Montjoie

“ There is something bewildering, de-personalising, in the difference between one stage of life and another. In certain moods I feel scarcely a thread of identity between my present self and myself of eight years ago.
'This morning I have seen Louie, after an interval of three years. Montjoie keeps out of my way, and, as a matter of fact, I have never set eyes on him since I passed him close to the Auteuil station in July 1870. From Louie's account, he is now a confirmed drunkard, and can hardly ever be got to do any serious work. ”

“ The Pagans say: "For such ill were we born! What fatal morn this day for us has ris'n! Dead lie our lords and Peers! With his great host King Carle returns, the mighty Baron—Hark! His clarions sound, and loud the cry 'Montjoie;' Rollánd has so great pride, no man of flesh Can make him yield, or vanquished fall. 'Twere best We pierced him from afar, and left him lying Upon the field!"——'Twas done: darts, lances, spears, Javelins, winged arrows flew so thick, That his good shield was pierced, his hauberk rent And torn apart—his body yet unharmed. ”

“ From Mansourah to Achmoun, and from the Nile to the ford pointed out by the Bedouin, the ground, literally covered with combatants, shook with the rush of their horses, and the sky was rent by the opposing war-cries of 'Islam! Islam!' and 'Montjoie, St. Denis!' What with the shouts of the living, [140] the shrieks of the dying, and the yells of the Saracens, as they bore down on their adversaries like hawks on their prey, all was bloodshed, confusion, and clamour, and the carnage was such as few men, who fought on that field and survived it, ever remembered without a thrill of awe. ”

“ Finding that they were quite in the humour in which he wished them to be, he proposed to go forthwith to Westminster.
“Our first duty,” said he, “is to avenge ourselves on the abbot and his steward; and the best way to avenge ourselves on them is to pull down their houses, whereby they will be made sensible that the citizens of London are not to be affronted with impunity. So let us on. Montjoie, St. Denis! God for us and Lord Louis!”
“To Westminster!” shouted the desperadoes; and, led by Fitzarnulph, the mob descended Ludgate-hill, and pushed through the gates like so many furies. ”

“ Olivier feels that he is hurt to death. No vengeance can suffice him; Baron-like He strikes amid the press, cuts shields embossed And ashen shafts, and spears, feet, shoulders, wrists And breasts of horsemen. He who saw him thus Dismember Saracens, corse over corse Heap on the ground, would of a vassal true Remembrance keep. Nor does he now forget The rallying cry of Carle:—"Montjoie!" he cries Loudly and clear; then calls Rollánd, his friend And compeer:—"Sire companion, stand by me! This day our breaking hearts forever part!" Aoi. CL.
Rollánd looks Olivier full in the face ”

“ The King sprang to his feet, and his right hand went to his sword hilt.
“Mountjoy,” he shouted, “thou forget’st thyself. Beware lest thou bring down on thy head a wrath more terrible than that of any Carleton.”
“By Heaven, my lord!” returned the Lord of Mountjoy in tones that matched the King’s, “that brave youth shall never hang for having done a deed that should bring him praise instead. I stand on my rights as a freeman of England, and demand the trial by battle. ”

“ I thought upon one pair of English legs
Did march three Frenchmen. Yet forgive me, God,
That I do brag thus; this your air of France
Hath blown that vice in me; I must repent.
Go, therefore, tell thy master here I am;
My ransom is this frail and worthless trunk;
My army but a weak and sickly guard;
Yet, God before, tell him we will come on,
Though France himself and such another neighbour
Stand in our way. There's for thy labour, Montjoy.
Go, bid thy master well advise himself.
If we may pass, we will; if we be hind'red,
We shall your tawny ground with your red blood
Discolour ”

“ Next following came Oliver, then Archbishop Turpin followed by the Twelve, and behind pushed forward the rear guard bearing aloft the snow-white banner of their king and shouting fiercely their battle cry, "Montjoy! Montjoy!" [Footnote: Montjoy was the name given during the Middle Ages to any little rise of ground which lay on the line between two territorial divisions. As such a spot was a common meeting place of hostile armies, the term Montjoy came to be used as a war cry.]
Savage and bloody was the battle, beyond the words of man to describe. ”

“ He is not content to issue shares in the port of Bohemia, and bonds on a railway from Paris to the moon; he is anxious that these magnificent enterprises should serve the interests of humanity. The modern Montjoye rides upon politics and finance, the Bible and Socialism; he succeeds through chauvinism and through philanthropy. Transport him to London, and clothe him in that hypocrisy of which our neighbours have made an art, and you will have Sir Philip Marchant, the hero of A Bunch of Violets. ”

“ By this artful enumeration of the deficiencies of Montjoy, he was clearly understood to intimate his own superior fitness for the office. The queen, notwithstanding certain suspicions which had been infused into her of danger in committing to Essex the command of an army, and notwithstanding the unwillingness which she still felt to deprive herself of his presence, appears to have adopted with eagerness this suggestion of her favorite;—for she held in high estimation both his talents and his good fortune. Montjoy promptly retired from a competition in which he must be unsuccessful ”

“ Montjoye replied that the victory was his, and could not be claimed by the King of France. The king said to the French and English heralds, “It is not we who have made this great slaughter, but the omnipotent God, as we believe, for a punishment of the sins of the French. The king then asked the name of the castle he saw near him. He was told it was Agincourt. Well, then, said he, since all battles should bear the name of the fortress nearest to the spot where they were fought, this battle shall from henceforth bear the ever durable name of Agincourt.” ”

“ The unpleasant smile returned to the young man's lips.
"No one, I apprehend!"
Montjoy could have killed him as he stood. He felt the ground slipping from under him as he, too, realized the completeness and cowardliness of the plot.
"We shall see; we shall see!" he said, gasping and pressing his hand to his heart. "We shall see, Mr. Royson! There is a just God who looks down upon the acts of all men, and the right prevails!" ”

“ Still, try as she would, she could not turn it till old Marvin came to her help. Then indeed the rusty lock gave way, the door swung slowly open, and my father, the Lord of Mountjoy, followed by half a score of knights and men-at-arms, stepped forth into the candlelight.
When Lady Mountjoy at last was free from my father’s embrace, she stood with her hands on his shoulders and asked a dozen questions, demanding that he answer all at once.
“Whence comest thou, my lord? Are the Scots beaten? Had’st thou news of the treachery of the Old Wolf of Carleton? How many men hast thou? Oh! ”

“ Montjoy, 'it makes my heart ache to hear them; they think not of the future. May God, in his mercy, open some way, for I see but a poor prospect before them. And it may be that prayer was heard, and the God of the widow and the fatherless was preparing the means by which these unprotected children would prove the light of their native place, and her stay and comfort. Had she seen them as they knelt down by the bedside together, she would have felt that her children were not fatherless. ”

“ Monjoy carried in his pocket a hammer and a short iron gavelock, and they grubbed sometimes in the choked bellpits, where the rain still trickled and whispered to the shaft below, sometimes at the dean-heads where the rills slipped down to the valleys, sometimes south over rocky Soyland and the Ridges of Brotherton and Holdsworth, and sometimes up the High Moor itself, where nothing stirred but the sheep and birds and the world seemed to end beyond the next undulation of the waist-high heather. ”

“ But I think the thing that warmed me most toward my former squire and constant comrade was the loyalty he ever had to the class of folk from which he sprung. Lord Mountjoy often gave to him authority over working crews at some necessary task on farm or highway or scouting parties of swordsmen and archers that rode the Marches to guard against the Welsh marauders. It would have been no wonder had such a sudden rise to title and preferment bred in a youth who had been born in a forester’s cot a certain arrogance of manner and an overweening confidence in his own worth and deserts. ”

“ Mountjoy, a brave soldier, an accomplished scholar, a zealous Protestant, and yet a zealous Tory, was one of the very few members of the Established Church who still held office in Ireland. He was Master of the Ordnance in that kingdom, and was colonel of a regiment in which an uncommonly large proportion of the Englishry had been suffered to remain. At Dublin he was the centre of a small circle of learned and ingenious men who had, under his presidency, formed themselves into a Royal Society, the image, on a small scale, of the Royal Society of London. ”

“ Monty grumbled, and started whistling unconsciously. Immediately in my mind the words "Dismiss me not thy service, Lord" framed themselves to the tune, and conjured up a vision of the smoking room of the Rangoon and its decks by starlight. Abruptly Monty broke off, and said, still frowning at the sea:
"Since those days you've been fairly loyal sons of the Church. Aren't you going to use her before to-morrow? To-night's a more literal Vigil than that voyage. ”

“ In such a marriage the unfortunate lady found it impossible to forget the lover from whom tyrannical authority had severed her; and some years after, when Montjoy returned victorious from the Irish wars, she suffered herself to be seduced by him into a criminal connexion, which was detected after it had subsisted for several years, and occasioned her divorce from lord Rich. Her lover, now earl of Devonshire, regarded himself as bound in love and in honor to make her his wife ”

“ Eyes closed, mind held taut, he tried to relive last night’s rapturous mood; to distill it into the day’s expression. All useless! He scribbled half-lines and broken phrases, drew strange amateur pictures, thought hard with his down-bent head clutched in his hands; thought hard, pacing the room the while, thought hard, face-down upon his bed. All useless! Anything else he might accomplish. But of a certainty one thing he could not do—and that was write. It added to his sense of gloom that out of his early-morning talk with Mistress Montjoy he had gleaned a coming trouble in the Montjoy family. ”

“ Some began to ascend the sheep-tracks of the Scout, but the most remained till morning, when there was a great swilling and sousing and freshening-up at the horse-troughs. During all the following day they straggled homewards, to celebrate Red Monjoy's wedding in their own fastnesses; and two days later there came word of rejoicings still continued at Booth, where, with fantastic rites, the effigies of Monjoy and Cicely had been crowned and enthroned, King and Queen of Back o' th' Mooin. ”

“ Mountjoy instantly discovered.
"A bright, clear, frosty morning," Mr. Follett went on with cheerful garrulity, as he slowly seated himself in his own chair. "Yes, John's spoke o' you often—often. We're old shipmates, him an' me," he concluded, with an explanatory wave about the room.
"So I understand," said Mountjoy, easily; "and bound by many enduring ties, I have no doubt."
Presently he assumed an attitude extremely business-like. Arising and going to the chest where lay his overcoat, he produced from one of the pockets a long, legal-looking envelope. ”

“ On the farther side I saw through a bluish haze a tangle of trees and creepers, and above these again the luminous blue of the sky. Here and there a splash of white or crimson marked the blooming of some trailing epiphyte. I let my eyes wander over this scene for a while, and then began to turn over in my mind again the strange peculiarities of Montgomery’s man. But it was too hot to think elaborately, and presently I fell into a tranquil state midway between dozing and waking. ”

“ I heard Montgomery shout,—“sing all together, ‘Confound old Prendick!’ That's right; now again, ‘Confound old Prendick!’”
The black group broke up into five separate figures, and wound slowly away from me along the band of shining beach. Each went howling at his own sweet will, yelping insults at me, or giving whatever other vent this new inspiration of brandy demanded. Presently I heard Montgomery's voice shouting, “Right turn!” and they passed with their shouts and howls into the blackness of the landward trees. Slowly, very slowly, they receded into silence. ”

“ Mountjoy struck the outlaws on one flank just as Lionel of Montmorency came down upon the other. In the time a man would need to run a furlong’s length, a score or more of the varlets were slain by shafts and cross-bow quarrels or by the swords of our men-at-arms, fifty more had clasped their hands above their heads in token of surrender, and the Monkslayer and the remainder of his crew had taken flight toward the center of the forest. ”

“ The king leaned over and addressed his prisoner confidentially:
"Master Villon, Master Villon, you see what human friendship means and the sweet voices of the multitude."
Villon answered boldly:
"Sire, it is no news to me that men love the dear habit of living."
Louis signalled to Montjoye.
"Proclaim again," he said; and once more the pair of pursuivants blew their trumpets and once again Montjoye made his singular proposition of pardon to the assemblage. ”