Part 20

The history of the last individual knight given in these imperfect pages (Guy of Warwick), showed how history and romance wove themselves together in biography. Coming down to a later period, we may find another individual history, that may serve to illustrate the object I have in view. The Chevalier de Bayard stands prominently forward. But there was before _his_ time, a knight who was saluted by nearly the same distinctive titles which were awarded to Bayard. I allude to Jacques de Lelaing, known as “the knight without fear and without doubt.” His history is less familiar to us, and will, therefore, the better bear telling. Besides, Bayard was but a butcher. If he is not to be so accounted, then tell us, gentle shade of Don Alonzo di Sotomayor, why thy painful spirit perambulates the groves of Elysium, with a scented handkerchief alternately applied to the hole in thy throat and the gash in thy face? Is it not that, with cruel subtlety of fence Bayard run his rapier into thy neck “four good finger-breadths,” and when thou wast past resistance, did he not thrust his dagger into thy nostrils, crying the while, “Yield thee, Signor Alonzo, or thou diest!” The shade of the slashed Spaniard bows its head in mournful acquiescence, and a faint sound seems to float to us upon the air, out of which we distinguish an echo of “_The field of Monervyne_.”

JACQUES DE LELAING,

THE GOOD KNIGHT WITHOUT FEAR AND WITHOUT DOUBT.

“Faites silence; je vais parler de _lui_!”--_Boileau._

Between the city of Namur and the quaint old town of Dinant there is as much matter of interest for the historian as of beauty for the traveller and artist. War has been the most terrible scourge of the two localities on the Meuse which I have just named. Namur has a present reputation for cutlery, and an old one for “slashing blades” of another description. Don John, the great victor at Lepanto, lies entombed in the city, victim of the poison and the jealousy of his brother Philip. There the great Louis proved himself a better soldier than Boileau did a poet, when he attempted to put the royal soldier’s deeds into rhyme. Who, too, can stand at St. Nicholas’s gate, without thinking of “my uncle Toby,” and the Frenchmen, for whose dying he cared so little, on the glacis of Namur? At present the place, it is true, has but a dull and dreamy aspect. Indeed, it may be said of the inhabitants, as of Molly Carew’s lovers, that “It’s dhrames and not sleep that comes into their heads.” Such, at least, would seem to be the case, if I may draw a conclusion from what I saw during the last summer, at the bookseller’s stall at the Namur station, where I found more copies of a work professing to interpret dreams than of any other production, whether grave or _gaillard_.

Dinant, a curious old town, the high limestone-rocks behind which seems to be pushing it from off its narrow standing-ground into the Meuse, has even bloodier reminiscences than Namur; but of these I will not now speak. Between the two cities, at the most picturesque part of the stream, and on the loftiest cliff which rises above the stream, is the vast ruin of the old _titanic_ castle of Poilvache, the once rather noisy home of the turbulent household of those terrible brothers, known in chivalrous history as the “Four Sons of Aymon.” During one of the few fine evenings of the last summer, I was looking up at this height, from the opposite bank, while around me stood in groups a number of those brilliant-eyed, soft-voiced, ready-witted Walloons, who are said to be the descendants of a Roman legion, whose members colonized the country and married the ladies in it! A Walloon priest, or one at least who spoke the dialect perfectly, but who had a strong Flemish accent when addressing to me an observation in French, remained during the period of my observation close at my side. “Are these people,” said I to him, “a contented people?” He beckoned to a cheerful-looking old man, and assuming that he was contented with the dispensation that had appointed him to be a laborer, inquired of him which part of his labor he loved best? After pausing for a minute, the old peasant replied in very fair French, “I think the sweetest task I have is when I mow that meadow up at Bloquemont yonder, for the wild thyme in it embalms the very air.” “But your winter-time,” said I, “must be a dark and dreary time.” “Neither dark nor dreary,” was the remark of a tidy woman, his wife, who was, at the moment, on her knees, sewing up the ragged rents in the gaberdine of a Walloon beggar--“Neither dark nor dreary. In winter-time, at home, we don’t want light to get the children about us to teach them their catechism.” The priest smiled. “And as for spring-time,” said her husband, “you should be here to enjoy it; for the fields are then all flower, and the sky is one song.” “There is poetry in their expressions,” said I to the priest. “There is better than that,” said he, “there is love in their hearts;” and, turning to the woman who was mending the raiment of the passive mendicant, he asked her if she were not afraid of infection. “Why should I fear?” was her remark. “I am doing but little; Christ did more; He washed the feet of beggars; and we must risk something, if we would gain Paradise.” The particular beggar to whom she was thus extending most practical charity was by no means a picturesque bedesman; but, not to be behind-hand in Χάρις toward him, I expressed compassion for his lot. “My lot is not so deplorable,” said he, uncovering his head; “I have God for my hope, and the charity of humane people for my succor.” As he said this, my eye turned from him to a shepherd who had just joined our group, and who was waiting to be ferried over to the little village of Houx. I knew him by name, and knew something of the solitariness of his life, and I observed to him, “Jacques, you, at least, have a dull life of it; and you even now look weary with the long hours you have been spending alone.” “Alone!” he exclaimed, in a joyful tone, “I am never alone, and never weary. How should I be either, when my days are passed in the company of innocent animals, and time is given me to think of God!” The priest smiled even more approvingly than before; and I remarked to him, “We are here in Arcadia.” “But not without human sin,” said he, and pointing to a woman at a distance, who was in the employ of the farmer’s wife, he asked the latter how she could still have anything to do with a well-known thief. “Eh, father,” was the comment of a woman whom John Howard would have kissed, “starving her in idleness would not cure her of pilfering; and between working and being well-watched, she will soon leave her evil habits.” “You are a good Christian,” I said to her, “be you of what community you may.” “She is a good Catholic,” added the priest. “I am what the good God has made me,” was the simple reply of the Walloon wife; “and my religion is this to go on my knees when all the house is asleep, and then pray for the whole world.” “Ay, ay,” was the chorus of those around her, “that is true religion.” “It is a part of true religion,” interposed the priest; but I could not help thinking that he would have done as well had he left Marie Justine’s text without his comment. We walked together down to the bank of the river opposite the Chateau of the young Count de Levignon the proprietor and burgomaster of Houx. I looked up from the modern chateau to the ruins of the vast castle where the sons of Aymon once held barbaric state, maintained continual war, and affected a reverence for the mother of Him who was the Prince of Peace. The good priest seemed to guess my thoughts, for he remarked, “We live now in better times; the church is less splendid, and chivalry less ‘glorious,’ if not extinct; but there is a closer brotherhood of all men--at least,” he added hesitatingly--“at least I hope so.” “I can not remember,” said I, “a single virtue possessed by either Aymon or his sons, except brute courage, and a rude sort of generosity, not based on principle, but born of impulse. It is a pity that Belgium can not boast of more perfect chevaliers than the old proprietors of Poilvache, and that you have not a hero to match with Bayard.” “Belgium,” was his answer, “can make such boast, and had a hero who had finished his heroic career long before Bayard was born. Have you never heard of ‘the Good Knight without fear and without doubt’?” “I have heard of one without fear and without reproach.” “That title,” he remarked, “was but a plagiarism from that conferred on Jacques de Lelaing, by his contemporaries.” And then he sketched the outline of the good knight’s career, and directed me to sources where I might gather more detailed intelligence. I was interested in what I learned, and it is because I hope also to interest readers at home, that I venture to place before them, however imperfectly rendered, a sketch of the career of a brave man before the time of Bayard; one who illustrates the old saying that--

“Vixere fortes ante Agamemnona.”

Jacques de Lelaing, the good knight, without fear and without doubt, was born in the château of Lelaing, in the first quarter of the fifteenth century. The precise year is not known, but it was full half a century before the birth of Bayard. He came of a noble race; that is, of a race, the male portion of which saw more honor in slaughter than in science. His mother was celebrated for her beauty as well as nobility. She was wise, courteous, and _débonnaire_; well-mannered, and full of all good virtues. So, at least, in nearly similar terms, wrote George Chastellan of her, just two centuries ago.

Jacques de Lelaing was as precocious a boy as the Duke of Wharton in his youth. At the age of seven, a priestly tutor had perfected him in French and Latin, and the good man had so imbued him with literary tastes that, in after life, the good knight found time to cultivate the acquaintance of Captain Pen, as well as of Captain Sword; and specimens of his handiwork are yet said to exist in the libraries of Flanders and Brabant.

Jacques, however, was never a mere student, “sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought.” He loved manly sports; and he was yet but a blooming youth when the “demoiseau of Clèves,” nephew of that great Duke whom men, for no earthly reason, called Philip _the Good_, carried off his young friend from the castle of Lelaing, and made of him a squire, not of dames, but of knights, in the turbulent court of the ducal Philip, with the benevolent qualification to his name.

The youth entered upon his career with a paternal provision which bespoke at once the liberality and the wisdom of his father, stout William de Lelaing. The sire bestowed upon his son four splendid horses, a well-skilled groom, and a “_gentleman of service_” which, in common phrase, means a valet, or “gentleman’s gentleman.” But the young soldier had more than this in his brain; namely, a well-lettered cleric, commissioned to be for ever expounding and instructing, with a special object, to boot, that Jacques should not forget his Latin! Excellent sire thus to care for his son! If modern fathers only might send into barracks with their sons, when the latter first join their regiments, reverend clerks, whose office it should be to keep their pupils well up in their catechism, the Eton grammar, and English orthography, what a blessing it would be to the young gentlemen and to all acquainted with them! As it is, we have officers worse instructed and less intelligent than the sons of the artists who make their uniforms.

When Jacques went forth into the world, his sire gave him as good advice as Polonius threw away on his son Laertes. The sum of it was according to the old French maxim, “Noblesse oblige”--“Inasmuch,” said the old man, “as you are more noble than others by birth, so,” said he, “should you be more noble than they by virtues.” The hearty old father added an assurance, that “few great men gained renown for prowess and virtue who did not entertain love for some dame or damoiselle.” This last, however, was but an equivocal assurance, for by counselling Jacques to fall in love with “some dame or damoiselle,” he simply advised him to do so with any man’s wife or daughter. But it was advice commonly given to young gentlemen in arms, and is, to this day, commonly followed by them. Jacques bettered the paternal instruction, by falling in love with two ladies at the same time. As ambitious youths are wont to do, he passed by the white and pink young ladies whom he met, and paid his addresses, with remarkable success, to two married duchesses. Neither of these suspected that the smooth-chinned young “squire” was swearing eternal fidelity to the other, or that this light-mailed Macheath wooed his madiæval Polly with his pockets full of “favors,” just bestowed on him by an unsuspecting Lucy. Thus has love ever been made by officers and highwaymen.

But if Jacques loved two, there was not a lady at the Court of Burgundy who did not love _him_. The most virtuous of them sighingly expressed a wish that their husbands, _or their lovers_, were only like him. The men hated him, while they affected to admire his grace, his bearing, and his irresistible bravery. Jacques very complacently accepted the love of the women and the envy of the men; and feeling that he had something to be thankful for, he repaired to the shrine of the Virgin at Hal, and thanked “Our Lady,” accordingly.

Now Philip the Good was good only just as Nicholas the Czar was “good.” He had a fair face and a black heart. Philip, like Nicholas, joined an outward display of conjugal decency with some private but very crapulous indecency; and the Duke, like the Czar, was _the_ appalling liar of his day. Philip had increased the ducal territory of Burgundy by such means as secured Finland to Muscovy, by treachery of the most fiendish quality; and in 1442, affecting to think that Luxembourg was in the sick condition which Nicholas described as the condition of Turkey--when the imperial felon thought he was making a confederate of Sir Hamilton Seymour, the Duke resolved to seize on the territory in question, and young Jacques de Lelaing was in an ecstacy of delight at being permitted to join in this most rascally of expeditions.

Within a year, desolation was spread throughout a wide district. Fire and sword did their devastating work, and the earth was swept of the crops, dwellings, and human beings, which lay between the invaders and Luxembourg. The city was ultimately taken by surprise, and the good Philip delivered it up to pillage; then ensued a scene which hell itself could not equal; and the Duke and his followers having enacted horrors from which devils would have recoiled, they returned to Brussels, where they were received with ten times more delight than if they had come back from an expedition which had been undertaken for the benefit of humanity.

What was called _peace_ now followed, and Jacques de Lelaing, having fleshed his maiden sword, and gained the praise of brave men, and the love of fair women, resolved to commence a series of provincial excursions for his own especial benefit. As, in modern times, professors without scholars, and actors without engagements, wander from town to town, and give lectures at “the King’s Arms,” so Jacques de Lelaing went forth upon his way, offering to fight all comers, in presence of kings themselves.

His first appearance on this provincial tour was at Nancy, in 1445, where a brilliant French Court was holding joyous festival while awaiting the coming of Suffolk, who was commissioned to escort to England a royal bride, in the person of Margaret of Anjou. The French knights made light of the soldier of Burgundy; but Jacques, when announcing that he was the holder of the tournament, added that no French knight should unhorse him, unless God and his good lady decreed otherwise.

The latter was not likely, and he felt himself secure, doubly so, for he rode into the lists decorated with favors, gold embroidery, and rich jewels, the gifts of the Duchesses of Orleans and Calabria, each of whom fondly believed that she was the sole fair one by whose bright eyes Jacques de Lelaing swore his prettiest oath. Accordingly, there was not a cavalier who rode against him in that passage of arms, who left the field otherwise than with broken or bruised bones. “What manner of man will this be?” cried they, “if, even as a lad, he lays on so lustily?”

The lad, at the subsequent banquet, to which he was borne in triumph, again proved that he had the capacity of a man. He was fresh as a rose just blown; gay as a lark in early spring. The queens of France and Sicily conversed with him by the half hour, while ladies of lower degree gazed at him till they sighed; and sighed, knowing full well _why_, and caring very much, wherefore. Charles VII. too, treated him with especial distinction, and conferred on him the rich prizes he had won as victor in the rough tourney of the day. But there were other guerdons awarded him that night, which he more highly prized. Jacques visited the Duchess of Orleans in her bower, and carried away with him, on leaving, the richest diamond she had to bestow. He then passed to the pavilion of the Duchess of Calabria, a lady who, among other gifts willingly made by her, placed upon his finger a brilliant ruby set in a gorgeous gold ring. He went to his own bed that night as impudently happy as a modern Lifeguardsman who is successfully fooling two ladies’ maids. His _cleric_ had left him, and Jacques had ceased to care for the keeping-up of his Latin, except, perhaps, the conjugation of the imperative mood of _amo_. “Amemus,” _let us love_, was the favorite part of the mood, and the most frequently repeated by him and his brace of duchesses.

Sometime after this very successful first appearance, and toward the end of 1445, our doughty squire was traversing the cathedral of Notre Dame of Antwerp, and was on the point of cursing the singers for their bad voices, just as one might be almost justified in doing now, so execrable are they; he was there and thus engaged, when a Sicilian knight, named Bonifazio, came jingling his spurs along the transept, and looking jauntingly and impertinently as he passed by. Jacques looked boldly at this “pretty fellow” of the time, and remarked that he wore a golden fetter ring on his left leg, held up by a chain of the same metal fastened to a circlet above his knee. His shield bore the device, “Who has fair lady, let him look to her well!” “It’s an impertinent device,” said Jacques, touching the shield, by way of token that he would fight the bearer for carrying it. “Thou art but a poor squire, albeit a bold man,” said the Sicilian, with the air of one who was half inclined to chastise the Hainaulter for his insolence. Toison d’Or, the herald, whispered in the ear of the Hainaulter; thereupon, Jacques exclaimed, “If my master, Duke Philip, will give me permission to fight, thou darest not deny me, on his Grace’s territory.” Bonifazio bowed by way of assent. The permission was gained, and the encounter came off at Ghent. The first day’s combat was a species of preliminary struggle on horseback, in which Jacques showed himself so worthy of the spurs he did not yet wear, that Philip fastened them to his heels the next day, and dubbed him Knight in solemn form. As the combatants strode into the lists, on the second day, the Duke of Orleans remarked to his Duchess, that Jacques was not so “gent as the Sicilian.” The Duchess smiled, as Guinever smiled when she looked on Sir Launcelot, while her husband, King Arthur, commented upon him; and she said, in phrase known to all who read Spenser, “he loves a lady gent;” and she added, with more of the smile and less of the blush, “he is a better man than the Sicilian, and, to my thinking, he will this day prove it.”

“We shall see,” remarked the Duke carelessly.

“We shall see,” re-echoed the Duchess, with the sunniest of smiles.

Jacques, like the chivalric “gent” that he was, did honor to the testimony of the Duchess. The combatants went at it, like stout men. Jacques belabored his antagonist with a staff, the Sicilian answered by thrusting a javelin at his adversary’s uncovered face. They then flung away their arms and their shields, and hewed at each other with their battle-axes. Having spoiled the edges of these, and loosened them from their handles, by battering at each other’s skulls, they finally drew their lusty and well-tempered swords, and fought so fiercely that the gleaming of their swiftly manœuvred blades made them seem as if they were smiting each other with lightning. Jacques had well-nigh dealt a mortal thrust at the Sicilian, when, at the intervention of the Duke of Orleans, Philip the Good flung his truncheon into the lists, and so saved the foreign knight, by ending the fray. The Duchess reproved her consort for being over-intrusive, but she smiled more gleesomely than before. “Whither away, Sir Jacques?” asked she, as the latter modestly bowed on passing her--the multitude the while rending the welkin with their approving shout. “To the chapel in the wood,” replied Jacques, “to render thanks for the aid vouchsafed to me by our Lady.” “Marry,” murmured the Duchess, “we will be there too.” She thought it not less edifying to see knight at his devotions than at beholding him in the duello. “I am grateful to the Lady of Good Succor,” said Jacques. “And thou doest right loyally,” was the comment of the Duchess.

The victory of the Belgian cavalier over the Sicilian gained for him the distinctive name which he never lost, that of “the Good Knight.” To maintain it, he proceeded to travel from court to court, as pugilists itinerate it from fair to fair, to exhibit prowess and to gather praise. The minor pugilist looks to pence as well as praise, and the ancient knight had an eye to profit also--he invariably carried off the horse, armor, and jewels of the vanquished. As Sir Jacques deemed himself invincible, he looked to the realization of a lucrative tour. “Go on thy way, with God’s blessing,” exclaimed his sire. “Go on thy way, Jacques,” murmured his mother through her tears; “thou wilt find ointment in thy valise, to cure all bruises. Heaven send thee a surgeon, and thou break thy bones.”

Across the French frontier merrily rode Sir Jacques, followed by his squire, and attended by his page. From his left arm hung a splendidly-wrought helmet, by a chain of gold--the prize offered by him to any one who could overcome him in single combat. Jacques announced that, in addition, he would give a diamond to any lady or demoiselle indicated to him by his conqueror. He stipulated that whichever combatant first dropped his axe, he should bestow a bracelet upon his adversary; and Jacques would only fight upon the condition that neither knight should be fastened in his saddle--a regulation which I should never think of seeing insisted upon anywhere, except by equestrian aldermen when they amble on Mr. Batty’s horses, to meet the Sovereign at Temple Bar. For the rest Jacques put his trust in God, and relied upon the strength given him in the love of “the fair lady who had more power over him than aught besides throughout the entire world.” A hundred ladies fair, matrons and maids, who heard of this well-advertised confidence, did not hesitate to exclaim, “Delicious fellow! He means _me_!”