The Glory of the Empire

by Jean d'Ormesson

  At the time of the first struggles between Basil and the priests, Thaumas, steeped in the culture and glory of the City, was naturally conspicuous for his opposition to Onessa’s designs. He was one of the leaders of the faction hostile to Basil, and when the prince conquered Aquileus for the first time, Thaumas resigned himself calmly to torture and death. But Basil included everyone in his clemency and forgiveness. Arsaphes’s great-grandson, who still nominally ruled over Aquileus, then appointed Thaumas to welcome Gandolphus’s army, come to take possession of the town for Basil. Not content with refusing this mission angrily, Thaumas took the lead in a new wave of resistance that was being organized around Aquileus against the power of Onessa. His reputation for wisdom and learning had led to his being included among the assembly of priests who governed Aquileus in reality; he was one of its most respected members, though the youngest. When Basil’s proposals for federation came before this assembly, Thaumas fought fiercely in favor of refusal and war. But the majority decided otherwise. When Basil came to Aquileus again to attend the first meeting of the college charged with ruling the short-lived federation, everyone waited with curiosity not untinged with cruelty to see what would happen when Thaumas and the prince came face to face. The priest’s friends feared the worst, and the prince’s advisers urged him to a course that would have fulfilled those fears. The college of priests, riddled with Onessan agents, was so torn by fear and division that Thaumas’s situation was well-nigh impossible, and he could expect no help in the present crisis from his own side. As soon as Basil entered the shrine near Aquileus where the priests were gathered, they all threw themselves at his feet in homage and submission, both those whom he had won over and those who had been most hostile to him. Only Thaumas still stood upright. Basil looked at him for a long while without speaking. Then he said:

  “Thaumas, once before I might have punished you, and yet I spared you. You have always been among the most determined of my enemies. What should I do now—pardon you again or have you put to death?”

  “Sire,” answered Thaumas, “I was against you in battle. How could I be with you in defeat?”

  Basil remained silent for several moments.

  “If I pardon you again, will you still, will you always, be against me?”

  “Sire,” answered Thaumas, “if you put me to death, I hope others will remain faithful to my memory. If you spare me, I shall try to remain faithful to myself.”

  The prince was once more silent, then, turning to Thaumas, he offered him not his pardon, but his friendship and esteem.

  “Sire,” said Thaumas, “will you allow me in your presence to address my friends and brethren once more?”

  The prince nodded. Then Thaumas cried out to all the priests still prostrate before Basil, and asked if any among them were still willing to follow him in resistance and in the struggle for Aquileus’s freedom. There was a great silence. Then Thaumas turned to Basil and said:

  “I will serve you as I should have liked to serve Aquileus, and I will be as faithful to your virtue as I have been to theirs.”

  When Basil returned to Aquileus for the third time to invite the priests to meet in Onessa, Thaumas came with him. He asked and obtained permission to speak freely once more to his old friends, and then delivered the most famous of all his speeches. After recalling his former devotion to Aquileus and solemnly declaring his loyalty to Basil, he warned the college of priests against accepting Basil’s terms:

  “One must know when the most honorable thing is to say no. . . . Cowardice never brings anything but tears and regrets. It is better to die free and conquered than to live enslaved and dishonored.”

  The prince heard him out in silence. When he had finished, Basil said so that no one else could hear:

  “Then thrice, not twice, I shall have saved your life.”

  As we already know, the majority of the priests voted in favor of accepting Basil’s plans and invitation. But Thaumas was not present at the banquet and the massacre at Onessa: he had gone on a two-year voyage to India and China.

  On his return he was received by Basil, now emperor, with every sign of affection and reverence. The emperor spent three days with Thaumas, and on the evening of the third day, having summoned all the chief men and priests of Onessa together, he presented Thaumas to them as high priest of the Empire. It seems certain Thaumas had warned the emperor he intended to maintain his customary freedom of judgment and action. It may even have been his obstinate independence of mind that attracted, one might almost say fascinated, Basil.[1] As for the priests of Aquileus, they were so much under the emperor’s thumb that they ratified unanimously and without a murmur of protest the decision on which they had not been consulted. They were only too pleased and surprised to see one of their own number, and the most independent of them, chosen for this high office. For twenty-seven years, Thaumas built up again and embodied in Aquileus the power of the priestly order. His reputation for wisdom and saintliness spread far beyond the borders of the Empire. Pilgrims came from Ireland, Ceylon, Ethiopia, and Scandinavia to touch his robe and kiss his feet. His miracles were too numerous to be counted, and his works, translated into every language, remain not only one of the main sources of our knowledge of the scientific and mystical thought of the period, but also masterpieces of writing still capable of moving us today.

  Meanwhile Basil had put away Adelaide. He now felt strong enough to do without the Sicilian alliance if necessary. Adelaide had given him only two daughters, and the excuse for breaking with her was, of course, the need to provide a male heir. Gandolphus had no difficulty in getting the college of priests, meeting in special session, to declare the prince’s marriage null and void. Adelaide went back to Sicily, where she arrived only a few days after the death of her father, King Regis. In spite of much opposition, Regis’s nephew Tancred had just acceded to the throne of Palermo. He was already preparing to struggle against Pomposa for the settlements in Africa and the Levant, and had no desire to lose the alliance with Basil, who as emperor had now even more power and influence than before. Adelaide was a real threat to Tancred. As the only daughter of the dead king, she was the natural rallying point for all the new king’s enemies and for all the inevitable malcontents, several of whom did not hesitate to refer to him almost openly as a usurper. So Tancred greeted his rejected cousin with great ceremony but little warmth, and lost no time in letting her understand that Sicily was not the best place of refuge for her. Adelaide was to end her days in Avignon, surrounded by a court devoted to music and the arts in which learned ladies and young nobles weary of war vied with each other in culture and fine sentiments. By one of those chances that history delights in, the most famous of the poets and composers who made Queen Adelaide’s court at Avignon renowned in literature and art was a young man who came there from Pomposa, a young man of respectable family who during the few years he had spent at Verona had become one of the most celebrated men of his time. Accompanying himself on the harp, he sang sad and beautiful melodies that have survived into our own day. Between him and Queen Adelaide there was to spring up one of those equivocal loves whose mysteries are always being explored in histories of literature and the arts. For the young musician, later the more and more illustrious poet, and at last the old man laden with honors and crowned with laurels on the Capitol by an enthusiastic crowd, the man for whom the queen’s passion never ceased to burn, the passion that generated so many gifts propitious to culture and the arts, remained faithful all his life to the radiant image that inspired him. And that image was not of the queen. He referred to it by the name of Penelope, and he himself, known north of the Alps as the Master of Avignon, was Mercutio of Verona, and none other than Princess Ingeburgh’s Tybalt.

  Throughout all these long years the castle of Sarmizegetusa, by the Danube, on its peak battered now by the sun and now by the snow, had remained closed in on itself and on the insult and humiliation inflicted by Prince Basil on Princess Ingeburgh and her noble family. The princess’
s father, a white-bearded old man called Liutpold, for a long while thought of mounting a punitive expedition against Onessa. But it soon became clear that the means at his disposal were ridiculously inadequate. A few quarrelsome barons, attracted as much by the thought of booty as by honor, would no doubt have been ready to follow their lord to the ends of the earth. But in all they never amounted to more than a few hundred, at the most a few thousand men—nothing that could begin to threaten a power such as Onessa. And with every year that passed Basil grew more formidable and the memory of the insult more faint. In the end, Ingeburgh’s father came to live in a dream of revenge that his entourage respected as an honorable but harmless foible. Ingeburgh, as a matter of course, had thrown herself into a life of extreme piety and good works. She remained very beautiful, and it was not long before she acquired a reputation for great goodness, even saintliness.

  One winter evening when it was snowing hard, a weary horseman knocked at the postern of the castle and asked for shelter. He was given a kind welcome. The grooms tended his horse, and the maids dried and cleaned his travel-stained clothes. He ate, then asked to see the owner of the castle. That evening a feast was being held at Sarmizegetusa, and Ingeburgh’s father gave orders for the traveler to be brought to the great hall, where he took part in the rejoicings. The princess always attended with great grace and dignity on such occasions, but amid such rare pleasures and ceremonies she was like someone who was really elsewhere. At the end of the banquet, when the bear leaders and tumblers had made their last bow, the stranger asked to speak to the master of the castle. The princess’s father had always been somewhat rough in manner, and his humiliation had made him even more unceremonious. He curtly asked his guest to explain himself. The traveler courteously replied that if such an honor might be accorded him, he would like to speak to the prince in private. He was then told he must say what he had to say at once, in public, and without further ado. The stranger then arose, walked amid a general silence to the middle of the room, and explained briefly that he had been sent by his master, the Emperor Basil, to take the Princess Ingeburgh back to Onessa.

  A heavy silence fell. Everyone looked at Ingeburgh and her father. The princess, pale as death, had put her hand on the old man’s arm. He had sprung to his feet and stood there still and silent, as if held upright only by the spell that had fallen on and petrified everyone in the room, the whole castle, and all the surrounding forest. The silence and petrifaction lasted a long time; then the mysterious thread that held them suspended suddenly snapped, and the room was filled with noise and movement. The prince cried out, but none heard him. The princess fainted. And in contempt of all the most sacred laws of hospitality, the knight from Onessa was attacked and slain among the remnants of the feast, and his bloodstained corpse was dragged past overturned tables, broken plates, and forgotten torches to the outer fortifications of the castle, where it was hurled down into the darkness.

  During the days that followed no one dared speak of that strange evening or of Basil’s messenger. It was as if no visitor had ever entered the great hall, as if nothing at all had happened during the forgotten feast. It was said that two tumblers who had been present at the scene had had their tongues and eyes torn out, and that two servants had been dispatched to murder a baron who had been foolish enough to spread the story of the knight from Onessa. But Sarmizegetusa secretly seethed with the subject. In the monotonous life of the castle, the story was a godsend to romantic young women and the knights who sought to please them.

  Nearly two months went by. Sarmizegetusa had relapsed into dreary silence again. There was no more thought of feasting. Strangers, beggars, travelers, even pilgrims were kept far away from the castle, now sadder and lonelier than ever. Princess Ingeburgh spent all her time spinning; not a word ever crossed her lips. But her drawn face, her tear-reddened eyes, and her lassitude alarmed her father so much he had sent at great expense for one of the most famous doctors of Lombardy. The physician’s arrival was awaited from day to day with growing impatience. One morning two breathless guards came to announce that a band of about ten people was riding toward the castle, through the snow that was still falling on the newly opened apricot and chestnut buds, and on the already flowering lilac. Everyone rushed to greet what they hoped was the arrival of the doctor. But the horsemen stopped at some distance from the castle, and sent one of their number with a message to be delivered into the prince’s own hand. It was a letter from the emperor, offering pardon, friendship, alliance, a fortune, and titles, and asking Ingeburgh to ascend to the imperial throne at Basil’s side. Ingeburgh’s father summoned her and handed her Basil’s message without a word. Ingeburgh read it, knelt at her father’s feet, and said:

  “Father, I have already unwittingly caused you so much trouble and sorrow that all I ask is as far as possible to repair the harm I have done you. Dispose, therefore, of my life, my feelings, and my future as best may serve your own reputation and interest.”

  She would not add another word, and, having curtsied to her father, returned with her ladies to the sad, dark room that for several years she had rarely left, and where her only pleasure was to look out on the forest she loved. The prince was a good and simple man. He knew his daughter’s virtue and nobility and admired her greatly, and his only desire was for her happiness and the honor of the house of which he was head. He had often sought counsel of his daughter, who from an early age had given proof of wisdom and good judgment. Left alone now to deal with the problem that touched him most deeply, he was a prey to the most painful doubt and irresolution. It was at this point that the arrival of the famous Lombard doctor was announced.

  The great man, whose name was Mirandola or Mirandolphus, had won a tremendous reputation in Padua and Bologna. He had traveled in England, Germany, Poland, and Persia, and had taught in Carthage and Damascus. At the age of fifty-seven he had behind him one of the most dazzling careers of the age. The prince welcomed him courteously and gratefully, and begged him to go at once and examine Ingeburgh, whose sorrows and character he described discreetly to the physician. Mirandola asked permission to be left alone with the princess. The prince hesitated. The doctor told him it would be quite useless for him to see the princess in the presence of others, adding that he himself was quite ready to leave at once for Adrianople, where important business and an urgent mission awaited him. The prince examined the famous physician narrowly. He looked old, weak, and ugly, and, though imposing enough, far from attractive. Permission was given for him to see Ingeburgh alone. He had no sooner crossed the threshold where she lay than Ingeburgh recognized Basil.

  The emperor, of course, had had the messengers from Sarmizegetusa intercepted as they crossed the Alps, and he greatly enjoyed passing himself off as Mirandola. The epilogue of the story is well known, thanks to Augustin Thierry’s account and the play in which Alfred de Musset represents Ingeburgh in the guise of Theodolinda, Florestan’s daughter. Ingeburgh was to reign for twelve years on the throne of Onessa, during which time she was immensely popular throughout the Empire. She soon formed a close friendship with Thaumas,[2] and as long as the empress lived their combined influence on the emperor acted as a counterbalance to that of Gandolphus.

  At Ingeburgh’s death, which took place on the same day as the naval battle at Cape Pantama, the emperor married for the third time. This time his bride was the prettiest of the late empress’s waiting women. Basil had known her for many years. It was he who had introduced her into Ingeburgh’s service. She was none other than Irene from beyond the forests, whom we saw dancing before Basil at the banquet of Onessa. Of course, Irene could not replace Ingeburgh, or play the same pacific role as she had in the Empire. What is interesting about the reappearance of Irene is the light it sheds once more on the long meanderings of Basil’s policies. These slow-maturing plans, in which each tiny, apparently insignificant event only takes on its true meaning in the context of later decisions, are absolutely typical of the emperor. In politics as in love, in war as
in peace, nothing in Basil’s life is ever wasted; all serves in the end to make his dreams come true and fulfill his design. Coming before the glory of Alexis, the reign of Basil the Great is nothing but a long patience. It is in this sense that people have rightly spoken of the genius of Basil preceding that of Alexis. Alexis was perhaps to be the negation of Basil. But he was also to be his heir.

  VII

  THE FOX OF AMPHIBOLUS

  INGEBURGH, THOMAS, AND GANDOLPHUS EACH played an important role in Basil’s long reign—Gandolphus primarily in the first part, Ingeburgh and Thaumas in the second, up to the time of Gandolphus’s final victory over Thaumas just before his own death. The difference between the two parts of the reign has given rise to endless discussion among historians. Some—as, for example, Robert Weill-Pichon—see a clear break round about the time of the emperor’s marriage to Ingeburgh, and attribute the new turn in imperial policy to the dual influence of the empress and the high priest. Others recognize two different tendencies in Basil’s governance of the Empire but refuse to admit this had anything to do with Ingeburgh and Thaumas. Others again, following Sir Allan Carter-Bennett, categorically reject “the false distinctions introduced into the story of Basil by those who persist in dividing everything up into periods.” Sir Allan Carter-Bennett’s theory is that Basil’s whole reign consists of the harmonious and uninterrupted execution of long-matured designs. Naturally, a time of war and violence is succeeded by a time of consolidation and peaceful administration. But they are not to be opposed to one another. Basil pursued a single policy by differing means, but his objects remained unchanged, and through altering facts and circumstances his direction is always the same. At all events it is certain that Gandolphus, who had urged Basil to attack Pomposa after the meeting at Famagusta, was always an advocate of violence and the harshest possible methods. It is also beyond doubt that Ingeburgh and Thaumas encouraged Basil to foster peace both inside and outside the Empire. The problem resides in trying to make out the extent to which Basil was really influenced by either party, or whether, as Sir Allan maintains, the strength of his own purposes was enough in itself to determine all the developments as we know them. It must be remembered that even when making his harshest decisions, Basil never followed Gandolphus’s advice blindly. We have previously referred to Gandolphus’s efforts to make him go to war against Pomposa after the Famagusta meeting. There was a war, it is true, but only a few months later, and against Aquileus, and only after peace had been made with Pomposa. Thus even at the time of the early military campaigns, when Basil was accumulating territory and building up the Empire, Gandolphus can be more accurately described as in agreement with the main lines of Basil’s policy—and with its main lines only—rather than as its real inspiration. In all, it is more a matter of occasional coincidence of views than of influence, and Basil spoke the truth in one of his favorite maxims: the emperor’s horse carried his only counselor.