained of his extreme parsimony : ' ' Thou'rt too stingy, Dio- 
 cletian," said she; and he answered laughing, "I'll be prodigal 
 when I'm emperor." " Laugh not," rejoined she: " thou'lt be 
 emperor when thou hast slain a wild boar" (aper). The con- 
 versation got about amongst Diocletian's comrades. He made 
 his way in the army, showing continual ability and valor, and 
 several times during his changes of quarters and frequent 
 hunting expeditions he found occasion to kill wild boars ; but 
 he did not immediately become emperor, and several of his 
 contemporaries, Aurelian, Tacitus, Probus, Cams, and Nume- 
 rian reached the goal before him. "I kill the wild boars," 
 said he to one of his friends, " and another eats them." The 
 last mentioned of these ephemeral emperoi-s, Numerian, had 
 for his father-in-law and inseparable comrade a Praetorian 
 prefect named Arrius Aper. During a campaign in Mesopo- 
 tamia Nmnerian was assassinated, and the voice of the army 
 pronounced Aper guilty. The legions assembled to dehberate 
 about Numerian's death and to choose his successor. Aper 
 was brought before the assembly imder a guard of soldiers. 
 Through the exertions of zealous xriends the candidature of 
 Diocletian found great favor. At the first words pronounced 
 by him from a raised platform in the presence of the troops, 
 cries of "Diocletian Augustus" were raised in every quarter. 
 Other voices called on him to express his feelings about Nume- 
 rian's murderers. Drawing his sword, Diocletian declared on 
 oath that he was innocent of the emperor's death, but that he 
 knew who was guilty and would find means to punish him. 
 Descending suddenly from the platform, he made straight for 
 the Praetorian prefect, and saying, "Aper, be comforted; thou 
 shalt not die by vulgar hands; by the right hand of great 
 u^neas thou fallest,'''' he gave him his death- wound. "I have 
 killed the prophetic wild boar, " said he in the evening to his 
 confidants ; and soon afterwards, in spite of the efforts of cei> 
 tain rivals, he was emperor. 
 
 "Nothing is more difficult than to govern," was a remark 
 his c-omrades had often heard made by him amidst so many
 
 8o - HISTORY OF FRANCE. [ch. ^. 
 
 imperial catastrophes. Emperor in his tiu-n, Diocletian treas- 
 ured up this profound idea of the difficulty of government, 
 and he set to work, ably, if not successfully, to master it. 
 Convinced that the Empire was too vast, and that a single 
 man did not suffice to make head against the two evils that 
 were destroying it — war against barbarians on the frontiers, 
 and anarchy within — he divided the Roman world into two 
 portions, gave the West to Maxim ian, one of his comrades, a 
 coarse but vfdiant soldier, and kept the East himself. To 
 the anarchy that reigned within he opposed a general despotic 
 administrative organization, a vast hierarchy of civil and mil- 
 itary agents, every where present, every where masters, and 
 dependent upon the emperor alone. By his incontestable and 
 admitted superiority, Diocletian remained the soul of these 
 two bodies. At the end of eight years he saw that the two 
 Empii'es were still too vast ; and to eaeh Augustus he added a 
 Caesar— Galerius and Constantius Chlorus — who, save a nomi- 
 nal, rather than real, subordination to the two emperors, had, 
 each in his own State, the imperial power with the same ad- 
 ministrative system. In this partition of the Roman world, 
 Gaul had the best of it: she had for master, Constantius 
 Chlorus, a tried warrior, but just, gentle, and disposed to tem- 
 per the exercise of absolute power with moderation and equity. 
 He had a son, Constantine, at this time eighteen yeare of age, 
 whom he was educating carefully for government as well as 
 for war. This system of the Roman Empire, thus divided be- 
 tween four masters, lasted thirteen years ; still fruitful in wars 
 and in troubles at home, but without victories, and with some- 
 what less of anarchy. In spite of this appearance of success 
 and durabihty, absolute power failed to perform its task ; and, 
 weary of his burden and disgusted with the imperfection of 
 his work, Diocletian abdicated, a.d. 305. No event, no solici- 
 tations of his old comi-ades in arms and empire, could di'aw 
 him from his retreat on his natiA'e soil of Salona, in Dalmatia. 
 "If you could see the vegetables planted by these hands," said 
 he to Maximian and Galerius, "you would not make the at- 
 tempt." He had persuaded or rather dragged his first col- 
 league, Maximian, into abdication after him; and so Galerius 
 in the East, and Constantius Chlorus in the West, remained 
 sole emperors. After the retirement of Diocletian, ambitions, 
 rivalries, and intrigues were not slow to make head; Maxim 
 ian reappeared on the scene of empire, but only to speedily 
 disappear (a.d. 310), leaving in his place his son Maxentius
 
 CH. VI.] CHRISTIANITY IN GAUL. 87 
 
 Constantius Chlorus had died a.d. 306, and his son, Constan- 
 tine, had immediately been proclaimed by his army Caesar 
 and Augustus. Galerius died a.d. 311, and Constantine re»- 
 mained to dispute the mastery with Maxentius in the West, 
 and in the East with Maximinus and Licinius, the last col- 
 leagues taken by Diocletian and Gralerius. On the 29th of 
 October, a.d. 312, after having gained several battles against 
 Maxentius in Italy, at Milan, Brescia, and Verona, Constan- 
 tine pursued and defeated him before Rome, on the borders of 
 the Tiber, at the foot of the Milvian bridge ; and the son of 
 Maximian, drowned in the Tiber, left to the son of Constantius 
 Chlorus the Empire of the "West, to which that of the East 
 was destined to be in a few years added, by the defeat and 
 death of Licinius. Constantine, more clear-sighted and more 
 fortunate than any of his predecessors, had understood his 
 era, and opened his eyes to the new Ught which was rising 
 upon the world. Far from persecuting the Christians, as 
 Diocletian and Galerius had done, he had given them protec- 
 tion, countenance, and audience ; and towards him turned aU 
 their hopes. He had even, it is said, in his last battle against 
 Maxentius, displayed the Christian banner, the cross, with 
 this inscription : Hoc signo vinces ("with this device thou shalt 
 conquer"). There is no knowing what was at that time the 
 state of his soul, and to what extent it was penetrated by the 
 first rays of Christian faith ; but it is certain that he was the 
 first amongst the mastera of the Roman world to perceive and 
 accept its influence. With him Paganism feU, and Christian- 
 ity mounted the throne. With him the decay of Roman 
 society stops, and the era of modern society commences. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 ESTABLISHMENT OF CHRISTIANITY IN GAUL. 
 
 When Christianity began to penetrate into Gaul, it encoun- 
 tered there two religions very different one from the other, 
 and infinitely more different from the Christian religion ; these 
 were Druidism and Paganism— hostile one to the other, but 
 with a hostility pohtical only, and unconnected with those really 
 religious questions that Chi-istianity was coming to raise. 
 
 Druidism, considered as a rehgion, was a mass of confusion.
 
 88 HISTORY OF FRANCE. [ch, ti. 
 
 wherein the instinctive notions of the human race concerning 
 the origin and destiny of the world and of mankind were 
 mingled with the oriental dreams of metempsychosis— that 
 pretended transmigration, at successive periods, of immortal 
 souls into divers creatures. This confusion was worse con- 
 founded by traditions borrowed from the mythologies of the 
 East and the North, by shadowy remnants of a symbolical 
 worship paid to the material forces of nature and by barbaric 
 practices, such as human sacrifices, in honor of the gods or of 
 the dead. People who are without the scientific development 
 of language and the art of writing, do not attain to systematic 
 and productive religious creeds. There is nothing to show 
 that, from the first appearance of the Gauls in history to their 
 struggle with victorious Rome, the religious influence of 
 Druidismhad caused any notable progress to be made in GaUic 
 manners and civilization. A general and strong, but vague 
 and incoherent, beUef in the immortahty of the soul was its 
 noblest characteristic. But with the rehgious elements, at the 
 same time coarse and mystical, were united two facts of 
 importance: the Druids formed a veritable ecclesiastical cor- 
 poration, which had, throughout Gallic society, fixed attributes, 
 special manners and customs, an existence at the same time 
 distinct and national ; and in the wars with Rome this corpo- 
 ration became the most faithful representatives and the most 
 persistent defenders of GaUic independence and nationality. 
 The Druids were far more a clergy than Druidism was a 
 religion; but it was an organized and a patriotic clergy. It 
 was especially on this account that they exercised in Gaul an 
 influence which was still existent, particularly in north-western 
 Gaul, at the time when Christianity reached the Gallic 
 provinces of the south and centre. 
 
 The Graeco-Roman Paganism was, at this time, far more 
 powerful than Druidism in Gaul, and yet more lukewarm and 
 destitute of all religious vitahty. It was the religion of the 
 conquerors and of the State, and was invested, in that quality, 
 with real power ; but, beyond that, it had but the power derived 
 from popular customs and superstitions. As a rehgious creed, 
 the Latin Paganism was at bottom empty, indifferent, and 
 incUned to tolerate all religions in the State, provided only 
 that they, in their turn, were indifferent at any rate towards 
 itself, and that they did not come troubling the State, either 
 by disobeying her rulers or by attacking her old deities, dead 
 and buried beneath their own still standing altars.
 
 CH. VI.] 0ERI3TIANITY Ilf GA UL. 89 
 
 Such were the two religions with which in Gaul nascent 
 Christianity had to contend. Compared with them it was, to 
 all appearance, very small and very weak; but it was pro- 
 vided with the most efficient weapons for fighting and beating 
 them, for it had exactly the moral forces which they lacked. 
 Christianity, instead of being, like Druidism, a rehgion exclu- 
 sively national and hostile to all that was foreign, proclaimed 
 a universal religion, free from all local and national partiality, 
 addressing itself to all men in the name of the same God, and 
 offering to all the same salvation. It is one of the strangest 
 and most significant facts in history, that the rehgion most 
 universally human, most dissociated from every consideration 
 but that of the rights and well-being of the human race in its 
 entirety — that such a rehgion, be it repeated, should have come 
 forth from the womb of the most exclusive, most rigorously 
 and obstinately national religion that ever appeared in the 
 world, that is, Judaism. Such, nevertheless, was the birth of 
 Christianity ; and this wonderful contrast between the essence 
 and the earthly origin of Christianity was without doubt one 
 of its most powerful attractions and most efficacious means of 
 success. 
 
 Against Paganism Christianity was armed with moral forces 
 not a whit less great. Confronting mythological traditions and 
 poetical or philosophical allegories, appeared a religion truly 
 religious, concerned solely with the relations of mankind to 
 God and with their eternal future. To the pagan indifference 
 of the Roman world the Christians opposed the profound con- 
 viction of their faith, and not only their firmness in defending 
 it against aH powers and all dangere, but also their ardent 
 passion for propagating it without any motive but the yearning 
 to make their fellows share in its benefits and its hopes. They 
 confronted, nay, they welcomed martyrdom, at one time to 
 maintain their own Christianity, at another to make others 
 Christians around them ; propagandism was for them a duty 
 almost as imperative as fidehty. And it was not in memory 
 of old and obsolete mythologies but in the name of recent deeds 
 and persons, in obedience to laws proceeding from God, One 
 and Universal, in fulfihnent and continuation of a contempo- 
 rary and superhuman history — that of Jesus Christ, the Son 
 of God and Son of Man— that the Christians of the first two 
 centuries labored to convert to their faith the whole Roman 
 world. Marcus Aurehus was contemptuously astonished at 
 what he called the obstinacy of the Christians; he knew not
 
 90 HISTORY OF FRANCE. [CH. ti. 
 
 from what source these nameless heroes drew a strength 
 superior to his own, though he was at the same time emperor 
 and sage. It is impossible to assign with exactness the date of 
 the first foot-prints and first labors of Christianity in Gaul. It 
 was not, however, from Italy, nor in the Latin tongue and 
 through Latin wi*iters, but from the East and through the 
 Greeks, that it first came and began to spread. Marseilles and 
 the different Greek colonies, originally from Asia Minor and 
 settled upon the shores of the Mediterranean or along the 
 "Rhone, mark the route and were the places whither the first 
 Christian missionaries carried their teaching: on this point 
 the letters of the Apostles and the writings of the first two 
 generations of their disciples are clear and abiding proof. In 
 the west of the Empire, especially in Italy, the Ckristians at 
 their first appearance were confounded with the Jews, and 
 comprehended under the same name : ' ' The emperor Claudius, " 
 says Suetonius, "drove from Rome (a.d. 53) the Jews who, at 
 the instigation of Chi'istus, were in continual commotion." 
 After the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus (a.d. 71), the Jews, 
 Christian or not, dispersed tlu-oughout the Empire; but the 
 Christians were not slow to signalize themselves by their 
 religious fervor, and to come forward every where under their 
 own true name. Lyons became the chief centre of Christian 
 preaching and association in Gaul. As early as the first lialf 
 of the second century there existed there a Chi'istian con- 
 gregation, regularly organized as a Church, and already suffi- 
 ciently important to be in intimate and frequent communica' 
 tion with the Christian Churches of the East and West. 
 There is a tradition, generally admitted, that St. Pothinus, the 
 first Bishop of Lyons, was sent thither from the East by 
 the Bishop of Smyrna, St Polycarp, himself a disciple of St. 
 John. One thing is certain, that the Christian Church of 
 Lyons produced Gaul's first martyrs, amongst whom was the 
 Bishop, St. Pothinus. 
 
 It was under Marcus Aurehus, the most philosophical and 
 most conscientious of the emperors, that there was enacted for 
 the first time in Gaul, against nascent Christianity, that scene 
 of tyranny and barbarity which was to be renewed so often and 
 during so many centuries in the midst of Christendom itself. 
 In the eastern provinces of the Empii*e and in Italy the Chris- 
 tians had ah^eady been several times persecuted, now with 
 cold-blooded cruelty, now with some slight hesitation and 
 Irresolution. Nero had caused them to be burned in the
 
 CH. vi.J CHRISTIANITY IN GAUL. 91 
 
 streets of Rome, accusing them of the conflagration himself 
 had kindled, and, a few months before his fall, St, Peter and 
 St, Paul had xindegone martyrdom at Rome. Domitian had 
 persecuted and put to death Christians even in his own family, 
 and though invested with the honors of the consulate. Right- 
 eous Trajan, when consulted by Pliny the Younger on the con- 
 duct he should adopt in Bithynia towards the Christians, had 
 answered: "It is impossible, in this sort of matter, to estab- 
 lish any certain general rule ; there must be no quest set on 
 foot against them, and no unsigned indictment must be 
 accepted ; but if they be accused and convicted, they must be 
 punished." To be punished, it sufficed that they were con- 
 victed of being Christians; and it was Trajan himself who 
 condemned St. Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch, to be brought to 
 Rome and thrown to the beasts, for the simple reason that he 
 was highly Christian. Marcus Aurelius, not only by virtue of 
 his philosophical conscientiousness, but by reason of an inci- 
 dent in his history, seemed bound to be further than any other 
 from persecuting the Chi-istians During one of his campaigns 
 on the Danube, a.d. 174, his army was suffering crueUy 
 from fatigue and thirst ; and at the very moment when they 
 were on the point of engaging in a great battle agaiast the bar- 
 barians, the rain fell in abundance, refreshed the Roman 
 soldiers, and conduced to their victory. There was in the Ro- 
 man army a legion, the twelfth, caUed the Melitine or the 
 Thundering, which bore on its roll many Christian soldiers. 
 They gave thanks for the rain and the victory to the one 
 omnipotent God who had heard their prayers, whilst the pagans 
 rendered like honor to Jupiter, the rain-giver and the thun- 
 derer. The report about these Christians got spread abroad 
 and gained credit in the Empire, so much so that there was 
 attributed to Marcus Aurelius a letter, in which by reason, no 
 doubt, of this incident, he forbade persecution of the Chris- 
 tians, Tertullian, a contemporary witness, speaks of this let- 
 ter in perfect confidence ; and the Christian writers of the fol- 
 lowing century did not hesitate to regard it as authentic. 
 Now-a-days, a strict examination of its existing text does not 
 allow such a character to be attributed to it. At any rate the 
 persecutions of the Christians were not forbidden, for in the 
 year 177, that is only three years after the victory of ]\Iarcus 
 Aurehus over the Germans, there took place, undoubtedly by 
 his orders, the persecution which caused at Lyons the first 
 Gallic martyrdom. Tliis was the fourth, or, according to
 
 92 HISTORY OF FBANCm [CH. vr 
 
 others, the fifth great imperial persecution of the Chri* 
 tians. 
 
 Most tales of the martyrs were written long after the event, 
 and came to be nothing more than legends laden with details 
 often utterly puerile or devoid of proof. The martyrs of Lyona 
 in the second century wrote, so to speak, their own history; 
 for it was their comrades, eye-witnesses of their sufferings and 
 their virtue, who gave an account of them in a long letter ad- 
 dressed to their friends in Asia Minor, and written with passion- 
 ate sympathy and pious prohxity, but bearing all the character- 
 istics of truth. It seems desirable to submit for perusal that 
 docmnent, which has been preserved almost entire in the 
 Ecclesiastical History of Eusebius, Bishop of Csesarea in the 
 third century, and which will exhibit, better than any modern 
 representations, the state of facts and of souls in the midst of 
 the imperial persecutions, and the mighty faith, devotion, and 
 courage with which the early Christians faced the most cruel 
 trials. 
 
 "The servants of Christ, dwelling at Vienne and Lyons in 
 Gaul, to the brethren settled in Asia and Phrygia, who have 
 the same faith and hope of redemption that we have, peace, 
 grace, and glory from God the Father and Jesus Chi-ist our 
 Lord! 
 
 " None can tell to you in speech or fully set forth to you in 
 writing the weight of our misery, the madness and rage of the 
 Gentiles against the saints, and all that hath been suffered by 
 the blessed martyi*s. Our enemy doth rush upon us with all 
 the fury of his powers, and already giveth us a foretaste and the 
 firstfruits of all the license with which he doth intend to set 
 upon us. He hath omitted nothing for the training of liia 
 agents against us, and he doth exercise them in a sort of pre- 
 paratory work against the servants of the Lord. Not only are 
 we driven from the public buildings, from the baths, and from 
 the forum, but it is forbidden to all oiir people to appear pub- 
 licly in any place whatsoever. 
 
 *' The grace of God hath striven for us against the devil: at 
 the same time that it hath sustained.the weak, it hath opposed 
 to the Evil One, as it were, pillars of strength— men strong and 
 valiant, ready to draw on themselves all his attacks. They have 
 had to bear all manner of insult ; they have deemed but a smaQ 
 matter that which others find hard and terrible ; and they have 
 chought only of going to Christ, proving by their example that 
 Che sufferings of this world are not worthy to be put in the
 
 CH. VI.1 CEBISTIANITY IN GA UL. 93 
 
 balance with the glory which is to be manifested in us. They 
 have endured, in the fii'st place, all the outrages that could be 
 heaped upon them by the multitude, outcries, blows, thefts, 
 spoliation, stoning, imprisonment, all that the fury of the peo- 
 ple could devise against hated enemies. Then, dragged to the 
 foi-um by the military tribune and the magistrates of the city, 
 they have been questioned before the people and cast into prison 
 until the coming of the governor. He, from the moment our 
 people appeared before him, committed all manner of violence 
 against them. Then stood forth one of our brethren, Vettius 
 Epagathus, full of love towards God and his neighbor, living a 
 life so pure and strict that, young as he was, men held him to 
 be the equal of the aged Zacharias. . . He could not bear that 
 judgment so imjiist should go forth against us, and, moved 
 with indignation, he asked leave to defend his brethren, and to 
 prove that there was in them no kind of irrehgion or impiety. 
 Those present at the tribunal, amongst whom he was known 
 and celebrated, cried out against him, and the governor him- 
 self, enraged at so just a demand, asked him no more than this 
 question, "Art thou a Christian?" Straightway with a loud 
 voice, he declared himself a Christian, and was placed amongst 
 the number of the martyrs. . . . 
 
 "Afterwards, the rest began to be examined and classed. 
 The first, fii'm and well prepared, made hearty and solemn 
 confession of their faith. Others, iU prepared and with little 
 firmness, showed that they lacked strength for such a fight. 
 About ten of them fell away, which caused us incredible pain 
 and mourning. Their example broke down the the courage of 
 others, who, not being yet in bonds, though they had already 
 had much to suffer, kept close to the martyrs, and withdi*ew 
 not out of their sight. Then were we all stricken with dread 
 for the issue of the trial : not that we had great fear of the 
 torments inflicted, but because, prophesying the result accord- 
 ing to the degree of courage of the accused, we feared much 
 falling away. They took, day by day, those of our brethren 
 who were worthy to replace the weak ; so that all the best of 
 the two Churches, those whose care and zeal had founded 
 them, were taken and confined. They took, likewise, some of 
 our slaves, for the governor had ordered that they should be aU 
 summoned to attend in public ; and they, fearing the torments 
 they saw the saints undergo, and instigated by the soldiers, 
 accused us falsely of odious deeds, such as the banquet of 
 Thyestes, the incest of (Edipus, and other crimes which must
 
 94 HISTORY OF FRANCE. [ch. Tt 
 
 not be named or even thought of, and which we cannot bring 
 ourselves to believe that men were ever guilty of. These r^ 
 ports having once spread amongst the people, even those per* 
 sons who had hitherto, by reason, perhaps, of relationship, 
 shown moderation towards us, burst forth into bitter indigna- 
 tion against our people. Thus was fulfilled that which had 
 been prophesied by the Lord : ' The time cometh when whoso- 
 ever shall kill you shall think that he doeth God service.* 
 iiince that day the holy martyrs have suffered tortures that no 
 words can express. 
 
 " The fury of the multitude, of the governor and of the sol- 
 diers, feU chiefly upon Sanctus, a deacon of Vienne; upon 
 Maturus, a neophyte still, but already a valiant champion of 
 Christ; upon Attains also, bom at Pergamus, but who hath 
 ever been one of the pUlai-s of our Church ; upon Blandina, 
 lastly, in whom Christ hath made it appear that persons who 
 seem vile and despised of men are just those whom Grod holds 
 in the highest honor by reason of the excellent love they bear 
 Him, which is manifested in their firm virtue and not in vain 
 show. AU of us, and even Blandina's mistress here below, 
 who fought valiantly with the other martyrs, feared that this 
 poor slave, so weak of body, would not be in a condition to 
 freely confess her faith ; but she was sustained by such vigor 
 of soul that the executioners, who from morn tiU eve put her 
 to all manner of torture, failed in their efforts, and declared 
 themselves beaten, not knowing what further punishment to 
 inflict, and marvelling that she still lived, with her body 
 pierced through and through, and torn piecemeal by so many 
 tortiu'es, of which a single one should have sufficed to kill 
 her. But that blessed saint, like a valiant athlete, took fresh 
 courage and strength from the confession of her faith ; all feel- 
 ing of pain vanished, and ease returned to her at the mere 
 utterance of the words, 'I am a Christian, and no evil is 
 wrought amongst us. 
 
 " As for Sanctus, the executioners hoped that in the midst of 
 the tortures inflicted upon him— the most atrocious which man 
 could devise — they would hear him say something imseemly 
 or imlawful ; but so firmly did he resist them, that, without 
 even saying his name, or that of his nation or city, or whether 
 he was bond or free, he only rephed in the Eoman tongue, to 
 all questions, "lama Christian." Thereia was, for him, hia 
 name, his country, his condition, his whole being; and never 
 could the Gentiles wrest from him another word. The fury of
 
 CH. VI. J CnRISTIANITT I^' GA UL. 95 
 
 the governor and the executioners was redoubled against him; 
 and, not knowing how to torment him further, they apphed to 
 his most tender members bars of red-hot iron. His members 
 burned; but he, upright and immovable, persisted in his pro- 
 fession of faith, as if living waters from the bosom of Christ 
 flowed over him and refreshed him. . . . Some days after, 
 these infidels began again to torture him, believing that if they 
 inflicted upon his blistering wounds the same agonies, they 
 would triumph over him, who seemed unable to bear the mere 
 touch of their hands ; and they hoped, also, that the sight of this 
 torturing ahve would terrify his comrades. But, contrary to 
 general expectation, the body of Sanctus, rising suddenly up, 
 stood erect and firm amidst these repeated torments, and re- 
 covered its old appearance and the use of its members, as if, 
 by Divine grace, this second laceration of his flesh had caused 
 healing rather than suffering. . . . 
 
 ' ' When the tyrants had thus expended and exhausted their 
 tortures against the firmness of the martyrs sustained by 
 Christ, the devil devised other contrivances. They were cast 
 into the darkest and most imendurable place in their prison; 
 their feet were dragged out and compressed to the utmost ten- 
 sion of the muscles ; the gaolers, as if instigated by a demon, 
 tried eveiy sort of torture, insomuch that several of them, for 
 whom God willed such an end, died of suffocation in prison. 
 Others, who had been tortured in such a manner that it was 
 thought impossible they should long survive, deprived as they 
 were of eveiy remedy and aid from men, but supported never- 
 theless by the grace of God, remained sound and strong in body 
 as in soul, and comforted and re-animated their brethren. . . . 
 
 " The blessed Pothinus, who held at that time the bishopric 
 of Lyons, being upwards of ninety, and so weak in body that he 
 could hardly breathe, was himself brought before the tribunal, 
 so worn with old age and sickness that he seemed nigh to ex- 
 tinction ; but he still possessed his soul, wherewith to subserve 
 the trimnph of Christ. Being brought by the soldiere before 
 the tribimal, whither he was accompanied by all the magis- 
 trates of the city and the whole populace, that pm^ued him 
 with hootings, he offered, as if he had been the very Christ, 
 the most glorious testimony. At a question from the governor, 
 who asked what the God of the Christians was, he answered, 
 " If thou be worthy, thou shalt know." He was immediately 
 raised up, without any respect or humanity, and blows were 
 showered upon him; those who happened to be nearest to him 
 (5) HF Vol. 1
 
 96 DISTORT OF FRANCE. [gh. "VX 
 
 assaulted hita prievously with foot and fist, without the 
 sHghtest regard for his age; those who were farther ofE cast at 
 him whatever was to their hand ; they would all have thought 
 themselves guilty of the greatest default if they had not done 
 their best, each on his own score, to insult him brutally. They 
 beheved they were avenging the wrongs of their gods. Pothi- 
 nus, stiU breathmg, was cast again into prison, and two days 
 ^ter yielded up his spirit. 
 
 " The-n were manifested a singular dispensation of God and 
 the immeasurable compassion of Jesus Christ : an example rare 
 amongst brethren, but in accord with the intentions and the 
 justice of the Lord. All those who, at their first arrest, had 
 denied their faith, were themselves cast into prison and given 
 over to the same sufferings as the other martyrs, for their denial 
 did not serve them at all. Those who had made profession of 
 being what they really were — that is, Christians — were im- 
 prisoned without being accused of other crimes. The former, 
 on the contrary, were confined as homicides and wretches, 
 thus stiffering double punishment. The one sort found repose 
 in the honorable joys of martyrdom, in the hope of promised 
 blessedness, in the love of Christ, and in the spirit of God the 
 Father; the other were a prey to the reproaches of conscience. 
 It was easy to distinguish the one from the other by their looks. 
 The one walked joyously, bearing on their faces a majesty 
 mingled with sweetness, and their very bonds seemed unto 
 them an ornament, even as the broidery that decks a bride; 
 . . . the other, with downcast eyes and humble and dejected 
 air, were an object of contempt to the Gentiles themselves, 
 who regarded them as cowards who had forfeited the glorious 
 and saving name of Cliristians. And so they who were present 
 at this double spectacle were thereby signally strengthened, 
 and whoever amongst them chanced to be arrested confessed 
 the faith without doubt or hesitation. . . 
 
 "Things having come to this pass, different kinds of death 
 were inflicted on the martyrs, and they offered to God a crown 
 of divers flowers. It was but right that the most valiant 
 champions, those who had sustained a double assault and 
 gained a signal victory, should receive a splendid crown of im- 
 mortality. The neophyte Maturus and the deacon Sanctus, 
 Blandina and Attains, then, were led into the amphitheatre, 
 and thrown to the beasts, as a sight to please the inhumanity 
 of the Gentiles. . . Maturus and Sanctus there underwent a& 
 kinds of tortures, as if they had hitherto suffered nothing; or.
 
 CH. VI.] CHRISTIANITY IN GAUL. 97 
 
 rather, like athletes who had already been several times vic- 
 torious, and were contending for the crown of crowns, they 
 braved the stripes with which they were beaten, the bites of 
 the beasts that dragged them to and fro, and all that was de« 
 manded by the outcries of an insensate mob, so much the more 
 furious, because it could by no means overcome the firmness 
 of the martyi'S or extort from Sanctus any other speech than 
 that which, on the first day, he had uttered : ' I am a Chris- 
 tian.' After this fearful contest, as life was not extinct, their 
 throats were at last cut, when they alone had thus been offered 
 as a spectacle to the pubhc instead of the variety displaj^ed in 
 the combat of gladiators, Blandina, in her tiim, tied to a 
 stake, was given to the beasts ; she was seen hanging, as it 
 were, on a sort of cross, calling upon God with trustful fervor, 
 and the brethren present were reminded, in the person of a 
 sister, of Him who had been crucified for their salvation. . . 
 As none of tbe beasts would touch the body of Blandina, she 
 was released from the stake, taken back to prison, and re- 
 served for another occasion. . . Attains, whose execution, 
 seeing that he was a man of mark, was furiously demanded by 
 the people, came forward ready to brave every thing, as a man 
 deriving confidence from the memory of his life, for he had 
 com-ageously trained himself to discipline, and had always 
 amongst us borne witness for the truth. He was led aU round 
 the amphitheatre, preceded by a board bearing this inscrip- 
 tion in Latin: 'This is Attains the Christian.' The people 
 pursued him with the most furious hootings ; but the governor, 
 having learnt that he was a Eoman citizen, had him taken 
 back to prison with the rest. Having subsequently written to 
 Csesar, he waited for his decision as to those who were thus 
 detained. 
 
 ' ' This delay was neither useless nor unprofitable, for then 
 shone forth the boundless comi^assion of Christ. Those of the 
 brethren who had been but dead members of the Church, were 
 recalled to hf e by the pains and help of the living ; the martyrs 
 obtained grace for those who had fallen away; and great was 
 the joy in the Church, at the same time virgin and mother, 
 for she once more found living those whom she had given up 
 for dead. Thus revived and strengthened by the goodness of 
 God, who willeth not the death of the sinner, but rather in- 
 viteth him to repentance, they presented themselves before the 
 tribanal, to be questioned afresh by the governor. Caesar had 
 replied that they who confessed themselves to be Christians
 
 98 BISTORT Olf FRANCE. [cH. vi. 
 
 shoiild be put to the sword, and they wh» denied sent away 
 safe and sound. When the time for the great market had fully 
 come, there assembled a numerous multitude from every 
 nation and every province. The governor had the blessed 
 martyrs brought up before his judgment-seat, showing them 
 before the people with all the pomp of a theatre. He ques- 
 tioned them afresh ; and those who were discovered to be Eo- 
 man citizens were beheaded, the rest were thrown to the 
 beasts. 
 
 " Great glory was gained for Christ by means of those who 
 had at first denied their faith, and who now confessed it con- 
 trary to the expectation of the Gentiles. Those who, having 
 been privately questioned, declared themselves Christians were 
 added to the number of the martyrs. Those in whom appeared 
 no vestige of faith, and no fear of God, remained without the 
 pale of the Church. When they were dealing with those who 
 had been remiited to it, one Alexander, a Phrygian by nation, 
 a physician by profession, who had for many years been 
 dwelling in Gaul, a man well known to all for his love of God 
 and open preachiag of the faith, took his place in the hall of 
 judgment, exhorting by signs all who filled it to confess their 
 faith, even as if he had been called in to deliver them of it. 
 The multitude, enraged to see that those who had at first de- 
 nied turned round and proclaimed their faith, cried out against 
 Alexander, whom they accused of the conversion. The gov- 
 ernor forthwith asked him what he was, and at the answer, 
 *I am a Christian,' condemned him to the beasts. On the 
 morrow Alexander was again brought up, together with 
 Attains, whom the governor, to please the people, had once 
 more condemned to the beasts. After they had both suffered 
 in the amphitheatre all the torments that could be devised, 
 they were put to the sword. Alexander uttered not a com- 
 plaint, not a word ; he had the air of one who was talking in- 
 wardly with God. Attains, seated on an iron seat, and wait- 
 ing for the fire to consume his body, said, in Latin, to the 
 people, ' See what ye are doing ; it is in truth devouring men ; 
 as for us, we devour not men, and we do no evil at all." He 
 was asked what was the name of God: *God,' said he, 'is not 
 like us mortals; He hath no name.' 
 
 " After all these martyrs, on the last day of the shows, Blan- 
 dina was again brought up, together with a yoimg lad, named 
 Ponticus, about fifteen years old. They had been brought up 
 every day before that they might see the tortures of their
 
 OH. vi.J CnmSTIANITY IN GA UL. 99 
 
 brethren. When they were called upon to swear by the altars 
 of the Gentiles, they remained firm in their faith, making no 
 accoimt of those pretended gods, and so great was the fury of 
 the multitude against them, that no pity was shown for the age 
 of the child or the sex of the woman. Tortm-es were heaped 
 upon them; they were made to pass through every kind of 
 torment, but the desired end was not gained. Supported by 
 the exhortations of his sister, who was seen and heard by the 
 Gentiles, Ponticus, after having endured all magnanimously, 
 gave up the ghost. Blandina, last of all — like a noble mother 
 that hath roused the courage of her sons for the fight, and sent 
 them forth to conquer for their king— passed once more 
 through aU the tortures they had suffered, anxious to go and 
 rejoin them, and rejoicing at each step towards death. At 
 length, after she had undergone fire, the talons of beasts, and 
 agonizing aspersion, she was wrapped in a network and thrown 
 to a bidl that tossed her in the air ; she was already uncon- 
 scious of all that befell her, and seemed altogether taken up 
 with watching for the blessings that Christ had in store for 
 her. Even the Gentiles allowed that never a woman had 
 suffered so much or so long. 
 
 "Still their fury and their cruelty towards the saints was 
 not appeased. They devised another way of raging against 
 them ; they cast to the dogs the bodies of those who had died 
 of suffocation in prison, and watched night and day that none 
 of our brethren might come and bury them. As for what re- 
 mained of the martyrs' half mangled or devoured corpses, they 
 left them exposed under a guard of soldiers, coming to look on 
 them with insulting eyes, and saying, * Where is now their 
 God? Of what use to them was this religion for which they 
 laid down their lives? ' We were overcome with grief that we 
 were not able to bury these poor corpses ; nor the darkness of 
 night, nor gold, nor prayers could help us to succeed therein. 
 After being thus exposed for six days in the open air, given 
 over to all manner of outrage, the corpses of the martyrs were 
 at last burned, reduced to ashes, and cast hither and thither by 
 the infidels upon the waters of the Rhone, that there might be 
 left no trace of them on earth. They acted as if they had been 
 more mighty than God, and could rob oiu" brethren of their 
 resurrection: "Tis in that hope,' said they, 'that these folk 
 bring amongst us a new and strange religion, that they set at 
 naught the most painful torments, and that they go joyfully 
 to face death: let us see if they will rise again, if their God
 
 100 HISTORY OF FRANCE. [CH. VL 
 
 will come to their aid and will be able to tear them from our 
 hands." 
 
 It is not without a painful effort that, even after so many 
 centuries, we can resign ourselves to be witnesses, in imagi- 
 nation only, of such a spectacle. We can scarce beUeve that 
 amongst men of the same period and the same city so much 
 ferocity could be displayed in opposition to so much courage, 
 the passion for barbarity against the passion for virtue. 
 Neverthless, such is history ; and it should be represented as it 
 really was : first of all, for truth's sake ; then for the due ap- 
 preciation of virtue and all it costs of effort and sacrifice; 
 and, lastly, for the purpose of showing what obstacles have to 
 be surmounted, what struggles endured, and what sufferings 
 borne, when the question is the accomplishment of great moral 
 and social reforms. Marcus Aurelius was, without any doubt, 
 a virtuous ruler, and one who had it in his heart to be just and 
 humane ; but he was an absolute ruler, that is to say, one fed 
 entirely on his own ideas, very ill-informed about the facts on 
 which he had to decide, and without a free public to warn him 
 of the errors of his ideas or the practical residts of his decrees. 
 He ordered the persecution of the Christians without knowing 
 what the Christians were, or what the persecution would be, 
 and this conscientious philosopher let loose at Lyons, against 
 the most conscientious of subjects, the zealous servility of his 
 agents, and the atrocious passions of the mob. 
 
 The persecution of the Christians did not stop at Lyons, or 
 with Marcus Aurelius; it became, during the third century, 
 the common practice of the emperors in all parts of the Em- 
 pire: from A.D. 202 to 312, under the reigns of Septimius 
 Severus, Maximinus the First, Decius, Valerian, Aurelian, 
 Diocletian, Maximian, and Galerius, there are reckoned six 
 great general persecutions, without counting others more cir- 
 cumsci'ibed or less severe. The emperors Alexander Severus, 
 Philip the Arabian, and Constantius Clilorus were almost the 
 only exceptions to this cruel system; and nearly always, 
 wherever it was in force, the Pagan mob, in its brutality or 
 fanatical superstition, added to imperial rigor its own atrocious 
 and cynical excesses. 
 
 But Christian zeal was superior in perseverance and efficacy 
 to Pagan persecution. St. Pothinus the Martyr was succeeded 
 as bishop at Lyons by St. Irenseus, the most learned, most 
 judicious, and most illustrious of the early heads of the Church 
 in Gaul. Originally from Asia Minor, probably from Smyrna,
 
 cH. VI.] CHIilSTIANITT IN OA UL. 101 
 
 he had migrated to Gaul, at what particular date is not known 
 and had settled as a simple priest in the diocese of Lyons, where 
 it was not long before he exercised vast influence, as well on 
 the spot as also during certain missions entrusted to him, and 
 amongst them one, they say, to the Pope St. Eleutherius at 
 Eome. Whilst Bishop of Lyons, from a.d. 177 to 202, he em- 
 ployed the five and twenty years in propagating the Christian 
 faith in Gaul, and in defending, by his writings, the Christian 
 doctrines against the discord to which they had already been 
 subjected in the East, and which was beginning to penetrate 
 to the West. In 202, during the persecution instituted by^Sep- 
 timius Severus, St. Irenasus crowned by martyrdom his active 
 and influential Hfe. It was in his episcopate that there began 
 what may be called the swarm of Christian missionaries who, 
 towards the end of the second and during the third centuries, 
 spread over the whole of Gaul preaching the faith and forming 
 churches. Some went from Lyons at the instigation of St. 
 Irenseus; others from Eome, especially under the pontificate 
 of Pope St. Fabian, himself martyred in 249 ; St. Felix and St. 
 Fortunatus to Valence, St. Ferreol to Besangon, St. Marcellus 
 to Chalons-sur-Saone, St. Benignus to Dijon, St. Trophimus to 
 Aries, St. Paul to Narbonne, St. Saturninus to Toulouse, St. 
 Martial to Limoges, St. Andeol and St. Privatus to the Ce- 
 vennes, St. Austremoine to Clermont-Ferrand, St. Gatian to 
 Tours, St. Denis to Paris, and so many others that their names 
 are scarcely known beyond the pages of erudite historians or 
 the very spots where they preached, struggled, and conquered, 
 often at the price of their lives. Such were the founders of 
 the faith and of the Christian Church in France. At the com- 
 mencement of the fourth century their work was, if not ac- 
 complished, at any rate triumphant; and when, a.d. 312, Con- 
 stantine declared himself a Christian, he confirmed the fact ot 
 the conquest of the Roman world, and of Gaul in particular, by 
 Christianity. No doubt the majority of the inhabitants were 
 not as yet Christians ; but it was clear that the Christians were 
 in the ascendant and had command of the future. Of the two 
 grand elements which were to meet together, on the ruins of 
 Roman society, for the formation of modem society, the moral 
 element, the Christian religion, had already taken possession 
 of souls ; the devastated territory awaited the coming of new 
 peoples known to history imder the general name of Germans, 
 whom the Romans called the barbarians.
 
 102 HISTORY OF FRANCE. [ch. to. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE GERMANS IN GAUL.— THE PRANKS AND CLOVIS. 
 
 About a.d. 241 or 242 the sixth Eoman legion, commanded 
 by Aurelian, at that time military tribmie, and thirty years 
 later, emperor, had just finished a campaign on the Rhine, 
 undertaken for the purpose of driving the Germans from 
 Gaul, and was preparing for Eastern service, to make war on 
 the Persians. The soldiers sang, — 
 
 We have slain a thousand Franks and a thousand 
 Sarmatians; we want a thousand, thousand, 
 Thousand Persians. 
 
 That was, apparently, a popular burthen at the time, for on 
 the days of military festivals, at Rome and in Gaul, the 
 children sang, as they danced, — 
 
 We have cut off the heads of a thousand, thousand, thousand, 
 
 Thousand ; 
 
 One man hath cut off the heads of a thousand, thousand, thousand. 
 
 Thousand, thousand; 
 
 May he live a thousand, thousand years, he who 
 
 Hath slain a thousand, thousand! 
 
 Nobody hath so much of wine as he 
 
 Hath of blood poured out. 
 
 Aurehan, the hero of these ditties, was indeed much given to 
 the pouring out of blood, for at the approach of a fresh war he 
 wrote to the senate, — 
 
 " I marvel, Conscript Fathers, that ye have so much misgiv- 
 ing about opening the SibyUine books, as if ye were dehbera- 
 ting in an assembly of Christians, and not in the temple of all 
 the gods. . . Let inquiiy be made of the sacred books, and let 
 celebration take place of the ceremonies that ought to be ful- 
 filled. Far from refusing, I offer, with zeal, to satisfy all ex- 
 penditure required, with captives of evet^y nationality, victims 
 of royal rank. It is no shame to conquer with the aid of the 
 gods; it is thus that our ancestors began and ended many a 
 war." 
 
 Human saciifices, then, were not yet foreign to Pagan fes- 
 tivals, and probably the blood of more than one Fi-ankish cap- 
 tive on that occasion flowed in the temple of all tlie gods.
 
 OH. vn.] THE FRANKS AND CLOVIS. 103 
 
 It is the first time the name of Franks appears in history, 
 and it indicated no particular, single people, but a confederation 
 of Grermanic peoplets, settled or roving on the right bank of 
 the Rhine, from the Mayn to the ocean. The nmnber and the 
 names of the tx'ibes united in this confederation are uncertain. 
 A chart of the Roman empire, prepared apparently at the end 
 of the fourth century, in the reign of the Emperor Honorius 
 (■which chart, called tabula Peutingeri, was found amongst the 
 ancient MSS. collected by Conrad Peutinger, a learned German 
 philosopher, in the fifteenth century), bears, over a large ter- 
 titory on the right bank of the Rhine, the word Francia, and 
 the following enumeration: — "The Chaucians, the Ampsuar- 
 ians, the Cheruscans, and the Chamavians, who are also called 
 Frank • ;" and to these tribes divers chroniclers added several 
 others, "the Attuarians, the Bructerians, the Cattians, and 
 the Sicambrians." Whatever may have been the specific 
 names of these peoplets, they were all of German race, called 
 themselves Franks, that is " freemen, " and made, sometimes 
 separately, sometimes collectively, continued incursions into 
 Gaul— especially Belgica and the northern portions of Lyon- 
 ness — at one time plundering and ravaging, at another occupy- 
 ing forcibly, or demanding of the Roman emperors lands 
 whereon to settle. From the middle of the third to the begin- 
 ning of the fifth century the history of the Western empire 
 presents an almost uninterrupted series of these invasions on 
 the part of the Franks, together with the different relation- 
 ships established between them and the Imperial government. 
 At one time whole tribes settled on Roman soil, submitted to 
 the emperors, entered their service, and fought for them even 
 against their own German compatriots. At another, isolated 
 individuals, such and such warriors of German race, put 
 themselves at the command of the emperors, and became of 
 importance. At the middle of the third century, 'the Emperor 
 Valerian, on committing a command to Aurehan, wrote, 
 "Thou wilt have with thee Hartmund, Haldegast, Hildmund, 
 and Carioviscus." Some Frankish tribes aUied themselves 
 more or less fieetingly with the Imperial government, at the 
 same time that they preserved their independence; others 
 pursued, throughout the Empire, their life of incursion and 
 adventure. From a.d. 260 to 268, under the reign of Gal- 
 Uenus, a band of Franks threw itseK upon Gaul, scoured it 
 from north-east to south-east, plundering and devastating 
 on its way; then it passed from Aquitania into Spain, tool'
 
 104 BISTORT OF FRANCE. [cH. vu 
 
 and burned Tarragona, gained' possession of certain vessels, 
 sailed away, and disappeared in Africa, after having wandered 
 about for twelve years at its own will and pleasure. There 
 was no lack of valiant emperors, precarious and ephemeral as 
 their power may have been, to defend the Empire, and 
 especially Gaul, against those enemies, themselves ephemeral, 
 but for ever recurring; Decius, Valerian, Gallienus, Claudius 
 Gothicus, Aurelian, and Probus gallantly withstood those 
 repeated attacks of German hordes. Sometimes they flattered 
 themselves they had gained a definitive victory, and then the 
 old Roman pride exhibited itself in their patriotic confidence. 
 About A.D. 278, the Emperor Probus, after gaining several vic- 
 tories in Gaul over the Franks, wrote to the senate, — 
 
 "I render thanks to the immortal gods, Conscript Fathers, 
 for that they have confirmed yom* judgment as regards me. 
 Germany is subdued throughout its whole extent ; nine kings 
 of different nations have come and cast themselves at my feet, 
 or rather at yours, as suppliants with their foreheads in the 
 dust. Already all those barbarians are tilling for you, sowing 
 for you, and fighting for you against the most distant nations. 
 Order ye, therefore, according to your custom, prayers of 
 thanksgiving, for we have slain four thousand of the enemy; 
 we have had offered to us sixteen thousand men ready 
 armed ; and we have wrested from the enemy the seventy 
 most important towns. The Gauls, in fact, are completely 
 dehvered. The crowns offered to me by all the cities of Gaul I 
 have submitted. Conscript Fathers, to your grace ; dedicate ye 
 them with your own hands to Jupiter, all-bountiful, all-power- 
 ful, and to the other immortal gods and goddesses. All the 
 booty is retaken, and, further, we have made fresh captures, 
 more considerable than our first losses ; the fields of Gaul are 
 tilled by the oxen of the barbarians, and German teams bend 
 their necks in slavery to our husbandmen; divers nations 
 raise cattle for our consumption, and horses to remount our 
 cavalry ; our stores are full of the corn of the barbarians — in 
 one word, we have left to the vanquished naught but the soil, 
 all their other possessions are ours. We had at first thought 
 it necessary. Conscript Fathers, to appoint a new Governor of 
 Germany ; but we have put off this measure to the time when 
 our ambition shall be more completely satisfied, which will be, 
 as it seems to us, when it shall have pleased Divine Provi- 
 dence to increase and multiply the forces of our armies." 
 
 Probus had good reason to wish that "Divine Providence
 
 Ctt. Tn.] TEE FRANKS AND CLOVIS. 105 
 
 might be pleased to increase the forces of the Roman armies," 
 for even after his victories, exaggerated as they probably 
 were, they did not suffice for their task, and it was not long 
 before the vanqui^shed recommenced war. He had dispersed 
 over the territory of the Empire the majority of the prisoners 
 he had taken. A band of Franks, who had been transported 
 and established as a military colony on the European shore 
 of the Black Sea, could not make up their minds to remain 
 there. They obtained possession of some vessels, traversed 
 the Propontis, the Hellespont, and the Archipelago, ravaged 
 the coasts of Greece, Asia Minor, and Africa, plundered Syra- 
 cuse, scoured the whole of the Mediterranean, entered the 
 ocean by the Straits of Gibraltar, and, making their way up 
 again along the coasts of Gaul, arrived at last at the mouths of 
 the Rhine, where they once more found themselves at home 
 amongst the vines which Probus, in his victorious progress, 
 had been the first to have planted, and with probably their 
 old taste for adventure and plunder. 
 
 After the commencement of the fifth century, from a.d. 406 
 to 409, it was no longer by incursions limited to certain points, 
 and sometimes repeUed with success, that the Germans har- 
 assed the Roman provinces: a veritable deluge of divers 
 nations, forced one upon another, from Asia into Europe, by 
 wars and migration in mass, inundated the Empire and gave 
 the decisive signal for its fall. St. Jerome did not exaggerate 
 when he wrote to Ageruchia, "Nations, countless in nmnber 
 and exceeding fierce, have occupied aU the Gauls ; Quadians, 
 Vandals, Sarmatians, Alans, Gepidians, Herulians, Saxons, Bur- 
 gundians, Allemannians, Pannonians, and even Assyrians 
 have laid waste all that there is between the Alps and the 
 Pyrenees, the ocean and the Rhine. Sad destiny of the com- 
 monwealth ! Mayence, once a noble city, hath been taken and 
 destroyed ; thousands of men were slaughtered in the church. 
 Worms hath fallen after a long siege. The inhabitants of 
 Rheims, a powerful city, and those of Amiens, Arras, 
 Terouanne, at the extremity of Gaul, Tournay, Spires, and 
 Strasburg have been carried away to Germany. All hath been 
 ravaged in Aquitania (Novempopulania), Lyonness, and Nar- 
 bonness; the towns, save a few, are dispeopled; the sword 
 pursueth them abroad and famine at home. I cannot speak 
 •without tears of Toulouse ; if she be not reduced to equal ruin, 
 it is to the merits of her holy Bishop Exuperus, that she owetb 
 it."
 
 106 HISTORY OF FRANCE. [en. tit. 
 
 Then took place throughout the Roman empire, in the East 
 as well as in the West, in Asia and Africa as well as in 
 Europe, the last grand struggle between the Roman armies and 
 barbaric nations. Atomies is the proper term ; for, to tell the 
 truth, there was no longer a Roman nation, and very seldom a 
 Roman emperor with some little capacity for government or 
 war. The long continuence of despotism and slavery had 
 enervated equally the ruling power and the people; every 
 thing depended on the soldiers and their generals. It was in 
 Gaul that the struggle was most obstinate and most promptly 
 brought to a decisive issue, and the confusion there was as 
 great as the obstinacy. Barbaric peoplets served in the ranks 
 and barbaric leaders held the command of the Roman armies: 
 Stihcho was a Goth; Arbogastes and Mellobaudes were Franks; 
 Ricimer was a Suevian. The Roman generals, Bonifacius, 
 Aetius, -(Egidius, Syagrius, at one time fought the barbarians, 
 at another negotiated with such and such of them, either to 
 entice them to take service against other barbarians, or to pro- 
 mote the objects of personal ambition, for the Roman generals 
 aJso, under the titles of patrician, consul, or proconsul, aspired 
 to and attained a sort of political independence, and contributed 
 to the dismemberment of the empire in the very act of defend- 
 ing it. No later than a.d, 413, two German nations, the Visi- 
 goths and the Burgundians, took their stand definitively in 
 Graul, and founded there two new kingdoms: the Visigoths, 
 under theii' kings Ataulph and WaUia, in Aquitania and 
 Narbonness ; the Burgundians, under their kings Gundichaire 
 and Gimdioch, in Lyonness, from the southern point of Alsatia 
 right into Provence, along the two banks of the Saone and the 
 left bank of the Rhone, and also in Switzerland. In 451 the 
 arrival in Gaul of the Huns and their king Attila — already 
 famous, both long and nation, for their wild habits, their 
 fierce valor, and their successes against the Eastern empire — 
 gravely complicated the situation. The common interest of 
 resistance against the most barbarous of bai'barians, and the 
 renown and energy of Aetius, united, for the moment, the old 
 and new masters of GavQ; Romans, Gauls, Visigoths, Bur- 
 gundians, Franks, Alans, Saxons, and Britons, formed the 
 army led by Aetius against that of Attila, who also had in his 
 ranks Goths, Burgundians, Gepidians, Alans, and beyond- 
 Rhine Franks, gathered together and enlisted on his road. It 
 was a chaos and a conflict of barbarians, of every name and 
 race, disputing one with another, pell-mell, the remnants of the
 
 CH. VII.] THE FRANKS AND CL0VI8. 107 
 
 Roman empire torn asunder and in dissolution. Attila had 
 already ari'ived before Orleans, and was laying siege to it. 
 The bishop, St. Anianus, sustained awhile the courage of the 
 besieged by promising them aid from Aetius and his allies. 
 The aid was slow to come; and the bishop sent to Aetius a 
 message; '' K thou be not here this very day, my son, it will 
 be too late." Still Aetius came not. The people of Orleans 
 determined to surrender; the gates flew open; the Huns 
 entered; the plundering began without much disorder; "wag- 
 gons were stationed to receive the booty as it was taken from 
 the houses, and the captives, arranged in groups, were divided 
 by lot between the victorious chieftains." Suddenly a shout 
 re-echoed through the streets: it was Aetius, Theodoric, and 
 Thorismund, his son, who were coming with the eagles of the 
 Eoman legions and with the banners of the Visigoths. A 
 fight took place between them and the Hims, at first on the 
 banks of the Loire, and then in the streets of the city. The 
 people of Orleans joined their liberators ; the danger was great 
 for the Huns, and Attila ordered a retreat. It was the 14th of 
 June, 451, and that day was for a long while celebrated in the 
 church of Orleans as the date of a signal dehverance. The 
 Huns retu'ed towards Champagne, which they had already 
 crossed at their coming into Gaul ; and when they were before 
 Troyes, the bishop, St. Lupus, repaired to Attila's camp, and 
 besought him to spare a defenceless city, which had neither 
 walls nor garrison. "So be it!" answered Attila; "but thou 
 shalt come with me and see the Rhine ; I promise then to send 
 thee back again. " With mingled prudence and superstition, 
 the barbarian meant to keep the holy man as a hostage. The 
 Huns arrived at the plains hard by Chalons-sur-Marne ; Aetius 
 and all his allies had followed them ; and Attila, perceiving that 
 a battle was inevitable, halted in a position for deUvering it. 
 The Gothic historian Jornandes says that he consulted his 
 priests, who answered that the Huns Avould be beaten, but that 
 the general of the enemy would fall in the fight. In this 
 prophecy Attila saw predicted the death of Aetius, his most for- 
 midable enemy ; and the struggle commenced. There is no pre- 
 cise information about the date; but "it was," says Jornandes, 
 " a battle which for atrocity, multitude, horror, and stubborn- 
 ness has not the like in the records of antiquity." Historians 
 vary in their exaggerations of the numbers engaged and 
 killed: according to some, three hundred thousand, according 
 to others, one hmidred and sixty-two thousand were left od
 
 108 HISTORY OP FRANCE. [CH. vix 
 
 the field of battle. Theodoric, King of the Visigoths, was 
 killed. Some chroniclers name Meroveus as King of the 
 Franks, settled in Belgica, near Tongres, who formed part of 
 the army of Aetius. They even attribute to him a brilUant 
 attack made on the eve of the battle upon the Gepidians, alhes 
 of the Huns, when ninety thousand men fell, according to 
 some, and only fifteen thousand according to others. The 
 numbers are purely imaginary, and even the fact is doubtful. 
 However, the battle of Chalons drove the Huns out of Gaul, 
 and was the last victory in Gaul, gained still in the name of 
 the Roman empire, but in reality for the advantage of the 
 German nations which had already conquered it. Twenty- 
 four years afterwards the very name of Roman empire disap- 
 peared with Augustulus, the last of the emperors of the West. 
 Thirty years after the battle of Chalons, the Franks settled 
 in Gaul were not yet united as one nation ; several tribes with 
 this name, independent one of another, were planted between 
 the Rhine and the Somme ; there were some in the environs of 
 Cologne, Calais, Cambrai, even beyond the Seine and as far as 
 Le Mans, on the confines of the Britons. This is one of the 
 reasons of the confusion that prevails in the ancient chronicles 
 about the chieftains or kings of these tribes, their names and 
 dates, and the extent and site of their possessions. Pharamond, 
 Clodion, Meroveus, and Childeric cannot be considered as 
 Kings of France, and placed at the beginning of her history. 
 If they are met with in connection with historical facts, fabu- 
 lous legends or fanciful traditions are mingled with them: 
 Priam appears as a predecessor of Pharamond ; Clodion, who 
 passes for having been the first to bear and transmit to the 
 Frankish kings the title of "long-haired," is represented as the 
 son, at one time of Pharamond, at another, of another chieftain 
 named Theodemer; romantic adventures, spoilt by geograph- 
 ical mistakes, adorn the life of Childeric. All that can be dis- 
 tinctly afiirmed is, that, from a. d. 450 to 480, the two princi- 
 pal Frankish tribes were tliose of the Salian Franks and the 
 Ripuarian Franks, settled, the latter in the east of Belgica, on 
 the banks of the Moselle and the Rhine ; the former, towards 
 the west, between the Meuse, the ocean, and the Somme. Mer- 
 oveus, whose name was perpetuated in his line, was one of the 
 principal chieftains of the Salian Franks ; and his son Chil'ieric, 
 who resided at Tournay, where his tomb was discovered in 
 1655, was the father of Clovis, who succeeded him in 481, and 
 with whom really commenced the kingdom and history of 
 France.
 
 CH, VII.] THE FRANKS AND GLOVIS. 109 
 
 Clovis was fifteen or sixteen years old when he hecame King 
 of the Salian Franks of Toumay. Five years afterwards his 
 ruling passion, ambition, exhibited itself, together with that 
 mixture of boldness and craft which was to characterize his 
 whole life. He had two neighbors: one, hostile to the Franks, 
 the Eoman patrician Syagrius, who was left master at Sois- 
 ons after the death of his father -^gidius, and whom Gregory 
 of Tours caUs "King of the Romans;" the other, a SaMan- 
 Frankish chieftain, just as Clovis was, and related to him, 
 Ragnacaire, who was settled at Cambrai. Clovis induced 
 Ragnacaire to join him in a campaign against Syagrius. They 
 fought, and Syagrius was driven to take refuge in Southern 
 Gaul, with Alaric, king of the Visigoths. Clovis, not content 
 with taking possession of Soissons, and anxious to prevent any 
 toublesome return, demanded of Alaric to send Syagiius back 
 to him, threatening war if the request were refused. The 
 Goth, less beUicose than the Frank, dehvered up Syagiius to 
 the envoys of Clovis, who immediately had him secretly put to 
 death, settled himself at Soissons, and from thence set on foot, 
 in the country between the Aisne and the Loire, plundering 
 and subjugating expeditions which speedily increased his do- 
 mains and his wealth, and extended far and wide his fame as 
 well as his ambition. The Franks who accompanied him were 
 not long before they also felt the growth of his power; like 
 Tn'm they were pagans, and the treasures of the Christian 
 churches counted for a great deal in the booty they had to 
 divide. On one of their expeditions they had taken in the 
 church of Rheims, amongst other things, a vase " of marvellous 
 size and beauty." The Bishop of Rheims, St. Remi, was not 
 quite a stranger to Clovis. Some years before, when he had 
 heard that the son of Childeric had become king of the Franks 
 of Toumai, he had written to congratulate him: "We are in- 
 formed," said he, "that thou hast undertaken the conduct of 
 affairs; it is no marvel that thou beginnest to be what thy 
 fathers ever were ;" and, whilst taking care to put himself on 
 good terms with the young pagan chieftain, the bishop added 
 to his fehcitations some pious Christian counsel, without let- 
 ting any attempt at conversion be mixed up with his moral 
 exhortations. The bishop, informed of the removal of the 
 vase, sent to Clovis a messenger begging the return, if not of 
 all his church's ornaments, at any rate of that. "Follow us 
 as far as Soissons," said Clovis to the messenger; "it is there 
 the partition is to take place of what we have captiu-ed; when
 
 110 HISTORY OF FRANCE. [ca. vn. 
 
 the lots shall have given me the vase, I will do what the bishop 
 demands." When Soissons was reached, and all the booty had 
 been placed in the midst of the host, the king said, "Valiant 
 warriors, I pray you not to refuse me, over and above my 
 share, this vase here. " At these words of the king, those who 
 were of sound mind amongst the assembly answered : ' ' Glori- 
 ous king, every thing we see here is thine, and we ourselves 
 are submissive to thy commands. Do thou as seemeth good to 
 thee, for there is none that can resist thy power." When they 
 had thus spoken a certain Frank, hght-minded, jealous, and 
 vain, cried out aloud as he struck the vase with his battle-axe, 
 "Thou shalt have naught of aU this save what the lots shall 
 truly give thee." At these words all were astounded ; but the 
 king bore the insult with sweet patience, and, accepting the 
 vase, he gave it to the messenger, hiding his wound in the re- 
 cesses of his heart. At the end of a year he ordered aU his 
 host to assemble fully equipped at the March parade, to have 
 their arms inspected. After having passed in review all the 
 other warriors, he came to him who had struck the vase. 
 "None," said he, "hath brought hither arms so ill kept as 
 thine; nor lance, no sword, nor battle-axe are in condition for 
 service." And wresting from him his axe he flung it on the 
 ground. The man stooped down a httle to pick it up, and 
 forthwith the king, raising with both hands his own battle-axe, 
 drove it into his skull, saying, " Thus diddest thou to the vase 
 of Soissons !" On the death of this feUow he bade the rest be- 
 gone ; and by this act made himself greatly feared. 
 
 A bold and unexpected deed has always a great effect on 
 men : with his Frankish warriors, as weU as with his Roman 
 and Gothic foes, Clovis had at command the instincts of pa- 
 tience and brutality in turn ; he could bear a mortification and 
 take vengeance in due season. Whilst prosecuting his course 
 of plunder and war in Eastern Belgica, on the banks of the 
 Meuse, Clovis was inspired with a wish to get married. He 
 had heard teU of a young girl, like himself of the Germanic 
 royal line, Clotilde, niece of Gondebaud, at that time king of 
 the Burgundians. She was dubbed beautiful, wise, and well- 
 informed; but her situation was melancholy and perilous. 
 Ambition and fraternal hatred had devastated her family. 
 Her father, Chilp^ric, and her two brothers, had been put to 
 death by her uncle Gondebaud, who had caused her mother 
 Agrippina to be thrown into the Rhone, with a stone round her 
 neck, and drowned. Two sisters alone had survived this
 
 CH. %ai.l THE FRANKS AND CLOVTS. HI 
 
 slaughter; the elder, Chrona, had taken religious vows, the 
 other, Clotilde, was living almost in exile at Geneva, absorbed 
 in works of piety and charity. The principal historian of this 
 epoch, Gregory of Tours, an almost contemporary authority, 
 for he was elected bishop sixty- two years after the death of 
 Clovis, says simply: "Clovis at once sent a deputation to 
 Gondebaud to ask Clotilde in marriage. Gondebaud, not dar- 
 ing to refuse, put her into the hands of the envoys, who took 
 her promptly to the king. Clovis at sight of her was trans- 
 ported with joy, and married her." But to this' short account 
 other chroniclers, amongst them Fredegaire, who wrote a com- 
 mentary upon and a continuation of Gregory of Tours' work, 
 added details which deserve reproduction, first as a picture of 
 manners, next for the better understanding of history. ' ' As 
 he was not allowed to see Clotilde," says Fredegaire, "Clovis 
 charged a certain Roman, named Aurelian, to use all his wit to 
 come nigh her. Aurelian repaired alone to the spot, clothed in 
 rags and with his waUet upon his back, like a mendicant. To 
 ensure confidence in himself he took with him the ring of 
 Clovis. On his arrival at Geneva, Clotilde received him as a 
 pilgrim charitably, and whilst she was washing his feet, Aure- 
 han, bending towards her, said under his breath, 'Lady, I 
 have great matters to announce to thee if thou deign to permit 
 me secret revelation.' She, consenting, replied, 'Say on.' 
 'Clovis, king of the Franks,' said he, 'hath sent me to thee: 
 if it be the will of God, he would fain raise thee to his high 
 rank by marriage ; and that thou mayest be certified thereof, 
 he sendeth thee this ring.' She accepted the ring with great 
 joy, and, said to Aurelian, 'Take for recompense of thy 
 pains these hundred sous in gold and this ring of mine. Re- 
 turn promptly to thy lord ; if he would fain unite me to him 
 by marriage, let him send without delay messengers to de- 
 mand me of my uncle Gondebaud, and let the messengers who 
 shall come take me away in haste, so soon as they shall have 
 obtained permission; if they haste not, I fear lest a certain 
 sage, one Aridius, may return from Constantinople, and if he 
 arrive beforehand, all tliis matter will by his counsel come to 
 naught.' Aurelian I'eturned in the same disguise under which 
 he had come. On approacliing the territory of Orleans, and at 
 no great distance from his house, he had taken as traveUing com- 
 panion a certain poor mendicant, by whom he, having fallen 
 asleep from sheer fatigue, and thinking himself safe, was rob- 
 bed of his wallet and the hundred sous in gold that it con-
 
 112 HISTORY OF FRANCE. [cH. vii. 
 
 tained. On awakening, Aurelian was sorely vexed, ran swiftly 
 home and sent his servants in all directions in search of the 
 mendicant who had stolen his wallet. He was found and 
 brought to Aurelian, who, after drubbing hini soundly for three 
 days, let him go his way. He afterwards told Clovis all that 
 had passed and what Clotilde suggested, Clovis, pleased with 
 his success and with Clotilde's notion, at once sent a deputa- 
 tion to Gondebaud to demand his niece in marriage. Gonde- 
 baud, not daring to refuse, and flattered at the idea of making 
 a friend of Clovis, promised to give her to him. Then the 
 deputation, having offered the denier and the sou, according 
 to the custom of the Franks, espoused Clotilde in the name of 
 Clovis, and demanded that she be given up to them to be mar- 
 ried. Without any delay the council was assembled at Cha- 
 lons, and preparations made for the nuptials. The Franks, 
 having arrived with all speed, received her from the hands of 
 Gondebaud, put her into a covered carriage, and escorted her 
 to Clovis, together with much treasure. She, however, having 
 already learned that Aridius was on his way back, said to the 
 Frankish lords, ' If ye would take me into the presence of your 
 lord, let me descend from this carriage, mount me on horse- 
 back, and get you hence as fast as ye may; for never in this 
 carriage shall I reach the presence of your lord. ' 
 
 "Aridius, in fact, returned very speedily from Marseilles, 
 and Gondebaud, on seeing him, said to him, 'Thou knowest 
 that we have made friends with the Franks, and that I have 
 given my niece to Clovis to wife.' 'This,' answered Aridius, 
 ' is no bond of friendship, but the beginning of perpetual strife : 
 thou shouldst have remembered, my lord, that thou didst slay 
 Clotilde's father, thy brother Chilperic, that thou didst drown 
 her mother, and that thou didst cut off her brothers' heads 
 and cast their bodies into a welL If Clotilde become powerful 
 she will avenge the wrongs of her relatives. Send thou forth- 
 with a troop in chase, and have her brought back to thee. It 
 will be easier for thee to bear the wrath of one person, than to 
 be perpetually at strife, thyself and thine, with all the Franks.' 
 And Gondebaud did send forthwith a troop in chase to fetch 
 back Clotilde with the carriage and all the treasure ; but she, 
 on approaching Villers, where Clovis was waiting for her, in 
 the territory of Troyes, and before passing the Burgimdian 
 frontier, urged them who escorted her to disperse right and 
 left over a space of twelve leagues in tbe country whence she 
 was departing, to plunder and burn; and that having been
 
 CH. vn.] THE FRANKS AND CLOVIS. 113 
 
 done with the permission of Clovis, she cried aloud, ' I thank 
 thee. God omnipotent, for that I see the commencement of 
 vengeance for my parents and my brethren !" 
 
 The majority of the learned have regarded this account of 
 Fredegaire as a romantic fable, and have dechned to give it a 
 place in history. M. Fauriel, one of the most learned asso- 
 ciates of the Academy of Inscriptions, has given much the 
 same opinion, but he nevertheless adds, ' ' Whatever may be 
 their authorship, the fables in question are historic in the 
 sense that they relate to real facts of which they are a poetical 
 expression, a romantic development, conceived with the idea 
 of popularizing the FranMsh kings amongst the Gallo-Roman 
 subjects." It cannot, however, be admitted that a desire to 
 popularize the Frankish kings is a sufficient and truth-like 
 explanation of these tales of the Gallo-Roman chroniclers, or 
 that they are no more than "a poetical expression, a roman- 
 tic development" of the real facts briefly noted by Gregory 
 of Tours; the tales have a graver origin and contain more 
 truth than would be presumed from some of the anecdotes 
 and sayings mixed up with them. In the condition of minds 
 and parties in Gaul at the end of the fifth century the mar- 
 riage of Clovis and Clotilde was, for the public of the period, 
 for the barbarians and for the Gallo-Romans, a great mat- 
 ter. Clovis and the Franks were still pagans; Gondebaud 
 and the Burgundians were Christians, but Arians; Clotilde 
 was a Catholic Christian. To which of the two, Cathohcs or 
 Arians, would Clovis ally himself ? To whom, Arian, pagan, or 
 CathoHc, would Clotilde be married? Assuredly the bishops, 
 priests and all the Gallo-Roman clergy, for the most part 
 Catholics, desired to see Clovis, that young and audacious 
 Frankish chieftain, take to wife a Catholic rather than an 
 Arian or a pagan, and hoped to convert the pagan Clovis to 
 Christianity much more than an Arian to orthodoxy. The 
 question between CathoHc orthodoxy and Arianism was, at 
 that time, a vital question for Christianity in its entirety, and 
 St. Athanasius was not wrong in attributing to it supreme im- 
 portance. It may be presumed that the Catholic clergy, the 
 bishop of Rheims, or the bishop of Langres, were no strangers 
 to the repeated praises which turned the thoughts of the 
 Frankish king towards the Burgundian princess, and the idea 
 of their marriage once set afloat, the Cathohcs, priesthood or 
 laity, labored undoubtedly to push it forward, wlrilst the Bur- 
 gundian Arians exerted themselves to prevent it. Thus there
 
 114 BISTORT OF FRANCE. [CH. TH 
 
 took place, between opposing influences, religious and national, 
 a most animated struggle. No astonishment can be felt, then, 
 at the obstacles the marriage encountered, at the complica- 
 tions mingled with it, and at the indirect means employed on 
 both sides to cause its success or failm-e. The account of 
 Fredegaire is but a picture of this struggle and its incidents, a 
 little amplified or altered by imagination or the creduhty of 
 the period ; but the essential features of the picture, the dis- 
 guise of AureUan, the hurry of Clotilde, the prudent recollec- 
 tion of Aridius, Gondebaud's alternations of fear and violence, 
 and Clotilde's vindictive passion when she is once out of dan- 
 ger, there is nothing in all tliis out of keeping with the man- 
 ners of the time or the position of the actors. Let it be added 
 that Aurelian and Aridius are real personages who are met 
 ■with elsewhere in history, and whose parts as played on the 
 occasion of Clotilde's marriage are in harmony with the other 
 traces that remain of their lives. 
 
 The consequences of the marriage justified before long the 
 importance which had on all sides been attached to it. Clo- 
 tilde had a son; she was anxious to have liim baptized, and 
 urged her husband to consent. " The gods you worship," said 
 she, "are naught, and can do naught for themselves or others; 
 they are of wood or stone or metal." Clovis resisted, saying, 
 " It is by the command of our gods that all tilings are created 
 and brought forth. It is plain that your God hath no power; 
 there is no proof even that He is of the race of the gods. " But 
 Clotilde prevailed; and she had her son baptized solemnly, 
 hoping that the striking nature of the ceremony might win to 
 the faith the father whom her words and prayers had been 
 powerless to touch. The child soon died, and Clovis bitterly 
 reproached the queen, saying, ' ' Had the child been dedicated 
 to my gods he would be alive ; he was baptized in the name of 
 your God, and he could not live. " Clotilde defended her God 
 and prayed. She had a second son who was also baptized, 
 and fell sick, "It cannot be otherwise with him than with 
 his brother," said Clovis; "baptized in the name of your 
 Christ, he is going to die. " But the child was cured, and hved ; 
 and Clovis was pacified and less incredulous of Christ. An 
 event then came to pass which affected him still more than 
 the sickness or cvu-e of his children. In 496 the Allemannians, 
 a Germanic confederation like the Franks, avIio also had been, 
 for some time past, assailing the Eoman empire on the banks 
 of the Riiine or the frontiers of Switzerland, crossed the river,
 
 CH. vrr.j THE FRANKS AND CLOVIS. 115 
 
 and invaded the settlements of the Franks on the left bank. 
 Clovis went to the aid of his confederation and attacked the 
 Allemannians at Tolbiac, near Cologne. He had with him 
 Aurelian, who had been his messenger to Clotilde, whom he 
 had made Duke of Melun, and who commanded the forces ot 
 Sens. The battle was going ill; the Franks were wavering 
 and Clovis was anxious. Before setting out he had, according 
 to Fredegaire, promised his wife that if he were victorious he 
 woiild turn Christian. Other chroniclers say that Aurelian, 
 seeing the battle in danger of being lost, said to Clovis, " My 
 lord king, believe only on the Lord of heaven whom the queen, 
 my mistress, preacheth." Clovis cried out with emotion, 
 " Christ Jesus, Thou whom my queen Clotilde calleth the Son 
 of the living God, I have invoked my own gods, and they have 
 withdrawn from me ; I believe that they have no power since 
 they aid not those who call upon them. Thee, very God and 
 Lord, I invoke ; if Thou give me victory over these foes, if I 
 find in Thee the power that the people proclaim of Thee, I 
 will believe on Thee, and will be baptized in Thy name. " The 
 tide of battle turned: the Franks recovered confidence and 
 courage; and the Allemannians, beaten and seeing their king 
 slain, surrendered themselves to Clovis, saying, " Cease, of 
 thy grace, to cause any more of our people to perish ; for we 
 are thine." 
 
 On the return of Clovis, Clotilde, fearing he should forget 
 his victory and his promise, " secretly sent, " says Gregory of 
 Tours, "to St. Remi, bishop of Rheims, and prayed him to 
 penetrate the king's heart with the words of salvation." St. 
 Remi was a fervent Christian and able bishop; and "I will 
 listen to thee, most holy father," said Clovis, "willingly; but 
 there is a difficulty. The people that follow me will not give 
 up their gods. But I am about to assemble them, and will 
 speak to them according to thy .word." The king found the 
 people more docUe or better prepared than he had represented 
 to the bishop. Even before he opened his mouth the greater 
 part of those present cried out, ' ' We abjure the mortal gods ; 
 we are ready to follow the immortal God whom Remi preach- 
 eth." About three thousand Frankish warriors, however, 
 persisted in their intention of remaining pagans, and deserting 
 Clovis betook themselves to Ragnacaire, the Frankish king of 
 Cambrai, who was destined ere long to pay dearly for this 
 acquisition. So soon as St. Remi was informed of this good 
 disposition on the part of king and people, he fixed Christmas
 
 116 EISTGRY OF FRANCE. [cii. vii. 
 
 Day of this year, 496, for the ceremony of the baptism of these 
 grand neophytes. The description of it is borrowed from the 
 historian of the Church of Eheims, Frodoard by name, bom 
 at the close of the ninth century. He gathered together the 
 essential points of it from the Life of Saint Remi, written, 
 shortly before that period, by the saint's celebrated successor 
 at Eheims, Archbishop Hincmar. "The bishop," says he, 
 "went in search of the king at early morn in his bed-chamber, 
 in order that, taking him at the moment of freedom from 
 secular cares, he might more freely communicate to him the 
 mysteries of the holy word. The king's chamber-people re- 
 ceive him with gi-eat respect, and the king himself runs for- 
 ward to meet him. Thereupon they pass together into an 
 oratory dedicated to St. Peter, chief of the apostles, and ad- 
 joining the king's apartment. When the bishop, the king, 
 and the queen had taken their places on the seats prepared for 
 them, and admission had been given to some clerics aud also 
 some friends and household servants of the king, the vener- 
 able bishop began his instructions on the subject of salvation, 
 .... Meanwhile preparations are being made along the road 
 from the palace to the baptistery ; curtains and valuable stuffs 
 are hung up ; the houses on either side of the street are dressed 
 out ; the baptistery is sprinkled with balm and all manner of 
 perfume. The procession moves fi'om the palace ; the clergy 
 lead the way with the holy gospels, the cross, and standards, 
 singing hymns and spii-itual songs; then comes the bishop, 
 leading the king by the hand ; after him the queen, lastly the 
 people. On the road, it is said that the king asked the bishop 
 if that were the kingdom promised him; ' No, ' answered the 
 prelate, ' but it is the entrance to the road that leads to it.' 
 .... At the moment when the king bent his head over the 
 fountain of life, ' Lower thy head with humility, Sicambrian,' 
 cried the eloquent bishop; 'adore what thou hast burned: 
 burn what thou hast adored.' The king's two sisters, Albo- 
 flede and Lantechilde, likewise received baptism; and so at 
 the same time did three thousand of the FranMsh army, be- 
 sides a large number of women and children," 
 
 When it was knoAvn that Clovis had been baptized by St. 
 ■Remi, and with what striking circumstance, great was the 
 satisfaction amongst the Catholics. The chief Burgundian 
 prelate, Avitus, bishop of Vienne, wrote to the Frankish king; 
 — " Your faith is our victory; in choosing for you and yoiu^, 
 you have pronounced for all; divine providence hath given
 
 CH. VII.] THE FRANKS AND CLOVIS. 117 
 
 you as arbiter to our age. Greece can boast of having a sov- 
 ereign of our persuasion ; but she is no longer alone in posses- 
 sion of this precious gift ; the rest of the world doth share her 
 light." Pope Anastasius hasted to express his joy to Clovis: 
 "The Church, our common mother," he wrote, " rejoiceth to 
 have born unto God so great a king. Continue, glorious and 
 illustrious son, to cheer the heart of this tender mother; be a 
 column of iron to support her, and she in her turn will give 
 thee victory over all thine enemies." 
 
 Clovis was not a man to omit turning his Catholic popularity 
 to the account of his ambition. At the very time when he was 
 receiving these testimonies of good will from the heads of the 
 Church, he learned that Gondebaud, disquieted, no doubt, at 
 the conversion of his powerful neighbor, had just made a vain 
 attempt, at a conference held at Lyons, to reconcile in his 
 kingdom the Cathohcs and the Arians. Clovis considered the 
 moment favorable to his projects of aggrandizement at the 
 expense of the Burgundian king ; he fomented the dissensions 
 which already prevailed between Gondebaud and his brother 
 Godegisile, assured to himself the latter's compUcity, and sud- 
 denly entered Burgundy with his army. Gondebaud, betrayed 
 and beaten at the first encounter at Dijon, fled to the south of 
 his kingdom, and went and shut himself up in Avignon. Clo- 
 vis pursued, and besieged him there. Gondebaud in great 
 alarm asked counsel of his Roman confidant Aridius, who had 
 but lately foretold to him what the marriage of his niece 
 ClotUde would bring upon him. ''On every side," said the 
 king, " I am encompassed by perils, and I know not what to 
 do ; lo I here be these barbarians conie upon us to slay us and 
 destroy the land." " To escape death," answered Aridius, 
 "thou must appease the ferocity of this man. Now, if it 
 please thee, I will feign to fly from thee and go over to him= 
 So soon as I shall be with him, I will so do that he ruin neither 
 thee nor the land. Only have thou care to . perform whatso- 
 ever I shall ask of thee, untU the Lord in His goodness deign 
 to make thy cause triumph. " " All that thou shalt bid will I 
 do," said Gondebaud. So Aridius left Gondebaud and went 
 his way to Clovis, and said, ' ' Most pious king, I am thy hum- 
 ble servant; I give up this wretched Gondebaud and come 
 unto thy mightiness. If thy goodness deign to cast a glance 
 upon me, thou and thy descendants wiU find in me a servant 
 of integiity and fideUty." Clovis received him very kindly 
 and kept him by him, for Aridius was agreeable in conversa'
 
 118 HISTORY OF FRANCE. [ch. vn; 
 
 tion, wise in counsel, Justin judgment and faithful in what- 
 ever was committed to his care. As the siege continued, 
 Aridius said to Clovis, " O king, if the glory of thy greatness 
 would suffer thee to listen to the words of my feebleness, 
 though thou needest not counsel, I would submit them to thee 
 in all fidelity, and they might be of use to thee, whether for 
 thyself or for the towns by the which thou dost propose to 
 pass. Wherefore keepest thou here thine army whilst thine 
 enemy doth hide himself in a well-fortified place? Thou rav- 
 agest the fields, thou pillagest the corn, thou cuttest down the 
 vines, thou fellest the olive-trees, thou destroyest all the pro- 
 duce of the land, and yet thou succeedest not in destroying 
 thine adversary. Rather send thou unto him deputies, and 
 lay on him a tribute to be paid to thee every year. Thus the 
 land will be preserved, and thou wilt be lord for ever over 
 him who owes thee tribute. If he refuse, thou shalt then do 
 what pleaseth thee. " Clovis found the counsel good, ordered 
 his army to return home, sent deputies to Gondebaud, and 
 called upon him to undertake the payment every year of a 
 fixed tribute. Gondebaud paid for the time, and promised to 
 pay punctually for the future. And peace appeared made be- 
 tween the two barbarians. 
 
 Pleased with his campaign against the Burgundians, Clovis 
 kept on good terms with Gondebaud, who was to be hence- 
 forth a simple tributary, and transferred to the Visigoths of 
 Aquitania, and their king, Alaric II. , his views of conquest. 
 He had there the same pretexts for attack and the same means 
 of success. Alaric and his Visigoths were Arians, and be- 
 tween them and the bishops of Southern Gaul, nearly all 
 orthodox Catholics, there were permanent ill-will and distrust. 
 Alaric attempted to conciliate their good-will : in 506 a Council 
 met at Agde; the thirty -four bishops of Aquitania attended 
 in person or by delegate ; the king protested that he had no 
 design of persecuting the Catholics ; the bishops, at the open- 
 ing of the Council, offered prayers for the king; but Alaric 
 did not forget that immediately after the conversion of Clovis, 
 Volusian, bishop of Tours, had conspired in favor of the 
 Frankish king, and the bishops of Aquitania regarded Volusiaji 
 as a martyr, for he had been deposed, without trial, from his 
 see, and taken as a prisoner first to Toulouse, and afterwards 
 into Spain, where in a short time he had been put to death. 
 In vain did the glorious chief of the race of Goths, Theodorio 
 the Great, kiag of Italy, father-in-law of Alaric, and brotheiv
 
 CH. vir.] TUE FRANKS AND CLOVIS. 119 
 
 in-law of Clovis, exert himself to prevent any outbreak be- 
 tween the two kings. In 498, Alaric, no doubt at his father- 
 in-law's solicitation, wrote to Clovis, "If my brother consent 
 thereto, I would, following my desires and by the grace of 
 God, have an interview with him," The interview took place 
 at a small island in the Loire, called the Island d'Or or de 
 St. Jean, near Amboise. "The two kings," says Gregory of 
 Tours, "conversed, ate and drank together, and separated 
 with mutual promises of friendship." The positions and 
 passions of each soon made the promises of no effect. In 505 
 Clovis was seriously ill; the bishops of Aquitania testified 
 warm interest in him ; and one of them, Quintian, bishop of 
 Rodez, being on this accoimt persecuted by the Visigoths, had 
 to seek refuge at Clermont, in Auvergne. Clovis no longer 
 concealed his designs. In 507 he assembled his principal chief- 
 tains; and "It displeaseth me greatly," said he, "that these 
 Arians should possess a portion of the Gauls ; march we forth 
 with the help of God, drive we them from that land, for it is 
 very goodly, and bring we it under our own power." The 
 Franks applauded their king; and the army set out on the 
 march in the direction of Poitiers, where Alaric happened at 
 that time to be. "As a portion of the troops was crossing the 
 territory of Tours," says Gregory, who was shortly after- 
 wards its bishop, " Clovis forbade, out of respect for St. 
 Martin, any thing to be taken, save grass and water. One of 
 the army, however, having foimd some hay belonging to a 
 poor man, said, 'This is grass; we do not break the king's 
 commands by taking it ;' and, in spite of the poor man's resist- 
 ance, he robbed him of his hay. Clovis, informed of the fact, 
 slew the soldier on the spot with one sweep of his sword, say- 
 ing, * What will become of our hopes of victory, if we offend 
 St. Martin?'" Alaric had prepared for the struggle; and the 
 two armies met in the plain of Vouille, on the banks of the 
 little river Clain, a few leagues from Poitiers. The battle was 
 very severe. "The Groths, '' says Gregory of Tours, "fought 
 with missiles; the Franks sword in hand. Clovis met and 
 with his own hand slew Alaric in the fray ; at the moment of 
 striking his blow, two Goths fell suddenly upon Clovis, and 
 attacked him with their pikes on either side, but he escaped 
 death, thanks to his cuirass and the agUity of his horse." 
 
 Beaten and kingless, the Goths retreated in great disorder; 
 and Clovis, pm-suing his march, arrived without opposition at 
 Bordeaux, where he settled down with his Fi-anks for the 
 (6) HF Vol. 1
 
 120 HISTORY OF FRANCE. ^cn. vil, 
 
 winter. When the war-season returned, he marched on 
 Toulouse, the capital of the Visigoths, which he likewise 
 occupied without resistance, and where he seized a portion of 
 the treasure of the Visigothic kings. He quitted it to lay 
 siege to Carcassonne, which had been made by the Romans 
 into the stronghold of Septimania. 
 
 There his course of conquest was destined to end. After the 
 battle of VouUle he had sent his eldest son Theodoric in com- 
 mand of a division, with orders to cross Central Gaul from 
 west to east, to go and join the Burgundians of Gondebaud, 
 who had promised his assistance, and in conjunction with them 
 to attack the Visigoths on the banks of the Rhone and in Nar- 
 bonness. The young Frank boldly executed his father's 
 orders, but the intervention of Theodoric the Great, king of 
 Italy, prevented the success of the operation. He sent an 
 army into Gaul to the aid of his son-in-law Alaric; and the 
 united Franks and Burgundians failed in their attacks upon 
 the Visigoths of the Eastern Provinces. Clovis had no idea of 
 compromising by his obstinacy the conquests already accom- 
 phshed ; he therefore raised the seige of Carcassonne, returned 
 first to Toulouse, and then to Bordeaux, took Angouleme, the 
 only town of importance he did not possess in Aquitania ; and 
 feeling reasonably sure that the Visigoths, who, even with the 
 aid that had come from Italy, had great difficulty in defend- 
 ing what remained to them of Southern Gaul, would not come 
 and dispute with him what he had already conquered, he 
 halted at Tours, and stayed there some time, to enjoy on the 
 very spot the fruits of his victory and to establish his power 
 in his new possessions. 
 
 It appears that even the Britons of Armorica tendered to 
 him at that time, through the interposition of Melanius, bishop 
 of Rennes, if not their actual submission, at any rate their sub- 
 ordination and homage. 
 
 Clovis at the same time had his self-respect flattered in a 
 manner to which barbaric conquerors always attach great 
 importance. Anastasius, Emperor of the East, with whom he 
 had already had some communication, sent to him at Tours a 
 solemn embassy, bringing him the titles and insignia of 
 Patrician and Consul. "Clovis," says Gregory of Tours, 
 "put on the tunic of purple and the chlamys and the diadem; 
 then mounting his horse, he scattered with his own hand and 
 with much bounty gold and silver amongst the people, on the 
 road which lies between the gate of the court belonging to the
 
 "THUS DIDDEST THOU TO THE VASE OF SOISSONS" 
 
 France, vol. one.
 
 cm. vn.] THE FRANKS AJH) CLOVTS. 131 
 
 basilica of St. Martin and the chui'ch of the city. From that 
 day he was called Consul and Augustus. On leaving the city 
 of Tours be repaired to Paris, where he fixed the seat of hig 
 government." 
 
 Paris was certainly the poKtical centre of his dominions, the 
 intermediate point between the early settlements of his race 
 and himself in Gaul and his new Gallic conquests; but he 
 lacked some of the possessions nearest to him and most 
 naturally, in his own opinion, his. To the east, north, and 
 southwest of Paris were settled some independent Frankish 
 tribes, governed by chieftains with the name of kings. So 
 soon as he had settled at Paris, it was the one fixed idea of 
 Clovis to reduce them all to subjection. He had conquered 
 the Bm-gundians and the Visigoths; it remained for him to 
 conquer and unite together all the Franks. Tiie barbarian 
 showed himseK in his true colors, during this new enterprise, 
 with his violence, his craft, his cruelty, and his perfidy. He 
 began with the most powerful of the tribes, the Ripuarian 
 Franks. He sent secretly to Cloderic, son of Sigebert, their 
 king, saying, "Thy father hath become old, and his wound 
 maketh him to limp o' one foot ; if he should die, his kingdom 
 mil come to thee of right, together with our friendship." 
 Cloderic had his father assassinated whilst asleep in his tent, 
 and sent messengers to Clovis, saying, " My father is dead, 
 and I have in my power his kingdom and his treasures. Send 
 thou unto me certain of thy people, and I wiU gladly give into 
 their hands whatsoever amongst these treasures shaU seem 
 like to please thee." The envoys of Clovis came, and, as they 
 were examining in detail the treasures of Sigebert, Cloderic 
 said to them, " This is the coffer wherein my father was wont 
 to pile up his gold pieces." "Plunge," said they, "thy hand 
 right to the bottom that none escape thee." Cloderic bent for- 
 ward, and one of the envoys lifted his battle-axe and cleft his 
 skull. Clovis went to Cologne and convoked the Franks of 
 the canton. "Learn," said he, "that which hath happened. 
 As I was sailing on the river Scheldt, Cloderic, son ot my 
 relative, did vex his father, saying 1 was minded to slay him; 
 and as Sigebert was flying across the forest of Buchaw, his 
 son himself sent bandits, who fell upon him and slew him. 
 Cloderic also is dead, smitten I know not by whom as he was 
 opening his father's treasures. I am altogether unconcerned 
 in it all, and I could not shed the blood of my relatives, for it 
 is a crime. But since it hath so happened, I give unto you
 
 122 HISTORY OF FRAKCE. [ch. vtl 
 
 counsel, •which ye shall follow if it seem to yoa good ; turn ye 
 towards me, and live under my protection." And they who 
 were present hoisted him on a huge buckler, and hailed him 
 king. 
 
 After Sigebert and the Ripuarian Franks, came the Franks 
 of Terouanne, and Chararic their king. He had refused, twenty 
 years before, to march with Clovis against the Roman, 
 Syagi'ius. Clovis, who had not forgotten it, attacked him^ 
 took him and his son prisoners, and had them both shorn, 
 ordering that Chararic should be ordained priest and his son 
 deacon. Chararic was much grieved. Then said his son to 
 him, " Here be branches which were cut from a green tree, 
 and are not yet wholly dried up : soon they will sprout forth 
 again. May it please God that he who hath wrought all this 
 shall die as quickly!" Clovis considered these words as a 
 menace, had both father and son beheaded, and took posses- 
 sion of their dominions. Ragnacaire, king of the Franks of 
 Cambrai, was the third to be attacked. He had served Clovis 
 against Syagrius, but Clovis took no account of that. Ragna- 
 caire, being beaten, was preparing for flight, when he was 
 seized by his own soldiers, who tied his hands behind his 
 back, and took him to Clo v-is along with his brother Riquier. 
 "Wherefore hast thou dishonored our race," said Clovis, " by 
 letting thyself wear bonds? 'Twere better to have died;" and 
 cleft his skull with one stroke of his battle-axe. Then turning 
 to Riquier, " Hadst thou succoured thy brother," said he, 
 "he had assuredly not been bound;" and felled him likewise 
 at his feet. Rignomer, king of the Franks of Le Mans, met the 
 same fate, but not at the hands, only by the order, of Clovis. 
 So Clovis remained sole king of the Franks, for all the inde- 
 pendent chieftains had disappeared. 
 
 It is said that one day, after all these murders, Clovis, sur- 
 rounded by his trusted servants, cried, "Woe is me! who am 
 left as a traveller amongst strangers, and who have no longer 
 relatives to lend me support in the day of adversity !" Thus 
 do the most shameless take pleasure in exhibiting sham sorrow 
 after crimes they cannot disavow. 
 
 It cannot be known whether Clovis ever felt in his soul any 
 scruple or regret for his many acts of ferocity and perfidy, or 
 if he looked as suflScient expiation, upon the favor he had be- 
 stowed on the churches and their bishops, upon the gifts he 
 lavished on them, and upon the absolutions he demanded of 
 them. In times of mingled barbarism and faith there are 
 strange cases of credulity in the way of bargains made with
 
 CH. VII.] THE FRANKS AND CLOVIS. 123 
 
 divine justice. We read in the life of St. Eleutherus, bishop 
 of Toui'nai, the native land of Clovis, that at one of those 
 periods when the conscience of the Frankish king must have 
 been most heavily laden, he presented himself one day at the 
 church. "My lord king," said the bishop, "I know where- 
 fore thou art come to me." "I have nothing special to say 
 unto thee," rejoined Clovis. "Say not so, O king," repHed the 
 bishop, "thou hast sinned, and darest not avow it." The 
 king was moved, and ended by confessing that he had deeply 
 sinned and had need of large pardon. St. Eleutherus betook 
 himself to prayer; the king came back the next day, and the 
 bishop gave him a paper on which was written by a divine 
 hand, he said, "the pardon granted to royal offences which 
 might not be revealed." Clovis accepted this absolution, and 
 loaded the church of Tournai with his gifts. In 511, the very 
 year of his death, his last act in life was the convocation at 
 Orleans of a Council, which was attended by thirty bishops 
 from the different parts of his kingdom, and at which were 
 adopted thirty-one canons that, whilst granting to the Church 
 great privileges and means of influence, in many cases favor- 
 able to humanity and respect for the rights of individuals, 
 boimd the Church closely to the State, and gave to royalty, 
 even in ecclesiastical matters, great power. The bishops, on 
 breaking up, sent these canons to Clovis, praying him to give 
 them the sanction of his adhesion, which he did. A. few 
 months afterwards, on the 27th of November, 511, Clovis died 
 at Paris, and was buried in the church of St. Peter and St. 
 Paul, now-a-days St. Genevieve, built by his wife Queen 
 Clotilde, who survived him. 
 
 It was but right to make the reader intimately acquainted 
 with that great barbarian who, with all his vices and aU his 
 crimes, brought about or rather began, two great matters 
 which have ah-eady endured through fourteen centuries and 
 still endure ; for he founded the French monarchy and Chris- 
 tian France. Such men and such facts have a right to be 
 closely studied and set in a clear light by history. Notliing 
 similar will be seen for two centuries, under the descendants 
 of Clovis, the Mero\dngians ; amongst them will be en- 
 countered none but those personages whom death reduces to 
 insignificance, whatever may have been their rank in tha 
 world, and of whom Virgil thus speaks to Dante : 
 
 " Non ragionam di lor, ma guarda e passa." 
 " Waste we «o words on tbem: one glance and pass thou on." 
 
 Inferno, Canto ILL
 
 124 EISrORY OF FRANCE. [CH. vm 
 
 CHAPTER Vin. 
 
 THE MEROVINGIANS. 
 
 In its beginning and in its end the line of the Merovingians 
 is mediocre and obscure. Its earliest ancestors, Meroveus, 
 from whom it got its name, and Clodion, the first, it is said, ol 
 the long-haired kings, a characteristic title of the Frankish, 
 kings, are scarcely historical personages ; and it is under the 
 qualification of sluggard kings that the last Merovingians have 
 a place in history. Clovis alone, amidst his vices and his 
 crimes, vas suflBciently great and did suflSciently great deeds 
 to live for ever in the course of ages ; the greatest part of his 
 successors belong only to genealogy or chronology. In a mo- 
 ment of self-abandonment and weariness, the great Napoleon 
 once said, * ' What trouble to take for half a page in universal 
 history !" Histories far more hmited and modest than a uni- 
 versal history, not only have a right, but are bound to shed 
 their light only upon those men who have deserved it by the 
 eminence of their talents or the important results of their pass- 
 age through life: rarity only can claim to escape obh\'ion. 
 And save two or three, a little less insignificant or less hateful 
 than the rest, the Merovingian kings deserve only to be for- 
 gotten. From A.D. 511 to a.d. 752, that is, from the death of 
 Clovis to the accession of the Carlovingians, is two hundred 
 and forty-one years, which was the duration of the dynasty of 
 the Merovingians. During this time there reigned twenty- 
 eight Merovingian kings, which reduces to eight years and 
 seven months the average reign of each, a short duration com- 
 pared with that of most of the royal dynasties. Five of these 
 kings, Clotaire I., Clotaire II., Dagobert I., Thierry IV., and 
 Childeric III. alone, at different intervals, rmited under their 
 power all the dominions possessed by Clovis or his successors. 
 The other kings of this line reigned only over special kingdoms, 
 formed by virtue of divers partitions at the death of their general 
 possessor. From a.d. 611 to 638 five such partitions took place. 
 In 511, after the death of Clovis, his domuiions were divided 
 amongst his four sons; Theodoric, or Thienyl., was king of 
 Metz; Clodomir, of Orleans; ChUdebert, of Paris; Clotaire I,, 
 of Soissons. To each of these capitals fixed boundaries were
 
 CH. vm.J THE MEROVINGIANS. 125 
 
 attached. In 558, in consequence of divers incidents brought 
 about naturally or by violence, Clotaire I. ended by possessing 
 alone, during three years, aU the dominions of his fathers. At 
 his death, in 561, they were partitioned afresh amongst his 
 four sons; Charibert was king of Paris; Gontran, of Orleans 
 and Burgundy; Sigebert I., of Metz; andChilperic of Soissons. 
 In 567, Charibert, king of Paris, died without children, and 
 a new partition left only three kingdoms, Austrasia, Neustria, 
 and Burgundy. Austrasia, in the East, extended over the two 
 banks of the Rhine, and comprised, side by side with Roman 
 towns and districts, populations that had remained Germanic. 
 Neustria, in the West, was essentially Gallo-Roman, though it 
 comprised in the north the old territory of the Salian Franks, 
 on the borders of the Scheldt. Bui'gundy was the old kingdom 
 of the Burgimdians, enlarged in the north by some few coun- 
 ties. Paris, the residence of Clovis, was reserved and un- 
 divided amongst the three kings, kept as a sort of neutral city 
 into which they could not enter without the common consent 
 of all. In 613, new incidents connected with family-matters 
 placed Clotaire II., son of Chilperic, and heretofore king of 
 Soissons, in possession of the three kingdoms. He kept them 
 united up to 628, and left them so to his son Dagobert I,, who 
 remained in possession of them up to 638. At his death a new 
 division of the Prankish dominions took place, no longer into 
 three but two kingdoms, Austrasia being one, and Neustria 
 and Burgundy the other. This was the definitive dismember- 
 ment of the great Prankish dominion to the time of its last two 
 Merovingian kings, Thierry IV., and Childeric III., who were 
 kings in name only, dragged from the cloister as ghosts from 
 the tomb to play a motionless part in the drama. For a long 
 tune past the real power had been in the hands of that valiant 
 Austrasian family which was to furnish the dominions of Clovis 
 with a new dynasty and a greater king than Clovis. 
 
 Southern Gaul,' that is to say, Aquitania, Vasconia, Nar- 
 bonness, called Septimania, and the two banks of the Rhone 
 near its mouths, were not comprised in these partitions of the 
 Frankish dominions. Each of the co-partitioners assigned to 
 themselves, to the south of the Garonne and on the coasts of 
 the Mediterranean, in that beautiful region of old Roman Gaid, 
 «uch and such a district or such and such a town, just as heirs- 
 at-law keep to themselves severally such and such a piece of 
 furniture or such and such a valuable jewel out of a rich prop- 
 erty to which they succeed, and which they divide amongst
 
 126 HISTORY OF FRANCE. [ch. vm. 
 
 them. The peculiar situation of those provinces at their dis- 
 tance from the Franks' own settlements contributed much tow- 
 ards the independence which Southern Gaul, and especially 
 Aquitania, was constantly striving and partly managed to re- 
 cover, amidst the extension and tempestuous fortunes of the 
 Frankish monarchy. It is easy to comprehend how these re« 
 peated partitions of a mighty inheritance with so many suc- 
 cessors, these dominions continually changing both their limits 
 and their masters, must have tended to increase the already 
 profound anarchy of the Roman and the barbaric worlds thrown 
 peU-mell one upon the other, and fallen a prey, the Roman to 
 the disorganization of a lingering death, the barbaric to the 
 fermentation of a new existence striving for development 
 under social conditions quite different from those of its primi- 
 tive hfe. Some historians have said that, in spite of these per- 
 petual dismemberments of the great Frankish dominion, a 
 real unity had always existed in the' Frankish monarchy , and 
 regulated the destinies of its constituent peoples. They who 
 say so show themselves singularly easy to please in the matter 
 of political unity and international harmony. Amongst those 
 various States, springing from a common base and subdivided 
 between the different members of one and the same family, 
 rivalries, enmities, hostile machinations, deeds of violence and 
 atrocity, struggles, and wars soon became as frequent, as 
 bloody, and as obstinate as they have ever been amongst states 
 and sovereigns as imconnected as possible one with another. 
 It will sufl&ce to quote one case which was not long in coming. 
 In 524, scarcely thirteen years after the death of Clovis and the 
 partition of his dominions amongst his four sons, the second of 
 them, Clodomir, king of Orleans, was killed in a war against 
 the Bargundians, leaving three sons, direct heirs of his king- 
 dom, subject to equal partition between them. Their grand- 
 mother, Clotilde, kept them with her at Paris; and "their 
 uncle Childebert (king of Paris), seeing that his mother be- 
 stowed all her affection upon the sons of Clodomir, grew jeal- 
 ous ; so, fearing that by her favor they would get a share in 
 the kingdom, he sent secretly to his brother Clotaire (king of 
 Soissons), saying, ' Our mother keepeth by her the sons of our 
 brother, and willeth to give them the kingdom of their father. 
 Thou must needs, therefore, come speedily to Paris, and we 
 must take counsel together as to what shall be done with them; 
 whether they shaU be shorn and reduced to the condition of 
 commoners, or slain and leave their kingdom to be shared
 
 CH. vm.] THE MEROVTNOIANS. 127 
 
 equally between us.' Clotaire, overcome with joy at these 
 words, came to Paris. ChUdebert had already spread abroad 
 amongst the people that the two kings were to join in raising 
 the young children to the throne. The two kings then sent a 
 message to the queen who at that time dwelt in the same city, 
 saying, ' Send thou the children to us, that we may place them 
 on the throne.' Clotilde, full of joy and unwitting of their 
 craft, set meat and drink before the children, and then sent 
 them away, saying, ' I shall seem not to have lost my son if I 
 see ye succeed him in his kingdom.' The young princes were 
 immediately seized, and parted from their servants and gov- 
 ernors ; and the servants and the children were kept in sepa- 
 rate places. Then Childebert and Clotaire sent to the queen 
 their confidant Arcadius (one of the Arvernian senators), with 
 a pair of shears and a naked sword. When he came to Clo- 
 tilde, he showed her what he bare with him, and said to her, 
 ' Most glorious queen, thy sons, our masters, desire to know 
 thy will touching these children : wilt thou that they hve with 
 shorn hair or that they be put to death? ' Clotilde, astounded 
 at this address, and overcome with indignation, answered at 
 hazard amidst the grief that overwhelmed her, and not know- 
 ing what she would say, ' If they be not set upon the throne 
 I would rather know that they were dead than shorn.' But 
 Arcadius, caring httle for her despair or for what she might 
 decide after more reflection, returned in haste to the two kings, 
 and said, ' Finish ye your work, for the queen favoring your 
 plans, willeth that ye accomplish them.' Forthwith Clotaire 
 taketh the eldest by the arm, dasheth him upon the ground, 
 and slayeth him without mercy with the thrust of a hunting- 
 knife beneath the arm-pit. At the cries raised by the child, his 
 brother casteth himself at the feet of Childebert, and chnging 
 to his knees, saith amidst his sobs, ' Aid me, good father, that 
 I die not hke my brother. ' Childebert, his visage bathed in 
 tears, saith to Clotaire, ' Dear brother, I crave thy mercy for 
 his life ; I wiU give thee whatsoever thou wilt as the price of 
 his soul; I pray thee, slay him not.' Then Clotaire, with 
 menacing and furious mien, crieth out aloud, ' Thrust him 
 away, or thou diest in his stead : thou, the instigator of all this 
 work, art thou, then, so quick to be faithless? ' At these words 
 Childebert thrust away the child towards Clotaire, who seized 
 him, plimged a hunting-knife in his side, as he had in his 
 brother's and slew him. They then put to death the slaves and 
 governors of the children. After these murders Clotaire
 
 128 HISTORY OF FRANCE. [cH. vm. 
 
 mounted his horse and departed, taking little heed of his 
 nephew's death ; and Childebert withdrew into the outskirts of 
 the city. Queen Clotilde had the corpses of the two children 
 placed in a coffin, and followed them, with a great parade of 
 chanting, and immense moui'ning, to the basihca of St. Kerre 
 (now St. Genevieve), where they were buried together. One 
 was ten years old and the other seven. The third, named 
 Clodoald (who died about the year 560, after having founded, 
 near Paris, a monastery called after him St. Cloud), could 
 not be caught, and was saved by some gallant men. He, dis- 
 daining a terrestrial kingdom, dedicated himself to the Lord, 
 was shorn by his own hand, and became a churchman ; he de- 
 voted liimself wholly to good works, and died a priest. And 
 the two kings divided equally between them the kingdom of 
 Clodomir" (Gregory of Tours, HistoHes des Francs. III. xviii). 
 The history of the most barbarous peoples and times assur- 
 edly offers no example, in one and the same family, of an 
 usurpation more perfidiously and atrociously consummated. 
 King Clodomir, the father of the two yomig princes thus de- 
 throned and murdered by theii' uncles, had, during his reign, 
 shown almost equal indifference and cruelty. In 523, during a 
 war which, in concert with his brothers (IJhildebert and Clo- 
 taire, he had waged against Sigismund, king of Burgundy, he 
 had made prisoners of that king, his wife, and their sons, and 
 kept them shut up at Orleans. The year after, the war was 
 renewed with the Burgundians. "Clodomir resolved," says 
 Gregory of Tours, "to put Sigismund to death. The blessed 
 Avitus, abbot of St. Mesmin de Micy (an abbey about two 
 leagues from Orleans), a famous priest in those days, said to 
 him on this occasion, ' If, turning thy thoughts towards God, 
 thou change thy plan, and suffer not these folk to be slain, God 
 will be with thee, and thou wilt gain the victory ; but if thou 
 slay them, thou thyself wilt be delivered into the hands of 
 thine enemies, and thou wilt undergo their fate ; to thee and 
 thy wife and thy sons wiU happen that which thou wilt have 
 done to Sigismund and his wife and his sons. ' But Clodomir, 
 taking no heed of this counsel, said, 'It were great folly to 
 leave one enemy at home when I march out against another; 
 one attacking me behind and another in front, I should find 
 myself between two armies : victory will be surer and easier if 
 I separate one from the other ; when the first is once dead, it 
 will be less difficult to get rid of the other also.' Accordingly 
 he put Sigismimd to death, together with his wife and his sons,
 
 CH. VIII.] THE MEROVINGIANS. 129 
 
 ordered them to be thrown into a well in the village of Coul- 
 mier, belonging to the territory of Orleans, and set out for Bur- 
 gundy. After his first success Clodomir fell into an ambush 
 and into the hands ot his enemies, who cut off his head, stuck 
 it on the end of a pike and held it up aloft. Victory, neverthe- 
 less, remained with the Franks ; but scarcely had a year elapsed 
 when Queen Guntheuque, Clodomir's widow, became the wife 
 of his brother Clotaire, and his two elder sons, Theobald and 
 Gonthaire, fell beneath their uncle's hunting- knife." 
 
 Even in the coarsest and harshest ages the soul of man does 
 not completely lose its instincts of justice and humanity. The 
 bishops and priests were not alone in crying out against such 
 atrocities ; the barbarians themselves did not always remain 
 indifferent spectators of them, but sometimes took advantage 
 of them to rouse the wrath and warlike ardor of their com- 
 rades. "About the year 528, Theodoric, King of Metz, the 
 eldest son of Clovis, purposed to undertake a grand campaign 
 on the right bank of the Rhine against, his neighbors the Thur- 
 ingians, and summoned the Franks to a meeting. 'Bethink 
 you, ' said he, ' that of old time the Thuringians fell violently 
 upon our ancestors, and did them much harm. Our fathers, 
 ye know, gave them hostages to obtain peace ; but the Thurin- 
 gians put to death those hostages in divers ways, and once 
 more falHng upon our relatives, took from them all they pos- 
 sessed. After having hung children up, by the sinews of their 
 thighs, on the branches of trees, they put to a most cruel death 
 more than two hundred young girls, tying them by the legs to 
 the necks of horses, which, driven by pointed goads ia different 
 directions, tore the poor souls in pieces ; they laid others along 
 the ruts of the roads, fixed them in the earth with stakes, 
 drove over them laden cars, and so left them, with their bones 
 all broken, as a meal for the birds and dogs. To this very day 
 doth Hermannfroi faU in his promise, and absolutely refuse to 
 fulfil his engagements : right is on our side ; march we against 
 them with the help of God.' Then the Franks, indignant at 
 such atrocities, demanded with one voice to be led into Thur- 
 ingia. . . . Victory made them masters of it, and they reduced 
 the country under their dominion. . . . Whilst the Frankish 
 kings were still there, Theodoric would have slain his brother 
 Clotaire. Having put armed men in waiting, he had him 
 fetched to treat secretly of a certain matter. Then, having 
 arranged, in a portion of his house, a curtain from wall to wall, 
 he posted his armed men behind it ; but, as the CTU*tain was too
 
 130 HISTORY OF FRANCE. [en. vm 
 
 short, it left their feet exposed. Clotaire, having been warned 
 of the snare, entered the house armed and with a goodly com- 
 pany, Theodoric then perceived that he was discovered, in- 
 vented some story, and talked of this, that, and the other. At 
 last, not knowing how to get his treachery forgotten, he made 
 Clotaire a present of a large silvern dish, Clotaire wished him 
 good-bye, thanked him, and returned home. But Theodoric 
 immediately complained to his own folks that he had sacrificed 
 his silvern dish to no piu'pose, and said to his son Theodebert, 
 ' Go, find thy uncle, and pray him to give thee the present 1 
 made him,' Theodebert went, and got what he asked. In such 
 tricks did Theodoric excel" (Gregory of Tours, III, vii.). 
 
 These Merovingian kings were as greedy and Ucentious as 
 they were cruel. Not only was pillage, in their estimation, the 
 end and object of war, but they pillaged even in the midst of 
 peace and in their own dominions ; sometimes after the Roman 
 practice, by aggravation of taxes and fiscal manoeuvres, at 
 others after the barbaric fashion, by sudden attacks on places 
 and persons they knew to be rich. It often happened that they 
 pillaged a church, of which the bishop had vexed them by his 
 protests, either to swell their own personal treasury, or to 
 make, soon afterwards, offerings to another church of which 
 they sought the favor. When some great family event was at 
 hand, they dehghted in a coarse magnificence, for which they 
 provided at the expense of the populations of their domains, or 
 of the great oflScers of their courts, who did not fail to idem- 
 nify themselves, thanks to pubhc disorder, for the sacrifices 
 imposed upon them. At the end of the sixth centmy, ChOpe- 
 ric, king of Neustria, had promised his daughter Rigonthe in 
 marriage to Prince Recared, son of LeuvigOd, king of the Visi- 
 goths of Spain, "A grand deputation of Goths came to Paris 
 to fetch the Franldsh princess. King Chilperic ordered several 
 families in the fiscal domains to be seized and placed in cars. 
 As a great number of them wept and were not willing to go, 
 he had them kept in prison that he might more easily force 
 them to go away with his daughter. It is said that several, in 
 their despair, hung themselves, fearing to be taken from their 
 parents. Sons were separated from fathers, daughters from 
 mothers ; and all departed with deep groans and maledictions, 
 and in Paris there reigned a desolation like that of Egypt. Not 
 a few, of superior birth, being forced to go away, even made 
 wills whereby they left their possessions to the churches, and 
 demanded that, so soon as the young girl should have entered
 
 CH. vin.] THE MEROVINGIANS. \^ 
 
 Spain, their wills should be opened just as if they were already 
 in their graves. . . . When King Chilperic gave up his daugh- 
 ter to the ambassadors of the Goths, he presented them with 
 vast treasures. Her mother (Queen Fredegonde) added thereto 
 so great a quantity of gold and silver and valuable vestments, 
 that, at the sight thereof, the king thought he must have 
 naught remaining. The queen, perceiving his emotion, tromed 
 to the Franks, and said to them, 'Think not, warriors, that 
 there is here aught of the treasures of former kings. AU that 
 ye see is taken from mine own possessions, for my most 
 glorious king hath made me many gifts. Thereto have I 
 added of the fruits of mine own toU, and a great part pro- 
 ceedeth from the revenues I have drawn, either in kind or in 
 money, from the houses that have been ceded unto me. Ye 
 yourselves have given me riches, and ye see here a portion 
 thereof; but there is here naught of the pubHc treasure.' And 
 the king was deceived into behoving her words. Such was 
 the multitude of golden and sUvem articles and other precious 
 things that it took fifty wagons to hold them. The Franks, on 
 their part, made many off erings ; some gave gold, others silver, 
 sundry gave horses, but most of them vestments. At last the 
 young girl, with many tears and kisses, said farewell. As she 
 was passing through the gate an axle of her carriage broke, 
 and all cried out alack ! which was interpreted by some as a 
 presage. She departed from Paris, and at eight miles' distance 
 from the city she had her tents pitched. During the night 
 fifty men arose, and, having taken a hundred of the best horses 
 and as many golden bits and bridles, and two large silvern 
 dishes, fled away, and took refuge with King Childebert. 
 During the whole journey whoever could escape fled away 
 with all that he could lay hands on. It was required also 
 of all the towns that were traversed on the way, that they 
 should make great preparations to defray expenses, for the 
 king forbade any contribution from the treasury: all the 
 charges were met by extraordinary taxes levied on the poor" 
 (Gregory of Tours, VI. xlv.). 
 
 Close upon this tyrannical magnificence came unexpected 
 sorrows, and close upon these outrages remorse. The youngest 
 son of King Chilperic, Dagobert by name, fell ill. "He was a 
 little better, when his elder brother Chlodebert was attacked 
 with the same symptoms. His mother Fredegonde, seeing him 
 in danger of death, and touched by tardy repentance, said to 
 the king, ' Long hath divine mercy borne with our misdeeds;
 
 132 HISTORY OF FRANCE. [CH. viiL 
 
 it hath warned us by fevers and other maladies, and we have 
 not nxended our ways, and now we are losing our sons ; now 
 the tears of the poor, the lamentations of widows, and the 
 sighs of orphans are causing them to perish, and leaving us no 
 hope of laying by for any one. We heap up riches and know 
 not for whom. Our treasures, all laden with plunder and 
 curses, are like to remain without possessors. Our cellars 
 are they not bursting with wine, and our granaries with 
 corn? Our coffers were they not full to the brim with gold 
 and silver and precious stones and necklaces and other im- 
 perial ornaments? And yet that which was our most beautiful 
 possession we are losing! Come then, if thou wilt, and let us 
 burn all these wicked lists ; let our treasury be content with 
 what was sufficient for thy father Clotaire.' Having thus 
 spoken, and beating her breast, the queen had brought to her 
 the rolls, which Mark had consigned to her of each of the 
 cities that belonged to her, and cast them, into the fire. Then, 
 turning again to the king, ' What !' she cried, ' dost thou hesi- 
 tate? Do thou even as I; if we lose our dear children, at least 
 escape we everlasting pimishment,' Then the king, moved 
 with compunction, threw into the fire all the Hsts, and, when 
 they were burned, sent people to stay the levy of those im- 
 posts. And afterward their youngest child died, worn out 
 with lingering illness. Overwhelmed with grief, they bare 
 him from their house at Braine to Paris, and had him buried 
 in the basilica of St. Denis. As for Chlodebert, they placed 
 him on a litter, carried him to the basilica of St. Medard 
 at Soissons, and, laying him before the tomb of the saint, 
 offered vows for his recovery ; but in the middle of the night, 
 enfeebled and exhausted, he gave up the ghost. They buried 
 him in the basihca of the holy martyrs Crispin and Crispinian. 
 Then King Chilperic showed great largess to the churches 
 and the monasteries and the poor" (Gregory of Tours, V. 
 
 XXXV.). 
 
 It is doubtful whether the' maternal grief of Fredegonde were 
 quite so pious and so strictly in accordance with morality as it 
 has been represented by Gregory of Tours ; but she was, with- 
 out doubt, passionately sincere. Rash actions and violent 
 passions are the characteristics of barbaric natures; the in- 
 terest or impression of the moment holds sway over them, and 
 causes forgetfulness of every moral law as well as of every 
 wise calculation. These two characteristics show themselves 
 in the extreme license displayed in the private life of the Mero
 
 CH. vin.] TEE MEROVINGIANS. 133 
 
 vingian kings : on becoming Christians, not only did they not 
 impose upon themselves any of the Christian rules in respect 
 of conjugal relations, but the greater number of them did not 
 renounce polygamy, and more than one holy bishop, at the 
 very time that he reprobated it, was obhged to tolerate it. 
 "King Clotaire I. had to wife Ingonde, and her only did he 
 love, when she made to him the following request : ' My lord,' 
 said she, 'hath made of his handmaid what seemed to him 
 good ; and now, to crown his favors, let my lord deign to hear 
 what his handmaid demandeth. I pray you be graciously 
 pleased to find for my sister Aregonde, your slave, a man both 
 capable and rich, so that I be rather exalted than abased 
 thereby, and be enabled to serve you still more faithfully. 
 At these words Clotaii-e, who was but too voluptuously dis- 
 posed by nature, conceived a fancy for Aregonde, betook him- 
 self to the country-house where she dwelt, and imited her to 
 him in marriage. When the tmion had taken place he re- 
 turned to Ingonde, and said to her, ' I have labored to procure 
 for thee the favor thou didst so sweetly demand, and, on look- 
 ing for a man of wealth and capability worthy to be united to 
 thy sister, I could find none better than myself; know, there- 
 fore, that I have taken her to wife, and I trow that it will not 
 displease thee.' ' What seemeth good in my master's eyes, that 
 let him do, ' rephed Ingonde : ' only let thy servant abide still 
 in the king's grace.' " 
 
 Clotaire I. had, as has been already remarked, four sons: 
 the eldest, Charibert, king of Paris, had to wife Ingoberge, 
 "who had in her service two young persons, daughters of a 
 poor workman ; one of them, named Marcovieve, had donned 
 the rehgious dress, the other was called Meroflede, and the 
 king loved both of them exceedingly. They were daughters, 
 as has been said, of a worker in wool. Ingoberge, jealous of 
 the affection borne to them by the king, had their father put 
 to work inside the palace, hoping that the king, on seeing bim 
 in such condition, would conceive a distaste for his daughters^ 
 and, whilst the man was at his work, she sent for the king. 
 
 " Charibert, thinking he was going to see some novelty, saw 
 only the workman afar off at work on his wool. He foi-sook 
 Ingoberge, and took to -wife Meroflede. He had also (to wife) 
 another young girl named Theudechilde, whose father was a 
 shepherd, a mere tender of sheep, and had by her, it is said, a 
 son who, on issuing from his mother's womb, was carried 
 straightway to the grave." Charibert after wai'ds espoused
 
 134 HISTORY OF FRANCE. [ch. viii- 
 
 Marcovieve, sister of Meroflede ; and for that cause both were 
 excommunicated by St. Germain, bishop of Paris. 
 
 Chilperic, fourth son of Clotaire I. and king of Soissons, 
 " though he had already several wives, asked the hand of Gal- 
 suinthe, eldest daughter of Athanagild, king of Spain. She 
 arrived at Soissons and was united to him in marriage ; and she 
 received strong evidences of love, for she had brought with her 
 vast treasures. But his love for Fredegonde, one of the princi- 
 pal women about Chilperic, occasioned fierce disputes between 
 them. As Galsuinthe had to complain to the king of continual 
 insult and of not sharing with him the dignity of his rank, she 
 asked him in return for the treasures which she had brought, 
 and which she was ready to give up to him, to send her back 
 free to her own country. Chilperic, artfully dissimulating, 
 appeased her with soothing words ; and then had her strangled 
 by a slave, and she was found dead in her bed. When he had 
 mourned for her death, he espoused Fredegonde after an inter- 
 val of a few days" (Gregory of Tours, IV. xxvi., xxviii.). 
 
 Amidst such passions and such morals, treason, mm'der and 
 poisoning were the familiar processes of ambition, covetousness, 
 hatred, vengeance, and fear. Eight kings or royal heirs of the 
 Merovingian line died of brutal murder or secret assassination, 
 to say nothing of innumerable crimes of the same kind com- 
 mitted in their circle, and left unpunished, save by similar 
 crimes. Nevertheless, justice is due to the very worst times 
 and the very worst governments ; and it must be recorded that, 
 whilst sharing in many of the vices of their age and race, 
 especially their extreme licence of morals, thi*ee of Clovis's 
 successors, Theodebert, king of Austrasia (from 534 to 548), 
 Gontran, king of Burgundy (from 561 to 593), and Dagobert I., 
 tv^ho united under his own sway the whole Frankish monarchy 
 (from 622 to 638), were less violent, less cruel, less iniquitous, 
 and less grossly ignorant or blind than the majority of the 
 Merovingians. 
 
 "Theodebert," says Gregory of Tours, "when confirmed in 
 his kingdom, showed himself full of greatness and goodness; 
 he ruled with justice, honoring the bishops, doing good to the 
 churches, helping the poor, and distributing in many directions 
 numerous benefits with a very charitable and very liberal hand. 
 He generously remitted to the churches of Auvergne all the 
 tribute they were wont to pay into his treasury" (III. xxv.). 
 
 Gontran, king of Burgundy, in spite of many shocking and 
 unprincipled deeds, at one time of violence, at another of weak
 
 m. ym.] TEE MEROVINGIANS. 135 
 
 ness, displayed, diMng his reign of thirty-three years, an in 
 cKnation towards moderation and peace, in striking contrast 
 with the measureless pretensions and outrageous conduct of the 
 other Frankish kings his contemporaries, especially King Chil- 
 peric, his brother. The treaty concluded by Gontran, on the 
 28th of November, 587, at Andelot, near Langres, vsith his 
 young nephew Childebert, king of Metz, and Queen Brunehaut, 
 his mother, contains dispositions, or, more correctly speaking, 
 words, which breathe a sincere but timid desire to render jus- 
 tice to aU, to put an end to the \dndictive or retrospective 
 quarrels and spoliations which were incessantly harassing the 
 Gallo-Frankish community, and to build up peace between the 
 two kings on the foundation of mutual respect for the rights of 
 their lieges. " It is established," says this treaty, " that what- 
 soever the kings have given to the churches or to their heges, 
 or with God's help shall hereafter wiU to give to them lawfully, 
 shah be irrevocably acquired ; as also that none of the Heges, in 
 one kingdom or the other, shall have to suffer damage in re- 
 spect of whatsoever belongeth to him, either by law or by vir- 
 tue of a decree, but shall be permitted to recover and possess 
 things due to him. .... Aid as the aforesaid kings have 
 allied themselves, in the name of God, by a pm-e and sincere 
 affection, it hath been agreed that at no time shall passage 
 through one kingdom be refused to the Leudes (heges — great 
 vassals) of the other kingdom who shall desire to traverse them 
 on public or private affairs. It is likewise agreed that neither 
 of the two kings shaU soUcit the Leudes of the other or receive 
 them if they offer themselves; and if, peradventiire, any of 
 these Leudes shall think it necessary, in consequence of some 
 fault, to take refuge with the other king, he shaU be absolved 
 according to the nature of his fault and given back. It hath 
 seemed good also to add to the present treaty that whichever, 
 if either, of the parties happen to violate it, under any pretext 
 and at any time whatsoever, it shall lose all advantages, present 
 or prospective, therefrom ; and they shall be for the profit of 
 that party which shall have faithfully observed the aforesaid 
 conventions, and which shall be relieved in all points from the 
 obhgations of its oath" (Gregory of Tours, IX. xx.). 
 
 It may be doubted whether between Gontran and Childebert 
 the promises in the treaty were always scrupulously fulfilled ; 
 but they have a stamp of serious and sincere intention foreign 
 to the habitual relations between the other Merovingian kings. 
 
 Mention was but just now made of two women — two queens—
 
 136 HISTORY OP FRANCE. [cH. vin; 
 
 Fredegonde and Brunehaut, who, at the Merovingian epoch, 
 played important parts in the history of the country. They 
 were of very different origin and condition ; and, after fortunes 
 which were for a long while analogous, they ended very differ, 
 ently. Fredegonde was the daughter of poor peasants in the 
 neighborhood of Montdidier in Picardy, and at an early age 
 joined the train of Queen Audovere, the first wife of King Chil- 
 peric. She was beautiful, dexterous, ambitious, and bold ; and 
 she attracted the attention, and before long awakened the pas- 
 sion of the king. She pursued with ardor and without scruple 
 her unexpected fortune. Queen Audovere was her first obsta- 
 cle and her first victim ; and on the pretext of a spirtual rela- 
 tionship which rendered her marriage with Chilperic illegal, 
 was repudiated and banished to a convent. But Fredegonde's 
 hour had not yet come; for Chilperic espoused Galsuinthe, 
 daughter of the Visigothic king, Athanagild, whose youngest 
 daughter, Brunehaut, had just married Chilperic's brother, 
 Sigebert, king of Austrasia. It has already been said that be- 
 fore long Galsuinthe was found strangled in her bed, and that 
 Chilperic espoused Fredegonde. An undying hatred from that 
 time arose between her and Brunehaut, who had to avenge her 
 sister. A war, incessantly renewed, between the Kings of 
 Austrasia and Neustria followed. Sigebert succeeded in beat- 
 ing Chilperic, but, in 575, in the midst of his victory, he was 
 suddenly assassinated in his tent by two emissaries of Frede- 
 gonde. His army disbanded ; and his widow, Brunehaut, fell 
 into the hands of Chilperic. The right of asylum belonging to 
 the cathedral of Paris saved her life, but she was sent away to 
 Rouen. There, at this very time, on a mission from his father, 
 happened to be Merovee, son of Chilperic, and the repudiated 
 Queen Audovere ; he saw Brunehaut in her beauty, her attrac- 
 tiveness, and her trouble ; he was smitten with her and married 
 her privately, and Praetextatus, bishop of Rouen, had the im- 
 prudent courage to seal their union. Fredegonde seized with 
 avidity upon this occasion for persecuting her rival and de- 
 stroying her stepson, heir to the throne of Chilperic. The 
 Austrasiansi who had preserved the child Childebert, son of 
 their murdered king, demanded back with threats their queen 
 Brunehaut. She was surrendered to them; but Fredegonde 
 did not let go her other prey, Merovee. First imprisoned, then 
 shorn and shut up in a monastery, afterwards a fugitive and 
 secretly urged on to attempt a rising against his father, he was 
 so affrighted at his perils, that he got a faithful servant to
 
 en. VIII.] TRE MER0VINQIAN8. 137 
 
 strike him dead, that he might not fall into the hands of hia 
 hostile stepmother. Chilperic had remaining . another son, 
 Clovis, issue, as Merovee was, of Queen Audovere. He was 
 accused of having caused by his sorceries the death of the three 
 children lost about this time by Fredegonde ; and was, in his 
 turn, imprisoned and before long poignarded. His mother 
 Audovere was strangled in her convent. Fredegonde sought 
 in these deaths, advantageous for her own children, some sort 
 of horrible consolation for her sorrows as a mother. But the 
 sum of crimes was not yet complete. In 584 King Chilperic, 
 on returning from the chase and in the act of dismounting, was 
 struck two mortal blows by a man who took to rapid flight, 
 and a ciy was raised all around of, " Treason! 'tis the hand of 
 the Austrasian Childebert against our lord the king !" The care 
 taken to have the cry raised was proof of its falsity ; it was the 
 hand of Fredegonde herself, anxious lest Chilperic should dis- 
 cover the guilty connexion existing between her and an officer 
 of her household, Landry, who became subsequently mayor of 
 the palace of Neustria. Chilperic left a son, a few months old, 
 named Clotaire, of whom his mother Fredegonde became the 
 sovereign guardian. She employed, at one time in defending 
 him against his enemies, at another in endangering him by her 
 plots, her hatreds and her assaults, the last thirteen years of 
 her Ufe. She was a true type of the strong-willed, artful, and 
 perverse woman in barbarous times ; she started low down in 
 the scale and rose very high without a corresponding elevation 
 of soul ; she was audacious and perfidious, as perfect in decep- 
 tion as in effrontery, proceeding to atrocities either from cool 
 calculation or a spirit of revenge, abandoned to all kinds of 
 passion, and, for gratification of them, shrinking from no sort 
 of crime. However, she died quietly at Paris, in 597 or 598, 
 powerful and dreaded, and leaving on the throne of Neustria 
 her son Clotaire II., who, fifteen years later, was to become sole 
 king of all the Frankish dominions. 
 
 Brunehaut had no occasion for crimes to become a queen; 
 and, in spite of those she committed, and in spite of her out 
 bursts and the moral irregularities of her long life, she bore, 
 amidst her passion and her power, a stamp of courageous 
 frankness and intellectual greatness which places her far above 
 the savage who was her rival. Fredegonde was an upstart, of 
 barbaric race and habits, a stranger to every idea and every 
 design not connected with her own personal interest and suc- 
 cesses ; and she was as brutally selfish in the case of her natural
 
 138 HISTORY OF FRANCE. [ch. vm. 
 
 passions as in the exercise of a power acquired and maintained 
 by a mixture of artifice and violence. Brunehaut was a prin- 
 cess of that race of Gothic kings who, in Southern Gaul and in 
 Spain, had understood and admired the Roman civilization and 
 had striven to transfer the remains of it to the newly-formed 
 fabric of their own dominions. She, transplanted to a home 
 amongst the Franks of Austrasia, the least Roman of all the 
 barbarians, preserved there the ideas and tastes of the Visigoths 
 of Spain, who had become almost Gallo-Romans ; she clung 
 stoutly to the efficacious exercise of the royal authority ; she 
 took a practical interest in the public works, highways, 
 bridges, monuments, and the progress of material civilization; 
 the Roman roads in a short time received and for a long while 
 kept in Austrasia the name ot Bi^unehauVs causeivays; there 
 used to be shown, in a forest near Bourges, Brunehaut's castle, 
 Brunehaut's tower at Etampes, Brunehaut's stone near Tour- 
 nay, and Brunehaut's fort near Cahors. In the royal domains 
 and wheresoever she went she showed abundant charity to the 
 poor, and many ages after her death the people of those dis- 
 tricts still spoke of Brunehaufs alms. She liked and protected 
 men of letters, rare and mediocre indeed at that time, but the 
 only beings, such as they were, with a notion of seeking and 
 giving any kind of intellectual enjoyment; and they in turn 
 took pleasure in celebrating her name and her deserts. The 
 most renowned of all during that age, Fortunatus, bishop of 
 Poitiers, dedicated nearly all his little poems to two queens; 
 one, Brunehaut, plunging amidst aU the struggles and pleasm'es 
 of the world, the other St. Radegonde, sometiaae wife of Clo- 
 taire I., who had fled in all haste from a throne, to bury her- 
 self at Poitiers, in the convent she had founded there. To 
 compensate, Brunehaut was detested by the majority of the 
 Austrasian chiefs, those Leudes, landowners and warriors, 
 whose sturdy and turbulent independence she was continually 
 fighting against. She supported against them, with indomita- 
 ble courage, the royal officers, the servants of the palace, her 
 agents, and frequently her favorites. One of these, Lupus, a 
 Roman by origin, and Duke of Champagne, " was bemg con- 
 stantly insulted and plundered by his enemies, especially by 
 Ursion Bertfried. At last, they having agreed to slay him, 
 marched against him Avith an army. At the sight, Biomehaut, 
 compassionating the evil case of one of her lieges unjustly per- 
 secuted, assumed quite a manly courage, and threw herself 
 amongst the hostile battahons, crying, 'Stay, warriors; re-
 
 CH. viii.J THE MEROVINGIANS. 139 
 
 frain from this wicked deed ; persecute not the innocent ; en- 
 gage not, for a single man's sake, in a battle which will deso- 
 late the country! ' ' Back, woman,' said Ursion to her, 'let it 
 suflSce thee to have ruled under thy husband's sway ; now 'tis 
 thy son who reigns, and his kingdom is under our protection, 
 not thine. Back ! if thou wouldst not that the hoofs cf our 
 horses trample thee under as the dust of the ground ! ' After 
 the dispute had lasted some time in this strain, the queen, by 
 her address, at last prevented the battle from taking place" 
 (Gregory of Tours, VI. iv.). It was but a momentary success 
 for Brunehaut ; and the last words of Ursion contained a sad 
 presage of the death awaiting her. Intoxicated with power, 
 pride, hate, and revenge, she entered more violently every day 
 into strife not only with the Austrasian laic chieftains, but with 
 some of the principal bishops of Austrasia and Burgundy, 
 among the rest with St. Didier, bishop of Vienne, who, at her 
 instigation, was brutaUy murdered, and with the great Irish 
 missionary St. Columba, who would not sanction by his bless- 
 ing the fruits of the royal irregularities. In 614, after thirty- 
 nine years of wars, plots, murders, and political and personal 
 vicissitudes, from the death of her husband Sigebert I., and 
 under the reigns of her son Theodebert, and her grandsons Theo- 
 debert II. and Thierry II., Queen Brunehaut, at the age of 
 eighty years, fell into the hands of her mortal enemy, Clotaire 
 n., son of Fredegonde, now sole king of the Franks. After 
 having grossly insulted her, he had her paraded, seated on a 
 camel, in front of his whole army, and then ordered her to be 
 tied by the hair, one foot, and one arm to the tail of an un- 
 broken horse, that carried her away, and dashed her in pieces 
 as he galloped and kicked, beneath the eyes of the ferocious 
 spectators. 
 
 After the execution of Brunehaut and the death of Clotaire 
 II., the history of the Franks becomes a Httle less dark and 
 less bloody. Not that murders and great irregularities, in the 
 court and amongst the people, disappear altogether. Dagoberfc 
 I., for instance, the successor of Clotaire II., and grandson of 
 Chilperic and Fredegonde, had no scruple, under the pressure 
 of self-interest, in committing an iniquitous and barbarous 
 act. After having consented to leave to his younger brother 
 Charibert the kingdom of Aquitania, he retook it by force in 
 631, at the death of Charibert, seizing at the same time his 
 treasures, and causing or permitting to be murdered his young 
 nephew Chilperic, rightful heir of his father. About the same
 
 140 IIISTOBT OF FRANCE. [ch. viil 
 
 time Dagobert had assigned amongst the Bavarians, subjects 
 of his beyond the Rhine, an asylum to nine thousand Bulga- 
 rians who had been driven with their wives and children 
 from Pannonia. Not knowing, afterwards, where to put or 
 how to feed these refugees, he ordered them all to be massa- 
 cred in one night; and scarcely seven hundred of them suc- 
 ceeded in escaping by flight. The private morals of Dagobert 
 were not more scrupulous than his public acts. "A slave to 
 incontinence as King Solomon was," says his biographer 
 Fredegaire, "he had three queens and a host of concubines." 
 Given up to extravagance and pomp, it pleased him to imitate 
 the magnificence of the imperial court at Constantinople, and 
 at one time he laid hands, for that purpose, upon the posses- 
 sions of certain of his "leudes" or of certain churches, at 
 another he gave to his favorite church, the Abbey of St. 
 Denis, "so many precious stones, articles of value, and 
 domains in various places, that all the world," says Frede- 
 gaire, "was stricken with admiration." But, despite of these 
 excesses and scandals, Dagobert was the most wisely ener- 
 getic, the least cruel in feeling, the most prudent in enterprise, 
 and the most capable of governing with some little regularity 
 and efEectiveness, of all the kings furnished, since Clovis, by 
 the Merovingian race. He had, on ascending the throne, this 
 immense advantage that the three Frankish dominions, 
 Austrasia, Neustria and Burgundy were re-imited under his 
 sway; and at the death of his brother Charibert, he added 
 thereto Aquitania. The unity of the vast Frankish monarchy 
 was thus re-estabhshed, and Dagobert retained it by his 
 moderation at home and abroad. He was brave, and he made 
 war on occasion ; but he did not permit himself to be dragged 
 into it either by his own passions or by the unlimited taste of 
 his lieges for adventure and plunder. He found, on this 
 point, salutai-y warnings in the history of his predecessors. 
 It was very often the Franks themselves, the royal "leudes," 
 who plunged their kings into civil or foreign wars. " In 530, 
 two sons of Clovis, Childebert and Clotaire, arranged to 
 attack Burgundy and its king Godomar. They asked aid of 
 their brother Theodoric, who refused to join them. How- 
 ever, the Franks who formed his party said, "If thou refuse 
 to march into Burgundy with thy brethren, we give thee up, 
 and prefer to follow them." But Theodoric, considering that 
 the Arvemians had been faithless to him, said to the Franks, 
 "Follow me, and I will lead you into a country where ye
 
 CH. vni.] THE MEROVINGIANS. 141 
 
 shall seize of gold and silver as much as ye can desire, and 
 whence ye shall take away flocks and slaves and vestments in 
 abundance !" The Franks, overcome by these words, promised 
 to do whatsoever he should desire. So Theodoric entered 
 Auvergne with his army, and wrought devastation and ruin 
 in the province. 
 
 In 555, Clotaire I. had made an expedition against the 
 Saxons, who demanded peace: but the Frankish warriors 
 would not hear of it. " ' Cease, I pray you,' said Clotaire to 
 them, 'to be evil-minded against these men; they speak us 
 fair ; let us not go and attack them, for fear we bring down 
 upon us the anger of God. ' But the Franks would not hsten 
 to him. The Saxons again came with ofl'erings of vestments, 
 flocks, even aU their possessions, saying, 'Take all this, 
 together with half our country ; leave us but our wives and 
 little children ; only let there be no war between us. ' But the 
 Franks again refused all terms. 'Hold, I adjure you,' said 
 Clotaire again to them, * we have not right on our side ; if ye be 
 thoroughly minded to enter upon a war in which ye may find 
 your loss, as for me, I will not follow ye. ' Then the Franks, 
 enraged against Clotaire, threw themselves upon him, tore his 
 tent to pieces as they heaped reproaches upon him, and bore 
 him away by force, determined to kill him if he hesitated to 
 march with them. So Clotaire, in spite of himself, departed 
 with them. But, when they joined battle they were cut to 
 pieces by their adversaries, and on both sides so many fell 
 that it was impossible to estimate or count the number of the 
 dead. Then Clotaire with shame demanded peace of the 
 Saxons, saying that it was not of his own will that he had 
 attacked them; and, having obtained it, returned to his own 
 dominions" (Gregory of Tours, III. xi., xii. ; IV. xiv.). 
 
 King Dagobert was not thus under the yoke of his "leudes." 
 Either by his own energy, or by surrounding himself with 
 wise and influential counsellors, such as Pepin of Landen, 
 mayor of the palace of Austrasia, St. Amoul, bishop of Metz, 
 St. Eligius, bishop of Noyon, and St. Audoenus, bishop of 
 Rouen, he applied himself to and succeeeed in assuring to him- 
 self, in the exercise of his power, a pretty large measure of 
 independence* and popularity. At the beginning of his reign 
 he held, in Austrasia and Burgimdy, a sort of administrative 
 and judicial inspection, halting at the principal towns, Usten- 
 ing to complaints, and checking, sometimes with a rigor 
 arbitrary indeed, but approved of by the people, the violence
 
 142 HISTORY OF FRANCE. [ch. vin, 
 
 and irregularities of the grandees. At Langres, Dijon, St. 
 Jean-de-Losne, Chalons-sur-Saone, Auxerre, Autun, and Sens, 
 "he rendered justice," says Fredegaire, "to rich and poor 
 alike, without any charges, and without any respect of per- 
 sons, taking little sleep and little food, caring only so to act 
 that all should withdraw from his presence full of joy and 
 admiration." Nor did he confine himself to this unceremo- 
 nious exercise of the royal authority. Some of his prede- 
 cessors, and amongst them ChUdebert I., Clotaire I., and 
 Clotaire II., had caused to be drawn up, in Latin and by 
 scholars, digests more or less complete of the laws and 
 customs handed down by tradition, amongst certain of the 
 Germanic peoples established on Roman soil, notably the laws 
 of the Salian Franks and Ripuarian Franks; and Dagobert 
 ordered a continuation of these first legislative labors amongst 
 the new-bom nations. It was, apparently, in his reign that a 
 digest was made of the laws of the Allemannians and Bava- 
 rians. He had also some taste for the arts, and the pious 
 talents displayed by Saints Eloi and Ouen in goldsmith's work 
 and sculpture, apphed to the service of religion or the decora- 
 tion of churches, received from him the support of the royal 
 favor and munificence. Dagobert was neither a great warrior 
 nor a great legislator, and there is nothing to make him recog- 
 nized as a great mind or a great character. His private life, 
 too, was scandalous ; and extortions were a sad feature of its 
 close. Nevertheless, his authority was maintained in his 
 dominions, his reputation spread far and wide, and the name 
 of great King Dagobert was his abiding title in the memory of 
 the people. Taken all in aU, he was, next to Clovis, the most 
 distinguished of Frankish kings, and the last really king in 
 the line of the Merovingians. After him, from 638 to 753, 
 twelve princes of this line, one named Sigebert, two Clovis, 
 two Childeric, one Clotaire, two Dagobert, one Childebert, one 
 Chilperic, and two Theodoric or Thierry, bore in Neustria, 
 Austrasia, and Burgundy, or in the three kingdoms imited, 
 the title of king, without deserving in history more than room 
 for their names. There was already heard the rumbling of 
 great events to come aroimd the Frankish dominion ; and in 
 the very womb of this dominion was being formed a new race 
 of kings more able to bear, in accordance with the spirit and 
 wants of their times, the burden of power.
 
 (SB. IX.] TEE PEPINS AND THE NEW DYNASTY. 143 
 
 CHAPTEE IX. 
 
 THE MAYORS OF THE PALACE. 
 THE PEPINS AND THE CHANGE OF DYNASTY. 
 
 There is a certain amount of sound sense, of intelligent 
 activity and practical efficiency, which even the least civilized 
 and least exacting communities absolutely must look for in 
 their governing body. When this necessary share of ability 
 and influence of a political kind are decidedly wanting in the 
 men who have the titles and the official posts of, power, 
 communities seek elsewhere the quahties (and their conse- 
 quences) which they cannot do without. The sluggard Mero- 
 vingians drove the Franks, Neustrians, and Austrasians to 
 this imperative necessity. The last of the kings sprung from 
 Clovis acquitted themselves too ill or not at all of their task ; 
 and the mayors of the palace were naturally summoned to 
 supply their deficiencies, and to give the populations assur- 
 ance of more intelligence and energy in the exercise of 
 power. The origin and pi-imitive character of these supple- 
 m.ents of royalty were different according to circmnstances ; 
 at one time, conformably with their title, the mayors of the 
 palace really came into existence in the palace of the Frankish 
 kings, amongst the " leudes" charged, under the style of 
 antrustions (lieges in the confidence of the king: in truste 
 regia), with the internal management of the royal affairs and 
 household, or amongst the superior chiefs of the army; at 
 another, on the contrary, it was to resist the violence and 
 usurpation of the king's that the "leudes," landholders or 
 warriors, themselves chose a chief able to defend their inter- 
 ests and their rights against the royal tyranny or incapacity. 
 Thus we meet, at this time, with mayors of the palace of very 
 different poHtical origin and intention, some appointed by the 
 kings to support royalty against the ' ' leudes, " others chosen 
 by the " leudes" against the kings. It was especially between 
 the Neustrian and Austrasian mayors of the palace that this 
 difference became striking. Gallo-Roman feehng was more 
 prevalent in Neustria, Germanic in Austrasia. The majority 
 of the Neustrian mayors supported the interests of royalty, 
 the Austriasian those of the aristocracy of landholder and 
 (7) HF Vol. 1
 
 144 HISTORY OF FRANCE. [ch. ix. 
 
 warriors. The last years of the Merovingian line were full of 
 their struggles ; but a cause far more general and more power- 
 ful than these differences and conflicts in the very heart of 
 the Frankish dominions determined the definitive fall of that 
 line and the accession of another dynasty. When in 687 the 
 battle fought at Testry, on the banks of the Somme, left 
 Pepin of Heristal, duke and mayor of the palace of Austrasia, 
 victorious over Bertaire, mayor of the palace of Neustria, it 
 was a question of something very different from merely 
 rivalry between the two Frankish dominions and their chiefs. 
 
 At their entrance and settlement upon the left bank of the 
 Rhine and in Gaul, the Franks had not abandoned the right 
 bank and Germany; there also they remained settled and 
 incessantly at strife with their neighbors of Germanic race, 
 Thuringians, Bavarians, the confederation of Allemannians, 
 Frisons, and Saxons, people frequently vanquished and sub- 
 dued to all appearance, but always ready to rise either for the 
 recovery of their independence, or, again, under the pressure 
 of that grand movement which, in the third century, had 
 determined the general invasion by the barbarians of the 
 Roman empire. After the defeat of the Huns, at Chalons, and 
 the founding of the Visigothic, Burgundian, and Frankish 
 kingdoms in Gaul, that movement had been, if not arrested, 
 at any rate modified, and for the moment suspended. In the 
 sixth century it received a fresh impulse ; new nations, Avars, 
 Tartars, Bulgarians, Slavons, and Lombards thrust one 
 another with mutual pressure from Asia into Europe, from 
 Eastern Europe into Western ; from the North to the South, 
 into Italy and into Gaul. Driven by the Ouigour Tartars 
 from Pannonia and Noricum (now-a-days Austria), the Lom- 
 bards threw themselves first upon Italy, crossed before long 
 the Alps, and penetrated into Burgundy and Provence, to the 
 very gates of Avignon. On the Rhine and along the Jura the 
 Franks had to struggle on their own account against the new 
 comers ; and they were, further, summoned Into Italy by the 
 Emperors of the East who wanted their aid against the Lom- 
 bards. Every where resistance to the invasion of barbarians 
 became the national attitude of the Franks, and they proudly 
 proclaimed themselves the defenders of that West of wliich 
 they had but lately been the conquerors. 
 
 When the Merovingians were indisputably nothing but slug- 
 gard kings, and when Ebroin , the last great mayor of the pal- 
 ace of Neustria, had been assassinated (in 681), and the army
 
 CH. IX.] THE PEPINS AND TEE NEW DYNASTY. 145 
 
 of the Neustrians destroyed at the battle of Testry (in 687), 
 the ascendancy in the heart of the whole of Frankish Gaul 
 passed to the Franks of Austrasia, already bound by their 
 geogi'aphical position to the defence of their nation in its new 
 settlement. There had risen up amongst them a family, 
 powerful from its vast domains, from its military and political 
 services, and already also from the prestige belonging to the 
 hereditary transmission of name and power. Its first chief 
 known in history had been Pepin of Landen, called The Ancient, 
 one of the foes of Queen Brunehaut, who was so hateful to the 
 Austrasians, and afterwards one of the privy councillors and 
 mayor of the palace of Austrasia under Dagobert I. and his 
 son Sigebert EC. He died in 639, leaving to his family an influ- 
 ence already extensive.- His son Grimoald succeeded him as 
 mayor of the palace ingloriously ; but his gi'andson, by his 
 daughter Bega, Pepin of Heristal, was for twenty -seven years 
 not only virtually, as mayor of the palace, but ostensibly and 
 with the title of duke, the real sovereign of Austrasia and aU 
 the Frankish dominion. He did not, however, take the name 
 of king; and four d^cendants of dovis, Thierry HI., Clovis 
 ni.,Childebert HI. and Dagobert HI., continued to bear that 
 title in Neustria and Burgundy, under the preponderating in- 
 fluence of Pepin of Heristal. He did, during his long sway, 
 three things of importance. He struggled without cessation to 
 keep or bring back under the rule of the Franks the Germanic 
 nations on the right bank of the Rhine, Frisons, Saxons, 
 Thuringians, Bavarians, and Allemannians ; and thus to make 
 the Frankish dominion a bulwark against the new flood of bar- 
 bai'ians who were pressing one another westwards. 
 
 He rekindled in Austrasia the national spir-it and some poHti- 
 cal life by beginning again the old March parades of the Franks, 
 which had fallen into desuetude under the last Merovingians, 
 Lastly, and this was, perhaps, his most original merit, he 
 miderstood of what importance, for the Frankish kingdom, 
 was the conversion to Christianity of the Germanic peoples 
 over the Rhine, and he abetted with all his might the zeal of 
 the popes and missionaries, Irish, Anglo-Saxon, and Gallo- 
 Roman, devoted to this great work. The two apostles of Fries- 
 land, St. Willfried and St WilUbrod, especially the latter, had 
 intimate relations with Pepin of Heristal. and received from 
 him effectual support. More than twenty bishoprics, amongst 
 others those of Utrecht, Mayence, Ratisbonne, Worms, and 
 Spire were f oxinded at tbia epoch ; and one of those ardent
 
 146 BISTORT OF FBANOE. [ch. nt.. 
 
 pioneers of Christian civilization, the Irish bishop, St. Lievin, 
 mai'tyred in 656 near Ghent, of which he has remained the 
 patron saint, wrote in verse to his friend Florbert, a little be- 
 fore his martyrdom, "I have seen a sun without rays, days 
 without Hght, and nights without repose. Around me rageth 
 a people impious and clamorous for my blood. O people, what 
 harm have I done thee? 'Tis peace that I bring thee; where- 
 fore declare war against me? But thy barbarism will bring 
 my triumph and give me the palm of martyrdom. I know in 
 whom I trust, and my hope shall not be confounded. Whilst I 
 am pouring forth these verses, there cometh unto me the tired 
 driver of the ass that beareth me the usual provisions; he 
 bringeth that which maketh the delights of the country, even 
 milk and butter and eggs ; the cheeses stretch the wicker-work 
 of the far too narrow panniers. Why tarriest thou, good car- 
 rier? Quicken thy step ; coUect thy riches, , thou that this 
 morning art so poor. As for me I am no longer what I was, 
 and have lost the gift of joyous verse. How could it be other 
 wise when I am witness of such cruelties?" 
 
 If were difficult to describe with more pious, graceful, and 
 melancholy feehng a holier and a simpler life. 
 
 After so many firm and glorious acts of authority abroad 
 Pepin of Heristal, at his death, December 16, 714, did a deed of 
 weakness at home. He had two wives, Plectrude and Alpaide ; 
 he had repudiated the former to espouse the latter, and the 
 Church, considering the second marriage unlawful, had con- 
 stantly urged him to take back Plectrude. He had by her a 
 son, Grimoald, who was assassinated on his way to join his 
 father lying ill at Liege. This son left a child, Theodoald, only 
 six years old. This child it was whom Pepin, either from a 
 grandfather's blind fondness, or through the influence of his wife 
 Plectrude, appointed to succeed him to the detriment of his two 
 sons by Alpaide, Charles and Childebrand. Charles, at that time 
 twenty-five years of age, had already a name for capacity and 
 valor. On the death of Pepin, his widow Plectrude lost no 
 time in arresting and imprisoning at Cologne this son of her ri- 
 val Alpaide ; but some months afterwards, in 715, the Austra- 
 sians, having risen against Plectrude, took Charles out of prison 
 and set him at their head, proclaiming him Duke of Austrasia. 
 He was destined to become Charles Martel. 
 
 He first of aU took care to extend and secure his own 
 authority over all the Franks. At the death of Pepin of Heris- 
 tal, the Neustrians, vexed at the long domination of the
 
 CH. Tx.] THE PEriNS AND THE NEW DYNASTY. I47 
 
 Austrasians, had taken one of themselves, Eagenfried, as mayor 
 of the palace, and had placed at his side a Merovingian slug- 
 gard king, Chilperic II., whom they had dragged from a 
 monastery. Charles, at the head of the Austrasians, twice 
 succeeded in beating, first near Camhrai and then near Soissons, 
 the Neustrian king and mayor of the palace, pursued them to 
 Paris, returned to Cologne, got himself accepted by his old 
 enemy, Queen Plectrude, and remaining temperate amidst the 
 triumph of his ambition, he, too, took from amongst the sur- 
 viving Merovingians, a sluggard king, whom he installed under 
 the name of Clotaire IV., himself becoming, with the simple 
 title of Duke of Austrasia, master of the Frankish dominion. 
 
 Being in tranquility on the left bank of the Rhine, Charles 
 directed towards the right bank, towards the Prisons and the 
 Saxons, his attention and his efEorts. After having experienced, 
 in a first encounter, a somewhat severe check, he took, from 
 715 to 718, ample revenge upon them, repressed their attempts at 
 invasion of Frankish territory, and pursued them on their own, 
 imposed tribute upon them, and commenced with vigor, against 
 the Saxons in particular, that struggle, at first defensive and 
 afterwards aggressive, which was to hold so prominent a place 
 in the life and glorious but blood-stained annals of his grand- 
 son Charlemagne. 
 
 In the war against the Neustrians, at the battle of Soissons 
 in 719, Charles had encountered in their ranks Evides or Eudon, 
 Duke of Aquitania and Nasconia, that beautiful portion of 
 Southern Gaul situated between the Pyrenees, the Ocean, the 
 Garonne and the Rhone, who had been for a long time trying 
 to shake off the dominion of the barbarians, Visigoths or 
 Franks. At the death of Pepin of Heristal, the Neustrians had 
 drawn into alliance with them, for theii* war against the 
 Austrasians, this Duke Eudes, to whom they gave, as it ap- 
 pears, the title of king. After their common defeat at Soissons, 
 the Aquitanian prince withdrew precipitately into his own 
 country, taking with him the sluggard king of the Neustrians, 
 Chilperic II. Charles i)ursued him to the Loii-e, and sent word 
 to him, a few months afterwards, that he would enter into 
 friendship with him if he would deliver up Chilperic and his 
 treasures; otherwise he would invade and ravage Aquitania. 
 Eudes delivered up Chilperic and his treasures ; and Charles, 
 satisfied with having in his power this Merovingian phantom, 
 treated him generously, kept up his royal rank, and at his 
 death, which happened soon afterwards, replaced him by an-
 
 148 HISTORY OF FRANCE. [ch. ix. 
 
 Other phantom of the same line, Theodoric or Thierry IV. ; 
 whom he dragged from the abbey of Chelles, founded by 
 Queen St. Bathilde, wife of Clovis II. , and who for seventeen 
 years bore the title of king, whilst Charles Martel was 
 ruling gloriously, and was, perhaps, the savior of the Frank- 
 ish dominions. When he contracted his alliance with the 
 Duke of Aquitania, Charles Martel did not know against what 
 enemies and perils he would soon have to sti-uggle. 
 
 In the earlier years of the eighth century, less than a hun 
 dred years from the death of Mahomet, the Mussulman Arabs, 
 after having conquered Syria, Mesopotamia, Egypt, and 
 Northern Africa, had passed into Europe, invaded Spain, 
 overthrown the kingdom of the Visigoths, driven back the 
 remnants of the nation and their chief, Pelagius, to the north 
 of the Peninsula, into the Asturias and Galicia, and pushed 
 even beyond the Pyrenees, into old Narbonness, then called 
 Septimania, their limitless incursions. These fiery conquerors 
 did not amount at that time, according to the most probable 
 estimates, to more than fifty thousand ; but they were under 
 the influence of religious and warlike enthusiasm at one and 
 the same time ; they were fanatics in the cause of Deism and 
 of glory. "The Arab warrior during campaigns was not 
 excused from any one of the essential duties of Islamism; he 
 was bound to pray at least once a day, on rising in the morn- 
 ing, at the blush of dawn. The general of the army was its 
 priest ; he it was who, at the head of the ranks, gave the signal 
 for prayer, uttered the words, reminded the troops of the pre- 
 cepts of the Koran, and enjoined upon them forgetfulness of 
 personal quarrels.'" One day, on the point of engaging in a 
 decisive battle, Moussa-ben-No^sair, first governor of Mussul 
 man Africa, was praying, according to usage, at the head of 
 the troops ; and he omitted the invocation of the name of the 
 Khalif, a respectful formality indispensable on the occasion. 
 One of his officers, persuaded that it was a mere sUp on 
 Moussas part, made a point of admonishing him. "Know 
 thou," said Moussa, "that we are in such a position and at such 
 hour that no other name must be invoked save that of the most 
 high God." Moussa was, apparently, the first Arab chief %o 
 cross the Pyrenees and march plundering as he went into 
 Narbonness. The Arabs had but very confused ideas of Gaul; 
 they called it Frandjas, and gave to all its inhabitants without 
 distinction the name of Frandj. The Khalif Abdelmelek, hav- 
 ing recalled Moussa, questioned him about the different peoples
 
 CH. IX.] TEE PEPINS AND THE NEW DYNASTY. 149 
 
 with which he had been concerned. " And of these Frandj,''^ 
 said he, ' ' what hast thou to tell me?" ' ' They are a people, " an- 
 swered Moussa, "very many in nimiber and abundantly pro- 
 vided with every tiling, brave and impetuous in attack, but 
 spiritless and timid under reverses." "And how went the 
 war betwixt them and thee?" added Abdelmelek: "was it 
 favorable to thee or the contrary ?" ' ' The contrary ! Nay, by 
 Allah and the Prophet ; never was my army vanquished ; never 
 was a battahon beaten ; and never did the Mussulmans hesitate 
 to follow me when I led them forty against fourscore " (Fauriel, 
 Histoire de la Gaide, &c., t. III., p. 48, 67.) 
 
 In 719, under El-Haur-ben-Abdel-Rhaman, a valiant and able 
 leader, say the Arab writers, but greedy, harsh, and cruel, the 
 Arabs pursued their incursions into Southern Gaul, took Nar- 
 bonne, dispersed the inhabitants, spread themselves abroad in 
 search of plunder as far as the borders of the Garonne, and 
 went and laid siege to Toulouse. Eudes, Duke of Aquitania, 
 happened to be at Bordeaux, and he hastily summoned all the 
 forces of his towns and all the populations from the Pyrenees 
 to the Loire, and hurried to the relief of his capital. The 
 Arabs, commanded by a new chieftain, El-Samah, more popu- 
 lar amongst them than El-Haur, awaited him beneath the 
 walls of the city determined to give him battle. " Have ye no 
 fear of this multitude, " said El-Samah to his warriors ; "if 
 God be with us, who shall be against us?" Eudes had taken 
 equally great pains to kindle the pious courage of the Aquita- 
 nians; he spread amongst his troops a rumor that he had but 
 lately received as a present from Pope Gregory II. three 
 sponges that had served to wipe down the table at whicli the 
 sovereign pontiffs were accustomed to celebrate the commu- 
 nion; he had them cut into little strips which he had dis- 
 tributed to all those of the combatants who wished for them, 
 and thereupon gave the word to soimd the charge. The vic- 
 tory of the Aquitanians was complete ; the Arab army was cut 
 in pieces ; El-Samah was slain, and with him, according to the 
 victors' accounts, fuU 375,000 of his troops. The most truth- 
 like testimonies and calculations do not put doAvn at more 
 than from 50,000 to 70,000 men, in fighting trim, the number 
 of Arabs that entered Spain eight or ten years previously, even 
 with the additions it must have roceived by means of the emi- 
 grations from Africa; and undoubtedly El-Samah could not 
 have led into Aquitania more than from 40,000 to 45,000. How- 
 ever that may be, the defeat of the Arabs before Toulouse was
 
 150 BISTORT OF FRANCE. [ch. ix. 
 
 so serious that, four or five centuries afterwards, Ibn-Hayan, 
 the best of their historians, still spoke of it as the object of 
 solemn commemoration, and affirmed that the Arab army 
 had antirely perished there, without the escape of a single 
 man. The spot in the Roman road, between Carcassonne and 
 Toulouse, where the battle was fought, was one heap of dead 
 bodies, and continued to be mentioned in the Arab Chronicles 
 under the name of Martyrs^ Causeway. 
 
 But the Arabs of Spain were then in that unstable social 
 condition and in that hey-day of impulsive youthfulness as a 
 people, when men are more apt to be excited and attracted by 
 the prospect of bold adventures and discouraged by reverses. 
 El-Samah, on crossing the Pyrenees to go plundering and 
 conquering in the country of the Frandj, had left as liis 
 lieutenant in the Iberian peninsula Anbessa-ben-Sohim, one of 
 the most able, most pious, most just, and most humane chief- 
 tains, say the Arab chronicles, that Islamism ever produced 
 in Europe. He, being informed of El-Samah's death before 
 Toulouse, resolved to resiune his enteiprise and avenge his 
 defeat. In 725, he entered Gaul with a strong army; took 
 Carcassonne ; reduced, either by force or by treaty, the princi- 
 pal towns of Septimania to submission ; and even carried the 
 Arab arms, for the first time, beyond the Rhone into Provence. 
 At the news of this fresh invasion Duke Eudes hm*ried from 
 Aquitania, collecting on his march the forces of the country, 
 and after having waited some time for a favorable opportunity, 
 gave the Arabs battle in Provence. It was indecisive at first, 
 but ultimately won by the Christians without other result 
 than .the retreat of Anbessa, mortally wounded, upon the 
 right bank of the Rhone, where he died without having been 
 able himself to recross the Pyrenees, but leaving the Ai'abs 
 masters of Septimania, where they estabUshed themselves in 
 force, taking Narbonne for capital and a starting-point for 
 their future enterprises. 
 
 The struggle had now begun in earnest, from the Rhone to 
 the Garonne and the Ocean, between the Christians of Southera 
 Gaul and the Mussulmans of Spain. Duke Eudes saw with 
 proformd anxiety his enemies settled in Septimania, and ever 
 on the point of invading and devastating Aquitania. He had 
 been informed that the KhaUf Hashem had just appointed to 
 the governor-generalship of Spain Abdel-Rhaman (the Abde 
 rame of the Christian chi-onicles\ regarded as the most valiant 
 of the Spam'sh Arabs, and that tliis chief lain was making great
 
 CH. IX.] THE PEPINS AND THE NEW DYNASTY. 101 
 
 preparations for resuming their course of invasion. Another 
 peril at the same time pressed heavily on Duke Eudes : his 
 northern neighbor, Charles, sovereign duke of the Franks, the 
 conqueror, beyond the Rhine, of the Frisons and Saxons, was 
 dii-ecting glances full of regret towards those beautiful countries 
 of Southern Gaul, which in former days Clovis had won from the 
 Visigoths, and which had been separated, little by Httle, from 
 the Frankish empire. Either justly or by way of ruse Charles ac- 
 cused Duke Eudes of not faithfully observing the treaty of peace 
 they had concluded in 720 ; and on this pretext he crossed the 
 Loire, and t\\-ice in the same year, 731, carried fear and rapine 
 into the possessions of the Duke of Aquitania on the left bank 
 of that river. Eudes went, not unsuccessfvdly, to the rescue 
 of his domains ; but he was soon recalled to the Pyrenees by 
 the news he received of the movements of Abdel-Rhaman and 
 by the hope he had conceived of finding, in Spain itself and 
 under the sway of the Arabs, an ally against their invasion of 
 his dominions. The military command of the Spanish frontier of 
 the Pyrenees and of the Mussulman forces there encamped had 
 been entrusted to Otlunan-ben-Abi-Nessa, a chieftain of re- 
 nown, but no Arab either in origin or at heart, although a 
 Mussulman. He belonged to the race of Berbers, whom the 
 Romans called Moors, a people of the north-west of Africa, 
 conquered and subjugated by the Arabs, but impatient under 
 the yoke. The greater part of Abi-Nessa's troops were hkewise 
 Berbers and devoted to their chiefs. Abi-Nessa, ambitious and 
 audacious, conceived the project of seizing the government of 
 the Peninsula, or at the least of making himself independent 
 master of the districts he governed ; and he entered into nego- 
 tiations with the Duke of Aqutania to secure his support. In 
 spite of religious differences their interests were too similar not 
 to make an understanding easy ; and the secret alliance was 
 soon concluded and confirmed by a precious pledge. Duke 
 Eudes had a daughter of rare beauty, named Lampagie, and 
 he gave her in marriage to Abi-Nessa, who, say the chronicles, 
 became desperately enamored of her. 
 
 But whilst Eudes, trusting to this alliance, was putting him 
 self in motion towards the Loire to protect his possessions 
 against a fresh attack from the Duke of the Franks, the 
 governor -general of Spain, Abdel-Rhaman, informed of Abi- 
 Nessa's plot, was arriving with large forces at the foot of the 
 Pyrenees, to stamp out the rebellion. Its repression was easy, 
 "At the approach of Abdel-Rhaman," say the chroniclers,
 
 152 BISTORT OF FRANCE. [cH. ix; 
 
 " Abi-Nessa hastened to shut himself up in Livia [the ancient 
 capital of Cerdagne, on the ruins of which Puycerda was builtj, 
 flattering himself that he could sustain a siege and there await 
 succor from his father-in-law, Eudes; but the advance-guard 
 of Abdel-Rhaman followed him so closely and with such ardor 
 that it left him no leisure to make the least preparation for de- 
 fence. Abi-Nessa had scarcely time to fly from the town and 
 gain the neighboring mountains with a few servants and his 
 well-beloved Lampagie. Already he had penetrated into an 
 out-of-the-way and lonely pass, where it seemed to him he ran 
 no more risk of being discovered. He halted, therefore, to 
 rest himself and quench the thirst which was tormenting his 
 lovely companion and himself, beside a waterfall which gushed 
 from a mass of lofty rocks upon a piece of fresh, green turf. 
 They were surrendering themselves to the delightful feeling of 
 being saved, when, all at once, they hear a loud sound of steps 
 and voices; they listen, they glance in the direction of the 
 sound, and perceive a detachment of armed men, one of those 
 that were out in search of them. The servants take to flight; 
 but Lampagie, too weary, cannot follow them, nor can Abi- 
 Nessa abandon Lampagie. In the twinkling of an eye they 
 are surrounded by foes. The chronicler Isidore of Beja says 
 that Abi-Nessa, in order not to fall alive into their hands, 
 flung himself from top to bottom of the rocks ; and an Arab 
 historian relates that he took sword in hand, and fell pierced 
 with twenty lance-thrusts whilst fighting in defence of her he 
 loved. They cut off his head, which was forthwith carried to 
 Abdel-Rhaman, to whom they led away prisoner the hapless 
 daughter of Eudes. She was so lovely in the eyes of Abdel- 
 Rhaman, that he thought it his duty to send her to Damascus, 
 to the commander of the faithful, esteeming no other mortal 
 worthy of her" (Fauriel, Histoiredela Gaule, <&c., t. III., p. 115). 
 Abdel-Rhaman, at ease touching the interior of Spain, re- 
 assembled the forces he had prepared for his expedition, 
 marched towards the Pyrenees by Pampcluna, crossed the 
 summit become so famous under the name of Port de Ronce- 
 vaux, and debouched by a single defile and in a single colmnn, 
 say the chroniclers, upon Gallic Vasconia, greater in extent 
 than French Biscay now is. M. Fauriel, after scinipuious ex- 
 amination, according to his custom, estimates the army of 
 Abdel-Rhaman, whether Mussulman adventurers flocking from 
 aU parts, or Arabs of Spain, at from 65,000 to 70,000 fighting 
 men. Duke Eudes made a gaUant effort to stop his march
 
 CH. IX.] THE PEPINS AND THE NEW DYNASTY. 153 
 
 and hurl him back towards the mountains; but exhausted, 
 even by certain small successes, and always forced to retire, 
 fight after fight, up to the approaches to Bordeaux, he crossed 
 the Garonne, and halted on the right bank of the river, to 
 cover the city. Abdel-Ehaman who had followed him closely, 
 forced the passage of the river, and a battle was fought, in 
 which the Aquitanians were defeated with immense loss. 
 "God alone," says Isidore of Beja, "knows the number of 
 those who fell." The battle gained, Abdel-Rhaman took Bor- 
 deaux by assault and delivered it over to his army. The 
 plunder, to believe the historians of the conquerors, surpassed 
 all that had been preconceived of the wealth of the vanquished. 
 "The most insignificant soldier," say they, "had for his 
 share plenty of topazes, jacinths, and emeralds, to say nothing 
 of gold, a somewhat vulgar article under the circumstances. " 
 What appears certain is that, at their departure from Bordeaux, 
 the Arabs were so laden with bootj* that their march became 
 less rapid and unimpeded than before. 
 
 In the face of this disaster, the Franks and their duke were 
 evidently the only support to which Eudes could have recourse ; 
 and he repaired in all haste to Charles and invoked his aid 
 against the common enemy, who, after having crushed the 
 Aquitanians, would soon attack the Franks, and subject them 
 in turn to ravages and outrages. Charles did not require 
 solicitation. He took an oath of the Duke of Aquitania to 
 acknowledge his sovereignty and thenceforth remain faithful 
 to him; and then, summoning aU his warriors. Franks, Bur- 
 gimdians, GaUo- Romans, and Germans from beyond the 
 Rhine, he set himself in motion towards the Loire. It was 
 time. The Arabs had spread over the whole country between 
 the Garonne and the Loire ; they had even crossed the latter 
 river and penetrated into Burgundy" as far as Autun and Sens, 
 ravaging the country, the towns, and the monasteries, and 
 massacreing or dispersing the populations. Abdel-Rhaman 
 had heard tell of the city of Tours and its rich abbey, the 
 treasures whereof, it was said, surpassed those of any other 
 city and any other abbey in Gaul. Burning to possess it, he 
 recalled towards this point his scattered forces. On arriving 
 at Poitiers he found the gates closed and the inhabitants re- 
 solved to defend themselves ; and, after a fruitless attempt at 
 assault, he continued his march towards Tours. He was al- 
 ready beneath the walls of the place when he learnt that the 
 Franks were rapidly advancing in vast numbers. He feU back
 
 154 BISTORT OF FRANCE. [ch. ix. 
 
 towards Poitiers, coUecting the troops that were returning to 
 him from all quarters, embarassed with the immense booty 
 they were dragging in their wake. He had for a moment, say 
 the historians, an idea of ordei-ing his soldiers to leave or bmn 
 their booty, to keep nothing but their arms, and think oi 
 nothing but battle : however he did nothing of the kind, and, 
 to await the Franks, he fixed his camp between the Vienne 
 and the Clain, near Poitiers, not far from the spot where, two 
 hundred and twenty-five years before, Clovis had beaten the 
 Visigoths ; or according to others, nearer Tours, at Mire, in a 
 plain still called the Landes de Chxirlemagne. 
 
 The Franks arrived. It was in the month of September or 
 October 732 : and the two armies passed a week face to face, at 
 one time remaining in their camps, at another deploying 
 without attacking. It is quite certain that neither Franks nor 
 Arabs, neither Charles nor Abdel-Rhaman themselves, took 
 any such account, as we do in om* day, of the importance of 
 the struggle in which they were on the point of engaging ; it 
 was a sti-uggle between East and West, South and North, 
 Asia and Europe, the Gospel and the Koran ; and we now say, 
 on a general consideration of events, peoples, and ages, that 
 the civilization of the world depended upon it. The genera- 
 tions that are passing upon earth see not so far nor from such 
 a height, the chances and consequences of their acts; the 
 Franks and Arabs, leaders and followers, did not regard them- 
 selves, now nearly twelve centuries ago, as called upon to 
 decide, near Poitiers, such future questions; but vaguely, 
 instinctively they felt the grandeur of the part they were 
 playing, and they mutually scanned one another with that 
 grave curiosity which precedes a formidable encounter 
 between valiant warriors. At length, at the breaking of the 
 seventh or eighth day, Abdel-Rhamati, at the head of his 
 cavalry, ordered a general attack ; and the Franks received it 
 with serried ranks, astounding their enemies by their taU 
 stature, stout armoi*, and their stem immobihty. "They 
 stood there," says Isidore of Beja, "Uke solid walls or ice- 
 bergs. " During the fight a body of Franks penetrated into 
 the enemy's camp, either for pillage or to take the Arabs in the 
 rear. The horsemen of Abdel-Rhaman at once left the general 
 attack, and tm-ned back to defend their camp or the booty 
 deposited there. Disorder set in amongst them, and, before 
 long, throughout their whole army ; and the battle became a 
 confused mellay, wherein the lofty statiwe and stout armor of
 
 CH. IX.] THE PEPIN8 AND THE NEW DYNASTY. I55 
 
 the Franks had the advantage. A great number of Arabs and 
 Abdel-Rhaman himself were slain. At the approach of night 
 both armies retired to their camps. The next day, at dawn, 
 the Franks moved out of theirs, to renew the engagement. In 
 front of them was no stir, no noise, no Arabs out of their tents 
 and re-assembhng in their ranks. Some Franks were sent to 
 reconnoitre, entered the enemy's camy, and penetrated into 
 their tents. But they were deserted. '' The Arabs had de- 
 camped sUently in the night, leaving the bulk of their booty, 
 and by this precipitate retreat acknowledging a more severe 
 defeat than they had really sustained in the fight." 
 
 Foreseeing the effect which would be produced by their re- 
 verse in the coimtry they had but lately traversed as con- 
 querors, they halted nowhere, but hastened to re-enter 
 Septimania and their stronghold Narbonne, where they might 
 await reinforcements from Spain. Duke Eudes, on his side, 
 after having, as vassal, taken the oath of allegiance to Charles, 
 who wiU be henceforth called Charles Martel {Hammer), that 
 glorious name which he won by the great blow he dealt the 
 Arabs, re-entered his dominions of Aquitania and Vasconia, 
 and appUed himself to the re-estabhshment there of security 
 and of his own power. As for Charles Martel, indefatigable 
 alike after and before victory, he did not consider his work in 
 Southern Gaul as accomplished. He wished to recover and 
 reconstitute in its entirety the Frankish dominion ; and he at 
 once proceeded to re-unite to it Provence and the portions of 
 the old kingdom of Burgundy situated between the Alps and 
 the Rhone, starting from Lyons. His first campaign with this 
 object, in 733, was successful; he retook Lyons, Vienna, and 
 Valence, without any stoppage up to the Durance, and charged 
 chosen ' ' ledues " to govern these provinces with a view es- 
 pecially to the repression of attempts at indei)endence at home 
 and incursions on the part of the Arabs abroad. And it was 
 not long before these two perils showed head. The govern- 
 ment of Charles Martel's " leudes " was hard to bear for popu- 
 lations accustomed for some time past to have their own way, 
 and for their local chieftains thus stripped of their influence. 
 Maurontius, patrician of Aries, was the most powerful and 
 daring of these chieftains ; and he had at heart the independ- 
 ence of his country and his own power far more than Frankish 
 grandeur. Caring little, no doubt, for the interests of religion, 
 he entered into negotiations with "Y oussouf -ben-Abdel- 
 Ehaman, governor of Narbonne, and sununoned the Mussul-
 
 166 HISTORY OF FRANCE. [cH. nc. 
 
 mans into Provence. Youssouf lost no time in responding to 
 the summons ; and, from 734 to 736, the Arabs conquered and 
 were in military occupation of the left bank of the Rhone from 
 Aries to Lyons. But in 737 Charles Martel returned, re- 
 entered Lyons and Avignon, and, crossing the Rhone, marched 
 rapidly on Narbonne. to drive the Arabs from Septimania. 
 He succeeded in beating them within sight of their capital; 
 but, after a few attempts at assault, not being able to become 
 master of it, he returned to Provence, laying waste on his 
 march several towns of Septimania, Agde, Maguelonne, and 
 Nimes, where he tried, but in vain, to destroy the famous 
 Roman arenas by fire, as one blows up an enemy's fortress. A 
 rising of the Saxons recalled him to Northern Gaul; and 
 scarcely had he set out from Provence, when national insur- 
 rection and Arab invasion recommenced. Charles Martel 
 waited patiently as long as the Saxons resisted ; but as soon as 
 he was at Hberty on their score, in 739, he collected a strong 
 army, made a third campaign along the Rhone, retook 
 Avignon, crossed the Durance, pushed on as far as the sea, 
 took Marseilles, and then Aries, and drove the Arabs defin- 
 itely from Provence. Some Mussulman bands attempted to 
 estabhsh themselves about St. Tropez, on the rugged heights 
 and among the forests of the Alps ; but Charles Martel carried 
 his pursuit even into those wild retreats, and all Southern 
 Gaul on the left bank of the Rhone, was incorporated in the 
 Frankish dominion, which will be henceforth called France. 
 
 The ordinary revenues of Charles Martel clearly could not 
 suffice for so many expeditions and wars. He was obliged to 
 attract or retain by rich presents, particularly by gifts of lands, 
 the warriors, old and new ' ' leudes, " who formed his strength. 
 He therefore laid hands on a great number of the domains of 
 the Church, and gave them, with the title of benefices, in 
 temporary holding, often converted into proprietorship, and 
 under the style of precarious tenure, to the chiefs in his 
 service. There was nothing new in this: the Merovingian 
 kings and the mayors of the palace had more than once thus 
 made free with ecclesiastical property; but Charles Martel 
 carried this practice much farther than his predecessors had. 
 He did more: he sometimes gave his warriors ecclesiastical 
 offices and dignities. His liege Milo received from him the 
 archbishoprics of Rheims and Treves ; and his nephew Hugh 
 those of Paris, Rouen, and Bayeux, with the abbeys of Fonte- 
 nelle and Jumieges. The Church protested with ail her might
 
 CH. IX.] THE PBPIN8 AND THE NEW DYNASTY. 157 
 
 against such violations of her mission and her interest, her 
 duties and her rights. She was so specially set against Charles 
 Martel that, more than a century after his death, in 858, the 
 bishops of France, addressing themselves to Louis the Grer- 
 manic on this subject, wrote to him, "St. Eucherius, bishop 
 of Orleans, who now reposeth in the monastery of St. Trudon, 
 being at prayer, was transported into the realms of eternity ; 
 and there, amongst other things which the Lord did show 
 imto him, he saw Prince Charles deUvered over to the tor- 
 ments of the damned in the lowest regions of heU. And St. 
 Eucherius demanding of the angel, his guide, what was the 
 reason thereof, the angel answered that it was by sentence of 
 the saints whom he had robbed of their possessions, and who, 
 at the day of the last judgment, will sit with God to judge the 
 world." 
 
 Whilst thus making use, at the expense of the Church and 
 for political interests, of material force, Charles Martel was 
 far from misunderstanding her moral influence and the need 
 he had of her support at the very time when he was incurring 
 her anathemas. Not content with defending Christianity 
 against Islamism, he aided it against Paganism by leading the 
 Christian missionaries in Germany and the north-west of 
 Europe, amongst others St. Willibrod and St. Boniface, the 
 most effectual assistance. La 724, he addressed to all religious 
 and poUtical authorities that cotdd be reached by his influence, 
 not only to the bishops, "but to the dukes, counts, their 
 vicars, our palentines, all ovu* agents, our envoys, and om* 
 friends this circular letter: 'Know that a successor of the 
 Apostles, our father in Christ, Boniface, bishop, hath come 
 unto us saying that we ought to take him under our safeguard 
 and protection. We do you to wit that we do so very will- 
 ingly. Wherefore we have thought proper to give him con- 
 firmation thereof under our own hand, in order that, whither- 
 soever he may go, he may there be in peace and safety in the 
 name of om* affection and imder our safeguard ; in such sort 
 that he may be able every where to render, do, and receive 
 justice. And if he come to find himself in any pass or neces- 
 sity which cannot be determined by law, that he may remain 
 in peace and safety until he be come into our presence, he and 
 all who shall have hope in him or dependence on him. That 
 none may dare to be contrary-minded towards him or do him 
 damage ; and that he may rest at all times in ti^nquUity and 
 safety under our safeguard and protection. And in order that
 
 158 HISTORY OF FRANCE. [ch. is:. 
 
 this may be regarded as certified, we have subscribed these 
 letters with our own hand and sealed them with our ring. ' " 
 
 Here were clearly no vague and meaningless words, written 
 to satisfy solicitation, and without a thought of their conse- 
 quences : they were urgent recommendations and precise in- 
 junctions, the most proper for securing success to the protected 
 in the name of the protector. Accordingly St. Boniface wrote, 
 soon after, from the heart of Germany: "Without the 
 patronage of the prince of the Franks, without his order and 
 the fear of his power, I could not guide the people, or defend 
 the priests, deacons, monks, or handmaids of God, or forbid in 
 this country the rites of the Pagans and their sacriligious 
 worship of idols. " 
 
 At the same time that he protected the Christian mission- 
 aries launched into the midst of Pagan Germany, Charles 
 Martel showed himself equally ready to protect, but with as 
 much prudence as good- will, the head of the Christian Church. 
 In 741, Pope Gregory III. sent to him two nuncios, the first 
 that ever entered France in such a character, to demand of him 
 succor against the Lombards, the Pope's neighbors, who were 
 threatening to besiege Rome. These envoys took Charles 
 Martel " so many presents that none had ever seen or heard 
 tell of the like, " and amongst them the keys of St. Peter's tomb, 
 with a letter in which the Pope conjured Charles Martel not 
 to attach any credit to the representations or words of 
 Luitprandt, king of the Lombards, and to lend the Roman 
 Church that effectual support which, for some tims past, she 
 had been vainly expecting from the Franks and their chief. 
 "Let them come, we are told," wrote the Pope piteously, 
 "this Charles with whom ye have sought refuge, and the 
 armies of the Franks; let them sustain ye, if they can, and 
 wrest ye from our hands." Charles Martel was in fact on good 
 terms with Luitprandt, who had come to his aid in his expedi- 
 tions against the Arabs in Provence. He, however, received 
 the Pope's nuncios with lively satisfaction and the most strik- 
 ing proofs of respect ; and he promised them, not to make war 
 on the Lombards, but to employ his influence with King 
 Luitprandt to make him cease from threatening Rome. He 
 sent, in his turn, to the Pope two envoys of distinction, 
 Sigebert, abbot of St. Denis, and Grimon, abbot of Corbie, 
 with instructions to offer him rich presents- and to really 
 exert themselves with the King of the Lombards to remove 
 the dangers dreaded by the Holy See. He wished to do some-
 
 CH. IX.] THE PEPINS AND THE NEW DYNASTY. 159 
 
 thing in favor of the Papacy to show sincere good-will, with- 
 out making his relations with useful aUies subordinate to the 
 desires of the Pope. 
 
 Charles Martel had not time to carry out effectually with 
 respect to the Papacy this policy of protection and at the same 
 time of independence; he died at the close of this same year, 
 October 22, 741, at Eiersey-sur-Oise, aged fifty-two years, and 
 his last act was the least wise of his life. He had spent it en- 
 tirely in two great works; the re-establishment throughout 
 the whole of Gaul of the Franco-Gallo Roman empire, and the 
 driving back, from the frontiers of this empire, of the Germans 
 in the north and the Arabs in the south. The consequence, as 
 also the condition, of this double success was the victory of 
 Christianity over Paganism and Islamism. Charles Martel 
 endangered these results by falling back into the groove of 
 those Merovingian kings whose shadow he had allowed to 
 remain on the throne. He divided between his two legitimate 
 sons, Pepin, called the Short, from his small stature, and Car- 
 loman, this sole dominion which he had with so much toil re- 
 constituted and defended. Pepia had Neustria, Burgundy, 
 Provence, and the suzerainty of Aquitaine; Carloman 
 Austrasia, Thuringia, and Allemannia. They both, at their 
 father's death, took only the title of mayor of the palace, and 
 perhaps, of duke. The last but one of the Merovingians, 
 Thierry TV., had died in 737. For four years there had been 
 no king at all. 
 
 But when the works of men are wise and true, that is, ia 
 conformity with the lasting wants of peoples and the natural 
 tendency of social facts, they get over even the mistakes of 
 their authors. Immediately after the death of Charles Martel, 
 the consequences of dividing his empire became manifest. In 
 the north, the Saxons, the Bavarians, and the Allemannians 
 renewed their insurrections. In the south, the Arabs of Sep. 
 timania recovered their hopes of effecting an invasion; and 
 Hunald, Duke of Aquitaine, ' who had succeeded his father 
 Eudes, after his death in 735, made a fresh attempt to break 
 away from Frankish sovereignty and win his independence. 
 Charles Martel had left a young son, Grippo, whose legitimacy 
 had been disputed, but who was not slow to set up pretensions 
 and to commence intriguing against his brothers. Every- 
 where there burst out that reactionary movement which 
 arises against grand and difficult works when the strong hand 
 that undertook them is no longer by to maintain them; but
 
 160 BISTORT OF FRANCE. [cH. rx. 
 
 this movement was of short duration and to little purpose. 
 Brought up in the school and in the fear of their father, his 
 two sons, Pepin and Carloman, were inoculated with his ideas 
 and example ; they remained united in spite of the division of 
 dominions and labored together, successfully, to keep down, in 
 the north the Saxons and Bavarians, in the south the Arabs 
 and Aquitanians, supplying want of unity by imion, and pur- 
 suing with one accord the constant aim of Charles Martel— 
 abroad the security and grandeur of the Frankish dominion, 
 at home the cohesion of all its parts and the efficacy of its 
 government. Events came to the aid of this wise conduct. 
 Five years after the death of Charles Martel, m 746 in fact, 
 Carloman already weary of the burden of power, and seized 
 with a fit of religious zeal, abdicated his share of sovereignty, 
 left his dominions to his brother Pepin, had himseK shorn by 
 the hands of Pope Zachary and withdrew into Italy to the 
 monastery of Monte Cassino. The preceding year, in 745, 
 Hunald, Duke of Aquitaine, with more patriotic and equally 
 pious vi«ws, also abdicated in favor of his son Waifre, whom 
 he thought more capable than himself of winning the indepen- 
 dence of Aquitaine, and went and shut himself np in a monas- 
 tery in the island of Rhe, where was the tomb of his father 
 Eudes. In the course of divers attempts at conspiracy and in- 
 surrection, the Frankish princes' young brother, Grippo, was 
 killed in combat whilst crossing the Alps. The furious 
 internal dissensions amongst the Arabs of Spain and their inces- 
 sant wars with the Berbers did not allow them to pursue any 
 great enterprise in Gaul. Thanks to aU these circumstances, 
 Pepin found himself, in 747, sole master of the heritage of 
 Clovis and with the sole charge of pm*suing, in State and 
 Church, his fathers's work, which was the unity and grandeur 
 of Christian France. 
 
 Pepin, less enterprising than his father, but judicious, perse- 
 vering, and capable of discerning what was at the same time 
 necessary and possible, was well fitted to continue and con- 
 solidate what he would, probably, never have begun and 
 created. Like his father, he, on arriving at power, showed 
 pretensions to moderation or, it might be said, modesty. He 
 did not take the title of king ; and, in concert with his brother 
 Carloman, he went to seek, heaven knows in what obscure 
 asylmn, a forgotten Mervingian, son of Chilperic II. , the last 
 but one of the sluggard kings, and made him king, the last of 
 his line, with the title of Childeric III., himself, as well as his
 
 GH. IX.] THE PEPINS AND THE NEW DYNASTY. 161 
 
 brother, taking only the style of mayor of the palace. But at 
 the end of ten years, and when he saw himseK alone at the 
 head of the Frankish dominion, Pepin considered the moment 
 arrived for putting an end to this fiction, In 751, he sent to 
 Pope Zachary at Rome, Biu-chard, bishop of Wurtzburg, and 
 Fulrad, abbot of St. Denis, "to consult the Pontiff," says 
 Eginhard, "on the subject of the kings then existing amongst 
 the Franks, and who bore only the name of king without 
 enjoying a tittle of royal authority." The Pope, whom St- 
 Boniface, the gi*eat missionary of Germany had prepared for 
 the question, answered that ' ' it was better to give the title of 
 king to him who exercised the sovereign power;" and next 
 year, in March. 752, in the presence and with the assent of the 
 general assembly of " leudes" and bishops gathered together at 
 Soissons, Pepin was proclaimed king of the Franks, and 
 received from the hand of St. Boniface the sacred anointment. 
 They cut off the hair of the last Merovingian phantom, 
 Childeric HI., and put him away in the monastery of St. 
 Sithiu, at St. Omer. Two years later, July 28, 754, Pope 
 Stephen 11., having come to France to claim Pepin's support 
 against the Lonibards, after receiving from him assurance of 
 it, "anointed him afresh with the holy oil in the church of 
 St, Denis to do honor in his person to the dignity of royalty, " 
 and conferred the same honor on the king's two sons, Charles 
 and Carloman. The new Gallo-Frankish kingship and the 
 Papacy, in the name of their common faith and common 
 interests, thus contracted an intimate alliance. The young 
 Charles was hereafter to become Charlemagne. 
 
 The same year, Bonifeice, whom six years before Pope Zach- 
 ary had made Archbishop of Mayence, gave up one day the 
 episcopal dignity to his disciple Lullus, charging him to carry 
 on the different works himself had commenced amongst the 
 churches of Germany, and to uphold the faith of the people. 
 " As for me," he added, "I will put myself on my road, for the 
 time of my passing away approacheth. I have longed for this 
 departure, and none can turn me from it ; wherefore, my son, 
 get all things ready, and place in the chest with my books the 
 winding-sheet to wrap up my old body. " And so he departed 
 with some of his priests and servants to go and evangelise the 
 Frisons, the majority of whom were still pagans and barba- 
 rians. He pitched his tent on their territory and was arranging 
 to celebrate their Lord's Supper, when a band of natives came 
 down and rushed upon the archbishop's retinue. The servitors
 
 162 EISTOPT OF FRANCE. [ch. ix, 
 
 surrounded him, to defend him and themselves ; and a battle 
 began. "Hold, hold, my children," cried the archbishop, 
 " Scripture biddeth us return good for evil. This is the day I 
 have long desired, and the hour of our dehverence is at 
 hand. Be strong in the Lord : hope in Him, and He will save 
 your souls. " The barbarians slew the holy man and the ma- 
 jority of his company. A httle whUe after, the Christians of 
 the neighborhood came in armis and recovered the body of St. 
 Boniface. Near him was a book, which was stained with blood, 
 and seemed to have dropped from his hands; it contained 
 several works of the Fathers, and amongst others a writing of 
 St. Ambrose "on the Blessing of Death." The death of the 
 pious missionary was as powei-ful as his preaching ia convert- 
 ing Friesland. It was a mode of conquest worthy of the 
 Christian faith, and one of which the history of Christianity 
 had already proved the effectiveness. 
 
 St. Boniface did not confine himself to the evangelization of 
 the pagans ; he labored ardently in the Christian Gallo-Frank- 
 ish Church, to reform the manners and ecclesiastical disci- 
 pline, and to assure, whilst justifying, the moral influence of 
 the clergy by example as well as precept. The Coimcils, 
 which had almost fallen into desuetude in Gaul, became once 
 more frequent and active there : from 743 to 753 there may be 
 counted seven, presided over by St. Boniface, which exercised 
 within the Church a salutary action. King Pepia, recognizing 
 the services which the Archbishop of Mayence had rendered 
 him, seconded his reformatory efforts at one time by giving the 
 support of his royal authority to the canons of the coimcOs, 
 held often simulantaneously with and almost confounded with 
 the laic assembUes of the Franks, at another by doing justice 
 to the protests of the churches against the violence and spo- 
 liation to which they were subjected. * ' There was an important 
 point," says M. Fauriel, "in respect of which the position of 
 Charles Martel's sons turned out to be pretty nearly the same as 
 that of their father : it was touching the necessity of assigning 
 warriors a portion of the ecclesiastical revenues. But they, 
 being more rehgious, perhaps, than Charles Martel, or more 
 impressed with the importance of humoring the priestly 
 power, were more vexed and more anxious about the necessity 
 imder which they found themselves of continuing to despoil 
 the churches and of persisting in a system which was putting 
 the finishing stroke to the niin of all ecclesiastical disciphne. 
 They were more eager to mitigate the evil and to offer the
 
 CH. IX.] THE PEPINS AND THE NEW DYNASTY. 163 
 
 Church compensation for their share in this evil to which it 
 wus not in theii* power to put a stop. Accordingly, at the March 
 parade held at Leptines in 743, it was decided, in reference to 
 ecclesiastical lands applied to the miUtary service: 1st, that 
 the churches having the ownership of those lands should 
 share the revenue with the lay holder ; 2nd, that on the death 
 of a warrior in enjoyment of an ecclesiassical benefice, the 
 benefice should revert to the Church ; 3rd, that every benefice 
 by deprivation whereof any church would be reduced to 
 poverty should be at once restored to her. That this capitular 
 was carried out, or even capable of being carried out. is 
 very doubtful ; but the less Carloman and Pepin succeeded in 
 repairing the material losses incurred by the Church since the 
 accession of the Carlovingians, the more zealous they were in 
 promoting the growth of her moral power and the restoration 
 of her discipline. . . . That was the time at which there 
 began to be seen the spectacle of the national assemblies of 
 the Franks, the gatherings at the March parades transformed 
 into ecclesiastical synods under the presidency of the titular 
 legate of the Roman Pontiff, and dictating, by the mouth of 
 the pohtical authority, regvilations and laws with the direct 
 and formal aim of restoring divine worship and eccesiastical 
 disciphne, and of assuring the spiritual welfare of the people" 
 (Fauriel, Histoire de la Gaule, &c., t. III., p. 224). 
 
 Pepin, after he had been proclaimed king and had settled 
 matters with the Church as well as the warlike questions re- 
 maining for him to solve permitted, directed all his efforts 
 towards the two coimtries which, after his father's example, he 
 longed to reunite to the Gallo-Frankish monarchy, that is, 
 Septunahia, still occupied by the Arabs, and Aquitaine, the 
 independence of which was stoutly and ably defended by 
 Duke Eudes' grandson, Duke Waifre. The conquest of Septi- 
 mania was rather tedious than difficult. The Franks, after 
 having victoriously scoured the open country of the district, 
 kept invested during three years its capital, Narbonne, where 
 the Arabs of Spain, much weakened by their dissensions, 
 vainly tried to throw in reinforcements. Besides the Mussul- 
 man Arabs the population of the town numbered many Chris- 
 tian Goths who were tired of suffering for the defence of their 
 oppressors and who entered into secret negotiations with the 
 chiefs of Pepin's army, the end of which was that they opened 
 the gates of the town. In 759, then, after forty years' of 
 Arab rule, Narbonne passed definitively under that of the
 
 164 HISTORY OF FRANCE. [ch. es. 
 
 Franks, who guaranteed to the inhabitants free enjoyment of 
 their Gothic or Roman law and of their local institutions. It 
 even appears that, in the province of Spain bordering on 
 Septimania, an Arab chief, called Soliman, who was in com- 
 mand at Gerona and Barcelona, between the Ebro and the 
 Pyrenees, submitted to Pepin, himself and the country under 
 him. This was an important event indeed in the reign of 
 Pepin, for here was the point at which Islamism, but lately 
 aggressive and victorious in Southern Europe, began to feel 
 definitively beaten and to recoil before Christianity. 
 
 The conquest of Aquitaine and Vasconia was much more 
 keenly disputed and for a much longer time uncertain. Duke 
 Waifre was as able in negotiation as in war : at one time he 
 seemed to accept the pacific overtures of Pepin, or, perhaps, 
 himself made similar, without bringing about any result; at 
 another, he went to seek and found even in Germany allies 
 who caused Pepin much embarrassment and peril. The popu- 
 lation of Aquitaine hated the Franks ; and the war, which for 
 their duke was a question of independent sovereignty, was for 
 themselves a question of passionate national feeling. Pepin, 
 who was naturally more humane and even more generous, it 
 may be said, in war than his predecessors had usually been, 
 was nevertheless induced, in his struggle against the Duke of 
 Aquitaine, to ravage without mercy the countries he scoured, 
 and to treat the vanquished with great harshness. It was 
 only after nine years' war and seven campaigns full of vicis- 
 situdes that he succeeded, not in conquering his enemy in a 
 decisive battle, but in gaining over some servants who betrayed 
 their master. In the month of July 759, "Duke Waifre was 
 slain by his own folk, by the king's advice," says Fredegaire; 
 and the conquest of all Southern Gaul carried the extent and 
 power of the Gallo-Frankish monarchy farther and higher 
 than it had ever yet been, even under Clovis. 
 
 In 753, Pepin had made an expedition against the Britons of 
 Armorica, had taken Van nes and ;" subjugated," add certain 
 chroniclers, "the whole of Brittany." In point of fact Brit- 
 tany was no more subjugated by Pepin than by his predeces- 
 sors ; all that can be said is that the Franks resumed, under 
 him, an aggressive attitude towards the Britons, as if to vindi- 
 cate a right of sovereignty. 
 
 Exactly at this epoch Pepin was engaging m a matter which 
 did not allow him to scatter his forces hither and tliither. It 
 has been stated already, that in 741 Pope Gregory III. had
 
 CH. IX.] THE PEPIN S AND THE NEW DYNASTY. 166 
 
 asked aid of the Franks against the Lombards who were 
 threatening Rome, and that, whilst fully entertaining the 
 Pope's wishes, Charlas Martel had been in no hurry to interfere 
 by deed in the quarrel. Twelve years later, in 753, Pope 
 Stephen, in his turn threatened by Astolphus, king of the Lom- 
 bards, after vain attempts to obtain guarantees of peace, re- 
 paired to Paris, and renewed to Pepin the entreaties used by 
 Zachary. It was difficult for Pepin to turn a deaf ear; it was 
 Zachary who had declared that he ought to be made king : 
 Stephen showed readiness to anoint him a second time, himself 
 and his sons ; and it was the eldest of these sons, Charles, 
 scarcely twelve years old, whom Pepin, on learning the near 
 arrival of the Pope, had sent to meet him and give brilliancy 
 to his reception. Stephen passed the winter at St. Denis, and 
 gained the favor of the people as well as that of the king. 
 Astolphus peremptorily refused to listen to the remonstrances 
 of Pepin who called upon him to evacuate the towns in the 
 exarchate of Ravenna, and to leave the Pope unmolested in the 
 environs of Rome as weU as in Rome itself. At the March 
 parade held at Braine, in the spring of 754, the Franks ap- 
 proved of the war agaiast the Lombards ; and at the end of the 
 summer Pepin and his army descended into Italy by Mount 
 Cenis, the Lombards trying in vain to stop them as they de- 
 bouched into the valley of Suza. Astolphus beaten, and, be- 
 fore long, shut up in Pavia, promised all that was demanded 
 of him; and Pepin and his warriors, laden with booty, returned 
 to France, leaving at Rome the Pope, who conjured them to 
 remain a while in Italy, for to a certainty, he said. King Astol- 
 phus would not keep his promises. The Pope was right. So 
 soon as the Franks had gone, the King of the Lombards con- 
 tinued occupying the places in the exarchate and molesting the 
 neighborhood of Rome. The Pope, in despair and doubtful of 
 his auxiharies' return, conceived the idea of sending "to the 
 king, the chiefs, and the people of the Franks, a letter written, 
 he said, by Peter, Apostle of Jesus Christ, Son of the living 
 God, to announce to them that, if they came in haste, he would 
 aid them as if he were aUve according to the flesh amongst 
 them, that they would conquer all their enemies and make 
 themselves sure of eternal life I" The plan was perfectly suc- 
 cessful : the Franks once more crossed the Alps with enthusi- 
 asm, once more succeeded in beating the Lombards, and once 
 more shut up in Pavia King Astolphus, Avho was eager to pur- 
 chase peace at any price. He obtaiaed it on two principal
 
 166 HISTORY OF FRANCE. [ch. x. 
 
 conditions: 1st, that he would not again make a hostile at- 
 tack on Roman territory or wage war against the Pope or 
 people of Rome ; 2d, that he would henceforth recognize the 
 sovereignty of the Franks, pay them tribute, and cede forth- 
 with to Pepin the towns and all the lands, belonging to the 
 jurisdiction of the Roman empire, which were at that time oc- 
 occupied by the Lombai'ds. By virtue of these conditions 
 Ravenna, Rimini, Pesaro, that is to say, the Romagna, the 
 Duchy of Urbino and a portion of the Marches of Ancona, 
 were at once given up to Pepin, who, regarding them as his 
 own direct conquest, the fruit of victory, disposed of them 
 forthwith, in favor of the Popes, by that famous deed of gift 
 which comprehended pretty nearly what has since formed the 
 Roman States, and which founded the temporal independence 
 of the Papacy, the guarantee of its independence in the exer- 
 cise of the spiritual power. 
 
 At the head of the Franks as mayor of the palace from 741, 
 and as king from 752, Pepin had conpleted in France and ex- 
 tended in Italy the work which his father, Charles Martel, had 
 begun and carried on, from 714 to 741, in State and Chiirch. 
 He left France re-imited in one and placed at the head of 
 Christian Europe. He died at the monastery of St. Denis, 
 September 18, 768, leaving his kingdom and his dynasty thus 
 ready to the hands of his son, whom history has dubbed 
 Charlemagne. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 CHARLEMAGNE AND HIS WARS. 
 
 The most judicious minds are sometimes led blindly by tra- 
 dition and habit, rather than enlightened by reflection and ex- 
 perience. Pepin the Short commited at his death the same 
 mistake that his father, Charles Martel, had committed: he 
 divided his dominions between his two sons, Charles and Carlo, 
 man, thus destroying again that unity of the Gallo Prankish 
 monarchy which his father and he had been at so much pains 
 to establish. But, just as had already happened in 746 through 
 the abdication of Pepin's brother, events discharged the duty 
 of repairing the mistake of men. After the death of Pepin,
 
 OH. X.] CEARLEMAQNE AND HIS WARS. 167 
 
 and notwithstanding that of Duke "Waifre, insurrection broke 
 out once more in Aquitaine : and the old duke, Hunald, issued 
 from his monastery in the island of Ehe to try and recover 
 power and independence. Charles and Carloman marched 
 against him; but, on the march, Carloman, who was jealous 
 and thoughtless, fell out with his brother, and suddenly quitted 
 the expedition, taking away his troops. Charles was obliged 
 to continue it alone, which he did with complete success. At 
 the end of this first campaign, Pepin's widow, the Queen-mother 
 Bertha, reconciled her two sons; but an unexpected incident, 
 the death of Carloman two years afterwards in 771, re-estab- 
 lished unity more siirely than the reconcihation had re-estab- 
 lished harmony. For, although Carloman left sons, the 
 grandees of his dominions, whether laic or ecclesiastical, as- 
 sembled at Corbeny, between Laon and Rheims, and pro- 
 claimed in his stead his brother Charles, who thus became sole 
 king of the Gallo-Franco-Germanic monarchy. And as ambi- 
 tion and manners had become less tinged with ferocity than 
 they had been under the Merovingians, the sons of Carloman 
 were not killed or shorn or even shut up in a monastery : they 
 retired with their mother, Gerberge, to the court of Didier, 
 king of the Lombards. ' ' King Charles, " says Eginhard, ' ' took 
 their departure patiently, regarding it as of no importance." 
 Thus commenced the reign of Charlemagne. 
 
 The original and dominant characteristic of the hero of this 
 reign, that which won for him, and keeps for him after more 
 than ten centuries, the name of great, is the striking variety of 
 his ambition, his faculties, and his deeds. Carlemagne aspired 
 to and attained to every sort of greatness — military gi'eatness, 
 poUtical greatness, and intellectual greatness ; he was an able 
 warrior, an energetic legislator, a hero of poetry. And he 
 united, he displayed all these merits in a time of general and 
 monotonous barbarism when, save in the Church, the minds of 
 men were dull aud barren. Those men, few in number, who 
 made themselves a name at that epoch, rallied round Charle- 
 magne and were developed under his patronage. To know 
 him well and appreciate him justly, he must be examined 
 under those various grand aspects, abroad and at home, in his 
 wars and in his government. 
 
 In Guizot's History of Civilization in France is to be found 
 a complete table of the wars of Charlemagne, of his many 
 different expeditions in Germany, Italy, Spain, aU the coim- 
 tries, in fact, that became his dominion. A simamary will here 
 (8) HF Vol. 1
 
 168 HISTORY OF FRANCE. [CH. x. 
 
 suffice. From 769 to 813, in Grermany and Western and North- 
 em Europe, Charlemagne conducted thirty-one campaigns 
 against the Saxons, Frisons, Bavarians, Avars, Slavons, and 
 Danes ; in Italy, five against the Lombards ; in Spain, Corsica, 
 and Sardinia, twelve against the Arabs; two against the 
 Greeks ; and three in Gaul itself, against the Aquitanians and 
 the Britons; in all, fifty-three expeditions; amongst which 
 those he undertook against the Saxons, the Lombards, and 
 the Ai^bs, were long and difficult wars. It was undesirable 
 to recount them in detail, for the relation would be monoto- 
 nous and useless; but it is obligatory to make fully known 
 their causes, their characteristic incidents, and their results. 
 
 It has already been seen that, under the last Merovingian 
 kings, the Saxons were, on the right bank of the Rhine, in 
 frequent collision with the Franks, especially with the Austra- 
 sian Franks, whose territory they were continually threaten- 
 ing and often invading. Pepin the Short had more than once 
 hurled them back far from the very uncertain frontiers of 
 Grermanic Austrasia; and, on becoming king, he dealt his 
 blows stUl farther, and entered, in his turn. Saxony itself. 
 "In spite of the Saxons's stout resistance," says Eginhard 
 (Annales, t. i,, p. 135), "he pierced through the points they 
 had fortified to bar enterance into their country, and, after 
 having fought here and there battles wherein fell many 
 Saxons, he forced them to promise that they would submit to 
 his rule ; and that, every year, to do him honor, they would 
 send to the general assembly of Franks a present of three 
 hundred horses. When these conventions were once settled, 
 he insisted, to insure their performance, upon placing them 
 onder the guarantee of rites peculiar to the Saxons ; then he 
 returned with his army to Gaul." 
 
 Charlemagne did not confine himself to resuming his father's 
 work; he before long changed its character and its scope. In 
 772, being left sole master of France after the death of his 
 brother Carloman, he convoked at Worms the general assembly 
 of the Franks, " and took," says Eginhard, "the resolution of 
 going and carrying war into Saxony. He invaded it without 
 delay, laid it waste with fire and sword, made himself master 
 of the fort of Ehresburg, and threw down the idol tliat the 
 Saxons called Inninsul." And in what place was this first 
 victory of Charlemagne won? Near the sources of the Lippe, 
 just where, more than seven centuries before, the Grerman 
 Arminius (Herrman) had destroyed the legions of Varus, and
 
 CH. X.] CHARLEMAONE AND HIS WARS. 169 
 
 whither Germanicus had come to avenge the disaster of Varus. 
 TMs ground belonged to Saxon territory ; and this idol, called 
 Ii^minsul, which was thrown down by Charlemagne, was 
 probably a monument raised in honor of Arminius {Hemnann- 
 Sdule, or Herrmann's pillar) whose name it called to mind. 
 The patriotic and hereditary pride of the Saxons was passion- 
 ately roused by this blow; and, the following year, "thinking 
 to find in the absence of the king the most favorable oppor- 
 tunity," says Eginhard, they entered the lands of the Franks, 
 laid them waste in their turn, and, paying back outrage for 
 outrage, set fixe to the church not long since built at Fritzlar, 
 by Boniface, martyr. From that time the question changed 
 its aspect ; it was no longer the repression of Saxon invasions 
 of France, but the conquest of Saxony by the Franks that was 
 to be dealt with ; it was between the Christianity of the Franks 
 and the national Paganism of the Saxons that the struggle was 
 to take place. 
 
 For thirty years such was its character. Charlemagne re- 
 garded the conquest of Saxony as indispensable for putting a 
 stop to the incursions of the Saxons, and the conversion of the 
 Saxons to Christianity as indispensable for assuring the con- 
 quest of Saxony. The Saxons were defendmg at one and the 
 same time the independence of theii^ country and the gods of 
 their fathers. Here was wherewithal to stir up and foment, 
 on both sides, the prof oundest passions ; and they biu^t forth, 
 on both sides, with equal fury. Withersoever Charlemagne 
 penetrated he built strong castles and churches; and, at his 
 departure, left garrisons and missionaries. When he was 
 gone the Saxons returned, attacked the forts and massacred the 
 garrisons and the missionaries. At the commencement of the 
 struggle, a priest of Anglo-Saxon origin, whom St. Willibrod, 
 bishop of Utrecht, had but lately consecrated — St. Ldebwin, 
 in fact — undertook to go and preach the Christian rehgion in 
 the very heart of Saxony, on the banks of the Weser, amidst 
 the general assembly of the Saxons. "What do ye?" said he, 
 cross in hand; " the idols ye jWorehip live not, neither do they 
 perceive: they are the work of men's hands; they can do 
 naught either for themselves or for others. Wherefore the 
 one God, good and just, having compassion on your errors, 
 hath sent me tmto you. If ye put not away your iniquity, I 
 foretell unto you a trouble that ye do not expect, and that the 
 King of Heaven hath ordained aforetime : there shall come a 
 prince, strong and wise and indefatigable, not from afar, but
 
 170 HISTORY OF FRANCE. [ch. x. 
 
 from nigh at hand, to fall upon you like a torrent, in order to 
 soften your hard hearts and bow down your proud heads. At 
 one rush he shall invade the country ; he shall lay it waste 
 with fire and sword, and carry away your wives and children 
 into captivity." A thrill of rage ran through the assembly; 
 and already many of those present had begun to cut, in the 
 neighboring woods, stakes sharpened to a point to pierce the 
 priest, when one of the chieftains named Buto cried aloud, 
 "Listen, ye who are the most wise. There have often come 
 unto us ambassadors frora neighboring peoples, Northmen, 
 Slavons or Frisons ; we have received them in peace, and when 
 their messages have been heard, they have been sent away 
 with a present. Here is an ambassador from a gi-eat God, and 
 ye would slay him !" Whether it were from sentiment or from 
 prudence the multitude was calmed, or at any rate restrained ; 
 and for this time the priest retix*ed safe and sound. 
 
 Just as the pious zeal of the missionaries was of service to 
 Charlemagne, so did the power of Charlemagne support and 
 sometimes preserve the missionaries. The mob, even in the 
 midst of its passions, is not throughout or at all times in- 
 accessible to fear. The Saxons were not one and the same 
 nation, constantly united in one and the same assembly and 
 governed by a single chieftain. Three populations of the same 
 race, distinguished by names borrowed from their geographical 
 situation, just as had happened amongst the Franks in the case 
 of the Austrasians and Neustrians, to wit, Eastphalian or east- 
 ern Saxons, Westphalian or western, and Angrians, formed 
 the Saxon confederation. And to them was often added a 
 fourth peoplet of the same origin, closer to the Danes and 
 called North-Albingians, inhabitants of the northern district ot 
 the Elbe. These four principal Saxon populations were sub- 
 divided into a large number of tribes who had their own par- 
 ticiilar chieftains, and who often decided, each for itself, their 
 conduct and their fate. Charlemagne, knowing how to profit 
 by this want of cohesion and unity ariiongst his foes, attacked 
 now one and now another of the large Saxon peoplets or the 
 small Saxon tribes, and dealt separately with each of them, 
 according as he found them inchned to submission or resist- 
 ance. After having, in four or five successive expeditions, 
 gained victories and sustained checks, he thought himself 
 sufficiently advanced in his conquest to put his relations with 
 the Saxons to a grand trial. In 777, he resolved, says Egin- 
 hard, "to go and hold, at the place called Paderborn (close to
 
 CH. X.] CHARLEMAGNE AND HIS WARS. 171 
 
 Saxony) the general assembly of this people. On his arrival 
 he found there assembled the senate and people of this per- 
 fidious nation, who, comformably to his orders, had repaired 
 thither, seeking to deceive him by a false show of submission 
 and devotion. . . . They earned their pardon, but on this con- 
 dition however, that, if hereafter they broke their engage- 
 ments, they would be deprived of country and liberty. A 
 great number amongst them had themselves baptized on this 
 occasion; but it was with far from sincere intentions that they 
 had testified a desire to become Christians." 
 
 There had been absent from this great meeting a Saxon 
 chieftain called Wittikind, son of Wernekind, king of the 
 Saxons at the north of the Elbe. He had espoused the sister 
 of Siegfried, king of the Danes ; and he was the friend of Rat- 
 bod, king of the Prisons. A true chieftain at heart as well as 
 by descent, he wa^ made to be the hero of the Saxons just as, 
 seven centuries before, the Cheruscan Herrmann (Arminius) 
 had been the hero of the Germans. Instead of repairing to 
 Paderborn, Wittikind had left Saxony, and taken refuge with 
 his brother-in-law, the King of the Danes. Thence he encour- 
 aged his Saxon compatriots, some to persevere in their resist- 
 ance, others to repent them of their show of submission. War 
 began again -, and Wittikind hastened back to take part in it. 
 In 778 the Saxons advanced as far as the Rhine ; but, "not 
 having been able to cross this river," says Eginhard, "they 
 Bet themselves to lay waste with fire and sword, all the towns 
 and all the villages from the city of Duitz (opposite Cologne) 
 as far as the confluence of the MoseUe. The churches as weU 
 as the houses were laid in ruins from top to bottom. The 
 enemy, in his frenzy, spared neither age nor sex, wishing to 
 show thereby that he had invaded the territory of the Franks, 
 not for plunder but for revenge !" For three years the struggle 
 continued, more confined in area, but more and more obsti- 
 nate. Many of the Saxon tribes submitted; many Saxons 
 were baptized ; and Siegfried, king of the Danes, sent to Char- 
 lemagne a deputation, as if to treat for peace. Wittikind 
 had left Denmark; but he had gone across to her neighbors, 
 the Northmen; and, thence re-entering Saxony, he kindled 
 there an insurrection as fierce as it was unexpected. In 782 
 two of Charlemagne's heutenants were beaten on the banks of 
 the Weser, and killed in the battle, " together with four counts 
 and twenty leaders, the noblest in the army ; indeed the Franks 
 were nearly aU exterminated. At news of this disaster," says
 
 172 BISTORT OF FRANCE. [ch. x • 
 
 Eginhard, " Charlemagne, without losing a moment, re-assera.' 
 bled an army and set out for Saxony. He summoned into his 
 presence all the chieftains of the Saxons and demanded of 
 them who had been the promoters of the revolt. All agreed in 
 denouncing Wittikind as the author of this treason. But as 
 they could not deliver him up, because immediately after his 
 sudden attack he had taken refuge with the Northmen, those 
 who, at his instigation, had been accomplices in the crime, 
 were placed, to the number of four thousand five hundred, in 
 the hands of the king ; and, by his order, all had their heads 
 cut off the same day, at a place called Werden, on the river 
 Aller. After this deed of vengeance the king retired to Thion- 
 ville to pass the winter there." 
 
 But the vengeance did not put an end to the war. " Blood 
 calls for blood," were words spoken in the English parliament, 
 in 1643, by Sir Benjamin Rudyard, one of the best citizens of 
 his country in her hour of revolution. For three years Charle- 
 magne had to redouble his efforts to accomplish in Saxony, at 
 the cost of Frankish as well as Saxon blood, his work of con- 
 quest and conversion : ' ' Saxony, " he often repeated, ' ' must be 
 christianized or wiped out." At last, in 785, after several 
 victories which seemed decisive, he went and settled down in 
 his strong castle of Ehresburg, "whither he made his wife 
 and children come, being resolved to remain there all the bad 
 season," says Eginhard, and applying himself without cessa- 
 tion to scouring the country of the Saxons and wearing them 
 out by his strong and indomitable determination. But deter- 
 mination did not bhnd him to prudence and policy. ' ' Having 
 learned that Wittikind and Abbio (another great Saxon chief- 
 tain) were abiding in the part of Saxony situated on the other 
 side of the Elbe, he sent to them Saxon envoys to prevail upon 
 them to renounce their perfidy, and come, without hesitation, 
 and trust themselves to him. They, conscious of what they 
 had attempted, dared not at first trust to the king's word ; but 
 having obteined from him the promise they desired of im- 
 punity and, besides, the hostages they demanded as guarantee 
 of their safety and who were brought to them, on the king's 
 behalf, by Amalwin, one of the oflBcers of his court, they came 
 with the said lord and presented themselves befor6 the king in 
 his palace of Attigny [Attigny-sur-Aisne, whither Charlemagne 
 had now returned] and there received baptism. " 
 
 Charlemagne did more than amnesty Wittikind ; he named 
 him Duke of Saxony, but without attaching to the title any
 
 CH. X.] GHABLEMAONE AND HIS WARS. 173 
 
 right of sovereignty. Wittikind, on his side, did more than 
 come to Attigny and get baptized there ; he gave up the struggle 
 remained faithful to his new engagements, and led, they say, 
 BO Christian a life, that some chroniclers have placed him on 
 the hst of saints. He was killed in 807, in a battle against 
 Gerold, duke of Suabia, and his tomb is still to be seen at 
 Eatisbonne. Several families of Germany hold him for their 
 ancestor; and some French genealogists have, without solid 
 ground, discovered in him the grandfather of Eobert the 
 Strong, great-grandfather of Hugh Capet. However that may 
 be, after making peace with Wittikind, Charlemagne had still, 
 for several years, many insurrections to repress and much 
 rigor to exercise in Saxony, including the removal of certain 
 Saxon peoplets out of their country and the establishment of 
 foreign colonists in the territories thus become vacant ; but the 
 gi'eat war was at an end, and Charlemagne might consider 
 Saxony incorporated in his dominions. 
 
 He had still, in Germany and all around, many enemies to 
 fight and many campaigns to re-open. Even amongst the 
 Germanic populations, which were regarded as reduced under 
 the sway of the King of the Franks, some, the Frisons and 
 Saxons as weU as others, were continually agitating for the re- 
 covery of their independence. Farther off towards the north, 
 east, and south, people differing in origin and language — 
 Avars, Huns, Slavons, Bulgarians, Danes, and Northmen — 
 were still pressing or beginning to press upon the frontiers of 
 the Frankish dominion, for the purpose of either penetrating 
 within or settling at the threshold as powerful and formidable 
 neighbors. Charlemagne had plenty to do, with the view at 
 one time of checking their incursions and at another of destroy- 
 ing or hurling back to a distance their settlements ; and he 
 brought his usual vigor and perseverance to bear on this second 
 struggle. But by the conquest of Saxony he had attained his 
 direct national object : the great flood of population from East 
 to West came, and broke against the Gallo-Franco-Germanic 
 dominion as against an insurmountable rampart. 
 
 This was not, however, Charlemagne's only great enterprise 
 at this epoch, nor the only great struggle he had to maintain. 
 Whilst he was incessantly fighting in Germany, the work of 
 policy commenced by his father Pepin in Italy called for his 
 care and his exertions. The new king of the Lombards, Didier, 
 and the new Pope, Adrian I., had entered upon a new war; 
 and Didier was besieging Rome, which was energetically de«
 
 174 HISTORY OF FRANCE. {cm. x. 
 
 fended by the Pope and its inhabitants. In 773, Adrian in- 
 voked the aid of the King of the Franks whom his envoys 
 succeeded, not without diflSculty, ia finding at Thionville. 
 Charlemagne could not abandon the grand position left him by 
 his father as protector of the Papacy and as patrician of Rome. 
 The possessions, moreover, wrested by Didier from the Pope 
 were exactly those which Pepin had won by conquest from 
 King Astolphus, and had presented to the Papacy. Charle- 
 magne was besides, on his own accoimt, on bad terms with the 
 King of the Lombards, whose daughter, Desiree, he had mar- 
 ried, and afterwards repudiated and sent home to her father, 
 in order to marry Hildegarde, a Suabian by nation, Didier, 
 in dudgeon, had given an asylmn to Carloman's widow and 
 sons, on whose intrigues Charlemagne kept a watchful eye. 
 Being prudent and careful of appearances, even when he was 
 preparing to strike a heavy blow, Charlemagne tried, by 
 means of special envoys, to obtain from the King ctf the Lom- 
 bards what the Pope demanded. On Didier's refusal he at 
 once set to work, convoked the general meeting of the Franks, 
 at Geneva, in the autumn of 773, gained them over, not with- 
 out encountering some objections, to the projected Italian ex- 
 pedition, and forthwith commenced the campaign with two 
 armies. One was to cross the Valais and descend upon Lom- 
 bardy by Mount St. Bernard ; Charlemagne in person led the 
 other, by Mount Cenis. The Lombards, at the outlet of the 
 passes of the Alps, offered a vigorous resistance ; but when the 
 second army had penetrated into Italy by Mount St. Bernard, 
 Didier, threatened in his rear, retired precipitately, and, driven 
 from position to position, was obHged to go and shut himself 
 up in Pavia, the strongest place in his kingdom, whither 
 Charlemagne, having received on the march the submission of 
 the principal counts and nearly all the towns of Lombardy, 
 came promptly to besiege him. 
 
 To place textually before the reader a fragment of an old 
 chronicle will serve better than any modern description to 
 show the impression of admiration and fear produced upon his 
 contemporaries by Charlemagne, his person and his power. 
 At the close of this ninth centm-y a monk of the abbey of St. 
 Gall, in Switzerland, had collected, direct from the mouth of 
 one of Charlemagne's warriors, Adalbert, niunerous stories of 
 his campaigns and his life. These stories are full of fabulous 
 legends, puerile anecdotes, distorted reminiscences and chrono- 
 logical errors, and they are written sometimes with a credulity
 
 CH. X.] CHARLEMAGNE AND HIS WARS. 175 
 
 and exaggeration of language which raise a smile ; but they re- 
 veal the state of men's minds and fancies within the circle of 
 Charlemagne's influence and at the sight of him. This monk 
 gives a naive account of Charlemagne's arrival before Pavia 
 and of the King of the Lombard's disquietude at his approach. 
 Didier had with him at that time one of Charlemagne's most 
 famous comrades, Ogier the Dane, who fills a prominent place 
 in the romances and epopoeas, relating to chivalry, of that age. 
 Ogier had quarrelled with his great chief and taken refuge with 
 the King of the Lombards. It is probable that his Danish 
 origin and his relations with the King of the Danes, Gottfried, 
 for a long time an enemy of the Franks, had something to do 
 with his misunderstanding with Charlemagne. However that 
 may have been, " when Didier and Ogger (for so the monk 
 calls him) heard that the dread monarch was coming, they 
 ascended a tower of vast height whence they could watch his 
 arrival from afar off and from every quarter. They saw, first 
 of all, engines of war such as must have been necessary for the 
 armies of Darius or Julius Caesar. ' Is not Charles, ' asked 
 Didier of Ogger, 'with this great army?' But the other 
 answered ' No.' The Lombard, seeing afterwards an im- 
 mense body of soldiery gathered from all quarters of the vast 
 empire, said to Ogger, ' Certes, Charles advanceth in triumph 
 in the midst of this throng.' ' No, not yet ; he will not appear 
 BO soon,' was the answer. 'What should we do, then,' re- 
 joined Didier, who began to be perturbed, ' should he come 
 accompanied by a larger band of warriors?' 'You will see 
 what he is when he comes,' replied Ogger, 'but as to what 
 will become of us I know nothing.' A.s they were thus par- 
 leying appeared the body of guards that knew no repose ; and 
 at this sight the Lombard, overcome with dread, cried, ' This 
 time 'tis surely Charles.' 'No,' answered Ogger, 'not yet.' 
 In their wake came the bishops, the abbots, the ordinaries of 
 the chapels royal, and the counts ; and then Didier, no longer 
 able to bear the light of day or to face death, cried out with 
 groans, ' Let us descend and hide ourselves in the bowels of 
 the earth, far from the face and the fm-y of so terrible a foe,' 
 Trembling the while, Ogger, who knew by experience what 
 were the power and might of Charles and who had learned the 
 lesson by long consuetude in better days, then said, ' When ye 
 shall behold the crops shaking for fear in the fields, and the 
 gloomy Po and the Ticino overflowing the walls of the city 
 with their waves blackened with steel (iron), then may ye
 
 176 BISTORT OF FRANCE. [oh. x, 
 
 think that Charles is coming.' He had not ended these words 
 when there began to be seen in the west, as it were a black 
 cloud, raised by the north-west wind or by Boreas, which 
 turned the brightest day into awful shadows. But as the 
 emperor drew nearer and nearer, the gleam of arms caused to 
 shine on the people shut up within the city a day more gloomy 
 than any kind of night. And then appeared Charles himself, 
 that man of steel, with his head encased in a helmet of steel, 
 his hands garnished with gauntlets of steel, his heart of steel 
 and his shoulders of marble protected by a cuirass of steel, and 
 his left hand armed with a lance of steel which he held aloft in 
 the air, for as to his right hand he kept that continually on the 
 hilt of his invincible sword. The outside of his thighs, which 
 the rest, for their greater ease in mounting a-horseback, were 
 wont to leave unshackled even by straps, he wore encircled by 
 plates of steel. What shall I say concerning his boots? All 
 the army were wont to have them invariably of steel; on his 
 buckler there was naught to be seen but steel ; his horse was of 
 the color and the strength of steel. All those who went before 
 the monarch, all those who marched at his side, all those who 
 followed after, even the whole mass of the army had armor of 
 the like sort, so far as the means of each permitted. The fields 
 and the highways were covered with steel: the points of steel 
 reflected the rays of the sun ; and this steel, so hard, was borne 
 by a people with hearts still harder. The flash of steel spread 
 terror throughout the streets of the city. ' What steel ! alack, 
 what steel 1 ' Such were the bewildered cries the citizens 
 raised. The firmness of manhood and of youth gave way at 
 sight of the steel ; and the steel paralyzed the wisdom of grey- 
 beards. That which I, poor tale-teller, mumbling and tooth- 
 less, have attempted to depict in a long description, Ogger per- 
 ceived at one rapid glance, and said to Didier, ' Here is what 
 ye have so anxiously sought :' and whilst uttering these words 
 he fell down almost lifeless," 
 
 The monk of St. Gall does King Didier and his people wrong. 
 They showed more firmness and valor than he ascribes to 
 them; they resisted Charlemagne obstinately, and repulsed 
 his first assaults so well that he changed the siege into an in- 
 vestment and settled down before Pavia, as if making up his 
 mind for a long operation. His camp became a town ; he sent 
 for Queen Hildegarde and her court; and he had a chapel built 
 where he celebrated the festival of Christmas, But on the 
 anival of spring, close upon the festival of Easter, 774, wearied
 
 CH. X.] CHARLEMAGNE AND HIS WAIiS. 177 
 
 with the duration of the investment, he left to his lieutenants 
 the duty of keeping it up, and, attended by a numerous and 
 brilliant following, set off for Rome, whither the Pope was 
 urgently pressing him to come. 
 
 On Holy Saturday, April 1, 774, Charlemagne found, at three 
 miles from Rome, the magistrates and the banner of the city, 
 sent forward by the Pope to meet him ; at one mile all the 
 municipal bodies and the pupils of the schools carrying palm- 
 branches and singing hymns ; and at the gate of the city, the 
 cross, which was never taken out save for exarchs and patri- 
 cians. At sight of the cross Charlemagne dismounted, entered 
 Eome on foot, ascended the steps of the ancient basihca of St. 
 Peter, repeating at each step a sign of respectful piety, and 
 was received at the top by the Pope himself. AU around him 
 and in the streets a chant was sung, "Blessed be he that 
 Cometh in the name of the Lord !" At his entry and during 
 his sojourn at Rome Charlemagne gave the most striking 
 proofs of Christian faith and respect for the Head of the 
 Church. According to the custom of pilgrims he visited all 
 the basilicas, and in that of St. Maria Maggiore he performed 
 his solemn devotions. Then, passing to temporal matters, he 
 caused to be brought and read over, in his private conferences 
 with the Pope, the deed of territorial gift made by his father 
 Pepin to Stephen II., and with his own lips dictated the con- 
 firmation of it, adding thereto a new gift of certain territories 
 which he was in coiirse of wresting by conquest from the 
 Lombards. Pope Adrian, on his side, rendered to him, with a 
 mixture of affection and dignity, all the honors and aU the 
 services which could at one and the same time satisfy and 
 exalt the king and the priest, the protector and the protected. 
 He presented to Charlemagne a book containing a collection of 
 the canons written by the pontiffs from the origin of the 
 Church, and he put at the beginning of the book, which was 
 dedicated to Charlemagne, an address in forty-five irregular 
 verses, wi-itten with his own hand, which formed an anagram : 
 " Pope Adrian to his most excellent son Charlemagne, king" 
 (Domino excellentissimo filio Carolo Magno regi, Hadrianus 
 papa). At the same time he encouraged him to push his vic- 
 tory to the utmost and make himself King of the Lombards, 
 advising him, however, not to incorporate his conquest with 
 the Frankish dominions, as it would wound the pride of the 
 conquered people to be thus absorbed by the conquerors, and 
 to take merely the title of "King of the Franks and Lom-
 
 178 HISTORY OF FRANCE. [en. x. 
 
 bards." Charlemagne appreciated and accepted this wise 
 advice ; for he could preserve proper limits in his ambition and 
 in the hour of victory. Three years afterwards he even did 
 more than Pope Adrian had advised. In 777 Queen Hildegarde 
 bore him a son, Pepin, whom in 781 Charlemagne had baptized 
 and anointed King of Italy at Rome by the Pope, thus sepa- 
 rating not only the two titles but also the two kingdoms, and 
 restoring to the Lombards a national existence, feeling quite 
 sure that, so long as he Uved, the unity of his different do 
 minions would not be imperilled. Having thus regulated at 
 Rome his own affairs and those of the Church, he returned to 
 his camp, took Pa via, received the submission of all the Lom- 
 bard dukes and counts, save one only, Aregisius, duke of 
 Beneventum, and entered France again, taking with him as 
 prisoner EangDidier, whom he banished to a monastery, first 
 at Liege and then at Corbie, where the dethroned Lombard, say 
 the chroniclers, ended his days in saintly fashion. 
 
 The prompt success of this war in Italy, imdertaken at the 
 appeal oi: the Head of the Church, this first sojourn of Charle- 
 magne at Rome, the spectacles he had witnessed and the 
 homage he had received, exercised over him, his plans and his 
 deeds, a powerful influence. This rough Prankish warrior, 
 chief of a people who were beginning to make a brilliant ap- 
 pearance upon the stage of the world, and issue himself of a 
 new line, had a taste for what was grand, splendid, ancient, 
 and consecrated by time and public respect ; he understood and 
 estimated at its full worth the moral force and importance of 
 such allies. He departed from Rome in 774, more determined 
 than ever to subdue Saxony, to the advantage of the Church 
 as well as of his own power, and to promote, in the South as in 
 the North, the triumph of the Prankish Christian dominion. 
 
 Three years afterwards, in 777, he had convoked at Pader- 
 oom, in Westphalia, that general assembly of his different 
 peoples at which Wittikind did not attend, and which was 
 destined to bring upon the Saxons a more and more obstinate 
 war. "The Saracen Ibn-al-Arabi," says Eginhard, "came to 
 this town, to present himself before the king. He had arrived 
 from Spain, together with other Saracens in his train, to sur- 
 render to the King of the Franks himself and all the towns 
 which the King of the Saracens had confided to his keeping." 
 For a long time past the Christians of the West had given the 
 Mussulmans, Arab or other, the name of Saracens. Ibn-al- 
 Arabi was goveraor of Saragossa, and one of the Spanish- Arab
 
 CH. X.] CHARLEMAGNE AND HIS WARS. 179 
 
 chieftains in league against Abdel-Ehaman, the last offshoot of 
 the Ommiad khahfs, who, with the assistance of the Berbers, 
 had seized the government of Spain. Amidst the troubles of 
 his country" and his nation, Ibn-al-Arabi summoned to his aid, 
 against Abdel-Rhaman, the Franks and the Christians, just as, 
 but lately, Maurontius, duke of Aries, had summoned to Pro- 
 vence, against Charles Martel, the Arabs and the Mussulmans. 
 
 Charlemagne accepted the summons with alacrity. With 
 the coming of spring in the following year, 778, and with the 
 full assent of his chief waiTiors, he began his march towards 
 the Pyrenees, crossed the Loire, and halted at Casseneuil, at 
 the confluence of the Lot and the Garonne, to celebrate there 
 the festival of Easter, and to make preparations for his expedi- 
 tion thence. As he had but lately done for his campaign in 
 Italy against the Lombards, he divided his forces into two 
 armies: one composed of Austrasians, Neustrians, Biu-gun- 
 dians, and divers German contingents, and commanded by 
 Charlemagne in person, was to enter Spain by the valley of 
 Roncesvalles, in the western Pyrenees, and make for Pampe- 
 luna ; the other, consisting of Provengals, Septimanians, Lom- 
 bards, and other populations of the South, under the conmaand 
 of Duke Bernard, who had already distinguished himself in 
 Italy, had orders to penetrate into Spain by the eastern Pyre- 
 nees, to receive on the march the submission of Gerona and 
 Barcelona, and not to halt till they were before Saragossa, 
 where the two armies were to form a junction, and which Ibn- 
 al-Arabi had promised to give up to the King of the Franks. 
 According to this plan, Charlemagne had to traverse the ter- 
 ritories of Aquitaine and Vasconia, domains of Duke Lupus II. , 
 son of Duke Waifre, so long the foe of Pepin the Short, a Mero- 
 vingian by descent, and, in all these quaUties, httle disposed to 
 favor Charlemagne. However, the march was accomplished 
 without diflSculty. The King of the Franks treated his power- 
 ful vassal well; and Duke Lupus swore to him afresh, " or for 
 the first time," says M. Fauriel, ''submission and fidelity; but 
 the event soon proved that it was not without umbrage or 
 without all the feelings of a true son of Waifre that he saw the 
 Franks and the son of Pepin so close to him. " 
 
 The aggi'essive campaign was an easy and a brOliant one. 
 Charles with his army entered Spain by the valley of Ronces- 
 valles without encountering any obstacle. On his arrival 
 before Pampeluna the Arab governor surrendered the place to 
 Mm, and Charlemagne pushed forward vigorously to Sara-
 
 180 BISTORT OF FRANCE. [ch. x. 
 
 gossa. But there fortiine changed. The presence of foreign- 
 ers and Christians on the soil of Spain caused a suspension of 
 interior quarrels amongst the Ai'abs, who rose in mass, at all 
 points, to succor Saragossa. The besieged defended themselves 
 •with obstinacy ; there was more scarcity of provisions amongst 
 the besiegers than inside the place ; sickness broke out amongst 
 them ; they were incessantly harassed from without ; and ru- 
 mors of a fresh rising amongst the Saxons reached Charle- 
 magne. The Arabs demanded negotiation. To decide the 
 King of the Franks upon an abandonment of the siege, they 
 offered him ' ' an immense quantity of gold, " say the chroni- 
 clers, hostages, and promises of homage and fidelity. Appear- 
 ances had been saved ; Charlemagne could say, and even per- 
 haps believe, that he had pushed his conquests as far as the 
 Ebro ; he decided on retreat, and all the army was set in motion 
 to recross the Pyrenees. On arriving before Pampelima 
 Charlemagne had its walls completely razed to the ground, 
 " in order that, " as he said, "that city might not be able to 
 revolt. " The troops entered those same passes of Roncesvalles 
 which they had traversed without obstacle a few weeks before ; 
 and the advance-guard and the main body of the army were 
 already clear of them. The account of what happened shall 
 be given in the words of Eginhard, the only contemporary 
 historian whose account, free from all exaggeration, can be 
 considered authentic. ' ' The king, " he says, ' ' brought back his 
 army without experiencing any loss, save that at the summit 
 of the Pyrenees he suffered somewhat from the perfidj' of the 
 Vascons (Basques). Whilst the army of the Franks, embar- 
 rassed in a narrow defile, was forced by the nature of the 
 ground to advance in one long close line, the Basques, who 
 were in ambush on the crest of the mountain (for the thickness 
 of the forest with which these parts are covered is favorable to 
 ambuscade), descend and fall suddenly on the baggage-train 
 and on the troops of the rear-guard, whose duty it was to 
 cover all in their front, and precipitate them to the bottom of 
 the valley. Tliere took place a fight in which the Fraiiks were 
 killed to a man. The Basques, after having plundered the 
 baggage-train, profited by the night which had come on, to 
 disperse rapidly. They owed all their success in this engage- 
 ment to the hghtness of their equipment and to the nature of 
 the spot where the action took place ; the Franks, on the con- 
 trary, being heavily armed and in an unfavorable position, 
 struggled against too many disadvantages. Eginhard, master
 
 CH. X.] CHARLEMAGNE AND HIS WARS. 181 
 
 of the household of the king; Anselm, count of the palace; 
 and Roland, prefect of the marches of Brittany, fell in this en- 
 gagement. There were no means, at the time, of taking re- 
 venge for this check ; for, after their sudden attack, the enemy 
 dispersed to such good purpose that there was no gaining any 
 trace of the direction in which they should be sought for." 
 
 History says no more ; but in the poetry of the people there 
 is a longer and a more faithful memory than in the court of 
 kings. The disaster of RoncesvaUes and the heroism of the 
 warriors who perished there became, in France, the object of 
 popular sympathy and the favorite topic for the exercise of the 
 popular fancy. The Song of Roland, a real Homeric poem in 
 its great beauty, and yet rude and simple as became its nation- 
 al character, bears witness to the prolonged importance at- 
 tained in Europe by this incident in the history of Charle- 
 magne. Four centuries later the comrades of WiUiam the 
 Conqueror, marching to battle at Hastings for the possession 
 of England, struck up The Song of Roland "to prepare them- 
 selves for victory or death," says M. Vitel, in his vivid esti- 
 mate and able translation of this poetical monument of the 
 manners and first impulses towards chivalry of the middle 
 ages. There is no determining how far history must be made 
 to participate in these reminiscences of national feeHng; but, 
 assuredly, the figures of Roland and Oliver, and Archbishop 
 Turpin, and the pious, unsophisticated, and tender character 
 of their heroism are not piu-e fables invented by the fancy of a 
 poet, or the credulity of a monk. If the accuracy of historical 
 nan'ative must not be looked for in them, their moral truth 
 must be recognized in their portrayal of a people and an age. 
 
 The pontic genius of Charlemagne comprehended more fully 
 than would be imagined from his panegyrist's brief and dry 
 account all the gravity of the affair of RoncesvaUes. Not only 
 did he take immediate vengeance by hanging Duke Lupus of 
 Aquitaine, whose treason had brought down this mishap, and 
 by reducing his two sons, Adalric and Sancho, to a more feeble 
 and precarious condition; but he resolved to treat Aquitaine 
 as he had but lately treated Italy, that is to say, to make of it, 
 according to the correct definition of M. Fauriel, "a special 
 kingdom, an integral portion, indeed, of the Frankish empire, 
 but with an especial destination, which was that of resisting 
 the invasions of the Andalusian Arabs, and confining them as 
 much as possible to the soil of the Peninsula. This was. in 
 some sort, giving back to the country its primary task as an
 
 182 HISTORY OF FRANCE. [CH. x. 
 
 independent duchy ; and it was the most natural and most cer- 
 tain way of making the Aquitanians useful subjects, by giving 
 play to their national vanity, to their pretensions of forming a 
 separate people, and to their hopes of once more becoming, 
 sooner or later, an independent nation. Queen Hildegard, 
 during her husband's sojourn at Casseneuil, in 778, had borne 
 him a son whom he called Louis, and who was, afterwards, Louis 
 the Debonnair. Charlemagne, summoned a second time to 
 Rome, in 781, by the quarrels of Pope Adrian I. with the imperial 
 court of Constantinople, brought with him his two sons, Pepin 
 aged only four years, and Louis only three years, and had 
 them anointed by the Pope, the former King of Italy, and the 
 latter King of Aquitaine. ' ' On returning from Rome to Aus- 
 trasia, Charlemagne sent Louis at once to take possession of 
 his kingdom. From the banks of the Meuse to Orleans the 
 little prince was carried in his cradle ; but once on the Loire, 
 this manner of travelling beseemed him no longer ; his con- 
 ductors would that his entry into his dominions should have 
 a manly and warrior -like appearance ; they clad him in arms 
 proportioned to his height and age ; they put him and held him 
 on horseback ; and it was in such guise that he entered Aqui- 
 taine. He came thither accompanied by the officers who were 
 to form his councU of guardians, men chosen by Charlemagne, 
 with care, amongst the Frankish "Leudes," distinguished not 
 only for bravery and firmness, but also for adroitness, and 
 such as they should be to be neither deceived nor scared by 
 the cunning, fickle, and turbulent populations with whom they 
 would have to deal." From this period to the death of Charle- 
 magne, and by his sovereign influence, though all the while 
 under his son's name, the government of Aquitaine was a 
 series of continued efforts to hurl back the Arabs of Spain be- 
 yond the Ebro, to extend to that river the dominion of the 
 Franks, to divert to that end the forces as well as the feelings 
 of the populations of Southern Gaul, and thus to pursue, in the 
 South as in the North, against the Arabs as well as against the 
 Saxons and Huns, the grand design of Charlemagne, which 
 was the repression of foreign invasions and the triumph of 
 Christian France over Asiatic Paganism and Islamism. 
 
 Although continually obUged to watch, and often still to 
 fight, Charlemagne might well believe that he had nearly 
 gained his end. He had everywhere greatly extended the 
 frontiers of the Frankish dominions and subjugated the popu- 
 lations comprised in his conquests. He had proved that his
 
 CH. X.] CHARLEMAGNE AND HIS WARS. 183 
 
 new frontiers would be vigorously defended against new in- 
 vasions or dangerous neighbors. He had pursued the Huns 
 and the Slavons to the confines of the empire of the East, and 
 the Saracens to the islands of Corsica and Sardinia. The cen- 
 tre of the dominion was no longer in ancient Gaid; he had 
 transferred it to a point not far from the Rhine, in the midst 
 and within reach of the Germanic populations, at the town of 
 Aix-]a-Chapelle, which he had founded, and which was Ms 
 favorite residence ; but the principal parts of the Gallo-Frank- 
 ish kingdom, Austrasia, Neustria, and Burgundy, were effect- 
 ually welded in one single mass. What he had done with 
 Southern Gaul has but just been pointed out ; how he had both 
 separated it from his own kiagdom and still retained it under 
 his control. Two expeditions into Armorica, without taking 
 entirely from the Britons their independence, had taught them 
 real deference, and the great warrior Roland, installed as count 
 upon their frontier, warned them of the peril any rising would 
 encounter. The moral influence of Charlemagne was on a par 
 with his material power ; he had everywhere protected the mis- 
 sionaries of Christianity ; he had twice entered Rome, also in 
 the character of protector, and he could count on the faithful 
 support of the Pope at least as much as the Pope could count on 
 him. He had received embassies and presents from the sover- 
 eigns of the East, Chiistian and Mussulman, from the emperors 
 of Constantinople and the khalifs at Bagdad. Every where, in 
 Europe, in Africa, and in Asia, he was feared and respected by 
 kings and people. Such, at the close of the eighth century, were, 
 so far as he was concerned, the results of his wars, of the supe- 
 rior capacity he had displayed, and of the successes he had won 
 and kept. 
 
 In 799 he received, at Aix-la-Chapelle, news of serious dis- 
 turbances which had broken out at Rome ; that Pope Leo HI. 
 had been attacked by conspiratore, who, after pulhng out, it 
 was said, his eyes and his tongue, had shut him up in the mon- 
 astery of St. Erasmus, whence he had with great difficulty 
 escaped, and that he had taken refuge with Winigisius, duke 
 of Spoleto, announcing his intention of repairing thence to the 
 Franklsh king. Leo was already known to Charlemagne ; at 
 his accession to the pontificate, in 795, he had sent to him, as 
 to the patrician and defender of Rome, the keys of the prison 
 of St. Peter and the banner of the city. Charlemagne showed 
 a disposition to receive him with equal kindness and respect. 
 The pope arrived, in fact, at Paderborn, passed some days
 
 184 HISTORY OF FRANCE. [ch. r. 
 
 there, according to Eginhard, and returned to Rome on the 
 30th of November, 799, at ease regarding his future, but with- 
 out knowledge on the part of any one of what had been settled 
 between the King of the Franks and him. Charlemagne re- 
 mained all the winter at Aix-la-Chapelle, spent the first months 
 of the year 800 on affairs connected with Western France, at 
 Rouen, Tours, Orleans, and Paris, and, returning to Mayence 
 in the month of August, then for the first time announced to 
 the general assembly of Franks his design of making a journey 
 to Italy. He repaired thither, in fact, and arrived on the 23rd 
 of November, 800, at the gates of Rome. The pope "received 
 him there as he was dismounting; then, the next day, stand- 
 ing on the steps of the basilica of St. Peter and amidst general 
 hallelujahs, he introduced the king into the sanctuary of the 
 blessed apostle, glorifying and thanking the Lord for this happy 
 event." Some days were spent in examining into the griev- 
 ances which had been set down to the pope's account, and in 
 receivmg two monks arrived from Jerusalem to present to the 
 king, with the patriarch's blessing, the keys of the Holy Sepul- 
 chre and Calvary, as well as the sacred standard. Lastly, on 
 the 25th of December, 800, "the day of the Nativity of our 
 Lord," says Eginhard, "the king came into the basilica of the 
 blessed St. Peter, apostle, to attend the celebration of mass. 
 At the moment when, in his place before the altar, he was 
 bowing down to pray. Pope Leo placed on his head a crown, 
 and all the Roman people shouted, ' Long life and victory to 
 Charles Augustus, crowned by God, the great and pacific Em- 
 peror of the Romans!' After this proclamation the pontiff 
 prostrated himself before him and paid him adoration, accord- 
 ing to the custom established in the days of the old emperors ; 
 and thenceforward Charles, giving up the title of patrician, 
 bore that of emperor and Augustus." 
 
 Eginhard adds, in his Life of Charlemagne, "The king at 
 first testified great aversion for this dignity, for he declared 
 that, notwithstanding the importance of the festival, he would 
 not on that day have entered the church, if he could have fore- 
 seen the intentions of the sovereign pontiff. However, this 
 event excited the jealousy of the Roman emperors (of Con- 
 stantinople), who showed great vexation at it; but Charles 
 met their bad graces with nothing but great patience, and 
 thanks to this magnanimity which raised him so far above 
 them, he managed, by sending to them frequent embassies and 
 giving them in his letters the name of brother, to triumph over 
 their conceit."
 
 CH. XI.] CHARLEMAGNE AND HIS GOVERNMENT. 185 
 
 No one, probably, believed, in the ninth century, and no one, 
 assuredly, wUl now-a-days believe that Charlemagne was in- 
 nocent beforehand of what took place on the 25th of December, 
 800, in the basilica of St. Peter, It is doubtful, also, if he were 
 seriously concerned about the ill-temper of the emperors of the 
 East. He had wit enough to understand the value which al- 
 ways remains attached to old traditions, and he might have 
 taken some pains to secure their countenance to his title of em- 
 peror; but all his contemporaries believed, and he also un- 
 doubtedly behoved that he had on that day really won and set 
 up again the Roman empire. 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 CHARLEMAGNE AND HIS GOVERjfMENT. 
 
 What, then, was the government of this empire of which 
 Charlemagne was proud to assume the old title? How did this 
 German warrior govern that vast dominion which, thanks to 
 his conquests, extended from the Elbe to the Ebro, from the 
 North Sea to the Mediterranean; which comprised nearly all 
 Germany, Belgiiun, France, Switzerland, and the north of 
 Italy and of Spain, and which, sooth to say, was stUl, when 
 Charlemagne caused himself to be made emperor, scarce more 
 than the hunting-ground and the battle-field of aU the swarms 
 of barbarians who tried to settle on the ruins of the Roman 
 world they had invaded and broken to pieces? The govern- 
 ment of Charlemagne in the midst of this chaos is the striking, 
 complicated, and transitory fact which is now to be passed in 
 review. 
 
 A word of warning must be first of all given touching this 
 word government with which it is impossible to dispense. For 
 a long time past the word has entailed ideas of national unity, 
 general organization, and regular and eflScient power. There 
 has been no lack of revolutions which have changed dynasties 
 and the principles and forms of the supreme power in the 
 State; but they have always left existing, under different 
 names, the practical machinery whereby the supreme power 
 makes itself felt and exercises its various functions over the 
 whole country. Open the Almanack, whether it be called the
 
 186 HISTORY OF FRANCE. [ch. xx. 
 
 Imperial, the Royal, or the National, and you will find there 
 always the working system of the government of France ; all 
 the powers and their agents, from the lowest to the highest, 
 are there indicated and classed according to their prerogatives 
 and relations. Nor have we there a mere empty nomenclature, 
 a phantom of theory; things go on actually as they are de- 
 scribed — the book is the reflex of the reality. It were easy to 
 construct, for the empire of Charlemagne, a similar Ust of 
 officers ; there might be set down in it dukes, counts, vicars, 
 centeniers, and sheriffs {scahini), and they might be distrib- 
 uted, in regular gradation, over the whole territory; but iti 
 would be one huge lie ; for most frequently, in the majority of 
 places, these magistracies were utterly powerless and them* 
 selves in complete disorder. The efforts of Charlemagne, 
 either to establish them on a firm footing or to make them act 
 with regularity, were continual but unavailmg. In spite of 
 the fixity of his purpose and the energy of his action the dis- 
 order around him was measureless and insurmountable. He 
 might check it for a moment at one point ; but the evil existed 
 wherever liis terrible will did not reach, and wherever it did 
 the evil broke out again so soon as it had been withdrawn. 
 How could it be othei-wise? Charlemagne had not to grapple 
 with one single nation or with one single system of institu- 
 tions ; he had to deal with different nations, without cohesion, 
 and foreign one to another. The authority belonged, at one 
 and the same time, to assemblies of free men, to landholders 
 over the dwellers on their domains, and to the king over the 
 "leudes"and their following. These three powers appeared 
 and acted side by side in every locality as well as in the totality 
 of the State. Their relations and their prerogatives were not 
 governed by any generally-recognized principle, and none of 
 the thi-ee was invested with sufficient might to habitually pre- 
 vail against the independence or resistance of its rivals. Force 
 alone, varying according to circumstances and always uncer- 
 tain, decided matters between them. Such was France at the 
 accession of the second line. The coexistence of and the strug- 
 gle between the three systems of institutions and the three 
 powers just alluded to had as yet had no other result. Out of 
 this chaos Charlemagne caused to issue a monarchy, strong 
 through him alone and so long as he was by, but powerless 
 and gone like a shadow, when the rpan was lost to the in- 
 Btitution. 
 Whoever is astonished either at this triumph of absolute
 
 CH. XI.] CHARLEMAONE AND HIS GOVERNMENT. 187 
 
 monarchy through the personal movement of Charlemagne, 
 or at the speedy fall of the fabric on the disappearance of the 
 moving spirit, understands neither what can be done by a 
 great man, when, without him, society sees itself given over to 
 deadly perU, nor how unsubstantial and frail is absolute power 
 when the great man is no longer by, or when society has no 
 longer need of him. 
 
 It has just been shown how Charlemagne by his wars, which 
 had for their object and result permanent and well-secured 
 conquests, had stopped the fresh incursions of barbarians, that 
 is, had stopped disorder coming from without. An attempt 
 will now be made to show by what means he set about sup- 
 pressing disorder from within and putting his own rule in the 
 place of the anarchy that prevailed in the Roman world which 
 lay in ruins, and in the barbaric world which was a prey to 
 blind and ill-regulated force. 
 
 A distinction must be drawn between the local and central 
 governments. 
 
 Far from the centre of the State, in what have since been 
 called the provinces, the power of the emperor was exercised 
 by the medium of two classes of agents, one local and perma- 
 nent, the other despatched from the centre and transitory. 
 
 In the first class we find: 
 
 1st. The dukes, counts, vicars of counts, centeniers, sheriffs 
 (scabini), oflScers or magistrates residing on the spot, nomi- 
 nated by the emperor himself or by his delegates, and charged 
 with the duty of acting in his name for the levying of troops, 
 rendering of justice, maintenance of order, and receipt of im- 
 posts. 
 
 2nd. The beneficiaries or vassals of the emperor, who held 
 of him, sometimes as hereditaments, more often for Hfe, and 
 more often still without fixed rule or stipulation, lands ; do- 
 mains, throughout the extent of which they exercised, a little 
 bit in their own name and a Uttle bit in the name of the em- 
 peror, a certain jurisdiction and nearly all the rights of sover- 
 eignty. There was nothing very fixed or clear in the position 
 of the beneficiaries and in the nature of their power; they 
 were at one and the same time delegates and independent, 
 owners and enjoyers of usufruct, and the former or the latter 
 character prevailed amongst them according to circumstances. 
 But, altogether, they were closely bound to Charlemagne, who, 
 in a great number of cases, charged them with the execution of 
 his orders in the lands they occupied.
 
 188 BISTORT OF FRANCE. [ch. xl 
 
 Above these agents, local and resident, magistrates or bene- 
 ficiaries, were the missi dominici, temporary commissioners, 
 charged to inspect, in the emperor's name, the condition of the 
 provinces ; authorized to penetrate into the interior of the free 
 lands as well as of the domains granted with the title of ben- 
 efices ; having the right to reform certain abuses, and bound 
 to render an account of all to their master. The missi do' 
 minici were the principal instruments Charlemagne had, 
 throughout the vast territory of his empire, of order and 
 administration. 
 
 As to the central government, setting aside for a moment 
 the personal action of Charlemagne and of his counsellors, the 
 general assembhes, to judge by appearances and to believe 
 nearly all the modern historians, occupied a prominent place 
 in it. They were, in fact, dm-ing his reign, numerous and ac- 
 tive; from the year 770 to the year 813 we may coimt thirty- 
 five of these national assemblies, March -parades and May- 
 parades, held at Worms, Valenciennes, Geneva, Paderbom, 
 Aix-la-Chapelle, Thionville, and several other towns, the ma- 
 jority situated round about the two banks of the Ehine. The 
 number and periodical nature of these great pohtical reunions 
 are undoubtedly a noticeable fact. What, then, went on in 
 their midst? What character and weight must be attached to 
 their intervention in the government of the State? It is im- 
 portant to sift this matter thoroughly. 
 
 There is extant, touching this subject, a very curious docu- 
 ment. A contemporary and counsellor of Charlemagne, his 
 cousLa-german Adalbert, abbot of Corbie, had written a treatise 
 entitled Of the Ordering of the Palace (De Ordine Palatii), 
 and designed to give an insight into the government of 
 Charlemagne, with especial reference to the national assem- 
 bhes. This treatise was lost ; but towards the close of the ninth 
 century, Hincmar, the celebrated archbishop of Rheims, re- 
 produced it almost in its entirety, in the form of a letter or of 
 instructions, written at the request of certain grandees of the 
 kingdom who had asked counsel of him with respect to the 
 government of Carloman, one of the sons of Charles the Stut- 
 terer. We read therein : 
 
 "It was the custom at this time to hold two assemblies every 
 year. ... In both, that they might not seem to have been 
 convoked without motive, there were submitted to the exami- 
 nation and dehberation of the grandees .... and by virtue of 
 orders from the king, the fragments of law called capitula.
 
 CH. XI.1 CHARLEMAGNE AND EI8 GOVERNMENT. 189 
 
 which the king himself had drawn up under the inspiration of 
 God or the necessity for which had been made manifest to him 
 in the intervals between the meetings. " 
 
 Two striking facts are to be gathered from these words: the 
 first, that the majority of the members composing these assem- 
 bhes probably regarded as a burden the necessity for being 
 present at them, since Charlemagne took care to explain their 
 convocation by declaring to them the motive for it and by 
 always giving them something to do; the second, that the 
 proposal of the capitularies, or, in modern phrase, the initia- 
 tive, proceeded from the emperor. The initiative is naturally 
 exercised by him who wishes to regulate or reform, and, in 
 his time, it Avas especially Charlemagne who conceived this 
 design. There is no doubt, however, but that the members of 
 the assembly might make on their side such proposals as 
 appeared to them suitable; the constitutional distrusts and 
 artifices of our time were assuredly unknown to Charle- 
 magne, who saw in these assembhes a means of government 
 rather than a barrier to his authority. To resume the text of 
 Hincmar: 
 
 "After haAing received these communications, they dehb- 
 erated on them two or three days or more, according to the 
 importance of the business. Palace-messengers, going and 
 coming, took their questions and carried back the answers. 
 No stranger came near the place of their meeting until the 
 result of their dehberations had been able to be submitted to 
 the scrutiny of the great prince, who then, with the wisdom 
 he had received from God, adopted a resolution which aU 
 obeyed." 
 
 The definite resolution, therefore, depended upon Charle- 
 magne alone; the assembly contributed only information and 
 counsel. 
 
 Hincmar continues, and suppHes details worthy of repro 
 duction, for they give an insight into the imperial govern- 
 ment and the action of Charlemagne himself amidst those 
 most ancient of the national assembhes. 
 
 "Things went on thus for one or two capitularies, or a 
 greater number, until, with God's help, all the necessities of 
 the occasion were regulated. 
 
 "Whilst these matters were thus proceeding out of the 
 king's presence, the prince himself, in the midst of the multi- 
 tude, came to the general assembly, was occupied in recei^'ing 
 the presents, saluting themen of most note, conversing with
 
 190 HISTORY OF FRANCE. [ch. xi. 
 
 those he saw seldom, showing towards the elders a tender 
 interest, disporting himself with the youngsters, and doing 
 the same thing, or something like it, with the ecclesiastics as 
 well as the secuiars. However, if those who were deliberating 
 about the matter submitted to their examination showed a 
 desire for it, the king repaired to them and remained with 
 them as long as they wished ; and then they reported to him 
 with perfect familiarity what they thought about all matters, 
 and what were the friendly discussions that had arisen 
 amongst them, I must not forget to say that, if the weather 
 were fine, every thing took place in the open air ; otherwise, 
 in several distinct buildings, where those who had to de- 
 liberate on the king's proposals were separated from the mul- 
 titude of persons come to the assembly, and then the men of 
 greater note were admitted. The places appointed for the 
 meeting of the lords were divided into two parts, in such sort 
 that the bishops, the abbots, and the clerics of high rank 
 might meet without mixture with the laity. In the same 
 way the counts and other chiefs of the State underwent sepa- 
 ration, in the morning, until, whether the king was present or 
 absent, all were gathered together; then the lords above 
 specified, the clerics on their side, and the laics on theirs, re- 
 paired to the hall which had been assigned to them, and 
 where seats had been with due honor prepared for them. 
 When the lords laical and ecclesiastical were thus separated 
 from the multitude, it remained in their power to sit sepa- 
 rately or together, according to the nature of the business 
 they had to deal with, ecclesiastical, secular, or mixed. In 
 the same way, if they wished to send for any one, either to 
 demand refreshment, or to put any question and to dismiss 
 him after getting what the^ wanted, it was at their option. 
 Thus took place the examination of affairs proposed to them 
 by the king for deliberation. 
 
 "The second business of the king was to ask of each what 
 there was to report to him, or enlighten him touching the 
 part of the kingdom each had come from. Not only was this 
 permitted to all, but they were strictly enjoined to make in- 
 quiries dimng the interval between the assemblies, about what 
 happened within or without the kingdom; and they were 
 bovmd to seek knowledge from foreigners as well as natives, 
 enemies as well as friends, sometimes by employing emis- 
 saries, and without troubling themselves much about the 
 manner in which they acquired their information. The king
 
 CH. XI.] CEARLEMAONE AND HIS GOVERNMENT, 191 
 
 wished to know whether in any part, in any comer of the 
 kingdom, the people were restless, and what was the cause of 
 their restlessness; or whether there had happened any dis- 
 turbance to which it was necessary to draw the attention of 
 the council-general, and other similar matters. He sought 
 also to know whether any of the subjugated nations were 
 inclined to revolt; whether any of those that had revolted 
 seemed disposed towards submission ; and whether those that 
 were still independent were threatening the kingdom with 
 any attack. On all these subjects, whenever there was any 
 manifestation of disorder or danger, he demanded chiefly 
 what were the motives or occasion of them," 
 
 There is need of no great reflection to recognize the true 
 character of these assemblies : it is clearly imprinted upon the 
 sketch drawn by Hincmar. The figure of Charlemagne alone 
 fills the picture: he is the centre-piece of it and the soul of 
 every thing. 'Tis he who wills that the national assembUes 
 should meet and deliberate ; 'tis he who inquires into the state 
 of the country ; 'tis he who proposes and approves of, or re- 
 jects the laws ; with him rests will and motive, initiative and 
 decision. He has a mind sufSciently judicious, imshackled, 
 and elevated to understand that the nation ought not to be 
 left in darkness about its affairs, and that he himself has need 
 of comm unicating with it, of gathering information from it, 
 and of learning its opinions. But we have here no exhibition 
 of great poUtical liberties, no people discussing its interests 
 and its business, interfering effectually in the adoption of reso- 
 lutions, and, in fact, taking in its government so active and 
 decisive a part as to have a right to say that it is self-govern- 
 ing, or, in other words, a free people. It is Charlemagne, and 
 he alone who governs; it is absolute government marked by 
 prudence, ability, and grandeur. 
 
 When the mind dweEs upon the state of Gallo-Frankish 
 society in the eighth century, there is nothing astonishing in 
 such a fact. Whether it be civilized or barbarian, that which 
 every society needs, that which it seeks and demands first of 
 aU in its government, is a certain degree of good sense and 
 strong will, of intelligence and innate influence, so far as the 
 public interests are concerned ; qualities, in fact, which suffice 
 to keep social order maintained or make it realized, and to 
 promote respect for individual rights and the progi'ess of the 
 general well-being. This is the essential aim of every com- 
 munity of men ; and the institutions and guarantees of free 
 (9) HF Vol. 1
 
 192 HISTORY OF FRAN-CE. [ch. xl 
 
 government are the means of attaining it. It is clear that, in 
 the eighth century, on the ruins of the Roman and beneath 
 the blows of the barbaric world, the Gallo-Frankish nation, 
 vast and without cohesion, brutish and ignorant, was inca- 
 pable of bringing forth, so to speak, from its own womb, with 
 the aid of its own wisdom and virtue, a government of the 
 kind. A host of different forces, without enUghtenment and 
 without restraint, were every where and incessantly strug- 
 gling for dominion, or, in other words, were ever troubUng 
 and endangering the social condition. Let there but arise in 
 the midst of this chaos of unruly forces and selfish passions, a 
 great man, one of those elevated minds and strong characters 
 that can understand the essential aim of society and then urge 
 it forward, and at the same time keep it well in hand on the 
 roads that lead thereto, and such a man will soon seize and 
 exercise the personal power almost of a despot, and people 
 will not only make him welcome, but even celebrate his 
 praises, for they do not quit the substance for the shadow, or 
 sacrifice the end to the means. Such was the empire of 
 Charlemagne, Amongst annalists and historians, some, treat- 
 ing him as a mere conqueror and despot, have ignored his 
 merits and his glory; others, that they might admire him 
 without scruple, have made of him a founder of free institu- 
 tions, a constitutional monarch. Both are eqviaUy mistaken, 
 Charlemagne was, indeed, a conqueror and a despot; but by 
 his conquests and his personal power he, so long as he was 
 by, that is, for six and forty years, saved Gallo-Frankish 
 society from barbaric invasion without and anarchy within. 
 That is the characteristic of his government and his title to 
 glory. 
 
 What he was in his wars and his general relations with his 
 nation has just been seen ; he shall now be exhibited in all his 
 administrative activity and his intellectual life, as a legislator 
 and as a friend to the human mind. The same man will be 
 recognized in every case ; he will grow in greatness, without 
 changing, as he appears under his various aspects. 
 
 There are often joined together, under the title of Capitula- 
 ries (capitula, small chapters, articles) a mass of Acts, very 
 different in point of dates and objects, which are attributed 
 indiscriminately to Charlemagne. This is a mistake. The 
 Capitularies are the laws or legislative measures of the Frank- 
 ish kings, Merovingian as well as Carlovingian. Those of the 
 Merovingians are few in number and of slight importance,
 
 OH. XI.1 CHARLEMAGNE AND HIS GOVERNMENT. 193 
 
 and amongst those of the Carlovingians, which amount to 
 152, 65 only are due to Charlemagne. When an attempt is 
 made to classify these last according to their object, it is im- 
 possible not to be struck with their incoherent variety; and 
 several of them are such as we should now-a-days be sur- 
 prised to meet with in a code or in a special law. Amongst 
 Charlemagne's 65 Capitularies, which contain 1151 articles, 
 may be counted Sif of moral, 293 of political, 130 of penal, 110 
 of civil, 85 of reUgious, 305 of canonical, 73 of domestic, and 
 12 of incidental legislation. And it must not be supposed that 
 aU these articles are really acts of legislation, laws properly 
 so called ; we find amongst them the texts of ancient national 
 laws revised and promulgated afresh ; extracts from and addi- 
 tions to these same ancient laws, Salic, Lombard, and Bava- 
 rian; extracts from acts of councils; instructions given by 
 Charlemagne to his envoys in the provinces ; questions that he 
 proposed to put to the bishops or counts when they came to 
 the national assembly; answers given by Charlemagne to 
 questions addressed to him by the bishops, coimts, or commis- 
 sioners (missi dominici) ; judgments, decrees, royal pardons, 
 and simple notes that Charlemagne seems to have had written 
 down for himself alone, to remind him of what he proposed to 
 do ; in a word, nearly all the various acts which could possibly 
 have to be framed by an earnest, far-sighted, and active gov- 
 ernment. Often, indeed, these Capitularies have no impera- 
 tive or prohibitive character; they are simple counsels, purely 
 moral precepts. We read therein, for example, — 
 
 " Covetousness doth consist in desiring that which others 
 possess, and in giving away naught of that which oneself 
 possesseth; according to the Apostle, it is the root of aU evil." 
 
 And, — 
 
 " Hospitality must be practised," 
 
 The Capitularies which have been classed under the heads 
 of political, penal, and canonical legislation are the most 
 numerous, and are those which bear most decidedly an im- 
 perative or prohibitive stamp; amongst them a prominent 
 place is held by measiu-es of political economy, administra- 
 tion, and police; you wiU find therein an attempt to put a 
 fixed price on provisions, a real trial of a maximum for 
 cereals, and a prohibition of mendicity, mth the following 
 clause : — 
 
 * ' If such mendicants be met with, and they labor not with 
 their hands, let none take thought about giving unto them."
 
 194 HISTORY OF FRANCE. [CH. xt 
 
 The interior police of the palace was regulated thereby, as 
 well as that of the empire : — 
 
 "We do will and decree that none of those who serve tn our 
 palace shaU take leave to receive therein any man who seeketh 
 refuge there and cometh to hide there, by reason of theft, 
 homicide, adulteiy, or any other crime. That if any free man 
 do break through our interdicts and hide such malefactor in 
 our palace, he shall be bound to carry him on his shoulders to 
 the public quarter, and be there tied to the same stake as the 
 malefactor." 
 
 Certain Capitularies have been termed religious legislation 
 in contradistinction to canonical legislation, because they are 
 really admonitions, religious exhortations, addressed not to 
 ecclesiastics alone, but to the faithful, the Christian people in 
 general, and notably characterized by good sense and, one 
 might almost say, freedom of thought. 
 
 For example, — 
 
 "Beware of venerating the names of martyrs falsely so 
 called, and the memory of dubious saints. " 
 
 " Let none suppose that prayer cannot be made to God save 
 in three tongues [probably Latin, Greek, and Germanic, or 
 perhaps the vulgar tongue ; for the last wa^ reaUy beginning 
 to take form], for God is adored in all tongues, and man is 
 heard if he do but ask for the things that be right. " 
 
 These details are put forward that a proper idea may be 
 obtained of Charlemagne as a legislator, and of what are 
 called his laws. We have here, it will be seen, no ordinary 
 legislator and no ordinary laws: we see the work, with in- 
 finite variations and in disconnected form, of a prodigiously 
 energetic and watchful master, who had to think and pro- 
 vide for every thing, who had to be everywhere the moving 
 and the regulating spirit. This universal and untiring en- 
 ergy is the grand characteristic of Charlemagne's govern- 
 ment, and was, pei'haps, what made his superiority most 
 incontestable and his power most efficient. 
 
 It is noticeable that the majority of Charlemagne's Capitu- 
 laries belong to that epoch of his reign when he was Emperor 
 of the West, when he was invested with aU the splendor of 
 sovereign power. Of the 65 Capitularies classed under differ- 
 ent heads, 13 only are previous to the 25th of December, 800, 
 the date of his coronation as emperor at Rome ; 52 ai'e com- 
 prised between the years 801 and 804. 
 
 The energy of Charlemagne as a warrior and a politician
 
 CH. 3CI.3 CHARLEMAGNE AND BIS GOVERNMENT. 195 
 
 having thus been exhibited, it remains to say a few words 
 about his intellectual energy. For that is by no means the 
 least original or least grand feature of his character and hia 
 influence. 
 
 Modern times and civilized society have more than once 
 seen despotic sovereigns filled with distrust towards scholars 
 of exalted intellect, especially such as cultivated the moral 
 and pohtical sciences, and Httle inclined to admit them to their 
 favor or to pubhc office. There is no knowing whether, in 
 our days, with our freedom of thought and of the press, 
 Charlemagne would have been a stranger to this feehng of 
 antipathy ; but what is certain is, that in his day, in the midst 
 of a barbaric society, there was no inducement to it, and that, 
 by nature, he was not disposed to it. His power was not in 
 any respect questioned; distinguished intellects were very 
 rare; Charlemagne had too much need of their services to 
 fear their criticisms, and they, on their part, were more 
 anxious to second his efforts than to show, towards him, any 
 thing hke exaction or independence. He gave rein, therefore, 
 without any embarrassment or misgiving to his spontaneous 
 inclination towards them, their studies, their labors, and their 
 influence. He drew them into the management of affairs. In 
 Guizot's History of Civilization in France, there is a list of the 
 names and works of twenty-three men of the eighth and ninth 
 century who have escaped oblivion, and they are all found 
 grouped about Charlemagne as his own habitual advisers, or 
 assigned by him as advisers to his sons Pepin and Louis in 
 Italy and Aquitania, or sent by him to all points of his empire 
 as his commissioners {missi dominici), or charged in his name 
 with important negotiations. And those whom he not did 
 employ at a distance formed, in his immediate neighborhood, a 
 learned and industrious society, a school of the palace, accord- 
 ing to some modem commentators, but an academy and not a 
 school, according to others, devoted rather to conversation 
 than to teaching. It probably fulfilled both missions; it 
 attended Charlemagne at his various residences, at one time 
 working for him at questions he invited them to deal with, at 
 another giving to the regular components of his court, to his 
 children and to himself lessons in the different sciences called 
 liberal, grammar, rhetoric, logic, astronomy, geometry, and 
 even theology and the great religious problems it was begin- 
 ning to discuss. Two men, Alcuin and Eginhard, have re- 
 mained justly celebrated in the literary history of the age.
 
 i96 HISTORY OF FRANCE. [ch. n 
 
 Alcuin was the principal director of the school of the palace, 
 and the favorite, the confidant, the learned adviser of Charle- 
 magne. " If your zeal were inaitated," said he one day to the 
 emperor, "perchance one might see arise in France a new 
 Athens, far more glorious than the ancient — the Athens of 
 Christ." Eginhard, who was younger, received his scientific 
 education in the school of the palace, and was head of the 
 pubhc works to Charlemagne, before becoming his biographer, 
 and, at a later period, the intimate adviser of his son Louis 
 the Debonnair. Other scholars of the school of the palace, 
 Angilbert, Leidrade, Adalhard, Agobard, Theodulph, were 
 abbots of St. Riquier or Corbie, archbishops of Lyons, and 
 bishops of Orleans. They had all assiuned, in the school itself, 
 names illustrious in pagan antiquity; Alcuin called himself 
 Flaccus; Angilbert, Homer; Theodulph, Pindar. Charle- 
 magne himself had been pleased to take, in their society, a 
 great name of old, but he had borrowed from the history of 
 the Hebrews— he called himself David; and Eginhard, ani- 
 mated, no doubt, by the same sentiments, was Bezaleel, that 
 nephew of Moses to whom God had granted the gift of know- 
 ing how to work skilfully in wood and all the materials which 
 served for the construction of the ark and the tabernacle. 
 Either in the lifetime of their royal patron or after his death 
 all these scholars became great dignitaries of the Church, or 
 ended their lives in monasteries of note ; but, so long as they 
 lived, they served Charlemagne or his sons not only with the 
 devotion of faithful advisers, but also as followers proud of the 
 master Avho had known how to do them honor by making use 
 of them. 
 
 It was without effort and by natural sympathy that Charle- 
 magne had inspired them with such sentiments; for he too 
 really loved sciences, Hterature, and such studies as were then 
 •possible, and he cultivated them on his own account and for 
 his own pleasure, as a sort of conquest. It has been doubted 
 whether he could write, and an expression of Eginhard's might 
 authorize such a doubt ; but, according to other evidence and 
 even according to the passage in Eginhard, one is inclined to 
 believe merely that Charlemagne strove painfully, and with- 
 out much success, to write a good hand. He had learnt 
 Latin, and he understood Greek. He caused to be commenced, 
 and, perhaps, himself commenced the drawing up of the first 
 Germanic gi'ammar. He ordered that the old barbaric poems, 
 iu which the deeds and wars of the ancient kings were celO'
 
 C5H. XI.] CEARLEMAONE AND HIS GOVERNMENT. 197 
 
 brated, should be collected for posterity. He gave Germanic 
 names to the twelve months of the year. He distinguished 
 the winds by twelve special terms, whereas before his time 
 they had but four designations. He paid great attention to 
 astronomy. Being troubled one day at no longer seeing in the 
 firmament one of the known planets, he wrote to Alcuin, 
 "What thinkest thou of this Mars, which, last year, being 
 concealed in the sign of Cancer, was intercepted from the sight 
 of men by the hght of the sun ? Is it the regular com*se of his 
 revolution? Is it the influence of the sun? Is it a miracle? 
 Could he have been two years about performing the course of 
 a single one?" In theological studies and discussions he 
 exhibited a particular and grave interest. "It is to him," 
 say MM. Ampere and Haureau, ' ' that we must refer the 
 honor of the decision taken in 794 by the Council of Frankfort 
 in the great dispute about images ; a temperate decision which 
 is as far removed from the infatuation of the image-worship- 
 pers as from the frenzy of the image-breakers." And at the 
 same time that he thus took part in the great ecclesiastical 
 questions, Charlemagne paid zealous attention to the instruc- 
 tion of the clergy whose ignorance he deplored. "Ah," said 
 he one day, "if only I had about me a dozen clerics learned in 
 an the sciences, as Jerome and Augustin were!" With all his 
 puissance it was not in his power to make Jeromes and 
 Augustins; but he laid the foundation, in the cathedral 
 churches and the great monasteries, of episcopal and cloistral 
 schools for the education of ecclesiastics, and, carrying his 
 sohcitude still farther, he recommended to the bishops and 
 abbots that, in those schools, "they should take care to make 
 no difference between the sons of serfs and of free men, so 
 that they might come and sit on the same benches to study 
 grammar, music, and arithmetic" [Capitularies of 789, art. 
 70]. Thus, in the eighth century, he foreshadowed the exten- 
 sion which, in the nineteenth, was to be accorded to primary 
 instruction, to the advantage and honor not only of the clergy, 
 but also of the whole people. 
 
 After so much of war and toil at a distance, Charlemagne 
 was now at Aix la-Chapelle, finding rest in this work of peace- 
 ful civilization. He was embellishing the capital which he 
 had founded, and which was called the king's court. He had 
 built there a grand basihca, magnificently adorned. He was 
 completing his own palace there. He fetched from Italy 
 clerics skilled in church- music, a pious joyance to which he
 
 198 BISTORT OF FRANCE. [cH. xi, 
 
 was much devoted, and which he recommended to the bishops 
 of his empire. In the outskirts of Aix-la-Chapelle "he gave 
 full scope," says Eginhard, "to his delight in riding and hunt- 
 ing. Baths of natiu'ally -tepid water gave Mm great pleasure. 
 Being passionately fond of swimming, he became so dexterous 
 that none could be compared with him. He invited not only 
 his sons, but also his friends, the grandees of his court, and 
 sometimes even the soldiers of his guard, to bathe with him, 
 insomuch that there were often a hundred and more persons 
 bathing at a time." When age arrived, he made no alteration 
 in his bodUy habits ; but, at the same time, instead of putting 
 away from him the thought of death, he was much taken up 
 with it, and prepared himself for it with stern severity. He 
 drew up, modified, and completed his will several times over. 
 Three years before his death he made out the distribution of 
 his treasures, his money, his wardrobe, and all his furniture, 
 in the presence of his friends and his officers, in order that 
 their voice might insure, after his death, the execution of this 
 partition, and he set down his intentions in this respect in a 
 written summary, in which he massed all his riches in three 
 grand lots. The first two were divided into twenty -one por- 
 tions, which were to be distributed amongst the twenty-one 
 metropolitan churches of his empire. After having put these 
 first two lots under seal, he willed to preserve to himself his 
 usual enjoyment of the third so long as he hved. But after 
 his death or voluntary renunciation of the things of this world, 
 this same lot was to be subdivided into four portions. His in- 
 tention was that the first should be added to the twenty-one 
 portions which were to go to the metropolitan churches ; the 
 second set aside for his sons and daughters, and for the sons 
 and daughters of his sons, and redivided amongst them in a 
 just and proportionate manner ; the third dedicated, according 
 to the usage of Christians, to the necessities of the poor; and, 
 lastly, the fourth distributed in the same way, under the name 
 of alms, amongst the servants, of both sexes, of the palace for 
 
 their hfetime As for the books of which he had amassed 
 
 a large number in his library, he decided that those who 
 wished to have them might buy them at their proper value, 
 and that the money which they produced should be distributed 
 amongst the poor. " 
 
 Having thus carefully regulated his own private affairs and 
 bounty, he, two years later, in 813, took the measures neces- 
 Bary for the regulation, after his death, of public affairs. He
 
 CH. XI.1 CHARLEMAGNE AND HIS GOVERNMENT. 199 
 
 had lost, in 811, his oldest son Charles, who had been his con- 
 stant companion in his wars, and, in 810, his second son Pepin, 
 whom he had made king of Italy ; and he summoned to his 
 side his third son Louis, king of Aquitaine, who was destined 
 to succeed him. He ordered the convocation of five local 
 councils which were to assemble at Mayence, Rheims, Cha- 
 lons, Tours, and Aries, for the purpose of bringing about, sub- 
 ject to the king's ratification, the reforms necessary in the 
 Church. Passing from the affairs of the Church to those of 
 the State, he convoked at Aix-la-Chapelle a general assembly 
 of bishops, abbots, counts, laic grandees, and of the entire 
 people, and, holding council in his palace with the chief 
 amongst them, ' ' he invited them to make his son Louis king- 
 emperor ; whereto all assented, saying that it was very expe- 
 dient, and pleasing, also, to the people. On Sunday in the 
 next month, August 813, Charlemagne repaired, crown on 
 head, with his son Louis to the cathedral of Aix-la-Chapelle, 
 laid upon the altar another crown, and, after praying, ad- 
 dressed to his son a solemn exhortation respecting all his 
 duties as king towards God and the Church, towards his 
 family and his people, asked him if he were fully resolved to 
 fulfil them, and, at the answer that he was, bade him take the 
 crown that lay upon the altar, and place it with his own hands 
 upon his head, which Louis did amidst the acclamations of all 
 present, who cried, ' Long hve the emperor Louis ! ' Charle- 
 magne then declared his son emperor jointly with him, and 
 ended the solemnity with these words: 'Blessed be Thou, 
 Lord God, who hast granted me grace to see with mine own 
 eyes my son seated on my throne ! ' " And Louis set out again 
 immediately for Aquitaine. 
 
 He was never to see his father again. Charlemagne, after 
 bis son's departure, went out hunting, according to his custom, 
 in the forest of Ardenne, and continued during the whole 
 autumn his usual mode of hfe. "But in January, 814, he was 
 taken ill," says Eginhard, " of a violent fever, which kept him 
 to his bed. Recurring forthwith to the remedy he ordinarily 
 employed against fever, he abstained from all nourishment, 
 persuaded that this diet would suffice to drive away or at the 
 least assuage the malady ; but added to the fever came that 
 pain in the side which the Greeks call pleurisy ; nevertheless 
 the emperor persisted in his abstinence, supporting his body 
 only by drinks taken at long intervals; and on the seventh 
 day after that he had taken to his bed, having received the
 
 200 HISTORY OF FRANCE. [CH. XL 
 
 holy communion," he expired about nine a.m., on Saturday, 
 the 28th of January, 814, in his seventy-first year. 
 
 "After performance of ablutions and funeral duties, the 
 corpse "was carried away and buried, amidst the profound 
 mourning of all the people, in the church he had himself had 
 bmlt; and above his tomb there was put up a gilded arcade 
 with his image and this superscription : ' In this tomb reposeth 
 the body of Charles, great and orthodox emperor, who did 
 gloriously extend the kingdom of the Franks, and did govern 
 it happily for forty-seven years. He died at the age of seventy 
 years, in the year of the Lord 814, in the seventh year of the 
 Indiction, on the 5th of the Kalends of February.' " 
 
 If we sum up his designs and his achievements, we find an 
 admirably sound idea and a vain dream, a great success and a 
 great failure. 
 
 Charlemagne took in hand the work of placing upon a solid 
 foundation the Frankish Christian dominion by stopping, in 
 the north and south, the flood of barbai-ians and Arabs, Pagan- 
 ism and Islamism. In that he succeeded : the iniuidations of 
 Asiatic populations spent their force in vain against the Gallic 
 frontier. Western and Christian Eiu-ope was placed, territo- 
 rially, beyond reach of attacks from the foreigner and infidel. 
 No sovereign, no human being, perhaps, ever rendered greater 
 service to the civilization of the world, 
 
 Charlemagne formed another conception and made another 
 attempt. Like more than one great barbaric warrior, he ad- 
 mired the Roman empire that had fallen, its vastness all in 
 one, and its powerful organization under the hand of a single 
 master. He thought he could resuscitate it, durably, ^ougli 
 the victory of a new people and a new faith, by the hand of 
 Franks and Christians. With this view he labored to con- 
 quer, convert, and govern. He tried to be at one and the 
 same time, Caesar, Augustus, and Constantine. And for a 
 moment he appeared to have succeeded; but the appearance 
 passed away with himself. The imity of the empire and the 
 absolute power of the emperor were buried in his grave. The 
 Christian rehgion and human Uberty set to work to prepare for 
 Europe other governments and other destinies. 
 
 Great men do great things which would not get done with- 
 out them; they set their mark plainly upon history, which 
 realizes a portion of their ideas and wishes; but they are fai 
 from doing all they meditate, and they know not all they do. 
 They are at one and the same time instnmients and free
 
 CH. xn.] DECAY AND FALL OF THE CARLOVINGIANS. 201 
 
 agents in a general design which is infinitely above their ken, 
 and which, even if a ghmpse of it be caught, remains inscru- 
 table to them — the design of God towards mankind. When 
 great men understand that such is their position and accept it, 
 they show sense and they work to some purpose. When they 
 do not recognize the limits of their free agency and the veil 
 which hides from their eyes the future they are laboring for, 
 they become the dupes and frequently the victims of a blind 
 pride which events in the long rxm always end by exposing 
 and punishing. 
 
 Amongst men of his rank Charlemagne has had this singu- 
 lar good fortune that his error, his misguided attempt at im- 
 periahsm, perished with him, whilst his salutary achievement, 
 the territorial security of Christian Europe, has been durable, 
 to the great honor as well as great profit of European civiliza* 
 tion. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 DECAY AND FALL OF THE CARLOVINGIANS. 
 
 From the death of Charlemagne to the accession of Hugh 
 Capet, that is, from 814 to 987, thirteen kings sat upon the 
 throne of France. What then, became, under their reign and 
 in the course of those hundred and seventy -three years, of the 
 tAvo great facts which swayed the mind and occupied the life 
 of Charlemagne? What became, that is, of the sohd territorial 
 foundation of the kingdom of Chi*istian France through effi- 
 cient repression of foreign invasion, and of the unity of that 
 vast empire wherein Charlemagne had attempted and hoped 
 to resuscitate the Roman empire ? 
 
 The fate of those two facts is the very history of France 
 under the Carlovingian dynasty ; it is the only portion of the 
 events of that epoch which still deserves attention now-a-days, 
 for it is the only one which has exercised any great and last- 
 ing influence on the general history of France. 
 
 Attempts at foreign invasion of France were renewed very 
 often and in many parts of Gallo-Frankish territory during 
 the whole duration of the Carlovingian dynasty, and, even 
 though they failed, they caused the population of the kingdom 
 to suffer from cruel ravages. Charlemagne, even after his
 
 202 BISTORT OF FRANCE. |;ch. xti. 
 
 successes against the different barbaric invaders, had foreseen 
 the evils which would be inflicted on France by the most for- 
 midable and most determined of them, the Northmen, coming 
 by sea and landing on the coast. Tlie most closely contempo- 
 raneous and most given to detail of his chroniclers, the monk 
 of St. Gall, tells in prolix and pompous but evidently heart-felt 
 and sincere terms the tale of the great emperor's far-sighted- 
 ness. ' ' Charles, who was ever astir, " says he, ' ' arrived by 
 mere hap and unexpectedly in a certain town of Nai'bonnese 
 Gaul. Whilst he was at dinner and was as yet unrecognized 
 of anj-, some coreairs of the Northmen came to ply their pka- 
 cies in the very port. When theii' vessels were descried, they 
 were supposed to be Jewish traders according to some, African 
 according to others, and British in the opinion of others ; but 
 the gifted monarch, perceiving, by the build and lightness of 
 the craft, that thej^ bare not merchandise but foes, said to his 
 own folk, ' These vessels be not laden with merchandise, but 
 manned with cruel foes.' At these words all the Franks, in 
 rivalry one with another, run to their shijjs, but uselessly : for 
 the Northmen, indeed, heai'ing that yonder was he Avbom it 
 was stiU their wont to call Charles the Hammer, feared lest aU 
 their fleet should be taken or destroyed in the port, and they 
 avoided, by a flight of inconceivable rapidity, not only the 
 glaives, but even the eyes of those who were pursuing them. 
 
 " Pious Charles, however, a, prey to "well-gi'ounded fear, rose 
 up from table, stationed himself at a window looking east- 
 ward, and there remained a long while and liis eyes were 
 filled with tears. As none durst question Mm, this warlike 
 prince explained to the grandees who were about his person 
 the cause of his movement and of his tears: "Know ye, my 
 lieges, wherefore I weep so bitterly? Of a surety I fear not 
 lest these fellows should succeed in injuring me by their 
 miserable piracies; but it grieveth me deeply that, whilst I 
 live, they should have been nigh to touching at this shore, 
 and I am a prey to violent sorrow when I foresee what evils 
 they will heap upon my descendants and their people.' " 
 
 The forecast and the dejection of Charles were not unreason- 
 able. It will be found that there is special mention made, in 
 the chronicles of the ninth and tenth centuries, of forty-seven 
 incursions into France of Norwegian, Danish, Swedish, and 
 Irish pirates, all comprised under the name of Northmen; 
 and, doubtless, many other incui*sions of less gi-avity have left 
 no trace in history. "The Northmen," says M. Fauriel,
 
 em xn.] DEOAT AND FALL OF TEE CARLOVINOIANS. 203 
 
 " descended from the Borth to the south by a sort of natural 
 gradation or ladder. The Scheldt was the first river by the 
 mouth of which they penetrated inland; the Seine was the 
 second; the Loire the third. The advance was threatening 
 for the countries traversed by the G-aronne ; and it was in 844 
 that vessels freighted with Northmen for the first time as- 
 cended this last river to a considerable distance inland, and 
 there took immense booty. . . . The following year they pil- 
 laged and burnt Saintes. In 846 they got as far as Limoges. 
 The inhabitants, finding themselves unable to make head 
 agaiast the daimtless pirates, abandoned their hearths, to- 
 gether with all they had not time to carry away. Encouraged 
 by these successes the Northmen reappeared next year upon 
 the coasts and in the rivers of Aquitaine, and they attempted 
 to take Bordeaux, whence they were valorously repulsed by 
 the inhabitants; but in 848, having once more laid siege to 
 that city, they were admitted into it at night by the Jews, who 
 were there in great force ; the city was given up to plunder 
 and conflagration; a portion of the people was scattered 
 abroad and the rest put to the sword. " Tours, Rouen, Angers, 
 Orleans, Meaux, Toulouse, Saint-L6, Bayeux, Evreux, Nantes, 
 and Beauvais, some of them more than once, met the fate 
 of Saintes, Limoges, and Bordeaux. The monasteries and 
 churches, wherein they hoped to find treasures, were the 
 favorite object of the Northmen's enterprises; in particular, 
 they plundered, at the gates of Paris, the abbey of St. Ger- 
 main des Pres and that of St. Denis, whence they carried off 
 the abbot, who could not purchase his freedom save by a 
 heavy ransom. They penetrated more than once into Paris 
 itself, and subjected many of its quarters to contributions or 
 pOlage. The populations grew into the habit of suffering and 
 fleeing; and the local lords, and even the kings, made arrange- 
 ment sometimes with the pirates either for saving the royal 
 domains from the ravages, or for having their own share 
 therein. In 850, Pepin, king of Aquitaine, and brother of 
 Charles the Bald, came to an understanding ^vith the North- 
 men who had ascended the Garonne and were threatening 
 Toulouse. "They arrived mider his guidance," says M. 
 Fauriel, "they laid siege to it, took it and plundered it, nob 
 halfwise, not hastily, as folks who feared to be surprised, but 
 leisurely, with all security, by virtue of a treaty of alliance 
 with one of the kings of the country. Throughout Aquitaine 
 there was but one cry of indignation against Pepin, and the
 
 204 HISTORY OF FRANCE. [CH. xn. 
 
 popularity of Charles was increased in proportion to all the 
 horror inspired by the ineffable misdeed of his adversary. 
 Charles the Bald himself, if he did not ally liimself , as Pepin 
 did, with the invaders, took scarce any interest in the fate of 
 the populations and scarcely more trouble to protect them, 
 for Hincmar, archbishop of Eheims, wrote to him in 859: 
 "Many folks say that you are incessantly repeating that it is 
 not for you to mix yourself up with these depredations and 
 robberies, and that every one has but to defend himself as 
 best he may." 
 
 It were tedious to relate or even to enumerate all these 
 incursions of the Northmen, with their monotonous incidents. 
 When their frequency and their general character has been 
 notified, all has been done that is due to them from history. 
 However there are three on which it may be worth while to 
 dwell particularly, by reason of their grave historical conse- 
 quences, as well as of the dramatic details which have been 
 transmitted to us about them. 
 
 In the middle and during the last half of the ninth century, 
 a chief of the Northmen, named Hastenc or Hastings, ap- 
 peared several times over on the coasts and in the rivers of 
 France, with numerous vessels and a following. He had also 
 with him, say the chronicles, a young Norwegian or Danish 
 prince, Bioern, called Ironsides, whom he had educated, and 
 who had preferred sharing the fortunes of his governor to 
 living quietly with the king his father. After several expedi- 
 tions into Western France, Hastings became the theme of 
 terrible and very probably fabulous stories. He extended 
 his cruises, they say, to the Mediterranean, and, having 
 arrived at the coasts of Tuscany, within sight of a city which 
 in his ignorance he took for Rome, he resolved to pillage it ; 
 but, not feeling strong enough to attack it by assault, he sent 
 to the bishop to say he was very ill, felt a wish to become a 
 Christian, and begged to be baptized. Some days afterwards 
 his comrades spread a report that he was dead, and claimed 
 for him the honors of a solemn burial. The bishop consented ; 
 the coffin of Hastings was carried into the church, attended 
 by a large number of his followers, without visible weapons; 
 but, in the middle of the ceremony, Hastings suddenly leaped 
 up, sword in hand, from his cofl&n; his followers displayed 
 the weapons they had concealed, closed the doors, slew the 
 priests, pillaged the ecclesiastical treasures, and re-embarked 
 before the very eyes of the stupefied population, to go and
 
 CH. XII.] DECAY AND FALL OF TEE CARLOVINOTANb, 206 
 
 resume, on the coasts of France, their incursions and their 
 ravages. 
 
 Whether they were true or false, these rumors of hold arti- 
 fices and distant expeditions on the part of Hastings aggra- 
 vated the dismay inspired by his appearance. He penetrated 
 into the interior of the country in Poitou, Anjou, Brittany, 
 and along the Seine; pillaged the monasteries of Jumieges, 
 St. Vaudrille, and St. Evrotil ; took possession of Chartres and 
 appeared before Paris, where Charles the Bald, entrenched at 
 St. Denis, was dehberating with his prelates and barons as to 
 how he might resist the Northmen or treat with them. The 
 chronicle says that the barons advised resistance, but that the 
 king preferred negotiation, and sent the Abbot of St. Denis, 
 "the which was an exceeding wise man," to Hastings, who, 
 " after long parley and by reason of large gifts and promises," 
 consented to stop his crvusings, to become a Christian and to 
 settle in the countship of Chartres, "which the king gave him 
 as an hereditary possession, with all its appurtenances." 
 According to other accoimts, it was only some years later, 
 imder the yomig king Louis III., grandson of Charles the 
 BaJd, that Hastings was induced, either by reverses or by 
 payment of money, to cease from his piracies and accept in 
 recompense the countship of Chartres. Whatever may have 
 been the date, he was, it is believed, the first chieftain of the 
 Northmen who renounced a life of adventure and plunder, to 
 become, in France, a great landed proprietor and a count of 
 the king's. Prince Bioem then separated from his governor 
 and put again to sea, "laden with so rich a booty that he 
 could never feel any want of wealth ; but a tempest swallowed 
 dp a great part of his fleet, and cast him upon the coasts of 
 Friesland, where he died soon after, for which Hastings was 
 exceeding sorry, " 
 
 A greater chieftain of the Northmen than Hastings was 
 soon to follow his example and found Normandy in France; 
 but before Rolf, that is, Eollo, came and gave the name of his 
 race to a French province, the piratical Northmen were again 
 to attempt a greater blow against France and to suffer a great 
 reverse. 
 
 In November, 885, under the reign of Charles the Fat, after 
 having, for more than forty years, irregularly ravaged France, 
 they resolved to unite their forces in order at length to obtain 
 possession of Paris, whose outskirts they had so often pillaged 
 without having been able to enter the heart of the place, in
 
 206 HISTORY OF FRANCE. . [CH. xn. 
 
 the lie de la Cite, which had originally been and still was the 
 real Paris. Two bodies of troops were set in motion; one, 
 under the command of Rollo, who was already famous 
 amongst his comrades, marched on Rouen; the other went 
 right up the course of the Seine, under the orders of Siegfried, 
 whom the Northmen caUed theii- king. RoUo took Rouen, 
 and pushed on at once for Paris. Duke Renaud, general of 
 the Gallo-Frankish troops, went to encounter him on the 
 banks of the Eure, and sent to him, to soimd his intentions, 
 Hastings, the newly-made coimt of Ohartres. "Valiant 
 warriors," said Hastings to Rollo, "whence come ye? What 
 seek ye here? What is the name of your lord and master? 
 Tell us this; for we be sent unto you by the king of the 
 Franks." "We be Danes," answered Rollo, "and all be 
 equally masters amongst us. We be come to drive out the 
 inhabitants of this land, and to subject it as our own country. 
 But who art thou, thou who speakest so ghbly ?" ' ' Ye have 
 sometime heard tell of one Hastings, who, issuing forth from 
 amongst you, came hither with much shipping and made 
 desert a great part of the kingdom of the Franks?" "Yes," 
 said Rollo, "we have heard tell of him; Hastings began well 
 and ended iU." "Will ye yield you to King Charles?" asked 
 Hastings. "We yield," was the answer, "to none; all that 
 we shall take by our arms we will keep as our right. Go and 
 tell this, if thou wilt, to the king, whose envoy thou boastest 
 to be." Hastings returned to the Gallo-Frankish army, and 
 Rollo prepared to march on Paris. Hastings had gone back 
 somewhat troubled in mind. Now there was amongst the 
 Franks one Count Tetbold (Thibault), who greatly coveted 
 the countship of Chartres, and he said to Hastings, "Why 
 slumberest thou softly? Knowest thou not that King Chai'les 
 doth purpose thy death by cause of all the Chi'istian blood 
 that thou didst aforetime unjustly shed? Bethink thee of all 
 the evil thou hast done him, by reason whereof he purposeth 
 to drive thee from his land. Take heed to thyself that thou 
 be not smitten unawares." Hastings, dismayed, at once sold 
 to Tetbold the town of Chartres, and, removing all that be- 
 longed to him, departed to go and resume, for all that appears, 
 his old course of life. 
 
 On the 25th of November, 885, all the forces of the North- 
 men formed a junction before Paris; sev^en hundred huge 
 barques covered two leagues of the Seine, bringing, it is said, 
 more than 30,000 men. The chieftains were astonished at
 
 CH. xii.] DECAY AND FALL OF THE CARL0YINGIAN8. 207 
 
 sight of the new fortifications of the city, a double waD of 
 circumvallation, the bridges crowned with towers, and in the 
 environs the ramparts of the abbeys of St. Denis and St. 
 Grermain solidly rebuilt. Siegfried hesitated to attack a town 
 so well defended. He demanded to enter alone and have an 
 interview with the bishop, Gozlin. " Take pity on thyself and 
 thy flock," said he to him; " let us but pass through this city; 
 we will in nijwise touch the town; we Avill do our best to 
 preserve, for thee and Count Eudes, all your possessions." 
 "This city," rephed the bishop, "hath been confided unto us 
 by the Emperor Charles, king and ruler, under God, of the 
 powers of the earth. He hath confided it unto us not that it 
 should cause the ruin but the salvation of the kingdom. If 
 peradventui'e these walls had been confided to thy keeping as 
 they have been to mine, wouldst thou do as thou biddest me?" 
 "If ever I do so," answered Siegfried, "may my head be 
 condemned to fall by the sword and serve as food to the dogs I 
 But if thou yield not to our prayers, so soon as the sun shall 
 commence his course, our armies will launch upon thee their 
 poisoned arrows ; and when the sim shall end his course, they 
 wiU give thee over to all the horrors of famine ; and this will 
 they do from year to year. " The bishop, however, persisted, 
 without further discussion; being as certain of Count Eudes 
 as he was of himself. Eudes, who was young and but re- 
 cently made coimt of Paris, was the eldest son of Eobert the 
 Strong, count of Anjou, of the same line as Charlemagne, and 
 but lately slain in battle against the Northmen. Paris had 
 for defenders two heroes, one of the Church and the other of 
 the Empire: the faith of the Christian and the fealty of the 
 vassal; the conscientiousness of the priest and the honor of 
 the warrior. 
 
 The siege lasted thirteen months, whiles pushew vigorously 
 forward with eight several assaults, whiles maintained by close 
 investment, and with all the alternations of success and re- 
 verse, aU the intermixture of briUiant daring and obscure suf- 
 ferings that can occur when the assailants are determined and 
 the defenders devoted. Not only a contemporary but an eye- 
 witness, Abbo, a monk of St. Germain des Pres, has recounted 
 the details in a long poem, wherein the writer, devoid of talent, 
 adds nothing to the simple representation of events; it is his- 
 tory itself which gives to Abbo's poem a high degree of interest. 
 We do not possess, in reference to these continual struggles of 
 the Northmen with the Gallo-Frankish populations, any other
 
 208 HISTORY OF FRANCE. [cH. xn. 
 
 document which is equally precise and complete, or ■which 
 could make us so well acquainted with all the incidents, all the 
 phases of this irregular warfare between two peoples, one with 
 out a government, the other without a country. The bishop, 
 Gozlin, died during the siege. Count Eudes quitted Paris for a 
 time to go and beg aid of the emperor ; but the Parisians soon 
 saw him reappear on the heights of Montmartre with three bat- 
 talions of troops, and he re-entered the town, spurring on his 
 horse and striking right and left with his battle-axe through 
 the ranks of the dumbfounded besiegers. The stiniggle was 
 prolonged throughout the summer; and when, in November, 
 886, Charles the Fat at last appeared before Paris, "with a 
 large army of all nations," it was to purchase the retreat of the 
 Northmen at the cost of a heavy ransom, and by allowing them 
 to go and winter in Burgundy, "whereof the inhabitants 
 obeyed not the emperor." 
 
 Some months afterwards, in 887, Charles the Fat was deposed, 
 at a diet held on the banks of the Rhine, by the grandees of 
 Germanic France ; and Arnulf , a natural son of Carloman, the 
 brother of Louis III. , was proclaimed emperor in his stead. At 
 the same time Count Eudes, the gallant defender of Paris, was 
 elected king at Compiegne and crowned by the Archbishop of 
 Sens. Guy, duke of Spoleto, descended from Charlemagne in 
 the female line, hastened to France and was declared king at 
 Langres by the bishop of that town, but returned with precipi- 
 tation to Italy, seeing no chance of maintaining himself in his 
 French kingship. Elsewhere, Boso, duke of Aries, became 
 king of Provence, and the Burgundian Count Rodolph had 
 himself crowned at St. Maurice, in the Valais, king of trans- 
 juran Burgundy. There was still in France a legitimate Car- 
 lovingian, a son of Louis the Stutterer, who was hereafter to 
 become Charles the Simple; but being only a child, he had 
 been rejected or completely forgotten, and, in the interval that 
 was to elapse ere his time should arrive, kings were being made 
 in all directions. 
 
 In the midst of this confusion, the Northmen, though they 
 kept at a distance from Paris, pursued in Western France their 
 cruising and plundering. In RoUo they had a chieftain far su- 
 perior to his vagabond predecessors. Though he still led the 
 same life that they had, he displayed therein other faculties, 
 other inchnations, other views. In his youth he had made an 
 expedition to England and had there contracted a real friend- 
 ship with the wise king Alfred the Great. During a capapaign
 
 CH. XII.] DECAY AND FALL OF THE CARL0VINO1AN8. 209 
 
 in Friesland he had taken prisoner Rainier, count of Hainault ; 
 and Alberade, countess of Brabant, made a request to Rollo for 
 her husband's release, offering in return to set free twelve cap- 
 tains of the Northmen, her prisoners, and to give up all the 
 gold she possessed. Rollo took only half the gold, and restored 
 to the countess her husband. When, in 885, he became master 
 of Rouen, instead of devastating the city after the fashion of 
 his kind, he respected the buildings, had the ■walls repaired, and 
 hiunored the inhabitants. In spite of his violent and extor- 
 tionate practices where he met with obstinate resistance, there 
 were to be discerned in him symptoms of more noble sentiments 
 and of an instinctive leaning towards order, civilization, and 
 government. After the deposition of Charles the Fat and dur- 
 ing the reign of Eudes, a lively struggle was maintained between 
 the Frankish king and the chieftain of the Northmen, who had 
 neither of them forgotten their early encounters. They strove, 
 one against the other, with varied fortunes ; Eudes succeeded 
 in beating the Northmen at Montfaucon, but was beaten in 
 Vermandois by another band, commanded, it is said, by the 
 veteran Hastings, sometime Count of Chartres. RoUo, too, had 
 his share at one time of success, at another of reverse ; but he 
 made himself master of several important towns, showed a dis- 
 position to treat the quiet populations gently, and made a fresh 
 trip to England, during which he renewed friendly relations 
 with her king, Athelstan the successor of Alfred the Great. 
 He thus became, from day to day, more reputable as well as 
 more formidable ia France, in so much that Eudes himself was 
 obhged to have recourse, in dealing with him, to negotiations 
 and presents. When, in 898, Eudes was dead and Charles the 
 Simple, at hardly nineteen years of age, had been recognized 
 sole king of France, the ascendency of Rollo became such that 
 the necessity of treating with him was clear. In 911 Charles, 
 by the advice of his councillors and, amongst them, of Robert, 
 brother of the late king Eudes, who had himself become Count 
 of Paris and Duke of France, sent to the chieftain of the North- 
 men Franco, archbishop of Rouen, with orders to offer him the 
 cession of a considerable portion of Neustria and the hand of 
 his young daughter Gisele, on condition that he became a 
 Christian and acknowledged himself the king's vassal. RoUo, 
 by the advice of his comrades, received these overtures with a 
 good grace and agreed to a truce for three months, during 
 which they might treat about peace. On the day fixed, Charles, 
 accompanied by Duke Robert, and RoUo, surroimded by his
 
 210 HISTORY OF FRANGB. [CH. XO. 
 
 warriors, repaired to St. Clair-sur-Epte, on the opposite banks 
 of the river, and exchanged numerous messages. Charles of- 
 fered Eollo Flanders, which the Northman refused, considering 
 it too swampy; as to the maritime portion of Neustria, he 
 would not be contented with it ; it was, he said, covered with 
 forests, and had become quite a stranger to the ploughshare, 
 by reason of the Northmen's incessant incursions ; he demanded 
 the addition of territories taken from Brittany, and that the 
 princes of that province, Berenger and Alan, lords, respectively, 
 of Redon and Dol, should take the oath of fidehty to him. 
 When matters had been arranged on this basis, "the bishops 
 told RoUo that he who received such a gift as the duchy of 
 Normandy was bound to kiss the king's foot. 'Never,' quoth 
 Eollo, ' wiU I bend the knee before the knees of any, and I will 
 kiss the foot of none.' At the sohcitation of the Franks he 
 then ordered one of his warriors to kiss the king's foot. The 
 Northman, remaining bolt upright, took hold of the king's foot, 
 raised it to his mouth, and so made the king fall backward, 
 which caused great bursts of laughter and much disturbance 
 amongst the throng. Then the king and all the grandees who 
 were about him, prelates, abbots, dukes, and counts, swore, in 
 the name of the Catholic faith, that they would protect the 
 patrician EoUo in his life, his members, and his folk, and would 
 guarantee to him the possession of the aforesaid land, to him 
 and his descendants for ever, After which the king, well-sat- 
 isfied, returned to his domains ; and Eollo departed with Duke 
 Eobert for the town of Eouen." 
 
 The dignity of Charles the Simple had no reason to be well- 
 satisfied ; but the great poUtical question which, a century be- 
 fore, caused Charlemagne such lively anxiety was solved ; the 
 most dangerous, the most incessantly renewed of all foreign in- 
 vasions, those of the Northmen, ceased to threaten France. 
 The vagabond pirates had a cotintry to cultivate and defend; 
 the Northmen were becoming French. 
 
 No such transformation was near taking place in the case of 
 the invasions of the Saracens in Southern Gaul, they continued 
 to infest Aquitania, Septimania, and Provence; their robber- 
 hordes appeared frequently on the coasts of the Mediterraneaa 
 and the banks of the Ehone, at Aigues-Mortes, at Marseilles, at 
 Aries, and in Camargue; they sometimes penetrated into Dau- 
 phin^, Eouergue, Limousin, and Saintonge. The author of this 
 history saw, at the commencement of the present century, in 
 the mountains of the C6vennes, the ruins of the towers built, a
 
 CH. xn.] DECAY AND FALL OF THE CARLOVINOIANS. 211 
 
 thousand years ago, by the inhabitants of those rugged coun- 
 tries, to put their families and their flocks under shelter from 
 the incursions of the Saracens. But these incursions were of 
 short duration, and most frequently imdertaken by plunderers 
 few in number, who retreated precipitately with their booty. 
 Africa was not, as Asia was, an inexhaustible source of nations 
 burning to push onward, one upon another, to go wandering 
 and settling elsewhere. The people of the north move vdllingly 
 towards the south, where living is easier and pleasanter ; but 
 the people of the south are not much disposed to migi-ate to the 
 north, with its soil so hard to cultivate and its leaden skies, and 
 into the midst of its fogs and frosts. After a course of plunder- 
 ing in Aquitania or in Provence, the Arabs of Spain and of 
 Africa were eager to recross the Pyrenees or the Mediterranean, 
 and regain their own lovely climate and their life of easeful- 
 ness that never palled. Furthermore, between Christians and 
 Mussulmans the rehgious antipathy was profound. The Chris- 
 tian missionaries were not much given to carrying their pious 
 zeal into the home of the Mussulman; and the Mussulmans 
 were far less disposed than the pagans to become Christians. 
 To preserve their conquests, the Arabs of Spain had to struggle 
 against the refugee Goths in the Asturias ; and Charlemagne, 
 by extending those of the Franks to the Ebro, had given the 
 Christian Goths a powerful alhance agaiast the Spanish Mus- 
 sulmans. For all these reasons the invasions of the Saracens 
 in the south of France did not threaten, as those of the North- 
 men did in the north, the security of the Gallo-Frankish mon- 
 archy, and the Gallo-Eoman populations of the south were able 
 to defend their national independence at the same time against 
 the Saracens and the Franks. They did so successfully in the 
 niath and tenth centuries ; and the French monarchy, which 
 was being founded between the Loire and the Rhine, had thus 
 for some time a breach in it without ever suffering serious dis- 
 placement. 
 
 A new people, the Hungarians, which was the only name 
 then given to the Magyars, appeared at this epoch, for the first 
 time, amongst the devastators of Western Europe. From 910 
 to 954, as a consequence of movements and wars on the Danube, 
 Hungarian hordes, after scouring central Germany, penetrated 
 into Alsace, Lorraine, Champagne, Burgundy, Berry, Dauphine. 
 Provence, and even Aquitaine ; but this inundation was transi- 
 tory, and if the populations of those countries had much to suf- 
 fer from it, the Gallo-Frankish dominion, in spite of inward
 
 212 HISTORY OF FRANOB. [CH. xn 
 
 disorder and the feebleness of the latter Carlovingians, was not 
 seriously endangered thereby. 
 
 And so the first of Charlemagne's grand designs, the terri- 
 torial security of the Gallo-Frankish and Christian dominion, 
 was accomplished. In the east and the north, the Germanic 
 and Asiatic populations, which had so long upset it, were partly 
 arrested at its frontiers, partly incorporated regularly in its 
 midst. In the south, the Mussulman populations which, in the 
 eighth century, had appeared so near overwhelming it, were 
 powerless to deal it any heavy blow. Substantially France 
 was founded. But what had become of Charlemagne's second 
 grand design, the resuscitation of the Roman empire at the 
 hands of the barbarians that had conquered it and become 
 Christians? 
 
 Let us leave Louis the Debonnair his traditional name, 
 although it is not an exact rendering of that which was given 
 him by his contemporaries. They called him Louis the Pious. 
 And so indeed he was, sincerely and even scrupulously pious; 
 but he was still more weak than pious, as weak in heart and 
 character as in mind ; as destitute of ruling ideas as of strength 
 of will ; fluctuating at the mercy of transitory impressions, or 
 surrounding influences, or positional embarrassments. The 
 name of Debonnair is suited to him; it expresses his moral 
 worth and his pohtical incapacity, both at once. 
 
 As King of Aquitania, in the time of Charlemagne, Louis 
 made himself esteemed and loved ; his justice, his suavity, his 
 probity, and his piety were pleasing to the people, and his 
 weaknesses disappeared under the strong hand of his father. 
 When he became emperor, he began his reign by a reaction 
 against the excesses, real or supposed, of the preceding reign. 
 Charlemagne's morals were far from regular, and he troubled 
 himself but httle about the license prevailing in his famOy or 
 his palace. At a distance, he ruled with a tight and heavy 
 hand. Louis established at his court, for his sisters as well as 
 his servants, austere regulations. He restored to the subju- 
 gated Saxons certain of the rights of which Charlemagne had 
 deprived them. He sent out every where his commissLoners 
 (missi dominici) with orders to listen to complaints and redress 
 grievances, and to mitigate his father's rule, which was rigor- 
 ous in its application and yet insufficient to repress disturb- 
 ance, notwithstanding its preventive purpose and its watchful 
 supervision. 
 
 Almost simultaneously with bis accession, Louis committed
 
 CH. xn.] DECAY AND FALL OF THE CARLOVINOIANS. 213 
 
 an act more serious and compromising. He had, by his wife 
 Hermengarde, three sons, Lothaire, Pepin, and Louis, aged 
 respectively nineteen, eleven, and eight. In 817, Louis sum- 
 moned at Aix-la-Chapelle the general assembly of his domin- 
 ions ; and there, whilst declaring that ' ' neither to those who 
 were wisely-minded, nor to himself, did it appear expedient to 
 break up, for the love he bare his sons and by the will of man, 
 the unity of the empire, preserved by God himself, " he had re- 
 solved to share with his eldest son, Lothaire, the imperial 
 throne. Lothaire was in fact crowned emperor ; and his two 
 brothers, Pepin and Louis, were crowned king, ' ' in order that 
 they might reign, after their father's death and under their 
 brother and lord, Lothaire, to wit : Pepin, over Aquitaine and a 
 great part of Southern Gaiil and of Burgundy ; Louis, beyond 
 the Rhine, over Bavaria and the divers peoples in the east of 
 Germany." The rest of Gaul and of Germany, as well as the 
 kingdom of Italy, was to belong to Lothaire, emperor and head 
 of the Frankish monarchy, to whom his brothers would have 
 to repair year by year to come to an understanding with him 
 and receive his instructions. The last-named kingdom, the 
 most considerable of the three, remained under the direct gov- 
 ernment of Louis the Debonnair, and at the same time of his 
 son Lothaire, sharing the title of emperor. The two other 
 sons, Pepin and Louis, entered, notwithstanding their child- 
 hood, upon immediate possession, the one of Aquitaine and the 
 other of Bavaria, under the superior authority of their father 
 and their brother, the joint emperors. 
 
 Charlemagne had vigorously maintained the unity of the 
 empire, for all that he had delegated to two of his sons, Pepin 
 and Louis, the government of Italy and Aquitaine with the 
 title of king. Louis the Debonnair, whilst regulating before- 
 hand the division of his dominion, Hkewise desired, as he said, 
 to maintain the unity of the empire. But he forgot that he was 
 no Charlemagne. 
 
 It was not long before numerous mournful experiences 
 showed to what extent the unity of the empire required per- 
 sonal superiority in the emperor, and how rapid would be the 
 decay of the fabric when there remained nothing but the title 
 of the founder. 
 
 In 816 Pope Stephen IV. came to France to consecrate Louis 
 the Debonnair emperor. Many a time already the popes had 
 rendered the Frankish kings this service and honor. The 
 Franks had been proud to see their king, Charlemagne, pro-
 
 214 BISTORT OF FRANCE. [CB. xn 
 
 tecting Adrian I. against the Lombards; then crowned em- 
 peror at Rome by Leo III., and then having his two sons, 
 Pepin and Louis, crowned at Rome, by the same pope, kings 
 respectively of Italy and of Aquitaine. On these different oc- 
 casions Charlemagne, whilst testifying the most profound re- 
 spect for the Pope, had, in his relations with him, always taken 
 care to preserve, together with his political greatness, all his 
 personal dignity. But when, in 816, the Franks saw Louis the 
 Pious not only go out of Rheims to meet Stephen IV., but pros- 
 trate himself, from head to foot, and rise only when the Pope 
 held out a hand to him, the spectators felt saddened and 
 humiUated at the sight of their emperor in the posture of a 
 penitent monk. 
 
 Several insurrections burst out in the empire; the first 
 amongst the Basques of Aquitaine; the next in Italy, where 
 Bernard, son of Pepin, having, after his father's death, become 
 king in 813, with the consent of his grandfather Charlemagne, 
 could not quietly see his kingdom pass into the hands of his 
 cousin Lothaire at the orders of his uncle Louis. These two 
 attempts were easily repressed, but the third was more serious. 
 It took place in Brittany amongst those populations of Armo- 
 rica who were still buried in their woods, and were excessively 
 jealous of their independence. In 818 they took for king one 
 of their principal chieftains, named Morvan ; and, not confining 
 themselves to a refusal of all tribute to the king of the Franks, 
 they renewed their ravages upon the Frankish territories bor- 
 dering on their frontier. Louis was at that time holding a 
 general assembly of his dominions at Aix-la-Chapelle ; and 
 Count Lantbert, commandant of the marches of Brittany, 
 came and reported to him what was going on. A Frankish 
 monk, named Ditcar, happened to be at the assembly : he was 
 a man of piety and sense, a friend of peace, and, moreover, 
 with some knowledge of the Breton king Morvan, as his mon- 
 astery had property in the neighborhood. Him the emperor 
 commissioned to convey to the king his grievances and his de- 
 mands. After some days' journey the monk passed the fron- 
 tier and ai'rived at a vast space enclosed on one side by a noble 
 river, and on all the others by forests and swamps, hedges and 
 ditches. In the middle of this space was a large dwelling, 
 which was Morvan's. Ditcar found it full of warriors, the king 
 having, no doubt, some expedition on hand. The monk an- 
 nounced himself as a messenger from the Emperor of the 
 Franks. The style of announcement caused some confusion,
 
 CH. xii.] DECAY AND FALL OF THE CARLOVINOIANS. 215 
 
 at first, to the Briton, who, however, hasted to conceal his 
 emotion under an air of goodwill and joyousness, to impose 
 upon his comrades. The latter were got rid of ; and the king 
 remained alone with the monk, who explained the object of his 
 mission. He descanted upon the power of the Emperor Louis, 
 recounted his complaints, and warned the Briton, kindly and 
 in a private capacity, of the danger of his situation, a danger 
 so much the greater in that he and his people would meet with 
 the less consideration, seeing that they kept up the religion of 
 their Pagan forefathers. Morvan gave attentive ear to this 
 sermon, with his eyes fixed on the ground, and his foot tapping 
 it from time to time. Ditcar thought he had succeeded ; but 
 an incident supervened. It was the hour when Morvan 's wife 
 was accustomed to come and look for him ere they retired to 
 the nuptial couch. She appeared, eager to know who the 
 stranger was, what he had come for, what he had said, what 
 answer he had received. She preluded her questions with 
 oghngs and caresses; she kissed the knees, the hands, the 
 beard, and the face of the king, testifying her desire to be 
 alone with him. " O king and glory of the mighty Britons, 
 dear spouse of mine, what tidings bringeth this stranger? Is it 
 peace, or is it war?" "This stranger," answered Morvan with 
 a smile, "is an envoy of the Franks ; but bring he peace or 
 bring he war, is the affair of men alone ; as for thee, content 
 thee with thy woman's duties." Thereupon Ditcar, perceiving 
 that he was countered, said to Morvan, "Sir king, 'tis time 
 that I return ; tell me what answer I am to take back to my 
 sovereign." " Leave me this night to take thought thereon," 
 replied the Breton chief, with a wavering air. When the morn- 
 ing came. Ditcar presented himself once more to Morvan, whom 
 he found up, but still half -drunk and full of very different sen- 
 timents from those of the night before. It required some effort, 
 stupefied and tottering as he was with the effects of wine and 
 the pleasures of the night, to say to Ditcar, " Go back to thy 
 king, and tell him from me that my land was never his, and 
 that I owe him naught of tribute or submission. Let him reign 
 over the Franks ; as for me, I reign over the Britons. If he 
 will bring war on me, he will find me ready to pay him back. " 
 The monk returned to Louis the Debonnair, and rendered 
 account of his mission. War was resolved upon ; and the em- 
 peror collected his troops, AUemannians, Saxons, Thuringians, 
 Burgimdians, and Aquitanians, without counting Franks or 
 GaUo-Romans. They bearan their march, moving upon Vannes ; 
 (10) HF ' Vol. 1
 
 216 HISTORY OF FRANCE. [cH. xiT. 
 
 Louis was at their head, and the empress accompanied him, but 
 he left her, already ill and fatigued, at Angers. The Franks 
 entered the country of the Britons, searched the woods and 
 morasses, found no armed men in the open country, but en 
 countered them in scattered and scanty companies, at the en- 
 trance of all the defiles, on the heights commanding pathways, 
 and wherever men could hide themselves' and await the moment 
 for appearing unexpectedly. The Franks heard them, from 
 amidst the heather and the brushwood, uttering shrill cries, to 
 give warning one to another or to alarm the enemy. The 
 Franks advanced cautiously, and at last arrived at the entrance 
 of the thick wood which surrovmded Morvan's abode. He had 
 not yet set out with the pick of the warriors he had about him ; 
 but, at the appi-oach of the Franks, he summoned his wife and 
 his domestics, and said to them, " Defend ye well this house 
 and these woods ; as for me, I am gomg to march forward to 
 collect my people ; after which to return, but not without booty 
 and spoils. " He put on his armor, took a javelin in each hand, 
 and mounted his horse. "Thou seest," said he to his wife, 
 " these javelins I brandish: I will bring them back to thee this 
 very day dyed with the blood of Franks. Farewell. " Setting 
 out he pierced, followed by his men, through the thickness of 
 the forest, and advanced to meet the Franks. 
 
 The battle began. The large nuanbers of the Franks who 
 covered the ground for some distance dismayed the Britons, 
 and many of them fled, seeking where they might hide them- 
 selves. Morvan, beside himself with rage and at the head of 
 his most devoted followers, rushed down upon the Franks as if 
 to demolish them at a single stroke ; and many fell beneath his 
 blows. He singled out a warrior of inferior grade, towards 
 whom he made at a gallop, and, insulting him by word of 
 mouth, after the ancient fashion of the Celtic warriors, cried, 
 " Frank, I am going to give thee my first present, a present 
 which I have been keeping for thee a long while, and which I 
 hope thou wilt bear in mind ;" and launched at him a javelin 
 which the other received on his shield. "Proud Briton," re- 
 plied the Frank, " I have received thy present, and I am going 
 to give thee mine." He dug both spurs into his horse's sides 
 and galloped down upon Morvan, who, clad though he was in 
 a coat of mail, fell pierced by the thrust of a lance. The Frank 
 had but time to dismount and cut off his head when he fell him- 
 self, mortally wounded by one of Morvan's young warriors, but 
 not without having, in his turn, dealt the other his deathblow.
 
 CH. xn.] DECAY AND FALL OF THE CARLOYINGIANS. 217 
 
 It spreads on all sides that Morvan is dead ; and the Franka 
 eome thronging to the scene of the encounter. There is picked 
 up and passed from hand to hand a head all bloody and fear- 
 fully disfigured. Ditcar the monk is called to see it, and to say 
 whether it is that of Morvan ; but he has to wash the mass of 
 disfigurement, and to partially adjust the hair, before he can 
 pronounce that it is really Morvan's. There is then no more 
 doubt ; resistance is now impossible ; the widow, the family and 
 the servants of Morvan arrive, are brought before Louis the 
 Debonnair, accept all the conditions imposed upon them, and 
 the Franks withdraw with the boast that Brittany is henceforth 
 their tributary. {Faits et Gestes de Louis le Pieux, a poem by 
 Ermold le Noir, in M. Guizot's Collection des Memoires relatifs 
 OL VHistoire de France, t. iv., p. 1-113.— Fauriel, Histoire de la 
 Gaide, etc. t. iv., p. 77-88.) 
 
 On arriving at Angers, Louis found the Empress Hermen- 
 garde dying ; and two days afterwards she was dead. He had 
 a tender heart which was not proof against sorrow; and he 
 testified a desire to abdicate and turn monk. But he was dis- 
 suaded from his purpose ; for it was easy to influence his reso- 
 lutions. A little later, he was advised to marry again, and he 
 yielded. Several princesses were introduced; and he chose 
 Judith of Bavaria, daughter of Count Welf (Guelf), a family 
 already powerful and in later times celebrated. Judith was 
 young, beautiful, witty, ambitious, and skilled in the art of 
 making the gift of pleasing subserve the passion for ruUng. 
 Louis, during his expedition into Brittany, had just witnessed 
 the fatal result of a woman's empire over her husband ; he was 
 destined himself to offer a more striking and more long-lived 
 example of it. In 823, he had, by his new empress Judith, a 
 son, whom he called Charles, and who was hereafter to be 
 known as Charles the Bald. Tliis son became his mother's rul- 
 ing, if not exclusive, passion, and the source of his father's 
 woes. His birth could not fail to c use ill-temper and mistrust 
 in Louis' three sons by Hermengarde, who were already kings. 
 They had but a short time previously received the first proof 
 of their father's weakness. In 832, Louis, repenting of his 
 severity towards his nephew Bernard of Italy, whose eyes he 
 had caused to be put out as a pimishment for rebellion, and 
 who had died in consequence, considered himself boimd to per- 
 form at Attigny, in the church and before the people, a solemn 
 act of penance ; which was creditable to his honesty and piety, 
 but the details left upon the minds of the beholders an impre*
 
 218 HISTORY OF FRANCE. [CH. xil 
 
 sion unfavorable to the emperor's dignity and authority. In 
 829, during an assembly held at Worms, he, yielding to his 
 wife's entreaties and doubtless also to his own yearnings 
 towards his youngest son, set at naught the solemn act 
 whereby, in 817, he had shared his dominions amongst his 
 three elder sons; and took away from two of them, in Bur- 
 gundy and Allemannia, some of the territories he had assigned 
 to them, and gave them to the boy Charles for his share. 
 Lothaire, Pepin, and Louis thereupon revolted. Court rival- 
 ries were added to family differences. The emperor had sum- 
 moned to his side a young Southron, Bernard by name, duke 
 of Septimania and son of Count William of Toulouse, who had 
 gallantly fought the Saracens. He made him his chief cham- 
 berlain and his favorite counsellor. Bernard was bold, am- 
 bitious, vain, imperious, and restless. He removed his rivals 
 from court, and put in their places his own creatures. He was 
 accused not only of abusing the emperor's favor, but even of 
 carrying on a guilty intrigue with the Empress Judith. There 
 grew up against him, and, by consequence, against the em- 
 peror, the empress, and their youngest son, a powerful opposi- 
 tion, in which certain ecclesiastics, and, amongst them, Wala, 
 abbot of Corbie, cousin-german and but lately one of the privy 
 counsellors of Charlemagne, joined eagerly. Some had at 
 heart the unity of the empire, which Louis was breaking up 
 more and more ; others were concerned for the spiritual inter- 
 ests of the Church which Louis, in spite of his piety and by 
 reason of his weakness, often permitted to be attacked. Thus 
 strengthened, the conspirators considered themselves certain 
 of success. They had the empress Judith carried off and shut 
 up in the convent of St. Radegonde at Poitiers; and Louis in 
 person came to deliver himself up to them at Compiegne, 
 where they were assembled. There they passed a decree to 
 the effect that the power and title of emperor were transferred 
 from Louis to Lothaire, his eldest son ; that the act whereby a 
 share of the empire had but lately been assigned to Charles 
 was annulled; and that the act of 817, which had regulated the 
 partition of Lotus' dominions after his death, was once more in 
 force. But soon there was a burst of reaction in favor of the 
 emperor ; Lothaire's two brothers, jealous of his late elevation, 
 made overtures to their father ; the ecclesiastics were a little 
 ashamed at being mixed up in a revolt ; the people felt pity for 
 the poor, honest emperor ; and a general assembly, meeting at 
 Nimeguen, abolished the acts of Compiegne, and restored to
 
 CH. XII.] DECAY AND FALL OF THE CARLOVINGIANS. 219 
 
 Louis his title and his power. But it was not long before there 
 was revolt again, originating this time with Pepin, king of 
 Aqmtaine. Louis fought him, and gave Aquitaine to Charles 
 the Bald. The alliance between the three sons of Hermengarde 
 was at once renewed; they raised an army; the emperor 
 marched against them with his; and the two hosts met be- 
 tween Colmar and Bale, in a place called le Champ rouge {the 
 field of red). Negotiations were set on foot; and Louis was 
 called upon to leave his wife Judith and his son Charles, and 
 put himself under the guardianship of his elder sons. He re- 
 fused ; but, just when the conflict was about to commence, de- 
 sertion took place in Louis' army; most of the prelates, laics, 
 and men-at-arms who had accompanied him passed over to the 
 camp of Lothaire ; and the field of red became the fi^ld of false- 
 hood (le Champ du meftisonge). Louis, left almost alone, 
 ordered his attendants to withdraw, "being unAvilling," he 
 said, " that any one of them should lose life or Hmb on his ac- 
 count," and surrendered to his sons. They received him with 
 great demonstrations of respect, but without relinquishing the 
 prosecution of their enterprise. Lothaire hastily collected an 
 assembly, which proclaimed him emperor, with the addition 
 of divers territories to the kingdoms of Aquitaine and Bavaria: 
 and, three months afterwards, another assembly, meeting at 
 Compiegne, declared the Emperor Louis to have forfeited the 
 crown, "for having, by his faults and incapacity, suffered to 
 sink so sadly low the empire which had been raised to grandeur 
 and brought into unity by Charlemagne and his predecessors." 
 Louis submitted to this decision ; himself read out aloud, in the 
 church of St. Medard at Soissons, but not quite unresistingly, 
 a confession, in eight articles, of his faults, and, laying his 
 baldric upon the altar, stripped off his royal robe, and received 
 from the hands of Ebbo, archbishop of Rheims, the gray vest- 
 ment of a penitent. 
 
 Lothaire considered his father dethroned for good, and him- 
 self henceforth sole emperor; but he was mistaken. For six 
 years longer the scenes which have just been described kept 
 repeating themselves again and again; rivalries and secret 
 plots began once more between the three victorious brothers 
 and their partisans; popular feeling revived in favor of Louis; 
 a large portion of the clergy shared it ; several counts of Neu- 
 stria and Burgundy appeared in arms, in the name of the de- 
 posed emperor ; and the seductive and able Judith came afresh 
 upon the scene, and gained over to the cause of her husband
 
 220 EISTORF OF FRANCE. [ch. xn. 
 
 and her son a multitude of friends. In 834, two assemblies, 
 one meeting at St. Denis and the other at Thionville, annulled 
 all the acts of the assembly of Compiegne, and for the third 
 time put Louis in possession of the imperial title and power. 
 He displayed no violence in his use of it ; but he was gi-owing 
 more and more irresolute and weak, when, in 838, the second 
 of his rebellious sons, Pepin, king of Aquitaine, died suddenly. 
 Louis, ever under the sway of Judith, speedily convoked at 
 Worms, in 839, once more and for the last time, a general as- 
 sembly, whereat, leaving his son Louis of Bavaria reduced to 
 his kingdom in eastern Europe, he divided the rest of his do- 
 minions into two nearly equal parts, separated by the course 
 of the Meuse and the Rhone. Between these two parts he left 
 the choice to Lothaire, who took the eastern portion, promising 
 at the same time to guarantee the western portion to his 
 younger brother Charles. Louis the Germanic protested 
 against this partition, and took up arms to resist it. His 
 father, the emperor, set himself in motion towards the Rhine, 
 to reduce him to submission; but, on arriving close to May- 
 ence, he caught a violent fever, and died on the 20th of June, 
 840, at the castle of Ingelheim, on a little island in the river. 
 His last acts were a fresh proof of his goodness towards even 
 his rebellious sons, and of his solicitude for his last-born. He 
 sent to Louis the Germanic his pardon, and to Lothaire the 
 golden crown and sword, at the same time bidding him fulfil 
 his father's wishes on behalf of Charles and Judith. 
 
 There is no telling whether, in the credulousness of his good 
 nature, Louis had, at his dying hour, any great confidence in 
 the appeal he made to his son Lothaire, and in the impression 
 which would be produced on his other son, Louis of Bavaria, 
 by the pardon bestowed. The prayers of the dying are of httle 
 avail against violent passions and barbaric manners. Scarcely 
 was Louis the Debonnair dead, when Lothaire was already 
 conspiring against young Charles, and was in secret aUiance, 
 for his despoilment, with Pepin II. , the late King of Aquitaine's 
 son, who had taken up arms for the purpose of seizing his 
 father's kingdom, in the possession of which his grandfather 
 Louis had not been pleased to confirm him. Charles suddenly 
 learnt that his mother Judith was on the point of being be- 
 sieged in Poitiers by the Aquitanians ; and, in spite of the 
 friendly protestations sent to him by Lothaire, it was not long 
 before he discovered the plot formed against him. He was not 
 wanting in shrewdness or energy ; and, having first provided
 
 CH. xn.] DECAY AND FALL OF THE CARLOVINGIANS. 221 
 
 for his mother's safety, he set about forming an alHance, in 
 the cause of their common interests, with his other brother, 
 Louis the Germanic, who was equally in danger from the am- 
 bition of Lothaire. The historians of the period do not say 
 what negotiator was employed by Charles on this distant and 
 deUcate mission; but several circumstances indicate that the 
 Empress Judith herself undertook it ; that she went in quest of 
 the King of Bavaria ; and that it was she who, with her accus- 
 tomed grace and address, determined him to make common 
 cause with his youngest against their eldest brother. Divers 
 incidents retarded for a whole year the outburst of this family 
 plot, and of the war of which it was the precursor. The posi- 
 tion of the young King Charles appeared for some time a very 
 bad one ; but ' ' certain chieftains, " says the historian Nithard, 
 "faithful to his mother and to him, and having nothing more 
 to lose than hfe or hmb, chose rather to die gloriously than to 
 betray their king. " Tlie arrival of Louis the Germanic with 
 his troops helped to swell the forces and increase the confidence 
 of Charles; and it was on the 21st of June, 841, exactly a year 
 after the death of Louis the Debonnair, that the two armies, 
 that of Lothaire and Pepin on the one side, and that of Charles 
 the Bald and Louis the Germanic on the other, stood face to 
 face in the neighborhood of the village of Fontenailles, six 
 leagues from Auxerre, on the riviUet of Audries. Never, ac- 
 cording to such evidence as is forthcoming, since the battle on 
 the plains of Chalons against the Huns, and that of Poitiers 
 against the Saracens, had so gi-eat masses of men been engaged. 
 "There would be nothing untruthlike," says that scrupulous 
 authority, M. Fauriel, "in putting the whole number of com 
 batants at 300,000; and there is nothing to show that either of 
 the two armies was much less numerous than the other." 
 However that may be, the leaders hesitated for four days to 
 come to blows; and whilst they were hesitating, the old favorite 
 not only of Louis the Debonnair, but also, according to several 
 chroniclers, of the Empress Judith, held himself aloof with his 
 troops in the vicinity, having made equal promise of assistance 
 to both sides, and waiting, to govern his decision, for the pros- 
 pect afforded by the first conflict. The battle began on the 25th 
 of June, at daybreak, and was at first in favor of Lothaire ; 
 but the troops of Charles the Bald recovered the advantage 
 which had been lost by those of Louis the Germanic, and the 
 action was soon nothing but a terribly simple scene of carnage 
 between enormous masses of men, charging hand to hand,
 
 222 HISTORY OF FRANCE. [ch. xn. 
 
 again and again, with a front extending over a couple of 
 leagues. Before mid-day the slaughter, the plunder, the spolia- 
 tion of the dead — all was over; the victory of Charles and 
 Louis was complete ; the victors had retii'ed to theu* camp, and 
 there remained nothing on the field of battle but corpses in 
 thick heaps or a long line, according as they had fallen in the 
 disorder of fhght or steadily fighting in their ranks. . . . "Ac- 
 cursed be this day !" cries Angilbert, one of Lothaire's officers, 
 in rough Latin verse; "be it unnumbered in the retmn of the 
 year, but wiped out of all remembrance ! Be it unlit by the 
 light of the sun ! Be it without either dawn or twihght ! Ac- 
 cursed, Eilso, be this night, this awful night in which fell the 
 brave, the most expert in battle ! Eye ne'er hath seen more 
 fearful slaughter : in streams of blood fell Christian men ; the 
 linen vestments of the dead did whiten the champaign even as 
 it is whitened by the birds of autunm I" 
 
 In spite of this battle, which appeared a decisive one, Lothaire 
 made zealous efforts to continue the struggle ; he scoured the 
 coim tries wherein he hoped to find partisans ; to the Saxons he 
 promised the imrestricted re-establishment of their pagan wor- 
 ship, and several of the Saxon tribes responded to his appeal 
 Louis the Germanic and Charles the Bald, having information 
 of these prehminaries, resolved to solemnly renew their al- 
 liance ; and. seven months after their \-ictory at Fontenailles, 
 in February, 842, they repaired both of them, each with his 
 army, to Argentaria, on the right bank of the Rhine, between 
 Bale and Strasbourg, and there, at an open-aii- meeting, Louis 
 first, addressing the chieftains about liim in the German 
 tongue, said, " Ye all know how often, since our father's deatl^ 
 Lothaire hath attacked us, in order to destroy us, this my 
 brother and me. Having never been able, as brothers and 
 Christians, or in any just way, to obtain peace from him, we 
 were constrained to appeal to the judgment of God. Lothaire 
 was beaten and retired, whither he could, wdth his following; 
 for we, restrained by paternal affection and moved with com- 
 passion for Christian people, were unwUling to piu"sue them to 
 extermination. Neither then nor aforetime did we demand 
 aught else save that each of us should be maintained in his 
 rights. But he, rebelling against the judgment of God, ceaseth 
 not to attack us as enemies, this my brother and me ; and he 
 destroyeth our peoples with fire and pillage and the sword. 
 That is the cause which hath united us afresh ; and, as we ti'ow 
 that ye doubt the soundness of our aUiance and our fi-atemal
 
 CH. XII.] DECAY AND FALL OF TEE CARLOVINGIANS. 223 
 
 union, we have resolved to bind ourselves afresh by this oath 
 in yotu- presence, being led thereto by no prompting of wicked 
 covetousness, but only that we may secure our common ad 
 vantage in case that, by yoiu" aid, God should cause us to ob- 
 tain peace. If, then, I violate — which God forbid — this oath 
 that I am about to take to my brother, I hold you all quit of 
 submission to me and of the faith ye have sworn to me. " 
 
 Charles repeated this speech, word for word, to his own 
 troops, in the Romance language, in that idiom derived from a 
 mixtiu'e of Latin and of the tongues of ancient Gaul, and 
 spoken, thenceforth, with varieties of dialect and pronxmciation, 
 m nearly all parts of Frankish Gaul. After this address, Louis 
 pronounced and Charles repeated after him, each in his own 
 tongue, the oath couched in these terms : "For the love of God, 
 for the Christian people and for our common weal, from this 
 day forth and so long as God shaU grant me power and knowl- 
 edge, I "sviU defend this my brother and will be an aid to him 
 in every thing, as one ought to defend his brother, provided 
 that he do Likewise unto me ; and I wiU never make with 
 Lothaire any covenant which may be, to my knowledge, to the 
 damage of this my brother. " 
 
 When the two brothers had thus sworn, the two armies, offi- 
 cere and men, took, in their turn, a simUar oath, going bail, in 
 a mass, for the engagements of their kings. Then they took 
 up their quarters, aU of them, for some time, between Worms 
 and Mayence, and followed up their poUtical proceeding with 
 military fetes, precursors of the knightly tournaments of the 
 middle ages. "A place of meeting was fixed," says the con- 
 temporary historian Nithard, " at a spot suitable for this kind of 
 exercises. Here were drawn up, on one side, a certain number 
 of combatants, Saxons, Vasconians, Austrasians or Britons; 
 there were ranged, on the opposite side, an equal niunber of 
 warriors, and the two divisions advanced, each against the 
 other, as if to attack. One of them, with then bucklers at 
 their backs, took to flight as if to seek, in the main body, shel- 
 ter against those who were pursuing them; then suddenly, 
 facing about, they dashed out in pursuit of those before Avhom 
 they had just been flying. This sport lasted imtil the two 
 kings, appearing with aU the youth of their suites, rode up 
 at a gallop, brandishing then* spears and chasing first one lot 
 and then the other. It was a fine sight to see so much temper 
 Eimongst so many vaUant folks, for, great as was the number 
 and the mixture of different nationahties, no one was insulted
 
 224 HISTORY OF FRANCE. [CH. xn. 
 
 or maltreated, thougli the contrary is often the case amongst 
 men in small numbei*s and known one to another." 
 
 After four or five months of tentative measures or of inci- 
 dents which taught both parties that they could not, either of 
 them, hope to completely destroy their opponents, the two 
 allied brothei*s received at Verdun, whither they had repaired 
 to concert their next movement, a messenger from Lothaire, 
 with peaceful proposals which they were unwiUing to reject. 
 The principal was that, with the exception of Italy, Aquitaine, 
 and Bavaria, to be secured Avithout dispute to their then 
 possessors, the Frankish empire should be divided into thi'ee 
 portions, that the arbiters elected to preside over the partition 
 should swear to make it as equal- as possible, and that Lothaire 
 should have his choice, with the title of Emperor. About mid 
 June, 842, the three brothers met on an island of the Saone, 
 near Chalons, where they began to discuss the questions which 
 divided them ; but it was not tiU more than a year after, in 
 August, 843, that assembling, all three of them, with their 
 umpires, at Verdun, they at last came to an agreement about 
 the partition of the Frankish empire, save the three coimtries 
 which it had been beforehand agi-eed to except. Louis kept 
 all the provinces of Germany of which he was ali'eady in pos- 
 session, and received besides, on the left bank of the Rhine, 
 the towns of Mayence, Worms, and Spire, with the territory 
 appertaining to them. Lothaire, for his part, had the eastern 
 belt of Gaul, bounded on one side by the Rhine and the Alps, 
 on the other by the couraes of the Mouse, the Saone, and the 
 Rhone, starting from the confluence of the two latter rivers, 
 and, further, the country comprised between the Meuse and 
 the Scheldt, together with certain countships lying to the west 
 of that river. To Charles fell all the rest of Gaul : Vasconia 
 or Biscaye, Septimania, the marshes of Spain, beyond the 
 Pyrenees, and the other countries of Southern Gaul which had 
 enjoyed hitherto, under the title of the Kingdom of Aquitaine, 
 a special government subordinated to the general govern- 
 ment of the empire but distinct from it, lost this last remnant 
 of their Gallo-Roman nationality, and became integral por- 
 tions of Frankish Gaul, which fell by partition to Charles the 
 Bald, and formed one and the same kingdom under one and 
 the same king. 
 
 Thus fell through and disappeared, in 843, by virtue of the 
 treaty of Verdun, the second of Charlemagne's grand designs, 
 the resuscitation of the Roman empire by means of the
 
 CH. xn.] DECAY AND FALL OF THE CARLOVINOIANS. 225 
 
 Frankish and Christian masters of Gaul. Tlie name of 
 emperor still retained a certain value in the minds of the peo- 
 ple and stiU remained an object of ambition to princes; but 
 the empire was completely abolished, and, in its stead, sprang 
 up three kingdoms, independent one of another, without any 
 necessary connection or relation. One of the three was thence- 
 forth France. 
 
 In this great event are comprehended two facts; the dis- 
 appearance of the empire and the formation of the three king- 
 doms which took its place. The first is easily explained. The 
 resuscitation of the Eoman empire had been a dream of 
 ambition and ignorance on the part of a gi-eat man, but a bar- 
 barian. Political unity and central, absolute power had been 
 the essential cliaracteristics of that empire. They became in- 
 troduced and estabhshed, through a long succession of ages, on 
 the niins of the splendid Roman repubhc destroyed by its 
 own dissensions, under favor of the still great influence of the 
 old Roman senate, though fallen fi*om its high estate, and 
 beneath the guardianship of the Roman legions and imperial 
 praetorians. Not one of these conditions, not one of these 
 forces was to be met with in the Roman world reigned over 
 by Chai'lemagne. The nation of the Franks and Charlemagne 
 himself were but of yesterday ; the new emperor had neither 
 ancient senate to hedge at the same time that it obeyed him, 
 nor old bodies of troops to support him. Pohtical unity and 
 absolute power were repugnant ahke to the intellectual and 
 the social condition, to the national manners and personal 
 sentiments of the victorious barbarians. The necessity of 
 placing their conquests beyond the reach of a new swarm of 
 barbarians and the personal ascendency of Charlemagne were 
 the onlj' things which gave his government a momentary 
 gleam of success in the way of unity and of factitious 
 despotism under the name of empire. In 814, Charlemagne 
 had made territorial security an accoraphshed fact ; but the 
 personal power he had exercised disappeared with him. The 
 new Gallo-Frankish community recovered, under the mighty 
 but gradual influence of Christianity, its proper and natm-al 
 course, producing disruption into different local communities 
 and bold struggles for individual liberties, either one vd^n 
 another, or against whosoever tried to become their master. 
 
 As for the second fact, the formation of the three kingdoms 
 which were the issue of the treaty of Verdvm, various explana- 
 tions have been given of it. This distribution of certain
 
 226 HISTORY OF FRANCE. [ch. TO, 
 
 peoples of Western Europe into three distinct and independ- 
 ent groups, Italians, Germans, and French, has been attri- 
 buted at one time to a diversity of histories and manners ; at 
 another to geographical causes and to what is called the rule 
 of natm-al frontiers ; and oftener still to a spirit of nationality 
 and to differences of language. Let none of these causes be 
 gainsaid; they all exercised some sort of influence, but they 
 are all incomplete in themselves and far too redolent of 
 theoretical system. It is time that Germany, France, and 
 Italy began, at that time, to emerge from the chaos into which 
 they had been plunged by barbaric invasion and the conquests 
 of Charlemagne, and to form themselves into quite distinct 
 nations ; but there were, in each of the kingdoms of Lothaire, 
 of Louis the Germanic, and of Charles the Bald, populations 
 widely dijffering in race, language, manners, and geographical 
 aflBnity, and it required many great events and the lapse of 
 many centm'ies to bring about the degree of national unity 
 they now possess. To say nothing touching the agency of 
 individual and independent forces, which is always consider- 
 able, although so many men of intellect ignore it in the present 
 day, what would have happened, had any one of the three 
 new kings, Lothaire, or Louis the Germanic, or Charles the 
 Bald, been a second Charlemagne, as Charlemagne had been 
 a second Charles Martel? Who can say that, in such a case, 
 the three kingdoms would have taken the form they took in 
 843? 
 
 Happily or unhappily, it was not so ; none of Charlemagne's 
 successoi's was capable of exercising on the events of his time, 
 by virtue of his brain and his own will, any notable influence. 
 Not that they were all unintelligent, or timid, or indolent. It 
 has been seen that Louis the Debonnair did not lack virtues 
 and good intentions ; and Charles the Bald was clearsighted, 
 dexterous, and energetic ; he had a taste for information and 
 intellectual distinction ; he liked and sheltered men of learning 
 and letters, and to such purpose that instead of speaking, as 
 imder Charlemagne, of the school of the jpalace, people called 
 the palace of Charles the Bald the palace oj the school. 
 Amongst the eleven kings who after him ascended the Carlo- 
 vligian throne, several, such as Louis III. and Carloman, and, 
 especially, Louis the Ultramarine (d'Outremer) and Lothaire, 
 displayed, on several occasions, energy and courage : and the 
 kings elected, at this epoch, without the pale of the Carlo- 
 vingian dynasty, Eudes in 887 and Eaoul in 933, gave proofs of
 
 CH. xiii.] FEUDAL FRANCE AND HUGH CAPET. 227 
 
 a valor both discreet and effectual. The Carlovingians did not, 
 as the Merovingians did, end in monkish retirement or shame^ 
 ful inactivity : even the last of them, and the only one termed 
 sluggard, Louis V., was getting ready, when he died, for an 
 expedition in Spain against the Saracens. The truth is that, 
 mediocre or imdecided or addle-pated as they may have been, 
 they all succumbed, internally and externally, without initi 
 ating and without resisting, to the course of events, and that, 
 in 987, the fall of the Carlovingian line was the natural and 
 easily accomplished consequence of the new social condition 
 which had been preparing in France under the empire. 
 
 CHAPTER Xin. 
 
 FEUDAL FRANCE AND HITGH CAPET. 
 
 The reader has just seen that, twenty-nine years after the 
 death of Charlemagne, that is, in 843, when, by the treaty of 
 Verdim, the sons of Louis the Debonnairhad divided amongst 
 them his dominions, the great empire split up into three 
 distinct and independent kingdoms, the Idngdoms of Italy, 
 Grermany and France. The spht did not stop there. Forty- 
 five years later, at the end of the ninth century, shortly after 
 the death of Charles the Fat, the last of the Carlovingians, 
 who appears to have reimited for a while all the empire of 
 Charlemagne, this empire had begotten seven instead of three 
 kingdoms, those of France, of Navarre, of Provence or Cis- 
 juran Burgimdy, of Trans-juran Burgundy, of Lorraine, of 
 Allemannia and of Italy. This is what had become of the 
 factitious and ephemeral unity of that empire of the West 
 which Charlemagne had wished to put in the place of the 
 Roman empire. 
 
 We will leave where they are the three distinct and inde- 
 pendent kingdoms; and turn our introspective gaze upon the 
 kingdom of France. There we recognize the same fact ; there 
 the same work of dismemberment is going on. About the end 
 of the ninth century there were already twenty-nine pro- 
 vinces or fragments of provinces which had become petty 
 Btates, the former governors of which, under the names of 
 dukes, counts, marquise" and viscounts, were pretty nearly
 
 228 HISTORY OF FRANCE. [CH. xm 
 
 real sorereigns. Twenty -nine great fiefs, which have played 
 a special part in French history, date back to this epoch. 
 These petty states were not all of equal importance or in pos- 
 session of a perfectly similar independence ; there were certain 
 ties uniting them to other states, resulting in certain reciprocal 
 obligations which became the basis, or, one might say, the 
 constitution of the feudal community; but their prevailing 
 feature was, nevertheless, isolation, personal existence. They 
 were really petty states begotten from the dismemberment of 
 a great territory ; those local governments were formed at the 
 expense of a central power. 
 
 From the end of the ninth pass we to the end of the tenth 
 century, to the epoch when the Capetians take the place of the 
 Carlovingians. Instead of seven kingdoms to replace the em- 
 pire of Charlemagne, there were then no more than four. The 
 kingdoms of Provence and Trans-juran Bm'gundy had formed, 
 by reunion, the kingdom of Aries. The kingdom of Lorraine 
 was no more than a duchy in dispute between Allemannia and 
 France. The Emperor Otho the Great had united the kingdom 
 of Italy to the empii'e of Allemannia. Overtures had pro- 
 duced their effects amongst the great states. But in the 
 interior of the kingdom of France dismemberment had held on 
 its course; and instead of the twenty -nine petty states or 
 great fiefs observable at the end of the ninth century, we find 
 at the end of the tenth, fifty-five actually estabUshed. {Vide 
 Guizot's Histoire de la Civilization, t. ii. , pp. 238-246.) 
 
 Now how was this ever-increasing dismemberment accom- 
 plished? What causes determined it, and little by little made 
 it the substitute for the unity of the empire? Two causes, per- 
 fectly natural and independent of all human calculation, one 
 moral and the other political. Tliey were the absence froin 
 the minds of men of any general and dominant- idea ; and the 
 reflux, in social relations and manners, of the individual 
 liberties but lately repressed or regulated by the strong hand 
 of Charlemagne. In times of formation or transition, states 
 and governments conform to the measure, one had almost said 
 to the height, of the men of the period, their ideas, their senti- 
 ments, and their personal force of character ; when ideas are 
 few and narrow, when sentiments spread only over a confined 
 circle, when means of action and expansion are wanting to 
 men, communities become petty and local, just as the thoughts 
 and existence of their members are. Such was the state of 
 things in the ninth and tenth centuries : there was no general
 
 en. xm.] FEUDAL FRANCE AND EUOE CAPET. 229 
 
 and fructifying idea, save the Christian creed ; no great intellec- 
 tual vent ; no great national feeling ; no easy and rapid means 
 of communication; mind and life were both confined in a 
 narrow space and encountered, at every step, stoppages and 
 obstacles well-nigh insurmountable. At the same time, by the 
 fall of the empires of Rome and of Charlemagne, men regained 
 possession of the rough and ready individual liberties which 
 were the essential characteristic of Germanic manners; 
 Franks, Visigoths, Biu-gundians, Saxons, Lombards, none ot 
 these new peoples had lived as the Greeks and Romans had, 
 under the sway of an essentially poHtical idea, the idea of city, 
 state, and fatherland; they were free men and not citizens, 
 comra4es not members of one and the same pubUc body. They 
 gave up their vagabond life ; they settled upon a soil conquered 
 by themselves and partitioned amongst themselves ; and there 
 they Hved each by himself, master of himself and all that was 
 his, family, servitors, husbandmen, and slaves: the territorial 
 domain became the fatherland, and the owner remained a free 
 man, a local and independent chieftain, at his own risk and 
 peril. And thus, quite naturally, grew up feudal France, 
 when the new comers, settled in their new abodes, were no 
 more swayed or hampered by the vain attempt to re-establish 
 the Roman empire. 
 
 The consequences of such a state of things and of such a dis- 
 position of persons were rapidly developed. Territorial owner- 
 ship became the fimdamental characteristic of and warranty 
 for independence and social importance. Local sovereignty, 
 if not complete and absolute, at least in respect of its principal 
 rights, right of making war, right of judicature, right of taxa- 
 tion, and right of regulating the police, became one with the 
 territorial ownership, which before long grew to be hereditaiy, 
 whether, under the title of alleii {allodium), it had been origi- 
 nally perfectly independent and exempt from any feudal tie, 
 or, under the title of benefice, had arisen from grants of land 
 made by the chieftain to his follower, on condition of certain 
 obHgations. The oflBces, that is, the divers functions, mihtary 
 or civil, conferred by the king on his lieges, also ended by be- 
 coming hereditary. Having become established in fact, this 
 heirship in lands and local powers was soon recognized by the 
 law. A capitulary of Charles the Bald, promulgated in 877, 
 contains the two following provisions : 
 
 "If, after our death, any one of our heges, moved by love 
 for God and our person, desire to renounce the world, and if
 
 230 HISTORY OF FRANCE. [ch. xm. 
 
 he have a son or other relative capable of serving the public 
 weal, let him be free to transmit to him his benefices and his 
 honors, according to his pleasure. " 
 
 '' If a coimt of this kingdom happen to die, and his son be 
 about our person, we wOl that our son, together with those of 
 our heges who may chance to be the nearest relatives of the 
 deceased count, as well as with the other officers of the said 
 countship and the bishop of the diocese wherein it is situated, 
 shall provide for its administration until the death of the here- 
 tofore count shall have been announced to us and we have been 
 enabled to confer on the son, present at our court, the honors 
 wherewith his father was invested. " 
 
 Thus the king still retained the nominal right of conferring 
 on the son the offices or local functions of the father, but he 
 recognized in the son the right to obtain them. A host of 
 documents testify that at this epoch, when, on the death of a 
 governor of a province, the king attempted to give his count- 
 ship to some one else than his descendants, not only did per- 
 sonal interest resist, but such a measure was considered a 
 violation of right. Under the reign of Louis the Stutterer, 
 son of Charles the Bald, two of his lieges, Wilhelm and 
 Engelschalk, held two countships on the confines of Bavaria ; 
 and, at their death, their offices were given to Count Arbo, to 
 the prejudice of their sons. ' ' The children and their relatives, " 
 says the chronicler, " taking that as a gross injustice, said that 
 matters ought to go differently, and that they would die by the 
 sword or Arbo should give up the countship of their family. " 
 Heirship in territorial ownerships and their local rights, what- 
 ever may have originally been theii' character; heirship in 
 Jocal offices or powers, military or civil, primarily conferred 
 by the king; and, by consequence, hereditary imion of terri- 
 torial ownership and local government, under the condition, a 
 Httle confused and precarious, of subordinated relations and 
 duties between suzerain and vassal — such was, in law and in 
 fact, the feudal order of things. From the ninth to the tenth 
 century it had acquired full force. 
 
 This order of things being thus well defined, we find our- 
 selves face to face with an indisputable historic fact : no period, 
 no system has ever, in France, remained so odious to the pub- 
 lic instincts. And this antipathy is not peculiar to our age, 
 nor merely the fruit of that great revolution which not long 
 since separated, as by a gulf, the French present from its past. 
 Go back to any portion of French history, and stop where you
 
 CH. xm.] FEUDAL FRANCE AND EUGE CAPET. 231 
 
 will ; and you will everywhere find the feudal system consid- 
 ered, by the mass of the population, a foe to be fought and 
 fought down at any price. At aU times, whoever dealt it a 
 blow has been popular in France. 
 
 The reasons for this fact are not all, or even the chief of 
 them, to be traced to the evils which, in France, the people 
 had to endure under the feudal system. It is not evil plight 
 which is most detested and feared by peoples ; they have more 
 than once borne, faced, and almost wooed it, and there are 
 wof ul epochs, the memory of which has remained dear. It is 
 in the political character of f eudahsm, in the nature and shape 
 of its power that we find lurking that element of popular 
 aversion which, in France at least, it has never ceased to 
 inspire. 
 
 It was a confederation of petty sovereigns, of petty despots, 
 imequal amongst themselves, and having, one towards another, 
 certain duties and rights, but invested in their own domains, 
 over their personal and direct subjects, with arbitrary and 
 absolute power. That is the essential element of the feudal 
 system ; therein it differs from every other aristocracy, every 
 other form of government. 
 
 There has been no scarcity in this world of aristocracies and 
 despotisms. There have been peoples arbitrarily governed, 
 nay absolutely possessed by a single man, by a college of 
 priests, by a body of patricians. But none of these despotic 
 governments was like the feudal system. 
 
 In the case where the sovereign power has been placed in the 
 hands of a single man, the condition of the people has been 
 servile and woful. At bottom the feudal system was some- 
 what better; and it will presently be explained why. Mean- 
 while, it must be acknowledged that that condition often 
 appeared less burdensome and obtained more easy acceptance 
 than the feudal system. It was because, under the great ab- 
 solute monarchies, men did, nevertheless, obtain some sort of 
 equality and tranquillity. A shameful equaUty and a fatal 
 tranquiUity, no doubt ; but such as peoples are sometimes con- 
 tented with under the dominance of certain circumstances, 
 or in the last gasp of their existence. Liberty, equahty, and 
 tranquiUity were all alike wanting, from the tenth to the 
 thirteenth century, to the inhabitants of each lord's domains ; 
 their sovereign was at their very doors, and none of them was 
 hidden from him or beyond reach of his mighty arm. Of aU 
 tyrannies the worst is that which can thus keep accoimt of its
 
 232 HISTORY OF FRANCE. [CH. xiii. 
 
 subjects, and which sees, from its seat, the limits of its empire. 
 The caprices of the human will then show themselves in all 
 their intolerable extravagance and, moreover, with irresistible 
 promptness. It is then, too, that inequality of conditions makes 
 itself more rudely felt; riches, might, independence, every 
 advantage and every right present themselves every instant 
 to the gaze of misery, weakness, and servitude. The inhabi- 
 tants of fiefs could not find consolation in the bosom of tran- 
 quillity ; incessantly mixed up in the quarrels of their lord, a 
 prey to his neighbors' devastations, they led a life still more 
 precarious and still more restless than that of the lords them- 
 selves, and they had to put up at one and the same time with 
 the presence of war, privilege, and absolute power. 
 
 Nor did the rule of feudalism differ less from that of a college 
 of priests or a senate of patricians than from the despotism 
 of an individual. In the two former systems we have an 
 aristocratic body governing the mass of the people; in the 
 feudal system we have an aristocracy resolved into individuals, 
 each of whom governs on his own private account a certain 
 number of persons dependent upon him alone. Be the aristo- 
 cratic body a clergy, its power has its root in creeds which 
 are common to itself and its subjects. Now in every creed 
 common to those who command and those who obey there is 
 a moral tie, an element of sympathetic equality, and on the 
 part of those who obey a tacit adhesion to the rule. Be it a 
 senate of patricians that reigns, it cannot govern so capriciously, 
 so arbitrarily, as an individual. There are differences and dis- 
 cussions in the very bosom of the government ; there may be, 
 nay there always are, formed factions, parties which, in order 
 to arrive at their own ends, strive to conciliate the favor of the 
 people, sometimes take in hand its interests, and, however bad 
 may be its condition, the people, by sharing in its masters' 
 rivalries, exercises some sort of influence over its own destiny. 
 Feudalism was not, properly speaking, an aristocratic govern- 
 ment, a senate of kings -to use the language used by Cineas to 
 Pyrrhus; it was a collection of individual despotisms, exer- 
 cised by isolated aristocrats, each of whom, being sovereign in 
 his own domains, had to give no account to another, and asked 
 nobody's opinion about his conduct towards his subjects. 
 
 Is it astonishing that such a system incurred, on the part of 
 the peoples, more hatred than even those which had reduced 
 them to a more monotonous and more lasting servitude? There 
 was despotism just as in pure monarchies, and there was privi-
 
 OH. xm.] FEUDAL FRANCE AND HUGH CAPET. 233 
 
 lege just as in the very closest aristocracies. And both ob- 
 truded themselves in the most offensive and, so to speak, 
 crude form. Despotism was not tapered off by means of the 
 distance and elevation of a throne ; and privilege did not veil 
 itself behind the majesty of a large body. Both were the ap- 
 purtenances of an individual ever present and ever alone, ever 
 at his subjects' doors, and never called upon, in dealing with 
 their lot, to gather his peers around him. 
 
 And now we will leave the subjects in the case of feudalism, 
 and consider the masters, the owners of fiefs, and their relations 
 one with another. We here behold quite a different spectacle ; 
 we see Hberties, rights, and guarantees, which not only give 
 protection and honor to those who enjoy them, but of which 
 the tendency and effect are to open to the subject population 
 an outlet towards a better future. 
 
 It could not, in fact, be otherwise: for, on the one hand, 
 feudal society was not wanting in dignity and glory ; and, on 
 the other, the feudal system did not, as the theocracy of Egypt 
 or the despotism of Asia did, condemn its subjects irretrievably 
 to slavery. It oppressed them ; but they ended by having the 
 power as well as the will to go free. 
 
 It is the fault of pure monarchy to set up power so high and 
 encompass it with such splendor that the possessor's head is 
 turned, and that those who are beneath it dare scarcely look 
 upon it. The sovereign thinks himself a god ; and the people 
 faU down and worship him. But it was not so in society under 
 owners of fiefs : the grandeur was neither dazzling nor unap- 
 proachable ; it was but a short step from vassal to suzerain ; 
 they lived familiarly one with another, without any possibility 
 that superiority shoidd think itself illimitable, or subordina- 
 tion think itself servile. Thence came that extension of the 
 domestic circle, that ennoblement of personal service, from 
 which sprang one of the most generous sentiments of the 
 middle ages, fealty, which reconciled the dignity of the man 
 with the devotion of the vassal. 
 
 Further, it was not from a numerous aristocratic senate, but 
 from himself, and almost from himself alone, that every pos- 
 sessor of fiefs derived his strength and his lustre. Isolated as 
 he was in his domains, it was for him to maintain himself 
 therein, to extend them, to keep his subjects submissive and 
 his vassals faithful, and to correct those who were wanting in 
 obedience to him or who ignored their duties as members of 
 the feudal hierarchy. It was, as it were, a people consisting
 
 234 HISTORY OF FRANCE. [ca. xitt 
 
 of scattered citizens, of whom each, ever armed, accompanied 
 by his following or intrenched in his castle, kept watch himself 
 over his own safety and his own rights, relying far more on 
 his own courage and his own renown than on the protection of 
 the public authorities. Such a condition bears less resemblance 
 to an organized and settled society than to a constant prospect 
 of peril and war ; but the energy and the dignity of the indi- 
 vidual were kept up in it, and a more extended and better 
 regulated society might issue therefrom. 
 
 And it did issue. This society of the future was not slow to 
 sprout and grow in the midst of that feudal system so turbulent, 
 so oppressive, so detested. For five centuries, from the invasion 
 of the barbarians to the fall of the Carlovingians, France pre- 
 sents the appearance of being stationary in the middle of chaos. 
 Over this long, dark space of anarchy, feudalism is slowly 
 taking shape, at the expense, at one time, of liberty, at another, 
 of order ; not as a real rectification of the social condition, but 
 AS the only order of things which could possibly acquire fixity, 
 fts, in fact, a sort of unpleasant but necessary alternative. No 
 sooner is the feudal system in force than, with its victory 
 scarcely secured, it is attacked in the lower grades by the 
 mass of the people attempting to regain certain Hberties, owner- 
 ships, and rights, and in the highest by royalty laboring to 
 recover its public character, to become once more the head of 
 a nation. It is no longer the case of free men in a vague and 
 dubious position, unsuccessfully defending, against the domi- 
 nation of the chieftains whose lands they inhabit, the wreck 
 of their independence, whether Galhc or Roman or barbaric; 
 it is the case of bui'gesses, agriculturists, and serfs who know 
 well what their grievances and who their oppressors are, and 
 who are working to get free. It is no longer the case of a king 
 doubtful about his title and the nature of his power, at one 
 time a chieftain of warriors, at another the anointed of the 
 Most High ; here a mayor of the palace of some sluggard bar- 
 barian, there the heir of the emperors of Rome; a sovereign 
 tossing about confusedly amidst followers or servitors eager at 
 one time to invade his authority, at another to render them- 
 selves comjiletely isolated : it is the case of one of the premier 
 ieudal lords exerting himself to become the master of all, to 
 change his suzerainty into sovereignty. Thus in spite of the 
 servitude into which the people had sunk at the end of the 
 tenth century, from this moment the enfranchisement of the 
 people makes way. In spite of the weakness, or rather nuUity
 
 OH. xm.] FEUDAL FRANCE AND HUGH CAPET. 235 
 
 of the regal power at the same epoch, from this moment the 
 regal power begins to gain gi'ound. That monarchical system 
 which the genius of Charlemagne could not found, kings far 
 inferior to Charlemagne will little by httle make triumphant. 
 Those hberties and those guarantees which the German 
 warriors were incapable of transmitting to a well-regulated 
 society, the commonalty will regain one after another. Nothing 
 but feudaUsm could have sprung from the womb of barbarism ; 
 but scarcely is feudalism estabhshed when we see monarchy 
 and hberty nascent and growing in its womb. 
 
 From the end of the ninth to the end of the tenth century, 
 two families were, in French history, the representatives and 
 instruments of the two systems thus confronted and conflict- 
 ing at that epoch, the imperial which was falling and the 
 feudal which was rising. After the death of Charlemagne, 
 his descendants, to the number of ten, from Louis the Debon- 
 nair to Louis the Sluggard, strove obstinately but in vain to 
 maintain the unity of the empire and the unity of the central 
 power. In four generations, on the other hand, the descen- 
 dants of Robert the Strong cUmbed to the head of feudal 
 France. The former, though German in race, were imbued 
 with the maxims, the traditions and the pretensions of that 
 Eoman world which had been for a while resuscitated by their 
 glorious ancestor ; and they claimed it as their heritage. The 
 latter preserved, at their settlement upon Gallo-Roman terri- 
 tory, Germanic sentiments, manners, and instincts, and were 
 occupied only with the idea of getting more and more settled 
 and greater and greater in the new society which was httle by 
 little being formed upon the soil won by the barbarians, their 
 forefathers. Louis the Ultramarine and* Lothaire were not, we 
 may suppose, less personally brave than Robert the Strong 
 and his son Eudes ; but when the Northmen put the Frankish 
 dominions in peril, it was not to the descendants of Charle- 
 magne, not to the emperor Charles the Fat, but to the local 
 and feudal chieftain, to Eudes, count of Paris, that the popula- 
 tion turned for salvation : and Eudes it was who saved them. 
 
 In this painful parturition of French monarchy, one fact 
 deserves to be remarked, and that is the lasting respect at- 
 tached, in the minds of the people, to the name and the 
 reminiscences of the Carlovingian rule, notwithstanding its 
 decay. It was not alone the lustre of that name and of the 
 memory of Charlemagne which inspired and prolonged this 
 respect; a certain instinctive feeling about the worth of heredi-
 
 236 HISTORY OF FRANCE. [cH. xin, 
 
 tary monarchy, as an element of stability and order, already 
 existed amongst the populations, and glimpses thereof were 
 visible amongst the rivals of the royal family in the hour of 
 its dissolution. It had been consecrated by reUgion ; the title 
 of anointed of the Most High was united, in its case, to that 
 of lawful heir. Why did Hugh the Great, Duke of France, in 
 spite of favorable opportunities and very palpable temptations, 
 abstain perseveringly from taking the crown and leave it tot- 
 tering upon the heads of Louis the Ultramarine and Lothaire? 
 Why did his son, Hugh Capet himself, wait, for his election as 
 king, until Louis the Sluggard was dead and the Carlovingian 
 line had only a collateral and discredited representative? In 
 these hesitations and Ungerings of the great feudal chieftains 
 there is a forecast of the authority already vested in the prin- 
 ciple of hereditary monarchy, at the very moment when it 
 was about to be violated, and of the gi'eat part which would 
 be played by that principle in the history of France. 
 
 At last the day of decision arrived for Hugh Capet. There 
 is nothing to show that he had conspired to hasten it, but he 
 had foreseen the probabihty of it, and, if he had done nothing 
 to pave the way for it, he had held himself, so far as he was 
 concerned, in readiness for it. During a trip which he made 
 to Rome in 981, he had entered into kindly personal relations 
 with the Emperor Otho II., king of Germany, the most im- 
 portant of France's neighbors, and the most disposed to med- 
 dle in her affairs. In France, Hugh Capet had formed a close 
 friendship with Adalberon, archbishop of Rheims, the most 
 notable and most able of the French prelates. The event 
 showed the value of such a fi-iend. On the 21st of May, 987, 
 King Louis V. died without issue; and, after his obsequies, 
 the grandees of the kingdom met together at Senlis. We will 
 here borrow the text of a contemporary witness, Richer, the 
 only one of the chroniclers of that age who deserves the name 
 of historian, whether for the authenticity of his testimony or 
 the extent and clearness of his narrative. "The bishop," he 
 says, "took his place, together with the duke, in the midst of 
 the assembly, and said to them, ' I come and sit down amongst 
 you to treat of the affairs of the state. Far from me be any 
 design of saying anything but what has for aim the advantage 
 of the common weal. As I do not see here all the princes whose 
 wisdom and energy might be useful in the government of the 
 kingdom, it seems to me that the choice of a king should be 
 put off for some time, in order that, at a period fixed upon, all
 
 CB. xm.] FEUDAL FRANCE AND HUGH CAPET. 237 
 
 may be able to meet in assembly, and that every opinion, hav- 
 ing been discussed and set forth in the face of day, may thus 
 produce its full effect. May it please you, then, all of ye who 
 are here assembled to dehberate, to bind yourselves in con^ 
 junction with me by oath to this illustrious duke, and to prom- 
 ise between his hands not to engage yourselves ia any way in 
 the election of a Head, and not to do any thing to this end until 
 we be re-assembled here to deliberate upon that choice.' This 
 opinion was well received and approved of by all : oath was 
 taken between the hands of the duke, and the time was fixed 
 at which the meeting should assemble again." 
 
 Before the day fixed for re-assembling, the last of the de- 
 scendants of Charlemagne, Charles, duke of Lower Lorraine, 
 brother of the late King Lothaire, and paternal uncle of the 
 late King Louis, " went to Rheims in quest of the archbishop, 
 and thus spake to him about his rights to the throne : ' All the 
 world knoweth, venerable father, that, by hereditary right, I 
 ought to succeed my brother and my nephew. I am wanting 
 in naught that should be required, before all from those who 
 ought to reign, to wit, birth and the courage to dare. Where- 
 fore am I thrust out from the territory which all the world 
 knows to have been possessed by my ancestors? To whom 
 could I better address myself than to you, when all the sup- 
 ports of my race have disappeared? To whom, bereft as I am 
 of honorable protection, should I have recourse but to you? 
 By whom, if not by you, should I be restored to the honoi*s of 
 my fathers? Please God things turn out favorably for me and 
 for my fortunes! Rejected, what can become of me save to 
 be exhibited as a spectacle to all who look on me? Suffer 
 yourself to be moved by some feeling of humanity : be com- 
 passionate towards a man who has been tried by so many 
 reverses I '" 
 
 Such language was more calculated to inspire contempt than 
 compassion. "The metropoUtan, firm in his resolution, gave 
 for answer these few words : ' Thou hast ever been associated 
 with the perjured, the sacrilegious, and the wicked of every 
 sort, and now thou art stni unwilling to separate from them : 
 how canst thou, in company with such men, and by means of 
 such men, seek to attain to the sovereign power?' And when 
 Charles replied that he must not abandon his friends, but 
 rather gain over others, the bishop said to himself, ' Now that 
 he possesses no position of dignity, he hath alhed himself with 
 the wicked, whose companionship he wiU not, in any way, give
 
 238 BISTORT OF FRANCE. [ch. xin. 
 
 up : what misfortune would it be for the good if he were elected 
 to the throne ! ' To Charles, however, he made answer that 
 he would do naught without the consent of the princes; and so 
 left him." 
 
 At the time fixed, probably the 29th or 30th of Jime, 987, the 
 grandees of Frankish Gaul who had bound themselves by oath 
 re-assembled at Senhs. Hugh Capet was present with his 
 brother Henry of Burgundy, and his brother-in-law Eichard 
 the Fearless, duke of Normandy. The majority of the direct 
 vassals of the crown were also there, Foulques Nerra (the 
 Black), count of Anjou; Eudes, count of Blois, Chartres, and 
 Tours; Bouchard, count of Vendorae and Corbeil; Gautier, 
 count of Vexin; and Hugh, count of Maine. Few counts 
 came from beyond the Loire; and some of the lords in the 
 North, amongst others Arnulf II., count of Flanders, and the 
 lords of Vermandois were hkewise missing. "When those 
 present were in regular assembly. Archbishop Adalberon, with 
 the assent of Duke Hugh, thus spake mito them: 'Louis, of 
 blessed memory, having been taken from us without leaving 
 issue, it hath become necessary to engage seriously in seeking 
 who may take his place upon the throne, to the end that the 
 common weal remain not in peril, neglected and withoirt a 
 head. That is why on the last occasion we deemed it useful to 
 put off this matter, in order that each of ye might come hither 
 and submit to the assembly the opinion with which God should 
 have inspired him, and that from aU those sentiments might 
 be drawn what is the general wiU. Here be we assembled : let 
 us, then, be guided by our msdom and our good faith to act in 
 such sort that hatred stifle not reason, and affection distort not 
 truth. We be not ignorant that Charles hath his partisans, 
 who maintain that he ought to come to the throne transmitted 
 to him by his relatives. But if we examine this question, the 
 throne is not acquired by hereditary right, and we be bound to 
 place at the head of the kingdom none but him who not only 
 hath the distinction of corporeal nobility, but hath also honor 
 to recommend him and magnanimity to rest upon. We read 
 in the annals that to emperors of illustrious race, whom their 
 own laches caused to fall from power, succeeded others, at one 
 time similar, at another different ; but what dignity could we 
 confer on Charles, who hath not honor for his guide, who is 
 enfeebled by lethargy, and who, finally, hath lost head so far 
 that he hath no shame in serving a foreign king, and in mis- 
 uniting himself to a woman taken from the rank of the knights
 
 en. xni.] FEUDAL FRANCE AND HUGH CAPET, 239 
 
 his vassals? How could the puissant duke hrook that a woman 
 issuing from a family of his vassals should become queen, and 
 have dominion over him? How could he walk behind her 
 whose equals and even superiors bend the knee before him and 
 place their hands beneath his feet? Examine carefully into the 
 matter, and consider that Charles hath been rejected more 
 through his own fault than that of others. Decide ye rather 
 for the good than the iU of the common weal. If ye wish it 
 ill, make Charles sovereign; if ye hold to its prosperity, croAVTi 
 Hugh, the illustrious duke. Let attachment to Charles seduce 
 nobody, and let hatred towards the duke distract nobody, from 
 the common interest. . . . Give us then, for our head, the duke, 
 who has deeds, nobUity, and troops to recommend him; the 
 duke, in whom ye will find a defender not only of the common 
 weal but also of your private interests. Thanks to his bene- 
 volence, ye will have in him a father. Who hath had recourse 
 to him and hath not found protection? Who, that hath been 
 torn from the care of home, hath not been restored thereto 
 by him?' 
 
 "This opinion having been proclaimed and well received, 
 Duke Hugh was unanimously raised to the throne, crowned 
 on the 1st of July by the metropoUtan and the other bishops, 
 and recognized as king by the Gauls, the Britons, the Nor- 
 mans, the Aquitanians, the Goths, the Spaniards, and the Gas- 
 cons. SiuTOunded by the grandees of the kingdom, he passed 
 decrees and promulgated laws according to royal custom, reg- 
 ulating successfully and disposing of all matters. That he 
 might deserve so much good fortune, and under the inspii'a- 
 tion of so many prosperous circumstances, he gave himself up 
 to deep piety. Wishing to have a certainty of leaving, after 
 his death, an heir to the throne, he conferred with his grandees, 
 and after holding coirncU with them he first sent a deputation 
 to the Metropolitan of Rheims, who was then at Orleans, and 
 subsequently went himself to see hun touching the association 
 of his son Robert with himself upon the throne. The arch, 
 bishop having told him that two kings could not be, regularly, 
 created in one and the same year, he immediately showed a 
 letter sent by Borel, duke of inner Spain, proving that that 
 duke requested help against the barbarians. . . . The metro- 
 politan, seeing advantage was likely to result, ultimately 
 yielded to the king's reasons; and when the grandees were 
 assembled, at the festival of oiu* Lord's nativity, to celebrate 
 the coronation, Hugh assmned the purple, and he crowned 
 (11) HF Vol. i
 
 240 HISTORY OF FRANCE. [cH. xin. 
 
 solemnly, in the basilica of Sainte - Croix, his son Robert, 
 amidst the acclamations of the French, 
 
 Thus was founded the dynasty of the Capetians, imder the 
 double influence of German manners and feudal connections. 
 Amongst the ancient Germans royal heirship was generally 
 confined to one and the same family ; but election was often 
 joined with heirship, and had more than once tlirust the latter 
 aside. Hugh Capet was head of the famUy which was. the 
 most illustrious in his time and closest to the throne, on which 
 the personal merits of Counts Eudes and Robert had already 
 twice seated it. He was also one of the greatest chieftains of 
 feudal society, duke of the country which was already called 
 France, and Count of Paris, of that city which Clovis, after 
 his victories, had chosen as the centre of his dominions. In 
 view of the Roman rather than GeiTnanic pretensions of the 
 Carlovingian heirs and of their admitted decay, the rise of 
 Hugh Capet was the natural consequence of the principal facts 
 as well as of the manners of the period, and the crowning mani- 
 festation of the new social condition in France, that is, feudal- 
 ism. Accordingly the event reached completion and confirma- 
 tion without any great obstacle. The Carlovingian, Charles of 
 Lorraine, vainly attempted to assert his rights ; but, after some 
 gleams of success, he died in 992, and his descendants fell, if 
 not into obscurity, at least into poHtical insignificance. In 
 vain, again, did certain feudal lords, especially in Southern 
 France, refuse for some time their adhesion to Hugh Capet. 
 One of them, Adalbert, count of Perigord, has remained almost 
 famous for having made to Hugh Capet's cmestion "Who made 
 thee count?" the proud answer, "Who made thee Icing?" The 
 pride, however, of Count Adalbert had more bark than bite. 
 Hugh possessed that intelligent and patient moderation, which- 
 when a position is once acquired, is the best pledge of continu- 
 ance. Several facts indicate that he did not underestimate the 
 worth and range of liis title of king. At the same time that by 
 getting his son Robert crowned with him he secured for his line 
 the next succession, he also performed several acts which went 
 beyond the hmits of his feudal domains and proclaimed to all 
 the kingdom the presence of the king. But those acts were 
 temperate and wise ; and they paved the way for the future 
 without anticipating it. Hugh Capet confined himself care- 
 fully to the sphere of his recognized rights as well as of his 
 effective strength, and his government remained faithful to the 
 character of the revolution which had raised him to the throne,
 
 CH. xin.] FEUDAL FRANCE AND HUGH CAPET. 341 
 
 at the same time that it gave warning of the future progress 
 of royalty mdependently of and over the head of feudahsm. 
 When he died, on the 24th of October, 996, the crown, which 
 he hesitated, they say, to wear on his own head, passed with- 
 out obstacle to his son Robert, and the course which was to be 
 followed for eight centuries, under the government of his de- 
 scendants, by civiHzation in France, began to develop itself. 
 
 It has already been j>ointed out, in the case of Adalberon, 
 archbishop of Rheims, what part was taken by the clergy in 
 this second change of dynasty ; but the part played by it was 
 so important and novel that we must make a somewhat more 
 detailed acquaintance with the real character of it and the 
 principal actor in it. When, in 751, Pepin the Short became 
 king in the place of the last Merovingian, it was, as we have 
 seen, Pope Zachary who decided that ' ' it was better to give 
 the title of king to him who really exercised the sovereign 
 power than to him who bore only its name." Three years 
 later, in 754, it was Pope Stephen II. who came over to France 
 to anoint King Pepin, and, forty -six years afterwards, in 800, 
 It was Pope Leo III. who proclaimed Charlemagne emperor of 
 the West. From the Papacy, then, on the accession of the 
 Carlovingians, came the principal decisions and steps. The 
 reciprocal services rendered one to the other by the two 
 powers, and still more, perhaps, the similarity of their maxima 
 as to the unity of the empire, established between the Papacy 
 and the Carlovingians strong ties of gi'atitude and pohcy ; and, 
 accordingly, when the Carlovingian dynasty was in danger, 
 the court of Rome was grieved and troubled ; it was hard for 
 her to see the fall of a dynasty for wliich she had done so 
 much and which had done so much for her. Far, then, from 
 aiding the accession of the new dynasty, she showed herself 
 favorable to the old, and tried to save it without herself be- 
 coming too deeply compromised. Such was, from 985 to 996, 
 the attitude of Pope John XVI., at the crisis wliich placed 
 Hugh Capet upon the throne. In spite of this poUcy on the 
 part of the Papacy, the French Church took the initiative in 
 the event, and supported the new king; the Archbishop of 
 Rheims affirmed the right of the people to accomplish a change 
 of dynasty, and anointed Hugh Capet and his son Robert. 
 The accession of the Capetians was a work independent of 
 all foreign influence and strictly national, in Church as well as 
 in State. 
 
 The authority of Adalberon was of great weight in the mat-
 
 242 BISTORT OF FRANCE. [cii xia 
 
 fcer. As archbishop he was full of zeal, and at the same time 
 of wisdom in ecclesiastical administration. Engaging in poli- 
 tics, he showed boldness in attempting a great change in the 
 state, and ability in carrying it out without precipitation as 
 well as without hesitation. He had for his secretary and 
 teacher a simple priest of Auvergne, who exercised over this 
 enterprise an influence more continuous and still more effectual 
 than that of his archbishop. Gerbert, bom at AuriUac, and 
 brought up in the monastery of St. Geraud, had, when he was 
 sunnnoned to the directorate of the school of Rheims, already 
 made a trip to Spain, visited Rome, and won the esteem of 
 Pope John XIII. and of the Emperor Otho II. , and had thus 
 had a close view of the great personages and great questions, 
 ecclesiastical and secular, of his time. On his estabhshment at 
 Rheims, he pursued a double course with a double end: he was 
 fond of study, science, and the investigation of truth, but he 
 had also a taste for the sphere of politics and of the world ; he 
 excelled in the art of instructing, but also in the art of pleas- 
 ing ; and the address of the courtier was in him united with the 
 learning of the doctor. His was a mind lofty, broad, search- 
 ing, prolific, open to conviction, and yet inclined to give way, 
 either from calculation or attraction, to contrary ideas, but 
 certain to recur, under favorable circumstances, to its original 
 purpose. There was in him almost as much changeableness as 
 zeal for the cause he embraced. He espoused and energetically 
 supported the elevation of a new dynasty and the independence 
 of the Roman Church. He was very active in the cause of 
 Hugh Capet ; but he was more than once on the point of going 
 over to King Lothaire or to the pretender, Charles of Lorraine. 
 He was in his time, even more resolutely than Bossuet in the 
 seventeenth century, the defender and practiser of what have 
 since been caUed the hberties of the GalUcan .Church, and, in 
 992, he became, on this ground. Archbishop of Rheims; but, 
 after having been interdicted, in 995, by Pope John XVI., from 
 the exercise of his episcopal functions in France, he obtained, 
 in 998, from Pope Gregory V., the archbishopric of Ravenna 
 in Italy, and the favor of Otho III. was not unconnected, in 
 999, with his elevation to the Holy See, which he occupied for 
 four years, with the title of Sylvester II., whilst putting in 
 practice, but with moderation and dignity, maxims very dif- 
 ferent from those which he had supported, fifteen years before, 
 as a French bishop. He became, at this later period of his life, 
 so much the more estranged from France in that he was em*
 
 CH. XIV.] CAPETIANS TO THE TIME OF THE CRUSADES. 243 
 
 broiled with Hugh Capet's son and successor, King Robert, 
 whose quondam preceptor he had been and of whose marriage 
 with Queen Bertha, widow of Eudes, count of Blois, he had 
 honestly disapproved. 
 
 In 995, just when he had been interdicted by Pope John 
 XVI. from his functions as Archbishop of Rheims, Gerbert 
 wrote to the abbot and brethren of the monastery of St. Ge- 
 raud, where he had been brought up : " And now farewell to 
 your holy community ; farewell to those whom I knew in old 
 times, or who were connected with me by blood, if there still 
 survive any whose names, if not their features, have remained 
 upon my memory. Not that I have forgotten them through 
 pride ; but I am broken down, and — if it must be said — changed 
 by the ferocity of barbarians ; what I learnt in my boyhood I 
 forgot in my youth ; what I desired in my youth I despised in 
 my old age. Such are the fruits thou hast borne for me, O 
 pleasure! Such are the joys afforded by the honors of the 
 world ! Believe my experience of it : the higher the great are 
 outwardly raised by glory, the more cruel is their inward an- 
 guish !" 
 
 Length of life brings, in the soul of the ambitious, days of 
 hearty undeception ; but it does not discourage them from their 
 course of ambition. Gerbert was, amongst the ambitious, at 
 the same time one of the most exalted in point of intellect and 
 one of the most persistent as weU as restless in attachment to 
 the affairs of the world. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 THE CAPETIANS TO THE TIME OF THE CRUSADES. 
 
 From 996 to 1108, the first three successors of Hugh Capet, 
 his son Robert, his grandson Henry I., and his great-grandson 
 Philip I., sat upon the throne of France; and during this long 
 space of 112 years the kingdom of France had not, sooth to 
 say, any history. Parcelled out, by virtue of the feudal sys- 
 tem, between a multitude of princes, independent, isolated, 
 and scarcely sovereigns in their own dominions, keeping up 
 any thing like frequent intercourse only with their neighbors, 
 and loosely united, by certain rules or customs of vassalage.
 
 244 HISTORY OF FRANCE. [ca xiv. 
 
 to him amongst them who bore the title of king, the France of 
 the eleventh century existed in httle more than name : Nor- 
 mandy, Brittany, Burgundy, Aquitaine, Poitou, Anjou, Flan- 
 ders, and Nivernais were the real states and peoples, each with 
 its own distinct life and history. One single event, the Cru- 
 sade, united, towards the end of the century, those scattered 
 sovereigns and peoples in one common idea and one combined 
 action. Up to that point, then, let us conform to the real 
 state of the case and faithfully trace out the features of the 
 epoch without attempting to introduce a connection and a 
 combination which did not exist ; and let us pass briefly in re- 
 view the isolated events and personages which are still worthy 
 of remembrance and which have remained historic without 
 having belonged exactly to a national history. Amongst 
 events of this kind one, the conquest of England, in 1066, by 
 WiUiam the Bastard, duke of Normandy, was so striking, and 
 exercised so much influence over the destinies of France, that, 
 in the incoherent and disconnected picture of this eleventh 
 century, particular attention must flrst be drawn to the conse- 
 quences, as regarded France, of that great Norman enterprise. 
 After the sagacious Hugh Capet, the first three Capetians, 
 Robert, Henry I., and Philip I., were very mediocre individ- 
 uals, in character as well as intellect ; and their personal in- 
 significance was one of the causes that produced the emptiness 
 of French history under their sway. Robert lacked neither 
 physical advantages nor moral virtues: "He had a lofty 
 figure," says his biographer Helgaud, archbishop of Bourges, 
 " hair smooth and well arranged, a modest eye, a pleasant and 
 gentle mouth, a tolerably furnished beard and high shoulders. 
 He was versed in all the sciences, philosopher enough and an 
 excellent musician, and so devoted to sacred literature that he 
 never passed a day without reading the Psalter and praying 
 to the Most High God together with St. DaWd." He composed 
 several hymns which were adopted by the Church, and, dur- 
 ing a pilgrimage he made to Rome, he deposited upon the altar 
 of St. Peter his own Latin poems set to music. ' ' He often 
 went to the church of St. Denis, clad in his royal robes and 
 with his crown on his head ; and he there conducted the sing- 
 ing at matins, mass, and vespers, chanting with the monks 
 and himself calling upon them to sing. When he sat in the 
 consistory, he voluntarily styled himself the bishops' client." 
 Two centuries later, St. Louis proved that the virtues of the 
 saint are not incompatible with the qualities of the king; but
 
 CH. xit] GAPETIAN8 TO THE TIME OF THE CRUSADES. 245 
 
 the former cannot form a substitute for the latter, and the 
 quahties of king were to seek in Robert. He was neither war- 
 rior nor poUtician; there is no sign that he ever gathered 
 about him, to discuss affairs of state, the laic barons together 
 with the bishops, and when he interfered in the wars of the 
 great feudal lords, notably in Burgimdy and Flanders, it was 
 with but little energy and to but little purpose. He was 
 hardly more potent in his family than in his kingdom. It 
 has already been mentioned that, in spite of his preceptor 
 Gerbert's advice, he had espoused Bertha, widow of Eudes, 
 count of Blois, and he loved her dearly ; but the marriage was 
 assailed by the Church, on the ground of kinship. Robert 
 offered resistance, but afterwards gave way before the ex- 
 commimication pronounced by Pope Gregory V., and then 
 espoused Constance, daughter of William Taillefer, count of 
 Toulouse; and forthwith, says the chronicler Raoul Glaber, 
 " were seen pouring into France and Burgundy, by cause of 
 this queen, the most vain and most frivolous of all men, com- 
 ing from Aquitaine and Auvergne. They were outlandish and 
 outrageous equally in their manners and their dress, in their 
 arms and the appointments of their horses ; their hair came 
 only half way down their head ; they shaved their beards like 
 actors ; they wore boots and shoes that were not decent ; and, 
 lastly, neither fidelity nor security was to be looked for in any 
 of their ties. Alack ! that nation of Franks, which was wont 
 to be the most virtuous, and even the people of Burgundy, too, 
 were eager to follow these criminal examples, and before long 
 they reflected only too faithfully the depravity and infamy of 
 their models." The evil amounted to something graver than 
 a disturbance of court-fashions. Robert had by Constance 
 three sons. Hugh, Henry, and Robert. First the eldest, and, 
 afterwards, his two brothers, maddened by the bad character 
 and tyrannical exactions of their mother, left the palace, and 
 withdrew to Dreux and Burgundy, abandoning themselves, in 
 the royal domains and the neighborhood, to all kinds of depre 
 dations and excesses. Reconciliation was not without great 
 diflSculty effected; and, indeed, peace was never really re- 
 stored in the royal family. Peace was every where the wish 
 and study of King Robert ; but he succeeded better in main- 
 taining it with his neighbors than with his children. In 1006, 
 he was on the point of having a quarrel with Henry II., em- 
 peror of Germany, who was more active and enterprising, but 
 fortunately not less pious than himself. The two sovereigns
 
 246 HISTORY OF FRANCE. [ch. xiv. 
 
 resolved to have an interview at the Meiise, the boundary of 
 their dominions. ' ' Tiie question amongst their respective f ol- 
 lowings was which of the two should cross the river to seek 
 audience on the other bank, that is, in the other's dominions; 
 this would be a humiliation, it was said. The two learned 
 princes remembered this saying of Ecclesiasticus : ' The greater 
 thou art, the humbler be thou in all things.' The Emperor, 
 therefore, rose up early in the morning, and crossed, with 
 some of his people, into the French king's territory. They 
 embraced with cordiality; the bishops, as was proper, cele- 
 brated the sacrament of the mass, and they afterwards sat 
 down to dinner. When the meal was over. King Robert 
 offered Henry immense presents of gold and silver and pre- 
 cious stones, and a hundred horses richly caparisoned, each 
 carrying a cuirass and a helmet ; and he added that all that 
 the Emperor did not accept of these gifts would be so much 
 deducted from their friendship. Henry, seeing the generosity 
 of his friend, took of the whole only a book containing the 
 Holy Gospel, set with gold and precious stones, and a golden 
 amiilet, wherein was a tooth of St. Vincent, priest and martyr. 
 The Empress, likewise, accepted only two golden cups. Next 
 day. King Robert crossed with his bishops into the territories 
 of the Emperor, who received him magnificently, and, after 
 dinner, offered him a hundred pounds of pure gold. The king, 
 in his turn, accepted only two golden cups ; and, after having 
 ratified their pact of friendship, they returned each to his own 
 dominions." 
 
 Let us add to this summary of Robert's reign some facts 
 which are characteristic of the epoch. In a.d. 1000, in conse- 
 quence of the sense attached to certain words in the Sacred 
 Books, many Christians expected the end of the world. The 
 time of expectation was full of anxieties; plagues, famines, 
 and divers accidents which then took place in divers quarters, 
 were an additional aggravation ; the churches were crowded; 
 penances, offerings, absolutions, aU the forms of invocation 
 and repentance multiplied rapidly: a multitude of souls, in 
 submission or terror, prepared to appear before their judge. 
 And after what catastrophes ? In the midst of what gloom or 
 of what light ? These wore fearful questions of which men's 
 imaginations were exhausted in forestalling the solution. 
 When the last day of the tenth and the first of the eleventh 
 centuries were past, it was like a general regeneration; it 
 might have been said that time was beginning over again;
 
 CH. XIT.1 CAPETIANS TO THE TIME OF THE CRUSADES. 247 
 
 and the work was commenced of rendering the Christian 
 world worthy of the future. " Especially in Italy and in 
 Gaul," says the chronicler Raoul Glaber, "men took in hand 
 the reconstruction of the basiUcas, although the greater part 
 had no need thereof. Christian peoples seemed to vie one 
 with another which should erect the most beautiful. It was 
 as if the world, shaking itself together and casting off its old 
 garments, would have decked itself with the white robes of 
 Christ." Christian art, in its earliest form of the Gothic style, 
 dates from this epoch ; the power and riches of the Christian 
 Church, in its different institutions, received, at this crisis of 
 the human imagination, a fresh impulse. 
 
 Other facts, some lamentable and some salutary, began, 
 about this epoch, to assume in French history a place which 
 was destined before long to become an important one. Piles 
 of faggots were set up, first at Orleans and then at Toulouse, 
 for the punishment of heretics. The heretics of the day were 
 Manicheans. King Eobert and Queen Constance sanctioned 
 by their presence this return to human sacrifices offered to 
 God as a penalty inflicted on mental offenders against His 
 word. At the same time a double portion of ire blazed forth 
 against the Jews. " What have we to do," it was said, " with 
 going abroad to make war on Mussulmans ? Have we not in 
 the very midst of us the greatest enemies of Jesus Christ ?" 
 Amongst Christians acts of oppression and violence on the 
 part of the great against the small became so excessive and so 
 frequent that they excited in country parts, particularly in 
 Normandy, insurrections which the insurgents tried to organ- 
 ize into permanent resistance, "In several counties of Nor- 
 mandy," says William of Jumieges, " aU the peasants, meeting 
 in conventicles, resolved to live according to their own wUls 
 and their own laws, not only in the heart of the forests but also 
 on the borders of the rivers, and without care for any estab- 
 lished rights. To accomplish this design, these mobs of mad- 
 men elected each two deputies, who were to form, at the cen- 
 tral point, an assembly charged with the execution of their de- 
 crees. So soon as the duke (Richard II.) was informed thereof, 
 he sent a large body of armed men to suppress this audacity 
 in the country parts and to disperse this rustic assembly. In 
 execution of his orders, the deputies of the peasantry and 
 many other rebels were forthwith arrested; their feet and 
 hands were cut off and they were sent home thus mutilated 
 to deter ther fellows from such enterprises and to render
 
 248 HISTORY OF FRANCE. [ch. xiv. 
 
 them more prudent, for fear of worse. After this experience, 
 the peasants gave up their meetings and returned to their 
 ploughs." 
 
 This is a literal translation of the monkish chronicler, who 
 was far from favorable to the insurgent peasants, and was 
 more for applauding the suppression than justifying the in- 
 surrection. The suppi-ession, though imdoubtedly effectual 
 for the moment and in the particular spots it reached, pro- 
 duced no general or lasting effect. About a century after the 
 cold recital of William of Jumieges, a poet-chronicler, Robert 
 Wace, in his Romance of Ron, a history in verse of RoUo and 
 the first Dukes of Normandy, related the same facts with far 
 more sympathetic feehng and poetical coloring. "The lords 
 do us naught but ill," he makes the Norman peasants say; 
 " with them we have nor gain nor profit from our labors; 
 every day is, for us, a day of suffering, toil, and weariness ; 
 every day we have our cattle taken from us for road-work and 
 forced service. We have plaints and grievances, old and new 
 exactions, pleas and processes without end, money-pleas, mar- 
 ket-pleas, road-pleas, forest-pleas, mill-pleas, blackmail-pleas, 
 watch-and- ward-pleas. There are so many provosts, bailiffs, 
 and sergeants, that we have not one hour's peace ; day by day 
 they run us down, seize our movables, and drive us from our 
 lands. There is no security for us against the lords ; and no 
 pact is binding with them. Why suffer all this evil to be done 
 to us and not get out of our plight? Are we not men even as 
 they are? Have we not the same stature, the same limbs, the 
 same strength — for suffering? All we need is courage. Let 
 us, then, bind ourselves together by an oath: let us swear to 
 support one another; and if they will make war on us, have 
 we not, for one knight, thirty or forty young peasants, nimble 
 and ready to fight with club, with boar-spear, with arrow, with 
 axe, and even with stones if they have not weapons? Let us 
 learn to resist the knights, and we shall be free to cut down 
 trees, to hunt and fish after our fashion, and we shall work 
 oiu" will in flood and field and wood." 
 
 Here we have no longer the short account and severe esti- 
 mate of an indifferent spectator ; it is the cry of popular rage 
 and vengeance reproduced by the lively imagination of an 
 angered poet. Undoubtedly the Norman peasants of the 
 twelfth century did not speak of their miseries with such de- 
 scriptive ability and philosophical feeling as were lent to them 
 by Robert Wace; they did not meditate the democratic revolu-
 
 CH. xrv.] CAPETIAN8 TO THE TIME OF THE CEUSADES. 249 
 
 tion of which he attributes to them the idea and almost the 
 plan ; but the deeds of violence and oppression against which 
 they rose were very real, and they exerted themselves to es- 
 cape by reciprocal violence from intolerable suffering. Thence 
 date those alternations of demagogic revolt and tyrannical 
 suppression which have so often ensanguined the land and 
 putin peril the very foundations of social order. Insurrections 
 became of so atrocious a kind that the atrocious chastise- 
 ments with which they were visited seemed equally natural 
 and necessary. It needed long ages, a repetition of civil wars 
 and terrible political shocks to put an end to this brutal chaos 
 which gave birth to so many evils and reciprocal crimes, and 
 to bring about, amongst the different classes of the French 
 population, equitable and truly human relations. So quick- 
 spreading and contagious is evil amongst men, and so difficult 
 to extirpate in the name of justice and truth ! 
 
 However, even in the midst of this cruel egotism and this 
 gross unreason of the tenth and eleventh centuries, the neces- 
 sity, from a moral and social point of view, of struggling 
 against such disgusting irregularities made itself felt and 
 found zealous advocates. From this epoch are to be dated the 
 first efforts to establish, in different parts of France, what was 
 called God^s peace, God's truce. The words were well chosen 
 for prohibiting at the same time oppression and revolt, for it 
 needed nothing less than law and the voice of God to put some 
 restraint upon the barbarous manners and passions of men, 
 great or small, lord or peasant. It is the peculiar and glorious 
 characteristic of Christianity to have so well understood the 
 primitive and permanent evil in human nature that it fought 
 against all the great iniquities of mankind and exposed them in 
 principle, even when, in point of general practice, it neither 
 hoped nor attempted to sweep them away. Bishops, priests, 
 and monks were, in their personal Uves and in the councils of 
 the Church, the first propagators of God's peace or truce, and 
 in more than one locahty they induced the laic lords to foUow 
 their lead. In 1164, Hugh II. , count of Rodez, in concert with 
 his brother Hugh, bishop of Rodez, and the notables of the dis- 
 trict, established the peace in the diocese of Rodez ; ' ' and this 
 it is, " said the learned Benedictines of the eighteenth century, 
 in the Art of Verifying Dates, " which gave rise to the toll of 
 commune paix or pesade, which is still collected in Rouergue. " 
 King Robert always showed himself favorable to this pacific 
 work; and he is the first amongst the five kings of France, in
 
 250 EISTORY OF FRANCE. [ch. xiv. 
 
 other respects very different, — himself, St. Loiiis, Louis XII., 
 Henry IV., and Louis XVI., — who were particularly distin- 
 guished for sympathetic kindness and anxiety for the populai 
 welfare. Robert had a kindly feeling for the weak and poor; 
 not only did he protect them, on occasion, against the powerftd, 
 but he took pains to conceal their defaidts, and, in his church 
 and at his table, he suffered himself to be robbed without com- 
 plaint, that he might not have to denounce and punish the 
 robbers. " Wherefore at his death," says his biographer Hel- 
 gaud, "there was great mourning and intolerable grief; a 
 countless number of widows and orphans sorrowed for the 
 many benefits received from him ; they did beat theii* breasts 
 and went to and from his tomb, crying, ' Whilst Robert was 
 king and ordered aU, we hved in peace, we had naught to fear. 
 May the soul of that pious father, that father of the senate, 
 that father of all good, be blest and saved ! May it mount up 
 and dweU for ever with Jesus Christ, the King of kings ! ' " 
 
 Though not so pious or so good as Robert, his son, Henry I., 
 and his grandson, Phihp I. , were neither more energetic nor 
 more glorious kings. During their long reigns (the former 
 from 1031 to 1060, and the latter from 1060 to 1108) no impor- 
 tant and well-prosecuted design distinguished their govern- 
 ment. Their pubMc life was passed at one time in petty war- 
 fare, without decisive results, against such and such vassals, 
 at another in acts of capricious intervention in the quarrels of 
 their vassals amongst themselves. Their home-hfe was neither 
 less irregular nor conducted with more wisdom and regard for 
 the pubhc interest. King Robert had not succeeded in keep- 
 ing his first wife, Bertha of Burgvmdy ; and his second, Con- 
 stance of Aquitaine, with her imperious, malevolent, avari- 
 cious, meddlesome disposition, reduced him to so abject a state 
 that he never gave a gratuity to any of his servants without 
 saying, "Take care that Constance know naught of it." 
 After Robert's death, Constance, having become regent for her 
 eldest son Henry I., forthwith conspired to dethrone him, and 
 to put in his place her second son Robert, who was her favor- 
 ite. Henry, on being delivered by his mother's death from 
 her tyranny and intrigues, was thrice married; but his first 
 two marriages with two German princesses, one the daughter 
 of the Emperor Conrad the Salic, the other of the Emperor 
 Henry III., were so far fi-om happy that in 1051 he sent into 
 Russia, to Kieff, in search of his third wife, Anne, daughter of 
 the Czar Yaroslaff the Halt. She was a modest creature who
 
 CH. XIV.] CAPETIANS TO THE TIME OF THE CRUSADES. 251 
 
 lived quietly up to the death of her husband in 1060, and, two 
 years afterwards, in the reign of her son Philip I., rather than 
 return to her own country, married Eaoul, count of Valois, 
 who put away, to marry her, his second wife Haqueney, called 
 Elenore. The divorce was opposed at Rome before Pope 
 Alexander II,, to whom the Archbishop of Rheims wi-ote upon 
 the subject: "Our kingdom is the scene of great troubles. 
 The queen-mother has espoused Count Raoul, which has 
 mightily displeased the king. As for the lady whom Raoul 
 has put away, we have recognized the justice of the com- 
 plaints she has preferred before you, and the falsity of the pre- 
 texts on which he put her away." The pope ordered the 
 count to take back his wife ; Raoul would not obey, and was 
 excommunicated; but he made light of it, and the Princess 
 Anne of Russia, actually reconciled, apparently, to Philip I., 
 lived tranquilly in France, where, ia 1075, shortly after the 
 death of her second husband, Count Raoul, her signature was 
 stiU attached to a charter side by side with that of the king 
 her son. 
 
 The marriages of PhOip I. brought even more trouble and 
 scandal than those of his father and grandfather. At nineteen 
 years of age, in 1072, he had espoused Bertha, daughter of 
 Florent I., count of Holland, and in 1078 he had by her the son 
 who was destined to succeed him with the title of Louis the 
 Fat. But twenty years later, 1092, Philip took a dislike to his 
 wife, put her away and banished her to Montreuil-sur-Mer, on 
 the groimd of prohibited consanguinity. He had conceived, 
 there is no knowing when, a violent passion for a woman 
 celebrated for her beauty, Bertrade, the fourth wife, for three 
 years past, of Foulques le Rechin (the brawler), count of 
 Anjou. PhUip, having thus packed off Bertha, set out for 
 Tours, where Bertrade happened to be with her husband. 
 There, in the church of St. John, during the benediction of the 
 baptismal fonts, they entered into mutual engagements. 
 Phil i p went away agaiu ; and, a few days afterwards, Bertrade 
 was carried off by some people he had left in the neighborhood 
 of Tours and joined him at Orleans. Nearly aU the bishops of 
 France, and amongst others the most learned and respected of 
 them, Yves, bishop of Chartres, refused their benediction to 
 this shocking marriage ; and the king had great difficulty in 
 finding a priest to render him that service. Then commenced 
 between Philip and the heads of the Catholic Church, pope and 
 bishops, a struggle which, with negotiation upon negotiation
 
 252 HISTORY OF FRANCE. [CH. xnr. 
 
 and excommiinicfttion upon excommunication, lasted twelve 
 years, without the king's being able to get his marriage canon- 
 ically recognized ; and, though he promised to send away Ber- 
 trade, he was not content with merely keeping her with him, 
 but he openly jeered at excommunication and interdicts. "It 
 was the custom," says Wilham of Malmesbm-y, "at the places 
 where the king sojourned, for divine service to be stopped ; 
 and, as soon as he was moving away, all the bells began to 
 peal. And then Philip would cry, as he laughed like one be- 
 side himself, ' Dost hear, my love, how they are ringing us 
 out ? '" At last, in 1104, the Bishop of Chartres himself, wearied 
 by the persistency of the king and by sight of the trouble in 
 which the prolongation of the interdict was plunging the king- 
 dom, wrote to the Pope, Pascal II. : " I do not preaiune to offer 
 you advice ; I only desire to warn you that it were well to 
 show for awhile some condescension towards the weaknesses 
 of the man, so far as consideration for his salvation may per- 
 mit, and to rescue the country from the critical state to which 
 it is reduced by the excommunication of this prince. " The 
 Pope, consequently, sent instructions to the bishops of the 
 realm ; and they, at the king's summons, met at Paris on the 
 1st of December, 1104. One of them, Lambert, bishop of 
 Arras, wrote to the Pope : ' ' We sent as a deputation to the king 
 the bishops John of Orleans and Galon of Paris, charged to 
 demand of him whether he would conform to the clauses and 
 conditions set forth in your letters, and whether he were de- 
 termined to give up the unlawful intercourse which had made 
 him guilty before God. The king having answered, without 
 being disconcerted, that he was ready to make atonement to 
 God and the holy Roman Church, was introduced to the as- 
 sembly. He came bare-footed, in a posture of devotion and 
 humility, confessing his sin and promising to purge him of his 
 excommunication by expiatory deeds. And thus, by your 
 authority, he earned absolution. Then laying his hand on the 
 book of the holy Gospels, he took an oath, in the foUomng 
 terms, to renounce his guilty and unlawful marriage : ' Hearken, 
 thou Lambert, bishop of Arras, who art here in place of the 
 Apostolic Pontiff ; and let the archbishops and bishops here 
 present hearken unto me. I, Phihp, king of the French, do 
 promise not to go back to my sin and to break off wholly the 
 criminal intercourse I have heretofore kept up with Bertrade. 
 I do promise that henceforth I will have with her no inter- 
 course or companionship, save in the presence of persons be-
 
 en. xw] CAPETIANS TO THE TIME OF THE CRUSADES. 263 
 
 yond auspicion. I will observe, faithfully and without turn- 
 ing aside, these promises, in the sense set forth in the letters of 
 the Pope and as ye understand. So help me God and these 
 holy Gospels ! ' Bertrade, at the moment of her release from 
 excommunication, took in person the same oath on the holy 
 Gospels. " 
 
 According to the statement of the learned Benedictines who 
 studiously examined into this incident it is doubtful whether 
 Phihp I. broke off all intercourse with Bertrade. " Two years 
 after his absolution, on the 10th of October, 1106, he arrived at 
 Angers, on a Wednesday," says a contemporary chronicler, 
 * ' accompanied by the queen named Bertrade, and was there 
 received by Count Foulques and by all the Angevines, cleric 
 and laic, with great honors. The day after his arrival, 
 on Thursday, the monks of St. Nicholas, introduced by the 
 queen, presented themselves before the king, and humbly 
 prayed him, in concert with the queen, to countenance, for the 
 salvation of his soul and of the queen and his relatives and 
 friends, all acquisitions made by them in his dominions, or 
 that they might hereafter make, by gift or purchase, and to be 
 pleased to place his seal on their titles to property. And the 
 king granted their request." 
 
 The most complete amongst the chi'oniclers of the time, 
 Orderic Vital, says, touching this meeting at Angers of Ber- 
 trade's two husbands, "This clever woman had, by her skil- 
 ful management, so perfectly reconciled these two rivals, that 
 she made them a splendid feast, got them both to sit at the 
 same table, had their beds prepared, the ensuing night, in the 
 same chamber, and ministered to them according to their 
 pleasure." The most judicious of the historians and statesmen 
 of the twelfth century, the Abbe Suger, that faithful minister 
 of Louis the Fat, who cannot be suspected of favoring Bertrade, 
 expresses himself about her in these terms: " This sprightly 
 and rarely accomplished woman, well versed in the art, famil- 
 iar to her sex, of holding captive the husbands they have out- 
 raged, had acquired such an empire over her first husband, 
 the Count of Anjou, in spite of the affront she had put upon 
 him by deserting him. that he treated her with homage as his 
 sovereign, often sat upon a stool at her feet, and obeyed her 
 wishes by a sort of enchantment." 
 
 These details are textually given as the best representation 
 of the place occupied, in the history of that time, by the morals 
 and private life of the kings. It would not be right, however,
 
 254 BISTORT OP FRANCE. [ch. xit. 
 
 to draw therefrom conclusions as to the abasement of Capetian 
 royalty in the eleventh century, with too great severity. 
 There are ii-regularities and scandals which the great qualities 
 and the personal glory of pi^inces may cause to be not only 
 excused but even forgotten, though certainly the three Cape- 
 tians who immediately succeeded the founder of the dynasty 
 offered their people no such compensation ; but it must not be 
 supposed that they had fallen into the pUght of the sluggard 
 Merovingians or the last Carlovingians, wandering almost 
 without a refuge. A profound change had come over society and 
 royalty in France. In spite of their pohtical mediocrity and 
 their indolent licentiousness, Robert, Henry I., and Philip I. 
 were not, in the eleventh century, insignificant personages, 
 without authority or practical influence, whom theii* contem- 
 poraries could leave out of the account ; they were great lords, 
 proprietors of vast domains wherein they exercised over the 
 population an almost absolute power; they had, it is true, 
 about them rivals, large proprietors, and almost absolute 
 sovereigns, like themselves, sometimes stronger even, materi- 
 ally, than themselves and more energetic or more intellectu- 
 ally able, whose superiors, however, they remained on two 
 grounds, as suzerains and as kings : their court was always the 
 most honored and their alliance always very much sought 
 after. They occupied the first rank in feudal society and a rank 
 unique in the body politic such as it was slowly becoming in 
 the midst of reminiscences and traditions of the Jewish mon- 
 archy, of barbaric kingship and of the Roman empire for a 
 while resuscitated by Charlemagne. French kingship in the 
 eleventh century was sole power invested with a triple charac- 
 ter, Germanic, Roman, and religious; its possessors were at 
 the same time the chieftains of the conquerors of the soil, the 
 successors of the Roman emperors and of Charlemagne, and the 
 laic delegates and representatives of the God of the Christians. 
 Whatever were their weaknesses and their personal short- 
 comings, they were not the mere titularies of a power in 
 decay, and the kingly post was strong and full of blossom, as 
 events were not slow to demonstrate. 
 
 And as with the kingship, so with the community of France 
 in the eleventh century. In spite of its dislocation into petty 
 incoherent and turbulent associations, it was by no means in 
 decay. Irregularities of ambition, hatreds and quarrels amongst 
 neighbors and relatives, outrages on the part of princes and 
 peoples were incessantly renewed; but energy of character,
 
 CH. XIV.] CAPETIANS TO THE TIME OF THE CRUSADES. 255 
 
 activity of mind, indomitable will and zeal for the liberty of 
 the individual were not wanting, and they exhibited them- 
 selves passionately and at any risk, at one time bj- brutal or 
 cynical outbursts which were followed occasionally by fervent 
 repentance and expiation, at another by acts of courageous 
 wisdom and disinterested piety. At the commencement of the 
 eleventh century, William III., count of Poitiers, and duke of 
 Aquitaine, was one of the most honored and most potent 
 princes of his time ; all the sovereigns of Europe sent embassies 
 to him as to their peer ; he every year made, by way of de- 
 votion, a trip to Eome and was received there with the same 
 honors as the Emperor, He Avas fond of hterature, and gave 
 up to reading the early hours of the night ; and scholars called 
 him another Maecenas, Unaffected by these worldly successes 
 intermingled with so much toil and so many miscalculations, 
 he refused the crown of Italy, when it was offered him at the 
 death of the Emperor Henry H. , and he finished, like Charles 
 V, some centuries later, by going and seeking in a monastery 
 isolation from the world and repose. But, in the same domains 
 and at the end of the same century, his grandson WiUiam VII. 
 was the most vagabondish, dissolute, and violent of princes; 
 and his morals were so scandalous that the Bishop of Poitiere, 
 after having warned him to no purpose, considered himself 
 forced to excommunicate him. The duke suddenly burst into 
 the church, made his way through the congregation, sword in 
 hand, and seized the prelate by the hair, saying: "Thou shalt 
 give me absolution or die." The bishop demanded a moment 
 for reflection, profited by it to pronoimce the form of excom- 
 munication, and forthwith bowing his head before the duke, 
 said, " And now strike !" "I love thee not well enough to send 
 thee to paradise," answered the duke; and he confined himself 
 to depriving him of his see. For fury the Duke of Aquitaine 
 sometimes substituted insolent mockery. Another bishop, of 
 Angouleme, who was quite bald, likewise exhorted him to 
 mend his ways. "I will mend," quoth the duke, "when thou 
 shalt comb back thy hair to thy pate," Another great lord of 
 the same century, Foulques the Black, count of Anjou, at the 
 close of an able and glorious hfetime, had resigned to his son 
 Geoffrey Martel the administration of his countship, Tlie son, 
 as haughty and harsh towards his father as towards his sub- 
 jects, took up arms against him, and bade him lay aside the 
 outward signs, which he still maintained, of power. The old 
 man in his wrath recovered the vigor and ability of his youth,
 
 256 HISTORY OF FRANCE. [CH. xir 
 
 and strove so energetically and successfully against his son 
 that he reduced him to such subjection as to make him do 
 several miles "crawling on the ground," says the chronicle, 
 with a saddle on his back, and to come and prostrate himself 
 at his feet. When Foulques had his son thus humbled before 
 him, he spurned him with his foot, repeating over and over 
 again nothing but " Thou'rt beaten, thou'rt beaten!" "Ay, 
 beaten," said Geoffrey, "but by thee only, because thou art 
 my father; to any other I am invincible." The anger of the 
 old man vanished at once : he now thought only how he might 
 console his son for the affront put upon him, and he gave him 
 back his power, exhorting him only to conduct himself with 
 more moderation and gentleness towards his subjects. All was 
 inconsistency and contrast with these robust, rough, hasty 
 souls ; they cared little for belying themselves when they had 
 satisfied the passion of the moment. 
 
 The relations existing between the two great powers of the 
 period, the laic lords and the monks, were not less bitter or 
 less unstable than amongst the laics themselves; and when 
 artifice, as often happened, was employed, it was by no means 
 to the exclusion of violence. About the middle of the twelfth 
 centvu'y, the abbey of Tournus in Burgundy had, at Louhans, 
 a little port where it collected salt-tax, whereof it every year 
 distributed the receipts to the poor during the first week in 
 Lent. Girard, count of Macon, established a like toll a httle 
 distance off. The monks of Tournus complained ; but he took 
 no notice. A long while afterwards he came to Tournus with 
 a splendid following, and entered the church of St. Pliilibert. 
 He had stopped all alone before the altar to say his prayers, 
 when a monk, cross in hand, issued suddenly from behind the 
 altar, and, placing himself before the count, " How hast thou 
 the audacity," said he, "to enter my monastery and mine 
 house, thou that dost not hesitate to rob me of my dues?" and, 
 taking Girard by the hair, he threw him on the ground and 
 belabored him heavily. The count, stupefied and contrite, 
 acknowledged his injustice, took off the toll that he had wrong- 
 fully put on, and, not content with this reparation, sent to the 
 church of Tournus a rich carpet of golden and silken tissue. 
 In the middle of the eleventh century, Adhemar II., viscount 
 of Limoges, had in his city a quarrel of quite a different sort 
 with the monks of the abbey of St. Martial. The abbey had 
 fallen into great looseness of discipUne and morals ; and the 
 viscount had at heart its reformation. To this end he entered
 
 CH. XIV.] CAPETIAN8 TO THE TIME OF THE CRUSADES. 257 
 
 into concert, at a distance, with Hugh, abbot of Cluni, at that 
 time the most celebrated and most respected of the monas- 
 teries. The Abbot of St. Martial died. Adhemar sent for 
 some monks from Climi to come to Limoges, lodged them 
 secretly near his palace, repaired to the abbey of St. Martial 
 after having had the chapter convoked, and called upon the 
 monks to proceed at once to the election of a new abbot. A 
 lively discussion, upon this point, arose between the viscoimt and 
 the monks. "We are not ignorant," said one of them to him, 
 "that you have sent for brethren from Cluni, in order to drive 
 us out and put them in our places; but you will not succeed." 
 The viscount was furious, seized by the sleeve the monk who 
 was inveighing, and dragged him by force out of the monas- 
 tery. His fellows were frightened, and took to flight; and 
 Adhemar immediately had the monks from Cluni sent for, 
 and put them ia possession of the abbey. It was a ruffianly 
 proceeding ; but the reform was popular in Limoges and was 
 effected. 
 
 These trifling matters are faithful samples of the dominant 
 and fundamental characteristic of French society during the 
 tenth, eleventh, and twelfth centuries, the true epoch of the 
 middle ages. It was chaos and fermentation within the chaos, 
 the slow and rough but powerful and productive fermentation 
 of unruly hfe. In ideas, events, and persons there was a 
 blending of the strongest contrasts : manners were rude and 
 even savage, yet souls were filled -svith lofty and tender aspira- 
 tions ; the authority of religious creeds at one time was on the 
 point of extinction, yet at another shone forth gloriously in 
 opposition to the arrogance and brutahty of mundane passions ; 
 ignorance was profound, and yet here and there, ia the very 
 heart of the mental darkness, gleamed bright centres of move- 
 ment and intellectual labor. It was the period when Abelard, 
 anticipating freedom of thought and of instruction, drew 
 together upon Mount St. Genevieve thousands of hearers 
 anxious to follow him in the study of the great problems of 
 Natvu-e and of the destiny of man and the world. And, far away 
 from this throng, in the sohtude of the abbey of Bee, St. Anselm 
 was offering to his monks a Christian and philosophical demon- 
 stration of the existence of God — ** faith seeking understand- 
 ing" {fides qucerens mtellectum) , as he himself used to say. It 
 was the period, too, when, distressed at the hcentiousness 
 which was spreading throughout the Church as well as lay 
 society, two illustrious monks, St. Bernard and St. Norbert,
 
 258 BISTORT OF FRANCE. [ch. xm 
 
 not only went preaching everywhere reformation of morals, 
 but labored at and succeeded in estabUshing for monastic life a 
 system of strict discipline and severe austerity. Lastly, it was 
 the period when, in the laic world, was created and developed 
 the most splendid fact of the middle ages, knighthood, that 
 noble soaring of imaginations and souls towards the ideal of 
 Christian virtue and soldierly honor. It is impossible to trace 
 in detail the origin and history of that grand fact which was 
 so prominent in the days to which it belonged and which is so 
 prominent still in the memories of men; but a clear notion 
 ought to be obtained of its moral character and its practical 
 worth. To this end a few pages shall be borrowed from Guizot's 
 History of Civilization in France. Let us first look on at the 
 admission of a knight, such as took place in the twelfth cen- 
 tury. We will afterwards see what rules of conduct were im- 
 posed upon him, not only according to the oaths which he had 
 to take on becoming knight, but according to the idea formed 
 of knighthood by the poets of the day, those interpreters not 
 only of actual life but of men's sentiments also. We shall then 
 understand, without diflBculty, what influence must have been 
 exercised, in the souls and lives of men, by such sentiments and 
 such rules, however gi-eat may have been the discrepancy be- 
 tween the knightly ideal and the general actions and passions 
 of contemporaries. 
 
 "The young man, the esquire who aspired to the title of 
 knight, was first stripped of his clothes and placed in a bath, 
 which was symbolical of purification. On leaving the bath he 
 was clothed in a white tunic, which was symbolical of purity, 
 and a red robe, which was symbolical of the blood he was 
 bound to shed in the service of the faith, and a black sagum or 
 close-fitting coat, which was symbolical of the death which 
 awaited him as well as all men. 
 
 " Thus purified and clothed, the candidate observed for four 
 and twenty hours a strict fast. When evening came, he 
 entered church, and there passed the night in prayer, some- 
 times alone, sometimes with a priest and sponsors, who prayed 
 with him. Next day, his first act was confession ; after con- 
 fession the priest gave him the communion; after the com- 
 munion he attended a mass of the Holy Spirit ; and, generally, 
 a sermon touching the duties of knights and of the new life he 
 was about to enter on. The sermon over, the candidate ad- 
 vanced to the altar with the knight's sword hanging from his 
 neck. This the priest took off, blessed, and replaced upon his
 
 CH. XIV.] CAPETIANS TO THE TIME OF THE CRUSADES. 259 
 
 neck The candidate then went and knelt before the lord who 
 was to arm him knight. ' To what purpose, ' the lord asked 
 him,/ do you desire to enter the order? If to be rich, to take 
 your ease and be held in honor without doing honor to knight- 
 hood, you are unworthy of it and would be to the order of 
 knighthood you received, what the simoniacal clerk is to the 
 prelacy.' On the young man's reply, promising to acquit him- 
 seK well of the duties of knight, the lord granted his request. 
 
 " Then drew near knights and sometimes ladies to reclothe 
 the candidate in all his new array ; and they put on him, 1, the 
 spurs; 2, the hauberk or coat of mail; 3, the cuirass; 4. the 
 armlets and gauntlets ; 5, the sword. 
 
 "He was then what was called adubbed (that is, adopted, 
 according to Du Cange). The lord rose up, went to him and 
 gave him the accolade or accolee, three blows with the flat of 
 the sword on the shoulder or nape of the neck, and some- 
 times a slap with the palm of the hand on the cheek, saying, 
 ' In the name of God, St. Michael and St. George, I make thee 
 knight.' And he sometimes added, 'Be valiant, bold, and 
 loyal.' 
 
 "The young man having been thus armed knight, had his 
 helmet brought to him ; a horse was led up for him ; he leapt 
 on its back, generally without the help of the stirrups, and 
 caracoled about, brandishing his lance and making liis sword 
 flash. Finally he went out of church and caracoled about 
 on the open, at the foot of the castle, in presence of the people 
 eager to have their share in the spectacle." 
 
 Such was what may be called the outward and material part 
 in the admission of knights. It shows a persistent anxiety to 
 associate religion with aU the phases of so personal an affair \ 
 the sacraments, the most august feature of Christianity, are 
 mixed up with it ; and many of the ceremonies are, as far as 
 possible, assimilated to the administration of the sacraments. 
 Let us continue our examination ; let us penetrate to the very 
 heart of knighthood, its moral character, its ideas, the senti- 
 ments which it was the object to impress upon the knight. 
 Here again the influence of religion will be quite evident. 
 
 "The knight had to swear to twenty-six articles. These 
 articles, however, did not make one single formula, dra^vn up 
 at one and the same time and aU together; they are a col- 
 lection of oaths required of knights at different epoclis and in 
 more or less complete fashion from the eleventh to the four- 
 teenth century. The candidates swore, 1, to fear, reverence,
 
 260 HISTORY OF FRANCE. [en. xrv. 
 
 and serve God religiously, to fight for the faith with all their 
 might, and to die a thousand deaths rather than ever renounce 
 Christianity ; 2, to serve their sovereign-prince faithfully, and 
 to fight for him and fatherland right valiantly ; 3, to uphold 
 the rights of the weaker, such as widows, orphans, and 
 damsels, in fair quarrrel, exposing themselves on that account 
 according as need might be, provided it were not against their 
 own honor or against their king or lawful prince ; 4, that they 
 would not injure any one maliciously, or take what was 
 another's, but would rather do battle with those who did so ; 
 5, that greed, pay, gain, or profit should never constrain them 
 to do any deed, but only glory and virtue; 6, that they would 
 fight for the good and advantage of the common weal ; 7, that 
 they would be bound by and obey the orders of their generals 
 and captains who had a right to command them; 8, that they 
 would guard the honor, rank, and order of their comrades, 
 and that they would neither by arrogance nor by force commit 
 any trespas against any one of them ; 9, that they would never 
 fight in companies against one, and that they would eschew 
 all tricks and artifices; 10, that they would wear but one 
 sword, unless they had to fight against two or more ; 11, that 
 in tourney or other sportive contest they would never use the 
 point of their swords; 12, that being taken prisoner in a 
 tourney, they would be bound, on their faith and honor, to 
 perform in every point the conditions of capture, besides being 
 bound to give up to the victors their arms and horses, if it 
 seemed good to take them, and being disabled from fighting in 
 war or elsewhere without their leave; 13, that they would 
 keep faith inviolably with all the world, and especially with 
 their conu'ades, upholding their honor and advantage, wholly, 
 in their absence; 14, that they would love and honor one 
 another, and aid and succor one another whenever occasion 
 offered ; 15, that, having made vow, or promise to go on any 
 quest or novel adventure, they would never put off their arms, 
 save for the night's rest ; 16, that in piu'suit of their quest or 
 adventure they would not shun bad and perilous passes, nor 
 turn aside from the straight road for fear of encountering 
 powerful knights or monsters or wild beasts or other hindrance 
 such as the body and courage of a single man might tackle ; 
 17, that they would never take wage or pay from any foreign 
 prince; 18, that in command of troops of men-at-arms, they 
 would live in the utmost possible order and discipline, and 
 BBpecially in their own country, where they would never suffer
 
 CH. xrv]. CAPETIANS TO THE TIME OF THE CRUSADES. 261 
 
 any harm or violence to be done ; 19, that if they were bound 
 to escort dame or damsel, they would serve her, protect her, 
 and save her from all danger and insult, or die in the attempt ; 
 20, that they would never offer violence to dame or damsel, 
 though they had won her by deeds of arms, against her will 
 and consent; 21, that, being challenged to eqvxxl combat, they 
 would not refuse, without wound, sickness, or other reasonable 
 hindrance; 22, that, having undertaken to carry out any 
 enterprise, they would devote to it night and day, unless they 
 were called away for the service of their king and country; 
 23, that if they made a vow to acquire any honor, they would 
 not draw back without having attained either it or its equiva- 
 lent ; 24, that they would be faithful keepers of their word and 
 pledged faith, and that, having become prisoners in fair war- 
 fare, they would pay to the uttermost the promised ransom, 
 or return to prison, at the day and hour agreed upon, on 
 pain of being proclaimed infamous and perjured; 25, that on 
 returning to the court of their sovereign, they would render 
 a true account of their adventures, even though they had 
 sometimes been worsted, to the king and the registrar of the 
 order, on pain of being deprived of the order of knighthood ; 
 26, that above all things they would be faithful, courteous and 
 humble, and would never be wanting to their word for any 
 harm or loss that might accrue to them. " 
 
 It is needless to point out that in this series of oaths, these 
 obligations imposed upon the knights, there is a moral develop- 
 ment very superior to that of the laic society of the period. 
 Moral notions so lofty, so delicate, so scrupulous, and so 
 humane, emanated clearly from the Christian clergy. Only 
 the clergy thought thus about the duties and the relations of 
 mankind; and their influence was employed in directing 
 towards the accomplishment of such duties, towards the integ- 
 rity of such relations, the ideas and customs engendered by 
 knighthood. It had not been instituted with so pious and 
 deep a design, for the protection of the weak, and maintenance 
 of justice, and the reformation of morals ; it had been, at its 
 origin and in its earliest featiires, a natural consequence of 
 feudal relations and warlike life, a confirmation of the bonds 
 established and the sentiments aroused between different mas- 
 ters in the same country and comrades with the same destinies. 
 The clergy promptly saw what might be deduced from such a 
 fact ; and they made of it a means of establishing more peace- 
 fulness ia society, and in the conduct of individuals a more
 
 262 HISTORY OF FRAXCE. [cH. xtv, 
 
 rigid morality. This was the general work they pursued; and, 
 if it were convenient to study the matter more closely, we 
 might see, in the canons of councils from the eleventh to the 
 fourteenth centuries, the Church exerting herself to develope 
 more and more in this order of knighthood, this institution of 
 an essentially warlike origin, the moral and civilizing char- 
 acter of which a gUmpse has just been caught in the docu- 
 ments of knighthood itself. 
 
 In proportion as knighthood appeared more and more in this 
 sunultaneously warlike, rehgious, and moral character, it 
 more and more gained power over the imagination of men, 
 and just as it had became closely interwoven with their creeds, 
 it soon become the ideal of their thoughts, the source of their 
 noblest pleasures. Poetry, like rehgion, took hold of it. 
 From the eleventh century onwards, knighthood, its cere- 
 monies, its duties, and its adventm-es, were the mine from 
 which the poets drew in order to charm the people, in order to 
 satisfy and excite at the same time that yearning of the soul, 
 that need of events more varied and more captivating, and of 
 emotions more exalted and more pxire than real life could 
 furnish. In the springtide of communities poetry is not 
 merely a pleasure and a pastime for a nation ; it is a source of 
 progress ; it elevates and developes the moral natm-e of men at 
 the same time that it amuses them and stirs them deeply. 
 We have just seen what oaths were taken by the knights and 
 administered by the priests; and now, here is an ancient 
 ballad by Eustache Deschamps, a poet of the fourteenth cen- 
 tury, from which it will be seen that poets impressed upon 
 knights the same duties and the same vii-tues, and that the 
 influence of poetry had the same aim as that of religion: 
 
 I. 
 
 Amend your lives, ye who would fain 
 The order of the knights attain ; 
 Devoutly watch, devoutly pray; 
 From pride and sin, oh, turn away! 
 Shun all that's base; the Church defend; 
 Be the widow's and the orphan's friend; 
 Be good and leal; take naught by might; 
 Be bold and guard the people's rijrht; — 
 This is the rule for the gallant knight. 
 
 n. 
 
 Be meek of heart; work day by day; 
 Tread, ever tread, the knightly way; 
 Make lawful war; long travel dar«; 
 Tourney and joiist for lady fair;
 
 CH. XIV.] CAPETIANS TO THE TIME OF THE CRUSADES. 263 
 
 To everlasting honor cling, 
 
 That none the barbs of blame may fling; 
 
 Be never slack in work or fight; 
 
 Be ever least in self's own sight; — 
 
 This is the rule for the gallant knight. 
 
 m. 
 
 Love the liege lord ; with might and main 
 
 His rights above all else maintain. 
 
 Be open-handed, just and true; 
 
 The paths of upright men pursue; 
 
 No deaf ear to their precepts turn; 
 
 The prowess of the valiant learn ; 
 
 That ye may do things great and bright. 
 
 As did gi'eat Alexander hight; — 
 
 This is the rule for the gallant knight. 
 
 A great deal has been said to the effect that all this is sheer 
 poetry, a beautifxil chimera without any resemblance to real- 
 ity. Indeed, it has just been remarked here, that the three 
 centuries under consideration, the middle ages, were, in point 
 of fact, one of the most brutal, most ruflBanly epochs in history, 
 one of those wherein we encounter most crimes and violence ; 
 wherein the public peace was most incessantly troubled ; and 
 wherein the greatest Hcentiousness in morals prevailed. Never- 
 theless it cannot be denied that side by side with these gross 
 and barbarous morals, this social disorder, there existed 
 knightly morality and knightly poetry. We have moral 
 records confronting ruffiantly deeds; and the contrast is 
 shocking but real. It is exactly this contrast which makes 
 the great and fundamental characteristic of the middle 
 ages. Let us turn our eyes towards other communities, 
 towards the earhest stages, for instance, of Greek society, 
 towards that heroic age of which Homer's poems are the 
 faithful reflection. There is nothing there like the con- 
 trasts by which we are struck in the middle ages. We do 
 not see that, at the period and amongst the people of the 
 Homeric poems, there was abroad in the air or had penetrated 
 into the imaginations of men any idea more lofty or more 
 pure than their every-day actions ; the heroes of Homer seem 
 to have no misgiving about their brutishness, their ferocity, 
 their greed, their egotism, there is nothing in their souls 
 superior to the deeds of their lives. In the France of the 
 middle ages, on the contrary, though practically crimes and 
 disorders, moral and social evils abound, yet men have in 
 their souls and their imaginations loftier and purer instincts 
 and desires ; their notions of virtue and their ideas of justice 
 (12) HF Vol. 1
 
 264 HISTORY OF FRANCE. [CH. xv. 
 
 are very superior to the practice pursued around them and 
 amongst themselves ; a certain moral ideal hovers above this 
 low and tumultuous community and attracts the notice and 
 obtains the regard of men in whose life it is but very faintly 
 reflected. The Christian religion, undoubtedly, is, if not the 
 only, at any rate the principal cause of this great fact ; for its 
 particular characteristic is to arouse amongst men a lofty 
 moral ambition by keeping constantly before their eyes a type 
 infinitely beyond the reach of human nature and yet pro- 
 fomidly sympathetic with it. To Christianity it was that the 
 middle ages owed knighthood, that institution which, in the 
 midst of anarchy and barbarism, gave a poetical and moral 
 beauty to the period. It was feudal knighthood and Chris- 
 tianity together which produced the two great and glorious 
 events of those times, the Norman conquest of England and 
 the Crusades. 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 CONQUEST OF ENGLAND BY THE NORMANS. 
 
 At the beginning of the eleventh century, Robert, called 
 "the Magnificent," the fifth in succession from the great chief- 
 tain RoUo who had established the Northmen in France, was 
 duke of Normandy. To the nickname he earned by his noble- 
 ness and liberality some chronicles have added another and 
 call him "Robert the Devil," by reason of his reckless and vio- 
 lent deeds of audacity, whether in private life or in warlike 
 expeditions. Hence a lively controversy amongst the learned 
 upon the question of deciding to which Robert to apply the 
 latter epithet. Some persist in assigning it to the Duke of 
 Normandy ; others seek for some other Robert upon whom to 
 foist it. However that may be, in 1034 or 1035, after having 
 led a fair life enough from the political point of view, but one 
 full of turbulence and moral irregularity, Duke Robert resolved 
 to undertake, bare-footed and staff in hand, a pilgrimage to 
 Jerusalem, "to expiate his sins if God would deign to con- 
 Bent thereto." The Norman prelates and barons, having been 
 gammoned around him, conjured him to renounce his plan; 
 for to what troubles and perils would not his dominions be ex- 
 posed without lord or assured successor? " By my faith," said
 
 CH. XV.] CONQUEST OF ENGLAND BJ TEE NORMANS. 265 
 
 Eobert, "I will not leave ye lordless. I have a young bastard 
 who will grow up, please God, and of whose good qualities I 
 have great hope. Take him, I pray you, for lord. That he 
 was not bom in wedlock matters Httle to you; he will be none 
 the less able in battle, or at court, or in the palace, or to ren- 
 der you justice. I make him my heir and I hold him seised^ 
 from this present, of the whole duchy of Normandy." And 
 they who were present assented, but not without objection and 
 disquietude. 
 
 There were certainly ample reason for objection and dis- 
 quietude. Not only was it a child of eight years of age to 
 whom Duke Robert, at setting out on his pious pilgrimage, was 
 leaving Normandy ; but this child had been pronounced bas- 
 tard by the duke his father at the moment of taking him for 
 his heir. Nine or ten years before, at Falaise, his favorite 
 residence, Eobert had met, according to some at a people's 
 dance, according to others on the banks of a stream where she 
 was washing linen with her companions, a young gu'l named 
 Harlette or Harleve, a daughter of a tanner in the town, where 
 they show to this day, it is said, the window from which the 
 duke saw her for the first time. She pleased his fancy and 
 was not more straight-laced than the duke was scrupulous; 
 and Fulbert, the tanner, kept but httle watch over his daugh- 
 ter, Robert gave the son bom to him in 1027 the name of his 
 glorious ancestor WUliam Longsword, the son and successor 
 of RoUo. The child was reared, according to some, in his fa- 
 ther's palace, "right honorably as if he had been born in wed- 
 lock," but, according to others, in the house of his gi-andfather 
 the tanner; and one of the neighboring burgesses, as he saw 
 passing one of the principal Norman lords, William de Bel- 
 lesme, surnamed "The Fierce Talvas," stopped him, ironically 
 saying, "Come in, my lord, and admire your suzerain's son." 
 The origin of young William was in every mouth and gave 
 occasion for familiar allusions more often insulting than flat- 
 tering. The epithet bastard, was, so to speak, incorporated 
 with his name ; and we cannot be astonished that it lived in 
 history, for, in the height of his power, he sometimes accepted 
 it proudly, calling himself, in several of his charters, William 
 the Bastard (Gidielmus Nothus). He showed himself to be 
 none the less susceptible on this point when in 1048, during the 
 seige of Alengon, the domain of the Lord de Bellesme, the in? 
 habitants hung from their walls hides all raw and covered with 
 dirt, which they shook when they caught sight of William,
 
 366 HISTORY OF FRANCE. [en. rr. 
 
 with cries of " Plenty of work for the tanner !" *' By the glory 
 of God," cried William, "they shall pay me dear for this in- 
 solent bravery !" After an assault several of the beseiged were 
 taken prisoners ; and he had their eyes pulled out and their 
 feet and hands cut off, and shot from his siege-machines these 
 mutilated members over the walls of the city. 
 
 Nothwithstanding his recklessness and his being engrossed 
 in his pilgrimage, Duke Robert had taken some care for the 
 situation in which he was leaving his son, and some measures 
 to lessen its perils. He had appointed regent of Normandy, 
 during Wilham's minority, his cousin Alain V., duke of Brit- 
 tany, whose sagacity and friendship he had proved; and he 
 had confided the personal guardianship of the child not to his 
 mother Harlette, Avho was left very much out in the cold, but 
 to one of his most trusty oflQcers, Gilbert Crespon, count of 
 Brionne; and the strong castle of Vaudreuil, the first founda- 
 tion of which dated back, it was said, to Queen Fredegonde, 
 was assigned for the usual residence of the young duke, 
 Lastly, to confirm with briUiancy his son's right as his suc- 
 cessor to the duchy of Normandy and to assure hhn a power- 
 ful ally, Eobert took him, himself, to the court of his suzerain, 
 Henry I. , king of France, \\'\\o recognized the title of William 
 the Bastard, and allowed him to take the oath of allegiance 
 and homage. Having thus prepared, as best he could, for his 
 son's .future, Robert set out on his pilgrimage. He visited 
 Rome and Constantinople, every where displaying his mag- 
 nificence together with his humility. He fell ill from sheer fa- 
 tigue whilst crossing Asia Minor and was obliged to be carried 
 in a litter by four negroes. "Go and tell them at home," said 
 he to a Norman pilgrim he met returning from the Holy Land,, 
 " that you saw me being carried to Paradise by four devils." 
 On arriving at Jerusalem, where he was received with great 
 attention by the Mussulman emir in command there, he dis- 
 charged himself of his pious vow, and took the road back to 
 Europe. But he was poisoned, by whom or for what motive is 
 not clearly known, at Nicaea in Bithynia, where he was buried 
 in the basilica of St. Mary, an honor, says the chronicle, which 
 had never been accorded to any body. 
 
 From 1035 to 1042, during Wilham's minority, Normandy 
 was a prey to the robber-like ambition, the local quarrels, and 
 the turbulent and brutal passions of a host of petty castle- 
 holders nearly always at war, either amongst themselves or 
 with the young chieftain whose power they did not fear and
 
 CH. XV.] CONQUEST OF ENGLAND BY THE NORMAN'S. 267 
 
 whose rights they disputed. In vain did Duke Alain of Brit- 
 tany, in his capacity as regent appointed by Duke Robert, at- 
 tempt to re-establish order; and just when he seemed on the 
 road to success he was poisoned by those who could not suc- 
 ceed in beating him. Henry I., king of France, being ill dis- 
 posed at bottom towards his Norman neighbors and their 
 young duke, for all that he had acknowledged him, profited by 
 this anarchy to filch from him certain portions of territory. 
 Attacks without warning, fearful murders, implacable ven- 
 geance, and sanguinary disturbances in the towns were evUs 
 which became common and spread. The clergy strove with 
 courageous perseverance against the vices and crimes of the 
 period. The bishops convoked councils in their diocesee ; the 
 laic lords and even the people were summoned to them; the 
 peace of God was proclaimed ; and the priests, having in their 
 hands lighted tapers, turned them towards the ground and ex- 
 tinguished them, whilst the populace repeated in chorus, ' ' So 
 may God extinguish the joys of those who refuse to observe 
 peace and justice." The majority, however, of the Norman 
 lords refused to enter into the engagement. In default of 
 peace it was necessary to be content with the the truce of God. 
 It commenced on Wednesday evening at sunset and concluded 
 on Monday at sunrise. During the four days and five nights 
 comprised in this interval, all aggression was forbidden; no 
 slaying, wounding, pillaging or burning could take place ; but 
 from sunrise on Monday to sunset on Wednesday, for three 
 days and two nights, any violence became allowable, any 
 crime might recommence. 
 
 Meanwhile William was gi-owing up, and the omens that had 
 been drawn from his early youth raised the popular hopes. 
 It was reported that at his very birth, when the midwife had 
 put him ims waddled on a little heap of straw, he had wriggled 
 about and drawn together the straw with his hands, insomuch 
 that the midwife said, "By my faith, this chUd beginneth full 
 young to take and heap up : I know not what he will not do 
 when he is grown." At a httle later period, when a burgess 
 of Falaise drew the attention of the Lord William de Bellesme 
 to the gay and stiu'dy lad as he played amongst his mates, the 
 fierce vassal muttered between his teeth, "Acciu-sed be thou 
 of Grod ! for I be certain that by thee mine honors will be low- 
 ered." The child on becoming man was handsomer and hand- 
 somer, "and so Uvely and spirited that it seemed to all a mar- 
 veL" Amongst liis mates, command became soon a habit ^^ath
 
 268 BISTORT OF FRANCE. \cn. TV. 
 
 him; he made them fonn hne of battle, he gave them the word 
 of command, and he constituted himself their judge in all 
 quarrels. At a still later period, having often heard talk of 
 revolts excited against him and of disorders which troubled 
 the country, he was moved in consequence to fits of violent 
 irritation, which, however, he learned instinctively to hide, 
 "and in his child's heart." says the ehronicle, "he had welling 
 up all the vigor of a man to teach the Normans to forbear from 
 all acts of irregularity." At fifteen years of age, in 1042, he 
 demanded to be armed knight and to fulfil all forms necessary 
 "for having the right to serve and command in all ranks." 
 These forms were in Normandy, by a rehc, it is said, of the 
 Danish and pagan customs, more connected with war and less 
 with rehgion than elsewhere ; the young candidates were not 
 bound to confess, to spend a vigil in the church, and to receive 
 from the priest's hands the sword he had consecrated on the 
 altar ; it was even the custom to say that ' ' he whose sword 
 had been girded upon him by a long-robed cleric was no true 
 knight, but a cit without spirit." The day on which William 
 for the first tune donned his armor was for his servants and all 
 the spectatoi^s a gala day. He was so taU, so manly in face, 
 and so proud of bearing, that "it was a sight both pleasant and 
 terrible to see him guiding his horse's career, flashing with his 
 sword, gleaming with his shield, and threatening with his 
 casque and javelins." His first act of government was a rig- 
 orous decree against such as should be guilty of murder, arson, 
 and pillage ; but he at the same time granted an amnesty for 
 past revolts, on condition of fealty and obedience for the 
 future. 
 
 For the establishment, however, of a young and disputed 
 authority there is need of something more than brilliant cere- 
 monies and words partly minatory and partly coaxing. Will- 
 Lam had to show what he was made of. A conspiracy was 
 formed against him in the heai-t of his feudal court and almost of 
 his family. He had given kindly welcome to his cousin Guy of 
 Burgundy, and had even bestowed on him as a fief the count- 
 ships of Vernon and Brionne. In 1044 the young duke was at 
 Valognes; when suddenly, at midnight, one of his trustiest 
 servants, Golet, his fool, such as the gi'eat lords of the time 
 kept, knocked at the door of his chamber, crying, "Open, 
 open, my lord duke : fly, fly, or you are lost. They are armed, 
 they are getting ready; to tarry is death." William did not 
 hesitate : he got up, ran to the stables, saddled his horse with
 
 CH. XV.] CONQUEST OF ENGLAND BY THE NORMANS. 269 
 
 his own hands, started off, followed a road called to this day 
 the duke's ivay, and reached Falaise as a place of safety. There 
 news came to him that the conspiracy was taking the form of 
 insurrection, and that the rebels were seizing his domains. 
 William showed no more hesitation at Falaise than at Va- 
 lognes ; he started off at once, repaired to Poissy , where Henry 
 I., king of France was then residing, and claimed, as vassal, 
 the help of his suzerain against traitors. Henry, who himself 
 was brave, was touched by this bold confidence, and promised 
 his young vassal effectual support. William returned to Nor- 
 mandy, smnmoned his Ueges, and took the field promptly. 
 King Henry joined him at Argence, with a body of three 
 thousand men-at-arms, and a battle took place on the 10th of 
 August, 1047, at Yal des Dunes, three leagues from Caen. It 
 was very hotly contested. King Henry, unhorsed by a lance 
 thi'ust, ran a risk of his life ; but he remounted and valiantly 
 returned to the mellay. William dashed in wherever the fight 
 was thickest, showing himself every where as able in command 
 as ready to expose himself. A Norman lord, Eaoul de Tesson, 
 held aloof with a troop of one hundred and forty knights. 
 "Who is he that bides yonder motionless?" asked the French 
 king of the young duke. "It is the banner of Eaoul de Tes- 
 son, " answered William ; "I wot not that he hath aught against 
 me." But, though he had no personal grievance, Raoul de 
 Tesson had joined the insurgents, and sworn that he would be 
 the first to strike the duke in the conflict. Thinking better of 
 it, and perceiving WiUiam from afar, he pricked towards him, 
 and taking off his glove stinick him gently on the shoulder, 
 saying, "I swore to strike you, and so I am quit: but fear 
 nothing more from me." "Thanks, Eaoul," said WOliam; 
 "be well disposed, I pray you." Eaoul waited until the two 
 armies were at grips, and when he saw which way victory was 
 inclined he hasted to contribute thereto. It was decisive : and 
 William the Bastard returned to Val des Dunes reaUy Duke of 
 Normandy. 
 
 He made vigorous but not cruel use of his victory. He de- 
 molished his enemies' strong castles, magazines as they were 
 for pillage no less than bulwarks of feudal independence ; but 
 there is nothing to show that he indulged in violence towards 
 persons. He was even generous to the chief concoctor of the 
 plot, Guy of Burgundy. He took from him the coimtships of 
 Vernon and Brionne, but permitted him still to live at his 
 court, a place which the Burgundian found himself too ill at
 
 270 mSTOBY OF FBAXCE. [cH. xr. 
 
 ease to remain in, so he returned to Burgundy, to conspire 
 against his own eldest brother. William was stem without 
 hatred and merciful without kindliness, only thinking which 
 of the two might promote or retard his success, gentleness or 
 severity. 
 
 There soon came an opportunity for him to return to the 
 King of France the kindness he had received. Geoffrey Mar- 
 tel, duke of Anjou, being ambitious and turbulent beyond the 
 measure of his power, got embroUed with the king his suze- 
 rain; and war broke out between them. The Duke of Nor- 
 mandy went to the aid of King Henry and made his success 
 certain, wliich cost the duke the fierce hostility ol the Count 
 of Anjou and a four years' war with that inconvenient neigh- 
 bor; a war full of dangerous incidents, wherein William 
 enhanced his character, already great, for personal valor, in 
 an ambuscade laid for him by Geoffrey Martel he lost some of 
 his best knights, " whereat he was so wrath," says a chronicle, 
 *' that he galloped down with such force upon Geoffrey, and 
 struck him in such wise with his sword that he dinted his 
 helm, cut through liis hood, lopped off his ear, and with the 
 same blow felled him to earth. But the count was lifted up 
 and remounted, and so fled away." 
 
 Wilham made rapid advances both as prince and as man. 
 Without being austere in his private life, he was regular in 
 his habits, and patronized order and respectabiMty in his 
 household as well as in his dominions. He resolved to 
 marry to his own honor, and to the promotion of his great- 
 ness. Baldwin the Debonnair, comit of Flanders, one of the 
 most powerful lords of the day, had a daughter, Matilda, 
 " beautiful, well-informed, fii-m in the faith, a model of virtue 
 and modesty." WnUam asked her hand in marriage. Ma- 
 tilda refused, saying, "I would liefer be veiled nun than 
 given in marriage to a bastard." Hurt as he was, William 
 did not give up. He was even more persevering than suscep- 
 tible ; but he knew that he must get still greater, and make an 
 impression upon a young giii's imagination by the splendor of 
 his fame and power. Some years later, being fii*nily estab- 
 hshed in Normandy, dreaded by all his neighbors, and already 
 showing some foreshadowings of his design upon England, he 
 renewed his matrimonial quest in Flanders, but after so 
 strange a fashion that, in spite of contemporary testimony, 
 several of the modern historians, in then- zeal, even at so 
 distant a period, for observance of the proprieties, reject as
 
 CH. XV.] CONQUEST OF ENGLAND BY THE NORMANS. 271 
 
 fabulous the story which is here related on the authority of 
 the most detailed account amongst all the chronicles which 
 contain it. "A little after that Duke William had heard how 
 the damsel had made answer, he took of his folk, and went 
 privily to Lille, where the Duke of Flanders and his wife and 
 his daughter then were. He entered into the hall, and, pass- 
 ing on as if to do some business, went into the countess's 
 chamber, and there found the damsel daughter of Count 
 Baldwin. He took her by the tresses, di-agged her round the 
 chamber, trampled her under foot, and did beat her soundly. 
 Then he strode forth from the chamber, leapt upon his horse, 
 which was being held for him before the hall, struck in his 
 spurs, and went his way. At this deed was Count Baldwin 
 much enraged ; and when matters had thus remained a while, 
 Duke William sent once more to Count Baldwin to parley 
 again of the marriage. The count sounded his daughter on 
 the subject, and she answered that it pleased her well. So the 
 nuptials took place with very great joy. And after the afore- 
 said matters. Count Baldwin, laughing withal, asked his 
 daughter, wherefore she had so lightly accepted the marriage 
 she had aforetime so cruelly refused. And she answered that 
 she did not then know the duke so well as she did now ; for, 
 said she, if he had not great heart and high emprise, he had 
 not been so bold as to dare come and beat me in my father's 
 chamber." 
 
 Amongst the historians who treat this story as a romantic 
 and imtruthlike fable, some believe themselves to have dis- 
 covered, in divers docimaents of the eleventh and twelfth 
 centuries circumstances almost equally singular as regards 
 the cause of the obstacles met with at first by Duke William 
 in his pretensions to the hand of Princess Matilda, and as 
 regards the motive for the first refusal on the part of Matilda 
 herself. According to some, the Flemish princess had con- 
 ceived a strong passion for a noble Saxon, Brihtric Meaw, who 
 had been sent by King Edward the Confessor to the court of 
 Flanders, and Avho was remarkable for his beauty. She 
 wished to marry him, but the handsome Saxon was not will- 
 ing ; and Matilda at first gave way to violent grief on that 
 account, and afterwards, when she became queen of England, 
 to vindictive hatred, the weight of which she made him feel 
 severely. Other writers go still farther, and say that, before 
 being sought in marriage by William, Matilda had not fallen 
 in love with a handsome Saxon, but had actually married a
 
 272 HISTORY OF FRANCE. [cH. xv. 
 
 Flemish burgess, named Gerbod, patron of the church of St. 
 Bertin, at St. Omer, and that she had by him two and perhaps 
 three children, traces of whom recur, it is said, imder the 
 reign of William, king of England. There is no occasion to 
 enter upon the learned controversies of which these different 
 allegations have been the cause; it is sufficient to say that 
 they have led to nothing but obscurity, contradiction, and 
 doubt, and that there is more moral verisimiUtude in the 
 account just given, especially in Matilda's first prejudice 
 against marriage with a bastard and in her conversation with 
 her father, Count Baldwin, when she had changed her opinion 
 upon the subject. Independently of the testimony of several 
 chroniclers, French and Enghsh, this tradition is mentioned 
 with all the simpMcity of belief, in one of the principal Flem- 
 ish chronicles ; and as to the ruffianly gallantry employed by 
 William to win his bride, there is nothing in it very singular, 
 considering the habits of the time, and we meet with more 
 than one example of adventures if not exactly similar, at any 
 rate very analogous. 
 
 However that may be, this marriage brought William an 
 imexpected opportunity of entering into personal relations 
 with one of the most distinguished men of his age, and a man 
 destined to become one of his own most intimate advisers. 
 In 1049, at the council of Rheims, Pope Leo IX., on political 
 grounds rather than because of a proliibited degree of relation- 
 ship, had opposed the marriage of the Duke of Normandy 
 with the daughter of the Duke of Flanders, and had pro- 
 noimced his veto upon it. Wilham took no heed ; and, in 1052 
 or 1053, his marriage was celebrated at Rouen with great 
 pomp ; but tliis ecclesiastical veto weighed upon his mind, and 
 he sought some means of getting it taken off. A learned 
 ItaHan, Lanfranc, a jurisconsult of some fame already, 
 whilst travelling in France and repairing from Avranches to 
 Rouen, was stopped near Brionne by brigands, who, having 
 plundered him, left him, with his eyes bandaged, in a forest. 
 His cries attracted the attention of passers-by, who took him 
 to a neighboring monastery, but lately founded by a pious 
 Norman knight retired from the world. Lanfranc was re- 
 ceived in it, became a monk of it, was elected its prior, 
 attracted to it by his learned teaching a host of pupils, and 
 won therein his own great renown wliilst laying the founda- 
 tion for that of the abbey of Bee, which was destined to be 
 carried still higher by one of his disciples, St. Anselm. Lan-
 
 CH. XV.] CONQUEST OF ENGLAND BY THE NORMANS. 273 
 
 franc was eloquent, great in dialectics, of a sprightly wit and 
 lively in repartee. Relying upon the pope's decision, he spoke 
 ill of William's marriage with Matilda. Wilham was in- 
 formed of this, and in a fit of despotic anger, ordered Lan- 
 france to be driven from the monastery and banished from 
 Normandy, and even, it is said, the dependency, which he 
 inhabited as prior of the abbey, to be burnt. The order was 
 executed; and Lanfranc set out, mounted on a sorry little 
 horse given him, no doubt, by the abbey. By what chance is 
 not known, but probably on a hunting-party, his favorite diver- 
 sion, William, with his retinue, happened to cross the road 
 which Lanfranc was slowly pursuing. "My lord," said the 
 monk, addressing him, " I am obeying yom* orders; I am go- 
 ing away, but my horse is a sorry beast; if you will give me a 
 better one, I wiU go faster." William halted, entered into con- 
 versation with Lanfranc, let him stay, and sent him back with 
 a present to his abbey. A little while afterAvards Lanfranc 
 was at Rome, and defended before Pope- Victor II. WilHam's 
 maiTiage with Matilda: he was successful, and the pope took 
 off the veto on the sole condition that the couple, in sign of 
 penitence, should each found a religious house. Matilda, ac- 
 cordingly, founded at Caen, for women, the abbey of the Holy 
 Trinity; and William, for men, that of St. Stephen, Lanfranc 
 was the first abbot of the latter ; and, when William became 
 king of England, Lanfranc was made Archbishop of Canter- 
 bmy and primate of the Church of England, as well as privy 
 counsellor of his king. William excelled in the art, so essen- 
 tial to government, of promptly recognizing the worth of men, 
 and of appropriating their influence to himself whilst exerting 
 his own over them. 
 
 About the same time he gave his contemporaries, princes 
 and peoples, new proofs of his ability and power. Henry I., 
 king of France, growing more and more disquieted at and jeal- 
 ous of the Duke of Normandy's ascendancy, secretly excited 
 against him opposition and even revolt in his dominions. These 
 deahngs led to open war between the suzerain and the vassal, 
 and the war concluded with two battles won by William, one 
 at Mortemer near Neuchatel in Bray, the other at Varaville 
 near Troam. "After which," said William himself, "King 
 Henry never passed a night tranquilly on my ground." In 
 1059 peace was concluded between the two princes, Henry T. 
 died almost immediately afterwards, and, on the 25th of 
 August, 1060, his son Philip I, succeeded him, imder the r©-
 
 274 HISTORY OF FRANCE. [ch. xr. 
 
 gency of Baldwin, covmt of Flanders, father of the Duchesa 
 Matilda. Duke William was present in state at the coronation 
 of the new king of France, lent him effectual assistance against 
 the revolts which took place in Gascony, re-entered Nonnandy 
 for the purpose of holding at Caen, in 1061, the Estates of his 
 duchy, and at that time published the famous decree observed 
 long after him, under the name of the law of curfew, which 
 ordered "that every evening the bell should be rung in aU 
 parishes to warn every one to prayer, and house-closing, and 
 no more running about the streets." 
 
 The passion for orderliness in his dominion did not cool his 
 ardor for conquest. In 1063, after the death of his young 
 neighbor Herbert II. , count of Maine, Wnham took possession 
 of this beautiful countship ; not without some opposition on 
 the part of the inhabitants, nor without suspicion of having 
 poisoned his rival, Walter, count of Vexin. It is said that af- 
 ter this conquest WiUiam meditated that of Brittany; but 
 there is every indication that he had formed a far vaster design, 
 and that the day of its execution was approaching. 
 
 From the time of EoUo's settlement in Normandy, the com- 
 mvuncations of the Normans with England had become more 
 and more frequent, and important for the two coimtries. The 
 success of the invasions of the Danes in England in the tenth 
 century, and the reigns of three kings of the Danish line had 
 obliged the princes of Saxon race to take refuge in Normandy, 
 the duke of which, Richard I., had given his daughter Emma 
 in marriage to their grandfather, Ethelred II. When, at the 
 death of the last Danish king, Hardicanute, the Saxon prince 
 Edward ascended the throne of his fathers, he had passed 
 twenty-seven years of exile in Normandy, and he returned to 
 England "almost a stranger," in the words of the chronicles, 
 to the country of his ancestors; far more Norman than Saxon 
 in his manners, tastes and language, and surrounded by Nor- 
 mans, whose numbers and prestige under his reign increased 
 ^rom day to day. A hot rivalry, nationally as weU as courtly, 
 grew up between them and the Saxons. At the head of these 
 latter was Godwin, count of Kent, and his five sons, the eldest 
 of whom, Harold, was destined before long to bear the whole 
 brunt of the stiniggle. Between these powerful rivals, Edward 
 the Confessor, a pacific, pious, gentle, and undecided king, 
 wavered incessantly ; at one time trying to resist, and at an- 
 other compelled to yield to the pretensions and seditions by 
 which he wiis beset. In 1051 the Saxon party and its head,
 
 CE. XV.] CONQUEST OF ENGLAND BY THE NORMANS. 273 
 
 Godwin, had risen in revolt. Duke William, no invitation, 
 perhaps, from King Edward, paid a brilliant visit to England, 
 where he found Normans every where estabUshed and power- 
 ful, in Church as weU as in State ; in command of the fleets, 
 ports, and principal EngUsh places, Eling Edward received 
 him "as his own son; gave him arms, horses, hotmds and 
 hawking birds," and sent him home full of pi-esents and hopes. 
 The chronicler, Ingulf, who accompanied WiUiamon his re- 
 turn to Normandy, and remained attached to him as private 
 secretary, aflirms that, during this visit, not only was there no 
 question, between King Edward and the Duke of Normandy, of 
 the latter's possible succession to the throne of England, but 
 that never as yet had this probability occupied the attention of 
 William. 
 
 It is very doubtful whether WiUiam had said nothing upon 
 the subject to King Edward at that time ; and it is certain, 
 from William's own testimony, that he had for a long while 
 been thinking about it. Four years after this visit of the duke 
 to England, King Edward was reconciled to and hved on good 
 terms with the family of the Godwins. Their father was dead, 
 and the eldest son, Harold, asked the king's permission to go to 
 Normandy and claim the release of his brother and nephew, 
 who had been left as hostages in the keeping of Duke Wilham. 
 The king did not approve of the project. "I have no wish to 
 constrain thee," said he to Harold: "but if thou go, it will be 
 without my consent : and, assm*edly, thy trip will bring some 
 misfortune upon thee and our country. I know Duke William 
 and his crafty spirit ; he hates thee, and will grant thee naught 
 unless he see his advantage therefrom. The only way to make 
 him give up the hostages will be to send some other than thy- 
 self." Harold, however, persisted and went. WiUiam received 
 him with apparent cordiality, promised him the release of the 
 two hostages, escorted him and his comrades from castle to 
 castle, and from entertainment to entertainment, made them 
 knights of the gi*and Norman order, and even invited them, 
 "by way of trying their new spurs," to accompany him on a 
 little warlike expedition he was about to undertake in Brittany. 
 Harold and his comrades behaved gallantly : and he and Will- 
 iam shared the same tent and the same table. On returning, 
 as they trotted side by side, William turned the conversation 
 upon his youthful coimection with the king of England. ' ' Wlien 
 Edward and I," said he to the Saxon, " were living Uke brothers 
 imder the same roof, he promised, if ever he became King of
 
 276 HISTORY OF FRANCE. [cH. XV. 
 
 England, to make me heir to his kingdom ; I should very much 
 like thee, Harold, to help me to realize this promise ; and be 
 assured that, if by thy aid I obtain the kingdom, whatsoever 
 thou askest of me I will grant it forthwith. " Harold, in sur- 
 prise and confusion, answered by an assent which he tried to 
 make as vague as possible. WiUiam took it as positive. ' ' Since 
 thou dost consent to serve me," said he, "thou must engage to 
 fortify the castle of Dover, dig a well of fresh Water there, and 
 put it into the hands of my men-at-arms; thou must also give 
 me thy sister to be married to one of my barons, and thou must 
 thyself espouse my daughter Adele. " Harold, "not witting," 
 says the chronicler, "how to escape from this pressing danger," 
 promised all the duke asked of him, reckoning, doubtless, on 
 disregarding his engagement; and for the moment WiUiam 
 asked him nothing more. 
 
 But a few days afterwards he summoned, at Avranches ac- 
 cording to some, and at Bayeux according to others, and, more 
 probably still, at Bonneville-sur-Touques, his Norman barons; 
 and, in the midst of this assembly, at which Harold was present, 
 William, seated with his naked sword in his hand, caused to be 
 brought and placed upon a table covered with cloth of gold two 
 reliquaries. "Harold," said he, "I call upon thee, in presence 
 of this noble assemblage, to confirm by oath the promises thou 
 didst make me, to wit, to aid me to obtain the kingdom of 
 England after the death of King Edward, to espouse my 
 daughter Adele, and to send me thy sister to be married to one 
 of my people " Harold, who had not expected this public sum- 
 mons, nevertheless did not hesitate any more than he had hesi- 
 tated in his private conversation with William ; he drew near, 
 laid his hand on the two reliquaries and swore to observe, to 
 the best of his power, his agreement with the duke, should he 
 live and God help. "God help!" repeated those who were 
 present. William made a sign ; the cloth of gold was removed 
 and there Avas discovered a tub filled to the edge with bones 
 and relics of all the saints that could be got together. The 
 chronicler-poet, Robert Wace, who, alone and long afterwards, 
 recounts this last particular, adds that Harold was visibly 
 troubled at sight of tliis saintly heap; but he had sworn. It is 
 honorable to human nature not to be indifferent to oaths even 
 when those who exact them have but small reliance upon them, 
 and when he who takes them has but small intention of keeping 
 them. And so Harold departed laden with presents, leaving 
 William satisfied but not over-confident.
 
 CH. XV.] CONQUEST OF ENGLAND BY THE NORMANS. 277 
 
 When, on returning to England, Harold told King Edward 
 what had passed between WilUam and himself: "Did I not 
 warn thee," said the king, "that I knew William, and that thy 
 journey would bring great misfortunes upon thyself and upon 
 our nation? Grant Heaven that those misfortunes come not 
 during my life !" The king's wish was not granted. He fell ill ; 
 and on the 5th of January, 1066, he lay on his couch almost at 
 the point of death. Harold and his kindred entered the cham- 
 ber, and prayed the king to name a successor by whom the 
 kingdom might be governed securely. " Ye know, " said Ed- 
 ward, "that I have left my kingdom to the Duke of Normandy ; 
 and are there not here, among ye, those who have sworn to as- 
 sure his succession ?" Harold advanced, and once more asked 
 the king on whom the crown should devolve. "Take it, if it is 
 thy wish, Harold," said Edward; "but the gift will be thy 
 ruin ; against the duke and his barons thy power will not suf- 
 fice." Harold declared that he feared neither the Norman nor 
 any other foe. The king, vexed at this importunity, turned 
 round in his bed, saying, "Let the English make king of whom 
 they will, Harold or another; /consent;" and shortly after ex- 
 pired. The very day after the celebration of his obsequies, 
 Harold was proclaimed king by his partisans, amidst no smaU 
 public disquietude, and Aldred, archbishop of York, lost no 
 time in anointing him. 
 
 Wniiam was in his park of Eouvray, near Rouen, trying a 
 bow and arrows for the chase, when a faithful sei-vant arrived 
 from England, to tell him that Edward was dead and Harold 
 proclaimed king. WiUiam gave his bow to one of his people, 
 and went back to his palace at Rouen, where he paced about in 
 silence, sitting down, rising up, leaning upon a bench, without 
 opening his lips and without any one of liis people's daring to 
 address a word to him. There entered his seneschal William 
 de Breteuil, of whom "What ails the duke?" asked they who 
 were present. "Ye will soon know," answered he. Then 
 going up to the duke, he said, " Wherefore conceal your tid- 
 ings, my lord? All the city knows that King Edward is dead; 
 and that Harold has broken his oath to you, and had himself 
 crowned king." "Ay," said William, "it is that which doth 
 weigh me down." "My lord," said WUliam Fitz-Osbem, a 
 gallant knight and confidential friend of the duke, "none 
 should be wroth over what can be mended : it depends but on 
 you to stop the mischief Harold is doing you ; you shall destroy 
 him, if it please you. You have right; you have good men
 
 278 HISTORY OF FRANCE. [ch. xy. 
 
 and true to serve you; you need but have courage: set on 
 boldly. " William gathered together his most important and 
 most trusted counsellors ; and they were unanimous in urging 
 him to resent the perjury and injury. He sent to Harold a 
 messenger charged to say, "William, duke of the Normans, 
 doth recall to thee the oath thou swarest to him with thy mouth 
 and with thy hand, on real and saintly relics." "It is true," 
 answered Harold, "that I sware, but on compulsion; I prom- 
 ised what did not belong to me ; my kingship is not mine own ; 
 I cannot put it off from me without the consent of the country. 
 I cannot any the more, without the consent of the comitry, es- 
 pouse a foreigner. As for my sister, whom the duke claims 
 for one of his chieftains, she died within the year; if he will, I 
 will send him the corpse. " William replied without any vio- 
 lence, claiming the conditions sworn, and especially Harold's 
 marriage with his daughter Adele. For all answer to this sum- 
 mons Harold married a Saxon, sister of two powerful Saxon 
 chieftains, Edwin and Morkar. There was an open rupture; 
 and William swore that "within the year he would go and 
 claim, at the sword's point, payment of what was due to him, 
 on the very spot where Harold thought himself to be most firm 
 on his feet. " 
 
 And he set himself to the work. But, being as far-sighted as 
 he was ambitious, he resolved to secure for his enterprise the 
 sanction of religious authority and the formal assent of the Es- 
 tates of Normandy. Not that he had any inclination to subor- 
 dinate his power to that of the Pope. Five years previously, 
 Robert de Grandmesnil, abbot of St. Evroul, with whom Will- 
 iam had got embroiled, had claimed to re-enter his monastery 
 as master by virtue solely of an order from Pope Nicholas II. 
 " I will listen to the legates of the Pope, the common father of 
 the faithful," said William, "if they come to me to speak of 
 the Christian faith and religion ; but if a monk of my Estates 
 permit himself a single word iDcyond his place, I will have him 
 hanged by his cowl from the highest oak of the nearest forest." 
 When, in 1066, he denounced to Pope Alexander II. the perjury 
 of Harold, asking him at the same time to do him justice, he 
 made no scruple about promising that, if the Pope authorized 
 him to right himself by war, he would bring back the kingdom 
 of England to obedience to the Holy See. He had Lanf ranc for 
 his negotiator with the court of Rome, and Pope Alexander II. 
 had for chief counsellor the celebrated monk HUdebrand, who 
 was destined to succeed him under the name of Gregory VII.
 
 CH. XV.] CONQUEST OF ENGLAND BY TEE NORMANS. 279 
 
 The opportunity of extending the empu'e of the Church was 
 too tempting to be spurned, and her future head too bold not to 
 seize it whatever might be the uncertainty and danger of the 
 issue; and in spite of hesitation on the part of some of the 
 Pope's advisers, the question was promptly decided in accord- 
 ance with William's demand. Harold and his adherents were 
 excommunicated, and, on committing his bull to the hands of 
 William's messenger, the Pope added a banner of the Roman 
 Church and a ring containing, it is said, a hair of St. Peter set 
 in a diamond. 
 
 The Estates of Normandy were less easy to manage. Will- 
 iam called them together at LOlebonne; and several of his 
 vassals showed a zealous readiness to furnish him with vessels 
 and victual and to follow him beyond the sea, but others de- 
 clared that they were not bound to any such service, and that 
 they would not lend themselves to it ; they had calls enough 
 already and had nothing more to spare. William Fitz-Osbem 
 scouted these objections. " He is your lord, and hath need of 
 you," said he to the recalcitrants; "you ought to offer your- 
 selves to him, and not wait to be asked. If he succeed in his 
 purpose, you will be more powerful as well as he; if you fail 
 him, and he succeed without you, he will remember it : show 
 that you love him, and what ye do, do with a good grace." 
 The discussion was keen. Many persisted in saying, " Tiiie, he 
 is our Lord; but if we pay him his rents, that should suffice: 
 we are not bound to go and serve beyond the seas; we are 
 already much burdened for his wars." It was at last agreed 
 that Fitz-Osbern should give the duke the assembly's reply: for 
 he knew well, they said, the abUity of each. "If ye mind not 
 to do wTiat I shall say," said Fitz-Osbem, "charge me not 
 therewith." "We wUl be bound by it, and will do it," was the 
 cry amidst general confusion. They repaired to the duke's 
 presence. '" My lord," said Fitz-Osbem, " I trow that there be 
 not in the whole world such folk as these. You know the 
 trouble and labor they have already undergone in supporting 
 your rights ; and they are minded to do still more, and serve 
 you at all points, this side the sea and t'other. Go you before, 
 and they will follow you; and spare them in nothing. As for 
 me, I will furnish you with sixty vessels, manned with good 
 fighters." "Nay, nay," cried several of those present, prelates 
 and barons, "we charged you not with such reply; when he 
 hath business in his own coimtry, we will do him the service 
 we owe him; we be not bound to serve him in conquering
 
 280 HISTORY OF FRANCE. [ch. tv. 
 
 another's territory, or to go beyond sea for him. " And they 
 gathered themselves together in knots with much uproar. 
 
 "William was very wroth," says the chronicler, "retired to 
 a chamber apart, summoned those in whom he had most confi- 
 dence, and by their advice called before him his barons, each 
 separately, and asked them if they were willing to help him. 
 He had no intention, he told them, of doing them wrong, nor 
 would he and his, now or hereafter, ever cease to treat witli 
 them in perfect courtesy ; and he would give them, in writing, 
 Buch assurances as they were minded to devise. The majority 
 of his people agreed to give him, more or less, according to cir- 
 cumstances; and he had every thing reduced to writing." At 
 the same time he made an appeal to all his neighbors, Bretons, 
 Manceaux, and Angevines, hunting up soldiers wherever he 
 could find them, and promising all who desired them lands in 
 England if he effected its conquest. Lastly he repaired in per- 
 son, first to Philip I., king of France, his suzerain, then to 
 Baldwin V., count of Flanders, his father-in-law, asking their 
 assistance for his enterprise. Philip gave a formal refusal. 
 " What the duke demands of you," said his advisei's, " is to his 
 own profit and to your hurt ; if you aid him, your country will 
 be much burdened; and if the duke fail, you will have the 
 English your foes for ever." The Co ant of Flanders made show 
 of a similar refusal ; but privately he authorized William to 
 raise soldiers in Flanders, and pressed his vassals to follow him. 
 William, having thus hunted up and collected all the forces he 
 could hope for, thought only of putting them in motion and of 
 hurrying on the preparations for his departure. 
 
 Whilst, in obedience to his orders, the whole expedition, 
 troops and ships, were collecting at Dives, he received from 
 Conan II., duke of Brittany, this message: "I learn that 
 thou art now minded to go beyond sea and conquer for thyself 
 the kingdom of England. At the moment of starting for 
 Jerusalem, Robert, duke of Normandy, whom thou feignest 
 to regard as thy father, left all Ms heritage to Alain, my 
 father a,nd his cousin : but thou and thy accomplices slew my 
 father with poison at Vimeux in Normandy. Afterwards 
 thou didst invade his territory because I was too young to 
 defend it; and, contrary to all right, seeing that thou art a 
 bastard, thou hast kept it until this day. Now, therefore, 
 either give me back this Normandy which thou owest me, or 
 I will make war upon thee with all my forces." "At this 
 message," say the chronicles, " William was at first somewhat
 
 CH. XV.] CONQUEST OF ENGLAND BY THE NORMANS. 281 
 
 dismayed; but a Breton lord, who had sworn fidelity to the 
 two counts and bore messages from one to the other, rubbed 
 poison upon the inside of Conan's hunting-horn, of his horse's 
 rehas, and of his gloves. Conan, having unwittingly put on 
 his gloves and handled the reins of his horse, lifted his hands 
 to his face, and the touch having filled him with poisonous in- 
 fection he died soon after to the great sorrow of his people, 
 for he was an able and brave man, and inclined to justice. 
 And he who had betrayed him quitted before long the army 
 of Conan, and informed Duke WiUiam of his death. " 
 
 Conan is not the only one of William's foes whom he was 
 suspected of making away with by poison: there are no 
 proofs; but contemporary assertions are positive and the 
 public of the time believed them, without surprise. Being as 
 unscrupulous about means as ambitious and bold in aim, 
 William was not of those whose character repels such an 
 accusation. What, however, diminishes the suspicion is that, 
 after and in spite of Conan's death, several Breton knights, 
 and, amongst others, two sons of Count Eudes, his uncle, at- 
 tended at the trysting-place of the Norman troops and took 
 part in the expedition. 
 
 Dives was the place of assemblage appointed for fleet and 
 army. William repaired thither about the end of August, 
 1066. But for several weeks contrary winds prevented him 
 from putting to sea ; some vessels which made the attempt 
 perished in the tempest; and some of the -volunteer advent- 
 urers got disgusted, and deserted. William maintained strict 
 discipline amongst this multitude, forbidding plunder so 
 strictly that "the cattle fed in the fields in full security." 
 The soldiers grew tired of waiting in idleness and often in 
 sickness, ''Yon is a madman," said they, " who is minded to 
 possess himself of another's land ; God is against the design 
 and so refuses us a wind." About the 20th of September the 
 weather changed. The fleet got ready, but could only go and 
 anchor at St. Valery at the mouth of the Somme. There it 
 was necessary to wait several more days ; impatience and dis- 
 quietude were redoubled ; ' ' and there appeared in the heavens 
 a star with a tail, a certain sign of great things to come." 
 William had the shrine of St. Valery brought out and paraded 
 about, being more impatient in his soul than any body, but 
 ever confident in his will and his good fortune. There was 
 brought to him a spy whom Harold had sent to watch the 
 forces and plans of the enemy ; and William dismissed him.,
 
 282 BISTORT OF FRANCE. JCH. rr. 
 
 saying, "Harold hath no need to take any care or be at 
 any charges to know how we be and what we be doing ; he 
 shall see for himself, and shall feel before the end of the year." 
 At last, on the 37fch of September, 1066, the sun rose on a calm 
 sea and with a favorable wind ; and towards evening the fleet 
 set out. The Mora, the vessel on which William was, and 
 which had been given to him by his wife Matilda, led the way, 
 and a figure in gilded bronze, some say in gold, representing 
 their youngest son WilUam, had been placed on the prow, 
 with the face towards England. Being a better sailer than the 
 others, this ship was soon a long way ahead ; and WilUam 
 had a mariner sent to the top of the mainmast to see if the 
 fleet were following. "I see naught but sea and sky," said 
 the mariner. William had the ship brought to; and, the 
 second time, the mariner said, "I see four ships." Before 
 long he cried, " I see a forest of masts and sails." On the 29th 
 of September, St. Michael's day, the expedition arrived off the 
 coast of England, at Pevensey, near Hastings, and " when the 
 tide had ebbed and the ships remained aground on the strand,'* 
 says the chronicle, the landing was effected without obstacle; 
 not a Saxon soldier appeared on the coast. Wilham was the 
 last to leave his ship ; and on setting foot on the sand he made 
 a false step and fell. " Bad sign! " was muttered around him; 
 " God have us in His keeping 1" "What say you, lords?" cried 
 William: "by the glory of God, I have grasped this land 
 with my hands; all that there is of it, is ours." 
 
 With what forces William undertook the conquest of Eng- 
 land, how many ships composed his fleet, and how many men 
 were aboard the ships, are questions impossible to be decided 
 with any precision, as we have frequently before had occasion 
 to remark, amidst the exaggerations and disagreements of 
 chroniclers. Robert Wace reports, in his Romance of Rou, 
 that he had heard from his father, one of William's servants on 
 this expedition that the fleet numbered 696 vessels, but he had 
 found in divers writings that there were more than 3000. M. 
 Augustin Thierry, after his learned researches, says, in hie 
 history of the Conquest of England by the Normans, that 
 "400 vessels of four sails and more than a 1000 transport-ships 
 moved out into the open sea, to the sound of trumpets and of 
 a great cry of joy raised by 60,000 throats." It is probable 
 that the estimate of the fleet is pretty accurate and that of the 
 army exaggerated. We saw in 1830 what efforts and pains it 
 required, amidst the power and inteUigent ability of modem
 
 CH. XV.] CONQUEST OF ENGLAND BY THE NORMANS. 283 
 
 civilization, to transport from France to Algeria 37,000 men 
 aboard three squadrons comprising 675 ships of all sorts= 
 Granted that in the eleventh century there was more hap- 
 hazard than in the nineteenth, and that there was less care for 
 human life on the eve of a war; still, without a doubt, the 
 armament of Normandy in 1066 was not to be compared with 
 that of France in 1830, and yet William's intention was to 
 conquer England, whereas Charles X. thought only of chastis- 
 ing the Dey of x4Jgiers. 
 
 Whilst William was making for the southern coast of Eng- 
 land, Harold was repairing by forced marches to the north in 
 order to defend, against the rebellion of his brother Tostig and 
 the invasion of a Norwegian army, his short-lived kingship 
 thus menaced, at two ends of the country, by two formidable 
 enemies. On the 25th of September, 1066, he gained at York 
 a brilhaut victory over his northern foe ; and, wounded as he 
 was, he no sooner learnt that Duke William had on the 29th 
 pitched his camp and planted his flag at Pevensey, than he set 
 out in haste for the south. As he approached, William re- 
 ceived, from what source is not known, this message : ' ' King 
 Harold hath given battle to his brother Tostig and the king of 
 Norway. He hath slain them both, and hath destroyed their 
 army. He is returning at the head of numerous and valiant 
 warriors against whom thine own, I trow, will be worth no 
 more than wretched curs. Thou passest for a man of wisdom 
 and prudence ; be not rash, plunge not thyself into danger ; I 
 adjure thee to abide in thy entrenchments, and not to come 
 really to blows." "I thank thy master," answered William, 
 " for his prudent counsel, albeit he might have given it to me 
 without insult. Carry him back this reply : I will not hide me 
 behind ramparts ; I will come to blows with Harold as soon as 
 I may ; and with the aid of Heaven's good will I would trust 
 m the valor of my men against his, even though I had but 
 10,000 to lead against his 60,000." But the proud confideuco 
 of William did not affect his prudence. He received from 
 Harold himself a message wherein the Saxon, affirming his 
 right to the kingship by virtue of the Saxon laws and the last 
 words of King Edward, summoned liim to evacuate England 
 with all his people; on which condition alone he engaged to 
 preserve friendship with him and all agreements between them 
 as to Normandy. After having come to an understanding 
 with his barons, William maintained his right to the crown of 
 England \)y virtue of the first decision of King Edward and
 
 284 HISTORY OF FRANCE. [cH. xv. 
 
 the oaths of Harold himself. "I am ready," said he, "to 
 uphold my cause against him by the forms of justice, either 
 according to the law of the Normans or according to that of 
 the Saxons, as he pleases. If, by virtue of equity, Normans 
 or EngUsh decide that Harold has a right to possess the king- 
 dom, let him possess it in peace ; if they acknowledge that it 
 is to me that the kingdom ought to belong, let him give it up 
 to me. If he i-efuse these conditions, I do not think it just 
 that my people or his, who are not a whit to blame for our 
 quarrel, should slay one another in battle ; I am ready to 
 maintain, at the price of my head against his, that it is to me 
 and not to him that the kingdom of England belongs." At 
 this proposition Harold was troubled, and remained a while 
 without replying; then, as the monk was urgent, •' Let the 
 Lord God," said he, *' judge this day betwixt me and William 
 as to what is just." The negotiation continued, and William 
 summed it all up in these terms, which the monk reported to 
 Harold in presence of the Enghsh chieftains: "My lord, the 
 Duke of Normandy biddeth you do one of these things ; give up 
 to him the kingdom of England and take his daughter in mar- 
 riage, as you sware to him on the holy reUcs; or, respecting 
 the question between him and you, submit yourself to the 
 pope's decision; or fight with him body to body, and let him 
 who is victorious and forces his enemy to yield nave the king- 
 dom." Harold replied, "without opinion or advice taken," 
 says the chronicle, "I will not cede him the kingdom; I will 
 not abide by the pope's award; and I will not fight with him." 
 Wilham, still in concert with his barons, made a farther ad- 
 vance. "If Harold will come to an agi'eement with me," he 
 said, "I will leave him all the territory beyond the Humber, 
 towards Scotland." "My lord," said the barons to the duke, 
 "make an end of these parleys; if we must fight, let it be 
 soon; for every day come folk to Harold." "By my faith," 
 said the duke, ' ' if we agree not on terms to-day, to-morrow 
 we will join battle." The third proposal for an agreement was 
 as little successful as the former two ; on both sides there was 
 no belief in peace, and they were eager to decide the quaiTel 
 once for all. 
 
 Some of the Saxon chieftains advised Harold to fall back 
 on London, and ravage all the country so as to starve out the 
 invaders. "By my faith," said Harold, "I ^vill not destroy 
 the country I have in keeping; I, with my people, will fight." 
 "Abide in London," said his younger brother Gurth: "thou
 
 CH. XV.] CONQUEST OF ENGLAND BY THE NORMANS. 285 
 
 canst not deny that, perforce or by free will thou didst swear 
 to Duke William ; but. as for us, we have sworn naught ; we 
 will fight for our country ; if we alone fight, thy cause will be 
 good in any case; if we fly, thou shalt rally us; if we fall, 
 thou shalt avenge us. " Harold rejected this advice, "consid- 
 ering it shame to his past life to turn his back, whatever were 
 the peril." Certain of his people, whom he had sent to recon- 
 noitre the Norman army, returned saying that there were 
 more priests in William's camp than warriors in his own ; for 
 the Normans, at this period, wore shaven chins and short 
 hair, whilst the English let hair and beard grow. "Ye do 
 err," said Harold, " these be not priests, but good men-at- 
 arms who will show us what they can do. " 
 
 On the eve of the battle, the Saxons passed the night in 
 ainusement, eating, drinking, and singing, with great uproar ; 
 the Normans, on the contrary, were preparing their arms, 
 saying their prayers, and ' ' confessing to their priests — all 
 who would." On the 14th of October, 1066, when Duke Wil- 
 liam put on his armor, his coat of mail was given to him the 
 wrong way. "Bad omen!" cried some of his people: "if 
 such a thing had happened to us, we would not fight to-day." 
 "Be ye not disquieted," said the diike: "I have never be- 
 lieved in sorcerers and diviners, and I never liked them; I 
 believe in God, and in Him I put my trust." He assembled 
 his men-at-arms, and "setting himself upon a high place, so 
 that all might hear him," he said to them, "My true and loyal 
 friends, ye have crossed the seas for love of me, and for that 
 I cannot thank ye as I ought ; but I will make what return I 
 may, and what I have ye shall have. I am not come only to 
 take what I demanded or to get my rights, but to punish felo- 
 nies, treasons, and breaches of faith committed against our 
 people by the men of this country. Think, moreover, what 
 great honor ye will have to-day if the day be ours. And 
 bethink ye that, if ye be discomfited, ye be dead men with- 
 out help ; for ye have not whither ye may retreat, seeing that 
 our ships be broken up and our mariners be here with us. 
 He who flies will be a dead man ; he who fights will be saved. 
 For God's sake, let each man do his duty; trust we in God, 
 and the day will be ours." 
 
 The address was too long for the duke's faithful comrade, 
 William Fitz-Osbern. " My lord," said he, " we dally: let us 
 all to arms and forward, forward !" The army got in motion, 
 starting from the hill of Telham or Heathland, according to
 
 286 EISTORY OF FRANCE. [ch. xv. 
 
 Mr. Freeman, marching to attack the English on the opposite 
 hill of Senlac. A Norman, called Taillefer, "who sang very 
 weU, and rode a horse which was very fast, came up to the 
 duke. ' My lord, ' said he, ' I have served you long, and you 
 owe me for all my service : pay me to-day, and it please you ; 
 grant unto me, for recompense in full, to strike the first blow 
 in the battle.' 'I grant it,' quoth the duke. So Taillefer 
 iarted before him, singing the deeds of Charlemagne, of 
 Roland, of Oliver, and of the vassals who fell at Roncesvalles." 
 As he sang, he played with his sword, throwing it up into the 
 air and catching it in his right hand ; and the Normans fol- 
 lowed, repeating his songs, and crying "God help! God 
 help !" The English, intrenched upon a plateau towards which 
 the Normans were ascending, awaited the assault, shouting, 
 and defying the foe. 
 
 The battle, thus begun, lasted nine hours, with equal obsti- 
 nacy on both sides, and varied success from hour to hour 
 Harold, though wounded at the commencement of the fray, 
 did not cease for a moment to fight, on foot, with his two 
 brothers beside him, and around him the troops of London, 
 who had the privilege of forming the king's guard when he 
 delivered a battle. Rudely repulsed at the first charge, some 
 bodies of Norman troops fell back in disorder, and a rumor 
 spread amongst them that the duke was slain; but William 
 threw himself before the fugitives, and, taking off his helmet, 
 cried, "Look at me, here I am; I hve, and by God's help will 
 conquer." So they returned to the combat. But the English 
 were firm; the Normans could not force their intrenchments; 
 and Wilham ordered his men to feign a retreat, and all but a 
 flight. At this sight the English bore down in pursuit; " and 
 still Norman fled and Saxon pursued, until a trumpeter, who 
 had been ordered by the duke thus to turn back the Normans, 
 began to sound the recall. Then were seen the Normans turn- 
 back to face the Enghsh, and attacking them with their swords, 
 and amongst the English, some flying, some dying, some ask- 
 ing mercy in theii* own tongue." The struggle once more be- 
 came general and fierce. WiUiam had three horses killed 
 imder him; " but he jumped immediately upon a fresh steed, 
 and left not long unavenged the death of that which had but 
 lately carried him." At last the intrenchments of the English 
 were stormed; Harold fell mortally wounded by an arrow 
 which pierced his skull ; his two brothers and his bravest com- 
 rades fell at his side ; the fight was prolonged between the Eng-
 
 CH. XV.] CONQUEST OP ENGLAND BY THE NOR}fANS. 287 
 
 lish dispersed and the Normans remorselessly pursuing; the 
 standard sent from Rome to the Duke of Normandy had re- 
 placed the Saxon flag on the very spot where Harold had 
 fallen; and, all around, the ground continued to get covered 
 with dead and dying, fruitless victims of the passions of the 
 combatants. Next day William went over the field of battle ; 
 and he was heard to say in a tone of mingled triumph and 
 sorrow, " Here is verily a lake of blood!" 
 
 There was, long after the battle of Senlac or Hastings, as it 
 is commonly called, a patriotic superstition in the country to 
 the effect that, when the rain had moistened the soil, there 
 were to be seen traces of blood on the ground where it had 
 taken place. 
 
 Having thus secured the victory, William had his tent 
 pitched at the very point where the standard which had come 
 from Rome had replaced the Saxon banner, and he passed the 
 night supping and chatting with his chieftains, not far from 
 the corpses scattered over the battle-field. Next day it was 
 necessary to attend to the burial of all these dead, conquerors 
 or conquered. WiUiam was full of care and affection towards 
 his comrades ; and on the eve of the battle, during a long and 
 arduous reconnaissance which he had imdertaken with some 
 of them, he had insisted upon carrying, for some time, in ad- 
 dition to his own cuirass, that of Ms faithful William Fitz- 
 Osbern, who he saw was fatigued in spite of his usual strength ; 
 but towards his enemies William was harsh and resentfuL 
 Githa, Harold's mother, sent to him to ask for her son's 
 corpse, offering for it its weight in gold. " Nay," said WiUiam, 
 "Harold was a perjurer; let liim have for burial-place the 
 sand of the shore, where he was so madly fain to rule." Two 
 Saxon monks from Waltham Abbey, which had been founded 
 by Harold, came, b.y their abbot's order, and claimed for their 
 church the remains of their benefactor ; and William, indifferent 
 as he had been to a mother's grief, would not displease an 
 abbey. But when the monks set about finding the body of 
 Harold, there was none to recognize it, and they had recourse 
 to a young girl, Edith Sivwi's-neck, whom Harold had loved. 
 She discovered amongst the corpses her lover's mutilated body; 
 and the monks bore it away to the church at Waltham, where 
 it was buried. Some time later a rumor was spread abroad that 
 Harold was woiuided, and carried to a neighboring castle, per- 
 haps Dover, whence he wont to the Abbey of St. John, at Ches- 
 ter, where ne lived a long while in a solitary cell, and where 
 (13) HF Vol. 1
 
 288 HISTORY OF FRANCE. [CH. xv 
 
 William the Conqueror's second son, Henry I., the third Nor- 
 man King of England, one day went to see him, and had an 
 interview with him. But this legend, in which there is nothing 
 chronologically impossible, rests on no sound basis of evidence, 
 and is discountenanced by all contemporary accounts. 
 
 Before following up his victory, William resolved to per 
 petuate the remembrance of it by a religious monument, and 
 he decreed the foundation of an abbey on the very field of the 
 battle of Hastings, from which it took its name. Battle Abbey. 
 He endowed this abbey with all the neighboring territory with> 
 in the radius of a league, "the very spot," says his charter, 
 "which gave me my crown." He made it free of the juris^ 
 diction of any prelate, dedicated it to St. Martin of Tours, 
 patron-saint of the soldiers of Gaul, and ordered that there 
 should be deposited in its archives a register containing the 
 names of all the lords, knights, and men of mark who had 
 accompanied him on his expedition. When the building of the 
 abbey began, the builders observed a want of water; and they 
 notified WilUam of the fact. " Work away," said he : "if God 
 grant me life, I will make such good provision for the place 
 that more wine shall be found there than there is water in 
 other monasteries." 
 
 It was not every thing, however, to be victorious, it was still 
 necessary to be recognized as king. When the news of the de- 
 feat at Hastings and the death of Harold was spread abroad in 
 the country, the emotion was lively and seemed to be pro- 
 found; the great Saxon national council, the Wittenagemote, 
 assembled at London; the remnants of the Saxon army 
 rallied there ; and search was made for other kings than the 
 Norman duke. Harold left two sons, very young and not in a 
 condition to reign; but his two brothers-in-law, Edwin and 
 Morkar, held dominion in the north of England, whilst the 
 southern provinces, and amongst them the city of London, had 
 a popular aspirant, a nephew of Edward the Confessor, in 
 Edgar surnamed Atheling (the noble, the illustrious), as the 
 descendant of several kings. What with these different pre- 
 tensions, there was discussion, hesitation, and delay; but at 
 last the young Edgar prevailed, and was proclaimed king. 
 Meanwhile William was advancing with his army, slowly, 
 prudently, as a man resolved to risk nothing and calculating 
 upon the natural resiilts of his victory. At some points he en- 
 countered attempts at resistance, but he easily overcame them, 
 occupied successively Romney, Dover, Canterbury, and Roch'
 
 WILLIAM THE CONgUEROR 
 
 France, vol. one.
 
 cu. XV.] CONQUEST OF ENGLAND BY THE NORMANS. §89 
 
 ester, appeared before London without trying to enter it, 
 and naoved on Winchester which was the residence of Edward 
 the Confessor's widow, Queen Editha, who had received that 
 important city as dowry. Through respect for her, WiUiam, 
 who presented hiraself in the character of relative and heir of 
 King Edward, did not enter the place, and merely called upon 
 the inhabitants to take the oath of allegiance to him and do 
 him homage, which they did with the queen's consent. William 
 returned towards London and commenced the siege or rather 
 investment of it, by estabhshing his camp at Berkhampstead, 
 in the coimty of Hertford. He entered before long into secret 
 commtmication with an influential burgess, named Ansgard, 
 an old man who had seen service, and who, riddled with 
 wounds, had himself carried about the streets in a htter. Ans- 
 gard had but Uttle difficulty in inducing the authorities of 
 London to make pacific overtures to the duke, and William 
 had still less difficulty in convincing the messenger of the 
 moderation of his designs. ' ' The king salutes ye, and offers 
 ye peace, " said Ansgard to the municipal authorities of London 
 on his return from the camp: " 'tis a king who hath no peer; 
 he is handsomer than the sun, wiser than Solomon, more 
 active and greater than Charlemagne," and the enthusiastic 
 poet adds that the people as well as the senate eagerly welcomed 
 these words, and renounce, both of them, the young king they 
 had but lately proclaimed. Facts were quick in respond- 
 ing to this quickly produced impression ; a fo^Tnal deputation 
 was sent to Wilham's camp ; the Archbishops of Canterbury 
 and York, many other prelates and laic chieftains, the princi- 
 pal citizens of London, the two brothers-in-law of Harold, 
 Edwin and Morkar, and the young king of yesterday, Edgar 
 Atheling himself, formed part of it; and they brought to 
 William, Edgar Atheling his abdication, and all the others 
 their submission, with an express invitation to William to 
 have himself made king, "for we be wont," said they, "to 
 serve a king, and we wish to have a king for lord." Wilham 
 received them in presence of the chieftains of his army, and 
 with great show of moderation in his desires. " Affairs," said 
 he,- "be troubled stiU; there be still certain rebels; I desire 
 rather the peace of the kingdom than the crown ; I would that 
 my wife shoiild be crowned with me." The Norman chieftains 
 • murmxu'ed whilst they smiled ; and one of them, an Aquitanian, 
 Aimery de Thenars, cried out, "It is passing modest to ask 
 soldiers if they wish their chief to be king: soldiers are never,
 
 290 HISTORY OF FRANCE. [ch. xv. 
 
 or very seldom, called to such deliberations : let what we de- 
 sire be done as soon as possible." William yielded to the en- 
 treaties of the Saxon deputies and to the counsels of the Nor- 
 man chieftains ; but, prudent still, before going in person to 
 London, he sent thither some of his officers ^vith orders to have 
 built there immediately, on the banks of the Thames, at a 
 point which he indicated, a fort where he might establish liim- 
 self in safety. That fort, in the course of time, became the 
 Tower of London. 
 
 "When Wilham set out, some days afterwards, to make his 
 entry into the city, he found, on his way to St, Alban's, the 
 road blocked with huge trunks of trees recently felled. 
 "What means this barricade in thy domains?" he demanded 
 of the Abbot of St. Alban's, a Saxon noble. " I did what was 
 my duty to my birth and mission, " replied the monk : " if 
 others, of my rank and condition, had done as much, as they 
 ought to and could have done, thou hadst not penetrated so far 
 into our country." 
 
 On entering London after all these delays and all these pre- 
 cautions, William fixed, for his coronation, upon Christmas- 
 day, December 25th, 1066. Either by desire of the prelate him- 
 self or by William's own order, it was not the Archbishop of 
 (Z!anterbury, Stigand, who presided, according to custom, at the 
 ceremony ; the duty devolved upon the Archbishop of York, 
 Aldred, who had but lately anointed Edgar Atheling. At the 
 appointed hour, William arrived at Westminster Abbey, the 
 latest work and the burial-place of Edward the Confessor. 
 The Conqueror marched between two hedges of Norman 
 soldiers, behind whom stood a crowd of people, cold and sad, 
 though full of curiosity. A numerous cavalry guarded the ap- 
 proaches to the church and the quarters adjoining. Two 
 hundred and sixty counts, barons, and knights of Normandy 
 went in with the duke. Geoffrey, bishop of Coutances, de- 
 manded, in French, of the Normans, if they would that their 
 duke should take the title of King of the English. The Arch- 
 bishop of York demanded of the EngHsh, in the Saxon tongue, 
 if they would have for king the Duke of Normandy. Noisy 
 acclamations arose in the church and resounded outside. The 
 soldiery, posted in the neighborhood, took the confused roar 
 for a symptom of something wrong and in their suspicious 
 rage set fire to the neighboring houses. The flames spread 
 rapidly. The people who were rejoicing in the church caught 
 the alarm, and a multitude of men and women of every rank
 
 CH. XV.] CONQUEST OF ENGLAND BY THE NORMANS. 291 
 
 flung themselves out of the edifice. Alone and trembling, the 
 bishops with some clerics and monks remained before the altar 
 and accompUshed the work of anointment upon the king's 
 head, "himself trembling," says the chronicle. Nearly all the 
 rest who were present ran to the fli'e, some to extinguish it, 
 others to steal and pillage in the midst of the consternation. 
 William terminated the ceremony by taking the usual oath of 
 Saxon kings at their coronation, adding thereto, as of his 
 own motion, a promise to treat the Enghsh people according 
 to their own laws and as weU as they had ever been treated by 
 the best of their own kings. Then he went forth from the 
 chm-ch King of England. 
 
 We will pursue no farther the life of WUham the Conqueror: 
 for henceforth it belongs to the history of England, not of 
 France. We have entered, so far as he was concerned, into 
 pretty long details, because we were bound to get a fair under- 
 standing of the event and of the man ; not only because of their 
 lustre at the time, but especially because of the serious and 
 long-felt consequences entailed upon France, England, and, we 
 may say, Europe. We do not care just now to trace out those 
 consequences m. all their bearings ; but we would like to mark 
 out with precision their chief features, inasmuch as they exer- 
 cised, for centimes, a determining influence upon the destinies 
 of two great nations and upon the course of modern civiliza- 
 tion. 
 
 As to France, the consequences of the conquest of England 
 by the Normans were clearly pernicious, and they have not 
 yet entirely disappeared. It was a great evil, as early as the 
 eleventh century, that the Duke of Normandy, one of the great 
 French lords, one of the great vassals of the King of France, 
 should at the same time become King of England, and thus re- 
 ceive an accession of rank and power which could not fail to 
 render more comphcated and more stormy his relations with 
 his French suzerain. From the eleventh to the foiu-teenth 
 century, from PhiHp I. to PhiUp de Valois, this position gave 
 rise, between the two crowns and the two States, to questions, 
 to quarrels, to political struggles, and to wars which were a 
 frequent source of trouble in France to the government and the 
 people. The evil and the peril became far greater still when, 
 in the fourteenth centmy, there arose between France and 
 England, between PhOip de Valois and Edward III., a question 
 touching the succession to the throne of France and the appli- 
 cation or negation of the Salic law. Then there commenced.
 
 292 HISTORY OF FRANCE. [cH. xr. 
 
 between the two crowns and the two peoples, that war which 
 was to last more than a hundred years, was to bring upon 
 France the saddest days of her history, and was to be ended 
 only by the inspired heroism of a young girl who, alone, in the 
 name of her God and His saints, restored confidence and vic- 
 tory to her king and her coimtry. Joan of Arc, at the cost of 
 her life, brought to the most glorious conclusion the longest 
 and bloodiest struggle that has devastated France and some- 
 times compromised her glory. 
 
 Such events, even when they are over, do not cease to weigh 
 heavily for a long while upon a people. The struggles between 
 the kings of England, dukes of Normandy, and the kings of 
 France, and the long war of the fourteenth and fifteenth cen- 
 turies for the succession to the throne of France, engendered 
 what historians have called ' ' the rivahy between France and 
 England; " and this rivalry, having been admitted as a natural 
 and inevitable fact, became the permanent incubus and, at 
 divers epochs, the scourge of French national existence. Un- 
 doubtedly there are, between great and energetic neighbors, 
 different interests and tendencies, which easily become the 
 seeds of jealousy and strife ; but there are also, between such 
 nations, common interests and common sentiments, which 
 tend to harmony and peace. The wisdom and abihty of gov- 
 ernments and of nations themselves is shown in devoting them- 
 selves to making the grounds of harmony and peace stronger 
 than those of discord and war. Any how common sense and 
 moral sense forbid differences of interests and tendencies to be 
 set up as a principle upon which to establish general and per- 
 manent rivalry, and, by consequence, a systematic hostility 
 and national enmity. And the farther civilization and the 
 connections between different people proceed with this develop- 
 ment, the more necessary and, at the same time, possible it 
 becomes to raise the interests and sentiments which would 
 hold them together above those which would keep them 
 asunder, and to thus foimd a policy of reciprocal equity and of 
 peace in place of a policy of hostile precautions and continual 
 strife. "I have witnessed," says M. Guizot, "in the course of 
 my life, both these policies. I have seen the policy of system- 
 atic hostility, the policy practised by the Emperor Napoleon I. 
 with as much ability and brilliancy as it was capable of, and I 
 have seen it result in the greatest disaster France ever experi- 
 enced. And even after the evidence of its errors and calami- 
 ties this policy has still left amongst us deep traces and raised
 
 C!H. XV.] CONQUEST Ot ENGLAND BT THE NORMANS. 298 
 
 serious obstacles to the policy of reciprocal equity, liberty, and 
 peace which we labored to support and of which the nation felt, 
 though almost against the grain, the justice and the necessity," 
 In that feeling we recognize the lamentable results of the old 
 historic causes which have just been pointed out and the last- 
 ing perils arising from those bhnd passions which hurry people 
 away, and keep them back from their most pressing interests 
 and their most honorable sentiments. 
 
 In spite of appearances to the contrary and in view of her 
 future interests, England was, in the eleventh century, by the 
 very fact of the conquest she underwent, in a better position 
 than France. She was conquered, it is true, and conquered 
 by a foreign chieftain and a foreign army, but France also had 
 been, for several centuries previously, a prey to conquest, and 
 under circumstances much more unfavorable than those ueder 
 wliich the Norman conquest had found and placed England. 
 When the Goths, the Burgundians, the Franks, the Saxons, 
 and the Normans themselves invaded and disputed over Gaul, 
 what was the character of the event? Barbarians, up to that 
 time vagabonds or nearly so, were flooding in upon popula- 
 tions disorganized and enervated. On the side of the German 
 victors, no fixity in social hfe ; no general or any thing hke 
 regular government ; no nation reaUy cemented and consti- 
 tuted ; but individuals in a state of dispersion and of almost 
 absolute independence ; on the side of the vanquished GaUo- 
 Romans, the old pohtical ties dissolved ; no strong power, no 
 vital Uberty ; the lower classes in slavery, the middle classes 
 ruined, the upper classes depreciated. Amongst the Bar- 
 barians society was scarcely commencing; with the subjects 
 of the Roman empire it no longer existed ; Charlemagne's at- 
 tempt to reconstruct it by rallying beneath a new empire both 
 victors and vanquished was a failure ; feudal anarchy was the 
 first and the necessary step out of barbaric anarchy and 
 towards a renewal of social order 
 
 It was not so in England, when, in the eleventh century, 
 WiUiam transported thither his government and his army, 
 A people but lately come out of barbarism, conquered, on that 
 occasion, a people still half barbarous. Their primitive origin 
 was the same; their institutions were, if not similar, at any 
 rate analagous; there was no fundamental antagonism in 
 their habits ; the English chieftains lived in their domains an 
 idle, hunting life, surrounded by their liegemen, just as the 
 Norman barons lived. Society, amongst both the former and
 
 294 HISTORY OF FRANCE. [cH. xv. 
 
 the latter, was founded, however unrefined and irregular it 
 still was ; and neither the former nor the latter had lost the 
 flavor and the usages of their ancient liberties. A certaia 
 superiority, in point of organization and social discipline, be- 
 longed to the Norman conquerors ; but the conquered Anglo- 
 Saxons were neither in a temper to allow themselves to be 
 enslaved nor out of condition for defending themselves. The 
 conquest was destined to entaU cruel evils, a long oppression, 
 but it could not bring about either the dissolution of the two 
 peoples into petty, lawless groups, or the permanent humilia- 
 tion of one in the presence of the other. There were, at one 
 and the same time, elements of governments and resistance, 
 causes of fusion and unity in the very midst of the struggle. 
 
 We are now about to anticipate ages, and get a glimpse, in 
 their development, of the consequences which attended this 
 difference, so profound, in the position of France and of Eng- 
 land, at the time of the formation of the two States. 
 
 In England, immediately after the Norman conquest, two 
 general forces are confronted, those, to wit, of the two peoples. 
 The anglo-Saxon people is attached to its ancient institutions, 
 a mixture of feudaUsm and hberty, which become its security. 
 The Norman army assmnes organization on Enghsh soil ac- 
 cording to the feudal system which had been its own in 
 Normandy. A principle of authority and a principle of re- 
 sistance thus exist, from the very fii'st, in the community and 
 in the government. Before long the principle of resistance 
 gets displaced ; the strife between the peoples continues ; but 
 a new struggle arises between the Norman king and his barons. 
 The Norman kingship, strong in its growth, would fain be- 
 come tyrannical ; but its tyi*anny encounters a resistance, also 
 strong, since the necessity tor defending themselves against 
 the Anglo-Saxons has caused the Norman barons to take up 
 the practice of acting in concert, and has not permitted them 
 to set themselves up as petty, isolated sovereigns. The spirit 
 of association receives development in England : the ancient 
 institutions have maintained it amongst the Enghsh laud- 
 holders, and the inadequacy of individual resistance has made 
 it prevalent amongst the Norman barons. The unity which 
 springs from community of interests and from junctions of 
 forces amongst equals becomes a counterpoise to the unity of 
 the sovereign power. To sustain the struggle with success, 
 the aristocratic coaUtion formed against the tyrannical king- 
 ship has needed the assistance of the landed proprietors, great
 
 CH. XV.] CONQUEST OF ENGLAND Bl THE NORMANS. 295 
 
 and small, English and Norman, and it has not been able to 
 dispense with getting their rights recognized as well as its 
 own. Meanwhile the struggle is becoming complicated ; there 
 is a division of parties ; a portion of the barons rally round the 
 threatened kingship; sometimes it is the feudal aristocracy, 
 and sometimes it is the king that summons and sees flocking 
 to the rescue the common people, first of the country, then of 
 the towns. The democratic element thus penetrates into and 
 keeps growing in both society and government, at one time 
 quietly and through the stolid influence of necessity, at 
 another noisily and by means of revolutions, powerful indeed, 
 but nevertheless restrained within certain hmits. The fusion 
 of the two peoples and the different social classes is little by 
 little attaining accomphshment ; it is Uttle by little bringing 
 about the perfect formation of representative government with 
 its various component parts, royalty, aristocracy and democ- 
 racy, each invested with the rights and the strength necessary 
 for their functions. The end of the struggle has been arrrived 
 at ; constitutional monarchy is founded ; by the triumph of 
 their language and of their primitive liberties the English have 
 conquered their conquerors. It is written in her history, and 
 especially in her history at the date of the eleventh century, 
 how England found her point of departure and her first ele- 
 ments of success in the long labor she performed, in order to 
 arrive, in 1688, at a free, and, in our days, at a Hberal govern- 
 ment. 
 
 France pursued her end by other means and in the teeth of 
 other fortunes. She always desired and always sought for 
 free government under the form of constitutional monarchy; 
 and in following her history, step by step, there Avill be seen 
 often disappearing and ever re-appearing the efforts made by 
 the country for the accomplishment of her hope. "Why then 
 did not France sooner and more completely attain what she 
 had so often attempted? Axuongst the different causes of this 
 long miscalculation, we wiU dwell for the present only on the 
 historical reason just now indicated: France did not find, as 
 England did, in the primitive elements of French society the 
 conditions and means of the political system to which she 
 never ceased to aspire. In order to obtain the moderate 
 measure of internal order, without which society could not 
 exist ; in order to ensure the progress of her civil laws and her 
 material civihzation ; in order even to enjoy those pleasures of 
 the mind for which she thirsts so much, France was constantly
 
 296 HISTORY OF FRANCE. [ch. xvi 
 
 obliged to have recourse to the kingly authority and to that 
 ahnost absolute monarchy which was far from satisfying her 
 even when she could not do without it, and when she wor- 
 shipped it with an enthusiasm rather literary than political, as 
 was the case under Louis XIV. It was through the refined 
 rather than profound development of her civilization, and 
 through the zeal of her intellectual movement that France was 
 at length impelled not only towards the political system to 
 which she had so long aspired, but into the boundless ambition 
 of the unlimited revolution which she brought about and with 
 which she inoculated all Europe. It is in the first steps 
 towards the formation of the two societies, French and Eng- 
 lish, and in the elements, so very different, of their earliest 
 existence that we find the principal cause for their long- 
 continued diversity in institutions and destinies. 
 
 "In 1823, forty-seven years ago, after having studied," says 
 M. Guizot, "in my Essays upon a Comparative History of 
 France and England, the great fact which we have just now 
 attempted to make clearly understood, I concluded my labor 
 by saying, ' before our revolution, this difference between the 
 political fates of France and England might have saddened a 
 Frenchman : but, now, in spite of the evils we have suffered 
 and in spite of those we shall yet, perhaps, suffer, there is no 
 room, so far as we are concerned, for such sadness. The 
 advances of social equality and the enlightenments of civiliza- 
 tion in France preceded political liberty ; and it will thus be 
 the more general and the purer. France may reflect, without 
 regret, upon any history : her own has always been glorious, 
 and the future promised to her will assuredly recompense her 
 for all she has hitherto lacked.' In 1870, after the experiences 
 and notwithstanding the sorrows of my long hfe, I have still 
 confidence in our coiintry's future. Never be it forgotten that 
 God helps only those who help themselves and who deserve 
 His aid." 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 THE CRUSADES, THEIR ORIGIN AND THEIR SUCCESS. 
 
 Amongst the great events of European history none was for 
 a longer time in preparation or more naturally brought about 
 than the Crusades. Christianity, from her earliest days, had
 
 CH XVI.] ORIGIN AND SUCCESS OF THE CRUSADES 297 
 
 seen in Jerusalem her sacred cradle ; it had been, in past times, 
 the home of her ancestors, the Jews, and the centre of their 
 history; and, afterwards, the scene of the life, death, and 
 resurrection of her Divine Founder. Jerusalem became, more 
 and more, the Holy City. To go to Jerusalem, to visit the 
 Mount of Olives, Calvary, and the tomb of Jesus, was, in their 
 most evil days and in the midst of their obscurity and their 
 martyrdoms, a pious passion with the early Christians, 
 When, under Constantine, Christianity had ascended from 
 the cross to the throne, Jerusalem had fresh attractions for 
 Christian faith and Christian curiosity. Temples covered and 
 surrounded the Holy Sepulclire ; and at Bethlehem, Nazareth, 
 Mount Tabor, and nearly all the places which Jesus had con- 
 secrated by His presence and His miracles were seen to rise up 
 churches, chapels, and monuments dedicated to the memory of 
 them. The Emperor Constantino's mother, St. Helena, was, at 
 seventy-eight years of age, the first royal pilgrim to the holy 
 places. After the Pagan revival, vainly attempted by the 
 Emperor Julian, the number and zeal of the Christian visitors 
 to Jerusalem were redoubled. At the beginning of the fifth 
 century, St. Jerome wrote, from his retreat at Bethlehem, that 
 Judea overflowed with pilgrims, and that, round about the 
 Holy Sepulchre, were heard sung, in divers tongues, the 
 praises of the Lord. He, however, gave but scant encourage- 
 ment to his friends to make the trip. " The court of heaven," 
 he wrote to St. Paulinus, "is as open in Britain as at Jenisa- 
 lem;" and the disorders which sometimes accompanied the 
 numerous assemblages of pilgrims became such that several of 
 the most illustrious fathers of the Church, and amongst others 
 St. Augustine and St. Gregory of Nyssa, exerted themselves to 
 dissuade the faithful. "Take no thought," said Augustine, 
 "for long voyages; go where your faith is; it is not by ship 
 but by love that we go to Him who is every where. " 
 
 Events soon rendered the pilgrimage to Jerusalem difiicult. 
 and for some time impossible. At the commencement of the 
 seventh century the Greek empire was at war with the sov- 
 ereigns of Persia, successors of Cyrus and chiefs of the religion 
 of Zoroaster. One of them, Khosroes II. , invaded Judea, took 
 Jerusalem, led away captive the inhabitants together with their 
 patriarch Zacharias, and even carried off to Persia the precious 
 rehc which was regarded as the wood of the true cross, and 
 which had been discovered, nearly three centuries before, by 
 the Empress Helena, whilst excavations were making on Cal'
 
 298 BISTORT OF FRANCE. [ch. xvl 
 
 vary for the erection of the church of the Holy Sepulchre. 
 But fourteen years later, after several victories over the Per- 
 sians, the Greek Emperor Herachus retook Jerusalem and re- 
 entered Constantinople in trimnph with the coffer containing 
 the sacred rehc. He next year (in 629) carried it back to Jeru- 
 salem, and bore it upon his own shoulders to the top of Cal- 
 vary ; and on this occasion was instituted the Feast of the Ex- 
 altation of the Holy Cross. Great was the joy in Christendom; 
 and the pilgrunages to Jerusalem resvimed their course. 
 
 But precisely at this epoch there appeared an enemy far 
 more formidable for the Christians than the sectaries of Zo- 
 roaster. In 622 Mahomet founded Islamism ; and some years 
 after his death, in 638, the second of the khalifs his successors, 
 Omar, sent two of his generals, Kaled and Abou-Obediah, to 
 take Jerusalem. For to the Mussulmans, also, Jerusalem was 
 a holy city. Mahomet, it was said, had been thither ; it was 
 thence, indeed, that he had started on his noctvu'nal ascent to 
 heaven. On approaching the walls, the Arabs repeated these 
 words from the Koran, ' " Enter we the holy land wliich God 
 hath promised us." The siege lasted four months. The Chris- 
 tians at last surrendered, but only to Omar in person, who 
 came from Medina to receive their submission. A capitulation 
 concluded with their patriarch Sophronius guaranteed them 
 their lives, their property, and their churches. "When the 
 draft of the treaty was completed, Omar said to the patriarch, 
 'Conduct me to the temple of David.' Omar entered Jerusa- 
 lem preceded by the patriarch and followed by four thousand 
 warriors, followers of the Prophet, wearing no other arms but 
 their swords, Sophronius took him, first of all, to the Church 
 of the Resurrection, ' Behold,' said he, ' the temple of David.* 
 'Thou say est not true,' said Omar, after a few moments' re- 
 flection ; ' the Prophet gave me a description of the temple of 
 David and it tallieth not with the building I now see.' The 
 patriarch then conducted him to the Chiu'ch of Sion, ' Here,' 
 said he, ' is the temple of David.' ' It is a lie,' rejoined Omar, 
 and went his way, directing his steps towards the gate named 
 Bab-Mohammed, The spot on which now stands the Mosque 
 of Omar was so encumbered with filth that the steps leading to 
 the street were covered with it and that the rubbish readied 
 almost to the top of the vault. ' You can only get in here by 
 crawhng, ' said the patriarch, ' Be it so, ' answered Omar. The 
 patriarch went first ; Omar, with his people, followed ; and they 
 arrived at the space which at this day forms the fore-court of
 
 CH. XVI.] ORIGIN AND SUCCESS OF THE CRUSADES. 299 
 
 the mosque. There every one could stand upright. After 
 having turned his eyes to right and left and attentively ex- 
 amined the place, ' Allah dkhbar P cried Omar ; ' here is the 
 temple of David, described to me by the Prophet.' He found 
 the Sakhra (the rock which forms the summit of Mount 
 Moriah, and which, left alone after the different destructions 
 of the different temples, became the theme of a multitude of 
 traditions and legends, Jewish and Mussulman) covered with 
 filth, heaped np there by the Chiistians through hatred of the 
 Jews. Omar spread his cloak over the rock and began to 
 sweep it ; and all the Mussulmans in his train followed his ex- 
 ample'' {Le Temple de Jerusalem, a monograph, pp. 73-75, by 
 Count Melchior de Vogiie, ch. vi.). The Mosque of Omar rose 
 up on the site of Solomon's temple. The Christians retained 
 the practice of their reUgion in their churches, but they were 
 obhged to conceal their crosses and their sacred books. The 
 bell no longer summoned the faithful to prayer ; and the pomp 
 of ceremonies was forbidden them. It was far worse when 
 Omar, the most moderate of Mussulman fanatics, had left Je- 
 rusalem. The faithful were driven from their houses, and in- 
 sulted in their churches; additions were made to the tribute 
 they had to pay to the new masters of Palestine ; they were 
 prohibited from carrying anns and riding on horseback; a 
 girdle of leather, which they might not lay aside, was their 
 badge of servitude; their conquerors breoked not even that 
 the Christians should speak the Ai-ab tongue, reserved for dis- 
 ciples of the Koran ; and the Christian people of Jerusalem had 
 not the right of nominating their own patriarch without the 
 intervention of the Saracens. 
 
 From the seventh to the eleventh century the situation re- 
 mained very much the same. The Mussulmans, klaalifs of 
 Egypt or Persia, continued in possession of Jerusalem; and 
 the Christians, native inhabitants or foreign visitors, continued 
 to be oppressed, harassed, and humiliated there. At two 
 periods their condition was temporarily better. At the com- 
 mencement of the ninth century, Charlemagne reached even 
 there with the greatness of his mind and of his power. "It 
 was not only in his o-wn land and his own kingdom," says 
 Eginhard, "that he scattered those gratuitous largesses, which 
 the Greeks call alms ; but beyond the seas, in Syria, in Egypt, 
 in Africa, at Jerusalem, at Alexandria, at Carthage, wherever 
 he knew that there were Christians hving in poverty, he had 
 compassion on their misery, and he dehghted to send them
 
 300 HISTORY OF FRANCE. [ch. xvt. 
 
 money." In one of his capitularies of the year 810 we find 
 this paragraph : ' ' Alms to be sent to Jerusalem to repair the 
 churches of God." "If Charlemagne was so careful to seek 
 the friendship of the kings beyond the seas, it was above all in 
 order to obtain for the Christians living under their rule help 
 
 and relief He kept up so close a*friendship with Haroun- 
 
 al-Easchid, king of Persia, that this prince preferred his good 
 graces to the aUiance of the sovereigns of the earth. Accord- 
 ingly, when the ambassadors whom Charles had sent, with 
 presents, to visit the sacred tomb of our divine Saviour and 
 the site of the resurrection, presented themselves before him, 
 and expounded to him their master's wish, Haroun did not 
 content himself with entertaining Charles' request, he wished, 
 besides, to give up to him the complete proprietorship of those 
 places hallowed by the certification of our redemption," and he 
 sent him, Avith the most magnificent presents, the keys of the 
 Holy Sepulchre. At the end of the same century, another 
 Christian sovereign, far less powerfid and less famous, John 
 Zimisces, emperor of Constantinople, in a war against the 
 Mussulmans of Asia, penetrated into Galilee, made himself 
 master of Tiberias, Nazareth, and Mount Tabor, received a 
 deputation which brought him the keys of Jerusalem, "and 
 we have placed," he says himself, "garrisons in aU the dis- 
 trict lately subjected to our rule." These were but strokes of 
 foreign intervention giving the Christians of Jerusalem gleams 
 of hope rather than lasting diminution of their miseries. 
 However, it is certain that, during this epoch, pilgrimages 
 multipHed and were often accomplished without obstacle. It 
 was from France, England, and Italy that most of the pilgrims 
 ■went, and some of them wrote, or caused to be written, an ac- 
 count of their trip, amongst others the Italian Saint Valentine, 
 the English Saint Willibald, and the French Bishop Saint 
 Arculf , who had as companion a Burgundian hermit named 
 Peter, a singular resemblance in quality and name to the zeal- 
 ous apostle of the Crusade three centuries later. The most 
 curious of these narratives is that of a French monk, Bernard, 
 a pilgrim of about the year 870. ' ' There is at Jerusalem, " says 
 he, "a hospice where admittance is given to all who come to 
 visit the place for devotion's sake and who speak the Roman 
 tongue ; a church, dedicated to St. Mary, is hard by the hospice 
 and possesseth a noble library which it oweth to the zeal of the 
 Emperor Charles the Great." This pious establishment had
 
 CH. xn.] ORIGIN AND SUCCESS OF THE CRUSADES. 301 
 
 attached to it fields, vineyards, and a garden situated in the 
 valley of Jehosaphat. 
 
 But whilst there were a few isolated cases of Christians thus 
 going to satisfy in the East their pious and inquisitive zeal, the 
 Mussulmans, equally ardent as behevers and as warriors 
 carried Westward their creed and their arms, established 
 themselves in Spain, penetrated to the very heart of France, 
 and brought on, between Islamism and Christianity, that grand 
 struggle in which Charles Martel gained, at Poitiers, the vic- 
 tory for the Cross. It was really a definitive victory and yet 
 it did not end the struggle; the Mussulmans remained masters 
 in Spain, and continued to infest southern France, Italy, and 
 Sicily, preserving even, at certain points, posts which they 
 used as starting-points for distant ravages. Far then from 
 calming down and resulting in pacific relations, the hostility 
 between the two races became more and more active and de- 
 termined; every where they opposed, fought, and oppressed 
 one another, iaflamed one against the other by the double feel- 
 ings of faith and ambition, hatred and fear. To this gCDeral 
 state of affairs came to be added, about the end of the tenth 
 and beginning of the eleventh century, incidents best calculated 
 to aggravate the evil. Hakem, khalif of Egypt from 996 to 
 1021, persecuted the Christians, especially at Jerusalem, with 
 aU the violence of a fanatic and all the capriciousness of a 
 despot. He ordered them to wear upon their necks a wooden 
 cross five pounds in weight ; he forbade them to ride on any 
 animal but mules or asses ; and, without assigning any motive 
 for his acts, he confiscated their goods and earned off their 
 children. It was told to him one day that, when the Christians 
 assembled in the temple at Jerusalem to celebrate Easter, the 
 priests of the church rubbed balsam-oil upon the iron chain 
 which held up the lamp over the tomb of Christ, and after- 
 wards set fire, from the roof, to the end of the chain ; the fire 
 stole down to the wick of the lamp and lighted it ; then they 
 shouted with admiration, as if fire from heaven had come 
 down upon the tomb, and they glorified theii* faith. Hakem 
 ordered the instant demoHtion of the chiu-ch of the Holy 
 Sepulchre, and it was accordingly demolished. Another time 
 a dead dog had been laid at the door of a mosque ; and the 
 multitude accused the Christians of this insult. Hakem 
 ordered them all to be put to death. The soldiers were prepar- 
 ing to execute the order when a young Christian said to his
 
 302 HISTORY OF FRANCE. [ch. xvi. 
 
 friends, " It were too grievous that the whole Church should 
 perish ; it were better that one should die for all ; only promise 
 to bless my memory year by year." He proclaimed himself 
 alone to blame for the insult, and was accordingly alone put to 
 death. It is from this story of the historian WilUam of Tyre, 
 that Tasso, in his Jerusalem Delivered, has drawn the admira- 
 ble episode of Olindo and Sopkronia ; a fine example, and not 
 the only one, of an act of tyranny and an act of virtue inspir- 
 ing a great poet with the idea of a master-piece. "All the 
 deeds of Hakem were without motive, " says the Arab historian 
 Makrisi, " and the dreams suggested to him by his frenzy are 
 incapable of reasonable inteipretation." 
 
 These and many other similar stories reached the West, 
 spread amongst the Christian people and roused them to pity 
 for their brethren in the East and to wrath against the op- 
 pressors. And it was at a critical period, in the midst of the 
 pious alarms and desires of atonement excited by the expecta- 
 tion of the end of the world a thousand years after the coming 
 of the Lord, that the Christian population saw this way opened 
 for purchasing remission of their sins by delivering other 
 Christians from suffering, and by avenging the wrongs of their 
 creed. On all sides arose challenges and appeals to the war- 
 like ardor of the faithful. The greatest mind of the age, 
 Gerbert, who had become Pope Sylvester II., constituted him- 
 self interpreter of the popular feehng. He wrote, in the name 
 of the Church of Jerusalem, a letter addressed to the universal 
 Church: " To work, then, soldier of Christ! Be our standard- 
 bearer and our champion ! And if with arms thou canst do so, 
 aid us with thy words, thy wealth. What is it, pray, that 
 thou givest, and to whom, pray, dost thou give? Of thine 
 abundance thou givest a small matter, and thou givest to Him 
 who hath freely given thee all thou possessest ; but He wUl not 
 accept freely that which thou shalt give ; for He will multiply 
 thine offering and will pay it back to thee hereafter. " Some 
 years after Gerbert, another great mind, the greatest among 
 the popes of the middle ages, Gregory VII. proclaimed an ex- 
 pedition, at the head of which he would place himself, to go 
 and deliver Jerusalem and the Christians of the East from the 
 insults and tyranny of the infidels. 
 
 Such being the condition of facts and minds, pilgrimages to 
 Jerusalem became from the ninth to the eleventh century, 
 more and more numerous and considerable. " It would never 
 have been believed," says the contemporary chronicler Eaoul
 
 CH. XVI.] ORIGIN AND SUCCESS OF THE CEUSADE8. 303 
 
 Glaber, "that the Holy Sepulchre could attract so prodigious 
 an influx. First the lower classes, then the middle, after- 
 wards the most potent kings, the counts, the marquises, the 
 prelates, and lastly, what had never heretofore been seen, 
 many women, noble or humble, imdertook this pilgrimage." 
 In 1026, William Taillefer, count of Angoleme; in 1028, 1035, 
 and 1039, Foulques the Black, count of An jou ; in 1035, Robert 
 the Magnificent, duke of Normandy, father of William the 
 Conqueror; in 10S6, Robert the Frisou, count of Flanders; and 
 many other gi*eat feudal lords quitted their estates, or, rather, 
 their States, to go and— not dehver, not conquer, but— simply 
 visit the Holy Land. It was not long before great numbers 
 were joined to great names. In 1054, Liebert, bishop of Cam- 
 brai, started for Jerusalem with a following of 3000 Picard or 
 Flemish pilgrims ; and in 1064, the Archbishop of Mayence and 
 the Bishops of Spire, Cologne, Bamberg, and Utrecht set out 
 on their way from the borders of the Rhine with more than 
 10,000 Christians behind them. After having passed through 
 Grermany, Hungary, Bulgaria, Thrace, Constantinople, Asia 
 Minor, and Syria, they were attacked in Palestine by hordes of 
 Arabs, were forced to take refuge in the ruins of an old castle, 
 and were reduced to capitulation; and when at last, "preceded 
 by the rumors of their battles and their perils, they arrived at 
 Jerusalem, they were received in triumph by the patriarch, 
 and were conducted, to the sound of timbrels and with the 
 flare of torches, to the church of the Holy Sepulchre. Tho 
 misery they had fallen into excited the pity of the Christians 
 of Asia ; and, after having lost more than 3000 of their com- 
 rades, they returned to Europe to relate their tragic adven- 
 tures and the dangers of a pilgrimage to the Holy Land" 
 {Histoire des Croisades, by M. Michaud, t. i, p, 62). 
 
 Amidst this agitation of Western Christendom, in 1076, two 
 years after Pope Gregory VII. had proclaimed his approaching 
 expedition to the Holy Land, news arrived in Eui'ope to the 
 effect that the most barbarous of Asiatics and of Musstdmans, 
 the Turks, after having fii'st served and then ruled the khalifa 
 of Persia, and afterwards conquered the greater part of the 
 Persian empire, had hurled themselves upon the Greek empire, 
 invaded Asia Minor, Syria, and Palestine, and lately taken 
 Jerusalem, where they practised against he Christians, old in- 
 habitants or foreign visitors, priests and woi-shippers, dread- 
 ful cruelties and intolerable exactions, worse than those of the 
 Persian or Egyptian khalif s.
 
 g04 HISTORY OF FRANCE. [ch. xvt. 
 
 It often happens that popular emotions, however profound 
 and general, remain barren, just as in the vegetable world 
 many sprouts appear at the sm'face of the soil and die without 
 having grown and fi-uctified. It is not sufficient for the bring- 
 ing about of great events and practical results that popular 
 aspirations should be merely manifested; it is necessary, 
 further, that some great soul, some powerful will should make 
 itself the organ and agent of the public sentiment and bring 
 it to fecundity by becoming its personification. The Christian 
 passion, in the eleventh century, for the deliverance of Jerusa- 
 lem and the triumph of the Cross was forttmate in this respect. 
 An obscure pilgrim, at first a soldier, then a married man and 
 father of several children, then a monk and a vowed recluse, 
 Peter the Hermit, who was )3om in the neighborhood of 
 Amiens, about 1030, had gone, as so many others had, to Jeru- 
 salem "to say his prayers there." Struck disconsolate at the 
 sight of the sufferings and insults undergone by the Christians, 
 he had an interview with Simeon, patriarch of Jerusalem, who 
 "recognizing in him a man of discretion and full of experience 
 in affairs of the world, set before him in detail all the evils 
 with which the people of God, in the holy city, were afflicted. 
 'Holy father,' said Peter to him, *if the Eoman Church and 
 the princes of the West were informed, by a man of energy 
 and worthy of belief, of all your calamities, of a surety they 
 would essay to apply some remedy thereto by word and deed. 
 Write, then, to our lord the pope and to the Roman Church, 
 and to the kings and princes of the West, and strengthen your 
 written testimony by the authority of your seal. As for me, I 
 shrink not from taking upon me a task for the salvation of my 
 soul ; and with the help of the Lord I am ready to go and seek 
 out all of them, solicit them, show imto them the immensity of 
 your troubles, and pray them all to hasten on the day of your 
 relief.'" The patriarch eagerly accepted the pilgi-im's offer; 
 and Peter set out, going first of all to Rome, where he handed 
 to Pope Urban II. the patriarch's letters, and commenced in 
 that quarter his mission of zeal. The pope promised him not 
 only support, but active co-operation when the propitious mo- 
 ment for it should arrive. Peter set to work, being still the 
 pilgrim every where, in Europe, as well as at Jerusalem. ' ' He 
 was a man of very small stature, and his outside made but a 
 very poor appearance ; yet superior powers swayed this miser- 
 able body ; he had a quick intellect and a penetrating eye, and 
 he spoke with ease and fluency. . . . We saw him at that
 
 CH. XVI.] ORIGIN AND SUCCESS OF THE CRUSADES. 305 
 
 time," says his contemporary Giiibert de Nogent, "scouring 
 city and town, and preaching every vf here ; the people crowded 
 round him, heaped presents upon him, and celebrated his sanc- 
 tity by such great praises that I remember not that like honor 
 was ever rendered to any other person. He displayed great 
 generosity in the disposal of all things that were given him. 
 He restored wives to their husbands, not without the addition 
 of gifts from himself, and he re-established, with marvellous 
 authority, peace and good understanding between those who 
 had been at variance. In all that he did or said he seemed to 
 have iu him something divine, insomuch that people went so 
 far as to pluck hairs from his mule to keep as relics. In the 
 open air he wore a woollen tunic, and over it a serge cloak 
 which came down to his heels ; he had his arms and feet bare ; 
 he ate little or no bread, and lived chiefly on wine and fish." 
 
 In 1095, after the preaching errantry of Peter the Hermit, 
 Pope Urban II. was at Clermont, in Auvergne, presiding at the 
 grand council, at which thirteen archbishops and two hundred 
 and five bishops or abbots were met together, with so many 
 princes and lay -lords, that "about the middle of the month of 
 November the towns and the villages of the neighborhood were 
 full of people, and divera were constrained to have their tents 
 and pavilions set up amidst the fields and meadows, notwith- 
 standing that the season and the country were cold to an 
 extreme. " The first nine sessions of the council were devoted 
 to the affairs of the Church in the West; but at the tenth 
 Jerusalem and the Christians of the East became the subject 
 of dehberation. The Pope went out of the church wherein the 
 Council was assembled and mounted a platform erected upon 
 a vast open space in the midst of the throng. Peter the Her- 
 mit, standing at his side, spoke first, and told the story of his 
 sojourn at Jerusalem, all he had seen of the miseries and 
 humiliations of the Christians, and all he himself had suffered 
 there, for he had been made to pay tribute for admission into 
 the Holy City, and for gazing upon the spectacle of the ex- 
 actions, insults, and tortm-es he was recounting. After him 
 Pope Urban II. spoke, in the French tongue, no doubt, as Peter 
 had spoken, for he was himself a Frenchman, as the majority 
 of those present were, grandees and populace. He made a 
 long speech, entering upon the most painful details connected 
 with the sufferings of the Christians of Jerusalem," that roj^al 
 city which the Redeemer of the human race had made illus- 
 trious by His coming, had honored by His residence, had
 
 306 BISTORT OF FRANCE. [ch. xvt 
 
 hallowed by His passion, had purchased by His death, had 
 distinguished by His burial. She now demands of you her 
 dehverance .... men of France, men from beyond the 
 mountains, nations chosen and beloved of God, right valiant 
 knights, recall the virtues of your ancestors, tho virtue and 
 greatness of King Charlemagne and your other kings; it is 
 from you above all that Jerusalem awaits the help she invokes, 
 for to you, above all nations, God has vouchsafed signal glory 
 in arms. Take ye, then, the road to Jerusalom for the remis- 
 sion of your sins, and depart assured of the impeidshable glory 
 which awaits you in the kingdom of heavea. " 
 
 From the midst of the thi-ong arose one prolonged and gene- 
 ral shout. ' ' God willeth it ! God willeth it ! " The pope paused 
 for a moment ; and then, making a sign with his hand as if to 
 ask for silence, he continued, ' ' If the Lord God were not in 
 yoiu* souls, ye would not all have uttered the same words. In 
 the battle, then, be those yoiu* war-cry, those words that came 
 from God ; in the army of the Lord let naught be heard but 
 that one shout, * God willeth it ! God willeth it ! ' We ordain 
 not, and we advise not that the journey be undertaken by the 
 old or the weak, or such as be not suited for arms, and let not 
 women set out without their husbands or their brothers: let 
 the rich help the poor ; nor priests nor clerks may go without 
 the leave of their bishops ; and no layman shall commence the 
 march save with the blessing of his pastor. Whosoever hath 
 a wish to enter upon this pilgrimage let hun wear upon his 
 brow or his breast the cross of the Lord, and let him, who, in 
 accomplishment of his desire, shall be willing to march away, 
 place the cross behind him, between his shoulders ; for thus he 
 will fulfil, the precept of the Lord, who said, ' He that doth not 
 take up his cross and follow Me, is not worthy of Me.' " 
 
 The enthusiasm was general and contagious, as the first 
 shout of the crowd had been ; and a pious prelate, Adhemar, 
 bishop of Puy, was the first to receive the cross from the 
 pope's hands. It was of red cloth or silk, sewn upon the right 
 shoiilder of the coat or cloak, or fastened on the fi-ont of the 
 hehnet. The crowd dispersed to assume it and spread it. 
 
 Religious enthusiasm was not the only, but the firat and the 
 determining motive of the crusade. It is to the honor of 
 humanity, and especially to the honor of the French nation, 
 that it is accessible to the sudden sway of a moral and disin- 
 terested sentiment, and resolves, without prevision as well as 
 without premeditation, upon acts which decide, for many a
 
 CH. XVI.] ORIGIN AND SUCCESS OF THE CRUSADES. 307 
 
 long year, the course and the fate of a generation, and, it may 
 be, of a whole peoj^le. We have seen in our own day. in the 
 conduct of populace, national assemblies, and armies, under the 
 impulse not any longer of religious feeUng but of pohtical and 
 social agitation, France thus giving herseK up to the rush of 
 sentunents, generous indeed and pure, but without the least 
 forecast touching the consequences of the ideas which inspired 
 them or the acts which they entailed. It is with nations as 
 with arixues ; the side of glory is that of danger ; and great 
 works are wrought at a heavy cost, not only of happiness but 
 also of virtue. It would be wrong, nevertheless, to lack 
 respect for and to speak evil of enthusiasm : it not only bears 
 witness to the grandeiir of human nature, it justly holds its 
 place and exercises its noble influence in the course of the great 
 events which move across the scene of human errors and vices, 
 according to the vast and inscrutable design of God. It is 
 quite certain that the crusaders of the eleventh centxu'y, in 
 their haste to dehver Jerusalem from the Mussulmans, were 
 far from foreseeing that, a few centuries after their triumph, 
 Jerusalem and the Christian East would fall again beneath the 
 yoke of the Mussulmans and their barbaric stagnation; and 
 this future, had they caught but a glimpse of it, would doubt- 
 less have chilled theii- zeal. But it is not a whit the less cer- 
 tain that, in view of the end, their labor was not in vain ; for 
 in the panorama of the world's history, the crusades marked 
 the date of the arrest of Islamism, and powerfully contributed 
 to the decisive preponderance of Christian civilization. 
 
 To religious enthusiasm there was joined another motive less 
 disinterested, but natural and legitimate, which was the stiU 
 very vivid recollection of the evUs caused to the Christians of the 
 West by the Mussulman invasions in Spain, France, and Italy, 
 and the fear of seeing them begin again. Instinctively war was 
 carried to the East to keep it from the West, just as Charle- 
 magne had invaded and conquered the country of the Saxons 
 to put an end to their inroads upon the Franks. And this pru- 
 dent plan availed not only to give the Chi-istians of the West 
 a hope of security, it afforded them the pleasure of vengeance. 
 They were about to pay back alarm for alarm, and &vt\ for 
 evil to the enemy from whom they had suffered in the same 
 way ; hatred and pride, as well as piety, obtained satisfaction. 
 
 There is moreover great motive power in a spirit of enter- 
 prise and a taste for adventure. Care-for-nothingness is one 
 of mankind's chief diseases, and if it plays so conspicuous a
 
 308 HISTORY OF FRANCE. [ch. xvi. 
 
 part in comparatively enlightened and favored communities, 
 amidst the labors and the enjoyments of an advanced civilizar 
 tion, its influence was certainly not less in times of intellectual 
 sloth and harshly monotonous existence. To escape therefrom, 
 to satisfy in some sort the energy and curiosity inherent in 
 man, the people of the eleventh century had scarcely any re- 
 source but war, with its excitement and distant excui'sions 
 into unknown regions. Thither rushed the masses of the peo- 
 ple, whilst the minds wliich were eager, above every thing, 
 for knowledge, thronged on the mountain of St. Genevieve to 
 the lectures of Abelard. Need of variety and novelty, and an 
 instinctive desire to extend their views and enhven their exist- 
 ence probably made as many crusaders as the feeling against 
 the Mussulmans and the promptings of piety. 
 
 The Cfouncil of Clermont, at its closing on the 28th of Novem- 
 ber, 1095, had fixed the month of August in the following year, 
 and the feast of the Assumption, for the departure of the 
 crusaders for the Holy Land, but the people's impatience did 
 not brook this waiting, short as it was in view of the greatness 
 and difSculties of the enterprise. As early as the 8th of 
 March, 1096, and in the course of the spring three mobs rather 
 than armies set out on the crusade, with a strength, it is said, 
 of 80,000 or 100,000 persons in one case, and of 15,000 or 20,000 
 in the other two. Persotis not men, for there were amongst 
 them many women and children, whole families, in fact, who 
 had left their villages, without organization and without pro- 
 visions, calculating that they Avould be competent to find their 
 own way, and that He who feeds the young ravens would not 
 suffer to die of want pilgrims wearing His cross. "Whenever, 
 on their road, a town came in sight, the children asked if that 
 were Jerusalem. The first of these mobs had for its head 
 Peter the Hermit himself, and a Burgundian knight called 
 Walter Havenought ; the second had a German priest named 
 Gottschalk; and the third a Count Emico of Leiningen, potent 
 in the neighborhood of Mayence. It is wrong to call them 
 heads, for they were really nothing of the kind; their au- 
 thority was rejected, at one time as tyrannical, at another as 
 useless. "The grass-hoppers," was the saying amongst them 
 in the words of Solomon's proverbs, "have no king, and yet 
 they go in companies." In crossing Germany, Hungary, Bul- 
 garia, and the provinces of the Greek empire, these companies, 
 urged on by their brutal passions or by their necessities and 
 material wants, abandoned themselves to such irregularities
 
 OH. XVI.] ORIOIN AND SUCCESS OF THE CRUSADES. 309 
 
 that, as they went, princes and peoples, instead of welcoming 
 them as Christians, came to treat them as enemies, of whom it 
 was necessary to get rid at any price. Peter the Hermit and 
 Gottschalk made honorable and sincere efforts to check the 
 excesses of their followmg, which were a source of so much 
 danger; but Count Emico, on the contrary, says William of 
 Tyi'e, "himself took part in the plunder, and incited his 
 comrades to crime." Thus, at one time taking the offensive, 
 at another compelled to defend themselves against the attacks 
 of the justly ii-ritated inhabitants, these three immense com- 
 panies of pilgrims, these disorderly volunteers, with great 
 difficulty arrived, after enormous losses, at the gates of Con- 
 stantinople. Either through fear or through pity the Greek 
 emperor, Alexis (or Alexius) Comnenus, permitted them to 
 pitch their camp there; "but before long, plenty, idleness, 
 and the sight of the riches of Constantinople brought once 
 more into the camp, licence, indiscipline, and a thii"st after 
 brigandage. Whilst awaiting the war against the Mussul- 
 mans, the pUgrims pillaged the houses, the palaces, and even 
 the churches in the outskirts of Byzantium. To deliver liis 
 capital from these destructive guests, Alexis furnished them 
 with vessels and got them shipped off across the Bosphorus." 
 
 Whilst the crusade was commencing under these sad aus- 
 pices, cliieftains of more sense and better obeyed were prepar- 
 ing to give it another character and superior foi-tunes. Two 
 great and real armies were forming in the north, the centre, 
 and the south of France, and a third in Italy, amongst the 
 Norman knights who had founded there the kingdom of 
 Naples and Sicily, just before their countryman, William the 
 Bastard, conquered England. The first of these armies had 
 for its chief, Godfrey de Bouillon, duke of Lorraine, whom all 
 his contem.poraries have described as the model of a gallant 
 and pious knight. He was the son of Eustace II. . count of 
 Boulogne, and "the lustre of nobility," says Eaoul of Caen, 
 chronicler of his times, "was enhanced in his case, by the 
 splendor of the most exalted virtues, as well in affairs of the 
 world as of heaven. As to the latter he distinguished himself 
 by his generosity towards the poor and his pity for those who 
 had committed faults. Furthermore, his humility, his ex- 
 treme gentleness, his moderation, his justice, and his chastity 
 were great ; he shone as a light amongst the monks even more 
 than as a duke amongst the knights. And, nevertheless, he 
 could also do the things which are of this world, fight, mar-
 
 310 HISTORY OF FRANCE. \cu. xn. 
 
 Bhal the ranks, and extend by arms the domains of the 
 Church. In his boyhood he learnt to be first or one of the 
 first to strike the foe ; in youth he made it his habitual prac- 
 tice ; and in advancing age he forgot it never. He was so per- 
 fectly the son of the warlike Count Eustace and of his mother 
 Ida de Bouillon, a woman f uU of piety and versed in hterature, 
 that at sight of him even a rival would have been forced to 
 say of him, 'for zeal in war, behold his father; for serving 
 God, behold his mother,' " The second army, consisting chiefly 
 of crusaders from southern France, marched under the orders 
 of Raymond IV., count of Toulouse, the oldest chieftain of 
 the crusade, who stiU, however, united the ardor of youth 
 with the experience of ripe age and the stubbornness of the 
 greybeard. At the side of the Cid he had fought and more 
 than once beaten the Moors in Spain. He took with him to 
 the East, his third wife, Elvira, daughter of Alphonso VI., 
 king of Castile, as weU as a very young child he had by her, 
 and he had made a vow, which he fulfilled, that he would re- 
 turn no more to his country, and would fight the infidels to 
 the end of his days, in expiation of his sins. He was discreet 
 though haughty, and not only the richest but the most econ- 
 omical of the crusader-chiefs: "Accordingly," says Eaoul of 
 Caen, " when all the rest had spent their money, the riches of 
 Count Raymond made him still more distinguished. The peo- 
 ple of Provence, who formed his following, did not lavish their 
 resources, but studied economy even more than glory," and 
 'his army," adds Giiibert of Nogent, "showed no inferiority 
 cO any other, save so far as it is possible to reproach the inhab- 
 itants of Provence touching their excessive loquacity." 
 
 Bohemond, prince of Tarento, commanded the third army, 
 composed principally of Italians and warriors of various origins 
 come to Italy to share in the exploits and fortunes of his father, 
 the celebrated Robeii; Guiscard, founder of the Norman king- 
 dom of Naples, who was at one time the foe and at another 
 the defender of Pope Gregory VII., and who died in the island 
 of Cephalonia just as he was preparing to attempt the conquest 
 of Constantinople. Bohemond had neither less ambition, nor 
 less courage and abihty than his father. " His appearance," 
 says Anna Comnena, " impressed the eye as much as his repu- 
 tation astounded the mind ; his height surpassed that of all his 
 comrades; his blue eyes gleamed readily with pride and anger; 
 when he spoke, you would have said he had made eloquence 
 his study ; and when he showed himself in armor, you might
 
 CH. XVI.] ORIGIN AND SUCCESS OF THE CRUSADES. 311 
 
 have believed that he had never done aught but handle lance 
 and sword. Brought up in the school of Norman heroes, he 
 concealed calculations of pohcy beneath the exterior of force, 
 and, although he was of a haughty disposition, he knew how 
 to be blind to a wrong when there was nothing to be gained 
 by avenging it. He had learnt from his father to regard as 
 foes all whose dominions and riches he ooveted ; and he was 
 not restrained by fear of God or by man's opinions, or by his 
 own oaths. It was not the deliverance of the tomb of Christ 
 wMch fired his zeal or decided him upon taking up the cross; 
 but, as he had avowed eternal enmity to the Greek emperors, 
 he smiled at the idea of traversing their empire at the head of 
 an army, and, ftdl of confidence in his fortunes, he hoped to 
 make for himself a kingdom before arriving at Jerusalem." 
 
 Bohemond had as friend and faithful comrade, his cousin 
 Tancred de Hauteville, great-grandson, through his mother 
 Emma, of Robert Guiscard, and, according to all his contem- 
 poraries, the type of a perfect Christian knight, neither more 
 nor less. "From his boyhood," says Eaoul of Caen, his servi- 
 tor before becoming his biographer, "he surpassed the young 
 by his skill in the management of arms and the old by the 
 strictness of his morals. He disdained to speak ill of whoever 
 it might be, even when ill had beed spoken of himself. About 
 himself he wovdd say naught, but he had an insatiable desire 
 to give cause for talking thereof. Glory was the only passion 
 that moved that young soul ; yet was it disquieted within him, 
 and he suffered great anxiety from thinking that his knightly 
 combats seemed contrary to the precepts of the Lord. The 
 Lord bids us give our coat and our cloak to him who would 
 take them from us ; whereas the knight's part is to strip all 
 that remains from him from whom he hath already taken his 
 coat and his cloak. These contradictory principles benumbed 
 sometimes the courage of this man so full of propriety ; but 
 when the declaration of Pope Urban had assured remission of 
 all their sins to all Christians who should go and fight the 
 Gentiles, then Tancred awoke in some sort from his dream, 
 and this new opportunity fired him with a zeal which cannot 
 be expressed. He therefore made preparations for his depar- 
 ture; but, accustomed from his infancy to give to others be- 
 fore thinking of himself, he entered upon no great outlay, 
 but contented himself with collecting in suflficient quantity 
 knightly arms, horses, mules, and provisions necessary for 
 his company." 
 (14) HF ^«'- ^
 
 312 HISTORY OF FRANCE. [ch. xvt 
 
 When these four chieftains, who have remained illustrioua 
 in history, that grave wherein small reputations are extin^ 
 guished, were associated, for the deliverance of the Holy Land, 
 a throng of feudal lords, some powerful as well as valiant, 
 others valiant but simple knights ; Hugh, count of Vermandois, 
 brother of Philip I., king of France; Robert of Normandy, 
 called Shorthose, son of William the Conqueror ; Robert, count 
 of Flanders; Stephen, count of Blois; Raimbault, count of 
 Orange; Baldwin, count of Hainault; Raoul of Beaugency, 
 Gerard of Roussillon, and many others whose names contem- 
 porary chroniclers and learned moderns have gathered to- 
 gether. Not one of the reigning sovereigns of Europe, kings 
 or emperors, of France, England, Spain, or Germany, took 
 part in the first crusade. It was the feudal nation, great and 
 small, castle-owners and populace, who rose in mass for the 
 deliverance of Jerusalem and the honor of Christendom. 
 
 These three great armies of crusaders got on the march from 
 August to October, 1096, wending their way, Godfrey de Bouil- 
 lon by Germany, Hungary, and Bulgaria; Bohemond by the 
 south of Italy and the Mediterranean ; and Count Raymond of 
 Toulouse by Northern Italy, Friuli, and Dalmatia. They ar- 
 rived one after the other in the empire of the East and at the 
 gates of Constantinople. Godfrey de Bouillon was the first to 
 appear there, and the Emperor Alexis Comnenus learnt with 
 dismay that other armies of crusaders would soon follow that 
 which was already so large. It was not long before Bohemond 
 and Raymond appeared. Alexis behaved towards these for- 
 midable allies with a mixture of pusdlanimity and haughti- 
 ness, promises and Hes, caresses and hostility, which irritated 
 without intimidating them, and rendered it impossible for 
 them to feel any confidence or conceive any esteem. At one 
 time he was thanking them profusely for the support they 
 were bringing him against the infidels; at another he was 
 sending troops to harass them on their road, and, when they 
 reached Constantinople, he demanded that they should swear 
 fealty and obedience to him, as if they were his own subjects. 
 One day he was refusing them provisions and attempting to 
 subdue them by famine ; and the next he was lavishing feasts 
 and presents upon them. The crusaders, on their side, when 
 provisions fell short, spread themselves over the country and 
 plundered it without scruple; and, when they encountered 
 hostile troops of Greeks, charged them without warning. 
 When the emperor demanded of them fealty and homage, the
 
 CH. XVI.] ORIGIN AND SUCCESS OF TEE CRUSADES. 313 
 
 Count of Toulouse* answered that he had not come to the East 
 in search of a master. Godfrey de Bouillon, after resisting 
 every haughty pretension, being as just as he was dignified, ac- 
 knowledged that the crusaders ought to restore to the emperor 
 the towns which had belonged to the empire, and an arrange- 
 ment to that effect was concluded between them. Bohemond 
 had a proposal submitted to Godfrey to join him in attacking 
 the Greek empire and taking possession at once of Byzantium; 
 but Godfrey rejected the proposal, with the reminder that he 
 had come only to fight the infidels. The emperor, fully in- 
 formed of the greediness as well as ambition of Bohemond, in- 
 troduced him one day into a room full of treasures. "Here," 
 said Bohemond, ' ' is wherewith to conquer kingdoms." Alexis 
 had the treasures removed to Bohemond's, who at first re- 
 fused, and ended, by accepting them. It is even said that he 
 asked the emperor for the title of Grand Domestic or of gen- 
 eral of the empire of the East. Alexis, who had held that dig- 
 nity and who knew that it was the way to the throne, gave 
 the Norman chieftain a present refusal, with a promise of it 
 on account of future services to be rendered by him to the em- 
 pire and the emperor. 
 
 The chiefs of the crusade were not alone in treating with 
 disdain this haughty, wUy, and feeble sovereign. During a 
 ceremony at which some French princes were doing homage 
 to the emperor, a Coimt Robert of Paris went and sat down 
 free-and-easUy beside him ; when Baldwin, count of Hainault, 
 took the intruder by the arm, saying, "When you are in a 
 country you must respect its masters and its customs." 
 "Verily," answered Robert, "I hold it shocking that this 
 jackanapes should be seated, whilst so many noble captains 
 are standing yonder." When the ceremony was over, the 
 emperor who had, no doubt, heard the words, wished to have 
 an explanation; so he detained Robert, and asked him who 
 and whence he was. "I am a Frenchman," quoth Robert; 
 "and of noble birth. In my country there is, hard by a 
 church, a spot repaired to by such as buni to prove their valor. 
 I have been there often without any one's daring to present 
 himself before me." The emperor did not care to take up this 
 sort of challenge and contented himself with replying to the 
 warrior, ' ' K you there waited for foes without finding any, 
 you are now about to have what will satisfy you; I have, how- 
 ever, a piece of advice to give you ; don't put youself at the 
 head or the tail of the army; keep in the middle. I have
 
 314 HISTORY OF FRANCE. [ton. xvt 
 
 learned how to fight with Turks ; and that is the best place you 
 can choose." The crusaders and the Greeks were mutually 
 contemptuous, the former with a ruffianly pride, the latter 
 with an ironical and timid refinement. 
 
 This posture, on either side, of inactivity, ill-will and irrita- 
 tion, could not last long. On the approach of the spring of 
 1097, the crusader chiefs and their troops, first Godfrey de 
 Bouillon, then Bohemond and Tancred, and afterwards Count 
 Raymond of Toulouse, passed the Bosphorus, being conveyed 
 across either in their own vessels or those of the Emperor 
 Alexis, who encouraged them against the infidels and at the 
 same time had the infidels supplied with information most 
 damaging to the crusaders. Having effected a junction in 
 Bithynia, the Christian chiefs resolved to go and lay siege to 
 Nicsea, the first place, of importance, in possession of the 
 Turks. Whilst marching towards the place they saw coming 
 to meet them, with every appearance of the most woful desti- 
 tution, Peter the Hermit, followed by a small band of pilgrims 
 escaped from the disasters of their expedition, who had passed 
 the winter, as he had, in Bithynia, waiting for more foi'tunate 
 crusaders. Peter, affectionately welcomed by the chiefs of the 
 army, recounted to them "in detail," says William of Tyr^, 
 "how the people, who had preceded them under his guidance, 
 had shown themselves destitute of intelligence, improvident, 
 and unmanageable at the same ; and so it was far more by their 
 own fault than by the deed of any other that they had suc- 
 cumbed to the weight of their calamities. " Peter, having thus 
 relieved his heart and recovered his hopes, joined the powerful 
 army of crusaders who had come at last ; and on the 15th of 
 May, 1097, the siege of Nicsea oegan. 
 
 The town was in the hands of a Turkish sultan, Kilidge- 
 Arslan, whose father, Soliraan, twenty years before, had in- 
 vaded Bithynia and fixed his abode at Nicsea. He, being in- 
 formed of the approach of the crusaders, had issued forth, to 
 go and assemble all his forces ; but he had left behind his wife, 
 his children, and his treasures, and he had sent messengers to 
 the inhabitants, saying, " Be of good courage, and fear not the 
 barbarous people who make show cf besieging our city ; to- 
 morrow, before the seventh hour of the day, ye shall be de- 
 livered from your enemies." And he did arrive on the 16th of 
 May, says the Armenian historian, Matthias of Edessa, at the 
 head of 000,000 horsemen. The historians of the crusaders are 
 infinitely more moderate as to the number of their foes ; they
 
 CH. XVI.] ORIGIN AND SUCCESS OF THE CRUSADES. 315 
 
 assign to Kilidge-Arslan only 50,000 or 60,000 inen, and their 
 testimony is far more trustworthy, being that of the victors. 
 In any case, the Christians and the Turks fought vahantly for 
 two days under the walls of Nicsea, and Godfrey de Bouillon 
 did justice to his fame for valor and skill by laying low a 
 Turk ' ' remarkable amongst all, " says William of Tyi-e, ' ' for 
 his size and strength, whose arrows caused much havoc in the 
 ranks of our men. " Kilidge-Arslan, being beaten, withdrew to 
 collect fi'esh troops, and, after six weeks' siege, the crusadere 
 believed themselves on the point of entering Nicsea as masters, 
 when, on the 26th of June, they saw floating on the ramparts 
 the standard of the Emperor Alexis, Their surprise was the 
 greater in that they had just written to the emperor to say 
 that the city was on the point of surrending, and they added, 
 "We earnestly invite you to lose no time in sending some of 
 your princes with sufficient retinue, that they may receive 
 and keep in honor of your name the city which will dehver 
 itself up to us. As for us, after having put it in the hands of 
 your highness, we will not show any delay in pursuing, with 
 God's help, the execution of our projects." Alexis had antici- 
 pated this loyal message. Being in constant secret communi- 
 cation with the former subjects of the Greek empire, and often 
 even with their ne'w masters the Turks, his agents in Nicsea 
 had induced the inhabitants to surrender to him, and not to 
 the Latins, who would treat them as vanquished. The irrita- 
 tion amongst the crusaders was extreme. They had promised 
 themselves, if not the plimder of Nicsea, at any rate great ad- 
 vantages fi'om their victory ; and it was said m the camp that 
 the convention concluded with the emperor contained an 
 article purporting that ' ' if, with God's help, there were taken 
 any one of the towns which had belonged aforetime to the 
 Greek empire all along the line of march up to Syria, the town 
 should be restored to the emperor, together with all the adja- 
 cent territory, and that the booty, the spoils, and all objects 
 whatsoever found therein should be given up without discus- 
 sion to the crusaders, in recompense for their trouble and in- 
 demnification for their expenses." The wrath waxed stUl 
 fiercer when it was known that the crusaders would not be 
 permitted to enter more than ten at a time the town they had 
 just taken, and that the Emperor Alexis had set at liberty tbe 
 wife of KiUdge-Arslan, together with her two sons and all the 
 Turks led prisoners of war to Constantinople. The chiefs of 
 tbe crusaders were themselves indignant and distrustful ; but
 
 316 HISTORY OF FRANCE. [CH. xn. 
 
 "they resolved with one accord," says WiUiam of Tyre, "to 
 hide their resentment, and they apphed all their efforts to 
 calming their people, whilst encouraging them to push on with» 
 out delay to the end of their glorious enterprise. " 
 
 All the army of the crusaders put themselves in motion to 
 cross Asia Minor from the north-west to the south-east, and to 
 reach Syria. At their arrival before Nicsea they numbered, it 
 is said, 500,000 foot and 100,000 horse, figures evidently too 
 great, for every thing indicates that at the opening of the 
 crusade the three great armies, starting from France and Italy 
 under Godfrey de Bouillon, Bohemond, and Raymond of Tou- 
 louse, did not reach this number, and they had certainly lost 
 many during their long march through their sufferings and in 
 their battles. However that may be, after they had marched 
 all in one mass for two days and had then extended themselves 
 over a large area, for the purpose, no doubt, of more easily 
 finding provisions, the crusaders broke into two main bodies, 
 led, one by Godfrey de Bouillon and Raymond of Toulouse, the 
 other by Bohemond and Tancred. On the 1st of July, at day- 
 break, this latter body, encamped at a short distance from 
 Doryleum in Phrygia, saw descending from the neigboring 
 heights a cloud of enemies who burst upon the Christians, first 
 rained a perfect hail of missiles upon them, and then pene- 
 trated into their camp, even to the tents assigned to the women, 
 children, and old men, the numerous following of the crusaders. 
 It was Kilidge-Arslan, who, after the faU of Nicsea, had raised 
 this new army of Saracens, and was pursuing the conquerors 
 on their march. The battle began in great disorder ; the chiefs 
 in'person sustained the first shock ; and the Duke of Normandy, 
 Robert Shorthose, took in his hand his white banner, em- 
 broidered with gold, and waving it over his head, threw him- 
 self upon the Turks, shouting, "God willeth it! God willeth 
 it !" Bohemond obstinately sought out Kilidge-Arslan in the 
 fray ; but at the same time he sent messengers in all haste to 
 Godfrey de Bouillon, as yet but a little way off, to summon him 
 to their aid. Godfrey galloped up, and, with some fifty of his 
 knights, preceeding the rest of his army, was the first to throw 
 himself into the midst of the Turks. Towards mid-day the 
 whole of the first body arrived, with standards flying, with 
 the sound of trumpets and with the shouting of warriors. 
 Eihdge- Arslan and his troops fell back upon the heights whence 
 they had descended. The crusaders, without taking breath, 
 ascended in pursuit. The Turks saw themselves shut in by a
 
 CH. XVI.] ORIGIN AND SUCCESS OF THE CRUSADES. 317 
 
 forest of lances, and fled over wood and rock; and "two days 
 afterwards they were still flying," says Albert of Aix, "though 
 none pursued them, unless it were God himself." The victory 
 of Doryleum opened the whole country to the crusaders, and 
 they resumed their march towards Syria, paying their sole at- 
 tention to not separating again. 
 
 It was not long before they had to grapple with other dangers 
 against which bravery could do nothing. They were crossing, 
 under a broiling sun, deserted tracts which their enemies had 
 taken good care to ravage. Water and forage were not to be 
 had ; the men suffered intolerably from thirst ; horses died by 
 hundreds; at the head of their troops marched knights 
 mounted on asses or oxen ; their favorite amusement, the 
 chase, became impossible for them; for their hawking-birds 
 too, the falcons and gerfalcons they had brought with them, 
 languished and died beneath the excessive heat. One incident 
 obtained for the Crusaders a momentary relief. The dogs 
 which followed the army, prowling in all directions, one day 
 returned with their paws and coats wet ; they had, therefore, 
 found water ; and the soldiers set themselves to look for it, and 
 in fact, discovered a small river in a remote valley. They got 
 water-drunk, and more than three hundred men, it is said, 
 were affected by it and died. 
 
 On arriving in Pisidia, a country intersected by water- 
 courses, meadows, and woods, the army rested several days; 
 but at that very point two of its most competent and most 
 respected chiefs were very nearly taken from it. Count Ray- 
 mond of Toulouse, who was also called Raymond of Saint- 
 Gilles, fell so ill that the Bishop of Orange was reading over 
 him the prayers for the dying, when one of those present cried 
 out that the coimt would assuredly live, for that the prayers 
 of his patron Saint-Gilles, had obtained for him a truce trith 
 death. And Raymond recovered. Godfrey de Bouillon, 
 again, whilst riding in a forest, came upon a pilgrim attacked 
 by a bear, and all but fallen a victim to the ferocious beast. 
 The duke drew his sword and urged his horse against the bear 
 which, leaving the pilgrim, rushed upon the assailant. The 
 frightened horse reared ; Godfrey was thrown and, according 
 to one account, immediately remounted ; but, according to 
 another, he fell, on the contrary, together with his horse ; how 
 ever he sustained a fearful struggle against the bear and ulti- 
 mately killed it by plunging his sword up to tlie bUt into its 
 belly, says William of Tyre, but with so great an effort, ard
 
 318 HISTORY OF FRANCE. [ch. xti. 
 
 after receiving so serious a wound, that his soldiers, hui-rying 
 up at the pilgrim's report, found him stretched on the ground, 
 covered with blood, and imable to rise, and carried him back 
 to the camp, where he was, for several weeks, obliged to be 
 carried about in a Htter ia the rear of the army. 
 
 Through all these perils they continued to advance, and they 
 •were approaching the heights of Taurus, the bulwark and gate 
 of Syria, when a quarrel which arose between two of the 
 principal crusader-chiefs was like to seriously endanger the 
 concord and strength of the army. Tancred, with his men, 
 had entered Tarsus, the birth-place of St. Paul, and had planted 
 his flag there. Although later in his arrival, Baldwin, brother 
 of Godfrey de Bouillon, claimed a right to the possession of the 
 city, and had his flag set up instead of Tancred's, which was 
 thrown into a ditch. During several days the strife was fierce 
 and even bloody; the soldiers of Baldwin were the more 
 nmnerous, and those of Tancred considered their chief too 
 gentle, and his bravery, so often proved, scarcely sufficed to 
 form an excuse for his forbearance. Chiefs and soldiers, how- 
 ever, at last, saw the necessity for reconciliation, and made 
 mutual promises to sink all animosity. On returning to the 
 general camp, Tancred was received with marked favor; for 
 the majority of the crusaders, being unconcerned in the quar- 
 rel at Tarsus, hked him for his bravery and for his gentleness 
 equally. Baldmn, on the contrary, was much blamed, even 
 by his brother Godfrey : but he was far more ambitious on his 
 own account than devoted to the common cause. He had 
 often heard tell of Armenia and Mesopotamia, their riches and 
 the large nvunber of Christians Uving there, almost equally 
 independent of Greeks and Tiu*ks; and, in the hope of finding 
 there a chance of greatly impro\Tng his pereonal fortimes, he 
 left the army of crusaders at Maresa, on the very eve of the 
 day on which the chiefs came to the decision that no one should 
 for the fut\ire move away from the flag, and taking with him 
 a weak detachment of 200 horse and 1000 or 1200 foot, marched 
 towards Armenia. His name and his presence soon made a 
 stir there ; and he got hold of two little towns which received 
 him eagerly. Edessa, the capital of Armenia and metropolis 
 of Mesopotamia, was peopled by Christians ; and a Greek gov- 
 ernor, sent from Constantinople by the emperor, lived there, 
 on payment of a tribute to the Turks. Internal dissensions 
 and the fear ever inspired by the vicinity of the Turks kept the 
 city in a state of lively agitation ; and bishop, people, and
 
 CH. XVI.] ORIGIN AND SUCCESS OF THE CltUSABES 319 
 
 Greek governor, all appealed to Baldwin. He presented him- 
 self before Edessa with merely a hundred horsemen, having 
 left the remainder of his forces in garrison at the town he had 
 already occupied. All the population came to meet him, bear- 
 ing branches of olive and singing chants in honor of then- de- 
 liverer. But it was not long before outbreaks and alarms 
 began again; and Baldwin looked on at them, waiting for 
 power to be offered him. Still there was no advance; the 
 Greek governor continued where he was ; and Baldwin mut- 
 tered threats of his departure. The popular disquietude was 
 extreme ; and the Greek governor, old and detested as he was, 
 thought to smooth all by adopting the Latin chief and making 
 him his heir. This, however, caused but a short respite ; Bald- 
 win left the governor to be massacred in a fresh outbreak ; the 
 people came and offered him the government, and he became 
 Prince of Edessa, and, ere long of all the neighboring country, 
 without thinking any more of Jerusalem, of which, neverthe- 
 less, he was destined at no distant day to be king. 
 
 Whilst Baldwin was thus acqviiring, for liimself and himself 
 alone, the first Latin principahty belonging to the crusaders in 
 the East, his brother Godfrey and the maia Christian army 
 were crossing the chaia of Taurus and arriving before Antioch, 
 the capitol of Syria. Great was the fame, with Pagans and 
 Christians, of this city ; its site, the beauty of its climate, the 
 fertility of the land, its fish-aboimding lake, its river of Orontes, 
 its fountaia of Daphne, its festivals, and its morals, had made 
 it, under the Eoman empire, a brilliant and favorite abode. 
 At the same time, it was there that the disciples of Jesus had 
 assumed the name of Christians, and that St. Paul had begun 
 his heroic life as preacher and as missionary. It was absolute- 
 ly necessary that the crusaders should take Antioch ; but the 
 difficulty of the conquest was equal to the importance. The 
 city was weU fortified and provided with a strong citadel ; the 
 Turks had been in possession of it for fourteen years ; and its 
 governor Accien or Baghisian (Ydgui-Sian, or brother of black, 
 according to Oriental historians), appointed by the Sultan of 
 Persia, Malekschah, was shut up in it with 7000 horee and 20,- 
 000 foot. The first attacks of the Christians failed ; and they 
 had the prospect of a long siege. At the outset their situation 
 had been easy and pleasant; they encountered no hostility 
 from the country -people, who were intimidated or indifferent ; 
 they came and paid visits to the camp, and admitted the crusa- 
 ders to their markets ; the harvests, which were hardly finished,
 
 820 HISTORY OF FRANCE. [ch. xti. 
 
 had been abundant: "the grapes," says Guibert of Nogent, 
 " were still hanging on the branches of the vines; on all sides 
 discoveries were made of grain shut up, not in bams, but in 
 subterranean vaults-, and the trees were laden with fruit.'* 
 These facihties of existence, the softness of the cHmate, the 
 pleasantness of the places, the frequency of leisure, partly plea- 
 sure and partly care-for-nothing-ness, caused amongst the 
 crusaders irregularity, licence, indiscipHne, carelessness and 
 often perils and reverses. The Turks profited thereby to make 
 sallies, which threw the camp into confusion and cost the Hves 
 of crusaders surprised or scattered about. Winter came; 
 provisions grew scarce, and had to be sought at a greater dis- 
 tance and at greater peril ; and living ceased to be agreeable or 
 easy. Disquietude, doubts concerning the success of the enter- 
 prise, fatigue and discouragement made way amongst the 
 army ; and men who were believed to be proved, Robert Short- 
 hose, duke of Normandy, William, viscount of Melun, called 
 the Carpenter, on account of his mighty battle-axe, and Peter 
 the Hermit himself, "who had never learned," says Robert 
 the monk, "to endure such plaguy hunger," left the camp, 
 and deserted the banner of the cross, "that there might be 
 seen, in the words of the Apocalypse, even the stars falling 
 from heaven," says Guibert of Nogent. Great were the scan 
 dal and indignation. Tancred hurried after the fugitives and 
 brought them back; and they swore on the Gospel never again 
 to abandon the cause which they had preached and served so 
 well. It was clearly indispensable to take measures for re- 
 storing amongst the army discipline, confidence, and the 
 morals and hopes of Christians. The different chiefs applied 
 themselves thereto by very different process according to their 
 vocation, character, or habits. Adhemar, bishop of Puy, the 
 renowned spiritual chief of the crusade, Godfrey de Bouillon, 
 Raymond of Toulouse, and the military chieftains renowned 
 for piety and virtue made head against all kinds of disorder 
 either by fervent address or severe prohibitions. Men caught 
 drunk had their hair cut off; blasphemous and reckless game- 
 sters were branded with a red-hot iron ; and the women were 
 shut up in separate tents. To the irregularities within were 
 added the perils of incessant espionage on the part of the Turks 
 in the very camp of the crusaders : and no one knew how to 
 repress this evil. "Brethren and lords," said Bohemond to 
 the assembled princes, ' ' let me undertake this business by my- 
 self ; I hope, with God's help, to find a remedy for this com-
 
 CH. XVI.] ORIGIN AND SUCCESS OF THE CRUSADES. H21 
 
 plaint. " Caring but little for moral reform, he strove to strike 
 terror into the Turks, and, by counteraction, restore confidence 
 to the crusaders. "One evening," says William of Tyre, 
 "whilst everybody was as usual, occupied in getting supper 
 ready, Bohemond ordered some Turks who had been caught 
 in the camp to be brought out of prison and put to death forth- 
 with; and then, having had a huge fire lighted, he gave in- 
 structions that they should be roasted and carefully prepared 
 as if for being eaten. If it should be asked what operation 
 was going on, he commanded his people to answer, 'The 
 princes and governors of the camp this day decreed at their 
 council that all Turks or their spies who should thenceforth be 
 found in the camp should be forced, after this fashion, to fur- 
 nish meat of their own carcases to the princes as well as to the 
 whole army! ' " The whole city of Antioch," adds the histor- 
 ian, " was stricken with terror at hearing the report of words 
 so strange and a deed so cruel. And thus, by the act and 
 pains of Bohemond, the camp was purged from this pest of 
 spies, and the results of the princes' meetings were much less 
 known amongst the foe. " 
 
 Bohemond did not confine himself to terrifying the Turks by 
 the display of his barbarites; he sought and found traitors 
 amongst them. During the incidents of the siege he had con- 
 coted certain relations with an inhabitant of Antioch, named 
 Ferouz or Emir-Feir, probably a renegade Christian and seem- 
 ing Mussulman, ia favor with the Governor Accien or Baghi- 
 sian, who had entrusted to him, him and his family, the ward 
 of three of the towers .and gates of the city. Emir-Feir, 
 whether from religious remorse or on promise of a rich recom- 
 pense, had, after the ambiguous and tortuous conversations 
 which usually precede treason, made an offer to Bohemond to 
 open to him, and, through him, to the crusaders the entrance 
 into Antioch. Bohemond, in covert terms, informed the chiefs, 
 his comrades, of this proposal, leaving it to be understood that, 
 if the capture of Antioch were the results of his efforts, it 
 would be for him to become its lord. The Count of Toulouse 
 bluntly rejected this idea. "We be all brethren," said he, 
 "and we have all run the same risk; I did not leave my own 
 country, and face, I and mine, so many dangers to conquer 
 new lordships for any particular one of us." The opinion of 
 Raymond prevailed, and Bohemond pressed the matter no 
 more that day. But the situation became more and more 
 urgent ; and armies of Mussulmans were preparing to come to
 
 322 BISTORT OF FRANCE. [ch, xn. 
 
 the aid of Antioch. When these fresh alarms spread through 
 the camp, Bohemond returned to the charge, saying, "Time 
 presses ; and if ye accept the overtures made to us, to-morrow 
 Antioch will be ours, and we shall march in triumph on Jeru- 
 salem. If any find a better way of assuring our success, I am 
 ready to accept it and renounce, on my own accoimt, all con- 
 quest." Raymond stUl persisted in his opposition ; but aU the 
 other chiefs submitted to the overtures and conditions of Bohe- 
 mond. All proper measures were taken, and Emir-Feir, bemg 
 apprised thereof, had Bohemond informed that on the follow- 
 ing night everything would be ready. At the appointed hour 
 threescore warriors, with Bohemond at their head, repaired 
 noiselessly to the foot of the tower indicated; a ladder was 
 hoisted and Emir-Feir fastened it firmly to the top of the wall, 
 Bohemond looked round and round, but no one was in a hurry 
 to mount. Bohemond, therefore, himself mounted; and hav- 
 ing received recognition from Emir-Feir, he leaned upon the 
 ramparts, called in a low voice to his comrades, and rapidly 
 redescended to reassure them and get them to mount with him. 
 Up they mount ; that and two other neighboring towers are 
 given up to them ; the three gates are opened, and the crusaders 
 rush in. When day appeared, on the 3d of June, 1098, the 
 sti-eets of Antioch were full of corpses ; for the Turks, sur- 
 prised, had been slaughtered without resistance or had fled 
 into the country. The citadel, filled with those who bad been 
 able to take refuge there, still held out ; but the entire city was 
 in the power of the crusaders, and the banner of Bohemond 
 floated on an elevated spot over against the citadel. 
 
 In spite of their triumph the crusaders were not so near 
 marching on Jerusalem as Bohemond hB,d promised. Every 
 where, throughout Syria and Mesopotamia, the Mussulmans 
 were rising to go and deliver Antioch ; an immense army was 
 already in motion; there were 1,100,000 men according to 
 Matthew of Edessa, 660,000 according to Foucher of Chartres, 
 300,000 according to Eaoul of Caen, and only 200,000 according 
 to Wilham of Tyre and Albert of Aix. The discrepancy in the 
 figures is a suflScient proof of their untruthfulnese. The last 
 number was enough to disquiet the crusaders, already much 
 reduced by so many mai-ches, battles, sufferings, and desert- 
 ions. An old Mussulman warrior, celebrated at that time 
 throughout Western Asia, Corbogha, sultan of Mossoul (hard 
 by what was ancient Nineven), commanded all the hostile 
 forces, and four days after the capture of Antioch he was al-
 
 CH. XVI.] ORIGIN AND SUCCESS OF THE CRUSADES, 323 
 
 ready completely roiind the place, enclosing the crusaders 
 witliin the walls of which they had just become the masters. 
 They were thus and all on a sudden besieged in their turn, 
 having even in the very midst of them, in the citadel which still 
 held out, a hostile force. Whilst they had been besieging Anti- 
 och, the Emperor Alexis Comnenus had begun to march with 
 an army to get his share in their successes and was advancing 
 into Asia Minor when he heard that the Mussulmans, in im- 
 mense numbers, were investing the Christian army in Antioch 
 and not in a condition, it was said, to hold out long. The em- 
 peror immediately retraced his steps towards Constantinople, 
 and the crusaders found that they had no Greek aid to hope 
 for. The blockade, becoming stricter day by day, soon brought 
 about a horrible famine in Antioch. Instead of repeating here, 
 in general terms, the ordinary descriptions of this cruel 
 scourge, we will reproduce its particular and striking features 
 as they have been traced out by contemporary chroniclers. 
 ' ' The Christian people, " says William of Tyre, ' ' had recourse 
 before long, to procure themselves any food whatever, to all 
 sorts of shameful means. Nobles, free men did not blush to 
 hungrily stretch out the hand to nobodies, asking with trouble- 
 some pertinacity for what was too often refused. There were 
 seen the very strongest, those whom their signal valor had 
 rendered illustrious in the midst of the army, now supported 
 on crutches, dragging themselves half -dead along the streets 
 and in the public places ; and, if they did not speak, at any 
 rate they showed themselves, with countenances irrecognizable, 
 silently begging alms of every passer-by. No self-respect, re- 
 strained matrons or young women heretofore accustomed to 
 severe restraints ; they walked hither and thither, with paUid 
 faces, groaning and searching every where for somewhat to 
 eat ; and they in whom the pangs of hunger had not extin- 
 guished every spark of modesty, went and hid themselves in 
 the most secret places, and gnawed their hearts in silence, pre- 
 ferring to die of want rather than beg in pubHc. Children still 
 in the cradle, unable to get milk, were exposed at the cross- 
 roads, crying in vain for their usual nourishment ; and men, 
 women, and children, all threw themselves gi-eedily upon any 
 kind of food, wholesome and unwholesome, clean and unclean, 
 that they could scrape together here and there, and none shared 
 with another that which they picked up. " So many and such 
 sufferings produced incredible dastardliness; and deserters 
 escaped by night, in some cases throwing themselves down, at
 
 324 HISTORY OF FRANCE. [ch. xyx 
 
 the risk of being killed, into the city- moat; in others getting 
 down by help of a rope from the ramparts. Indignation 
 blazed forth against the fugitives; they were called rope- 
 dancers ; and God was prayed to treat them as the traitor 
 Judas. William of Tyre and Guibert of Nogent, after naming 
 some, and those the very highest, end with these words: " Of 
 many more I know not the names, and I am unwilUng to ex- 
 pose all that are well known to me. " 
 
 "We are assured," said William of Tyre,' " that in view of 
 such woes and such weaknesses, the princes, despairing of any 
 means of safety, held amongst themselves a secret council at 
 which they decided to abandon the army and all the people, 
 fly in the middle of the night and retreat to the sea." Accord- 
 ing to the Armenian historian Matthew of Edessa, the princes 
 would seem to have resolved in this hour of dejection, not to 
 fly and leave the army to its fate, but "to demand of Corbogha 
 an assurance for all, under the bond of an oath, of personal 
 safety, on the promise of surrendering Antioch to him ; after 
 which, they would return home." Several Arab historians, 
 and amongst them Ibn-el-Athir, Aboul-Paradje and Aboul- 
 Feda confirm the statement of conditions. Whatever may 
 have been the real turn taken by the promptings of weakness 
 amongst the Christians, Godfrey de Bouillon and Adhemar, 
 bishop of Puy, energetically rejected them all; and an un- 
 expected incident, considered as miraculous, reassured the 
 wavering spirits both of soldiers and of chiefs. A priest of 
 Marseilles, Peter Bartholomew, came and announced to the 
 chiefs that St. Andrew had thrice appeared to him in a dream, 
 saying, " Go into the church of my brother Peter at Antioch; 
 and hard by the high altar thou wilt find, on digging up the 
 ground, the head of the spear which pierced our Redeemer's 
 side. That, carried in front of the army, will bring about the 
 deliverance of the Christians." The appointed search was 
 solemnly conducted under the eye of twelve reputable wit- 
 nesses, priests and knights ; the whole army was in attendance 
 at the closed gates of the church; the spear- head was found 
 and carried off in triumph ; a pious enthusiasm restored to all 
 present entire confidence ; and with loud shouts they demanded 
 battle. The chiefs judged it proper to announce their deter- 
 mination to the chief of the Mussulmans ; and for this mission 
 they chose Peter the Hermit, who was known to them as a 
 bold and able speaker. Peter, on arriving at the enemy's 
 camp, presented himself without any mark of respect before
 
 CH. XVI.] ORIGIN AND SUCCESS OF THE CRUSADES. 325 
 
 the Sultan Corbogha, surrounded by his satraps, and said, 
 " The sacred assembly of princes pleasing to God who are at 
 Antioch doth send me unto thy Highness, to advise thee that 
 thou art to cease from thy importunities, and that thou aban- 
 don the siege of a city which the Lord in His divine mercy hath 
 given to them. The prince of the apostles did wrest that city 
 from idolatry, and convert it to the faith of Christ. Ye had 
 forcibly but unjustly taken possession of it. They who be 
 moved by a right lawfid anxiety for this heritage of their an- 
 cestors make their demand of thee that thou choose between 
 divers offers : either give up the siege of the city and cease 
 troubling the Christians, or, within three days from hence, try 
 the power of our arms. And that thou seek not after any, 
 even a lawful, subterfuge, they offer thee further choice be- 
 tween divers determinations : either appear alone in person to 
 fight with one of our princes, in order that, if victorious, thou 
 mayest obtain all thou canst demand, or, if vanquished, thou 
 mayest remain quiet ; or, again, pick out divers of thine who 
 shall fight, on the same terms, with the same numbers of ours ; 
 or, lastly, agree that the two armies shall prove, one against 
 the other, the fortune of bt^-ttle. " ' ' Peter, " answered Corbogha 
 ironically, "it is not likely that the affairs of the princes who 
 have sent thee be in such state that they can thus offer me 
 choice betwixt divers proposals, and that I should be bound to 
 accept that which may suit me best. My sword hath brought 
 them to such a condition that they have not themselves any 
 longer ^the power of choosing freely, and that they be con- 
 strained to shape and imshape their wishes according to my 
 good pleasure. Go, then, and tell these fools that all whom I 
 shall find in full possession of all the powers of the manly age, 
 shall have their lives, and sball be reserved by me for my 
 master's service, and that all other shall fall beneath my 
 sword, as useless trees, so that there shall remain or them not 
 even a faint remembrance. Had I not deemed it more con- 
 venient to destroy them by famine than to smite them with 
 the sword, I should already have gotten forcible mastery of the 
 city, and they would have reaped the fruits of theii* voyage 
 hither by undergoing the law of vengeance." 
 
 On returning to camp Peter the Hermit was about to set 
 forth in detail, before all the people of the crusaders, the an- 
 swer of Corbogha, his pride, his threats, and the pomp -with 
 which he was surrounded; but Godfrey de Bouillon, "fearinsc 
 lest the multitude, already crushed beneath the weight of their
 
 526 ' HISTORY OF FRANCE. lch, xvt. 
 
 woes, should be stricken with fresh terror, " stopped Peter at 
 the moment Avhen he was about to begin his speech, and, taking 
 him aside, prevailed upon him to tell the result of his mission 
 in a few words, just that the Turks desired battle, and that it 
 must be prepared for at once. " Forthwith all, from the high- 
 est to the lowest, testify the most eager desire to measure 
 swords with the infidels, and seem to have completely for- 
 gotten their miseries, and to calculate upon victory. All re- 
 sume their arms; and get ready their horses, their breast- 
 plates, their helmets, their shields, and their swords. It is 
 publicly announced throughout the city that the next morning, 
 before sunrise, every one will have to be in readiness and join 
 his host to follow faithfully the banner of his prince." 
 
 Next day, accordingly, the 28th of June, 10:]8, the feast of 
 St. Peter and St. Paul, the whole Christian army issued from 
 their camp with a portion of the clergy marching at their head, 
 and chanting the 68th Psalm : ' ' Let G-od arise, and let His 
 enemies be scattered!" "I saw these things, I who speak," 
 says one of the chroniclers, Raymond d'Agiles, chaplain to the 
 Count of Toulouse: " I was there, and I carried the spear of 
 the Lord." The crusaders formed in twelve divisions; and, of 
 all their great chiefs, the Count of Toulouse alone was unable 
 to assume the command of his ; he was detained in Antioch by 
 the consequences of a wound, and he had the duty of keeping 
 in check the Turkish garrison, still masters of the citadel. The 
 crusaders presented the appearance of old troops ill clad, ill 
 provided, and surmounting by sheer spirit the fatigues and 
 losses of a long war ; many sick soldiers could scarcely march ; 
 many barons and knights were on foot ; and Godfrey de Bouil- 
 lon himself had been obliged to borrow a horse from the Count 
 of Toulouse. During the march a gentle rain refreshed souls 
 as well as bodies, and Avas regarded as a favor from heaven. 
 Just as the battle was commencing, Corbogha struck by the 
 impassioned, stern and indomitable aspect of the crusaders, felt 
 felt somewhat disquieted, and made proposals, it is said, to the 
 Christian princes of what he had refused them in the evening 
 before, a fight between some of their knights and as many 
 Saracens; but they in their turn rejected the proposition. 
 There is a moment, during great struggles, when the souls of 
 men are launched forth like bomb-shells which nothing can 
 stop or cause to recoil. The battle was long, stubborn, and, at 
 some points, indecisive: Kihdge-Arslan, the indefatigable 
 Bultan of Nicaea, attacked Bohemond so briskly, that, save for
 
 CH. XVI.] ORIGIN AND SUCCESS OF THE CRUSADES. 327 
 
 the prompt assistance of Godfrey de Bouillon and Tanci'ed, the 
 Prince of Antioch had been in great peril. But the pious and 
 "warlike enthusiasm of the crusaders at length prevailed over 
 the savage bravery of the Turks; and Corbogha, who had 
 promised the Khalif of Bagdad a defeat of the Christians, iled 
 away towards the Euphrates with a weak escort of faithful 
 troops. Tancred pursued till night-fall the Sultans of Aleppo 
 and Damascus and the Emir of Jerusalem. According to the 
 Christian chroniclers 100,000 infidels, and only 4000 crusaders 
 were left on the field of battle. The camp of the Tui-ks was 
 given over to pillage; and 15,000 camels, and it is not stated 
 how many horses were carried off. The tent of Corbogh^ 
 himself, was, for his conquerors, a rich pri^e and an object of 
 admiration. It was laid out in street^?, flanked by towers, as if 
 it were a fortified town ; gold and precious stones glittered in 
 every part of it ; it was capable of containing more than 2000 
 persons ; and Bohemond sent it to Italy, where it was long pre- 
 served. The conquerors employed several days in conveying 
 into Antioch the spoils of the vanquished; and "eveiy crusa- 
 der," says Albert of Aix, "found himself richer than he had 
 been at starting from Europe. " 
 
 This great success, with the wealth it was the means of 
 spreading and the pretentions and hopes it was the cause of 
 raising amongst the crusaders, had for some time the most 
 injurious effects. Division set in amongst them, especially 
 amongst the chiefs. Some abandoned themselves to all the 
 licence of victory, others to the sweets of repose. Some, 
 fatigued and disgusted, quietly prepared for and accomplished 
 their return home ; others, growing more and more ambitious 
 and bold, aspired to conquests and principahties in the East. 
 Why shoiold not they acquire what Baldwin had acqiiired at 
 Edessa, and what Bohemond was within an ace of possessing 
 at Antioch? Others were jealous of the great fortunes made 
 before their eyes; and Raymond of Toulouse was vexed at 
 Bohemond's rule in Antioch and refused to give up to him the 
 citadel. One and another troubled themselves little more about 
 the main end of their crusade, the deliverance of Jerusalem, 
 and devoted themselves to their personal interests. A few 
 days after the defeat of the Turks, the council of princes de- 
 liberated upon the question of marching inmiediately upon 
 Jerusalem, and then all these various incHnations came out. 
 After a lively debate, the majority decided that they should 
 wait till the heat of summer was over, the army rested from
 
 328 HISTORY OF FRANCE. [cH. xvt. 
 
 its fatigues, and the reinforcements expected from the West 
 arrived. The common sort of crusaders were indignant at this 
 delay: "Since the princes will not lead us to Jerusalem," was 
 said aloud, " choose we among the knights a brave man who 
 will serve us faithfully, and, if the gi-ace of God be with us, go 
 we under his leading to Jerusalem. It is not enough for our 
 princes that we have remained here a whole year and that 
 200,000 men-at-arms have fallen here? Perish all they who 
 Would remain at Antioch, even as its inhabitants but lately 
 perished!" But, murmuring all the while, they stayed at 
 Antioch, in spite of a violent epidemic which took off, it was 
 said, in a single month, 50,000 persons, and amongst them the 
 spii'itual chief of the crusade, Adhemar, bishop of Puy, who 
 had the respect and conlidence of all the crusaders. To find 
 some specious pretext or some pious excuse for this inactivity, 
 or simply to pass the time which was not employed as it had 
 been sworn it should be, warlike expeditions were made into 
 Syria and Mesopotamia ; some emirs were driven from their 
 petty dominions; some towns were taken; some infidels were 
 massacred. The Count of Toulouse persisted during several 
 Weeks in besieging Marrah, a town situated between Hamath 
 and Aleppo. At last he took it, but there were no longer any 
 inhabitants to be found in it ; they had all taken refuge under 
 ground. Huge fires lighted at the entrance of their hiding- 
 place forced them to come out, and as they came they were all 
 put to death or carried off as slaves; "which so terrified the 
 neighboring towns," says a chronicler, "that they yielded of 
 their own free will and without compulsion. " 
 
 It was all at once ascertained that Jerusalem had undergone 
 a fresh calamity and fallen more and more beneath the yoke of 
 the infidels. Abou-Kacem, khalif of Egypt, had taken it from 
 the Turks ; and his vizier, Af dhel, had left a strong garrison in 
 it. A sharp pang of grief, of wrath, and of shame shot through 
 the crusaders. "Could it be," they cried, "that Jerusalem 
 should be taken and retaken, and never by Christians?" Many 
 went to seek out the Count of Toulouse. He was known to be 
 touch taken up with the desire of securing the possession of 
 Marrah which he had just captured ; still great confidence was 
 felt in him. He had made a vow never to return to the West-, 
 he was the richest of the crusader-princes; he was conjured to 
 take upon himself the leadership of the army ; to him had been 
 entrusted the spear of the Lord discovered at Antioch ; if the 
 other princes should be found wanting, let him at least go for-
 
 CB. XYi.] OEIOIN AND SUCCESS OF TEE CRUSADES. 329 
 
 ward with the people, in full assurance ; if not, he had only to 
 give up the spear to the people, and the people would go right 
 on to Jerusalem, with the Lord for their leader." After some 
 hesitation, Raymond declared that the departure should take 
 place in a fortnight, and he summoned the princes to a pre- 
 liminary meeting. On assembling "they found themselves 
 still less at one," says the chronicler, and the majority refused 
 to budge. To indiice them, it is said that Raymond offered 
 10,000 sous to Godfrey de Bouillon, the same to Robert of Nor 
 mandy, 6000 to the Count of Flanders, and 5000 to Tancred; 
 but, at the same time, Raymond announced his intention of 
 leaving a strong garrison in Marrah to secure its defence. 
 "What!" cried the common-folk amongst the crusaders, "dis- 
 putes about Antioch and disputes about Marrah! We will 
 take good care there be no quarrel touching this town ; come, 
 throw we down its walls ; restore we peace amongst the princes 
 and set we the count at liberty ; when Marrah no longer exists, 
 he will no longer fear to lose it." The multitude rushed to 
 surround Marrah and worked so eagerly at the demoUtion of 
 its ramparts that the Count of Toulouse, touched by this popu- 
 lar feeling as if it were a proof of the divine will, himself put 
 the finishing touch to the work of destruction and ordered the 
 speedy departure of the army. At their head marched he, 
 barefooted, with his clergy and the Bishop of Akbar, all im- 
 ploring the mercy of God and the protection of the saints. 
 After him marched Tancred with forty knights and many foot. 
 "Who then may resist this people," said Turks and Saracens 
 one to another, "so stubborn and cruel, whom, for the space 
 of a year, nor famine, nor the sword, nor any other danger 
 could cause to abandon the siege of Antioch, and who now 
 are feeding upon human flesh?" In fact a rumor had spread 
 that, in their extreme distress for want of provisions, the cru- 
 saders had eaten corpses of Saracens found in the moats of 
 Marrah. 
 
 Several of the chiefs hitherto undecided now folloAved the 
 popular impulse, whilst others stdl hesitated. But on the ap- 
 proach of spring, 1099, more than eight months after the 
 capture of Antioch, Godfrey of BouUlon, his brother, Eustace 
 of Botdogne, Robert of Flanders, and their following, likewise 
 began to march. Bohemond, after having accompanied them 
 as far as Laodicea, left them with a promise of rejoining them 
 before Jerusalem, and returned to Antioch where he remained. 
 Fresh crusaders arrived from Flanders, Holland, and England,
 
 330 HISTORY OF FRANCE. [ch. xvl 
 
 and amongst them the Saxon prince, Edgar Athehng, who had 
 for a brief interval been King of England, between the death 
 of Harold and the coronation of WilUam the Conqueror. The 
 army pursued its way, pretty slowly, still stopping from time to 
 time to besiege towns, which they took and which the chiefs 
 continued to dispute for amongst themselves. Envoys from 
 the Khalif of Egypt, the new holder of Jerusalem, arrived in 
 the crusaders' camp, Avith presents and promises from their 
 master. They had orders to offer 40,000 pieces of gold to God- 
 frey, 60,000 to Bohemond, the most dreaded by the Mussulmans 
 of all the crusaders, and other gifts to divers other chiefs. 
 Aboul-Kacem further promised liberty of pilgrimage and ex- 
 ercise of the Christian rehgion in Jerusalem ; only the Chris- 
 tians must not enter, unless unarmed. At this proposal the 
 crusader-chiefs cried out with indignation, and declared to the 
 Egyptian envoys that they were going to hasten their march 
 upon Jerusalem, threatening at the same time to push forward 
 to the borders of the Nile. At the end of the month of May, 
 1099, they were all massed upon the frontiers of Phoenicia and 
 Palestine, numbering, according to the most sanguine calcula- 
 tions, only 50,000 fighting men. 
 
 Upon entering Palestine, as they came upon spots known in 
 sacred history or places of any importance, the same feelings 
 of greed and jealousy which had caused so much trouble in 
 Asia Minor and Syria caused divisions once more amongst the 
 crusaders. The chieftain, the simple warrior almost, who was 
 the first to enter city or burgh, or house, and plant his flag 
 there, halted in it and claimed to be its possessor ; whilst those 
 "to whom nothing was dearer than the commandments of 
 God," say the chroniclers, pursued their march, barefooted, 
 beneath the banner of the cross, deploring the covetousness 
 and the quarrels of their brethren. When the crusaders 
 arrived at Emmaus, some Christians of Bethlehem came and 
 implored their aid against the infidels. Tancred was there; 
 and he, with the consent of Godfrey, set out immediately, in 
 the middle of the night, with a small band of 100 horsemen and 
 went and planted his own flag on the top of the church at 
 Bethlehem, at the very hour at which the birth of Jesus Christ 
 had been announced to the shepherds of Judea. Next day, 
 June 10th, 1099, on advancing, at dawn of day, over the heights 
 of Emmaus, the army of the crusaders had, all at once, be- 
 neath their gaze the Holy City, 
 
 "Lol Jerusalem appears in sight. Lol every hand point*
 
 CH. XVI.] ORIGIN AND SUCCESS OF THE CRUSADES. 331 
 
 out Jerusalem. Lol a thousand voices are heard as one in 
 
 salutation of Jerusalem. 
 
 *' After the great, sweet joy which filled all hearts at this 
 first glimpse came a deep feeUng of contrition, mingled with 
 awful and reverential affection. Each scarcely dared to raise 
 the eye towards the city which had been the chosen abode of 
 Christ, where He died, was buried, and rose again. 
 
 "In accents of himaility, with words low-spoken, with stifled 
 sobs, with sighs and tears, the pent-up yearnings of a people 
 in joy and at the same time m sorrow sent shivering through 
 the air a murmur like that which is heard in leafy forests 
 what time the wind blows through the leaves, or like the dull 
 sound made by the sea which breaks upon the rocks, or hisses 
 as it foams over the beach." 
 
 It was better to quote these beautiful stanzas from " Jerusa- 
 lem Dehvered " than to reproduce the pompous and monotonous 
 phrases of the chroniclers. The genius of Tasso was capable of 
 understanding and worthy to depict the emotions of a cliris- 
 tian army at sight of the Jerusalem they had come to deliver. 
 
 We will not pause over the purely military and technical 
 details of the siege. It was calculated that there were in the 
 city 20,000 armed inhabitants and 40,000 men in garrison, the 
 most valiant and most fanatical Mussulmans that Egypt could 
 furnish. According to William of Tyre, the most judicious 
 and the best informed of the contemporary historians, ' ' When 
 the crusaders pitched their camp over against Jerusalem, there 
 had arrived there about 40,000 persons of both sexes, of whom 
 there were at the most 20,000 foot, weU equipped, and 1500 
 knights. " Raymond d'Agiles, chaplain to the Count of Toulouse, 
 reduces still further to 12,000 the number of foot capable of 
 bearing arms, and that of the knights to 1200 or 1300. This 
 weak army was destitute of commisariat and the engines 
 necessary for such a siege. Before long it was a prey to the 
 horrors of thirst. "The neighborhood of Jerusalem," says 
 WiUiam of Tyre, "is arid: and it is only at a considerable 
 distance that there are to be found rivulets, fountains, or wells 
 of fresh water. Even these springs had been filled up by the 
 enemy a little before the arrival of our troops. The Crusaders 
 issued from the camp secretly and in small detachments to 
 look for water in aU directions; and just when they believed 
 they had found some hidden trickier, they saw themselves 
 surrounded by a multitude of folks engaged in the same search; 
 disputes forthwith arose amongst them, and they frequently
 
 832 HISTORY OF FRANCE. [ch. xvx 
 
 came to blows. Horses, mules, asses, and cattle of all kinds, 
 consumed by heat and thirst, fell down and died ; and their 
 carcasses, left here and there about the camp, tainted the air 
 with a pestilential smell." Wood, iron, and all the materials 
 needful for the construction of siege-machinery were as much 
 to seek as water. But a warlike and pious spirit made head 
 against all. Trees were felled at a great distance fi'om Jerusa- 
 lem ; and scaling-towers were roughly constructed, as well as 
 engines for hurling the stones which were with difficulty brought 
 up within reach of the city. "AU ye who read this," says 
 Raymond d' Agiles, ' ' think not that it was hght labor : it Avas 
 nigh a mile from the spot where the engines, all dismounted, 
 had to be transported to that where they were remounted." 
 The knights protected against the sallies of the besieged the 
 workmen employed upon tliis work. One day Tancred had 
 gone alone to pray on the Mount of Olives and to gaze upon 
 the holy city, when five Mussulmans sallied forth and went to 
 attack him ; he killed three of them, and the other two took to 
 flight. There was at one point of the city-ramparts a ravine 
 which had to be fiUed up to make an approach ; and the Coimt 
 of Toulouse had proclamation made that he would give a denier 
 to every one who would go and throw three stones into it. In 
 three days the ravine was filled up. After four weeks of labor 
 and preparation, the council of princes fixed a day for deliver- 
 ing the assault ; but, as there had been quarrels between several 
 of the chiefs, and, notably, between the Count of Toulouse and 
 Tancred, it was resolved that before the grand attack they 
 should all be reconciled at a general supplication, with solemn 
 ceremonies, for divine aid. After a strict fast, all the crusa- 
 ders went forth armed from their quarters, and preceded by 
 their priests, barefooted and chanting psalms, they moved, in 
 slow procession, round Jerusalem, halting at all places hal- 
 lowed by some fact in sacred history, listening to the dis- 
 courses of their priests, and raising eyes full of wrath at 
 hearing the scoffs addressed to them by the Saracens and 
 seeing the insults heaped upon certain crosses they had set up 
 and upon all the symbols of the Christian faith. "Ye see," 
 cried Peter the Hermit; "ye hear the threats rnd blasphemies 
 of the enemies of God. Now this I swear to you by your faith ; 
 this I swear to you by the arms ye carry : to-day these infidels 
 be stiU full of pride and insolence, but to-morrow they shall be 
 frozen with fear ; those mosques, which tower over Christian 
 ruins, shall serve for temples to the true God, and Jerusalem
 
 CH. XVI.] ORIGIN AND SUCCESS OF THE CRUSADES. 333 
 
 shall hear no longer aught but the praises of the Lord." The 
 shouts, of the whole Christian army responded to the hopes of 
 the apostle of the crusade; and the crusaders returned to their 
 quarters repeating the words of the prophet Isaiah: "So shall 
 they fear the name of the Lord from the West, and His glory 
 from the rising of the sun." 
 
 On the 14th of July, 1099, at daybreak, the assault began at 
 divers points ; and next day, Friday, the 15th of July, at three 
 in the afternoon, exactly at the hour at which, according to 
 Holy Writ, Jesus Christ had yielded up the ghost, saying, 
 "Father, into Thy hands I commend My spirit," Jerusalem 
 was completely in the hands of the crusaders. We have no 
 heart to d^vell on the massacres which accompanied the victory 
 so dearly purchased by the conquerors, . The historians, Latin 
 or Oriental, set down at 70,000 the number of Mussulmans 
 massacred on the ramparts, in the mosques, in the streets, 
 underground, and wherever they had attempted to find refuge : 
 a number exceeding that of the armed inhabitants and the 
 garrison of the city. Battle-madness, thirst for vengeance, 
 ferocity, brutality, greed, and every hateful passion were 
 satiated without scruple, in the name of their holy cause. 
 When they were weary of slaughter, "orders were given," 
 says Robert the monk, "to those of the Saracens who re- 
 mained ahve and reserved for slavery, to clean the city, 
 remove from it the dead, and purify it from all traces of such 
 fearful carnage. They promptly obeyed : removed, with tears, 
 the dead ; erected outside the gates dead-houses fashioned like 
 citadels or defensive buildings ; collected in baskets dissevered 
 limbs; carried them away, and washed off the blood which 
 stained the floors of temples and houses." 
 
 Eight or ten days days after the capture of Jerusalem, the 
 crusader-chiefs' assembled to deliberate upon the election of a 
 king of their prize. Tlaere were severalwho were suggested for 
 it and might have pretended to it. Robert Shorthose, duke of 
 NoiTuandy, gave an absolute refusal, ' ' liking better, " says an 
 English chronicler, " to give himself up to repose and indolence 
 in Normandy than to serve as a soldier, the King of kings : for 
 which God never forgave him." Raymond, count of Toulouse, 
 was already advanced in years, and declared " that he would 
 have a horror of bearing the name of king in Jerusalem, but 
 that he would give his consent to the election of any one else." 
 Tancred was and wished to be only the first of the knights. 
 Godfrey de Bouillion the more easily united votes in that he did
 
 334 BISTORT OF FRANCE. [en. xvn. 
 
 not seek them. He was valiant, discreet, ■v^orthy, and modest ; 
 and his own servants, being privately sounded, testified to his 
 possession of the virtues which are put in practice without any 
 show. He was elected King of Jerusalem, and he accepted 
 the burden whilst refusing the insignia. "I will never wear 
 a crown of gold," he said, "in the place where the Saviour of 
 the world was crowned with thorns." And he assumed only 
 the title of Defender and Baron of the Holy Sepulchre. 
 
 It is a common behef amongst historians that after the 
 capture of Jerusalem, and the election of her king, Peter the 
 Hermit entirely disappeared from histoiy. It is true that he 
 no longer played an active part, and that, on returning to 
 Europe, he went into retirement near Huy, in the diocese of 
 Liege, where he founded a monastery, and where he died on 
 the 11th of July, 1115. But William of Tyre bears witness 
 that Peter's contemporaries were not ungratefid to him, and 
 did not forgst him when he had done his work. "The faith- 
 ful," says he, " dwellers at Jerusalem, who, four or five years 
 before had seen the venerable Peter there, recognizing at that 
 time in the same city him to whom the patriarch had com- 
 mitted letters invoking the aid of the princes of the West, 
 bent the knee before him, and offered him their respects in all 
 humility. They recalled to mind the circumstances of his first 
 voyage; and they praised the Lord who had endowed him 
 with effectual power of speech and with strength to rouse up 
 nations and kings to bear so many and such long toils for love 
 of the name of Christ. Both in private and in public all the 
 faithful at Jerusalem exerted themselves to render to Peter the 
 Hermit the highest honors, and attributed to him alone, after 
 Grod, their happiness in having escaped from the hard servitude 
 under which they had been for so many years groaning, and in 
 seeing the holy city recovering for ancient freedom." 
 
 CHAPTER xvn. 
 
 THE CRUSADES, THEIR DECLINE AND END. 
 
 In the month of August, 1099, the Crusade, to judge by 
 appearances, had attained its object. Jerusalem was in the 
 hands of the Christians, and they had set up in it a king, the 
 most pious and most disinterested of the crusaders. Close to
 
 CH. xni.] THE CRUSADES, THEIR DECLINE AND END. 335 
 
 this ancient kingdom were growing up likewise, in the two 
 chief cities of Syria and Mesopotamia, Antioch and Edessa, 
 two christian principalities, in the possesssion of two crusader- 
 chiefs, Bohemond and Baldwin. A third Christian principal- 
 ity was on the point of getting founded at the foot of Libanus, 
 at Tripolis, for the advantage of another crusader, Bertrand, 
 eldest son of Count Raymond of Toulouse. The conquest of 
 Syria and Palestine seemed accompHshed, in the name of the 
 faith, and by the armies of Christian Europe; and the con- 
 querors calculated so sm*ely upon their fixture that, during 
 his reign, short as it was (for he was elected king July 23, 
 1099, and died July 18, 1100, aged only forty years), Godfrey 
 de Bouillon caused to be di-awn up and published, under the 
 title of Assizes of Jerusalem, a code of laws, wldch transferred 
 to Asia the customs and traditions of the feudal system, just 
 as they existed in France at the moment of his departm-e for 
 the Holy Land. 
 
 Forty-six years afterwards, in 1145, the Mussulmans under 
 the leadership of Zanghi, sultan of Aleppo and of Mossoul, had 
 retaken Edessa. Forty-two years after that, in 1187, Saladiq 
 (Salah-el-Eddyn), sultan of Egypt and of Syria, had put an end 
 to the Christian kingdom of Jerusalem ; and only seven years 
 later, in 1194, Eichard Coeur de Lion, king of England, after 
 the most heroic exploits in Palestine, or arriving in sight of 
 Jerusalem, retreated in despair, covering his eyes with his 
 shield, and saying that he was not worthy to look upon the 
 city which he was not in a condition to conquer. When he 
 re-embarked at St. Jean d'Acre, casting a last glance and 
 stretching out his arms towards the coast, he cried, "Most 
 Holy Land, I commend thee to the care of the Almighty ; and 
 may He grant me long life enough to return hither and 
 dehver thee from the yoke of the infidels!" A century had 
 not yet rolled by since the triumph of the first crusaders, and 
 the dominion they had acquired by conquest in the Holy Land 
 had become, even in the eyes of their most valiant and most 
 powerful successors, an impossibility. 
 
 Nevertheless, repeated efforts and glory and even victories 
 were not then, and were not to be still later, xmknown amongst 
 the Christians in their struggle against the Mussuhnans for 
 the posession of the Holy Land. Li the space of a hvmdred 
 and seventy-one years from the coronation of Godfrey de 
 Bouillon as king of Jerusalem, in 1099, to the death of St 
 Louis, wearing the cross before Tunis, in 1270, seven grand 
 
 (15) HF ^''^^. 1
 
 336 HISTORY OF FRANCE. [CH. xiv. 
 
 crusades were undertaken with the same design by the great- 
 est sovereigns of Christian Europe ; the Kings of France and 
 England, the Emperors of Germany, the King of Denmark, 
 and princes of Italy successively engaged therein. And they 
 all failed. It were neither right nor desirable to make long 
 pause over the recital of their attempts and their reverses, for 
 it is the history of France, and not a general history of the 
 crusades, which is here related ; but it was in France, by the 
 French people, and under French chiefs, that the crusades 
 were begun ; and it was with St. Louis, dying before Tunis 
 beneath the banner of the cross, that they came to an end. 
 They received in the history of Europe the glorious name of 
 Gesta Dei per Francos {God^s works by French hands;) and 
 they have a right to keep, in the history of France, the place 
 they really occupied. 
 
 During the reign of twenty-nine years, Louis VI., called the 
 Fat, son of Philip I., did not trouble himself about the East or 
 the crusades, at that time in aU their fame and renown. 
 Being rather a man of sense than an enthusiast in the cause 
 either of piety or glory, he gave all his attention to the estab- 
 Hshment of some order, justice, and royal authority in his as 
 yet far from extensive kingdom. A tragic incident, however, 
 gave the crusade chief place in the thoughts and life of his son, 
 Louis VII,, called the Young, who succeeded him in 1137. He 
 got himself rashly embroiled, in 1142, in a quarrel with Pope 
 Innocent II., on the subject of the election of the Archbishop of 
 Bourges. The pope and the king had each a different candid- 
 ate for the see. "The king is a child,,' said the pope; "he 
 must get schooling, and be kept from learning bad habits." 
 "Never, so long as I live," said the king, "shall Peter de la 
 Chatre (the pope's candidate) enter the city of Bourges. " The 
 chapter of Bourges, thinking as the pope thought, elected 
 Peter de la Chatre ; and Theobald II. , count of Champagne, 
 took sides 'for the archbishop elect. ' ' Mind your own busi- 
 ness," said the king to him; "your dominions are large 
 enough to occupy you ; and leave me to govern my own as I 
 have a mind." Theobald persisted in backing the elect of pope 
 and chapter. The pope excommunicated the king. The king 
 declared war against the Count of Champagne ; and went and 
 besieged Vitry. Nearly all the town was built of wood, and 
 the besiegers set fire to it. The besieged fled for refuge to a 
 church, in which they were invested ; and the fire reached the 
 chiirch, which was entirely consumed together with the thir-
 
 CH. xrn.] THE CRUSADES, THEIR DECLINE AND END. 337 
 
 teen hundred inhabitants, men, women, and children, who had 
 retreated thither. This disaster made a grea,tstir. St. Ber- 
 nard, abbot of Clairvaux and the leading ecclesiastical author- 
 ity of the age, took the part of Count Theobold. King Louis 
 felt a lively sorrow, and smcere repentance. Soon afterwards 
 it become known, in the "West that the affairs of the Christians 
 were going ill in the East ; that the town of Edessa had been 
 retaken by the Turks, and all its inhabitants massacred. The 
 kingdom of Jerusalem, too, was in danger. Great ^xas the 
 emotion in Europe ; and the cry of the crusade was heard once 
 more. Louis the Young, to appease his troubled conscience, 
 and to get reconciled with the pope, to say nothing of sympathy 
 for the national movement, assembled the gi-andees, laic and 
 ecclesiastical, of the kingdom, to deliberate upon the matter. 
 
 Dehberation was more prolonged, more frequently repeated, 
 and more indecisive than it had been at the time of the first 
 crusade. Three grand assemblies met, the first in 1145, at 
 Bourges; the second at 1146, at Vezelai, in Nivernais; and the 
 third in 1147, at Etampes ; all three being called to investigate 
 the expediency of a new crusade, and of the king's participa- 
 tion in the enterprise. Not only was the question seriously dis- 
 cussed, but extremely diverse opinions were expressed, both 
 amongst the rank and file of these assembhes, and amongst 
 their most illustrious members. There were two men whose 
 talents made them conspicuous above all; Suger, abbot of St. 
 Denis, the intimate and able adviser of the wise king, Louis 
 the Fat, and St. Bernard, abbot of Clauwaux, the most 
 eloquent, most influential, and most piously disinterested 
 amongst the Christians of Ms age. Though both were ecclesi- 
 astics, these two great men were touching the second crusade, 
 of opposite opinions. "Let none suppose," says Suger's bio- 
 grapher and confidant, Wilham, monk of St. Denis, "that it 
 was at his instance, or by his comigel that the king undertook 
 the voyage to the Holy Land. Although the success of it was 
 other than had been expected, this prince was influenced only 
 by pious wishes and zeal for the service of God. As for Suger, 
 ever far-seeing and only too Avell able to read the future, not 
 only did he not suggest to the monarch any such design, but 
 he disapproved of it so soon as it was mentioned to him. The 
 truth of it is that, after having vainly striven to nip it in the 
 bud, and being unable to put a check upon the king's zeal, he 
 thought it wise, either for fear of woimding the king's piety, 
 or of uselessly incurring the wrath of the partisans of the en-
 
 338 HISTORY OF FRANCE. [ch. xvn. 
 
 terprise, to yield to the times." As for St. Bernard, at the 
 first of the three assembhes, viz. at Boiirges, whether it were 
 that his mind was not yet made up or that he desired to cover 
 himself with greater glory, he advised the king to under- 
 take nothing without having previously consulted the Holy 
 See ; but when Pope Eugenius III. so far from hesitating, had 
 warmly soKcited the aid of the Christians against the infidels, 
 St. Bernard, at the second assembly, viz. at Vezelai, gave free 
 vent to his feelings and his eloquence. After having read the 
 pope's letters, "if ye were told," said he "that an enemy had 
 attacked your castles, your cities and your lands, had ravished 
 your wives and your daughters, and had profaned your 
 temples, which of you would not fly to arms? Well, all those 
 evils, and evils still greater, have come upon your brethern, 
 upon the family of Christ, which is your own. Why tarry 
 ye, then, to repair so many wrongs, to avenge so many insults? 
 Christian warriors. He who gave His life for you to-day de- 
 mandeth yours; illustrious knights, noble defenders of the 
 cross, call to mind the example of your fathers, who con- 
 quered Jerusalem, and whose names are written in heaven! 
 The living God hath charged me to tell unto you that He will 
 punish those who shall not have defended Him against His 
 enemies. Fly to arms, and let Christendom re-echo with the 
 words of the prophet, ' Woe to him who dyeth not his sword 
 with blood? ' " At this fervent address the assembly rang 
 with the shout of the first crusade, God ivilleth it! God willeth 
 it! The king, kneeUng before St. Bernard, received from his 
 hands the cross ; the queen, Eleanor of Aquitaine, assiuned it, 
 hke her husband ; nearly all the barons present followed their 
 example; St. Bernard tore up his garments into crosses for 
 distribution, and, on leaving the assembly, he scoured the 
 country places, every where preaching and persuading the 
 people. "The villages and castles are deserted," he wrote to 
 the pope: " there is none to be seen save widows and orphans 
 whose husbands and fathers are ahve." Nor did he confine 
 himself to France; he crossed into Germany, and preached 
 the crusade all along the Rhine. The emperor, Conrad III., 
 showed great hesitation; the empu'e was sorely troubled, he 
 said, and had need of its head. "Be of good cheer," replied 
 St. Bernard: "so long as you defend His heritage, God him- 
 self will take the burden of defending yours. " One day, in 
 December, 1146, he was celebrating mass at Spire, in presence 
 of the emperor and a great number of German princes. Sud-
 
 CH. XVII.] TEE CRUSADES, THEIR DECLINE AND END. 339 
 
 denly he passed from the regular service to the subject of the 
 crusade, and transported his audience to the last judgement, 
 in the presence of all the nations of the earth summoned 
 together, and Jesus Christ bearing His cross, and reproaching 
 the emperor with ingratitude. Conrad was deeply moved, 
 and interrupted the preacher by crying out, " I know what I 
 owe to Jesus Christ : and I swear to go whither it pleaseth 
 Him to call me." The attraction became general; and Grer- 
 many, Hke France, took up the cross. 
 
 St. Bernard returned to France. The ardor there had cooled 
 a little during hLs absence ; the results of his trip in Grermany 
 were being waited for; and it was known that, on being 
 eagerly jDressed to put himself at the head of the crusaders, 
 and take the command of the whole expedition, he had for- 
 mally refused. His enthusiasm and his devotion, sincere and 
 deep as they were, did not, in his case, extinguish common 
 sense ; and he had not forgotten the melancholy experiences 
 of Peter the Hermit. In support of his refusal he claimed 
 the intervention of Pope Eugenius III. "Who am I," he 
 wrote to him, ' ' that I should form a camp, and march at the 
 head of an army? What can be more ahen to my calling, 
 even if I lacked not the strength and the ability? I need not 
 tell you all this, for you know it perfectly. I conjure you by 
 the charity you owe me, dehver me not over, thus, to the 
 humors of men." The pope came to France; and the tliird 
 grand assembly met at Etampes in February 1147. The 
 presence of St. Bernard rekindled zeal ; but foresight began to 
 penetrate men's minds. Instead of insisting upon his being 
 the chief of the crusade, attention was given to preparations 
 for the expedition; the points were indicated at which the 
 crusaders should form a jimction, and the directions in which 
 they would have to move ; and inquiry was made as to what 
 measures should be taken, and what persons should be 
 selected for the government of France during the king's 
 absence. "Sir," said St. Bernard, after havmg come to an 
 understanding upon the subject with the principle members of 
 the assembly, at the same time pointing to Suger and the 
 Count de Nevers, "here be two swords, and it sufficeth." 
 The Count de Nevers peremptorily refused the honor done 
 him ; he was resolved, he said, to enter the order of St. Bruno, 
 as indeed he did. Suger also refused at first, ' ' considering the 
 dignity offered him a burden, rather than an honor." Wise 
 and clearsighted by nature he had learnt, in the reign of Louis
 
 840 HISTORY OF FRANCE. [ch. rvn. 
 
 the Fat, to know the requirements and the difficulties of govern- 
 ment. " He consented to accept," says his biographer, " only 
 when he was at last forced to it by Pope Eugenius, who was 
 present at the king's departure, and whom it was neither per- 
 missible nor possible for him to resist. " It was agreed that 
 the French crusaders should form a junction at Metz, under 
 the command of King Louis, and the Germans at Ratisbonne, 
 under that of the Emperor Conrad, and that the two armies 
 should successively repair by land to Constantinople, whence 
 they would cross into Asia. 
 
 Having each a strength, it is said, of 100,000 men. they 
 marched by Germany and the Lower Danube, at an interval 
 of two months between them, without committing irregulari- 
 ties and without meeting obstacles so serious as those of the 
 first crusade, but still much incommoded and subjected to 
 great hardships in the countries they traversed. The Em- 
 peror Conrad and the Germans first, and then King Louis and 
 the French arrived at Constantinople in the course of the 
 sunnner of 1147. Manuel Comnenus, grandson of A'lexis Com- 
 nenus, was reigning there; and he behaved towards the crusa- 
 ders with the same mixture of caresses and malevolence, 
 promises and perfidy as had distinguished his grandfather. 
 "There is no ill turn he did not do them," says the historian 
 Nicetas, himself a Greek. Conrad was the first to cross into 
 Asia Minor, and, whether it were unskillfulness or treason, the 
 guides with whom he had been supplied by Manuel Comnenus 
 led him so badly that, on the 28th of October, 1147, he was 
 surprised and shockingly beaten by the Turks, near Iconium. 
 An utter distrust of Greeks grew up amongst the French, who 
 had not yet left Constantinople ; and some of their chiefs and 
 even one of their prelates, the Bishop of Langres, proposed to 
 make, without further delay, an end of it with this emperor 
 and empire, so treacherously hostile, and to take Constanti- 
 nople in order to march more securely upon Jerusalem. But 
 King Louis and the majority of his knights turned a deaf ear: 
 "We be come forth," said they, " to expiate our own sins, not 
 to punish the crimes of the Greeks; when we took up the 
 cross, God did not put into our hands the sword of His 
 justice ; " and they, in their turn, crossed over into Asia 
 Minor. There they foimd the Germans beaten and dis]iersed, 
 and Conrad himself wounded and so discouraged that, instead 
 of pursuing his way by land with the French, he returned to
 
 CH. XVII.] THE CRUSADES, TEEIR DECLINE AND END. 341 
 
 Constantinople to go thence by sea to Palestine. Louis and 
 his army continued their march aci-oss Asia Minor and gained 
 in Phrygia, at the passage of the river Meander, so brilliant a 
 victory over the Turks that, "if such men," says the historian 
 Nicetas, "abstained from taking Constantinople, one cannot 
 but admire their moderation and f orebearance. " But the 
 success was short, and, ere long, deai'ly paid for. On entering 
 Pisidia. the French army split up into two, and afterwards 
 into several divisions, which scattered and lost themselves in 
 the defiles of the mountains. The Turks waited for them, and 
 attacked them at the mouths and from the top of the passes ; 
 before long there was nothing but disorder and carnage ; the 
 little band which surrounded the king was cut to pieces at his 
 side; and Louis himself, with his back against a rock, de- 
 fended himself, alone, for some minutes, against several Turks, 
 till they, not knowing who he was, drew off, whereupon he, 
 tsuddenly throwing himself upon a stray horse, rejoined his 
 advanced guard who believed him dead. The army continued 
 their march pell-mell, king, barons, knights, soldiers, and 
 pilgrims, uncertain day by day what Avould become of them 
 on the morrow. The Turks harassed them afield; the towns 
 in which there were G-reek governors residing refused to re- 
 ceive them; provisions fell short; arms and baggage Avere 
 abandoned on the road. On arriving in Pamphilia, at Satalia, 
 a little port on the Mediterranean, the impossibility of thus pro- 
 ceeding became evident ; they were still, by land, forty day's 
 march from Antioch, whereas it required but three to get there 
 by sea. The governor of Satalia proposed to the king to embark 
 the crusaders : but, when the vessels arrived, they were quite 
 inadequate for such an operation : hardly could the king, the 
 barons, and the knights find room in them ; and it would be 
 necessary to abandon and expose to the perils of the land 
 march the majority of the infantry and all the mere pilgrims 
 ■who had followed the army. Louis, disconsolate, fluctuated 
 between the most diverse resolutions, at one time demanding 
 to have every body embarked at any risk, at another deter- 
 mining to march by land himself with all who could not be 
 embarked; distributing whatever money and provisions he 
 had left, being as generovis and sympathetic as he was im- 
 provident and incapable, and " never letting a day pass," says 
 Odo of Deuil, who accompanied him, "without hearing mass 
 and crying unto the God of the Christians." At last he
 
 342 EISrORT OF FRANCE. [ch. xvti. 
 
 embarked with Ids queen, Eleanor, and his principal knights; 
 and towards the end of March, 1148, he arrived at Antioch, 
 having lost more than three quarters of his army. 
 
 Scarcely had he taken a few days' rest when messengers 
 came to him on behalf of Baldwin ni., king of Jerxisalem, 
 begging him to repair without delay to the Holy City. Louis 
 was as eager to go thither as the king and people of Jerusalem 
 were to see him there ; but his speedy departm-e encountered 
 unforeseen hindrances. Raymond of Poitiers, at that time 
 Prince of Antioch by his marriage with Constance, grand- 
 daughter of the great Bohemond of the fii-st crusade, was 
 uncle to the Queen of France, Eleanor of Aquitaine. "He 
 was," says William of Tyre, "a lord of noble descent, of tall 
 and elegant figure, the handsomest of the princes of the earth, 
 a man of charming affability and conversation, open-handed 
 and magnificent beyond measure," and moreover, ambitious 
 and eager to extend his small dominion. He had at heart, 
 beyond every thing, the conquest of Aleppo and Csesarea. In 
 this design the King of France and the crusaders who were 
 stni about him might be of real ser^-ice ; and he attempted to 
 win them over. Louis answered that he would engage in no 
 enterprise until he had visited the holy places. Raymond was 
 impetuous, irritable, and as unreasonable in his desires as un- 
 fortunate in his undertakings. He had quickly acquired 
 great influence over his niece, Queen Eleanor ; and he had no 
 difficulty in winning her over to lais plans. "She," says 
 "William of Tyre, ' ' was a very inconsiderate woman, caring 
 little for royal dignity or conjugal fidelity; she took great 
 pleasure in the court of Antioch, where she also conferred 
 much pleasure, even upon Mussulmans, whom as some clu'oni- 
 cles, say, she did not repulse ; and, when the king, her husband, 
 spoke to her of approaching departure, she emphatically re- 
 fused, and, to justify her opposition, she declared that they 
 could no longer live together, as there was, she asserted, a pro- 
 hibited degree of consanguinity between them. " Louis, ' ' who 
 '.oved her with an almost excessive love," says William of 
 Nangis, was at the same time angered and grieved. He was 
 austere in morals, easily jealous, and reHgiously scrupulous, 
 and for a moment he was on the point of separating from his 
 wife ; but the counsel of his chief barons dissuaded him, and, 
 thereupon, taking a sudden resolution, he set out from Antioch 
 secretly, by night, carrying off the queen almost by force. 
 "They both hid their wrath as much as possible," says the
 
 CH. XVII.] THE CRUSADES, THEIR DECLINE AND END. 343 
 
 chronicler: "but at heart they had ever this outrage." We 
 shall see before long what were the consequences. No history- 
 can offer so striking an example of the importance of weli- 
 assorted unions amongst the highest as well as the lowest, and 
 of the prolonged woes which may be brought upon a nation by 
 the domestic evils of royalty. 
 
 On approaching Jerusalem, in the month of April, 1148, 
 Louis VII. saw coming to meet hun King Baldwin III., and 
 the patriarch and the people, singing, "Blesseth be he that 
 Cometh in the name of the Lord ! " So soon as he had entered 
 the city, his pious wishes were fulfilled by his being taken to 
 pay a solemn visit to aU the holy places. At the same time 
 arrived from Constantinople the Emperor Conrad, almost 
 alone and in the guise of a simple pilgrim. AU the remnant of 
 the Crusaders, French and German, hurried to join them. 
 Impatient to exhibit their power on the theatre of their creed 
 and to render to the kingdom of Jerusalem some striking 
 service, the two Western sovereigns, and Baldwin, and their 
 principal barons assembled at Ptolemais (St. Jean d'Acre) to 
 determine the du'ection to be taken hj their enterprise. They 
 decided upon the siege of Damascus, the most important and 
 the nearest of the Mussulman princedoms in Syria, and in the 
 early part of June they moved thither with forces incomplete 
 and ill united. Neither the Prince of Antioch nor the Counts 
 of Edessa and TripoMs had been summoned to St. Jean d'Acre : 
 and Queen Eleanor had not appeared. At the first attack, the 
 ardor of the assailants and the brilhant personal prowess of 
 their chiefs, of the Emperor Conrad amongst othere, struck 
 surprise and consternation into the besieged, who, foreseemg 
 the necessity of abandoning their city, laid across the streets 
 beams, chains, and heaps of stones, to stop the progress of 
 the conquerors and give themselves time for flying, with their 
 families and their wealth, by the northern and southern gates. 
 But personal interest and secret negotiations before long 
 brought into the Christian camp weakness together with dis- 
 cord. Many of the barons were already disputmg amongst 
 themselves, at the very elbows of the sovereigns, for the future 
 government of Damascus ; others were not inaccessible to the 
 rich offers which came to them from the city ; and it is main- 
 tained that King Baldwin himself suffered himself to be bribed 
 by a sum of 200,000 pieces of gold which were sent to him by 
 Modjer-Eddyn, emu- of Damascus, and which turned out to be 
 only pieces of copper covered with gold-leaf. News came that
 
 344 BISTORT OF FRANCE. [ch. xyh 
 
 the Emirs of Aleppo and Moessoul were coming with consider- 
 able forces to the relief of the place. Whatever may have 
 been the cause of retreat, the crusader-sovereigns decided upon 
 it, and, raising the siege, returned to Jerusalem. The Em- 
 peror Conrad, in indignation and confusion, set out precipi- 
 tately to return to Germany. King Louis could not make up 
 his mind thus to quit the Holy Land in disgrace and without 
 doing any thing for its deliverance. He prolonged his stay 
 there for more than a year without any thing to show for his 
 time and zeal. His barons and his knights nearly all left him, 
 and, by sea or land, made their way back to France. But the 
 king stUl lingered. "I am under a bond," he wrote to Suger, 
 " not to leave the Holy Land save with glory and after doing 
 somewhat for the cause of God and the kingdom of France." 
 At last, after many fruitless entreaties, Suger wrote* to. him: 
 "Dear king and lord, I must cause thee to hear the- voice of 
 thy whole kingdom. Why dost thou fly from us? After 
 having toiled so hard in the East, after having endured so 
 many almost unendurable evils, by what harshness or what 
 cruelty comes it that, now when the barons and grandees of 
 the kingdom have returned, thou persistest in abiding with 
 the barbarians? The disturbers of the kingdom have entered 
 into it again ; and thou who shouldst defend it, remainest in 
 exile as if thou wert a prisoner ; thou givest over the lamb to 
 the wolf, thy dominions to the ravishers. We conjure thy 
 majesty, we invoke thy piety, we adjure thy goodness, we 
 summon thee in the name of the fealty we owe thee; tarry not 
 at all, or only a little while, beyond Easter; else thou wilt 
 appear, in the eyes of God, guilty of a breach of that oath 
 which thou didst take at the same time as the crown." At 
 length Louis made up his mind and embarked at St. Jean 
 d'Acre at the commencement of July 1149 ; and he disembarked 
 in the month of October at the port of St. GOles, at the 
 mouth of the Rhone, whence he wrote to Suger : ' ' We be hasten- 
 ing unto you safe and sound, and we command you not to 
 defer paying us a visit, on a given day and before all our 
 other friends. Many rumors reach us touching our kingdom, 
 and, knowing nought for certain, we be desirous to learn from 
 you how we should bear ovu-selves or hold our peace, in every 
 case. And let none but yourseK know what I say to you at 
 this present writing." 
 
 This preference and tliis confidence were no more than 
 Louis VII. owed to Suger. The Abbot of St. Denis, after
 
 OH. XVII.] THE CRUSADES, THEIR DECLINE AND END. 346 
 
 having opposed the crusade with a freedom of spirit and a far- 
 sightedness unique, perhaps, in his times, had, during the 
 king's absence, borne the weight of government with a pohti- 
 cal tact, a firmness and a disinterestedness rare in any times. 
 He had upheld the authority of absent royalty, kept down the 
 pretensions of vassals, and established some degree of order 
 wherever his influence could reach ; he had provided for the 
 king's expenses in Palestine by good administration of the 
 domains and revenues of the crown; and, lastly, he had ac- 
 quired such renown in Europe, that men came from Italy and 
 fi'om England to view the salutary effects of his government, 
 and that the name of Solomon of his age was conferred upon 
 him by strangers his contemporaries. With the exception of 
 great sovereigns, such as Charlemagne or Wilham the Con- 
 queror, only great bishops or learned theologians, and that by 
 their influence in the Church or by their writings, had ob- 
 tained this European reputation; from the ninth to the 
 twelfth century, Suger was the first man who attained to it 
 by the sole merit of his poHtical conduct and who offered an 
 example of a minister justly admired, for his ability and 
 wisdom, beyond the circle in which he lived. When he saw 
 that the king's return drew near, he wrote to him saying, 
 "You will, I think, have gi'ound to be satisfied with our con- 
 duct. We have remitted to the knights of the Temple the 
 money we had resolved to send you. We have, besides, re- 
 imbursed the Count of Vermandois the three thousand livres 
 he had lent us for your service. Your land and your people 
 are in the enjoyment, for the present, of a happy peace. You 
 will find your houses and your palaces in good condition 
 through the care we have taken to have them repaired. 
 Behold me now in the decline of age : and I dare to say that 
 the occupations in which I have engaged for the love of 
 Grod and through attachment to your person have added 
 many to my years. In respect of the queen, your consort, I 
 am of opinion that you should conceal the displeasure she 
 causes you, until, restored to your dominions, you can calmly 
 dehberate upon that and upon other subjects." 
 
 On once more entering his kingdom, Louis, who, at a 
 distance, had sometimes lent a credulous ear to the complaints 
 of the discontented or to the calumnies of Suger's enemies, 
 did him full justice and was the first to give him the name of 
 Father of the country. The ill success of the cnisade and the 
 remembrance of all that France had risked and lost for noth-
 
 346 HISTORY OF FRANCE. [cii. xvil. 
 
 ing, made a deep impression upon the public; and they 
 honored Suger for his farsightedness whUst they blamed St. 
 Bernard for the infatuation which he had fostered and for 
 the disasters which had followed it. St. Bernard accepted 
 their reproaches in a pious spirit: " If," said he, " there must 
 be murmuring against God or against me, I prefer to see the 
 murmurs of men falling vipon me rather than upon the Lord. 
 To me it is a blessed thing that God should deign to use me as 
 a buckler to shield Himself. I shrink not from humiliation, 
 provided that His glory be unassaUled. " But at the same 
 time St. Bei-nard himself was troubled, and he permitted him- 
 seK to give expression to his troubled feelings in a singularly 
 free and bold strain of piety. ' ' We be fallen upon very 
 grevious times," he wrote to Pope Eugenius HI. ; "the Lord, 
 provoked by our sins, seemeth in some sort to have deter- 
 mined to judge the world before the time, and to judge it, 
 doubtless, according to His equity, but not remembering His 
 mercy. Do not the Heathen say, 'Where is now their God?' 
 And who can wonder? The children of the Church, those who 
 be called Christian, Ue stretched upon the desert, smitten 
 with the sword or dead of famine. Did we undertake the 
 work rashly? Did we behave ourselves lightly? How pa- 
 tiently God heareth the sacreligious voices and the blasphme- 
 mies of these Egyptians I Assuredly His judgments be right- 
 eous; who doth not know it? But in the present judgment 
 there is so profound a depth, that I hesitate not to call him 
 blessed whosoever is not surprised and offended by it." 
 
 The soul of man, no less than the shifting scene of the 
 world, is often a great subject of surprise. King Louis, on 
 his way back to France, had stayed some days at Rome ; and 
 there, in a conversation with the Pope, he had almost prom- 
 ised him a new crusade to repair the disasters of that from 
 which he had found it so difficult to get out. Suger, when he 
 became acquainted with this project, opposed it as he had 
 opposed the former ; but, at the same time, as he, in common 
 with all his age, considered the deUverance of the Holy Land 
 to be the bounden duty of Christians, he conceived the idea of 
 dedicating the large fortime and great influence he had ac- 
 quired to the cause of a new crusade, to be undertaken by 
 himself and at his own expense, without compromising either 
 king or state. He unfolded his views to a meeting of bishops 
 assembled at Chartres ; and he went to Tours, and paid a visit 
 to the tomb of St. Martin to implore his protection. Already
 
 CH. XVII.] TUE CRUSADES, THEIR DECLINE AND END. 347 
 
 more than 10,000 pilgrims were in arms at his call, and already 
 he had himself chosen a warrior, of ability and renown, to 
 command them, when he fell ill, and died at the end of four 
 months, in 1153, aged seventy, and "thanking the Almighty," 
 says his biographer, ' ' for having taken Mm to Him, not sud- 
 denly but httle by little, in order to bring him step by step to 
 the rest needful for the weary man." It is said that, in his 
 last days and when St. Bernard was exhorting him not to 
 thmk any more save only of the heavenly Jerusalem, Suger 
 still expressed to him his regret at dying without having suc- 
 coured the city which was so dear to them both. 
 
 Almost at the very moment when Suger was dying, a 
 French council, assembled at Beaugency, was annulling on 
 the ground of prohibited consanguinity and with the tacit 
 consent of the two persons most concerned, the marriage of 
 Louis VII. and Eleanor of Aquitaine. Some months after- 
 wards, at Whitsuntide in tho same year, Henry Plantagenet, 
 Duke of Normandy and Count of Anjou, espoused Eleanor, 
 thus adding to his already gi'eat possessions Poitou and 
 Aquitaine, and becoming, in Ftance, a vassal more powerful 
 than the king his suzerain. Twenty months later, in 1154, at 
 the death of King Stephen, Henry Plantagenet became King 
 of England; and thus there was a recurrence, in an aggra- 
 vated form, of the position which had been filled by William 
 the Conqueror, and which was the fir-st cause of rivalry 
 between France and England and of the consequent struggles 
 of considerably more than a century's duration. 
 
 Little more than a year after Suger, on the 20th of April, 
 1153, St. Bernard died also. The two great men, of whom one 
 bad excited and the other opposed the second crusade, disap- 
 peared together from the theatre of the world. The crusade 
 had completely failed. Aiter a lapse of scarce forty years, a 
 third crusade began. Wlien a great idea is firmly fixed in 
 men's minds with the twofold sanction of duty and feehng, 
 many generations live and die in its service before efforts are 
 exhausted and the end reached or abandoned. 
 
 During this forty years' interval between the end of the 
 second and beginning of the third crusade, the relative posi- 
 tions of West and East, Christian Europe and IMussulman 
 Asia, remained the same outwardly and according to the 
 general aspect of affairs ; but in Syria and in Palestiae there 
 was a continuance of the struggle between Christendom and 
 Islamry, with various fortunes on either side. The Christian
 
 348 BISTORT OF FRANCE. [CH. xvii 
 
 kingdom of Jerusalem still stood ; and after Godfrey de Bouil- 
 lon, from 1100 to 1186, there had been a succession of eight 
 kings; some energetic and bold, aspiring to extend their 
 yoiuig dominion, others indolent and weak upon a tottering 
 throne. The rivalries and often the defections and treasons of 
 the petty Christian princes and lords who were set up at 
 different points in Palestine and Syria endangered their com- 
 mon cause. Fortunately similar rivalries, dissensions, and 
 treasons prevailed amongst the Mussulman emirs, some of 
 them Turks and others Persians or Arabs, and at one time 
 foes, at another dependents, of the Khalifs of Bagdad or of 
 Egypt. Anarchy and civil war harrassed both races and 
 both religions with almost equal impartiaHty. But, beneath 
 this surface of simultaneous agitation and monotony, great 
 changes were being accomplished or preparing for accomplish- 
 ment in the West. The principal sovereigns of the preceding 
 generation, Louis VII., king of France, Conrad III., emperor 
 of Germany, and Henry 11. , king of Englan were dying ; 
 and princes 7 lore juvenile and more ' ^terprising or simply 
 less wearied out, Philip Augustus, Frederick Barbarossa, and 
 Richard Coeur de Lion, were taking their places. In the East 
 the theatre of policy and events was being enlarged; Egypt 
 was becoming the goal of ambition with the chiefs, Christian 
 or Mussulman, of Eastern Asia; t.nd Damietta, the key of 
 Egypt, was the object of their ente •prises, those of Amaury 
 I., the boldest of the kings of Jerusaiem, as well as those of 
 the sultans of Damascus and Aleppo. Noureddin and Saladin 
 (Nour-Eddyn and Sala-Eddyn), Turks by origin, had com- 
 menced their fortimes in Syria ; but it was in Egypt that thej 
 culminated, and, when Saladin became the most illustrious as 
 well as the most powerful of Mussulman sovereigns, it was 
 with the title of Sultan of Egypt and of Syi'ia that he took 
 his place in history. 
 
 In the course of the year 1187, Europe suddenly heard tale 
 upon tale about the repeated disasters of the Christians in 
 Asia. On the 1st of May, the two religious and warlike orders 
 which had been founded in the East for the defence of Chris- 
 tendom, the Hospitallers of St. John of Jerusalem and the 
 Templars, lost, at a brush in Galilee, 500 of their bravest 
 knights. On the 3d and 4th of July, near Tiberas, a Christian 
 army was surrounded by the Saracens, and also, ere long, by 
 the fire which Saladin had ordered to be set to the drj' grass 
 which covered the plain. The flames made their way and
 
 €H. xvir.] rUE CRUSADES, THEIR DECLINE AND END. 349 
 
 spread beneath the feet of men and horses. " There," say the 
 Oriental chroniclers, "the sons of paradise and the children of 
 fire settled their terrible quarrel. Arrows hurtled in the air 
 like a noisy flight of sparrows, and the blood of warriors 
 dripped upon the ground like rain-water." "I saw," adds one 
 of them who was present at the battle, " hill, plain, and valley 
 covered with their dead ; I saw their banners stained with dust 
 and blood; I saw their heads laid liw, their hmbs scattered, 
 their carcasses piled on a heap like stones." Four days after 
 the battle of Tiberias, on the 8th of July, 1187, Saladin took 
 possession of St. Jean d'Acre, and ; on the 4th of September fol- 
 lowing, of Ascalon. Finally, on the 1 Tth of September, he laid 
 siege to Jerusalem, wherein refuge had been sought by a mul- 
 titude of Christian families driven from their homes by the 
 ravages of the infidels throughout Palestiue; and the Holy 
 City contained at this time, it is said, nearly 100,000 Chris- 
 tians. On approaching its walls, Saladin sent for the principal 
 inhabitants, and said to them, " T know as weU as you that 
 Jerusalem is the house of God ; and I wiU not have it assaulted 
 if I can get it by peace and love. I wiU give you 30,000 
 byzants of gold if you promise me Jerusalem, and you shall 
 have Hberty to go whither you will and do yom* tillage, to a 
 distance of five miles from the city. And I will have you sup- 
 pUed with such plenty of provisions that in no place on earth 
 shall they be so cheap. You shall have a truce from now to 
 Whitsuntide, and when this time comes, if you see that you 
 may have aid, then hold on. But if not, you shall give up the 
 city, and I will have you conveyed in safety to Christian terri- 
 tory, yourselves and your substance." "We may not yield up 
 to you a city where died our God," answered the envoy: "and 
 still less may we sell it you." The siege lasted fourteen days. 
 After having repulsed several assaults, the inhabitants saw 
 that effectual resistance was impossible ; and the commandant 
 of the place a knight, named Balian d'Ibelin, an old warrior, 
 who had been at the battle of Tiberias, returned to Saladin, and 
 asked for the conditions back again which had at first been 
 rejected. Saladin, pointing to his own banner already planted 
 upon several parts of the battlements, answered, " It is too late; 
 you sm-ely see that the city is mine." "Very well, my lord," 
 rephed the knight : "we will oTirselves destroy our city, and the 
 mosque of Omar, and the stone of Jacob : and when it is noth- 
 ing but a heap of ruins, we will sally forth Avith sword and fire 
 in hand, and not one of us will go to Paradise without having
 
 350 HISTORY OF FRANCE. [ch. xvn. 
 
 sent ten Mussulmans to hell. " Saladin understood enthusiasm, 
 and respected it ; and to have had the destruction of Jerusalem 
 connected with his name would have caused him deep displeas- 
 ure. He therefore consented to the terms of capitulation de- 
 manded of him. The fighting-men were permitted to retreat 
 to Tyre or Tripohs, the last cities of any importance, besides 
 Antioch, in the power of the Christians; and the simple inhab- 
 itants of Jerusalem had their lives preserved, and permission 
 given them, to purchase their freedom on certain conditions-, 
 biit, as many amongst them could not find the means, Malek- 
 Adhel, the sultan's brother, and Saladin himself paid the ran- 
 som of several thousands of captives. All Christians, how- 
 ever, with the exception of Greeks and Syrians, had orders to 
 leave Jerusalem within four days. When the day came, aU 
 the gates were closed, except that of David by which the peo- 
 ple were to go forth •, and Saladin, seated upon a throne, saw 
 the Christians defile before him. First came the patriarch, 
 followed by the clergy, carrying the sacred vessels, and the 
 ornaments of the church of the Holy Sepulchre. After him 
 came Sibylla, queen of Jerusalem, who had remained in the 
 city, whilst her husband, Guy de Lusignan, had been a 
 prisoner at Nablous since the battle of Tiberias. Saladin 
 saluted her respectfully, and spoke to her kindly. He had too 
 great a soul to take pleasure in the humiliation of greatness. 
 
 The news, spreading through Europe, caused amongst all 
 classes there, high and low, a deep feeling of sorrow, anger, 
 disqviietude, and shame. Jerusalem was a very different thing 
 from Edessa. The fall of the kingdom of Jerusalem meant the 
 sepulchre of Jesus Christ fallen once more into the hands of 
 the infidels, and, at the same time, the destiiiction of what had 
 been wrought by Christian Europe in the East, the loss of the 
 only striking and permanent gage of her victories. Christian 
 pride was as much wounded as Christian piety. A new fact, 
 moreover, was conspicuous in this series of reverses and in the 
 accounts received of them; after all its defeats and in the 
 midst of its discord, Islamry had found a chieftain and a hero. 
 Saladin was one of those strange and superior beings who, by 
 their qualities and by their very defects, make a strong im- 
 pression upon the imaginations of men, whether friends or 
 foes. His Mussulman fanaticism was quite as impassioned as 
 the Christian fanaticism of the most ardent crusaders. When 
 he heard that Reginald of Chatillon, lord of Karac on the con- 
 fines of Palestine and Arabia, had all but succeeded in an at-
 
 CH. XVII.] THE CRUSADES, THEIR DECLINE AND END. 351 
 
 tempt to go and pillage the Caaba and the tomb of Mahomet, 
 he wrote to his brother Malek-Adhel, at that time governor of 
 Egypt, " The infidels have violated the home and the cradle of 
 Islamism; they have profaned our sanctuary. Did we not 
 prevent a like insult (which God forbid \) we should render our- 
 selves guilty in the eyes of God and the eyes of men. Purge 
 we, therefore, our land from these men who dishonor it ; purge 
 we the very air from the air they breathe." He connnanded 
 that all the Christians who could possibly be captured on this 
 occasion should be put to death;, and many were taken to 
 Mecca, where the Mussulman pilgrims immolated them instead 
 of the sheep and lambs they were accustomed to sacrifice. 
 The expulsion of the Christians from Palestine was Saladin's 
 great idea and unwavering passion ; and he severely cliid the 
 Mussulmans for their soft-heartedness in the stmggle. "Be- 
 hold these Christians," he wrote to the Khalif of Bagdad, 
 "how they come crowding in! How emulously they press on! 
 They are continually receiving fresh reinforcements more 
 numerous than the waves of the sea, and to us more bitter 
 than its brackish waters. "Where one dies by land, a thousand 
 come by sea. . . . The crop is more abimdant than the harvest; 
 the tree puts forth more branches than the axe can lop off. It 
 is true that great numbers have already perished, insomuch 
 that the edge of our swords is blunted ; but our comrades are 
 beginning to grow weary of so long a war. Haste we, there- 
 fore, to implore the help of the Lord. " Nor needed he the excuse 
 of passion in order to be cruel and sanguinary when he con- 
 sidered it would serve his cause ; for human hves and deaths he 
 had that barbaric indifference which Christianity alone has 
 rooted out from the communities of men, whilst it has re- 
 mained familiar to the Mussulman. When he found himself, 
 either during or after a battle, confronted by enemies whom 
 he really dreaded, such as the Hospitallers of St. John of 
 Jerusalem or the Templars, he had them massacred, and some- 
 times gave them their death-blow himself, with cool satisfac- 
 tion. But, a part from open war and the hatred inspired by 
 passion or cold calculation, he was moderate and generous, 
 gentle towards the vanquished and the weak, just and compas- 
 sionate towards his subjects, faithful to his engagements, and 
 capable of feeling sympathetic admii*ation for men, even his 
 enemies, in whom he recognized superior quaUties, courage, 
 loyalty, and loftiness of mind. For Christian knighthood, its 
 precepte and the noTjle character it stamped upon its pro-
 
 552 HISTORY OF FRANCE. [ch. xvit 
 
 fessors, he felt so much respect and even inclination that the 
 wish of his heart, it is said, was to receive the title of knight, 
 and that he did, in fact, receive it with the approval of Rich- 
 ard Coeur de Lion. By reason of all these facts and on aU 
 these grounds he acquired even amongst the Christians, that 
 popularity which attaches itself to greatness justified by per- 
 sonal deeds and living proofs, in spite of the fear and even 
 the hatred inspired thereby. Christian Europe saw in him the 
 able and potent chief of Mussulman Asia and, whilst detestingj 
 admired him. 
 
 After the capture of Jerusalem by Saladin, the Christians of 
 the East, in their distress, sent to the West their most eloquent 
 prelate and gravest historian William, archbishop of Tyre, 
 who, fifteen years before, in the reign of Baldwin IV., had 
 been Chancellor of the kingdom of Jerusalem. He, accom- 
 panied by a legate of Pope Gregory VIII., scoured Italy, 
 France, and Germany, recounting every where the miseries of 
 the Holy Land, and imploring the aid of all Christian princes 
 and people, whatever might be their own position of affairs 
 and their own quarrels in Europe. At a parliament assembled 
 at Gisors, on the 21st of January, 1188, and at a diet convoked 
 at Mayence on the 27th of March following, he so powerfully 
 affected the knighthood of France, England, and Germany, 
 that the three sovereigns of these three States, Philip Augus- 
 tus, Richard Coeur de Lion, and Federick Barbarossa, engaged 
 with acclamation in a new crusade. They were princes of 
 very different ages and degrees of merit, but all three distin- 
 guished for their personal qualities as well as their puissance. 
 Frederick Barbarossa was sixty -seven, and for the last thirty- 
 six years had been leading, in Germany and Italy, as politician 
 and soldier, a very active and stormy existence. Richard 
 Coeur de Lion was thirty-one, and had but just ascended the 
 throne where he was to shine as the most vahant and adven- 
 turous of knights rather than as a king. Pliilip Augustus, 
 though only twenty -three, had already shown signs, beneath 
 the vivacious sallies of youth, of the reflective and steady 
 ability characteristic of riper age. Of these three sovereigns, 
 the eldest Frederick Barbarossa, was first ready to plunge 
 amongst the perils of the crusade. Starting from Ratisbonnne 
 about Christmas, 1189, with an army of 150,000 men, he trav 
 ersed the Greek empire and Asia Minor, defeated the Sultan of 
 Iconium, passed the first defiles of Taurus, and seemed to be 
 approaching the object of his voyage when, on the 10th of June,
 
 CH. XYii] THE CRUSADES, THEIR DECLINE AND END. 3/)3 
 
 1190, having arrived at the borders of the Selef, a small river 
 which throws itself into the Mediterranean close to Seleucia, 
 he determined to cross it by fording, was seized with a chill 
 and, according to some, drowned before his people's eyes, but, 
 according to others, carried dying to Seleucia, where he ex- 
 pired. His young son Conrad, duke of Suabia, was not equal 
 to taking the command of such an army ; and it broke up. 
 
 The majority of the German princes returned to Europe; 
 and " there remained beneath the banner of Christ only a weak 
 band of warriors faithful to their vow, a boy-chief, and a bier. 
 When the crusaders of the other nations, assembled before St. 
 Jean d'Acre, saw the remnant of that grand German army ar- 
 rive, not a soul could restrain his tears. Three thousand men, 
 all but starknaked, and harassed to death, marched sorrow- 
 fully along, with the dried bones of their emperor carried in a 
 coffin. For, in the twelfth centuiy, the art of embalming the 
 dead was unknown. Barbarossa, before leaving Europe, had 
 asked that, if he should die in the crusade, he might be buried in 
 the chxu"ch of the Resurrection at Jerusalem ; but this wish could 
 not be accomplished, as the Christians did not recover the Holy 
 City, and the mortal remains of the emperor were carried, as 
 some say, to Tyre, and, as others, to Antioch, where his tomb 
 has not been discovered. " {Histoire de la Lutte des Papers et 
 des Empereurs de la Maison de Souabe, by M. de Cherrier, Mem- 
 ber of the Institute, t. i.. p. 222.) 
 
 Frederick Barbarossa was already dead in Asia Minor, and 
 the German army was already broken up, when, on the 24th of 
 June, 1190, Philip Augustus, went and took the oiiflamme at 
 St. Denis, on his way to Vezelai, where he had appointed to 
 meet Eichard, and whence the two kings, in fact, set out, on 
 the 4th of July, to embark with their troops, PhiHp at Genoa, 
 and Richard at Marseilles. They had agi-eed to touch nowlicre 
 mitil they reached Sicily, where Philip was the first to arrive, 
 on the 16th of September; and Richard was eight days later. 
 But, instead of simply touching, they passed at Messina all 
 the autumn of 1190, and all the winter of 1190-91, no longer 
 seeming to think of anything but quarrelling and amusing 
 themselves. Nor were gi'ounds for quarrel or opportimities for 
 amusements to seek. Richard, in spite of his promise, was un- 
 willing to marry the Princess Alice, Philip's sister; and Philip, 
 after lively discussion, would not agree to give him back his 
 word, save "in consideration of a sum of 10,000 silver marks, 
 whereof he shall pay us 3000 at the feast of All Saints, and
 
 364 HISTORY OF FRANCE. [oh. xvh 
 
 year by year in succession, at this same feast." Some of theii 
 amusements were not more refined than their family ar- 
 rangements, and ruffianly contests and violent enmities sprang 
 up amidst the feasts and the games in which kings and knights 
 nearly every evening indulged in the plains round about Mes- 
 sina. One day there came amongst the crusaders thus assemr 
 bled a peasant driving an ass, laden with those long and strong 
 reeds known by the name of canes. English and French, with 
 Richard at their head, bought them of him ; and, mounting od 
 horseback, ran tilt at one another, armed with these reeds by 
 way of lances. Richard found himself opposite to a French 
 knight, named William des Barres, of whose strength and 
 volor he had already, not without displeasure, had experience 
 in Normandy. Tlie two champions met with so rude a shock 
 that their reeds broke, and the king's cloak was tojn. Rich- 
 ard, in pique, urged his horse violently against the French 
 knight, in order to make him lose his stirrups ; but Wilham 
 kept a firm seat, whilst the king fell under his horse, which 
 came down in his impetuosity. Richard, more and more exas- 
 perated, had another horse brought and charged a second time, 
 but with no more success, the immovable knight. One of Rich- 
 ard's favorites, the Earl of Leicester, would have taken his 
 place, and avenged his lord; but "Let be, Robert," said the 
 king: "it is a matter between him and me," and he once more 
 attacked Wilham des Barres, and once more to no pm-pose. 
 "Fly from my sight," cried he to the knight, "and take care 
 never to appear again ; for I will be ever a mortal foe to thee, 
 to thee and thine." Wilham des Barres, somewhat discomfited, 
 went in search of the King of France, to put himself under his 
 protection. PhiUp, accordingly paid a visit to Richard, who 
 merely said, "I'll not hear a word." It needed nothing less 
 than the prayers of the bishops, and even, it is said, a threat 
 of excommunication, to induce Richard to grant WiUiam des 
 Barres the king^s peace during the time of pilgrimage. 
 
 Such a comrade was assuredly very inconvenient, and might 
 be under difficult circumstances very dangerous. Phihp with- 
 out being susceptible or quarrelsome, was naturally independ- 
 dent, and disposed to act, on every occasion, according to his 
 own ideas. He resolved not to break with Richard, but to 
 divide their commands, and separate their fortunes. On the 
 approach of spring, 1191, he announced to him that the time 
 had arrived for continuing their pilgrimage to the Holy Land, 
 and that, as for himself, he was quite ready to set out. " I am
 
 CH. XVII.] THE CRUSADES, THEIR DECLINE AND END. 355 
 
 not ready," said Richard; "and I cannot depart before the 
 middle of August." Philip, after some discussion, set out 
 alone, with his army, on the 30th of March, and on the 14th of 
 April arrived before St. Jean d'Acre. This important place, of 
 which Saladin had made himself master nearly four years be- 
 fore, was being beseiged by the last King of Jerusalem, Guy de 
 Lusignan, at the head of the Christians of Palestine, and by a 
 multitude of crusaders, Genoese, Danish, Flemish, and Ger- 
 man, who had flocked freely to the enterprise. A strong and 
 valient Mussulman garrison was defending St. Jean d'Acre. 
 Saladin manoeuvred incessantly for its relief, and several bat- 
 tles had already been fought beneath the walls. When the 
 King of France arrived, "he was received by the Christians 
 besieging," say the chronicles of St. Denis, " with supreme joy, 
 as if he were an angel come down from heaven." Philip set 
 vigorously to work to push on the siege; but, at his departure 
 he had promised Richard not to deliver the grand assaiUt until 
 they had formed a jvmction before the place with all their 
 forces, Richard who had set out from Messina at the begin- 
 ning of May, though he had said that he would not be ready 
 till August, hngered again on the way to reduce the island of 
 Cyprus, and to celebrate there his marriage with Berengaria 
 of Navarre, in lieu of Alice of France. At last he arrived, on 
 the 7th of June, before St. Jean d'Acre ; and several assaults 
 in succession were made on the place with equal determination 
 on the part of the besiegers and the besieged. "The tumul- 
 tuous waves of the Franks," says an Arab historian, "rolled 
 towards the walls of the city with the rapidity of a torrent ; 
 and they climbed the half -ruined battlements as wild goats 
 climb precipitous rocks, whilst the Saracens threw themselves 
 upon the besiegers like stones imloosed from the top of a moun- 
 tain." At length, on the 13th of July, 1191, in spite of the 
 energetic resistance offered by the garrison, which defended 
 itself " as a lion defends his blood-stained den," St. Jean d'Acre 
 surrendered. The terms of capitulation stated that 200,000 
 pieces of gold should be paid to the cliiefs of the Christian army ; 
 that 1600 prisoners and the wood of the true cross should be 
 given up to them; and that the garrison as well as all the 
 people of the town should remain in the conqueror's power, 
 pending full execution of the treac}'. 
 
 "Whilst the siege was still going on, the discord between the 
 Kings of France and England was increasing in animosity and 
 venom. The conquest of Cyprus had become a new subject of
 
 356 ' ELS TOUT OF FRANCE. [ch. xvii 
 
 dispute. When the French were most eager for the assault, 
 King Richard remained in his tent ; and so the besieged had 
 scarcely ever to repulse more than one or other of the kings 
 and armies at a time. Saladin, it is said, showed Richard 
 particular attention, sending him grapes and pears from 
 Damascus; and Philip conceived some mistrust of these re- 
 lations. In camp the common talk, combined with anxious 
 curiosity, was, tliat Philip was jealous of Richard's warlike 
 popularity, and Richard was jealous of the power and political 
 weight of the King of France. 
 
 When St. Jean d'Acre had been taken, the judicious Philip, 
 in view of what it had cost the Christians of East and West in 
 time and blood to recover this single town, considered that a 
 fresh and complete conquest of Palestine and Syria, which 
 was absolutely necessary for a re-establislunent of the king- 
 dom of Jerusalem, was impossible: he had discharged what 
 he owed to the crusade ; and the course now permitted and 
 prescribed to him was to give his attention to France. The 
 news he received from home was not encouraging; his son 
 Louis, hardly four years old, had been dangerously ill ; and he 
 himself fell ill and remained some days in bed, in the midst ot 
 the town he had just conquered. His enemies called his Ul- 
 ness in question, for already there was a rumor abroad that 
 he had an idea of giving up the crusade and returning to 
 France; but the details given by contemporary chroniclers 
 about the effects of his illness scarcely permit it to be regarded 
 as a sham. "Violent sweats," they say, "committed such 
 havoc with his bones and all his members, that the nails feU 
 from his fingers and the hair from his head, insomuch that it 
 was believed, and indeed the rmnor is not yet dispelled, that 
 he had taken a deadly poison." There was nothing strange in 
 Philip's illness, after aU his fatigues, in such a country and 
 such a season; Saladin, too, was ill at the same time, and 
 more than once unable to take part with his troops in their 
 engagements. But, however that may be, a contemporary 
 English chronicler, Benedict, abbot uf Peterborough, relates 
 that, on the 22nd of July, 11 j1, whilst King Richard was 
 playing chess with the Earl of Gloucester, the Bishop of 
 Beauvais, the Duke of Burgundy, and two knights of con- 
 sideration, presented themselves before him on behalf of the 
 King of France. "They were dissolved in tears," says he, 
 " in such sort they could not utter a single word; and, seeing 
 them so moved, those present wept in their turn for pity's
 
 CH. XVII, ] THE CRUSADES, THEIR DECLINE AND END. 857 
 
 sake. 'Weep not,' said King Richard to them; 'I know 
 what ye be come to ask; your lord, the King of France, 
 desir©th to go home again, and ye be come in his name to ask 
 on his behalf my counsel and leave to get him gone.' ' It is 
 true, sir ; you know all, ' answered the messengers ; ' our king 
 sayeth, that if he depart not speedily from this land, he will 
 surely die.' *It will be for him and for the kingdom of 
 France,' replied King Richard, 'eternal shame, if he go home 
 without fulfilling the work for the which he came, and he 
 shall not go hence- by my advice; but if he must die or return 
 home, let him do what he will and what may appear to him 
 expedient for him, for him and his. ' " The source from which 
 this story comes and the tone of it are enough to take from it 
 all authority ; for it is the custom of monastic chroniclers to 
 attribute to political or military characters emotions and 
 demonstrations alien to their position and their times. Philip 
 Augustus, moreover, was one of the most decided, most in- 
 sensible to any other influence but that of his own mind, and 
 most disregardful of his enemies' bitter speeches, of all the 
 kings in French history. He returned to France after the 
 capture of St. Jean d'Acre, because he considered the ultimate 
 success of the crusade impossible and his return necessary for 
 the interests of France and for his own. He was right in thus 
 thinking and acting; and King Richard, when insultingly 
 reproaching him for it, did not foresee that a year later he 
 would himself be doing the same thing, and would give up the 
 crusade without having obtained any thing more for Christen- 
 dom, except fresh reverses. 
 
 On the 31st of July, 1191, Philip, leaving with the army of 
 the crusaders 10,000 foot and 500 knights, under the command 
 of Duke Hugh of Burgundy, who had orders to obey King 
 Richard, set sail for France ; and, a few days after Christmas 
 in the same year, landed in his kingdom, and forthwith re- 
 sumed, at Fontainebleau according to some, and at Pam 
 according to others, the regular direction of his government. 
 We shall see before long with what intelligent energy and 
 with what success he developed and consolidated the terri- 
 torial greatness of France and the influence of the kingship, 
 to her security in Europe and her prosperity at home. 
 
 From the 1st of August, 1191, to the 9th of October, 1192, 
 King Richard remained alone in the East as chief of the 
 crusade and defender of Christendom. He pertains, during 
 that period, to the history of England and no longer to that of
 
 358 BISTORT OF FRANCE. [CH. xvn. 
 
 France. We will, however, recall a few facts to show how 
 fruitless, for the cause of Christendom in the East, was the 
 prolongation of his stay, and what strange deeds, at one time 
 of savage barbarism and at another of mad pride or fantastic 
 knight-errantry, were imited in him with noble instincts and 
 the most heroic courage. On the 20th of August, 1191, 
 five weeks after the stu-render of St. Jean d'Aere, he found 
 that Saladin was not fulfilling with sufficient promptitude the 
 conditions of capitulation, and, to bring him up to time, he 
 ordered the decapitation, before the walls of the place, of, 
 according to some, 2500, and, according to others, 5000 Mus- 
 sulman prisoners remaining in his hands. The only effect of 
 this massacre was that, during Richard's first campaign after 
 Phihp's departure for France, Saladin put to the sword all the 
 Christians taken in battle or caught straggling, and ordered 
 their bodies to be left without burial, as those of the garrison 
 of St. Jean d'Acre had been. Some months afterwards Rich- 
 ard conceived the idea of putting an end to the struggle 
 between Christendom and Islamry, which he was not suc- 
 ceeding in terminating by war, by a marriage. He had a 
 sister, Joan of England, widow of William 11., king of Sicily; 
 and Saladin had a brother, Malek-Adhel, a valiant warrior, 
 respected by the Christians. Richard had proposals made to 
 Saladin to imite them in marriage and set them to reign to- 
 gether over the Christians and Mussulmans in the kingdom of 
 Jerusalem. The only result of the negotiation was to give 
 Saladin time for repairing the fortifications of Jerusalem and 
 to bring down upon King Richard and his sister, on the part 
 of the Christian bishops, the fiercest threats of the fulmina- 
 tions of the Church. With the exception of this ridiculous 
 incident, Richard's life, during the whole course of this year, 
 was nothing but a series of great or small battles, desperately 
 contested, against Saladin. When Richard had obtained a 
 success, he pursued it in a haughty, passionate spirit ; when he 
 suffered a check, he offered Saladin peace, but always on 
 condition of surrendering Jerusalem to the Christians, and 
 Saladin always answered, "Jerusalem never was yours, and 
 we may not without sin give it up to you ; for it is the place 
 where the mysteries of our religion were accomphshed, and 
 the last one of my soldiers wiU peiish before the Mussulmans 
 renounce conquests made in the name of Mahomet." Twice 
 Richard and his army drew near Jerusalem, "without his 
 daring to look upon it, he said, since he was not in a conditioD
 
 CH. XVII.] THE CRUSADES, THEIR DECLINE AND END. 359 
 
 to take it." At last, in the summer of 1192, the two armies 
 and the two chiefs began to be weary of a war without result. 
 A great one, however, for Saladin and the Mussulmans was 
 the departure of Eichard and the crusaders. Being unable to 
 agree about conditions for a definitive peace, they contented 
 themselves, on both sides, with a truce for three years and 
 eight months, leaving Jerusalem in possession of the Mussul- 
 mans, but open for worship to the Christians, in whose hands 
 remained, at the same time, the towns they were in occupa- 
 tion of on the maritime coast, from Jaffa to Tyre. This truce, 
 which was called peace, having received the signature of all 
 the Christian and Mussulman princes, was celebrated by 
 galas, and tournaments, at which Christians and Mussulmans 
 seemed for a moment to have forgotten their hate; and, on 
 the 9th of October, 1192, Richard embarked at St. Jean d'Acre 
 to go and run other risks. 
 
 Thus ended the third crusade, undertaken by the three 
 greatest sovereigns and the three greatest armies of Christian 
 Europe and with the loudly proclaimed object of retaking 
 Jerusalem from the infidels and re-establishing a king over 
 the sepulchre of Jesus Christ. The Emperor Frederick Bar- 
 barossa perished in it before he had trodden the soil of Pales- 
 tine. King Philip Augustus retired from it voluntarily, so 
 soon as experience had foreshadowed to him the impossibihty 
 of success. Xing Richard abandoned it perforce, after having 
 exhausted upon it his heroism and his knightly pride. The 
 three armies, at the moment of departure from Europe, 
 amounted, according to the historians of the time, to 500,000 
 or 600,000 men, of whom scarcely 100,000 returned; and the 
 only result of the third ciiisade was to leave as head over all 
 the most beautiful provinces of Mussulman Asia and Africa, 
 Saladin, the most Ulustrioiis and most able chieftain, in war 
 and in politics, that Islamry had produced since !Mahomet. 
 
 From the end of the twelfth to the middle of the thirteenth 
 century, between the crusade of Philip Augustus and that of 
 Saint Louis, it is usual to comit three crusades, over which we 
 ^^•ill not linger. Two of these crusades, one, from 1195 to 1198, 
 under Henry VI., emperor of Germany, and the other, from 
 1316 to 1340, under the Emperor Frederick II. and Andrew II., 
 king of Hungary, are unconnected with France and almost 
 exclusively German, or, in origui and range, confined to 
 Eastern Europe. They led, in Syria, Palestine, and EgA,'pt, to 
 wars, negotiations, and manifold comphcations ; Jerusalem 
 (16) HF Vol. 1
 
 360 HISTORY OF FRAN'CE. [cH. xvn: 
 
 fell once more, for a while, into the hands of the Christians; 
 and there, on the 18th of March, 1229, in the church of the 
 Eesurrection, the Emperor Frederick II., at that time ex- 
 communicated by Pope Gregory IX., placed with his own 
 hands the royal crown upon his head. But these events, 
 confused, disconnected and short-hved as they were, did not 
 produce in the West, and especially in France, any consider- 
 able reverberation, and did not exercise upon the relative 
 situations of Europe and Asia, of Christendom and Islamry, any 
 really historical influence. In people's hves and in the affairs 
 ot the world there are many movements of no significance 
 and more cry than wool ; and those facts only which have had 
 some weight and some duration are here to be noted for study 
 and comprehension. The event which has been called the 
 fifth crusade was not wanting, so far, in real importance, and 
 It would have to be described here, if it had been really a 
 crusade; but it does not deserve the name. The crusades 
 were a very different thing from wars and conquests ; their 
 real and peculiar characteristic was that they should be 
 struggles between Christianity and Islamism, between the 
 fruitful civilization of Europe and the barbarism and stagna- 
 tion of Asia. Therein consists their originahty and their 
 grandeur. It was certainly on this understanding and with 
 this view that Pope Innocent III. , one of the greatest men of 
 the thirteenth century, seconded with all his might the move- 
 ment which was at that time springing up again in favor of a 
 fresh crusade, and which brought about, in 1202, an alliance 
 between a great number of powerful lords, French, Flemish, 
 and Italian, and the republic of Venice, for the purpose of 
 recovering Jerusalem from the infidels. But from the very 
 first, the ambition, the opportunities, and the private interests 
 of the Venetians, combined with a recollection of the perfidy 
 displayed by the Greek emperors, diverted the new crusaders 
 from the design they had proclaimed. What Bohemond, 
 during the first crusade, had proposed to Godfrey de Bouillon, 
 and what the Bishop of Langres, during the second, had sug- 
 gested to Louis the Young, namely, the captiire of Constanti- 
 nople for the sake of ensuring that of Jerusalem, the first 
 crusaders of the thirteenth century were led by bias, greed, 
 anger, and spite to take in hand and accomplish; they con- 
 quered Constantinople, and, having once made that conquest, 
 they troubled themselves no more about Jerusalem. Founded, 
 May 16th, 1204, in the person of Baldwin IX., count of Flan?
 
 OH. xvn.] THE CRUSADES, THEIR DECLINE AND END. 3ftX 
 
 ders. the Latin empire of the East existed for seventy years, 
 in the teeth of many a, storm, only to fall once more, in 1273, 
 into the hands of the Greek emperors, overthi'own in 1453 by 
 the Turks, who are still in possession. 
 
 One circumstance, connected rather with literature than 
 pohtics, gives "Frenchmen a particular interest in this conquest 
 of the Greek empire by the Latin Christians; for it was a 
 Frenchman, Geoffrey de Villehardouin, seneschal of Theobald 
 in., coimt of Champagne, who, after having been one of the 
 chief actors in it, wrote the history of it ; and his work, strictly 
 historical as to facts, and admirably epic in description of 
 character and warmth of coloring, is one of the earliest and 
 finest monuments of French literatiu'e. 
 
 But to return to the real crusades. 
 
 At the beginning of the thirteenth century, whilst the enter- 
 prises which were still called crusades were becoming more 
 and more degenerate in character and potency, there was bom 
 in France, on the 25th of April, 1215, not merely the prince, 
 but the man who was to be the most worthy representative 
 and the most devoted slave of that rehgious and moral passion 
 which had inspired the crusades. Louis IX., though born to 
 the purple, a powerful king, a valiant warrior, a splendid 
 knight, and an object of reverence to all those who at a dis- 
 tance observed his life, and of affection to all those who ap- 
 proached his person, was neither biassed nor intoxicated by 
 any such hxunan glories and deUghts ; neither in his thoughte 
 nor in his conduct did they ever occupy the foremost place; 
 before all and above all he wished to be, and was indeed, a 
 Christian, a true Christian, guided and governed by the idea 
 and the resolve of defending the Christian faith and fulfilling 
 the Christian law. Had he been born in the most lowly con- 
 dition, as the world holds, or, as religion, the most command- 
 ing ; had he been obscure, needy, a priest, a monk, or a hermit, 
 he could not have been more constantly and more zealously 
 filled vn\h the desire of living as a faithful servant of Jesus 
 Christ, and of ensuring, by pious obedience to God here, the 
 salvation of his soul hereafter. This is the peculiar and origi- 
 nal characteristic of St. Louis, and a fact rare and probably 
 unique in the history of kings. (He was canonized on the 
 11th of August, 1297 ; and diiring twenty -four years nine suc- 
 cessive popes had prosecuted the customary inquiries as to his 
 jEaith and life.) 
 
 It is said that the Christian enthusiasm of St. Louis had its
 
 362 HISTORY OF FRANCE. [ch. XVIL 
 
 source in the strict education he received from Queen Blanche, 
 his mother. That is overstepping the hmits of that educatior 
 and of her influence. Queen Blanche, though a firm believer 
 and steadfastly pious, was a stranger to enthusiasm, and too 
 discreet and too politic to make it the dominatmg principle of 
 her son's life any more than of her own. The truth of the 
 matter is that, by her watchfulness and her exactitude in 
 morals she helped to impress upon her son the great Christian 
 lesson of hatred for sin and habitual concern for the eternal 
 salvation of liis soul. " Madame used to say of me," Louis was 
 constantly repeating; "that if I were sick unto death, and 
 could not be cured save by acting in such wise that I should 
 sin mortally, she would let me die rather than that I should 
 anger my Creator to my damnation. " 
 
 In the first years of his government, when he had reached 
 his majority, there was nothing to show that the idea of the 
 crusade occupied Louis IX. 's mind; and it was only in 1239, 
 when he was now four and twenty, that it showed itself vividly 
 in him. Some of his principal vassals, the Counts of Cham- 
 pagne, Brittany, and Macon had raised an army of crusaders, 
 and were getting ready to start for Palestine; and the king 
 was not contented with giving them encom'agement, but ' ' he 
 desired that Amaury de Montf ort, his constable, should, in his 
 name, serve Jesus Christ in this war ; and for that reason he 
 gave him arms and assigned to him per day a sum of money 
 for which Amaury thanked him on his knees, that is, did him 
 homage, according to the usage of those times. And the 
 crusaders vrere mighty pleased to have this lord with them." 
 
 Five years afterwards, at the close of 1244, Louis fell seri- 
 ously ill at Pontoise; the alarm and sorrow in the kingdom 
 were extreme; the king himself believed that his last hour 
 was come ; and he had all his household summoned, thanked 
 them for their kind attentions, recommended them to be good 
 servants of God, ' ' and did all that a good Christian ought to 
 do. His mother, his wife, his brothers, and all who were 
 about him kept continually praying for him ; his mother, be- 
 yond all others, adding to her prayers great austerities. " Once 
 he appeared motionless and breathless ; and he was supposed 
 to be dead. " One of the dames who were tending him," says 
 Joinville, "would have drawn the sheet over his face, saying 
 that he was dead ; but another dame, who was on the other 
 side of the bed, would not suffer it, saying that there was still 
 life in his body. When the king heard the dispute between
 
 CH. xvn.] THE CRUSADES, THEIR DECLINE AND END. 363 
 
 these two dames, our Lord wrought in him.: he began to sigh, 
 stretched his arms and legs, and said in a hollow voice, as if 
 he had come forth from the tomb : ' He, by God's grace, hath 
 visited me. He who cometh from on high, and hath recalled 
 me from amongst the dead/ Scarcely had he recovered liis 
 senses and speech, when he sent for WUliam of Auvergne, 
 bishop of Paris, together with Peter de Cmsy, bishop of Meaux, 
 in whose diocese he happened to be, and requested them ' to 
 place upon his shoulder the cross of the voyage over the sea.' 
 The two bishops tried to divert him from tliis idea ; and the 
 two queens, Blanche and Marguerite, conjured him on their 
 knees to wait till he was well, and after that he might do as he 
 pleased. He insisted, declaring that he would take no nourish- 
 ment till he had received the cross. At last the bishop of 
 Paris jdelded, and gave him a cross. The king received it 
 with transport, kissing it, and placing it right gently upon his 
 breast." "When the queen, his mother, knew that he had 
 taken the cross," says Joinville, "she made as great mourning 
 as if she had seen him dead. " 
 
 Still more than three years rolled by before Louis fulfilled 
 the engagement which he had thus entered into, with himself 
 alone, one might say, and against the wish of nearly every body 
 about him. The crusades, although they still remained an ob- 
 ject of religious and knightly aspiration, were from the pohti- 
 cal point of view decried; and, without daring to say so, many 
 men of weight, lay or ecclesiastical, had no desire to take part 
 m them. Under the influence of this public feeling, timidly 
 exhibited but seriously cherished, Louis continued, for three 
 years, to apply himself to the interior concerns of his kingdom 
 and to his relations with the European powers, as if he had no 
 other idea. There was a moment when his wisest counsellors 
 and the queen his mother conceived a hope of inducing him to 
 give up his purpose. " My lord king," said one day that same 
 bishop of Paris, who, in the crisis of his illness, had given way 
 to his wishes, "bethink you that, when you received the cross, 
 when you suddenly and without reflection made this awful 
 vow, you were weak and, sooth to say, of a wandering mind, 
 and that took away from yoiir words the weight of verity and 
 authority. Our lord the Pope, who knoweth the necessities of 
 your kingdom and your weakness of body, ■s\'ill gladly grant 
 unto you a dispensation. Lol we have the puissance of the 
 schismatic Emperor Frederick, the snares of the wealthy King 
 of the English, the treasons but lately stopped of the Poitevines
 
 364 HISTORY OF FRANCE. [CH. xvn. 
 
 and the subtle wranglings of the Albigensians to fear; Ger- 
 many is disturbed ; Italy hath no rest ; the Holy Land is hard 
 of access; you will not easily penetrate thither, and behind 
 you will be left the implacable hatred between the Pope and 
 Frederick. To whom will you leave us, every one of us in our 
 feebleness and desolation?" Queen Blanche appealed to other 
 considerations, the good coimsels she had al-vvnys given her 
 son, and the pleasure God took in seeing a son gi\^ng heed to 
 and believing his mother ; and to hers she promised, that, if he 
 would remain, the Holy Land should not suffer, and that more 
 troops should be sent thither than he could lead thither him- 
 self. Tlie king listened attentively and with deep emotion. 
 "You say," he answered, " that I was not in possession of my 
 senses when I took the cross. Well, as you wish it, I lay it 
 aside, I give it back to you;" and raising his hand to his 
 shoulder, he undid the cross upon it, saying, ' ' Here it is, my 
 lord bishop; I restore to you the cross I had put on." All 
 present congratulated themselves: but the king, with a sud- 
 den change of look and intention, said to them, "My friends, 
 now, assuredly, I lack not sense and reason; I am neither 
 weak nor wandering of mind ; and I demand my cross back 
 again. He who knoweth all things knoweth that until it is 
 replaced upon my shoulder, no food shall enter my lips." At 
 these words all present declared that "herein was the finger of 
 God, and none dared to raise, in opposition to the king's say- 
 ing, any objection." 
 
 In June, 1248, Louis, after having received at St. Denis, 
 together with the oriflamme, the scrip and staff of a pUgrim, 
 took leave, at CorbeO or Cluny, of his mother, Queen Blanche, 
 whom he left regent during his absence, with the fullest pow- 
 ers. "Most sweet fair son," said she, embracing him, "fair 
 tender son. I shall never see you more; full well my heart 
 assures me." He took with him Queen Marguerite of Pro- 
 vence, his wife, who had declared that she would never part 
 from him. On arriving in the early part of August at Aigues- 
 Mortes, he found assembled there a fleet of thirty-eight vessels 
 with a certain number of transport-ships which he had hired 
 from the republic of Genoa ; and they were to convey to the 
 East the troops and personal retinue of the king himself. The 
 number of these vessels proves that Louis was far from bring- 
 ing one of those vast armies with which the first crusades had 
 been familiar ; it even appears that he had been careful to get 
 rid of such mobs, for, before embarking, he sent away nearly
 
 CH. XVII.] THE CRUSADES, THEIR DECLINE AND END. 365 
 
 ten thousand bowmen, Genoese, Venetian. Pisan, and even 
 French, whom he had at fii-st engaged and of whom, after inspec- 
 tion, he desired nothing further. The sixth crusade was the 
 pei-sonal achievement of St. Louis, not the offspring of a popu- 
 lar moveraent, and he carried it out with a picked army, fur- 
 nished by the feudal chivalry and by the reUgious and mihtary 
 orders dedicated to the service of the Holy Land. 
 
 The Isle of Cyprus was the trysting-place appointed for aU 
 the forces of the expedition. Louis arrived there on the 12th 
 of September, 1248, and reckoned upon remaining there only 
 a few days ; for it was Egypt that he was in a hurry to reach. 
 The Christian world was at that time of opinion that, to 
 deliver the Holy Land, it was necessary first of all to strike a 
 blow at Lslamism in Egypt, wherein its chief strength resided. 
 But scarcely had the crusaders formed a jimction in Cyprus, 
 when the vices of the expedition and the weaknesses of its 
 chief began to be manifest. Louis, unshakable in his religious 
 zeal, was wanting in clear ideas and fixed resolves as to the 
 carrying out of his design ; he inspired his associates with sym- 
 pathy rather than exercised authority over them, and he made 
 himself admired without making himseK obeyed. He did not 
 succeed in winning a majority' in the council of chiefs over to 
 his opinion as to the necessity for a speedy departure for 
 Egypt ; it was decided to pass the winter in Cyprus, and, dur- 
 ing this leisurely halt of seven months, the improvidence of 
 the crusaders, their ignorance of the places, people, and facts 
 amidst which they were about to launch themselves, their 
 headstrong rashness, their stormy rivalries, and their moral 
 and military irregularities aggravated the difficulties of the 
 enterprise great as they ah-eady were. Louis passed his time 
 in interfering between them, in hushing up their quarrels, in 
 upbraiding them for their licentiousness, and in reconciling 
 the Templars and Hospitallers. His kindness was injurious to 
 his power ; he lent too ready an ear to the wishes or complaints 
 of his comi-ades, and small matters took up his thoughts and 
 his time almost as much as great. 
 
 At last a start was made from Cypinis in May, 1249, and, in 
 spite of violent gales of wind which dispersed a large number 
 of vessels, they arrived on the 4th of June before Damietta. 
 Tlie crusader-chiefs met on board the king's ship, the Mountjoy; 
 and one of those present. Guy, a knight in the train of the 
 Count of Melun, in a letter to one of his friends a student at 
 Paris, reports to him the king's address in the foUowiag terms-
 
 366 mSTORr OF FRANCE. [ch. xvie. 
 
 " My friends and lieges, we shall be invincible if we be insep- 
 arable in brotherly love. It was not without the wiU of God 
 that we arrived here so speedily. Descend we upon this land 
 and occupy it in force. I am not the King of France. I am 
 not Holy Church. It is all ye who are King and Holy 
 Church, I am but a man whose life will pass away as that of 
 any other man whenever it shall please God. Any issue of 
 our expedition is to usward good ; if we be conquered we shall 
 wing our way to heaven as martyrs ; and if we be conquerors, 
 men will celebrate the glory of the Lord ; and that of France 
 and, what is more, that of Christendom will grow thereby. 
 It were senseless to suppose that God, whose providence is over 
 every thing, raised me up for naught : He will see in us His 
 own. His mighty cause. Fight we for Christ ; it is Christ who 
 will triumph in us, not for our own sake, but for the honor and 
 blessedness of His name." It was determined to disembark the 
 next day. An ai"my of Saracens lined the shore. The galley 
 which bore the oriflamme was one of the first to touch. When 
 the king heard teU that the banner of St. Denis was on shore, 
 he, in spite of the Pope's legate who was with him, would not 
 leave it ; he leapt into the sea, which was up to his arm-pits, 
 and went, shield on neck, helm on head, and lance in hand, 
 and joined his people on the sea-shore. When he came to land, 
 and perceived the Saracens, he asked what folk they were, 
 and it was told him that they were the Saracens ; then he put 
 his lance beneath his arm and his shield in front of him and 
 would have charged the Saracens, if his mighty men, who were 
 with him, had suffered him. " 
 
 This, from his very first outset, was Louis exactly, the most 
 fervent of Christians and the most splendid of knights, much 
 rather than a general and a king. 
 
 Such he appeared at the moment of landing, and such he 
 was during the whole duration and throughout all the inci- 
 dents of his campaign in Egypt, from Jime 1249 to May 1250 : 
 ever admirable for his moral greatness and knightly valor, but 
 without foresight or consecutive plan as a leader, without 
 efficiency as a commander in action, and ever decided or 
 biassed either by his own momentary impressions or the 
 fancies of his comrades. He took Damietta without the least 
 difficulty. The Mussulmans, stricken with surprise as much 
 as terror, abandoned the place; and when Fakr-Eddin, the 
 commandant of the Turks, came before the Sultan of Egypt, 
 Malek-Saleh, v. ho was ill and almost dying, " Couldst thou
 
 CH. XVII.] TUB CRUSADES, THEIR DECLINE AND END. 367 
 
 not have held out for at least an instant?" said the sultan. 
 "What! not a single one of you got slain!" Having become 
 masters of Daniietta, St. Louis and the crusaders committed 
 the same fault there as in the Isle of Cyprus : they halted there 
 for an indefinite time. They were expecting fresh crusaders ; 
 and they spent the time of expectation in quarrelling over the 
 partition of the booty taken in the city. They made away 
 with it, they wasted it bhndly. " The barons," said Joinville, 
 "took to giving grand banquets with an excess of meats; and 
 the people of the common sort took up with bad women." 
 Louis saw and deplored these irregularities without being in a 
 condition to stop them. 
 
 At length, on the 20th of November, 1249, after more than 
 five months' inactivity at Damietta, the crusaders put them- 
 selves once more in motion, with the determination of march- 
 ing upon Babylon, that outskirt of Cairo, now called Old Cairo, 
 which the greater part of them, in their ignorance, mistook 
 for the real Babylon, and where they flattered themselves they 
 would find immense riches and avenge the olden sufferings of 
 the Hebrew captives. The Mussulmans had found time to re- 
 cover from their first fright and to organize, at aU points, a 
 vigorous resistance. On the 8th of February, 1250, a battle 
 took place twenty leagues from Damietta, at Mansourah {the 
 city of victory) on the right bank of the Nile. The king's 
 brother, Eobert, count of Artois, marched with the vanguard, 
 and obtained an early success ; but WiUiam de Sonnac, grand 
 master of the Templars, and WiUiam Longsword, earl of Salis- 
 bury, leader of the EngUsh crusaders but lately arrived at 
 Damietta, insisted upon his waiting for the king before push- 
 ing the victory to the uttermost. Eobert taxed them, iron- 
 ically, with caution. "Count Eobert," said William Long- 
 sword, " We shall be presently where thou'lt not dare to come 
 nigh the tail of my horse." There came a message from the 
 king ordering his brother to wait for him; but Eobert made no 
 account of it. "I have already put the Saracens to flight," 
 said he, " and I will wait for none to complete their defeat;" 
 and he rushed forward into Mansourah. All those who had 
 dissuaded him followed after; they found the Mussulmans 
 numerous and perfectly rallied ; in a few moments the count 
 of Artois fell pierced with wounds, and more than 300 knights 
 of his train, the same number of English together with their 
 leader WiUiam Longsword, and 280 Templars paid with their 
 lives for the senseless ardor of the French prince.
 
 368 HISTORY OF FRANOE. [ch. xvn 
 
 The king hurried up in all haste to the aid of his brother; 
 but he had scarcely arrived, and as yet knew nothing of his 
 brother's fate when he himself engaged so impetuously in the 
 battle that he was on the point of being taken prisoner by six 
 Saracens who had already seized the reins of his horse. He 
 was defending himself vigorously with his sword when several 
 of his knights came up with him and set him free. He asked 
 one of them if he had any news of his brother ; and the other 
 answered, " Certainly I have news of him: for I am sure that 
 he is now in Paradise." " Praised be God !" answered the»king 
 with a tear or two, and went on Avith his fighting. The battle- 
 field was left that day to the crusaders ; but they were not 
 allowed to occupy it as conquerors, for three days afterwards, 
 on the 11th of February, 1250, the camp of St. Louis was as- 
 sailed by clouds of Saracens, horse and foot, Mamelukes and 
 Bedouins. All surprise had vanished; the Mussulmans 
 measured at a glance the numbers of the Christians, and at- 
 tacked them in full assurance of success, whatever heroism 
 they might display ; and the crusaders themselves indulged in 
 no more self- illusion and thought only of defending them- 
 selves. Lack of provisions and sickness soon rendered defence 
 almost as impossible as attack ; every day saw the Christian 
 camp more and more encumbered with the famine-stricken, 
 the dying, and the dead ; and the necessity for retreating be- 
 came evident. Louis made to the Sultan Malek-Moaddam, an 
 offer to evacuate Egypt and give up Damietta, provided that 
 the kingdom of Jerusalem were restored to the Christians and 
 the army permitted to accomplish its retreat without obstruc- 
 tion. Tlie sultan, without accepting or rejecting the proposi- 
 tion, asked what guarantees would be given him for the sur- 
 render of Damietta. Louis offered as hostage one of his 
 brothers, the Count of Anjou or the Count of Poitiers. "We 
 must have the king himself," said the Mussulmans. A im- 
 animous cry of indignation arose amongst the crusaders. 
 "We would rather," said Geoffrey de Sargenis, "that we had 
 been all slain or taken prisoners by the Saracens than be re- 
 proached with having left our king in pawn. " All negotiation 
 was broken off-, and on the 5th of April, 1250, the crusaders 
 decided upon retreating. 
 
 This was the most deplorable scene of a deplorable drama; 
 and, at the same time it was, for the king, and occasion for 
 displaying, in their most sublime and most attractive traits, all 
 the virtues of the Christian. Whilst sickness and famine were
 
 CH. rm.] THE CRUSADES, THEIR DECLINE AND END. 369 
 
 devastating the camp, Louis made himself visitor, physician, 
 and comforter ; and his presence and his words exercised upon 
 the worst cases a searching influence. He had one day sent hia 
 chaplain, WUliam de Chartres, to visit one of his household 
 servants, a modest, man of some means, named Gaugelme, who 
 was at the point of death. When the chaplain was retiring, 
 " I am waiting for my lord our saintly king to come," said the 
 dying man ; " I will not depart this life until I have seen him 
 and spoken to him : and then I will die. " The king came, and 
 addi-essed to him fhe most affectionate words of consolation ; 
 and when he had left him, and before he had reentered his tent 
 he was told that Gaugeleme had expired. When the 5th of 
 April, the day fixed for the retreat, had come, Louis himself 
 was ni and much enfeebled. He was urged to go aboard one 
 of the vessels which were to descend the Nile, carrying the 
 wounded and the most suffering ; but he refused absolutely, 
 saying, "I don't separate from my people in the hour of 
 danger." He remained on land, and when he had to move for- 
 ward he fainted t-wice. When he came to himself he was 
 amongst the last to leave the camp, got himself helped on to 
 the back of a little Arab horse covered with silken housings, 
 and marched at a slow pace with the rear-guard, having be- 
 side him Geoffrey de Sargines, who watched over him, ' ' and 
 protected me against the Saracens," said Louis himself toJoin- 
 ville, " as a good servant protects his lord's tankard against the 
 flies." 
 
 Neither the king's courage nor his servant's devotion were 
 enough to ensure success even to the retreat. At four leagues' 
 distance from the camp it had just left, the rear-guard of the 
 crusaders, harassed by clouds of Saracens, was obliged to halt. 
 Louis could no longer keep on his horse. " He was put up at 
 a house," says Joinville, " and laid almost dead, upon the lap 
 of a tradeswoman from Paris ; and it was beUeved that he would 
 not last tiU evening." With his consent, one of his lieges 
 entered into parley with one of the Mussubnan chiefs; a truce 
 was about to be concluded, and the Mussulman was taking off 
 his ring from his finger as a pledge that he would observe it. 
 "But during this," says Joinville, "there took place a great 
 mishap. A traitor of a sergeant, whose name was Marcel, be- 
 gan calling to our people, ' Sirs knights, surrender, for such is 
 the king's command: cause not the king's death.' All thought 
 that it was the king's command ; and they gave up their swords 
 to the Saracens." Being forthwith declared prisonei-s, the king
 
 370 BISTORT OF FRANCE. [CH. XVtt 
 
 and all the rear-guard were removed to Mansourah ; the king 
 by boat ; and his two brothers, the Counts of Anjou and Poi- 
 tiers, and all the other crusaders, drawn up in a body and 
 shackled, followed on foot on the river-bank. The advance- 
 guard and all the rest of the anny soon met the same fate. 
 
 Ten thousand prisoners — this was all that remained of the 
 crusade that had started eighteen months before from Aigues- 
 Mortes. Nevertheless the lofty bearing and the piety of the 
 king still inspired the Mussulmans with great respect. A 
 negotiation was opened between him and the Sultan Malek- 
 Moaddam, who, having previously freed Mm from his chains, 
 had him treated with a certain magnificence. As the price of 
 a truce and of his hberty Louis received a demand for the im- 
 mediate surrender of Damietta, a heavy ransom, and the 
 restitution of several places which the Cliristians still held in 
 Palestine. "I cannot dispose of those places," said Louis, 
 " for they do not belong to me; the princes and the Christian 
 orders, in whose hands they are, can alone keep or surrender 
 them." The sultan, in anger, threatened to have the king put 
 to the torture or sent to the Grand Khalif of Bagdad, who 
 would detain him in prison for the rest of his days. ' ' I am 
 your prisoner," said Louis, "you can do with me what you 
 will." "You call yourself our prisoner," said the Mussulman 
 negotiators, "and so, we believe, you are; but you treat us as 
 if you had us in prison." The sultan perceived that he had to 
 do with an indomitable spirit ; and he did not insist any longer 
 upon more than the surrender of Damietta and on a, ransom of 
 500,000 livres (that is, about 10,1.32,000 francs, or 40."), 280?., of 
 modern money, according to M. de WaiUy, supposing, as is 
 probable, that livres of Tours are meant). ''I will pay will- 
 ingly 500,000 livres for the deliverance of my people," said 
 Louis, " and I will give up Damietta for the deliverance of my 
 own person, for I am not a man who ought to be bought and 
 sold for money." " By my faith," said the sultan, " the Frank 
 is liberal not to have haggled about so large a sum. Go tell him 
 that I will give him 100,000 livres to help towards paying the 
 ransom," The negotiation was concluded on this basis; and 
 victors and vanquished quitted Mansourah and arrived, partly 
 by land and partly by the Nile, within a few leagues of Damietta, 
 the surrender of which was fixed for the 7th of ^lay. But five 
 days previously a tragic event took place. Several emirs of the 
 Mamelukes suddenly entered Louis's tent. They had just slain 
 the Sultan Malek-3Ioaddam against whom they had for some
 
 CH. xvn.] THE CRUSADES, THEIR DECLINE AND END. 371 
 
 time been conspiring, " Fear naught, sir," said they to the 
 king, "this was to be; do what concerns you in respect of the 
 stipulated conditions, and you shall be free." Of these e mir s 
 one, who had slain the sultan with his own hand, asked the 
 king brusquely, " What wilt thou give me? I have slain tliine 
 enemy who would have put thee to death had he lived;" and 
 he asked to be made knight. Louis answered not a word. 
 Some of the crusaders present urged him to satisfy the desire 
 of the emir who had in his power the decision of their fate. 
 "I will never confer knighthood on an infidel," said Louis, 
 "let the emir tui-n Christian; I will take him away to France, 
 enrich him, and make him knight." It is said that, in their 
 admiration for this piety and this indomitable firmness, the 
 emirs had at one time a notion of taking Louis himself for sul- 
 tan in the place of him whom they had just slain ; and this re- 
 port was probably not altogether devoid of foundation, for, 
 some time afterwards, in the intimacy of the conversations 
 between them, Louis one day said to Joinville, ' ' Think you 
 that I would have taken the kingdom of Babylon, if they had 
 offered it to me?" "Whereupon I told him," adds Joinville, 
 "that he would have done a mad act, seeing that they had 
 plain theii- lord ; and he said to me that of a truth he would 
 not have refused." However that may be, the conditions 
 agi'eed upon with the late Sultan Malek-Moaddam were carried 
 out ; on the 7th of ]\Iay, 1250, Geoffrey de Sargines gave up to 
 the emii*s the keys of Damietta ; and the Mussulmans entered 
 in tumultuously. The king was waiting aboard his ship for the 
 payment which his people were to make for the release of liis 
 brother the Count of Poitiers; and, when he saw approaching 
 a bark on which he recognized his brother, ' ' Light up ! light 
 up !" he cried instantly to liis sailors ; which was the signal 
 agreed upon for setting out. And leaving forthwith the coast 
 of Egypt, the fleet which bore the remains of the Chi'istian 
 army made sail for the shores of Palestine. 
 
 The king, having arrived at St. Jean d'Acre on the 14th of 
 May, 1250. accepted, without shrinking, the trial imposed upon 
 him by his unfortunate situation. He saw his forces consider- 
 ably reduced ; and the majority of the crusaders left to him, 
 even his brothers themselves, did not hide their ardent desire 
 to return to France. He had that virtue, so rare amongst 
 kings, of taking into consideration the wishes of his conu-ades. 
 and of desiring their free assent to the burden he asked them 
 to bear with him. He assembled the chief of them, and put
 
 372 HISTORY OF FRANCE. [CH. xvit 
 
 the question plainly before them. "The queen, my mother," 
 he said, "biddeth me and prayeth me to get me hence to 
 France, for that my kingdom hath neither peace nor truce 
 with the King of England, The folk here tell me that, if I get 
 me hence, this land is lost, for none of those that be there will 
 dare to abide in it. I pray you, therefore, to give it thought, 
 for it is a grave matter, and I grant you nine days for to an- 
 swer me whatever shall seem to you good." Eight days after, 
 they returned ; and Guy de Mauvoisin, speaking in their name, 
 said to the king : ' ' Sir, your brothers and the rich men who be 
 here have had regard unto your condition, and they see that 
 you cannot remain in tliis country to your own and your king- 
 dom's honor, for of all the knights who came in yom* train, 
 and of whom you led into Cyprus 2800, there remain not 100 
 in this city. Wherefore they do counsel you, sir, to get you 
 hence to France and to provide troops and money wherewith 
 you may return speedily to this country to take vengeance on 
 these enemies of God who have kept you in prison." Louis, 
 without any discussion, interrogated all present, one after an- 
 other, and all, even the pope's legate, agreed with Guy de Mau- 
 voisin. " I was seated just fourteenth, facing the legate," says 
 Joinville, " and when he asked me how it seemed to me, I an- 
 swered him that if the king could hold out so far as to keep the 
 field for a year, he would do himself great honor if he re- 
 mained." Only two knights, William de Beaumont and Sire 
 de Chatenay, had the courage to support the opinion of Join- 
 ville, which was bolder for the time being, but not less inde- 
 cisive in respect of the immediate future than the contrary 
 opinion. " I have heard you out, sirs," said the king: " and I 
 will answer you, within eight days from this time, touching 
 that which it shall please me to do." "Next Siuiday," says 
 Joinville, "we came again, all of us, before the king. 'Sirs,' 
 said he, ' I thank very much all those who have counselled me 
 to get me gone to France, and likewise those who have coun- 
 selled me to bide. But I have bethought me that, if I bide, I 
 see no danger lest my kingdom of France be lost, for the queen, 
 my mother, hath a many folk to defend it. I have noted like 
 wise that the barons of this land do say that, if I go hence, the 
 kingdom of Jerusalem is lost. At no price wiU I suffer to be 
 lost the kingdom of Jerusalem, which I came to guard and 
 conquer. My resolve, then, is that I bide, for the present. So 
 I say unto you, ye rich men who are here, and to all other 
 knights who shall have a mind to bide with me, come and
 
 CH. xvii.] TEE CRUSADES, THEIR DECLINE AND END. 373 
 
 speak boldly unto me, and I will give ye so much that it shall 
 not be my fault if ye have no mind to bide. ' " 
 
 Thus none, save Louis himself, dared go to the root of the 
 question. The most discreet advised him to depart, only for 
 the purpose of coming back, and recommencing what had 
 been so unsuccessful ; and the boldest only urged him to re- 
 main a year longer. None took the risk of saying, even after 
 so many mighty but vain experiments, that the enterprise wag 
 chimerical, and must be given up. Louis alone was, in word 
 and deed, perfectly true to his own absorbing idea of recover- 
 ing the Holy Sepulchre from the Mussiilmans and re-estab- 
 lishing the kingdom of Jerusalem. His was one of those pure 
 and majestic souls, which are almost alien to the world in 
 which they live, and in which disinterested passion is so 
 strong that it puts judgment to silence, extinguishes all fear, 
 and keeps up hope to infinity. The king's two brothers em- 
 barked with a numerous retinue. How many crusaders, 
 knights or men-at-arms, remained with Louis, there is nothing 
 to show ; but they were, assuredly, far from sufficient for the 
 attainment of the twofold end he had in view, and even for 
 ensuring less grand results, such as the deliverance of the 
 crusaders still remaining prisoners in the hands of the Mussul- 
 mans, and any thing like an effectual protection for the Chris- 
 tians settled in Palestine and Syria. 
 
 Twice Louis believed he was on the point of accomplishing 
 his desire. Towai'ds the end of 1250, and again, in 1252, the 
 Sultan of Aleppo and Damascvis, and the Emirs of Egypt, being 
 engaged in a violent struggle, made offers to him, by turns, of 
 restoring the kingdom of Jerusalem if he would form an active 
 alliance with one or the other party against its enemies. Louis 
 sought means of accepting either of these offers without neg- 
 lecting his previous engagements, and without compromising 
 the fate of the Christians still prisoners in Egypt, or hving in 
 the territories of Aleppo and Damascus ; but, during the nego- 
 tiations entered upon with a view to this end, the Mussulmans 
 of Syria and Egypt suspended their differences, and made com- 
 mon cause against the renmants of the Christian crusaders ; 
 and all hope of re-entering Jerusalem by these means vanished 
 away. Another time, the Sultan of Damascus, touched by 
 Louis's pious perseverance, had word sent to him that he, if he 
 wished, could go on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem and should find 
 himseK in perfect safety. " The king, " says Joinville, ' ' held a 
 great council ; and none urged him to go. It was shown imto
 
 374 HISTORY OF FRANCE. [ch. xtil 
 
 him that if he, who was the greatest king in Christendom, per* 
 formed his pilgrimage without deUvering the Holy City from 
 the enemies of God, all the other kings and other pilgrims who 
 came after him would hold themselves content with doing just 
 as much, and would trouble themselves no more about the de- 
 liverance of Jerusalem, " He was reminded of the example set 
 by Richard Coeur de Lion, who, sixty years before, had refused 
 to cast even a look upon Jerusalem, when he was unable to de- 
 liver her from her enemies. Louis, just as Richard had, refused 
 the incomplete satisfaction which had been offered him, and 
 for nearly four years, spent by him on the coasts of Palestine 
 and Syria since his departure from Damietta, from 1250 to 
 1254, he expended, in small works of piety, sympathy, protec- 
 tion, and care for the future of the Chi^istian populations in Asia, 
 his time, his strength, his pecuniary resources, and the ardor 
 of a soul which could not remain idly abandoned to sorrowing 
 over great desires unsatisfied. 
 
 An unexpected event occurred and brought about all at once 
 a change in his position and his plans. At the commencement 
 of the year 1253, at Sidon, the ramparts of which he was en- 
 gaged in repairing, he heard that his mother, Queen Blanche, 
 had died at Paris on the 27th of November, 1252. " He made so 
 great mourning thereat," says Joinville, "that for two days 
 no speech could be gotten of him. After that he sent a cham- 
 ber-man for to fetch me. When I came before him, in his 
 chamber where he was alone, so soon as he got sight of me, he 
 stretched forth his arms, and said to me, 'Oh, seneschal, I 
 have lost my mother ! ' " It was a great loss both for the son 
 and for the king. Imperious, exacting, jealous, and often dis 
 agreeable in private life and in the bosom of her family, 
 Blanche was, nevertheless, according to all contemporary 
 authority, even the least favorable to her, "the most dis- 
 creet woman of her time, with a mind singularly quick and 
 penetrating, and with a man's heart to leaven her woman's 
 sex and ideas ; personally magnanimous, of indomitable energy, 
 sovereign mistress in all the affairs of her age, guardian an.d 
 protectress of France, worthy of comparison with Semiramis, 
 the most eminent of her sex." From the time of Louis's de- 
 parture on the crusade as well as during his minority she had 
 given him constant proofs of a devotion as intelligent as it was 
 impassioned, as useful as it was masterful. All letters from 
 France demanded the speedy return of the king. The Christians 
 of Syria were themselves of the same opinion : the king, they
 
 CH. XTii.] THE CRUSADES, THEIR DECLINE AND END. 375 
 
 said, has done for us, here, all he could do ; he will serve us far 
 better by sending us strong reinforcements from France. Louis 
 embarked at St. Jean d'Acre, on the 24th of April, 1254, carry- 
 ing away with him, on thirteen vessels, large and small. Queen 
 Marguerite, his children, his personal retinue, and his own 
 more immediate men-at-arms, and leaving the Christians of 
 Syria, for their protection in his name, a hundred knights 
 under the orders of Geoffrey de Sargines, that comrade of his 
 in whose bravery and pious fealty he had the most entire con- 
 fidence. After two months and a half at sea, the king and his 
 fleet arrived, on the 8th of July, 1254, off the port of Hyeres, 
 which at that time belonged to the Empire and not to France. 
 For two days Louis refused to land at this point ; for his heart 
 was set upon not putting his foot upon land again save on the 
 soU of his own kingdom, at Aigues-Mortes, whence he had, six 
 years before, set out. At last he yielded to the entreaties of 
 the queen and those who were about him, landed at Hyeres, 
 passed slowly through France, and made his solemn entry into 
 Paris on the 7th of September, 1254. "The burgesses and all 
 those who were in the city were there to meet him, clad and 
 bedecked in all their best according to their condition. If the 
 other towns had received him with great joy, Paris evinced 
 even more than any other. For several days there were bon- 
 fires, dances, and other public rejoicings, which ended sooner 
 than the people wished ; for the king, who was pained to see 
 the expense, the dances, and the vanities indulged in, went off 
 to the wood of Vincennes to put a stop to them." 
 
 So soon as he had resumed the government of his kingdom, 
 after six years' absence and adventures heroic indeed but all in 
 vain for the cause of Christendom, those of his counsellors and 
 servants who lived most closely with him and knew him best 
 were struck at the same time with what he had remained and 
 what he had become during this long and cruel trial. " When 
 the king had happily returned to France, how piously he bare 
 himself towards God, how justly towards his subjects, how 
 compassionately towards the afflicted, and how humbly in his 
 own respect, and with what zeal he labored to make progress, 
 according to his power, in every virtue, all this can be attested 
 by persons who carefully watched his manner of life, and who 
 laiew the spotlessness of his conscience. It is the opinion of 
 the most clear-sighted and the wisest that, in proportion as 
 gold is more precious than silver, so the manner of living and 
 acting which the king brought back from his pilgrimage in the
 
 376 BISTORT OF FRANCE. [ch. xvrr. 
 
 Holy Land was holy ana new, and superior to his former be- 
 havior, albeit, even in his youth, he had ever been good and 
 guileless, and worthy of high esteem." These are the words 
 •written about St. Louis by his confessor Geoffrey de Beauheu, 
 a chronicler, cm"t and simple even to dryness, but at the same 
 time well informed. An attempt will be made presently to 
 give a fair idea of the character of St. Louis's government dur 
 ing the lasi fifteen years of his reign, and of the place he fills 
 in the history of the kingship and of pohtics in France ; but 
 just now it is only with the part he played in the crusades and 
 with what became of them in his hands that we have to occupy 
 our attention. For seven years after his return to France, from 
 1254 to 1261, Louis seemed to think no more about them, and 
 there is nothing to show that he spoke of them even to his 
 most intimate confidants ; but, in spite of liis apparent calm- 
 ness, he was living, so far as they were concerned, in a con- 
 tinual ferment of imagination and internal fever, ever flatter- 
 ing himself that some favorable circumstance would call him 
 back to his interrupted work. And he had reason to beheve 
 that circumstances were responsive to his wishes. The Chris- 
 tians of Palestine and Syria were a prey to perils and evils 
 which became more pressing every day ; the cross was being 
 humbled at one time before the Tartars of Tchingis-Khan, at 
 another before the Mussulmans of Egypt; Pope Urban was 
 calling upon the King of France; and Geoffrey de Sargines, the 
 heroic representative whom Louis had left in St. Jean d'Acre, 
 at the head of a small garrison, was writing to him that ruin 
 was imminent and speedy succor indispensable to prevent it. 
 In 1261, Louis held, at Paris, a parliament at which, without 
 any talk of a new crusade, measures were taken which re- 
 vealed an idea of it : there were decrees for fasts and prayers 
 on behalf of the Christians of the East and for frequent and 
 earnest military drill. In 1263, the crusade was openly 
 preached ; taxes were levied, even on the clergy, for the pur- 
 pose of contributing towards it ; and princes and barons bound 
 themselves to take part in it. Louis was all approval and en- 
 couragement, without declaring his own intention. In 1267, a 
 parliament was convoked at Paris, The king, at first, con- 
 versed discreetly with some of his barons about the new plan 
 of crusade ; and then, suddenly, having had the precious relics 
 deposited in the Holy Chapel set before the eyes of the assem- 
 bly, he opened the session by ardently exhorting those present 
 "to avenge the insult which had so long been offered to the
 
 CH. XVII.] THE CRUSADES, THEIR DECLINE AND END. 377 
 
 Saviour in the Holy Land and to recover the Christian 
 heritage possessed, for our sins, by the infidels." Next year, 
 on the 9th of February, 1268, at a new parliament assembled 
 at Paris, the king took an oath to start in the month of 
 May, 1270. 
 
 Great was the surprise, and the disquietude was even greater 
 than the surprise. The kingdom was enjoying abroad a peace 
 and at home a tranquillity and prosperity for a long time past 
 without example; feudal quarrels were becoming more rare 
 and terminating more quickly; and the king possessed the 
 confidence and the respect of the whole population. Why com- 
 promise such advantages by such an enterprise, so distant, so 
 costly, and so doubtful of success? Whether from good sense 
 or from displeasure at the burdens imposed upon them, many 
 ecclesiastics showed symptoms of opposition, and Pope Clement 
 rv. gave the king nothing but ambiguous and very reserved 
 counsel. When he learnt that Louis was taking with him on 
 the crusade three of his sons, aged respectively twenty -two, 
 eighteen, and seventeen, he could not refrain from writing to 
 the Cardinal of St. Cecile: " It doth not strike us as an act of 
 well-balanced judgment to impose the taking of the cross upon 
 so many of the king's sons, and especially the eldest; and, 
 albeit we have heard reasons to the contrary, either we be 
 much mistaken or they are utterly devoid of reason. " Even 
 the king's personal condition was matter for grave anxiety. 
 His health was very much enfeebled ; and several of his most 
 intimate and most far-seeing advisers were openly opposed to 
 his design. He vehemently lu-ged JoinviUe to take the cross 
 again with him ; but JoinviUe refused downright. ' ' I thought, " 
 said he, "that they aU committed a mortal sin to advise him 
 the voyage, because the whole kingdom was in fair peace at 
 home and with all neighbors, and. so soon as he departed, the 
 state of the kingdom did naught but worsen. They also com- 
 mitted a great sin to advise him the voyage in the gi-eat state 
 of weakness in which his body was, for he could not bear to 
 go by chariot or to ride ; he was so weak that he suffered me 
 to carry him in my arms from the hotel of the Coimt of 
 Auxerre, the place where I took leave of him, to the Corde- 
 liers. And, nevertheless, weak as he was, had he remained 
 in France, he might have lived yet a while and wTOught much 
 good." 
 
 All objections, all warnings, all anxieties came to nothing in 
 the face of Louis's fixed idea and pious passion. He started
 
 378 HISTORY OF FRANCE. [cH. xvn. 
 
 from Paris on the 16th of March, 1270, a sick man almost 
 ahready, but with soul content, and probably the only one 
 without misgiving in the midst of all his comrades. It was 
 once more at Aigues-Mortes that he went to embark. All was 
 as yet dark and undecided as to the plan of the expedition. 
 Was Egypt, or Palestine, or Constantinople, or Timis, to be 
 the first point of attack? Negotiations, touching this subject, 
 had been opened with the Venetians and the Genoese without 
 arriving at any conclusion or certainty. Steps were taken at 
 hap-hazard with full trust in Providence and utter forgetful- 
 ness that Providence does not absolve men from foresight. On 
 arriving at Aigues-Mortes about the middle of May, Louis 
 found nothing organized, nothing in readiuess, neither crusad- 
 ers nor vessels; everything was done slowly, in completely, 
 and with the greatest irregularity. At last, on the 2nd of 
 July, 1270, he set sail without any one's knowing and without 
 the king's telling any one whither they were going. It was 
 only in Sardinia, after four days' halt at CagUari, that Louis 
 announced to the chiefs of the crusade, assembled aboard his 
 ship the Mountjoy, that he was making for Tunis and that their 
 Christian work would conmience there. The King of Tunis (as 
 he was then called), Mohammed Mostanser, had for some time 
 been talking of his desire to become a Christian, if he could be 
 efficiently protected against the seditions of Ms subjects. Louis 
 welcomed with transport the prospect of Mussidman conver- 
 sions. " Ahl" he cried, 'if I could only see myself the gossip 
 and sponsor of so great a godson !" 
 
 But on the 17th of July, when the fleet arrived before Tunis, 
 the admiral, Florent de Varennes, probably without the king's 
 orders and with that want of reflection which was conspicuous 
 at each step of the enterprise, immediately took possession of 
 the harbor and of some Tunisian vessels as prize, and sent 
 word to the king " that he had only to support him and that 
 the disembarkation of the troops might be effected ia perfect 
 safety." Thus war was commenced at the very first moment 
 against the Mussulman prince whom there had been a promise 
 of seeing before long a Christian. 
 
 At the end of a fortnight, after some fights between the 
 Tunisians and the crusaders, so much political and military 
 blindness produced its natural consequences. The reinforce- 
 ments promised to Louis, by his brother Charles of Anjou, 
 king of SicUy, had not arrived ; provisions were falling short ; 
 and the heats of an African summer were working havoc
 
 CH. xvir] THE CRUSADER TUEIR DECLINE AND END. 379 
 
 amongst the army with such rapidity that before long there 
 was no time to bury the dead, but they were cast pell-mell 
 into the ditch which surrounded the camp, and the air was 
 tainted thereby. On the 3rd of August Louis was attacked by 
 the epidemic fever, and obliged to keep his bed in his tent. 
 He asked news of his son John Tristan, count of Nevers, who 
 had fallen ill before him, and whose recent death, aboard the 
 vessel to which he had been removed in hopes that the sea air 
 might be beneficial, had been carefully concealed from him. 
 The count, as well as the Princess Isabel, married to Theobald 
 the Young, king of Navarre, was a favorite child of Louis, who, 
 on hearing of his loss, folded his hands and sought in silence 
 and prayer some assuagement of his grief. His malady gi-ew 
 worse; and, having sent for his successor, Prince Philip, 
 (PhiUp the Bold), he took from his hour-book some instructions 
 which he had written out for him, with his own hand and in 
 French, and delivered them to him, bidding liim to observe 
 them scrupulously. He gave likewise to his daughter Isabel, 
 who was weeping at the foot of his bed, and to his son-in-law 
 the King of Navarre, some writings which had been intended 
 for them, and he further charged Isabel to deliver another to 
 her youngest sister Agnes, affianced to the Duke of Burgundy. 
 "Dearest daughter," said he, "think weU hereon: full many 
 folk have fallen asleep with wild thoughts of sin, and in the 
 morning their place hath not known them." Just after he had 
 finished satisfying his paternal solicitude, it was announced to 
 him, on the 24th of August, that envoys from the Emperor 
 Michael Palseologus had landed at Cape Carthage, with orders 
 to demand his intervention with his brother Charles, king of 
 Sicily, to deter him from making war on the but lately re-es- 
 tabhshed Greek empire. Louis summoned all his strength to 
 receive them in his tent, in the presence of certain of his coun- 
 sellors, who were uneasy at the fatigue he was imposing upon 
 himself. "I promise you, if I live," said he to the envoys, " to 
 CO operate, so far as I may be able, in what your master de- 
 mands of me ; meanwhile. I exhort you to have patience, and 
 be of good courage." This was his last political act, and his 
 last concern with the affairs of the world ; henceforth he was 
 occupied only with pious effusions which had a bearing at one 
 time on his hopes for his soid, at another on those Christian 
 interests which had been so dear to him all his life. He kept 
 repeating his customary orisons in a low voice; and he was 
 heard murmuring these broken words: "Fair Sir God, have
 
 380 HI STOUT OF FRANCE. [CH xvm. 
 
 mercy on this people that bideth here, and bring them back to 
 their own land! Let them not fall into the hands of their 
 enemies, and let them not be constrained to deny Thy name !" 
 And at the same time that he thus expressed his sad reflections 
 upon the situation m which he was- leaving his army and his 
 people, he cried from time to time, as he raised himself on his 
 bed, "Jerusalem! Jerusalem! We will go up to Jerusalem !" 
 During the night of the 24tb-25th of ^ ugust he ceased to speak, 
 all the time continuing to show that lie was in full possession 
 of his senses; he insisted upon receiving extreme unction out 
 of bed, and lying upon a coarse s tck-clo th covered with cinders, 
 with the cross before him ; and on Monday, the 25th of August, 
 1270, at 3 p.m., he departed in peace, whilst uttering these 
 his last words: "Father, after the example of the Divine 
 Master, into Thy hands I commend my spirit !" 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 THE KINGSHIP IN FRANCE. 
 
 That the kingship occupied an important place and played 
 an important part in the history of France is an evident and 
 universally recognized fact. But to what causes this fact was 
 due and what particular characteristics gave the kingship in 
 France that preponderating influence which, in weal and in 
 woe, it exercised over the fortunes of the coimtry, is a question 
 which has been less closely examined and which still remains 
 vague and obscure. This question it is which we would now 
 shed light upon and detennine with some approach to preci- 
 sion. We cannot properly comprehend and justly appreciate 
 a great historical force until we have seen it issuing from its 
 primary source and followed it in its various developments. 
 
 At the first glance, two facts strike us in the history of the 
 kingship in France, It was in France that it adopted soonest 
 and most persistently maintained its fundamental principle, 
 heredity. In the other monarchical states of Europe— in Eng- 
 land, in German}', in Spain, and in Italy — divers principles, at 
 one time election, and at another right of conquest, have been 
 mingled with or substituted for the heredity of the throne; 
 different dynasties have reigned; and England has had her
 
 CH. XVIII. J THM! KTJVGSHIP IN FRANCE. 381 
 
 Saxon, Danish, and Norman kings, her Plantagenets, her Tu- 
 dors, her Stuarts, her Nassaus, her Brunswicks. In Germany, 
 and up to the eighteenth century, the Empire, the sole central 
 dignity, was elective and transferable. Spain was for a long 
 while parcelled out into several distinct kingdoms, and since 
 she attained territorial unity the houses of Austria and Bourbon 
 have both occupied her throne. The monarchy and the republic 
 for many a year disputed and divided Italy. Only in France 
 was there, at any time during eight centuries, but a single king 
 and a single line of kings. Unity and heredity, those two essen- 
 tial princi]5les of monarchy, have been the invariable charac- 
 teristics of the kingship in France. 
 
 A second fact, less apparent and less remarkable, but, never- 
 theless, not without importance or without effect upon the his- 
 tory of the kingship in France, is the extreme variety of char- 
 acter, of faculties, of intellectual and moral bent, of policy and 
 personal conduct amongst the French kings. In the long roll 
 of thirty-three kings who reigned in France from Hugh Capet 
 to Louis XVI. there were kings wise and kings foolish, kings 
 able and kings incapable, kings rash and kings slothful, kings 
 earnest and kings fi'ivolous, kings saintly and kings licentious, 
 kings good and sympathetic towards their people, kings egotis- 
 tical and concerned solely about themselves, kings lovable and 
 beloved, kings sombre and dreaded or detested. As we go for- 
 ward and encounter them on our way, all these kingly charac- 
 ters will be seen appearing and acting in all their diversity and 
 all their incoherence. Absolute monarchical power in France 
 was, almost in every successive reign, singularly modified, be- 
 ing at one time aggravated and at another alleviated according 
 to the ideas, sentiments, morals, and spontaneous instincts of 
 the monarchs. Nowhere else, throughout the great European 
 monarchies, has the difference between kingly personages ex- 
 ercised so much influence on government and national condi- 
 tion. In that country the free action of individuals has filled 
 a prominent place and taken a prominent part in the course of 
 events. 
 
 It has been shown how insignificant and inert, as sovereigns, 
 were the first three successors of Hugh Capet. The goodness 
 to his people displayed by King Eobert was the only kingly 
 trait which, during that period, deserved to leave a trace in 
 history. The kingship appeared once more with the attributes 
 of energy and efficiency on the accession of Louis VI., son of 
 Philip I. He was brought up in the monastery of St. Denis,
 
 382 HISTORY OF FRANCE. [cH. xvin 
 
 which at that time had for its superior a man of judgment, the 
 Abbot Adam; and he then gave evidence of tendencies and re- 
 ceived his training under influences worthy of the position 
 which awaited him. He was handsome, tail, strong and alert, 
 determined and yet affable. He had more taste for military ex- 
 ercises than for the amusements of childhood and the pleasures 
 of youth. He was at that time called Louis the Wide-mcake. 
 He had the good fortune to find in the Monastery of St. Denis 
 a fellow-student capable of becoming a king's counsellor. 
 Suger, a child bom at St. Denis, of obscure parentage, and 
 three or four years younger than Prince Louis had been 
 brought up for charity's sake in the abbey, and the Abbot 
 Adam, who had perceived his natiu^ abihties, had taken pains 
 to develop them. A bond of esteem and mutual friendship 
 was formed between the two young people, both of whom were 
 disposed to earnest thought and earnest living; and when, in 
 1108, Louis the Wide-atcaJce ascended the throne, the monk 
 Suger became his adviser whilst remaining his friend. 
 
 A very small kingdom was at that time the domain belong- 
 ing properly and directly to the King o^ France. Ile-de-France, 
 properly so called, and a part of Orleanness (I'Orleanais), 
 pretty nearly the five departments of the Seine, Seine-et-Oise, 
 Seine-et-Marne, Oise and Loiret, besides, through recent acqui- 
 sition, French Alexin (which bordered on the He-de-France and 
 had for its chief place Pontoise, being separated by the Httle 
 Eiver Epte from Nonnan Vexin, of which Rouen was the capi- 
 tal;, half the coimtship of Sens and the countsliip of Bourges — 
 such was the whole of its extent. But this limited State was 
 as liable to agitation, and often as troublous and as toilsome to 
 govern as the very greatest of modern States. It was f. '' of 
 petty lords, almost sovereigns in their own estates, and suffi- 
 ciently strong to sti-uggle against their kingly suzerain, who 
 had, besides, all around his domains, several neighbors more 
 powerful than himself in the extent and population of their 
 States. But lord and peasant, layman and ecclesiastic, castle 
 and country and the churches of France were not long dis- 
 covering that, if the kingdom was small, it had verily a king. 
 Louis did not direct to a distance from home liis ambition and 
 his efforts; it was within his own dominion, to check the vio- 
 lence of the strong against the weak, to put a stop to the quar- 
 rels of the strong amongst themselves, to make an end, in 
 France at least, of unrighteousness and devastation, and to es- 
 tabhsh there some sort of order and some sort of justice, thafe
 
 CH. xvm.] THE KINGRTTTP IN FBAKCE. 383 
 
 he displayed his energy and his perseverance. " He was ani- 
 mated," says Suger, "by a strong sense of equity; to air his 
 courage was his delight; he scorned inaction; he opened his 
 eyes to see the way of discretion ; he broke his rest and was 
 unwearied in his solicitude." Suger has recounted in detail 
 sixteen of the numerous expeditions which Louis undertook 
 into the interior to accomplish his work of repression or of 
 exemplary chastisement. Bouchard, lord of Montmorency, 
 Matthew de Beaumont, Dreux de Mouchy-le-Chatel, Ebble de 
 Roussi, Leon de Meun, Thomas de Marie, Hugh de Crecy, "Wil- 
 liam de la Eoche-Guyon, Hugh du Puiset, and Amaury de 
 Montfort learned, to their cost, that the king was not to be 
 braved with impunity. "Bouchard, on taking up arms one 
 day against him, refused to accept his sword from the hands 
 of one of his people who offered it to liim, and said by way of 
 boast to the countess his wife, ' Noble coiuitess, give thou joy- 
 ously this ghttering sword to the count thy spouse : he who 
 taketh it from thee as count will bring it back to thee as king.' " 
 In this very campaign, Bouchard, " by his death," says Suger, 
 ' ' restored peace to the kingdom, and took away himself and 
 his war to the bottomless pit of hell." Hugh du Puiset had 
 frequently broken his oaths of peace and recommenced his 
 devastations and revolts; and Louis resiuned his course of 
 him ting him down, "destroyed the castle of Puiset, threw 
 down the walls, dug up the wells, and razed it completely to 
 the ground, as a place devoted to the curse of heaven." 
 Thomas de Marie, lord of Couci, had been committing cruel 
 ravages upon the town and church of Laon, lands and inhabi- 
 tants ; when ' ' Louis, summoned by their complaints, repaired 
 to Laon, and there, on the advice of the bishops and grandees, 
 and especially of Eaoul, the illustrious Count of Vermandois, 
 the most powerful, after the king, of the lords in this part of 
 the country, he determined to go and attack the castle of 
 Ck)uci, and so went back to his own camp. The people whom 
 he had sent to explore the spot reported that the approach to 
 the castle was very difficult and in truth impossible. JIany 
 urged the king to change Ms piu'pose in the matter; but he 
 cried, ' Nay, what we resolved on at Laon stands : I would not 
 hold back therefrom, though it were to save my life. The 
 king's majesty would be vilified, if I were to fly before this 
 scoundrel." Forthwith, in spite of his corpulence and with 
 admirable ardor, he pushed on with his troops through ravines 
 
 and roads encumbered with forests Thomas, made 
 
 (1?) HF Vol. 1
 
 384 HISTORY OF FRANCE, [CH. XTin. 
 
 prisoner and mortally -wounded, was brought to King Louis 
 and by his order removed to Laon, to the almost universal 
 satisfaction of his own folk and ours. Next day, his lands 
 were sold for the benefit of the public treasury, his ponds were 
 broken up, and King Loms, sparing the country because he 
 had the lord of it at his disposal, took the road back to Laon, 
 and afterwards returned in triumph to Paris. " 
 
 Sometimes, when the people and their habitual protectors, 
 the bishops, invoked his aid, Louis would carry his arms 
 beyond his own dominions, by sole right of justice and king- 
 Bhip. "It is known," says Suger, "that kings have long 
 hands. In 1121, the Bishop of Clermont-Ferrand made a com- 
 plaint to the king against William VI., count of Auvergne, 
 who had taken possession of the town, and even of the 
 episcopal church, and was exercising therein "unbridled 
 tyranny. The king, who never lost a moment when there was 
 a question of helping the Church, took up with pleasure and 
 solemnity what was, imder these circumstances, the cause of 
 God ; and, having been iinable either by word of mouth or by 
 letters sealed with the seal of the king's majesty, to bring 
 back the tyrant to his duty, he assembled his troops and led 
 into revolted Auvergne a numerous army of Frenchmen. 
 He had now become exceeding fat, and could scarce support 
 the heavy mass of his body. Any one else, however humble, 
 would have had neither the will nor the power to ride a-horse- 
 back ; but he, against the advice of all his friends, listened only 
 to the voice of courage, braved the fiery suns of June and 
 August, which were the dread of the youngest knights, and 
 made a scoif of those who could not bear the heat, although 
 many a time, during the passage of narrow and diflicult 
 swampy places, he was constrained to get himself held on by 
 those about him." After an obstinate struggle, and at the 
 intervention of William VII., duke of Aquitaine, the count of 
 Auvergne's suzerain, "Louis fixed a special day for regulating 
 and deciding, in parliament, at Orleans, and in the duke's 
 presence, between the bishop and the count, the points to 
 which the Auvergnats had hitherto refused to subscribe. 
 Then triumphantly leading back his army, he returned vic- 
 toriously to France." He had asserted his power and increased 
 his ascendancy without any pretension to territorial aggran- 
 dizement. 
 
 Into his relations with his two powerful neighbors, the King
 
 CH. XVIII.] TEE KINGSHIP !N FRANCE. 885 
 
 of England duke of Normandy, and the Emperor of Germany, 
 Louis the Fat introduced the same watchfulness, the same 
 firmness and, at need, the same warlike energy, whilst observ- 
 ing the same moderation and the same policy of holding aloof 
 from all turbulent or indiscreet ambition, adjusting his pre- 
 tensions to his power, and being more concerned to govern his 
 kingdom eflBciently than to add to it by conquest. Twice, in 
 1109 and in 1118, he had war in Normandy with Henry I., 
 king of England, and he therein was guilty of certain temerities 
 resulting in a reverse, which he hastened to repair during a 
 vigorous prosecution of the campaign; but, when once his 
 honor was satisfied, he showed a ready inclination for the peace 
 which the pope, Calixtus 11., in council at Rome, succeeded 
 in establishing between the two rivals. The war with the 
 Emperor of Germany, Henry V., in 1124, appeared, at the 
 first blush, a more serious matter. The emperor had raised 
 a numerous army of Lorrainers, Allemannians, Bavarians, 
 Suabians, and Saxons, and was threatening the very city of 
 Rheims with instant attack. Louis hastened to put himself in 
 position; he went and took solemnly, at the altar of St. Denis, 
 the banner of that patron of the kingdom, and flew with a 
 mere handful of men to confront the enemy, and parry the 
 first blow, calling on the whole of France to follow him. 
 France summoned the flower of her chivalry ; and when the 
 army had assembled from every quarter of the kingdom at 
 Rheims, there was seen, says Suger, "so gi*eat a host of 
 knights and men a-foot, that they might have been compared 
 to swarms of grasshoppers covering the face of the earth, not 
 only on the banks of the rivers, but on the mountains and 
 over the plains." This multitude was formed in three 
 divisions. The third division was composed of Orleanese, 
 Parisians, the people of Etampes, and those of St. Denis ; and 
 at their head was the king in person: " With them," said he, 
 *' I shall fight bravely and with good assurance; besides being 
 protected by the saint, my liege lord, I have here of my 
 countrymen those who nurtured me with peculiar affection, 
 and who, of a surety, will back me hving, or carry me off 
 dead and save my body." At news of this mighty host, and 
 the ardor with which they were animated, the Emperor, 
 Henry V., advanced no farther, and, before long, "marching, 
 under some pretext, towards other places, he preferred the 
 shame of retreating like a coward to the risk of exposing his
 
 386 EI8T0RT OF FRANCE. [ch. xvnii 
 
 empire and himself to certain destruction. After this victory, 
 which was more than as great as a triumph on the field of 
 battle, the French returned, every one, to their homes. " 
 
 The three elements which contributed to the formation and 
 character of the kingship in France, the German element, the 
 Roman element, and the Christian element appear in con- 
 junction in the reign of Louis the Fat. We have still the war- 
 rior-chief of a feudal society founded by conquest in him who, 
 in spite of his moderation and discretion, cried many a time, 
 says Suger, " What a pitiable state is this of ours to never 
 have knowledge and strength both together ! In my youth 
 had knowledge, and in my old age had strength been mine, I 
 might have conquered many kingdoms ;" and, probably, from 
 this exclamation of a king in the twelfth century came the 
 familiar proverb, "If youth but knew, and age could do!" 
 We see the maxims of the Roman empire and reminiscences of 
 Charlemagne ia Louis's habit of considering justice to emanate 
 from the king as tountain-head, and of believing in his right to 
 import it every where. And what conclusion of a reign could 
 be more Christian-like than his when, ' ' exhausted by the long 
 enfeeblement of his wasted body but disdaining to die ignobly 
 or impreparedly, he called about him pious men, bishops, 
 abbots, and many priests of holy Church; and then, scorning 
 all false shame, he demanded to make his confession devoutly 
 before them all, and to fortify himself against death by the 
 comfortable sacrament of the body and blood of Christ! 
 Whilst every thing is being arranged, the king on a sudden 
 rises, of himself, dresses himself, issues, fuUy clad, from his 
 chamber, to the wonderment of aU, advances to meet the body 
 of our Lord Jesus Christ, and prostrates himself in reverence. 
 Thereupon, in the presence of all, cleric and laic, he lays 
 aside his kingship, deposes himself from the government of 
 the state, confesses the sin of having ordered it ill, hands to 
 his son Louis the king's ring, and binds him to promise, on 
 oath, to protect the Chiu'ch of God, the poor and the orphan, 
 to respect the rights of every body, and to keep none prisoner 
 in his court, save such an one as should have actually trans- 
 gressed in the court itself. " 
 
 Tliis king, so well prepared for death, in his last days found 
 great cause for rejoicing as a father. William VII, , duke of 
 Aquitaine, had, at his death, entrusted to him the guardian- 
 ehip of his daughter Eleanor, heiress of all liis dominions, that is 
 to say, of Poitou, of Saintonge, of Gascony, and of the Basque
 
 CH. XVIII.] THE KIJUOSHIP IN FRANCE. 387 
 
 country, the most beautiful provinces of the south-west of 
 France from the lower Loire to tho Pyrenees. A marriage 
 between Eleanor and Louis the Young, already sharing his 
 father's throne, was soon concluded ; and a brilliant embassy, 
 composed of more than five hundred lords and noble knights, 
 to whom the king had added his intimate adviser, Suger, set 
 out for Aquitaine, where the ceremony was to take place. At 
 the moment of departure the king had them all assembled 
 about him, and, addressing himself to his son, said, "May the 
 strong hand of God Almighty, by whom kings reign, protect 
 thee, my dear son, both thee and thine ! If, by any mischance, 
 I were to lose thee, thee and those I send with thee, neither my 
 life nor my kingdom would thenceforth be aught to me. " The 
 marriage took place at Bordeaux, at the end of July, 1137, and, 
 on the eighth of August following, Louis the Young, on his 
 way back to Paris, was crowned at Poitiers as duke of Aqui- 
 taine. He there learned that the king his father had lately 
 died, on the 1st of August. Louis the Fat was far fi-om fore- 
 seeing the deplorable issues of the marriage which he regarded 
 as one of the blessings of his reign. 
 
 In spite of its long duration of forty-three years, the reign of 
 Louis VII. , called the Young, was a period barren of events and of 
 persons worthy of keeping a place in history. We have ah-eady 
 had the story of this king's unfortunate crusade from 1147 to 
 1149, the commencement at Antioch of his imbroglio with his 
 wife, Eleanor of Aquitaine, and the fatal divorce which, in 1152, 
 at the same time that it freed the king from a faithless queen, 
 entailed for France the loss of the bea' tiful provinces she had 
 brought him in dowry, and caused them to pass into the pos- 
 session of Henry II., king of England. Here was the only 
 event, under Louis the Young's reign, of any real importance, 
 in view of its long and bloody consequences for his country. 
 A petty war or a sullen strife between the Kings of France 
 and England, petty quarrels of Louis with some of the great 
 lords of his kingdom, certain rigorous measures against certain 
 districts in travail of local liberties, the first bubbhngs of that 
 religious fermentation which resulted before long, in the south 
 of France, in the crusade against the Albigensians — such were 
 the facts which went to make up with somewhat of insipidity 
 the annals of this reign. So long as Suger lived the kingship 
 preserved at home the wisdom which it had been accustomed 
 to display and abroad the respect it had acquired under Louis 
 the Fat ; but at the death of Sueer it went on languishing and
 
 388 HISTORY OF FRANCE. [ch. xviii. 
 
 declining without encountering any great obstacles. It was 
 reserved for Louis the Young's son, Pliilip Augustus, to open 
 for France, and for the kingship in France, a new era of 
 strength and progress. 
 
 Philip II., to whom history has preserved the name of 
 Philip Augustus, given him by his contemporaries, had shared 
 the crown, been anointed, and taken to wife Isabel of Hain- 
 ault, a year before the death of Louis VII. put him in posses- 
 sion of the kingdom. He was as yet only fifteen, and his 
 father, by his will, had left him under the guidance of PhiUp 
 of Alsace, count of Flanders, as regent, and of Robert Clement, 
 marshal of France, as governor. But Philip, though he began 
 his reign under this double influence, soon let it be seen that 
 he intended to reign by himself, and to reign with vigor. 
 " Whatever my vassals do," said he during his minority, "I 
 must bear with their violence and outrageous insults and vil- 
 lanous misdeeds ; but, please God, they wiU get weak and old 
 whilst I shall grow in strength and power, and shall be, in my 
 turn, avenged according to my desire." He was hardly 
 twenty, when, one day, one of his barons seeing him gnaw- 
 ing, with an air of abstraction and dreaminess, a Little green 
 twig, said to his neighbors, "If any one could tell me what 
 the King is thinking of, I would give him my best horse." 
 Another of those present boldly asked the King. "I am 
 thinking," answered Phihp, " of a certain matter, and that is 
 whether God will grant unto me or unto one of my heirs grace 
 to exalt France to the height at which she was in the time of 
 Charlemagne." 
 
 It was not granted to Philip Augustus to resuscitate the 
 Frankish empire of Charlemagne, a work impossible for him 
 or any one whatsoever in the twelfth and thirteen centuries ; 
 but he made the extension and territorial construction of the 
 kingdom of France the chief aim of his life, and in that work 
 he was successful. Out of the forty-three years of his reign, 
 twenty-six at the least were war-years, devoted to that very 
 purpose. During the first six, it was with some of his great 
 French vassals, the Count of Champagne, the Duke of Bur- 
 gundy, and even the Count of Flanders, sometime regent, that 
 Philip had to do battle, for they all sought to pi'ofit by his 
 minority so as to make themselves independent and aggrandize 
 themselves at the expense of the crown; but, once in possession 
 of the personal power as well as the title of king, it was, from 
 1187 to 1216, against three successive kings of England, Henry
 
 CH. XVIII.] THE KINOSHIP IN FRANCE. 389 
 
 II., Richard Coeur de Lion, and John Lackland, masters of 
 the most beautiful provinces of France, that Philip directed 
 his persistent efforts. They were in respect of power, of 
 pohtical capacity and mihtary popularity his most formidable 
 foes. Henry XL, what with his ripeness of age, his abihty, 
 energy, and perseverance without any mean jealousy or 
 puerile obstinacy, had over Philip every advantage of position 
 and experience, and he availed himself thereof with discretion, 
 habitually maintaining his feudal status of great French 
 vassal as well as that of foreign sovereign, seeking peace 
 rather than strife with his youthful suzerain, and sometimes 
 even going to hi^ aid. He thus played off the greater part of 
 the undeclared attempts or armed expeditions by which, from 
 1186 to 1189, Philip tried to cut him short in his French posses- 
 sions, and, so long as Henry II. lived, there were but few 
 changes in the territorial proportions of the two states. But, 
 at Henry's death, Philip found himself in a very different 
 position towards Henry's two sons, Richard Coeur de Lion and 
 John Lackland. They were of his own generation; he had 
 been on terms with them, even in opposition to their own 
 father, of complicity and familiarity : they had no authority 
 over him and he had no respect for them. Richard was the 
 feudal prince beyond comparison, the boldest, the most unre- 
 flecting, the most passionate, the most ruffianly, the most 
 heroic adventurer of the middJe ages, hungering after move- 
 ment and action, possessed of a craving spirit for displaying 
 bis strength, and doing his pleasure at all times and in all 
 places, not only in contempt of the rights and well-being of 
 his subjects, but at the risk of his own safety, his own power, 
 and even of his croAAai. Philip was of a sedate temperament, 
 patient, persevering, moved but little by the spirit of adven- 
 ture, more ambitious than fiery, capable of far-reaching de- 
 signs, and discreet at the same time that he was indifferent as 
 to the employment of means. He had fine sport with Richard. 
 We have already had the story of the relations between them 
 and their rupture during their joint cinisade in the East. On 
 returning to the West Philip did not wrest from King Richard 
 those great and definitive conquests which were to restore 
 tc* France the greater part of the marriage-portion that went 
 with Eleanor of Aquitaine ; but he paved the way for them by 
 petty victories and petty acquisitions, and by making more and 
 more certain his superiority over his rival. When, after 
 Richard's death, he had to do with John Lackland, cowardly
 
 390 HISTORY OF FRANCE. [ch. xtih 
 
 and insolent, knavish and addle-pated, choleric, dehauched, 
 and indolent, an intriguing subordinate on the throne on which 
 he made pretence to be the most despotic of kings, Philip had 
 over him, even more than over his brother Richard, immense 
 advantages. He made such use of them that after six years' 
 struggling, from 1199 to 1205, he deprived John of the greater 
 part of his French possessions, Anjou, Normandy, Touraine, 
 Maine, and Poitou. Pluhp would have been quite willing to 
 dispense with any legal procedure by way of sanction to his 
 conquests, but John fiuriished him with an excellent pretext ; 
 for on the 3rd of April, 1203, he assassinated with his own 
 hand, in the tower of Rouen, his young nephew Ai'thm*, duke 
 of Brittany, and in that capacity vassal of PhUip Augustus, to 
 whom he was coming to do homage. Philip had John, also his 
 vassal, cited before the court of the barons of France, his peers, 
 to plead his defence of this odious act. ''King John," says 
 the contemporary EngHsh historian Matthew Paris, *' sent 
 Eustace, bishop of Ely, to tell King Phihp that he woidd will- 
 ingly go to his court to answer before his judges and to show 
 entire obedience in the matter, but that he must have a safe- 
 conduct. King Phihp replied, but with neither heart nor 
 visage unmoved, ' WUlingly, let him come in peace and 
 safety.' 'And return so too, my lord?' said the bishop. 
 'Yes,' rejoined the king, 'if the decision of Ids peers allow 
 him.' And when the envoys from England entreated him to 
 grant to the king of England to go and return in safety, the 
 king of France was wroth, and answered with his Tisual oath, 
 ' No, by aU the saints of France, unless the decision tally 
 therewith.' 'My lord king,' rejoined the bishop, 'the duke 
 of Normandy cannot come unless there come also the king of 
 England, since the duke and the king are one and the same 
 person. The baronage of England would never allow it in any 
 way, and if the king were willing, ne would run, as you know, 
 risk of imprisonment or death.' King Philip answered him, 
 ' How now, my lord bishop? It is well known that my liege- 
 man, the duke of Normandy, by violence got possession of 
 England. And so, prithee, if a vassal increase in honor and 
 power shall his lord suzerain lose his rights? Never ! ' 
 
 "King John was not willing to trust to chance and the 
 decision of the French, who hked him not; and he feared 
 above every tiling to be reproached with the shameful murder 
 of Arthur. The grandees of France, nevertheless, proceeded 
 to a decision, which they could not do lawfully, since he whom
 
 CH. xvm.] THE KINOSEIP IN FRANCE. 391 
 
 they had to try was absent, and would have gone had he been 
 able." 
 
 The condemnation, not a whit the less, took full effect ; and 
 Philip Augustus thus recovered possession of nearly all the 
 territories which his father, Louis VII,, had kept but foi a 
 moment. He added, in succession, other provinces to his 
 dominions,- in such wise that the kingdom of France which 
 was limited, as we have seen, imder Louis the Fat, to the 
 Ile-de-France and certain portions of Picardy and Orleanness, 
 comprised besides, at the end of the reign of Philip Augustus, 
 Vermandois, Artois, the two Vexins, French and Norman, 
 Bern, Normandy, Maine, Anjou, Poitou, Touraine, and Au- 
 vergne. 
 
 In 1206 the territorial work of Philip Augustus was well 
 nigh completed ; but his wars were not over. John Lackland 
 when worsted kicked against the pricks, and was incessantly 
 hankering, in his antagonism to the King of France, after hos- 
 tile alhances and local conspiracies easy to hatch amongst cer- 
 tain feudal lords discontented with then- suzerain. John was 
 on intimate terms with his nephew, Otho IV., emperor of 
 Germany and the foe of Philip Augustus, who had supported 
 against him Frederick II., his rival for the empire. They pre- 
 pared in concert for a grand attack upon the King of France, 
 and they had won over to their coahtion some of his most im- 
 portant vassals, amongst others, Eenaud de Dampierre, count 
 of Boulogne. Philip determined to divert their attack, whilst 
 anticipating it, by an unexpected enterprise, the invasion of Eng- 
 land itself. Circumstances seemed favorable. King John, by 
 his oppression and his perfidy, had drawn upon him the hatred 
 and contempt of his people ; and the barons of England, sup- 
 ported and guided by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Stephen 
 Langton, had commenced against him the struggle which was 
 to be ended some years afterwards by the forced concession 
 of Magna Charta, that foundation-stone of EngUsh hberties. 
 John, having been embroiled for five years past with the court 
 of Rome, affected to defy the excommunication which the 
 Pope had hurled at him and of which the Knag of France had 
 been asked by several prelates of the English Church to en- 
 sure the efficient working. On the 8th of April, 1213, Philip 
 convoked, at Soissons, his principal vassals or alUes, explained 
 to them the grounds of his design against the King of England, 
 and, by a sort of special confederation, they bound themselves, 
 all of them, to support him. One of the most considerablfl
 
 392 HISTOnY OF FRANCE. [cH. xvttt. 
 
 vassals, however, the sometime regent of France during the 
 minority of Philip, Ferrand, count of Flanders, did not attend 
 the meeting to which he had been summoned and declared hia 
 intention of taking no part in the war against England. " By- 
 all the saints of France," cried Philip, "either France shall 
 become Flanders, or Flanders France!" And, all the while 
 pressing forward the equipment of a large fleet collected at 
 Calais for the invasion of England, he entered Flanders, be- 
 sieged and took several of the richest cities in the country, 
 Cassel, Ypres, Bruges, and Courtrai, and pitched his camp 
 before the walls of Ghent, "to lower," as he said, "the pride 
 of the men of Ghent and make them bend their necks beneath 
 the yoke of kings." But he heard that John Lackland, after 
 making his peace with the court of Rome through acceptance 
 of all the conditions and all the humiliations it had thought 
 proper to impose upon him, had just landed at Rochelle and 
 was exciting a serious insurrection amongst the lords of Sain- 
 tonge and Poitou. At the same time Phihp's fleet, having 
 been attacked in Calais roads by that of John, had been half 
 destroyed or captured ; and the other half had been forced to 
 take shelter in the harbor of Damme, where it was strictly 
 blockaded. Pbflip, forthwith adopting a twofold and ener- 
 getic resolution, ordered his son PhiHp to go and put down the 
 insurrection of the Poitevines on the banks of the Loire, and 
 him ''elf took in hand the war in Flanders, which was of the 
 most consequence considering the quahty of the foe and the 
 designs they proclaimed. They had at their head the Em- 
 peror Otho rV., who had already won the reputation of a 
 brave and able soldier; and they numbered in their ranks 
 several of the greatest lords, German, Flemish, and Dutch, 
 and Hugh de Boves, the most dreaded of those adventurers in 
 the pay of wealthy princes who were known at that time by 
 the name of roadnters (rouHers, mercenaries). They proposed, 
 it was said, to dismember France ; and a promise to that effect 
 had been made by the Emperor Otho to his principal chief- 
 tains assembled in secret conference. "It is against Philip 
 himself and him alone," he had said to them, " that we must 
 direct all our efforts ; it is he who must be slain first of all, for 
 *t is he alone who opposes us and makes himself our foe in 
 every thing. When he is dead, you will be able to subdue 
 and divide the kingdom according to our pleasure ; as for thee, 
 Renaud, thou shalt take Peronne and all Vermandois; Hugh 
 shall be master of Beauvais, Salisbury of Dreux, Conrad of
 
 CH. xnn.] THE KINGSHIP IN FRANCE. 393 
 
 Mantes together with Vexin, and as for thee, Ferrand, thou 
 Shalt have Paris." 
 
 The two armies marched over the Low Countries and Flan- 
 ders, seeking out both of them the most favorable position for 
 commencing the attack. On Sunday, the 27th of August, 
 1314, PhUip had halted near the bridge of Bouvines, not far 
 from Lille, and was resting under an ash beside a small chapel 
 dedicated to St. Peter. There came running to him a messen- 
 ger, sent by Guerin, bishop of Senlis, his confidant in war as 
 well as government, and brought him word that his rear- 
 guard, attacked by the Emperor Otho, was not sufficient to 
 resist him. Philip went into the chapel, said a short prayer, 
 and cried as he came out, ' ' Haste we forward to the rescue 
 of our comrades!" Then he put on his armor, mounted his 
 horse, and made swiftly for the point of attack, amidst the 
 shouts of all those who were about him, ' ' To arms ! to arms !" 
 
 Both armies numbered in their ranks not only all the feudal 
 chivalry on the two sides, but burgher-forces, those from the 
 majority of the great cities of Flanders being for Otho. and 
 those from sixteen towns or communes of France for PhUip 
 Augustus. It was not, as we have seen, the first time that 
 the forces from the French rural districts had taken part in 
 the king's wars ; Louis the Fat had often received their aid 
 against the tyrannical and turbulent lords of his small king- 
 dom; but since the reign of Louis the Fat the organization 
 and importance of the communes had made great progress in 
 France ; and it was not only rural communes, but considera- 
 ble cities, such as Amiens, An*as, Beauvais, Compiegne, and 
 Soissons, which sent to the army of Phihp Augustus bodies of 
 men in large numbers and ready trained to arms. Contem- 
 porary historians put the army of Otho at 100,000, and that 
 of Philip Augustus at from 50,000 to 60.000 men; but amongst 
 modem historians one of the most eminent, M. Sismondi, re- 
 duces them both to some 15,000 or 20,000. One would say that 
 the reduction is as excessive as the oi-iginal estimate. How- 
 ever that may be, the commimal forces evidently filled an 
 important place in the king's army at Bouvines, and main- 
 tained it brilliantly. So soon as PhOip had placed himself at 
 the head of the first line of his troops, " the men of Soissons," 
 says WUliam the Breton, who was present at the battle, 
 " being impatient and inflamed by the words of Bishop Gue- 
 rin, let out their horses at the full speed of their legs, and at- 
 tack the enemy. But the Flemish knights prick not forward
 
 394 BISTORT OF FRANCE. \cn. xvm. 
 
 to the encounter, indignant tliat the first charge against them 
 wds not made by knights, as would have been seemly, and 
 remain motionless at their post. The men of Soissons, mean- 
 while, see no need of dealing softly with them and humoring 
 them, so thrust them roughly, upset them from their horses, 
 slay a many of them, and force them to leave their place or 
 defend themselves, ^villy nilly. At last, the Chevalier Eus- 
 tace, scorning the burghers and proud of his illustrious ances- 
 tors, moves out into the middle of the plain, and, with 
 haughty voice, roars ' Death to the French ! ' " The battle 
 soon became general and obstinate; it was a multitude of 
 hand-to-hand fights in the midst of a confused melley. In this 
 melley, the knights of the Emperor Otho did not forget the in- 
 structions he had given them before the engagement: they 
 sought out the King of France himself, to aim their blows at 
 him ; and ere long they knew him by the presence of the royal 
 standard, and made their way almost up to him. The com- 
 munes, and chiefly those of Corbeil, Amiens, Beauvais, Com- 
 piegne, and Arras, thereupon pierced through the battalions 
 of the knights and placed themselves in front of the king, 
 when some German infantry crept up round Philip and with 
 hooks and light lances threw him down from his horse ; but a 
 small body of knights who had remained by him overthrew, 
 dispersed, and slew these infantry, and the king, recovering 
 himself more quickly than had been expected, leapt upon an- 
 other horse and dashed again into the meUey. Then danger 
 threatened the Emperor Otho in his turn. The French drove 
 back those about him, and came right up to him; a sword- 
 thrust, deUvered with vigor, entered the brain of Otho's horse; 
 the horse, mortally wounded, reared up and turned his head 
 in the direction whence he had come ; and the emperor, thus 
 carried away, showed his back to the French, and was off in 
 full flight, " Ye will see his face no more to-day," said Philip 
 to his followers : and he said truly. In vain did WiUiam des 
 Ban-es, the first knight of his day in strength, and valor, and 
 renown, dash off in pursuit of the emperor ; twice he was on 
 the point of seizing him, but Otho escaped, thanks to the 
 swiftness of his horse and the great number of his German 
 knights who, whilst their emperor was flying, were fighting 
 to a miracle. But their bravery saved only their master ; the 
 battle of Bouvines was lost for the Anglo-Germano-Flemish 
 coalition. It was still prolonged for several hours ; but in the 
 evening it was over, and the prisoners of note were conducted
 
 en. XVIII.] THE KINOSHIP IN FRANCE. 305 
 
 to Philip Augustus. There were five counts, Ferrand of Flan- 
 ders, Eenaud of Boulogne, WiUiam of Salisbury, a natural 
 brother of King John, Otho of Tecklemburg, and Conrad of 
 Dartmund; and twenty-five barons "bearing their own stand- 
 ard to battle." Philip Augustus spared all their hves; sent 
 away the Earl of Sahsbury to his brother, confined the Count 
 of Boulogne at Peronne, where he was subjected "to very 
 rigorous imprisonment, with chains so short that he could 
 scarce move one step," and as for the Count of Flanders, his 
 sometime regent, Philip dragged him in chains in his train. 
 
 It is diflScult to determine, from the evidence of contem- 
 poraries, which was the more rejoiced at and proud of this 
 victory, king or people. " The same day, when evening ap- 
 proached," says William the Breton, "the army returned 
 laden with spoils to the camp ; and the king, with a heart full 
 of joy and gratitude, offered a thousand thanksgivings to the 
 Supreme King, who had vouchsafed to him a trimnph over so 
 many enemies. And in order that posterity might preserve 
 for ever a memorial of so great a success, the Bishop of Senlis 
 founded, outside the walls of that town, a chapel which he 
 named Victory, and which, endowed with great possessions 
 and having a government according to canonical rule, enjoyed 
 
 the honor of possessing an abbot and a holy convent 
 
 Who can recount, imagine, or set down with a pen, on parch- 
 Baent or tablets, the cheers of joy, the hymns of triumph, and 
 the numberless dances of the people ; the sweet chants of the 
 clergy; the harmonious sounds of warlike instruments; the 
 solemn decorations of the chui'ches, inside and out ; the streets, 
 the houses, the roads of aU the castles and towns, himg with 
 curtains and tapestry of silk and covered with flowers, shrubs, 
 and gi-een branches ; all the inhabitants of every sort, sex, and 
 age rurming from every quarter to see so grand a triumph ; 
 peasants and harvesters breaking off their work, hanging 
 roimd their necks their sickles and hoes (for it was the season 
 of harvest), and thi-owing themselves in a throng upon the 
 roads to see in irons that Count of Flandei-s, that Ferrand 
 ■whose arms they had formerly dreaded !" 
 
 It was no groundless joy on the part of the people, and a 
 Biwntaneous instinct gave them a forecast of the importance 
 of that triumph which ehcited their cheers. The battle of 
 Bouvines was not the victory of Philip Augustus, alone, over 
 a coahtion of foreign princes ; the victory was the work of king 
 and people, barons, knights, burghers, and peasants of He-de-
 
 896 HISTORY OF FRANCE. [oh, xtih 
 
 France, of Orleaimess, of Picardy, of Normandy, of Cham- 
 pagne, and of Burgundy. And this imion of different classes 
 and different populations in a sentiment, a contest and a 
 triumph shared in common was a decisive step in the organi- 
 zation and unity of France. The victory of Bouvines marked 
 the commencement of the time at which men might speak and 
 indeed did speak, by one single name, of the French. The 
 nation in France and the kingship in France on that day rose 
 out of and above the feudal system. 
 
 Philip Augustus was about the same time apprised of his 
 son Louis's success on the banks of the Loire. The incapacity 
 and swaggering insolence of King John had made all his Poite- 
 vine allies disgusted with him ; he had been obliged to aban- 
 don his attack upon the King of France in the provinces, and 
 the insurrection, growing daily more serious, of the English 
 barons and clergy for the purpose of obtaining Magna Charta 
 was preparing for him other reverses. He had ceased to be a 
 dangerous rival to Philip. 
 
 No period has had better reason than our own to know how 
 successes and conquests can intoxicate warlike kings; but 
 Philip, whose valor, on occasion, was second to none, had no 
 actual inclination towards war or towards conquest for the 
 sole pleasure of extending his dominion. "Liking better, ac- 
 cording to his custom," says "William the Breton, "to con- 
 quer by peace than by war," he hasted to put an end by trea- 
 ties, tinices, or contracts to his quarrels with King John, the 
 Count of Flanders, and the principal lords made prisoners at 
 Bouvines ; discretion, in his case, was proof against the temp- 
 tations of circumstances or the promptings of passion, and he 
 took care not to overtly compromise his power, his responsi- 
 bility, and the honor of his name by enterprises which did not 
 naturally come in his way or which he considered without 
 ehances of success. Whilst still a youth, he had given, in 
 1191, a sure proof of that self-command which is so rare 
 amongst ambitious princes by withdrawing from the crusade 
 in which he had been engaged with Eichard Coeur de Lion; 
 and it was still more apparent in two great events at the latter 
 end of his reign, the crusade against the Albigensians and his 
 son Louis's expedition in England, the crown of which had, in 
 lfl5, been offered to him by the barons at war with King John 
 in defence of Magna Charta. 
 
 The organization of the kingdom, the nation, and the king- 
 ship in France was not the only great event and the only
 
 CH. XVIII.] THE KINOSHIP IN FRANCE. 397 
 
 great achievement of that epoch. At the same time that this 
 political movement was going on in the State, a religious and 
 intellectual ferment was making head in the Church and in 
 men's minds. After the conquest of the Gauls by the Franks, 
 the Christian clergy^ sole depositaries of all light to hghten 
 their age, and sole possessors of any idea of opposing the con- 
 querors with arguments other than those of brute force or of 
 employing towards the vanquished any instrument of sub- 
 jection other than violence, became the connecting link be- 
 tween the nation of the conquerors and the nation of the con- 
 quered, and, in the name of one and the same divine law, 
 enjoined obedience on the subjects and, in the case of the 
 masters, moderated the transports of power. But in the 
 com^e of this active and salutary participation in the affairs 
 of the world, the Christian clergy lost somewhat of their 
 primitive and proper character ; rehgion in their hands was a 
 means of power as well as of civili;zation ; and its principal 
 members became rich and frequently substituted material 
 weapons for the spiritual authority which had originally been 
 theii" only reliance. When they were in a condition to hold 
 their own against powerful laymen, they frequently adopted 
 the powerful laymen's morals and shared their ignorance ; and 
 in the seventh and eighth centuries the barbarism which held 
 the world in its clutches had made inroads upon the Church. 
 Charlemagne essayed to resuscitate dying civiKzation and 
 sought amongst the clergy his chief means of success; he 
 founded schools, filled them with students to whom promises 
 of ecclesiastical preferments were held out as rewards of their 
 merit, and, in tine, exerted himself with all his might to 
 restore to the Chi-istian Church her dignity and her influence. 
 When Charlemagne was dead, nearly all his great achieve- 
 ments disappeared in the chaos which came after him; his 
 schools aione survived and preserved certain centres of intel- 
 lectual activity. When the feudal system had become estab- 
 lished, and had introduced some rule into social relations, 
 when the fate of mankind appeared no longv^r entirely left to 
 the risks of force, intellect once more found some sort of em- 
 ployment and once more assumed some sort of sway. Active 
 and educated minds once more began to watch with some sort 
 of independence the social facts before their eyes, to stigma- 
 tize vices and to seek for remedi s. The spectacle afforded by 
 their age could not fail to strike them. Society, after having 
 loade some few strides away from physical chaos seemed in
 
 398 HISTORY OF FRANCE. [ch. xvm: 
 
 danger of falling into moral chaos; morals had sunk far be- 
 low the laws, and rehgion was in deplorable contrast to 
 morals. It was not laymen only who abandoned themselves 
 with impunity to every excess of violence and hcentiousness ; 
 scandals were frequent amongst the clergy themselves; 
 bishoprics and other ecclesiastical benefices, publicly "sold or 
 left by will, passed down through families from father to son, 
 and from husband to wife, and the possessions of the Church 
 served for dowry to the daughters of bishops. Absolution was 
 at a low quotation in the market, and redemption for sins of 
 the greatest enormity cost scarcely the price of founding a 
 church or a monastery. Horror-stricken at the sight of such 
 corruption in the only things they at that time recognized as 
 holy, men no longer knew where to find the rule of life or 
 the safeguard of conscience. But it is the peculiar and glori- 
 ous characteristic of Christianity that it is unable to bear for 
 long, without making an effort to check them, the vices it has 
 been unable to prevent, and that it always carries in its womb 
 the vigorous germ of human regeneration. In the midst of 
 their irregularities, the eleventh and twelfth centuries saw the 
 outbreak of a grand religious, moral and intellectual fermenta- 
 tion, and it was the Church herself that had the honor and the 
 power of taking the initiative in the reformation. Under the 
 influence of Gregory VII. the rigor of the popes began to 
 declare itself against the scandals of the episcopate, the traffic 
 in ecclesiastical benefices and the bad morals of the secular 
 clergy. At the same time, austere men exerted themselves to 
 rekindle the fervor of monastic life, re-estabUsh rigid rules in 
 the cloister, and re-fill the monasteries by their preaching and 
 example. St. Robert of Moleme founded the order of Citeaux: 
 St. Norbert that of Premontre; St. Bernard detached Clair- 
 vaux from Citeaux, which he considered too worldly; St. 
 Bruno built Chartreuse; St. Hugo, St. Gerard, and others 
 besides gave the Abbey of Cluni its reno^vn ; and ecclesiastical 
 reform extended every where. Hereupon, rich and powerful 
 laymen, filled with ardor for their faith or fear for their 
 eternal welfare, went seeking after sohtude, and devoted 
 themselves to prayer in the monasteries they had founded or 
 enriched with their wealth; whole families were dispersed 
 amongst various religious houses; and all the severities of 
 penance hardly sufficed to quiet imaginations scared at the 
 perils of hving in the world or at the vices of their age. And, 
 at the same time, in addition to this outburst of piety, igno"
 
 CH. xvni.] THE KINGSHIP IN FRANCE. 399 
 
 ranee was decried and stigmatized as the source of the pre- 
 vaihng evils ; the function of teaching was included amongst 
 the duties of the religious estate ; and every newly -foimded or 
 reformed monastery became a school in which pupils of aH 
 conditions were gratuitously instructed in the sciences known 
 by the name of Uberal arts. Bold spirits began to use the 
 rights of individual thought in opposition to the authority of 
 established doctrines ; and others, without dreaming of oppos- 
 ing, strove at any rate to understand, which is the way to 
 produce discussion. Activity and freedom of thought were 
 receiving development at the same time that fervent faith 
 and fervent piety were. 
 
 This great moral movement of humanity in the eleventh 
 and tweKth centuries arose from events veiy different in 
 difiEerent parts of the beautiful country which was not yet, 
 but was from that time forward tending to become, France. 
 Amongst these events, which cannot be here recounted in 
 detail, we will fix upon two, which were the most striking, and 
 the most productive of important consequences in the whole 
 history of the epoch, the quarrel of Abelard with St. Bernard 
 and the crusade against the Albigensians. We shall there see 
 how Northern France and Southern France differed one from 
 the other before the bloody crisis which was to unite them in 
 one single name and one common destiny. 
 
 In Finance properly so called at that time, north of the 
 Rhone and the Loire, the Church had herself accomphshed the 
 chief part of the reforms which had become necessary. It 
 was there that the most active and most eloquent of the re- 
 forming monks had appeared, had preached, and had founded 
 or regenerated a gi'eat number of monasteries. It was there 
 that, at first amongst the clergy and then, through their ex- 
 ample, amongst the laity. Christian discipHne and morals had 
 resumed some sway. There too the Chi-istian faith and Church 
 were, amongst the mass of the population, but httle or not at 
 all assailed; heretics, when any appeared, obtained support 
 neither from princes nor people ; they were proceeded against, 
 condemned and burnt, without their exciting pubhc sjTupathy 
 by their presence or public commiseration by theii' punish- 
 ment. It was in the very midst of the clergj^ themselves, 
 amongst literates and teachers, that, in Northern France, the 
 intellectual and innovating movement of the period was mani- 
 fested and concentrated. The movement was vigorous and 
 earnest, and it was a really studious host which thronged to
 
 400 HISTORT OF FRANCE. fcH. xvm 
 
 the lessons of Abelard at Paris, on mount St. Genevieve, at 
 Melon, at Corbeil, and at the Paraclete; but this host con- 
 tained but few of the people ; the greater part of those who 
 formed it were either already in the Church or soon, in 
 various capacities, about to be. And the discussions raised at 
 the meetings corresponded with the persons attending them; 
 there was the disputation of the schools ; there was no found- 
 ing of sects; the lessons of Abelard and the questions he 
 handled were scientifico-rehgious ; it was to expound and pro- 
 pagate what they regarded as the philosophy of Christianity 
 that masters and pupils made bold use of the freedom of 
 thought ; they made but slight war upon the existing practical 
 abuses of the Church ; they differed from her in the interpreta- 
 tion and comments contained in some of her dogmas ; and they 
 considered themselves in a position to explain and confirm faith 
 by reason. The chiefs of the Church, with St. Bernard at 
 their head, were not slow to descry, in these interpretations 
 and comments based upon science, danger to the simple and 
 pure faith of the Christian; they saw the apparition of dawn- 
 ing rationahsm confronting orthodoxy. They were, as all 
 their contemporaries were, wholly strangers to the bare notion 
 of freedom of thought and conscience, and they began a 
 zealous struggle against the new teachers; but they did not 
 push it to the last cruel extremities. They had many a handle 
 against Abelard : his private life, the scandal of his connection 
 with Heloise, the restless and haughty fickleness of his 
 character laid him open to severe strictures ; but his stern ad- 
 versaries did not take so much advantage of them as they 
 might have taken. They had his doctrines condemned at the 
 councils of Soissons and Sens; they prohibited him from 
 public lecturing; and they imposed upon him the seclusion of 
 the cloister ; but they did not even harbor the notion of having 
 him burnt as a heretic, and science and glory were respected 
 in his person, even when his ideas were proscribed. Peter the 
 Venerable, abbot of Cluni, one of the most highly considered 
 and honored prelates of the Church, received him amongst his 
 own monks and treated him with paternal kindness, taking 
 care of his health as well as of his eternal welfare; and he 
 who was the adversary of St. Bernard and the teacher con- 
 demned by the Councils of Soissons and Sens died peacefully, 
 on the 21st of April, 1142, in the abbey of St. Marcellus, near 
 Chalon-sur-Saone, after having received the sacraments with 
 much piety and in presence of all the brethren of the mon-
 
 CH. XTHi.] THE KINOSHIP IN FRANCE. 401 
 
 astery. " Thus," wrote Peter the Venerable to Heloise, abbess 
 for eleven years past of the Paraclete, " the man who, by his 
 singular authority in science, was known to nearly all the 
 world, and was illustrious wherever he was known, learned, in 
 the school of Him who said, ' Know that I am meek and lowly 
 of heart,'' to remain meek and lowly; and, as it is but right to 
 believe, he has thus returned to Him." 
 
 The struggle of Abelard with the Church of Northern France 
 and the crusade against the Albigensians in Southern France 
 are divided by much more than diversity and contrast; there 
 is an abyss between them. In their rehgious condition and in 
 the nature as well as degree of their civilization the populations 
 of the two regions were radically different. In the north-east, 
 between the Rhine, the Scheldt, and the Loire, Christianity had 
 been obhged to deal with Httle more than the barbarism and 
 ignorance of the German conquerors. In the south, on the 
 two banks of the Rhone and the Garonne, along the Mediter- 
 ranean and by the Pyrenees, it had encountered all manner of 
 institutions, traditions, religions, and disbehefs, Greek, Roman, 
 African, Oriental, Pagan, and Mussulman ; the frequent inva- 
 sions and long stay of the Saracens in those countries had 
 mingled Arab blood with the Gallic, Roman, Asiatic, and Visi- 
 gothic, and this mixture of so many different races, tongues, 
 creeds, and ideas had resulted in a civilization more developed, 
 more elegant, more humane, and more liberal, but far less 
 coherent, simple, and strong, morally as well as politically, 
 than the warlike, feudal civilization of Germanic France. In 
 the religious order especially, the dissimilarity was profound. 
 In Northern France, in spite of internal disorder and through 
 the influence of its bishops, missionaries, and monastic re- 
 formers, the orthodox Church had obtained a decided superi- 
 ority and full dominion ; but in Southern France, on the con- 
 trary, all the controversies, all the sects, and all the mystical 
 or philosophical heresies which had disturbed Christendom 
 from the second century to the ninth, had crept in and spread 
 abroad. In it there were Arians, Manicheans, Gnostics, 
 PauUcians, Cathars (the pure), and other sects of more local 
 or more recent origin and name, Albigensians, Vaudians, Good 
 People and Poor of Lyons, some piously possessed with the de- 
 sire of returning to the pure faith and fraternal organization 
 of the primitive evangelical Church, others given over to the 
 extravagances of imagination or asceticism. The princes and 
 the great laic lords of the country, the Counts of Toulouse,
 
 402 HISTORY OF FRANCE. [cii xvni. 
 
 Foix, and Comminges, the Viscount of Beziers, and many 
 others had not remained miaffected by this condition of the 
 people : the majority were accused of tolerating and even pro- 
 tecting the heretics; and some were suspected of allowing 
 their ideas to penetrate within their own households. The 
 bold saUies of the critical and jeering spirit and the abandon- 
 ment of established creeds and discipline biing about, before 
 long, a relaxation of morals; and hberty requires long time 
 and many trials before it learns to disavow and rise superior 
 to hcense. In many of the feudal courts and castles of 
 Languedoc, Provence, and Aquitaine, imaginations, words, 
 and hves were Ucentious; and the charming poetry of the 
 troubadours and the gallant adventures of knights caused it 
 to be too easily forgotten that morahty was but httle more 
 regarded than the faith. Dating from the latter half of the 
 eleventh century, not only the popes, but the whole orthodox 
 Church of France and its spiritual heads, were seriously dis- 
 quieted at the state of mind of Southern France and the 
 dangers it threatened to th'e whole of Christendom. In 1145 
 St. Bernard, in all the lustre of his name and influence, under- 
 took, in concert with Cardinal Alberic, legate of the Pope 
 Eugenius III., to go and preach against the heretics in the 
 countship of Toulouse. ' ' We see here, " he wrote to Alphonse 
 Jourdain, count of Toulouse, "Churches without flocks, flocks 
 without priests, priests without the respect which is their 
 due, and Christians without Christ; men die in their sins 
 without being reconciled by penance or admitted to the holy 
 communion; souls are sent pell-meU before the awftil tribunal 
 of God ; the grace of baptism is refused to little children ; those 
 to whom the Lord said, ' Suffer little children to come unto 
 Me,' do not obtain the means of coming to salvation. Is it 
 because of a belief that these little children have no need of 
 the Saviour inasmuch as they are little? Is it then for naught 
 that our Lord from being great became httle? What say I? Is 
 is it then for naught that He was scourged and spat upon, 
 crucified and dead?" St. Bernard pi'eached with great suc- 
 cess in Toulouse itself, but he was not satisfied with easy 
 successes. He had come to fight the heretics ; and he went to 
 look for them where he was told he would find them numerous 
 and powerful. "He repaired," says a contemporary chroni' 
 cler, "to the castle of Vertfeuil (or Verfeil, in the district of 
 Toulouse) where flourished at that time the scions of a 
 numerous nobility and of a multitude of people, thinking that»
 
 CH. xvin.] THE KINGSHIP IN FRANCE. 403 
 
 if he could extinguish heretical perversity in this place -where 
 it was so very much spread, it would be easy for him to make 
 head against it elsewhere. When he had begun preaching, in 
 the church, against those who were of most consideration in 
 the place, they went out, and the people followed them; but 
 the holy man, going out after them, gave utterance to the 
 word of God in the public streets. The nobles then hid them- 
 selves on all sides in their houses ; and as for him he continued 
 to preach to the common people who came about him. 
 Whereupon, the others making uproar and knocking upon the 
 doors, so that the crowd could not hear his voice, he then, 
 having shaken off the dust from his feet as a testimony against 
 them, departed from their midst, and, looking on the town, 
 cursed it, saying, ' Vertfeuil, God wither thee !" Now there 
 were, at that time, in the castle, a hundred knights abiding, 
 having arms, banners, and horses, and keeping themselves at 
 their own expense, not at the expense of other." 
 
 After the not very effectual mission of St. Bernard, who 
 died in 1153, and for a half century, the orthodox Church was 
 several times occupied with the heretics of Southern France, 
 who were before long called Albigensians, either because they 
 were numerous in the diocese of Albi, or because the Council 
 of Lombers, one of the first at which their condemnation was 
 expressly pronounced (in 1165), was held in that diocese. But 
 the measures adopted at that time against them were at first 
 feebly executed, and had but little effect. The new ideas 
 spread more and more; and in 1167, the innovators them- 
 selves held, at St. Felix-de-Caraman, a petty council, at which 
 they appointed bishops for districts where they had numerous 
 partisans. Raymond VI. , who, in 1195, succeeded his father, 
 Raymond V., as count of Toulouse, was supposed to be favor- 
 ably disposed towards them; he admitted them to intimacy 
 with him and, it was said, allowed himself, in respect of the 
 orthodox Church, great Hberty of thought and speech. !Mean- 
 while the great days and the chief actors in the stiniggle com- 
 menced by St. Bernard were approaching. In 1198, Lothaire 
 Conti, a pupil of the University of Paris, was elected pope 
 with the title of Innocent III. ; and, four or five years later, 
 Simon, coimt of Monfort-l'Amaury, came back from the fifth 
 crusade in the East, with a celebrity already established by 
 his valor and his zeal agamst the infidels. Innocent III., no 
 unworthy rival of Gregory VII., his late predecessor in the 
 Holy See, had the same grandeur of ideas and the same
 
 404 HISTORY OF FRANCE. [CH. xviii. 
 
 fixity of purpose, with less headiness in his character and 
 mort knowledge of the world and more of the spirit of policy. 
 He looked upon the whole of Christendom as his kingdom, 
 and upon himself as the king whose business it was to 
 make prevalent every where the law of God. Simon, as count 
 of Montf ort-1'Amaury, was not a powerful lord ; but he was 
 descended, it was said, from a natural son of King Robert; 
 his mother, who was English, had left him heir to the earldom 
 of Leicester, and he had for his wife, AUce de Montmorency. 
 His social status and his personal renown, superior as they 
 were to his worldly fortunes, authorized in liis case any flight 
 of ambition ; and in the East he had learned to believe that 
 any thing was allowed to him in the service of the Christian 
 faith. Innocent III., on receiving the tiara, set to work at 
 once upon the government of Christendom. Simon de Mont- 
 fort, on returning from Palestine, did not dream of the new 
 crusade to which he was soon to be summoned, and for which 
 he was so well prepai*ed. 
 
 Innocent III. at first employed against the heretics of 
 Southern France only spiritual and legitimate weapons. Be- 
 fore proscribing, he tried to convert them ; he sent to them a 
 great number of missionaries, nearly all taken from the order 
 of Citeaux, and of proved zeal already ; many amongst them 
 had successively the title and power of legates ; and they went 
 preaching throughout the whole country, communicating with 
 the princes and laic lords, whom they requested to drive away 
 the heretics from their domains, and holding with the heretics 
 themselves conferences which frequently drew a numerous 
 attendance. A knight "full of sagacity," according to a con- 
 temporary chronicler, " Pons d'Adhemar, of Rodelle, said one 
 day to Foulques, bishop of Toulouse, one of the most zealous 
 of the pope's delegates, ' We could not have believed that Rome 
 had so many powerful arguments against these folk here. ' ' See 
 you not, ' said the bishop, ' how little force there is in their ob- 
 jections? ' ' Certainly,' answered the knight. ' Why, then, do 
 you not expel them from your lands ? ' ' We cannot, ' answered 
 pons, ' we have been brought up with them ; we have amongst 
 them folk near and dear to us, and we see them living hon- 
 estly.'" Some of the legates, wearied at the little effect of 
 their preaching, showed an inclination to give up their mission. 
 Peter de Castelnau himself, the most zealous of all, and des- 
 tined before long to pay for his zeal with his life, wrote to the 
 pope to beg permission to return to his monastery. Two
 
 CH. XVIII.] THE KINGSHIP IN FRANCE. 405 
 
 Spanish priests, Diego Azebes, bishop of Osma, and his sub- 
 prior Dominic, falling in with the Eoman legates at Mont- 
 pellier, heard them express their disgust. "Give up," said 
 they to the legates, "your retinue, your horses, and your go- 
 ings in state; proceed in all humility, a-foot and bare-foot, 
 without gold or silver, living and teaching after the example 
 of the Divine Master. " ' * We dare not take on ourselves such 
 things," answered the Pope's agents; "they would seem a sort 
 of innovation ; but if some person of sufficient authority con- 
 sent to precede us in such guise, we would f oUow him readily. " 
 The Bishop of Osma sent away his retinue to Spain and kept 
 with him only his companion Dominic ; and they taking with 
 them* two of the monks of Citeaux, Peter de Castelnau and 
 Raoul, the most fervent of the delegates from Rome, began 
 that course of austerity and of preaching amongst the people 
 which was ultimately to make of the sub-prior Dominic, a 
 saint and the founder of a great rehgions order to which has 
 often, but wrongly, been attributed the origin, though it cer- 
 tainly became the principal agent, of the Inquisition. Whilst 
 joining in humble and pious energy with the two Spanish 
 priests, the two monks of Citeaux, and Peter de Castelnau 
 especially, did not cease to urge amongst the laic princes the 
 extirpation of the heretics. In 1205 they repaired to Toulouse 
 to demand of Raymond VI. a formal promise, which indeed 
 they obtained ; but Raymond was one of those undecided and 
 feeble characters who dare not refuse to promise what they 
 dare not attempt to do. He wished to live in peace with the 
 orthodox Church vsdthout behaving crueUy to a large number 
 of his subjects. The fanatical legate, Peter de Castelnau, en- 
 raged at his tergiversation, instantly excommunicated him: 
 and the pope sent the count a threatening letter, giving him 
 therein to understand that in case of need stronger measures 
 would be adopted against him. Raymond, affrighted, pre- 
 vailed on the two legates to repair to St. Gilles, and he there 
 renewed his promises to them ; but he always sought for and 
 found on the morrow some excuse for retarding the execution 
 of them. The legates, after having reproached him vehemently, 
 determined to leave St. Gilles without further delay, and the 
 day after their departure (January 15th, 1208), as they were 
 geittng ready to cross the Rhone, two strangers, who had 
 lodged the night before in the same hostelry with them, drew 
 near, and one of the two gave Peter de Castelnau a lance- 
 thrust with such force, that the legate, after exclaiming, " God
 
 406 BISTORT OF FRANCE. [ch. xviii. 
 
 forgive thee, as I do !" had only time to give his comrade his 
 last instructions, and then expired. 
 
 Great was the emotion in France and at Rome. It was 
 barely thirty years since in England, after an outburst of 
 passion on the part of King Henry 11., four knights of his 
 court had murdered the archbishop Thomas-a-Becket in Can- 
 terbury Cathedral. Was the coiint of Toulouse, too, guilty of 
 having instigated the shedding of blood and the murder of a 
 prelate? Such was, in the thirteenth century, the general cry 
 throughout the Catholic Chou'ch and the signal for war against 
 Raymond VI. : a war undertaken on the plea of a personal 
 crime, but in reality for the extirpation of heresy in Southern 
 France and for the dispossession of the native princes,* who 
 would not fully obey the decrees of the papacy, in favor of 
 foreign conquerors who would put them into execution. The 
 crusade against the Albigensians was the most striking appli- 
 cation of two principles equally false and fatal, which did more 
 than as much evil to the Catholics as to the heretics and to the 
 papacy as to freedom ; and they are, the right of the spiritual 
 power to claim for the coercion of souls the material force of 
 the temporal powers, and its right to strip temporal sovereigns, 
 in case they set at nought its injunctions, of their title to the 
 obedience of their people; in other words, denial of religious 
 liberty to conscience and of poUtical independence to States. 
 It was by virtue of these two principles, at that time dominant, 
 but not without some opposition, in Christendom, that Inno- 
 cent III., in 1208, summoned the king of France, the great 
 lords and the knights, and the clergy, secular and regular, of 
 the kingdom to assimie the cross and go forth to extirpate from 
 Southern France the Albigensians ' ' worse than the Saracens ;" 
 and that he promised to the chiefs of the crusaders the sover- 
 eignty of such domains as they should win by conquest from 
 the princes who were heretics or protectors of heretics. 
 
 Throughout aU France and even outside of France the 
 passions of religion and ambition were aroused at this sum- 
 mons. Twelve abbots and twenty monks of Citeaux dispersed 
 themselves in all directions preaching the crusade ; and lords 
 and knights, burghers and peasants, laymen and clergy 
 hastened to respond. ' ' From near and far they come, " says 
 the contemporary poet-chronicler, William of Tudela; "there 
 be men from Auvergne and Burgundy, France and Limousin; 
 there be men from all the world ; there be Germans, Poite vines, 
 Gascons, Rouergats, and Saintongese. Never did God make
 
 CH. xvm.] THE KINGSHIP IN FRANCE. 407 
 
 ecribe who, whatsoever his pains, could set them all down 
 in writing, in two months or in three." The poet reckons 
 "twenty thousand horsemen armed at all points, and more 
 than two hundred thousand villeins and peasants, not to speak 
 of burghers and clergy." A less exaggerative though more 
 fanatical writer, Peter of Vaulx-Cemay, the chief contem- 
 porary chronicler of this crusade, contents himself with saying 
 that, at the siege of Carcassonne, one of the first operations of 
 the crusaders, "it was said that their army nmnbered fifty 
 thousand men." Whatever may be the truth about the num- 
 bers, the crusaders were passionately ardent and persevering: 
 the war against the Albigensians lasted fifteen years (from 1208 
 to 1223), and of the two leading spirits, one ordering and the 
 other executing, Pope Innocent III. and Simon de Jlontfort, 
 neither saw the end of it. Diu-ing these fifteen years, in the 
 region situated between the Ehone, the Pyrenees, the Garonne, 
 and even the Dordogne, nearly all the towns and strong castles, 
 Beziers, Carcassonne, Castelnaudary, Lavaur, Gaillac, Moissac, 
 Minerve, Termes, Toulouse, etc., were taken, lost, retaken, 
 given over to pillage, sack, and massacre, and burnt by the 
 crusaders with all the cruelty of fanatics and all the greed of 
 conquerors. "We do not care to dwell here in detail upon this 
 tragical and monotonous history ; we will simply recall some 
 few of its characteristics. Doubt has been thrown upon the 
 answer attributed to Amauld-Amaury, abbot of Citeaux, when 
 he was asked, in 1209, by the conquerors of Beziers, how, at 
 the assault of the city, they should distinguish the heretics 
 from the faithful- "Slay them all, God will be sure to know 
 His own." The doubt is more charitable than reasonable; for 
 It is a contemporary, himself a monk of Citeaux, who reports, 
 without any cominent, this hateful speech. Simon de Mont- 
 fort, the hero of the crusade, employed similar language. One 
 day two heretics, taken at Castres, were brought before him; 
 one of them was imshakable in his behef, the other expressed 
 a readiness to turn convert : ' ' Burn thera both, " said the count ; 
 "if this fellow mean what he says, the fire will serve for ex- 
 piation of his sins, and, if he He, he will suffer the penalty for 
 his imposture." At the siege of the castle of Lavaur in 1211, 
 Amaury, lord of Montreal, and eighty knights had been made 
 prisoners: and " the noble Count Simon," says Peter of Vaulx- 
 Cernay, "decided to hang them aU on one gibbet; but when 
 Amaury, the most distinguished amongst them, had been 
 hanged, the gallows-poles which, from too great haste, had not 
 
 (IS) HF Vol. 1
 
 408 HISTORY OF FRANCE. [ch. xvtii 
 
 been firmly fixed in the ground, having come down, the Count, 
 perceiving how great was the delay, ordered the rest to be 
 slain. The pilgrims therefore fell upon them right eagerly 
 and slew them on the spot. Further, the count caused stones 
 to be heaped upon the lady of the castle, Amaury's sister, a 
 very wicked heretic, who had been cast into a well. Finally 
 our crusaders, with extreme alacrity, burned heretics without 
 number. 
 
 In the midst of these atrocious unbridlements of passions 
 supposed to be rehgious, other passions were not slow to make 
 their appearance. Innocent III. had promised the crusaders 
 the sovereignty of the domains they might win by conquest 
 from princes who were heretics or protectors of heretics. After 
 the captm*e, in 1309, of Beziers and Carcassonne, possessions of 
 Raymond Roger, viscount of Albi, and nephew of the count of 
 Toulouse, the abbot of Citeaux, a legate of the pope, assembled 
 the principal chiefs of the crusaders that they might choose one 
 amongst them as lord and governor of their conquests. The 
 offer was made, successively, to Eudes, duke of Burgundy, to 
 Peter de Courtenay, count of Nevers, and to Walter de 
 Chatillon, count of St. Paul ; but they all three declined, saying 
 that they had suflScient domains of their own without usurping 
 those of the viscount of Beziers, to whom, in their opinion, 
 they had already caused enough loss. The legate, somewhat 
 embarrassed, it is said, proposed to appoint two bishops and 
 four knights, who, in concert with him, should choose a new 
 master for the conquered territories. The proposal was agreed 
 to, and, after some moments of hesitation, Simon de Montfort, 
 being elected by this committee, accepted the proffered do- 
 mains and took immediate possession of them on publication 
 of a charter conceived as follows : ' ' Simon, lord of Montfort, 
 earl of Leicester, viscount of Beziers and Carcassonne. The 
 Lord, having delivered into my hands the lands of the heretics, 
 an unbeheving people, that is to say, whatsoever He hath 
 thought fit to take from them by the hand of the crusaders 
 His servants, I have accepted humbly and devoutly this 
 charge and administration, with confidence in His aid." The 
 pope wrote to him forthwith to confirm him in hereditary 
 possession of his new dominions, at the same time expressing 
 to him a hope that, in concert with the legates, he would con- 
 tinue to carry out the extirpation of the heretics. The dis- 
 possessed viscount, Raymond Roger, having been put in 
 prison by his conqueror in a tower of Carcassonne itself, died
 
 DEATH OF DE MONTFORT 
 
 France, vol. en*.
 
 CH. xvni.] THE KINGSHIP IN FRANCE. 409 
 
 there at the end of three months, of disease according to some 
 and a violent death according to others: but the latter appears 
 to be a groundless suspicion, for it was not to cowardly and 
 secret crknes that Simon de Montf ort was inclined. 
 
 From this time forth the war in Southern France changed 
 character, or, rather, it assumed a double character; with 
 the war of reUgion was openly joined a war of conquest; it 
 was no longer merely against the Albigensians and their here* 
 sies, it was against the native princes of Southern France and 
 their domains that the crusade was prosecuted. Simon de 
 Montfort was eminently quahfied to direct and accompMsh 
 this twofold design : sincerely fanatical and passionately ambi- 
 tious : of a valor that knew no fatigue ; handsome and strong ; 
 combining tact with authority ; pitiless towards his enemies as 
 became his mission of doing justice in the name of the faith 
 and the Church ; a leader faithful to his friends and devoted 
 to their common cause whilst reckoning upon them for his 
 own private purposes, he possessed those natural quahties 
 which confer spontaneous empire over men and those abilities 
 which lure them on by opening a way for the fulfilment of 
 their interested hopes. And as for himself, by the stealthy 
 growth of selfishness, which is so prone to become developed 
 when circumstances are tempting, he every day made his per- 
 sonal fortunes of greater and greater account in his views and 
 his conduct. His ambitious appetite grew by the very diffi- 
 culties it encountered as well as by the successes it fed upon. 
 The coimt of Toulouse, persecuted and despoiled, complained 
 loudly in the ears of the pope ; protested against the charge of 
 favoring the heretics ; offered and actually made the conces- 
 sions demanded by Rome ; and, as security, gave up seven of 
 his principal strongholds. But, being ever too irresolute and 
 too weak to keep his engagements to his subjects' detriment no 
 less than to stand out against his adversaries' requirements, he 
 was continually falling back into the same condition and keep- 
 ing off attacks which were more and more urgent by promises 
 which always remained without effect. After having sent to 
 Rome embassy upon embassy with explanations and excuses, 
 he twice went thither himself, in 1210 and in 1215 ; the first 
 time alone, the second with his young Son who was then 
 thirteen and who was at a later period Raymond VIT. He ap- 
 pealed to the pope's sense of justice ; he repudiated the stories 
 and depicted the violence of his enemies; and finally pleaded 
 the rights of his son, innocent of all that was imputed to him*
 
 410 HISTORY OF FRANCE. [ch. xvm. 
 
 self and yet similarly attacked and despoiled. Innocent III. 
 had neither a narrow mind nor an unfeeling heart ; he listened 
 to the father's pleading, took an interest in the youth, and 
 wrote, in April, 1312, and January, 1213, to his legates in 
 Languedoc and to Simon de Montfort: "After having led 
 the army of the crusaders into the domains of the count 
 of Toulouse, ye have not been content with invading all the 
 places wherein there were heretics, but ye have further gotten 
 possession of those wherein there was no suspicion of heresy. 
 .... The same ambassadors have objected to us that ye have 
 usurped what was another's with so much greed and so little 
 consideration that of all the domains of the count of Toulouse 
 there remains to him barely the town of that name, together 
 
 with the castle of Montauban Now, though the said 
 
 count has been found guilty of many matters against God and 
 against the Church, and our legates, in order to force him to 
 acknowledgment thereof, have excommunicated his person and 
 have left his domains to the first captor, nevertheless, he has 
 not yet been condemned as a heretic nor as an accomplice in 
 the death of Peter de Castelnau, of sacred memory, albeit he is 
 strongly suspected thereof. That is why we did ordain that, 
 if there should appear against him a proper accuser, within a 
 certain time, there should be appointed him a day for clearing 
 himself, according to the form pointed out in our letters, re- 
 serving to ourselves the delivery of a definitive sentence there- 
 upon : in all which the procedure hath not been according to 
 our orders. We wot not therefore on what ground we could 
 yet grant to others his dominions which have not been taken 
 away either from him or from his his heirs ; and, above all, we 
 would not appear to have fraudulently extorted from him the 
 castles he hath committed to us, the will of the Apostle being 
 that we should refrain from even the appearance of wrong." 
 
 But Innocent III. forgot that, in the case of either temporal 
 or spiritual sovereigns, when there has once been an appeal to 
 force, there is no stopping, at pleasure and within specified 
 limits, the movement that has been set going and the agents 
 which have the work in hand. He had decreed war against 
 the princes who were heretics or protectors of heretics ; and he 
 had promised their domains to their conquerors. He meant to 
 reserve to himself the right of pronouncing definitive judgment 
 as to the condemnation of princes as heretics and as to dis- 
 possessing them of their dominions ; but when force had done 
 its business on the very spot, when the condemnation of the
 
 CH. XVIII.] THE KINGSHIP IN FRANCE. 411 
 
 princes as heretics had been pronounced by the pope's legates 
 and their bodily dispossession effected by his laic allies, the re- 
 serves and regrets of Innocent III. were vain. He had pro- 
 claimed two principles, the bodily extirpation of the heretics 
 and the pohtical dethronement of the princes who were their 
 accomphces or protectors ; but the application of the principles 
 shpped out of his owniiands. Three local councils assembled in 
 1210, 1212, and 1213, at St. GiUes, at Aries, and at Lavaur, and 
 presided over by the pope's legates, proclaimed the excommuni- 
 cation of Raymond VI., and the cession of his dominions to 
 Simon de Montfort, who took possession of them for himself 
 and his comrades. Nor were the pope's legates without their 
 share in the conquest : Arnauld Amaury, abbot of Citeaux, be- 
 came archbishop of Narbonne; and Abbot Foulques of Mar- 
 seOles, celebrated in his youth as a gallant troubadour, was 
 Bishop of Toulouse and the most ardent of the crusaders. 
 When these conquerors heard that the pope had given a kind 
 reception to Raymond VI. and his young son, and lent a favor- 
 able ear to their complaints, they sent haughty warnings to 
 Innocent III., giving him to understand that the work was aU 
 over, and that, if he meddled, Simon de Montfort and liis war- 
 riors might probably not bow to his decisions. Don Pedro 11., 
 king of Aragon, had strongly supported before Innocent III. 
 the claims of the count of Toulouse and of the southern princes 
 his allies. "He cajoled the lord pope," says the prejudiced 
 chronicler of these events, the monk Peter of Vaulx-Cernay, 
 "so far as to persuade him that the cause of the faith was 
 achieved against the heretics, they being put to distant flight 
 and completely driven from the Albigensian country, and that 
 accordingly it was necessary for him to revoke altogether the 
 indulgence he had granted to the crusaders. . . . The sovereign 
 pontiff, too credulously hstening to the perfidious suggestions 
 of the said king, readily assented to his demands, and wrote to 
 the count of Montfort, with orders and commands to restore 
 without delay to the counts of Comminges and of Foix, 
 and to Gaston of Beam, very wicked and abandoned people, 
 the lands which, by just judgment of God and by the aid of 
 the crusaders, he at last had conquered." But, in spite of his 
 desire to do justice, Innocent III., studying policy rather than 
 moderation, did not care to enter upon a stiniggle against the 
 agents, ecclesiastical and laic, whom he had let loose upon 
 Southern France. In November, 1215, the fourth Lateran 
 council met at Rome ; and the count of Toulouse, his son, and
 
 412 HISTORY OF FRANCE. [CH. xviii. 
 
 the count of Foix brought their claims before it. " It is quite 
 true," says Peter of Vaulx-Cernay, " that they found there — 
 and, what is worse, amongst the prelates — certain folk who 
 opposed the cause of the faith, and labored for the restoration 
 of the said counts ; but the counsel of Ahitophel did not pre- 
 vail, for the lord pope, in agreement with the greater and saner 
 part of the council, decreed that the city of Toiilouse and other 
 territories conquered by the crusaders should be ceded to the 
 count of Montfort who, more than any other, had borne himself 
 right valiantly and loyally in the holy enterprise ; and, as for 
 the domains which Count Raymond possessed in Provence, the 
 sovereign pontiff decided that they should be reserved to him, 
 in order to make provision, either with part or even the whole, 
 for the son of this count, provided always that, by sure signs 
 of fealty and good behavior, he should show himself worthy of 
 compassion." 
 
 This last inclination towards compassion on the part of the 
 pope in favor of the young Count Raymond, "provided he 
 showed himself worthy of it, " remained as fruitless as the re- 
 monstrances addressed to his legates ; for on the 17th of July, 
 1216, seven months after the Lateran council, Innocent III. 
 died, leaving Simon de Montfort and his comrades in possession 
 of all they had taken and the war still raging between the 
 native princes of southern France and the foreign conquerors. 
 The primitive, religious character of the crusade wore off more 
 and more ; worldly ambition and the spirit of conquest became 
 more and more predominant ; and the question lay far less be- 
 tween catholics and heretics than between the old and new 
 masters of the country, between the independence of the south- 
 ern people and the triumph of warriors come from the north of 
 France, that is to say, between two different races, civiliza- 
 tions, and languages. Raymond VI. and his son recovered 
 thenceforth certain supports and opportunities of which hitherto 
 the accusation of heresy and the judgments of the court of 
 Rome had robbed them; their neighboring allies and their 
 secret or intimidated partisans took fresh courage ; the fortune 
 of battle became shifty ; successes and reverses were shared 
 by both sides ; and not only many small places and castles but 
 the largest towns, Toulouse amongst others, fell into the hands 
 of each party alternately. Innocent III.'s successor in the 
 Holy Sec, Pope HonoriusIII., though at first very pronounced 
 in his opposition to the Albigensians, had less ability, less per- 
 severance, and less influence than his predecessor. Finally, on
 
 CH. xvm.] THE KINGSHIP IN FRANCE. 413 
 
 the 20th of June, 1218, Simon de Montfort who had been for 
 nine months unsuccessfully besieging Toulouse, which had 
 again come into the possession of Raymond VI. , was killed by a 
 shower of stones, under the walls of the place, and left to his 
 son Amaury the inheritance of his war and his conquests, but 
 not of his vigorous genius and his warMke renown. The 
 struggle still dragged on for five years with varied fortune on 
 each side, but Amaury de Montfort was losing ground every 
 day, and Eaymond VI., when he died in August, 1222, had re- 
 covered the greater part of his dominions. His son, Ray- 
 mond Vn., continued the war for eighteen months longer, Avith 
 enough of popular favor and of success to make his enemies 
 despair of recovering their advantages ; and, on the 14th of Jan- 
 uary, 1224, Amaury de Montfort, after having concluded with 
 the counts of Toulouse and Foix a treaty which seemed to 
 have only a provisional character, " went forth," says the His- 
 tory of Languedoc, ' ' with aU the French from Carcassonne, 
 and left for ever the country which his house had possessed for 
 nearly fourteen years." Scarcely had he arrived at the court 
 of Louis VIII., who had just succeeded his father, Phihp 
 Augustus, when he ceded to the king of France his rights 
 over the domains which the crusaders had conquered by a 
 deed conceived in these terms : ' ' Know that we give up to 
 our Lord Louis, the illustrious king of the French, and to his 
 heirs for ever, to dispose of according to their pleasure, all 
 the privileges and gifts that the Roman Church did grant 
 unto our father Simon of pious memory, in respect of the 
 countship of Toulouse and other districts in Albigeois; sup- 
 posing that the Pope do accomplish all the demands made 
 to him by the king through the archbishop of Bourges, and 
 the bishops of Langres and Chartres; else, be it known for 
 certain that we cede not to any one aught of all these do- 
 mains." 
 
 Whilst this cruel war lasted Philip Augustus would not take 
 any part in it. Not that he had any leaning towards the Albi- 
 gensian heretics on the score of creed or rehgious liberty ; but 
 his sense of justice and moderation was shocked at the violence 
 employed against them, and he had a repugnance to the idea 
 of taking part in the devastation of the beautiful southern prov- 
 inces. He took it iU, moreover, that the pope should arrogate 
 to himself the right of despoiling of their dominions, on the 
 ground of heresy, princes who were vassals of the king of 
 France ; and, without offering any formal opposition, he had
 
 414 EISTjORT OF FRANCE. [ch. xvm. 
 
 no mind to give his assent thereto. When Innocent III. called 
 upon Viim to co-operate in the crusade, Philip answered, " that 
 he had at his flanks two huge and terrible lions, the Emperor 
 Otho, and king John of England, who were working with all their 
 might to bring trouble upon the kingdom of France ; that, con- 
 sequently, he had no inchnation at all to leave France, or even 
 to send his son ; but it seemed to him enough, for the present, 
 if he allowed his barons to march against the disturbers of 
 peace and of the faith in the province of Narbonne." In 1213, 
 when Simon de Montf ort had gained the battle of Muret, Philip 
 allowed Priace Louis to go and look on when possession was 
 taken of Toulouse by the crusaders ; but when Louis came back 
 and reported to his father, ' ' in the presence of the princes and 
 barons who were, for the most part, relatives and alUes of 
 Count Raymond, the great havoc committed by Count Simon 
 in the city after surrender, the king withdrew to his apart- 
 ments without any ado beyond saying to those present ; ' Sirs, 
 I have yet hope that before very long Count de Montfort and 
 his brother Guy will die at their work, for God is just, and will 
 suffer these counts to perish thereat, because their quarrel is 
 unjust. ' " Nevertheless, at a little later period, when the cm- 
 sale was at its greatest heat, Philip, on the pope's repeated en- 
 treaty, authorized his son to take part in it with such lords as 
 might be wiUing to accompany him ; but he ordered that the 
 expedition should not start before the spring, and, on the 
 occurrence of some fresh incident, he had it further put oflE 
 untU the following year. He received visits from Coimt 
 Raymond VL, and openly testified good will towards him. 
 When Simon de Montfort was decisively victorious, and in 
 possession of the places wrested from Raymond, Philip Augus- 
 tus recognized accomplished facts, and received the ncAv count 
 of Toulouse as his vassal ; but when, after the death of Simon 
 de Montfort and Innocent III. the question was once more 
 thrown open, and when Raymond VI. first and then his son 
 Raymond VII. had recovered the greater part of their domin- 
 ions, Philip formally refused to recognize Amaury de Mont- 
 fort as successor to his father's conquests ; nay he did more, he 
 refused to accept the cession of those conquests, offered to him 
 by Amaury de Montfort and pressed upon him by Pope Hono- 
 rius ni. Philip Augustus was not a scinipulous sovereign, nor 
 disposed to compromise himself for the mere sake of defending 
 justice and humanity ; but he was too judicious not to respect 
 and protect, to a certain extent, tne rights of his vassals as well
 
 CH. xvin.] THE KINGSHIP IN FRANCE. 415 
 
 as his own, and, at the same time, too discreet to involve him- 
 seK, without necessity, in a barbarous and dubious war. He 
 held aloof from the crusade against the Albigensians with as 
 much wisdom and more than as much dignity as he had dis- 
 played, seventeen years before, in withdrawing from the cru- 
 sade against the Saracens. 
 
 He had, in 1216, another great chance of showing his dis- 
 cretion. The English barons were at war with their king, 
 John Lackland, in defence of Magna Charta, which they had 
 obtained the year before; and they offered the crown of 
 England to the king of France, for his son, Prince Louis. 
 Before accepting, Philip demanded twenty-four hostages, 
 taken from the men of note in the country, as a guarantee 
 that the offer would be supported in good earnest ; and the 
 hostages were sent to him. But Pope Innocent III. had lately 
 released King John from his oath in respect of Magna Charta 
 and had excommunicated the insurgent barons ; and he now 
 instructed his legate to oppose the projected design, with a 
 threat of excommunicating the king of France. Phihp 
 Augustus, who in his youth had dreamed of resuscitating the 
 empire of Charlemagne, was strongly tempted to seize the 
 opportunity of doing over again the work of WiUiam the Con- 
 queror ; but he hesitated to endanger his power and his king- 
 dom in such a war against King John and the pope. The 
 prince was urgent in entreating his father: "Sir," said he, "I 
 am your liegeman for the fief you have given me on this side 
 of the sea ; but it pertains not to you to decide aught as to the 
 kingdom of England ; I do beseech you to place no obstacle in 
 the way of my departure, " The king ' ' seeing his son's firm 
 resolution and anxiety," says the historian, Matthew Paris, 
 *' was one with him in feehng and desire; but, foreseeing the 
 dangers of events to come, he did not give his public consent, 
 and, without any expression of wish or counsel, permitted him 
 to go, with the gift of his blessing. " It was the young and 
 ambitious princess Blanche of Castillo, wife of Prince Louis, 
 and destined to be the mother of St. Louis, who, after her 
 husband's departure for England, made it her business to raise 
 troops for him and to send him means of sustaining the war. 
 Events justified the discreet reserve of Philip Augustus ; for 
 John Lackland, after having suffered one reverse previously, 
 died on the 19th of October, 1216 ; his death broke up the party 
 of the insm-gent barons; and his son, Henry III., who was 
 crowned on the 28th of October in Gloucester cathedral, im-
 
 416 BISTORT OF FRANCE. [ch. xnn. 
 
 mediately confirmed the Great Charter. Thus the national 
 grievance vanished, and national feeUng resumed its sway in 
 England; the French every where became unpopular; and 
 after a few months' struggle, with equal want of skill and suc- 
 cess, Prince Louis gave up his enterprise and returned to 
 France with his French conu-ades, on no other conditions but 
 a mutual exchange of prisoners and an amnesty for the Eng- 
 lish who had been his adherents. 
 
 At this juncture, as well as in the crusade against the 
 Albigensians, Philip Augustus behaved towards the pope with 
 a wisdom and abiUty hard of attainment at any time, and very 
 rare in his own : he constantly humored the papacy without 
 being subservient to it, and he testified towards it his respect 
 and at the same time his independence. He understood all 
 the gravity of a rupture with Eome and he neglected nothing 
 to avoid one ; but he also considered that Rome, herself not 
 wanting in discretion, would be content with the deference of 
 the king of France rather than get embroiled with bim by ex- 
 acting his submission. Philip Augustus, in his political life, 
 always preserved this proper mean, and he found it succeed; 
 but in his domestic life there came a day when he suffered 
 himself to be hurried out of his usual deference towards the 
 pope ; and, after a violent attempt at resistance, he resigned 
 himself to submission. Three years after the death of his 
 first wife, Isabel of Hainault, who had left him a son. Prince 
 Louis, he married Princess Ingeburga of Denmark, without 
 knowing any thing at aU of her, just as it generally happens in 
 the case of royal marriages. No sooner had she become his 
 wife than, without any cause that can be assigned with cer- 
 tainty, he took such a dislike to her that, towards the end of 
 the same year, he demanded of and succeeded in obtaining from 
 a French council, held at Compiegne, nullity of his marriage 
 on the ground of prohibited consanguinity. "Oh I naughty 
 France ! naughty France ! Oh! Rome! Rome!" cried the poor 
 Danish princess on learning this decision ; and she did in fact 
 appeal to Pope Celestine III. Whilst the question was being 
 investigated at Rome, Ingeburga, whom Philip had in vain 
 tried to send back to Denmark, was marched about, under re- 
 straint, in France from castle to castle and convent to convent, 
 and treated with iniquitous and shocking severity. Pope 
 Celestine, after examination, annulled the decision of the 
 council of Compiegne touching the pretended consanguinity, 
 leaving in suspense the question of divorce and, consequently.
 
 CH. xvm.] THE KmOSHIP IN FRANCE. 417 
 
 without breaking the tie of marriage between the king and the 
 Danish princess. "I have seen, " he wrote to the Archbishop 
 of Sens, "the genealogy sent to me by the bishops, and it is 
 due to that inspection and the uproar caused by this scandal 
 that I have annulled the decree ; take care now, therefore, that 
 PhiHp do not marry again, and so break the tie which still 
 unites him to the Church." Philip paid no heed to this 
 canonical injunction ; his heart was set upon marrying again ; 
 and, after having imsuccessfuUy sought the hand of two Ger- 
 man princesses on the borders of the Rhine, who were alarmed 
 by the fate of Ingeburga, he obtained that of a princess, a 
 Tyrolese by origin, Agnes (according to others Mary) of 
 Merania, that is, Moravia (an Austrian province, in German 
 Mcehren, out of which the chroniclers of the time made Meranie 
 or Merania, the name that has remained in the history of 
 Agnes). She was the daughter of Berthold, marquis of Istria, 
 whom, about 1180, the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa had made 
 Duke of Moravia. According to all contemporary chronicles, 
 Agnes was not only beautiful, but charming ; she made a great 
 impression at the court of France ; and Philip Augustus, after 
 his marriage with her in June, 1196, became infatuated with 
 her. But a pope, more stern and bold than Celestine III., 
 Innocent III., had just been raised to the Holy See, and was 
 exerting himself, in court as well as monastery, to effect a 
 reformation of morals. Immediately after his accession, he 
 concerned himself with the conjugal ii-regularity in which the 
 King of France was living. "My predecessor, Celestine," he 
 wrote to the bishop of Paris, ' ' would fain have put a stop to 
 this scandal, but he was unsuccessful ; as for me, I am quite 
 resolved to prosecute his work and obtain by all and any 
 means fulfilment of God's law. Be instant in speaking thereof 
 to the king on my behalf; and tell him that his obstinate 
 refusals may probably bring upon him both the wrath of God 
 and the thunders of the Church. " And indeed Philip's refusals 
 were very obstinate ; for the pride of the king and the feelings 
 of the man were equally wounded. "I had rather lose half 
 my domains," said he, "than separate from Agnes." The 
 pope threatened him Avith the interdict ; that is, the suspension 
 of all religious ceremonies, festivals, and forms in the Church 
 of France. PhOip resisted not only the thi-eat, but also the 
 sentence of the interdict, which was actually pronounced, first 
 in the churches of the royal domain, and afterwards in those 
 of the whole kingdom. "So wroth was the king," says the
 
 418 HISTORY OF FRANCE. [ch. XYltt 
 
 chronicle of St. Denis, " that he thrust from their sees all the 
 prelates of his kingdom because they had assented to the inter- 
 dict. " "I had rather turn Mussulman, " said Philip ; ' ' Saladin 
 was a happy man, for he had no pope." But Innocent III. 
 was inflexible ; he claimed respect for laws divine and human, 
 for the domestic, hearth and pubMc order. The conscience of 
 the nation was troubled. Agnes herself appUed to the pope, 
 urging her youth, her ignorance of the world, the sincerity and 
 purity of her love for her husband. Innocent III. was touched, 
 and before long gave indisputable evidence that lie was, but 
 without budging from his duty and his right as a Christian. 
 For four years the struggle went on. At last Phihp yielded to 
 the injunction of the pope and the feeling of his people ; he sent 
 away Agnes, and recalled Ingeburga. The pope, in his hour 
 of victory, showed his sense of eqmty and his moral appreci- 
 ation; taking into consideration the good faith of Agnes in 
 respect of her marriage and PhiHp's possible mistake as to his 
 right to marry her, he declared the legitimacy of the two 
 children bom of theii* union. Agnes retired to Poissy, where, 
 a few months afterwards, she died. Ingeburga resumed her 
 title and rights as queen, but without really enjoying them. 
 Philip, incensed as weU as beaten, banished her far from him 
 and his court, to Etarapes, where she lived eleven years in pro- 
 found retirement. It was only in 1212 that, to fully satisfy 
 the pope, Philip, more persevering in his pohtical wisdom than 
 his domestic prejudices, restored the Danish princess to all her 
 royal station at his side. She was destined to survive him. 
 
 There can be httle doubt but that the affection of Phihp 
 Augustus for Agnes of Merania was sincere ; nothing can be 
 better proof of it than the long struggle he maintained to 
 prevent separation from her; but, to say nothing of the 
 rehgious scruples which at last, perhaps, began to prick the 
 conscience of the king, great pohtical activity and the govern- 
 ment of a kingdom are a powei-ful cm'e for sorrows of the 
 heai't, and seldom is there a human soul so large and so con- 
 stant as to have room for sentiments and interests so different, 
 both of them at once and for a long continuance. It has been 
 shown with what intelligent assiduity Philip Augustus strove to 
 extend or, rather, to complete the kingdom of France ; what a 
 mixture of firmness and moderation he brought to bear upon 
 his relations with his vassals as weU as with his neighbors; 
 and what bravery he showed in war, though he preferred to 
 succeed by the weapons of peace. He was as energetic and
 
 CH. xvni.] THE EINQSUIP IN FRANCE. 419 
 
 eflEective in the internal administration of his kingdom as in 
 foreign affairs. M. Leopold DeHsle, one of the most learned 
 French Academicians and one of the most accurate in hia 
 knowledge, has devoted a volume of more than 70U pages 
 octavo to a simple catalogue of the official acts of Philip 
 Augustus, and this catalogue contains a list of 2236 adminis 
 trative Acts of all kinds, of which M. Delisle confines himsell 
 to merely setting forth the title and object. Search has been 
 made in this long table to see what part was taken by Phihp 
 Augustus in the establishment and interior regulation of the 
 commimes, that great fact which is so conspicuous in the 
 history of French civilization and which will before long be 
 made the topic of discourse here. The search brings to light, 
 dm-ing this reign, forty -one acts confirming certain coromunes 
 already established or certain privileges previously granted to 
 certain populations, forty-three acts estabhshing new com^ 
 munes, or granting new local privileges, and nine acts decree- 
 ing suppression of certain communes or a repressive inter- 
 vention of the royal authority in their internal regulation, on 
 account of quarrels or irregularities in their relations either 
 with their lord, or, especially, with their bishop. These mere 
 figm'es show the hberal character of the government of Phihp 
 Augustus in respect of this important work of the eleventh, 
 twelfth, and thirteenth centuries. Nor are we less struck by 
 his efficient energy in his care for the interests and material 
 civilization of his people. In 1185, "as he was walking one 
 day in his palace, he placed himself at a window whence he 
 was sometimes pleased, by way of pastime, to watch the Seine 
 flowing by. Some carts, as they passed, caused the mud with 
 which the streets were fiUed to emit a fetid smell, quite un- 
 bearable. The king, shocked at what was as unhealthy as it 
 was disgusting, sent for the burghers and provost of the city, 
 and ordered that all the thoroughfares and streets of Paris 
 shotdd be paved with hard and sohd stone, for this right Chris- 
 tian prince aspired to rid Paris of her ancient name, Lutetia 
 (Mud-town)." It is added that, on hearing of so good a resolu- 
 tion, a moneyed man of the day, named Gerard de Poissy, 
 volunteered to contribute towards the construction of the 
 pavement 11,000 silver marks. Nor was Philip Augustus less 
 concerned for the external seciirity than for the internal salu- 
 brity of Paris. In 1190, on the eve of his departure for the 
 crusade, " he ordered the biirghers of Paris to surround with a 
 good wall flanked by towers the city he loved so well, and to
 
 420 HISTORY OF FRANCE. [ch. xtol 
 
 make gates thereto;" and, in twenty years, this great work 
 was finished on both sides of the Seine. ' ' The king gave the 
 same orders, " adds the historian Rigord, ' ' about the towns 
 and castles of all his kingdom ;" and indeed it appears from 
 the catalogue of M. Leopold Delisle, at the date of 1193, "that, 
 at the request of Philip Augustus, Peter de Courtenai, count of 
 Nevers, with the aid of the church-men, had the walls of the 
 town of Auxerre built." And Philip's foresight went beyond 
 such important achievements. "He had a good wall built to 
 enclose the wood of Vincennes, heretofore open to any sort of 
 folk. The King of England, on hearing thereof, gathered a 
 great mass of fawns, hinds, does, and bucks, taken in his 
 forests in Normandy and Aquitaine; and having had them 
 shipped aboard a large covered vessel, with suitable fodder, 
 he sent them by way of the Seine to King Philip Augustus, 
 his liege-lord at Paris. King Philip received the gift gladly, 
 had his parks stocked with the animals and put keepers over 
 them." A feeling, totally unconnected with the pleasures of 
 the chase, caused him to order an enclosure very different 
 from that of Vincennes. "The common cemetery of Paris, 
 hard by the Church of the Holy Innocents, opposite the street 
 of St. Denis, had remained up to that time open to all passers, 
 man and beast, without any thing to prevent it from being con- 
 founded with the most profane spot ; and the king, hurt at such 
 indecency, had it enclosed by high stone-walls, with as many 
 gates as were judged necessary, which were closed every 
 night." At the same time he had built, in this same quarter, 
 the first great municipal market-places, enclosed, likewise, by 
 a wall, with gates shut at night, and surmounted by a sort of 
 covered gallery. He was not quite a stranger to a certain in- 
 stinct, neither systematic nor of general application but 
 practical and effective on occasion, in favor of the freedom of 
 industry and commerce. Before his time, the ovens employed 
 by the baking-trade in Paris were a monopoly for the profit 
 of certain religious or laic establishments; but when Philip 
 Augustus ordered the walling-in of the new and much larger 
 area of the city ' ' he did not think it right to render its new 
 inhabitants subject to these old liabihties, and he permitted all 
 the bakers to have ovens wherein to bake their bread, either 
 for themselves, or for aU individuals who might wish to make 
 use of them." Nor were churches and hospitals a whit less 
 than the material interests of the people an object of solicitude
 
 CH. xvTii.] THE KINGSHIP IN FRANCE. 421 
 
 to htm. His reign saw the completion, and, it might ahnost be 
 said, the construction of Notre-Dame de Paris, the fiontage of 
 which, in particular, was the work of this epoch. At the same 
 time the king had the palace of the Louvre repaired and en- 
 larged ; and he added to it that strong tower in which he kept 
 in captivity for more than twelve years, Ferrand, count of 
 Flanders, taken prisoner at the battle of Bouvines. It would 
 be a failure of justice and truth not to add to these proofs of 
 manifold and indefatigable activity on the part of PhiUp 
 Augustus the constant interest he testified in letters, science, 
 study, the University of Paris, and its masters and pupils. It 
 was to him that in 1200, after a violent riot, in which they con- 
 sidered they had reason to complain of the provost of Paris, 
 the student sowed a decree, which, by regarding them as clerics, 
 exempted them from the ordinary criminal jurisdiction so as 
 to render them subject only to ecclesiastical authority. At that 
 time there was no idea how to efficiently protect freedom save 
 by granting some privilege. 
 
 A death which seems premature for a man as sound and 
 strong in constitution as in judgment struck down PhiHp 
 Augustus at the age of only fifty-eight, as he was on his way 
 from Pacy-sur-Eure to Paris to be present at the council which 
 was to meet there and once more take up the afifair of the Albi- 
 gensians. He had for several months been battling with an 
 incessant fever ; he was obhged to halt at Mantes, and there he 
 died on the 14th of January, 1223, leaving the kingdom of 
 France far more extensive and more compact, and the king- 
 ship in France far stronger and more respected than he had 
 found them. It was the natural and weU-deserved result of 
 his life. At a time of violence and irregular adventure, he had 
 shown to Eiu-ope the spectacle of an earnest, far-sighted, 
 moderate, and able government, and one which in the end, 
 under many hard trials, had nearly always succeeded in its 
 designs, during a reign of forty -three years. 
 
 He disposed, by will, of a considerable amount amassed 
 without parsimony, and even, historians say, in spite of a 
 royal magnificence. We will take from that will but two 
 paragraphs, the first two : — 
 
 " We will and prescribe first of all that, without any gain- 
 saying, our testamentary executors do levy and set aside, out 
 of our possessions, fifty thousand livres of Paris, in order to 
 restore, as God shall inspire them with wisdom, whatsoever
 
 422 HISTORY OF FRANCE. [ch. xviii. 
 
 may be due to those from whom they shall recognize that we 
 have unjustly taken or extorted or kept back aught ; and we do 
 ordam this most strictly." 
 
 "We do give to our dear spouse Isamber (evidently 
 Ingeburga), Queen of the French, ten thousand livres of Paris. 
 We might have given more to the said queen, but we have 
 confined ourselves to this sum in order that we might make 
 more complete restitution and reparation of what we have un- 
 justly levied." 
 
 There is in these two r^ses of testamentary reparation, to 
 persons unknown on thfi: «ne hand and to a lady long 
 maltreated on the other, a ^/ouch of probity and honorable 
 regret for wrong-doing which arouses for this gi'eat king, in 
 his dying hour, more moral esteenn than one would otherwise 
 be tempted to feel for him. 
 
 His son, Louis VIII., inherited a great kingdom, an undis- 
 puted crown, and a power that was respected. It was mat- 
 ter of general remark, moreover, that, by his mother, Isabel 
 of Hainault, he was descended in the direct line from Hermen- 
 garde, countess of Namur, daughter of Charles of Lorraine, the 
 last of the Carlovingians. Thus the claims of the two dynasties 
 of Charlemagne and of Hugh Capet were united in his person ; 
 and, although the authority of the Capetians was no longer dis- 
 puted, contemporaries were glad to see in Louis VIII. this two- 
 fold heirship, which gave him the perfect stamp of a legitimate 
 monai'ch. He was, besides, the first Capetian whom the king 
 his father had not considered it necessary to have consecrated 
 during his own life so as to impress upon him in good time the 
 seal of religion. Louis was consecrated at Eheims no earlier 
 than the 6th of August, 1223, three weeks after the death of 
 Phihp Augustus ; and his consecration was celebrated, at Paris 
 as well as at Rheims, with rejoicings both popular and magnifi- 
 cent. But in the condition in which France was during the 
 thirteenth century, amidst a civilization still so imperfect and 
 without the fortifying institutions of a free government, no 
 accidental good fortune could make up for a king's want of 
 personal merit; and Louis VIII. was a man of downright 
 mediocrity, without foresight, volatile in his resolves, and 
 weak and fickle in the execution of them. He, as well as 
 Philip Augustus, had to make war on the king of England and 
 negotiate with the pope on the subject of the Albigensians; 
 but at one time he followed, without well understanding it, his 
 father's policy, at another he neglected it for some whim or
 
 CH. xYiii.] THU Km G SHIP m France. 423 
 
 under some temporary influence. Yet lie was not unsuccessfxil 
 in his warlike enterprises ; in his campaign against Henry III., 
 king of England, he took Niort, St. Jean d'Angely, and Ro- 
 chelle ; he accomplished the subjection of Limousin and Peri- 
 gord ; and had he pushed on his victories beyond the Garonne, 
 he might perhaps have deprived the English of Aqiiitaine, their 
 last possession in France ; but, at the solicitation of Pope Hono- 
 rius III., he gave up this war, to resume the crusade against 
 the Albigensians. Philip Augustus had foreseen this mistake. 
 "After my death," he had said, "the clei-gy will use all their 
 efforts to entangle my son Louis in the matters of the Albi- 
 gensians ; but he is in weak and shattered health ; he will be 
 unable to bear the fatigue ; he will soon die, and then the king- 
 dom will be left in the hands of a woman and children ; and 
 so there will be no lack of dangers." The prediction was 
 realized. The military campaign of Louis VIII. on the Rhone 
 was successful; after a somewhat difficult siege, he took 
 Avignon ; the principal towns in the neighborhood, Nimes and 
 Aries, amongst others, submitted; Amaury de Montfort had 
 ceded to him all his rights over his father's conquests in Lan- 
 guedoc ; and the Albigensians were so completely destroyed or 
 dispersed or cowed that, when it seemed good to make a further 
 example amongst them of the severity of the Church against 
 heretics, it was a hard matter to rout out in the diocese of 
 Narbonne one of their former preachers, Peter Isarn, an old 
 man hidden in an obscure retreat from which he was diagged 
 to be burned in solemn state. This was Louis VIEE.'s last ex- 
 ploit in southern France. He was displeased with the pope, 
 whom he reproached with not keeping all his promises; his 
 troops were being decimated by sickness ; and he was deserted 
 by Theobald IV., coimt of Champagne, after serving, accord- 
 ing to feudal law, for forty days. 
 
 Louis, incensed, disgusted, and ill, himself left his army, to 
 return to his own northern France; but he never reached it, 
 for fever compelled him to halt at Montpensier, in Auvergne, 
 where he died on the 8th of November, 1226, after a reign of 
 three years, adding to the history of France no glory save that 
 of ha^-ing been the son of Philip Augustus, the husband of 
 Blanche of CastiUe, and the father of St. Louis. 
 
 We have already peinased the most brilUant and celebrated 
 amongst the events of St. Louis' reign, his two crusades against 
 the Mussulmans ; and we have learned to know the man at the 
 same time with the event, for io was in these warhke outburstB
 
 424 histohy of France. [ch. xvm. 
 
 of his Christian faith that the king's character, nay, his whole 
 soul, was displayed in all its originality and splendor. It was 
 his good fortune, moreover, to have at that time as his com- 
 rade and biographer, Sire de Joinville, one of the most sprightly 
 and charming writers of the nascent French language. It is 
 now of Louis in France and of his government at home that we 
 have to take note. And in this part of his history he is not the 
 only royal and really regnant personage we encounter ; for of 
 the forty -four years of St. Louis' reign, nearly fifteen, with a 
 long interval of separation, pertained to the government of 
 Queen Blanche of Castille rather than that of the king her son. 
 Louis, at his accession, in 1226, was only eleven; and he re- 
 mained a minor up to the age of twenty-one, in 1236, for the 
 time of majority in the case of royalty was not yet specially 
 and rigorously fixed. During those ten years Queen Blanche 
 governed France ; not at all, as is commonly asserted Avith the 
 official title of regent but simply as guardian of the king her 
 son. With a good sense reaUy admirable in a person so proud 
 and ambitious, she saw that official power was ill suited to her 
 woman's condition and would weaken rather than strengthen 
 her ; and she screened herself from view behind her son. He 
 it was who, in 1226, wrote to the great vassals bidding them to 
 his consecration ; he it was who reigned and commanded ; and 
 his name alone appeared on royal decrees and on treaties. It 
 was not until twenty-two years had passed, in 1248, that Louis, 
 on starting for the crusade, officially delegated to his mother 
 the kingly authority, and that Blanche, during her son's ab- 
 sence, really governed with the title of regent, up to the 1st of 
 December, 1252, the day of his death. 
 
 During the first period of his government and so long as her 
 son's minority lasted. Queen Blanche had to gi'apple with in 
 trigues, plots, insurrections, and open war, and, what was still 
 worse for her, with the insults and calumnies of the crown's 
 great vassals, burning to seize once more, under a woman's 
 government, the independence and power which had been 
 effectually disputed with them by Philip Augustus. Blanche 
 resisted their attempts, at one time with open and persevering 
 energy, at another dexterously with aU the tact, address and 
 allurements of a woman. Though she was now forty years of 
 age she was beautiful, elegant, attractive, fvdl of resources and 
 of grace in her conversation as well as her administration, en- 
 dowed with all the means of pleasing, and skilful in avaihng 
 herself of them with a coquetry which was occasionally
 
 CH. xviii.] THE KINO SHIP IN FRANCE. 425 
 
 more telling than discreet. The malcontents spread the most 
 odious scandals about her. It so happened that one of the most 
 considerable amongst the great vassals of France, Theobald 
 rv., count of Champagne, a brUUant and gay knight, an in- 
 genious and prolific poet, had conceived a passion for her ; and 
 it was aflSrmed not only that she had yielded to his desires, in 
 order to keep him bound to her service, but that she had, a 
 while ago, in concert with him, murdered her husband. King 
 Louis VIII. In 1230, some of the greatest barons of the king- 
 dom, the count of Brittany, the count of Boulogne, and the 
 count of St. Pol formed a coahtion for an attack upon Count 
 Theobald and invaded Champagne. Blanche, taking with her 
 the young king her son, went to the aid of Count Theobald, 
 and, on arriving near Troyes, she had orders given, in the 
 king's name, for the barons to withdraw : "If you have plaint 
 to make," said she, " against the count of Champagne, present 
 before me your claim and I will do you justice. " ' ' We wiU 
 not plead before you," they answered, "for the custom of 
 women is to fix their choice upon him, in preference to other 
 men, who has slain their husband," But, in spite of this in- 
 sulting defiance, the barons did withdrew. Five years later, 
 in 1235, the Count of Champagne had, in his turn, risen against 
 the king and was forced, as an escape from imminent defeat, 
 to accept severe terms. 
 
 An interview took place between Queen Blanche and him ; 
 and " ' Pardie, Count Theobald,' said the queen, 'you ought 
 not to have been against us ; you ought surely to have remem- 
 bered the kindness shown you by the king my son, who came 
 to your aid, to save your land from the barons of France when 
 they would fain have set fire to it all and laid it in ashes. ' 
 The count cast a look upon the queen, who was so virtuous 
 and so beautiful that at her great beauty he was aU abashed, 
 and answered her, * By my faith, Madame, my heart and my 
 body and all my land is at your command, and there is nothing 
 which to please you I would not readily do ; and against you 
 or yours, please God, I will never go.' Thereupon he went his 
 way full pensively, and often there came back to his remem- 
 brance the queen's soft glance and lovely countenance. Then 
 . his heart was touched by a soft and amorous thought. But 
 when he remembered how high a dame she was, so good and 
 pure that he could never enjoy her, his soft thought of love 
 was changed to a great sadness. And because deep thoughts 
 engender melancholy, it was counselled unto him by certain
 
 426 HI8T0BT OF FRANCE. [ch. xvin. 
 
 wise men that he should make his study of canzonets for the 
 viol and soft delightful ditties. So made he the most beauti- 
 ful canzonets and the most dehghtful and most melodious that 
 at any time were heard." {Histoire des Dues et des Comtes de 
 Champagne, by M. d' Arbois de Jubainville, t. iv. p. 249, 280 ; 
 Chroniques de Saint-Denis, in the Recueil des Historiens des 
 Gaules et de France, t. xxi. pp. Ill, 112.) 
 
 Neither in the events nor in the writings of the period is it 
 easy to find any thing which can authorize the accusations 
 made by the foes of Queen Blanche. There is no knowing 
 whether her heart were ever so little touched by the canzonets 
 of Coimt Theobald ; but it is certain that neither the poetry nor 
 the advances of the count made any difference in the resolu- 
 tions and behavior of the queen. She continued her resistance 
 to the pretensions and machinations of the crown's great vas- 
 sals, whether foes or lovers, and she carried forward, in the 
 face and in the teeth of all, the extension of the domains and 
 power of the kingship. We observe in her no prompting of 
 enthusiasm, of sympathetic charitableness, or of religious 
 scrupulousness, that is, none, of those grand moral impulses 
 which are characteristic of Christian piety and which were 
 predominant in St. Louis. Blanche was essentially poHtic and 
 concerned with her temporal interests and successes ; and it 
 was not from her teaching or her example that her son im- 
 bibed those subhme and disinterested feelings which stamped 
 him the most original and the rarest on the roU of glorious 
 kings. What St. Louis really owed to his mother, and it was 
 a great deal, was the steady triumph which, whether by arms 
 or by negotiation, Blanche gained over the great vassals, and 
 the preponderance which, amidst the struggles of the feudal 
 system, she secured for the kingship of her son in his minority. 
 She saw by profound instinct what forces and alliances might 
 be made serviceable to the kingly power against its rivals. 
 When, on the 29th of November, 1226, only three weeks after 
 the death of her husband Louis VIII. , she had her son crowned 
 at Rheims, she bade to the ceremony not only the prelates and 
 grandees of the kingdom but also the inhabitants of the neigh- 
 boring communes ; wishing to let the great lords see the people 
 surrounding the royal child. Two years later, in 1228, amidst 
 the insurrection of the barons, who were assembled at Corbeil 
 and who meditated seizing the person of the young king during 
 his halt at Montlhery on his march to Paris, Queen Blanche 
 had summoned to her side, together with the faithful chivalry
 
 CH. XVIII.] THE KINGSHIP IN FRANCE. 427 
 
 of the country, the burghers of Paris and of the neighborhood ; 
 and they obeyed the summons with alacrity. "They went 
 forth all under arms, and took the road to Montlhery, where 
 they found the king, and escorted him to Paris, all in their 
 ranks and in order of battle. From Montlhery to Paris the 
 road was lined, on both sides, by men-at-arms and others who 
 loudly besought Our Lord to grant the youn^, king long Mfe and 
 prosperity and to vouchsafe him protection against all his ene- 
 mies. As soon as they set out from Paris, the lords, having 
 been told the news and not considering themselves in a con- 
 dition to fight so great a host, retired each to his own abode ; 
 and by the ordering of God, who disposes as it pleases Him of 
 times and the deeds of men, they dared not undertake any 
 thing against the king during the rest of this year." {Vie de 
 Saint Louis, by Lenain de Tillemont, t. i. pp. 429, 478.) 
 
 Eight years later, in 1236, Louis IX. attained his majority, 
 and his mother transferred to him a power respected, feared, 
 and encompassed by vassals always turbulent and still often 
 aggressive, but disunited, weakened, intimidated, or discredited, 
 and always outwitted, for a space of ten years, in their plots. 
 
 When she had secured the pohtical position of the king her 
 son, and as the time of his majority approached. Queen Blanche 
 gave her attention to his domestic life also. She belonged to 
 the number of those who aspire to play the part of Providence 
 towards the objects of their affection and to regulate their des- 
 tiny in every thing. Louis was nineteen ; he was handsome, 
 after a refined and gentle style which spoke of moral worth 
 without teUing of great physical strength ; he had delicate and 
 chiselled features, a brilliant complexion and hght hair, 
 abundant and glossy, which, through his grandmother Isabel, 
 he inherited from the family of the counts of Hainault. He 
 displayed hveliness and elegance in his tastes ; he was fond of 
 amusements, games, hunting, hounds and hawking-birds, fine 
 clothes, magnificent furniture. A holy man, they say, even 
 reproached the queen his mother with having winked at cer- 
 tain inclinations evinced by him towards irregular connections. 
 Blanche determined to have him married ; and had no difficulty 
 in exciting in him so honorable a desire. Raymond Beranger. 
 count of Provence, had a daughter, his eldest, named Mar- 
 guerite, "who was held," say the chronicles, "to be the most 
 noble, most beautiful, and best educated princess at that time 
 
 in Europe By the advice of his mother and of the 
 
 wisest persons in his kingdom," Louis asked for her hand in
 
 428 HISTORY OF FRANCE. [ch. xviu. 
 
 marriage. The count of Provence was overjoyed at the pro- 
 posal ; but he was somewhat anxious about the immense dowry 
 which, it was said, he would have to give his daughter. His 
 intimate adviser was a Provengal nobleman, named Romeo de 
 Villeneuve, who said to him, "Count, leave it to me, and let 
 not this great expense cause you any trouble. If you marry 
 your eldest high, the mere consideration of the alliance will 
 get the others married better and at less cost." Count Ray- 
 mond hstened to reason, and before long acknowledged that 
 his adviser was right. He had four daughters, Marguerite, 
 Eleanor, Sancie, and Beatrice; and when Marguerite was 
 queen of France, Eleanor became queen of England, Sancie 
 countess of Cornwall and afterwards queen of the Romans, and 
 Beatrice countess of Anjou and Provence, and ultimately queen 
 of Sicily. Princess Marguerite arrived in France escorted by a 
 brilliant embassy, and the marriage was celebrated at Sens, on 
 the 27th of May, 1234, amidst great rejoicings and abundant 
 largess to the people. As soon as he was married and in pos- 
 session of happiness at home, Louis of his own accord gave up 
 the worldly amusements for which he had at first displayed a 
 taste; his hunting establishment, his games, his magnificent 
 furniture and dress gave place to simpler pleasures and more 
 Christian occupations. The active duties of the kingsliip, the 
 fervent and scrupulous exercise of piety, the pure and im- 
 passioned joys of conjugal life, the glorious plans of a knight 
 militant of the cross, were the only things which took up the 
 thoughts and the time of this young king, who was modestly 
 laboring to become a saint and a hero. 
 
 Tliere was one heartfelt discomfort which disturbed and 
 troubled sometimes the sweetest moments of his life. Queen 
 Blanche, having got her son married, was jealous of the wife 
 and of the happiness she had conferred upon her ; jealous as 
 mother and as queen, a rival for affection and for empire. 
 This sad and hateful feeling hurried her into acts as devoid of 
 dignity as they were of justice and kindness. ** The harshness 
 of Queen Blanche towards Queen Marguerite," says Joinville, 
 ** was such that Queen Blanche would not suffer, so far as her 
 power went, that her son should keep his wife's company. 
 Where it was most pleasing to the king and the queen to live 
 was at Pontoise, because the king's chamber was above and 
 the queen's below. And they had so well arranged matters 
 that they held their converse on a spiral staircase which led 
 down from the one chamber to the other. When the ushers
 
 CH. xviri.] THE KINGSHIP IN FRANCE. 429 
 
 saw the queen-mother coming into the chamber of the king her 
 son, they knocked upon the door with their staves, and the 
 king came running into his chamber, so that his mother might 
 find him there ; and so, in turn, did the ushers of Queen Mar- 
 guerite's chamber when Queen Blanche came thither, so that 
 she might find Queen Marguerite there. One day the king 
 was with the queen his wife, and she was in great perU of death, 
 for that she had suffered from a child of which she had been 
 deUvered. Queen Blanche came in, and took her son by the 
 hand, and said to liim, ' Come you away ; you are doing no 
 good here.' When Queen Marguerite saw that the queen- 
 mother was taking the king away, she cried, ' Alas ! neither 
 dead nor alive will you let me see my lord ; ' and thereupon she 
 swooned and it was thought that she was dead. The king, Avho 
 thought she was dying, came back, and with great pains she 
 was brought round." 
 
 Louis gave to his wife consolation and to his mother support. 
 Amongst the noblest souls and in the happiest lives there are 
 wounds which cannot be healed and sorrows which must be 
 bornn in silence. 
 
 Wlien Louis reached his majority, his entrance upon per- 
 sonal exercise of the kingly power produced no change in the 
 conduct of public affairs. There was no vain seeking after inno- 
 vation on purpose to mark the accession of a new master, and 
 no reaction in the deeds and words of the sovereign or in the 
 choice and treatment of his advisers ; the kingship of the son 
 was a continuance of the mother's government. Louis per- 
 sisted in strugghng for the preponderance of the crown against 
 the great vassals ; succeeding in taming Peter Mauclerc, the 
 turbulent count of Brittany; wrung from Theobald IV., 
 count of Champagne, the rights of suzerainty in the countships 
 of Chartres, Blois, and Sancerre, and the \'iscountship of 
 Chateaudun; and purchased the fertile countship of Macon 
 from its possessor. It was almost always by pacific procedure, 
 by negotiations ably conducted, and conventions faithfully 
 executed, that he accompUshed these increments of the kingly 
 domain ; and when he made war on any of the great vassals, 
 he engaged therein only on their provocation, to maintain the 
 rights or honor of his crown, and he used victory with as much 
 moderation as he had shown before entering upon the struggle. 
 In 1241, he was at Poitiers, where his brother Alphonso, the 
 new count of Poitou, was to receive, in his presence, the hom- 
 age of the neighboring lords whose suzerain he was. A con-
 
 430 mSTORT OF FRAKVE. [cH. xvra. 
 
 fidential letter arrived, addressed not to Louis himself, but to 
 Queen Blanche, whom many faithful subjects continued to re- 
 gard as the real regent of the kingdom, and who probably con- 
 tinued also to have her own private agents. An inhabitant of 
 EocheUe, at any rate, wrote to inform the queen-mother that 
 a great plot was being hatched amongst certain powerful lords, 
 of la Marche, Saintonge, Angoumois, and perhaps others, to 
 decline doing homage to the new count of Poitou, and thus to 
 enter into rebellion against the king himself. The news was 
 true and was given with circumstantial detail. Hugh de Lusig- 
 nan, count of la Marche, and the most considerable amongst 
 the vassals of the count of Poitiei*s, was, if not the prime 
 mover, at any rate the principal performer in the plot. Hi p 
 wife, Joan (Isabel) of Angouleme, widow of the late king of 
 England, John Lackland, and mother of the reigning king, 
 Henry IH., was indignant at the notion of becoming a vassal 
 of a prince himself a vassal of the king of Fi-ance, and so see- 
 ing herseK — herself but lately a queen and now a king's widow 
 and a king's mother — degraded, in France, to a rank below 
 that of the countess of Poitiers. When her husband, the count 
 of la Marche, went and rejoined her at Angouleme, he found 
 her giving way alternately to anger and tears, tears and anger. 
 *'Saw you not,'' said she, "at Poitiers, where I waited three 
 days to please your king and his queen, how that when I ap- 
 peared before them, in their chamber, the king was seated on 
 one side of the bed and the queen with the countess of Chartres 
 and her sister the abbess on the other side? They did not call 
 me nor bid me sit with them, and that purposely, in order to 
 make me vile in the eyes of so many folk. And neither at my 
 coming in nor at my going out did they rise just a little from 
 their seats, rendering me vile as you did see yourself. I can- 
 not speak of it, for grief and shame. And it will be my death, 
 far more even than the loss of our land which they have im- 
 worthily wrested from us; unless, by God's grace, they do re- 
 pent them, and I see them in their turn reduced to desolation 
 and losing somewhat of their own lands. As for me, either I 
 will lose all I have for that end or I will perish in the attempt." 
 Queen Blanche's correspondent added, " The count of la Marche, 
 whose kindness you know, seeing the countess in tears, said 
 to her, ' Madam, give your commands: I will do all I can; be 
 assured of that.' ' Else,' said she, ' you shall not come near my 
 person, and I wiU never see you more.' Then the count declared 
 with many curses, that he would do what his wife desired."
 
 CH. XVIII.] THE KINGSHIP IN FRANCE. 431 
 
 And he was as good as his word. That same year, 1241, at the 
 end of the autumn, ' ' the new coimt of Poitiers, who was holding 
 his court for the first time, did not fail to bid to his feasts all the 
 nobihty of his appanage, and, amongst the very first, the count 
 and countess of la Marche. They repaired to Poitiers; but, 
 four days before Christmas, when the court of Count Alphonso 
 bad received all its guests, the coimt of la Marche, mounted on 
 his war-horse, with his wife on the crupper behind him, and 
 escorted by his men-a.t-arms also mounted, cross-bow in hand 
 and in readiness for battle, was seen advancing to the prince's 
 presence. Every one was on the tip-toe of expectation as to 
 what would come next. Then the count of la Marche addressed 
 himself in a loud voice to the count of Poitiers, saying, 'I 
 might have thought, in a moment of forgetfulness and weak- 
 ness, to render thee homage ; but now I swear to thee, with a 
 resolute heart, that I will never be thy Hege-man ; thou dost 
 unjustly dub thyself my lord ; thou didst shamefully filch this 
 countship from my step-son, Earl Richard, whilst he was faith- 
 fully fighting for G-od in the Holy Land, and was dehvering 
 oiu* captives by his discretion and Ms compassion.' After this 
 insolent declaration, the count of la Marche violently thrust 
 aside, by means of his men-at-arms, all those who barred his 
 passage ; hasted, by way of parting insult, to fire the lodging 
 appointed for him by Coimt Alphonso, and, followed by his 
 people, left Poitiers at a gallop." (Histoire de Saint Louis, by 
 M. FeHx Faure, t. i. p. 347.) 
 
 This meant war; and it bm-st out at the co m mencement of 
 the following spring. It found Louis equally well prepared for 
 it and determined to carry it through. But in him prudence 
 and justice were as httle to seek as resolution ; he respected 
 public opinion and he wished to have the approval of those 
 whom he called upon to commit themselves for him and with 
 him. He summoned the crown's vassals to a parUament ; and 
 "What think you," he asked them, "should be done to a vas- 
 sal who would fain hold land without owning a lord, and who 
 goeth against the fealty and homage due from him and his 
 predecessors?" The answer was that the lord ought in that 
 case to take back the fief as his own property. "As my 
 name is Louis," said the king, "the coimt of la Marche doth 
 claim to hold land in such wise, land which hath been a 
 fief of France since the days of the vahant King Clovis 
 who won all Aquitaine from King Alai-ic, a pagan without 
 faith or creed, and all the country to the Pyrenean moimt." 
 (19) HF Vol. 1
 
 432 HISTORY OF FRANCE. [ch. xvni. 
 
 And the barons promised the king their energetic co-opera- 
 tion. 
 
 The war Avas pushed on zealously by both sides. Henry III. , 
 king of England, sent to Louis messengers charged to declare 
 to him that his reason for breaking the truce concluded be- 
 tween them was that he regarded it as his duty towards his 
 step-father, the coimt of la Marche, to defend him by arms. 
 Louis answered that, for his own part, he had scrupulously 
 observed the truce and had no idea of breaking it, but he con- 
 sidered that he had a perfect right to punish a rebeUious vas- 
 sal. In this young king of France, this docile son of an able 
 mother, none knew what a hero there was, until he revealed 
 himself on a sudden. Near two towns of Saintonge, Taille- 
 bourg and Saintes, at a bridge which coA'ered the approaches 
 of one and in front of the walls of the other, Louis, on the 21st 
 and 22nd of July, dehvered two battles in which the brilliancy of 
 his personal valor and the affectionate enthusiasm he excited 
 in his troops secured victory and the surrender of the two 
 places. "At sight of the numerous banners above which rose 
 the oriflamme, close to Taillebourg, and of such a multitude of 
 tents, one pressing against another and forming as it were a 
 large and populous city, the king of England turned sharply 
 to the count of la Marche, saying, ' My father, is this what you 
 did promise me? Is yonder the numerous chivalry that you 
 did engage to raise for me, when you said that aU I should have 
 to do would be to get money together?' 'That did I never 
 say,' answered the count. 'Yea, verily,' rejoined Richard, 
 earl of Cornwall, brother of Henry III. : ' for yonder I have 
 amongst my baggage writing of your own to such purport.' 
 And when the cotmt of la Marche energetically denied that he 
 had ever signed or sent such writing, Henry III. reminded him 
 bitterly of the messages he had sent to England and of his 
 urgent exhortations to war. 'It was never done with my 
 consent,' cried the count of la Marche, with an oath; 'put the 
 blame of it upon your mother who is my wife; for, by the 
 gullet of God, it was all devised Avithout my knowledge.' " 
 
 It was not Henry III. alone who was disgusted with the war 
 in which his mother had involved him ; the majority of the 
 English lords who had accompanied him left him, and asked 
 the king of France for permission to pass through his kingdom 
 on their way home. There were those who would have dis- 
 suaded Louis from comphance; but, " Let them go, " said he; 
 "I would ask nothing better than that all my foes should thua
 
 CH. xvni.] THE KINGSHIP m FRANCE. 433 
 
 depart for ever far away from my abode." Those about him 
 made merry over Henry III., a refugee at Bordeaux deserted 
 by the English and phmdered by the G-ascons. "Hold! hold!" 
 said Louis; "turn him not into ridicule, and make me not 
 hated of him by reason of your banter; his charities and his 
 piety shall exempt him from all contumely. " The count of la 
 Marche lost no time in asking for peace ; and Louis gi-anted it 
 with the firmness of a far-seeing poUtician and the sympathetic 
 feeling of a Christian. He required that the donaains he had 
 just "wrested from the count should belong to the crovm and to 
 the count of Poitiers under the suzerainty of the crown. As 
 for the rest of his lands, the count of la Marche, his wife, and 
 children were obliged to beg a grant of them at the good plea- 
 sure of the king, to whom the count was, further, to give up, 
 as guarantee for fidehty in future, three castles, in which a 
 royal garrison should be kept at the count's expense. When 
 introduced into the king's presence, the count, his wife, and 
 children, " with sobs and sighs and tears, threw themselves 
 upon their knees before him, and began to cry aloud, ' Most 
 gracious sir, forgive us thy wrath and thy displeasure, for we 
 have done wickedly and pridefvdly towards thee.' And the 
 king, seeing the count of la Marche in such humble guise be- 
 fore him, coidd not restrain his compassion amidst his wrath, 
 but made him rise up, and forgave him graciously all the evil 
 he had wrought against him." 
 
 A prince who knew so well how to conquer and how to ti-eat 
 the conquered might have been tempted to make an unfair use, 
 alternately, of his victories and of his clemency, and to pursue 
 his advantages beyond measure ; but Louis was in very deed a 
 Christian. When war was not either a necessity or a duty, 
 this brave and brilliant knight, from sheer equity and goodness 
 of heart, loved peace rather than war. The successes he had 
 gained in his campaign of 1242 were not for him the first step 
 in an endless career of glory and conquest ; he was anxious 
 only to consolidate them whilst securing, in Western Europe, 
 for the dominions of his adversaries as well as for his own, the 
 benefits of peace. He entered into negotiations, successively, 
 with the count of la Marche, the king of England, the coimt of 
 Toulouse, the kiiig of Aragon, and the various princes and 
 great feudal lords who had been more or less engaged in the 
 war; and in January, 1243, says the latest and most enlight- 
 ened of his biographers, "the treaty of Lorris marked the end 
 of feudal troubles for the whole duration of St. Louis' reign.
 
 434 HISTORY OF FRANCE. [ch. xvin. 
 
 He drew his sword no more, save only against the enemies of 
 the Christian faith and Christian civilization, the Mussulmans" 
 {Histoire de Saint Louis: by M. Felix Faure; t. i. p. 388). 
 
 Nevertheless there was no lack of opportimities for interfer- 
 ing Avith a powerful arm amongst the sovereigns his neighbors, 
 and for working their disagreements to the profit of his ambi- 
 tion, had ambition guided his conduct. The great struggle be- 
 tween the Empire and the Papacy, in the persons of Frederick 
 II., emperor of Germany and the two popes, Gregory IX. and 
 Innocent IV., was causing violent agitation in Christendom, 
 the two powers setting no bounds to their aspirations of getting 
 the dominion one over the other and of disposing one of the 
 other's fate. Scarcely had Louis reached his majority when, 
 in 1337, he tried his influence with both sovereigns to induce 
 them to restore peace to the Christian world. He failed ; and 
 thenceforth he preserved a scrupulous neutrality towards each. 
 The principles of international law, especially in respect of a 
 government's interference in the contests of its neighbors, 
 whether princes or peoples, were not, in the thirteenth century, 
 systematically discussed and defined as they are now-a-days 
 with us; but the good sense and the moral sense of St. Louis 
 caused him to adopt, on this point, the proper course, and no 
 temptation, not even that of satisfying his fervent piety, drew 
 him into any departure from it. Distant or friendly, by turns, 
 towards the two adversaries, according as they tried to intimi- 
 date him or win him over to them, his permanent care was to 
 get neither the State nor the Chiu'ch of France involved in the 
 struggle between the priesthood and the empu'e, and to main- 
 tain the dignity of his crown and the liberties of his subjects, 
 whilst employing his influence to make prevalent throughout 
 Christendom a pohcy of justice and peace. 
 
 That was the pohcy required, in the thirteenth century more 
 than ever, by the most urgent interests of entire Christendom. 
 She was at grips with two most formidable foes and perils. 
 Through the crusades she had, from the end of the eleventh 
 century, become engaged in a deadly struggle against the Mus- 
 sulmans in Asia ; and in the height of this struggle, and from 
 the heart of this same Asia, there spread, towards the middle 
 of the thirteenth century, over Eastern Europe, in Russia, Po- 
 land, Hungary, Bohemia and Germany, a barbarous and very 
 nearly Pagan people, the Mongol Tartars, sweeping onwai-d like 
 an inundation of blood, ravaging and threatening with com- 
 plete destruction all the dominions which were penetrated by
 
 CH. xvin.] THE, KIAGSEIP IN FRANCE. 436 
 
 their hordes. The name and description of these barbarians, 
 the fame and dread of their devastations ran rapidly through 
 the whole of Christian Europe. "What must we do in this 
 sad phght ?" asked Queen Blanche of the king her son. " We 
 must, my mother," answered Louis (with sorrowful voice, but 
 not without Divine mspiration, adds the chronicler), ''we must 
 be sustained by a heavenly consolation. If these Tartars, as 
 we call them, arrive here, either we will hurl them back to 
 Tartarus, their home, whence they are come, or they shall send 
 us up to heaven." About the same period, another cause of 
 disquietude and another feature of attraction came to be added 
 to all those which turned the thoughts and impassioned piety 
 of Louis towards the East. The perils of the Latin empire of 
 Constantinople, founded, as has been already mentioned, in 
 1204, under the headship of Baldwin, count of Flanders, were 
 becoming day by day more serious. Greeks, Mussulmans and 
 Tartars were all pressing it equally hard. In 1236, the Emper- 
 or Baldwin EE. came to solicit in person the support of the 
 princes of Western Em-ope, and especially of the young king of 
 France whose piety and chivalrous ardor were already cele- 
 brated every where. Baldwin possessed a treasure, of gi'eat 
 power over the imaginations and convictions of Christians, in 
 the crown of thorns worn by Jesus Christ during His passion. 
 He had already put it in pawn at Venice for a considerable loan 
 advanced to him by the Venetians ; and he now offered it to 
 Louis in return for effectual aid in men and money. Louis ac- 
 cepted the proposal with transport. He had been scared, a 
 short time ago, at the chance of losing another precious rehc 
 deposited in the abbey uf St. Denis, one of the naOs which, it 
 was said, had held Our Lord's body upon the cross. It had 
 been mislaid one ceremonial day whilst it was being exhibited 
 to the people; and, when he recovered it, "I would rather," 
 said Louis, "that the best city in my kingdom had been swal- 
 lowed up in the earth." After having taken all the necessary 
 porcautions for avoidmg any appearance of a shameful bargain, 
 he obtained the crown of thorns, all expenses included, for 
 eleven thousand livres of Paris, that is, they say, about 54,000?. 
 of our money. Ovir century cannot have any feUow-feehng 
 with such ready creduhty which is not required by Christian 
 faith or countenanced by soiuid criticism ; buf we can and we 
 ought to comprehend such sentiments in an age when men not 
 only had profound faith in the facts recorded in the Gospels, 
 but could not believe themselves to be looking upon the small-
 
 436 HISTORY OP FRANCE. [ch. xvm. 
 
 est tangible relic of those facts without experiencing an emotion 
 and a reverence as profound as their faith. It is to such senti- 
 ments that we owe one of the most perfect and most charming 
 monuments of the middle ages, the Holy Chapel, which St. 
 Louis had built between 1245 and 1248 in order to deposit there 
 the precious relics he had collected. Tlie king's piety had full 
 justice and honor done it by the genius of the architect, Peter 
 de Montreuil, who, no doubt, also shared his faith. 
 
 It was after the purchase of the crown of thorns and the 
 building of the Holy Chapel that Louis, accomplishing at last 
 the desire of his soul, departed on his first crusade. We have 
 already gone over the circumstances connected with his deter- 
 mination, his departure, and his life in the East, during the 
 six years of pious adventure and glorious disaster he passed 
 there. We have already seen what an impression of admira- 
 tion and respect was produced throughout his kingdom when 
 he was noticed to have brought back with him from the Holy 
 Land "a fashion of U%ang and doing superior to his former 
 behavior, although in his youth he had always been good and 
 innocent and worthy of high esteem." These expressions of 
 his confessor are fully borne out by the deeds and laws, the 
 administration at home and the relations abroad, by the whole 
 government, in fact, of St. Louis during the last fifteen years 
 of his reign. The idea which was invariably conspicuous and 
 constantly maintained dm'ing his reign was not that of a pre- 
 meditated and ambitious pohcy, ever tending towards an in- 
 terested object which is pursued with more or less reasonable- 
 ness and success, and always with a large amount of trickery 
 and violence on the part of the prince, of unrighteousness in 
 his deeds, and of suffering on the part of the people. Philip 
 Augustus, the grandfather, and Phihp the Handsome, the 
 grandson, of St. Louis, the former with the moderation of an 
 able man, the latter with headiness and disregard of right or 
 wrong, labored both of them without cessation to extend the 
 domains and power of the crown, to gain conquests over their 
 neighbors and their vassals, and to destroy the social system 
 of their age, the feudal system, its rights as weU as its wrongs 
 and tyrannies, in order to put in its place pure monarchy and 
 to exalt the kingly authority above all liberties, whether of the 
 aristocracy or of the people. St. Louis neither thought of nor 
 attempted anything of the kind ; he did not make war, at one 
 time openly, at another secretly, upon the feudal system; he 
 frankly accepted its principles as he found them .prevailing in
 
 CH. XVIII.] TEE KIKOSHIP IN FRANCE. 437 
 
 the facts- and the ideas of his times. Whilst fully hent on re- 
 pressing with firmness his vassals' attempts to shake them- 
 selves free from their duties towards him and to render them- 
 selves independent of the crown, he respected their rights, kept 
 his word to them scinipulously, and required of them nothing 
 but what they really owed him. Into his relations with foreign 
 sovereigns, his neighbors, he imported the same loyal spirit. 
 ''Certain of his council used to tell him," reports Joinville, 
 "that he did not well in not leaving those foreignei's to their 
 warfare ; for, if he gave tliem liis good leave to impoverish one 
 another, they would not attack him so readily as if they were 
 rich. To that the king replied that they said not well ; for, 
 quoth he, if the neighboring princes perceived that I left them 
 to their warfare, they might take counsel amongst themselves, 
 and say, ' It is through malice that the king leaves us to our 
 warfare ;' then it might happen that, by cause of the hatred 
 they would have against me, they would come and attack me, 
 and I might be a great loser thereby. Without reckoning that 
 I should thereby earn the hatred of God, who says, ' Blessed 
 be the peacemakers ! ' " 
 
 So well estabHshed was his renown as a sincere friend of 
 peace and a just arbiter in great disputes between princes and 
 peoples, that his intervention and his decisions were invited 
 wherever obscure and dangerous questions arose. In spite of 
 the brilliant victories which, in 1242, he had gained at Taille- 
 bourg and Saintes over Henry III., king of England, he him- 
 self perceived, on his return from the East, that the conquests 
 won by his victories might at any moment become a fresh 
 cause of new and grievous wars, disastrous, probably, for one 
 or the other of the two peoples. He conceived, therefore, the 
 design of giving to a peace which was so desirable a more 
 secure basis by founding it upon a transaction accepted on both 
 sides as equitable. And thus, whilst restoring to the king of 
 EIngland certain possessions which the war of 1242 had lost to 
 him, he succeeded in obtaining from him in return "as well in 
 his own name as in the names of his sons and their heirs, a 
 formal renunciation of aU rights that he could pretend to over 
 the duchy of Normandy, the countships of Anjou. Maine, 
 Toirraine, Poitou, and, generally, all that his family might 
 have possessed on the continent, except only the lands which 
 the king of France restored to liim by the treaty and those 
 which remained to him in Gascony. For all these last the king 
 of England undertook to do hege-homage to the king of France,
 
 438 mSTORT OF FRANCE. \CB.. xyiii. 
 
 in the capacity of peer of France and duke of Aquitaine and to 
 faithfully fulfil tha duties attached to a fief." When Louia 
 made known this transaction to his counsellors, " they were 
 very much against it," says JoinviUe. " It seemeth to us, sir," 
 said they to the king, " that, if you think you have not a right 
 to the conquest won by you and yoiu" antecessors from the 
 king of England, you do not make proper restitution to the 
 said king in not restoring to him the whole ; and if you think 
 you have a right to it, it seemeth to us that you are a loser hy 
 all you restore." " Sirs," answered Louis, " I am certain that 
 the antecessors of the king of England did quite justly lose the 
 conquest which I hold ; and as for the land I give him, I give 
 it him not as a matter in which I am bound to him or his heirs, 
 but to make love between my children and his, who are cousins- 
 german. And it seemeth to me that what I give him I turn 
 to good purpose, inasmuch as he was not my liegeman and 
 he hereby cometh in amongst my Hegemen." Henry HI., in 
 fact, went to Paris, having with him the ratification of the 
 treaty and prepared to accomplish the ceremony of homage. 
 "Louis received him as a brother, but without sparing him 
 aught of the ceremony, in which, according to the ideas of the 
 times, there was nothing humiliating, any more than in the 
 name of vassal, which was proudly borne by the greatest lords. 
 It took place on Thursday, December 4, 1259, in the royal en- 
 closure stretching in front of the palace, on the spot where at 
 the present day is the Place Dauphin e. There was a great con- 
 course of prelates, barons, and other personages belonging to 
 the two courts and the two nations. The king of England, on 
 his knees, bareheaded, without cloak, belt, sword or spurs, 
 placed his folded hands in those of the king of France his 
 suzerain, and said to him, ' Sir, I become your hegeman with 
 mouth and hands, and I swear and promise you faith and 
 loyalty, and to guard your right according to my power, and 
 to do fair justice at your summons or the summons of your 
 bailiff, to the best of my wit.' Then the king kissed him on 
 the mouth and raised him up." 
 
 Three years later Louis gave not only to the king of Eng- 
 land, but to the whole Enghsh nation, a striking proof of his 
 judicious and true-hearted equity. An obstinate civil war was 
 raging between Henry IH. and his barons. Neither party, in 
 defending its own rights, had any notion of respecting the 
 rights of its adversaries, and England was alternating between 
 a kingly and an aristocratic tyranny. Louis, chosen as arbiter
 
 CH. XVIII.] THE KINGSHIP IN FRANCE. 430 
 
 by both sides, delivered solemnly, on the 23rd of January, 1264, 
 a decision which was favorable to the EngHsh kingship, but at 
 the same time expressly upheld the Great Charter and the tra- 
 ditional liberties of England. He concluded his decision with 
 the following suggestions of amnesty: "We will also that the 
 king of England and his barons do forgive one another mu- 
 tually, that they do forget all the resentments that may exist 
 between them by consequence of the matters submitted to our 
 arbitration, and that henceforth they do refrain reciprocally 
 from any offence and injury on account of the same matters." 
 But when men have had their ideas, passions, '^.nd interests 
 profoundly agitated and made to clash, the wisest decisions 
 and the most honest counsels in the world are not suflScient to 
 re-establish peace ; the cup of experience has to be drunk to the 
 dregs ; and the parties are not resigned to peace until one or 
 the other or both have exhausted themselves in the struggle, 
 and perceive the absolute necessity of accepting either defeat 
 or compromise. In spite of the arbitration of the king of 
 France, the civil war continued in England ; but Louis did not 
 seek in any way to profit by it so as to extend, at the expense 
 of his neighbors, his own possessions or power; he held him- 
 self aloof from their quarrels, and followed up by honest neu- 
 trality his ineffectual arbitration. Five centuries afterwards 
 the great EngHsh historian, Hume, rendered him due homage 
 in these terms : ' ' Every time this virtuous prince interfered in 
 the affairs of England, it was invariably with the view of set- 
 tling differences between the king and the nobility. Adopting 
 an admirable course of conduct, as politic probably as it cer- 
 tainly was just, he never interposed his good offices save to 
 put an end to the disagreements of the English ; he seconded 
 all the measures which could give security to both parties, and 
 he made persistent efforts, though without success, to moderate 
 the fiery ambition of the earl of Leicester. " (Hume, History 
 of England, t. ii. p. 465.) 
 
 It requires more than pohtical wisdom, more even than 
 virtue, to enable a king, a man having in charge the govern- 
 ment of men, to accomplish his mission and to really deserve 
 the title of Most Christian; it requires that he should be ani- 
 mated by a sentiment of affection, and that he should, in heart 
 as well as mind, be in sympathy with those multitudes of crea- 
 tures over whose lot he exercises so much influence. St. Louis 
 more, perhaps, than any other king was possessed of this gen- 
 erous and humane quality : spontaneously and by the free im*
 
 440 HISTORY OF FRANCE. [ch. xvia 
 
 pulse of his nature he loved his people, loved mankind and 
 took a tender and comprehensive interest in their fortunes, 
 their joys or their miseries. Being seriously Ul in 1259 and de- 
 siring to give his eldest son Prince Louis, whom he lost in the 
 following year, his last and most heartfelt charge, " Fair son," 
 said he, " I pray thee make thyself beloved of the people of thy 
 kingdom, for verily I would rather a Scot should come from 
 Scotland and govern our people well and loyally than have 
 thee govern it ill." To watch over the position and interests 
 of all parties in his dominions and to secure to all his subjects 
 strict and prompt justice, this was what continually occupied 
 the mind of Louis LX. There are to be found in his biography 
 two very different but equally striking proofs of his solicitude 
 in this respect. M. Felix Faure has drawn up a table of all the 
 journeys made by Louis in France, from 1254 to 1270, for the 
 better cognizance of matters requiring his attention, and an- 
 other of the parliaments which he held, during the same period, 
 for considering the general affaire of the kingdom and the ad- 
 ministration of justice. Not one of these sixteen years passed 
 without his visiting several of his provinces, and the year 1270 
 was the only one in which he did not hold a parhament {His- 
 toire de Saint Louis, by M. Felix Faure, t. ii. pp. 120, 339). 
 Side by side with this arithmetical proof of his active bene- 
 volence we will place a moral proof taken from Joinville's 
 often-quoted account of St. Louis's familiar intervention ia 
 his subjects' disputes about matters of private interest. 
 *'Many a time," says he, "it happened in summer that the 
 king went and sat down in the wood of Viacennes after mass, 
 and leaned against an oak and made us sit down round about 
 him. And all those who had business came to speak to him 
 without restraint of usher or other folk. And then he de- 
 manded of them with his own mouth, ' Is there here any who 
 hath a suit? ' and they who had their suit rose up ; and then he 
 said, * Keep sUence all of ye ; and ye shall have despatch one 
 after the other.' And then he called my lord Peter de Fon- 
 taines and my lord Geoffrey de Villette (two learned lawyers 
 of the day and counsellors of St. Louis), and said to one of 
 them, 'Despatch me this suit.' And when he saw aught to 
 amend in the words of those who were speaking for another, 
 he himself amended it with his own mouth. I sometimes saw 
 in summer that, to despatch his people's business, he went into 
 the Paris garden, clad in camlet coat and linsey surcoat with- 
 out sleeves, a mantle of black taffety round his neck, hair right
 
 CH. XTiii.] THE KINGSHIP IN FRANCE. 44^ 
 
 well combed and without coif, and on liis head a hat with white 
 peacock's plumes. And he had carpets laid for us to sit round 
 about him. And all the people who had business before him 
 set themselves standing around him ; and then he had their 
 business despatched in the manner I told you of before as to 
 the wood of Vincennes." (JoinvUle, chap, xii.) 
 
 The active benevolence of St. Louis was not confined to thia 
 paternal care for the private interests of such subjects as ap- 
 proached his person ; he was equally attentive and zealous in 
 the case of measm-es called for by the social condition of the 
 times and the general mterests of the kingdom. Amongst the 
 twenty-six government ordinances, edicts, or letters, contained 
 under the date of his reign in the first volimae of the Recueil des 
 Ordonnances des Rois de France, seven, at the least, are great 
 acts of legislation and administration of a public kind ; and 
 these acts are all of such a stamp as to show that their main 
 object is not to extend the power of the crown or subserve the 
 special interests of the kingship at strife with other social 
 forces; they are real reforms, of pubhc and moral interest, 
 directed against the violence, disturbances, and abuses of the 
 feudal system. Many other of St. Louis's legislative and ad- 
 ministrative acts have been published either in subsequent 
 volumes of the Recueil des Ordcninances des Rois, or in similar 
 collections, and the learned have drawn attention to a great 
 number of them still remaining unpublished in various 
 archives. As for the large collection of legislative enact- 
 ments known by the name of Etahlissements de Saint Louis, it 
 is probably a lawyer's work, posterior, in great part at least, 
 to his reign, full of incoherent and even contradictory enact- 
 ments, and without any claim to be considered as a general 
 code of law of St. Louis's date and collected by his order, al- 
 though the paragraph which serves as preface to the work is 
 given under his name and as if it had been dictated by him. 
 
 Another act, known by the name of the Pragmatic Sanction, 
 has hkewise got placed, with the date of March, 1268, in the 
 Recueil des Ordonnances des Rois de France, as having ori- 
 ginated with St. Louis. Its object is, first of all, to secuie the 
 rights, hberties, and canonical rules, internally, of the Church 
 of France; and, next, to interdict "the exactions and very 
 heavy money-charges which have been imposed or may here- 
 after be imposed on the said Church by the court of Eome, 
 and by the which our kingdom hath been miserably impov- 
 erished ; unless they take place for reasonable, pious, and very
 
 442 HISTORY OF FRANCE. [ch. xviii. 
 
 urgent cause, through inevitable necessity, and with oiu* spon- 
 taneous and express consent and that of the Church of our 
 kingdom." The authenticity of this act, vigorously main- 
 tained in the seventeenth century by Bossuet (in his Defense 
 de la Declaration du Clerge de France de 1682, chap. ix. t. 
 xliii. p. 26), and iu our time by M. Daunou (in the Histoire 
 litteraire de la France, continuee par des Membres de VInstitut, 
 t. xvi. p. 75, and t. xix. p. 169), has been and still is rendered 
 doubtful for strong reasons which M. Felix Faure, in his His- 
 toire de Saint Louis (t. ii. p. 271), has summed up with great 
 clearness. There is no design of entering here upon an exa- 
 mination of this little historical problem ; but it is a bounden 
 duty to point out that, if the authenticity of the Pragmatic 
 Sanction, as St. Louis's, is questionable, the act has, at bottom, 
 nothing but what bears a very strong resemblance to and is 
 quite in conformity with the general conduct of that prince. 
 He was profoundly respectful, affectionate, and faithful to- 
 wards the papacy, but, at the same time, very careful in up- 
 holding both the independence of the crown in things temporal 
 and its right of supeiintendence in things spiritual. Attention 
 has been drawn to his posture of reserve during the great 
 quarrel between the priestdom and the empire, and his fii-m- 
 ness in withstanding the violent measui'es adopted by Gregory 
 IX. and Innocent IV. against the Emperor Frederick II. Louis 
 carried his notions, as to the independence of his judgment and 
 authority, very far beyond the cases in which that policy went 
 hand in hand with interest, and even into purely religious 
 questions. The bishop of Auxerre said to him one day, in the 
 name of several prelates, "'Sir, these lords which be here, 
 archbishops and bishops, have told me to tell you that Chris- 
 tianity is perishing in your hands.' The king crossed himself, 
 and said, 'Well, tell me how that is made out!' 'Sir,' said 
 the bishop, ' it is because nowadays so Uttle note is taken of 
 excommunications, that folk let death overtake them excom- 
 municate without getting absolution, and have no mind to 
 make atonement to the Church. These lords, therefore, do 
 pray you, sir, for the love of God and because you ought to do 
 so, to command your provosts and bailiflb that all those who 
 shaU remain a year and a day excommunicate be forced, by 
 seizure of their goods, to get themselves absolved.' Whereto 
 the king made answer that he would willingly command this 
 in respect of the excommunicate touching whoui certain proofs 
 should be given him that they were in the wrong. The bishop
 
 CH. xvin.] THE KINGSHIP IN FRANCE. 443 
 
 said that the prelates would not have this at any price, and 
 that they disputed the king's right of jurisdiction in their 
 causes. And the king said that he would not do it else ; for it 
 "Would be contrary to God and reason if he should force folks 
 to get absolution when the clergy had done them wrong. ' As 
 to that, ' said the king, ' I will give you the example of the 
 coimt of Brittany, who, for seven years, being fully excommu- 
 nicate, was at pleas with the prelates of Brittany; and he pre- 
 vailed so far that the pope condemned them all. If, then, I 
 had forced the count of Brittany, the first year, to get absolu- 
 tion, I should have sinned against God and against him.' Then 
 the prelates gave up ; and never since that time have I heard 
 that a single demand was made touching the matters above 
 spoken of." (Joinville, chap. xiii. p. 43.) 
 
 One special fact in the civil and municipal administration of 
 St. Louis deserves to find a place in history. After the time of 
 Philip Augustus there was malfeasance in the poHee of Paris. 
 The provostship of Paris, which comprehended functions analo- 
 gous to those of prefect, mayor, and receiver-general, became 
 a pm'chasable office, filled sometimes by two provosts at a 
 time. The burghers no longer found justice or security in the 
 city where the king resided. At his return from his first cru 
 sade, Louis recognized the necessity for applying a remedy to 
 this evil; the provostship ceased to be a purchasable office; 
 and he made it separate from the receivership of the royal 
 domain. In 1258, he chose as provost Stephen Boileau, a 
 burgher of note and esteem in Paris ; and in order to give this 
 magistrate the authority of which he had need, the king some- 
 times came and sat beside him, when he was administering 
 justice at the Chatelet. Stephen Boileau justified the king's 
 confidence, and maintained so strict a police that he had his 
 own godson hanged for theft. His administrative foresight 
 was equal to his judicial severity. He estabhshed registers 
 wherein were to be inscribed the rules habitually followed in 
 respect of the organization and work of the different corpora- 
 tions of artisans, the tariffs of the dues charged, in the name 
 of the king, upon the admittance of provisions and merchan- 
 dise, and the titles on which the abbots and other lords founded 
 the privileges they enjoyed within the walls of Paris. The 
 corporations of artisans, represented by their sworn masters 
 or prucThomvies, appeared one after the other before the pro- 
 vost to make declaration of the usages in practice amongst 
 their communities and to have them registered in the book
 
 444 HISTORY OF FRANCE. [ch. xvili 
 
 prepared for that purpose. This collection of regulations re« 
 lating to the arts and trades of Paris in the thii^teenth century, 
 known under the name of Livre des Metiers d'Etien^ie Boileau, 
 is the earliest monument of industrial statistics drawn up by 
 the French administration, and it was inserted, for the first 
 time in its entirety, in 1837, amongst the Collection des Docu- 
 ments relatifs a VHistoire de France, published during M. 
 Guizot's ministry of public instruction. 
 
 St. Louis would be but very incompletely understood if we 
 considered him only in his political and kingly aspect; we 
 must penetrate into his private life and observe his personal 
 intercourse with his family, his household, and his people, if 
 we would properly understand and appreciate all the original- 
 ity and moral worth oi his character and his life. Mention 
 has already been made of his relations towards the two queens, 
 his mother and his wife ; and, diflScult as they were, they were 
 nevertheless always exemplary. Louis was a model of conjugal 
 fidelity as well as of filial piety. He had by Queen Marguer- 
 ite eleven children, six sons and five daughters ; he loved her 
 tenderly, he never severed himself from her, and the modest 
 courage she displayed in the first crusade rendered her still 
 dearer to him. But he was not blind to her ambitious tenden- 
 cies and to the insufficiency of her qualifications for govern- 
 ment. When he made ready for his second crusade, not only 
 did he not confide to Queen Marguerite the regency of the 
 kingdom, but he even took care to regulate her expenses and 
 to curb her passion for authority. He forbade her to accept 
 any present for herself or her children, to lay any commands 
 upon the officers of justice, and to chose any one for her ser- 
 vice or for that of her children without the consenfc of the 
 coimcil of the regency. And he had reason so to act ; for, about 
 this same time, Queen Marguerite, emulous of holding in the 
 State the same place that had been occupied by Queen Blanche, 
 was giving all her thoughts to what her situation would be 
 after her husband's death, and was coaxing her eldest son, 
 Phihp, then sixteen years old, to make her a promise on oath 
 to remain under her guardianship up to thirty years of age, to 
 take to himself no counsellor without her approval, to reveal 
 to her all designs which might be formed against her, to con- 
 clude no treaty with his imcle, Charles of Anjou, king of 
 Sicily, and to keep as a secret the oath she was thus making 
 him take. Louis was probably informed of this strange prom- 
 ise by his young son Philip himself, who got himself released
 
 CH. xvni.] THE KINGSHIP IN FRANCE. 445 
 
 from it by Pope Urban IV. At any rate the king had a fore- 
 shadowing of Queen Marguerite's inclinations, and took pre- 
 cautions for rendering them harmless to the crown and the 
 State. 
 
 As for his children, Louis occupied himself in thought and 
 deed with their education and their future, moral and social, 
 showing as much affection and assiduity as could have been 
 displayed by any father of a family, even the most devoted to 
 this single task. "After supper they followed him into his 
 chamber, where he made them sit down around him ; he in- 
 structed them in their duties, and then sent them away to bed. 
 He drew their particular attention to the good and evil deeds 
 of princes. He, moreover, went to see them in their own 
 apartment when he had any leisure, informed himself as to 
 the progress they were making, and, like another Tobias, gave 
 them excellent instructions. . . . On Holy Thursday his sons 
 used to wash, just as he used, the feet of thirteen of the poor, 
 give them a considerable sum as alms, and then wait upon 
 them at table. The king having been minded to carry the first 
 of the poor souls to the Hotel-Dieu, at Compiegne, with the 
 assistance of his son-in-law king Theobald of Navarre, whom 
 he loved as a son, his two eldest sons, Louis and PhiUp, carried 
 the second thither. " They were wont to behave towards him in 
 the most respectful manner. He would have all of them, even 
 Theobald, yield him strict obedience in that which he enjoined 
 upon them. He desired anxiously that the three children bom 
 to him in the East, during his ^X9,t crusade, John Tristan, 
 Peter, and Blanche, and even Isabel, his eldest daughter, should 
 enter upon the cloistered life, which he looked upon as the 
 safest for their salvation. He exhorted them thereto, espe- 
 cially his daughter Isabel, many and many a time, in letters 
 equally tender and pious ; but, as they testified no taste for it, 
 he made no attempt to force their inclinations, and concerned 
 himself only about having them well married, not forgetting 
 to give them good appanages and, for their life in the world, 
 the most judicious counsels. The instructions, written with 
 his own hand in French, which he committed to his eldest son 
 Philip, as soon as he found himself so seriously ill before 
 Tunis, are a model of virtue, wisdom, and tenderness on the 
 part of a father, a king, and a Christian. 
 
 Pass we from the king's family to the king's household, and 
 from the children to the servitors of St. Louis. We have here 
 no longer the powerful tie of blood and of that feehng, at the
 
 446 BISTORT OF FRANCE. [ch. xvih 
 
 same time personal aud yet disinterested, which is experienced 
 by parents on seeing themselves living over again in their 
 children. Far weaker motives, mere kindness and custom, unite 
 masters to their servants and stamp a moral character upon 
 the relations between them ; but with St. Louis so gi*eat was 
 his kindness that it resembled affection and caused affection to 
 spring up in the hearts of those who were the objects of it. At 
 the same time that he required in his servitors an almost aus- 
 tere moraUty he readily passed over in silence their httle faults, 
 and treated them, in such cases, not only with mildness, but 
 •with that consideration which, in the humblest conditions, sat- 
 isfies the self-respect of people and elevates them in their own 
 eyes. "Louis used to visit his domestics when they were ill; 
 and when they died he never failed to pray for them and to 
 commend them to the prayers of the faithful. He had the 
 mass for the dead, which it was his custom to hear every day, 
 sung for them." He had taken back an old servitor of his 
 grandfather Philip Augustus, whom that king had dismissed 
 because his fire sputtered, and John, whose duty it was to at- 
 tend to it, did not know how to prevent that slight noise. 
 Louis was, from time to time, subject to a malady, during 
 which his right leg, from the ankle to the calf, became in- 
 flamed, as red as blood, and painful. One day when he had 
 an attack of this complaint, the king, as he lay, wished to make 
 a close inspection of the redness in his leg ; as John was clum- 
 sily holding a lighted candle close to the king, a drop of hot 
 grease fell on the bad leg ; and the king, who had sat up on 
 his bed, threw himself back exclaiming, " Ah! John, John, my 
 grandfather turned you out of his house for a less matter!" 
 and the clumsiness of John drew down upon him no other 
 chastisement save this exclamation (Vie de Saint Louis, by 
 Queen Marguerite's confessor; Recueil des Historiens de 
 France, t. xx. p. 105 ; Vie de Saint Louis, by Lenain de Tille- 
 mont, t. V. p. 388). 
 
 Far away from the king's household and service, and with- 
 out any personal connection with him, a whole people, the peo- 
 ple of the poor, the infirm, the sick, the wretched, and the 
 neglected of every sort occupied a prominent place in the 
 thoughts and actions of Louis. All the chroniclers of the age, 
 all the historians of his reign have celebrated his charity as 
 much as his piety ; and the philosophers of the eighteenth cen- 
 tury almost forgave him his taste for relics in consideration of 
 his beneficence. And it was not merely legislative and ad-
 
 CH. xvtil] the kingship IN FRANCE. 447 
 
 ministrative beneficence ; St. Louis did not confine himself to 
 founding and endowing hospitals, hospices, asylums, the Hotel- 
 Dieu at Pontoise, that at Vernon, that at Compiegne, and, at 
 Palis, the house of Quinze-Vingts, for 300 blind, but he did not 
 spare his person in his beneficence and regarded no deed ol 
 charity as beneath a king's dignity. "Every day, wherever 
 the king went, one hundred and twenty-two of the poor re- 
 ceived each two loaves, a quart of wine, meat or fish for a good 
 dinner, and a Paris denier. The mothers of families had a loaf 
 more for each child. Besides these hundred and twenty-two 
 poor having out-door rehef, thirteen others were every day 
 introduced into the hotel and there Hved as the king's officers; 
 and three of them sat at table at the same time with the king, 
 in the same hall as he and qmte close.". . . . "Many a time," 
 says JoinvDle, "I saw him cut their bread and give them to 
 drink. He asked me one day if I washed the feet of the poor 
 on Holy Thursday : * Sir,' said I, ' what a benefit ! The feet of 
 those knaves I Not I.' 'Verily,' said he, 'that is ill said, for 
 you ought not to hold in disdain what God did for our instruc- 
 tion. I pray you, therefore, for love of me, accustom your- 
 self to wash them.' " Sometimes, when the king had leisure, he 
 used to say, ' ' Come and visit the poor iu such and such a 
 place, and let us feast them to their hearts' content." Once 
 when he went to Gllateauneuf-s^lr-Loire, a poor old woman, 
 who was at the door of her cottage, and held in her hand a 
 loaf, said to him, " Good king, it is of this bread, which comes 
 of thine alms, that my husband, who heth sick yonder indoors, 
 doth get sustenance." The king took the bread, saying, "It is 
 rather hard bread." And he went into the cottage to see with 
 his own eyes ihe sick man. When he was visiting the churches 
 one Holy Friday, at Compiegne, as he was going that day 
 bare-foot according to his custom, and distributing alms to the 
 poor whom he met, he perceived, on the yonder side of a miry 
 pond which filled a portion of the street, a leper, who, not dar- 
 ing to come near, tried, nevertheless, to attract the king's at- 
 tention. Louis walked through the pond, went up to the leper, 
 gave him some money, took his hand and kissed it. ' ' All 
 present," says the chronicler, "crossed themselves for admira- 
 tion at seeing this holy temerity of the king, who had no fear 
 of putting his lips to a hand that none wovdd have dared to 
 touch. " In such deeds there was infinitely more than the good- 
 ness and greatness of a kingly soul ; there was in them that 
 profound Christian sympathy which is moved at the sight of
 
 448 HISTORY OF FRANCE. [ch. xvirt. 
 
 any human creature suffering severely in body or soul, and 
 which, at such times, gives heed to no fear, shrinks from no 
 pains, recoils with no disgust, and has no other thought but 
 that of offering some fraternal comfort to the body or the soul 
 that is suffering. 
 
 He who thus felt and acted was no monk, no prince enwrapt 
 in mere devoutness and altogether given up to works and 
 practices of piety ; he was a knight, a warrior, a pohtician, a 
 true king, who attended to the duties of authority as well as 
 to those of charity, and who won respect from his nearest 
 friends as well as from strangers, whilst astonishing them at 
 one time by his bursts of mystic piety and monastic austerity, 
 at another by his flashes of the ruler's spirit and his judicious 
 independence, even towards the representatives of the faith 
 and Church with whom he was in sympathy. " He passed for 
 the wisest man in all his council." In difficult matters and on 
 grave occasions none formed a judgment with more sagacity, 
 and what his intellect so well apprehended he expressed with 
 a great deal of propriety and grace. He was, in conversation, 
 the nicest and most agreeable of men; "he was gay," says 
 JoinviUe, "and when we were private at court, he used to sit 
 at the foot of his bed ; and when the preachers and cordeliei*s 
 who were there spoke to him of a book he would like to hear, 
 he said to them, ' Nay, you shall not read to me, for there is 
 no book so good, after dinner, as talk ad libitum, that is, every 
 one saying what he pleases.' " Not that he was at all averse 
 from books and literates : "He was sometimes present at the 
 discourses and disputations of the University ; but he took care 
 to search out for himself the truth in the word of God and in 
 
 the traditions of the Church Having found out, during 
 
 his travels in the East, that a Saracenic sultan had collected 
 a quantity of books for the service of the philosophers of his 
 sect, he was shamed to see that Christians had less zeal for 
 getting instructed in the truth than infidels had for getting 
 themselves made dexterous in falsehood; so much so that, 
 after his return to France, he had search made in the abbeys 
 for all the genuine works of St. Augustin, St. Ambrose, St. 
 Jerome, St. Gregory, and other orthodox teachers, and, having 
 caused copies of them to be made, he had (them placed in the 
 treasury of Sainte-Chapelle. He used to read them when he 
 had any leisure, and he readily lent them to those who might 
 get profit from them for themselves or for others. Sometimes, 
 at the end of the afternoon meal, he sent for pious persons witk
 
 CH. xviii.] THE KINGSHIP IN FRANCE. 449 
 
 whom he conversed about God, about the stories in the Bible 
 and the histories of the saints, or about the hves of the fathers," 
 He had a particular friendship for the learned Eobert of Sor- 
 bon, founder of the Sorbonne, whose idea was a society of 
 secular ecclesiastics, who, living in common and having the 
 necessaries of life, should give themselves up entirely to study 
 and gratuitous teaching. Not only did St. Louis give him 
 every facihty and every aid necessary for the establishment of 
 his learned college ; but he made him one of his chaplains, and 
 often invited him to his presence and his table in order to en- 
 joy his conversation. " One day it happened," says Joinville, 
 ' ' that Master Eobert was taking his meal beside me, and we 
 were talking low. The king reproved us, and said, ' Speak up, 
 for yoTir company think that you may be talking evil of them. 
 If you speak, at meals, of things which should please us, speak 
 up; if not, be sOent.' " Another day, at one of their reunions, 
 with the king in their midst, Eobert of Sorbon reproached 
 Joinville with being "more bravely clad than the king; for," 
 said he, ' ' you do dress in furs and gi*een cloth, which the king 
 doth not." Joinville defended himself vigorously, in his turn 
 attacking Eobert for the elegance of his dress. The king 
 took the learned doctor's part, and when he had gone, ' ' My 
 lord the king," says Joinville, "called his son, my lord PhUip, 
 and King Theobald, sat him down at the entrance of his oratory, 
 placed his hand on the ground and said, 'Sit ye down here 
 close by me, that we be not overheard ;' and then he told me 
 that he had called us in order to confess to us that he had 
 wrongfully taken the part of Master Eobert ; for, just as the 
 seneschal [JoinvUle] saith, ye oiight to be well and decently 
 clad, because your womankind wUl love you the better for it, 
 and yoxir people wUl prize you the more ; for, saith the wise 
 man, it is right so to bedeck one's self with garments and armor 
 that the proper men of this world say not that there is too 
 much made thereof nor the young folk too little." (JoinvUle, 
 ch. cxxxv. p. 301 ; ch. v. and vi. pp. 12—16 ; t. v. pp. 326, 364, 
 and 368.) 
 
 Assuredly there was enough in such and so free an exercise 
 of mind, in such a rich abundance of thoughts and sentiments, 
 in such a rehgious, political and domestic life to occupy and 
 satisfy a soul full of energy and power. But, as has already 
 been said, an idea cherished with a lasting and supreme pas- 
 sion, the idea of the crusade, took entire possession of St. 
 Louis. For seven years, after his return from the East, &om
 
 460 HISTORY OF FRANCE. [en. xvm. 
 
 1254 to 1361, he appeared to think no more of it ; and there 
 is nothing to show that he spoke of it even to his most inti- 
 mate confidants. But, in spite of apparent tranquillity, he 
 lived, so far, in a ferment of imagination and a continual 
 fever, resembling in that respect, though the end aimed at 
 was different, those great men, ambitious warriors or poU 
 ticians, of natiu'es for ever at boihng point, for whom nothing 
 is sufficient and who are constantly fostering, beyond the 
 ordinary course of events, some vast and strange desu-e, the 
 accomphshment of which becomes for them a fixed idea 
 and an insatiable passion. As Alexander and Napoleon were 
 incessantly forming some new design or, to speak more cor- 
 rectly, some new dream of conquest and dominion, in the same 
 way St. Louis, in Ms pious ardor, never ceased to aspii'e to a 
 re-entry of Jerusalem, to the deliverance of the Holy Sepul- 
 chre, and to the victory of Christianity over Mahommedanism 
 in the East, always flattering himself that some favorable 
 circumstance would recall him to his interrupted work. It 
 has already been told, at the termination, in the preceding 
 chapter, of the crusaders' histoiy, how he had reason to sup- 
 pose, in 1261, that circumstances were responding to his desii-e; 
 how he first of all prepared, noiselessly and patiently, for 
 his second crusade ; how, after seven years' labor, less and 
 less concealed as days went on, he proclaimed nis purpose, 
 and swore to accomphsh it in the following year ; and how at 
 last, in the month of March, 1270, against the willof France, 
 of the pope, and even of the majority of his comrades, ho ac- 
 tually set out — to go and die, on the 25th of the following 
 August, before Tunis, without having dealt the Mussulmans of 
 the East even the shadow of an effectual blow, having no 
 strength to do more than utter, from tune to tune, as he 
 raised himself on his bed, the cry of Jerusalem ! Jerusalem ! 
 and, at the last moment, as he lay in sackcloth and ashes, 
 pronouncing merely these parting words, " Father, after the 
 example of our Divine Master, into Thy hands I commend 
 my spirit 1" Even the crusader was extinct in St. Louis; 
 and only the Christian remained. 
 
 The world has seen upon the throne greater captains, 
 more profound politicians, vaster and more brilhant intellects, 
 princes who have exercised, beyond their own lifetime, & more 
 powerful and a more lasting influence than St. Louis; but it 
 has never seen a rarer king, never seen a man Avho could 
 possess, as he did, sovereign power without coiKWWtiug tht
 
 CH. xviii.] THE KINGSHIP IN FRANCE. 45^ 
 
 passions and vices natural to it, and who, in this respect, dis- 
 played in his government human virtues exalted to the 
 height of Christian. For all his moral sympathy and su- 
 perior as he was to his age, St. Louis, nevertheless, shared 
 and even helped to prolong two of its greatest mistakes ; as a 
 Chi'istian he misconceived the rights of conscience in respect of 
 rehgion, and, as a king, he brought upon his people deplorable 
 evils and perils for the sake of a fruitless enterprise. War 
 against religious liberty was, for a long course of ages, the 
 crime of Christian communities and the source of the most cruel 
 evils as well as of the most formidable irrehgious reactions the 
 world has had to undergo. The thirteenth century was the 
 culminating period of this fatal notion and the sanction of it 
 conferred by civil legislation as well as ecclesiastical teaching. 
 St. Louis joined, so far, with sincere conviction, in the general 
 and ruling idea of his age; and the jumbled code which bears 
 the name of Etablissemenfs de Saint Louis, and in which 
 there are collected many ordinances anterior or posterior to his 
 reign, formally condemns heretics to death, and bids the civil 
 judges to see to the execution, in this respect, of the bishops' 
 sentences. In 1255 St. Louis himself demanded of Pope Alex- 
 ander IV. leave for the Dominicans and Franciscans to exer- 
 cise, throughout the whole kingdom, the inquisition already 
 estabUshed, on account of the Albigensians, in the old domains 
 of the counts of Toulouse. The bishops, it is true, were to be 
 consulted before condemnation could be pronounced by the in- 
 quisitors against a heretic ; but that was a mark of respect for 
 the episcopate and for the rights of the GaUican Church 
 rather than a guarantee for hberty of conscience; and such 
 was St. Loiiis' feeUng upon this subject that liberty or rather 
 the most limited justice was less to be expected from the 
 kingship than from the episcopate. St. Louis' extreme severity 
 towards what he caUed the knavish oath {vilain sei^nent), that 
 is, blasphemy, an offence for which there is no definition save 
 what is contained in the bare name of it, is, perhaps, the 
 most striking indication of the state of men's minds, and 
 especially of the king's, on this respect. Eveiy blasphemer 
 was to receive in his mouth the imprint of a red-hot iron. 
 "One daj^ the king had a burgher of Paris branded in this 
 way; and violent murmurs were raised in the capital and 
 oame to the king's ears. He responded by declaring that 
 he wished a like brand might mark his lips, and that he 
 might bear the shame of it all his life, if only the vice of
 
 452 BISTORT OF FRANCE. [ch. xvni 
 
 blasphemy might disappear from his kingdom. Some time 
 afterwards, having had a work of great pubhc utility exe« 
 cuted, he received, on that occasion, from the landlords of 
 Paris nmnerous expressions of gratitude. 'I expect,' said 
 he, * a greater recompense from the Lord for the curses brought 
 upon me by that brand inflicted upon blasphemers than for 
 the blessings I get because of this act of general utility.'" 
 (Joinville, chap, cxxxviii. ; Histoire de Saint Louis, by M. 
 Felix Faure, t. ii. p. 300.) 
 
 Of all human errors those most in vogue are the most dan- 
 gerous, for they are just those from which the most superior 
 minds have the greatest difficulty in preserving themselves. 
 It is impossible to see, without horror, into what aberrations 
 of reason and of moral sense men, otherwise most enhghtened 
 and virtuous, may be led away by the predominant ideas of 
 their age. And the horror becomes still greater when a dis- 
 covery is made of the iniquities, sufferings, and calamities, 
 pubUc and private, consequent upon the admission of such 
 aberrations amongst the choice spirits of the period. In the 
 matter of rehgious liberty St. Louis is a striking example of 
 the vagaries which may be fallen into, under the sway of 
 public feehng, by the most equitable of minds and the most 
 scrupulous of consciences. A solemn warning, in times of 
 great intellectual and popular ferment, for those men whose 
 hearts are set on independence in their thoughts as well as 
 in their conduct, and whose only object is justice and truth. 
 
 As for the crusades, the situation of Louis was with respect 
 to them quite different and his responsibihty far more pei-sonal. 
 The crusades had certainly, in their origin, been the spon- 
 taneous and universal impulse of Christian Europe towards 
 an object, lofty, disinterested, and worthy of the devotion of 
 men; and St. Louis was, without any doubt, the most lofty, 
 disinterested, and heroic representative of this grand Christian 
 movement. But towards the middle of the thirteenth century 
 the moral complexion of the crusades had already undergone 
 great alteration ; the salutary effect they were to have exer- 
 cised for the advancement of European civilization still loomed 
 obscurely in the distance; whilst their evil res\ilts were 
 already clearly manifesting themselves, and they had no 
 longer that beauty lent by spontaneous and general feeling 
 which had been their strength and their apology. Weariness, 
 doubt, and common sense had, so far as this matter was con 
 cemed, done their work amongst all classes of the feudal com-
 
 CH. xviir.] THE KINGSHIP IN FRANCE. 453 
 
 munity. As Sire de Joinville, so also had many knights, 
 honest burghers, and simple country-folks recognized the flaws 
 in the entei'prise, and felt no more belief in its success. It is 
 the g\ovy of St. Louis that he was, in the thirteenth century, 
 the faithful and virtuous representative of the crusade such as 
 it was when it sprang from the womb of united Christendom, 
 and when G odfrey de Bouillon was its leader at the end of the 
 eleventh. It was the misdemeanor of St. Louis and a gi'eat 
 error in his judgment that he prolonged, by his bhndly preju- 
 diced obstinacy, a movement which was more and more in- 
 opportune and illegitimate, for it was becoming day by day 
 more factitious and more inane. 
 
 In the long line of kings of France, called Most Christian 
 Kings, only two, Charlemagne and Louis IX. , have received 
 the still more august title of Saint. As for Charlemagne, we 
 must not be too exacting in the way of proofs of his legal right 
 to that title in the Catholic Church ; he was canonized, in 1165 
 or 1166, only by the anti-pope Pascal III., through the in- 
 fluence of Frederick Barbarossa; and, since that time, the 
 canonization of Charlemagne has never been oflBcially allowed 
 and declared by any popes recognized as legitimate. They 
 tolerated and tacitly admitted it, on account, no doubt, of the 
 services rendered by Charlemagne to the papacy. But Charle- 
 magne had ardent and influential admirers outside the pale of 
 popes and emperors ; he was the great man and the popular 
 hero of the Germanic race in "Western Europe. His saintship 
 was welcomed with acclamation in a great part of Germany, 
 where it had always been religiously kept up. From the 
 earliest date of the University of Paris, he had been the patron 
 there of all students of the German race. In France, never- 
 theless, his position as a saint was still obscure and doubtful, 
 when Louis XL, towards the end of the flfteenth century, by 
 some motive now diflicult to unravel, but probably in order to 
 take from his enemy, Charles the Rash, duke of Burgundy, 
 who was in possession of the fairest provinces of Charlemagne's 
 empire, the exclusive privilege of so great a memory, ordained 
 that there should be rendered to the illustrious emperor the 
 honors due to the saints ; and he appointed the 28th of Janu- 
 ary for his feast-day, with a threat of the penalty of death 
 against all who should refuse conformity with the order. 
 Neither the command nor the threat of Louis XL had any 
 great effect. It does not appear that, in the Church of France, 
 the saintship of Charlemagne was any the more generally ad-
 
 454 HTSTORT OF FRANCE. [ch. xvin. 
 
 mitted and kept up ; but the University of Paris faithfully- 
 maintained its traditions, and some two centuries after Louis 
 XI., in 1661, without expressly giving to Charlemagne the 
 title of saint, it loudly proclaimed him its patron, and made 
 his feast-day an annual and solemn institution, which, in spite 
 of some hesitation on the part of the ParUament of Paris, 
 and in spite of the revolutions of our time, still exists as 
 the gi'and feast-day throughout the area of our classical 
 studies. The University of France repaid Charlemagne for 
 the service she had received from him; she protected his 
 saintship as he had protected her schools and her scholars. 
 
 The saintship of Louis IX. was not the object of such doubt, 
 and had no such need of learned and determined protectors. 
 Claimed as it was on the very morrow of his death, not only 
 by his son Philip III., called The Bold, and by the barons and 
 prelates of the kingdom, but also by the public voice of France 
 and of Europe, it at once became the subject of investigations 
 and dehberations on the part of the Holy See. For twenty- 
 four years, new popes, fiUing in rapid succession the chair 
 of St. Peter (Gregory X., Innocent V., John XXI., Nicholas 
 III., Martin IV., Honorius IV., Nicholas IV., St. Celestine V., 
 and Boniface VIII.), prosecuted the customary inquiries touch- 
 ing the faith and life, the virtues and miracles of the late king; 
 and it was Boniface VIII., the pope destined to carry on 
 against Philip the Handsome, grandson of St. Louis, the most 
 violent of struggles, who decreed, on the 11th of August, 1297, 
 the canonization of the most Christian amongst the kings of 
 France and one of the truest Christians, king or simple, in 
 France and in Europe. 
 
 St. Louis was succeeded by his son, Philip III., a prince, no 
 doubt, of some pei*sonal valor, since he has retained in history 
 the nickname of The Bold, but not, otherwise, beyond medi- 
 ocrity. His reign had an unfortunate beginning. After hav- 
 ing passed several months before Tunis, in slack and un- 
 successful continuation of his father's crusade, he gave it 
 up and re-embarked in November, 1270, with the remnants 
 of an army anxious to quit "that accursed land," wrote one 
 of the crusaders, ' ' where we languish rather than live, exposed 
 to torments of dust, fury of winds, corruption of atmosphere 
 and putrefaction of corpses." A tempest caught the fleet on 
 the coasts of Sicily; and Phihp lost by it several vessels, 
 four or five thousand men and all the money he had received 
 from the Mussulmans of Tunis as the price of his departure.
 
 CH. xvra.] TEE KINGSHIP IN FRANCE. 455 
 
 Whilst passing through Italy, at Cosenza, his wife, Isabel of 
 Aragon, six months gone with child, fell from her horse, was 
 dehvered of a child which lived barely a few hours, and died 
 herself a day or two afterwards, leaving her husband almost 
 as sick as sad. He at last arrived at Paris, on the 21st of May, 
 1271, bringing back with him five royal biers, that of his 
 father, that of his brother John Tristan, count of Nevers, that 
 of his brother-in-law Theobald king of Navarre, that of his 
 wife and that of his son. The day after his arrival he con- 
 ducted them all in state to the Abbey of St. Denis, and was 
 crowned, at Rheims, not vmtil the 30th of August following. 
 His reign, Avhich lasted fifteen years, was a period of neither 
 repose nor glory. He engaged in war several times over in 
 Southern France and in the north of Spain, in 1272, against 
 Roger Bernard, count of Foix, and in 1285 against Don Pedro 
 III., king of Aragon, attempting conquests and gaining victo- 
 ries, but becoming easily disgusted with his enterprises and 
 gaining no result of importance or durabihty. Without his 
 taking himself any official or active part in the matter, the 
 name and credit of France were more than once compromised 
 in the affairs of Italy through the continual wars and intrigues 
 of his uncle Charles of Anjou, king of Sicily, who was just 
 as ambitious, just as turbulent and just as tyrannical as his 
 brother St. Louis was scinipulous, temperate, and just. It was 
 in the reign of Phihp the Bold that there took place in Sicily, 
 on the 30th of March, 1282, that notorious massacre of the 
 French which is known by the name of Sicilian Vespers, which 
 was provoked by the unbridled excesses of Charles of Anjou's 
 comrades, and through which many noble French families 
 had to suffer crueUy. At the same time, the celebrated Itahan 
 admiral Roger de Loria inflicted, by sea, on the French party 
 in Italy, the Provencal navy, and the army of Pliilip the Bold, 
 who was engaged upon incursions into Spain, considerable re- 
 verses and losses. At the same period the foundations were 
 being laid in Germany and in the north of Italy, in the per^ 
 son of Rudolph of Hapsburg, elected emperor, of the greatness 
 reached by the House of Austria, which was destined to be so 
 formidable a rival to France. The government of Pliihp IIL 
 showed hardly more ability at home than m Europe; not that 
 the king was himself violent, tyrannical, greedy of power or 
 money, and unpopular ; he was, on the contrary, honorable, 
 moderate in respect of his personal claims, simple in his man- 
 ners, sincerely pious and gentle towards the humbl/^.i but he 
 (20j HF Vol. 1 
 
 /^
 
 456 ■ HISTORY OF FRANCE. [ch. xvm. 
 
 was at the same time weak, credulous, very illiterate, say tha 
 chroniclers, and without penetration, foresight, or intelligent 
 and determiaed wiU. He fell under the influence of an inferior 
 servant of his house, Peter de la Brosse, who had been surgeon 
 and barber first of all to St. Louis and then to Philip III. , who 
 made him, before long, his chancellor and famihar counsellor. 
 Being, though a skilful and active intriguer, entirely concerned 
 with his own personal fortunes and those of his family, this 
 barber-mushroom was soon a mark for the jealousy and the 
 attacks of the great lords of the court. And he joined issue 
 with them, and even with the young queen, Maria of Brabant, 
 the second wife of Philip III. Accusations of treason, of 
 poisoning and peculation were raised against him, and, in 1276, 
 he was hanged at Paris, on the thieves' gibbet, in presence 
 of the dukes of Burgundy and Brabant, the count of Artois, 
 and many other personages of note, who took pleasure in wit- 
 nessing his execution. His condemnation, ' ' the cause of which 
 remained unknown to the people," says the chronicler Wil ham 
 of Nangis, "was a great source of astonishment and grum- 
 bling." Peter de la Brosse was one of the first examples, in 
 French history, of those favorites who did not understand that, 
 if the scandal caused by their elevation were not to entail 
 their ruin, it was incumbent upon them to be great men. 
 
 In spite of the want of ability and the weakness conspicuous 
 in the government of Philip the Bold, the kingship in France 
 had, in his reign, better fortunes than could have been ex- 
 pected. The death, without children, of his uncle Alphonso, 
 St. Louis's brother, count of Poitiers and also count of Tou- 
 louse, through his -svif e, Joan, daughter of Raymond VH. , put 
 Philip in possession of those fair provinces. He at first pos- 
 sessed the countship of Toulouse merely with the title of count 
 and as a private domain which was not definitively incor- 
 porated with the crown of France until a century later. Cer- 
 tain disputes arose between England and France in respect of 
 this great inheritance; and Philip ended them by ceding 
 Agenois to Edward I., king of England, and keeping Quercy. 
 He also ceded to Pope Urban IV., the county of Venaissin, 
 with its capital Avignon, which the court of Rome claimed by 
 virtue of a gift from Raymond VII., coimt of Toulouse, and 
 which through a course of many disputations and vicissitudes, 
 remained in possession of the Holy See tmtil it was reunited 
 to France on the 19th of February, 1797, by the treaty of 
 Tolentino. But, notwithstanding these concessions, when
 
 CH. x^^II.] TEE EIA'OSUIP IN FRANCE. 4fff 
 
 Philip the Bold died, at Perpignan, the 5th of October, 1285, on 
 his return from his expedition in Aragon, the sovereignty in 
 southern France, as far as the frontiers of Spain, had been won 
 for the kingship of France. 
 
 A Flemish chronicler, a monk at Egmont, describes the char- 
 acter of Philip the Bold's successor in the following words: "A 
 certain king of France, also named Philip, eaten up by t4ie 
 fever of avarice and cupidity." And that was not the only 
 fever inherent in PhUip IV., called the Handsome; he was a 
 prey also to that of ambition and, above all, to that of power. 
 When he mounted the throne, at seventeen years oi age, he 
 was handsome, as his nickname tells us, cold, taciturn, harsh, 
 brave at need, but without fire or dash, able in the formation 
 of his designs and obstinate in prosecuting them by craft or 
 violence, by means of bribery or cruelty, with wit to choose 
 and support his servants, passionately vindictive against his 
 enemies, and faithless and unsympathetic towards his subjects, 
 but from time to time taking care to conciliate them either by 
 caUing them to his aid in his difficulties or his dangers, or by 
 giving them protection against other oppressors. Never, per- 
 haps, was king better served by circumstances or more suc- 
 cessful in his enterprises ; but he is the first of the Capetiang 
 who had a scandalous contempt for rights, abused success, and 
 thrust the kingship, in France, upon the high-road of that ar- 
 rogant and reckless egotism which is sometimes compatible 
 with abOity and glory, but which carries with it in the germ, 
 and sooner or later brings out in full bloom, the native vices 
 and fatal consequences of arbitrary and absolute power. 
 
 Away from his own kingdom, in his dealings with foreign 
 countries, Philip the Handsome had a good fortune which his 
 predecessors had lacked, and which his successors lacked still 
 more. Through Wilham the Conqueror's settlement in Eng- 
 land and Henry II. 's marriage with Eleanor of Aquitaine, the 
 kings of England had, by reason of their possessions and their 
 claims in France, become the natural enemies of the kings of 
 France, and war was almost incessant between the two king- 
 doms. But Edward I. , king of England, ever since his acces- 
 sion to the throne, in 1272, had his ideas fixed upon and his 
 constant efforts directed towards the conquests of the coimtriee 
 of Wales and Scotland, so as to unite under his sway the whole 
 island of Great Britain. The Welsh and the Scotch, from 
 prince to peasant, offered an energetic resistance in defence of 
 their independence ; and it was only after seven years' warfare,
 
 458 HISTORY OF FRANCE. [ch. xvm 
 
 from 1277 to 1284, that the conquest of Wales by the English 
 was accomplished, and the style of Prince of Wales became 
 the title of the heir to the throne of England. Scotland, in 
 spite of dissensions at home, made a longer and a more effec- 
 tual resistance : and though it was reduced to submission, it was 
 not conquered by Edward I. Two national heroes, William 
 Wallace and Eobert Bruce, excited against him insurrections 
 which were often triumphant and always being renewed ; and 
 after having during eighteen years of strife maintained a pre- 
 carious dominion in Scotland, Edward I. died, in 1307, without 
 having acquired the sovereignty of it. But his persevering 
 ardor in this twofold enterprise kept him out of war with 
 France ; he did all he could to avoid it, and when the pressure 
 of circumstances involved him in it for a time, he was anxious 
 to escape from it. Being summoned to Paris by Phihp the 
 Handsome, in 1286, to swear fealty and homage on account of 
 his domains in France, he repaired thither with a good grace, 
 and, on his knees before his suzerain, repeated to him the 
 solem.n form of words : " I become your Hegeman for the lands 
 I hold of you this side the sea, according to the fashion of the 
 peace which was made between our ancestors." The conditions 
 of this peace were confirmed, and, by a new treaty between 
 the two princes, the annual payment of 10,000Z. sterling to the 
 king of England, in exchange for his claims over Normandy, 
 was guaranteed to him, and Edward renounced his pretensions 
 to Quercy in consideration of a yearly sum of 3000 livres of 
 Tours. In 1292, a quarrel and some hostilities at sea between 
 the English and Norman commercial navies grew into a war be- 
 tween the two kings ; and it dragged its slow length along for 
 four years in the south-west of France. Edward made an al- 
 liance, in the north, with the Flemish, who were engaged in 
 a deadly struggle with Phihp the Handsome, and thereby lost 
 Aquitaine for a season ; but, in 1296, a truce was concluded be- 
 tween the beUigerents, and though the importance of England's 
 commercial relations with Flanders decided Edward upon re- 
 suming his alliance with the Flemish when, in 1300, war broke 
 out again between them and France, he withdrew from it 
 three years afterwards, and made a separate peace with Phihp 
 the Handsome, who gave him back Aquitaine. In 1306, fresh 
 differences arose between the two kings ; but before they had 
 rekindled the torch of war, Edward I. died at the opening of a 
 new campaign in Scotland, and his successor, Edward II. , re- 
 paired to Boulogne, where he, in his turn, did homage to Philip
 
 CH. xviii,] THE KINGSHIP IN FRANCE. 459 
 
 the Handsome for the duchy of Aqiiitaine, and espoused Philip's 
 daughter Isabel, reputed to be the most beautiful woman in 
 Europe. In spite, then, of frequent interruptions, the reign of 
 Edward I. was on the whole a period of peace between Eng- 
 land and France, being exempt, at any rate, from premeditated 
 and obstinate hostilities. 
 
 In Southern France, at the foot of the Pyrenees, Philip the 
 Handsome, just as his father PhiHp the Bold, was, during the 
 first years of his reign, at war with the kings of Aragon, 
 Alphonso ni. and Jayme II. ; but these campaigns, originat- 
 ing in purely local quarrels or in the ties between the de- 
 scendants of St. Louis and of his brother Charles of Anjou, 
 king of the Two Sicihes, rather than in furtherance of the 
 general interests of France, were terminated in 1291 by a 
 treaty concluded at Tarascon between the belUgerents, and 
 have remained without historical importance. 
 
 The Flemish were the people with whom Philip the Hand- 
 some engaged in and kept up, during the whole of his reign, 
 with frequent alternations of defeat and success, a really 
 serious war. In the thirteenth century Flanders was the 
 most populous and the richest country in Europe. She owed 
 the fact to the briskness of her manufacturing and commercial 
 undertakings not only amongst her neighbors, but throughout 
 Southern and Eastern Europe, in Italy, in Spain, in Sweden, 
 in Norway, in Hungary, in Russia, and even as far as Constan- 
 tinople, where, as we have seen, Baldwin I., count of Flanders, 
 became, in 1204, Latin Emperor of the East. Cloth and all 
 manner of wooUen stuffs were the principal articles of Flemish 
 production, and it was cliiefly from England that Flanders 
 drew her supply of wool, the raw material of her industry. 
 Thence arose between the two countries commercial relations, 
 which could not fail to acquire political importance. As early 
 as the middle of the twelfth century several Flemish towns 
 formed a society for founding in England a commercial ex- 
 change, which obtained great privileges and, under the name 
 of the Flemish hanse of London, reached rapid development. 
 The merchants of Bruges had taken the initiative in it; but 
 soon all the towns of Flanders— and Flanders was covered 
 with towns— Ghent, LiUe, Ypres, Courtrai, Fumes, Alost, 
 St. Omer, and Douai entered the confederation, and made 
 unity as well as extension of hberties in respect of Flem- 
 ish commerce the object of their joint efforts. Their prosperity 
 became celebrated ; and its celebrity gave it increase. It wa«
 
 460 HISTORY OF FRANCE. [ch. xvin 
 
 a burgher of Bruges who was governor of the hanse of London, 
 and he was called the Count of the hanse. The fair of Bruges, 
 held in the month of May, brought together traders from the 
 whole world. "Thither came for exchange," says the most 
 modern and most enhghtened historian of Flanders (Baron 
 Kervyn de Lettenhove, Histoire de Flandre, t. ii. p. 300), "the 
 produce of the North and the South, the riches collected in the 
 pilgrimages to Novogorod, and those brought over by the cara- 
 vans from Samarcand and Bagdad, the pitch of Norway and 
 the oils of Andalusia, the furs of Russia and the dates from the 
 Atlas, the metals of Hungary and Bohemia, the figs of Gra- 
 nada, the honey of Portugal, the wax of Morocco, and the 
 spice of Egypt ; whereby, says an ancient manuscript, no land 
 is to be compared in merchandise to the land of Flanders." 
 At Ypres, the chief centre of cloth fabrics, the population in- 
 creased so rapidly that, in 1247, the sheriffs prayed Pope Inno- 
 cent IV. to augment the number of parishes in their city which 
 contained, according to their account, about. 200,000 persons. 
 So much prosperity made the counts of Flanders very puissant 
 lords. "Marguerite II., called the Black, countess of Flanders 
 and Hainault, from 1244 to 1280, was extremely rich, " says a 
 chronicler, "not only in lands, but in furniture, jewels, and 
 money ; and, as is not customary with women, she was right 
 liberal and right sumptuous, not only in her largesses, but in 
 her entertainments and whole manner of living; insomuch that 
 she kept up the state of queen rather than countess." Nearly 
 all the Flemish towns were strongly organized cormnunes in 
 which prosperity had won hberty, and which became before 
 long small republics suflBciently powerful not only for the de- 
 fence of their municipal rights against the counts of Flanders, 
 their lords, but for offering an armed resistance to such of the 
 sovereigns their neighbors as attempted to conquer them or to 
 trammel them in their commercial relations or to draw upon 
 their wealth by forced contributions or by plunder. Phihp 
 Augustus had begun to have a taste of their strength during 
 his quarrels with Count Ferdinand of Portugal, whom he had 
 Kiade count of Flanders by marrying him to the Countess 
 Joan, heiress of the countship, and whom, after the battle of 
 Bouvines, he had confined for thirteen years in the tower of 
 the Louvre. Philip the Handsome laid himself open to and 
 was subjected by the Flemings to still rougher experiences. 
 
 At the time of the latter king's accession to the throne, Guy 
 de Dampierre, of noble Champagnese origin, had been for five
 
 CH. xviii.j THE KTKOSIIIP IN FRANCE. 461 
 
 years count of Flanders, as heir to his mother Marguerite IT. 
 He was a prince who did not lack courage, or, on a great 
 emergency, high-mindedness and honor; but he was ambi- 
 tious, covetous, as parsimonious as his mother had been mu- 
 nificent, and above all concerned to get his cliildren married 
 in a manner conducive to his own political importance. He 
 had by his two wives, Matilda of Bethune and Isabel of Lux- 
 embovirg, nine sons and eight daughters, offering free scope 
 for combinations and connections in respect of which Guy de 
 Dampierre was not at all scrupulous about the means of suc- 
 cess. He had a quarrel with his son-in-law, Florent V., count 
 of Holland, to whom he had given his daughter Beatrice in 
 maiTiage; and another of his sons-in-law, John I., duke of 
 Brabant, married to another of his daughters, the princess 
 Marguerite, offered himself as mediator in the difference. The 
 two brothers-in-law went together to see their father-in-law ; 
 but, on their arrival, Guy de Dampierre seized the person of 
 the count of Holland, and would not release him until the 
 duke of Brabant offered to become prisoner in his place, and 
 found himself obliged, in order to obtain his hberty, to pay 
 his father-in-law a tough ransom. It was not long before 
 Guy himself suffered from the same sort of iniquitous surprise 
 that he had practised upon his sons-in-law. In 1293 he was 
 secretly negotiating the marriage of Philippa, one of his 
 daughters, with Prince Edward, eldest son of the king of Eng- 
 land. Philip the Handsome, having received due warning, 
 invited the count of Flanders to Paris, " to take counsel with 
 him and the other barons touching the state of the kingdom. 
 At first Guy hesitated ; but he dared not refuse, and he re- 
 paired to Paris with his sons John and Guy. As soon as he 
 arrived he bashfully announced to the king the approaching 
 union of his daughter with the EngHsh prince, protesting, 
 "that he would never cease, for all that, to serve him loyally, 
 as every good and true man should serve his lord." " In God's 
 name, sir count," said the enraged king, "this thing \\ill 
 never do ; you have made alliance with ray foe, without my 
 wit; wherefore you shall abide with me;" and he had him, 
 together with his sons, marched off at once to the tower of the 
 Louvre, where Guy remained for six months, and did not then 
 get out save by leaving as hostage to the king of France his 
 daughter Philippa herself, who was destined to pass in this 
 prison her young and mournful life. On once more entering 
 Flanders, Count Guy oscillated for two years between the
 
 462 HISTORY OF FRANCE. [cH. xyiii. 
 
 king of France and the king of England, submitting to the 
 exactions of the former, at the same time that he was privily 
 renewing his attempts to form an intimate alliance with the 
 latter. Driven to extremity by the haughty severity of Philip, 
 he at last came to a decision, concluded a formal treaty with 
 Edward I., aflSanced to the EngHsh crown-prince the most 
 youthful of his daughters, Isabel of Flanders, youngest sister 
 of Philippa, the prisoner in the tower of the Louvre, and 
 charged two ambassadors to go to Paris, as the bearers of the 
 following declaration: "Everyone doth know in how many 
 ways the king of France hath misbehaved towards God and 
 justice. Such is his might and his pride that he doth acknowl- 
 edge naught above himself, and he hath brought us to the 
 necessity of seeking alhes who may be able to defend and pro- 
 tect us By reason whereof we do charge our ambassa- 
 dors to declare and say, for us and from us, to the above-said 
 king, that because of his misdeeds and defaults of justice, we 
 hold ourselves unbound, absolved and delivered from all bonds, 
 aU alhances, obhgations, conventions, subjections, services, 
 and dues whereby we may have been bounden towai'ds him. " 
 This meant war. And it was prompt and short on the part 
 of the king of France, slow and dull on the part of the king of 
 England, who was always more bent upon the conquest of 
 Scotland than upon defending, on the Continent, his ally the 
 count of Flanders. In June, 1297, Pliilip the Handsome, in 
 person, laid siege to Lille, and, on the 13th of August, Robert, 
 count of Artois, at the head of the French chivalry, gained at 
 Furnes, over the Flemish army, a victory which decided the 
 campaign. Lille capitulated. The English reinforcements ar 
 rived too late and served no other purpose but that of induc- 
 ing PhHip to grant the Flemings a truce for two years. A 
 fruitless attempt was made, with the help of Pope Boniface 
 VIII. , to change the truce into a lasting peace. The very day 
 on which it expired Charles, count of Valois and brother of 
 Philip the Handsome, entered Flanders with a powerful army, 
 Burprised Douai, passed through Bruges, and, on arriving at 
 Ghent, gave a reception to its magistrates who came and 
 offered him the keys. "The burghers of the towns of Flan- 
 ders," says a chronicler of the age, "were all bribed by gifts 
 or promises from the king of France, who would never have 
 dared to invade their frontiers had they been faithful to their 
 count." Guy de Dampicrre, hopelessly beaten, repaired, with 
 two of his sons and fifty-one of his faithfid knights, to the
 
 CH. xviii.] THE KINGSHIP IN FRANCE 463 
 
 camp of the covmt of Valois, who gave him a kind reception, 
 and urged him to trust himself to the king's generosity, prom- 
 ising at the same time to support his suit. Guy set out for 
 Paris with all his retinue. On approaching the City-palace 
 which was the usual residence of the kings, he espied at one 
 of the windows Queen Joan of Navarre, who took a supercili- 
 ous pleasure in gazing upon the humiliation of the victim of 
 defeat. Guy drooped his head and gave no greeting. When 
 he was close to the steps of the palace, he dismoimted from 
 his horse, and placed himseK and all his following at the 
 mercy of the king. The count of Valois said a few words in 
 his favor, but Phihp, cutting his brother short, said, address- 
 ing himseK to Guy, "I desire no peace with you, and if my 
 brother has made any engagements with you, he had no right 
 to do so." And he had the count of Flanders taken off imme- 
 diately to Compiegne, " to a strong tower, such that all could 
 see him," and his comrades were distributed amongst several 
 towns, where they were strictly guarded. The whole of Flan- 
 ders submitted; and its principal towns, Ypres, Audenarde, 
 Termonde, and Cassel, fell successively into the hands of the 
 French. Three of the sons of Count Guy retired to Namur. 
 The constable Eaoul of Nesle " was lieutenant for the king of 
 France in his newly- won country of Flanders. " Next year, in 
 the month of May, 1301, Phihp determined to pay his conquest 
 a visit ; and the queen, his wife, accompanied him. There is 
 never any lack of galas for conquerors. After having passed 
 in state through Tournai, Courtrai, Audenarde, and Ghent, 
 the king and queen of France made their entry into Bruges. 
 All the houses were magnificently decorated ; on platforms cov- 
 ered with the richest tapestry thronged the ladies of Bruges; 
 there was nothing but haberdashery and precious stories. 
 Such an array of fine dresses, jewels, and riches, excited a 
 woman's jealousy in the queen of France: "There is none but 
 queens," quoth she, " to be seen in Bruges; I had thought that 
 there was none but I who had a right to royal state." But 
 the people of Bruges remained dumb ; and their silence sc;ared 
 Philip the Handsome, who vainly attempted to attract a con- 
 course of people about him by the proclamation of brilliant 
 jousts. "These galas," says the historian Villani, who was 
 going through Flanders at this very time, "were the last 
 whereof the French knew aught in our time, for Fortune, who 
 tUl then had shown such favor to the king of France, on a 
 sudden turned her wheel, and the cause thereof lay in the
 
 464 BISTORT OF FRANCE. [ch. xvm 
 
 unrighteous captivity of the innocent maid of Flanders and in 
 the treason whereof the count of Flanders and his sons had 
 been the victims. " There were causes, however, for this new 
 turn of events of a more general and more profound character 
 than the personal woes of Flemish princes. James de Cha- 
 tniou, the governor assigned by Philip the Handsome to Flan- 
 ders, was a greedy oppressor of it; the municipal authori- 
 ties whom the victories or the gold of Philip had demoralized 
 became the objects of popular hatred ; and there was an out- 
 burst of violent sedition. A simple weaver, obscure, poor, 
 undersized and one-eyed, but valiant and eloquent in his Flem- 
 ish tongue, one Peter Deconing, became the leader of revolt in 
 Bruges ; accompUces flocked to him from nearly all the towns 
 of Flanders ; and he found aUies amongst their neighboi's. In 
 1302 war again broke out ; but it was no longer a war between 
 Philip the Handsome and Guy de Dampierre : it was a war 
 between the Flemish communes and their foreign oppressors. 
 Every where resounded the cry of insurrection : ' ' Our bucklers 
 and om* friends for the hon of Flanders ! Death to all Walloons !" 
 PhiKp the Handsome precipitately levied an army of sixty 
 thousand men, says Villani, and gave the command of it to 
 Count Eobert of Artois, the hero of Fumes. The forces of the 
 Flemings amounted to no more than twenty thousand fighting 
 men. The two armies met near Courtrai. The French chiv- 
 alry were full of ardor and confidence ; and the Italian archers 
 in their service began the attack with some success. '* My 
 lord," said one of his knights to the count of Artois, "these 
 knaves will do so well that they wiU gain the honor of the 
 day ; and, if they alone put an end to the war, what will be 
 left for the noblesse to do ?" ' ' Attack, then !" answered the 
 prince. Two grand attacks succeeded one another ; the first 
 under the orders of the Constable Raoul of Nesle, the second 
 under those of the coimt of Artois in person. After two 
 hours' fighting, both failed against the fiery national passion 
 of the Flemish communes, and the two French leaders, the 
 Constable and the Count of Artois, were left both of them 
 lying on the field of battle amidst twelve or fifteen thousand 
 of their dead. " I yield me! I yield me!" cried the count of 
 Artois, but, "We understand not thy Ungo," ironically an- 
 swered in their own tongue the Flemings who surrounded 
 him ; and he was forthwith put to the sword. Too late to save 
 him galloped up a noble aUy of the insurgents, Guy of Namur. 
 "From the top of the towers of our monastery," says the
 
 CH. xvTii.] THE KINGSHIP IN FRANCE. 465 
 
 abbot of St. Martin's of Tournai, "we could see the French 
 flying over the roads, across fields and through hedges, in 
 such numbers that the sight must have been seen to be be 
 lieved. There were in the outskirts of our town and in the 
 neighboring villages so vast a multitude of knights and men- 
 at-arms tormented with hunger, that it was a matter horrible 
 to see. They gave then* arms to get bread." 
 
 A French knight, covered with wounds, whose name has re- 
 mained unknown, hastily scratched a few words upon a scrap 
 of parchment dyed with blood ; and that was the first account 
 Philip the Handsome received of the battle of Courtrai, which 
 was fought and lost on the 11th of July, 1303. 
 
 The n3ws of this great defeat of the French spread rapidly 
 throughout Europe, and filled with joy all those who were 
 hostile to or jealous of Philip the Handsome. The Flemings 
 celebrated their victory with splendor, and rewarded with 
 bounteous gifts their burgher heroes, Peter Deconing amongst 
 others, and those of their neighbors who had brought them 
 aid. Phihp, gi*eatly affected and a little alarmed, sent for his 
 prisoner, the aged Guy de Dampierre. and loaded him with 
 reproaches as if he had to thank him for the calamity ; and, 
 forthwith levying a fresh army, "as numerous," say the 
 chroniclers, "as the grains of sand on the borders of the sea 
 from Propontis to the Ocean, " he took up a position at Arras 
 and even advanced quite close to Douai ; but he was of those 
 in whom obstinacy does not extinguish prudence, and who, 
 persevering all the while in their purposes, have wit to under- 
 stand the diflBculties and dangers of them. Instead of imme- 
 diately resuming the war, he entered into negotiations with 
 the Flemings; and their envoys met him in a ruined church 
 beneath the walls of Douai. John of Chalons, one of PhOip's 
 envoys, demanded, in his name, that the king should be rec- 
 ognized as lord of all Flanders and authorized to punish the 
 insurrection of Bruges, with a promise, however, to spare the 
 lives of all who had taken part in it. " How !" said a Fleming, 
 Baldwin de Paperode, "our hves would be left us, but only 
 after our goods had been pillaged and our limbs subjected to 
 every torture!" "Sir Castellan," answered John of Chalons, 
 " TThy speak you so? A choice must needs be made: for the 
 king is determined to lose his crown rather than not be 
 avenged." Another Fleming, John de Eenesse, who, leaning 
 on. the broken altar, had hitherto kept silence, cried: "Since 
 BO it is, let answer be made to the king that we be come hither
 
 466 BISTORT OF FRANCE. [ch. xvm 
 
 to fight him, and not to deliver up to him our fellow-citizens;* 
 and the Flemish envoys withdrew. Still Philip did not give 
 up negotiating, for the purpose of gaining time and of letting 
 the edge wear off the Flemings' confidence. He returned to 
 Paris, fetched Guy de Dampierre from the tower of the Louvre, 
 and charged him to go and negotiate peace under a promise of 
 returning to his prison if he were unsuccessful. Guy, respected 
 as he was throughout Flanders on account of his age and his 
 long misfortunes, failed in his attempt, and, faithful to his 
 word, went back and submitted himself to the power of Pliilip. 
 "I am so old," said he to his friends, " that I am ready to die 
 whensoever it shall please God. " And he did die, on the 7th 
 of March, 1304, in the prison of Compiegne, to which he had 
 been transferred, Phihp, all the while pushing forward his 
 preparations for war, continued to make protestation of pa- 
 cific intentions. The Flemish communes desii-ed the peace 
 necessary for the prosperity of their commerce ; but patriotic 
 anxieties wrestled with material interests. A burgher of Ghent 
 was quietly fishing on the banks of the Scheldt, when an old 
 man accosted him, saying sharply, ' ' Knowest thou not, then, 
 that the king is assembhng all his armies? It is time the 
 Ghentese shook off their sloth ; the lion of Flanders must no 
 longer slumber." In the spring of 1304, the cry of war re- 
 sounded every where. Philip had laid an impost extraordinary 
 upon all real property in his kingdom ; regulars and reserves 
 had been summoned to Arras, to attack the Flemings by land 
 and sea. He had taken into his pay a Genoese fleet commanded 
 by Regnier de Grimaldi, a celebrated Italian admiral; and it 
 arrived in the North Sea, and blockaded Zierikzee, a maritime 
 town of Zealand. On the 10th of August, 1304, the Flemish 
 fleet which was defending the place was beaten and dispersed. 
 Philip hoped for a moment that this reverse would discourage 
 the Flemings; but it was not so at all. A great battle took 
 place on the 17th of August between the two land armies at 
 Mons-en-Puelle (or, Mont-en-Pevele, according to the true local 
 spelling), near Lille; the action was for some time indecisive, 
 and even after it was over both sides hesitated about claiming 
 the victoiy ; but when the Flemings saw their camp swept off 
 and rifled, and when they no longer found in it, say the 
 chroniclers, "their fine stuffs of Bruges and Ypres, their wines 
 of RocheUe, their beers of Cambrai and their cheeses of 
 Bethune," they declared that they would return to their 
 hearths; and their leaders, unable to restrain them, were
 
 CH. XVIII.] THE KIN08HIP IN FRANCE. 467 
 
 obliged to shut themselves up in Lille, whither Philip, who had 
 himself retired at first to Arras, came to besiege them. When 
 the first days of downheartedness were over, and at sight of the 
 danger which threatened Lille and the remains of the Flemish 
 army assembled within its waUs, all Flanders rushed to arms. 
 *' The labors of the workshop and the field were every where 
 suspended, " say contemporary historians : ' ' the women kept 
 guard in the towns : you might traverse the country without 
 meeting a single man, for they were all in the camp at Courtrai, 
 to the number of twelve hundred thousand, according to popular 
 exaggeration, swearing one to another that they would rather 
 die fighting than live in slavery." Philip was astounded. "I 
 thought the Flemings," said he, "were destroyed; but they 
 seem to rain from heaven ;" and he resumed his protestations 
 and pacific overtures. Circumstances were favorable to him : 
 old Guy de Dampierre was dead ; Robert of Bethune, his eldest 
 son and successor, was still the prisoner of Philip the Hand- 
 some, who set him at Hberty after having imposed conditions 
 upon him. Robert, timid in spirit and weak of heart, accepted 
 them, in spite of the grumblings of the Flemish populations, 
 always eager to recommence war after a short respite from its 
 trials. The burghers of Bruges had made themselves a new 
 seal whereon the old symbol of the bridge of their city on the 
 Reye was replaced by the lion of Flanders wearing the crown 
 and armed with the cross, with this inscription: "The lion 
 hath roared and burst his fetters" (Rugiit leo, vinculaf regit). 
 During ten years, fi'om 1305 to 1314, there was between France 
 and Flanders, a continual alternation of reciprocal concessions 
 and retractations, of treaties concluded and of renewed insur- 
 rections without decisive and ascertained results. It was 
 neither peace nor war; and, after the death of Philip the 
 Handsome, his successors were destined for a long time to come 
 to find again and again amongst the Flemish communes deadly- 
 enmities and grievous perils. 
 
 At the same time that he was prosecuting this interminable 
 war against the Flemings, Philip was engaged, in this case also 
 beyond the boimdaries of his kingdom, in a struggle which was 
 still more serious owing to the nature of the questions which 
 gave rise to it and to the quality of his adversaiy. In 1294 a 
 new pope. Cardinal Benedetto Gaetani, had been elected under 
 the name of Boniface VIII. He had been for a long time con- 
 nected with the French party in Italy, and he owed his eleva- 
 tion to the influence, especially, of Charles U. king of Naplei
 
 468 HISTORT OF FRANCE. [ch. xvnr 
 
 and Sicily, grandson of St. Louis and cousin-german of Philip 
 the Handsome. Shortly before his election, Benedetto Gaetani 
 said to that prince, " Thy pope (Celestine V.) was \villing and 
 able to serve thee, only he knew not how ; as for me, if thou 
 make me pope, I shall be willing and able and know bow to be 
 useful to thee. " The long quarrel between the popes and the 
 emperors of Germany who, as kings of the Romans, aspired to 
 invade or dominate Italy, had made the kings of France 
 natural allies of the papacy, and there had been a saying ever 
 since, arising from a popular instinct which had already found 
 its way into poetry, — 
 
 " 'Tis a ffoodly match as match can be. 
 
 To marry the Church and the fleurs-de-lis: 
 Should either mate a-straying go, 
 Then each— too late— will own 'twas so." 
 
 Boniface VIII. did not seem fated to withdraw from this 
 policy ; he was old (sixty-six) ; his party-engagements were of 
 long standing; his personal fortune was made; three years be- 
 fore his election he possessed twelve ecclesiastical benefices, of 
 which seven were in France ; by his accession to the Holy See 
 his ambition was satisfied ; and as legate in France in 1290 he 
 had made the acquaintance there of the young king, Philip the 
 Handsome, and had conceived a liking for him. King Phihp 
 must have considered that he had ground for seeing in him a 
 faithful and useful ally. 
 
 Neither of the two sovereigns took into account the changes 
 that had come, during two centuries past, over the character 
 of their power, and of the influence which these changes must 
 exercise upon their posture and their relations one towards the 
 other. Loiiis the Fat in the first instance, and then in a 
 special manner Philip Augustus and St. Louis, each with very 
 different sentiments and by very different processes, had dis- 
 entangled the kingship in France from the feudal system, and 
 had acquired for it a sovereignty of its own, beyond and above 
 the rights of the suzerain over his vassals. The popes, for their 
 part, Gregory VII. and Innocent IH. amongst others, had 
 raised the papacy to a region of intellectual and moral 
 supremacy whence it looked down upon all the terrestrial 
 powers. Gregory VII. , the most disinterested of all ambitious 
 men in high places, had dedicated his stormy life to establish- 
 ing the dominion of the Church over the world, kings as well 
 as people, and also to reforming internally the Church herself,
 
 CH. xvm.] THE KINGSHIP IN FRANCE. 469 
 
 her morals and her discipline. "I have loved justice and 
 hated iniquity; and that is why I am dying in exile," he had 
 said on his deathbed: but his works survived him, and a hun- 
 dred yeai's after him, in spite of the troubles which had dis- 
 turbed the Church under eighteen mediocre and transitory 
 popes, Innocent III. whilst maintaining, only witli moi-e mod- 
 eration and prudence, the same principles as Gregory VII. had 
 maintained, exercised peacefully, for a space of eighteen years, 
 the powers of the right divine, whUst PhHip Augustus was ex- 
 tending and confirming the kingly power in France. This 
 parallel progi-ess of the kingship and the papacy had its critics 
 and its supporters. Learned lawyers, on the authority of the 
 maxims and precedents of the Eoman empire, proclaimed the 
 king's sovereignty in the state ; and profound theologians, on 
 the authority of the divine origin of Christianity, laid down as 
 a principle the right divine of the papacy in the Church and in 
 the dealings of the Church with the State. Thus, at the end of 
 the thirteenth century, there were found face to face two sys- 
 tems, one laic and the other ecclesiastical, of absolute power. 
 But the teachers of the doctrine of the right divine do not ex- 
 pimge from human affairs the passions, errors and vices of the 
 individuals who put theii" "systems in practice ; and absolute 
 power, which is the greatest of all demoralizers, entails before 
 long upon commimities, whether civil or religious, the disor- 
 ders, abuses, faults, and evils which it is the special province 
 of governments to prevent or keep under. The French king- 
 ship and the papacy, the representatives of which liad but 
 lately been great and glorious princes, such as Philip Augustus 
 and St. Louis, Gregory "VII, and Innocent III., were, at the end 
 of the thirteenth century, vested in the persons of men of far 
 less moral worth and less political wisdom, Philip the Hand- 
 some and Boniface VIII. We have already had glimpses of 
 Philip the Handsome's greedy, ruggedly obstinate, haughty and 
 tyrannical character ; and Boniface VIII. had the same defects, 
 ■with more hastiness and less abihty. The two great poets of 
 Italy in that century, Dante and Petrarch, who were both very 
 much opposed to Philip the Handsome, paint Boniface VIII. in 
 ^milar colors. "He was," says Petrarch {Epistolce FamUimes, 
 bk. ii. letters), "an inexorable sovereign, whom it was very 
 hfird to break by force and impossible to bend by hmnility and 
 caresses;" and Dante {Inferno, canto xix. v. 45-57) makes 
 Pope Nicholas HI. say, "Already art thou here and proudly 
 opstanding, Boniface? Hast thou so soon been sated with
 
 470 HISTORY OF FRANCE. [CH. xviu 
 
 that wealth for which thou didst not fear to deceive that fair 
 dame (the Churchj whom afterwards thou didst so disastrously 
 govern?" Two men so deeply imbued with evil and selfish 
 passions could not possibly meet without clashing ; and it was 
 not long before facts combined to produce between them an 
 outburst of hatred and strife which revealed the latent x'ices 
 and fatal results of the two systems of absolute power of which 
 they were the representatives. 
 
 Philip the Handsome had been nine years king when Boniface 
 VIII. became pope. On his accession to the throne he had tes- 
 tified an intention of curtailing the privileges and power of the 
 Church. He had removed the clergy from judicial functions, 
 in the domains of the lords as weU as in the domain of the 
 king, and he had every where been putting into the hands of 
 laymen the administration of civil justice. He had consider- 
 ably increased tbe per centage to be paid on real property ac- 
 quired by the Church {caMed. possessions in mortmain), by way 
 of compensation for the mutation-dues which their fixity 
 caused the State to lose. At the time of the crusades the 
 property of the clergy had been subjected to a special tax of a 
 tenth of the revenues, and this tax had been several times re- 
 newed for reasons other than the crusades. The Church recog- 
 nized her duty of contributing towards the defence of the king- 
 dom and the chapter-general of the order of Citeaux wrote to 
 Philip the Handsome himself, ''On all grounds of natural 
 equity and rules of law we ought to bear our share of such a 
 burden out of the goods which God hath given us." In every 
 instance, the question had been as to the necessity for and the 
 quota of the ecclesiastical contribution, which was at one time 
 granted by the bishops and local clergy, at another expressly 
 authorized by the papacy. There is nothing to show that Boni- 
 face VIII., at the time of his elevation to the Holy See, was 
 opposed to these augmentations and demands on the part of 
 the French crown; he was at that time too much occupied by 
 his struggle against his o^vn enemies at Rome, the family of the 
 Colonnas, and he felt the necessity of remaining on good terms 
 with France ; but in 1296, PhiUp the Handsome, at war with 
 the king of England and the Flemings, imposed upon the 
 clergy two fresh tenths. The bishops alone were called upon 
 to vote them ; and the order of Citeaux refused to pay them, 
 and addressed to the pope a protest, with a comparison be- 
 tween Philip and Pharaoh. Boniface not only entertained the 
 protest, but addressed to the king a bull (caUed Clericis laicos,
 
 CH. xvni.] THE KINGSHIP IN FRANCE. ^^\ 
 
 from its first two words), in which, led on by his zeal to set forth 
 the generality and absoluteness of his power, he laid down as a 
 principle that churches and ecclesiastics could not be taxed save 
 with the permission of the sovereign-pontiff, and that "all em- 
 perors, kings, dukes, counts, barons, or governors whatsoever, 
 who should violate this principle, and all prelates or other 
 ecclesiastics who should through weakness lend themselves to 
 such violation woidd by this mere fact incur excommunication 
 and would be incapable of release therefrom, save in aHiculo 
 mortis, unless by a special decision of the Holy See." This was 
 going far beyond the traditions of the French Church, and, in 
 the very act of protecting it, to strike a blow at its independence 
 in its dealings with the French State. Philip was mighty 
 wroth, but he did not biirst out ; he confined himself to letting 
 the pope perceive his displeasure by means of divers adminis- 
 trative measures, amongst others by forbidding the exporta- 
 tion from the kingdom of gold, silver, and valuable articles, 
 which found their way chiefly to Rome. Boniface, on his side, 
 was not slow to perceive that he had gone too far and that his 
 own interests did not permit him to give so much offence to the 
 king of France. A year after the bull Clericis laicos, he modi- 
 fied it by a new bull which not only authorized the collection 
 of the two tenths voted by the French bishops, but recognized 
 the right of the king of France to tax the French clergy with 
 their consent and without authorization from the Holy See, 
 whenever there was a pressing necessity for it. PhUip, on his 
 side, testified to the pope his satisfaction at this concession 
 by himself making one at the expense of the religious hberty 
 of his subjects. In 1292 he had ordered the seneschal of Car- 
 cassonne to place limits to the power of the inquisitors in Lan- 
 guedoc by taking from them the right of having their sentences 
 against heretics executed without appeal ; and in 1298 he issued 
 an ordinance to the effect that ' ' to further the proceedings of 
 the Inquisition against heretics, for the glory of God and for 
 the augmentation of the faith, he laid his injunctions upon all 
 dukes, counts, barons, seneschals, bailiffs, and provosts of hig 
 kingdom, to obey the diocesan bishops and the inquisitors de- 
 puted by the Holy See in handing over to them, whenever they 
 should be requested, all heretics and their creed-fellows, favor- 
 ers, and harborers, and to see to the immediate execution of 
 sentences passed by the judges of the Church, notwithstanding 
 any appeal and any complaint on the part of heretics and their 
 favorers."
 
 472 EISTOUY OF FRANCE;. [en. xviri 
 
 Thus the two absolute sovereigns changed their policy and 
 made temporary sacrifice of their mutual pretensions, accord- 
 ing as it suited them to fight or to agree. But there arose a 
 question in respect of which this continual alternation of pre- 
 tensions and compromises, of quarrels and accommodations, 
 was no longer possible ; in order to keep up their position in 
 the eyes of one another they were obliged to come to a deadly 
 clash ; and in this struggle, perilous for both, Boniface VIII. 
 was the aggressor and with Philip the Handsome remained the 
 victory. 
 
 On the 2nd of February, 1300, Boniface VIII. , who had much 
 at heart the lustre and popularity of the Holy See, published a 
 bull which granted indulgences to the pilgrims who should 
 that year and every centenary to come, visit the church of the 
 apostles St. Peter and St. Paul at Eome. At this first celebra- 
 tion of the centenarian Christian jubilee the concourse was im- 
 mense ; the most moderate historians say that there were never 
 fewer than a hundred thousand pilgrims at Rome; others put 
 the numbers as high as two hundred thousand, and contem- 
 porary poetry as well as history has celebrated this pious 
 assemblage of Christians of every nation, language, and age 
 around the tomb of their fathers in the faith. " The old man 
 with white hair goeth far away," says Petrarch (Sonnet xiv.), 
 * ' from the sweet haunts where his life hath been passed and 
 from his little family astonished to find their dear father miss- 
 ing. As for him, in the last days of his age, broken down by 
 weight of years and a- weary of the road, he draggeth along as 
 best he may by force of willing spirit his old and tottering 
 limbs, and cometh to Rome to fulfil his desire of seeing the 
 image of Him whom he hopeth to see ere long up yonder in 
 the heavens." The success of the measure and the solemn 
 homage of Christendom filled with joy and proud confidence 
 the heart of the septuagenarian pontiff. He had three years 
 before decreed to Louis I^., the most Christian of the kings of 
 France, the honors of canonization and the title of Saint. 
 Being chosen as mediator, in 1298, by the kings of France and 
 England in a war which pressed heavily on both, the decree of 
 arbitration which he pronounced, favorable rather to Philip 
 than to Edward I., had been accepted by both of them; and 
 the pope, on laying his injunctions upon them with some 
 severity of language, had exJiibited authority in a manner 
 salutary for both kingdoms. Every thing seemed at that time 
 to smile on Boniface and to invite him to beheve himself the 
 real sovereign of Christaidom.
 
 CH. xviTi.] THE KINGSHIP IN FRANCE. 473 
 
 An opportunity for a splendid confirmation of his universal 
 supremacy in the Chi'istian world came to tempt him. A 
 quarrel had arisen between Philip and the archbishop of Nar- 
 bonne on the subject of certain dues claimed by both in that 
 great diocese, Boniface was loud in his advocacy of the arch- 
 bishop against the oflScers of the king: " K, my son, thou tole- 
 rate such enterprises against the Churches of thy kingdom," 
 he wrote to Phihp (on the 18th of July, 1300), " thou may est 
 thereafter have reasonable fear lest God, the author of judg- 
 ments and the King of kings, exact vengeance for it ; and as- 
 suredly His vicar will not, in the long run, keep silence. 
 Though he wait a while patiently, in order not to close the 
 door to compassion, there will be f uU need at last that he rouse 
 himself for the punishment of the wicked and the glory of the 
 good." Nor did Boniface content himself with writing: he 
 sent to Paris, to support his words, Bernard de Saisset, whom 
 he, on his own authority, had just appointed bishop of Pamiers. 
 The choice of bishops was not yet, at that time, subject to any 
 fixed and generally recognized rule: most often it was the 
 chapter of the diocese that elected its bishop, with a subsequent 
 appUcation for the approbation of the king and the pope ; some- 
 times the king and also the pope made such appointments 
 directly and independently. Boniface Vin. had quite recently 
 created a new bishopric at Pamiers in order to immediately 
 appoint to it Bernard de Saisset, hitherto simple abbot of St. 
 Antonine in that city. Bernard, who was devoted to his 
 patron, was, further, a passionate Languedocian and a foe to 
 the dominion of the French kings of the North over Southern 
 France ; and he gave himself out as a personal descendant of 
 the last counts of Toulouse. On arriving in Paris as the pope's 
 legate he made use there of violent and inconsiderate language ; 
 he even afl&rmed, it was said, that St. Louis had predicted the 
 disappearance of his line in the third generation, and that King 
 Philip was, only an illegitimate descendant of Charlemagne. 
 He was accused of having incessantly labored to excite revolts 
 against the king in the South, at one time for the advantage of 
 the local lords, at another in favor of foreign enemies of the 
 kingdom. Being summoned before the king and his council at 
 Senlis (October 14, 1301), he denied, but with an air of arrogance 
 and aggression, the accusations against him. Philip had, at 
 that time, as his chief councillors, lay -lawyers, servants, pas- 
 sionately attached to the kingship. They were Peter Flotte his 
 chancellor, William of Nogaret, judge-major at Beaucaire, and
 
 474 HI8T0RY OF FRANCE. [ch. xmt 
 
 William of Plasian, lord of Vezenobre, the two latter belonging, 
 as Bernard de Saisset belonged, to Southern France, and deter- 
 mined to withstand, in the south as well as the north, the 
 domination of ecclesiastics. They, in their turn, rose up 
 against the doctrine and language of the bishop of Pamiers. 
 He was arrested and committed to the keeping of the arch- 
 bishop of Narbonne ; and Phihp sent to Rome his chancellor 
 Peter Flotte himself and William of Nogaret, with orders to 
 demand of the pope "that he should avenge the wrongs of God, 
 the king, and the whole kingdom, by depriving of his orders 
 and every clerical privilege that man whose longer hfe would 
 taint the places he inhabited ; and this, in order that the king 
 might make of him a sacrifice to God in the way of justice, for 
 there could be no hope of his amendment if he were suffered to 
 five, seeing that, from his youth up, he had always lived ill 
 and that baseness and abandonment only became more and 
 more confirmed in him by inveterate habit. " 
 
 To this violent and threatening language Boniface replied by 
 changing the venue to his own personal tribimal in the case of 
 the bishop of Pamiers. " We do bid thy majesty," he wrote 
 to the king, ' ' to give this bishop free leave to depart and come 
 to us, for we do desire his presence. We do warn thee to have 
 all his goods restored to him, not to stretch out for the future 
 thy rapacious hands towards the like things, and not to offend 
 the Divine Majesty or the dignity of the Apostoh'c See, lest we 
 be forced to employ some other remedy ; for thou must know 
 that, unless thou canst allege some excuse founded on reason 
 and truth, we do not see how thou shouldest escape the sen- 
 tence of the holy canons for having laid rash hands on tliis 
 bishop. " 
 
 " My power — the spiritual power," said the pope to the chan- 
 cellor of France, "embraces the temporal, and includes it." 
 "Be it so," answered Peter Flotte; " but your power is nomi- 
 nal, the king's real. " 
 
 Here was a coarse challenge hurled by the crown at the tiara: 
 and Boniface VIH. unhesitatingly accepted it. But, instead of 
 keeping the advantage of a defensive position by claiming, in 
 the name of lawful right, the liberties and immunities of the 
 Church, he assumed the offensive against the kingship by pro- 
 claiming the mpremacy il the Holy See in things temporal as 
 wel^ as spiritual, and by calUng upon Philip the Handsome to 
 acknowledge it. On the 5th of December, 1301, he addressed 
 to the king, commencing with the words, *^ Hearken^ most
 
 CH. xvm.] TUE KINGSirtP fN FRANCE. 475 
 
 dear Son'''' {Ausculta, carissime fili) , a long bull in which, with 
 circumlocutions and expositions full of obscurity and subtlety, 
 he laid down and afl&rmed, at bottom, the principle of the final 
 sovereignty of the spiritual power, being of divine origin, over 
 every temporal power, being of human creation. " In spite of 
 the insuflSciency of our deserts, " said he, ' ' God hath established 
 us above kings and kingdoms by imposing upon us, in virtue 
 of the Apostohc oflBce, the duty of plucking away, destroying, 
 dispersing, dissipating, building up and planting in His name 
 and according to His doctrine ; to the end that, in tending the 
 flock of the Lord, we may strengthen the weak, heal the sick, 
 bind up the broken hmbs, raise the fallen, and pour wine and 
 oil into all woimds. Let none, then, most dear son, persuade 
 thee that thou hast no superior, and that thou art not subject 
 to the sovereign head of the ecclesiastical hierarchy; for he 
 who so thinketh is beside himself ; and if he obstinately affirm 
 any such thing, he is an infidel and hath no place any longer 
 in the fold of the good Shepherd. " At the same time Boniface 
 summoned the bishops of France to a council at Rome, "in 
 order to labor for the preservation of the hberties of the Catho- 
 lic Church, the reformation of the kingdom, the amendment 
 of the king and the good government of France." 
 
 Philip the Handsome and his councillors did not misconceive 
 the tendency of such language, however involved and full of 
 specious reservations it might be. The final supremacy of the 
 poi)e in the body poHtic and over all sovereigns meant the ab- 
 sorption of the laic community in the religious and the aboH- 
 tion of the State's independence not in favor of the national 
 Church but to the advantage of the foreign head of the uni- 
 versal Church. The defenders of the French kingship formed 
 a better estimate than was formed at Rome of the effect which 
 would be produced by such doctrine on France, in the existing 
 condition of the French mind; they entered upon no theo- 
 logical and abstract polemics; they confined themselves en- 
 tirely to setting in a vivid light the pope's pretensions and their 
 consequences, feehng sure that by confining themselves to this 
 question they would enlist in their opposition not only all lay- 
 men, nobles, and commoners, but the greater part of the French 
 ecclesiastics themselves, who were no strangers to the feeling 
 of national patriotism, and to whom the pope's absolute power 
 in the body politic was scarcely more agreeable than the 
 king's. In order to make a strong impression upon the pubUc 
 mind there was published at Paris, as the actual text of the
 
 476 HISTORY OF FRANCE. [ch. xvmi 
 
 pope's bull, a very short summary of his long bull " Hearken^ 
 most dear (Son," in the following terms: "Boniface, bishop, 
 servant of the servants of God, to Phihp, king of the French. 
 Feai' thou God and keep His commandments. We would have 
 thee to know that thou art subject unto us in things spiritual 
 and temporal. The presentation to benefices and prebends ap- 
 pertaineth to thee in no wise. If thou have the keeping of cer- 
 tain vacancies, thou ai't bound to reserve the revenues of them 
 for the successors to them. If thou have made any presenta- 
 tions, we declare them void, and revoke them. We consider 
 as heretics aU those who helieve otherwise." Together with 
 this document there was put in circulation the king's answer 
 to the pope, in the following terms: " Philip, by the grace of 
 God, king of the French, to Boniface, who giveth himself out 
 for sovereign pontiff, Uttle or no greeting. Let thy Extreme 
 Fatuity know that we be subject to none in things temporal, 
 that the presentation to churches and prebends that be vacant 
 belongeth to us of kingly right, that the revenues therefrom be 
 ours, that presentations ah-eady made or to be made be vaUd 
 both now and hereafter, that we "svill firmly support the pos- 
 sessors of them to thy face and in thy teeth, and that we do 
 hold as senseless and insolent those who think otherwise." 
 The pope disavowed, as a falsification, the summary of his long 
 bull ; and there is nothing to prove that the unseemly and in- 
 sulting letter of Phihp the Handsome was sent to Rome. 
 But, at bottom, the situation of affaire remained the same; 
 indeed it did not stop where it was. On the 11th of February, 
 1302, the bull Hearken most dear Son was solemnly burnt at 
 Paris in the presence of the king ai c a numerous multitude. 
 Phihp convoked, for the 8th of April following, an assembly 
 of the barons, bishops, and chief ecclesiastics and of depu- 
 ties from the communes to the number of two or three for 
 each city, all being summoned " to deliberate on certain affairs 
 which in the highest degi'ee concern the king, the kingdom, 
 the churches, and all and sundry." Tliis assembly, which 
 really met on the 10th of April at Paris in the church of Notre- 
 Dame, is reckoned in French history as the first " states-gene- 
 ral." The three estates wrote separately to Rome; the clergy 
 to the pope himself, the nobility and the deputies of the com 
 munes to the cardinals, all, however, protesting against the 
 pope's pretensions in matters temporal, the two laic orders 
 writing in a rough and threatening tone, the clergy making 
 an appeal ' ' to the wisdom and paternal clemency of the Holy
 
 CH. xvni.] THE KINGSHIP IN FRANCS. 477 
 
 Father with tearful accents and sobs mingled vrith their tears." 
 The king evidently had on his side the general feeling of the 
 nation : and the news from Rome was not of a kind to pacify 
 him. In spite of the king's formal prohibition, forty-five 
 French bishops had repaired to the cotmcil summoned by the 
 pope for All Saints' day, 1303, and after this meeting, a papal 
 decree of November 18 had declared, ' ' There be two swords, 
 the temporal and the spiritual; both are in the power of the 
 Church, but one is held by the Church herself, the other by 
 kings, only with the assent and by sufferance of the sovereign 
 pontiff. Every human being is subject to the Roman pontiff ; 
 and to believe this is necessary to salvation." Philip made a 
 seizure of the temporalities of such bishops as had been present 
 at that council and renewed his prohibition forbidding them to 
 leave the kingdom. Boniface ordered those who had not been 
 to Rome to attend there within three months ; and the cardi- 
 nal of St. Marcellinus, legate of the Holy See, called a fresh 
 coimcil in France itself, without the king's knowledge. On 
 both sides, there were at one time words of conciliation and 
 attempts to keep up appearances of respect, at another new 
 explosions of complaints and threats; but, amidst all these 
 changes of language, the struggle was day by day becoming 
 more violent and preparations were being made by both par- 
 ties for something other than threats. 
 
 On the 12th of March and the 13th of June, 1803, at two 
 assemblies of barons, prelates, and legists held at the Louvre, 
 in presence of the king, which several historians have consid- 
 ered to have been states-general, one of the crown's most inti- 
 mate advisers, William of Plasian, proposed, against Boniface, 
 a form of accusation which imputed to him, beyond his ambi- 
 tion and his claims to absolutism, crimes as improbable as 
 they were hateful. It was demanded that the Church should 
 be governed by a lawful pope, and the king, as defender of 
 the faith, was pressed to appeal to the convocation of a general 
 council. On the 24th of Jime, in the palace-garden, a great 
 crowd of people assembled; and, after a sermon preached in 
 French, the form of accusation against Boniface and the ap- 
 peal to the future council were solemnly made public. The 
 pope meanwhile did not remain idle ; he protested against the 
 imputations of which he was the subject: '' Forty years ago," 
 he said, * ' we were admitted a doctor of laws, and learned that 
 both powers, the temporal and the spiintual, be ordained of 
 God. Who can believe that such fatuity can have entered
 
 478 HISTORY OF FRANCE. [CH. xvra. 
 
 into our mind? But who can also deny that the king is sub- 
 ject unto us on the score of sin? ... . We he disposed to 
 
 grant unto him every grace So long as I was cardinal, 
 
 I was French in heart ; since then, we have testified how we 
 
 do love the king Without us, he would not have even 
 
 one foot on the throne. We do know all the secrets of the 
 kingdom. We do know how the Germans, the Burgundians, 
 and the folks who speak the Oc tongue do love the king. If 
 he mend not, we shall know how to chastise him, and treat 
 him as a little boy {sicut unum garcionem), though greatly 
 against our will." On the 13th of April Boniface declared 
 Philip excommunicate if he persisted in preventing the pre- 
 lates from attending at Eome, Philip, being warned, effected 
 the arrest at Troyes of the priest who was bringing the pope's 
 letter to his legate in France. The legate took to flight. Boni- 
 face, on his side, being warned that the king was appealing 
 against him to an approaching council, declared by a bull, on 
 the 15th of August, that it appertained to him alone to sum- 
 mon a council. After this bull there was full expectation that 
 another would be launched, which would pronounce the deposi- 
 tion of the king. And a new bull was actually prepared at Rome 
 on the 5th of September, and was to be pubHshed on the 8th. 
 It did not expressly depose the king; it merely announced 
 that measures would be taken more serious even than excom- 
 mimication. PhiHp had taken his precautions. He had de- 
 manded and obtained from the great towns, churches, and 
 universities more than seven hundred declarations of support 
 in his appeal to the future council, and an engagement to take 
 no notice of the decree which might be issued by the pope to 
 release the king's subjects from their oath of allegiance. Only 
 a few, and amongst them the abbot of Citeaux, gave him s^ 
 refusal. The order of the Templars gave only a qualified sup- 
 port. At the approaching advent of the new buU which was 
 being anticipated, the king resolved to act still more roughly 
 and speedily. Notification must be sent to the pope of the 
 king's appeal to the future council. Philip could no longer 
 confide this awkward business to his chancellor Peter Flotte; 
 for he had fallen at Courtrai, in the battle against the Flem- 
 mgs. Wilham of Nogaret undertook it, at the same time ob- 
 taining from the king a sort of blank commission authorizing 
 and ratifying in advance all that, under the circumstances, he 
 might consider it advisable to do. Notification of the appeal 
 had to be made to the pope at Anagni, his native town, whither
 
 CH. xmi.] THE KINGSHIP IN FRANCE. 479 
 
 he had gone for refuge, and the people of which, being zealous 
 in his favor, had already dragged in the mud the liUes and the 
 banner of France. Nogaret was bold, ruffianly, and clever. 
 He repaired in haste to Florence to the king's banker, got 
 a plentiful supply of money, estabhshed communications in 
 Anagni, and secured, above all, the co-operation of Sciarra 
 Colonna, who was passionately hostile to the pope, had been 
 formerly proscribed by him, and, having fallen into the hands 
 of corsairs, had worked at the oar for them during many a 
 year rather than reveal his name and be sold to Boniface 
 Gaetani. On the 7th of September, 1303, Colonna and his as- 
 sociates introduced Nogaret and his following into Anagni, 
 with shouts of " Death to Pope Boniface! Long hve the king 
 of France!" The populace, dumb-founded, remained motion- 
 less. The pope, deserted by all, even by his own nephew, 
 tried to touch the heart of Colonna liimself , whose only answer 
 was a summons to abdicate, and to surrender at discretion, 
 "Those be hard words," said Boniface, and burst into tears. 
 But this old man, seventy-five years of age, had a proud spirit 
 and a dignity worthy of his rank. "Betrayed, like Jesus," 
 said he, "shall I die; but I will die pope." He donned the 
 cloak of St. Peter, put the crown of Constantino upon his 
 head, took in his hands the keys and the cross, and as his ene- 
 mies drew nigh, he said to them, " Here is my neck and here is 
 my head." There is a tradition, of considerable trustworthi- 
 ness, that Sciarra Colonna would have killed him, and did 
 with his mailed hand strike him in the face. Nogaret, how- 
 ever, prevented the murder, and confined himself to saying, 
 "Thou caitiff pope, confess and behold the goodness of my 
 lord, the king of France, who, though so far away from thee 
 in his own kingdom, both watcheth over and defendeth thee 
 by my hand." "Thou art of hei'etic family," answered the 
 pope: "at thy hands I look for martyrdom." The captivity 
 of Boniface VIII. however lasted only three days; for the 
 people of Anagni, having recovered themselves, and seeing 
 the scanty numbers of the foreigners, rose and dehvered the 
 pope. The old man was conducted to the public square, cry- 
 ing like a child. " Good folks," said he to the crowd around 
 him; " ye have seen that mine enemies have robbed me of all 
 my goods and those of the Church. Behold me here as poor as 
 Job. Naught have I either to eat or drink. If there be any good 
 woman who would give me an alms of wine and bread. I would 
 bestoT? upon her God's blessing and mine." All the people be- 
 (21) HF Vol. 1
 
 480 HISTORY OF FRANCE. [ch. xviti 
 
 gan to shout, "Long live the Holy Father!" He was recon- 
 ducted into his palace ; ' ' and women thronged together thither, 
 bringing him bread, wine, and water. Finding no proper 
 
 vessels, they poured them into a chest Any one who 
 
 liked went in, and talked with the pope, as with any other 
 beggar." So soon as the agitation was somewhat abated, 
 Boniface set out for Rome, with a great crowd following him • 
 but he was broken down in spirit and body. Scarcely had he 
 arrived when he fell into a burning fever, which traditions, 
 probably invented and spread by his enemies, have represented 
 as a fit of mad rage. He died on the 11th of October, 1303, 
 without having recovered his reason. It is reported that his 
 predecessor, Celestine V., had said of him, "Thou risest Uke 
 a fox; thou wilt rule like a lion, and die like a dog." The last 
 expression was unjustified. Boniface VIII. was a fanatic, am- 
 bitious, proud, violent, and crafty, but with sincerity at the 
 bottom of his prejudiced ideas, and stubborn and blind in his 
 fits of temper : his death was that of an old lion at bay. 
 
 "We were bound to get a good idea and understanding of 
 this violent struggle between the two sovereigns of France and 
 Eome ; not only because of its dramatic interest, but because it 
 marks an important period in the history of the papacy and its 
 relations Avith foreign governments. From the tenth century 
 and the accession of the Capetians the policy of the Holy See 
 had been enterprising, bold, full of initiative, often even aggres- 
 sive and more often than not successful in the prosecution of its 
 designs. Under Innocent III. it had attained the apogee of its 
 strength and fortune. At that point its motion forward and 
 upward came to a stop. Boniface had not the wit to recognize 
 the changes which had taken place in European communities, 
 and the decided progress which had been made by laic influ- 
 ences and civil powers. He was a stubborn preacher of maxims 
 he could no longer practise. He was beaten in his enterprise ; 
 and the papacy, even on recovering from his defeat, found 
 itself no longer what it had been before him. Starting from 
 the fourteenth century we find no second Gregory VII., or 
 Innocent III. "Without expressly abandoning their principles, 
 the policy of the Holy See became essentially defensive and 
 conservative, more occupied in the maintenance than the 
 aggrandizement of itself, and sometimes even more stationary 
 and stagnant than was required by necessity or recommended 
 by foresight. The posture assumed and the conduct adopted 
 by the earliest successors of Bouiface Vlil. showed'^how far the
 
 CH. xvm.] THE KING SHIP IN FRANCE. 481 
 
 situation of the papacy was altered, and how deep had been 
 the penetration of the stab which, in this conflict between the 
 two aspirants to absolute power, Philip the Handsome had 
 inflicted on his rival. 
 
 On the 22nd of October, 1303, eleven days after the death of 
 Boniface VIII., Benedict XI., son of a simple shepherd, was 
 elected at Rome to succeed him. Philip the Handsome at 
 once sent his congratulations, but by Wilham of Plasian, who 
 had lately been the accuser of Boniface and who was charged 
 to hand to the new pope, on the king's behalf, a very bitter 
 memorandum touching his predecessor. Philip at the same 
 time caused an address to be presented to himself in his own 
 kingdom and in the vulgar tongue, called a supplication from • 
 the people of France to the Jcing against Boniface. Benedict 
 XI. exerted himself to give satisfaction to the conqueror ; he 
 declared the Colonnas absolved; he released the barons and 
 prelates of France from the excommunications pronounced 
 against them ; and he himself wi'ote to the king to say that he 
 would behave towards him as the good shepherd in the parable 
 who leaves ninety and nine sheep to go after one that is lost. 
 Nogaret and the direct authors of the assault at Anagni were 
 alone excepted from this amnesty. The pope reserved for a 
 future occasion the announcement of their absolution, when he 
 should consider it expedient. But, on the 7th of June, 1804, 
 instead of absolving them, he laimched a fresh bull of excom- 
 munication against "certain wicked men who had dared to 
 commit a hateful crime against a person of good memory, 
 Pope Boniface." A month after this bull Benedict XI. was 
 dead. It is related that a young woman had put before him 
 at table a basket of fresh figs of which he had eaten and which 
 had poisoned him. The chroniclers of the time impute this 
 crime to William of Nogaret, to the Colonnas, and to their 
 associates at Anagni ; a single one names King Philip. Popu- 
 lar credulity is great in matters of poisoning; but one thing is 
 certain, namely, that no prosecution was ordered. There is 
 no proof of Philip's complicity ; but, full as he was of hatred 
 and dissimulation, he was of those who do their best to profit 
 by crimes which they have not ordered. It is clear that such 
 a pope as Benedict XI. would not do either for his passions or 
 his purposes. 
 
 He found one, however, from whom he flattered himself, not 
 without reason, that he would get more complete and efficient 
 co-operation. The cardinals, after being assembled in conclave
 
 482 HISTORY OF FRANCE. [ch. xvm. 
 
 for six months at Perouse, were unable to arrive at an agree- 
 ment about a choice of pope. As a way out of their embarrass- 
 ment, they entered into a secret convention to the effect that 
 one of them, a confidant of Philip the Handsome, should make 
 known to him that the archbishop of Bordeaux, Bertrand de 
 Goth, was the candidate in respect of whom they could agree. 
 He was a subject of the king of England and a late favorite 
 of Boniface VIII., who had raised him from the bishopric of 
 Comminges to the archbishopric of Bordeaux. He was re- 
 garded as an enemy of France ; but PhUip knew what may be 
 done with an ambitious man, whose fortune is only half made, 
 by offering to advance him to his highest point. He, therefore, 
 appointed a meeting with the archbishop, " Hearken, " said 
 he, ' ' I have in my grasp wherewithal to make thee pope if I 
 please ; and provided that thou promise me to do six things I 
 demand of thee, I will confer upon thee that honor; and to 
 prove to thee that I have the power, here be letters and ad- 
 vices I have received from Eome. " After having heard and 
 read, "the Gascon, overcome with joy," says the contemporary 
 historian Villani, "threw himself at the king's feet, saying, 
 ' My lord, now know I that thou art my best friend and that 
 thou wouldest render me good for evil. It is for thee to com- 
 mand and for me to obey: such wiU ever be my disposition.' " 
 Philip then set before him his six demands, amongst which 
 there were only two which could have caused the archbishop 
 any uneasiness. The fourth purported that he should condemn 
 the memory of Pope Boniface. "The sixth, which is important 
 and secret, I keep to myself," said Philip, "to make known to 
 thee in due time and place." The archbishop bound himself by 
 oath taken on the sacred host to accomplish the wishes of the 
 king, to whom, furthermore, he gave as hostages his brother 
 and his two nephews. Six weeks after this interview, on the 
 5th of June, 1305, Bertrand de Goth was elected pope, under 
 the name of Clement V. 
 
 It was not long before he gave the king the most certain 
 pledge of his docUity. After having held his pontifical court 
 at Bordeaux and Poitiers he declared that he would fix his 
 residence in France, in the county of Venaissin, at Avignon, a 
 territory which Philip the Bold had remitted to Pope Gregory 
 X. in execution of a deed of gift from Raymond VII. , count of 
 Toulouse. It was renouncing, in fact if not in law, the practi- 
 cal independence of the papacy to thus place it in the midst of 
 the dominions and under the very thumb of the king of Franca
 
 CH. XVIII.] THE KINGSHIP IN FRANCE. 483 
 
 "I know the Gascons," said the old Italian Cardinal Matthew 
 Rosso, dean of the Sacred College, when he heard of this reso- 
 lution; "it will be long ere the Church conies back to Italy." 
 And, indeed, it was not until sixty years afterwards, under 
 Pope Gregory XI., that Italy regained possession of the Holy 
 See; and historians called this long absence the Babylonish 
 captivity. Philip lost no time in profiting by this propinquity 
 to make the fuU weight of his power felt by Clement V. He 
 claimed from him the fulfilment of the fourth promise 
 Bertrand de Goth had made in order to become pope, which 
 was the condemnation of Boniface VIII. ; and he revealed to 
 him the sixth, that ' ' important and secret one which he kept 
 to himself to make known to him in due time and place;" 
 and it was the persecution and aboUtion of the order of the 
 Templars. The pontificate of Clement V. at Avignon was, 
 for him, a nine years' painful effort, at one time to elude and 
 at another to accomplish, against the grain, the heavy engage- 
 ments he had incurred towards the king. 
 
 He foimd the condemnation of Boniface VIII. rather an 
 embarrassment than a danger. He shrank, on becoming pope, 
 from condeixming the pope his predecessor, who had ap- 
 pointed him archbishop and cardinal. Instead of an official 
 condemnation, he offered the king satisfaction in various 
 ways. It was only from headstrong pride and to cloak him- 
 self in the eyes of his subjects that PliUip clung to the con- 
 demnation of the memory of Boniface; and, after a long 
 period of mutual tergiversation, it was agreed in the end to let 
 bygones be bygones. The principal promoter of the assault at 
 Anagni, WOliam of Nogaret, was the sole exception to the 
 amnesty ; and the pope imposed upon him, by way of penance, 
 merely the obligation of making a pilgrimage to the Holy 
 Land, which he never fulfilled. On the contrary he remained, 
 in great favor, about the person of King Phihp, who made him 
 his chancellor, and gave him, in Languedoc, some rich lands, 
 amongst others those of Calvisson, ]\IassLllargues, and Man- 
 duel. For Philip knew how to liberally reward and faithfully 
 support his servants. 
 
 And he knew still better how to persecute and ruin his 
 foes. He had no reason, of a public kind, to consider the 
 Templars his enemies. It is true that they had given him a 
 merely qualified support on his appe^ to the council against 
 Boniface Vlil. ; but, both before and after that occurrence, 
 Philip had shown them marks of the most friendly regard
 
 484 BISTORT OF FRANCE. [CH. xvm 
 
 He had asked to be aflSliated to their order ; and he had bor- 
 rowed their money. During a violent outbreak of the popu- 
 lace at Paris, in 1306, on the occasion of a fresh tax, he had 
 sought and found a refuge in the very palace of the Temple, 
 where the chapters-general were held and where its treasures 
 were kept. It is said that the sight of these ti-easures kindled 
 the longings of Phihp and his ardent desire to get hold of 
 them. At the time of the formation of the order, in 1119, 
 after the first crusade, the Templars were far from being 
 rich. Nine knights had joined together to protect the arrival 
 and sojourning of pilgrims in Palestine; and Baldwin II., the 
 third Christian king of Jerusalem, had given them a lodging 
 in his own palace, to the east of Solomon's temple, whence 
 they had assumed the name of "Poor United Champions of 
 Christ and the Temple. " Their valor and pious devotion had 
 soon rendered them famous in the West as well as the East; 
 and St. Bernard had commended them to the Christian world. 
 At the council of Troyes, in 1128, Pope Honorius 11. had 
 recognized their order and regulated their dress, a white 
 mantle, on which Pope Eugenius III. , placed a red cross. In 
 1172, the rides of the order were drawn up in seventy -two 
 articles, and the Templars began to exempt themselves from 
 the jurisdiction of the patriarch of Jerusalem, recognizing that 
 of the pope only. Their number and their importance rapidly 
 increased. In 1130 the Emperor Lothaire II. gave them lands 
 in the Duchy of Brunswick. They received other gifts in the 
 Low Countries, in Spain, and in Portugal. After a voyage to 
 the West, Hugh des Payens, the chief of the nine Templars, 
 returned to the East with three hundred knights enlisted in 
 his order; and a hundred and fifty years after its foundation 
 the order of the Temple, divided into fourteen or fifteen 
 provinces, four in the East and ten or eleven in the West, 
 numbered, it is said, eighteen or twenty thousand knights, 
 mostly French, and nine thousand commanderies or territorial 
 benefices, the revenue of which is calculated at fifty-four 
 millions of francs (2,160,000Z.). It was an army of monks, 
 once poor men and hard-working soldiers, but now rich and 
 idle, and abandoned to all the temptations of riches and 
 idleness. There was still some fine talk about Jerusalem, 
 pilgrims, and crusades. The popes still kept these words 
 prominent, either to distract the Western Christians from 
 intestine quarrels, or to really promote some new Christian 
 effort in the East. The Isle of Cyprus was still a small Chris-
 
 CH. xTin.] THE KINGSHIP IN FRANCE. 485 
 
 tian kingdom, and the warrior-monks, who were vowed to the 
 defence of Christendom in the East, the Templars and the 
 Hospitallers, had still in Palestine, Syria, Armenia, and the 
 adjacent islands, certain battles to fight and certain services 
 to render to the Christian cause. But these were events too 
 petty and too transitory to give serious employment to the 
 two great religious and military orders, whose riches and 
 fame were far beyond the proportions of their public useful- 
 ness and their real strength: a position fraught with perils 
 for them, for it inspired the sovereign powers of the State 
 with the spirit rather of jealousy than fear of them. 
 
 In 1305, the king and the pope simultaneously summoned 
 from Cyprus to France the G-rand Master of the Templars, 
 James de Molay, a Burgundian nobleman, who had entered 
 the order when he was almost a child, had valiantly fought 
 the infidels in the East, and fourteen years ago had been 
 unanimously elected Grand Master. For several months he 
 was well treated, to all appearance, by the two monarchs. 
 Philip said he wished to discuss with him a new plan of 
 crusade, and asked him to stand godfather to one of his 
 children ; and Molay was pall-bearer at the burial of the king's 
 sister-in-law. Meanwhile the most sinister reports, the gi-avest 
 imputations were bruited abroad against the Templars ; they 
 were accused ' ' of things distasteful, deplorable, horrible to 
 think on, horrible to hear, of betraying Christendom for the 
 profit of the infidels, of secretly denying the faith, of spitting 
 upon the cross, of abandoning themselves to idolatrous 
 practices and the most licentious lives. " In 1307, in the month 
 of October, Philip the Handsome and Clement V. had met at 
 Poitiers : and the king asked the pope to authome an inquiry 
 touching the Templars and the accusations made against 
 them. James de Molay was forthwith arrested at Paris with 
 a hundred and forty of his knights ; sixty met the same fate 
 at Beaucaire ; many others all over France ; and their property 
 was put in the king's keeping for the service of the Holy 
 Land. On the 12th of August, 1308, a papal bull appointed a 
 grand commission of inquiry charged to conduct, at Paris, an 
 examination of the matter "according as the law requires." 
 The archbishops of Canterbury in England and of Mayence, 
 Cologne, and Treves in Germany, were also named connnis- 
 sioners, and the pope announced that he would deliver his 
 judgment within two years, at a general council held at 
 Vienne, in Dauphiny, territory of the Empire. Twenty-six
 
 486 HISTORY OF FRANCE. [cH. xvm. 
 
 princes and laic lords, the dukes of Burgundy and Brittany, 
 the counts of Flanders, Nevers, and Auxerre, and the count o! 
 Talleyrand de Perigord, offered themselves as the Templars' 
 accusers, and gave powere of attorney to act in their names. 
 On the 22nd of November, 1309, the Grand Master, Molay, was 
 called before the commission. At first he firmly denied all 
 that his order had been accused of; afterwards, he became 
 confused and embarrassed, said that he had not the ability to 
 undertake the defence of his order, that he was but a poor un- 
 lettered knight, that the pope had reserved to himself the de- 
 cision in the case, and that, for his part, he only wished the 
 pope would summon him as soon as possible before him. On 
 the 28th of March, 1310, five hundred and forty -six knights, 
 ■who had declared theii" readiness to defend their order, ap- 
 peared before the commission ; and they were called upon to 
 choose proctors to speak in their name. "We ought also, 
 then," said they, "to have been tortured by proxy only." The 
 prisoners were treated Tvith the uttermost rigor and re- 
 duced to the most wretched plight: " out of their poor pay of 
 twelve deniers per diem they were obhged to pay for their 
 passage by water to go and submit to their examination in the 
 city, and to give money besides to the man who undid and 
 riveted their fetters." In October, 1310, at a council held at 
 Palis, a large number of Templars were examined, several 
 acquitted, some subjected to special penances, and fifty-four 
 condemned as heretics to the stake, and burned the same day 
 in a field close to the abbey of St. Anthony ; and nine others 
 met the same fate at the hands of a council held at Senlis the 
 same year: "They confessed under their tortures," says 
 Bossuet, "but they denied at their execution." The business 
 dragged slowly on; different decisions were pronounced ac- 
 cording to the place of decision; the Templars were pro- 
 nounced innocent, on the 17th of June, 1310, at Ravenna, on 
 the 1st of July at Mayence, and on the 21st of October at 
 Salamanca ; and in Aragon they made a successful resistance. 
 Europe began to be wearied at the uncertaintj' of such judg 
 ments and at the sight of such horrible spectacles; and 
 Clement V. felt some shame at thus persecuting monks who, 
 on more than one occasion, had shown devotion to the Holy 
 See. 
 
 But Philip the Handsome had attained his end : he was in 
 possession of the Templars' riches. On the 11th of June, 1311, 
 the commission of inquiry terminated its sittings, and the
 
 CH. xvra.] TEE KINGSHIP IK FRANCE. 487 
 
 report of its labors concluded as follows: "For further pre- 
 caution we have deposited the said procedure, drawn up by 
 notaries in authentic form, in the treasury of Notre-Dame at 
 Paris, to be shown to none without special letters from Your 
 Holiness. " The council-general, announced in 1308 by the pope, 
 to decide definitively upon this great case, was actually opened 
 at Vienne, in October, 1311 ; more than three hundred bishops 
 assembled; and nine Templars presented themselves for the 
 defence of their order, saying that there were at Lyons, or in 
 the neighborhood, 1500 or 2000 of their brethren, ready to sup- 
 port them. The pope had the nine defenders arrested, ad- 
 journed the decision once more, and, on the 22nd of March in 
 the following year, at a mere secret consistory, made up of the 
 most docile bishops and a few cardinals, pronounced, solely on 
 his pontifical authority, the abolition of the order of the 
 Temple : and it was subsequently proclaimed ofiicially, on the 
 3rd of April, 1312, in presence of the king and the council. 
 And not a soul protested. 
 
 The Grand Master, James de Molay, in confinement at 
 Gisors, survived his order. The pope had reserved to himself 
 the task of trying him ; but, disgusted with the work, he com- 
 mitted the trial to ecclesiastical commissioners assembled at 
 Paris, before whom Molay was brought, together with three 
 of the principal leaders of the Temple, survivors like himself. 
 They had read over to them, from a scaffold erected in the 
 forecourt of Notre-Dame, the confessions they had made, but 
 lately, under torture, and it was announced to them that they 
 were sentenced to perpetual imprisonment. Remorse had 
 restored to the Grand Master all his courage ; he interrupted 
 the reading and disavowed his avowals, protesting that torture 
 alone had made him speak so falsely, and maintaining that 
 
 " Of his grand order naught he wist 
 'Gainst honor and the laws of Christ." 
 
 One of his three comrades in misfortune, the commander of 
 Normandy, made aloud a similar disavowal. Tlie embar- 
 rassed judges sent the two Templars back to the provost of 
 Paris, and put off their decision to the following day; but 
 Philip the Handsome, without waiting for the morrow, and 
 without consulting the judges, ordered the two Templars to 
 be burned the same evening, March 11, 1314, at the hour of 
 vespers, in De-de-la-Cit6, on the site of the present Place 
 Dauphine. A poet-chronicler, Godfi-ey of Paris, who was a
 
 488 HISTORY OF FRANCE. [ch. xviir. 
 
 witness of the scene, thus describes it: "The Grand Master, 
 seeing the fire prepared, stripped himself briskly ; I tell just 
 as I saw ; he bared himself to his shirt, light-heartedly and 
 with a good grace, without a whit of trembling, though he 
 was dragged and shaken mightily. They took hold of him to 
 tie him to the stake, and they were binding his hands with a 
 cord, but he said to them, ' Sii's, suffer me to fold my hands 
 awhile, and make my prayer to God, for verily it is time. I 
 am presently to die; but wrongfullj', God wot. Wherefore 
 woe will come, ere long, to those who condemn us without a 
 cause. God will avenge our death. ' " 
 
 It was probably owing to these last words that there arose a 
 popular rumor, soon spread abroad, that James de Molay, at 
 his death, had cited the pope and the king to appear with him, 
 the former at the end of forty days and the latter within a 
 year, before the judgment-seat of God. Events gave a sanc- 
 tion to the legend : for Clement V. actually died on the 20th 
 of April, 1314, and Philip the Handsome on the 29th of No- 
 vember, 1314, the pope, undoubtedly, uneasy at the servile 
 acquiescence he had shown towards the king, and the king 
 expressing some sorrow for his greed, and for the imposts 
 (maltote, malefolta, or black mail) with which he had bur- 
 dened his people. 
 
 In excessive and arbitrary unposts, indeed, consisted the 
 chief grievance for which France, in the fourteenth century, 
 had to complain of Philip the Handsome; and, probably, it 
 was the only wrong for which he upbraided himself. Being 
 badly wounded, out hunting, by a wild boar and perceiving 
 himself to be in bad case, he gave orders for his removal to 
 Fontainebleau, and there, says Godfrey of Paris, the poet- 
 chronicler just quoted in reference to the execution of the 
 Templars, "he said and commanded that his cliildren, his 
 brothers, and his other friends should be sent for. They were 
 no long time in coming; they entered Fontainebleau, into the 
 chamber where the king was, and where there was very little 
 light. So soon as they were there, they asked him how he 
 was, and he answered, ' HI in body and in soul ; if our Lady 
 the Virgin save me not by her prayers, I see that death will 
 seize me here ; I have put on so many talliages and laid hands 
 on so much riches, that I shall never be absolved. Sirs, I 
 know that I am in such estate that I shall die, methinks, to 
 night, for I suffer grievous hurt from the curses which pursue 
 me: there will be no fine tales to be told of me.'" Philip's
 
 CH. xviii.] TEE EING8EIP IN FRANCE. 489 
 
 anxiety about his memory was not without foundation; his 
 greed is the vice which has clung to his name ; not only did 
 he load his subjects with poU-taxes and other taxes unauthor- 
 ized by law and the traditions of the feudal system ; not only 
 was he unjust and cruel towards the Templars in order to 
 appropriate their riches; but he committed, over and over 
 again, that kind of spoUation which imports most trouble into 
 the general life of a people ; he debased the coinage so often 
 and to such an extent, that he was every where called ' ' the 
 base coiner." This was a financial process of which none of 
 his predecessors, neither St. Louis nor Philip Augustus, had 
 set him an example, though they had quite as many costly 
 wars and expeditions to keep up as he had. Some chroniclers 
 of the fourteenth century say that PhUip the Handsome was 
 particularly munificent and lavish towards his family and his 
 servants ; but it is difficult to meet with any precise proof of 
 this allegation, and we must impute the financial difficxilties 
 of Philip the Handsome to his natural greed and to the secret 
 expenses entailed upon him by his policy of dissimulation and 
 hatred, rather than to his lavish generosity. As he was no 
 stranger to the spirit of order in his own affairs, he tried, 
 towards the end of his reign, to obtain an exact account of his 
 finances. His chief adviser, Enguerrand de Marigny, became 
 his superintendent-general, and on the 19th of January, 1311, 
 at the close of a grand council held at Poissy, Philip passed an 
 ordinance which estabhshed, under the headings of expenses 
 and receipts, two distinct tables and treasuries, one for ordi- 
 nary expenses, the civil Hst and the payment of the great 
 bodies of the State, incomes, pensions, etc., and the other for 
 extraordinary expenses. The ordinary expenses were estimat- 
 ed at 177,500 hvres of Tours, that is, according to M. Boutaric, 
 who published this ordinance, 15,900,000 francs (636,000Z.). 
 Numerous articles regulated the execution of the measure; 
 and the royal treasurers took an oath not to reveal, within 
 two years, the state of their receipts, save to Enguerrand de 
 Marigny or by order of the king himself. This first budget of 
 the French monarchy dropped out of sight after the death of 
 Philip the Handsome in the reaction which took place against 
 his government. "God forgive him bis sins," says Godfrey 
 of Paris, "for in the time of his reign gi-eat loss came to 
 France, and there was small regret for him." The general 
 history of France has been more indulgent towards Philip the 
 Handsome than his contemporaries were ; it has expressed its
 
 490 BISTORT OF FRANCE. [ch. xvm 
 
 acknowledgments to him for the progress made, under hia 
 sway, by the particular and permanent characteristics of 
 civilization in France. The kingly domain received in the 
 Pyrenees, in Aquitaine, in Franche-Comte, and in Flanders 
 territorial increments which extended national unity. The 
 legislative power of the king penetrated into and seciu-ed 
 footing in the lands of his vassals. The scattered semi-sove- 
 reigns of feudal society bowed down before the incontestable 
 pre-eminence of the kingship, which gained the victory in its 
 struggle against the papacy. Far be it from us to attach no 
 importance to the intervention of the deputies of the com- 
 munes in the States -general of 1302, on the occasion of that 
 struggle ; it was certainly homage paid to the nascent existence 
 of the tliird estate ; but it is piierile to consider that homage 
 as a real step towards public liber-ties and constitutional 
 government. The burgliers of 1302 did not dream of such a 
 thing; PhiHp, knowing that their feelings were, in this in- 
 stance, in accordance with liis own, summoned them in order 
 to use their co-operation as a useful appendage for himself, 
 and absolute kingship gained more strength by the co-opera- 
 tion than the third estate acquii'ed influence. The general 
 constitution of the judiciary power, as delegated from the 
 kingship, the creation of several classes of magistrates de- 
 voted to this gi'eat social function, and, especially, the strong 
 organization and the permanence of the parliament of Paris, 
 were far more important progressions in the development of 
 civil order and society in France. But it was to the advan- 
 tage of absolute power that all these facts were turned, and 
 the perverted ability of Philip the Handsome consisted in 
 working them for that single end. He was a profound ego- 
 tist; he mingled with his imperiousness the leaven of craft 
 and patience, but he was quite a stranger to the two princi- 
 ples which constitute the morality of governments, respect 
 for rights and patriotic sympathy with public sentiment ; he 
 concerned himself about nothing but his own position, his 
 own passions, his own wishes, or his own fancies. And this 
 is the radical vice of absolute power. Philip the Handsome 
 is one of the kings of France who have most contributed to 
 stamp upon the kingship in France this lamentable character- 
 istic from which France has suffered so much even in the 
 midst of her glories, and which, in our time, was so grievously 
 atoned for by the kingship itself when it no longer deserved 
 the reproach.
 
 CH. xvni.] THE EINOSUIP IN FRANCE. 491 
 
 Philip the Handsome left three sons, Louis X., called le 
 Hutin {the quarreller), Philip V., called the Long, and Charles 
 rV., called the Handsome, who, between them, occupied the 
 throne only thirteen years and ten months. Not one of them 
 distinguished himself by his personal merits ; and the events 
 of the three reigns hold scarcely a higher place in history 
 than the actions of the three kings do. Shortly before the 
 death of Philip the Handsome, his greedy despotism had 
 already excited amongst the people such lively discontent thafc 
 several leagues were formed in Champagne, Burgundy, Artois, 
 and Beauvaisis, to resist him; and the members of these 
 leagues, "nobles and commoners," say the accounts, engaged 
 to give one another mutual support in their resistance "at 
 theii- own cost and charges." After the death of PhiKp the 
 Handsome the opposition made head more extensively and 
 effectually ; and it produced two results : ten ordinances of 
 Louis the Quarreller for redressing the grievances of the feu- 
 dal aricstoracy, for one; and, for the other, the trial and 
 condemnation of Enguerrand de Marigny, " coadjutor and 
 rector of the kingdom" under Philip the Handsome. Ma- 
 rigny, at the death of the king his master, had against him, 
 rightly or wrongly, popular clamor and feudal hostihty, 
 especially that of Charles of Valois, PhiUp the Handsome's 
 brother, who acted as leader of the barons, "What has be- 
 come of all those subsidies and all those sums produced by so 
 much tampering with the comage?" asked the new king one 
 day in councU. "Sir," said Prince Charles, " it was Marigny 
 who had the administration of every thing; and it is for him 
 to render an account." "I am quite ready," said Marigny. 
 "This moment, then," said the prince. "Most wiUingly, my 
 lord: I gave a great portion to you." "You lie!" cried 
 Charles: "Nay you, by God!" replied Marigny. The prince 
 drew his sword, and Marigny was on the point of doing the 
 same. The quarrel was, however, stifled for the moment; 
 but, shortly afterwards, Marigny was accused, condemned by 
 a commission assembled at Vincennes, and hanged on the 
 gibbet of Montfaucon which he himself, it is said, had set up. 
 He walked to execution with head erect, saying to the crowd, 
 "Good folks, pray for me." Some months afterwards, the 
 young king who had endorsed the sentence reluctantly, since 
 he did not well know, between his father's brother and minis- 
 ter^ which of the two was guilty, left by will a bandsome 
 legacy to Marigny 's widow "in consideration of the great
 
 492 EI8T0RT OF FRANCE. [ch. jnmt 
 
 misfortune which had befallen her and hers ;" and Charles o£ 
 Valois himself, falling into a decline, and considering himself 
 stricken by the hand of God " as^ a punishment for the trial of 
 Enguerrand de Marigny," had liberal alms distributed to the 
 poor with this injunction: "Pray God for Enguerrand de 
 Marigny and for the count of Valois." None can tell after 
 this lapse of time whether this remorse proceeded from weak- 
 ness of mind or sincerity of heart, and which of the two 
 personages was really guilty; but, ages afterwards, such is 
 the effect of bhnd, popular clamor and unrighteous judicial 
 proceedings, that the condemned hves in history as a victim 
 and all but a guileless being. 
 
 Whilst the feudal aristocracy was thus avenging itself of 
 kingly tyranny, the spirit of Christianity was noiselessly 
 pursuing its work, the general enfranchisement of men. 
 Louis the QuarreUer had to keep up the war with Flanders, 
 which was continually being renewed ; and in order to find, 
 without hateful exactions, the necessary funds, he was ad- 
 vised to offer freedom to the serfs of Ms domains. Accord- 
 ingly he issued, on the 3rd of July, 1315, an edict to the 
 following effect : "Whereas, according to natural right, every 
 one should be born free, and whereas, by certain customs 
 which, from long age, have been introduced into and pre- 
 served to this day in our kingdom .... many persons amongst 
 our common people have fallen into the bonds of slavery, 
 which much displeaseth us ; we, considering that our kingdom 
 is called and named the kingdom of the Free (Franks), and 
 willing that the matter should in verity accord with the name 
 .... have by our grand council decreed and do decree that 
 generally throughout our whole kingdom .... such serfdoms 
 be redeemed to freedom, on fair and suitable conditions .... 
 and we will, hkewise, that all other lords who have body-men 
 ^^or serfs) do take example by us to bring them to freedom." 
 Great credit has very properly been given to Louis the Quar- 
 reUer for this edict; but it has not been suflSciently noticed 
 that Philip the Handsome had liimself set his sons the ex- 
 ample, for, on confirming the enfranchisement granted by his 
 brother Charles to the serfs in the countship of Valois, he had 
 based his decree on the following grounds: "Seeing that 
 every human being, which is made in the image of Our Lord, 
 should generally be free by natural right." The history of 
 Christian communities is fuU of these happy inconsistencies; 
 when a moral and just principle is implanted in the soul.
 
 CH. xvni.] THE KINOSHIP IN FRANCS. 493 
 
 absolute power itself does not completely escape from its 
 healthy influence, and the good makes its way athwart the 
 evil, just as a source of fresh and pure water ceases not to 
 flow through and spread over a land wasted by the crimes or 
 f oUies of men. 
 
 It is desirable to give an idea and an example of the conduct 
 which was already beginning to be adopted and of the author- 
 ity which was already beginning to be exercised in France, 
 amidst the feudal reaction that set in against Philip the 
 Handsome and amidst the feeble government of his sons, by 
 that magistracy, of such recent and petty origin, which was 
 called upon to defend, in the king's name, order and justice 
 against the countless anarchical tyrannies scattered over the 
 national territory. During the early years of the fifteenth 
 century, a lord of Gascony, Jordan de Lisle, "of most noble 
 origin but most ignoble deeds," says a contemporary chronicler, 
 ' ' abandoned himseK to all manner of irregularities and crimes." 
 Confident in his strength and his connections, for Pope John 
 XXn. had given his niece to him in marriage, ' ' he committed 
 homicides, entertained evil-doers and murderers, countenanced 
 robbers, and rose against the king. He killed, with the man's 
 own truncheon, one of the king's servants who was wearing 
 the royal Hvery according to the custom of the royal servants. 
 When his inisdeeds were known, he was summoned for trial to 
 Paris ; and he went thither surrounded by a stately retinue of 
 coimts, nobles, and barons of Aquitaine. He was confined, at 
 first, in the prison of Chatelet ; and when a hearing had been 
 accorded to his reply and to what he alleged m his defence 
 against the crimes of which he was accused, he was finally 
 pronounced worthy of death by the doctors of the parliament, 
 and on Trinity-eve he was dragged at the tail of horses and 
 hanged, as he deserved, on the public gallows at Paris." It 
 was, assuredly, a difl&cult and a dangerous task for the obscure 
 members of this parliament, scarcely organized as it was and 
 quite lately established for a permanence in Paris, to put down 
 such disorders and such men. In the course of its long career 
 the French magistracy has committed many faults; it has 
 more than once either aspired to overstep its proper limits or 
 failed to fulfil all its duties; but history would be ungrateful 
 and untruthful not to bring into the light the virtues this body 
 has displayed from its humble cradle and the services it has 
 rendered to France, to her security at home, to her moral 
 dignity, to her intellectual glory, and to the progress of her
 
 494 HISTORY OF FRANCE. [CH. xvnt 
 
 civilization with all its brilliancy and productiveness though it 
 is still so imperfect and so thwarted. 
 
 Another fact which has held an important place in the 
 history of France and exercised a great influence over her 
 destinies, likewise dates from this period; and that is the 
 exclusion of women from the succession to the throne, by 
 virtue of an article, ill understood, of the Sahc law. The 
 ancient law of the Salian Franks, drawn up, probably, in the 
 seventh century, had no statute at all touching this grave 
 question; the article rehed upon was merely a regulation of 
 civil law prescribing that " no portion of really Salic land (that 
 is to say, in the full territorial ownership of the head of the 
 family) should pass into the possession of women, but it should 
 belong altogether to the virile sex. " From the time of Hugh 
 Capet heirs male had never been wanting to the crown, and 
 the succession in the male line had been a fact uninterrupted 
 indeed, but not due to prescription or law. Louis the Quar- 
 reller, at his death, on the 5th of June, 1316, left only a daugh- 
 ter, but his second wife, Queen Clemence, was pregnant. As 
 soon as Philip the Long, then count of Poitiers, heard of his 
 brother's death, he hurried to Paris, assembled a certain 
 number of barons, and got them to decide that he, if the queen 
 should be delivered of a son, should be regent of the kingdom 
 for eighteen years ; but that if she should bear a daughter he 
 should immediately take possession of the crown. On the 15th 
 of November, 1316, the Queen gave birth to a son, who was 
 named John, and who figures as John I. in the series of French 
 kings, but the child died at the end of five days, and on the 6th 
 of January, 1317, Philip the Long was crowned king at Rheims. 
 He forthwith smnmoned, there is no knowing exactly where 
 and in what numbers, the clergy, barons, and third estate, who 
 declared, on the 2nd of February, that "the laws and customs, 
 inviolably observed among the Franks, excluded daughters 
 from the crown." There was no doubt about the fact; but the 
 law was not estabMshed nor even in conformity with the entire 
 feudal system or with general opinion. And " thus the king- 
 dom went," says Froissart, "as seemeth to many folks, out of 
 the right Hne." But the measure was evidently wise and 
 salutary for France as weU as for the kingship; and it was 
 renewed, after Phflip the Long died on the 3rd of January, 1322, 
 and left daughters only, in favor of bis brother Charles the 
 Handsome, who died, in his turn, on the 1st of January, 1328, 
 and likewise left daughters only. The question as to the sue-
 
 CH. xviir.J THE EINQSHJP IN FRANCE. 495 
 
 cession to the throne then lay between the male line represented 
 by PhiUp, count of Valois, grandson of Philip the Bold through 
 Charles of Valois, his father, and the female line represented 
 by Edward III., king of England, grandson, through his 
 mother Isabel, sister of the late king Charles the Handsome, of 
 PhUip the Handsome. A war of more than a century's dura- 
 tion between France and England was the result of this 
 lamentable rivalry, which aU but put the kingdom of France 
 under an English king ; but France Avas saved by the stubborn 
 resistance of the national spirit and by Joan of Arc, inspired 
 by God. One hundred and twenty-eight years after the 
 triumph of the national cause and four years after the acces- 
 sion of Heni-y IV., which was stiU disputed by the League, a 
 decree of the parhament of Paris, dated the 38th of June, 1593, 
 maintained, against the pretensions of Spain, the authority of 
 the Salic law, and on the 1st of October, 1789, a decree of the 
 National Assembly, in conformity with the formal and unani- 
 mous wish of the memorials drawn up by the States-general, 
 gave a fresh sanction to that principle, which, confining the 
 heredity of the crown to the male line, had been salvation to 
 the xmity and nationahty of the monarchy in France. 
 
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