Pepin the Short

“ How Pépin contrived to spend the long hours which his daily walk and his short lessons left at his disposal, only Pépin knew. He talked rarely with the servants, — “a thing,” his father told him, “that no gentleman would wish to do;” and other children never entered at the de Villersexel door, “for,” said the Comte, “children sow unfortunate ideas and spread disease.”
But there were compensations. One was the full-length portrait over the chimney-piece in the dining-room. ”

“ The vast fabric resting upon one human will, passed with its creator; was gone like a shadow when he was gone.
It will be remembered that the Roman Empire in its decay fell into two parts, a Western and an Eastern empire. The dying embers of the Western empire, which had been fanned into a feeble flame in the sixth century by Justinian, Emperor of the East, were threatened with complete extinguishment by the Lombards in the eighth; from which calamity they were saved, as we have seen, by Pepin. So when the Franks were again appealed to, Charlemagne saw his opportunity. ”

“ Then Pepin jumped from his seat, rushed into the arena, and with a thrust of his sword killed the lion.
In the early years of Pepin’s rule as mayor of the palace the throne was occupied by a king named Childeric (Chil’-der-ic) III. Like his father and the other “do-nothing” kings, Childeric cared more for pleasures and amusements than for affairs of government. Pepin was the real ruler, and after a while he began to think that he ought to have the title of king, as he had all the power and did all the work of governing and defending the kingdom. ”

“ He is all right. And even if anything should happen to him, it is not Pepin that has the hard heart—he might even console Mam'selle. He will not exactly promise that, but he may come to it. Perhaps Mam'selle will remember in the house when the good mother told how you would like to marry Pepin, and he said you would not do. Well, Pepin has considered well since then, and he has thought that if you tried to suit him, you might"
"It is too great an honour, Pepin. If you expect any one in this world to be as good and kind to you as your mother, you will find you have made a great mistake. ”

“ See how I make you my confidant, even going so far"—and here the Abbé bent over until his mouth was almost at Pepin's ear—"even going so far as to ask you what part people think I have played in bringing about madame's refusal to go to the palace."
Pepin scratched his head. "The Abbé is measuring his own neck," said he; "it will pay me to frighten him." And then he gave his answer.
"Corbleu! Monsieur l'Abbé", what's the good of hiding things. All the world knows why the king is refused. Your holy words—Mother of God! they moved even me." ”

“ Any other man but Pepin would have been lost beyond hope in this labyrinth; but the guide knew the forest as he knew his own face. The very darkness of the way inspired him. He turned gaily from the path he had struck at the first, and riding as it were straight towards a gloomy bog whose shallow waters caught a leaden glow of the moon's beams, he encouraged the bewildered Abbé to new efforts.
"Well done, monsieur, well done," he cried; "a half a league ridden like that and you shall smack your lips over a wine-cup. ”

“ Pepin stretched out his hand. The Abbé covered the money with his palms.
"If," he continued, "you are able to do a service for me."
Pepin drew back his hand.
"By the Mass," said he, "you know how to plague a man."
"Indeed, my son, that would be an ill thing to do. But the labourer must prove worthy of his hire; and, first, I would know if you ride with de Guyon to-morrow?"
"Dieu! he would fare ill without me!"
"And at the palace you are to find the king, alone, eh?"
Pepin made another grimace. The Abbé drew his chair still nearer. ”

“ The unstable breed, whose mercurial condition was influenced by every breath of wind, shook with apprehension, but Pepin came to the rescue. To be called "a thing" by an Indian was an insult that cut into the quick of his nature. He had taken off his slouch hat, and was leaning forward with his two hands grasping the long stick he usually carried. Antoine was squatted meditatively on his haunches alongside him. Pepin now drew himself up; his face became transfigured with rage; he took a step or two towards the head man, and shook his stick threateningly. ”

“ When Pepin gave me this programme to read he was much younger than at present. Some slight success in another vein diverted him from the production of panoramic and select romance, and the experience of not having tried to carry out his programme has naturally made him more biting and sarcastic on the failures of those who have actually written romances without apparently having had a glimpse of a conception equal to his. ”

“ Douglas was pressing some gold into the old dame's hand, but Pepin saw it.
"Ah, non!" he said. "There are bad Engleesh and there are good Engleesh, and there are bad French, but there are also good French. The girl is a good girl, but if Pepin cannot marry her he will at least not take her gold." ”

“ He is much worthier and more admirable than his written productions, because the moral aspects exhibited in his writing are felt to be ridiculous or disgraceful in the personal relations of life. In blaming Pepin's writing we are accusing the public conscience, which is so lax and ill informed on the momentous bearings of authorship that it sanctions the total absence of scruple in undertaking and prosecuting what should be the best warranted of vocations. ”

“ In fact, Pope Stephen’s hysterical orations to Pepin must be received with extreme caution. No Catholic historian of that age cares to examine the truth of a fact which makes for him; nothing is too bad to say of an enemy: and really the man who would forge a letter from St. Peter might dare to tell a few lesser falsehoods into the bargain. Pepin cannot but obey so august a summons; and again he is in Italy, and the Lombards dare not resist him. ”

“ Pepin remained behind. He lapsed into that bullet-constructed vacancy in Mr. Peacock’s Dance Hall, while his light companions of the theater set their faces eastward, singing:
“The sun is always shining on Broadway.”
One can imagine a war that would have obliterated, but not one that would have conquered Dodge. Mere force could never have brought it to its knees; and yet within a week it had unconditionally surrendered to the melodious genius of Mr. Pepin. He enraptured Dodge. It took him to its heart; it would have defended him to the latest gasp. Mr. Pepin repayed this local worship. ”

“ If one who takes himself for the telegraphic centre of all American wires is to be confined as unfit to transact affairs, what shall we say to the man who believes himself in possession of the unexpressed motives and designs dwelling in the breasts of all sovereigns and all politicians? And I grieve to think that poor Pepin, though less political, may by-and-by manifest a persuasion hardly more sane, for he is beginning to explain people's writing by what he does not know about them. ”

“ At this rather impertinent order, Peppino raised his torch to the face of Danglars, who hastily withdrew that he might not have his eyelashes burnt. His agitated features presented the appearance of pale and hideous terror. "The man is tired," said the captain, "conduct him to his bed." ”

“ Guardian angels keep your holy feet out of yonder bog. Dieu! I thought that I had lost you."
Now the Abbé's feet were not holy; they were only swollen with the gout; Pepin knew well enough that the venerable man was not lost. The truth was that the artful guide found himself in such a pretty net, that he had led the priest three good leagues out of his way, while he himself reconsidered his position. "For," said he, "if I carry this Abbé to the palace, the king will learn that I have been lying ”

“ His royal master was a devout theologian, without any interest in politics. Pepin asked the Pope for advice. The Pope who was a practical person answered that the "power in the state belonged to him who was actually possessed of it." Pepin took the hint. He persuaded Childeric, the last of the Merovingians to become a monk and then made himself king with the approval of the other Germanic chieftains. ”

“ PEPIN MAKES A BARGAIN. DeGuyon rode away from the Château aux Loups at dawn on the morning of the Saturday. It was not until High Mass was done on the Sunday that Gabrielle de Vernet had news of him. At that hour, Pepin the guide came galloping into the courtyard of the château, crying loudly to have audience of its mistress, and of the venerable Abbé who counselled her.
"Mass or no mass," said he to the stableman, "I have a word for them which will not wait, even though I cry it from the pulpit. ”

“ These are sometimes to be seen in the pictures of another Benedictine abbess, St. Gertrude (13) the Great (13th century) , but they have been transferred, by mistake, to her from St. Gertrude, of Nivelle, whose proper attribute they are.
Pepin, of Landen, the first of the three famous Pepins, was mayor of the palace to three kings in succession—Clothaire II. (613) and Dagobert I. (628) , kings of France; and Sigebert II. (638) , king of Austrasia only. Pepin is conspicuous among the men of his time for his ability and integrity. His wife was St. ”

“ I asked in astonishment. "What scheme is on foot?"
"The men hold high revelry to-night," he answered. "Pepin, who came up only a few moments ago, brought us each an entire outfit of new clothing, and told me that the Count sails to-morrow with all his men; that on his return he would resign command to one of his crew, and depart for the great region from whence he came, to return here no more. I asked him whether we were to go with the Count on his cruise to-morrow, and he replied yes, that only the natives would remain behind. ”

“ Peppina is the second maid, and as arrant a coquette as lives in all Italy. Her picture has been painted on more than one fisherman’s sail, for it is rumoured that she has been six times betrothed and she is still under twenty. The unscrupulous little flirt rids herself of her suitors, after they become a weariness to her, by any means, fair or foul, and her capricious affections are seldom good for more than three months. Her own loves have no deep roots, but she seems to have the power of arousing in others furious jealousy and rage and a very delirium of pleasure. ”

“ Thence to Sir W. Pen, who I found ill again of the gout, he tells me that now Mr. Castle and Mrs. Martha Batten do own themselves to be married, and have been this fortnight. Much good may it do him, for I do not envy him his wife. So home, and there my wife and I had an angry word or two upon discourse of our boy, compared with Sir W. Pen's boy that he has now, whom I say is much prettier than ours and she the contrary. It troubles me to see that every small thing is enough now-a-days to bring a difference between us. ”

“ When Carloman became a monk (747) , Pepin was left as the sole ruler of all France, but still under a phantom Merovingian king. In 751, with the consent of the Franks in their annual assembly, two churchmen were sent to Rome to ask Pope Zacharias, acting in the capacity of an international arbiter, whether the real king ought not to take the name of king. The Pope answered in the affirmative, and thus authorised the usurpation. [304:2] Thus a new prerogative of the Holy See came into active existence. The next year the assembly of Soissons elected Pepin and his wife King and Queen of France. ”

“ Peppino is a lad of sense, who, unlike most men, who are furious if they pass unnoticed, was delighted to see that the general attention was directed toward his companion. He profited by this distraction to slip away amongst the crowd, without even thanking the worthy priests who accompanied him. ”

“ Pippin breathed deeply again, and squared his shoulders, settling himself in his seat. "I thank you, sir. I'll make it as short as I can. Well! I hadn't no parents, to know them, and I growed up anyhow, as you might say, kickin' round the streets. Come about ten years old, a man bought my time of the old woman who had a kind of an eye to me—she was no kin, but she was good to me sometimes—and I went with him, and learned sneakin'." ”

“ Disgraceful Chilperic, and proclaim as King
Pepin, our doughty servant.
CARLOMAN.
[starting] Pepin—King!
[turning aside again]
Why should this news so knock to enter—why?
It seems to make me open a shut door:
I see the Rhone, I see my father’s roof,
The gay French faces!—Pepin, King!
BONIFACE.
I hear
Your will with joy. It is a deadly peril
To France that she is governed by a man
No better than an image, golden-haired
But lifeless as a stone. The very people
Laugh at the word, a King. ”

“ This guide was our friend Peppino, who dashed into the thicket of high weeds, through a path which none but lizards or weasels could have imagined to be an open road.
Peppino stopped before a rock overhung by thick hedges; the rock, with its half-hidden opening, afforded a passage to the young man, who disappeared like the evil spirits of fairy dramas into their traps. The voice and gesture of the man who followed Danglars ordered him to do the same. ”

“ Pepys was such a bubble of mirth, such a book of shrewd sense, such a register of anecdotes, that his loquacity and his infinite good-fellowship made even romance linger in its onrush for an hour.
Late shadows were floating down the river before John Gore escaped from the secretary’s weak eyes and stalwart tongue. He had some small affairs of his own to attend to in the City and at the New Exchange in the Strand: some new harness at a saddler’s; stockings and shirts at a silk mercer’s; a case of long pistols at a gunsmith’s in a street near the New Exchange. ”