Sir Launcelot appeared thunderstruck. 66 "My poor child!" said he, taking her by the hand, and leading her to the count, 'you forgot your father's cruel and impious oath and so indeed did I.--Sir, you may forgive her; she is as pure as was the first woman before she sinned. They were friends in childhood; they have been long separated-and they never can meet again!" 66 Why, who is this young man ?" demanded the prince. "Methinks I know the face.' "Sir," answered Arthault, kneeling, "it is my son; and I entreat of you, for the love of God and St. Stephen, to name him as the husband of this lady, with whom he will not demand a livre of dowry." "That may not be, my friend," said Sir Launcelot, mournfully. "I have a vow in heaven; and my daughter, were she to break her heart, can never marry a bondsman." 66 Spoken like a noble and valiant knight !" exclaimed Count Henri: "it were a shame that a daughter of the Sansavoirs should marry any but a freeman. But, to set the question at rest, I have already, in compliance with your request, provided her a husband.-Come, madam, to-day you shall visit the countess, and to-morrow the ceremony shall be performed before the court." "To that I say nay !" cried Guillaume, in a loud and furious voice, and striding between the count and the door. "I too have an oath in heaven; and so has the Lady Amable. Long before her father's vow, she swore solemnly to be mine, and mine alone.--Sir Count, you are only our temporal prince, and have no power to stand between heaven and man!" "Back, presumptuous boy !-Back, rebel slave! lest I smite you with my own hand, since there is not loyalty enough present to punish your presumption ;" and the count drew his sword. Guillaume's hand instinctively clutched his weapon. He did not draw, however, but stood grinding his teeth, while he muttered "O, would that I were a freeman and a knight!" Arthault at first was struck dumb with terror and amazement at his son's phrensy; but when he saw him still maintaining his position, even when threatened by the sword of the count, he implored and commanded by turns, and at length endeavoured to drag him away by force. "Stand back, father!" cried Guillaume, whose eyes were fixed with a gaze of growing joy and wonder upon the count's cap "Stand back, for the love of heaven! Can it be pos sible? or is this but a dream ?-By the holy St. Stephen! I am right--it is my gage!-Sir Count, when you took up that glove, you must have known that I was a bondsman; and you cannot now withdraw from your knightly word. If you persist in the wrong you intend, I demand battle against you, in the name of God, St. Michael, and St. George!" "I cannot fight with a serf," said the count; and he smiled. admiringly at the young man's enthusiasm. "I make you free!--witness all present:-and beshrew my heart if I do not think that I get almost too old to fight at all! At any rate, in this case, I will employ a substitute. There is the gage, Amable,--strike hard for the honour of chivalry!" and he pushed her towards her lover. "Sir Launcelot," he continued," although I perceive that you have settled your old scores with our friend Arthault, yet you and I have much to forgive each other. To see the dear and gallant friend of my family in such a situation as yours is a pain and disgrace which your obstinate pride had no right to inflict upon me. However, that is all past. I have found a husband for your daughter, according to my promise; and it will be hard if, among us all three, we cannot provide her with a suitable dowry.-Sir Bondsman, we fine you, for your rude interference to-day, in another dinner at the Château de Nogent, and abundance of excellent wine.-Lead on, Guillaume, and show your fair mistress the house and gardens which will one day be her own; and among the improvements you may talk of, I would suggest that a summer bower, raised on a certain scat in a grove near the wall, might be convenient for damsels who love the cool midnight hour, and for youngsters who challenge the ghost of King Arthur by moonlight!" On closing the Chronicle of the Lord de Joinville, which has furnished the groundwork of the last two narratives, a few words may not be out of place on the subject of a work which is justly reckoned one of the most precious monuments of French history. The author, who was of an illustrious family in Champagne, was born between the years 1219 and 1229,-for the learned differ with regard to the exact period,and was attached from a very early age to the court of Thibaud, King of Navarre and Count of Champagne. He was married, probably before the year 1240, to Alicia, daughter of Henry, Count de Grand Pré; and in 1248 set out with Saint Louis for the Holy Land. From this period he seems to have been almost constantly with the King of France, till a very short time before that monarch's death. All that is known of his person is from a traditional account heard by Du Cange at Joinville, which affirmed that the Seneschal of Champagne--for this office he inherited from his father-was of an extraordinary stature and strength of body, and that his head was of an enormous size, as large again as that of any of his contemporaries. For two hundred years, the Chronicle of Saint Louis, popularly attributed to this personage, passed unquestioned as one of the genuine sources of French history, till all on a sudden the literati of France were thrown into consternation by the posthumous objections of Father Hardouin (Opera Varia). These, notwithstanding the angry sneers of the Baron de la Bastie, were closely and ingeniously urged; and although the latter very learned person appears to have refuted them triumphantly, yet many imagined that their favourite chronicle was nothing more than a romance of the fifteenth century, which had been attributed, by a common literary fraud, to the Lord de Joinville. It would be improper, in a work like the present, to trouble the reader with any argumentation on the subject; but the writer of these narratives may be permitted to remark, that he finds in the internal evidence of the history itself more conclusive testimony of its authenticity and genuineness than even in the learned dissertation of M. de la Bastie. No writer of fiction has ever since identified so truly the man with the time and the action; and surely it is not to the fifteenth century we are to look for so nice and delicate a specimen of the art. A hundred touches of nature occur in the course of the work, which, if not the spontaneous effusion of a simple and manly heart, would have to be considered with reference to the age in which they were produced, as indications of the most extraordinary literary genius. It is impossible to rise from a perusal of this author without emotions of affection and delight. It should have been noticed in the proper place, for the sake of preventing any cavilling at a supposed anachronism, that the term "Saracens," which so often occurs in the "Pilgrim of Saint James," was used by the early French writers to signify all people who were not Christians, HISTORICAL SUMMARY. FOURTEENTH CENTURY. PHILIP LE BEL, ob. 1314. LOUIS X., 1319. PHILIP LE LONG, 1322. A SINGULAR and almost inexplicable event of the reign of Philip le Bel was the suppression of the Templars, an order of military monks which had been established during the Crusades. [A. D. 1307.] They were arrested, tortured, and burned alive; and their wealth was given to the Hospitallers, afterward the Order of Malta. It was very well to get rid of a body of men so strongly characterized by pride, tyranny, and debauchery; but as yet these were not crimes in the priesthood; and the inquirer into history finds it unpleasant to read of persons executed by means of a slow fire, as some of the Templars were, without apparent cause. Philip le Bel, by h taxes, alterations of the coin, and persecutions of the industrious Jews, contrived almost to ruin the country; and he died of mortification at the idea of the people presuming to take it amiss. Louis X., his son, being in want of money, sold liberty to a great many of the vileins, or peasant-serfs; the preamble to the edict for that purpose setting forth that "whereas, according to the laws of nature, every one is born free." [A. D. 1314.] He also recalled the Jews, [A. D. 1315,] whom his father had banished, believing that they would be exceedingly useful in paying taxes; and in many other ways occupied himself with the good of the country. Philip V., surnamed le Long, reformed the public administration by excluding bishops from parliament. [A. D. 1319.] He was desirous of establishing an assimilation of weights and moneys in France; and, to put down the practice of private wars, he disarmed the bourgeois. He appointed captains over these citizens, who commanded them in the name of the king; and the communes, which had so generously defended a little tyrant from the great tyrants of feudality, began to be led on insensibly to hoist their protégé into supreme dominion. In this reign the lepers, some way or other, fell into as bad repute as the Jews, and, with these general sufferers, were burned in hundreds. Charles IV. succeeded, and died without children. [A. D. 1322-8.] Edward III. of England, his nephew by the mother's side, applied for -the vacancy; but the French nobles, deciding according to the Salic law, elected Philip de Valois, a descendant, by a younger branch, of St. Louis. Philip carried war among the revolted Flemings, and afterward succeeded in compelling Edward III. to do homage for Guienne. [A, D. 1336.] This scourge of France, however, took up arms in |