Part 12 (2/2)
”Charles, I have heard everything.”
”You spied upon me!” cried the King. ”You have dared to surprise the secrets of your master!”
”I mistrusted your weakness. After our interview with Rothbert, I followed you. I have overheard everything;” and addressing himself to the young girl who, trembling at every limb, had fallen back upon her seat, the Archbishop of Rouen proceeded in a solemn and threatening voice: ”Ghisele, your father told you the truth. He is King only in name. The little territory that he still is master of is, like his crown, at the mercy of the Frankish seigneurs. They will dethrone him whenever it should please them, as they dethroned Charles the Fat and crowned in his stead Eudes, the Count of Paris, only twenty-five years ago.”
”Yes! Yes! And there will be no lack for a bishop to consecrate the new usurper, just as there was found one to consecrate Count Eudes, not so, Francon?” cried Charles the Simple with bitterness. ”Such is the grat.i.tude of the priests towards the descendants of the Frankish Kings that have made the Church so rich!”
”The Church owes nothing to Kings; the Kings owe to the Church the remission of their sins!” was the disdainful reply of the archbishop.
”The Kings have bestowed wealth upon the Church here below, on earth; they have been rewarded a hundredfold in heaven and all eternity. Now, Ghisele, listen to what I have to say to you. If, by reason of your refusal, or the refusal of your father, the Northman pagans should, as they threaten to do, renew against Gaul the frightful and sacrilegious warfare that we are all familiar with, but which they promise to put an end to in the event of your father's consenting to grant your hand to their chieftain Rolf and to relinquish Neustria to him, then you and your father will be alone responsible for the frightful ills that will anew desolate the land.”
”Francon,” put in Charles the Simple imploringly, ”the seigneurs also have provinces and daughters. Why could not they give to Rolf one of their provinces and one of their daughters?”
”Rolf wants Neustria, and Neustria belongs to you; Rolf wants Ghisele, and Ghisele is your daughter. The two sacrifices impose themselves upon the King!”
”I to marry that monster who caused my mother's death!” cried Ghisele.
”No! Never! Never! Rather would I die!”
”A curse, then, upon you in this world and the next!” shouted the archbishop in a thundering voice. ”Let the blood that is to flow in this impious war fall upon your head and your father's! You will both have to answer before G.o.d for all the acts of sacrilege that you can prevent!
You will both expiate these sins here on earth by the excommunication that I shall hurl upon you, and after death in everlasting flames!
Charles, excommunicated and d.a.m.ned in this world shall be an object of horror to all his subjects. The Church that consecrated him King, will p.r.o.nounce him d.a.m.ned and forfeit of his throne! His life will be ended in a dungeon!”
The terror that took hold of Charles the Simple as the Archbishop of Rouen spoke, now reached its height. He fell upon his knees at the priest's feet and clasping his hands implored:
”Mercy! Mercy, holy father! I shall give Neustria to Rolf--but not my daughter! She is barely fourteen years of age! Fourteen years! It is in itself almost a crime to marry a child at that age! And, then, she is so timid! Alas, to place her in that monster's bed would be to consign her to death!” And the wretched sovereign sobbed convulsively, and still implored: ”Mercy! Mercy! Can you threaten me with eternal punishment because I refuse to deliver my child to a bandit whom the Church has excommunicated for his unspeakable crimes?”
”Rolf will be baptized!” answered the prelate solemnly. ”The l.u.s.tral waters will wash away his soilure, and he will enter the nuptial couch clad in the white robes of a catechumen, the symbol of innocence!”
”Help! Nurse, help! My daughter is dying!” cried Charles the Simple leaping from the floor and convulsively straining in his arms the inert body of Ghisele, who pale and cold as a corpse, had swooned away in her seat.
The prelate triumphed.
CHAPTER XIII.
THE WEDDING OF ROLF.
The city of Rouen was in gala. Large crowds of people filled the streets and pressed eagerly towards the basilica whose bells were pealing at their loudest. Among those who were wending their way towards the church were Eidiol, his daughter Anne the Sweet, Guyrion the Plunger and Rustic the Gay. They had left Paris two days before; they descended the Seine as far as Rouen in the vessel of the dean of the guild of the skippers of Paris. It was a trip of pleasure and profit. Eidiol sailed to Rouen in order to convey thither a cargo of merchandise and to witness the wedding of the daughter of Charles the Simple, King of the Franks, with Rolf, the chieftain of the Northman pirates, but now elevated to the rank of sovereign Duke of Neustria, which a.s.sumed the name of Northmandy.
Such was the indifference of that wretched population of serfs and villeins to the form of the yoke that oppressed them, that the people of Rouen, the capital of Neustria, now named Northmandy, actually delighted to see the great province in the hand of the pirates.
Eidiol and his family walked towards the square of the basilica, intending to watch the nuptial procession at close quarters. Anne rested on the arms of her father and brother. Rustic preceded them in order to clear a pa.s.sage for them across the crowd that became denser and more compact as they drew nearer to the cathedral. Finally, after much struggling, the family of Eidiol succeeded in securing a post at the corner of a street that ran out into the square.
”Master Eidiol,” said Rustic, ”there is a milestone here. Let Anne stand on it. She will be better able to see the procession, and she will be free from the crush.”
”No, Rustic,” answered the young girl, ”I would not dare to take that place.”
<script>