almost as ancient as the times in which the first thistle was nibbled
at by the primitive wild-ass. Very little, however, is known upon the
subject, and that little is not worth repeating. The earliest certain
knowledge dates from Robert II., whose coins bore the impress of St.
Andrew and his cross. James III. is the first monarch who is known to
have worn the thistle, as his badge. There is no evidence of these
emblems being connected with knighthood until the reign of James V. The
Reformers, subsequently, suppressed the chivalric order, as popish, and
it was not till the reign of James II. of England that the thistle and
chivalry again bloomed together. The order is accessible only to peers.
A commoner may have conferred more honor and service on his country
than all the Scottish peers put together, but no amount of merit could
procure him admission into the Order of the Thistle. Nevertheless three
commoners _did_ once belong to it; but their peculiar merit was that
they were heirs presumptive to dukedoms.
Ireland was left without an order until the year 1783, when George III.
good-naturedly established that of St. Patrick, to the great delight
of many who desired to be knights, and to the infinite disgust of all
who were disappointed. Except in name and local circumstances there is
nothing that distinguishes it from other orders.
I must not conclude this section without remarking, that shortly after
the sovereignty of Malta and the Ionian Isles was ceded to Great
Britain, the Order of St. Michael was instituted in 1818, for the
Purpose of having what Walpole calls “a fund of ribands,” to reward
those native gentlemen who had deserved or desired favors, if not
places.
The Order of the Guelphs was founded by the Prince Regent in 1815.
George III. had designed such an order for the most distinguished of
his Hanoverian subjects. Down to the period of the accession of Queen
Victoria, however, the order was conferred on a greater number of
Englishmen than of natives of Hanover. Since the latter Kingdom has
passed under the rule of the male heir of the line of Brunswick, the
order of Guelph has become a foreign order. Licenses to accept this
or any other foreign order does not authorize the assumption of any
style, appellation, rank, precedence, or privilege appertaining unto
a knight-bachelor of these realms. Such is the law as laid down by
a decision of Lord Ellenborough, and which does not agree with the
judgment of Coke.
The history of foreign orders would occupy too much of my space; but
there is something so amusing in the history of an order of knights
called “Knights of the Holy Ampoule,” that a few words on the subject
may not be unacceptable to such readers as are unacquainted with the
ephemeral cavaliers in question.
THE KNIGHTS OF THE “SAINTE AMPOULE.”
“Mais ce sont des chevaliers pour rire.”--_Le Sage._
There have been knights who, like “special constables,” have been
created merely “for the nonce;” and who have been as ephemeral as the
shortlived flies so called. This was especially the case with the
Knights of the Holy “Ampoule,” or anointing oil, used at the coronation
of the kings of France.
This oil was said to have been brought to St. Remy (Remigius) by a
dove, from Heaven, and to have been placed by the great converter
of Clovis, in his own tomb, where it was found, by a miraculous
process. St. Remy himself never alluded either to the oil or the story
connected with it. Four centuries after the saint’s death the matter
was first spoken--nay, the oil was boldly distilled, by Hinckmar,
Archbishop of Rheims. This archi-episcopal biographer of St. Remy has
inserted wonders in the saint’s life, which staggered, while they
amused, the readers who were able to peruse his work by fireside, in
castle-hall, or convert refectory. I can only allude to one of these
wonders--namely, the “Sainte Ampoule.” Hinckmar actually asserted that
when St. Remy was about to consecrate with oil, the humble King Clovis,
at his coronation, a dove descended from Heaven, and placed in his
hands a small vial of holy oil. Hinckmar defied any man to prove the
contrary. As he further declared that the vial of oil was still to be
found in the saint’s sepulchre, and as it was so found, accordingly,
Hinckmar was allowed to have proved his case. Thenceforward, the
chevaliers of the St. Ampoule were created, for a day--that of the
crowning of the sovereign. They had charge of the vial, delivered it to
the archbishop, and saw it restored to its repository; and therewith,
the coronation and their knightly character concluded together. From
that time, down to the period of Louis XVI., the knights and the vial
formed the most distinguished portion of the coronation procession and
doings at the crowning of the kings of France.
Then ensued the Revolution; and as that mighty engine never touched
anything without smashing it, you may be sure that the vial of St. Remy
hardly escaped destruction.
On the 6th of October, 1793, Citizen Rhull entered the modest apartment
of Philippe Hourelle, _chief marguillier_ of the Cathedral of Rheims,
and without ceremony demanded that surrender should be made to him of
the old glass-bottle of the _ci-devant_ Remy. Philippe’s wig raised
itself with horror; but as Citizen Rhull told him that it would be as
easy to lift his head from his shoulders as his wig from his head, if
he did not obey, the _marguillier_ stammered out an assertion that the
reliquary was in the keeping of the curé, M. Seraine, to whom he would
make instant application.
“Bring pomatum and all,” said Citizen Rhull, who thus profanely
misnamed the sacred balm or thickened oil, which had anointed the head
and loins of so many kings from Charles the Bald, downward.
“May I ask,” said Philippe, timidly, “what you will do therewith?”
“Grease _your_ neck, that the knife may slip the easier through it,
unless you bring it within a decade of minutes.”
“Too much honor by half,” exclaimed Philippe. “I will slip to the curé
as rapidly as if I slid the whole way on the precious ointment itself.
Meanwhile, here is a bottle of Burgundy--”
“Which I shall have finished within the time specified. So, despatch;
and let us have t’other bottle, too!”
When Philippe Hourelle had communicated the request to the curé,
Monsieur Seraine, with a quickness of thought that did justice to his
imagination, exclaimed, “We will take the rogues in, and give them
a false article for the real one.” But the time was so short; there
was no second ancient-looking vial at hand; there was not a pinch of
pomatum, nor a spoonful of oil in the house, and the curé confessed,
with a sigh, that the genuine relic must needs be surrendered. “But
we can save some of it!” cried M. Seraine; “here is the vial, give me
the consecrating spoon.” And with the handle of the spoon, having
extracted some small portions, which the curé subsequently wrapped up
carefully, and rather illegibly labelled, the vial was delivered to
Philippe, who surrendered it to Citizen Rhull, who carried the same
to the front of the finest cathedral in France, and at the foot of
the statue of Louis XV. Citizen Rhull solemnly hammered the vial into
powder, and, in the name of the Republic, trod the precious ointment
underfoot till it was not to be distinguished from the mud with which
it was mingled.
“And so do we put an end to princes and pomatum,” cried he.
Philippe coughed evasively; smiled as if he was of the same way of
thinking with the republican, and exclaimed, very mentally indeed,
“Vivent les princes et la pommade.” Neither, he felt assured, was
irrevocably destroyed.
The time, indeed, did come round again for princes, and Napoleon was
to be crowned at Notre Dame. He cared little as to what had become of
the Heaven-descended ointment, and he might have anointed, as well as
crowned, himself. There were some dozen gentlemen who hoped that excuse
might be discovered for creating the usual order of the Knights of the
Ampoule; but the Emperor did not care a fig for knights or ointment,
and, to the horror of all who hoped to be chevaliers, the imperial
coronation was celebrated without either. But then Napoleon was
discrowned, as was to be expected from such profanity; and therewith
returned the Bourbons, who, having forgotten nothing, bethought
themselves of the Saint Ampoule. Monsieur de Chevrières, magistrate at
Rheims, set about the double work of discovery and recovery. For some
time he was unsuccessful. At length, early in 1819, the three sons
of the late Philippe Hourelle waited on him. They made oath that not
only were they aware of a portion of the sacred ointment having been
in the keeping of their late father, but that his widow succeeded the
inheritance, and that she reckoned it as among her choicest treasures.
“She has nothing to do but to make it over to me,” said Monsieur
Chevrières; “she will be accounted of in history as the mother of the
knights of the Ampoule of the Restoration.”
“It is vexatious,” said the eldest son, “but the treasure has been
lost. At the time of the invasion, our house was plundered, and the
relic was the first thing the enemy laid his hands on.”
The disappointment that ensued was only temporary. A judge named
Lecomte soon appeared, who made oath that he had in his keeping a
certain portion of what had at first been consigned to the widow
Hourelle. The portion was so small that it required an eye of faith,
very acute and ready indeed, to discern it. The authorities looked
upon the relic, and thought if Louis XVIII. could not be crowned till
a sufficient quantity of the holy ointment was recovered wherewith to
anoint him, the coronation was not likely to be celebrated yet awhile.
Then arose a crowd of priests, monks, and ex-monks, all of whom
declared that the curé, M. Seraine, had imparted to them the secret of
his having preserved a portion of the dried anointing oil, but they
were unable to say where he had deposited it. Some months of hesitation
ensued, when, in summer, M. Bouré, a priest of Berry-au-Bac, came
forward and proclaimed that he was the depositary of the long-lost
relic, and that he had preserved it in a portion of the winding-sheet
of St. Remy himself. A week later M. Champagne Provotian appeared, and
made deposition to the following effect: He was standing near Rhull
when the latter, in October, 1793, destroyed the vial which had been
brought from Heaven by a dove, at the foot of the statue of Louis XV.
When the republican struck the vial, some fragments of the glass flew
on to the coat-sleeve of the said M. Champagne. These he dexterously
preserved, took home with him, and now produced in court.
A commission examined the various relics, and the fragments of glass.
The whole was pronounced genuine, and the chairman thought that by
process of putting “that and that together,” there was enough of
legend, vial, and ointment to legitimately anoint and satisfy any
Christian king.
“There is nothing now to obstruct your majesty’s coronation,” said
his varlet to him one morning, after having spent three hours in a
service for which he hoped to be appointed one of the knights of the
Sainte Ampoule; “there is now absolutely nothing to prevent that august
ceremony.”
“Allons donc!” said Louis XVIII. with that laugh of incredulity, that
shrug of the shoulders, and that good-humored impatience at legends and
absurdities, which made the priests speak of him as an infidel.
“What shall be done with the ointment?” said the knight-expectant.
“Lock it up in the vestry cupboard, and say no more about it.” And
this was done with some ceremony and a feeling of disappointment. The
gathered relics, placed in a silver reliquary lined with white silk,
and enclosed in a metal case under three locks, were deposited within
the tomb of St. Remy. There it remained till Charles X. was solemnly
crowned in 1825. In that year, positively for the last time, the
knights of the Sainte Ampoule were solemnly created, and did their
office. As soon as Charles entered the choir, he knelt in the front
of the altar. On rising, he was led into the centre of the sanctuary,
where a throned chair received his august person. A splendid group
half-encircled him; and then approached the knights of the Sainte
Ampoule in grand procession, bearing all that was left of what the
sacred dove did or did not bring to St. Remy, for the anointing of
Clovis. Not less than three prelates, an archbishop and two bishops,
received the ointment from the hands of the knights, and carried it to
the high altar. Their excellencies and eminences may be said to have
performed their office with unction, but the people laughed alike at
the knights, the pomatum, and the ceremony, all of which combined could
not endow Charles X. with sense enough to keep his place. The knights
of the Sainte Ampoule may be said now to have lost their occupation for
ever.
Of all the memorabilia of Rheims, the good people there dwelt upon none
more strongly than the old and splendid procession of these knights of
the Sainte Ampoule. The coronation cortège seemed only a subordinate
point of the proceedings; and the magnificent canopy, upheld by the
knights over the vial, on its way from the abbey of St. Remy to the
cathedral, excited as much attention as the king’s crown.
The proceedings, however, were not always of a peaceable character.
The Grand Prior of St. Remy was always the bearer of the vial, in its
case or shrine. It hung from his neck by a golden chain, and he himself
was mounted on a white horse. On placing the vial in the hands of
the archbishop, the latter pledged himself by solemn oath to restore
it at the conclusion of the ceremony; and some half-dozen barons were
given as hostages by way of security. The procession back to the abbey,
through the gayly tapestried streets, was of equal splendor with that
to the cathedral.
The horse on which the Grand Prior was mounted was furnished by the
government, but the Prior claimed it as the property of the abbey
as soon as he returned thither. This claim was disputed by the
inhabitants of Chêne la Populeux, or as it is vulgarly called, “Chêne
la Pouilleux.” They founded their claim upon a privilege granted to
their ancestors. It appeared that in the olden time, the English had
taken Rheims, plundered the city, and rifled the tomb of St. Remy, from
which they carried off the Sainte Ampoule. The inhabitants of Chêne,
however, had fallen upon the invaders and recovered the inestimable
treasure. From that time, and in memory and acknowledgment of the deed,
they had enjoyed, as they said, the right to walk in the procession
with the knights of the Sainte Ampoule, and had been permitted to claim
the horse ridden by the Grand Prior. The Prior and his people called
these claimants scurvy knaves, and would by no means attach any credit
to the story. At the coronation of Louis XIII. they did not scruple to
support their claim by violence. They pulled the Prior from his horse,
terribly thrashed the monks who came to his assistance, tore the canopy
to pieces, thwacked the knights right lustily, and carried off the
steed in triumph. The respective parties immediately went to law, and
spent the value of a dozen steeds, in disputes about the possession
of a single horse. The contest was decided in favor of the religious
community; and the turbulent people of Chêne were compelled to lead
the quadruped back to the abbey stables. They renewed their old claim
subsequently, and again threatened violence, much to the delight of
the attorneys, who thought to make money by the dissension. At the
coronations of Louis XV. and Louis XVI. these sovereigns issued special
decrees, whereby the people of Chêne were prohibited from pretending to
any property in the horse, and from supporting any such pretensions by
acts of violence.
The history of foreign orders would require a volume as large as
Anstis’s; but though I can not include such a history among my
gossiping details, I may mention a few curious incidents connected with
THE ORDER OF THE HOLY GHOST.
There is a singular circumstance connected with this order. It was
founded by the last of the Valois, and went out with the last of the
Bourbons. Louis Philippe had a particular aversion for the orders
which were most cherished by the dynasty he so cleverly supplanted.
The Citizen King may be said to have put down both “St. Louis” and the
“Holy Ghost” cavaliers. He did not abolish the orders by decree; but
it was clearly understood that no one wearing the insignia would be
welcome at the Tuileries.
The Order of the Holy Ghost was instituted by Henri, out of gratitude
for two events, for which no other individual had cause to be grateful.
He was (when Duke of Anjou) elected King of Poland, on the day of
Pentecost, 1573, and on the same day in the following year he succeeded
to the crown of France. Hence the Order with its hundred members, and
the king as grand master.
St. Foix, in his voluminous history of the order, furnishes the
villanous royal founder with a tolerably good character. This is more
than any other historian has done; and it is not very satisfactorily
executed by this historian himself. He rests upon the principle that
the character of a king, or his disposition rather, may be judged
by his favorites. He then points to La Marck, Mangiron, Joyeuse,
D’Epernon, and others. Their reputations are not of the best, rather
of the very worst; but then St. Foix says that they were all admirable
swordsmen, and carried scars about them, in front, in proof of their
valor: he evidently thinks that the _bellica virtus_ is the same thing
as the other virtues.
On the original roll of knights there are names now more worthy of
being remembered. Louis de Gonzague, Duke de Nevers, was one of these.
On one occasion, he unhorsed the Huguenot Captain de Beaumont, who, as
he lay on the ground, fired a pistol and broke the ducal kneepan. The
Duke’s squire bent forward with his knife to despatch the Captain; the
Duke, however, told the latter to rise. “I wish,” said he, “that you
may have a tale to tell that is worth narrating. When you recount, at
your fireside, how you wounded the Duke de Nevers, be kind enough to
add that he gave you your life.” The Duke was a noble fellow. Would
that his generosity could have restored his kneepan! but he limped to
the end of his days.
But there was a nobler than he, in the person of the Baron d’Assier,
subsequently Count de Crussol and Duke d’Uzes. He was a Huguenot, and
I confess that I can not account for the fact of his being, at any
time of his life, a Knight of the Order of the Holy Ghost. Henri III.
was not likely to have conferred the insignia even on a pervert. His
name, however, is on the roll. He was brave, merciful, pious, and
scrupulously honest. When he captured Bergerai, he spared all who
had no arms in their hands, and finding the women locked up in the
churches, he induced them to return home, on promise of being protected
from all molestation. These poor creatures must have been marvellously
fair; and the baron’s eulogy on them reminds me of the expression of
the soldiers when they led Judith through the camp of Holofernes: “Who
could despise this people that have among them such women.”
The baron was not a little proud of his feat, and he thought that if
all the world talked of the continence of Scipio, he had a right to
claim some praise as the protector of female virtue. Accordingly, in
forwarding an account of the whole affair to the Duc de Montpensier,
he forwarded also a few samples of the ladies. “I have _only_ chosen
twenty of the handsomest of them,” he writes, “whom I have sent
you that you may judge if they were not very likely to tempt us to
reprisals; they will inform you that they have suffered not the least
dishonor.” By sending them to Montpensier’s quarters the ladies were
in great danger of incurring that from which the Baron had saved
them. But he winds up with a small lecture. He writes to the Duke:
“You are a devotee [!]; you have a ghostly father; your table is
always filled with monks; your hear two or three masses every day;
and you go frequently to confession. _I_ confess myself only to God.
I hear no masses. I have none but soldiers at my table. Honor is the
sole director of my conscience. It will never advise me to order
violence against woman, to put to death a defenceless enemy, or to
break a promise once given.” In this lecture, there was, in fact, a
double-handed blow. Two birds were killed with one stone. The Baron
censured, by implication, both the Duke and his religion. I was
reminded of him by reading a review in the “Guardian,” where the same
skilful method is applied to criticism. The reviewer’s subject was
Canon Wordsworth’s volume on Chevalier Bunsen’s “Hippolytus.” “The
canon’s book,” said the reviewer (I am quoting from memory), “reminds
us--and it must be a humiliation and degradation to an intelligent,
educated, and thoughtful man--of one of Dr. Cumming’s Exeter Hall
lectures.” Here the ultra high church critic stunned, with one blow,
the merely high-church priest and the no-church presbyterian.
There was generosity, at least, in another knight of this order,
Francis Goaffier, Lord of Crèvecœur. Catherine of Medicis announced to
him the appointment of his son to the command of a regiment of foot.
“Madame,” said the Knight of the Holy Ghost, “my son was beset, a night
or two ago, by five assassins; a Captain La Vergne drew in his defence,
and slew two of the assailants. The rest fled, disabled. If your
majesty will confer the regiment on one who deserves it, you will give
it to La Vergne.”--“Be it so,” said Catherine, “and your son shall not
be the less well provided for.”
One, at least, of the original knights of this order was famous for
his misfortunes; this was Charles de Hallewin, Lord of Piennes. He
had been in six-and-twenty sieges and battles, and never came out of
one unscathed. His domestic wounds were greater still. He had five
sons, and one daughter who was married. The whole of them, with his
son-in-law, were assassinated, or died accidentally, by violent deaths.
The old chevalier went down to his tomb heart-broken and heirless.
Le Roi, Lord of Chavigny, and who must not be mistaken for an ancestor
of that Le Roi who died at the Alma under the title of Marshal St.
Arnaud, is a good illustration of the blunt, honest knight. Charles IX.
once remarked to him that his mother, Catherine de Medicis, boasted
that there was not a man in France, with ten thousand livres a year,
at whose hearth she had not a spy in her pay. “I do not know,” said Le
Roi, “whether tyrants make spies, or spies tyrants. For my own part, I
see no use in them, except in war.”
For honesty of a still higher sort, commend me to Scipio de Fierques,
Lord of Lavagne. Catherine de Medicis offered to make this, her distant
relative, a marshal of France. “Good Heavens, Madame!” he exclaimed,
“the world would laugh at both of us. I am simply a brave gentleman,
and deserve _that_ reputation; but I should perhaps lose it, were you
to make a marshal of me.” The dignity is taken with less reluctance
in our days. It was this honest knight who was asked to procure the
appointment of queen’s chaplain for a person who, by way of bribe,
presented the gallant Scipio with two documents which would enable
him to win a lawsuit he was then carrying on against an obstinate
adversary. Scipio perused the documents, saw that they proved his
antagonist to be in the right, and immediately withdrew his opposition.
He left the candidate for the queen’s chaplaincy to accomplish the
object he had in view, in the best way he might.
There was wit, too, as might be expected, among these knights. John
Blosset, Baron de Torci, affords us an illustration. He had been
accused of holding correspondence with the enemy in Spain, and report
said that he was unworthy of the Order of the Holy Ghost. He proved
his innocence before a chapter of the order. At the end of the
investigation, he wittily applied two passages from the prayer-book of
the knights, by turning to the king, and saying, “Domine ne projicias
me a facie tuâ, et _spiritum sanctum tuum_ ne auferas a me.” “Lord,
cast me out from thy presence, and take not thy ‘Holy Spirit’ from me.”
And the king bade him keep it, while he laughed at the rather profane
wit of John Blosset.