Chapter VI: Part 6

His order multiplied rapidly, and convents were established in all parts of Europe; although he was inclined to object to costly buildings, and was prevailed upon to let them stand on the plea that they were needed to shelter travellers and pilgrims. He established also the order of Poor Clares, so called from a noble maiden, Clare, who became its first superior. This was, for women, what his order of the Friars Minor was for men; though the Clares remained strictly enclosed, while the Friars went abroad preaching, and established missions in various quarters of the globe. Finally, he formed his Third Order, which included laymen and laywomen living in the world, who bound themselves by simple vows of virtue and charity, while continuing in their accustomed phase of life. Thousands joined the Friars; and probably millions were enrolled in the Third Order. It has been said that Francis first made known to the Middle Ages the power of association among the weak and humble, and that from the pages on which he inscribed his institutes sprang modern democracy in Italy. Certain it is that the Emperor Frederick II. received a letter from some of his Italian feudal supporters, saying: "The Friars Minor ... have raised themselves against us. They have publicly condemned both our mode of life and our principles, they have shattered our rights, and have brought us to nothingness." Yet the Franciscan Friars and the Third Order had done this only by the contrast of example, of poverty, fasting, prayer, self-denial, and charity of the heart as well as of the hands.

The work of Saint Francis did much to undermine feudalism; and it almost regenerated the spirit of Christianity in the thirteenth century. "Man of the people," writes R. F. O'Connor, "he did more for the people than ever yet had been done by any one; whose vocation was to revive in the midst of a corrupting opulence the esteem and practice of poverty, which he ennobled, ... and, without setting class against class, _or violating the least point of the divine or human law_, levelled every social barrier and united princes and peasants in a bond of union which neither time nor eternity was to sever."

This phase of his influence should interest us of to-day, when the same problems of wealth and poverty and of superficiality in religion confront our arrogant modern "civilization." That St. Francis was not a madman is evident from the orderliness of his work, his clear legislative and administrative capacity, his calm, powerful, amiable sway over all sorts of people. Yet he was possessed by an absolute passion and ecstasy of charity and universal love, which raised him above the apprehension of the gross, material mind. It was this supremacy of the spiritual in him which enabled him to accomplish marvels of practical result. Toward the end of his life, this exaltation of the spirit produced upon his body a singular phenomenon. His hands and feet appeared to be transpierced by large nails, and a wound opened in his side, from which blood frequently flowed. In a word, he bore the wounds, or "stigmata" of Christ, on his own body. The nails were distinct from the wound, but were apparently blackened flesh; being inseparable from the hands and feet. This phenomenon was well attested at the time. Within the present century several similar cases have occurred, under the observation of modern and approved sceptical men of science, who find that they occur when there has been much fasting, loss of sleep, and constant meditation upon the Passion of Christ. Their testimony states the conditions and verifies the fact, but does not explain it.

He died at his convent of St. Mary of the Angels (Portiuncula), October 4, 1226, in perfect lucidity of mind, with patience and simple resignation, while giving good counsel to his brethren. Of death he spoke gently as "our sister death;" and when, during his illness, his physician was obliged to cauterize him with a red-hot iron, he blessed the iron, speaking of it as "our brother fire," and submitted to the cauterization, or moxa, without a murmur or sign of pain. One remarkable thing about him was his extraordinary recognition of all the powers and elements of nature as related to man in one family under God. This was the origin of his famous short "sermon to the birds," which has been preserved. He talked to them and to all other animals as though he firmly believed that they could understand him, and could adore their Creator as well as he; though it is not probable that he supposed they would understand him precisely as men would, or adore in the same way. It is clear that St. Francis had a great influence over animals, even over wolves.

Nowadays we have many lion-tamers and tiger-tamers, who rely simply upon human will and craft. Therefore it is not astonishing that St. Francis, who relied upon Divine power, should have been able to tame beasts. What is surprising is, that he should have been able to control men, who are so much harder to tame.

The poems of St. Francis--his "Canticle of the Sun," "Canticle of Love," and "Canticle of Charity"--exemplify the immense and tender scope of his exquisite love and good-will. His Order continues, and has given rise to subsidiary organizations such as the Recollects and the Capuchins. Thousands of people in common life belong to his Third Order, now, and continue his work unostentatiously. His spirit is alive and operative in the world to-day, nearly six hundred and seventy years since he left this earth.

[Signature: George Parsons Lathrop.]

ST. LOUIS

By HENRY G. HEWLETT

(1215-1270)

The most striking features of the political history of France during the tenth and eleventh centuries are the conflict of the feudal aristocracy on the one hand, with monarchical and democratical power on the other, and the influence exerted by the Crusades on both.

The Crusades aided much in the accomplishment of the final result, the destruction of the power of the nobility. In the first place, they glorified the character of feudalism by enforcing the principles of chivalry. To be a "true knight," a man must be devout, just, merciful, and pure. Many Crusaders, indeed, fell far short of this high ideal; but there can be no doubt that, on the whole, it elevated the standard of morality, and checked the rampant tyranny which had previously prevailed. Founded on a principle of sincere though mistaken piety, the Crusaders recognized all who took the cross as brethren; hence the meanest serf became, in some measure, free; and the same benign sentiment extended its effect to all classes. The attraction of a common cause in foreign lands further contributed to wean the Crusaders from the class quarrels and domestic feuds which occupied them at home. During their absence the crown was enabled to acquire a strength which had previously been spent in the repression of constant rebellions. And the need of money for the expedition obliged many feudal lords to contract with the communes for the sale of lands or liberties.

Such was the condition of France at the commencement of the thirteenth century. The balance of power, however, was only sustained by the activity of all the parties concerned. The slightest wavering on the part of the crown would be fatal, the least opportunity seized. A wise, sincere, and humane ruler was needed to confirm and enlarge the vantage ground which law and order had already obtained; and such a ruler rose in the person of Louis IX., who ascended the throne in 1226.

His father, Louis VIII., was a man of weak character, whose reign was chiefly signalized by the horrible persecution of the Protestant Albigenses of Provence, which, under the sanction of Innocent III., and later Popes, had been carried on by Simon de Montfort and other fanatics, since 1209. Louis himself had died of fever when about to commence the siege of Toulouse.

The Queen Dowager, Blanche, of Castile, was a woman of great energy, and during the minority of her son she bravely contested her claims to the regency of the kingdom against those of Philip, her husband's brother, whom Henry III., of England, supported. She appealed, not in vain, to the gratitude of the metropolis, which the Capetian kings had befriended; and at her call a large force of citizens joined her. With their aid she defeated Philip and other nobles, who opposed her son's coronation, and by two treaties, in 1229 and 1231, she both extended the limits of her kingdom and put an end to civil war. Over Louis, who was but eleven years old when his father died, she exercised a somewhat rigorous, but a holy and prudent discipline, to which he was much indebted for strengthening his moral and mental constitution. He was educated at the Abbey of Royaumont by Vincent de Beauvais, and though not remarkable for talents, possessed considerable decision of character, and a large share of personal courage. It is, however, by the piety, purity, and benevolence of his soul that he stands forth so prominently in the history of Europe. The year of his coronation all the jails of the kingdom were thrown open by the royal command. A nature more truly loving and lovable has rarely been bestowed on any member of the human family. Yet, with all these paramount excellences, his life presents a tragedy--the fatal consequences of unreasoning faith. All his errors--we cannot justly call them faults--proceeded from this prolific source. Before recording these, it will be gratifying to point out the happier results of those noble and wise qualities which have consecrated his name.

After the treaty of 1231, France remained at peace for some years, during which time Louis married Margaret of Provence, a princess only inferior in worth to himself. Soon after attaining his majority he was called upon to contend with the Count of Brittany and other nobles who resisted his authority. At the head of his vassals Louis marched against the rebels, and was so prompt and energetic in his measures that the count was forced to yield and sue for pardon in the attitude of a criminal, with a rope round his neck. Henry III. crossed the channel with an army to support the rebellion, and recover, if possible, the possessions which King John had surrendered to King Philip. The armies met at Saintes, in 1242, where the French were victorious, the rebels subsequently submitting, and Henry returning home.

In 1244 Louis had a severe illness, which was attended with danger to his life. During the progress of it, he vowed to undertake a new crusade should he recover. The fulfilment of this vow was opposed by Blanche of Castile (who still had great influence over her son) and many of his best counsellors; but Louis was inflexible where religion and honor demanded a sacrifice.

In 1248 he collected a large army, and prepared to start by way of Sicily, the nearest route to Palestine, when he remembered that the island belonged to Frederick II., of Germany, who was under excommunication by the Pope. All attempts to shake the decision of Innocent IV. failed; and yielding to the pious weakness of fearing to rest in an excommunicant's territory, Louis changed his plans, and determined to pass by way of Cyprus and Egypt--a route which proved the ruin of the expedition. He committed the regency of France to his mother, assumed the staff of pilgrimage, and accompanied by his wife and brothers, left Paris on June 12, 1248. He stayed for several months in Cyprus, until his armament amounted to 50,000 men, and then sailed for Egypt.

Arrived at the port of Damietta, he caused the oriflamme (the national standard of France) to be waved above his head; and, arrayed in complete armor, he unsheathed his sword, and leaped into the sea, followed by the knights. The inhabitants fled, and the French took possession of the city. The inundation of the Nile prevented their further movements for several months. Licentiousness and disease were fostered by this delay, in spite of the king's remonstrances; and their unopposed success made the Crusaders careless as to the tactics of the enemy.

On the subsidence of the Nile, Louis fortified Damietta, and left his queen and her ladies there, while he, with the main army, advanced on Cairo, the metropolis of Egypt, where the sultan resided. Near Mansourah, the Crusaders became perplexed by the intricacy of the canals, and a hasty dash across one of these, made by the king's brother, the Count of Artois, with 2,000 men, led to a calamitous result. Mansourah was apparently deserted, and the count's troops, who preceded their comrades at some distance, commenced pillaging the houses. The inhabitants, who were only concealed, showered down stones from the roofs; and at the same moment, a large body of the sultan's army made an attack in front. Louis reached Mansourah in time to save a few of his men, but found his brother and several others slain. The Moslem camp was captured, but proved a doubtful prize. The plains were barren and scorching, and the harassing assaults of the Egyptians, who poured "Greek fire" (missiles filled with combustible materials) on their foes, rendered the situation more intolerable still. Pestilence broke out, and the king himself fell dangerously ill. He then ordered a retreat to Damietta, whither the sick were to be conveyed in galleys. These were intercepted, and the sick murdered by the Egyptians; while, at the same time an attack was made on the Christian camp.

Louis was so weak that he could scarcely ride, but nevertheless would not desert his post. He rode between the ranks, encouraging his men, till he fainted and was obliged to withdraw from the field. His quaint and affectionate biographer, the Lord of Joinville, who was with him in this expedition, thus describes the scenes which ensued: "Of all his men-at-arms there was only one with him, the good knight, Sir Geoffrey de Sargines; and who, I heard say, did defend him like as a faithful servant doth guard his master's cup from flies--for every time that the Saracens did approach the king he defended him with vigorous strokes of the blade and point of his sword, and his strength seemed doubled. At last he brought the king to a house where there was a woman from Paris; and laying him on the ground, placed his head on the woman's lap, expecting every moment that he would breathe his last." In this half-dying condition a body of Egyptians found him, and bore him to the tent of the sultan. The defeat of the Christians, who were weakened by the climate, disease, and want of food, was general; many fell by the sword, and the rest were taken prisoners with their king.

In captivity Louis showed a noble resignation and courage amid the apostasy of many. He won the respect of the sultan, who treated him with generosity, and listened to the terms of ransom which he proposed. The queen remained at Damietta, which was strongly garrisoned. Fearful, nevertheless, of falling into the hands of the Moslems, who would have carried her into the sultan's harem, she prayed an old knight in her suite to slay her with his sword, should there be any danger of that event. "I had determined on so doing, madam," was the answer. Margaret's heroism was not put to this severe test, for the surrender of Damietta was one of the conditions of her husband's release; and after paying in addition a sum of 400,000 livres, Louis was on the point of being set free. An insurrection, however, suddenly arose among the Mamelukes, or Tartarian troops, in whose hands the real power of the state was placed, and the sultan was murdered. A party of the assassins, it is said, entered the chamber of Louis with their scimitars drawn, but his calm dignity saved him, and the treaty was carried out by the new sultan.

Many of the French nobles returned home, but the king, faithful to his vow, proceeded to Syria, and spent four years in strengthening the fortresses of Tyre and other Christian towns, redeeming many Crusaders from slavery, and reducing to order the disturbed condition of the country.

The death of the Queen Dowager Blanche, who had governed France wisely during her regency, recalled him in 1254, after an absence of six years. He still wore the cross upon his shoulder, as a token that his oath as a Crusader was not yet fulfilled; but he never once neglected the more pressing and necessary duties which devolved on him as a monarch. His immediate work was to supersede the arbitrary legislation which the nobles exercised in their manorial courts over their tenants. He accordingly introduced into general use the famous code of Roman laws known as the Pandects of Justinian, and constituted the chief civil lawyers, who had studied its contents and were best acquainted with its principles, into a Parliament, or Court of Justice. The nobles and the clergy were duly represented in this assembly; but its clerks, or lawyers, were especially favored by the king, who seconded their own efforts to absorb the business of the court as much as possible. Louis further mediated between the tyranny of the nobles and the weakness of their tenants, by encouraging the practice of appealing to the crown in case of injustice. This he even extended to ecclesiastical matters; a bold step for one so devoted to the Church. The prohibition of the barbarous custom of duelling to decide personal quarrels was another of his humane laws. These, and divers other ordinances, founded in a like spirit of equity, are known in a collected shape as the _Institutes of St. Louis_. His enactment touching appeals from the Church to the Crown, and the prohibition which he likewise issued against the levying of money in France for the use of the Pope without the king's license, are known as a _Pragmatic Sanction_--a term applied to any especially important national decree. Louis set the example of enforcing the laws personally, and none was fitter to administer them than he. Under an oak in the forest of Vincennes, near Paris, often sat the good king to hear appeals and petitions from his poor subjects. His social and foreign relations were as fully attended to as his political reforms. He first placed the French navy on a substantial footing. To him Paris owed a public library, a hospital for the blind, and the establishment of a body of police. Under his sanction, also, his confessor, Robert de Sorbon, founded the famous theological college called by his name. So scrupulously just and honorable was Louis, that he appointed a commission to ascertain what restitution of territory should be made to nations which had been mulcted by the conquests of his predecessors, and he thus more than once sacrificed extensive possessions for the sake of a principle. By a treaty in 1255, made with Henry III., Louis restored to the English crown the provinces of which Philip Augustus had deprived it, and obtained in return the surrender of Henry's rights in Normandy and other fiefs. The reputation which Louis thus acquired among his fellow-monarchs led to his being asked to act as mediator in several quarrels, and gave him many opportunities of exhibiting his peaceful and loving policy.

The mental blindness of which we have spoken led him to commit errors, which, if his misled conscience had not sanctioned them, would deserve the name of crimes. Toward Jews and heretics he showed no mercy, issuing severe and unjust laws against them "for the good of his soul." The duty of the historian is to record these failings of a noble nature as impartially as its beauties; but the evil must, in all fairness, be credited to the Church and system which taught, and not to the believer who practised.

In 1270 the affairs of the East again attracted the attention of Europe, and recalled Louis to the fulfilment of his vow, which he had only postponed. The Greeks had retaken the city of Constantinople from the French and Venetian Crusaders some years previously, yet the reconstitution of the Christian Empire of the East had not availed to check the aggressions of the Moslem in Palestine. Benocdar, the Sultan of Egypt, had already taken Cæsarea and Jaffa; and news now came that Antioch had fallen, 100,000 Christians having been massacred in the siege. The seventh and last Crusade was at once set on foot by outraged Europe, and Louis led the expedition, in which France was, as usual, foremost. He raised an army of 6,000 horse and 30,000 foot, and was accompanied by his three sons, the King of Navarre, and several nobles of high rank. His brother, Charles of Anjou (the new King of Naples), and Edward I., of England, (then prince), were to join the French in the course of the year. Some romantic intelligence that the Moslem King of Tunis was desirous of being baptized, induced the pious Louis again to try the African, instead of the Asiatic, route to Palestine. He narrowly escaped with his life, in a tempest which overtook the fleet in the Mediterranean, but landed in Sardinia, and after recruiting here again set sail, and anchored off Carthage. He met with opposition, instead of welcome, from the inhabitants of the coast, and was obliged to besiege Tunis. The excessive heat of the climate and the unhealthiness of the soil proved a second time fatal to the army. Plague at last broke out, and Louis was himself seized. Finding himself dying, he sent for Philip, his eldest son and successor. Placing in his hand a written paper, the good king prayed his son to follow the directions which it contained--directions for the conduct of his life, as king and individual; enforcing those principles of love to God and man which had guided his own career. Then, requesting to be lifted from his bed, Louis instructed his attendants to strew the floor of his tent with ashes and place him thereon, that he might die as he had lived, in an attitude of humiliation and penitence toward his creator. This was done, and shortly afterward, as though in vision fulfilling the vow which he was not permitted to realize, he uttered, "I will enter thy house--I will worship in thy sanctuary!" and expired. His age was but fifty-four.

A few hours elapsed, and the sound of a trumpet echoed through the plague-stricken and half-deserted camp. It was the note of Charles of Naples, whose fleet had just arrived off the coast. Meeting with no response, he rode rapidly toward the tent of the king, and on entering saw his body lying still warm upon the ashes. The rites of burial were not performed with the usual formalities, his remains being distributed among his relatives. The flesh was kept by Charles, who buried it, on his return to Sicily, in the great Abbey of Monreale, at Palermo. The bones and other parts were conveyed back to France. Those who have visited Paris will not forget the exquisite Gothic structure known as the "Sainte Chapelle," which is attached to the Palais de Justice, containing the courts of law. It was erected by Louis as a receptacle for certain supposed relics of Christ. The windows of the chapel are entirely composed of stained glass, and as the sunbeams strike upon them, their tints of crimson, blue, and orange blend into a rainbow-like harmony of glowing and lustrous color, which recalls the heart of Louis IX., enshrined within those walls, as its fitting human antitype. He was canonized about thirty years afterward, under the title of St. Louis.

MARCO POLO[7]

[Footnote 7: Copyright, 1894, by Selmar Hess.]

By NOAH BROOKS

(1256-1324)

In the month of November, in the year 1295, there appeared in the beautiful city of Venice three strangers, who were clothed in an outlandish and shabby garb of a Tartar cut. They claimed to be of Venice, but, according to one of their biographers, one Ramusio, "through the many worries and anxieties they had undergone, they were quite changed in aspect, and had got a certain indescribable smack of the Tartar both in air and accent, having, indeed, all but forgotten their Venetian tongue." They went to the house of the Polo family, demanding entrance and claiming to be Nicolo Polo, Maffeo, his brother, and Marco, son of the elder of the two brothers, Nicolo. They were laughed to scorn as pretenders and impostors; for the three missing members of the Polo family had been gone away from Venice some twenty-odd years; it was in 1271 that the Polos were last heard from, then at Acre, journeying into the Far East.

But the three somehow gained access to their own house, then in the possession of one of their relations. And the news of their home-coming was presently noised abroad throughout the city of Venice; so much so that the people for days talked of little else save the reappearance in the land of the living of the long-lost travellers. Many, however, doubted if these really were the brothers Polo and young Marco; this last was a mere lad of seventeen when he went away, and now was grown to be a portly man of forty-odd years. So incredulous were the townsfolk that the brothers hit upon a scheme to convince the doubting ones. They made a grand feast to which all the gentry were invited, for the Polo family were of noble birth and had held station in the state. The entertainment was served in great splendor with gold and silver dishes, and the three travellers, when they sat down, were dressed in robes of the richest crimson satin flowing down to the ground. After some of the courses had been eaten, they retired to their chamber and came forth again dressed in other robes of crimson silk damask, very rich, and the satin garments were cut up and divided among the servants. Again, later on in the repast, they retired, and when they came again to the table they wore other robes, of the richest crimson velvet, and the second garments were cut up and divided as the others had been. When the dinner was over they took off the velvet robes, and these were disposed of in like manner. "These proceedings," says the honest Ramusio, "caused much wonder and amazement among the guests," which we can well imagine.

Next, dismissing all the servants, the younger one of the three, Marco Polo, went to an inner chamber and brought forth to the table the coarse and shabby dresses in which the three had arrived in Venice. Then, taking sharp knives, the travellers ripped open the seams and welts of the garments, and shook from them a vast profusion of diamonds, rubies, sapphires, carbuncles, emeralds, and other precious stones. The guests were dumfounded and amazed. "And now," says Ramusio, "they recognized that in spite of all former doubts, these were in truth those honored and worthy gentlemen of the Casa Polo that they claimed to be; and so all paid them the greatest honor and reverence." Furthermore, we are told that when the story got wind in Venice, straightway the whole city, gentle and simple, flocked to the house to embrace the three travellers, and to make much of them with every conceivable demonstration of affection and respect.

This was the wonderful home-coming of the three Polos, who for twenty-four years had been wandering in the East, and who, when they set out on their homeward journey, a journey beset with untold difficulties and dangers, took the precaution to conceal in their garments, as above told, the wealth which they had accumulated while they were at the court of the Great Khan of Tartary. It reads like a romance, a story out of "The Arabian Nights' Entertainments." But it is all true, and the archives of Venice corroborate pretty nearly all the details herein set forth. Indeed, as a prophet is not without honor save in his own country and among his own kindred, it must be said that the later generation of Venetians found less difficulty in believing the tales of the three travellers than did those who first heard them. In telling these tales, they had frequent occasion to use the word "millions," a word not then common among the Venetians, as to say that the Great Khan had revenues amounting to ten or fifteen _millions_ of gold, and so on. And the people gave Marco, who seems to have been the story-teller of the party, the nickname of Messer Marco Millioni. Curiously enough, this name appears in the public records of old Venice.

Of the final exit of the elders of the Polo family, Nicolo and Maffeo, we have no trustworthy account. As they were well stricken in years when they returned from their long sojourn in Cathay, we may suppose that they did not live long after their return to Venice. But the younger Marco had a busy and stirring life. At that time the republics of Venice and Genoa were rivals for the ruling of the seas and the monopoly of maritime trade everywhere. A Venetian galley could not meet one from Genoa without a fight, and the fleets of the two states were continually at war.

Marco, being one of the representatives of the noble Venetian families who were required to come to the support of the state with at least one galley, entered the naval service of Venice in command of a war galley, and was engaged in the great battle between Venice and Genoa near Curzola, off the Dalmatian coast, in 1298, three years after his return from Cathay. The Venetians were beaten ignominiously, and 7,000 of them were taken prisoners and carried to Genoa. It was a lucky thing for the world that Marco Polo was thus put into enforced idleness, and that he had for a companion in confinement an educated gentleman, one Rusticiano, of Pisa. Otherwise, most likely we never would have heard of the travels of Marco Polo, whom some of the later chroniclers have likened to Columbus, the discoverer of America.

To beguile the tedium of their imprisonment, Marco was wont to tell his traveller's tales to his companion, Rusticiano, and this worthy gentleman conceived the notion of writing out the marvellous adventures and observations of his fellow-prisoner. We must bear in mind that the Italian gentry of that time did not hold in high esteem the art of writing, and although Marco was not inferior to any man in daring or adventurousness, he was willing to leave to the scriveners the task of writing about such matters. But, in the end, the advice of Rusticiano prevailed, and the Pisan gentleman set down from the dictation of Marco "The Book of Ser Marco Polo Concerning the Kingdoms and Marvels of the East." This was, up to that time, the most important book of travels and voyages ever written. Indeed, it was the most important book of any kind written during the Middle Ages.

The book contributed more new facts toward a knowledge of the earth's surface, says one skilled authority, than any book that had been written before. The writer was the first to describe China, or Cathay, in its vastness of territory, its wonderfully rich and populous cities, and the first to tell of Tartary, Thibet, Burmah, Siam, Cochin-China, the Indian Archipelago, the Andaman Islands, of Java and Sumatra, of the fabled island of Cipangu, or Japan, of Hindustan, and that marvellous region which the world learned to know as Farther India. From far-voyaging sailors he brought home accounts of Zanzibar and Madagascar, and the semi-Christian country of Abyssinia, where some accounts located that mysterious potentate called Prester John. He had traversed Persia and had picked up a vast amount of information concerning the country of Siberia, with its polar snows and bears, its dog-sledges, and its almost everlasting winter. He traversed the entire length of Asia.

Surely, Europe might well be dazed when this account of regions, until then unknown, was unrolled before the scholars and explorers who could read the few precious books then in circulation. For it should be remembered that the art of printing was then unknown, and only in manuscript did any book make its appearance. Rusticiano wrote in a very poor sort of French; for then, as now, that language was commonest in all the cities of Europe. How much of the language of the book of Marco Polo's travels was Marco's, and how much was the worthy Rusticiano's, we are unable to decide. The facts in that famous book were duly vouched for by Marco. The opening chapter, or prologue, inflated and wordy, after the fashion of the times, was undoubtedly Rusticiano's. He began thus: "Great Princes, Emperors, and Kings, Dukes and Marquises, Counts, Knights, and Burgesses! and People of all degree who desire to get knowledge of the various races of mankind and of the diversities of the sundry regions of the World, take this Book and cause it to be read to you. For ye shall find therein all kinds of wonderful things, and the divers histories of the Great Hermenia, and of Persia, and of the Land of the Tartars, and of India, and of many another country of which our Book doth speak, particularly and in regular succession, according to the description of Messer Marco Polo, a wise and noble citizen of Venice, as he saw them with his own eyes."

This portentous prologue ends with these great swelling words: "And I may tell you that in acquiring this knowledge he spent in those various parts of the World good six-and-twenty years. Now, being thereafter an inmate of the Prison at Genoa, he caused Messer Rusticiano, of Pisa, who was in the same Prison likewise, to reduce the whole to writing; and this befell in the year 1298 from the birth of Jesus."

One year later, in the summer of 1299, Marco Polo was set at liberty and returned to Venice, where he died peacefully in 1324. His last will and testament, dated January 9, 1323, is preserved among the archives of Venice, and a marble statue in his honor was set up by the Venetians, in the seventeenth century, and may be seen unto this day in the Palazzo Morosini-Gattemburg, in the Campo S. Stefano of that city.

How came Marco Polo to be drawn so far into the vague and shadowy East? Somewhere about the middle of the thirteenth century, certain members of the Polo family had established a trading-house in Constantinople, then pretty near the end of the world from Europe. These adventurous Venetians, in 1260, sent the two brothers, Nicolo and Maffeo, still further to the eastward on a trading journey to the Crimea. Led on by one adventure and another, and lured by the hope of new and greater gains, they ascended the Volga northward and eastward, crossed Bokhara, and finally broke into one of the northwestern provinces of China, or Cathay, then faintly known in Europe by various names, the most classic of which was Seres.

Here they made their way to the capital city of the Great Mongol Empire, the seat of government where ruled the Great Khan, a very mighty potentate, Kublai Khan, grandson of the famous conqueror, Ghenghis Khan. Kublai Khan resided at the wonderful city of Cambuluc, which we now know as Pekin. North of the Great Wall, and some one hundred and eighty miles from Cambuluc, was the Great Khan's summer palace, one of the wonders of the world, reading of which in Purchas' account of Marco Polo's travels, it is said that Coleridge fell asleep and dreamed the famous poem beginning:

"In Xanadu did Kublai Khan
A stately pleasure dome decree,
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran,
Through caverns measureless to man,
Down to a sunless sea."

These Polo brothers were the first Europeans that the Great Khan had ever seen; but before this time, Friar Plano Carpini, in 1246, and Friar William Rubruquis, in 1253, had penetrated into Mongolia on some errand not now distinctly understood, but far enough to learn that a great and civilized country existed somewhere in the eastern extremity of Asia. They also learned that beyond this extremity of the continent there was a sea; people had until then believed that the eastern end of Asia disappeared in a vast and reedy bog, beyond which was deep and impenetrable darkness. More exact knowledge of that far eastern sea was subsequently acquired by the Venetian travellers. From these wandering friars the Great Khan had heard, at second-hand, doubtless, of European princes, potentates, and powers, and of the Pope of Rome.

He was mightily taken with the noble Venetians, and we are told that he treated them with every courtesy and consideration. He was anxious to secure through them the aid of the Sovereign Pontiff, of whose functions he entertained high respect, in the civilizing of the hordes that had lately been added to the Mongol Empire by wars of conquest. And he entreated the good offices of the polished and cultivated Venetians in securing for him the good offices of the Pope for that end. Accordingly, the two brothers, after satisfying to some degree their curiosity, set out for home, full of tales of their strange adventure, we doubt not; and they reached Venice in 1269, only to find that the Pope Clement IV. was dead, and that no successor had been chosen in his place.

There was a long interregnum, and the brothers, taking with them the son of Nicolo, the young Marco, then a stout lad, began to retrace their steps to Cathay, despairing of being able to enlist the one hundred priests which the Great Khan had asked them to borrow for missionary purposes from the Pope.

At Acre, then held by European powers that had been engaged in the crusades for the recovery of the Holy Sepulchre, they took counsel with one Tebaldo Visconti, an eminent prelate, who was Archdeacon of Liége and a person of great consequence in the Eastern church. At their request, he wrote letters to the Great Khan, authenticating the causes of their failure to fulfil the wishes of the Khan in the matter of obtaining the missionaries whom he desired. Then they pushed on toward the farther East, and while waiting for a vessel to sail from the port of Ayas, on the Gulf of Scanderoon, then the starting-point for the Asiatic trade, they were overtaken by the news that their friend the Archdeacon Tebaldo had been chosen Pope, under the title of Gregory X. They at once returned to Acre, and were able to present to the newly elected pontiff the request of the Great Khan and get a reply. But instead of one hundred teachers and preachers, they were furnished with only two Dominican friars; and these lost heart and drew back before the journey was fairly begun. It may be said here that the Great Khan, being disappointed by the Roman Church, subsequently applied to the Grand Llama of Thibet, and from that source secured the teachers whom he so greatly desired. The Great Khan appears to have been an enlightened and liberal sovereign, and, according to his lights, was willing to furnish to his people the best form of religion that was to be had. He preferred the religion of the elegant and polished Italians, but, failing to get this, he naturally turned his eyes in the direction of Thibet, then an unknown land to all Europeans, but regarded in Mongolia as a region of some considerable civilization.

The three members of the Polo family finally set out on their return to Cathay, leaving Acre in November, 1271. They proceeded by the way of Ayas and Sivas to Mardin, Mosul, and Bagdad to Hormuz, at the mouth of the Persian Gulf. Here they met with some obstacle and turned from Hormuz, and traversed successively Kerman and Khorassan, Balkh, and Badakhshan, by the way of the upper Oxus, to the plateau of Pamir; thence crossing the steppes of Pamir, the three travellers descended upon Kashgar, whence they proceeded by Yarkand and Khotan to the vicinity of Lake Lob; and, crossing the desert of Gobi, they reached the province of Tangut in the extreme northwestern corner of China, or Cathay. Skirting the northern frontier, they finally reached the actual presence of the Great Khan, who was then at his summer palace of Kaipingfu, before spoken of, situated at the base of the Khingan Mountains, fifty miles north of the Great Wall. One may form some idea of the difficulties of Asiatic travel in those days, as well as the leisurely habits of the time, by considering that this journey occupied the three Venetians three years and a half. They arrived at the palace of the Khan about May, 1275.

The Polos were very cordially and gladly received by the potentate, then ruling over a territory so vast that it has been well said that, "In Asia and Eastern Europe scarcely a dog might bark without Mongol leave, from the borders of Poland and the coast of Cilicia to the Amoor and the Yellow Sea." Kublai Khan regarded the young Marco with especial favor, and soon began to employ him in errands and commissions of importance. "The Young Bachelor," as he is called in his book, took pains to acquire at once an acquaintance with the Chinese alphabet, and to learn the languages and dialects of the countries in which he found profitable and interesting employment.

It appears that the Khan had been greatly annoyed by the stupidity of his own officials and agents. They attended only to the errands on which they were sent, and brought back absolutely no knowledge of the distant countries that they visited, except that which they were specially directed to fetch. Very different was the conduct of the young Venetian. He was shrewdly observant, of a lively disposition, and given to inquiring into the strange and wonderful things which he beheld in those remote parts of the world, hitherto secluded from the observation of Europeans. He made copious and minute notes of all that he saw and heard, for the benefit of his imperial master. These notes afterward served him a good purpose, as we shall see; for they were the basis of the book that has made the name of Marco Polo famous throughout the world. When he returned to the imperial court, we can imagine the satisfaction with which the picturesque and intelligent narrations of what he had seen and heard were received by the Great Khan.

In the records of the Mongol dynasty has been found a minute setting forth the fact that a certain Polo, undoubtedly young Marco, was nominated a second-class commissioner attached to the privy council of the Empire, in the year 1277. His first mission appears to have taken him on public business to the provinces of Shansi, Shensi, Sechuen and Yunnan, in the southern and southwestern part of China, and east of Thibet. Even now, those regions are comparatively unknown to the rest of the world; and one must needs admire the intrepidity of the young Venetian who penetrated their wild mountain fastnesses, traced their mighty rivers, and carried away for the delight of the Great Khan, much novel information concerning the peoples that so numerously flourished in that cradle of the human race.

In his book Marco Polo does not greatly magnify himself and his office, and it is only incidentally, as it were, that we know that he was for three years governor of the great city of Yangchau. Following the details laid down in his book, the accuracy of which we have no reason to doubt, we find him visiting the old capital of the Khans, in Mongolia, employed in Southern Cochin-China, and on a mission to the Indian Seas, when he visited some of the states of India, of which Europeans at that time had only dimly heard the most fabulous and vague accounts. That the Polos were all favorites of the Great Khan is sufficiently evident; but it does not appear that any but Marco was in the employment of the Khan. All three of them doubtless made hay while the sun shone, and gathered wealth as they could, trading with the people and making use of their Venetian shrewdness in dealing with the natives, who were no match for the cunning traders from the Rialto.

Naturally, they longed to carry their wealth and their aged heads--for the two elders were now well stricken in years--safely back to their beloved Venice on the Adriatic, so far away. But Kublai Khan would not listen to any of their suggestions, and turned a deaf ear to their hints. A happy chance intervened to bring them out of the wild, mysterious realm of the Great Khan. Arghun, Khan of Persia, a great-nephew of Kublai, had lost by death his favorite wife, who was of one of the Mongol tribes, and who, dying in 1286, laid a parting injunction on the Khan that he should wed none but a Mongol princess. Sorely mourning her, the Persian Khan sent an embassy to the court of Kublai Khan to solicit a suitable bride for him. The Lady Kuchachin, a damsel of seventeen, beautiful and virtuous, was selected by the Court and was made ready to be sent to Tabriz, then the capital of the Persian Empire. The overland journey was highly dangerous, as it lay through regions tenanted by hostile and warlike tribes, besides being portentously long to be undertaken by a delicate young princess. The Persian envoys, accordingly, entreated the Great Khan to send with them by sea the three foreigners, of whose seamanship they undoubtedly held high opinion, especially as the young Marco had just returned from his distant and venturous voyage to the Indian Seas. With much reluctance the Khan consented, and the argosy set forth.

Having given leave for the three Venetians to sail, the Great Khan fitted them out nobly and endowed them with handsome presents at parting. They sailed, so far as we can now make out, from the port of Zayton, better known as Chinchau, in Fokien, at the beginning of the year 1292, two hundred years before Columbus set forth upon his voyage across the Ocean Sea.

It was an ill-starred and unfortunate voyage for the three Polos and their precious charge, although all escaped with their lives and treasure. They were detained five months on the coast of Sumatra, and there were even longer detentions off the southern coast of India, so that more than two years had passed since their departure from Fokien, when they arrived at the camp of the then reigning prince of Persia. The Khan of Persia, they found, had died before they set sail from China, and his son, Ghazan Khan, reigned in his stead.

After the custom of the times and the people, however, the princess was married without ado to the successor of the royal person to whom she had been betrothed before leaving far-off Cathay. It is related that she took her leave of the three noble Venetians, to whom she had become like a daughter and sister, with many tears and protestations of affection; for they had been very choice in their care of her, and she lamented their departure with sincere sorrow and many tears.

Leaving the princess at the camp of the Khan (for he was now at war), the Venetians pushed on to Tabriz, where they made a long halt, resting and refreshing themselves after their long and wearisome journey. Then they again took up their line of march westward, and reached Venice, as we have seen, in November, 1295, only to find their identity denied and their stories disbelieved, until, by an artifice, they made themselves truly known to their fellow-townsmen, who had long since given them up for dead.

Marco Polo's book, dictated by him in prison, is remarkable for its reserve and its scantiness of all semblance of ornament in its literary style. Messer Marco evidently did not greatly affect the arts and graces of fine writing. Like most of the Italian gentlefolk of his day and generation, he held the business of writing in low esteem. Some of his chapters are very brief indeed, the text being no greater in bulk than the headings which his amanuensis put over them of his own motion. Of the original manuscript, written in French, copies were made for the use of the learned, the art of printing being as yet not invented. There are now in existence no less than eighty of these manuscripts, in various languages, more or less differing from each other in unimportant details; but all substantially verifying the facts of the wonderful history of Messer Marco Polo as here set forth. The most precious of these is known as the Geographical text, and is preserved in the great Paris Library; from it was printed, in 1824, one of the most valued of the texts now in existence. But the most useful and satisfactory of all the printed editions is that edited and annotated by Colonel Henry Yule, and printed in London in 1871. The first printed edition of Marco Polo's book was in the German text, and was published in 1477.

Many writers have dwelt long on the question, Did Columbus gather any information from the book of Marco Polo that aided him in forming his theory, that one could reach India and Cathay by sailing westward from Spain out into the Sea of Darkness? We cannot satisfactorily answer that question. But we do know that all Europe, at the time of Marco Polo's adventurous journey eastward, resolutely turned its back upon the Atlantic, and looked toward Cathay and the Far Orient for a road to the fabulous diamond mines and spice islands that were believed to exist somewhere in the vague and mysterious East. Many philosophers, among whom was Columbus himself, thought the globe much smaller than it really is; but it was Columbus who was apparently charged with a divine mission to teach the world that sailing due westward from the Pillars of Hercules would bring the voyager to the dominions of Prester John, the Indies, and Cipangu.

When Columbus set sail for his hazardous venture into the Sea of Darkness, he was armed with letters to Prester John, the traditional Christian prince of the Far East; and his first landfall, as we know now, was by him supposed to be an outlying portion of that vast region vaguely known to the explorers who followed Marco Polo, as Farther India. But centuries rolled away before the world saw the facts of geography as we know them, or learned to accept as true the marvellous stories of Marco Polo, whose priceless legacy was first dimly known to the few, and was dubbed the Romance of the Great Khan.

[Signature: Noah Brooks.]

SIR WILLIAM WALLACE

(1270-1305)

The life and exploits of this most popular national hero of the Scots have been principally preserved in a legendary form by poetry and tradition, and are only to a very small extent matter of contemporary record, or illustrated by authentic documents. There is no extant Scottish chronicler of the age of Wallace. Fordun, the earliest of his countrymen from whom we have any account of him, is his junior by nearly a century. Wyntoun, the next authority, is still half a century later. His chief celebrator is the metrical writer Blind Harry, or Harry the Minstrel, whose work confesses itself by its very form to be quite as much of a fiction as a history, and whose era, at any rate, is supposed to be nearly two centuries subsequent to that of his hero. Some few facts, however, may be got out of the English annalists Trivet and Hemingford, who were the contemporaries of Wallace.

There are contradictory statements of the year of his birth, but it is probable he was born about 1270. His family was one of some distinction, and he is said to have been the younger of the two sons of Sir Malcolm Wallace, of Elderslie and Auchinbothie, in the neighborhood of Paisley. His mother, who according to one account was Sir Malcolm's second wife, is stated by the genealogists to have been Margaret, daughter of Sir Raynald or Reginald (other authorities say Sir Hugh) Crawford, who held the office of Sheriff of Ayr.