Guillaume

“ Guillaume laughed.
"That is an amusing request," he said. "Advise this worthy woman, friend La Flèche, to pray for us without knowing our names. The good Lord knows us well, and we can tell him nothing about ourselves that he does not know better than we do."
La Flèche saluted humbly with his dirty cap, and our travellers, spurring their steeds, soon left the gypsies behind.
"By the way," said D'Alvimar to Guillaume, as the bell-tower of La Motte-Seuilly appeared on the horizon, "you have not told me where you are going. ”

“ I therefore crept to the farthermost end of the bed, and kept, ready to slip out, if the slightest accident happened.
When there I heard the nurse whisper to Guillaume to take care lest he might wake the marmot—that was me—with the noise he was making.
"The devil take the brat," muttered the conqueror, "it is time he was got out of your room."
Thereupon the thumps and thuds increased, then a puffing and panting, intermingled with grunts of satisfaction, and wriggles which seemed more of pleasure than of pain, together with an undescribable gurgling. ”

“ It was not difficult to impress him with evil thoughts, even where he had bestowed his confidence; and to kindle his mind with the most terrible suspicions of the unconsciously offending parties. Once aroused, the dark, stern man, resolved to avenge his supposed wrong; and hearing one day that Guillaume had gone out hawking, and alone, he hastily put on his armor, concealing it under his courtly and silken vestments, took his weapon, and rode forth in the direction which the troubadour had taken. ”

“ A duel is what you seek, and your wish shall be gratified."
"No! a hundred times no!" cried Guillaume. "Let us have done with this; and as nothing more is necessary than to tell the marquis your name to induce him to withdraw in peace, I——"
"I beg you not to forget," interposed D'Alvimar, "that you expose me——"
"No! my cousin is too honorable a man to betray you to your enemies. Understand, marquis, and I place this information under the safeguard of your honor, that monsieur's name is Sciarra d'Alvimar." ”

“ Florent Guillaume was a learned clerk. Well knowing every word of the history of the beautiful Black Virgin of Le Puy and the ordering of the ceremonies of the great pardon, he had conceived the notion he might serve as guide to the pilgrims, deeming he would surely light on someone compassionate enough to pay him a supper in guerdon of his fine stories. But the first folk he had offered his services to had bidden him begone because his ragged coat bespoke neither good guidance nor clerkly wit ”

“ These verses, which embodied the first impulsive sentiment which he had ever dared to breathe from his heart of the passion which had long been lurking within it, have been preserved for us by the damsels of Provence. We translate them, necessarily to the great detriment of their melody, from the sweet South, where they had birth, to our harsher Runic region. The song of Guillaume was an apostrophe.
Touch the weeping string!
Those whose beauty fires me ”

“ These last never lost an opportunity of tormenting the “natural,” who was quite as active in taking advantage of every occasion to revenge himself. He would then take out his “little bird,” as he called his cudgel, pretty well break the bones of the offending page, and would roar all the time, as if he himself were being beaten. Guillaume was a Roman Catholic, like Chicot, but he was less tolerant. He so hated the reformed religion, and the Reformation itself, that he always used the words “ruined religion,” or the “Ruin,” to show a fool’s contempt for what he could not understand. ”

“ I swear by the holy oil and my baptism!'
"He had the fever all day and talked at random. This evening he felt better and wanted to go home, so I brought him behind me on my brood mare, saving your presence."
"Let us go and question him," said Guillaume, rising.
"No," said the marquis, "we will let him sleep. He needs it as much as we do ourselves. And what could he disclose that we do not know too well now? And of what could we accuse him? He went there to administer the sacrament to Monsieur d'Alvimar; that was his duty. ”

“ The beginning of the Restoration favored Guillaume. He was the husband of a charming woman, the natural daughter of a great lord, who died young after giving him a child. Was colonel of the National Guard, judge of the Court of Commerce, governor of one of the arrondissements of Paris and deputy. Saumur accused him of aspiring still higher and wishing to become the father-in-law of a petty duchess of the imperial court. ”

“ The marquis, after exchanging greetings with his young kinsman, was about to order supper for him.
"No, thanks!" said Guillaume; "I took a mouthful on the road, while my horses were resting, for I must start again at once. You see I am returning sooner than I intended. I was advised yesterday at Saint-Armand, whither I had gone with a party of the young men of the province, as an honorary escort to Monseigneur de Condé, that my steward was very ill in my house. ”

“ The cycle of twenty or more chansons which form the geste of Guillaume reposes on the traditions of the Arab invasions of the south of France, from the battle of Poitiers (732) under Charles Martel onwards, and on the French conquest of Catalonia from the Saracens. In the Norse version of the Carolingian epic Guillaume appears in his proper historical environment, as a chief under Charlemagne ”

“ The book of Guillaume is a fair type of several books of the sort written by ecclesiastics during the Middle Ages. Such books were an attempt to show that all the works of nature were symbols and teachers of great Scriptural truths; hence, while much that they give is interesting, their statements always require to be received with great caution. If the facts of the case got at all in the way of a good moral, so much the worse for the facts ”

“ Guillaume, a foundling supposed to be of low degree, is brought up at the court of the emperor of Rome, and loves his daughter Melior who is destined for a Greek prince. The lovers flee into the woods disguised in bear-skins. Alfonso, who is Guillaume’s cousin and a Spanish prince, has been changed into a wolf by his step-mother’s enchantments. He provides food and protection for the fugitives, and Guillaume eventually triumphs over Alfonso’s father, and wins back from him his kingdom. The benevolent werwolf is disenchanted, and marries Guillaume’s sister. ”

“ Guillaume met the invaders near the river Orbieux, at Villedaigne, where he was defeated, but only after an obstinate resistance which so far exhausted the Saracens that they were compelled to retreat to Spain. He took Barcelona from the Saracens in 803, and in the next year founded the monastery of Gellone (now Saint Guilhem-le Désert) , of which he became a member in 806. ”

“ The cycle of Guillaume has more unity than the other great cycles of Charlemagne or of Doon de Mayence, the various poems which compose it forming branches of the main story rather than independent epic poems. There exist numerous cyclic MSS. in which there is an attempt at presenting a continuous histoire poétique of Guillaume and his family. MS. Royal 20 D xi. in the British Museum contains eighteen chansons of the cycle. Guillaume, son of Thierry or Theodoric and of Alde, daughter of Charles Martel, was born in the north of France about the middle of the 8th century. ”

“ Sometimes, Guillaume and Gilberte would point out to each other, with a glance, a corner of the landscape, or the outline of a tree, or the glint of a ray of sunshine, both wishing the other to share their delight and admiration.
They sat down on the edge of a pool whose waters slumbered amidst a circle of old pines that joined their arms around them as though to dance a moveless measure. It{101} was one of those abodes of silence that open only in the hearts of old forests. Those who are brought there by chance and who grasp the fitness of things are themselves silent. ”

“ The terror of his look is lost in love,
In fond, paternal love.
Enter Guildford.
Guild. Come to my arms,
And there conceal that penetrating eye,
Lest it should read what I would hide for ever,
Would hide from all, but most would hide from thee——
Thy father's grief, his shame, his rage, his tears.
Em. Tears! heaven and earth! see if he does not weep!
Guild. He who has drawn this sorrow from my eyes
Shall pay me back again in tears of blood.
'Tis for thy sake I weep.
Em. Ah, weep for me?
Hear, Heaven, and judge; hear, Heaven, and punish me!
If any crime of mine——
Guild. ”

“ The belief in the evil eye has been almost universal, and may be found in tribes the most remote from each other either in distance or in time. If it were not that Guillim is so ostentatiously loyal, and, like all heralds, a zealous upholder of rank and state, one might suspect him almost of a touch of bitter sarcasm in ascribing royal rank to the cockatrice, not from his magnanimity, not from his noble bearing, not from his beauty, but from the power of inflicting injuries that he so especially displays. ”

“ Notwithstanding the modest silence of Julian himself, we may learn from his faithful friend, the orator Libanius, that he lived in a perpetual intercourse with the gods and goddesses; that they descended upon earth to enjoy the conversation of their favorite hero ”

“ Julian lives in the obscurity of retreat, and in the solitude most favourable to literary pursuits. What avocations can have called off his attention from the interests of his friend? May I be permitted however to draw one conclusion from your silence, that you do not consider my situation as critical and alarming? That although you join the prudent severity of a monitor with the candid partiality of a friend, you yet view my faults in a venial light, and are disposed to draw over them the veil of indulgence? ”

“ Julian as one of the most amiable of mankind. I have looked up to him as a model of virtue, and I have exulted that I had the honour to be of the same species with so fair a fame, and so true a heart. I would willingly lighten to a man so excellent the load of calamity. Why is it, that heaven in the mysteriousness of its providence, so often visits with superior affliction, the noblest of her sons? I should be truly sorry, that my friend should act in a manner unworthy of the tenor of his conduct, and the exaltation of his character. You are now, my lord at a distance. ”

“ Julian. His last vows shall be breathed for your happiness. Fate, do what thou wilt me, but shower down thy choicest blessings on my friend! Whatever thou deniest to my sincere exertions in the cause of rectitude, bestow a double portion upon that artless and ingenuous youth, who, however misguided for a moment, has founded even upon the basis of error, a generous return and an heroic resolution, which the most permanent exertions of spotless virtue scarce can equal! ”

“ From his palace, or, more properly, from his head-quarters of Sirmium and Naissus, he distributed to the principal cities of the empire, a labored apology for his own conduct; published the secret despatches of Constantius; and solicited the judgment of mankind between two competitors, the one of whom had expelled, and the other had invited, the Barbarians. 36 Julian, whose mind was deeply wounded by the reproach of ingratitude, aspired to maintain, by argument as well as by arms, the superior merits of his cause; and to excel, not only in the arts of war, but in those of composition. ”

“ How deplorable is the situation in which we are placed, when even the generous and candid temper of my St. Julian, can be induced to think of a young nobleman in a light he does not deserve, and to impute to him basenesses from which his heart is free! ”

“ Julian, the exertion of that fortitude with which nature has so richly endowed you, was never so completely called for in any other instance. This is the crisis of your life. This is the very tide, which accordingly as it is improved or neglected, will give a colour to all your future story. Let not that amiable man, who has found the art of introducing heroism into common life, and dignifying the most trivial circumstances by the sublimity and refinedness of his sentiments, now, in the most important affair, sink below the common level. ”

“ But as every act of dissimulation must be painful to an ingenuous spirit, the profession of Christianity increased the aversion of Julian for a religion which oppressed the freedom of his mind, and compelled him to hold a conduct repugnant to the noblest attributes of human nature, sincerity and courage. ”

“ If the jealous caprice of power had disappointed his expectations, if he had prudently declined the paths of greatness, the employment of the same talents in studious solitude would have placed beyond the reach of kings his present happiness and his immortal fame. When we inspect, with minute, or perhaps malevolent attention, the portrait of Julian, something seems wanting to the grace and perfection of the whole figure. ”

“ Speed, the author of the ‘History of Britain,’ received from him much valuable assistance, and he also wrote for the work the ‘Life and Reign of King John,’ and the ‘Life and Reign of Henry II.’ According to Anthony it Wood he composed in his younger days a book on heraldry, which he gave to Guillim, who, ‘after adding some trivial things,’ published it in 1610, with the authors sanction, under his own name. ”

“ That scarce is conscious hope, but mocked and crushed
By the stern laws of Rome and tyranny
Of the false Ten, since ever it was born.
Thy bright brown eyes are luminous with soul; [29]
Wise, gentle brother, dost thou weep for me?
Tib. (sobbing passionately) . A curse upon those false and dreadful Ten!
Cornelia, would that I might succor thee!
Cor. Most dear, my brother, weep no more for me;
The gods, who love true lovers, do despise
Tyrants and murderers, and sure will aid
Our cause if we be patient to the end. ”