The banquet passed, like the scene which followed the tournament, in
enthusiastic assertions of the fair queen's rights, although she was
not present. In this instance, Philip Augustus, all clear-sighted as
he was, suffered himself to be deceived by his wishes; and believed
fully that his barons would aid him in the resistance he meditated to
the usurped authority of the pope.
The promises, however, which wine, and wassail, and festivity call
forth, are scarcely more lasting than the feast itself; and, without
we can take advantage of the enthusiasm before it dies, and render it
irrevocable by urging it into action, little can ever be gained from
any sudden emotion of a multitude. If Philip doubted its durability,
he did not suffer the shade of such a doubt to appear. The vaunt of
every young knight he thanked as a promise; and every expression of
admiration and sympathy, directed towards his queen, he affected to
look upon as a pledge to espouse her cause.
The Count Thibalt d'Auvergne was the only one that made neither boasts
nor promises; and yet the king--whether judging his mind of a more
stable fabric than the others, or wishing to counterbalance the
coldness he had shown him on his first appearance at the court,--now
loaded him with honours, placed him near him, spoke to him on all
those subjects on which he deemed the count was best calculated to
speak: and affecting to consider his advice and assistance of great
import, in arranging the relations to be established between the crown
of France and the new French colony, which had taken Constantinople,
he prayed him to accompany the court to Compiègne, for which place it
set out the next day.
The king's favour and notice fell upon the calm cold brow and dark
thoughtful eye of Thibalt d'Auvergne like sunshine in winter, melting
in no degree the frozen surface that it touched. The invitation,
however, he accepted; saying, in the same unmoved tone, that he was
anxious to see the queen, whom he had known in years long gone, and to
whom he could give fresh news from Istria, with many a loving greeting
from her father, whom he had seen as he returned from Palestine.
The queen, Philip replied, would be delighted to see him, and to hear
all that he had to tell; for she had never yet forgot her own fair
country--nay, nor let that canker-worm of affection, absence, eat the
least bit away of her regard for those she loved.
The very first, Count Thibalt took his leave and departed. De Coucy
rose, and was following; but the king detained him for a moment, to
thank him for the generous interest he had shown in his queen's
rights, which had not failed to reach his ears. He then asked, with a
slight shade of concern upon his brow, "Is your companion in arms,
beau sire, always so sad? It grieves me truly, to see him look so
possessed by sorrow! What is the cause thereof?"
"By my faith! my lord, 'tis love, I believe," replied De Coucy; "some
fair dame of Palestine--I wot not whether heathen or Christian,
rightly; but all I know is this:--Some five years ago, when he first
joined us, then warring near Tyre, he was as cheerful a knight as ever
unhorsed a Saracen; never very lively in his mirth, yet loving gaiety
in others, and smiling often: when suddenly, about two or three years
after, he lost all his cheerfulness, abandoned his smiles, grew wan
and thin, and has ever since been the man you see him."
The shade passed away from the king's brow; and saying, "'Tis a sad
pity! We will try to find some bright eyes in France that may cure
this evil love," he suffered De Coucy to depart.
All that passed, relative to the reception of the legate, was
faithfully transmitted to Pope Innocent III.; and the very enthusiasm
shown by the barons of France in the cause of their lovely queen made
the pontiff tremble for his authority. The immense increase of power
which the bishops of Rome had acquired by the victory their incessant
and indefatigable intrigues had won, even over the spirit of Frederick
Barbarossa, wanted yet the stability of antiquity; and it was on this
account that Innocent III. dreaded so much that Philip might
successfully resist the domination of the church even in one single
instance.
There were other motives, however, which, in the course, of the
contest about to be here recorded, mingled with his conduct a degree
of personal acrimony towards the king of France. Of an imperious and
jealous nature, the pontiff met with resistance first from Philip
Augustus, and his ambition came only in aid of his anger. The election
of the emperor of Germany was one cause of difference; Philip Augustus
supporting with all his power Philip of Suabia; and the pope not only
supporting, but crowning with his own hands, Otho, nephew of John,
king of England,--although great doubts existed in regard to his
legitimate election.
As keen and clear-sighted as he was ambitious, Innocent saw that in
Philip Augustus he had an adversary as intent upon increasing his own
authority, as he himself could be upon extending the power of the
church. He saw the exact point of opposition; he saw the powerful mind
and political strength of his antagonist; but he saw also that
Philip's power, when acting against his own, must greatly depend upon
the progress of the human mind towards a more enlightened state, which
advance must necessarily be slow and difficult; while the foundations
of his own power had been laid by ages of superstition, and were
strengthened by all those habits and ceremonies to which the heart of
man clings in every state, but more especially in a state of darkness.
Resolved at once to strike the blow, it happened favourably for the
views of the pope, that the first question where his authority was
really compromised, was one in which the strongest passions of his
adversary were engaged, while his own mind was free to direct its
energies by the calm rule of judgment. It is but justice also to say,
that though Innocent felt the rejection of his interference as an
insult, and beheld the authority of the church despised with no small
wrath, yet all his actions and his letters, though firm and decided,
were calm and temperate. Still, he menaced not without having resolved
to strike; and the only answer he returned to the request of the
cardinal of St. Mary's for farther instructions, was an order to call
a council of the bishops of France, for the purpose of excommunicating
Philip as rebel to the will of the church, and of fulminating an
interdict against the whole of the realm. So severe a sentence,
however, alarmed the bishops of France; and, at their intercession,
the legate delayed for a time its execution, in hopes that, by some
concession, Philip might turn away the wrath of the church.
In the meanwhile, as if the blow with which he was menaced but made
him cling more closely to the object for whose sake he exposed
himself, Philip devoted himself entirely to divert the mind of Agnes
de Meranie from contemplating the fatal truth which she had learned at
last. He now called to her remembrance the enthusiasm with which his
barons had espoused her cause; he pointed out to her that the whole
united bishops of France had solemnly pronounced the dissolution of
his incomplete marriage with the Princess of Denmark; and he assured
her, that were it but to protect the rights of his clergy and his
kingdom from the grasping ambition of the see of Rome, he would resist
its interference, and maintain his independence with the last drop of
his blood.
At other times he strove to win her away even from the recollection of
her situation; and he himself seemed almost to forget the monarch in
the husband. Sometimes it was in the forests of Compiègne, Senlis, or
Fontainbleau, chasing the stag or the boar, and listening to the music
of the hounds, the ringing horns, and the echoing woods. Sometimes it
was in the banquet and the pageant, the tournament or the _cour
plenière_, with all its crowd, and gaiety, and song. Sometimes it was
in solitude and tranquillity, straying together through lovely scenes,
where nature seemed but to shine back the sweet feelings of their
hearts; and every tone of all summer's gladness seemed to find an echo
in their bosoms.
Philip succeeded; and Agnes de Meranie, though her cheek still
remained a shade paler than it had been, and her soft eyes had
acquired a look of pensive languor, had--or seemed to have--forgotten
that there was a soul on earth who disputed her title to the heart of
her husband, and the crown of her realm. She would laugh, and
converse, and sing, and frame gay dreams of joy and happiness to come,
as had been ever her wont; but it was observed that she would start,
and turn pale, when any one came upon her suddenly, as if she still
feared evil news; and, if any thing diverted her thoughts from the gay
current in which she strove to guide them, she would fall into a long
reverie, from which it was difficult to wake her.
Thus had passed the time of Philip Augustus and Agnes de Meranie, from
their departure for Compiègne, the day after the tournament. The hours
of Count Thibalt d'Auvergne, however, had been spent in a very
different manner from that which he had anticipated. He had, it is
true, made up his mind to a painful duty; but it was a duty of another
kind he was called to perform. As his foot was in the stirrup to join
the royal cavalcade, for the purpose of proceeding to Compiègne,
according to the king's invitation, a messenger arrived from Auvergne,
bearing the sad news that his father had been suddenly seized with an
illness, from which no hope existed of his recovery; and D'Auvergne,
without loss of time, turned his steps towards Vic le Comte.
On his arrival, he found his parent still lingering on the confines
between those two strange worlds, the present and the future: the one
which we pass through, as in a dream, without knowing the realities of
any thing around us; the other, the dreadful inevitability of which we
are fond to clothe in a thousand splendid hopes, putting, as it were,
a crown of glory on the cold and grimly brow of Death.
'Twas a sad task to watch the flickering of life's lamp, till the
flame flew off for ever! The Count d'Auvergne, however, performed it
firmly; and having laid the ashes of his father in the earth, he
stayed but to receive the homage of his new vassals, and then turned
his steps once more towards Paris, leaving the government of Auvergne
to his uncle, the famous Count Guy, celebrated both for his jovial
humour and his predatory habits.