Part 4 (2/2)

28. So that, accurately thought of, the quality of Frankness glances only with the flat side of it into any meaning of 'Libre,' but with all its cutting edge, determinedly, and to all time, it signifies Brave, strong, and honest, above other men.[15] The old woodland race were never in any wolfish sense 'free,' but in a most human sense Frank, outspoken, meaning what they had said, and standing to it, when they had got it out. Quick and clear in word and act, fearless utterly and restless always;--but idly lawless, or weakly lavish, neither in deed nor word. Their frankness, if you read it as a scholar and a Christian, and not like a modern half-bred, half-brained infidel, knowing no tongue of all the world but in the slang of it, is really opposed, not to Servitude,--but to Shyness![16] It is to this day the note of the sweetest and Frenchiest of French character, that it makes simply perfect _Servants_. Unwearied in protective friends.h.i.+p, in meekly dextrous omnificence, in latent tutors.h.i.+p; the lovingly availablest of valets,--the mentally and personally bonniest of bonnes. But in no capacity shy of you! Though you be the Duke or d.u.c.h.ess of Montaltissimo, you will not find them abashed at your alt.i.tude. They will speak 'up' to you, when they have a mind.

[Footnote 15: Gibbon touches the facts more closely in a sentence of his 22nd chapter. ”The independent warriors of Germany, _who considered truth as the n.o.blest of their virtues_, and freedom as the most valuable of their possessions.” He is speaking especially of the Frankish tribe of the Attuarii, against whom the Emperor Julian had to re-fortify the Rhine from Cleves to Basle: but the first letters of the Emperor Jovian, after Julian's death, ”delegated the military command of _Gaul_ and Illyrium (what a vast one it was, we shall see hereafter), to Malarich, a _brave and faithful_ officer of the nation of the Franks;” and they remain the loyal allies of Rome in her last struggle with Alaric. Apparently for the sake only of an interesting variety of language,--and at all events without intimation of any causes of so great a change in the national character,--we find Mr.

Gibbon in his next volume suddenly adopting the abusive epithets of Procopius, and calling the Franks ”a light and perfidious nation”

(vii. 251). The only traceable grounds for this unexpected description of them are that they refuse to be bribed either into friends.h.i.+p or activity, by Rome or Ravenna; and that in his invasion of Italy, the grandson of Clovis did not previously send exact warning of his proposed route, nor even entirely signify his intentions till he had secured the bridge of the Po at Pavia; afterwards declaring his mind with sufficient distinctness by ”a.s.saulting, almost at the same instant, the hostile camps of the Goths and Romans, who, instead of uniting their arms, fled with equal precipitation.”]

[Footnote 16: For detailed ill.u.s.tration of the word, see 'Val d'Arno,'

Lecture VIII.; 'Fors Clavigera,' Letters XLVI. 231, LXXVII. 137; and Chaucer, 'Romaunt of Rose,' 1212--”Next _him_” (the knight sibbe to Arthur) ”daunced dame Franchise;”--the English lines are quoted and commented on in the first lecture of 'Ariadne Florentina'; I give the French here:--

”Apres tous ceulx estoit Franchise Que ne fut ne brune ne bise.

Ains fut comme la neige blanche _Courtoyse_ estoit, _joyeuse_, et _franche_.

Le nez avoit long et tretis, Yeulx vers, riants; sourcilz faitis; Les cheveulx eut tres-blons et longs Simple fut comme les coulons Le coeur eut doulx et debonnaire.

_Elle n'osait dire ne faire Nulle riens que faire ne deust._”

And I hope my girl readers will never more confuse Franchise with 'Liberty.']

29. Best of servants: best of _subjects_, also, when they have an equally frank King, or Count, or Captal, to lead them; of which we shall see proof enough in due time;--but, instantly, note this farther, that, whatever side-gleam of the thing they afterwards called Liberty may be meant by the Frank name, you must at once now, and always in future, guard yourself from confusing their Liberties with their Activities. What the temper of the army may be towards its chief, is _one_ question--whether either chief or army can be kept six months quiet,--another, and a totally different one. That they must either be fighting somebody or going somewhere, else, their life isn't worth living to them; the activity and mercurial flas.h.i.+ng and flickering hither and thither, which in the soul of it is set neither on war nor rapine, but only on change of place, mood--tense, and tension;--which never needs to see its spurs in the dish, but has them always bright, and on, and would ever choose rather to ride fasting than sit feasting,--this childlike dread of being put in a corner, and continual want of something to do, is to be watched by us with wondering sympathy in all its sometimes splendid, but too often unlucky or disastrous consequences to the nation itself as well as to its neighbours.

30. And this activity, which we stolid beef-eaters, before we had been taught by modern science that we were no better than baboons ourselves, were wont discourteously to liken to that of the livelier tribes of Monkey, did in fact so much impress the Hollanders, when first the irriguous Franks gave motion and current to their marshes, that the earliest heraldry in which we find the Frank power blazoned seems to be founded on a Dutch endeavour to give some distantly satirical presentment of it. ”For,” says a most ingenious historian, Mons. Andre Favine,--'Parisian, and Advocate in the High Court of the French Parliament in the year 1620'--”those people who bordered on the river Sala, called 'Salts,' by the Allemaignes, were on their descent into Dutch lands called by the Romans 'Franci Salici'” (whence 'Salique' law to come, you observe) ”and by abridgment 'Salii,' as if of the verb 'salire,' that is to say 'saulter,' to leap”--(and in future therefore--duly also to dance--in an incomparable manner) ”to be quicke and nimble of foot, to leap and mount well, a quality most notably requisite for such as dwell in watrie and marshy places; So that while such of the French as dwelt on the great course of the river” (Rhine) ”were called 'Nageurs,' Swimmers, they of the marshes were called 'Saulteurs,' Leapers, so that it was a nickname given to the French in regard both of their natural disposition and of their dwelling; as, yet to this day, their enemies call them French Toades, (or Frogs, more properly) from whence grew the fable that their ancient Kings carried such creatures in their Armes.”

31. Without entering at present into debate whether fable or not, you will easily remember the epithet 'Salian' of these fosse-leaping and river-swimming folk (so that, as aforesaid, all the length of Rhine must be refortified against them)--epithet however, it appears, in its origin delicately Saline, so that we may with good discretion, as we call our seasoned Mariners, '_old_ Salts,' think of these more brightly sparkling Franks as 'Young Salts,'--but this equivocated presently by the Romans, with natural respect to their martial fire and 'elan,' into 'Salii'--exsultantes,[17]--such as their own armed priests of war: and by us now with some little farther, but slight equivocation, into useful meaning, to be thought of as here first Salient, as a beaked promontory, towards the France we know of; and evermore, in brilliant elasticities of temper, a salient or out-sallying nation; lending to us English presently--for this much of heraldry we may at once glance on to--their 'Leopard,' not as a spotted or blotted creature, but as an inevitably springing and pouncing one, for our own kingly and princely s.h.i.+elds.

[Footnote 17: Their first mischievous exsultation into Alsace being invited by the Romans themselves, (or at least by Constantius in his jealousy of Julian,)--with ”presents and promises,--the hopes of spoil, and a perpetual grant of all the territories they were able to subdue.” Gibbon, chap. xix. (3, 208.) By any other historian than Gibbon, who has really no fixed opinion on any character, or question, but, safe in the general truism that the worst men sometimes do right, and the best often do wrong, praises when he wants to round a sentence, and blames when he cannot otherwise edge one--it might have startled us to be here told of the nation which ”deserved, a.s.sumed, and maintained the _honourable_ name of freemen,” that ”_these undisciplined robbers_ treated as their natural enemies all the subjects of the empire who possessed any property which they were desirous of acquiring.” The first campaign of Julian, which throws both Franks and Alemanni back across the Rhine, but grants the Salian Franks, under solemn oath, their established territory in the Netherlands, must be traced at another time.]

Thus much, of their 'Salian' epithet may be enough; but from the interpretation of the Frankish one we are still as far as ever, and must be content, in the meantime, to stay so, noting however two ideas afterwards entangled with the name, which are of much descriptive importance to us.

32. ”The French poet in the first book of his Franciades” (says Mons.

Favine; but what poet I know not, nor can enquire) ”encounters” (in the sense of en-quarters, or depicts as a herald) certain fables on the name of the French by the adoption and composure of two _Gaulish_ words joyned together, Phere-Encos which signifieth 'Beare-_Launce_,'

(--Shake-Lance, we might perhaps venture to translate,) a lighter weapon than the Spear beginning here to quiver in the hand of its chivalry--and Fere-encos then pa.s.sing swiftly on the tongue into Francos;”--a derivation not to be adopted, but the idea of the weapon most carefully,--together with this following--that ”among the arms of the ancient French, over and beside the Launce, was the Battaile-Axe, which they called _Anchon_, and moreover, yet to this day, in many Provinces of France, it is termed an _Achon_, wherewith they served themselves in warre, by throwing it a farre off at joyning with the enemy, onely to discover the man and to cleave his s.h.i.+eld. Because this _Achon_ was darted with such violence, as it would cleave the s.h.i.+eld, and compell the Maister thereof to hold down his arm, and being so discovered, as naked or unarmed; it made way for the sooner surprizing of him. It seemeth, that this weapon was proper and particuler to the French Souldior, as well him on foote, as on horsebacke. For this cause they called it _Franciscus_. Francisca, _securis oblonga, quam Franci librabant in Hostes_. For the Horseman, beside his s.h.i.+eld and Francisca (Armes common, as wee have said, to the Footman), had also the Lance, which being broken, and serving to no further effect, he laid hand on his Francisca, as we learn the use of that weapon in the Archbishop of Tours, his second book, and twenty-seventh chapter.”

33. It is satisfactory to find how respectfully these lessons of the Archbishop of Tours were received by the French knights; and curious to see the preferred use of the Francisca by all the best of them--down, not only to Coeur de Lion's time, but even to the day of Poitiers. In the last wrestle of the battle at Poitiers gate, ”La, fit le Roy Jehan de sa main, merveilles d'armes, et tenoit une hache de guerre dont bien se deffendoit et combattoit,--si la quartre partie de ses gens luy eussent ressemble, la journee eust ete pour eux.” Still more notably, in the episode of fight which Froissart stops to tell just before, between the Sire de Verclef, (on Severn) and the Picard squire Jean de Helennes: the Englishman, losing his sword, dismounts to recover it, on which Helennes _casts_ his own at him with such aim and force ”qu'il acconsuit l'Anglois es cuisses, tellement que l'espee entra dedans et le cousit tout parmi, jusqu'au hans.”

On this the knight rendering himself, the squire binds his wound, and nurses him, staying fifteen days 'pour l'amour de lui' at Chasteleraut, while his life was in danger; and afterwards carrying him in a litter all the way to his own chastel in Picardy. His ransom however is 6000 n.o.bles--I suppose about 25,000 pounds, of our present estimate; and you may set down for one of the fatallest signs that the days of chivalry are near their darkening, how ”devint celuy Escuyer, Chevalier, pour le grand profit qu'il eut du Seigneur de Verclef.”

I return gladly to the dawn of chivalry, when, every hour and year, men were becoming more gentle and more wise; while, even through their worst cruelty and error, native qualities of n.o.blest cast may be seen a.s.serting themselves for primal motive, and submitting themselves for future training.

34. We have hitherto got no farther in our notion of a Salian Frank than a glimpse of his two princ.i.p.al weapons,--the shadow of him, however, begins to shape itself to us on the mist of the Brocken, bearing the lance light, pa.s.sing into the javelin,--but the axe, his woodman's weapon, heavy;--for economical reasons, in scarcity of iron, preferablest of all weapons, giving the fullest swing and weight of blow with least quant.i.ty of actual metal, and roughest forging. Gibbon gives them also a 'weighty' sword, suspended from a 'broad' belt: but Gibbon's epithets are always gratis, and the belted sword, whatever its measure, was probably for the leaders only; the belt, itself of gold, the distinction of the Roman Counts, and doubtless adopted from them by the allied Frank leaders, afterwards taking the Pauline mythic meaning of the girdle of Truth--and so finally; the chief mark of Belted Knighthood.

35. The s.h.i.+eld, for all, was round, wielded like a Highlander's target:--armour, presumably, nothing but hard-tanned leather, or patiently close knitted hemp; ”Their close apparel,” says Mr. Gibbon, ”accurately expressed the figure of their limbs,” but 'apparel' is only Miltonic-Gibbonian for 'n.o.body knows what.' He is more intelligible of their persons. ”The lofty stature of the Franks, and their blue eyes, denoted a Germanic origin; the warlike barbarians were trained from their earliest youth to run, to leap, to swim, to dart the javelin and battle-axe with unerring aim, to advance without hesitation against a superior enemy, and to maintain either in life or death, the invincible reputation of their ancestors' (vi. 95). For the first time, in 358, appalled by the Emperor Julian's victory at Strasburg, and besieged by him upon the Meuse, a body of six hundred Franks ”dispensed with the ancient law which commanded them to conquer or die.” ”Although they were strongly actuated by the allurements of rapine, they professed a disinterested love of war, which they considered as the supreme honour and felicity of human nature; and their minds and bodies were so hardened by perpetual action that, according to the lively expression of an orator, the snows of winter were as pleasant to them as the flowers of spring” (iii. 220).

36. These mental and bodily virtues, or indurations, were probably universal in the military rank of the nation: but we learn presently, with surprise, of so remarkably 'free' a people, that n.o.body but the King and royal family might wear their hair to their own liking. The kings wore theirs in flowing ringlets on the back and shoulders,--the Queens, in tresses rippling to their feet,--but all the rest of the nation ”were obliged, either by law or custom, to shave the hinder part of their head, to comb their short hair over their forehead, and to content themselves with the ornament of two small whiskers.”

37. Moustaches,--Mr. Gibbon means, I imagine: and I take leave also to suppose that the n.o.bles, and n.o.ble ladies, might wear such tress and ringlet as became them. But again, we receive unexpectedly embarra.s.sing light on the democratic inst.i.tutions of the Franks, in being told that ”the various trades, the labours of agriculture, and the arts of hunting and fis.h.i.+ng, were _exercised by servile_ hands for the _emolument_ of the Sovereign.”

'Servile' and 'Emolument,' however, though at first they sound very dreadful and very wrong, are only Miltonic-Gibbonian expressions of the general fact that the Frankish Kings had ploughmen in their fields, employed weavers and smiths to make their robes and swords, hunted with huntsmen, hawked with falconers, and were in other respects tyrannical to the ordinary extent that an English Master of Hounds may be. ”The mansion of the long-haired Kings was surrounded with convenient yards and stables for poultry and cattle; the garden was planted with useful vegetables; the magazines filled with corn and wine either for sale or consumption; and the whole administration conducted by the strictest rules of private economy.”

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