Chapter 18 of 18 · 2644 words · ~13 min read

CHAPTER XVIII.

When the sons of Maugis quitted their father the young men took the road for the court, where they duly arrived, and demanded to be presented to the emperor, as was usual at that period, for aspirants to the order of knighthood. The lord in waiting, who did not know them, was struck with their grace and air of nobility, and when they were ushered into the audience-chamber, where Charlemagne was seated on his throne among all his courtiers, the two young men fell on their knees, and kissed with emotion the hand he extended to them.

“Who are you, my children?” said the emperor to them in a kind voice, “and why is it you show so much affection for me?”

“Sire!” replied young Aymon, “we wish to be made knights for your sole service, and for your service only. We are deeply indebted to you for kindness in our youth, and if you will confer upon us the honor, we would, my brother and myself, consecrate to you our entire life.”

“But who art thou?” asked the emperor, who did not recognize them. “No lord has conducted you to the palace. No peer has presented you. Nobody seems to know you.”

“Sire!” replied Aymon, “we are the sons of a knight whom you have honored with your esteem and for whom you have never hidden your admiration, even when you were enraged with him. Our father had the misfortune to incur your displeasure for not being willing to submit, when his honor opposed, and you forced him to defend himself against you and against the deceitful counsels of perfidious and jealous courtiers. Ah, sire, in spite of all these trials you placed upon him, our father never ceased to love you and to bless you. He has also taught us to venerate and cherish you. Our father is the brave Maugis, who during three years passed his time in exile to repair the wrongs he incurred by activity and courage so astonishing as to give his name universal renown.”

At these words the emperor arose, descended from his throne and embraced the two handsome young men, who had come to place their young lives under his high protecting care. Said he:

“Your father is one of the noblest and most honorable knights I ever knew. Strive, both of you, to equal him. I could not offer a better wish for your welfare.”

The emperor then took pride in presenting the young men to the court. The etiquette compelled by ceremony being cast aside, the emperor inquired with great solicitude concerning their father.

“Our father,” replied Yon, “is now old and infirm, and bodily exercise has become too fatiguing for him. Now, instead of following campaigns, he lives amid his vassals, to whom he renders justice, gives counsel, and encourages in their labor; in a word, sire, with him rank is but a distinction. It is as nothing before intelligence, even if those who possess it are inferior in position. Unfortunately, our father is very feeble, and we have feared that he is breaking down.”

“A man like your father should live always,” cried Charlemagne. “Seigneurs!” continued he, turning to his courtiers, “these sons of Maugis are my sons; you will so consider them.” Then addressing the young men, he promised that he would himself arm them as knights; also would give them additional lands, and as a token of love for their father and themselves, he accorded benefits to the one hundred other young men who constituted their suite.

Maugis, after the departure of his sons, employed himself in putting his affairs in order. He bequeathed Dordogne to Yon, his younger son, and to Aymon, the eldest, he left Montaubon. Then having assembled his brothers, he said to them:

“I have suffered many trials in the course of my existence. I have always been first in advancing our general interests. I will to-day make my farewell. I have vowed to consecrate to God the few years that remain to me, and to expiate for my sins by passing my remaining days in an absolute retreat far from the world.”

His brothers tried to dissuade him, but it was useless. That same day Maugis took his staff and stole away, making his escape undiscovered from Montaubon, by means of the same subterranean passage he had used to escape the wrath of Charlemagne when Montaubon was besieged.

Alone, by himself, with no more cares of state, disembarrassed of the burden of his renown, Maugis plodded through the country northward, nourishing himself with herbs and roots and drinking the pure water from the springs he passed on his way, finding life more pleasant a hundred times than in the midst of his court. His footsteps were directed toward the ancient city of Mouzon, in the Ardennes, where he intended to abide for a time in the old house where he had spent some of his boyhood days under the tutorship of that wise man of the East, that learned pundit whom his father had rescued from death in the wars of the Saracens, and from whom Maugis had drawn the occult powers he had used when driven to the last resource by the emperor. He hoped here to rest awhile in the society of the good monks of the great Abbey. He would search for his cousin Renaud, who, likewise, had retired from the world, to end his days in solitary meditation and prayer.

[Illustration: CATHEDRAL DOOR, MOUZON.]

Maugis spent two years in Mouzon, in the ancient house that had been his boyhood home. He made diligent inquiry for his cousin Renaud, but neither the monks nor any one else could tell him anything, except that some time agone he had been seen passing through the city by the old Roman road, which led into and through the vast forests of the Ardennes. So one day Maugis once more took up his staff, and deserting his home in the ancient city, he too walked far out on the old Roman road until the forests swallowed him up.

As he made his weary way through the vast solitudes, one day he approached a hermitage; a strange hope animated him. Had God directed his steps to the resting place of his cousin Renaud? He searched about thoroughly, and at last discovered his cousin some distance away in a solitary place, lying on the moss and absorbed in a book. He came upon his cousin so quietly that he did not hear him, and he stood and contemplated him for some time in silence, but suddenly raising his eyes Renaud became aware of the presence of a stranger. “Can this be Maugis?” he said to himself, “once so strong and so straight, and now so bent and so feeble, but a shadow of his former self?” But he soon overcame his incertitude and sprang up and clasped Maugis in his arms, who said:

“My dear Renaud! what pleasure I have to see you, you little know. We will never be separated again.”

It was a long time before Renaud recovered from his joy, and though each was very desirous to live solitary in pursuance of their vows to God, they finally decided, however, that they would situate themselves so as to see each other every day.

Maugis then installed himself a short distance away, in a cave under a rock which he made habitable. From that time no day passed without their seeing each other. It was the delight of these two brave old warriors, whose days were numbered, to recall together their deeds in the past, and the many things they had accomplished in company. Thus, after a life of activity and turmoil, their isolation seemed peaceful and blessed to them, and they found that peace which passeth all understanding in their old age, which made them never regret having quitted the world.

It happened that one day, when Maugis went as usual to the old oak which served as their rendezvous, Renaud was not there, and after waiting vainly for a long time, he hurried to his hermitage and there found him feeble and depressed.

“My dear Maugis,” said Renaud to him, “I am now approaching the end of my existence. I will soon enjoy eternal repose. I die with only one regret, and that is, I cannot have you with me in death. That we must at last leave each other. God is not willing that we should go together, but we do not die, except from the vengeance of God, until we are no longer useful to humanity.”

“What are you saying, my dear cousin,” replied Maugis. “Am I not also useless; am I not old and infirm, and my forces completely disappeared?”

“That is true,” responded Renaud, “but you must remain on earth to obey the destiny of your Lord. He is always ready to execute His will. Adieu! my dear Maugis, we shall shortly meet again. I die happy because I am dying in your arms.”

Renaud hardly spoke these last words when he yielded up his soul. Maugis then tenderly disposed of his remains in the grave Renaud had himself prepared, accomplishing this sad ceremony with complete serenity. After having rendered these last duties to his cousin, Maugis retired to his hermitage and remained there.

His end was near. It was decreed by God that he should soon follow his cousin. One day as he was walking on the banks of the river Meuse, near his hermitage, he heard cries of distress. It was the voices of young women calling for assistance. Without regarding the infirmities of age, Maugis hastened in the direction of the cries, and when he arrived at the banks of the river he was astonished to find a young woman lying there half-fainting, bound hand and foot; collecting all her resources the swooning girl indicated the water, and upon turning his eyes in that direction Maugis perceived a man, who was dragging another young woman by the hair of her head and was about to cast her into the water. Maugis, at the sight of this outrage, felt his old-time vigor returning, and hastening to her assistance, he took his staff in both hands and smote the villain on the head.

The man dodged the blow and escaped a second one by leaping into the stream, dragging the young woman with him. Maugis hesitated not a moment, and plunging after him and seizing him by the throat, endeavored to pull him out of the water, but the man shook himself free, and turned upon Maugis.

At that moment, such are the strange decrees of fate, the noble Maugis recognized in the face of that man the features of Pinabel.

“Infamous scoundrel!” said he to him, “not content to have committed acts of cowardice with men, you must complete your villainy by attacking women. You shall die this time and you need not count on my clemency.”

Saying this, Maugis seized him firmly and succeeded in forcing him under the surface of the river, but the fear of death doubled the strength of Pinabel. Maugis could not disembarrass himself from his enemy, who, in his desperation, wound himself around Maugis with his arms and legs. It was in vain that Maugis struck him and tried to force him loose. The drowning wretch clung to him with the energy of despair. Maugis could not free himself from his deathlike grip, and the nearer death approached the firmer became his hold. For a long time the nearly exhausted Maugis struggled to rid himself of the body of the now drowned man, his movements impeded by the clinging corpse, which, with the swiftness of the current, contributed to destroy him. With a supreme effort he raised his voice to call for help, but he was answered only by the frantic cries of the two young women.

Little by little his strength diminished, his eyesight failing, and with eyes closed he heard faintly the prayers of the two frightened girls for the safety of the man who had so bravely come to their rescue. Then he sank slowly down to the bottom. He appeared once more at the surface of the water, as if to protest against meeting the same death as a villain who had committed so many crimes during his life, and then he once more disappeared, never again to return to life.

* * * * *

The death of Maugis would have never become known if the two young girls had not recounted their adventure to some fishermen. They told how Pinabel, in love with one of them, had surprised them bathing, and had seized and bound the one to whom he was indifferent in order that he might more readily accomplish his purpose with the other. They told them, moreover, that Pinabel, having become an outcast, had placed himself at the head of a band of malefactors, who recently had captured a château in the vicinity, killing all the people who inhabited it.

The fishermen searched a long time for the body of Maugis, and finally recovered it, with the corpse of Pinabel still attached; then they recognized him as the hermit they had seen in the neighborhood. They laid his remains out tenderly, and carried them to his hermitage, from which he was finally interred in the same grave as Renaud.

Never would it have become known just who the religious men were who lived in the forest had they not found the following inscription upon the tomb of Renaud, written by Maugis himself:

They also found in the grotto of Maugis the portrait of Yolande. He had written underneath her name and his own. It was incontestable proof of his identity.

The news of the combat and its sad ending reached Cologne. Seigneur de Burie, who had formerly known Maugis and Renaud, visited the hermitage to assure himself that the tomb contained all that remained of the heroic Maugis and Renaud, which having done, he fell on his knees and prayed with fervor. Immediately upon his return he sent the clergy of Cologne to exhume the precious remains and bring them to Cologne, where they were deposited in the cathedral with great pomp and ceremony, their bier being watched by knights continuously while they laid in state.

In the meantime the tidings were sent to Paris. The emperor, on hearing the sad news, ordered the entire court in mourning, and indeed the mourning was not a mere outward seeming, for there was sorrow in every heart.

The sons of Maugis and his brothers were plunged into the most profound grief. Some days afterward an imposing retinue proceeded to Cologne and brought with them the remains of the two heroes. When they had reached the suburbs of Paris they were met by Charlemagne himself, and escorted into the city. There the most magnificent funeral ceremonies were held, after the completion of which the Aymon family proceeded with the two bodies onward to Montaubon, their final resting place, where they were placed under a magnificent tomb.

To give testimony to his grief and friendship, after the emperor had accompanied them as far as Orleans, he returned to Paris, and ordered that the arms and escutcheons of Pinabel be destroyed, and that everything should be obliterated that was connected with a name which called forth so much execration.

THE END.

Transcriber’s Notes:

• Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_). • Text enclosed by pluses is in small caps (+small caps+). • Obvious typographical errors have been silently corrected. • Redundant title page removed.