Julian enters into the person of a king.
“I was now born at Oviedo in Spain. My father’s name was Veremond, and I
was adopted by my uncle king Alphonso the chaste.
“I don’t recollect in all the pilgrimages I have made on earth that I
ever passed a more miserable infancy than now; being under the utmost
confinement and restraint, and surrounded with physicians who were
ever dosing me, and tutors who were continually plaguing me with their
instructions; even those hours of leisure which my inclination would
have spent in play were allotted to tedious pomp and ceremony, which,
at an age wherein I had no ambition to enjoy the servility of courtiers,
enslaved me more than it could the meanest of them. However, as I
advanced towards manhood, my condition made me some amends; for the most
beautiful women of their own accord threw out lures for me, and I had
the happiness, which no man in an inferior degree can arrive at, of
enjoying the most delicious creatures, without the previous and
tiresome ceremonies of courtship, unless with the most simple, young and
unexperienced. As for the court ladies, they regarded me rather as men
do the most lovely of the other sex; and, though they outwardly retained
some appearance of modesty, they in reality rather considered themselves
as receiving than conferring favors.
“Another happiness I enjoyed was in conferring favors of another sort;
for, as I was extremely good-natured and generous, so I had daily
opportunities of satisfying those passions. Besides my own princely
allowance, which was very bountiful, and with which I did many liberal
and good actions, I recommended numberless persons of merit in distress
to the king’s notice, most of whom were provided for. Indeed, had I
sufficiently known my blessed situation at this time, I should have
grieved at nothing more than the death of Alphonso, by which the burden
of government devolved upon me; but, so blindly fond is ambition, and
such charms doth it fancy in the power and pomp and splendor of a
crown, that, though I vehemently loved that king, and had the greatest
obligations to him, the thoughts of succeeding him obliterated my regret
at his loss, and the wish for my approaching coronation dried my eyes at
his funeral.
“But my fondness for the name of king did not make me forgetful of those
over whom I was to reign. I considered them in the light in which a
tender father regards his children, as persons whose wellbeing God
had intrusted to my care; and again, in that in which a prudent lord
respects his tenants, as those on whose wealth and grandeur he is to
build his own. Both these considerations inspired me with the greatest
care for their welfare, and their good was my first and ultimate
concern.
“The usurper Mauregas had impiously obliged himself and his successors
to pay to the Moors every year an infamous tribute of an hundred young
virgins: from this cruel and scandalous imposition I resolved to relieve
my country. Accordingly, when their emperor Abderames the second had the
audaciousness to make this demand of me, instead of complying with it I
ordered his ambassadors to be driven away with all imaginable ignominy,
and would have condemned them to death, could I have done it without a
manifest violation of the law of nations.
“I now raised an immense army; at the levying of which I made a speech
from my throne, acquainting my subjects with the necessity and the
reasons of the war in which I was going to engage: which I convinced
them I had undertaken for their ease and safety, and not for satisfying
any wanton ambition, or revenging any private pique of my own. They all
declared unanimously that they would venture their lives and everything
dear to them in my defense, and in the support of the honor of my crown.
Accordingly, my levies were instantly complete, sufficient numbers
being only left to till the land; churchmen, even bishops themselves,
enlisting themselves under my banners.
“The armies met at Alvelda, where we were discomfited with immense loss,
and nothing but the lucky intervention of the night could have saved our
whole army.
“I retreated to the summit of a hill, where I abandoned myself to the
highest agonies of grief, not so much for the danger in which I then saw
my crown, as for the loss of those miserable wretches who had exposed
their lives at my command. I could not then avoid this reflection--that,
if the deaths of these people in a war undertaken absolutely for their
protection could give me such concern, what horror must I have felt if,
like princes greedy of dominion, I had sacrificed such numbers to my own
pride, vanity, and ridiculous lust of power.
“After having vented my sorrows for some time in this manner, I began
to consider by what means I might possibly endeavor to retrieve this
misfortune; when, reflecting on the great number of priests I had in
my army, and on the prodigious force of superstition, a thought luckily
suggested itself to me, to counterfeit that St. James had appeared to me
in a vision, and had promised me the victory. While I was ruminating on
this the bishop of Najara came opportunely to me. As I did not intend
to communicate the secret to him, I took another method, and, instead
of answering anything the bishop said to me, I pretended to talk to St.
James, as if he had been really present; till at length, after having
spoke those things which I thought sufficient, and thanked the saint
aloud for his promise of the victory, I turned about to the bishop, and,
embracing him with a pleased countenance, protested I did not know he
was present; and then, informing him of this supposed vision, I asked
him if he had not himself seen the saint? He answered me he had; and
afterwards proceeded to assure me that this appearance of St. James was
entirely owing to his prayers; for that he was his tutelar saint. He
added he had a vision of him a few hours before, when he promised him
a victory over the infidels, and acquainted him at the same time of the
vacancy of the see of Toledo. Now, this news being really true, though
it had happened so lately that I had not heard of it (nor, indeed, was
it well possible I should, considering the great distance of the way),
when I was afterwards acquainted with it, a little staggered me, though
far from being superstitious; till being informed that the bishop had
lost three horses on a late expedition, I was satisfied.
“The next morning, the bishop, at my desire, mounted the rostrum, and
trumpeted forth this vision so effectually, which he said he had that
evening twice seen with his own eyes, that a spirit began to be infused
through the whole army which rendered them superior to almost any force:
the bishop insisted that the least doubt of success was giving the lie
to the saint, and a damnable sin, and he took upon him in his name to
promise them victory.
“The army being drawn out, I soon experienced the effect of enthusiasm,
for, having contrived another stratagem [9] to strengthen what the
bishop had said, the soldiers fought more like furies than men. My
stratagem was this: I had about me a dexterous fellow, who had been
formerly a pimp in my amours. Him I dressed up in a strange antic dress,
with a pair of white colors in his right hand, a red cross in his left,
and having disguised him so that no one could know him, I placed him on
a white horse, and ordered him to ride to the head of the army, and cry
out, ‘Follow St. James!’ These words were reiterated by all the troops,
who attacked the enemy with such intrepidity, that, notwithstanding our
inferiority of numbers, we soon obtained a complete victory.
“The bishop was come up by the time that the enemy was routed, and,
acquainting us that he had met St. James by the way, and that he had
informed him of what had passed, he added that he had express orders
from the saint to receive a considerable sum for his use, and that a
certain tax on corn and wine should be settled on his church for ever;
and lastly, that a horseman’s pay should be allowed for the future
to the saint himself, of which he and his successors were appointed
receivers. The army received these demands with such acclamations that
I was obliged to comply with them, as I could by no means discover the
imposition, nor do I believe I should have gained any credit if I had.
“I had now done with the saint, but the bishop had not; for about a week
afterwards lights were seen in a wood near where the battle was fought;
and in a short time afterwards they discovered his tomb at the same
place. Upon this the bishop made me a visit, and forced me to go
thither, to build a church to him, and largely endow it. In a word, the
good man so plagued me with miracle after miracle, that I was forced to
make interest with the pope to convey him to Toledo, to get rid of him.
“But to proceed to other matters.--There was an inferior officer,
who had behaved very bravely in the battle against the Moors, and had
received several wounds, who solicited me for preferment; which I was
about to confer on him, when one of my ministers came to me in a fright,
and told me that he had promised the post I designed for this man to the
son of count Alderedo; and that the count, who was a powerful person,
would be greatly disobliged at the refusal, as he had sent for his son
from school to take possession of it. I was obliged to agree with my
minister’s reasons, and at the same time recommended the wounded soldier
to be preferred by him, which he faithfully promised he would; but I
met the poor wretch since in Elysium, who informed me he was afterwards
starved to death.
“None who hath not been himself a prince, nor any prince till his death,
can conceive the impositions daily put on them by their favorites and
ministers; so that princes are often blamed for the faults of others.
The count of Saldagne had been long confined in prison, when his son, D.
Bernard del Carpio, who had performed the greatest actions against
the Moors, entreated me, as a reward for his service, to grant him his
father’s liberty. The old man’s punishment had been so tedious, and
the services of the young one so singularly eminent, that I was very
inclinable to grant the request; but my ministers strongly opposed it;
they told me my glory demanded revenge for the dishonor offered to my
family; that so positive a demand carried with it rather the air of
menace than entreaty; that the vain detail of his services, and the
recompense due to them, was an injurious reproach; that to grant what
had been so haughtily demanded would argue in the monarch both weakness
and timidity; in a word, that to remit the punishment inflicted by my
predecessors would be to condemn their judgment. Lastly, one told me in
a whisper, ‘His whole family are enemies to your house.’ By these means
the ministers prevailed. The young lord took the refusal so ill, that he
retired from court, and abandoned himself to despair, whilst the old one
languished in prison. By which means, as I have since discovered, I lost
the use of two of my best subjects.
“To confess the truth, I had, by means of my ministers, conceived a very
unjust opinion of my whole people, whom I fancied to be daily conspiring
against me, and to entertain the most disloyal thoughts, when, in
reality (as I have known since my death), they held me in universal
respect and esteem. This is a trick, I believe, too often played with
sovereigns, who, by such means, are prevented from that open intercourse
with their subjects which, as it would greatly endear the person of the
prince to the people, so might it often prove dangerous to a minister
who was consulting his own interest only at the expense of both. I
believe I have now recounted to you the most material passages of my
life; for I assure you there are some incidents in the lives of kings
not extremely worth relating. Everything which passes in their minds
and families is not attended with the splendor which surrounds their
throne--indeed, there are some hours wherein the naked king and the
naked cobbler can scarce be distinguished from each other.
“Had it not been, however, for my ingratitude to Bernard del Carpio, I
believe this would have been my last pilgrimage on earth; for, as to the
story of St. James, I thought Minos would have burst his sides at it;
but he was so displeased with me on the other account, that, with a
frown, he cried out, ‘Get thee back again, king.’ Nor would he suffer me
to say another word.”