It was not until after the conquest of Jerusalem that Count Robert of
Paris returned to Constantinople, and with his wife, and such
proportion of his followers as the sword and pestilence had left after
that bloody warfare, resumed his course to his native kingdom. Upon
reaching Italy, the first care of the noble Count and Countess was to
celebrate in princely style the marriage of Hereward and his faithful
Bertha, who had added to their other claims upon their master and
mistress, those acquired by Hereward's faithful services in Palestine,
and no less by Bertha's affectionate ministry to her lady in
Constantinople.
As to the fate of Alexius Comnenus, it may be read at large in the
history of his daughter Anna, who has represented him as the hero of
many a victory, achieved, says the purple-born, in the third chapter
and fifteenth book of her history, sometimes by his arms and sometimes
by his prudence.
"His boldness alone has gained some battles, at other times his success
has been won by stratagem. He has erected the most illustrious of his
trophies by confronting danger, by combating like a simple soldier, and
throwing himself bareheaded into the thickest of the foe. But there are
others," continues the accomplished lady, "which he gained an
opportunity of erecting by assuming the appearance of terror, and even
of retreat. In a word, he knew alike how to triumph either in flight or
in pursuit, and remained upright even before those enemies who appeared
to have struck him down; resembling the military implement termed the
calthrop, which remains always upright in whatever direction it is
thrown on the ground."
It would be unjust to deprive the Princess of the defence she herself
makes against the obvious charge of partiality.
"I must still once more repel the reproach which some bring against me,
as if my history was composed merely according to the dictates of the
natural love for parents which is engraved in the hearts of children.
In truth, it is not the effect of that affection which I bear to mine,
but it is the evidence of matter of fact, which obliges me to speak as
I have done. Is it not possible that one can have at the same time an
affection for the memory of a father and for truth? For myself, I have
never directed my attempt to write history, otherwise than for the
ascertainment of the matter of fact. With this purpose, I have taken
for my subject the history of a worthy man. Is it just, that, by the
single accident of his being the author of my birth, his quality of my
father ought to form a prejudice against me, which would ruin my credit
with my readers? I have given, upon other occasions, proofs
sufficiently strong of the ardour which I had for the defence of my
father's interests, which those that know me can never doubt but, on
the present, I have been limited by the inviolable fidelity with which
I respect the truth, which I should have felt conscience to have
veiled, under pretence of serving the renown of my father."--_Alexiad_,
chap. iii. book xv.
This much we have deemed it our duty to quote, in justice to the fair
historian; we will extract also her description of the Emperor's death,
and are not unwilling to allow, that the character assigned to the
Princess by our own Gibbon, has in it a great deal of fairness and of
truth.
Notwithstanding her repeated protests of sacrificing rather to the
exact and absolute truth than to the memory of her deceased parent,
Gibbon remarks truly, that "instead of the simplicity of style and
narrative which wins a belief, an elaborate affectation of rhetoric and
science betrays in every page the vanity of a female author. The
genuine character of Alexius is lost in a vague constellation of
virtues; and the perpetual strain of panegyric and apology awakens our
jealousy to question the veracity of the historian, and the merit of
the hero. We cannot, however, refuse her judicious and important
remark, that the disorders of the times were the misfortune and the
glory of Alexius; and that every calamity which can afflict a declining
empire was accumulated on his reign by the justice of Heaven and the
vices of his predecessors."--GIBBON'S _Roman Empire_, vol. ix. p. 83,
foot-note.
The Princess accordingly feels the utmost assurance, that a number of
signs which appeared in heaven and on earth, were interpreted by the
soothsayers of the day as foreboding the death of the Emperor. By these
means, Anna Comnena assigned to her father those indications of
consequence, which ancient historians represent as necessary
intimations of the sympathy of nature, with the removal of great
characters from the world; but she fails not to inform the Christian
reader that her father's belief attached to none of these prognostics,
and that even on the following remarkable occasion he maintained his
incredulity:--A splendid statue, supposed generally to be a relic of
paganism, holding in its hand a golden sceptre, and standing upon a
base of porphyry, was overturned by a tempest, and was generally
believed to be an intimation of the death of the Emperor. This,
however, he generously repelled. Phidias, he said, and other great
sculptors of antiquity, had the talent of imitating the human frame
with surprising accuracy; but to suppose that the power of foretelling
future events was reposed in these master-pieces of art, would be to
ascribe to their makers the faculties reserved by the Deity for
himself, when he says, "It is I who kill and make alive." During his
latter days, the Emperor was greatly afflicted with the gout, the
nature of which has exercised the wit of many persons of science as
well as of Anna Comnena. The poor patient was so much exhausted, that
when the Empress was talking of most eloquent persons who should assist
in the composition of his history, he said, with a natural contempt of
such vanities, "The passages of my unhappy life call rather for tears
and lamentation than for the praises you speak of."
A species of asthma having come to the assistance of the gout, the
remedies of the physicians became as vain as the intercession of the
monks and clergy, as well as the alms which were indiscriminately
lavished. Two or three deep successive swoons gave ominous warning of
the approaching blow; and at length was terminated the reign and life
of Alexius Comnenus, a prince who, with all the faults which may be
imputed to him, still possesses a real right, from the purity of his
general intentions, to be accounted one of the best sovereigns of the
Lower Empire.
For some time, the historian forgot her pride of literary rank, and,
like an ordinary person, burst into tears and shrieks, tore her hair,
and defaced her countenance, while the Empress Irene cast from her her
princely habits, cut off her hair, changed her purple buskins for black
mourning shoes, and her daughter Mary, who had herself been a widow,
took a black robe from one of her own wardrobes, and presented it to
her mother. "Even in the moment when she put it on," says Anna Comnena,
"the Emperor gave up the ghost, and in that moment the sun of my life
set."
We shall not pursue her lamentations farther. She upbraids herself
that, after the death of her father, that light of the world, she had
also survived Irene, the delight alike of the east and of the west, and
survived her husband also. "I am indignant," she said, "that my soul,
suffering under such torrents of misfortune, should still deign to
animate my body. Have I not," said she, "been more hard and unfeeling
than the rocks themselves; and is it not just that one, who could
survive such a father and mother, and such a husband, should be
subjected to the influence of so much calamity? But let me finish this
history, rather than any longer fatigue my readers with my unavailing
and tragical lamentation."