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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

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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

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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

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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 be 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 ferewarn 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

[figure description] Page 029.[end figure description]

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

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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

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

Was it her rich brown tresses where the golden sun-beams
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,


“From the crown to the toe, top-full
Of direst cruelty.”

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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 peculiarities 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 nunlike
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

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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

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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

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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

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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,

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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,

[figure description] Page 038.[end figure description]

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.


“Each look, each motion waked a newborn grace.”
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

[figure description] Page 039.[end figure description]

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

[figure description] Page 040.[end figure description]

conformed to his edict, 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

[figure description] Page 041.[end figure description]

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 sanctuary! 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

[figure description] Page 042.[end figure description]

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

[figure description] Page 043.[end figure description]

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

[figure description] Page 044.[end figure description]

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. Preceed,
daughter.”

“Then, father, hear me, and I call God to witness
that what we purpose for this girl is, as I am 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 dark-eyed
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

[figure description] Page 045.[end figure description]

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

[figure description] Page 046.[end figure description]

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

[figure description] Page 047.[end figure description]

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
rocesses 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.”

[figure description] Page 048.[end figure description]

“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

[figure description] Page 049.[end figure description]

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 caliph flashed upon her, it seemed to promise
a compromise with her conscience. Blanche might be
exalted from her lowly dépendence 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 masterpassion
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

[figure description] Page 050.[end figure description]

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

[figure description] Page 051.[end figure description]

her confessor's indulgence was commensurate 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

[figure description] Page 052.[end figure description]

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

[figure description] Page 053.[end figure description]

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

[figure description] Page 054.[end figure description]

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

[figure description] Page 055.[end figure description]

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!”