Transcriber's Notes:
1. Page scan source: Google Books
https://books.google.com/books?id=hLFEAAAAYAAJ
(University of Virginia)
2. The diphthong oe is represented by [oe].
Mary _of_ Burgundy.
_By_
G. P. R. James
London
George Routledge
and Sons Limited.
MDCCCCIII.
_The Introduction is written by_ Laurie Magnus, M.A.;
_the Title-page is designed by_ Ivor I. J. Symes.
INTRODUCTION.
George Payne Rainsford James, Historiographer Royal to King William
IV., was born in London in the first year of the nineteenth century,
and died at Venice in 1860. His comparatively short life was
exceptionally full and active. He was historian, politician and
traveller, the reputed author of upwards of a hundred novels, the
compiler and editor of nearly half as many volumes of letters,
memoirs, and biographies, a poet and a pamphleteer, and, during the
last ten years of his life, British Consul successively in
Massachusetts, Norfolk (Virginia), and Venice. He was on terms of
friendship with most of the eminent men of his day. Scott, on whose
style he founded his own, encouraged him to persevere in his career as
a novelist; Washington Irving admired him, and Walter Savage Landor
composed an epitaph to his memory. He achieved the distinction of
being twice burlesqued, by Thackeray, and two columns are devoted to
an account of him in the new "Dictionary of National Biography." Each
generation follows its own gods, and G. P. R. James was, perhaps, too
prolific an author to maintain the popularity which made him "in some
ways the most successful novelist of his time." But his work bears
selection and revival. It possesses the qualities of seriousness and
interest; his best historical novels are faithful in setting and free
in movement. His narrative is clear, his history conscientious, and
his plots are well-conceived. English learning and literature are
enriched by the work of this writer, who made vivid every epoch in the
world's history by the charm of his romance.
The great passage in this book is so magnificently dramatic that James
feels it due to his conscience as an historian to apologise for its
excellence in a footnote. "It may be necessary," he writes at the foot
of page 234, "to inform those who are not deeply read in the
chronicles of France that this fact is minutely accurate." We are
glad of the reminder, for without it the reader might have thought
that here was something fictitious, or at least exaggerated and
'worked-up,' so intense and true is the tragic setting of the scene.
But if Mary of Burgundy's bearing at the execution of the Lord of
Imbercourt, and her grand historical utterance, recorded on page 305,
"You have banished my best friends, and slain my wisest counsellors,
and now what can I do to deliver you?" if these public appearances of
the heiress of Charles the Bold, and the love which she cherished for
the husband who was chosen for her on political grounds, justify James
in raising her to the title-role in this romance, it must be conceded
that the real hero is Albert Maurice, citizen of Ghent, a noble
mediæval prototype of the _citoyens_ of the French Revolution,
Whatever defects in character-study have been ascribed to James, no
one can deny that in Albert Maurice his skill was equal to its
material. The figure of the young President is firmly and consistently
drawn, and the conception touches considerable heights of human daring
and aspiration. Albert Maurice at the time of his fall was many years
younger than Wolsey, but he could say as genuinely as the Cardinal, "I
charge thee, fling away ambition!" In his story we realize to the full
the tragic import of that warning. His splendid dream of patriotism
was fulfilled by blunders and crimes, committed _per se_ or _per
alios_, for which he felt the responsibility, and at the end the
people of Ghent discovered the ancient truth, that worse than the
tyranny of tyrants is the tyranny of tyrannicides. But by that time
Maurice was dead; the victim of self-delusion would not survive his
disappointment; in the sudden knowledge that his goal was
unattainable, he became aware that his steps to it had been unjust.
This romance of the fifteenth century--Mary of Burgundy was married in
1477--is in what Matthew Arnold called the "grand style," and it is
therefore singularly free from faults of diction and false notes of
any kind. It has a certain attractive naturalness from beginning to
end, and it is one of the best, as it is one of the earliest, of the
series of novels in which James went for his plots to the French
Chroniclers of the Middle Ages.
MARY OF BURGUNDY:
OR,
THE REVOLT OF GHENT.
CHAPTER I.
It was on the evening of a beautiful day in the beginning of
September, 1456--one of those fair autumn days that wean us, as it
were, from the passing summer, with the light as bright, and the sky
as full of rays, as in the richest hours of June; and with nothing but
a scarce perceptible shade of yellow in the woods to tell that it is
not the proudest time of the year's prime. It was in the evening, as I
have said; but nothing yet betokened darkness. The sun had glided a
considerable way on his descent down the bright arch of the western
sky, yet without one ray being shadowed, or any lustre lost. He had
reached that degree of declination alone, at which his beams, pouring
from a spot a little above the horizon, produced, as they streamed
over forest and hill, grand masses of light and shade, with every here
and there a point of dazzling brightness, where the clear evening rays
were reflected from stream or lake.
It was in the heart of a deep forest, too, whose immemorial trees,
worn away by time, or felled by the axe, left in various places wide
open spaces of broken ground and turf, brushwood and dingle,--and
amidst whose deep recesses a thousand spots rich in woodland beauty
lay hidden from the eye of man. Those were not, indeed, times when
taste and cultivation had taught the human race to appreciate fully
all the charms and magnificence wherewith nature's hand has robed the
globe which we inhabit; and the only beings that then trod the deeper
glades of the forest were the woodman, the hunter, or those less
fortunate persons who--as we see them represented by the wild pencil
of Salvator Rosa--might greatly increase the picturesque effect of the
scenes they frequented; but, probably, did not particularly feel it
themselves. But there is, nevertheless, in the heart of man, a native
sense of beauty, a latent sympathy, a harmony with all that is lovely
on the earth, which makes him unconsciously seek out spots of peculiar
sweetness, not only for his daily dwelling, but also for both his
temporary resting place, and for the mansion of his long repose,
whether the age or the country be rude or not.
Look at the common cemetery of a village, and you will generally find
that it is pitched in the most picturesque spot to be found in the
neighbourhood. If left to his free will, the peasant will almost
always--without well knowing why--build his cottage where he may have
something fair or bright before his eyes; and the very herd, while
watching his cattle or his sheep, climbs up the face of the crag, to
sit and gaze over the fair expanse of Nature's face.
It was in the heart of a deep forest, then, at the distance of nearly
twenty miles from Louvain, that a boy, of about twelve years of age,
was seen sleeping by the side of a small stream; which, dashing over a
high rock hard by, gathered its bright waters in a deep basin at the
foot, and then rushed, clear and rapidly, through the green turf
beyond. The old trees of the wood were scattered abroad from the
stream, as if to let the little waterfall sparkle at its will in the
sunshine. One young ash tree, alone, self-sown by the side of the
river, waved over the boy's head, and cast a dancing veil of chequered
light and shade upon features as fair as eye ever looked upon.
At about a hundred yards from the spot where he was lying, a sandy
road wound through the savannah, and plunged into the deeper parts of
the wood. On the other side, however, the ground being of a more open
nature, the path might be seen winding up the steep ascent of a high
hill, with the banks, which occasionally flanked it to the east,
surmounted by long lines of tall overhanging trees.
A rude bridge of stone, whose ruinous condition spoke plainly how
rarely the traveller's foot trod the path through the forest, spanned
over the stream at a little distance. And the evening light, as it
poured in from the west, caught bright upon the countenance of the
sleeping boy, upon the dancing cascade above his head, upon many a
flashing turn in the river, and, after gilding the ivy that mantled
the old bridge, passed on to lose itself gradually in the gloom of the
deep masses of forest-ground beyond.
The dress of the sleeper accorded well with the scene in which he was
found; it consisted of a full coat, of forest-green, gathered round
his waist by a broad belt, together with the long tight hose common at
the period. In his belt was a dagger and knife; and on his head he had
no covering, except the glossy curls of his dark brown hair. Though
the material of his garments was of the finest cloth which the looms
of Ypres could produce, yet marks of toil, and even of strife, were
apparent in the dusty and torn state of his habiliments.
He lay, however, in that calm, deep, placid sleep, only known to
youth, toil, and innocence. His breath was so light, and his slumber
was so calm, that he might have seemed dead, but for the rosy hue of
health that overspread his cheeks. No sound appeared at first to have
any effect upon his ear, though, while he lay beside the stream, a
wild, timid stag came rustling through the brushwood to drink of its
waters, and suddenly seeing a human thing amidst the solitude of the
forest, bounded quick away through the long glades of the wood. After
that, the leaves waved over him, and the wind played with the curls of
his hair for nearly half an hour, without any living creature
approaching to disturb his repose. At the end of that time, some
moving objects made their appearance at the most distant point of the
road that was visible, where it sunk over the hill. At first, all that
could be seen was a dark body moving forward down the descent,
enveloped in a cloud of dust; but, gradually, it separated into
distinct parts, and assumed the form of a party of armed horsemen.
Their number might be ten or twelve; and, by the slowness of their
motions, it seemed that they had already travelled far. More than
once, as they descended the slope, they paused, and appeared to gaze
over the country, as if either contemplating its beauty, or doubtful
of the road they ought to take. These pauses, however, always ended in
their resuming their way towards the spot which we have described.
When they at length reached it, they again drew the rein; and it
became evident, that uncertainty, with regard to their onward course,
had been the cause of their several halts upon the hill.
"By my faith, Sir Thibalt of Neufchatel," said one of the horsemen,
who rode a little in advance of the others, "for Marshal of Burgundy,
you know but little of your lord's dominions. By the Holy Virgin!
methinks that you are much better acquainted with every high-road and
by-path of my poor appanage of Dauphiny. At least, so the worthy
burghers of Vienne were wont to assert, when we would fain have
squeezed the double crowns out of their purses. It was then their
invariable reply, that the Marshal of Burgundy had been upon them with
his lances, and drained them as dry as hay: coming no one knew how,
and going no one knew where."
The man who spoke was yet not only in his prime, but in the early part
of that period of life which is called middle age. There was no
peculiar beauty in his countenance, nor in his person; there was
nothing, apparently, either to strike or to please. Yet it was
impossible to stand before him, and not to feel one's self--without
very well knowing why--in the presence of an extraordinary man. There
was in his deportment to be traced the evident habit of command. He
spoke, as if knowing his words were to be obeyed. But that was not
all; from underneath the overhanging penthouse of his thick eyebrows
shone forth two keen grey eyes, which had in them a prying,
inquisitive cunning, which seemed anxiously exerted to discover at
once the thoughts of those they gazed upon, before any veil, of the
many which man uses, could be drawn over motives or feelings, to
conceal them from that searching glance.
Those given to physiognomy might have gathered, from his high and
projecting, but narrow forehead, the indications of a keen and
observing mind, with but little imagination, superstition without
fancy, and talent without wit. The thin, compressed lips, the
naturally firm-set posture of the teeth, the curling line from the
nostril to the corner of the mouth, might have been construed to imply
a heart naturally cruel, which derived not less pleasure from
inflicting wounds by bitter words than from producing mere corporeal
pain. His dress, at this time of his life, was splendid to excess; and
the horse on which he rode showed the high blood that poured through
its veins, by a degree of fire and energy far superior to that
exhibited by the chargers of his companions, though the journey it had
performed was the same which had so wearied them.
As he spoke the words before detailed, he looked back to a gentleman,
who rode a step or two behind him on his right hand; and on his
countenance appeared, what he intended to be, a smile of frank,
good-humoured raillery. The natural expression of his features mingled
with it nevertheless, and gave it an air of sarcasm, which made the
bitter, perhaps, preponderate over the sweet.
The person to whom he addressed himself, however, listened with
respectful good humour. "In truth, my lord," he replied, "so little
have I dwelt in this part of the duke's dominions that I know my way
less than many a footboy. I once was acquainted with every rood of
ground between Brussels and Tirlemont; but, God be thanked, my memory
is short, and I have forgotten it all, as readily as I hope you, sir,
may forget certain marches in Dauphiny, made when Louis the Dauphin
was an enemy to Burgundy, instead of an honoured guest."
"They are forgotten, Lord Marshal, they are forgotten," replied the
Dauphin, afterwards famous as Louis XI.--"and can never more be
remembered but to show me how much more pleasant it is to have the
lord of Neufchatel for a friend rather than an enemy. But, in Heaven's
name," he added, changing the subject quickly, "before we go farther,
let us seek some one to show us the way, or let us halt our horses
here, and wait for the fat citizens of Ghent, whom we left on the
other side of the river."
His companion shook his head with a doubtful smile, as he replied, "It
would be difficult, I trow, to find any guide here, unless Saint
Hubert, or some other of the good saints, were to send us a white stag
with a collar of gold round his neck, to lead us safely home, as the
old legends tell us they used to do of yore."
"The saints have heard your prayer, my lord," cried one of the party
who had strayed a little to the left, but not so far as to be out of
hearing of the conversation which was passing between the other two;
"the saints have heard your prayer; and here is the white stag, in the
form of a fair boy in a green jerkin."
As he spoke, he pointed forward with his hand towards the little
cascade, where the boy, who had been sleeping by its side, had now
started up, awakened by the sound of voices, and of horses' feet, and
was gazing on the travellers, with anxious eyes, and with his hand
resting on his dagger.
"Why, how now, boy!" cried the Dauphin, spurring up towards the
stream. "Thinkest thou that we are Jews, or cut-throats, or wild men
of the woods, that thou clutchest thy knife so fearfully? Say, canst
thou tell how far we are from Tirlemont?"
The boy eyed the party for several moments ere he replied. "How should
I know whether you be cut-throats or not?" he said, at length; "I have
seen cut-throats in as fine clothes. How far is it from Tirlemont? As
far as it is from Liege or Namur."
"Then, by my troth, Sir Marshal," said the Dauphin, turning to his
companion, "our horses will never carry us thither this night. What is
to be done?"
"What is the nearest town or village, boy?" demanded the Marshal of
Burgundy. "If we be at equal distances from Namur and Liege and
Tirlemont, we cannot be far from Hannut."
"Hannut is the nearest place," answered the boy; "but it is two hours'
ride for a tired horse."
"We will try it, however," said the Marshal; and then added, turning
to the Dauphin, "the lord of the castle of Hannut, sir, though first
cousin of the bad Duke of Gueldres, is a noble gentleman as ever
lived; and I can promise you a fair reception. Though once a famous
soldier, he has long cast by the lance and casque; and, buried deep in
studies--which churchmen say are hardly over holy--he passes his whole
time in solitude, except when some ancient friend breaks in upon his
reveries. Such a liberty I may well take. Now, boy, tell us our road,
and there is a silver piece for thy pains."
The boy stooped not to raise the money which the Marshal threw towards
him, but replied eagerly, "If any one will take me on the croup behind
him, I will show you easily the way. Nay, I beseech you, noble lords,
take me with you; for I am wearied and alone, and I must lie in the
forest all night if you refuse me."
"But dost thou know the way well, my fair boy?" demanded the Dauphin,
approaching nearer, and stooping over his saddle-bow to speak to the
boy with an air of increasing kindness. "Thou art so young, methinks
thou scarce canst know all the turnings of a wood like this. Come, let
us hear if thy knowledge is equal to the task of guiding us?"
"That it is," answered the boy at once. "The road is as easy to find
as a heron's nest in a bare tree. One has nothing to do but to follow
on that road over the bridge, take the two first turnings to the
right, and then the next to the left, and at the end of a league more
the castle is in sight."
"Ay," said the Dauphin, "is it so easy as that? Then, by my faith, I
think we can find it ourselves. Come, Sir Marshall, come!" And, so
saying, he struck his spurs into his horse's sides, and cantered over
the bridge.
The Marshal of Burgundy looked back with a lingering glance of
compassion at the poor boy thus unfeelingly treated by his companion.
But, as the Prince dashed forward and waved his hand for him to
follow, he rode on also, though not without a muttered comment on the
conduct of the other, which might not have given great pleasure had it
been vented aloud. The whole train followed; and, left alone, the boy
stood silent, gazing on them as they departed, with a flushed cheek
and a curling lip. "Out upon the traitors!" he exclaimed, at length.
"All men are knaves; yet it is but little honour to their knavery, to
cheat a boy like me."
The train wound onward into the wood, and the last horseman was soon
hidden from his eyes; but the merry sound of laughing voices, borne by
the wind to his ear for some moments after they were out of sight,
spoke painfully how little interest they took in his feelings or
situation.
He listened till all was still, and then, seating himself on the bank
of the stream, gazed vacantly on the bubbling waters as they rushed
hurriedly by him; while the current of his own thoughts held as rapid
and disturbed a course. As memory after memory of many a painful scene
and sorrow--such as infancy has seldom known--came up before his
sight, his eyes filled, the tears rolled rapidly over his cheeks, and,
casting himself prostrate on the ground, he hid his face amongst the
long grass, and sobbed as if his heart would break.
He had not lain there long, however, when a heavy hand, laid firmly on
his shoulder, caused him once more to start up; and, though the figure
which stood by him when he did so, was not one whose aspect was very
prepossessing, yet it would be difficult to describe the sudden
lightning of joy that sparkled in his eyes through the tears with
which they still overflowed.
The person who had roused him from the prostrate despair in which he
had cast himself down, was a middle-sized, broad-made man, with long
sinewy arms, and a chest like that of a mountain-bull. He might be
nearly forty years of age; and his face, which had once been fair, a
fact which was vouched alone by his light brown hair, and clear blue
eye, had now reached a hue nearly approaching to the colour of
mahogany, by constant exposure to the summer's sun and the winter's
cold. There was in it, withal, an expression of daring hardihood,
softened and, as it were, purified by a frank, free, good-humoured
smile, which was not without a touch of droll humour. His garb at once
bespoke him one of those vagrant sons of Mars, with whom war, in some
shape, was a never-failing trade; a class of which we must speak more
hereafter, and which the abuses of the feudal system, the constant
feuds of chieftain with chieftain, and the long and desolating warfare
between France and England, had at that time rendered but too common
in every part of Europe. He was not, indeed, clothed from head to heel
in cold iron, as was customary with the knight or man-at-arms when
ready for the field; but there was quite a sufficient portion of old
steel about his person, in the form of arms both offensive and
defensive, to show that hard blows were the principal merchandise in
which he traded.
He laid his large hairy hand, as I have said, firmly and familiarly on
the boy's shoulder; and the expression of the young wanderer's
countenance, when he started up, and beheld the person who stood near
him, at once showed, not only that they were old acquaintances, but
that their meeting was both unexpected and joyful.
"Matthew Gournay!" exclaimed the boy, "good Matthew Gournay, is it
you, indeed? Oh, why did you not come before? With your fifty good
lances, we might yet have held the castle out, till we were joined by
the troops from Utrecht; but now all is lost, the castle taken, and my
father----"
"I know it all, Master Hugh," interrupted the soldier; "I know it all
better than the paternoster. Bad news flies faster than a swallow; so
I know it all, and a good deal more than you yourself know. You ask,
why I did not come too. By our Lady! for the simplest reason in the
world--because I could not. I was lying like an old rat in a trap,
with four stone walls all round about me, in the good city of Liege.
Duke Philip heard of the haste I was making to give you help, and
cogged with the old bishop--may his skull be broken!--to send out a
couple of hundred reiters to intercept us on our march. What would you
have? We fought like devils, but we were taken at a disadvantage, by a
superior force. All my gallant fellows were killed or dispersed; and
at last, finding my back against a rock, with six spears at my breast,
and not loving the look of such a kind of toasting-fork, I agreed to
take lodging in the town prison of Liege."
"But how got you out, then!" demanded the boy; "did they free you for
good-will?"
"Not they," replied Matthew Gournay: "they gave me cold water and hard
bread, and vowed every day to stick my head upon the gate of the town,
_as a terror to all marauders_, as they said. But the fools showed
themselves rank burghers, by leaving me my arms; and I soon found
means to get the iron bars out of the windows, ventured a leap of
thirty feet, swam the ditch, climbed the wall, and here I am in the
forest of Hannut. But not alone, Master Hugh. I have got a part of my
old comrades together already, and hope soon to have a better band
than ever. The old seneschal, too, from the castle, is with us, and
from him we heard all the bad news. But, though he talked of murder
and putting to death, and flaying alive, and vowed that everybody in
the castle had been killed but himself, I got an inkling from the old
charcoal-burner's wife, at the hut in the wood, of how you had
escaped, and whither you had gone. So, thinking, as you were on foot
and alone, that you might want help and a horse, I tracked you like a
deer to this place: for your father was always a good friend to me in
the time of need; and I will stand by you, Master Hugh, while I have a
hand for my sword, or a sword for my hand."
"Hark!" cried the boy, almost as the other spoke; "there's a bugle on
the hill! It must be the duke's butchers following me."
"A bugle!" cried the soldier; "a cow's-horn blown by a sow-driver, you
mean. None of the duke's bugles ever blew a blast like that, something
between the groaning of a blacksmith's bellows and the grunting of a
hog. But there they are," he continued, "sure enough, lances and all,
as I live. We must to cover, Hugh, we must to cover! Quick--thy hand,
boy--they are coming down, straggling like fallow deer!"
So saying, Matthew Gournay sprang up the high bank, in falling over
which the little stream formed the cascade we have noticed; and, as he
climbed the rock himself, he assisted, or rather dragged up after him,
his young companion, whose hand he held locked in his own, with a
grasp which no slight weight could have unbent.
For a moment, they paused on the top of the crag, to take another look
at the approaching party, and then plunged into the long shrubs and
tangled brushwood that clothed the sides of the winding glen, down
which the stream wandered previous to its fall.