hung down on his breast, shaking from side to side. The soldiers and
jailers greeted him and his escort with amusement.
“What have we here?”
“A philosopher citizen–an aristocrat citizen. In here, citizen, and
consider this same philosophy of yours!”
They thrust him into a cell several feet below the ground; the foul
damp of it hung close round walls and roof.
“The citizen is a little weak in the legs–he will have a little
business to transact in Paris; supper and a bed for the citizen.”
“Who is he?”
“Condorcet, citizen.”
“Ah, at last–manifestly for the guillotine–without a trial.”
“Without a trial, surely, citizen.”
The heavy door closed on him; the key turned; they went away and drank,
and in their drink forgot him.
For a while he lay face downwards on the cold mud floor; the rope had
been loosened from his hands; presently he shook them free and sat up.
The cell was half underground and almost entirely dark; the high-placed
window was heavily barred across and evidently looked out on some close
courtyard, for the light that came from it was pale and uncertain.
Condorcet rose, shuddering strongly; the damp of the place was bitter
and insistent, after the heat without the chill was horrible.
He staggered against the door and flung his weight against it.
“You! You!” he whispered. “You think you have me?–No, for I have one
friend left.”
He slipped down by the door and lay there, thinking.
Often had he wondered quite how the end might come, and speculated
how he would meet it; in these days a man would naturally consider
a violent death as possible, especially if he meddled with affairs
of government; but he had never considered that he would first be so
cruelly broken and humbled.
He regretted that he had fled when Robespierre proscribed him; far
better to have died then than like this.… But he closed his mind to the
past, over which he wrote that one word–failure.
The hard bright philosophy of Voltaire, scorning mystery, cynical of
any future state, was of little comfort now; his own book on the human
spirit seemed very shallow in the recollection; these things were for
life, not for death. Nothing helped now but courage. Just that one
quality that would bring him safely into the unknown, the harbour to
which he was now so swiftly bound.
He felt very weak and ill; he shivered continually, yet his blood was
burning with fever; he dragged himself into a sitting posture, put
his hand inside his miserable shirt and took from a cord round his
heart–his one friend. A little package containing a phial–poison,
bought in a cold dawn at a little druggist’s in Paris on that day when
he had left the city for ever.
“I have suffered enough,” he said. “Enough.”
But he put the package back, for he thought that they meant to bring
him food and a bed, and he would rather die on a bed, and he would
rather ease the horrible burning of his cracked throat by a draught of
water however stale and vile, before he composed himself to death.
But the time crept on and no one came; there was not a sound without;
it was obvious that they had forgotten him; the little light began to
fade into Condorcet’s endless night.
He rose to his full thin height and a huge disdain enveloped him; a
quiet silence fell on his soul; he knew that he would never speak
again; there was nothing left now that he could put into words.
He went to the wall under the window where the damp oozed in a thin
trickle and put his lips to it, moistening them.
A little longer he waited, but no one came; his disdain grew; his
disdain of all things as they were, as they must be, as they would
always be; disdain of the world that had seized him, crushed him,
reduced him with all that was fine and noble and far-reaching and
splendid in him, to this ugly sordid end.
He stooped and pulled up his stockings, fastening them as neatly as he
could under the straps of his breeches; then he moved back and tried
to see a star through the window; but darkness of masonry blocked his
view; there was no sky visible.
He opened the phial and drank.
“Some one bungled when the world was made,” he thought.
He lay down along the floor and closed his eyes; and presently he
spread his arms out in the form of a cross. And presently it grew
completely dark in the cell.
* * * * *
In the morning they remembered him and came to take him to Paris.
A terrible figure with a sealed face was lying on the damp prison
floor, and the people were spoiled of some sport.
THE BETROTHED OF PEDRO EL JUSTICAR
JEHANNE PLANTAGENET
“Joan, contracted to Pedro the Cruel, but died.”–_History of
England._
“Haro! Mettes moi une emplastre
Sus le coer, car, quant m’en souvient,
Cette souspirer me couvient
Tant sui plains de melancolie–
Elle mouret jone et jolie,
Environ de vingt et deux ans.”
_Jean Froissart._
I, Abbess of the Nunnery of St. Bertha, which lieth quietly among the
Surrey holmes, am much given to this art of writing, new to women. Sith
in my time I have written of dogs, hawks and forestry and tricked out
the same with broad and good emblazons of colour, to the glory of God
and England.
Now, on fair new parchments scented with the herbs which grow in
the convent garden I will write of Jehanne Plantagenet, who was the
daughter of our late Lord, Edward, King of England and France.
This King had eight sons and four daughters–Isabeau, Duchess of
Bedford; Mary, Duchess of Bretagne; Margaret, Countess of Pembroke,
and Jehanne, who died unmarried and whom I loved exceedingly.
She was even more goodly to look upon than her sisters and of a great
debonnair gentleness in her manners, tall with eyen gray as glass and
hair of a rippling gold.
She was very learned in her devotions and charitable to the poor,
having learnt these virtues from her mother, Philippa.
And she was able with her loom to form noble pictures of hunts and
jousts and saints in fair colours of blue and red and green, with
flowers on the grass and birds in the trees so that they were the
wonder of all who beheld them; and her brother, the Prince Johan, had
a saddle-cloth she had woven with his armories, Richmond, Lancastre,
Aquitaine and Lincoln, mingled with the Leopards of England, which was
the marvel of the Spanish Knights when he went with Edward of Wales
and Counciell into Spain to fight the Free Companies under the Sire Du
Guesclin for the sake of Don Pedro, called Justicar by his people.
It is about this time I would write; this Don Pedro was cast from his
throne by Don Enrique of Trastamare, his half-brother, who was aided
by the French Free Companies that were lured out of France, where they
did much mischief, by the King of that country, Charles, to plunder and
despoil Spain.
Now, Pedro and his two daughters, Constantia and Isabeau, fled to
Bordeaux, where our Princes were, and besought their protection, which
was given right gladly.
And the English made march through Spain with thirty thousand men, and
there was a cruel skirmish at Nafara in the spring season, 1367, and it
ended in the discomfiture of Enrique and the French, and a right evil
day for them, for the English went a-chasing of them and slew them to a
goodly number and set on the throne again Sir Pedro of Burgundy.
This was a well foughten battle, and one that gave great renown to our
valiant English Knights, who did acquit themselves with much hardiness
and caused the Knights of Spain to recule before them in such wise that
there was no getting them to another battle.
* * * * *
And this was the conquest of Spayne; now I will tell you of London and
of Jehanne Plantagenet whose dame I was.
When came the news of the victory she was very joyous, and took me out
with her on to the ramparts beyond the Chepe and the Church of the
blessed Saint Paul, where the hawthorn and the eglantine that hath such
a sharp sweet smell was burgeoning.
And with her were other maidens who had Knights at the wars, either in
Spayne or Almaine or with King Wencelaus, and she questioned them of
their lovers and spoke of Sir Johan Chandos in pleasant seeming, and
of Sir Bertram Du Guesclin, who was made prisoner, and she spoke of
her brother’s banners and how all had fallen back before them, and she
gave their cry, “St. George, Gayonne!” in a laughing voice, across the
fields.
Presently she made wreaths of daisies and cast them down a
swift-running stream and watched them go, joyously; and still she spoke
of the English and how they had held their Easter in the city of Burgos.
So I had great marvel to find her the day after, pensive in the window,
with a sad air, and I asked her ailment, but with no manner of success;
she put me by courteously and kept her counsel.
And I who held her in such worship could in no wise pleasure her, even
by speaking of the adventures in Spayne and her dear brothers, Edward,
Lyon, Edmund and Johan, for she saddened from day to day, and in the
night made lamentable sorrows which she would give no reason for, and
so from the blithest damosel of the court she was like to become the
saddest.
And it fortuned that I discovered the cause, for I heard that our lord
the King was to conclude a marriage between this princess and King Don
Pedro of Castile, so to make sure the pact between them; certainly I
believed this was why she was so downcast, for she would not leave
England; yet I had marvel at it, for he of Spayne was a gentle knight
and well renouned then, though afterwards dishonoured.
Then the King bid her to him, and in the name of love and lineage
commanded her to this match, and she durst not deny him, but afterwards
she came to me and drew me into a window above the river and spoke to
me.
“Dame,” she said, “I am to wed the King of Spayne.”
And she took her face in her two hands right mournfully.
Then I advised me well and answered–
“He is a very mighty King and companion at war to your two noble
brothers.”
“Dame,” she said, “I shall not go to Spayne.” And with great gentleness
she sighed.
Now, it was Sunday evening and a great press of clouds about the sun,
all red and violet, and in the water also these colours and the bridge
white in the glowing brightness, and I looked out on these things as I
answered–
“Ye must do your devoir to your father.” And Jehanne Plantagenet made
reply–
“Yea, I will do my devoir, please God, but I shall not go to Spayne.”
And she lifted her head to aview the sunset, and we heard the sowning
of the trumpets as the companies of the King’s archers came into the
yard.
Then she took my hands and said–
“Dame Alys, give me leave and I will this day tell you something–and
something heavy withal.”
I had great joy and honour in her amours, and I answered her–
“Behold my heart is as your own.”
Whereat she kissed me and said, “Ye shall hear.” And her eyes were
troublous of grief as she spoke.
“Truly,” she said, “when I go to bed right doleful and weary of heart,
one comes and parts the curtains and stands looking at me, and it is
a lady in a gown of samite with a crown on her hair and rings on her
hands, and she looks at me mournfully and as one who would give me
warning.”
Then I was amazed, and made reply: “I desire you by the love of God to
tell me who this lady is.”
Then said Jehanne Plantagenet–
“I think it is Blaunche of France, who was first wife to this Don
Pedro, and is now in Heaven.”
“Surely,” I said, “this cannot be. Wherefor should she give you
warning?”
“Sith you ask me,” said Jehanne Plantagenet, “I believe she gives me
warning that I am to marry a right dishonourable and ungentle Knight
and one that would slay me even as he slew her.”
Thereon I, right affrighted, bade her speak words of good cheer, for
this was a grievous thing she said, and one not for credence that the
King Don Pedro had slain Queen Blaunche.
But the Princess was sure of it, for she vowed the vision came as a
warning.
“And I,” she said, “sith I would rather die in Westminster than live in
Spayne, will not have this marriage.”
Then was I blithe to tell her of the great feastings there would be for
her wedding, both in this realm and in Spayne, and how she would be a
Queen and have her own court; howbeit, she put it all by.
“Dame Alys,” she said, “say no more, for I have such a love for another
man that I may not bear to leave the place where he is.” Then a two
times she gave a little sigh, and I was sore amazed.
“Dear lady,” I said, “Who is he?”
She answered me. “A man of war, one of the divers captains of the
King’s archers, and I have such a puissant affection for him that I
could not turn to any other.”
There was a while stillness and one without touched the dulcimere, and
I heard the bells ringing from the Abbey of St. Peter, and the sun was
almost set.
Then Jehanne Plantagenet kneeled down to me.
“Peradventure you will be good to me,” and she laid hold of my hands.
“This Knight’s name is Sir Paon de Brambre, and I have never spoken to
him all my life, though every day I see him and he loves me well. Now I
have prayed Christ and Mary to save my soul alive, and I think to-night
I shall go with my lady Blaunche, but first I would speak to this
Knight I love so well.”
All this she said right graciously, but I wept for ruth while she spoke
again.
“Dame Alys, get me this knight here into my chamber after supper that I
may take leave of him, let him come in full armour with his shield.”
And though I broke my devoir I let it be established between us that I
would bring this captain, and afterwards I found him in a study in the
garden and gave him my message, whereat he went right pale.
Now, when I returned to the chamber of Jehanne I found she had lit it
full of fair wax candles and was seated on the dais clad in a red gown
of Damascus richly besewn; and she looked pale and thin, yet joyous,
and bade me beside her until I was to let in secretly the Knight Sir
Paon, which I did presently.
And he was all armed save he carried his bassenet; on his arm was a
long-pointed shield painted with his armory, and his face was wasted
and sad and his eyen blue as Thames water.
Right within the door he went on his knees and folded his hands with
never a word.
And from the dais at the other end of the chamber Jehanne Plantagenet
looked at him and said a-high–
“Sir, in God’s name, tell me if you have a great love for me?”
And he a little changed countenance and bent his head very slowly.
“God hath holpen me to this moment,” he said, “but He cannot put it
into my mouth to say how much I love you.”
“Sir,” she answered him, “ye may always have me for your lady, and
though ye are not rich in goods or heritage ye shall be rich in this
that she, who was a King’s daughter, loved you exceedingly, and I think
you will be a worthy Knight and one full of honours, and when you have
a wife I pray you tell her of me and let her be a fair woman, but as
for me I am contracted to a villain knight in the name of love and
lineage, and yet will not marry him and yet will do my devoir.”
Then Sir Paon shook in his harness, and I had great pity of his dolours.
“Fair sir, recomfort yourself,” said Jehanne, “I have lived gaily and
shall die loyal. See you these candles, ten for the ten commandments
whole and unbroken, seven for the seven works of charity and the seven
deadly sins, five for the Five Wounds and the five senses, three for
the Trinity. Now when I am dead and ye see these burning about my tomb
and the poor people saying prayers for my soul, I beseech that you
shall add a taper to my memory.”
And the water washed his eyen and he could not speak.
“As I so greatly loved this goodly town of London,” said Jehanne, “ye,
living here, shall think of me, even at the time of the jousts and the
great feasts, Easter, Christmas and the Holy Trinity, and remember I
ever loved you the alder-beste of all in the world.”
And Sir Paon was sore discomfited that she should talk of death, and
she came down from the dais.
“Truly,” she said, “this world is nothing and love is a great deal, and
it matters not at all if we be dead or alive if we love–one another.”
Then fair and softly she bent a little towards him and held out her
hand, and he took it as if it had been God His robe and pressed his
tears upon it, but she the while was smiling.
And so they parted, and he went his way and Jehanne kissed me on the
brow and said prayers before the candles, and then to bed silently.
And I had great ruth of all I had seen that night and for the dolorous
sorrows of these two, and I wished that two that so loved might have
been mated.
So I lay awake listening to the bells and the throstle that now and
again moved in the orchard boughs as it came to the dawning. And
presently I heard sweet words that came from the chamber of Jehanne
Plantagenet.
“Lady Blaunche, Lady Blaunche, have you come for me?”
Then I advised with myself well and was very afraid and sat up in bed,
but could by no means speak.
For a long while it was silent, and I rose at last and went into the
inner chamber, and it was cool with an Eastern light.
And Jehanne Plantagenet was lying out with the chequered curtains of
blue and white withdrawn from her visage and the clothes of the bed
straight over her and no breath at all in her body.
Round her were burning the candles of fair and pure wax, and she was
surely dead.
And because I felt there were Heavenly Spirits in the room I kneeled me
down, and these two princesses, Jehanne Plantagenet and Blaunche of
France, went hand in hand across the orchards to Paradise.
* * * * *
She was carried through the city she loved with her visage open and her
head on a white cushion and buried in a painted tomb behind the High
Altar of St. Paul’s Church, and Don Pedro was slain by Don Enrique not
long after, and I kept my peace.
Now Sir Paon de Brambre went to Almaine and died fighting.…
THE MACEDONIAN GROOM
THE EMPEROR MICHAEL III
How shall I care that I am blind when I have seen enough colour in my
days to fill the rest of meagre time?
Here in the Monastery in Armenia I have a little boy to read to
me–sometimes Photias, sometimes John Damascenus the Syrian, sometimes
the Fathers of the Church.
This I buy with the much money saved when I was in the train of the
Emperor Michael now wailing in Hell.
I am very old and repentant, and soon I shall swing censers in Heaven,
and my eyes shall be replaced with rubies from God’s own throne; the
scent of crushed roses and ambergris shall soothe my nostrils and I
shall sit close to the gate that I may look from the gold bars on to
the flames of Hell and see the Emperors there, Michaels, Constantines,
and Leos and presently the Emperor Basil the Macedonian, being thrust
into the deepest pit of all.
It is Christmas eve, and I hear them singing in the choir … such
patient men, these monks, but then very few of them have seen
Constantinople. I am richer than they, though blind, for I have
memories.
I do not miss my sight, for what is there to see here? They have no
gold nor silver nor mosaic in their church nor painted curtains or
curious robes.
I shall be glad to gain Heaven that I may see the shoes of God,
crystal, gilt and pointed and His girdle of great blue stones and the
attire of the angels, fine cambric worked with silks from Persia,
purple of a live blood colour and green like a split jade.
So I talk and the little boy writes while they sing in the chapel; they
humour me because I am so very old and I despise them all.
To-night I have a loosened tongue; I could tell secrets now.…
Write, write, write the last scene I saw before I was blind–how the
Sclaronion gained the throne and how the Amorian died.
Come nearer, for my voice is very weak. What if this was the last night
of all for me and I should wake to see the banners of God blowing about
His throne?
So write, for I know more than I have ever told.
It was the year 866 that the Emperor Michael surnamed the Drunkard,
took for his fellow Emperor Basil the Macedonian groom. This was
reward for what Basil had done at Kepos, where he had stabbed the
Cæsar through the back. This Cæsar Bardas was a clever man, but Basil
was more cunning; this Bardas the Cæsar was uncle to the Emperor, and
had in his time slain Theoktistos, so he, too, is in Hell, for he
died without a prayer. But I have prayed before the images and given
them robes of silk pleasant to handle. Basil the groom had come to
Constantinople on foot with a wallet on his back and become a stable
boy to an officer of the court, and once when the Emperor was driving
his own white horses in the Hippodrome, he saw this Basil wrestle
with a Bulgarian and overthrow him; the Macedonian had great credit
for this, and Michael took him into his service, for he was a man of
wonderful strength.
I never saw one taller; his hair was very thick bright brown and
curling, his face had a look of hideous power and his neck was massive
as the trunk of a young tree.
He had a great gift with horses, for there was never one whom he could
not subdue with a touch and a whisper; soon, it seemed, he had this
power with the Emperor, too, for Michael made him Chamberlain and cast
money into his lap as gifts are cast before the Images.
Who knew what went on outside the mighty palace? I tell you none could
guess.… But you have heard of Eudocia Ingerina; she was a daughter of
the Martinakes, and the Emperor would have married her, but because
her family was so mighty his mother, Theodora, prevented this, and he
married Eudocia, the daughter of Dekapolitas.…
Then there was Thekla, the sister of Michael, and she loved Basil, but
the Emperor married him to Eudocia, who would be Empress some way;
she never forgave it, for he had resigned her for fear of his mother,
vanished now to Gastria, afterwards to Anthimos.
It was their women behind it all.… Those were great golden days.
Eudocia Ingerina, with the Emperor for her lover and the groom for her
husband, kept the splendid revels gorgeously, but in her heart she
waited for vengeance on Michael and his mother, on all of them who had
debarred her from the throne–I knew it always.
At one time I was her chamberlain. She was a woman beautiful and
vain; in my perpetual darkness I can see her features, her black hair
clinging to her white shoulders, the plates of gold and clanging metal,
of wine-red and serpent-green stones about her brow, her long, long
eyes and small mouth, expressionless–her perfumed linen and her mantles
of furs and silver.…
It was worth living then; it is worth living now to think of it. Write,
write the colour, the glitter, the glory and the power of it, the days
burning into the nights with the lights of a thousand jewelled lamps
glowing behind screens of silk, the marble halls strewn with flowers,
the slaves with bands of scarlet on their foreheads, the chariot races,
the shouting crowds, the taste of wine and fruit, the perfect women
with heavy hair, the churches shining with burnished bronze and gold.…
Sometimes I dread that Heaven cannot be so delicious.…
In May, then, Michael made Basil Emperor with him, joint ruler of the
Eastern Empire, sharer of the throne of the Cæsars, and in the winter
of that year he gave the imperial title to a third, Basiliskian.
Now there were glorious orgies and splendid riotings of feasts and
games; and each wondered which Emperor would first slay the other; and
Michael was grown to be afraid of Basil, who was changed from a drunken
groom into an Emperor and a graver man.
With this terror on him, he came to Eudocia Ingerina.…
Do you think I hear the monks chanting and see darkness?
No, I hear the trumpets; I see the Emperor Michael with his black hair
unbound and his whip in his hand as he has returned from the Hippodrome
standing against the leopard cat couch, while the sun embraces the
snakes on his buskins. And she, Eudocia Ingerina, seated on a stool
inset with opal holding lilies in her hand.
“So,” he said, “I am afraid of this Basil whom I took from the kennels;
he must go swiftly as he came, Eudocia.”
“You made him my husband,” she answered, and threw the lilies down.
The fine silk curtains were lifting in an Eastern wind; the sun slipped
under them and gilded the sloping orange walls of Numidian marble and
the girdle of turkis round her waist.
“I am afraid of him,” repeated the Emperor, and he shook.
She looked away and he went on his knees and laid his head on her
lap, dropping the whip stained with the blood and foam of his horses.
Neither of them had any heed of me standing in the outer peristyle
where the bronze pots of roses were, nor of the two slaves in tiger
skins.
“Do you weep?” she asked, and lifted his thick hair in her small round
fingers.
He looked up with red eyes.
“Basil is dangerous,” he muttered.
She leant towards him delicately.
“Why did you not make me Empress?” she questioned, and rose up,
repulsing him.