University of Virginia Library

LE BOSSU.

CHAPTER I.

The brilliant reign of Charlemagne is, amid the
dark ages, like the splendours of day preceded and
followed by a starless night. History does not here disappoint,
nor delude us. The men of letters with whom
he delighted to surround himself, "the brightest jewels
of his coronet," have left us minute descriptions and
particulars, not only of the wars, edicts, and pilgrimages
which rendered their sovereign the hero of warriors,
the legislator of lawgivers, and the saint of the church,
but they have introduced us within his palace, and
seated us at his hearth. From Eginhard, his historian
and secretary, and the lover (or, as he claims, the husband)
of the emperor's beautiful daughter Emma, we
learn the domestic habits, tastes, and affections of that
great man with whose name the "decree of posterity
has indelibly blended the title of magnus." We are surprised
to find that the chief of the western empire, who
traversed his vast dominions, extending from the Ebro
to the Elbe, with a celerity that has only been equalled

by the prodigy of our own times, condescended to direct
the planting of his gardens and the feeding of his
poultry; and that such is the enumerated variety of
his fruits and vegetables, that an amateur-gardener of
our own horticultural age could scarcely rival the
catalogue.

Charlemagne has been reproached with having been,
in the coarse plebeian phrase, a "hen-pecked husband."
It may be so, for strength is ever condescending
and gentle to weakness. It has been said by one
of nature's noblemen, the stature of whose mind and
heart corresponded with the six feet four inches of his
corporeal frame, that "all good husbands are henpecked,—the
women, poor creatures! ought to have
their way." Thus the lion regards the helpless little
animal that is thrown upon his mercy.

The softness of the great monarch's disposition was
as marked in his parental, as in his conjugal relations.
It is well known that he refused his beautiful daughters
to the most powerful suitors in Christendom, and for
the simple reason that governs a rustic, "sooth to say,
he could not bear to live without them." But the
emperor was destined to illustrate the old fable which
teaches us that even Jupiter cannot enjoy the pleasures
of mortals without first deposing his thunderbolts.
Domestic happiness is not the appanage of royalty.
It is by nature's decree free and spontaneous. It
smiles on the home of the subject, but with all his
"appliances, and means to boot, is denied to a king."
The emperor's daughters loved their father, but they
did not withhold their affections from their natural and
ordained channels, and the court was scandalized by
clandestine marriages, and secret intrigues, of which
the emperor (not willing to punish them) prudently
affected to be ignorant.

Aix-la-Chapelle was Charles's favourite residence.
He embellished this city with the riches of his southern

and more fortunate provinces, "being ambitious,"
says his historian, "that the capital he founded on the
confines of Germany should resemble magnificent
Rome."

The monarch himself marked out new streets,
caused wide avenues to be opened, and sumptuous palaces
to be built. Churches, then the favoured objects
of architectural honour, were erected; costly bridges
were constructed, and all the art of the times exhausted
on the noble chapel, which, after being dedicated to
the Virgin, had the honour of incorporating its name
with that of the city, thereby changing Aix into Aix-la-Chapelle.

Neither the decrees of a monarch, nor the wishes of
a hero, can countervail the laws of nature. Aix-la-Chapelle
soon dwindled into insignificance,—and what
is our city of Washington while towns are shooting
into life and consequence on every part of our continent!
Charles's palace presented a singular mixture
and contrast of barbarism and refinement. It was
enriched with sculptured marbles and precious vases
transported from Ravenna, and embellished with statues
and paintings that were reckoned chef-d'œuvres of the
arts, while it was destitute of the common articles of
convenience that are now deemed essential to the domicile
of the humblest mechanic. There was a like
ill-assorted and startling variety in the guards and attendants
of the palace. They were composed of men
from all the different provinces of the vast empire—
Romans, Gauls, Saxons, Franks, Huns, Avars, and
numberless others, each speaking the language, wearing
the costume, and bearing the arms peculiar to his
own province. The emperor himself, elevated by his
genius, caught a ray from the lights of distant ages, while
he was in part immersed in the darkness of his own.
The accomplished Alcuin was his poet-laureate, and
the learned Eginhard his secretary and friend; but

though, as they boast, he had learned both Greek and
Latin from oral teaching, he never acquired the art of
writing. A rare art and expensive luxury it was, when
blank parchment was quite as rare and almost as dear
as paper written over with good poetry is now.

Should our fair readers he inclined to substantiate
the following narrative by their own investigations, we
would refer them to any accredited history of the age
of Charlemagne, and particularly recommend the recent
and still unfinished "History of the French," by
the most philosophic, purest, and truest of historians,
M. Simonde di Sismondi.

We must forewarn them, however, that they may
explore far and wide without finding some of the particulars
we shall relate, and which we confess to have
been derived from sources less authentic, and quite
inaccessible to others.

It was late in the eighth century, and in the afternoon
of a mellow October day, that Charles was
seen entering the palace gates, attended by a gay
retinue of court lords and ladies on their return from a
hunting excursion. His social and domestic tastes
were a singular feature in that barbarous age. Even
now, in the golden age of the sex, the presence of
ladies on occasions when Charles deemed them indispensable
would be esteemed rather an impertinent
intrusion.

The emperor was preceded by Frank soldiers, his
chosen men-at-arms. He was without any emblem
or insignia of royalty, save that which nature had
stamped upon his lofty frame and noble countenance.
In dress and language he adhered tenaciously to the
usages of his forefathers, and now, as usual, he was
dressed in the simple costume of the Frank soldiers,
with the addition of an otter-skin over his breast and
shoulders, a Venetian cloak, a gold sword-belt, and

his good weapon "joyeuse." On his left rode his
eldest and illegitimate son, Pepin, called Le Bossu,
from a slight deformity of the spine, occasioned by an
accident of his infancy which had spoiled one of nature's
masterpieces. He was the son of Himiltrude,
the most beloved and most lamented of all Charles's
favourites. From her he had inherited the rich dark
eye and jetty locks of the south, which, though he
bore a striking resemblance to his father, gave to his
face more of the beau-ideal,—more of the bright and
changing lights of imagination and passion. In Pepin's
youth Charles had employed the skill of Christian
and infidel leech, and had commanded the prayers and
penances of holy men, to remedy his misfortunes; but
when it was found there was no exemption to royalty
from the lot of humanity,—that that beautiful head
must be borne by a bent and stinted trunk, every measure
was taken to alleviate the misery. Pepin was instructed
in athletic and graceful exercises. His health
was fortified and his vigour increased by field-sports,
and every ingenious art was employed by which his
person might be managed and sheltered. In his boyhood
he submitted to this discipline, and was eager to
profit by it, but as he advanced to manhood he disdained
the arts that seemed to him unavailing; he affected indifference
to an incurable misfortune, and carefully
closing the natural outlets of an irritated and dejected
mind, and the inlets to compassion and sympathy, he
shut up his grief in his own heart, till it became a spirit
that ruled him, and could be ruled only by one celestial
influence—still there was nothing in his demeanour that
betrayed his feelings to a common observer. In spite
of the imperfection of his person he was foremost in
all manly exercises, and repeatedly, while the future
heir of the empire, Louis le Debonnaire, was indulging
in the soft pleasures of his palace in Aquitaine, Pepin,
at the head of his father's forces, or by his side, drove
back the barbarians from one frontier, and repelled the
Saracens from another, and then returned to Aix-la-Chapelle
to reap his father's favour. But, alas! a false
hand had begun to mingle tares with that well-earned
harvest.

At the emperor's right-hand rode his queen, the crafty,
cruel, and still beautiful Fastrade. Her buskined
ankles, the bent bow and quiver at her back, and the
brilliant crescent that sparkled on her hunting-cap,
showed that she had chosen to represent the goddess
Diana; and though her person was somewhat too mature
and matronly for the forest divinity, yet her rare
gracefulness and classic beauty helped out her royal
right to violate the letter of mythology.

The emperor's beautiful daughters and the other
ladies of the court composed her train of nymphs, and
were attended by lords and lovers, bearing cross-bows,
and fantastically decorated with antlers, skins, and
other emblems of the chase. Among them, before,
or behind, as his horse willed, for he seemed not to interfere
with the animal's discretion, rode Alcuin, the
unconscious butt and laughing-stock of the gay lords,
as an awkward savant of the present day might be of
a knot of court soldiers or city dandies. But while
he cowered over his horse's mane with such an
aspect of awkward timidity, his thoughts perchance
were absorbed on some of those treatises on theology,
philosophy, or rhetoric, which caused him to
be venerated even in those barbarous times as the
finest genius of the age, and which have transmitted his
name to us, while century after century has heaped
oblivion on the proud names of contemporary warriors.
Who was she who rode so gracefully at the queen's
right-hand, in a green hunting-dress exquisitely fitted to
her nymph-like form, with her face modestly shaded,
but not concealed, by a black hunting-cap turned up at
the side and fastened with a golden arrow instead of the

wreath of white poppies (the insignia of Diana's nymphs)
worn by the other ladies?

Was it her rich brown tresses where the golden sunbeams
seemed to linger—her eye of the deepest violet
hue—the rose opening on a cheek of infantine delicacy,
or those lips that seemed carved and died as if sculpture
and painting had tried their rival arts upon them—
was it matchless colouring and form that riveted the
eye to the orphan Blanche of Aquitaine, or did her spirit
beam through its mortal veil, and make her approach
that ideal beauty that the arts have laboured to impart
to their representations of immortals?

The figure, character, and mysterious fortunes of
Blanche, all conspired to stimulate the imagination.
She was the last relict of the Merovingian race, and
nature had stamped on her unrivalled tresses her descent
from the "princes chevelus." She was the last too of the
house of the renowned Hunold of Aquitaine, who with
all his family, save this delicate scion, had been pursued
to cruel death by the unrelenting hatred of the
queen. Blanche was preserved from the general fate
by the ingenious affection of her nurse, Ermen. But
when the fact of her existence, which Ermen had sedulously
concealed, was betrayed to the queen, she, instead
of causing the infant to be put to death, as was expected,
commanded that she should be brought to the palace,
nurtured there, and treated with the most marked favour.
This singular departure from the terrible consistency
of the queen's conduct was long a matter of speculation
to the courtiers. Some believed that her malignity
was controlled by magic, others that the orphan's
tutelar saint had worked the greatest of all miracles in
her behalf—had converted diabolical hate into generous
love, had filled her with kindness, who was,

But a keen observer might have discerned in all these
profuse manifestations of favour the constrained air of
unwilling kindness. One spring of the heart, one tone
of the voice, excited or modulated by the movement or
melting of love would have been worth them all.

There were some other peculiaritics about Blanche
that were mysteries to common observers. As she
grew to womanhood, though solicited by the allurements
of a brilliant court, and though her beauty was
so striking as "ne'er seen but to be wondered at;"—
though the homage of all eyes, and the vows of captured
hearts awaited her, she was rarely drawn from the nun-like
seclusion of her own apartment, but by the command
of her royal mistress.

Our readers must forgive the prolixity of our ceremony
of introduction, remembering, in our behalf, that
court presentations cannot be brief, and return to the gay
company, who were now approaching the palace, up an
avenue, enclosed on one side by a marble wall. The
queen had addressed Blanche in a low voice. Blanche
did not reply, but at the instant, Pepin's inquiring
glance met her eyes suffused with tears. "Curse on
that demon's tongue," thought he, "it never moves but
to send off a poisoned shaft."

"My lord," said the queen, addressing the emperor
in a voice which she affected to depress, but whose
clear shrill tone she well knew reached Pepin's ear,
and cut to his very soul, "my lord, I was just admiring
your shadow on this marble wall, somewhat lengthened
by the descending sun, but it still retains its symmetry.
But Blanche, didst thou not say it was pity to
set off the noble proportions of our lord emperor by the
contrast of Le Bossu's shadow."

"Nay, that I did not, Madam —; but truly I
marvel that my royal master's shadow has not a virtue
like to the holy apostle's—or at least if it cannot

cure those on whom it falls, I marvel, as I said, that it
does not protect them."

"Spoken boldly! my pretty Blanche," exclaimed
Charles, whose generous spirit was roused by the sarcasm
on his unfortunate son. "I think it is ever the
weakest animal that is most courageous in defence."

"And what craven animal is that, my lord, who is
willing to be defended by the weakest?" asked the
queen in a voice tremulous with the passion she betrayed
in her affected irony.

The emperor saw the angry spot on his wife's brow,
and as usual he sheltered himself in silence, which he had
often occasion to find a friendly shield from similar conjugal
attacks. Blanche, however (the only person who
never felt, nor feigned fear of the queen), replied to
her interrogatory, "I think, madam, I have heard that
the eagle will remain passive while the little sparrow-hawk
drives an ignoble enemy from his eyrie."

"Ha, my lord!" exclaimed the queen, "heard you
that?—The golden arrow won to-day by Sir Pepin's
superior shaft, has plumed my Lady Blanche's wing
for a bold flight indeed."

This was an artful reference of the queen to the
arrow that was attached to Blanche's hunting-cap, and
which was won for her at the expense of some mortification
to the emperor. A golden arrow had been offered
in guerdon for the best shaft that should be shot during
the sports of the day. Charles and the prince had
arrived at the same instant within bowshot of a stag at
bay. The emperor, as of grace he ought, had the first
trial. His arrow touched, and glanced off. Pepin's followed,
and was buried in the victim. The emperor was
vain of his excellence in sylvan sports, and could not
brook to be surpassed, even by his son, and this little
successful rivalry, managed by the crafty queen, was an
important step to the fatal issue between the father and
son. So much more are even the great (alas for human

greatness!) governed by their "idol vanities," than by
those reasonable motives which the grave historian sets
forth with such imposing dignity. Blanche saw the
emperor's eye turn angrily towards Pepin—she felt
that she had ventured too far, but while she was mustering
words to excuse or conciliate, they turned an
angle of the wall, and were in front of the grand entrance
to the palace.

"In the name of the holy martyrs, what have we
here?" exclaimed Charles. In front of the steps that
led to the vestibule, on the mosaic pavement, stood an
ambassador from Haroun al Raschid. In his right
hand he held the standard of Jerusalem, and in his
left, the keys of the holy sepulchre, the caliph's magnanimous
gifts to the western monarch. Near the
ambassador stood a black slave, beside a huge elephant
whom he held, or rather seemed to hold, by a gold chain
which was wound round the animal's neck, and carelessly
thrown over the attendant's arm. The chain, as
if to show the elephant's docility, was so delicately
wrought that a child of a year old might have broken
it asunder. The slave was dressed in white and scarlet
silk intermingled, and his naked and jet-black arms were
encircled with bracelets of gold set with precious stones.
Dispersed around were the ambassador's attendants in
their picturesque oriental costume. As Charles advanced,
the envoy proclaimed his errand, waving on high
the holy ensign, and bending forward till his lips almost
touched the pavement. His inferiors imitated and thrice
repeated his salaam, and the well-taught animal evolved
his trunk, and knelt, as if with instinctive homage,
before the great monarch. The horses in the emperor's
train were startled by the novel exhibition, and the
retinue was thrown into disorder, of which Charles
was unconscious, while eager to express his reverence
for the sacred emblems of the restored rights of Christendom,
he pressed forward and dismounted,—knelt

before the holy standard, crossed himself, kissed the
ponderous keys and placed them in his belt. He then
turned towards the queen, who had not yet dismounted.
"Still in thy seat, Fastrade!" he exclaimed; "By my
faith, I thought thy heart and foot would have leaped at
sight of these holy symbols."

"My heart, my lord, has done them reverence, but
you see—I must wait till my lady Blanche is served."
The emperor turned towards the prince, who was standing
beside Blanche holding the bridle of her palfry.
Charles drew his sword, and raised the hilt to strike
him. A mortal paleness overspread the face of the
prince, his lips were livid, but he did not speak, nor
even involuntarily flinch from the menaced blow, which
was arrested by Blanche, who, springing from her palfrey,
stood between the father and son. "Nay, my
lord emperor," she cried, "touch him not—blame him
not—it was my fault that he did not his duty to my
royal mistress—my palfrey started at the sight of that
monstrous beast, I shrieked, silly girl that I was, and
Sir Pepin sprang to my aid. But indeed, my lord, I
would rather have died than he should have provoked
thy displeasure. Oh say you pardon him," she continued
with more earnest entreaty, "he cannot bear
your anger." Her manner expressed what she too well
knew—he will not. The king was touched by her
generous intercession, and good-naturedly putting aside
the curls that half-veiled her mantling crimson, with
the weapon he had destined for a harsher service,
and kissing her, he replied, "For thy sake, my pretty
Blanche, and for this kiss on thy blushing cheek, Sir
Pepin is forgiven."

"And now, young man, atone for thy offence—kneel
down before the queen, and let her honour thee by
making a footstool of thy hand, while she permits me
to lift her from the saddle."

The prince did not move. Fastrade bit her lips, and

then suddenly turning her horse's head towards the recreant
son, and affecting to believe he was dutifully
complying with his father's bidding: "Nay it were
superflous for Sir Pepin to kneel," she said, "your hand
my lord." Charles extended his arms. She laid her
hands upon them, and Pepin at the same instant stooping
to avoid her, she placed her foot on his shoulder,
and for a half moment, but long enough to touch the
spring of hate and revenge, her foot rested on that
projection which procured for the unfortunate prince
the descriptive appellation of Le Bossu.

Pepin sprang from the insulting touch, but the indignity
had been inflicted. The queen had been permitted
to insult and degrade him in the presence of the nobles—of
his sisters—of the lady of his love. His
father's hand had been raised to strike him for a petty
offence offered to the queen. A fire was kindled in
his bosom destined to be fed and cherished by those
who were seeking an occasion, and a fit instrument to
avenge their own wrongs.

The whole party now proceeded to the grand saloon
of the palace. It was never safe to offend the queen:
and those who had been betrayed into an involuntary
expression of indignation, if it were only by one of
those exclamations in which the swelling soul finds
vent, were most obsequious in their demonstrations of
respect. The prince seemed lost in gloomy abstraction;
and even the soft inquiring glance of Blanche's eye
met no return from his. "Alas!" she thought, "I
have offended him—I have passed the bounds of maidenly
reserve, and exposed to public scrutiny the feelings
that were for him alone. I have fallen to the level of
these court ladies who tell their loves to the passing
winds." Ah, poor Blanche! she fell into a woman's
common error in believing that her lover must be occupied
with the sentiment that always occupied her.
Love is to a man like the sunshine of a stormy day,

bright, short, and fitful; beautiful and pervading while
it lasts, but succeeded by more potent and more enduring
passions. The prince was possessed by burning
thoughts of wrong and vengeance, and even Blanche's
influence did not penetrate the thick clouds that were
gathering about him. Happily they both passed unobserved,
for as the party entered the grand saloon, a
beautiful novelty, the production of the superior arts of
the East, attracted every eye. In the centre of the
apartment stood a table that was long afterward preserved
as an illustration of the arts, and of the barbaric
taste of the age. It was formed of three burnished and
embossed silver shields. On this table was placed another
gift of the munificent Haroun, a water-clock made of
gold and precious stones. The work-shops of Geneva
and Paris now produce every day more complicated
and perfect mechanism, but then the most polished
court in Europe stood as if entranced gazing on this
wonderful timepiece, and lingering hour after hour to
watch the advent of the little automata who were made
to appear on the dial-plate, and tell the hour by ringing
a bell.

"By St. Denis!" exclaimed the emperor, while he
gazed at the clock with the delight of a child with a
new toy, "this surpasseth the wonders described in
Eastern tales. Tell me, Eginhard, have you ever found
in all your thousand volumes that treat of Rome, and
Greece, and elder Egypt, any thing so curious, so inexplicable
as this."

"Never, my lord emperor," replied the court-bred
historian.

"And you Alcuin, declare to me, hath any thing
been wrought by science, imagined in poetry, or dreamed
of by philosophy, that matches this marvellous little
creature, who stealeth away our time even while we
watch its passage."

"Nay, my lord emperor, but that seeing is believing,

I never would have credited that the skill of man could
have produced a piece of mechanism in which beauty
and utility are so combined, and carried to such perfection
that each seems to have been the only aim of the
artist."

"Ah!" exclaimed Charles, delighted to be assured
that ignorance made no part of his admiration, "you
are right, my wise and learned friends, neither art nor
nature ever produced any thing so perfect."

"There, my liege," replied Alcuin, who was accused
of the susceptibility to female beauty that seems a part
of the poet's nature, "there, my liege, I crave your leave
to dissent. This production of Eastern art is indeed
wonderful; but how poor, how dull, how insignificant,
compared to one of nature's masterpieces!" As he
finished speaking, he fixed his eyes on Blanche, who
stood leaning pensively against a statue of Ceres,—the
comment could not be misunderstood—every eye had
followed the direction of Alcuin's, and a murmur of
assent ran round the circle. Blanche started from her
revery, looked up, and a deep blush suffused her
cheek.

The assent became applause, and the caliph's envoy,
as if to ratify the truth of the poet's sentiment, advanced,
and nearly prostrated himself at Blanche's feet,
saying, as he did so, "By our holy prophet, the mighty
caliph will deem too much honour done to the most cunning
work in gold and precious stone, that it be compared
to this masterpiece of Heaven's creation."

It was afterward remembered by many who were
present, that at this moment the impatience which the
queen's countenance betrayed at Blanche's having
become the object of exclusive attention, gave place to
a glow of pleasure. It seemed as if a sudden light
had flashed upon her. She looked at the Eastern

stranger, then at Blanche, and then seemed lost in her
own thoughts. The emperor again reverted to the
clock, and ordered the pages to place it in the queen's
apartment.

"I pray it may not be sent thither," cried the queen,
devoutly crossing herself. "I think naught less than
the spell of the magi, or the craft of their great master,
the evil one himself, could make these images so marvellously
to appear and disappear. Or perhaps they
are not images, but the little people, the fairies we hear
of in our northern provinces! If my lord would do me
grace, let him order it to Blanche's apartment."

"It hath been thought," replied the emperor, but in
a tone so doubtful that though the words were afterward
weighed in the courtier's nice balance, it could not
be decided how much he ventured to imply, "it hath
been thought that Blanche had power over evil spirits;
but there are none here to try her art, and this matchless
gift from our most noble ally would too much honour
any subject in our empire. By my faith it shall
not be removed from the place where it now stands—
these shields of renowned warriors are a worthy pedestal
for it. And now, my lords, we must separate to devise
some fit return to our brother Haroun, and it shall be
our care that he does not surpass us in generosity;
albeit we cannot match him in skill."

Late in the evening, Fastrade, who was superstitiously
exact in her devotions, retired to her private
oratory, a small apartment lighted by a single silver
lamp hanging beside a crucifix. Nothing could better
illustrate the impotence of external religion than this
proud woman, reeking with crime, and teeming with
cruel purposes, worshipping the image of perfect benevolence
and meekness.

Father Bernard, her spiritual guide, was awaiting
her. The emperor tolerated no pampered luxurious
priests at his court, and Father Bernard appeared strictly

conformed to his ediet, which declared it to be "suitable
that the soldiers of the church should be inwardly
devout, externally learned, chaste in life, and erudite in
speech." Father Bernard wore a mask, and had always
worn one, in obedience to a vow made by his parents,
who had dedicated him in his infancy to a religious
profession. With this exception his dress was the uniform
of his order; and according to its strictest rule,
there was no approach to embellishment nor superfluity;
and his attenuated person, sickly complexion,
and faded eye indicated that his life was as austere as
his profession. His demeanour was that of a man accustomed
to independent and direct proceeding—more
knightly, than priestly. Still he had tasked himself to
the study of the human mind till he had mastered his
subject, and could adroitly thread the subtle passages
of that mysterious labyrinth—subdue its strength, and
manage its weakness. He had been confessor to the
queen for fifteen years; the depositary of the secrets
of a conscience never for a single day void of offence
towards both God and man.

Always self-abasing and sycophantic to her priest,
Fastrade was more than usually so this evening, and
Father Bernard soon suspected that she had sins of
more than ordinary magnitude to confess. But whatever
solicitude her manner betrayed, it was not indicated
by her words when drawing near to the priest, and fixing
her dark brilliant eyes on him, she said, "I have
summoned you, father, to consult you on a point touching
the honour and advancement of our most holy faith."
She paused, stammered, and seemed quite at a loss how
to proceed.

"Speak on, daughter," said the priest, "the heart is
ever bold in a good cause, or, as saith the Scripture,
`the righteous are bold as a lion.' "

Fastrade cast down her eyes and looked much like
a detected criminal, but she proceeded—"You have

heard of the splendid gifts my husband has received
from Haroun al Raschid?"

"Yes."

"You speak coldly. But though Father Bernard, `not
being of the world, worldly,' may despise the costly masterpiece
produced by the arts—perchance the magic of
the East,—he cannot be indifferent to the unrequitable
generosity that has remitted to us the holy standard of
Jerusalem, and the sacred keys of the tomb of God?"

"Vain and bootless symbols, madam—the sullied
standard of a vanquished power, and the keys of an
inaccessible and violated sanetuary! And so far from
unrequitable, that they are designed by the wily caliph
to purchase the services of the emperor against the
Saracens of Spain. These Mahometans resemble us
Christians in preferring even infidels to those of their
own faith, who differ from them concerning an incomprehensible
dogma, or useless rite. But proceed,
daughter, your zeal is just in that our monarch
should not be surpassed in chivalric courtesy by the
caliph."

"Ay, father, but what have we to return?"

"Bauble for bauble—why not the clasp of diamonds
that sparkle in native lustre on our master's imperial
mantle?—the richest gems of Christendom."

"Of Christendom they may be," replied Fastrade,
suppressing a smile at the priest's ignorance, "but the
caliph's envoy, now in our palace, wears far richer
stones than these."

"Then, why not the silver disk that hangs in the banqueting-hall,
which, though graven with all the learning
of our astronomers and geographers, is useless
here; for, sooth to speak, our warriors can sooner traverse
and ravage a province than read its name."

"My lord did speak of this, but Alcuin says that
albeit inscribed with all the knowledge of our empire
in these sciences, it would but expose our ignorance to

Haroun's learned men, taught by their magicians,
doubtless, father, else how should infidels in aught
excel Christians?"

"I commend thy pious inference, daughter, but in
this matter of the presents I cannot assist thee farther
with my counsel. The treasures of the palace have
never arrested my thoughts, nor even attracted my eye.
These matters do not pertain to my office, and I cannot
see how, as you hinted, they can in any way affect the
holy cause of our religion."

"I have not yet fully explained myself. I was willing
you should first see our perplexities, in order that
you might the better comprehend the relief and pleasure
the emperor derives from the device his royal mind has
adopted." Once more the queen faltered, and then proceeded
with an air of resolution, as if she had nerved
herself for a dreaded task: "It is now, I think, holy
father, fifteen years since the reputation of your sanctity
induced me to select you for the place you have ever
since held—I was prostrate with a malady that seemed
to be drying up the fountain of life."

"I remember, daughter—your mind had passed
from the exaltation of victory to sore conflicts of fear
and remorse."—

"Truly, father, but was not the fault—"

"Fault!—call it crime, daughter—things are not
changed by names."

"Was not, then, the crime necessary—was not Hunold
in open rebellion against the emperor?"

"Was it necessary, madam, that you should cause the
royal faith solemnly pledged to Hunold and his confederates
to be violated? Must I remind you that after they
had lain down their arms, and received the emperor's
pardon on condition that they would pass from shrine to
shrine, doing heavy penance at each, you caused them
to be seized, their eyes plucked out, their tongues torn
away by their roots, and every species of torture inflicted

till they were done to death—was this necessary?"

"Spare me, holy father—remember how afterward I
repented me; and that when I discovered that one child
of Hunold survived, I revealed the secret to you, and
promised to be governed by your counsel?"

"Ay, daughter, and after a night's vigil and ceaseless
prayers, I gave you the response of the Deity, that
the innocent helpless orphan should be brought to the
palace—that she should be your shrine of expiation—
and that for every good deed done to her you should
be assoilzied of one crime, in the black list committed
against her father's house; and that for every wrong
of word, or act, a score should be marked against you,
that neither prayers, alms, nor masses could efface.
This was the inspiration I received, and truly delivered;
did I not?"

"Yes—yes. But why repeat it? Have I not been
obedient to the celestial voice? has not Blanche been
the chief object of my care and bounty? Have I not
seen, as she rode by my side, the eye even of the churl
forget its loyalty and fix on her? and yet have I not put
down my queenly rights and womanly vanity, and ever
given her the place of honour? Have I not borne that
she should gainsay me when none other dared? Have
I not granted to her intercession, what I refused to all
others? Have I not decked her with gems and costly
apparel? and though her nature resembles the humble
flower by whose name the fair beauty is designated by
the caliph's envoy"—

"Haroun's envoy! Has he seen Blanche!"

"Ay, and marked her as the lily of our court. Holy
father, if ever criminal did faithfully the appointed
penance, I have fulfilled mine. It is for thee, the
worthy servant of God, now to strike the balance in
which my deeds to the house of Hunold are weighed."

"Madam, the balance cannot be adjusted till death

closes the account. Blanche is still in your power—
still to receive good or evil at your hands."

"Good—naught but good, father, as you shall hear."

"Then proceed plainly to the point; for remember,
daughter, all self-delusion and hypocrisy vanish before
God, as the mist melts away in the eye of the sun."

"Father, I have no fear of communicating to thee,
but that thou art always somewhat over-jealous for
Blanche."

"Thou knowest, daughter," replied the priest, in a
voice that penetrated the queen, "that as it respects
the orphan Blanche, I am as a shield appointed by
God to defend thy soul from crime, and as a leech to
heal it of the wounds that have but one cure—but
one, remember. My jealousy is for thee. Proceed,
daughter."

"Then, father, hear me, and I call God to witness
that what we purpose for this girl is, as I at first
declared, for the advancement of our most holy religion;
and if we fail in the blessed end we seek, our motive
I deem should sanctify our purpose."

"Proceed, madam."

"The great Haroun has ever shown a preference for
blonde beauties, delighting to place them beside the darkeyed
girls of the East, and thus to heighten the beauty
of each by contrast. The favourites of his haram are
the blue-eyed Saxon and the fair Circassian. The
caliph's queen has just died, and Haroun has appointed
an extraordinary term of mourning to manifest his sincere
and uncontrolled grief. Till that has expired, none
may hope to succeed to the place of the deceased."

"I see—I see. It is for this place that Blanche is
destined."

"I crave thy patience, father. The character of the
superb Haroun al Raschid cannot be unknown to thee:
generous, enlightened, magnanimous, his only misfortune
is to have been born a follower of the false

Mohammed—his only sin, that he tolerates all religions
—that he extends an equal favour to the fire-worshipper
of Persia, and the servants of the Cross."

"In that doth he truly resemble the Divinity," murmured
the priest. The unpriestly remark was either
not heard or not understood by the queen, and she
continued, "Thou knowest, father, the matchless beauty
of Blanche, much as she shrinks from the public gaze
(and truly she hath a Turkish love of veils and seclusion),
is the theme of every tongue, and hath been sung
by minstrels, and far celebrated by the paladins of our
court."

"Yes,—and I know that her spirit is fit for its excelling
temple, and that wisdom, humility, love, and all the
sweet messengers of God dwell there. I know she
lives in your licentious court unscathed as were the
faithful in the Babylonian's furnace—fragrant and unsullied
as the peerless flower to which you have compared
her, albeit, like that, rooted in a rank soil."

"True, true, most true, father; and doth not this
rare union of outward beauty and inward grace point
her out as a fit instrument to convert the caliph to our
most holy faith? and it may be to exalt the cross above
the crescent in all his wide dominion?"

"And for this doubtful end the child of Hunold is to
be expelled from Christendom—to be degraded to the
level of the minions of the haram? Madam, the vengeance
you poured on Hunold and his nobles was
mercy to this. It is better that the eyes should be
torn out and the tongue out-rooted than that the whole
body should be cast into hell."

"Sir Priest—Sir Priest—you exceed your office, you
pass the bounds of my forbearance. You have already
made me pay dearly for the vengeance I visited on
Hunold and his vile band of conspirators. You have
closed up the natural outlet of my hate, and there is a
festering and gangrene pool within my heart that can

no longer be endured. I might have strangled the
chicken in its nest, but you have made me foster the
bird to peck at me!"

"Be calm, madam: remember I am but the humble
interpreter of the Almighty's will. Thy salvation, or
perdition, eternal and irremediable, depended and still
depends on thy nurture of this innocent bird."

"Be it so, be it so. I have done well, and now
purpose well,—I call all saints to witness for me!
Blanche shall be sent to the caliph with a royal retinue
of knights. The emperor wills it,—the safety of the
empire demands it:—for know, Sir Priest, that this
foolish girl, who has refused the hands of the proudest
nobles in the land, loves—nay, dotes on Le Bossu!"

"Ha!" exclaimed the priest. It is sometimes difficult
to comprehend the bearing of an exclamation. The
queen interpreted Father Bernard's in accordance with
the suggestions of her own evil mind.

"It is monstrous," she said, "that perfection should
desire to be mated with deformity; but so, on my faith,
it is. I have before suspected she returned his passion,—to-day
she betrayed herself in the eye of the
whole court. Le Bossu has lain under his father's displeasure
for the last month, and to-day he has received
indignities that his contumelious spirit will not brook.
In brief, there are disaffected, rash, and impetuous
youths, such as Baudouin, Arnolphe, and Berenger, the
sons of Hunold's confederates, who are ripe for revolt,
who are ready to peril their lives to place Le Bossu and
the daughter of their renowned leader on the throne.
Our warriors worship this misshapen dog; their silly
brains are dazzled with his victories, and they deem his
deformity but the sign of preternatural power. Now,
holy father, once more I appeal to thee. Is it not prudent
to thwart this dangerous union?—is it not pious to
prevent hostility between the son and father?—to save
for holy church the gold that would be spent in most

unholy warfare?—to give this young devotee opportunity
and subject for her zeal?"

"Madam," replied Father Bernard, in a tone of bitter
contempt, "if thou art reasoning to convince me, thou
art wasting thy breath; if to silence the voice of thy conscience,
believe me, thy labour is equally vain. Answer
me one inquiry—truly as if thou wert at the confessional:
Has the emperor decided to send Blanche to the caliph?"

"He has."

"Then, Fastrade, my ministry with thee is impotent
—thy soul is sealed with double damnation; for, as
holy church saith, he who repenteth himself of his
repentance, and turneth back from the good he purposed,
sinketh into remediless ruin, and none can help
him."

"Nay," exclaimed Fastrade, "I will not believe this,
—the church has penances and masses to outweigh the
heaviest crimes, and the royal coffers shall be emptied
but I will obtain absolution."

"Miserable woman! delude not thyself with this lying
doctrine of a perverted religion and false priesthood. I
tell thee the soul can only be purified by its own act;
the prayers and penances of the universe could avail
thee naught. `Work out thine own salvation' is the
unalterable law written in the word of God, and wrought
into the nature that he hath given thee, which makes thee
incapable of any other heaven than that within the
recesses of thine own soul."

"Within the recesses of my soul!" exclaimed the
queen: "there is indeed hell!"

"Ay, woman," replied the priest, changing from a
slow and somewhat ecclesiastical manner to a tone of
deeply excited and personal feeling,—"Ay, woman, a
hell of insatiable cruelty—of revenge for unrequited
passion—revenge that died not with its victim, but must
still be wreaked on the innocent orphan."

"What meanest thou, Sir Priest—have the dead
appeared to thee?"

"Nay, lady, the dead tell no tales, as thou didst well
believe when thou gavest orders to thy emissaries to
extinguish the last spark of life in Hunold. He never
told your secret: his was not a spirit to betray, even to
the ear of his merciful and abused sovereign, the folly
of the woman who vainly tried to seduce him from his
loyalty to the idolized mother of Blanche. Ha, madam!
thou stoopest to the ground, and art struck with terror,
even as was the guilty king when the prophet appeared
to him. Shall I tell thee more?"

"Nay—hold—it is enough—leave me—"

"To commune with thine own heart!" And with
these parting words, uttered in a tone of irony and
exultation that ill suited their tender character, Father
Bernard withdrew.

Fastrade, when left to herself, and recovered in some
degree from the shock and confusion of mind occasioned
by the discovery that the secret which she believed to
have been buried in Hunold's grave was known to her
confessor, vainly endeavoured to account for this mystery.
Father Bernard, she knew, had been dedicated to
a religious life in his earliest youth, and had never left
the recesses of the cloister till, by her command, he was
called to the court. He had declared to her that
Hunold never told the tale of her dishonour, she had a
moral certainty that none but Hunold knew it, and she
came to a conclusion, natural to a superstitious mind,
that her confessor was endued with supernatural power.
It soothed her pride to believe this; for by managing
her religious terrors, and by the more legitimate authority
of a superior mind, he had governed her, and
made her feel in his presence something like the awe
that is inspired by an element over which we have no
control. The restraint he imposed had become intolerable

to her. She would not have scrupled at any
moment, by the foulest means, to have rid herself of
Blanche, but for the belief infused by Father Bernard,
that her own destiny was indissolubly inwrought with
the beautiful orphan's. When the scheme of sending
her to the ealiph flashed upon her, it seemed to promise
a compromise with her conscience. Blanche might be
exalted from her lowly dependence to the most magnificent
station in the East. This she whispered to
her conscience. Her passions said that she should
deliver herself for ever from the presence of Blanche,
who annoyed her almost equally as a youthful and surpassing
beauty, and as the living memorial of Hunold.
She should break Le Bossu's heart, too, whom she
hated for his lofty disdain of her, and dreaded as the
future rival of her sons. She had flattered herself that
she could artfully commend this plot to her confessor;
but some secret misgiving induced her, before making
the communication, to deprive herself of the power of
retracting by putting the cards into the emperor's hands
to deal, having well shuffled them herself.

Pepin, after the insult he had received from the
queen, had felt himself to be a disgraced man, and
avoiding every eye, he had remained solitary in his
own apartment. Till now, love had been the master-passion
of his soul; its melting influence and gentle
thoughts had pervaded his existence, and seemed to
constitute his life. Now he passed the night in brooding
on his own degradation; and though, when the
image of Blanche glanced athwart the deepening gloom
of his mind, she seemed to him a messenger of heaven,
it was a heaven for ever lost to him. His gallant spirit
had caught the first ray of dawning chivalry, and he
spurned the thought of allying himself to the lady of
his love while he was dishonoured by an unavenged
insult. And how was it ever to be avenged? His
enemy was a woman—the wife of his father, fenced

about by his father's power, and guarded by his overweening
affection. "I might," he thought (misery
opens the door to temptation, and evil thoughts eagerly
rush in), "I might raise a standard of rebellion: I have
many friends, and should soon have many followers:
I know there are unquiet spirits abroad that fear
not even the great emperor's power. My father has
wronged me of late: he has misinterpreted my motives
and misconstrued my actions, and—oh, shame, even to
think of it!—he has raised his hand to strike me. But
get thee behind me, Satan—it is all that fiendish woman.
Till within this last month my father has been godlike
in his unalienable love and unwearying kindness to me.
Oh, I must endure it till Heaven shall grant me deliverance
by death!" From these and bitterer thoughts,
a thousand times revolved, he was roused late on the
following day by a note from Father Bernard, requesting
the prince's immediate presence in his dormitory.
At first he threw it aside with careless indifference; but
then his consideration returned to it, and he felt a little
curious to know what the queen's confessor, a priest
whom he had regarded as absorbed in the strictest services
and gloomiest abstractions of his religion, could
have to say to him. When the mind is engrossed with
any subject of overpowering interest, it seems as if
every occurrence may have some relation to this subject.
Impelled by this feeling, the prince obeyed
Father Bernard's summons.

Father Bernard's name had long been embalmed in
the odour of sanctity. Before leaving the monastery he
had acquired the title of saint, a title seldom accorded
but by the decree of posterity, and after the tomb has
barred out alike the gratitude and the envy of man. At
court he had maintained the seclusion of his monastic
life. He was never suspected as the author of the
queen's mysterious kindness to Blanche; and as she
continued audacious in her crimes, it was believed that

her confessor's indulgence was cominensurate to her
demands. The mischievous and exploded dogma of
political economy, "that private crimes are public benefits,"
then exactly adjusted the scales by which the
church was made to profit by the sins of the offender;
and it was believed that the confessor heavily assessed
the emperor's coffers to redeem his queen's lapses.

The prince found Father Bernard impatiently awaiting
him; and after bolting his door, and securing himself
from every mode of intrusion, he proceeded, without
preface or apology for betraying the secrets of the confessional,
to impart the communication he had received
from the queen. The prince heard him in silence, but
his deathlike paleness, his fixed eye, and his quivering
lip betrayed the indignation and anguish that overpowered
him.

The priest paused for a moment and then said, "If
I mistake not, my lord, in believing that you have a
feeling more tender than pity for this helpless maiden,
you will make an effort for her rescue!"

"An effort! Sir Priest I would give my life to save
her from a thousandth part of the evil that threatens
her—but what can I do? I have lost my father's favour
—the meanest churl in the empire has more weight in
his councils than I—I am a disgraced and fallen man."

"Nay, my lord prince, disgraced you cannot be but
by your own act, and if you are fallen, why rise and
return tenfold the blow that cast you down."

"Holy father, do you remember against whom you
counsel resistance—true the queen is the instigator of
this mischief, but is she not protected by an unassailable
barrier?"

"Ah well!" replied Father Bernard, in a tone of mingled
pique and disappointment, "I was deluded—I believed
you loved Blanche."

"Loved her! and so I do, with a devotion that the
imagination of a cloistered priest never conceived. But

think more justly of the Lady Blanche than to believe
she would accept a lover stained with crime."

"Crime, my lord! Circumstances alter our relations,
and modify our actions. He who takes the life of
another in defence of his own is not accounted a murderer.
And is he criminal who resists the malice and
tyranny that crushes him?—who rescues the innocent
and helpless from the most accursed fate?"

"Ah!" exclaimed the prince, "my sword almost
leaps from the scabbard at the thought of it—but the
way!—the way! My father, till these few days past,
has always been kind and generous!"

"Kind and generous!" retorted the priest with a
scoffing smile, "while you fulfilled and never opposed
his wishes—while your hand, never weak nor unwilling,
fought his battles—while you were content to return
from the hard-fought field and live in his eye without
honour or reward—to be a waiter-on of the court—to
be called Le Bossu—to ride beside our lady Fastrade on
gala days, and patiently take her insults,—and doubtless
he will again be kind and generous if you will
tamely be trodden under foot of the queen, and quietly
sit with your hands folded, and see the helpless lady
depart for the caliph's haram."

"No more, Sir Priest—tell me what may be done—
I will think on't."

"Nay, you must not think—the bold resolve and
bolder act must go together—the present fortune must
be taken at its flood. All is prepared to your hand—
the emperor has issued orders for reorganizing the
forces just disbanded. Many of his leaders are disaffected.
They have been outraged by the audacious
queen, and are burning for revenge. The Saxon
provinces are in open revolt. They have burnt their
churches, driven off their Christian priests—sacrificed
the bishops to their divinities, and returned with passionate
devotion to the worship of their gods. The

Saracens, led by the infidel hero Abdelmélec, have
passed the Ebro and the Pyrenees—have daringly advanced
to Narbonne and burned its fauxbourgs. The
spoils of the emperor's richest provinces decorate the
mosque of Cordova, and his Christian subjects are the
captives and slaves of the infidels. There was a time
when the emperor would have beaten down these rebels
and enemies at opposite extremes of his empire, but his
vigour is now touched by advancing age, and relaxed
by long prosperity." Father Bernard spoke with the
rapidity and decision of a man accustomed to govern
the decisions of others. The priest seemed as utterly
gone and forgotten as if the character had been the
light masquerade of an hour. "If," he said in conclusion,
"if, my lord Pepin, you remain passive, your ruin
is certain—it is resolved on—what remonstrance can turn
the queen from a purposed mischief? She knows too well
the story of your noble grandfather to risk subjecting
her sons to your rivalship? She knows that Charles
Martel, left by his father immured in a prison, without
the legal inheritance of one rood of land, superseded
his legitimate brothers, and extended his dominions far
beyond his father's limits.

"You are the son of the great Charles—this is all
our warriors demand—you have his eagle-eye, his front,
his voice—this to them will be the signal of victory
and glory. What care they if your brothers can boast
a legitimate birth! This is a matter for priests, not
warriors. It is enough for them that you can traverse
a province, while our young master, Louis le Debonnaire,
is counting his beads. What say ye, my lord?
This night the sons of Hunold's confederates—would
to God he had a son to revenge him—but they were
all strangled by the queen's order—all his brave boys!"
For the first time the priest faltered, his voice was
choked with emotion—"Pardon me, Sir Pepin," he
said, "will you meet these young men at the altar in

the great chapel, and there receive their oaths of
fealty?"

It was for Blanche's sake alone that Pepin had at
first listened, but as the priest had proceeded he had
touched the spring of ambition, and of that love of power
that is the master passion of most men's minds. It was
the possible master of Charles' great empire, whose eye
and cheek were now lighted with a brightness from the
kindling fires of his soul. Still he hesitated to speak
the word that must sever him from the parent stock.

"We waste time, my lord," urged the priest. "Are
you for this noble enterprise, or must I seek another leader
who will dare to rescue Blanche—and deserve her?"

"And who are you," exclaimed Pepin, all the passions
in his frame aroused, "who are you that dare to
speak to me of giving Blanche to another?"

The priest replied with perfect calmness, for he had
been schooled in the fires of a living martyrdom.
"Come near to me, young man, and you shall hear a
name that these walls must not echo." Father Bernard
pronounced the name.

"Righteous Heaven!" exclaimed the prince—"Is
this so—can it be so?"

"Do you doubt it?" asked the priest, with the assured
smile of one who can command belief.

"Nay, I cannot; it furnishes the key to a mystery,
insolvable till now—I am yours—I submit myself to
your guidance with one single condition—our friends
shall swear to hold my father's life inviolate."

"Your father's—granted—but not Fastrade's. May
I live to see the dogs eat that Jezebel! You meet us in
the chapel, my lord?"

"Yes."

"You now know, my lord, why you received so imperative
an order from the emperor this morning, to
hold no communication with the Lady Blanche, public
or private. He feared to have the decree against her

reach your ear. He knew your noble nature too well
to believe you would submit passively to it. But go
now to her saloon; the night is so dark you may escape
observation. Ah, how often have I watched your steps
thither, when you thought the eye of Heaven could
scarcely penetrate your secresy. But be cautious. On
your life do not betray my secret. Remember that in
fifteen years no tone of the voice, nor cast of the eye
has answered to the gushings of my heart, though there
have been moments when I have felt as if every drop
of blood was drained from it. Farewell, my lord. Inspire
the poor girl with courage. Assure her that her
safety is first to be cared for—to-night we will consider
the means. I will remain at the altar till the last lingering
devotee has left the chapel, and then, by Heaven's
good aid, we'll weave a fatal mesh for our enemies!"

CHAPTER II.

Fastrade had, to quote the language of Father
Bernard, made the Lady Blanche her "shrine of expiation;"
and like many others who render a forced homage,
she had loaded the altar with gifts, while she neglected
the spirit of the giver. A saloon and contiguous
bedehamber were assigned to the beautiful orphan,
arranged according to her own taste, and luxuriously
furnished by the queen. At one extremity of the saloon
was a deep recess, lighted by a window that extended
from the ceiling to the floor, and filled with rare plants

arranged on semicircular steps. Before these was a
silver fountain which was supplied by an aqueduct, and
could be made to play at pleasure into a marble basin,
over which a statue of one of Flora's nymphs was bending,
apparently in the act of filling a watering-pot. Suspended
from the ceiling by silver chains, and half hidden
by the flowers, were cages, whose little prisoners
sent forth such a wild harmonious chorus, that it seemed
as if their gentle warder must, by the artful position in
which she had placed them, have beguiled them into
the belief that they were in their own sweet woods.
Opposite this sylvan scene, and reflecting it almost as
distinctly as the more perfect reflectors of our own
time, was a polished silver mirror, hung on each side
with embossed sconces of the same precious metal.
Instead of the ottomans and sofas of a modern drawing-room,
piles, or couches of cushion were placed at
convenient distances, covered with silk "from farthest
Ind," richly embroidered with flowers and imitations,
and fantastic caricatures of animals. Beneath the silver
mirror was a marble slab, supported by sea-nymphs,
and covered with the choicest shells; and in the centre
of the apartment was a small ivory table inlaid with
silver, with an oriental lamp in the centre constantly
burning, and diffusing sweet odours; beside it an hourglass,
in which the sands of time were literally golden;
and dispersed around, a few manuscript books beautifully
illuminated.

Our readers must imagine the apartment we have
described occupied by a single tenant, Ermen, the faithful
nurse and serving-woman of the Lady Blanche, a
hardy, frank, good-humoured looking person of the certain
age of forty. "Nothing more uncertain than the
certain age;" but not with those of low degree. Time
had notched its revolutions on Ermen's honest face, and
with less agreeable records of its progress, had impressed
there acute sense and kind dispositions.

"I marvel that my lady does not return," thus she
soliloquized—"it takes but short space to say yes—
but heaven help us! still shorter to say no. He will
not say that word to her—bless his great heart—he
never yet spoke it to aught of womankind—after all,
if worst come to worst, it would not be so bad if my
poor lady would make the best of it—but it's only little
folk, and not great ones, that have the skill to make the
best of a bad bargain. If all that our minstrels report
is true, this renowned caliph is of a right noble temper
—but then he is a paynim—and our royal queen is a
Christian! Truly, there is much virtue in a name!"
Here Ermen's cogitations were broken by the opening
of the door, and her mistress entered, her person
enveloped in a veil, which having cast aside, she threw
herself on a couch, pressed her hands to her temples,
throbbing with repressed emotion, which now burst forth
without control. "It was in vain then, my lady?" said
Ermen.

"Oh, utterly in vain, Ermen!"

"You were not admitted to the private audience
room?"

"Yes."

"But the queen was there?"

"No."

"You were faint and faltering then, and did not press
your suit?"

"Nay, I poured out my very soul—I entreated—I
knelt—but it is of no use, Ermen. The emperor is
resolved—his word is pledged. The cries of the victim
for succour, who is already delivered to the executioner,
are bootless."

"St. Genevieve aid us! It passeth my comprehension
that the emperor should deny you, my lady—you
whom no one can deny—not even the queen; so that it
is currently said in court that you wear a talisman

that can unfiend the fiends. But the devil, that has
ruled her in all things else, has now got the upper
hand in this too. Our good lord emperor deny you,
indeed! Nay, it is the queen. There is no mischief
abroad but she brews it. Why were the fifty cottages
burnt at Mens, but because a poor churl refused to
the queen the hawks she had trained for my Lady Bertha!
And the artisans of our city must all be thrown
into dungeons, forsooth, because one of their number
had offended my lady queen. I marvel at our great
sovereign! Though I am a woman that says it, no
good or honour ever came to a man, high or low, by
being ruled by a woman. Has not he suffered the
noblest in the land to have their eyes plucked out at
the queen's order, and now my Lord Pepin has offended
her, and that is to be wrested from him that is far dearer
than eyes or soul either. Think you the prince is acquainted
with this journey of ours, my lady?"

"I believe not, Ermen—it is yet a secret."

"I believe not, too, or we should have heard from him
before this. He has a bold heart and a quick hand.
Beshrew me! if he submits without striking a blow."

Blanche rose for the first time from her disconsolate
position; "You do not mean, Ermen," she exclaimed,
"that he would attempt resistance—he cannot be so
foolish—so frantic!"

"I do not know what you count foolishness, my lady,
but my Lord Pepin is not of a spirit to sit down and
weigh his strength before he resists attack."

"But, Ermen, his father's power is as irresistible as
the tides of the ocean."

"It may be; but do you think my Lord Pepin would
let the waves of the ocean overwhelm him without buffeting
them. He never quietly submitted to any injustice.
He is lion-hearted, and, as they say of that royal
beast, kind and fostering to every thing weak and powerless.
Ah, he is noble and gentle, and save in that small

matter of the rising on his back, perfect, soul and body;
and there, I verily believe, he was smitten of a demon,
who could not bear the world should have the pattern
of a perfect man."

Ermen's praises were fallen on an ear attuned to
them, and though the keys were struck by an unskilful
hand, Blanche had gradually subsided into the silence
of a greedy listener. Ermen, like a careful nurse,
who has tried the admission of a little light upon an
afflicted vision, and found it to solace rather than irritate,
ventured a little more. "Cheer up, my blessed
young lady," she said; "it seems pretty dark now, but
I, that have lived to more than twice your age, have
seen many a cloudy morning turn into a bright day,—
Ah, I remember that time your father's beautiful house
was burned, and all his pleasant places laid waste. I
thought life would be one wail and sad lament, but
we have had many a bright hour since. Now, my
lady, I must leave you, and I pray you to take my
counsel,—hope for the best—nay, expect it—that will
keep down the black vapours."

Poor Blanche, when left alone, found it (as others
have) far easier to approve advice than to be governed
by it. She rose from her seat and went to the window
—the night was shutting in dark and threatening. As
she turned her eyes towards the heavens she saw one
planet shining through the parted clouds with undimmed
lustre. To a thoughtful mind it is natural to
perceive a relation between the outward and the inward
world. "The clouds have hidden all but this one
beaming light from me," she said. "Beautiful image
of the love of God, that penetrates the thick darkness
around me, and will sustain me in my utmost need."
She might have been mistaken, at this moment, for a
saint holding communion with Heaven, or rather for a
spirit of heaven, that had just touched upon the sorrows,
but never known the sins of humanity. Her rich tresses,

wreathed in curls, and infolded by many a braid, were
fastened by a cross of pearls, so as to define perfectly
the Grecian outline of her brow and head. Her white
muslin dress, fastened by a girdle of the same pure
gems, harmonized with a celestial character, and gave
to her figure, relieved as it was against the deep crimson
window-hanging, a spiritual aspect. Her thoughts
were soon brought back from their heavenward flight,
and weighed down by the cares of earth. "But for
the dismal memory of his loneliness, she said, I might
endure it—who shall console him when I am gone?
who shall sooth his irritated spirit? who shall watch
against the demons that torment him?—it was my
mission?—"

"It is not finished, Blanche," said a voice that responded
to her low but audible tones, and turning round
she saw, by the light of the little lamp, that the prince
had entered without rousing her from her abstraction.

"Oh, my lord, it is," she replied, in a voice almost
choked with emotion—"and you have yet to learn
the cruel decree—and to endure it."

"Nay, my love, not yet to learn it, nor would I endure
it, if all the fiends of hell, instead of one, had
decreed it. What! suffer you to be driven out of
Christendom, and delivered up to be the minion of the
infidel caliph. Did you deem that my soul had been
trampled out of me, Blanche?"

"My lord, you know I never had one evil or demeaning
thought of you; but who has dared to inform you
of what I have been so sternly commanded to keep a
secret?"

"It signifies not who—be tranquil on that head, and
Blanche, my love, keep down your womanish spirit,
and listen to what I have to tell you—that she-wolf
has well stirred the stream, but she will yet find herself
foiled of her victim."

"Ah me! my lord, do not raise hopes that must be

crushed. The darkness will only be more terrible
after the flash of light has passed—but hark—some
one knocks—it is not safe for you to be seen here."

The knocking was repeated, and proved to proceed
from the faithful Ermen, who being in nothing excluded
from her mistress' confidence, was immediately admitted.

She whispered to her lady, "I have a private message
to you from the emperor."

"Speak it aloud, Ermen, my lord Pepin knows
all."

"Blessings on the free tongue that told him. I fear
not now to tell you the emperor's behest. My heart
did sorely misgive me, for I know it the nature of
the timid deer to fly to the covert. But my lord will
counsel bolder measures."

"I know, my good Ermen, you would fain have a
stouter spirit than your poor mistress, to rely on," said
Blanche, with a faint smile. "But tell us quickly,
what message do you bring from the emperor?"

"As I left you, my lady, I was met by a page from
the emperor, who commanded my presence. As we
went along the gallery I fished from him, that since
you left the audience-chamber no person had been admitted—the
queen herself had been put off, and the
emperor had been heard walking up and down, as I, or
any of the commons would, with a worried mind; so I
thought to myself this augured well for my dear lady,
for when the emperor gets in a ferment, and is left to
himself, he works off pure, like good liquor."

"Proceed to the message, honest Ermen," said the
prince.

"He bade me tell you, my lady,—Heaven grant I
may not forget the words—he tried to write them, but
everybody knows that, for all his getting up o' nights
to practise, and Master Aleuin's teaching, he is yet not
the clerk to do it."

"The message, Ermen," repeated the prince, impatiently—"the
message."

"My lord, I crave your patience: I must tell a story
my own way,—if I drop a stitch the whole ravels out.
Where was I? ah! at the writing. Well, he scrawled
and scribbled, and spoiled parchment enough for one of
my lady's heartfull criss-crossed letters to you, my
lord. I had a great mind to snatch it from the floor
and smuggle it into my pocket against a time of need.
Now I have got to the right place, and I'll make even
work of the rest of it. The emperor bade me tell you
there is still one—oh skies above! I have forgotten the
word—alterative—no, that is not it. I'll leave it out.
If the great people would leave out half their words,
we simple folk could understand them far better."

Patience was like to have her perfect work; but
Blanche, who well understood her woman's infirmities,
cast a deprecating look at the prince, and she was permitted
to proceed without interruption.

"The upshot of it is, my lady, that the emperor says
he will take back his royal word to the ambassador,
provided you will profess yourself a nun"—

"Now the blessing of our holy mother Mary be upon
him!" exclaimed Blanche.

"Nay—nay, Blanche"—

"My lord, and you, my lady, hear me out. There
is something far harder for you to do than to drop the
but half-lifted veil between you and the world: you are
to persuade my Lord Pepin to retire to the monastery
of Pruim, of which the emperor will make him Abbe.
You are allowed to-morrow to make your decision
whether you will be the bride of Heaven—or of the
caliph."

"My decision is already made. My lord—my dear
lord—hear me. Away from you, it is all exile—desolation,
but not all degradation. In leaving the world I
leave only you—for you are the world to me. We but

end this brief life a little sooner: at the best it would
have been a few more hopes—blighted, it may be; a
few more years—a past and useless dream when they
are ended—Nay, if you will not hear me out," she concluded,
covering her face with her hands, "think from
what I escape!"

"Blanche, this is idle; your vows are plighted to
me, and I swear by all the saints in heaven, that Omnipotence
alone shall wrest you from me! Leave us,
Ermen."

"I'll come again for your answer, my lady, shall I
not?" inquired Ermen, while she indicated by a slight
compression of her under lip her secret and very satisfactory
conjecture as to which of the lovers was like to
obtain the victory in the pending controversy. Her
mistress bowed assent, and she withdrew.

"Think you, my beloved," said the prince, passionately
pressing Blanche's hand to his lips, "that I will
supinely yield this, after it has been promised to me
again and again, in smiles and in tears? Never!"

"Oh, I well know, never voluntarily; but our fate"—

"Pardon me, dearest, for cutting off the words from
your sweet lips,—but I read far differently the book
of our fate. I see inscribed there banded friends, trusty
followers, a crushed enemy, victory and empire, and
my peerless Blanche sharing with me the throne of the
West."

There was a fearful ecstasy in her lover's eye, that
shot terror through Blanche's gentle soul. "My dear
lord!" she said, in a voice of such deprecating tenderness
that the prince saw he had alarmed her.

"Pardon me, dearest Blanche," he replied; "I should
more cautiously have disclosed to your timid spirit the
bright future that is opening upon us; you are confounded
by the sudden light."

"I do not comprehend you, my lord."

"My gentle girl, you could not comprehend the

means, were I to detail them, by which your freedom
and safety are to be secured till you permit your lover
to put the bridal ring on your finger, and Heaven and a
good cause shall enable him to place a crown on your
head."

"A crown, my lord! Has insult and wrong vanquished
your virtue?—do you purpose rebellion against
your sovereign—your father?"

"My ties to my sovereign, Blanche, have become
weak as my obligations have diminished. My father
severed for ever the bond that united us when he saw
me suffer the touch of that fiend's foot, and was silent."

"Ah, my lord, human imperfection should be borne
with and forgiven. Your father is blinded and perverted
from his noble nature by the queen."

"But he is perverted, Blanche, and he, or you and I
and others, must suffer the consequences. On whom
should they fall,—the guilty or the innocent?"

"Leave that to Heaven's judgment. But be assured,
that nothing God reckons evil can fall on him who is
shielded by innocence. Do not part with that defence,
my lord."

"Oh innocence! it is only for the sucking babe and
you, sweet saint, who live at the gate of heaven. As to
right and wrong, how can we, who are groping in the
dark and tangled passages of life, say what is right and
what is wrong? We can only discriminate colours
accurately, Blanche, in full light."

"My lord, we are only perplexed when we look
without, where men impose false colours to confound
our enslaved senses. Within is God's own light—
always clear and bright unless we sacrilegiously dim
it with our evil passions."

"This is useless, my love. He who is driven to the
brink of a precipice, must not be over-nice in discussing
the only mode of escape. What would you have me
do?—quietly submit to see you the proffered bride of

the caliph? I am not yet the poor slave to suffer
that!"

"But remember, we have an alternative—the peace
and sanctity of the cloister. Oh, my lord, it is both sin
and folly to reject it."

"Blanche! Blanche!" replied the prince in a tone
that betrayed the irritated pride of the lover. "It seems
right easy for you to transfer your heart to the cloister.
But thus it ever is with your sex: your affections are
so soft and fusible, that they can be recast at any
moment; religion offers the mould, and the change is
at once perfected: the lover of this hour is the devotee
of the next."

"My lord, you do us much injustice. The disappointments,
the reverses, the struggles, the anguish of a
woman's love must be pent up in her own heart—no
human eye may see it—no human ear may hear it.
Man proclaims his, and it escapes in its publication,—
and he follows some new idol: it may be wealth, or
fame, or power, or glory. But she who truly loves,
never loves but once; and it is because her affection is
pure, disinterested, and self-devoting, that it may be—
not transferred, my lord, but succeeded by a sentiment
holy, illimitable, and eternal."

"My dear Blanche, on my bended knees I pray your
forgiveness for my slander. But do you think, while
you are convincing me of the value of my treasure, you
are preparing me to acquiesce in being rifled of it?
What do they offer us? My peerless Blanche, the
most beauteous flower that ever opened to the eye of
the sun, may be permitted to wither in the cloister's
tomb—perchance to wear out vigils in prayers and
penances for my Lady Fastrade! And I, who have
led hosts to victory, and will again—so help me, God—
I am to be promoted to the abbacy of Pruim! Or, if I
would play the saint, I may, perhaps, like my meek
uncle Carloman, tend the sheep of the monks of Mont

Cassin, dress the food for their pampered palates, hide
my royal birth, and be scourged by every valet in the
monastery. Nay, by the mass! I will rather follow in
the footsteps of Charles Martel, and snatch the crown
destined for my legitimate brother's brows, though,
after I have won, deserved, and enjoyed it, the kind
priests shall say of me, as they say of him, that my soul
is doomed to eternal torments, not only as the recompense
of my own sins, but that I may burn for the good
of others, who step to heaven over my head! But my
dear Blanche," added the prince, changing his voice to
a mild and affectionate tone as he caught the sad and
half-reproachful expression of her face, "I should not
cloud these last moments—this is our last parting—our
last separation: to-morrow you shall be apprized of the
means by which your safety is to be secured till He
who has willed that our hearts should grow together
in adversity, shall reunite us in prosperity. Then,
dearest, you shall see him swaying multitudes who has
hitherto been the slave of another's will. Oh, Blanche,
will it not be sweet to share together wealth, power, and
honour?"

"Ah, my lord! your love was enough for me; other
wealth, power, or honour I never coveted, nor do I now.
Alas! that little stream that flowed so freshly and so
quietly, giving forth no sound to others, but making
such music in our ears, and nurturing flowers always
blooming and always sweet—that little stream will soon
be forgotten—my lord hath launched on the ocean of
ambition. Man may wile away his unripe youth on
that pure stream; but once embarked on that tempest-tossed
ocean, he never returns. Alcuin has read me of
such things in the old poets: now I believe it, for I
feel it." Blanche laid her head on her lover's bosom,
overpowered by feelings that silence and tears only
could adequately express; and he, for a few moments
at least, felt that a love like hers, that disdained all

accessories, was sufficient for him, and he told her so.
"My dearest Blanche," he said, "if there were a spot
in the wide world whither we could fly and remain unmolested,
not a thought or desire of mine would stray
beyond it. But there is no such haven for us: nothing
remains for me but resistance, or submission to have my
sole light extinguished. Then what would life be to
me?—the bitter draught it was before you made me
love it. I felt myself degraded below the standard of a
man: you have raised me above my fellows—you
have made Le Bossu the envy of the handsomest and
noblest paladins of our court." Never, in all the tenderness
of their confidence, had the prince before
alluded to his deformity. Blanche perceived that his
frame thrilled at the word. "You wrong me, Blanche,"
he continued, "to doubt my exclusive devotion to you.
I have enlisted in this very enterprise you so deprecate
for your sake."

"For mine, my lord? Oh, then abandon it, for no
good can come of it. If, as the heathen priests of Odin
hold, the temple is desecrated in which a lance has been
permitted to enter, is not the filial bosom polluted in
which one disobedient thought has risen? In sooth,
it is far better to yield to evil than to inflict it—to embrace
the cross than to be crushed by it."

"These are a woman's timid thoughts: dismiss them,
Blanche. Our affairs are complicated with others—I
have embarked, and cannot turn back if I would. But
the victory achieved, and my Blanche shall be to me
what the image of the goddess Bertha is to the Saxon—
no evil passion shall confront you—hate and revenge
shall vanish before you—and spears and shields fall to
the ground!"

It is not in the nature of a tender, devoted woman
to oppose long the bold decision of a resolved man.
Her power must be reserved for his hours of happiness
or suffering. Blanche ceased to resist her lover's determination,

even by her meek persuasion, and their conversation
soon subsided into those interchanges of
expressions of deep and eternal love, beautiful to them,
but untranslatable into the vulgar tongue.

While they were imprudently protracting their interview,
Ermen was killing the time in walking up and
down a gallery that communicated with various apartments
of the palace. There she met her gossips, managed
the easy key to their confidence, heard all their
mistress's secrets (and, in the licensed court of Charlemagne
there was as abundant materials for scandal,
as in the French courts of a later date), but never
indulged them with a hint of her lady's affairs. As it
is difficult to decide which is most agreeable to a real
scandal-monger, hearing, or telling tales—there is no
reason to suppose Ermen's companions were dissatisfied,
though one after another dropped off and left her,
wishing that lovers would bethink them that there were
more than two people in the universe. Suddenly her
attention was arrested by hearing her mistress' name
pronounced by a voice that issued from a guard-room,
at the extremity of the gallery. No one, Ermen
thought, had a right to speak aught of her mistress,
that she had not a right to hear; and she instantly
placed herself in a convenient position for her car to
do its duty.

"I doubt the queen mistakes," said one of the
parties, "in supposing the prince to be in the Lady
Blanche's saloon, but for all that we must maintain our
watch."

"Ah, Valdrad and Hardouin!" thought Ermen, "well-chosen
men for spies."

"You have a snug warm birth here, Valdrad," continued
the first speaker. "I am chilled through in the
court. There is a snow-storm without—a pretty time
of year to begin winter, truly. Come, change posts
with me for a little while."

"With all my heart, though on my faith, Hardouin, I
like not this trust of our gracious lady. I had rather
make love than mar it. I had rather the prince would
escape than be caught in a net of my spreading."

"Curse on that cowardly fashion of yours, Valdrad,
as if you could lighten a sin by lamenting it, when you
have not the virtue to eschew it. Now I take quite
another way to hush my conscience. There must be
a certain amount of sin enacted on this mortal stage,
and he is the boldest fellow who cheerfully bears his
part of the burden. For example, somebody must do
this villanous duty for the queen. The prince cannot
escape her. She has stirred up the emperor's heart,
which is of itself as clear as this cup of Rhenish, against
him; and without our means, and even if she does not
now detect the prince in this violation of the emperor's
commands, she will contrive some mode to provoke
him to resistance—his ruin follows of course."

"I am not sure of that. There is nothing that, if left
to himself, the emperor will not remit to Le Bossu.
But come, Hardouin, lend me your watch-coat, and I'll
to the outer post." Accordingly he sallied forth, but
immediately returned, saying, "It's as dark as Erebus.
How am I to depose to the emperor that I have seen
the prince issue from the Lady Blanche's saloon, when
I cannot see my hand before my face? Stay, a lucky
thought strikes me. This damp snow—as clever a material
to take the measure of a man's foot as can well
be contrived—covers the court two inches deep. Not
an impress will be made upon it till morning, unless it
be by the prince. He shall betray himself. The emperor
is the lark of the palace. The queen has nothing
to do but to point to the footsteps from her window,—
a hint to her is enough."

"Bravo, Valdrad! They say the devil deserts his
followers at their utmost need, but our lady queen finds
him as true as steel. Here is a fall of snow to befriend

her, and a witty-pated fellow to teach her how to profit
by it."

Ermen had heard enough. She left the friends to
quaff their Rhenish, and hastened to her lady's apartment,
where she immediately communicated the amount
of her information. The prince perceived his danger,
and saw no way of escaping it. An arrest, at this stage
of his affairs, would be fatal. Blanche, habituated to
depend on the fidelity and experience of her serving-woman,
appealed to her. "Dear, good Ermen," she
said, "can you devise no way to save my lord from
this peril?"

"Indeed, my lady, I cannot. Would that he had that
winged horse our minstrels sing of, that touches never
a hoof to the ground, but posts through the welkin
like an eagle—stay, let me think."—Ermen paused,
tasked her wits, and a bright gleam shot through her
little gray eye, as she exclaimed, "Yes, there is a way."
She opened a door that led into a vestibule, and an
outer door. "It is still as dark as Egypt," she said,
and then, after a moment's awkward hesitation, she
added, "you must pardon me, my lord. The manliest
and noblest must condescend to their necessity. The
royal lion was helped out of the net by the mouse. Say
your parting words, my lord, and come hither; but you,
my lady, stay there." The parting of the lovers seemed
to Ermen needlessly protracted—to them, fraught as
the future was with uncertainty and danger, it was most
brief, and such as seems to "press the life from out
young hearts."

Blanche, in spite of Ermen's counsel, which had a
woman's wit in it, would have followed her lover to the
threshold; but Ermen hastily closed the inner door, and
left her mistress to guess at the modus operandi by
which her lover's safety was to be effected.

Effected it was, and the prince kept his appointment
in the chapel, and was animated by the zeal and harmony

of his confederates. Father Bernard, who still
maintained his incognito, was the soul of the conspiracy.
All deferred to his superior knowledge, and
agreed to be governed by his bold, yet prudent counsels.
The plan of the conspirators was, not to attempt to
overthrow the power of the emperor—this did not
enter into the hope, perhaps not the wish, of the boldest
among them; but to elevate a standard under which
the wronged and disaffected might rally. To establish,
under the prince, their favourite leader, a rival and independent
government, and to secure to him wholly, or in
part, the succession of the empire.

CHAPTER III.

Fortune, always delighting to ensnare human credulity
and play with human hopes, seemed to lavish her
smiles on the conspirators. The queen had received
the report of her emissaries, and was eager to enjoy her
malignant triumph at the detection of the prince in a
violation of his father's commands. She went earlier
than usual to the emperor's dressing-room, which overlooked
the inner court of the palace. He was dressing
while, according to his daily custom, he was listening
to the reading of one of the learned men of his court.
Charles was avaricious of time, and of time only, and
appears, from the brevity of his toilette, to have thought
with a witty anti-Brummel of our own day, that the

poorest employment a man can have, is that of looking
at his own face. Fastrade found a pretext to dismiss
the reader. "Rely upon it, my lord," she said, as soon
as they were alone, "you have acted with your usual
wisdom in striking at the root of this love-affair of your
son with my ungrateful Blanche. The Scripture saith,
wind, rain, and snow are God's messengers, and I think
this snow is sent thus untimely to inform you Le Bossu
has violated your command—his love has overruled
his duty: look there, my lord!" The emperor made
no reply; his keen eye was fixed on the traces of
the footsteps to which Fastrade had directed it. She
deemed her point secured. "It is most certain," she
continued, "that Pepin has abused your confidence:
but do not be harsh with him. An arrest for a few
weeks, till Blanche is far beyond his reach, will prevent
any further rashness on his part."

The emperor still made no reply, but sounded a
bell: a servant appeared. "Send Eric hither," he said.
Eric was the court shoemaker, and, like all the other
masters of the domestic arts then in use, he lived within
the palace walls. He was instantly in waiting. "Eric,"
said his royal master, "go measure me the prints of yon
footsteps on the snow. Return and tell me, as I think
you can, whose shoe has made them."

"If it can be told, my lord emperor, it is I that can
tell it, for I have fitted every foot at your majesty's
court for the last ten years."

"I rely upon you. Fear not to report truly,—fear
nothing but to deceive me."

"It is right, where justice demands punishment," said
the queen, "to proceed, as you ever do, my lord, with
scrupulous caution; otherwise we might surely in this
case trust to our eyes: no one can mistake the track
of Le Bossu's almond-shaped foot."

"Almond-shaped! I know not what you mean by
almond-shaped, my lady; but if in aught to disparage

the shape of Pepin's foot, by the mass you greatly err.
His foot is as fairly formed, and as well set on, as any
lord's, or lady's either, in the court. It is like his
mother's, and that was never matched in beauty by any
foot of flesh and blood."

Fastrade reddened with vexation (her own little
foot was her pet idol), but she knew too well the art of
managing, to chide when she was chidden; and reserving
her resentment for some more auspicious moment,
she remained rather awkwardly silent. Eric soon re-appeared,
with a last in his hand, which looked like an
unshaped block of wood, as broad as it was long.
"The track, an please your majesty," said Eric, "is
Ermen's, the Lady Blanche's Gallic serving-woman. I
have measured it with her last: you see, my lady, there
is no other woman's like it—so broad, and flat on the
instep—short-vamped and square-heeled."

"Enough, Eric," said the emperor, evidently agreeably
surprised. "I am satisfied—here is gold for your
trouble—say nothing of the errand I sent you on. And,
good Eric, I commend you for being at your stall at this
early hour: I like no drones in my hive. My Lady
Fastrade," continued the emperor, when the menial
had left the apartment, "you have been somewhat overalert
with your suspicions."

"If so, my dear lord, it was an over-zeal in your service:
I ask no obedience from Le Bossu—he violates no
duty to me."

"Nor to me either. On my soul, I believe I have
wronged him—and in matters far more serious than
this love-passage. By Heaven! I had rather be a
duped and credulous fool, than a tyrant father. Leave
me, Fastrade—I have business with my secretaries."

"I will leave you, my lord, but not in anger with me.
You must first forgive me for loving you too well, and
serving you too anxiously. Simpleton that I was! I
deemed it my duty to tell all that was in my heart to

my royal lord and master, but, in future, so far from
troubling you with my sad suspicions of Le Bossu,
whatever outrage and obloquy he may heap upon me, I
will remember that the lot of woman is on me—that I
must live—suffer—and be silent!"

"Oh woman, woman!" thought Charles, "what a
power of words you take to express your vow of
silence;" but he vouchsafed no reply to her meek resolution,
uttered as if she were the most oppressed and
enduring of women. His feelings had taken a new
and strong direction, and he suffered her to depart
without one apologetic word or look. His generous
spirit was stung with a sense of injustice to his son,
and he determined to repair it on the instant, by giving
him a signal proof of his confidence.

One week earlier this step would have saved Charles
from everlasting regrets, and the prince from crime and
sorrow; but neither monarch nor subject can control
the consequences of evil actions. "As ye sow, so
shall ye reap," is the just and immutable law.

The reader must readily have conjectured the mode
by which Ermen evaded the peril that menaced the
prince. He was allowed no choice of the means, and
scarcely time to feel how much more ludicrous than
heroic was his position. The night that followed he
had passed without sleep, and in anxious deliberations,
and when he was summoned to his father's presence,
his pale and haggard aspect alarmed the emperor.
"Are you sick, my son?" he inquired, in a kinder
voice than had fallen on the prince's ear for many
weeks.

"No, sire, not sick, but—"

"But what? my dear Pepin."

"Heart-sick, my liege. Is it strange that I should
droop, and grow pale, in the cold shadow of my father's
displeasure?"

Pepin's noble heart was unschooled in artifice, and

he felt its true blood rush to his face, at the first evasion
he had ever used with his father. The emperor saw
only in his flushed cheek the expression of filial feeling,
wounded by his injustice.

"My dear Pepin," he said, "there has been something
wrong between us. We have both been to blame
—have we not?"

"I believe so, my lord."

"Nay, Pepin, do not so be-lord and be-liege me:
have you not always called me father? It is the title
God has made, my son, worth all others of man's creation.
I would not be a common king, and live far up
in the frozen regions, above the sweet and melting breath
of nature. Call me father, my dear son; and henceforth
let us maintain the natural offices of our relation.
You shall be my support and hope, and I will be your
protector and benefactor." The impulse of Pepin's
heart was, to throw himself at his father's feet—to
swear to him eternal gratitude and fidelity—but the
solemn oaths he had plighted in the chapel still vibrated
in his ear, and withheld him; and when the emperor
concluded, by saying, "Is not this our compact, Pepin?"
and offering him his hand, the prince gave him his, but
it was as cold and nerveless, in his father's warm grasp,
as if it were death-stricken.

"So mute and cold, my son!" The emperor gazed
at him for a moment, piercingly. "Ah, Pepin," he continued,
"I see how it is with you. Duty, honour,
glory, all weigh light against love. But believe me,
my boy, this will pass away—it is the plaything of our
youth—the mist of the morning, certainly to be dispersed
by the fervid sun of manhood. As to this pretty
Blanche, she is a rare gem, I grant you, and fit for a
monarch's cabinet; but I have given her away, and I
cannot retract my royal word."

"But why was that word given, sire?"

"Why, in part, young man, to place her far beyond

your reach—think you it were well to reward treason
and rebellion by giving the daughter of the rebel Hunold
to my favourite son? Let that pass—let us not look
back, but forward—you have glorious work before you
—no time for a lover's sighs—the Saxon provinces are
in revolt—the barbarian forces have already passed our
eastern frontier. I am bound, as you know, to the
succour of the Pope against his insurgent Romans,—
and as a proof of my restored confidence, I shall give
to you the supreme command of the forces already
levied and now levying for this eastern war. And
further, my son, name to me your friends, those that
you would have appointed to stations of trust and
honour under you, and their claims shall be considered."

Pepin was overpowered. He saw placed in his
hands, by the blind confidence of his father, the certain
means, as he believed, of achieving his designs. A
vision of love, independence, and power floated before
his eyes; but he recoiled from himself at the thought
of abusing a trust so nobly and generously proffered.
He made an effort to express, in general terms, his gratitude,
but he abhorred hypocrisy, and the words died
away on his lips. A nervous tremulousness seized his
whole frame. He was exhausted by long-continued
excitement, fasting, and vigils, and torn by the conflict
of opposing passions. The emperor believed his
agitation to result from a spirit grieved by injustice, and
overpowered by unexpected kindness. "Now God
forgive me!" he exclaimed, as he rang for assistance,
"for ever distrusting him." The prince attempted to
rise; he again essayed to speak, but the power of motion
and utterance failed him, and when the attendants
appeared he was conveyed, unconscious, to his own
apartment.

The scenes that followed may be imagined. His
faltering and changing purposes—the whisperings of
unappeasable resentment to the queen—Father Bernard's

stern, unyielding onward pressure—the indignant
remonstrances of his confederates, and above all, and
finally prevailing, the soft pleadings of a love that
melted every subordinate affection in its fires.

In a few days he was at the head of his father's
forces, marching towards the eastern frontier of the
empire. In a few days more he had unfurled an independent
standard, and declared that he would never lay
down his arms till he had secured a participation in the
government, and an equal succession with his brothers.
Success everywhere attended him. The emperor was
on his progress towards Rome. There was no loyal
force to oppose the prince, and he marched victoriously
from city to city.

Where was the gentle Blanche while these events
were shaping her destiny? The prince had been compelled
by his military duties to leave Aix-la-Chapelle
without delay. He had previously concerted a plan
with Father Bernard for Blanche's clandestine removal
to a place of security, where she might await the moment
when their happy destinies should be achieved,
and for ever united. In the mean time Father Bernard
remained in the palace to watch, with his untiring eye,
over the safety of the orphan. For this end he curbed
his haughty spirit, and still stooped to play the priest to
the queen; and kept down, as well as he might, his
impatient desire to unsheath his sword in a fair field.
Through Ermen's agency he effected a communication
with Blanche, and every measure was appointed to
secure their secret and safe release from thraldom.
The appointed hour was at hand, when their hopes
were suddenly dashed by an order from the queen, who
ruled the palace in the emperor's absence, to remove
the Lady Blanche to an upper apartment, where she
was to be strictly guarded, till she could be sent off
with her retinue, without danger of being intercepted
by the prince. The queen, still influenced by the

superstitious notions respecting Blanche that had been
so deeply stricken into her soul by the priest, treated
her with no discourtesy that she deemed unnecessary.
She assigned to her use the emperor's private sleeping-room,
which communicated on one side with a gallery,
guarded day and night, and on the other with her own
bedroom; the passages to which, in the emperor's
absence, were always jealously guarded. The third
day of Blanche's removal had passed, and was succeeded
by a quiet starlit evening. The busy and the
happy were either reposing or revelling, and no sound
was heard in the streets of Aix-la-Chapelle, save the
half-stifled groan of the houseless vagrant—the slow
step of the penitent returning from midnight prayers, or
the whistle of the soldier who did the watchman's
duty. Blanche was sitting at her casement-window,
absorbed in sad and tender thought, while Ermen was
pacing up and down the room, performing superfluous
services, keeping time with her tongue to her movements;
complaining, expostulating, and entreating, half
to herself, and half to her lady: thus letting off the
accumulating steam that, being restrained from its proper
channels, must find a safety-valve or explode.

"Our bodies might be as free as our thoughts," she
said, "if my lady had taken my advice."

"What advice?" asked Blanche, rather to humour
Ermen's tongue than for information of what had been
already repeatedly rung in her ear.

"What advice! sure, my lady, you know—but it's
easy going over it again, and maybe you'll think differently—pardon
me, my dear young mistress, but they
say wit had better come late than never. It is but to
give the ten gold pieces to our warder—his honesty,
a plague on him! is not worth half the sum, but he
swears by St. Denis he'll not take less—then the
Saxon churl at the other end of the gallery is easily

disarmed by a cup of drugged Rhenish—after that our
only hindrance till we get to the private passage to the
chapel are the two Gallic sentinels below the first flight
of stairs. And one glance of your eye—one word
from your tongue, my lady, will move all the bars and
bolts at their command, for the loyal blood of Aquitaine
is in their veins, though my Lady Fastrade knows it
not. Once in the chapel, we might trust to holy mother
Mary to help her own servants out of her own temple
—that is, if we help ourselves; beyond that, I'll
trust to my own wits alone,—for once in the free air,
they'll rise like steam from a boiling pot when the
cover is taken off."

"Consider once more, my good Ermen, by what
means we should escape: first, by corrupting the fidelity
of our keeper—"

"Pardon me, my dear lady, the faith that is to be
bought for ten pieces of gold is not worth speaking of."

"Be it so then. But in sorrow, I must confess there
is no human virtue but has its price, since my good
Ermen is willing, for the doubtful chance of liberty at
last, to expose to cruel punishment two of her kind-hearted
countrymen. Oh it is the bitterest drop in my
sorrows, that I involve my best friends in crime, as well
as misery. You, Ermen,—this kind mysterious priest,
who is playing a treacherous part for me, and my dear
lord, whom the doom of treason certainly awaits."

Blanche's voice expressed her utter hopelessness, and
Ermen forgot all her plans and pique, in the desire to
console her. "Now, my blessed lady," she said, "do
not talk so despairingly; I had a dismal dream of the
dead last night, and that's a sure sign you'll hear good
news of the living. Do not lay your head so droopingly
on your harp, as if you were never again to
wake it to a joyous measure—nay, do not rise from it
till you have once more played that Gallic song, that my
fathers sung ere they had passed under the yoke of

barbarian, or Roman either. Ah, well I remember how
your little hand and foot kept time to it, while you were
yet a baby in my arms. There it is!" continued
Ermen, as Blanche, to gratify her, boldly struck the
chords. The wild heroic air called up the dead and the
distant, in the faithful creature's memory. "It is too
much!" she said, with streaming eyes, when her mistress
had finished. "I see those vine-covered hills—
and the white cottage—and the pear-tree—my father
—my mother. I hear the viol, and the flute, and the
shouting chorus of us young ones, as we stopped to join
them—but hark—is that the echo of my memory, or
are you answered from below?" Both listened intently,
and heard these words repeated, in the lowest audible
tone:

Blanche grasped Ermen's arm, while Ermen exclaimed,
`It is the prince's voice!"

"Hush, Ermen, for the love of Heaven, hush!"

"Ay, my lady, but look, look!" At this moment a
procession of priests and attendants, bearing the host
to a dying man, were seen to issue from a monastery on
the opposite side of the street. By the torches they
carried, two persons were distinctly descried passing
from beneath the palace wall, and deliberately crossing
to the opposite side. They were muffled in the long
hooded russet cloaks worn by the pilgrims of Jerusalem,
whose order was designated by a broad white cross
wrought on the back of the cloak. As the host passed
them, the pilgrims dropped on their knees; and then
rising, exchanged a salutation with the priests. The
procession passed on rapidly, and the pilgrims appeared
to be slowly following in their train, till they turned a
corner, and disappeared. Blanche was certain, that
one of these seeming pilgrims was the prince; but

while she wondered what wild hope could have led him
to such a rash exposure, and held her breath, and
strained her ear for what she fancied was the sound of
rapidly returning footsteps, she heard voices in the
gallery at her door. The bolts were turned, and Father
Bernard entered. "Now, holy father," said the
warder, as he admitted him, "for the love of mercy
shrive the lady quickly; for as I hope St. Peter will
turn the key of heaven for me, I scarcely dare to break
the strict order of the queen, even at the word of her
confessor."

"No more words, good fellow. Here is gold for
thee. If thou hast unabsolved sins do some act of
mercy with it. Now get thee out—lock the door, and
thou shalt have notice when I have done my office with
the lady."

The man obeyed. Father Bernard turned towards
Blanche, who approached him with an expression of
the most earnest inquiry. He would have replied to it,
but his heart was swelling, and his pulses throbbing;
the tide of long-repressed feeling overwhelmed him
like a flood, and he was on the point of stretching out
his arms to her, when the thought that he might ruin
all renerved him, and he said, in a voice so tremulous
as scarcely to be intelligible, "I have come to attempt
your rescue—there is not a moment to be lost—silence,
caution, and celerity alone can save us. Do you follow,
Ermen. Obey any signal I may make, but speak
never a word. We must first pass through the bed-chamber
of the queen. She is at her prayers in the
adjoining oratory. Her jealous ear will catch the least
sound. Off with your shoes, Ermen—they creak like
a rusty hinge. But, woman, what are you doing?—
there is no time for other preparation."

"Beshrew me," thought Ermen, "if my life were
worth saving if I left this," and she hastily finished

tying on a petticoat, into which she had providently
quilted her mistress' gold and jewels.

Blanche wrapped herself in her veil, while the priest
was cautiously unlocking the door, with a key which
he had drawn from his bosom. As he opened the door
he recoiled at an unexpected obstacle. Here it will
be necessary to pause for a moment, to present some
particulars that materially affected the safety of our
fugitives. On their left was a window, in a deep recess,
before which hung a curtain that had been dropped
for the night. On the opposite side of the apartment
was an open door that led into a small bathing-room,
lighted by a suspended silver lamp, and dimmed by the
soft fumes of a perfumed bath, prepared for the queen.
The object that had startled the priest was the queen's
tire-woman, who sat in the middle of the room,
awaiting her mistress' protracted devotions; her drowsiness
had overcome her, and she had fallen asleep.
As she was a plump young creature, seemingly full-fed,
her sleep was profound, and like to continue so,
as was indicated by the nasal sounds she emitted, and
which fortunately drowned any inevitable noise our
passengers might make. But there was a vigilant little
spirit that could not be eluded, in the shape of a German
poodle, lying on the maid's lap, with his head peering
over her shoulder. His prying eye was strained
towards the door, but he made no sign of molestation
at the accustomed sight of Father Bernard. Blanche
too, who had often caressed him, was permitted to enter
without a greeting; but no sooner had poor Ermen
passed in, and the priest closed the door, than the
poodle, who felt that she was "a questionable shape,
and he would speak to her;" set up that petulant and
continuous barking peculiar to this species of animal;
and which neither menaces, nor bribery, nor any thing
but the voice of the master can still. A sound was

heard from the oratory. It was too late to retreat,
and impossible to go forward, as there was a guard at
the outer door, who was to be passed by force, or artifice.
In this strait the fugitives glided behind the
curtain already mentioned. Here they stood, breathless,
while the queen unbolted her door, opened it—
looked round, saying, "Ha! my pet, is it only you?—
hush—hush, I'll soon be with you." She reclosed the
door. The priest gave her time to recommence her
prayers, and then darted from his retreat, hoping they
should reach the outer door before the poodle could renew
hostilities; but at the first glance at Ermen he
again set up his relentless din. Ermen now took
her defence upon herself, and answering to his challenge,
seized him by the throat, and dashed him into the
bath, and before the little creature had time to recover
his breath from the suddenness and fright of the immersion,
they had gained the gallery, and closed the
door behind them. Here they were challenged by the
sentinel, who, however, supposing they had just left
the queen's presence, and were going forth at her pleasure,
permitted them to pass. There was probably
something hurried and stealthy in their manner, that
awakened his suspicions, for he immediately followed
them, and then checked himself, saying mentally,
"I am a fool! It is impossible the priest should have
taken the Lady Blanche out of durance without the
queen's knowledge. And if he has he must return.
The devil himself cannot cheat the Hun guards at the
foot of the grand staircase!"

This was too true: Father Bernard knew that with
those wary and resolute guards, who never wavered
from the letter of their orders, neither force nor artifice
would avail, and he had taken his measures accordingly.
After making two turns in the galiery, they descended
a short flight of steps to a platform, where there was a
window that overlooked the street, and was about

twenty feet above it. The priest cautiously opened the
window, and made a signal, which was returned from
below. He whispered to Blanche, "Now, my child,
be of good courage. I must leave you, but as true a
heart, and a stronger arm than mine awaits you."

"The prince?"

"Ay, ay, Blanche, the prince, and one faithful auxiliary.
I remain here to do one more duty, and
then, all perils past, God grant we may meet again—
his shield be over you." He then drew a ladder of ropes
from beneath his cloak, uncoiled, and having fastened it
to a staple in the window, dropped it. It was received
below, made fast, and Blanche descended, and was in
her lover's arms. The past, the present, the future,
were blended, in one brief instant, of fear, joy, and hope.
Such instants outweigh hours of peril and months of
suffering.

In the mean while Ermen mounted the ladder, which,
though it had scarcely felt Blanche's fragile form,
stretched beneath Ermen's ponderous frame, swaying
backward and forward. "It's the weight of my petticoat,"
thought Ermen, and most heartily she wished her
riches had their usual quality of wings, and would fly
away with her, or from her. "Mother of mercy save
me!" she cried.

"Be silent, woman, and hold fast," said a stern
voice from below.

"Hold fast, indeed! does he deem me such a fool
as to let go, while I'm flying like a kite here between
heaven and earth, and t'other place gaping under me;"
but this response and prayers to every saint in her memory,
were thought, not spoken. Not a sound escaped
her till her foot touched terra firma, when her feelings
were relieved by one long satisfactory groan. She and
her mistress were immediately enveloped in cloaks
and hoods, similar to those worn by the prince and his
attendant.

These disguises were the best security against dangerous
scrutiny. Priests and pilgrims might allege a
holy motive to account for the irregularity of their hours;
and it was not safe to scan too narrowly the profession
of sanctity which secured to them their immunities.

Scarcely had the fugitives passed beyond the palace
walls, when they heard, issuing from its portals, the cry
of "Treason! treason!" An instant after the palace-bell
sounded, and in the space of a few flying moments
responsive alarms rung from church and convent-bell.
The earth seemed to have given up its dead. The
streets, so silent a few moments before, now teemed
with swift feet and eager voices. "Keep close to me,
and fear nothing," whispered the prince to Blanche. "All
depends on our going calmly forward;" and in the
next breath, accosting a passenger—"What meaneth
this uproar, sir citizen?" he asked.

"They say the queen is murdered!" was the reply.

"Amen!" cried several voices, not loud, but deep.
The involuntary prayer was scarcely uttered before the
peal of a herald's trumpet was heard, followed by his
voice, demanding silence, attention, and prompt obedience
from the emperor's liege subjects. He then
proclaimed that the rebel prince was within the walls
of the city, and had effected the escape from the palace
of the Lady Blanche of Aquitaine, a damsel easily
known by her famed beauty, and attended by a serving-woman,
brown, short, thick, and elderly—loyal subjects
were forbidden to give them harbour or aid. Every
house and sanctuary was declared to be open to search,
and a munificent reward was offered to him who should
apprehend and deliver up the fugitives.

"Elderly, indeed!" whispered Ermen to her lady;
"they'll not know me by that description. I am but
forty my next birthday, and that's a month off yet."

The prince communicated for a moment with his
associate, and then said, "My dearest Blanche, my

presence but endangers you. If sagacity and good
faith can avail aught, you are safe with your conductor.
Heaven and all saints guard you—farewell, we shall
meet ere the dawn."

"Farewell!" replied Blanche, in a voice that expressed
the terror and shrinking of her spirit; and as
the prince glided away and disappeared from her sight,
she, for the first time, felt the horror of her position.

A moment before and his presence was peace and
safety, and seemed to breathe around her a sheltering
atmosphere; now she felt that she had passed from a
nun-like seclusion into the midst of a clamorous multitude,
and was the hunted fugitive among them. "Oh
that we had never embarked in this perilous, desperate
enterprise," she thought. Still she was not quite desperate.
Her spirit was buoyed up—her strength sustained
by the hope of possible escape, and she kept
pace with the regular and rapid strides of her conductor.
He had just said to her, "Courage, lady! we
are near the barriers," when they were overtaken by a
detachment of the queen's guards, mounted, and bearing
flaming torches.

"Stop, Sir Pilgrim," said their leader, "cloaks and
hoods are of no avail to-night!" and suiting the action
to the word, he stretched out his lance, and with its
point drew back the hood of Blanche's protector.
Blanche shrunk back, and clung to Ermen, expecting
the next moment would reveal her features to her
pursuers. But they were checked when they saw on
the shaven head of the pilgrim the voucher for his claim
to that sacred character with which, not even a court-soldier
might trifle with impunity; and they were overawed
when the pilgrim said, in a voice that had more
of authority than inquiry, "Shall I proceed, soldier, or
will you further profane the holy garb of our order, by
searching under the hoods of my young brothers for the
runaways from your court?"

"Nay, good pilgrim, God forbid we should farther
offend—we were over-zealous in our duty, and we will
gladly expiate our offence by whatever penance you
shall appoint."

"Son, we leave that duty to your confessor; but, if
you would make his task the lighter, do us the courtesy
to give us your protection beyond the barriers. We
had appointed to reach the monastery of St. Denis of
the rock before the dawn, and we have already suffered
much hindrance from the tumult of the city."

"Right gladly will we lessen our offence by doing
thee this service, holy pilgrim; and with the more pleasure
that, but for this rencounter which, God forgive
us! began with sacrilege on our part, you could not
have passed the barriers. We are now on our way to
the eastern portal to direct that none be permitted to
pass out till further orders be received from the palace."

Nothing more was spoken during the short space
they traversed preceded by their duped escort. Every
one gave place to the queen's guards. The portal was
thrown wide open at their leader's command, and as
the pilgrims passed out, "Farewell, good soldier,"
their conductor said, "for the grace thou hast done us
we give thee many thanks, and full acquittance for thy
fault, and will fain remember thee in our prayers at
St. Denis' shrine."

"Heaven reward thy sanctity, most holy pilgrim!
What a besotted fool I was," continued the soldier,
dropping his voice, "not to know from a glance at the
step and mien of these holy brothers, that they were no
counterfeits. Look, comrade," he continued, pointing
towards Blanche, "at that little low youngster that
sticks so close to his fat brother; you see by his dainty
steps that he has been convent-bred, and only used to
pattering over the cloister's floor at the sound of matin
and vesper bells. I marvel if those little feet carry
him half way to the Holy Land. Come," he concluded,

raising his voice to the key of authority, "shut the gate.
It is the queen's command that, till further orders, none
be permitted to pass the barriers in any garb, or under
any pretext."

These words had scarcely died away on the cars of
our fugitives when they turned from the highway into
a wood that skirted it, and was intersected by footpaths
diverging in every direction. The most obscure and
involved was selected, and they were soon in the intricate
depths of a forest, amid huge old trees whose
mossy branches were so interlaced as to exclude every
ray of the feeble starlight. Their conductor was happily
accustomed to the tangled and devious way, and
he led them with unerring certainty to a path that followed
the course of a little brook, around the bared
roots of trees, over stones imbedded in moss, and down
sharp declivities till it ended in a rich forest-glade.
Here man had selected one of God's first temples for
his worship. A little hermitage stood on the verge of
the green sward, just peeping from the enfolding
branches of the trees. Every refreshment that could
be obtained had here been provided for our fugitives,
and Blanche, oppressed with fatigue, which the delicate
habits of her life made utterly overpowering, after a
slight repast, and while Ermen was finishing a meal
that ill suited an anchorite's cell, lay down on a pallet
and was soon in profound sleep.

Early on the following day they were joined by the
prince, who, having happily escaped the dangers that
menaced him, came to assure himself of Blanche's
safety, and to conduct her to the place where he had
appointed an ample military escort to meet and attend
her to the monastery of St. Genevieve, of which an assured
friend of Father Bernard was the superior.

At the end of their first day's journey they were met
by the news that the emperor had been recalled, and
was already at the head of his forces. Their immediate

parting was inevitable. Blanche did not speak
—no words could speak the anguish of her heart.—
"My life—my dearest Blanche," said the prince, "do
not fear the future. Victory, that has hitherto clung to
my banner, will not, cannot desert me now."

"But now you have to combat against your father!"

The prince's eye fell, and a momentary shade passed
over his face; but again the fire of confident hope flashed
from his eye. "Ah, Blanche!" he exclaimed, "is not
your life cast upon the issue—our love—freedom—
honour—power?—Nay, if there were forty fathers,
they should not unnerve my arm, nor abate my courage
one jot! Farewell, dearest; when we meet again, we
meet to part no more."

"In heaven, then, my lord!"

The words struck on the prince's heart like the prophetic
words of the dying; but, repelling the thought,
he replied, "It will be heaven to us, Blanche," and tore
himself away.

While we leave our heroine to arrive safely, as she
did in due time, at the monastery, we must return to
the palace.

The queen, on issuing from her oratory, found her
poodle in a most piteous condition, running about the
room, whining, and shaking his streaming head and
sides. Immediately, a suspicion flashed into her mind.
She went towards Blanche's door to listen—all was
still. She opened the door, and found the room deserted.
The alarm was instantly given, and at the
same moment a secret messenger, who had demanded
an audience, was admitted. He proved to be a false
wretch from the prince's army, who, having been trusted
with the secret of his leader's having rashly ventured
within the city, had come to obtain the price of betraying
him. In the confusion of the moment the guards had
not been examined, of course they volunteered no disclosures,
nor was the manifest passage through the

queen's apartment immediately remembered; so that it
was concluded the prince had scaled the wall to the
Lady Blanche's window, and Father Bernard's agency
was not even suspected.

The alarm bells had roused every inhabitant of the
palace; and lords and ladies, soldiers, guards, pages, and
servants had flocked to the great hall, first to learn the
cause of the disorder, and then to discuss it. The
queen was on the dais at the upper extremity of the
hall, chafing like a tigress whose prey has been wrested
from her, while a few of her courtiers were trying to
sooth her with

Father Bernard entered. The crowd opened a passage
for his reverend figure, and he proceeded to the
vacant space before the queen. "I crave an audience,
madam," he said.

"Ha, father! dost thou bring us news of Blanche?"

"Madam, I ask your patience, and yours, noble lords
and ladies." He paused. A breathless silence answered
him, and he proceeded—"There was a descendant
of the Merovingian race who had twin sons, the one
so like the other that their mother could not discriminate
them; the one was bred as the descendant of a
royal stock should be—the existence of the other was
concealed from the world, and, to avoid the evils that
might arise from his resemblance to his brother, he was
dedicated to St. Stephen, and immured in a cloister,
his face being hidden by a steel mask."

"What means this?" thought the courtiers; "the
holy father surely speaks of himself." "What means
it?" thought the guilty queen, and her heart sunk within
her.

"In due time," proceeded the priest, "he that was

knightly-bred appeared at the court of the sovereign
who had usurped the throne of his fathers. That sovereign
had a soul befitting royalty—he could honour
even him whom he had injured—the knight was trusted
and cherished—the wife too of the sovereign graced
him with favours." Here the queen's emotion became
apparent, and nearly uncontrollable, but she dared not
speak, lest she should identify the persons of the narrative.
The blood burst from her bitten lip, still she
suffered the priest to go on. "It suits not to tell more
in the modest presence of these ladies, save that, faithful
to his wife, the knight spurned the woman false to her
royal lord. Her guilty love turned to hate. The knight
was outraged; he rebelled, was vanquished, and pardoned
by his sovereign on condition that he should make a
pilgrimage to Rome, doing penance before the relies of
the saints at every intermediate shrine. He arrived
sick and exhausted at the monastery of St. Stephen,
near Ravenna, of which his masked brother was abbé.
The brothers met. The abbé, to relieve the miserable
broken man, volunteered to finish the pilgrimage
for him."

Here a shriek, half-subdued, but piercing, came from
the queen. The priest paused—the stillness of death
followed, and he proceeded: "The abbé received on
his own innocent body tortures destined for his brother,
and inflicted by emissaries sent by the treacherous
queen. The supposed abbé—mark! was summoned to
the court to direct the conscience of the queen. She
told him that an infant daughter of the knight survived.
She would have offered up this last victim on the altar
of insatiate revenge, but that the Almighty now visited
her with disease, and the terrors of the sure hereafter.
The confessor grasped her conscience in this first weakness
of humanity, and he has since ruled it. For fifteen
years that woman daily unveiled her polluted soul
before him she deemed her victim: her very pulses

were governed by his word. She was the dupe, the
willing, trembling instrument of him whose name she
would have effaced from the earth, while he, the minister
of Heaven's mercy to his child, watched over her
innocence and safety. This night he has delivered her
from the house of bondage, and now," he concluded,
unclasping his mask, and throwing it aside, "Hunold
of Aquitoine is avenged."

While the queen listened there had mingled a whisper
of incredulity with the storm of her passions; but
when the priest cast away his mask, and revealed the
noble and well-remembered features of Hunold, hysterical
convulsions seized her, and she was borne off,
shrieking, in the arms of her attendants.

In the confusion of the moment, and perhaps favoured
by the forbearance of those who had listened in mute
wonder to his tale, Hunold glided through a side passage,
and escaped from the palace, and was never again
seen within the walls of Aix-la-Chapelle.

CHAPTER IV.

The Lady Blanche was still in the secure asylum
of the Abbey of St. Genevieve. Here, in safety, and in
tranquil devotion, she might have worn out life, had
that fire never been kindled in her bosom which, once
lighted, cannot be extinguished without making a waste
and ruin of the tenderest affections. Heavily as her
forebodings weighed on her heart, she could no more
envy the calm safe sisters of the monastery, than the
living, feeling, throbbing form can envy the mute cold
statue. The storm might sweep away her last hope,
but who that dwells in the land of blossoms, fruits,
and hurricanes, will exchange with the natives of the
safe and frigid north! Even so thought Blanche, while
every day was bringing some agitating rumour from the
scene of conflict. By the latest accounts the hostile
forces were not far from the valley-lands, overlooked
by the abbey. The emperor was at the head of his
army, and at the approach of the great sovereign,
Pepin's forces were sensibly diminishing. Still he
kept the field, without any apparent abatement of hope
or activity.

Affairs were in this position when, at an early hour
of the morning, the repose of the abbey was disturbed
by a rumour of the near approach of the hostile armies.
The abbess, with her nuns, according to the letter of
her duty, hastened to mingle with her matin prayers,

petitions for the downfall of rebellion. Blanche, with
her faithful Ermen, stole to a tower of the abbey, where
she was destined to endure what a martyr might suffer
at the stake, who had a threefold portion of life and
sense in every nerve.

The valley, or glen, if it might so be called, broken
as it was at intervals into ridges and abrupt descents,
was encompassed by hills, and intersected by a narrow,
deep, and impetuous stream, with precipitous and impracticable
banks, which were connected by a single
plank-bridge thrown across the stream, where it dashed
over a ledge of rocks. At the eastern extremity of the
valley, on a declivity, stood the abbey overlooking the
domain attached to it—its garden, farms, and the
whitewashed cottages of its artisans which were clustered
together at the extreme opposite, under the shadow
of the hills that appeared there to wall in the valley,
and were only separated where the bold little stream
had forced its passage. The peace of ages was, for
the first, to be broken in this sylvan scene, where
even now the stillness was so profound that the chirping
of the cricket, and the rustling of the fallen autumn-leaf,
under the squirrel's fleet foot, might be heard. The
trees, save where the firs glittered with dewy webs,
were stripped of their summer glory; but, like a
youthful face, "touched, not spoiled" by grief, they
looked cheerful in their adversity; glittering dewdrops
studding their branches, and the glossy bark brightening
in the flush of the rising sun. The stream, that
leaped and "danced to its own wild chime," was
fringed with the last gay flowers of autumn—those
bold little heroes that hang out their colours even on
the very frontiers of winter. The windings of the
stream, far off among the distant hills, were marked by
the light warm mist which rose from it, giving a bluish
tint to the atmosphere, and nearer, and immediately

under Blanche's eye, settled in dense fog, over the
coves, or rolled up the mountains in fleecy clouds.

Scarcely had Blanche and Ermen taken their
stations in the tower, when the silence was rudely
broken by the braying of a war-trumpet that pealed
over the valley, waking a thousand echoes among
the hills; the tramping of horses followed; and the
prince, at the head of his gallant followers, was seen
descending rapidly to the valley. His war-cry was
shouted and answered by the clamour of the hostile
army, that appeared to Blanche like birds of evil omen,
darkening the opposite plain. As the prince had the
inferior force it was of vital importance to him to command
the passage of the bridge; and he gained it by
so rapid a movement that Ermen had scarcely time for
an exclamation, before he seemed to be disposing his
force about it, so as most effectively to repel an attack.

"What means that?" said Blanche, pointing to a
standard-bearer. "That surely is the banner of my
father's house. A fiery sun emerging from a cloud, on
a field of white."

"But look, my lady, close beside it, at the knight in
black armour, with the black plumes. It is your father
in shape and bearing, with a little stoop of the shoulders,
as if he had some added weight of years; but
otherwise the same."

"Ah, Ermen, our fancies cheat us; it is the banner
that has conjured up this image in your memory. It
is an evil augury, this banner of a fallen house."

"Think not of auguries, my lady, fortune is on the
side of the prince. See how gallantly he rides. His
white plumes even him with the tallest. Any one may
see he was born to rule, though his poor mother did
stand on the emperor's left side. Now he salutes his
soldiers. Ha! hear their acclamations—God bless
him! he had always the hearts of the commons. Heaven
and all saints stand by him, I say, be he right or
wrong!"

The "amen" did not stick in Blanche's throat, though
conscience would have kept it there; and Ermen proceeded,
"Beshrew me if I think it handsome in the
abbess and her nuns to be throwing their prayers into
the scale of the strongest; they ought to stand aside
and let 'em have fair play." Whether Ermen meant
that Heaven or the abbess should not interpose, it is difficult
to say;—an untutored conscience is very docile
—she probably had some secret misgivings of the
righteousness of the prince's cause, and preferred there
should be no appeal to a celestial tribunal.

The manœuvres of the two armies continued for
some time without an assault from either party. The
emperor had not yet arrived on the field of battle.
Meanwhile the forces on both sides were concentrating
at the bridge. The prince had concealed a reserved
corps behind a hill in his rear, in order by his seeming
weakness to tempt the enemy to the perilous passage
of the bridge, where their numbers would rather embarrass
than aid them. They perceived the disadvantage
at which they must attack, and hesitated to encounter
it.

"Ah!" said Blanche, "it is a proud sight to see their
steeds prancing, their banners and pennons flying, their
lances gleaming in the sun, and those gallant knights
unblenching before the face of death, if we could forget
what they may be before the sun sinks behind yon
hills."

"They forget it, my lady, or they would be as very
cowards as we women are. I have seen these lordly
men who throw down their lives upon the battle-field as
if it were but a cast of the dice, I have seen them
shrink from a twinge of the tooth-ache, and, if death
did but peep at them through the curtains of a sick-bed,
their hearts would die away within them. But they
have a brute's instinct to fight, and when that is roused
they forget pain and death, and all that comes after.

Truly, I think, after all their boasting and blustering,
we women might dispute the palm of courage with
them, for we bravely meet and triumph over those
natural enemies of our race, pain, and poverty, and
death, which Heaven has made it our necessity to encounter;
while they, for the most part, are only brave
in meeting dangers of their own creation. I marvel
they do not begin—they stand there on each side of the
bridge, looking like wild beasts, ready to spring the
moment the barrier is withdrawn."

Ermen's wonder was searcely expressed when some
of the youngest and most daring of Charles' paladins,
unable any longer to brook delay, or endure the defiance
and stinging taunts of their antagonists, dashed over
the bridge, were encountered, and repelled, or overthrown.
Many a daring onset and gallant rescue followed.
Suddenly a cloud of dust was seen rising in the distance.
The oriflamme was descried. The emperor's
battle-cry was heard, and, at the conquering sound, his
soldiers, like a pack of hounds at the voice of their master,
rushed upon the bridge. They were met and driven
back. Pressed forward by their own column, they became
pent within the narrow space. Carnage and
horrible confusion ensued—men were slaughtered in
masses—horses and riders were overthrown, and when
the command for retreat was given, the bridge was
piled with trampled, struggling, and dying men. "See,
see, my lady," cried Ermen, "my Lord Pepin's men
toss those carcasses into the stream as if they were sheep
slaughtered for the shambles. No wonder you cover
your eyes; it pierces my old heart to see those bodies,
that one minute ago were full of life, strength, and hope,
so broken and dishonoured."

"God forgive them!" ejaculated Blanche.

"But look once again, my lady! See how daringly
the knight of the black plume advances, just so my
Lord Hunold would have done; he passes the bridge!

See, with his few followers he dashes on the retreating
column—Ah! they turn on him—now, St. Denis aid
him!—there goes the prince to his rescue!"

"Heaven help us," cried Blanche, "he is lost! Oh,
what rashness to pass the bridge! Shame on the cowards,
now there are myriads against him, how they set
on him—he is surrounded!—his retreat utterly cut
off!" Blanche clasped her hands and fixed her eye in
breathless apprehension on that frightful melée, "Ah
me! Ermen, my head is giddy; I can see nothing, look
if you can see him?"

"No, my lady, no."

"Look narrowly, Ermen, do you not see the top of
his plumes?"

"No, no, indeed!—nothing but glancing lances and
gleaming shields. What can that waving mean? they
fall back! Ah, there he is, side by side with the black
knight. See, they burst through the close ranks of the
enemy—ha! how they trample them down. Mother
Mary! how they tread the life out of them—they are
already at the bridge—the black plume passes it, but
ah! the broken planks fly from beneath his horse's feet.
What a horrid gap he has opened for the prince—his
steed recoils—his pursuers are on him! Now, Heaven
save him from falling with his back to them! their
lances almost touch him. Bravo! the leap is made—
he is safe."

"Surely," said Blanche, as her heart heaved from
the suffocating pressure that was upon it;—"Surely
Heaven's shield is before him."

"And behind him too, I think, my lady; and a lion's
heart within him. See how the enemy seem cowering
on their side the bridge, like frightened hawks, afraid
to stoop to their prey; and my lord's men, bless them! I
see by their bearing, that each one feels as if he had
the strength of ten men in his single arm. There comes
a messenger to the prince with good or evil tidings."

"Heaven grant them good," replied Blanche, "but
I fear, for my lord rides hastily off with him."

"I marvel the brave paladins endure the taunts of the
black plume," resumed Ermen. "Hark! how he dares
them to follow the example he set them. Ah! there
is my lord emperor—his spirit will not brook being thus
kept in abeyance. He calls on his guards to shame
the loitering cowards, and follow. I doubt if he knows
of that yawning abyss. Ah! now he sees it. But it is
too late—he cannot turn back—his fiery steed leaps
over. A few follow him—rather death than to desert
your master! but every hoof that touches the bridge
widens the gap. Mother of mercy, they fall through—
the generous youths!—they are crushed on the rocks
—horse and rider!"

Shouts rent the air. Ermen's voice might be heard,
like the shriek of an owl, mingling with and heightening
the clamour.

"Think you, Ermen, the victory is won; that the
emperor's mistake is fatal?" demanded Blanche.

"Assuredly, my lady: the emperor sees it himself,
but it is too late. See how his brave paladins gather
round him. They seem to feel no more than their
senseless shields, the blows they receive in his stead.
They fall, one after another—the last is gone! He is
single-handed against a host. What a salvation is a
brave spirit! See how he gives them thrust for thrust,
and fights as if he were backed by thousands. But,
oh!" continued Ermen, her interest naturally shifting,
as the inequality of the contest became more manifest,
"It is in vain, as one assailant drops, another takes his
place. It is too much! Our noble master against
such odds! The craven wretches, why do they not
give him a fair field! Right royally he still defends
himself! Ah! he wavers—his shield has fallen—his
left arm hangs like a lopped branch—he must fall!—
see, they press on him. Now God have mercy on

him!—Ah! there comes the prince again—how furiously
he rides. Must his hand give the finishing stroke?
I cannot look on that—"

Blanche sunk on her knees. "Merciful Heaven!"
she cried, "let him not lift his hand against his father
—save him from parricide!"

"Oh, look up, my lady, once more look up! The
prince is striking down the lances of the assailants, and
shouting, `Back, villains, back—touch not his sacred
life!' "

Their arms fell as if they were paralyzed, and they
recoiled a few paces, leaving a vacant space, where the
steeds of father and son met, bit to bit. The prince
dismounted, threw down his lance and shield, and
kneeling in the dust, cried, "My liege—my father,
forgive me!"

Ermen broke into a wild hysteric laugh, and turned
to her mistress, but her gentle nature was overpowered,
and she had sunk down in utter unconsciousness.
Neither saw nor knew, till many hours after, what followed.
That the tide of fortune had turned in the emperor's
favour, and deliverance from the perils that beset
him was near at hand, at the moment the interposition
of his son saved him from certain death. A detachment
from his army had been guided by one of the
loyal abbey tenants, to a fordable passage through the
stream. They had wound unperceived around the
hills, fallen on Pepin's reserved corps, and cut it off
completely; and at the moment the prince was surrendering
himself to filial duty, his followers were surprised
by superior numbers falling on their rear. He
could not look on and see his faithful friends falling in
a cause he had abandoned; and giving orders that the
hlace where the emperor stood should be considered
neutral ground, and sacredly guarded as such, he
plunged into the thickest of the fight. Many a long-remembered
deed of desperate valour did he achieve; but it

was of no avail: long before the day closed, the din of
arms had ceased; the prince, and the handful of his followers
who survived were prisoners, and the victorious
army was retiring towards Aix-la-Chapelle.

The wounded and dying left on the field of battle
were, in obedience to the benevolent orders of the
abbess, conveyed to the cottages of the peasants, where
all that leech-craft could do was done; and when that
was unavailing, the last offices of humanity were faithfully
rendered. On the spot where the conflict had
ended was found the body of the warrior who had been
distinguished by the black plume. Though he was
quite unconscious, life still tenaciously held its grasp;
and the badges of priestly office being discovered on
the removal of his helmet and armour, he was deemed
worthy to die within the consecrated walls of the
abbey; and accordingly he was carried thither. There
he was destined to find not only a cure for the wounds
of his body, but the skill that could pluck from his memory
its rooted sorrows.

To women, old Homer (with the spirit of the golden
age of gallantry) assigns the art of compounding the
nepanthes. And, if there is a human hand skilled
to prepare the sweet draught, oblivious of grief, sorrow,
and care, it is that of a daughter.

Hours of tumultuous passion—years of gloomy self-annihilation
were in the memory of Hunold, like a
dismal and fading dream, while his eye reposed on
Blanche; and he felt, in her assiduous devotion, the
healing efficacy of filial love.

For the present they were secure from molestation;
and of the future they hardly yet dared to think. The
apprehensions that racked Blanche's heart were visible
in the mortal paleness that settled on her cheek; in
her nervous starts at any unwonted sound; and in the
touching contrition which she manifested for the frequent
abstractions of her thoughts from her father.

The ultimate fate of the prince remained yet undecided.
Rebellion is the unpardonable sin in the creeds
of absolute monarchs; and in this case justice, as well
as the almost uniform practice of the times, demanded
his death. Still the decree came not, and it was evident
that there was some wavering in the sovereign's
mind—some leaning towards the milder punishment of
the tonsure, and seclusion in a monastery, a penalty
equivalent to our "state prison for life;" a convenient
mode of shutting out of the world those who were de
trop in it. The partisans of the vindictive queen urged
that the death of the prince was essential to the present
tranquillity of the emperor and to the secure succession
of the legitimate heirs. But the emperor seemed
cold to whatever proceeded from the queen's counsels.
He had received some faint intimations of Hunold's
disclosures; and though he was too discrete a husband
to dive into a well because truth was at the bottom, yet
it was evident that the spell of her influence was dissolved—that
her royal consort was disabused, and that
some change had passed, like that which reduces the
seemingly-beautiful enchantress of a fairy-tale to the
reality of an ugly old hag.

At length the intrigues of the courtiers were ended,
and the speculations of the gossips of the city silenced
by the publication of the emperor's decree. It ordained
that on a certain day the prince should receive the tonsure
publicly, at the altar of the great chapel. That
after this rite of initiation, he should be escorted in state
to the monastery of St. Alban, where he was adjured by
the strictest prayers and penances to expiate the sin of
rebellion.

The ambitious prince was for ever to be severed from
the world. The purest, tenderest, and most ennobling
of human passions was to be converted to sin. The fire
that was kindled to gladden social life, was to be for ever
shut up in the bosom, there to burn and consume. Strange

that man should have been so long permitted to countervail
the benign designs of Providence! that he should
have been suffered to condemn to waste and mouldering
the affections that were bestowed to sow the wide harvest-fields
of the world with joy and beauty!

The day arrived appointed for the ceremony. Early
in the morning the gates of the city were thrown open.
Nobles with pompous retinues, and rustics with their
families, crowded the avenues. Greediness of spectacle
has been common to all ages of the world, from
long ere David danced before the ark of the Lord to
this present moment, when the park of our city is a
living mass, gazing at the beautiful illuminations for this
centennial celebration of the birthday of our immortal
Washington.

Church and convent-bells were tolling. Processions
of the religious orders filled the streets with the sublime
anthems appointed by the church; and the Gregorian
chant resounded from the choir of the great chapel.

It was remarked by those court observers of straws,
who were watching the decline of Fastrade's sun, that
the emperor on this day had given the final decision to
the great musical controversy that had agitated the empire.
The queen had favoured the Gallic or Ambrosian
party, but the emperor, who had inclined to the
muse of Italy, finally adopted the Gregorian chant;
justifying his decision publicly, by the pious illustration
that, "as a river is purest at its source, so Rome,
being the fountain of all divine wisdom, ought to reform
the Gallican music after the model of her own."

The emperor and his court, in their ceremonial costume,
entered the chapel by a private door, and occupied
seats at the right of the altar; the emperor and
queen were in a position a little elevated, and in advance
of their attendants. There was an unquietness in
Charles' manner, and a heavy shade on his brow, that
indicated the yearning of his heart towards his son;

and the reluctance with which he had submitted to the
usage that imposed the humiliation of a public ceremony.
The state smile the queen had assumed did
not veil her gratified malignity, while her sallow cheek,
and restless and falling eye, fully betrayed her consciousness
that she had fallen from her high estate—
that the emperor was no longer the duped husband,
flexible to the purposes of her insatiate cruelty.

The doors were thrown open, and the eager crowd
of spectators, marshalled by officers, were conducted
to the seats assigned them, according to their rank.
The chapel-bell struck, and the prince, preceded by men-at-arms,
and followed by a procession of the monks of
St. Alban, entered the grand aisle. His dress resembled
that worn by his father on high festivals. A golden
diadem, set with precious stones, bound in its circlet a
head that looked as if it were formed to ennoble even
such an appendage. His buskins were thickly studded
with gems, his tunic was of golden tissue, and his purple
mantle fastened by a clasp of glittering stones.
This royal apparel was meant in part to show forth the
ambition that had o'erleaped itself; and in part to set
the splendours of the world in overpowering contrast
with the humility of the religious garb.

The prince advanced with a firm step. His demeanour
showed that if he had lost every thing else, he had
gained the noblest victory; victory over himself. There
was nothing in his air of the crushed man; on the contrary,
there was his usual loftiness, and more than his
usual serenity. As men gazed at him, and saw the impress
of his father on his mild majestic brow, they felt
that nature had set her seal to his right of inheritance.
He paused as he reached a station opposite his father,
signed to his attendants to stop, and turning aside he
knelt at his father's feet. Their eyes met as tenderly
as a mother's meets her child. Charles stretched out
his hand, Pepin grasped it, and pressed it to his lips.

The spectators looked in vain for some sign of sternness
in the father, and resentment in the son. Little did
they dream that the father and son had met that morning,
with no witness but the approving eye of Heaven;
and had exchanged promises of forgiveness and loyalty
never to be retracted in thought, word, or deed.

As the prince rose to his feet his eye encountered
the queen's, flashing with offended pride; but hers fell
beneath the steady overpowering glance of his, which
said, "I am not yet so poor as to do you reverence."
The emperor did not rebuke, or even seem to notice
the omission. His eye was riveted to the gracious
tears his son had left upon his hand.

The prescribed devotions and pompous preparatory
ceremonial of the Romish church were performed.
The prince then laid down his glittering crown, and
exchanged his gorgeous apparel for the garb of St.
Alban's monks, a russet gown fastened at the waist with
a hempen-cord. It was noticed by the keenest of his
observers that he did not lay aside his sword; but, he
might have forgotten it, or a soldier might be permitted
to the very last, to retain the badge of his honour and
independence. A glow of shame shot over his face as
he bent his head to the humiliating rite of the tonsure;
and the eyes of the truly noble were instinctively
averted, as his profuse and glossy locks fell beneath
the razor of the officiating priest. This initiatory rite
performed, a hood was thrown over his head, and the
soldier-prince was lost in the humble aspect of the monk
of St. Alban.

A court order had declared that the prince should be
escorted to the gates of the monastery by the emperor,
the lords and ladies of the court, and the paladins
and chiefs assembled at Aix-la-Chapelle.

The troops of the late victorious army were stationed
in double lines on each side of the course, along which
the procession was to pass. The emperor and his son

rode first, side by side. The queen, at an intimation
from her royal consort, that savoured strongly of command,
had withheld her presence. The bright skies,
and transparent atmosphere of one of the earliest days
of winter, gave lustre to every object, and clearness to
every sound. Banners and pennons were streaming in
the light breeze. The burnished shields, and unspotted
lances of gala days, reflected from a thousand points
the sunbeams. The proud step of the war-horse—the
gay prancing of the palfrey—the glittering decorations
of the court-ladies—and the state costume of the lords
gave to the grand cortége the aspect of a triumphal
procession. But how little like a victor looked the
prince, whose diminished form seemed shrinking beneath
the russet folds that enveloped him; and bending, in
dejected attitude, over the fleet and fiery steed that had
so often borne him to victory! How the pealing anthems
struck on his ear like a funeral dirge, hymning
him to his tomb,—and the trampling of his horse's
hoofs as they rung on the pavement! "Oh, my generous
unrivalled steed," he thought, "were we but once
alone beyond the barriers, I would doff this cursed
hood, and cast all upon a single chance! Oh, Blanche,
were I but with thee in some lone isle, in mid-ocean, or
on some far spot of the desert—the world forgotten!"
The past, the future, the possible floated before him in
perplexed and maddening vision. His breath came
gaspingly. It seemed to him that his pulses beat audibly—his
eye "devoured the distance." The procession
was within sight of the barriers, and not far distant
from them. The gates were wide open, but the way to
them was guarded by men with drawn and upraised
weapons. "It is but the soldier's death," thought the
prince, "instead of mouldering away within the cloister's
walls. I violate no duty to my dear father. In
every issue I am dead to him—it is possible! Does
Heaven, or do the fiends inspire my purpose! Heaven,
surely Heaven, for oh! Blanche, it is for thee, and thee
alone!"

This last thought gave the irresistible and effective
impulse. He threw off his hood, drew his sword,
roused his horse's mettle with a single word, and beating
back the spears of the amazed guard, he darted at full
speed towards the gate. He cleared the barriers, his
horse flew onward as if "the speed of thought were in
his limbs;" and before the cries of alarm and pursuit
had passed along the ranks, he had disappeared.

Clamour, consternation, and confusion ensued. The
zealous and officious were posting to the pursuit, when
they were arrested by a peal from a herald's trumpet,
followed by a proclamation, commanding the emperor's
liege subjects to return quietly to their homes, and in
future to refrain from any pursuit or quest after the
fugitive, as that important duty was to be confided to
private emissaries. The measures that were to be
adopted, and the success that ensued, never transpired
beyond the cabinet councils of the emperor.

The ingenious monks, at no period at a loss for the
interpretation of an event that baffled common sagacity,
maintained that the prince had been spirited away by
St. Alban, that worthy saint being indignant at his admission
into their immaculate fraternity.

But according to our modern creeds, the powers that
superstition imbodied in the fancied favourites of Heaven,
are within the mission of mortals; and all-enduring,
and all-conquering affection, works more miracles
than the whole corporate body of calendared saints.

A saint there undoubtedly was in the case, for according
to traditions long after familiar on the lake of Constance,
a creature of beauty, so excellent that it
seemed suited "t' envelope and contain a celestial
spirit," dwelt on the little island of Meinau, in that
lake. She had come thither from some far-distant province,
with her father, her husband, and an ancient

serving-woman. From the time of her advent, poverty
and misery disappeared from the shores of the lake, as
shadows fly before the sun. The little waste isle became
a paradise; and in due process of time those
young enchanters appeared, who repeat to the parent
the joys of his youth, and strew his path of life, even
down to the gates of death, with solaces and hopes.

As ages passed on, these traditions assumed a more
questionable shape; and, as is usual, a larger proportion
of fable was mingled with truth. The knights
of the Teutonic order, afterward established at Meinau,
pointed visiters to a spot where, as a legend told, stood
a chapel in the reign of Charlemagne. The officiating
priest was so far superior to the surrounding peasantry
that he would have seemed to them all celestial, but
for a slight deformity of the back, which stamped him
of mortal mould. His devotional services, the legend
said, were assisted by an angel, surrounded by cherubs.
On Sundays and holydays the chapel was open to the
peasantry, and a special service was performed for the
emperor Charlemagne. The legend farther intimated
that the long and prosperous reign of that great sovereign
was mainly owing to the holy services of these
mysterious worshippers in the little chapel of Meinau.