The Carlovingian Coins; Or, The Daughters of Charlemagne

"Whence comes this stranger? What does he want? Is he a messenger of peace or of war? Race of priests, race of vipers."

"This monk is sent by the King of the Franks," answered the Breton chief; "I do not yet know whether he brings peace or war."

Noblede looked at her husband with increasing astonishment, when the abbot, considering the moment favorable to obtain the desired answer from Morvan, said:

"I am to return immediately. What answer shall I carry to Louis the Pious?"

"You cannot resume your journey without taking some rest," Noblede hastened to observe, while, with her eyes, she interrogated her husband, who seemed to have relapsed into incertitude. "It will be time enough to depart early in the morning. Remain here over night to recover your strength."

"No, no!" exclaimed the abbot with impatience, fearing the influence of the Gallic woman upon her husband. "I return immediately. Shall I take to Louis the Pious words of peace or of war? I must have a categoric answer."

The Breton chief, however, rose from his seat, and walking towards the door of the apartment answered Witchaire:

"I shall use the few remaining hours of the night to think the matter over; to-morrow you will have my answer." Saying this, and despite the insistence of the abbot upon an immediate answer, Morvan left the guest's room, accompanied by Noblede.

A few minutes later, Morvan, his wife, Vortigern and Caswallan, assembled at a secluded spot, under the spreading branches of a tall oak tree not far from the house, to consider the subject of Abbot Witchaire's errand to Brittany.

"What does this messenger of the King of the Franks want?" asked Vortigern of Morvan.

"If we consent to pay tribute to Louis the Pious and to recognize him as our sovereign, we shall escape an implacable war. I know not what answer to make. I hesitate before the prospect of the disasters that will attend a new struggle – the massacres, the fires."

"Hesitate! Yield to threats!"

"Brother," answered Morvan with deep sadness, "the Breton people are no longer what they once were."

"You are right!" put in Caswallan. "The breath of the Catholic Church, so deadly to the freedom of the people, has passed over this unhappy country also. The patriotism of a large number of our tribes has cooled. But, on the other hand, should you consent to submit to a shameful peace, then Brittany will be peopled with slaves before a century shall have rolled away."

"Brother," added Vortigern, "would you yield to threats, instead of reviving the spirit of Brittany in a sacred war against the foreigner? That would be to debase ourselves forever! To-day we would pay tribute to the king of the Franks, in order to avoid a war; to-morrow we would have to yield to him one-half of our patrimony, in order that he may allow us to retain the rest; after that we would have to submit to slavery with all its degradation and wretchedness, in order to be allowed to preserve our lives. The chain will have been riveted to our limbs, and our children will have to drag it during all the centuries to come!"

"Unhappy Brittany!" exclaimed Noblede. "Have we fallen so low as to begin to measure the length of our chains? Look at these three brave, wise and tried men, wasting their time in discussing the insolence of a Frankish king! There is but one word you can answer with – WAR! Oh, degenerate Gauls! Eight centuries ago, Caesar, the greatest captain of the world, and at the head of a formidable army, also sent messengers to summon Brittany to pay him tribute. The Roman messengers were answered with a beating, and chased with contempt out of the city of Vannes. That same evening, Hena, our ancestress, offered her blood to Hesus for the deliverance of Gaul, and the cry of war resounded from one end of the country to the other! Albinik the sailor, together with his wife Meroë, performed a journey of more than twenty leagues across the most fertile regions of Gaul, but then burnt down by a conflagration that the people themselves had kindled. Caesar saw before him only a waste of smouldering ruins, and on the day of the battle of Vannes our whole family – women and young girls, children and old men – fought or died like heroes! Oh! These ancestors of ours worried their heads little about the 'dangers of battle'! To live free or die – such was their simple faith, and they sealed it with their blood, and winged their flight to those unknown worlds where they continue to live!"

Noblede was addressing Morvan, Vortigern and Caswallan in these terms, when the abbot, who had left his apartment and inquired after Morvan from the people about the house, approached the oak under which the Breton family was in council. Although the moon was shining in all her splendor, the first glimmerings of the dawn, always early in the end of August, already began to crimson the horizon.

"Morvan," said Abbot Witchaire, "day is about to dawn. I can wait no longer. What is your answer to the messenger of Louis the Pious?"

"Priest, my answer will not burden your memory: Return and tell the king that we will pay him tribute – in iron."

"You want war! Very well, you shall have it without mercy or pity!" cried the abbot furiously, and leaping on his horse which the monks held ready for him he added, turning again to the Chief of the Chiefs: "Brittany will be laid waste with fire and sword! Not a house will be left standing! The last day of this people has arrived!"

As the priest uttered these words, his gestures seemed to call down curses and anathemas upon the Breton chief. Angrily putting the spurs to his horse and followed by the two monks, the prelate rode rapidly away.

The abbot had hardly been a quarter of an hour on the road, when he heard the gallop of an approaching horse behind him. Turning, he saw a rider coming towards him at full speed. It was Vortigern. The abbot drew in his reins, yielding to a last ray of hope. "May your coming be propitious. Morvan regrets, I hope, the insensate resolution that he took?"

"Morvan regrets that in your hurry you and your two monks should have departed without a guide. You might easily lose your way in our mountains. I am to accompany you as far as the city of Guenhek. There I shall furnish you with a safe guide for the rest of the journey; he will take you to our frontiers."

"Young man, you are, I am told, the brother of Morvan's wife. I conjure you, in the name of the safety of Brittany, to endeavor to change the insensate and fatal resolution of this man who happens to be the chief of your nation."

"Monk, the fires lighted last night on our mountains, and which, no doubt, you must have seen, were the signals of alarm, given to our tribes to prepare for war. Your King wants war – let his will be done. But, now, answer me a question. You come from the court at Aix-la-Chapelle. Could you tell me what has become of the daughters of the Emperor Charles?"

The abbot cast a look of surprise at Vortigern: "What is it to you what may have become of the Emperor's daughters?"

"It is now about eight years ago that I accompanied my grandfather to Aix-la-Chapelle. I there saw the daughters of Charles. That is the reason for my curiosity concerning them."

"The daughters of Charles have been consigned to nunneries by order of their brother, Louis the Pious,"[4 - "The heart of Louis the Pious (Charlemagne's son) was, naturally, long indignant at the conduct indulged in by his sisters under the paternal roof, the only blot upon its name. Desiring, then, to amend these disorders, he sent before him Walla, Warnaire, Lambert and Ingobert, with the order to watch carefully, as soon as they should arrive at Aix-la-Chapelle, that no new scandal should occur; and to put under heavy guard those who had soiled the majesty of the empire with a criminal commerce (with the daughters of the Emperor). Certain ones, guilty of these crimes, came before Louis the Pious to obtain pardon, which they received. Audoin alone resisted. He smote Warnaire that he died, wounded Lambert in the thigh, and slew himself with one blow of his sword… Whereupon Louis the Pious decided to drive out of the palace all that multitude of women which occupied it in the time of his father." – L'Astronome, Life of Louis the Pious, pp. 345-346, Collected History of France.] was the sententious answer of Witchaire. "May they, by dint of repentance, merit the pardon of heaven for their past and abominable libertinage."

"And Thetralde, the youngest of Charles' daughters, did she share the fate of her sisters?"

"Thetralde died long ago."

"She died!" exclaimed Vortigern, unable to conceal his emotion. "Poor child! So beautiful – and to die so young!"

"She, at least, never gave Charles cause to blush."

"And what was the cause of the death of that child? Could you tell me?"

"It is not known. Up to her fifteenth year she enjoyed a nourishing health. Suddenly she began to languish, grew ill, and barely in her sixteenth year, her light went out, in the arms of her father, who never ceased weeping for her. But this is quite enough about the daughters of Charles the Great. Once more, will you or will you not, endeavor to cause Morvan to abandon a resolution that can have for its only effect the ruin of this country? You are silent – do you refuse?"

Absorbed in the thoughts that the fate of the ill-starred Thetralde had started in his mind, Vortigern remained mute and melancholy. His thoughts flew to the young girl who died so young, and the touching remembrance of whom had long remained alive with him. Impatient at the prolonged silence of the Breton, the abbot put his hand on Vortigern's shoulder, and repeated his question:

"I ask you, yes or no, will you endeavor to cause Morvan to renounce his insensate resolution?"

"Your King wants war; he shall have war."

And Vortigern, relapsing into his own meditations, rode silently beside Witchaire until the two reached the city of Guenhek. There Vortigern entrusted the guidance of the abbot to an experienced guide, and while the messenger of Louis the Pious proceeded towards the frontier of Brittany, the brother of Noblede hastened back and rejoined his wife Josseline at the house of Morvan.

CHAPTER IV.

THE DEFILE OF GLEN-CLAN

The defile of Glen-Clan is the only practicable passage across the last links of the Black Mountains – a mountain chain that constitutes a veritable girdle of granite as a natural protection to the heart of Brittany. The defile of Glen-Clan is so narrow that a wagon can barely thread it; it is so steep that six yoke of oxen are barely able to drag a wagon up its craggy incline, from the top of which a stone of considerable size would roll rapidly down to the bottom of the pass – a pass cut, like the bed of a mountain torrent, at the feet of immense rocks that rise on either side perpendicular over a hundred feet in the air.

A distant rumbling noise, confused at first, and becoming more and more distinct as it draws nearer and nearer, disturbs one day, shortly after the angry departure of Abbot Witchaire from Brittany, the otherwise profound silence of the solitude. By little and little the dull tramp of cavalry is distinguished; presently also the clanking of iron arms upon iron armor, and finally the rythmic tread of large troops of foot soldiers, the lumbering of wagon wheels jolting upon the stony ground, the neighing of horses and the bellowing of yoke-oxen. All these various sounds draw nearer, grow louder, and are finally blended into one steady roar. They announce the approach of an army corps of considerable proportions. Suddenly the mournful and prolonged cry of a night bird is heard from the crest of the rocks that overhang the defile. Other similar, but more distant cries answer the first signal, like an echo that loses itself in the distance. Silence ensues thereupon – except for the tumultuous din of the advancing army corps. A small troop appears at the entrance of the tortuous passage; a monk on horseback guides the scouting party. At the monk's side rides a warrior of tall stature, clad in rich armor. His white buckler, on which three eagle's talons are designed, hangs to one side from the pommel of his saddle, while an iron mace dangles from the other. Behind the Frankish chief ride several cavalrymen accompanied by about a score of Saxon archers, distinguishable by their long quivers.

"Hugh," says the chief of the warriors to one of his men, "take with you two horsemen, and let five or six archers precede you to make certain that there is no ambush to fear. At the slightest sign of an attack fall back upon us and give the alarm. I do not wish to entangle the gross of my troop in this defile without the necessary precautions."

Hugh obeys his chief. The little vanguard quickens its step and soon disappears beyond one of the windings of the pass.

"Neroweg, the measure is wise," observes the monk. "One could not advance with too much precaution into this accursed country of Brittany, where I have lived long enough to know that it is extremely dangerous."

"At the end of this defile, I am told, we enter upon even ground."

"Yes, but before that we shall have to cross the marsh of Peulven and the forest of Cardik; we then arrive at the vast moor of Kennor, the rendezvous of the two other armed bodies of Louis the Pious, who are marching to that point across the river Vilaine and over the defile of Mount Orock, as we are to penetrate through this one. Morvan will be attacked from three sides, and will not be able to resist our forces."

"I marvel that so important a pass as this is not defended."

"I furnished you the reason when I delivered to you Morvan's plan of campaign, that was forwarded to me by Kervor, a pious Catholic who came over to the Frankish side and submitted to the authority of our King. He is the chief of the southern tribes whose territory we have just crossed."

"I loved to see those people so docile to the priests; they furnished us with supplies, and at your voice knelt down as we passed."