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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