by Eugène Sue
“You are in error, Charles,” put in Amael. “Sooner or later, the bishops will use your sceptre for a baton by means of which to drive peoples and kings as may suit themselves.”
“By the hammer of my grandfather! I will break the bishops’ mitres on their own heads if ever they dare to usurp my power!”
“No; you will do no such thing, and for the simple reason that you stand in fear of them. As a proof, behold the vast estates and the flatteries that you shower upon them.”
“I, fear the bishops!” cried the Emperor; and turning to Eginhard: “Is that matter of the rat settled with the Jew?”
“Yes, seigneur,” answered Eginhard, smiling. “The bishop closed the bargain yesterday.”
“That happens in time to prove to you that I am not afraid of the bishops, seigneur Breton — I, flatter them? When, on the contrary, I miss no opportunity to give them severe or gentle lessons wherever they deserve reproof. As to the worthy ones, I enrich them; and even then I look twice before bestowing upon them lands and abbeys belonging to the imperial domains. And the reason is plain. With this or that abbey or farm I am certain of securing to myself some soldier vassal greatly more faithful than many a count or bishop.”
Thus pleasantly chatting, the Emperor regained his palace, and in the company of Vortigern, Amael, Eginhard and the freshly appointed Bishop of Limburg, re-ascended the steep spiral staircase that led to his private apartment. Hardly had Charles entered his observatory when one of his chamberlains announced to him:
“August Emperor, several of the leading officers in the palace have solicited the honor of being admitted to your presence in order to lay a pressing request before you — the noble lady, Mathalgarde (she was one of the numerous concubines of Charles) also called twice on the same errand. She awaits your orders.”
“Let the petitioners come in,” answered Charles to the chamberlain, who immediately left the room. Addressing the young clerk, now bishop, with a jovial yet impressive air, Charles pointed to the curtain of the door, near which his usual seat was located, and said: “Hide yourself behind that curtain, young man; you are about to learn the number of rivals that the death of a bishop raises. It will aid your education.”
The young clerk had barely vanished behind the curtain, before the chamber was invaded by a large number of the palace familiars, officers and seigneurs at court. Urging their own claims, or the claims of the clients whom they recommended, the mob deafened the Emperor’s ears with their clamor. Among these was a bishop magnificently robed, and of haughty, imperious mien. He elbowed himself forward into Charles’ presence as fast as he could.
“This is the bishop of the rat,” Eginhard whispered to the Emperor. “The price he paid the Jew was ten thousand silver sous. The Jew scrupulously reported the amount to me, as you ordered.”
“Bishop of Bergues, have you not enough with one bishopric?” Charles cried out to the haughty prelate. “Do you come to solicit a second?”
“August Prince — I have come to pray you that you grant me the bishopric of Limburg, just vacant, in exchange for that of Bergues.”
“Because the former is richer?”
“Yes, seigneur; and if I obtain it, the share of the poor will only be all the larger.”
“Now, all of you, listen to me attentively,” the Emperor cried, pointing his finger at the bishop and in a tone of severity: “Knowing the passionate love of this prelate for frivolous and ruinous curiosities, which he purchases at prodigious prices, I ordered the Jew Solomon to catch a rat in his house, the vilest looking rat ever caught in a rat-trap, to embalm the beast in precious aromatics, to wrap it up in oriental materials embroidered in gold, to offer it to the Bishop of Bergues as a most rare rat imported from Judea upon a Venetian vessel, and to sell it to the prelate as the most prodigious and miraculous of rats.”
A loud outburst of laughter broke from the throats of all the dignitaries in the audience, except the Bishop of Bergues, who shamefacedly cast down his eyes. “Now, then,” proceeded Charles, “do you know what price the Bishop of Bergues paid for that prodigious rat? Ten thousand silver sous! The Jew reported to me the amount — which will be distributed among the poor!” Charles stopped for a moment, and presently resumed with heightened severity: “Ye bishops, have a care! It should be your duty to be the fathers, the purveyors of the poor, and not to show yourselves greedy of vain frivolities. Yet here you are, doing exactly the opposite. More than all other mortals are you given to avarice and idle cupidity! By the King of the Heavens, take a care! The Emperor’s hand raised you, it may also pull you down. Keep that in mind.”
As Charles was uttering these last words, the courtiers were seen to part and make way for Mathalgarde, one of the Emperor’s concubines. The woman, a dame of surpassing beauty, approached Charles with a confident air and said to him gracefully:
“My kind Seigneur, the bishopric of Limburg is vacant. I have promised it to a clerk who is under my protection, not doubting your kind approval.”
“Dear Mathalgarde, I have bestowed the bishopric upon a young man — a very learned and deserving young man; I could not think of taking it back from him.”
Mathalgarde was not disconcerted. Assuming the most insinuating voice at her command, she seized one of the Emperor’s hands and proceeded tenderly: “August Prince, my gracious master, why bestow the bishopric so ill by giving it to a young man, perhaps a child. I conjure you, grant the bishopric to my clerk.”
Suddenly a plaintive voice that proceeded from behind the curtain fell upon the startled ears of the attendants: “Seigneur Emperor, be firm — allow not that a mortal tear from your hands the power that God has placed in them. Be firm, Seigneur.” It was the voice of poor Bernard, who, fearing Charles was about to allow himself to be seduced by the caressing words of Mathalgarde, wished to remind him of his promise. The Emperor immediately rolled back the curtain, behind which the clerk stood, took him by the hand, drew him forward, and presenting him to the audience, said: “This is the new Bishop of Limburg!” Before the audience could recover from their stupor Charles said to Bernard in a voice loud and piercing enough to be heard by all present: “Do not forget to distribute abundant alms — it will some day be your viaticum on that long journey from which man never returns.”
The beautiful Mathalgarde, whose hopes had thus been rudely dashed, reddened with anger and abruptly left the apartment. The other courtiers, along with the Bishop of Bergues, speedily followed the chagrined woman, no less disappointed than herself.
“Seigneur Breton,” the Emperor said, as soon as the chamber was cleared, and motioning Amael to approach the door, which he opened wider to step out upon the balcony and enjoy the pleasant warmth of the autumn sun, “do you still think Charles is of a mood to allow the bishops to use his sceptre for a baton with which to drive him and his people?”
“Charles, should it please you this evening, the experiences of the day being over, to accord me a short interview, I shall then express to you sincerely my thoughts upon all that I have seen here. I shall praise what seems good to me — and I shall censure the evil.”
“Then you see evil here!”
“Here — and elsewhere.”
“How ‘elsewhere’?”
“Do you imagine that your palace and your city of Aix-la-Chapelle, this favorite residence of yours, is all there is of Gaul?”
“What do you say of Gaul! I have just traversed the North of those regions. I have been as far as Boulogne, where I had a lighthouse erected for the protection of the ships. Moreover—” but breaking off, the Emperor pointed in the direction of that portion of the courtyard that the balcony commanded, saying: “Look yonder — listen!”
Amael saw near one of the galleries a young man, robust and tall of stature, wearing a thick black beard, and clad in the robes of a bishop. Two of his slaves had just brought out to him a gentle horse, as befits a prelate, and led the animal near a stone bench in order to aid their master in mounting. But the young b
ishop, having noticed two women looking at him from a nearby casement, and no doubt wishing to give them a proof of his agility, impatiently ordered his attendants to take the horse from the bench. Thereupon, disdaining even the help of a stirrup, he seized the animal’s mane with one hand and gave so vigorous a jump that he had great difficulty to keep his saddle, lest he fall over on the other side. The perilous leap attracted the Emperor’s attention to the prelate, and he called out to him in his shrill, squeaky voice: “Eh! Eh! You, there, my nimble prelate. One word with you, if you please!” The young man looked up, and recognizing Charles, respectfully bowed his head.
“You are quick and agile; you have good feet, good arms and a good eye. The quiet of our empire is every day disturbed by wars. We stand in great need of ‘clerks’ of your kidney. You shall stay with us and share with us our fatigues, seeing you can mount a horse so nimbly. I shall bestow your bishopric upon someone who is less sprightly. You shall take your place among my men-at-arms.”
The young bishop lowered his head in confusion. He looked at the Emperor with a suppliant eye. But the latter’s attention was speedily drawn from the discomfited prelate by the distant barking of a large pack of hounds, and the reveille of hunting trumps.
“It is my hunting-train,” exclaimed the Emperor. “We shall depart for the hunt, seigneur Breton. This evening we shall continue our chat. Return with your grandson to your apartment. You will be served the noon meal. After that you will both join me. I am curious to see whether this youngster is as good a horseman as report makes him. Moreover, although the exercise of the chase is a frivolous pastime, you may, perhaps, find that Charles the Fighter makes good use even of frivolities. Be off now to dinner — and then, to horse!”
CHAPTER VII.
TO THE HUNT.
OCTAVE HAD COME to take Amael and his grandson to the noon meal. While they walked towards one of the courtyards of the palace, in order to join the hunting suite of the Emperor, the young Roman, profiting by a moment when the aged Breton could not overhear him, said in a low voice to Vortigern:
“Lucky boy. I am convinced that two pairs of eyes, one black as ebony, the other of azure blue, have been peering through the crowd of courtiers—” but interrupting the flow of his words at the sight of the deep crimson that suffused the lad’s visage, he proceeded to say: “Wait till I have finished before you grow purple. Well, as I was saying, two beautiful blue eyes and two equally beautiful black ones have, more than once, sought to detect in the crowd of courtiers — Whom? — the venerable figure of your grandfather, because there is nothing so attractive as a long white beard. So much is that so that this forenoon, at mass, the blonde Thetralde and the brunette Hildrude quite forgot the thread of the divine service in order to contemplate incessantly — your grandfather, who was seated next to you. Come, now, you are blushing again. Are you, perchance, afraid lest the fascinating daughters of the Emperor fall in love with the centenarian?”
“Your jokes are becoming insupportable.”
“Oh, how contagious is the court air. Hardly is this Breton away from his native fogs than he has become as full of wiles as an old clerk.”
More and more embarrassed by the banterings of Octave, Vortigern only stammered a few words. The noon meal was disposed of. The aged Breton, his grandson and the young Roman were presently mounted upon their spirited horses that they found held ready for them by slaves in the courtyard of the palace, and they rode briskly out to join the Emperor.
Two of the sons of Charles, Carloman and Louis, or Luthwig as the Franks pronounced it, had arrived that same morning from their castle of Heristal and now accompanied their father, together with five of his daughters and four of his concubines, the other women of the palace being this time excluded from the hunt. Among the huntresses was Imma, the paramour who had so bravely borne Eginhard, the archchaplain, upon her back. Still handsome, she now bordered on the full ripeness of womanhood. Near her rode Bertha, searching with her eyes for Enghilbert, the handsome Abbot of St. Riquier. A little behind the couple came Adelrude, who, from afar, smiled upon Audoin, one of Charles’ most daring captains. Last of all trotted the brunette Hildrude, together with the blonde Thetralde, both endeavoring to detect, no doubt, the Breton centenarian, as Octave had told Vortigern. Most of the seigneurs of Charles’ suite wore singular costumes, brought at great expense from Pavia, whither commerce unloaded the riches of the Orient. Among the Emperor’s courtiers, some were clad in tunics of Tyrian purple furnished with broad capes, ornamented with facings of embroidered Phoenician birds’-skin, while feathers of Asiatic peacocks’ tail, neck and back, caused their rich vestments to glitter in all the shades of blue, gold, and emerald. Others of the courtiers wore precious jackets of Judean dormouse, or weasel — gowns much prized and as dainty and delicate as the skin of a bird. Finally caps with floating feathers, leggings of silk, boots of oriental red or green leather, embroidered with gold or silver, completed the splendid accoutrement of these people of the court.
The rude rusticity of the Emperor’s costume stood off in marked contrast with the magnificence of his courtiers. His coarse and large leather boots, furnished with iron spurs, reached up to his thighs; under his tunic he wore a broad sheep-skin coat with the fleece on the outside, and his head was covered with a cap of badger-skin. In his hand the Emperor carried a short-handled whip which he used to stir up the hunting dogs with. Thanks to his tall stature, which greatly exceeded that of any of his officers, Charles was able to detect Vortigern and Amael from afar, whereupon he cried out to the grandfather:
“Eh, seigneur Breton. Come, if you please, to my side, with your grandson. I wish to ascertain whether, indeed, he is as good a horseman as my little girls claim.”
The ranks of the courtiers parted in order to allow a passage to Amael and his grandson, the latter of whom modestly followed his grandfather, not daring to raise his eyes lest they should fall upon the group of women that surrounded the Emperor. Charles watched Vortigern attentively, and the gracefulness with which the youth handled his horse, drew from the Emperor the remark:
“Old Charles can judge at a glance of the skill of a rider. I am satisfied. But I suspect you love the hunt better than you do the mass, and a horse’s saddle better than a church bench.”
“I do prefer the hunt to the mass,” frankly responded Vortigern; “but I prefer war to the hunt.”
“Though your answer is not that of a good Catholic, it is the answer of a sincere lad. What do you think, my little ones?” added the Emperor, turning towards the group of huntresses. “Are you not of my mind?”
“You asked the young man for his opinion, and he spoke out with sincerity. He says what he does; he will do what he says. Valor and loyalty are written upon his face,” was the prompt answer that came from Hildrude.
The blonde Thetralde, not daring to speak after her elder sister, grew cherry-red, and cast a look of intense jealousy, almost of rage, upon the brunette Hildrude, whose quick repartee she envied.
“There is nothing left to me but to join in the praise of the young pagan’s frankness, lest I get into trouble with my little girls. Come forward,” and leaning over towards Amael, he pointed angrily with his whip at the crowd of courtiers who shimmered in their costly finery, and prinked in their flowing plumes. “Look at that bevy of richly caparisoned customers. Look at them well. You will presently wish to remember the figures they are now cutting,” saying which, the Emperor rode off at a gallop, followed by all his court, and calling out to the courtiers as well as to the Bretons:
“Once in the forest, each to himself, and at the mercy of his own horse. At the hunt there is neither Emperor nor courtier. There are only hunters and huntresses!”
CHAPTER VIII.
THE FOREST OF OPPENHEIM.
THE HUNT TO which Charles the Emperor had galloped off with the buoyancy of youth, took place in a vast forest located at the very gate of Aix-la-Chapelle. The autumn sky, at first radiant, had been gradually overcast by one
of the mists that are so frequent at the season and in that northern region. Obedient to the Emperor’s orders, none of his courtiers attached himself to his steps. The hunters scattered. The more daring and venturesome did not quit the pack, now fretting in their leashes to start in pursuit of the deer across the thickets. The less daring and less enthusiastic sportsmen contented themselves with following at a distance the sound of the horns or the barking of the hounds; they straggled behind, or waited to see the deer dash across their path with the hounds and hunters at his heels. From the very start of the hunt, Charles, carried away by his ardor for the sport, left his daughters to themselves, unable as they were to follow him through the thickest of the jungle, into which the Emperor of the Franks plunged like the hottest of his huntsmen. For an instant, separated from his grandfather in the rush and crush of the tumultuous assembly, where nearly a hundred horses, gathered in a small space, were excited by the din of the horns, to which they added their own impatient neighing, champed their bits and reared wildly, Vortigern raised himself in his stirrups and searched with his eyes for Amael, when suddenly his own horse took the bit in his mouth and galloped off rapidly with his rider. When the young Breton finally succeeded, by dint of violent efforts, to master his mount, he found himself at a considerable distance from the chase. Seeking to penetrate with his eyes the mist that spread ever further and thicker over the forest, the young man perceived that he was on a long avenue whose issues it was impossible to distinguish. He listened, expecting to hear from the distance the noise of the chase, which would have guided him in his efforts to joint it. The profoundest silence reigned in this part of the forest. A moment later, however, the tramp of two horses rapidly approaching from behind, struck his ears, and immediately after, a cry, uttered in anger rather than fear. An instant later, Vortigern detected a vague form across the mist. By degrees the form became distinct, and soon the blonde Thetralde was disclosed to the wondering eyes of the young Breton, urging on her horse, and clad in a long robe of sapphire blue cloth, trimmed with ermine, white as the coat of her palfrey. On her blonde tresses Thetralde wore a small cap, also of ermine. A sash of Tyrean silk of lively colors, the long ends of which fluttered behind her in the air, was wound around her delicate waist. The childlike and charming visage of the Emperor’s daughter, now enhanced by the ardor of her run, shone with the flush of health. Blushing at the sight of Vortigern, Thetralde dropped her large blue eyes, while the tight corsage of her robe rose and sank under the throbs of her maidenly bosom. Vortigern’s disturbance equalled Thetralde’s. Like her, he remained mute and embarrassed. His eyes also were lowered, and he felt his heart beat violently. The silent embarrassment of the two children was broken by Thetralde. In a timid and diffident voice she said to the young Breton without daring to raise her eyes to him: