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THE CARLOVINGIAN COINS
THE FULL SERIES OF
The Mysteries of the People
OR
History of a Proletarian Family Across the Ages
By EUGENE SUE
_Consisting of the Following Works_:
THE GOLD SICKLE; or, _Hena the Virgin of the Isle of Sen_.
THE BRASS BELL; or, _The Chariot of Death_.
THE IRON COLLAR; or, _Faustine and Syomara_.
THE SILVER CROSS; or, _The Carpenter of Nazareth_.
THE BASQUE'S LARK; or, _Victoria, the Mother of the Camps_.
THE PONIARD'S HILT; or, _Karadeucq and Ronan_.
THE BRANDING NEEDLE; or, _The Monastery of Charolles_.
THE ABBATIAL CROSIER; or, _Bonaik and Septimine_.
THE CARLOVINGIAN COINS; or, _The Daughters of Charlemagne_.
THE IRON ARROW-HEAD; or, _The Buckler Maiden_.
THE INFANT'S SKULL; or, _The End of the World_.
THE PILGRIM'S SHELL; or, _Fergan the Quarryman_.
THE IRON PINCERS; or, _Mylio and Karvel_.
THE IRON TREVET; or, _Jocelyn the Champion_.
THE EXECUTIONER'S KNIFE; or, _Joan of Arc_.
THE POCKET BIBLE; or, _Christian the Printer_.
THE BLACKSMITH'S HAMMER; or, _The Peasant Code_.
THE SWORD OF HONOR; or, _The Foundation of the French Republic_.
THE GALLEY SLAVE'S RING; or, _The Family Lebrenn_.
Published Uniform With This Volume By
THE NEW YORK LABOR NEWS CO.
28 CITY HALL PLACE NEW YORK CITY
THE CARLOVINGIAN COINS
OR
THE DAUGHTERS OF CHARLEMAGNE
A Tale of the Ninth Century
By EUGENE SUE
TRANSLATED FROM THE ORIGINAL FRENCH BY
DANIEL DE LEON
NEW YORK LABOR NEWS COMPANY. 1908
Copyright 1908, by the
NEW YORK LABOR NEWS CO.
INDEX
TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. v
PART I--AIX-LA-CHAPELLE.
CHAPTER.
I. AMAEL AND VORTIGERN. 3
II. THE COURTYARD OF THE PALACE. 18
III. IN THE GALLERIES OF THE PALACE. 24
IV. CHARLEMAGNE. 29
V. THE PALATINE SCHOOL. 40
VI. THE BISHOP OF LIMBURG. 44
VII. TO THE HUNT. 54
VIII. THE FOREST OF OPPENHEIM. 58
IX. AT THE MORT. 71
X. EMPEROR AND HOSTAGE. 77
XI. FRANK AND BRETON. 88
PART II--THE CONQUEST OF BRITTANY.
I. IN THE BLACK MOUNTAINS. 107
II. THE BRETON CHIEF. 112
III. ABBOT AND BRETON. 120
IV. THE DEFILE OF GLEN-CLAN. 132
V. THE MARSH OF PEULVEN. 139
VI. THE FOREST OF CARDIK. 146
VII. THE MOOR OF KENNOR. 151
VIII. THE VALLEY OF LOKFERN. 156
EPILOGUE. 159
TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE
The Age of Charlemagne is the watershed of the history of the present
era. The rough barbarian flood that poured over Western Europe reaches
in that age a turning point of which Charlemagne is eminently the
incarnation. The primitive physical features of the barbarian begin to
be blunted, or toned down by a new force that has lain latent in him,
but that only then begins to step into activity--the spiritual, the
intellectual powers. The Age of Charlemagne is the age of the first
conflict between the intellectual and the brute in the principal
branches of the races that occupied Europe. The conflict raged on a
national scale, and it raged in each particular individual. The colossal
stature, physical and mental, of Charlemagne himself typifies the epoch.
Brute instincts of the most primitive and savage, intellectual
aspirations of the loftiest are intermingled, each contends for
supremacy--and alternately wins it, in the monarch, in his court and in
his people.
_The Carlovingian Coins; or, The Daughters of Charlemagne_ is the ninth
of the brilliant series of historical novels written by Eugene Sue under
the title, _The Mysteries of the People; or, History of a Proletarian
Family Across the Ages_. The age and its people are portrayed in a
charming and chaste narrative, that is fittingly and artistically
brought to a close by a veritable epopee--the Frankish conquest of
Brittany, and, as fittingly, serves to introduce the next epopee--the
Northman's invasion of Gaul--dealt with in the following story, _The
Iron Arrow Head; or, The Buckler Maiden_.
DANIEL DE LEON.
New York, May, 1905.
PART I.
AIX-LA-CHAPELLE
CHAPTER I.
AMAEL AND VORTIGERN.
Towards the commencement of the month of November of the year 811, a
numerous cavalcade was one afternoon wending its way to the city of
Aix-la-Chapelle, the capital of the Empire of Charles the Great--an
Empire that had been so rapidly increased by rapidly succeeding
conquests over Germany, Saxony, Bavaria, Bohemia, Hungary, Italy and
Spain, that Gaul, as formerly during the days of the Roman Emperors, was
again but a province among the vast domains. The ambitious designs of
Charles Martel had been realized. Childeric, the last scion of the
Merovingian dynasty, had been got rid of. Martel's descendants took his
seat, and now the Hammerer's grandson wielded the sceptre of Clovis over
an immensely wider territory.
Eight or ten cavalry soldiers rode in advance of the cavalcade. A little
apart from the smaller escort, four cavaliers ambled leisurely. Two of
them wore brilliant armor after the German fashion. One of these was
accompanied by a venerable old man of a martial and open countenance.
His long beard, snow white as his hair that was half hidden under a fur
cap, fell over his chest. He wore a Gallic blouse of grey wool, held
around his waist by a belt, from which hung a long sword with an iron
hilt. His ample hose of rough white fabric reached slightly below his
knees and left exposed his tightly laced leather leggings, that ended in
his boots whose heels were armed with spurs. The old man was Amael, who
under the assumed Frankish name of Berthoald had, eighty years before,
saved the life of Charles Martel at the battle of Poitiers against the
Arabs, had declined the post offered him by Charles, as jailer of the
last descendant of Clovis, and, finally, smitten by conscience, had
renounced wealth and dignity under the Frankish enslavers of Gaul, and
returned to his people and country of Brittany, or Armorica, as the
Romans named it. Amael now touched his hundredth year. His great age and
his somewhat portly stature notwithstanding, he still looked full of
vigor. He handled with dexterity the black horse that he rode and whose
spirit seemed no wise abated by the long road it had traveled. From time
to time, Amael turned round upon his saddle in order to cast a look of
paternal solicitude upon his grandson Vortigern, a lad of hardly
eighteen years, who was accompanied by the other of the two Frankish
warriors. The face of Vortigern, of exceptional beauty for a man, was
framed in long chestnut ringlets, that, escaping from his scarlet coif,
tumbled down below a chin that was as dainty as a woman's. His large
blue eyes, fringed with lashes black as his bold arched eyebrows, had an
air at once ingenuous and resolute. His red lips, shaded by the down of
adolescence, revealed at every smile two rows of teeth white as enamel.
A slightly aquiline nose, a fresh and pure complexion somewhat tanned by
the sun, completed the harmonious make-up of the youth's charming
visage. His clothes, made after the fashion of his grandfather's,
differed from them only in a touch of elegance that bespoke a mother's
hand, tenderly proud of her son's comely appearance. Accordingly, the
blue blouse of the lad was ornamented around the neck, over the
shoulders and at the extremities of the sleeves with embroideries of
white wool, while a calfskin belt, from which hung a sword with
polished hilt, encircled his supple waist. His linen hose half hid his
deerskin leggings, that were tightly laced to his nervy limbs and
rejoined his boots, made of tanned skin and equipped with large copper
spurs that glistened like gold. Although his right arm was held in a
scarf of some black material, Vortigern handled his horse with his left
hand with as much ease as skill. For traveling companion he had a young
warrior of agreeable mien, bold and mercurial, alert and frolicsome. The
mobility of his face recalled in nothing the stolidity of the German.
His name was Octave. Roman by birth, in appearance and character, his
inexhaustible Southern wit often succeeded in unwrinkling the brow of
his young companion. The latter, however, would soon again relapse into
a sort of silent and somber revery. Thus for some time absorbed in
sadness, he walked his horse slowly, when Octave broke in gaily in a
tone of friendly reproach:
"By Bacchus! You still are preoccupied and silent."
"I am thinking of my mother," answered the youth, smothering a sigh. "I
am thinking of my mother, of my sister and of my country."
"Come now; you should, on the contrary, chase away, such saddening
thoughts. To the devil with sadness. Long live joy."
"Octave, gayness ill beseems a prisoner. I cannot share your
light-heartedness."
"You are no prisoner, only a hostage. No bond binds you but your own
word; prisoners, on the contrary, are led firmly pinioned to the slave
market. Your grandfather and yourself ride freely, with us for your
companions, and we are escorting you, not to a slave market, but to the
palace of the Emperor Charles the Great, the mightiest monarch of the
whole world. Finally, prisoners are disarmed; your grandfather as well
as yourself carry your swords."
"Of what use are our swords now to us?" replied Vortigern with painful
bitterness. "Brittany is vanquished."
"Such are the chances of war. You bravely did your duty as a soldier.
You fought like a demon at the side of your grandfather. He was not
wounded, and you only received a lance-thrust. By Mars, the valiant god
of war, your blows were so heavy in the melee that you should have been
hacked to pieces."
"We would not then have survived the disgrace of Armorica."
"There is no disgrace in being overcome when one has defended himself
bravely--above all when the forces that one resisted and decimated, were
the veteran bands of the great Charles."
"Not one of your Emperor's soldiers should have escaped."
"Not one?" merrily rejoined the young Roman. "What, not even myself? Not
even I, who take such pains to be a pleasant traveling companion, and
who tax my eloquence to entertain you? Verily, you are not at all
grateful!"
"Octave, I do not hate you personally; I hate your race; they have,
without provocation, carried war and desolation into my country."
"First of all, my young friend, I am not of the Frankish race. I am a
Roman. Gladly do I relinquish to you those gross Germans, who are as
savage as the bears of their forests. But, let it be said among
ourselves, this war against Brittany was not without reason. Did not you
Bretons, possessed of the very devil as you are, attack last year and
exterminate the Frankish garrison posted at Vannes?"
"And by what right did Charles cause our frontiers to be invaded by his
troops twenty-five years ago? His whim stood him instead of right."
The conversation between Vortigern and Octave was interrupted by the
voice of Amael, who, turning in his saddle, called his grandson to him.
The latter, anxious to hasten to his grandfather, and also yielding to
an impulse of anger that the discussion with the young Roman had
provoked, brusquely clapped his spurs to the flanks of his charger. The
animal, thus suddenly urged, leaped forward so violently that in two or
three bounds it would have left Amael behind, had not Vortigern,
restraining his mount with a firm hand, made the animal rear on its
haunches. The youth then resumed his walk abreast of his grandfather and
the other Frankish warrior, who, turning to the old man, remarked:
"I do not marvel at the superiority of your Breton cavalry, when a lad
of the age of your grandson, and despite the wound that must smart him,
can handle his horse in such a manner. You yourself, for a centenarian,
are as firm in your saddle as the lad himself. Horns of the devil!"
"The lad was barely five years old when his father and I used to place
him on the back of the colts raised on our meadows," answered the old
man. The recollection of those peaceful happy days now ended, cast a
shadow of sorrow upon Amael's face. He remained silent for a moment.
Thereupon, addressing Vortigern, he said:
"I called you to inquire whether your wound had ceased smarting."
"Grandfather, I hardly feel it any longer. If you allow me, I would free
my arm of the embarrassing scarf."
"No; your wound might open again. No imprudence. Remember your mother,
and also your sister and her husband, both of whom love you like a
brother."
"Alas! Will I never see that mother, that sister, that brother whom I
love so dearly?"
"Patience!" answered Amael in an undertone, so as not to be heard by the
Frankish warrior at his side. "You may see Brittany again a good deal
sooner than you expect--prudence and patience!"
"Truly?" inquired the youth impetuously. "Oh, grandfather, what
happiness!"
The old man made a sign to Vortigern to control himself, and then
proceeded aloud: "I am always afraid lest the fatigue of traveling
inflame your wound anew. Fortunately, we must be approaching the end of
our journey. Not so, Hildebrad?" he added, turning to the warrior.
"Before sunset we shall be at Aix-la-Chapelle," answered the Frank. "But
for the hill that we are about to ascend, you could see the city at a
distance."
"Return to your companion, my child," said Amael; "above all, place your
arm back in its scarf, and be careful how you manage your horse. A
too-sudden lurch might re-open the wound that is barely closed."
The young man obeyed and gently walked his horse back to Octave. Thanks
to the mobility of the impressions of youth, Vortigern felt appeased and
comforted by the words of his grandfather that had made him look forward
to a speedy return to his family and country. The soothing thought was
so visibly reflected in his candid features that Octave met him with the
merry remark:
"What a magician that grandfather of yours must be! You rode off
preoccupied and fretful, angrily burying your spurs into the flanks of
your horse, who, poor animal, had done nothing to excite your wrath.
Now, behold! You return as placid as a bishop astride of his mule."
"The magic of my grandfather has chased away my sadness. You speak
truly, Octave."
"So much the better. I shall now be free, without fear of reviving your
chagrin, to give a loose to the increasing joy that I feel at every
step."
"Why does your joy increase at every step, my dear companion?"
"Because even the dullest horse becomes livelier and more spirited in
the measure that he approaches the house where he knows that he will
find provender."
"Octave, I did not know you for such a glutton!"
"In that case, my looks are deceptive, because a glutton, that am
I--terribly gluttonous of those delicate dainties that are found only at
court, and that constitute my provender."
"What!" exclaimed Vortigern ingenuously. "Is that great Emperor, whose
name fills the world, surrounded by a court where nothing is thought of
but dainties and gluttony?"
"Why, of course," answered Octave gravely and hardly able to refrain
from laughing outright at the innocence of the young Breton. "Why, of
course. And what is more, more so than any of the counts, of the dukes,
of the men of learning, and of the bishops at court, does the Emperor
himself lust after the dainties that I have in mind. He always keeps a
room contiguous to his own full of them. Because in the stillness of the
night--"
"He rises to eat cakes and, perhaps, even sweetmeats!" exclaimed the lad
with disdain, while Octave, unable longer to contain himself, was
laughing in his face. "I can think of nothing more unbecoming than
guzzling on the part of one who governs empires!"
"What's to be done, Vortigern? Great princes must be pardoned for some
pecadillos. Moreover, with them it is a family failing--the daughters of
the Emperor--"
"His daughters also are given to this ugly passion for gormandizing?"
"Alas! They are no less gluttonous than their father. They have six or
seven dainties of their own--most appetizing and most appetized."
"Oh, fie!" cried Vortigern. "Fie. Have they perhaps, also next to their
bed-chambers, whole rooms stocked with dainties?"
"Calm your legitimate indignation, my boiling-over friend. Young girls
can not allow themselves quite so much comfort. That's good enough for
the Emperor Charles, who is no longer nimble on his legs. He is getting
along in years. He has the gout in his left foot, and his girth is
enormous."
"That is not to be wondered at. Bound is the stomach to protrude with
such a gourmand!"
"You will understand that being so heavy on his feet, this mighty
Emperor is not able, like his daughters, to snatch at a stray dainty on
the wing, like birdies in an orchard, who nibble lovingly here at a red
cherry, there at a blushing apple, yonder at a bunch of gilded grapes.
No, no; with his august paunch and his gouty foot, the august Charles
would be wholly unable to snap the dainties on the wing. The attention
due to his empire would lose too much. Hence the Emperor keeps near at
hand, within easy reach, a room full of dainties, where, at night, he
finds his provender--"
"Octave!" exclaimed Vortigern, interrupting the young Roman with a
haughty mien. "I do not wish to be trifled with. At first, I took your
words seriously. The laughter that you are hardly able to repress, and
that despite yourself breaks out at frequent intervals, shows me that
you are trifling with me."
"Come, my brave lad, do not wax angry. I am not bantering. Only that,
out of respect for the candor of your age, I have used a figure of
speech to tell the truth. In short, the dainty that I, Charles, his
daughters, and, by Venus! everybody at court lusts after more or less
greedily is--love!"
"Love," echoed Vortigern, blushing and for the first time dropping his
eyes before Octave; but as his uneasiness increased, he proceeded to
inquire: "But, in order to enjoy love, the daughters of Charles are
surely married?"
"Oh, innocence of the Golden Age! Oh, Armorican naiveness! Oh, Gallic
chastity!" cried Octave. But noticing that the young Breton frowned at
hearing his native land ridiculed, the Roman proceeded: "Far be it from
me to jest about your brave country. I shall tell you without further
circumlocution--I shall tell you that Charles' daughters are not
married; for reasons that he has never cared to explain to anyone, he
never has wanted them to have a husband."[A]
"Out of pride, no doubt!"
"Oh, oh, on that subject many things are said. The long and short of it
is that he does not wish to part with them. He adores them, and, except
he goes to war, he always has them near him during his journeys, along
with his concubines--or, if you prefer the term, his 'dainties.' The
word may be less shocking to your prudery. You must know that after
having successively married and discarded his five wives, Desiderata,
Hildegarde, Fustrade, Himiltrude and Luitgarde, the Emperor provided
himself with an assortment of dainties, from which assortment I shall
mention to you incidentally the juicy Mathalgarde, the sugary
Gerswinthe, the tart Regina, the toothsome Adalinde--not to mention many
other saints on this calendar of love. For you must know that the great
Charles resembles the great Solomon not in wisdom only; he resembles him
also in his love for _seraglios_, as the Arabs call them. But, by the
way of the Emperor's daughters. Listen to a little tale. Imma, one of
these young princesses, was a charming girl. One fine day she became
smitten with Charles' archchaplain, named Eginhard. An archchaplain
being, of course, arch-amorous, Imma received Eginhard every night
secretly in her chamber--to discuss chapel affairs, I surmise. Now,
then, it so happened that during one winter's night there fell so very
much snow that the ground was all covered. A little before dawn,
Eginhard takes his departure from his lady-love; but just as he is about
to climb down from the window--an ordinary route with lovers--he beholds
by the light of a superb full moon that the ground is one sheet of white
snow. To himself he thinks: 'Imma and I are lost! I cannot get out
without leaving the imprint of my steps in the snow'--"
"And what did he do?" asked Vortigern, more and more interested in the
story that threw an undefined sense of uneasiness in his heart. "How
did the two escape from their perilous plight, the poor lovers!"
"Imma, a robustious doxy, a girl both of head and resolution, descends
by the window, bravely takes the archchaplain on her back, and, without
tripping under the beloved burden, crosses a wide courtyard that
separates her quarters from one of the corridors of the palace. Although
weighted down by an archchaplain, Imma had such small feet that the
traces left by them could not choose but keep suspicion away from
Eginhard. Unfortunately, however, as you will discover when you arrive
at Aix-la-Chapelle, the Emperor is possessed of a demon of curiosity,
and has had his palace so constructed that, from a kind of terrace,
contiguous to his own room and which dominates the rest of the
buildings, he is able to discover as from an observatory, all who enter,
go out, or cross the open space. Now, then, the Emperor, who frequently
rises at night, saw, thanks to the brilliant moonlight, his daughter
crossing the yard with the amorous fardel."
"Charles' anger must have been terrible!"
"Yes, terrible for an instant. Soon, however, no doubt greatly elated at
having procreated a maid who was able to carry an archchaplain on her
back, the august Emperor pardoned the guilty couple. After that they
lived lovingly in peace and joy."
"And yet that archchaplain was a priest? What of the sanctity of the
clergy!"
"Ho, ho! my young friend. The Emperor's daughters are far from failing
in esteem for priests. Bertha, another of his daughters, desperately
esteems Enghilbert, the handsome Abbot of St. Riquier. Fairness,
nevertheless, compels me to admit that one of Bertha's sisters, named
Adeltrude, esteemed with no less vehemence Count Lambert, one of the
most intrepid officers of the imperial army. As to little Rothailde,
another of the Emperor's daughters, she did not withhold her lively
esteem from Romuald, who made his name glorious in our wars against
Bohemia. I shall not speak of the other princesses. It is fully six
months that I have been away from court. I would be afraid to do them
injustice. Nevertheless, I am free to say that the Crosier and the Sword
have generally contended with each other for the amorous tenderness of
the daughters of Charles. Yet I must except Thetralde, the youngest of
the set. She is still too much of a novice to esteem any one. She is
barely fifteen. She is a flower, or rather, the bud of a flower that is
about to blossom. I never have seen anything more charming. When I last
departed from the court Thetralde gave promise of eclipsing all her
sisters and nieces with the sweetness and freshness of her beauty,
because, and I had forgotten this detail, my dear friend, the daughters
of Charles' sons are brought up with his own daughters; and are no less
charming than their aunts. You will see them all. Your admiration will
have but to choose between Adelaid, Atula, Gonarade, Bertha or
Theodora."
"What! Do all these young girls inhabit the Emperor's palace?"
"Certainly, without counting their servants, their governesses, their
chambermaids, their readers, their singers and innumerable other women
of their retinue. By Venus! My Adonis, there are more petticoats to be
seen in the imperial palace than cuirasses or priests' gowns. The
Emperor loves as much to be surrounded by women as by soldiers and
abbots, without forgetting the learned men, the rhetoricians, the
dialecticians, the instructors, the peripatetic pedagogues and the
grammarians. The great Charles, as you must know, is as passionately
fond of grammar as of love, war, the chase, or choir chants. In his
grammarian's ardor, the Emperor invents words--"
"What!"
"Just as I am telling you. For instance: How do you call in the Gallic
tongue the month in which we now are?"
"The month of November."
"So do we Italians, barbarians that we are! But the Emperor has changed
all that by virtue of his own sovereign and grammatical will. His
peoples, provided they can obey him without the words strangling them,
are to say, instead of November, 'Herbismanoth'; instead of October,
Windumnermanoth.'"
"Octave, you are trying to make merry at my expense."
"Instead of March, 'Lenzhimanoth'; instead of May--"
"Enough! enough! for pity's sake!" cried Vortigern. "Those barbarous
names make me shiver. What! can there be throats in existence able to
articulate such sounds?"
"My young friend, Frankish throats are capable of everything. I warn
you, prepare your ears for the most uncouth concert of raucous,
guttural, savage words that you ever heard, unless you have ever heard
frogs croaking, tom-cats squalling, bulls bellowing, asses braying,
stags belling and wolves howling--all at once! Excepting the Emperor
himself and his family, who can somewhat handle the Roman and the Gallic
languages, the only two languages, in short, that are human, you will
hear nothing spoken but Frankish at that German court where everything
is German, that is to say, barbarous; the language, the customs, the
manners, the meals, the dress. In short, Aix-la-Chapelle is no longer
in Gaul. It now lies in Germany absolutely."
"And yet Charles reigns over Gaul!--is not that enough of a disgrace for
my country? The Emperor who governs us by no right other than conquest,
is surrounded with a Frankish court, and with officers and generals of
the same stock, who do not deign even to speak our tongue. Shame and
disgrace to us!"
"There you are at it again, plunging anew into sadness. Vortigern! By
Bacchus! Why do you not imitate my philosophy of indifference? Does,
perchance, my race not descend from that haughty Roman stock that made
the world to tremble only a few centuries ago? Have I not seen the
throne of the Caesars occupied by hypocritical, ambitious, greedy and
debauched Popes, with their black-gowned and tonsured militia? Have not
the descendants of our haughty Roman Emperors gone in their imbecile
idleness to vegetate in Constantinople, where they still indulge the
dreams of Universal Empire? Have not the Catholic priests chased from
their Olympus the charmful deities of our fathers? Have they not torn
down, mutilated and ravished the temples, statues, altars--the
master-works of the divine art of Rome and Greece? Go to, Vortigern, and
follow my example! Instead of fretting over a ship-wrecked past, let's
drink and forget! Let our fair mistresses be our Saints, and their
couches our altars! Let our Eucharist be a flower-decked cup, and for
liturgy, let's sing the amorous couplets of Tibullus, of Ovid, and of
Horace. Yes, indeed, and take my advice: let's drink, love and enjoy
life! That's truly to live! You will never again come across such an
opportunity. The gods of joy are sending you to the Emperor's court."
"What do you mean?" queried Vortigern almost mechanically, and feeling
his inexperienced sense, though not perverted, yet dazzled by the facile
and sensuous philosophy of Octave. "What would you have one become in
the midst of that court so strange to me, who have been brought up in
our rustic Brittany?"
"Child that you are! A swarm of beautiful eyes will be focused upon
you!"
"Octave, you are mocking again. Am I to be taken notice of? I, a field
laborer's son? I, a poor Breton prisoner on parole?"
"And do you think your reputation for a bedevilled Breton goes for
nothing? More than once have I heard told of the furious curiosity with
which, about twenty-five years ago, the hostages taken to
Aix-la-Chapelle, at the time of the first war against your country,
inspired everyone at court. The most charming women wished to behold
those indomitable Bretons whom only the great Charles had been able to
vanquish. Their haughty and rude mien, the interest centred in their
defeat, everything, down to their strange costumes, drew upon them the
looks and the sympathy of the women, who, in Germany, are ever strongly
prone to love. The fascinating enthusiasts of then are now become
mothers and grandfathers. But, happily, they have daughters and
grand-daughters who are fully able to appreciate you. I can assure you
that I, who know the court and its ways, had I only your youth, your
good looks, your wound, your graceful horsemanship and your renown as a
Breton, would guarantee myself the lover of all those beauties, and that
within a week."