There are few of our countrymen who have travelled in France but must
frequently have heard proverbial allusion made to a certain monarch of
Yvetot; and still fewer must be those who, having the slightest
knowledge of French literature, are unacquainted with Béranger's happy
lyric--
There reigned a monarch in Yvetot
But little known in story,
Who, stranger all to grief and wo,
Slept soundly without glory;
His night-cap tied by Jenny's care
(The only crown this king would wear),
He'd snooze!
Ha, ha, ha! Ho, ho, ho!
The merry monarch of Yvetot.
His jolly court he held each day,
'Neath humble roof of rushes green;
And on a donkey riding gay,
Through all his kingdom might be seen:
A happy soul, and thinking well,
His only guard was--sooth to tell--
His dog!
Ha, ha, ha! Ho, ho, ho!
The merry monarch of Yvetot.
No harsh exacting lord was he,
To grasp more than his folks could give;
But, mild howe'er a king may be,
His majesty, you know, must live;
And no man e'er a bumper filled,
Until the jovial prince had swilled
His share!
Ha, ha, ha! Ho, ho, ho!
The merry monarch of Yvetot.
He ne'er sought to enlarge his states,
But was a neighbour just and kind;
A pattern to all potentates,
Would they his bright example mind.
The only tears he e'er caused fall,
Fell when he died--which you'll not call
His fault.
Ha, ha, ha! Ho, ho, ho!
The merry monarch of Yvetot.
It is well known that Béranger's song, from which we have extracted
the preceding four verses, as translated by Anderson, was a friendly,
though rather satirical remonstrance with Napoleon--of course we mean
_the_ Napoleon--touching his ambitious and bellicose policy. But it is
not so well known, that there really was a kingdom of Yvetot, and that
its several dynasties reigned peacefully for upwards of eleven
centuries. Anderson, in a note to the song, says: 'Yvetot, a district
in the north of France, possesses a monarch of its own, a sort of
burlesque personage, whose royal charger is a donkey; his guard, a
dog; his crown, a night-cap; and his revenue, a gratuitous draught of
_wine_ at the _ale_ houses of his liege subjects!' Young, another
translator of Béranger, not any better informed, tells us that 'the
Lords of Yvetot claimed and exercised, in the olden time, some such
fantastical privileges as are here alluded to.'
The translators have some excuse for their ignorance regarding the
king of Yvetot; for few Frenchmen of the present day, with the
exception of antiquaries, consider him to have been anything else than
a popular myth. Be it our task, then, to jot down some authentic
notices of that ancient, and now extinct monarchy.
Yvetot, a town and commune of ancient Normandy (Pays de Caux), in the
department of Seine-Inférieure, now traversed by the railway leading
from Havre de Grâce to Rouen, was, in the sixth century, the seigniory
of one Vauthier, chamberlain to Clotaire I., the royal son of Clovis
and Clotilda. Nothing whatever is known of the earlier part of
Vauthier's history, more than that he held the fief of Yvetot from
Clotaire by the feudal tenure of military service. An able and
trustworthy statesman in the council-chamber, a valiant and skilful
commander in the battle-field, the chamberlain lived on terms of the
most intimate familiarity with his king, who ever lent a ready ear to
his sage suggestions. This high honour, however, being not at all
agreeable to the other followers of the court, they entered into a
conspiracy to ruin the favourite chamberlain. Taking advantage of his
absence, they perfidiously vilified him to the king. The chroniclers
do not state what were the exact charges brought against him, but they
must have been weighty and artfully insinuated, for the rude and
truculent Clotaire swore that he would, with his own hand, slay the
Sieur of Yvetot, when and wherever he should chance to meet with him.
The reader must not be surprised at such a vow: in those days,
sovereigns frequently indulged in a plurality of offices, and could
upon occasion perform the duty of the executioner as well as that of
the judge. Vauthier happened to have a friend at court, who sent him
timely warning of this state of affairs; and not thinking it by any
means prudent to expose himself to the lethal fury of a king who had
unscrupulously killed his own nephews, he left the country, and joined
the army of the north, then fighting against the Thuringian pagans,
the enemies of Clotaire and his religion, such as it was.
After ten years of arduous service and heroic exploits, Vauthier,
crowned with glory, and hoping that time had mollified the malignant
feelings of the king, turned his face once more towards his native
country. But at that period bad passions were not so easily effaced;
besides, the accusers of Vauthier were now doubly interested in
keeping him at a distance. The Lord of Yvetot, hearing how matters
stood, to make sure of a favourable reception, proceeded, in the first
instance, to Rome, where he made a friend of Pope Agapet, who sent him
with letters to Clotaire, in the capacity of an envoy. Under the
shield of so sacred a function, Vauthier had no hesitation in
repairing to Soissons, and presenting himself before the king; yet, to
be still more secure, he chose for that occasion the solemnities of
Good Friday--the anniversary of the great day of Christian mercy.
Clotaire was at the high altar of the cathedral, celebrating the
holiest rites of the church before a crucifix veiled in mourning, when
Vauthier made his presence known. Throwing himself on his knees in
humble supplication, he presented the letters of the sovereign
pontiff, and implored pardon, if he had been guilty, by the merits of
Him who, on the same day, had so freely shed his blood for the
salvation of all mankind. The ferocious and implacable king recognised
the suppliant, and, without regard to the sanctity of either the place
or the day, drew his sword, and, with one blow, struck the unfortunate
chamberlain dead on the stone pavement, at the very steps of the
altar.
Violent passions have, generally speaking, rapid revulsions. Scarcely
was Vauthier's body cold, when the king repented his hasty deed. The
clergy read to him the letters from Pope Agapet, which attested the
innocence of his former favourite; and they represented to him, that
he had committed the grossest description of sacrilege, the sin from
which the sovereign pontiff alone could absolve. In a short time the
barbarous Clotaire passed from a state of rabid fury to one of the
most abject despair, so that he required little persuasion from the
clergy ere he sent a messenger to Rome, bearing rich presents, to beg
for absolution from the pope. The messenger arrived at Rome just as
Agapet was at the point of death; yet the business being urgent, and
the presents valuable, he was ushered into the sick-chamber of the
dying head of the Christian church. Supported by attendants, the pope
proceeded to pronounce, in a feeble voice, the penitential discipline
of Clotaire. He said that the king could not expect pardon unless he
gave the highest possible satisfaction to the heirs of the murdered
man: but here a fit of coughing attacked and carried off his holiness,
so that whatever penance he intended to inflict was never known.
Clotaire, however, determined to expiate his crime, long pondered upon
the meaning of the pope's dying words, and at last concluded that, as
there was nothing higher than a king, the words 'highest satisfaction'
meant that he should raise the heir of Vauthier to the royal dignity.
Accordingly, he by charter erected the seigniory of Yvetot into a
kingdom--an act in perfect consonance with the ancient French feudal
law, which enfranchised the family of the vassal from all homage and
duty, if his lord laid violent hands upon him.
From that time until the latter part of the eighteenth century, the
descendants of Vauthier reigned as independent sovereigns of their
little kingdom of Yvetot, owing neither tribute, service, nor
allegiance to any other power. Consequently, until the great
Revolution, which, like the bursting of a pent-up deluge, changed the
features of the whole country, the inhabitants of Yvetot paid no taxes
to the government of France.
Historians and jurisconsults have written many grave and learned
dissertations on the curious position of this little kingdom shut up
in a greater one; and, though they differ in some trifling respects,
they all coincide in concluding, that the king of Yvetot, being
independent of any other potentate, was never obliged to engage in
quarrels which did not concern him, and accordingly lived in peace
with his neighbours, whom he never pretended to frighten. Moreover, in
spite of courtiers and counsellors, statecraft and politics were
unknown in Yvetot; thus the king remained neuter during the various
wars that raged around him, though he could bring an army of one
hundred and twenty royal troops into the field. The seriousness of
these disquisitions has been occasionally enlivened by a spice of
pleasantry. We are told how the king of Yvetot kept his own seals, and
was his own minister of finance; that his court consisted of a
bishop, a dean, and four canons, not one of whom ranked higher in the
church than a parish curé; four notaries, dignified by the title of
judges, representing the states of the kingdom, formed the senate, and
composed his majesty's privy-council; four of the best-looking of the
tenants' daughters were ladies of the bed-chamber and maids of honour
to the queen; four stalwart body-guards attended on all occasions of
ceremony--at other times, they worked as agricultural labourers on the
royal farm; a footman performed the duty of chamberlain, and, when
necessary, that of herald; a groom was master of the horse; a gardener
superintended the woods and forests. This, however, is only a
traditionary account of the court of Yvetot; and, lest the reader
should think it all a joke, we shall specify some of the documentary
evidence still extant respecting that little kingdom.
A decree of the Court of Exchequer of Normandy, executed in the year
1392, mentions the king of Yvetot; and various letters-patent, granted
by monarchs of France in 1401, 1450, and 1464, acknowledge and confirm
the title. In the early part of the fifteenth century, when Normandy
was under English rule, one John Holland, an Englishman, claimed, in
the name of his master Henry VI., certain taxes and feudal duties from
the kingdom of Yvetot. Strange to say, in those semi-barbarous days,
the case was tried in a court of law, and the issue given against
Holland, the court fully recognising the Lord of Yvetot as an
independent king. A letter of Francis I., addressed to the queen of
Yvetot, is still in existence. In one of the many episodes of the wars
of the League, it happened that Henry IV., compelled to retreat, found
himself in Yvetot, and determined not to recede further, he cheered
his troops by jocularly saying: 'If we lose France, we must take
possession of this fair kingdom of Yvetot.' At the coronation of his
second wife, Mary de Medici, the same monarch rebuked the grand
chamberlain for not assigning to Martin du Belley, then king of
Yvetot, a position suitable to his regal dignity. The Belley dynasty
reigned in Yvetot for 332 years. The last king of that petty kingdom
was D'Albon St Marcel, who, when at the court of Louis XVI., modestly
assumed no higher rank than that of a prince. The Revolution, as we
have already intimated, swept away the ancient crown, and the King of
Yvetot is now nothing more than the title of a song, with its burden--
Ha, ha, ha! Ho, ho, ho!