Robert II of France

“ Here, it was known, the arts of peace were encouraged, while war raged on all sides, and here it was that many noble lords and ladies had congregated from all Europe to form part of that gallant company and shine with its reflected splendor. King Robert likewise held as feudal appanage the fair state of Provence in southern France, rich in brilliant cities and enjoying much prosperity, until the time of the ill-advised Albigensian Crusade, and communication between the two parts of Robert's realm was constant. ”

“ When the tidings of Sir Robert’s decease reached other countries, much sympathy was expressed; the French assembly, and also the Congress of the United States, having in the most marked manner paid tributes of respect to his memory. M. Guizot, the favourite minister of Louis Philippe of France, wrote a memoir of Sir Robert, which displays much talent, but over praises the subject of the memoir, without doing justice, nevertheless, to his policy. The opinions and measures of the great statesman will long be a subject of discussion, not only in England, but in other nations. ”

“ That Robert was himself of German descent, the son of a stranger from some of the Teutonic provinces of the Empire, [64] mattered not a whit. From the beginning 60 of their historic life the Parisian Dukes and Kings have been the leaders and representatives of the new French nationality. No royal dynasty has ever been so thoroughly identified with the nation over which it ruled, because no royal dynasty could be so truly said to have created the nation. Paris, France, and the Dukes and Kings of the French are three ideas which can never be kept asunder. ”

“ Robert was the greatgrandfather of Hugh Capet, the founder of the kingdom of France. Under the imbecile Charles the Fat, the audacious Northmen (885-886) laid siege to Paris. It was Odo, or Eudes, count of Paris, who led the citizens in their heroic and successful resistance. Him the nobles of France chose to be their king. His family were called "Dukes of the French." Their duchy—Western or Latin Francia—was the strongest state north of the Loire. The feudal lords were growing mightier, and the imperial or royal power was becoming weaker. ”

“ Richard's son Raoul, or Rudolph, married Emma, the daughter of Robert, Count of Paris and Duke of France, who was soon afterwards chosen king, by the nobles who tired of Carlovingian misrule. King Robert's reign was short; he fell in battle with the Carlovingians, at Soissons, the next year (A. D. 923) . His son Hugh, called Le Grand, or The Great, found it more to his taste to be king-maker than to be king. He declined the proffered crown, and brought about the coronation of his brother-in-law, the Burgundian Rudolph, who reigned for eleven years. ”

“ In this assembly, and by the assent of the Optimates, the Seine and its islands, and that most important island Paris, and all the country between Seine and Loire, were granted to Robert, the Duchy of France, though not yet so called, moreover the Angevine Marches, or County of Outre-Maine, all to be held by Robert-le-Fort as barriers against Northmen and Bretons, and by which cessions the realm was to be defended. Only a portion of this dominion owned the obedience of Charles: the Bretons were in their own country, the Northmen in the country they were making their own ”

“ He signed the letter of independence to the pope in 1320, and was in 1326 appointed one of the Scots commissioners for concluding a treaty of alliance between Bruce and Charles IV of France, though he does not appear to have gone to France. He married, it is said, Barbara Douglas, and had a son, John, who, dying before him, left a son, Robert. Robert is usually said to have succeeded his grandfather as marischal upon the death of the latter at the battle of Dupplin, on 12 Aug. ”

“ Philip went back into France, and left his Norman vassal to go on with the campaign alone. [1275] Robert now drew some spirit from 465 success. He marched westward, and attacked La Houlme. Robert takes La Houlme The castle surrendered; the lord of the Peak, with eight hundred men, became the prize of the Duke’s unusual display of vigour. [1276]
The war went on; each side burned the towns and took the men of the other side. [1277] But the tide had for the moment decidedly turned against the Red King. Difficulties of Rufus. ”

“ ROBERT I. (0 865-923) , king of France, or king of the Franks, was the younger son of Robert the Strong, count of Anjou, and the brother of Odo, or Eudes, who became king of the western Franks in 888. Appointed by Odo ruler of several counties, including the county of Paris, and abbot in commend am of many abbeys, Robert also secured the office of duke of the Franks, a military dignity of high importance. ”

“ In fact, the climate of Northern China has a greater resemblance to that of the south of England or France, than it has to that of the southern parts of the Chinese empire; and although hotter, used always to remind me of the beautiful summers we have in England once in every ten and twelve years. The sky is for days and weeks together without a cloud, and in the evening a heavy dew falls and refreshes vegetation. ”

“ In spite of their political mediocrity and their indolent licentiousness, Robert, Henry I., and Philip I., were not, in the eleventh century, insignificant personages, without authority or practical influence, whom their contemporaries could leave out of the account; they were great lords, proprietors of vast domains wherein they exercised over the population an almost absolute power ”

“ The flow of materials collected in France had little more than begun to reach the Museum, and most of the eager young men whom Colonel Owen had sent overseas were still over there, when the colonel reached the statutory age of compulsory retirement. ”

“ The close neighbourhood of these antagonisms, and the curious dialogues one can fancy taking place between the opposite tenants, as they sit on their benches of a summer’s evening, “chaffing” each other, gave us something to think of till we found ourselves dashing over the pavement of Poperinghe. If we had not been apprised of the fact by the thunder of the wheels, we must have known that we had entered a town by the detonating cracks of the driver’s whip, accompanied by that shrill cry “Yeu!” which all travellers in France carry away ringing in their ears, but nobody can imitate. ”

“ These primitive people take scarcely any interest in politics. It is astonishing how little they know or care about what is going on in the rest of Europe. If you hear the name of Garibaldi, it is, most likely, in connection with a piece of news at least a month old. Simple, cordial, and friendly, they live in a round of old-fashioned usages and ideas, which is quite marvellous in this age of stratagem and movement. They like the English, and dislike the French. France, indeed, is the only foreign point upon which they are at all strong, either in knowledge or opinion. ”

“ Sensible that an act so opposed to the laws of primogeniture and the feudal rights might meet with great opposition from the nobles, he trusted to his celerity for success, and reached the kingdom before the news of the king's death arrived. Pretending orders from the dead monarch, he secured the strong fortresses of Dover, Pevensey, and Hastings. On his arrival a council of prelates and barons was summoned to proceed to the election of a sovereign. Robert, who would naturally be chosen, and his partisans, were in Normandy, while William and his adherents were on the spot. ”

“ His reign marked the rapid decline of the empire. All the chiefs of the First Crusade—Baldwin, Henry of Flanders, Boniface de Montferrat, Louis de Blois, Dandolo, and Villehardouin—were dead. The number of Latin warriors diminished unceasingly by combats or by returning to the West, and were not recruited by new arrivals. Robert had one of his sisters married to King Andrew of Hungary, one to Geoffrey of Achaia, and a third to the emperor of Nicæa. ”

“ Both were march-fiefs, the one guarding Normandy from Maine, and the other England from the Welsh; consequently their lord was peculiarly powerful and independent. Robert is the typical feudal noble of the time, circumspect and politic, persuasive and eloquent, impetuous and daring in battle, and an able military engineer; in person, tall and strong; greedy for land, an oppressor of the weak, a systematic rebel and traitor, and savagely cruel. ”

“ The defection of nobles and other people to the duke was so great, that men generally thought if it had come to a battle, the king would have lost both the victory and his crown. But Robert, upon his return to Normandy after this dishonourable peace, grew out of all reputation with the world, as well as into perfect hatred and contempt among his own subjects, which in a short time was the cause of his ruin. ”

“ The ground of Robert's rebellion was the common one of dissatisfaction with his position and his father's refusal to part with any of his power in his favour. Robert was not able to excite any real insurrection in Normandy, but with the aid of his friends and of the French king he maintained a border war for some time, and defended castles with success against the king. He is said even, in one encounter, to have wounded and been on the point of slaying his father. ”

“ In 1080, he quitted his country and sought the protection of his uncles, Robert, count of Flanders, Udo, archbishop of Trèves, and several other princes of the houses of Lorraine, Germany, Aquitain, and Gascony. He made his complaints to them, mingling falsehood with truth, and received great assistance from them. But he squandered their gifts among actors, parasites, and courtezans. He was so prodigal that he soon became straitened again, and was obliged to have recourse to usurers. “Every one,” says the chronicler Orderic Vital, “knew Duke Robert for an indolent, weak prince. ”

“ But Robert only returned to the duchy a month after Henry’s coronation. In the meantime the new king, by issuing his famous charter, by recalling Anselm, and by choosing the Anglo-Scottish princess Edith-Matilda, daughter of Malcolm III., king of the Scots, as his future queen, had cemented that alliance with the church and with the native English which was the foundation of his greatness. Anselm preached in his favour, English levies marched under the royal banner both to repel Robert’s invasion (1101) and to crush the revolt of the Montgomeries headed by Robert of Bellême (1102) . ”

“ This year Robert, the son of King William, deserted from his father to his uncle Robert in Flanders; because his father would not let him govern his earldom in Normandy; which he himself, and also King Philip with his permission, had given him. The best men that were in the land also had sworn oaths of allegiance to him, and taken him for their lord. This year, therefore, Robert fought with his father, without Normandy, by a castle called Gerberoy ”

“ He is, too, the eldest born son of King William, and you and I, my Lord Henry, have done him homage. We ought to keep faith to him absent in all respects as if he were present." He followed his law by an appeal to feeling, referring to Robert's crusade. "He has been labouring now a long time in the service of God, and God has restored to him, without conflict, his duchy, which as a pilgrim he laid aside for love of Him." Then a strife arose, and a crowd of men ran together to the spot. ”

“ The declining years of King Robert were embittered by the impiety of rebellious sons, who were reduced to submission only at the price of a protracted and bloody campaign in Burgundy. The broken-hearted father did not long survive his victory. He died in his palace at Melun in 1031, and the benisons and lamentations of the poor and lowly winged his spirit to its rest. If we may believe some writers, pious King Robert’s memory is enshrined in the hymnology of the Church, which he enriched with some beautiful compositions: he was often seen to enter St. ”

“ But Robert, being a man with his wits very much about him, now used flattery against his adversaries and now gifts, and so quelled uprisings among the populace, and by his ingenuity repressed the envy of the nobility against him, and thus, by these means, and by occasional recourse to arms, he annexed the whole realm of Lombardy, and the neighbouring country. But this Robert was for ever aspiring at further increase of power, and because he had visions of the Roman Empire, he alleged as pretext his connection with the Emperor Michael, as I have said, and fanned up the war against the Romans. ”

“ Oh, he isn't a mere 'round O' in the air in this Italy, I assure you! He makes us feel that he rules the day to all intents and purposes. So away we came into the blaze of him here in the Piazza Pitti, precisely opposite the Grand Duke's palace, I with my remorse, and poor Robert without a single reproach. Any other man, a little lower than the angels, would have stamped and sworn a little for the mere relief of the thing, but as to his being angry with me for any cause, except not eating enough dinner, the said sun would turn the wrong way first. ”

“ His caste might be passing, the days of his power might be numbered, the waves of democracy might be rising about the system in which he believed the safety of England to lie; but no man should see him falter. No veteran of the old noblesse in days which Sir Robert could remember had gone to his fate more proudly than the English patrician was prepared to go to his, ay, and though worse than the guillotine awaited him. ”