Part 4

When the three victorious knights returned safe and sound to Valencia, and made known there the result of the combat, the joy of the Cid was beyond all bounds, and as for Doña Ximena, and Elvira, and Sol, they would fain have kissed the feet of their valiant defenders. There was rejoicing in the city for eight days, and banquets were held every day, the silver dishes being filled with the flesh of many extraordinary animals, which were cooked in Spain for the first time, having been sent to the Cid with a number of rare and beautiful presents from the Soldan, or Sultan of Persia. The Soldan paid great court to Ruy Diaz, and made known to him how a vast army of Christians had come out to the East and lay before Jerusalem, hoping to conquer that city from the Saracens; and that was the first crusade which had been preached by Peter the Hermit, when William Rufus was reigning in England.

The Cid remained in peace at Valencia for five years, and kept the Moors so quiet that they no longer molested the Christians, but lived with them on friendly terms. At the end of this time news came suddenly that Bucar had stirred up all the chiefs in Barbary to cross the sea in revenge for the victory that Ruy Diaz had gained over him in the field of Quarto.

The Cid sent the Moors who dwelt in the city to the suburb of Alcudia, where he thought they had better remain until the affair was ended. His strength was failing fast; and one night, as he lay wakeful on his bed, his chamber was filled with a strange brightness and fragrance, and he had another wonderful vision, in which Saint Peter appeared to him, aged and white as snow, with a bunch of keys in his hand, and told him now to mind other things besides the coming of Bucar, for that in thirty days he should die, and yet by the help of Saint James he should conquer his foes after he was dead. When the vision disappeared the Cid was lost in wonder, but he felt greatly comforted; and early in the morning he called the hidalgos around him and told them what he had seen, and how they should conquer the Moors. The last day that he was able to rise from his bed he ordered the city gates to be shut, and repaired to the church of Saint Peter, where he spoke long and earnestly to the people assembled there, reminding them that, however great and honourable their estate in life might be, not one of them could escape death. Then he took leave of them all, and confessed his sins at the feet of Bishop Hieronymo. From that time until his death, seven days afterwards, he took no nourishment except a little myrrh and balsam stirred in rose water, such as was used to embalm the dead bodies of kings in the East, and had been sent among the gifts of the Soldan in a casket of gold. He bequeathed great riches to his knights, leaving a thousand marks of silver to those who had only served him one year, and he ordered four thousand poor persons to be clothed at his expense. On Sunday, the 25th of May, 1099, the Cid died, in the seventy-third year of his age. These were his dying words: "Lord Jesus Christ, Thine is the kingdom; Thou art above all kings and all nations, and all kings are at Thy command. I beseech Thee to pardon my sins, and let my soul enter the light that hath no end."

Three days after his death King Bucar came, and with him thirty-six kings or chiefs. It is said that fifteen thousand tents were pitched around Valencia. As all was quiet inside the city, the Africans thought that their enemy dared not come out against them.

Meanwhile the body of the Cid had been embalmed and fixed in a wooden frame upright upon Bavieca, and the frame being painted to represent armour, it looked really as if he were alive. A mournful procession went out at midnight from the gate towards Castille. First the banner of the Cid was carried, guarded by five hundred knights; then came one hundred more, around the body of their lord; and lastly, Ximena followed sorrowfully with all her company, and three hundred knights in the rear. By the time they had all passed out the summer night was spent, and it was broad daylight.

Alvar Funez now fell upon the Moors with the forces that remained in Valencia; and so great was the terror and uproar he caused that they fled towards the sea, leaving their riches for the spoils of the Christians. The Moors who had retired to the suburb saw the procession pass, and thought that their lord had gone forth alive. But when they entered the city from whence all the Spanish knights had gone, they marvelled at the strange silence in the streets, until they saw written on the walls in Arabic that the Cid Campeador was dead. From that day Valencia remained in the power of the Moors until it was won by King Jayme of Arragon, in the year 1238; but the city was always known by the name of "Valencia of the Cid."

The body of Ruy Diaz was placed in his ivory chair at the right of the altar of Saint Peter in the church of Cardeña. It was clothed in purple cloth which had been given to him by the Soldan, and remained thus more than ten years. When that time had passed it was buried in a vault beside the grave of Doña Ximena, who only survived him three years. And Bavieca, his favourite horse, was buried not far from his master, under some trees in front of the convent of Saint Peter of Cardeña.

FOOTNOTES:

[7] Like the Alhambra court in the Crystal Palace.

[8] _Sol_, Spanish for sun.

[9] _Tablas_, in the Spanish tables, probably the game of draughts.

[10] See Southey's "Chronicle."

LOUIS IX., KING OF FRANCE.

The good king Louis the Ninth, commonly called St. Louis, because he led so holy a life, was born at Poissy, in the year 1215, whilst his grandfather, Philip Augustus, was still on the throne of France. Poissy was a beautiful place, just as Fontainebleau is now, where the kings of France used to go and hunt, and enjoy the sweet fresh air; and the queens passed many happy days with their little children, away from the cares and the splendour of the court.

Louis was always of a meek and gentle disposition, truthful and upright. His mother, Blanche of Castille, watched over him tenderly herself, and took care to place around him as early as possible the holiest and most learned men in France, in the hope that through their influence he might grow up to be a good king. Blanche was a woman of great piety, and she was very clever and beautiful besides; she had many children, but although Louis was always her favourite amongst them all, she did not indulge him either in luxury or pleasure, and used often to say to him, "My son, I love you more than I can tell; yet I would rather see you lying dead at my feet than know you were guilty of a mortal sin."

Louis did indeed try earnestly to be good, and to remember the words of his mother; he was obedient to his instructors, and is said to have understood Latin well, and to have been versed in the works of the fathers of the Church, and in the history of the kings who reigned before him; and that was knowing a great deal, for the times he lived in were called "the dark ages," because so very little was learnt or known, especially in Europe. His amusements were hunting and fishing, and playing at chess, but he did not care for these as he cared for the services of the church, attending them daily with his little brothers, and loving the holy chants and hymns he heard there more than any songs of merriment.

Louis was only eleven years old when his father, King Louis the Eighth, died, after a reign of less than four years. He had then four brothers younger than himself--Robert, John, Alphonse, and Charles; and one little sister named Isabel. As he was so very young, his mother, Queen Blanche, governed his kingdom for him, and she had many troubles to contend with, on account of the quarrels and revolts of some of the most powerful nobles in the land. Several of these refused to attend the coronation of Louis, which took place at Rheims, after he had been knighted, according to the custom of the time, at Soissons. The ceremony was very solemn; Queen Blanche would not let it be made an occasion of rejoicing, because her heart was so full of sorrow for the death of her husband; and the day after she took Louis to Paris, and began at once to think what would be the best measures for securing his safety and the welfare of the country.

It was at the siege of Bellesme that Louis gained his first experience in war, when he was only twelve years of age. The Count de Bretagne, foremost of the rebellious nobles, had invaded the territory of the king, and was causing great misery to the country people by laying waste their land and destroying their villages. To chastise him, and bring him to obedience, Queen Blanche set off in the depth of winter with her son Louis and only a few followers, to lay siege to the Castle of Bellesme, where the count had first set up his standard of rebellion.

The snow lay deep on the ground, and icicles hung from the trees along the road-side: the cold was intense, and the march was difficult in the short winter days, but little Louis was as brave as he was gentle, and cared nothing for the cold and discomfort, nor did he tremble the least at the idea of the coming affray; his mother had taught him to endure manfully hardships and pain and fatigue, and to trust in God, whatever danger was at hand.

The Castle of Bellesme exists no longer; its ruins have long crumbled away: in those days it was a strong fortress, surrounded by thick walls flanked with towers. The Count of Bretagne was inside the castle with all the bravest of his men, and the queen's party made two assaults upon it in vain. The cold had numbed the energies of the knights and the soldiers in the camp, and they were very nearly frozen to death. Queen Blanche then published a decree which promised large rewards to all persons who should cut down the trees in the forests around, and bring the wood to the camp. The peasants were soon seen joyfully bringing the wood on their shoulders and in carts: enormous fires were kindled, and the warmth so quickly restored the spirits of the besiegers, that before two days had passed, the greater part of the fortification was thrown down, and the haughty Count de Bretagne, seeing no hope of succour, was obliged to surrender. Queen Blanche and her little son treated the garrison with great kindness when they came out; and a treaty was soon after made, by which it was agreed that Louis's brother John should marry, when he grew up, the daughter of the Count de Bretagne.

Whilst Louis was growing out of childhood, and striving day by day to become more holy in the sight of God, the rebellions of the nobles were continually breaking out afresh, and had to be put down by force of arms, or the crown would have lost much of its power. This chapter, however, is not to be a record of all the disturbances that occurred in France during the early part of the good king's reign, but rather a description of the events which brought to light most strikingly his piety, his courage, and his patience.

In the year 1233 Louis was persuaded by his mother to bestow his hand on Marguerite, daughter of Raymond Berenger, Count of Provence. Raymond had four daughters, and Marguerite was the most beautiful and talented of them all. Her sister Eleanor was married soon after to Henry the Third of England, and another sister, named Beatrice, to Louis's brother Charles, Count of Anjou.

The royal marriage was celebrated with great magnificence at Sens; and when Louis was twenty years of age he took the reins of government into his own hands: nevertheless Queen Blanche continued to influence him by her advice, and was obeyed by him until her death, on all occasions save one, as will be seen hereafter.

The peace of the country was not really established until the year 1239, when some of the quarrelsome nobles had gone on a crusade to the Holy Land. The enterprise did not succeed; the Christian army was entrapped and defeated by the Saracens, and Jerusalem became a possession of the Sultan of Egypt. The king was deeply grieved at the failure; he was always thinking of the miseries and oppressions the Christians were forced to endure in the East, and resolved to go and help them as soon as he could leave his country in prosperity. When the rumour of this was spread in Palestine, the sheik, or old man of the mountain, singled out the King of France for his victim, and despatched two of his assassins to Paris, thinking thus to put an end to all idea of a fresh crusade.

Having boasted, however, of his intended deed before some of the knights templars, he was told by them that if he put Louis to death, his brothers would certainly avenge the crime, and draw upon him the ill will of many nations besides France. The sheik now became as anxious to preserve the king's life as he had been to take it, and sent off in a great hurry two of his emirs to the court of France to warn Louis of his danger. The king received the intelligence calmly, and only instituted another company of guards, who were armed with maces of brass. But when the assassins could not be discovered, notwithstanding the marks by which the emirs declared they would be known, these men hastened to Marseilles, and luckily arrived there before the Arabs set foot on shore. When they had told them how the sheik had determined not to take the king's life, they conducted them to Paris, and all four were received with kindness by Louis, and went back to the East much impressed with the magnificence of the French court; for although the king loved neither luxury nor pleasure, his court was always kept up with dignity and splendour. The Sire de Joinville, who was twenty-two years in his company, tells us how, at a great festival held at Saumur, which was called a plenary court, the king wore a coat of blue samite, a species of satin, with overcoat and mantle of crimson samite, bordered with ermine, and strangely enough, a cotton cap on his head, which did not become him at all. His hair, which was fair, he wore short, according to the custom of the time. At this feast there were at least three thousand knights present, and so many robes of cloth of gold and of silk had never been seen before. King Louis, his brothers, and the King of Navarre sat at one table, Joinville himself carving for them; the queen mother and her ladies sat at another, and the archbishops and bishops at a third; and to guard the king's table stood three of the greatest barons in the land; and to guard them stood thirty knights, in garments of rich silken stuff; and these again had a retinue of the royal officers behind them.

During the whole time that the plenary courts were held, the king was obliged to dine in public, and it was an old custom, that before the dinner was ended, three heralds at arms, each with a rich cap in his hand, cried out three times, "Bounty of the most powerful King!" and then threw gold and silver to the people, so that the poor had their share of the rejoicing as well as the rich.

The king was seized with a dangerous illness at Pontoise in the year 1244. This was a very great sorrow for his people, since it was feared that he would die, and they joined in solemn processions all over the kingdom, and went to the churches to pray to the Almighty to restore him to health. Queen Blanche was the saddest of all, and passed her time between the sick chamber of her son, and the foot of the altar, where she knelt for hours in silent prayer.

When Louis felt that he was getting weaker, he sent for all the members of his household, and thanked them for their services; after which he recommended them to serve God with earnest and faithful hearts. Then he sank into a lethargy, which those who were watching by his bedside at first mistook for death. The lethargy lasted several days, and then the king gave signs of returning life. The first words he spoke after opening his eyes were these:--"By the grace of God the light of the East has shone upon me from the height of heaven, and recalled me from the dead." He summoned the Bishop of Paris to his presence, and required him to affix the cross to his shoulder, as a sign that he bound himself to go on the crusade.

The sorrow which had been forgotten when the king gave signs of recovery, now broke out afresh. The two queens, Blanche and Marguerite, threw themselves on their knees, and implored him with many tears not to go on the crusade; even the bishops, who stood by, tried to persuade him not to engage in so difficult an enterprise, but all in vain. Louis would take no nourishment until the cross was really fastened to his shoulder; and his people heard of the vow he had taken in gloom and regret, for they thought if he once set sail for the Holy Land, they would never see him again.

The king did not really recover until several months had passed, and then he wrote to the Christians in the East to tell them that he was coming to their aid. But it was a long time yet before he was able to set out, because he loved his people very dearly, and wanted to provide everything for their comfort and happiness during his absence, when his mother, Queen Blanche, was to rule over them in his stead. He persuaded the most turbulent of the nobles to go with him on the crusade, and when the best measures had been taken for securing the peace of the kingdom, he made known that he was ready to redress every injury he had offered, it being the custom then for all good crusaders to make their peace with God and man before they embarked in their enterprise.

Louis then went with his brothers, Robert of Artois and Charles of Anjou, to the church of Saint Denis to receive his pilgrim's scrip and staff, and the oriflamme, or sacred banner of Saint Denis. This was a banner of flame-coloured silk, which was always carried before the French armies on solemn occasions for the encouragement of the soldiers. The king, having requested all holy persons to pray that his undertaking might prove successful, came back to Paris, and heard mass at the great church of Notre Dame, and then went out of the city he was not to behold again for so long, followed by the clergy, the nobles, and multitudes of the common people.

The crimson and the samite, the gold-embroidered garments with the ermines, were now laid aside for a plain grey robe trimmed with grey and white fur. The trappings of the king's horses were no longer adorned with gold, but the steel of their harness was polished until it shone like silver. Louis computed before he left France how much his former luxuries had cost him yearly, and then caused the amount to be regularly distributed to the poor.

At Cluny, Queen Blanche bade her son a long sad farewell: it was the first time he had ever thwarted her wishes by refusing to give up the crusade, when she urged that a vow made in a time of extreme weakness was not binding. His young wife could not bring herself to part with him, and declared she would follow him to the end of the world.

When all was ready, the king, with his brothers Robert and Charles, Queen Marguerite, and the young Countess of Anjou, and a vast number of crusaders of all nations, embarked at Aigues-Mortes, a port on the Mediterranean, which had been constructed for the occasion. They took the direction of Cyprus, and the winds being favourable, all the vessels except one, which was unhappily shipwrecked, reached the island in safety. Here the crusaders remained during the winter. For two years before they arrived, the king's people had been bringing wine and various provisions for the army from the most fertile countries of Europe, and had laid up their store in the island. The tubs of wine they had piled one upon the other, until they looked like great barns; and the wheat and the barley lay in heaps in the fields, green on the outside, where the warm rains falling softly upon them had made them sprout. The crusaders found an abundant supply of food in Cyprus, without having recourse to their stores, and when in the spring they wanted to set out for Egypt, they took off the outer covering of the heaps, and saw the wheat and the barley beneath, as fresh as if it had just been cut.

The departure from the island was fixed for Ascension Day in the year 1249. The crusaders embarked towards evening at the port called Limesson, where they had landed. The vessels large and small amounted to 1,650, and were thronged with a vast assembly of people of all callings and nations, 2,800 of them being knights. The next day the king sent a sealed packet into every vessel, with orders for it to remain unopened until the fleet had set sail; the purport of this was that they should proceed direct to Damietta. The wind, however, blew against them, and forced them to return to the port; and when they had got out to sea again a few days after, a violent tempest arose from the side of Egypt, and scattered all the vessels. Louis himself was obliged to go back to the port of Limesson, and found on arriving there that his fleet was diminished by one hundred and twenty vessels, and that the number of knights was reduced to seven hundred! But he would not suffer the followers who remained to him to be cast down, and on Trinity Sunday they set sail once more, and although in continual dread of another storm, they went on their way safely, until a sailor who knew the coasts of Egypt, and served as a guide, warned them that they were before Damietta, the great stronghold of the Saracens in Egypt. All the other vessels now crowded around the one which bore the king, who stood up among his people calm and trustful, encouraging them to persevere for the love of God, and not to flinch in the moment of danger.

Saleh, the Sultan, was at some distance from Damietta; he was supposed to be dying, and had confided the care of his army to the emir Facardin. The Saracens had seen the sea covered with masts and sails by seven o'clock in the morning, and had rung the bell of their great mosque to spread the alarm in the city: the Christians heard the sound across the sea in the clear summer air. Facardin ordered four Corsair vessels to approach the fleet, but three of these ventured too near, and were overwhelmed by showers of stones from the larger vessels. The fourth went back to convey the tidings that the King of France had come with a number of foreign princes.

At mid-day the fleet of the Christians cast anchor in the roads of Damietta. The port was full of men-of-war, and the flat country of Egypt was covered with rich tents, whilst crowds of people on foot and on horse stood along the shore, sounding their twisted horns, and their great cymbals, two of which were a sufficient load for an elephant; and making, as the Sire de Joinville affirms, "a sound horrible to be heard!"

A council was held on board the king's vessel, at which it was resolved to land the next day, although only a portion of the fleet had as yet arrived in the roads; but Louis thought that delay would inspire fear, and perhaps afford the Saracens the opportunity of destroying his army by degrees. So when it got dark, the crusaders lighted a great number of torches, and kept watch all night; and they confessed their sins one to another, and prayed for those they loved, and had left behind in Europe; and as many as had quarrelled made friends, that they might be ready for death, if it should meet them in the struggle on the morrow.

At daybreak they lifted anchor, and sailed for the island of Giza, which was joined to Damietta by a bridge of boats across the river Nile. The king commanded his people to get down into the flat boats they had brought with them, because the large vessels could not approach the shore: the boat Joinville was in soon distanced the one which bore the Oriflamme, and was first to gain the land.