Robert le Diable

“ Henceforth, till the old duke died, the people never felt the hand of “Robert the Devil.” They heard of him, brave, fearless, terrible—ever conquering, never conquered, never even wounded. They heard of him, a monster—firing, destroying, waking up war wherever he placed his foot; and they trembled as they thought of the time when he should come to reign over them.
Meanwhile the old duke and the sorrowing lady prayed, hourly for their lost son; and joined in their prayers the lost son’s foster-sister, Alice. ”

“ The Crusade was the happiest and most respectable period of his life, and no doubt he never was more light-hearted than when he delivered over to William the mortgage of his dukedom, with all its load of care, and received in return the sum of money squeezed by his brother from all the unfortunate convents in England, but which Robert used to equip his brave knights and men-at-arms, assisted by some of the treasures of his uncle, Bishop Odo, who had taken the Cross, but was too feeble and infirm to commence the expedition. ”

“ With the inheritance of Mabel and William Talvas, their son and grandson was believed to have succeeded in full measure to the hereditary wickedness of their house. That house is spoken of as one at whose deeds dæmons themselves might shudder, [487] His surname. and Robert himself bears in the traditions of his Cenomannian enemies the frightful surname which has been so unfairly transferred to the father of the Conqueror. His name lives in proverbs. In the land of Maine his abiding works are pointed to as the works of Robert the Devil. ”

“ As Robert raised his eyes, he saw the face of the king smiling at him with a radiance like nothing on earth, and as he sank to his knees before the glory of that smile, a voice sounded with the music, like a melody throbbing on a single string:—
"I am an angel, and thou art the king!"
Then Robert of Sicily was alone. His royal robes were upon him once more; he wore his crown and his royal ring. He was king. And when the courtiers came back they found their king kneeling by his throne, absorbed in silent prayer. ”

“ It was thus, as a hero of the Crusade, that the great Abbot Suger chose to recall him, and it was as such that his fame survived in after times. Robert was not a masterful character, and it cannot be said that as a ruler he made a deep impression upon his generation. Overshadowed by his great father, cheated of a kingdom by his more aggressive brothers, and finally defeated in battle, deprived of his duchy, and condemned to perpetual imprisonment, his misdirected life offers a melancholy contrast to the more brilliant careers of the abler members of his family. ”

“ Standing, pale and lanky, amid his electrodes and his retorts, there was still something majestic about this man, who, amid all his stupendous good fortune, could still keep his moral sense undazzled by the glitter of his gold. Robert's weak nature had never before realised the strength which lay in those thin, firm lips and earnest eyes. ”

“ Well, Sir Robert married a daughter of the second Earl of Queensberry, who rejoiced in the appellation of the 'Deil o' Drumlanrig;' and what good could be expected from Sir Robert after forming a connection like that? If the laird was bad, his father-in-law was counted worse, as along with other bad qualities, he was a mad gamester, and it was not very long ere he made Sir Robert as noted as himself in that respect. Many were the nights they spent over the 'devil's books,' as they are justly called. ”

“ Sir Robert has been too clever for the touts. He has the Prince's half-brother out for spins. You can't tell 'em apart. But there are two lengths in a furlong between them when it comes to a gallop. He thinks of nothing but the horse and the race. His whole life is on it. He's holding off the Jews till then. If the Prince fails him, he is done."
"It seems a rather desperate gamble, but where does the madness come in?"
"Well, first of all, you have only to look at him. I don't believe he sleeps at night. He is down at the stables at all hours. His eyes are wild. ”

“ The crusade was a pilgrimage, with all the pomp of war, and the temptation of earthly aggrandisement was mingled with the hope of a recompense beyond the grave. Fame in this world and happiness in the next were the prizes for which the nobles forsook their feasts and dances, and the poor their homes and their children. Robert was eloquent in speech, and, when his indolence was overcome, skilful and energetic in action ”

“ Robert had finished his last story, and sat in meditative silence, watching the smoldering peat in the fireplace.
He hesitated for a moment. “There is little to tell, mother,” he answered, not looking up, “and that little is na worth tellin’.”
“I ken ye’ve come back no richer in pocket than when ye left,” remarked Gilbert questioningly. As his brother made no answer, he continued with sarcastic irony, “But perhaps there wasna’ enough work for ye there.” He watched his brother’s face narrowly.
“There was work enough for a’,” replied Robert in a low tone, an agony of remorse in his voice. ”

“ LADY CHILTERN. Robert, that is all very well for other men, for men who treat life simply as a sordid speculation; but not for you, Robert, not for you. You are different. All your life you have stood apart from others. You have never let the world soil you. To the world, as to myself, you have been an ideal always. Oh! be that ideal still. That great inheritance throw not away - that tower of ivory do not destroy. Robert, men can love what is beneath them - things unworthy, stained, dishonoured. We women worship when we love; and when we lose our worship, we lose everything. ”

“ But Robert's brain was excited, and he could not sleep. The events of the day had been enough to shake a stronger man. There had been the revelation of the morning, the strange sights which he had witnessed in the laboratory, and the immense secret which had been confided to his keeping. Then there had been his conversation with his father in the afternoon, their disagreement, and the sudden intrusion of Raffles Haw. Finally the talk with his sister had excited his imagination, and driven sleep from his eyelids. In vain he turned and twisted in his bed, or paced the floor of his chamber. ”

“ LADY CHILTERN. To have kept it would have been the first stain on a career that has been stainless always. Robert must be above reproach. He is not like other men. He cannot afford to do what other men do. [She looks at LORD GORING, who remains silent.] Don't you agree with me? You are Robert's greatest friend. You are our greatest friend, Lord Goring. No one, except myself, knows Robert better than you do. ”

“ I'm going now to Hyde Park to tell people the truth about him. They take him altogether too lightly, Robert. They're inclined to laugh at him as of no account. That's a great mistake, too. I shall warn them." He nodded mysteriously. "God is a devil—a cruel, dangerous devil."
Then he bent and kissed Christine's hand, very solemnly and tenderly, as some battered, comical Don Quixote might have done before setting out on a last fantastic quest. And presently Robert heard him patter down the narrow stairs and over the cobbles to the open street. ”

“ In his fluttering rags, without hat or cloak, not knowing what strange thing had happened to him, King Robert rushed to his palace gates, pushed aside the startled servants, and hurried, blind with rage, up the wide stair and through the great corridors, toward the room where he could hear the sound of his courtiers' voices. Men and women servants tried to stop the ragged man, who had somehow got into the palace, but Robert did not even see them as he fled along. ”

“ Robert was a little surprised himself, as that was the first time he had ever said them. But his heart was full of heavenly joy. He knew God saved him.
"Now, shall we notice verse 16 and down to the twentieth? We necessarily must serve God or Satan; we yield our members, such as the tongue or the hands, to do evil, or to do good. And to whom we yield these members, his servants we are. This is fundamental. A person who does right serves God; one who sins serves the devil. Nothing can be plainer than this. Suppose we read 1 John 3:8. 'He that committeth sin is of the devil ”

“ Robert pondered on this sublime obedience of all strong things to the law of the Creator, while man, the weakest of creation, thought it a shame to follow any will but his own. But even as he stood thinking, the earth seemed to tremble beneath him, and he sank gently into its heaving bosom. A darkness that bred more awe than terror encompassed him, and he felt that he was in the presence of one of God's most dreaded ministers. Strange thunders echoed around him, and a bewildered consciousness of some mysterious agency being about him came to his wondering spirit. ”

“ What could draw any man forth upon such a night?
Hurriedly Robert struck a match and lit his lamp. His father's room was opposite his own, and the door was ajar. He pushed it open and looked about him. It was empty. The bed had not even been lain upon. The single chair stood by the window, and there the old man must have sat since he left them. There was no book, no paper, no means by which he could have amused himself, nothing but a razor-strop lying on the window-sill.
A feeling of impending misfortune struck cold to Robert's heart. ”

“ You can tell him, Robert, that you know of one very deserving case which has not the slightest objection to being pauperised."
"But who can he possibly be, Robert?" cried Laura. "Haw cannot be his real name. He must be some disguised prince, or perhaps a king in exile. Oh, I should have loved to have seen those diamonds and the emeralds! I always think that emeralds suit dark people best. You must tell me again all about that museum, Robert." ”

“ But Robert, stupefied with fear, sat staring at him from beside his prostrate sister and weeping brother, and seemed neither to understand nor to hear.
"Robert," he repeated, "get up, and be a man. Bring Frank's hatchet, and help me break this chain."
Still he did not come. "It is no use, Harold," he replied. "Do you not see that sister is dead? William is dead too! We shall all die!"
"Robert! Robert!" he reiterated, almost with a threat, "do rouse up and be a man. Mary is not dead, she has only fainted; she will come to directly. ”

“ I feel like a stainless god in a sacred garden, listening for the first time to the dear madness of the nightingale. No subtle Neapolitan ever stirred me as this wood-nymph does with her flaming hair and her frank eyes. No wonder the old gods loved mortal women, if they knew my royal joy with this child of earth. Into the church, man, and leave me to my wooing!”
[Pg 76]
Hildebrand responded to the release of Robert’s arm, and the impatient gesture of dismissal that followed, by a reverential salutation, which Robert suddenly interrupted. ”

“ The worth of Robert was degraded by an excessive levity and easiness of temper: his cheerfulness seduced him to the indulgence of pleasure; his profuse liberality impoverished the prince and people; his indiscriminate clemency multiplied the number of offenders; and the amiable qualities of a private man became the essential defects of a sovereign. For the trifling sum of ten thousand marks, he mortgaged Normandy during his absence to the English usurper ”

“ Robert was jealous, irritable and revengeful; Charles was open-hearted, mild and forgiving. Robert was cruel to both servants and animals; Charles was kind to all, and a favorite with all; even the dumb animals avoided one and adhered to the other, instinctively knowing a friend.
Robert was the first born and the favorite with his mother, whom he ruled literally in all things, while Sir Robert, looking upon him as the legal heir and representative of his name, of course considered him in a somewhat different light from that in which he regarded Charles. ”

“ Through favour of Him who woundeth and maketh whole, we have been freed from so great and innumerable calamities by the valour of our Lord and Sovereign Robert. He, like another Joshua or a Judas Maccabeus, gladly endured toils, distresses, the extremity of want, and every peril, to rescue his people and inheritance out of the hands of the enemy. The divine Providence, that legal succession which we will constantly maintain, and our due and unanimous consent, have made him our Chief and King. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Robert’s curiosity was excited. He joined the eager crowds that followed the steps of the monk, and listened to the thrilling words till the latent desire of pilgrimage that had long slumbered in his mind awoke to life and activity, and he became a convert to the preachings of Peter the Hermit. But while he hesitated at the palmer’s gown and staff, the united voices of chivalry and religion, bade him don his armor and draw his sword. ”

“ Long before he could read words of three syllables, Robert had learnt the Origin of Man, and had made a vivid, somewhat fanciful picture of that personage's pathetic beginnings as a miasm floating on the earth's surface, and of his accidental, no less pathetic progression as a Survival of the Fittest. He gathered that even more than old Jaegers, Mr. Ricardo hated God Almighty and Jesus Christ, the latter of whom was intimately connected with something called a Sun Myth—chiefly, Robert supposed, because He was the Son of God. ”