by Walter Scott
CHAPTER XI.
A mirthful man he was--the snows of age Fell, but they did not chill him. Gaiety, Even in life's closing, touch'd his teeming brain With such wild visions as the setting sun Raises in front of some hoar glacier, Painting the bleak ice with a thousand hues. _Old Play._
Leaving the Earl of Oxford in attendance on the stubborn Duke ofBurgundy during an expedition which the one represented as a briefexcursion, more resembling a hunting-party than a campaign, and whichthe other considered in a much graver and more perilous light, wereturn to Arthur de Vere, or the younger Philipson, as he continued tobe called, who was conducted by his guide with fidelity and success,but certainly very slowly, upon his journey into Provence.
The state of Lorraine, overrun by the Duke of Burgundy's army, andinfested at the same time by different scattered bands, who took thefield, or held out the castles, as they alleged, for the interest ofCount Ferrand de Vaudemont, rendered journeying so dangerous, that itwas often necessary to leave the main road, and to take circuitoustracks, in order to avoid such unfriendly encounters as travellersmight otherwise have met with.
Arthur, taught by sad experience to distrust strange guides, foundhimself, nevertheless, in this eventful and perilous journey, disposedto rest considerable confidence in his present conductor, Thiebault,a Provencal by birth, intimately acquainted with the roads which theytook, and, as far as he could judge, disposed to discharge his officewith fidelity. Prudence alike, and the habits which he had acquired intravelling, as well as the character of a merchant which he stillsustained, induced him to wave the _morgue_, or haughty superiority ofa knight and noble towards an inferior personage, especially as herightly conjectured that free intercourse with this man, whoseacquirements seemed of a superior cast, was likely to render him ajudge of his opinions and disposition towards him. In return for hiscondescension, he obtained a good deal of information concerning theprovince which he was approaching.
As they drew near the boundaries of Provence, the communications ofThiebault became more fluent and interesting. He could not only tellthe name and history of each romantic castle which they passed, intheir devious and doubtful route, but had at his command thechivalrous history of the noble knights and barons to whom they nowpertained, or had belonged in earlier days, and could recount theirexploits against the Saracens, by repelling their attacks uponChristendom, or their efforts to recover the Holy Sepulchre from Paganhands. In the course of such narrations, Thiebault was led to speak ofthe Troubadours, a race of native poets of Provencal origin, differingwidely from the minstrels of Normandy, and the adjacent provinces ofFrance, with whose tales of chivalry, as well as the numeroustranslations of their works into Norman-French and English, Arthur,like most of the noble youth of his country, was intimately acquaintedand deeply imbued. Thiebault boasted that his grandsire, of humblebirth indeed, but of distinguished talent, was one of this giftedrace, whose compositions produced so great an effect on the temper andmanners of their age and country. It was, however, to be regrettedthat, inculcating as the prime duty of life a fantastic spirit ofgallantry, which sometimes crossed the Platonic bound prescribed toit, the poetry of the Troubadours was too frequently used to softenand seduce the heart, and corrupt the principles.[8]
Arthur's attention was called to this peculiarity by Thiebaultsinging, which he could do with good skill, the history of aTroubadour, named William Cabestainy, who loved, _par amours_, a nobleand beautiful lady, Margaret, the wife of a baron called Raymond deRoussillon. The jealous husband obtained proof of his dishonour, and,having put Cabestainy to death by assassination, he took his heartfrom his bosom, and causing it to be dressed like that of an animal,ordered it to be served up to his lady; and when she had eaten of thehorrible mess, told her of what her banquet was composed. The ladyreplied, that since she had been made to partake of food so precious,no coarser morsel should ever after cross her lips. She persisted inher resolution, and thus starved herself to death. The Troubadour whocelebrated this tragic history had displayed in his composition a gooddeal of poetic art. Glossing over the error of the lovers as the faultof their destiny, dwelling on their tragical fate with considerablepathos, and, finally, execrating the blind fury of the husband, withthe full fervour of poetical indignation, he recorded, with vindictivepleasure, how every bold knight and true lover in the south of Franceassembled to besiege the baron's castle, stormed it by main force,left not one stone upon another, and put the tyrant himself to anignominious death. Arthur was interested in the melancholy tale, whicheven beguiled him of a few tears; but as he thought further on itspurport, he dried his eyes, and said, with some sternness,--"Thiebault,sing me no more such lays. I have heard my father say that thereadiest mode to corrupt a Christian man is to bestow upon vice thepity and the praise which are due only to virtue. Your Baron ofRoussillon is a monster of cruelty; but your unfortunate lovers werenot the less guilty. It is by giving fair names to foul actions thatthose who would start at real vice are led to practise its lessons,under the disguise of virtue."
"I would you knew, Seignor," answered Thiebault, "that this Lay ofCabestainy and the Lady Margaret of Roussillon is reckoned amasterpiece of the joyous science. Fie, sir, you are too young to beso strict a censor of morals. What will you do when your head is grey,if you are thus severe when it is scarcely brown?"
"A head which listens to folly in youth will hardly be honourable inold age," answered Arthur.
Thiebault had no mind to carry the dispute further.
"It is not for me to contend with your worship. I only think, withevery true son of chivalry and song, that a knight without a mistressis like a sky without a star."
"Do I not know that?" answered Arthur; "but yet better remain indarkness than be guided by such false lights as shower down vice andpestilence."
"Nay, it may be your seignorie is right," answered the guide. "It iscertain that even in Provence here we have lost much of our keenjudgment on matters of love--its difficulties, its intricacies, andits errors, since the Troubadours are no longer regarded as usual, andsince the High and Noble Parliament of Love[9] has ceased to hold itssittings.
"But in these latter days," continued the Provencal, "kings, dukes,and sovereigns, instead of being the foremost and most faithfulvassals of the Court of Cupid, are themselves the slaves ofselfishness and love of gain. Instead of winning hearts by breakinglances in the lists, they are breaking the hearts of theirimpoverished vassals by the most cruel exactions--instead ofattempting to deserve the smile and favours of their lady-loves, theyare meditating how to steal castles, towns, and provinces from theirneighbours. But long life to the good and venerable King Rene! Whilehe has an acre of land left, his residence will be the resort ofvaliant knights, whose only aim is praise in arms, of true lovers, whoare persecuted by fortune, and of high-toned harpers, who know how tocelebrate faith and valour."
Arthur, interested in learning something more precise than commonfame had taught him on the subject of this prince, easily induced thetalkative Provencal to enlarge upon the virtues of his old sovereign'scharacter, as just, joyous, and debonair, a friend to the most nobleexercises of the chase and the tilt-yard, and still more so to thejoyous science of Poetry and Music; who gave away more revenue than hereceived, in largesses to knights-errant and itinerant musicians, withwhom his petty court was crowded, as one of the very few in which theancient hospitality was still maintained.
Such was the picture which Thiebault drew of the last minstrelmonarch; and though the eulogium was exaggerated, perhaps the factswere not overcharged.
Born of royal parentage, and with high pretensions, Rene had at noperiod of his life been able to match his fortunes to his claims. Ofthe kingdoms to which he asserted right, nothing remained in hispossession but the county of Provence itself, a fair and friendlyprincipality, but diminished by the many claims which France hadacquired upon portions of it by advances of money to supply thepersonal expenses of its m
aster, and by other portions, whichBurgundy, to whom Rene had been a prisoner, held in pledge for hisransom. In his youth he engaged in more than one military enterprise,in the hope of attaining some part of the territory of which he wasstyled sovereign. His courage is not impeached, but fortune did notsmile on his military adventures; and he seems at last to have becomesensible that the power of admiring and celebrating warlike merit isvery different from possessing that quality. In fact, Rene was aprince of very moderate parts, endowed with a love of the fine arts,which he carried to extremity, and a degree of good-humour, whichnever permitted him to repine at fortune, but rendered its possessorhappy, when a prince of keener feelings would have died of despair.This insouciant, light-tempered, gay, and thoughtless dispositionconducted Rene, free from all the passions which embitter life, andoften shorten it, to a hale and mirthful old age. Even domesticlosses, which often affect those who are proof against mere reversesof fortune, made no deep impression on the feelings of this cheerfulold monarch. Most of his children had died young; Rene took it not toheart. His daughter Margaret's marriage with the powerful Henry ofEngland was considered a connection much above the fortunes of theKing of the Troubadours. But in the issue, instead of Rene derivingany splendour from the match, he was involved in the misfortunes ofhis daughter, and repeatedly obliged to impoverish himself to supplyher ransom. Perhaps in his private soul the old king did not thinkthese losses so mortifying as the necessity of receiving Margaret intohis court and family. On fire when reflecting on the losses she hadsustained, mourning over friends slain and kingdoms lost, the proudestand most passionate of princesses was ill suited to dwell with thegayest and best-humoured of sovereigns, whose pursuits she contemned,and whose lightness of temper, for finding comfort in such trifles,she could not forgive. The discomfort attached to her presence andvindictive recollections embarrassed the good-humoured old monarch,though it was unable to drive him beyond his equanimity.
Another distress pressed him more sorely.--Yolande, a daughter of hisfirst wife, Isabella, had succeeded to his claims upon the Duchy ofLorraine, and transmitted them to her son, Ferrand, Count ofVaudemont, a young man of courage and spirit, engaged at this time inthe apparently desperate undertaking of making his title good againstthe Duke of Burgundy, who, with little right but great power, wasseizing upon and overrunning this rich Duchy, which he laid claim toas a male fief. And to conclude, while the aged king on one sidebeheld his dethroned daughter in hopeless despair, and on the otherhis disinherited grandson in vain attempting to recover part of theirrights, he had the additional misfortune to know that his nephew,Louis of France, and his cousin, the Duke of Burgundy, were secretlycontending which should succeed him in that portion of Provence whichhe still continued to possess, and that it was only jealousy of eachother which prevented his being despoiled of this last remnant of histerritory. Yet amid all this distress Rene feasted and receivedguests, danced, sang, composed poetry, used the pencil or brush withno small skill, devised and conducted festivals and processions, and,studying to promote as far as possible the immediate mirth andgood-humour of his subjects, if he could not materially enlarge theirmore permanent prosperity, was never mentioned by them, excepting as_Le bon Roi Rene_, a distinction conferred on him down to the presentday, and due to him certainly by the qualities of his heart, if not bythose of his head.
Whilst Arthur was receiving from his guide a full account of thepeculiarities of King Rene, they entered the territories of thatmerry monarch. It was late in the autumn, and about the period whenthe south-eastern counties of France rather show to least advantage.The foliage of the olive-tree is then decayed and withered, and as itpredominates in the landscape, and resembles the scorched complexionof the soil itself, an ashen and arid hue is given to the whole.Still, however, there were scenes in the hilly and pastoral parts ofthe country where the quantity of evergreens relieved the eye even inthis dead season.
The appearance of the country, in general, had much in it that waspeculiar.
The travellers perceived at every turn some marks of the King'ssingular character. Provence, as the part of Gaul which first receivedRoman civilisation, and as having been still longer the residence ofthe Grecian colony who founded Marseilles, is more full of thesplendid relics of ancient architecture than any other country inEurope, Italy and Greece excepted. The good taste of the King Rene haddictated some attempts to clear out and to restore these memorials ofantiquity. Was there a triumphal arch or an ancient temple--huts andhovels were cleared away from its vicinity, and means were used atleast to retard the approach of ruin. Was there a marble fountain,which superstition had dedicated to some sequestered naiad--it wassurrounded by olives, almond and orange trees--its cistern wasrepaired, and taught once more to retain its crystal treasures. Thehuge amphitheatres and gigantic colonnades experienced the sameanxious care, attesting that the noblest specimens of the fine artsfound one admirer and preserver in King Rene, even during the courseof those which are termed the dark and barbarous ages.
A change of manners could also be observed in passing from Burgundyand Lorraine, where society relished of German bluntness, into thepastoral country of Provence, where the influence of a fine climateand melodious language, joined to the pursuits of the romantic oldmonarch, with the universal taste for music and poetry, had introduceda civilisation of manners which approached to affectation. Theshepherd literally marched abroad in the morning, piping his flocksforth to the pasture with some love-sonnet, the composition of anamorous Troubadour; and his "fleecy care" seemed actually to be underthe influence of his music, instead of being ungraciously insensibleto its melody, as is the case in colder climates. Arthur observed,too, that the Provencal sheep, instead of being driven before theshepherd, regularly followed him, and did not disperse to feed untilthe swain, by turning his face round to them, remaining stationary,and, executing variations on the air which he was playing, seemed toremind them that it was proper to do so. While in motion, his hugedog, of a species which is trained to face the wolf, and who isrespected by the sheep as their guardian, and not feared as theirtyrant, followed his master with his ears pricked, like the chiefcritic and prime judge of the performance, at some tones of which heseldom failed to intimate disapprobation; while the flock, like thegenerality of an audience, followed in unanimous though silentapplause. At the hour of noon, the shepherd had sometimes acquired anaugmentation to his audience, in some comely matron or bloomingmaiden, with whom he had rendezvoused by such a fountain as we havedescribed, and who listened to the husband's or lover's chalumeau, ormingled her voice with his in the duets, of which the songs of theTroubadours have left so many examples. In the cool of the evening,the dance on the village green, or the concert before the hamlet door;the little repast of fruits, cheese, and bread, which the travellerwas readily invited to share, gave new charms to the illusion, andseemed in earnest to point out Provence as the Arcadia of France.
But the greatest singularity was, in the eyes of Arthur, the totalabsence of armed men and soldiers in this peaceful country. InEngland, no man stirred without his long-bow, sword, and buckler. InFrance, the hind wore armour even when he was betwixt the stilts ofhis plough. In Germany, you could not look along a mile of highway butthe eye was encountered by clouds of dust, out of which were seen, byfits, waving feathers and flashing armour. Even in Switzerland, thepeasant, if he had a journey to make, though but of a mile or two,cared not to travel without his halberd and two-handed sword. But inProvence all seemed quiet and peaceful, as if the music of the landhad lulled to sleep all its wrathful passions. Now and then a mountedcavalier might pass them, the harp at whose saddle-bow, or carried byone of his attendants, attested the character of a Troubadour, whichwas affected by men of all ranks; and then only a short sword on hisleft thigh, borne for show rather than use, was a necessary andappropriate part of his equipment.
"Peace," said Arthur, as he looked around him, "is an inestimablejewel; but it will be soon snatched from those who are not preparedwith heart and hand t
o defend it."
The sight of the ancient and interesting town of Aix, where King Reneheld his court, dispelled reflections of a general character, andrecalled to the young Englishman the peculiar mission on which he wasengaged.
He then required to know from the Provencal Thiebault whether hisinstructions were to leave him, now that he had successfully attainedthe end of his journey.
"My instructions," answered Thiebault, "are to remain in Aix whilethere is any chance of your seignorie's continuing there, to be ofsuch use to you as you may require, either as a guide or an attendant,and to keep these men in readiness to wait upon you when you haveoccasion for messengers or guards. With your approbation, I will seethem disposed of in fitting quarters, and receive my furtherinstructions from your seignorie wherever you please to appoint me. Ipropose this separation, because I understand it is your presentpleasure to be private."
"I must go to court," answered Arthur, "without any delay. Wait for mein half an hour by that fountain in the street, which projects intothe air such a magnificent pillar of water, surrounded, I would almostswear, by a vapour like steam, serving as a shroud to the jet which itenvelopes."
"The jet is so surrounded," answered the Provencal, "because it issupplied by a hot spring rising from the bowels of the earth, and thetouch of frost on this autumn morning makes the vapour moredistinguishable than usual.--But if it is good King Rene whom youseek, you will find him at this time walking in his chimney. Do not beafraid of approaching him, for there never was a monarch so easy ofaccess, especially to good-looking strangers like you, seignorie."
"But his ushers," said Arthur, "will not admit me into his hall."
"His hall!" repeated Thiebault. "Whose hall?"
"Why, King Rene's, I apprehend. If he is walking in a chimney, it canonly be in that of his hall, and a stately one it must be to give himroom for such exercise."
"You mistake my meaning," said the guide, laughing. "What we call KingRene's chimney is the narrow parapet yonder; it extends between thesetwo towers, has an exposure to the south, and is sheltered in everyother direction. Yonder it is his pleasure to walk and enjoy the beamsof the sun, on such cool mornings as the present. It nurses, he says,his poetical vein. If you approach his promenade he will readily speakto you, unless, indeed, he is in the very act of a poeticalcomposition."
Arthur could not forbear smiling at the thoughts of a king, eightyyears of age, broken down with misfortunes and beset with dangers, whoyet amused himself with walking in an open parapet, and composingpoetry in presence of all such of his loving subjects as chose to lookon.
"If you will walk a few steps this way," said Thiebault, "you may seethe good King, and judge whether or not you will accost him atpresent. I will dispose of the people, and await your orders at thefountain in the Corso."
Arthur saw no objection to the proposal of his guide, and was notunwilling to have an opportunity of seeing something of the good KingRene, before he was introduced to his presence.
FOOTNOTES:
[8] Note I.--The Troubadours.
[9] Note II.--Parliament of Love.