Chapter II: Chansons De Geste.15 (2)

We may therefore with advantage, having made this digression to comply a little with prevalent fashions, return to the _chansons_ themselves, to the half-million or million verses of majestic cadence written in one of the noblest languages, for at least first effect, to be found in the history of the world, possessing that character of distinction, of separate and unique peculiarity in matter and form, which has such extraordinary charm, and endowed besides, more perhaps than any other division, with the attraction of presenting an utterly vanished Past. The late Mr Froude found in church-bells--the echo of the Middle Ages--suggestion of such a vanishing. To some of us there is nothing dead in church-bells; there is only in them, as in the Arthurian legends, for instance, a perennial thing still presented in associations, all the more charming for being slightly antique. But the _chansons de geste_, living by the poetry of their best examples, by the fire of their sentiment, by the clash and clang of their music, are still in thought, in connection with manners, hopes, aims, almost more dead than any of the classics. The literary misjudgment of them which was possible in quite recent times, to two such critics--very different, but each of the first class--as Mr Matthew Arnold and M. Ferdinand Brunetière, is half excused by this curious feature in their own literary character. More than mummies or catacombs, more than Herculaneum and Pompeii, they bring us face to face with something so remote and afar that we can hardly realise it at all. It may be that that peculiarity of the French genius, which, despite its unsurpassed and almost unmatched literary faculty, has prevented it from contributing any of the very greatest masterpieces to the literature of the world, has communicated to them this aloofness, this, as it may almost be called, provincialism. But some such note there is in them, and it may be that the immense stretch of time during which they were worse than unknown--misknown--has brought it about.

[Sidenote: _Their charm._]

Yet their interest is not the less; it is perhaps even the more. It is nearly twenty years since I began to read them, and during that period I have also been reading masses of other literature from other times, nations, and languages; yet I cannot at this moment take up one without being carried away by the stately language, as precise and well proportioned as modern French, yet with much of the grandeur which modern French lacks, the statelier metre, the noble phrase, the noble incident and passion. Take, for instance, one of the crowning moments, for there are several, of the death-scene of Roland, that where the hero discovers the dead archbishop, with his hands--"the white, the beautiful"--crossed on his breast:--

"Li quenz Rollanz revient de pasmeisuns,
Sur piez se drecet, mais il ad grant dulur;
Guardet aval e si guardet amunt;
Sur l'erbe verte, ultre ses cumpaignuns,
La veit gesir le nobile barun:
C'est l'arcevesque que deus mist en sun num,
Claimet sa culpe, si regardet amunt,
Cuntre le ciel ainsdoux ses mains ad juinz,
Si priet deu que pareis li duinst.
Morz est Turpin le guerrier Charlun.
Par granz batailles e par mult bels sermuns
Contre paiens fut tuz tens campiuns.
Deus li otreit seinte beneïçun.
Aoi!"[28]

[Footnote 28: _Roland_, ll. 2233-2246.]

Then turn to, perhaps, the very last poem which can be called a _chanson de geste_ proper in style, _Le Bastart de Bouillon_, and open on these lines:--

"Pardevant la chité qui Miekes[29] fut clamée
Fu grande la bataille, et fière la mellée,
Enchois car on eust nulle tente levée,
Commencha li debas à chelle matinée.
Li cinc frere paien i mainent grant huée,
Il keurent par accort, chascuns tenoit l'espée,
Et une forte targe à son col acolée.
Esclamars va ferir sans nulle demorée,
Un gentil crestien de France l'onnerée--
Armeïre n'i vault une pomme pelée;
Sus le senestre espaulle fu la chars atamée,
Le branc li embati par dedans la corée,[30]
Mort l'abat du cheval; son ame soit sauvée!"[31]

[Footnote 29: _I.e._, Mecca.]

[Footnote 30: _Corée_ is not merely = _coeur_, but heart, liver, and all the upper "inwards."]

[Footnote 31: _Li Bastars de Bouillon_ (ed. Scheler, Brussels, 1877).]

This is in no way a specially fine passage, it is the very "padding" of the average _chanson_, but what padding it is! Compare the mere sound, the clash and clang of the verse, with the ordinary English romance in _Sir Thopas_ metre, or even with the Italian poets. How alert, how succinct, how finished it is beside the slip-shodness of the first, in too many instances;[32] how manly, how intense, beside the mere sweetness of the second! The very ring of the lines brings mail-shirt and flat-topped helmet before us.

[Footnote 32: Not always; for the English romance of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries has on the whole been too harshly dealt with. But its _average_ is far below that of the _chansons_.]

[Sidenote: _Peculiarity of the_ geste _system._]

But in order to the proper comprehension of this section of literature, it is necessary that something more should be said as well of the matter at large as of the construction and contents of separate poems; and, most of all, of the singular process of adjustment of these separate poems by which the _geste_ proper (that is to say, the subdivision of the whole which deals more or less distinctly with a single subject) is constituted. Here again we find a "difference" of the poems in the strict logical sense. The total mass of the Arthurian story may be, though more probably it is not, as large as that of the Charlemagne romances, and it may well seem to some of superior literary interest. But from its very nature, perhaps from the very nature of its excellence, it lacks this special feature of the _chansons de geste_. Arthur may or may not be a greater figure in himself than Charlemagne; but when the genius of Map (or of some one else) had hit upon the real knotting and unknotting of the story--the connection of the frailty of Guinevere with the Quest for the Grail--complete developments of the fates of minor heroes, elaborate closings of minor incidents, became futile. Endless stories could be keyed or geared on to different parts of the main legend: there might be a Tristan-saga, a Palomides-saga, a Gawain-saga, episodes of Balin or of Beaumains, incidents of the fate of the damsel of Astolat or the resipiscence of Geraint. But the central interest was too artistically complete to allow any of these to occupy very much independent space.

[Sidenote: _Instances._]

In our present subject, on the other hand, even Charlemagne's life is less the object of the story than the history of France; and enormous as the falsification of that history may seem to modern criticism, the writers always in a certain sense remembered that they were historians. When an interesting and important personality presented itself, it was their duty to follow it out to the end, to fill up the gaps of forerunners, to round it off and shade it in.[33] Thus it happens that the _geste_ or saga of _Guillaume d'Orange_--which is itself not the whole of the great _geste_ of Garin de Montglane--occupies eighteen separate poems, some of them of great length; that the crusading series, beginning no doubt in a simple historical poem, which was extended and "cycled," has seven, the Lorraine group five; while in the extraordinary monument of industry and enthusiasm which for some eight hundred pages M. Léon Gautier has devoted to the king's _geste_, twenty-seven different _chansons_ are more or less abstracted. Several others might have been added here if M. Gautier had laid down less strict rules of exclusion against mere _romans d'aventures_ subsequently tied on, like the above-mentioned outlying romances of the Arthurian group, to the main subject.

[Footnote 33: This will explain the frequent recurrence of the title "_Enfances ----_" in the list given above. A hero had become interesting in some exploit of his manhood: so they harked back to his childhood.]

[Sidenote: _Summary of the_ geste _of William of Orange._]

It seems necessary, therefore, or at least desirable, especially as these poems are still far too little known to English readers, to give in the first place a more or less detailed account of one of the groups; in the second, a still more detailed account of a particular _chanson_, which to be fully illustrative should probably be a member of this group; and lastly, some remarks on the more noteworthy and accessible (for it is ill speaking at second-hand from accounts of manuscripts) of the remaining poems. For the first purpose nothing can be better than _Guillaume d'Orange_, many, though not all, of the constituents of which are in print, and which has had the great advantage of being systematically treated by more than one or two of the most competent scholars of the century on the subject--Dr Jonckbloët, MM. Guessard and A. de Montaiglon, and M. Gautier himself. Of this group the short, very old, and very characteristic _Couronnement Loys_ will supply a good subject for more particular treatment, a subject all the more desirable that _Roland_ may be said to be comparatively familiar, and is accessible in English translations.

[Sidenote: _And first of the_ Couronnement Loys.]

The poem as we have it[34] begins with a double exordium, from which the _jongleur_ might perhaps choose as from alternative collects in a liturgy. Each is ten lines long, and while the first rhymes throughout, the second has only a very imperfect assonance. Each bespeaks attention and promises satisfaction in the usual manner, though in different terms--

"Oez seignor que Dex vos soit aidant;"

"Seignor baron, pleroit vos d'un exemple!"

[Footnote 34: Ed. Jonckbloët, _op. cit._, i. 1-71.]

A much less commonplace note is struck immediately afterwards in what may be excusably taken to be the real beginning of the poem:--

"A king who wears our France's crown of gold
Worthy must be, and of his body bold;
What man soe'er to him do evil wold,
He may not quit in any manner hold
Till he be dead or to his mercy yold.
Else France shall lose her praise she hath of old.
Falsely he's crowned: so hath our story told."

Then the story itself is plunged into in right style. When the chapel was blessed at Aix and the minster dedicated and made, there was a mighty court held. Poor and rich received justice; eighteen bishops, as many archbishops, twenty-six abbots, and four crowned kings attended; the Pope of Rome himself said mass; and Louis, son of Charlemagne, was brought up to the high altar where the crown was laid. At this moment the people are informed that Charles feels his death approaching, and must hand over his kingdom to his son. They thank God that no strange king is to come on them. But when the emperor, after good advice as to life and policy, bids him not dare to take the crown unless he is prepared for a clean and valiant life, the infant (_li enfes_) does not dare. The people weep, and the king storms, declaring that the prince is no son of his and shall be made a monk. But Hernaut of Orleans, a great noble, strikes in, and pretending to plead for Louis on the score of his extreme youth, offers to take the regency for three years, when, if the prince has become a good knight, he shall have the kingdom back, and in increased good condition. Charlemagne, with the singular proneness to be victim of any kind of "confidence trick" which he shows throughout the _chansons_, is turning a willing ear to this proposition when William of Orange enters, and, wroth at the notion, thinks of striking off Hernaut's head. But remembering

"Que d'ome occire est trop mortex péchiés,"

he changes his plan and only pummels him to death with his fists, a distinction which seems indifferential. Then he takes the crown himself, places it on the boy's head, and Charles accommodates himself to this proceeding as easily as to the other proposal.

Five years pass: and it is a question, not of the mere choice of a successor or assessor, but of actual death. He repeats his counsels to his son, with the additional and very natural warning to rely on William. Unluckily this chief, who is in the earlier part of the _chanson_ surnamed Firebrace (not to be confounded with the converted Saracen of that name), is not at the actual time of the king's death at Aix, but has gone on pilgrimage, in fulfilment of a vow, to Rome. He comes at a good time, for the Saracens have just invaded Italy, have overthrown the King of Apulia with great slaughter, and are close to Rome. The Pope (the "Apostle") hears of William, and implores his succour, which, though he has but forty knights and the Saracens are in their usual thousands, he consents to give. The Pope promises him as a reward that he may eat meat all the days of his life, and take as many wives as he chooses,--a method of guerdon which shocks M. Gautier, the most orthodox as well as not the least scholarly of scholars. However, the Holy Father also wishes to buy off the heathen, thereby showing a truly apostolic ignorance of the world. Galafré, the "admiral," however has a point of honour. He will not be bought off. He informs the Pope, calling him "Sir with the big hat,"[35] that he is a descendant of Romulus and Julius Cæsar, and for that reason feels it necessary to destroy Rome and its clerks who serve God. He relents, however, so far as to propose to decide the matter by single combat, to which the Pope, according to all but nineteenth century sentiment, very properly consents. William is, of course, the Christian champion; the Saracen is a giant named Corsolt, very hideous, very violent, and a sort of Mahometan Capaneus in his language. The Pope does not entirely trust in William's valour, but rubs him all over with St Peter's arm, which confers invulnerability. Unfortunately the "promontory of the face" is omitted. The battle is fierce, but not long. Corsolt cuts off the uncharmed tip of William's nose (whence his epic surname of Guillaume au Court Nez), but William cuts off Corsolt's head. The Saracens fly: William (he has joked rather ruefully with the Pope on his misadventure, which, as being a recognised form of punishment, was almost a disgrace even when honourably incurred) pursues them, captures Galafré, converts him at point of sword, and receives from him the offer of his beautiful daughter. The marriage is about to be celebrated, William and the Saracen princess are actually at the altar, when a messenger from Louis arrives claiming the champion's help against the traitors who already wish to wrest the sceptre from his hand. William asks the Pope what he is to do, and the Pope says "Go":

"Guillaumes bese la dame o le vis cler,
Et ele lui; ne cesse deplorer.
Par tel covent ensi sont dessevré,
Puis ne se virent en trestot leur aé."

[Footnote 35: "Parlez à moi, sire au chaperon large."--_C.L._, l. 468.]

Promptly as he acts, however, he is only in time to repair, not to prevent, the mischief. The rebels have already dethroned Louis and imprisoned him at St Martins in Tours, making Acelin of Rouen, son of Richard, Emperor. William makes straight for Tours, prevails on the castellan of the gate-fortress to let him in, kicks--literally kicks--the monks out of their abbey, and rescues Louis. He then kills Acelin, violently maltreats his father, and rapidly traverses the whole of France, reducing the malcontents.

Peace having been for the time restored at home, William returns to Rome, where many things have happened. The Pope and Galafré are dead, the princess, though she is faithful to William, has other suitors, and there is a fresh invasion, not this time of heathen Asiatics, but led by Guy of Germany. The Count of Orange forces Louis (who behaves in a manner justifying the rebels) to accompany him with a great army to Rome, defeats the Germans, takes his _fainéant_ emperor's part in a single combat with Guy, and is again victorious. Nor, though he has to treat his pusillanimous sovereign in an exceedingly cavalier fashion, does he fail to have Louis crowned again as Emperor of Rome. A fresh rebellion breaking out in France, he again subdues it; and strengthens the tottering house of Charles Martel by giving his own sister Blanchefleur to the chicken-hearted king.

"En grant barnage fu Looys entrez;
Quant il fu riche, Guillaume n'en sot gré,"

ends the poem with its usual laconism.

[Sidenote: _Comments on the_ Couronnement.]

There is, of course, in this story an element of rough comedy, approaching horse-play, which may not please all tastes. This element, however, is very largely present in the _chansons_ (though it so happens, yet once more, that _Roland_ is accidentally free from it), and it is especially obvious in the particular branch or _geste_ of William with the Short Nose, appearing even in the finest and longest of the subdivisions, _Aliscans_, which some have put at the head of the whole. In fact, as we might expect, the _esprit gaulois_ can seldom refrain altogether from pleasantry, and its pleasantry at this time is distinctly "the humour of the stick." But still the poem is a very fine one. Its ethical opening is really noble: the picture of the Court at Aix has grandeur, for all its touches of simplicity; the fighting is good; the marriage scene and its fatal interruption (for we hear nothing of the princess on William's second visit to Rome) give a dramatic turn: and though there is no fine writing, there is a refreshing directness. The shortness, too (it has less than three thousand lines), is undoubtedly in its favour, for these pieces are apt to be rather too long than too short. And if the pusillanimity and _fainéantise_ of Louis seem at first sight exaggerated, it must be remembered that, very awkward as was the position of a Henry III. of England in the thirteenth century, and a James III. of Scotland in the fifteenth, kings of similar character must have cut even worse figures in the tenth or eleventh, when the story was probably first elaborated, and worse still in the days of the supposed occurrence of its facts. Indeed, one of the best passages as poetry, and one of the most valuable as matter, is that in which the old king warns his trembling son how he must not only do judgment and justice, must not only avoid luxury and avarice, protect the orphan and do the widow no wrong, but must be ready at any moment to cross the water of Gironde with a hundred thousand men in order to _craventer et confondre_ the pagan host,--how he must be towards his own proud vassals "like a man-eating leopard," and if any dare levy war against him, must summon his knights, besiege the traitor's castle, waste and spoil all his land, and when he is taken show him no mercy, but lop him limb from limb, burn him in fire, or drown him in the sea.[36] It is not precisely an amiable spirit, this spirit of the _chansons_: but there is this to be said in its favour, there is no mistake about it.

[Footnote 36: _C.L._, ll. 72-79, 172-196.]

[Sidenote: _William of Orange._]

It may be perhaps expected that before, in the second place, summing the other branches of the saga of this William of Orange, it should be said who he was. But it is better to refer to the authorities already given on this, after all, not strictly literary point. Enormous pains have been spent on the identification or distinction of William Short-nose, Saint William of Gellona, William Tow-head of Poitiers, William Longsword of Normandy, as well as several other Williams. It may not be superfluous, and is certainly not improper, for those who undertake the elaborate editing of a particular poem to enter into such details. But for us, who are considering the literary development of Europe, it would be scarcely germane. It is enough that certain _trouvères_ found in tradition, in history freely treated, or in their own imaginations, the material which they worked into this great series of poems, of which those concerning William directly amount to eighteen, while the entire _geste_ of Garin de Montglane runs to twenty-four.

[Sidenote: _The earlier poems of the cycle._]

For the purposes of the _chansons_, William of the Strong Arm or the Short Nose is Count, or rather Marquis, of Orange, one of Charlemagne's peers, a special bulwark of France and Christendom towards the south-east, and a man of approved valour, loyalty, and piety, but of somewhat rough manners. Also (which is for the _chanson de geste_ of even greater importance) he is grandson of Garin de Montglane and the son of Aimeri de Narbonne, heroes both, and possessors of the same good qualities which extend to all the family. For it is a cardinal point of the _chansons_ that not only _bon sang chasse de race_, but evil blood likewise. And the House of Narbonne, or Montglane, or Orange, is as uniformly distinguished for loyalty as the Normans and part of the house of Mayence for "treachery." To illustrate its qualities, twenty-four _chansons_, as has been said, are devoted, six of which tell the story before William, and the remaining eighteen that of his life. The first in M. Gautier's order[37] is _Les Enfances Garin de Montglane_. Garin de Montglane, the son of Duke Savary of Aquitaine and a mother persecuted by false accusations, like so many heroines of the middle ages, fights first in Sicily, procures atonement for his mother's wrongs, and then goes to the Court of Charlemagne, who, according to the general story, is his exact equal in age, as is also Doon de Mayence, the special hero of the third great _geste_. He conquers Montglane, and marries the Lady Mabille, his marriage and its preliminaries filling the second romance, or _Garin de Montglane_ proper. He has by Mabille four sons--Hernaut de Beaulande, Girart de Viane, Renier de Gennes, and Milles de Pouille. Each of the three first is the subject of an existing _chanson_, and doubtless the fourth was similarly honoured. _Girart de Viane_ is one of the most striking of the _chansons_ in matter. The hero quarrels with Charlemagne owing to the bad offices of the empress, and a great barons' war follows, in which Roland and Oliver have their famous fight, and Roland is betrothed to Oliver's sister Aude. _Hernaut de Beaulande_ tells how the hero conquers Aquitaine, marries Fregonde, and becomes the father of Aimeri de Narbonne; and _Renier de Gennes_ in like fashion the success of its eponym at Genoa, and his becoming the father of Oliver and Aude. Then we pass to the third generation (Charlemagne reigning all the time) with the above-named _Aimeri de Narbonne_. The events of this come after Roncesvalles, and it is on the return thence that, Narbonne being in Paynim hands, Aimeri, after others have refused, takes the adventure, the town, and his surname. He marries Hermengart, sister of the king of the Lombards, repulses the Saracens, who endeavour to recover Narbonne, and begets twelve children, of whom the future William of Orange is one. These _chansons_, with the exception of _Girart de Viane_, which was printed early, remained much longer in MS. than their successors, and the texts are not accessible in any such convenient _corpus_ as De Jonckbloët's though some have been edited recently.

[Footnote 37: M. Jonckbloët, who takes a less wide range, begins his selection or collection of the William saga with the _Couronnement Loys_.]

Three poems intervene between _Aimeri de Narbonne_ and the _Couronnement Loys_, but they do not seem to have been always kept apart. The first, the _Enfances Guillaume_, tells how when William himself had left Narbonne for Charlemagne's Court, and his father was also absent, the Saracens under Thibaut, King of Arabia, laid siege to the town, laying at the same time siege to the heart of the beautiful Saracen Princess Orable, who lives in the enchanted palace of Gloriette at Orange, itself then, as Narbonne had been, a pagan possession. William, going with his brothers to succour their mother, captures Baucent, a horse sent by the princess to Thibaut, and falls in love with her, his love being returned. She is forced to marry Thibaut, but preserves herself by witchcraft as a wife only in name. Orange does not fall into the hand of the Christians, though they succeed in relieving Narbonne. William meanwhile has returned to Court, and has been solemnly dubbed knight, his _enfances_ then technically ceasing.

This is followed by the _Département des Enfans Aimeri_, in which William's brothers, following his example, leave Narbonne and their father for different parts of France, and achieve adventures and possessions. One of them, Bernart of Brabant, is often specially mentioned in the latter branches of the cycle as the most valiant of the clan next to Guillaume, and it is not improbable that he had a _chanson_ to himself. The youngest, Guibelin, remains, and in the third _Siege of Narbonne_, which has a poem to itself, he shows prowess against the Saracens, but is taken prisoner. He is rescued from crucifixion by his aged father, who cuts his way through the Saracens and carries off his son. But the number of the heathen is too great, and the city must have surrendered if an embassy sent to Charlemagne had not brought help, headed by William himself, in time. He is as victorious as usual, but after his victory again returns to Aix.

[Sidenote: _The_ Charroi de Nîmes.]

Now begins the _Couronnement Loys_, of which the more detailed abstract given above may serve, not merely to make the individual piece known, but to indicate the general course, incidents, language, and so forth of all these poems. It will be remembered that it ends by a declaration that the king was not grateful to the King-maker. He forgets William in the distribution of fiefs, says M. Gautier; we may say, perhaps, that he remembers rather too vividly the rough instruction he has received from his brother-in-law. On protest William receives Spain, Orange, and Nîmes, a sufficiently magnificent dotation, were it not that all three are in the power of the infidels. William, however, loses no time in putting himself in possession, and begins with Nîmes. This he carries, as told in the _Charroi de Nîmes_,[38] by the Douglas-like stratagem (indeed it is not at all impossible that the Good Lord James was acquainted with the poem) of hiding his knights in casks, supposed to contain salt and other merchandise, which are piled on cars and drawn by oxen. William himself and Bertrand his nephew conduct the caravan, dressed in rough boots (which hurt Bertrand's feet), blue hose, and coarse cloth frocks. The innocent paynims give them friendly welcome, though William is nearly discovered by his tell-tale disfigurement. A squabble, however, arises; but William, having effected his entrance, does not lose time. He blows his horn, and the knights springing from their casks, the town is taken. This _Charroi de Nîmes_ is one of the most spirited, but one of the roughest, of the group. The catalogue of his services with which William overwhelms the king, each item ushered by the phrase "Rois, quar te membre" ("King, bethink thee then"), and to which the unfortunate Louis can only answer in various forms, "You are very ill-tempered" ("Pleins es de mautalent"; "Mautalent avez moult"), is curiously full of uncultivated eloquence; while his refusal to accept the heritage of Auberi le Bourgoing, and thereby wrong Auberi's little son, even though "sa marrastre Hermengant de Tori" is also offered by the generous monarch with the odd commendation--

"La meiller feme qui onc beust de vin,"

is justly praised. But when the venerable Aymon not unnaturally protests against almost the whole army accompanying William, and the wrathful peer breaks his jaw with his fist, when the peasants who grumble at their casks and their oxen being seized are hanged or have their eyes put out--then the less amiable side of the matter certainly makes its appearance.

[Footnote 38: Jonckbloët, i. 73-111.]

[Sidenote: _The_ Prise d'Orange.]

William has thus entered on part, though the least part, of the king's gift to him--a gift which it is fair to Louis to say that the hero had himself demanded, after refusing the rather vague offer of a fourth of the lands and revenues of all France. The _Prise d'Orange_[39] follows in time and as a subject of _chanson_, the _Charroi de Nîmes_. The earlier poem had been all sheer fighting with no softer side. In this William is reminded of the beautiful Orable (wife, if only in name, of King Thibaut), who lives there, though her husband, finding a wife who bewitches the nuptial chamber unsatisfactory, has left her and Orange to the care of his son Arragon. The reminder is a certain Gilbert of Vermandois who has been prisoner at Orange, and who, after some hesitation, joins William himself and his brother Guibelin in a hazardous expedition to the pagan city. They blacken themselves with ink, and are not ill received by Arragon: but a Saracen who knows the "Marquis au Court Nez" informs against him (getting his brains beaten out for his pains), and the three, forcing a way with bludgeons through the heathen, take refuge in Gloriette, receive arms from Orable, who has never ceased to love the Marquis, and drive their enemies off. But a subterranean passage (this probably shows the _chanson_ to be a late one in this form) lets the heathen in: and all three champions are seized, bound, and condemned to the flames. Orable demands them, not to release but to put in her own dungeons, conveniently furnished with vipers; and for a time they think themselves betrayed. But Orable soon appears, offers them liberty if William will marry her, and discloses a second underground passage. They do not, however, fly by this, but only send Gilbert to Nîmes to fetch succour: and as Orable's conduct is revealed to Arragon, a third crisis occurs. It is happily averted, and Bertrand soon arriving with thirteen thousand men from Nîmes, the Saracens are cut to pieces and Orange won. Orable is quickly baptised, her name being changed to Guibourc, and married without further delay. William is William of Orange at length in good earnest, and the double sacrament reconciles M. Gautier (who is constantly distressed by the forward conduct of his heroines) to Guibourc ever afterwards. It is only fair to say that in the text published by M. Jonckbloët (and M. Gautier gives references to no other) "la curtoise Orable" does not seem to deserve his hard words. There is nothing improper in her conduct, and her words do not come to much more than--

"I am your wife if you will marry me."

[Footnote 39: Jonckbloët, i. 112-162.]

_La Prise d'Orange_ ends with the couplet--

"Puis estut il tiex xxx ans en Orenge
Mes ainc un jor n'i estut sanz chalenge."

[Sidenote: _The story of Vivien._]

Orange, in short, was a kind of Garde Douloureuse against the infidel: and William well earned his title of "Marchis." The story of his exploits diverges a little--a loop rather than an episode--in two specially heroic _chansons_, the _Enfances Vivien_ and the _Covenant Vivien_,[40] which tell the story of one of his nephews, a story finished by Vivien's glorious death at the opening of the great _chanson_ of _Aliscans_. Vivien is the son of Garin d'Ansène, one of those "children of Aimeri" who have sought fortune away from Narbonne, and one of the captives of Roncesvalles. Garin is only to be delivered at the cost of his son's life, which Vivien cheerfully offers. He is actually on the pyre, which is kindled, when the pagan hold Luiserne is stormed by a pirate king, and Vivien is rescued, but sold as a slave. An amiable paynim woman buys him and adopts him; but he is a born knight, and when grown up, with a few allies surprises Luiserne itself, and holds it till a French army arrives, and Garin recovers his son, whom he had thought dead. After these _Enfances_, promising enough, comes the _Covenant_ or vow, never to retreat before the Saracens. Vivien is as savage as he is heroic; and on one occasion sends five hundred prisoners, miserably mutilated, to the great Admiral Desramé. The admiral assembles all the forces of the East as well as of Spain, and invades France. Vivien, overpowered by numbers, applies to his uncle William for help, and the battle of Aliscans is already half fought and more than half lost before the actual _chanson_ of the name begins. _Aliscans_[41] itself opens with a triplet in which the "steel clash" of the _chanson_ measure is more than ever in place:--

"A icel jor ke la dolor fu grans,
Et la bataille orible en Aliscans:
Li quens Guillaumes i soufri grans ahans."

[Footnote 40: _Enfances Vivien_, ed. Wahlen and v. Feilitzer, Paris, 1886; _Covenant Vivien_, Jonckbloët, i. 163-213.]

[Footnote 41: Jonckbloët, i. 215 to end; separately, as noted above, by Guessard and de Montaignon, Paris, 1870.]

[Sidenote: _Aliscans._]

And it continues in the same key. The commentators declare that the story refers to an actual historical battle of Villedaigne. This may be a fact: the literary excellence of _Aliscans_ is one. The scale of the battle is represented as being enormous: and the poet is not unworthy of his subject. Neither is William _impar sibi_: but his day of unbroken victory is over. No one can resist him personally; but the vast numbers of the Saracens make personal valour useless. Vivien, already hopelessly wounded, fights on, and receives a final blow from a giant. He is able, however, to drag himself to a tree where a fountain flows, and there makes his confession, and prays for his uncle's safety. As for William himself, his army is entirely cut to pieces, and it is only a question whether he can possibly escape. He comes to Vivien's side just as his nephew is dying, bewails him in a very noble passage, receives his last breath, and is able before it passes to administer the holy wafer which he carries with him. It is Vivien's first communion as well as his last.

After this really great scene, one of the finest in all the _chansons_, William puts the corpse of Vivien on the wounded but still generous Baucent, and endeavours to make his way through the ring of enemies who have held aloof but are determined not to let him go. Night saves him: and though he has to abandon the body, he cuts his way through a weak part of the line, gains another horse (for Baucent can carry him no longer), and just reaches Orange. But he has taken the arms as well as the horse of a pagan to get through his foes: and in this guise he is refused entrance to his own city. Guibourc herself rejects him, and only recognises her husband from the prowess which he shows against the pursuers, who soon catch him up. The gates are opened and he is saved, but Orange is surrounded by the heathen. There is no room to tell the full heroism of Guibourc, and, besides, _Aliscans_ is one of the best known of the _chansons_, and has been twice printed.

[Sidenote: _The end of the story._]

From this point the general interest of the saga, which has culminated in the battle of Aliscans, though it can hardly be said to disappear, declines somewhat, and is diverted to other persons than William himself. It is decided that Guibourc shall hold Orange, while he goes to the Court of Louis to seek aid. This personal suit is necessary lest the fulness of the overthrow be not believed; and the pair part after a scene less rugged than the usual course of the _chansons_, in which Guibourc expresses her fear of the "damsels bright of blee," the ladies of high lineage that her husband will meet at Laon; and William swears in return to drink no wine, eat no flesh, kiss no mouth, sleep on his saddle-cloth, and never change his garments till he meets her again.

[Sidenote: _Renouart._]

His reception is not cordial. Louis thinks him merely a nuisance, and the courtiers mock his poverty, distress, and loneliness. He meets with no hospitality save from a citizen. But the chance arrival of his father and mother from Narbonne prevents him from doing anything rash. They have a great train with them, and it is no longer possible simply to ignore William; but from the king downwards, there is great disinclination to grant him succour, and Queen Blanchefleur is especially hostile. William is going to cut her head off--his usual course of action when annoyed--after actually addressing her in a speech of extreme directness, somewhat resembling Hamlet's to Gertrude, but much ruder. Their mother saves Blanchefleur, and after she has fled in terror to her chamber, the fair Aelis, her daughter, a gracious apparition, begs and obtains forgiveness from William, short of temper as of nose, but also not rancorous. Reconciliation takes place all round, and an expedition is arranged for the relief of Orange. It is successful, but chiefly owing to the prowess, not of William, but of a certain Renouart, who is the special hero, not merely of the last half of _Aliscans_, but of nearly all the later _chansons_ of the _geste_ of Garin de Montglane. This Renouart or Rainouart is an example, and one of the earliest, perhaps the very earliest, of the type of hero, so dear to the middle ages, who begins by service in the kitchen or elsewhere, of no very dignified character, and ends by being discovered to be of noble or royal birth. Rainouart is thus the ancestor, and perhaps the direct ancestor, of Havelok, whom he especially resembles; of Beaumains, in a hitherto untraced episode of the Arthurian story, and of others. His early feats against the Saracens, in defence of Orange first, and then when William arrives, are made with no knightly weapon, but with a _tinel_--huge bludgeon, beam, "caber"--but he afterwards turns out to be Guibourc's, or rather Orable's, own brother. There are very strong comic touches in all this part of the poem, such as the difficulty Rainouart finds in remounting his comrades, the seven nephews of William, because his _tinel_ blows are so swashing that they simply smash horse and man--a difficulty overcome by the ingenious suggestion of Bertrand that he shall hit with the small end. And these comic touches have a little disturbed those who wish to find in the pure _chanson de geste_ nothing but war and religion, honour and generosity. But, as has been already hinted, this is to be over-nice. No doubt the oldest existing, or at least the oldest yet discovered, MS. of _Aliscans_ is not the original, for it is rhymed, not assonanced, a practically infallible test. But there is no reason to suppose that the comic touches are all new, though they may have been a little amplified in the later version. Once more, it is false argument to evolve the idea of a _chanson_ from _Roland_ only, and then to insist that all _chansons_ shall conform to it.

After the defeat of Desramé, and the relief of half-ruined Orange, the troubles of that city and its Count are not over. The admiral returns to the charge, and the next _chanson_, the _Bataille Loquifer_, is ranked by good judges as ancient, and describes fresh prowess of Rainouart. Then comes the _Moniage_ ["Monking" of] _Rainouart_, in which the hero, like so many other heroes, takes the cowl. This, again, is followed by a series describing chiefly the reprisals in Spain and elsewhere of the Christians--_Foulques de Candie_, the _Siège de Barbastre_, the _Prise de Cordres_, and _Gilbert d'Andrenas_. And at last the whole _geste_ is wound up by the _Mort Aimeri de Narbonne_, _Renier_, and the _Moniage Guillaume_, the poem which unites the profane history of the _Marquis au Court Nez_ to the legend of St William of the Desert, though in a fashion sometimes odd. M. Gautier will not allow any of these poems (except the _Bataille Loquifer_ and the two _Moniages_) great age; and even if it were otherwise, and more of them were directly accessible,[42] there could be no space to say much of them here. The sketch given should be sufficient to show the general characteristics of the _chansons_ as each is in itself, and also the curious and ingenious way in which their successive authors have dovetailed and pieced them together into continuous family chronicles.

[Footnote 42: _Foulques de Candie_ (ed. Tarbé, Reims, 1860) is the only one of this batch which I possess, or have read _in extenso_.]

[Sidenote: _Some other_ chansons.]

If these delights can move any one, they may be found almost universally distributed about the _chansons_. Of the minor groups the most interesting and considerable are the crusading cycle, late as it is in part, and that of the Lorrainers, which is, in the main, very early. Of the former the _Chansons d'Antioche_ and _de Jérusalem_ are almost historical, and are pretty certainly based on the account of an actual partaker. _Antioche_ in particular has few superiors in the whole hundred and more poems of the kind. _Hélias_ ties this historic matter on to legend proper by introducing the story of the Knight of the Swan; while _Les Chétifs_ (_The Captives_) combines history and legend very interestingly, starting as it does with a probably historical capture of certain Christians, who are then plunged in dreamland of romance for the rest of it. The concluding poems of this cycle, _Baudouin de Sebourc_ and the _Bastart de Bouillon_, have been already more than once mentioned. They show, as has been said, the latest form of the _chanson_, and are almost pure fiction, though they have a sort of framework or outline in the wars in Northern Arabia, at and round the city of Jôf, whose crusading towers still, according to travellers, look down on the _hadj_ route through the desert. _Garin le Loherain_, on the other hand, and its successors, are pure early feudal fighting, as is also the early, excellent, and very characteristic _Raoul de Cambrai_. These are instances, and no doubt not the only ones, of what may be called district or provincial _gestes_, applying the principles of the _chansons_ generally to local quarrels and fortunes.

Of what purists call the sophisticated _chansons_, those in which general romance-motives of different kinds are embroidered on the strictly _chanson_ canvas, there are probably none more interesting than the later forms of _Huon de Bordeaux_ and _Ogier de Danemarche_. The former, since the fortunate reprinting of Lord Berners's version by the Early English Text Society, is open to every one, though, of course, the last vestiges of _chanson_ form have departed, and those who can should read it as edited in M. Guessard's series. The still more gracious legend, in which the ferocious champion Ogier, after his early triumphs over the giant Caraheu and against the paladins of Charles, is, like Huon, brought to the loadstone rock, is then subjected to the enchantments--loving, and now not baneful--of Arthur's sister Morgane, and tears himself from fairyland to come to the rescue of France, is by far the most delightful of the attempts to "cross" the Arthurian and Carlovingian cycles. And of this we fortunately have in English a poetical version from the great _trouvère_ among the poets of our day, the late Mr William Morris. Of yet others, the often-mentioned _Voyage à Constantinoble_, with its rather unseemly _gabz_ (boasting jests of the peers, which are overheard by the heathen emperor with results which seem like at one time to be awkward), is among the oldest, and is a warning against the tendency to take the presence of comic elements as a necessary evidence of late date. _Les Saisnes_, dealing with the war against the Saxons, is a little loose in its morals, but vigorous and interesting. The pleasant pair of _Aiol_ and _Elie de St Gilles_; the touching history of Charlemagne's mother, _Berte aus grans Piés_; _Acquin_, one of the rare _chansons_ dealing with Brittany (though Roland was historically count thereof); _Gérard de Roussillon_, which has more than merely philological interest; _Macaire_, already mentioned; the famous _Quatre Fils d'Aymon_, longest and most widely popular, must be added to the list, and are not all that should be added to it.

[Sidenote: _Final remarks on them._]

On the whole, I must repeat that the _chansons de geste_, which as we have them are the work of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries in the main, form the second division in point of literary value of early mediæval literature, while they possess, in a certain "sincerity and strength," qualities not to be found even in the Arthurian story itself. Despite the ardour with which they have been philologically studied for nearly three-quarters of a century, despite (or perhaps because of) the enthusiasm which one or two devotees have shown for their literary qualities, it does not seem to me that fair justice, or anything like it, has yet been generally done. German critics care little for literary merit, and are perhaps not often trained to appreciate it; in England the _chansons_ have been strangely little read. But the most singular thing is the cold reception, slightly if at all thawed recently, which they have met in France itself. It may give serious pause to the very high estimate generally entertained of French criticism by foreigners to consider this coldness, which once reached something like positive hostility in M. Ferdinand Brunetière, the chief French literary critic of our generation. I regret to see that M. Lanson, the latest historian of French literature, has not dared to separate himself from the academic _grex_. "On ne saurait nier," he says, "que quelques uns aient eu du talent;" but he evidently feels that this generous concession is in need of guards and caveats. There is no "beauté formelle" in them, he says--no formal beauty in those magnificently sweeping _laisses_, of which the ear that has once learnt their music can no more tire thereafter than of the sound of the sea itself. The style (and if it be objected that his previous words have been directly addressed to the later _chansons_ and _chanson_ writers, here he expressly says that this style "est le même style que dans le _Roland_," though "moins sobre, moins plein, moins sur") has "no beauty by itself," and finally he thinks that the best thing to do is "to let nine-tenths of the _chansons_ follow nine-tenths of our tragedies." I have read many _chansons_ and many tragedies; but I have never read a _chanson_ that has not more poetry in it than ninety-nine French tragedies out of a hundred.

The fact is that it is precisely the _beauté formelle_, assisted as it is by the peculiar spirit of which so much has been said already, which constitutes the beauty of these poems: and that these characteristics are present, not of course in uniform measure, but certainly in the great majority of the _chansons_ from _Roland_ to the _Bastard_. Of course if a man sits down with a preconceived idea of an epic poem, it is more likely than not that his preconceived idea will be of something very different from a _chanson de geste_. And if, refusing to depart from his preconceived idea, and making that idea up of certain things taken from the _Iliad_, certain from the _Æneid_, certain from the _Divina Commedia_, certain from _Paradise Lost_,--if he runs over the list and says to the _chanson_, "Are you like Homer in this point? Can you match me Virgil in that?" the result will be that the _chanson_ will fail to pass its examination.

But if, with some knowledge of literature in the wide sense, and some love for it, he sits down to take the _chansons_ as they are, and judge them on their merits and by the law of their own poetical state, then I think he will come to a very different conclusion. He will say that their kind is a real kind, a thing by itself, something of which if it were not, nothing else in literature could precisely supply the want. And he will decide further that while the best of them are remarkably good of their kind, few of them can be called positively bad in it. And yet again, if he has been fortunately gifted by nature with that appreciation of form which saves the critic from mere prejudice and crotchet, from mere partiality, he will, I believe, go further still, and say that while owing something to spirit, they owe most to form itself, to the form of the single-assonanced or mono-rhymed _tirade_, assisted as it is by the singular beauty of Old French in sound, and more particularly by the sonorous recurring phrases of the _chanson_ dialect. No doubt much instruction and some amusement can be got out of these poems as to matters of fact: no doubt some passages in _Roland_, in _Aliscans_, in the _Couronnement Loys_, have a stern beauty of thought and sentiment which deserves every recognition. But these things are not all-pervading, and they can be found elsewhere: the clash and clang of the _tirade_ are everywhere here, and can be found nowhere else.