The Carlovingian Coins; Or, The Daughters of Charlemagne

"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 naïveness! 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."[1 - "The daughters of the Emperor Charles always accompanied him on his trips into the interior of Gaul. They were handsome beauties; he loved them passionately; he never allowed them to marry, and kept them all with him till his death. Although happy in everything else, Charles experienced in them the malignity of adverse fortune; but he buried his chagrin, and behaved towards them as if they had never given cause for evil suspicions, and as if rumor had never been busy with their names." —Chronicles of Eginhard, p. 145, Collected History of France.]

"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."

CHAPTER II.

THE COURTYARD OF THE PALACE

The conversation between the young Roman and Vortigern was at this point interrupted by Amael, who, turning back to his grandson and extending his arm towards the horizon said to him:

"Look yonder, my child; that is the Queen of the cities of the Empire of Charles the Great – the city of Aix-la-Chapelle."

Vortigern hastened to join his grandfather, whose eyes he now, perhaps for the first time, sought to avoid with not a little embarrassment. Octave's words sounded wrong on his ears, even dangerous; and he reproached himself for having listened to them with some pleasure. Having reached Amael, Vortigern cast his eyes in the direction pointed out by the old man, and saw at still a great distance an imposing mass of buildings, close to which rose the high steeple of a basilica. Presently, he distinguished the roofs and terraces of a cluster of houses dimly visible through the evening mist and stretching out along the horizon. It was the Emperor's palace and the basilica of Aix-la-Chapelle. Vortigern contemplated with curiosity the, to him, new panorama, while Hildebrad, who had cantered ahead to make some inquiries from a cartman coming from the city, now returned to the Bretons, saying:

"The Emperor is hourly expected at the palace. The forerunners have announced his approach. He is coming from a journey in the north of Gaul. Let's hasten to ride in ahead of him so that we may salute him on his arrival."

The riders quickened their horses' steps, and before sunset they were entering the outer court of the palace – a vast space surrounded by many lodges of variously shaped roofs and architecture, and furnished with innumerable windows. Agreeable to a unique plan, with many of these structures the ground floor was wholly open and had the appearance of a shed whose massive stone pillars supported the masonry of the upper tiers of floors. A crowd of subaltern officers, of servants, and slaves of the palace, lived and lodged under these sheds, open to the four winds of heaven and heated in winter by means of large furnaces that were kept lighted night and day. This bizarre architecture was conceived by the ingenuity of the Emperor. It enabled him, from his observatory, to see with all the greater ease all that happened in these wall-less apartments. Several long corridors, profusely ornamented with richly sculptured columns and porticos after the fashion of Rome, connected with another set of buildings. A square pavilion, raised considerably above ground, dominated the system of structures. Octave called Vortigern's attention to a sort of balcony located in front of the pavilion. It was the Emperor's observatory. Everywhere a general stir announced the approaching arrival of Charles. Clerks, soldiers, women, officers, rhetoricians, monks and slaves crossed one another in great haste, while several bishops, anxious to present the first homages to the Emperor, were speeding towards the peristyle of the palace. So instantly was the Emperor expected and such was the hurly at the event, that when the cavalcade, of which Vortigern and his grandfather were a part, entered the court, several people, deceived by the martial appearance of the troupe, began to cry: "The Emperor!" "Here is the Emperor's escort!" The cry flew from mouth to mouth, and in an instant the spacious court was filled with a compact mass of servitors and pursuivants, through which the escort of the two Bretons was hardly able to break its way in order to reach a place near the principal portico. Hildebrad had chosen the spot in order to be among the first to meet Charles and to present to him the hostages whom he brought from Brittany. The crowd discovered its mistake in acclaiming the Emperor, but the false rumor had penetrated the palace and immediately the concubines of Charles, his daughters and grand-daughters, their servants and attendants, rushed out and grouped themselves on a spacious terrace above the portico, near which the two Bretons, together with their escort, had taken their stand.

"Raise your eyes, Vortigern," Octave said to his companion. "Look and see what a bevy of beauties the Emperor's palace contains."

Blushing, the young Breton glanced towards the terrace and remained struck with astonishment at the sight of some twenty-five or thirty women, all of whom were either daughters or grand-daughters of Charles, together with his concubines. They were clad in the Frankish fashion, and presented the most seductive variety of faces, color of hair, shapes and beauty imaginable. There were among them brunettes and blondes, women of reddish and of auburn hair, some tall, others stout, and yet others thin and slender. It was a complete display of Germanic feminine types – from the tender maid up to the stately matron of forty years. The eyes of Vortigern fell with preference upon a girl of not more than fifteen, clad in a tunic of pale green embroidered with silver. Nothing sweeter could be imagined than her rosy and fresh face crowned and set off by long and thick strands of blonde hair; her delicate neck, white as a swan's, seemed to undulate under the weight of her magnificent head of hair. Another maid of about twenty years – a pronounced brunette, robust, with challenging eyes, black hair, and clad in a tunic of orange – leaned on the balustrade, supporting her chin in one hand, close to the younger blonde, on whose shoulders she familiarly rested her right arm. Each held in her hand a nose-gay of rosemary, whose fragrance they inhaled from time to time, all the while conversing in a low voice and contemplating the group of riders with increasing curiosity. They had learned that the escort was not the Emperor's, but that it brought the Breton hostages.

"Give thanks to my friendship, Vortigern," Octave whispered to the lad. "I am going to place you in evidence, and to display you at your true worth." Saying this, Octave covertly gave Vortigern's horse such a sharp touch of his whip under the animal's belly that, had the Breton been less of a horseman, he had been thrown by the violence of the bound made by his mount. Thus unexpectedly stung, the animal reared, poised himself dangerously for a moment and then leaped so high that Vortigern's coif grazed the bottom of the terrace where the group of women stood. The blonde young girl grew pale with terror, and hiding her face in her hands, exclaimed: "Unhappy lad! He is killed! Poor young man!"

Yielding to the impulse of his age as well as to a sense of pride at finding himself the object of the attention of the crowd that was gathered around him, Vortigern severely chastised his horse, whose leaps and bounds threatened to become dangerous. But the lad, preserving his presence of mind and drawing upon his skill, displayed so much grace and vigor in the struggle, despite his right arm's being held in the scarf, that the crowd wildly clapped its hands and cried: "Glory to the Breton!" "Honor to the Breton!" Two bouquets of rosemary fell, at that moment, at the feet of the horse that, brought at last under control, champed his bit and pawed the ground with his hoofs. Vortigern raised his head towards the terrace whence the bouquets had just been thrown at him, when a formidable din arose from a distance, followed immediately by the cry, echoed and re-echoed: "The Emperor!" "The Emperor!"

At the announcement, all the women forthwith left the balcony to descend and receive the monarch under the portico of the palace.

While the crowd swayed back and forward, crying: "Long live Charles!" "Long live Charles the Great!" the grandson of Amael saw a troop of riders approaching at a gallop. They might have been taken for equestrian statues of iron. Mounted upon chargers caparisoned in iron, their own iron casques hid their faces; cuirassed in iron and gloved in iron, they wore leggings of iron, and bucklers of the same metal. The last rays of the westering sun shone from the points of their iron lances. In short, nothing was heard but the clash of iron. At the head of these cavaliers, whom he preceded, and, like them, cased in iron from head to foot, rode a man of colossal stature. Hardly arrived before the principal portico, he alighted slowly from his horse and ran limping towards the group of women who there awaited him, calling out to them, as he ran, in a little shrill and squeaky voice that contrasted strangely with his enormous build:

"Good-day, little ones. Good-day, dear daughters. Good-day to all of you, my darlings." Without giving any heed to the cheers of the crowd and to the respectful salutations of the bishops and other dignitaries, who hurried to meet him, the Emperor Charles, that giant in iron, disappeared within the palace, followed by his feminine cohort.