Ay, this is be who wears die wreath of bays
Wove by Apollo and the Sisters Nine,
Which Jove’s dread lightning scathes not. He hath doft
The cumbrous helm of steel, and flung aside
The yet more galling diadem of gold;
While, with a leafy circlet round his brows,
He reigns the King of Lover and of Poets.
A cautious approach to the chimney, that is, the favorite walk of the King, who is described by Shakspeare as bearing
??— the style of King of Naples,
?Of both the Sicilies, and Jerusalem,
Yet not so wealthy as an English yeoman,
gave Arthur the perfect survey of his Majesty in person. He saw an old man, with locks and beard, which, in amplitude and whiteness, nearly rivalled those of the envoy from Schwytz, but wit a fresh and ruddy color in his cheek, and an eye of great vivacity. His dress was showy to a degree almost inconsistent with his years; and his step, not only firm, but full of alertness and vivacity, while occupied in traversing the short and sheltered walk, which he had chosen, rather for comfort than fot privacy, showed juvenile vigor still animating an aged frame. The old King carried his tablets and a pencil in his hand, seeming totally abstracted in his own thoughts, and indifferent to being observed by several persons from the public street beneath his elevated promenade.
Of these, some, from their dress and manner, seemed themselves Troubadours; for they held in their hands rebecks, rotes, small portable harps, and other indications of their profession Such appeared to be stationary, as if engaged in observing and recording their remarks on the meditations of their Prince. Other passengers, bent on their own more serious affairs, looked up to the King as to some one whom they were accustomed to see daily, but never passed without doffing their bonnets, and expressing, by a suitable obeisance, a respect and affection towards his person, which appeared to make up in cordiality of feeling what it wanted in deep and solemn deference.
Rene, in the meanwhile, was apparently unconscious both of the gaze of such as stood still, or the greeting of those who passed on, his mind seeming altogether engrossed with the apparent labor of some arduous task in poetry or music. He walked fast or slow as best suited the progress of composition. At times he stopped to mark hastily down on his tablets something which seemed to occur to him as deserving of preservation; at other times he dashed out what he had written, and flung down the pencil as if in a sort of despair. On these occasions, the Sibylline leaf was carefully picked up by a beautiful page, his only attendant, who reverently observed the first suitable opportunity of restoring it again to his royal hand. The same youth bore a viol, on which, at a signal from his master, he occasionally struck a few musical notes, to which the old King listened, now with a soothed and satisfied air, now with a discontented and anxious brow. At times, his enthusiasm Tose so high, that he even hopped and skipped with an activity which his years did not promise; at other times his motions were extremely slow, and occasionally he stood still, like one wrapped in the deepest and most anxious meditation. When he chanced to look on the group which seemed to watch his motions, and who ventured even to salute him with a murmur of applause, it was only to distinguish them with a friendly and good-humored nod; a salutation with which, likewise, he failed not to reply to the greeting of the occasional passengers, when his earnest attention to his task, whatever it might be, permitted him to observe them.
At length the royal eye lighted upon Arthur, whose attitude of silent observation, and the distinction of ~is figure, pointed him out as a stranger. Rene beckoned to his page, who, receiving his master’s commands in a whisper, descended from the royal chimney, to the broader platform beneath, which was open to general resort. The youth, addressing Arthur with much courtesy, informed him the King desired to speak with him. The young Englishman had no alternative but that of approaching, though pondering much in his own mind how he ought to comport himself towards such a singular specimen of royalty.
When he drew near, King Rene addressed him in a tone of courtesy not unmingled with dignity, and Arthur’s awe in his immediate presence was greater than he himself could have anticipated from his previous conception of the royal character.
“You are, from your appearance, fair sir,” said King Rene a stranger in this country. By what name must we call you, and to what business are we to ascribe the happiness of seeing you at our court?”
Arthur remained a moment silent, and the good old man imputing it to awe and timidity, proceeded in an encouraging tone.
“Modesty in youth is ever commendable you are doubtless an acolyte in the noble and joyous science of Minstrelsy and Music, drawn hither by the willing welcome which we afford to the professors of those arts, in which — praise be to Our Lady and the Saints! — we have ourself been deemed a proficient.”
“I do not aspire to the honors of a Troubadour,” answered Arthur.
“I believe you,” answered the King, “for your speech smacks of the northern, or Norman-French, such as is spoken in England and other unrefined nations. But you are a minstrel perhaps, from these ultramontane parts. Be assured we despise not their efforts; for we have listened, not without pleasure and instruction, to many of their bold and wild romaunts, which, though rude in device and language, and therefore far inferior to the regulated poetry of our Troubadours, have yet something in their powerful and rough measure, which occasionally rouses the heart like the sound of a trumpet.”
“I have felt the truth of your Grace’s observation, when I have heard the songs of my country,” said Arthur; “but I have neither skill nor audacity to imitate what I admire — My latest residence has been in Italy”
“You are perhaps then a proficient in painting,” said Rene; “an art which applies itself to the eye as poetry and music do to the ear, and is scarce less in esteem with us. If you arc skilful in the art, you have come to a monarch who loves it, and the fair country in which it is practised.”
“In simple truth, Sire, I am an Englishman, and my hand has been too much welk’d and hardened by practice of the bow, the lance, and the sword, to touch the harp, or even the pencil.”
“An Englishman!” said Rene obviously relaxing in the warmth of his welcome; “and what brings you here? England and I have long had little friendship together.”
“It is even on that account that I am here,” said Arthur. “I come to pay my homage to your Grace’s daughter, the Princess Margaret of Anjon, whom I and many true English-men regard still as our Queen, though traitors have usurped her title.”
“Alas, good youth,” said Rene, “I must grieve for you, while I respect your loyalty and faith. Had my daughter Margaret been of my mind, she had long since abandoned pretensions, which have drowned in seas of blood the noblest and bravest of her adherents.”
The King seemed about to say more, but checked himself.
“Go to my palace,” he said; “inquire for the Seneschal Hugh de Saint Cyr, he will give thee the means of seeing Margaret, that is, if it be her will to see thee. If not, good English youth, return to my palace, and thou shalt have hospitable entertainment; for a King who loves minstrelsy, music, and painting, is ever more sensible to the claims of honor, virtue, and loyalty; and I read in thy looks thou art possessed of these qualities, and willingly believe thou may’st, in more quiet times, aspire to share the honors of the joyous science. But if thou hast a heart to be touched by the sense of beauty and fair proportion, it will leap within thee at the first sight of my palace, the stately grace of which may be compared to the faultless form of some high-bred dame, or the artful, yet seemingly simple modulations of such a tune as we have been now composing.”
The King seemed disposed to take his instrument, an dindulge the youth with a rehearsal of the strain he had just arranged; but Arthur at that moment experienced the painful internal feeling of that peculiar spedes of shame, which well-constructed minds feel when they see others express a great assumption of importance, with a confidence that they are exciting admiration, when in fact they are only exposing themselves to ridicule. Arthur, in short, took leave, “in very shame.” of the King of Naples, both the Sicilies, and Jerusalem, in a manner somewhat more abrupt than ceremony demanded. The King looked after him, with some wonder at this want of breeding, which, however, he imputed to his visitor’s insular education, and then again began to twangle his viol.
“The old fool!” said Arthur; “his daughter is dethroned, his dominions crumbling to pieces, his family on the eve of becoming extinct, his grandson driven from one lurking-place to another, and expelled from his mother’s inheritance, — and he can find amusement in these fopperies! I thought him with his long white beard, like Nicholas Bonstetten; but the old Swiss is a Solomon compared with him.”
As these and other reflections, highly disparaging to King Rene, passed through Arthur’s mind, he reached the place of rendezvous, and found Thiebault, beneath the steaming fountain, forced from one of those hot springs which had been the delight of the Romans from an early period. Thiebault, having assured his master that his retinue, horse and man, were so disposed as to be ready on an instant’s call, readily undertook to guide him to King Rene’s palace, which, from its singularity, and indeed its beauty of architecture, deserved the eulogium which the old monarch had bestowed upon it. The front consisted of three towers of Roman architecture, two of them being placed on the angles of the palace, and the third, which served the purpose of a mausoleum, forming a part of the group, though somewhat detached from the other buildings. This last was a structure of beautiful proportions. The lower part of the edifice was square, serving as a sort of pedestal to the upper part, which was circular, and surrounded by columns of massive granite. The other two towers at the angles of the palace were round, and also ornamented with pillars, and with a double row of windows. In front of, and connected with, these Roman remains, to which a date has been assigned as early as the fifth or sixth century, arose the ancient palace of the Counts of Provence, built a century or two later, but where a rich Gothic or Moorish front contrasted, and yet harmonized, with the more regular and massive architecture of the lords of the world. It is not more than thirty or forty years since this very curious remnant of antique art was destroyed to make mom for new public buildings, which have never yet been erected.
Arthur really experienced some sensation of the kind which the old King had prophesied, and stood looking with wonder at the ever-open gate of the palace, into which men of all kinds seemed to enter freely. After looking around for a few minutes, the young Englishman ascended the steps of a noble portico, and asked of a porter, as old and as lazy as a great man’s domestic ought to be, for the seneschal named to him by the King. The corpulent janitor, with great politeness, put the stranger under the charge of a page, who ushered him to a chamber, in which be found another aged functionary of higher rank, with a comely face, a clear composed eye, and a brow which, having never been knit into gravity, intimated that the seneschal of Aix was a proficient in the philosophy of his royal master. He recognized Arthur the moment he addressed him.
“You speak northern French, fair sir; you have lighter haji and a fairer complexion than the natives of this country — You ask after Queen Margaret — By all these marks I read you English — Her Grace of England is at this moment paying a vow at the monastery of Mont Saint Victoire, and if your name be Arthur Philipson, I have commission to forward you to her presence immediately, that is, as soon as you have tasted of the royal provision.”
The young man would have remonstrated, but the senesehal left him no leisure.
“Meat and mass,” he said, “never hindered work — it is perilous to youth to journey too far on an empty stomach-he himself would take a mouthful with the Queen’s guest, and pledge him to boot in a flask of old Hermitage.”
The board was covered with an alacrity which showed that hospitality was familiarly exercised in King Rene’s dominions Pasties, dishes of game, the galiant boar’s head, and other delicacies, were placed on the table, and the seneschal played the merry host, frequently apologizing (unnecessarily) for showing an indifferent example, as it was his duty to carve before King Rene, and the good King was never pleased unless he saw him feed lustily as well as carve featly.
“But for you, sir guest, eat freely, since you may not see food again till sunset; for the good Queen takes her misfortunes so to heart that sighs are her food, and her tears a bottle of drink, as the Psalmist bath it. But I bethink me you will need steeds for yourself and your equipage to reach Mont Saint Victoire, which is seven miles from Aix.”
Arthur intimated that he had a guide and horses in attendance, and begged permission to take his adieu. The worthy seneschal, his fair round belly graced with a gold chain, accompanied him to the gate with a step, which a gentle fit of the gout had rendered uncertain, but which, he assured Arthur, would vanish before three days’ use of the hot springs. Thiebault appeared before the gate, not with the tired steeds from which they had dismounted an hour since, but with fresh palfreys from the stable of the King.
“They are yours from the moment you have put foot in stirrup,” said the senesehal; “the good King Rene never received back as his property a horse which he had lent to a guest; and that is perhaps one reason why his Highness and we of his household must walk often a-foot.”
Here the seneschal exchanged greetings with his young visitors, who rode forth to seek Queen Margaret’s place of temporary retirement at the celebrated monastery of Saint Victoire. He demanded of his guide in which direction it lay, who pointed, with an air of triumph, to a mountain three thousand feet and upwards in height, which arose at five or six miles’ distance from the town, and which its bold and rocky summit rendered the most distinguished object of the landscape. Thiebault spoke of it with unusual glee and energy, so much so as to lead Arthur to conceive that his trusty squire had not neglected to avail himself of the lavish hospitality of Le bon Roi Rene. Thiebault, however, continued to expatiate on the fame of the mountain and monastery. They derived their name, he said, from a great victory which was gained by a Roman general, named Caio Mario, against two large armies of Saracens with ultramoritane names (the Teutones probably and Cimbri) in gratitude to Heaven for which victory Caio Mario vowed to build a monastery on the mountain for the service of the Virgin Mary, in honor of whom he had been baptized. With all the importance of a local connoisseur, Thiebault proceeded to prove his general assertion by specific facts.
“Yonder,” he said, “was the camp of the Saracens, from which, when the battle was apparently decided, their wives and women rushed, with horrible screams, dishevelled hair, and the gestures of furies, and for a time prevailed in stopping the flight of the men.” He pointed out too the river, for access to which, cut off by the superior generalship of the Romans, the barbarians, whom he called Saracens, hazarded the action, and whose streams they empurpled with their blood. In short, he mentioned many circumstances which showed how accurately tradition will preserve the particulars of ancient events, even whilst forgetting, misstating, and confounding dates and persons.
Perceiving that Arthur lent him a not unwilling ear, — for it may be supposed that the education of a youth bred up in the hcat of civil wars was not well qualified to criticize his account of the wars of a distant period, — the Provencal, when he had exhausted this topic, drew up close to his master’s side, arid asked, in a suppressed tone, whether he knew, or was desirous of being made acquainted with, the cause of Margaret’s having left Aix, to establish herself in the monastery of Saint Victoire?
“For the accomplishment of a vow,” answered Arthur; “all the world knows it.”
“All Aix knows the contrary,” said Thiebault; “and I can tell you the truth, so I were sure it would not offend your seignorie.
“The truth can offend no reasonable man, so it be expressed in the terms of which Queen Margaret must be spoken in the presence of an Englishman.”
Thus replied Arthur, willing to receive what information he could gather, and desirous, at the same time, to check the petulance of his attendant.
“I have nothing,” replied his follower, “to state in disparagement of the gracious Queen, whose only misfortune is, that, like her royal father, she has more titles than towns. Besides, I know well that you Englishmen, though you speak wildly of your sovereigns yourselves, will not permit others to fail in respect to them.”
“Say on, then,” answered Arthur.
“Your seignorie must know, then,” said Thiebault, “that the good King Rene has been much disturbed by the deep melancholy which afflicted Queen Margaret, and has bent himself with all his power to change it into a gayer humor. He made entertainments in public and in private; he assembled minstrels and troubadours, whose music and poetry might have drawn smiles from one on his deathbed. The whole country resounded with mirth and glee, and the gracious Queen could not Stir abroad in the most private manner, but before she had gone a hundred paces, she lighted on an ambush, consisting of some pretty pageant, or festivious mummery, composed often by the good King himself, which interrupted her solitude, in purpose of relieving her heavy thoughts with some pleasant pastime. But the Queen’s deep melancholy rejected all these modes of dispelling it, and at length she confined herself to her own apartments, and absolutely refused to see even her royal father, because he generally brought into her presence those whose productions he thought likely to soothe her sorrow. Indeed she seemed to hear the harpers with loathing, and excepting one wandering Englishman, who sang a rude and melancholy ballad, which threw her into a flood of tears, and to whom she gave a chain of price, she never seemed to look at or be conscious of the presence of any one. And at length, as I have had the honor to tell your seignorie, she refused to see even her royal father unless he came alone and that he found no heart to do.”
“I wonder not at it,” said the young man; “by the White Swan, I am rather surprised his mummery drove her not to frenzy.”
Something like it indeed took place,” said Thiebault; “and I will tell your seignorie how it chanced. You must know that good King Rene, unwilling to abandon his daughter to the foul fiend of melancholy, bethought him of making a grand effort. You must know further, that the King, powerful in all the craft of Troubadours and Jongleurs, is held in peculiar esteem for conducting mysteries, and other of those gamesome and delightful sports and processions with which our holy Church permits her graver ceremonies to be relieved and diversified, to the cheering of the hearts of all true children of religion. It is admitted that no one has ever been able to approach his excellence in the arrangement of the Fete-Dieu; and the tune to which the devils cudgel King Herod, to the great edification of all Christian spectators, is of our good King’s royal composition. He bath danced at Tarascon in the ballet of Saint Martha and the Dragon, and was accounted in his own person the only actor competent to present the Tarrasque. His Highness introduced also a new ritual into the consecration of the Boy Bishop, and composed an entire set of grotesque music for the Festival of Asses. In short, his Grace’s strength lies in those pleasing and becoming festivities which strew the path of edification with flowers, and send men dancing and singing on their way to Heaven.
“Now the good King Rene, feeling his own genius for such recreative compositions, resolved to exert it to the utmost, in the hope that he might there by relieve the melancholy in which his daughter was plunged, and which infected all that approached her. It chanced, some short time since, that the Queen was absent for certain days, I know not where or on what business, but it gave the good King time to make his preparations. So when his daughter returned, he with much importunity prevailed on her to make part of a religious processon to Saint Sauveur, the principal church in Aix. The Queen, innocent of what was intended, decked herself with solemnity, to witness and partake of what she expected would prove a work of grave piety. But no sooner had she appeared on the esplanade in front of the palace than more than a hundred in asks, dressed up like Turks, Jews, Saracens, Moors, and I know not whom besides, crowded around to offer her their homage, in the character of the Queen of Sheba; and a grot............