I.
His birth — if we are to argue from a man’s parents — was above his merit. It is not merely that he was the grandson of one king, the father of another, and the uncle of a third; but something more specious14 was to be looked for from the son of his father, Louis de Valois, Duke of Orleans, brother to the mad king Charles VI., lover of Queen Isabel, and the leading patron of art and one of the leading politicians in France. And the poet might have inherited yet higher virtues16 from his mother, Valentina of Milan, a very pathetic figure of the age, the faithful wife of an unfaithful husband, and the friend of a most unhappy king. The father, beautiful, eloquent17, and accomplished18, exercised a strange fascination19 over his contemporaries; and among those who dip nowadays into the annals of the time there are not many — and these few are little to be envied — who can resist the fascination of the mother. All mankind owe her a debt of gratitude20 because she brought some comfort into the life of the poor madman who wore the crown of France.
Born (May 1391) of such a noble stock, Charles was to know from the first all favours of nature and art. His father’s gardens were the admiration21 of his contemporaries; his castles were situated22 in the most agreeable parts of France, and sumptuously23 adorned24. We have preserved, in an inventory25 of 1403, the description of tapestried26 rooms where Charles may have played in childhood. 14 “A green room, with the ceiling full of angels, and the DOSSIER of shepherds and shepherdesses seeming (FAISANT CONTENANCE) to eat nuts and cherries. A room of gold, silk and worsted, with a device of little children in a river, and the sky full of birds. A room of green tapestry27, showing a knight28 and lady at chess in a pavilion. Another green room, with shepherdesses in a trellised garden worked in gold and silk. A carpet representing cherry-trees, where there is a fountain, and a lady gathering29 cherries in a basin.” These were some of the pictures over which his fancy might busy itself of an afternoon, or at morning as he lay awake in bed. With our deeper and more logical sense of life, we can have no idea how large a space in the attention of mediaeval men might be occupied by such figured hangings on the wall. There was something timid and purblind30 in the view they had of the world. Morally, they saw nothing outside of traditional axioms; and little of the physical aspect of things entered vividly31 into their mind, beyond what was to be seen on church windows and the walls and floors of palaces. The reader will remember how Villon’s mother conceived of heaven and hell and took all her scanty32 stock of theology from the stained glass that threw its light upon her as she prayed. And there is scarcely a detail of external effect in the chronicles and romances of the time, but might have been borrowed at second hand from a piece of tapestry. It was a stage in the history of mankind which we may see paralleled, to some extent, in the first infant school, where the representations of lions and elephants alternate round the wall with moral verses and trite33 presentments of the lesser35 virtues. So that to live in a house of many pictures was tantamount, for the time, to a liberal education in itself.
14 Champollion-Figeac’s LOUIS ET CHARLES D’ORLEANS, p. 348.
At Charles’s birth an order of knighthood was inaugurated in his honour. At nine years old, he was a squire36; at eleven, he had the escort of a chaplain and a schoolmaster; at twelve, his uncle the king made him a pension of twelve thousand livres d’or. 15 He saw the most brilliant and the most learned persons of France, in his father’s Court; and would not fail to notice that these brilliant and learned persons were one and all engaged in rhyming. Indeed, if it is difficult to realise the part played by pictures, it is perhaps even more difficult to realise that played by verses in the polite and active history of the age. At the siege of Pontoise, English and French exchanged defiant37 ballades over the walls. 16 If a scandal happened, as in the loathsome38 thirty-third story of the CENT NOUVELLES NOUVELLES, all the wits must make rondels and chansonettes, which they would hand from one to another with an unmanly sneer39. Ladies carried their favourite’s ballades in their girdles. 17 Margaret of Scotland, all the world knows already, kissed Alain Chartier’s lips in honour of the many virtuous thoughts and golden sayings they had uttered; but it is not so well known, that this princess was herself the most industrious40 of poetasters, that she is supposed to have hastened her death by her literary vigils, and sometimes wrote as many as twelve rondels in the day. 18 It was in rhyme, even, that the young Charles should learn his lessons. He might get all manner of instruction in the truly noble art of the chase, not without a smack41 of ethics42 by the way, from the compendious43 didactic poem of Gace de la Bigne. Nay44, and it was in rhyme that he should learn rhyming: in the verses of his father’s Maitre d’Hotel, Eustache Deschamps, which treated of “l’art de dictier et de faire chancons, ballades, virelais et rondeaux,” along with many other matters worth attention, from the courts of Heaven to the misgovernment of France. 19 At this rate, all knowledge is to be had in a goody, and the end of it is an old song. We need not wonder when we hear from Monstrelet that Charles was a very well educated person. He could string Latin texts together by the hour, and make ballades and rondels better than Eustache Deschamps himself. He had seen a mad king who would not change his clothes, and a drunken emperor who could not keep his hand from the wine-cup. He had spoken a great deal with jesters and fiddlers, and with the profligate45 lords who helped his father to waste the revenues of France. He had seen ladies dance on into broad daylight, and much burning of torches and waste of dainties and good wine. 20 And when all is said, it was no very helpful preparation for the battle of life. “I believe Louis XI.,” writes Comines, “would not have saved himself, if he had not been very differently brought up from such other lords as I have seen educated in this country; for these were taught nothing but to play the jackanapes with finery and fine words.” 21 I am afraid Charles took such lessons to heart, and conceived of life as a season principally for junketing and war. His view of the whole duty of man, so empty, vain, and wearisome to us, was yet sincerely and consistently held. When he came in his ripe years to compare the glory of two kingdoms, England and France, it was on three points only, — pleasures, valour, and riches, — that he cared to measure them; and in the very outset of that tract46 he speaks of the life of the great as passed, “whether in arms, as in assaults, battles, and sieges, or in jousts47 and tournaments, in high and stately festivities and in funeral solemnities.” 22
15 D’Hericault’s admirable MEMOIR48, prefixed to his edition of Charles’s works, vol. i. p. xi.
16 Vallet de Viriville, CHARLES VII. ET SON EPOQUE, ii. 428, note 2.
17 See Lecoy de la Marche, LE ROI RENE, i. 167.
18 Vallet, CHARLES VII, ii. 85, 86, note 2.
19 Champollion-Figeac, 193-198.
20 Champollion-Figeac, 209.
21 The student will see that there are facts cited, and expressions borrowed, in this paragraph, from a period extending over almost the whole of Charles’s life, instead of being confined entirely49 to his boyhood. As I do not believe there was any change, so I do not believe there is any anachronism involved.
22 THE DEBATE BETWEEN THE HERALDS50 OF FRANCE AND ENGLAND, translated and admirably edited by Mr. Henry Pyne. For the attribution of this tract to Charles, the reader is referred to Mr. Pyne’s conclusive51 argument.
When he was no more than thirteen, his father had him affianced to Isabella, virgin-widow of our Richard II. and daughter of his uncle Charles VI.; and, two years after (June 29, 1406), the cousins were married at Compiegne, he fifteen, she seventeen years of age. It was in every way a most desirable match. The bride brought five hundred thousand francs of dowry. The ceremony was of the utmost magnificence, Louis of Orleans figuring in crimson53 velvet54, adorned with no less than seven hundred and ninety-five pearls, gathered together expressly for this occasion. And no doubt it must have been very gratifying for a young gentleman of fifteen, to play the chief part in a pageant55 so gaily56 put upon the stage. Only, the bridegroom might have been a little older; and, as ill-luck would have it, the bride herself was of this way of thinking, and would not be consoled for the loss of her title as queen, or the contemptible58 age of her new husband. PLEUROIT FORT LADITE ISABEAU; the said Isabella wept copiously59. 23 It is fairly debatable whether Charles was much to be pitied when, three years later (September 1409), this odd marriage was dissolved by death. Short as it was, however, this connection left a lasting61 stamp upon his mind; and we find that, in the last decade of his life, and after he had remarried for perhaps the second time, he had not yet forgotten or forgiven the violent death of Richard II. “Ce mauvais cas” — that ugly business, he writes, has yet to be avenged63.
23 Des Ursins.
The marriage festivity was on the threshold of evil days. The great rivalry64 between Louis of Orleans and John the Fearless, Duke of Burgundy, had been forsworn with the most reverend solemnities. But the feud65 was only in abeyance66, and John of Burgundy still conspired67 in secret. On November 23, 1407 — in that black winter when the frost lasted six-and-sixty days on end — a summons from the king reached Louis of Orleans at the Hotel Barbette, where he had been supping with Queen Isabel. It was seven or eight in the evening, and the inhabitants of the quarter were abed. He set forth68 in haste, accompanied by two squires69 riding on one horse, a page, and a few varlets running with torches. As he rode, he hummed to himself and trifled with his glove. And so riding, he was beset70 by the bravoes of his enemy and slain71. My lord of Burgundy set an ill precedent72 in this deed, as he found some years after on the bridge of Montereau; and even in the meantime he did not profit quietly by his rival’s death. The horror of the other princes seems to have perturbed73 himself; he avowed74 his guilt75 in the council, tried to brazen76 it out, finally lost heart and fled at full gallop77, cutting bridges behind him, towards Bapaume and Lille. And so there we have the head of one faction78, who had just made himself the most formidable man in France, engaged in a remarkably79 hurried journey, with black care on the pillion. And meantime, on the other side, the widowed duchess came to Paris in appropriate mourning, to demand justice for her husband’s death. Charles VI., who was then in a lucid80 interval81, did probably all that he could, when he raised up the kneeling suppliant82 with kisses and smooth words. Things were at a dead-lock. The criminal might be in the sorriest fright, but he was still the greatest of vassals84. Justice was easy to ask and not difficult to promise; how it was to be executed was another question. No one in France was strong enough to punish John of Burgundy; and perhaps no one, except the widow, very sincere in wishing to punish him.
She, indeed, was eaten up of zeal85; but the intensity86 of her eagerness wore her out; and she died about a year after the murder, of grief and indignation, unrequited love and unsatisfied resentment34. It was during the last months of her life that this fiery87 and generous woman, seeing the soft hearts of her own children, looked with envy on a certain natural son of her husband’s destined88 to become famous in the sequel as the Bastard89 of Orleans, or the brave Dunois. “YOU WERE STOLEN FROM ME,” she said; “it is you who are fit to avenge62 your father.” These are not the words of ordinary mourning, or of an ordinary woman. It is a saying, over which Balzac would have rubbed his episcopal hands. That the child who was to avenge her husband had not been born out of her body, was a thing intolerable to Valentina of Milan; and the expression of this singular and tragic90 jealousy91 is preserved to us by a rare chance, in such straightforward92 and vivid words as we are accustomed to hear only on the stress of actual life, or in the theatre. In history — where we see things as in a glass darkly, and the fashion of former times is brought before us, deplorably adulterated and defaced, fitted to very vague and pompous93 words, and strained through many men’s minds of everything personal or precise — this speech of the widowed duchess startles a reader, somewhat as the footprint startled Robinson Crusoe. A human voice breaks in upon the silence of the study, and the student is aware of a fellow-creature in his world of documents. With such a clue in hand, one may imagine how this wounded lioness would spur and exasperate94 the resentment of her children, and what would be the last words of counsel and command she left behind her.
With these instancies of his dying mother — almost a voice from the tomb — still tingling95 in his ears, the position of young Charles of Orleans, when he was left at the head of that great house, was curiously96 similar to that of Shakspeare’s Hamlet. The times were out of joint97; here was a murdered father to avenge on a powerful murderer; and here, in both cases, a lad of inactive disposition98 born to set these matters right. Valentina’s commendation of Dunois involved a judgment99 on Charles, and that judgment was exactly correct. Whoever might be, Charles was not the man to avenge his father. Like Hamlet, this son of a dear father murdered was sincerely grieved at heart. Like Hamlet, too, he could unpack100 his heart with words, and wrote a most eloquent letter to the king, complaining that what was denied to him would not be denied “to the lowest born and poorest man on earth.” Even in his private hours he strove to preserve a lively recollection of his injury, and keep up the native hue101 of resolution. He had gems102 engraved103 with appropriate legends, hortatory or threatening: “DIEU LE SCET,” God knows it; or “SOUVENEZ-VOUS DE— “ Remember! 24 It is only towards the end that the two stories begin to differ; and in some points the historical version is the more tragic. Hamlet only stabbed a silly old councillor behind the arras; Charles of Orleans trampled104 France for five years under the hoofs105 of his banditti. The miscarriage106 of Hamlet’s vengeance107 was confined, at widest, to the palace; the ruin wrought108 by Charles of Orleans was as broad as France.
24 Michelet, iv. App. 179, p. 337.
Yet the first act of the young duke is worthy109 of honourable110 mention. Prodigal111 Louis had made enormous debts; and there is a story extant, to illustrate112 how lightly he himself regarded these commercial obligations. It appears that Louis, after a narrow escape he made in a thunder-storm, had a smart access of penitence113, and announced he would pay his debts on the following Sunday. More than eight hundred creditors114 presented themselves, but by that time the devil was well again, and they were shown the door with more gaiety than politeness. A time when such cynical115 dishonesty was possible for a man of culture is not, it will be granted, a fortunate epoch116 for creditors. When the original debtor117 was so lax, we may imagine how an heir would deal with the incumbrances of his inheritance. On the death of Philip the Forward, father of that John the Fearless whom we have seen at work, the widow went through the ceremony of a public renunciation of goods; taking off her purse and girdle, she left them on the grave, and thus, by one notable act, cancelled her husband’s debts and defamed his honour. The conduct of young Charles of Orleans was very different. To meet the joint liabilities of his father and mother (for Valentina also was lavish), he had to sell or pledge a quantity of jewels; and yet he would not take advantage of a pretext118, even legally valid119, to diminish the amount. Thus, one Godefroi Lefevre, having disbursed120 many odd sums for the late duke, and received or kept no vouchers121, Charles ordered that he should be believed upon his oath. 25 To a modern mind this seems as honourable to his father’s memory as if John the Fearless had been hanged as high as Haman. And as things fell out, except a recantation from the University of Paris, which had justified122 the murder out of party feeling, and various other purely123 paper reparations, this was about the outside of what Charles was to effect in that direction. He lived five years, and grew up from sixteen to twenty-one, in the midst of the most horrible civil war, or series of civil wars, that ever devastated124 France; and from first to last his wars were ill-starred, or else his victories useless. Two years after the murder (March 1409), John the Fearless having the upper hand for the moment, a shameful125 and useless reconciliation126 took place, by the king’s command, in the church of Our Lady at Chartres. The advocate of the Duke of Burgundy stated that Louis of Orleans had been killed “for the good of the king’s person and realm.” Charles and his brothers, with tears of shame, under protest, POUR NE PAS DESOBEIR AU ROI, forgave their father’s murderer and swore peace upon the missal. It was, as I say, a shameful and useless ceremony; the very greffier, entering it in his register, wrote in the margin127, “PAX, PAX, INQUIT PROPHETA, ET NON EST PAX.” 26 Charles was soon after allied128 with the abominable129 Bernard d’Armagnac, even betrothed130 or married to a daughter of his, called by a name that sounds like a contradiction in terms, Bonne d’Armagnac. From that time forth, throughout all this monstrous131 period — a very nightmare in the history of France — he is no more than a stalking-horse for the ambitious Gascon. Sometimes the smoke lifts, and you can see him for the twinkling of an eye, a very pale figure; at one moment there is a rumour132 he will be crowned king; at another, when the uproar133 has subsided134, he will be heard still crying out for justice; and the next
25, he is showing himself to the applauding populace on the same horse with John of Burgundy. But these are exceptional seasons, and, for the most part, he merely rides at the Gascon’s bridle135 over devastated France. His very party go, not by the name of Orleans, but by the name of Armagnac, Paris is in the hands of the butchers: the peasants have taken to the woods. Alliances are made and broken as if in a country dance; the English called in, now by this one, now by the other. Poor people sing in church, with white faces and lamentable136 music: “DOMINE JESU, PARCE POPULO TUO, DIRIGE IN VIAM PACIS PRINCIPES.” And the end and upshot of the whole affair for Charles of Orleans is another peace with John the Fearless. France is once more tranquil137, with the tranquillity138 of ruin; he may ride home again to Blois, and look, with what countenance139 he may, on those gems he had got engraved in the early days of his resentment, “SOUVENEZ-VOUS DE — “ Remember! He has killed Polonius, to be sure; but the king is never a penny the worse.
26 Champollion-Figeac, pp. 279-82.
27 Michelet, iv. pp. 123-4.
II.
From the battle of Agincourt (Oct. 1415) dates the second period of Charles’s life. The English reader will remember the name of Orleans in the play of HENRY V.; and it is at least odd that we can trace a resemblance between the puppet and the original. The interjection, “I have heard a sonnet140 begin so to one’s mistress” (Act iii. scene 7), may very well indicate one who was already an expert in that sort of trifle; and the game of proverbs he plays with the Constable141 in the same scene, would be quite in character for a man who spent many years of his life capping verses with his courtiers. Certainly, Charles was in the great battle with five hundred lances (say, three thousand men), and there he was made prisoner as he led the van. According to one story, some ragged142 English archer143 shot him down; and some diligent144 English Pistol, hunting ransoms146 on the field of battle, extracted him from under a heap of bodies and retailed147 him to our King Henry. He was the most important capture of the day, and used with all consideration. On the way to Calais, Henry sent him a present of bread and wine (and bread, you will remember, was an article of luxury in the English camp), but Charles would neither eat nor drink. Thereupon, Henry came to visit him in his quarters. “Noble cousin,” said he, “how are you?” Charles replied that he was well. “Why, then, do you neither eat nor drink?” And then with some asperity148, as I imagine, the young duke told him that “truly he had no inclination149 for food.” And our Henry improved the occasion with something of a snuffle, assuring his prisoner that God had fought against the French on account of their manifold sins and transgressions150. Upon this there supervened the agonies of a rough sea passage; and many French lords, Charles, certainly, among the number, declared they would rather endure such another defeat than such another sore trial on shipboard. Charles, indeed, never forgot his sufferings. Long afterwards, he declared his hatred151 to a seafaring life, and willingly yielded to England the empire of the seas, “because there is danger and loss of life, and God knows what pity when it storms; and sea-sickness is for many people hard to bear; and the rough life that must be led is little suitable for the nobility:” 28 which, of all babyish utterances152 that ever fell from any public man, may surely bear the bell. Scarcely disembarked, he followed his victor, with such wry52 face as we may fancy, through the streets of holiday London. And then the doors closed upon his last day of garish153 life for more than a quarter of a century. After a boyhood passed in the dissipations of a luxurious154 court or in the camp of war, his ears still stunned155 and his cheeks still burning from his enemies’ jubilations; out of all this ringing of English bells and singing of English anthems156, from among all these shouting citizens in scarlet157 cloaks, and beautiful virgins158 attired159 in white, he passed into the silence and solitude160 of a political prison. 29
28 DEBATE BETWEEN THE HERALDS.
29 Sir H. Nicholas, AGINCOURT.
His captivity161 was not without alleviations. He was allowed to go hawking163, and he found England an admirable country for the sport; he was a favourite with English ladies, and admired their beauty; and he did not lack for money, wine, or books; he was honourably164 imprisoned165 in the strongholds of great nobles, in Windsor Castle and the Tower of London. But when all is said, he was a prisoner for five-and-twenty years. For five-and-twenty years he could not go where he would, or do what he liked, or speak with any but his gaolers. We may talk very wisely of alleviations; there is only one alleviation162 for which the man would thank you: he would thank you to open the door. With what regret Scottish James I. bethought him (in the next room perhaps to Charles) of the time when he rose “as early as the day.” What would he not have given to wet his boots once more with morning dew, and follow his vagrant166 fancy among the meadows? The only alleviation to the misery167 of constraint168 lies in the disposition of the prisoner. To each one this place of discipline brings his own lesson. It stirs Latude or Baron169 Trenck into heroic action; it is a hermitage for pious60 and conformable spirits. Beranger tells us he found prison life, with its regular hours and long evenings, both pleasant and profitable. THE PILGRIM’S PROGRESS and DON QUIXOTE were begun in prison. It was after they were become (to use the words of one of them), “Oh, worst imprisonment170 — the dungeon171 of themselves!” that Homer and Milton worked so hard and so well for the profit of mankind. In the year 1415 Henry V. had two distinguished172 prisoners, French Charles of Orleans and Scottish James I., who whiled away the hours of their captivity with rhyming. Indeed, there can be no better pastime for a lonely man than the mechanical exercise of verse. Such intricate forms as Charles had been used to from childhood, the ballade with its scanty rhymes; the rondel, with the recurrence173 first of the whole, then of half the burthen, in thirteen verses, seem to have been invented for the prison and the sick bed. The common Scotch174 saying, on the sight of anything operose and finical, “he must have had little to do that made that!” might be put as epigraph on all the song books of old France. Making such sorts of verse belongs to the same class of pleasures as guessing acrostics or “burying proverbs.” It is almost purely formal, almost purely verbal. It must be done gently and gingerly. It keeps the mind occupied a long time, and never so intently as to be distressing175; for anything like strain is against the very nature of the craft. Sometimes things go easily, the refrains fall into their place as if of their own accord, and it becomes something of the nature of an intellectual tennis; you must make your poem as the rhymes will go, just as you must strike your ball as your adversary176 played it. So that these forms are suitable rather for those who wish to make verses, than for those who wish to express opinions. Sometimes, on the other hand, difficulties arise: rival verses come into a man’s head, and fugitive177 words elude178 his memory. Then it is that he enjoys at the same time the deliberate pleasures of a connoisseur179 comparing wines, and the ardour of the chase. He may have been sitting all day long in prison with folded hands; but when he goes to bed, the retrospect180 will seem animated181 and eventful.
Besides confirming himself as an habitual182 maker183 of verses, Charles acquired some new opinions during his captivity. He was perpetually reminded of the change that had befallen him. He found the climate of England cold and “prejudicial to the human frame;” he had a great contempt for English fruit and English beer; even the coal fires were unpleasing in his eyes. 30 He was rooted up from among his friends and customs and the places that had known him. And so in this strange land he began to learn the love of his own. Sad people all the world over are like to be moved when the wind is in some particular quarter. So Burns preferred when it was in the west, and blew to him from his mistress; so the girl in the ballade, looking south to Yarrow, thought it might carry a kiss betwixt her and her gallant184; and so we find Charles singing of the “pleasant wind that comes from France.” 31 One day, at “Dover-on-the-Sea,” he looked across the straits, and saw the sandhills about Calais. And it happened to him, he tells us in a ballade, to remember his happiness over there in the past; and he was both sad and merry at the recollection, and could not have his fill of gazing on the shores of France. 32 Although guilty of unpatriotic acts, he had never been exactly unpatriotic in feeling. But his sojourn186 in England gave, for the time at least, some consistency187 to what had been a very weak and ineffectual prejudice. He must have been under the influence of more than usually solemn considerations, when he proceeded to turn Henry’s puritanical188 homily after Agincourt into a ballade, and reproach France, and himself by implication, with pride, gluttony, idleness, unbridled covetousness189, and sensuality. 33 For the moment, he must really have been thinking more of France than of Charles of Orleans.
30 DEBATE BETWEEN THE HERALDS.
31 Works (ed. d’Hericault), i. 43.
32 IBID. 143.
33 Works (ed. d’Hericault), i. 190.
And another lesson he learned. He who was only to be released in case of peace, begins to think upon the disadvantages of war. “Pray for peace,” is his refrain: a strange enough subject for the ally of Bernard d’Armagnac. 34 But this lesson was plain and practical; it had one side in particular that was specially2 attractive for Charles; and he did not hesitate to explain it in so many words. “Everybody,” he writes — I translate roughly — “everybody should be much inclined to peace, for everybody has a deal to gain by it.” 35
34 IBID. 144.
35 IBID. 158.
Charles made laudable endeavours to acquire English, and even learned to write a rondel in that tongue of quite average mediocrity. 36 He was for some time billeted on the unhappy Suffolk, who received fourteen shillings and fourpence a day for his expenses; and from the fact that Suffolk afterwards visited Charles in France while he was negotiating the marriage of Henry VI., as well as the terms of that nobleman’s impeachment190, we may believe there was some not unkindly intercourse191 between the prisoner and his gaoler: a fact of considerable interest when we remember that Suffolk’s wife was the granddaughter of the poet Geoffrey Chaucer. 37 Apart from this, and a mere13 catalogue of dates and places, only one thing seems evident in the story of Charles’s captivity. It seems evident that, as these five-and-twenty years drew on, he became less and less resigned. Circumstances were against the growth of such a feeling. One after another of his fellow-prisoners was ransomed192 and went home. More than once he was himself permitted to visit France; where he worked on abortive193 treaties and showed himself more eager for his own deliverance than for the profit of his native land. Resignation may follow after a reasonable time upon despair; but if a man is persecuted194 by a series of brief and irritating hopes, his mind no more attains195 to a settled frame of resolution, than his eye would grow familiar with a night of thunder and lightning. Years after, when he was speaking at the trial of that Duke of Alencon, who began life so hopefully as the boyish favourite of Joan of Arc, he sought to prove that captivity was a harder punishment than death. “For I have had experience myself,” he said; “and in my prison of England, for the weariness, danger, and displeasure in which I then lay, I have many a time wished I had been slain at the battle where they took me.” 38 This is a flourish, if you will, but it is something more. His spirit would sometimes rise up in a fine anger against the petty desires and contrarieties of life. He would compare his own condition with the quiet and dignified196 estate of the dead; and aspire197 to lie among his comrades on the field of Agincourt, as the Psalmist prayed to have the wings of a dove and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea. But such high thoughts came to Charles only in a flash.
36 M. Champollion-Figeac gives many in his editions of Charles’s works, most (as I should think) of very doubtful authenticity198, or worse.
37 Rymer, x. 564. D’Hericault’s MEMOIR, p. xli. Gairdner’s PASTON LETTERS, i. 27, 99.
38 Champollion-Figeac, 377.
John the Fearless had been murdered in his turn on the bridge of Montereau so far back as 1419. His son, Philip the Good — partly to extinguish the feud, partly that he might do a popular action, and partly, in view of his ambitious schemes, to detach another great vassal83 from the throne of France — had taken up the cause of Charles of Orleans, and negotiated diligently199 for his release. In 1433 a Burgundian embassy was admitted to an interview with the captive duke, in the presence of Suffolk. Charles shook hands most affectionately with the ambassadors. They asked after his health. “I am well enough in body,” he replied, “but far from well in mind. I am dying of grief at having to pass the best days of my life in prison, with none to sympathise.” The talk falling on the chances of peace, Charles referred to Suffolk if he were not sincere and constant in his endeavours to bring it about. “If peace depended on me,” he said, “I should procure201 it gladly, were it to cost me my life seven days after.” We may take this as showing what a large price he set, not so much on peace, as on seven days of freedom. Seven days! — he would make them seven years in the employment. Finally, he assured the ambassadors of his good will to Philip of Burgundy; squeezed one of them by the hand and nipped him twice in the arm to signify things unspeakable before Suffolk; and two days after sent them Suffolk’s barber, one Jean Carnet, a native of Lille, to testify more freely of his sentiments. “As I speak French,” said this emissary, “the Duke of Orleans is more familiar with me than with any other of the household; and I can bear witness he never said anything against Duke Philip.” 39 It will be remembered that this person, with whom he was so anxious to stand well, was no other than his hereditary202 enemy, the son of his father’s murderer. But the honest fellow bore no malice203, indeed not he. He began exchanging ballades with Philip, whom he apostrophises as his companion, his cousin, and his brother. He assures him that, soul and body, he is altogether Burgundian; and protests that he has given his heart in pledge to him. Regarded as the history of a vendetta204, it must be owned that Charles’s life has points of some originality205. And yet there is an engaging frankness about these ballades which disarms206 criticism. 40 You see Charles throwing himself headforemost into the trap; you hear Burgundy, in his answers begin to inspire him with his own prejudices, and draw melancholy207 pictures of the misgovernment of France. But Charles’s own spirits are so high and so amiable208, and he is so thoroughly209 convinced his cousin is a fine fellow, that one’s scruples210 are carried away in the torrent211 of his happiness and gratitude. And his would be a sordid212 spirit who would not clap hands at the consummation (Nov. 1440); when Charles, after having sworn on the Sacrament that he would never again bear arms against England, and pledged himself body and soul to the unpatriotic faction in his own country, set out from London with a light heart and a damaged integrity.
39 Dom Plancher, iv. 178-9.
40 Works, i. 157-63.
In the magnificent copy of Charles’s poems, given by our Henry VII. to Elizabeth of York on the occasion of their marriage, a large illumination figures at the head of one of the pages, which, in chronological213 perspective, is almost a history of his imprisonment. It gives a view of London with all its spires214, the river passing through the old bridge and busy with boats. One side of the White Tower has been taken out, and we can see, as under a sort of shrine215, the paved room where the duke sits writing. He occupies a high-backed bench in front of a great chimney; red and black ink are before him; and the upper end of the apartment is guarded by many halberdiers, with the red cross of England on their breast. On the next side of the tower he appears again, leaning out of window and gazing on the river; doubtless there blows just then “a pleasant wind from out the land of France,” and some ship comes up the river: “the ship of good news.” At the door we find him yet again; this time embracing a messenger, while a groom57 stands by holding two saddled horses. And yet further to the left, a cavalcade216 defiles217 out of the tower; the duke is on his way at last towards “the sunshine of France.”
III.
During the five-and-twenty years of his captivity, Charles had not lost in the esteem218 of his fellow-countrymen. For so young a man, the head of so great a house, and so numerous a party, to be taken prisoner as he rode in the vanguard of France, and stereotyped219 for all men in this heroic attitude, was to taste untimeously the honours of the grave. Of him, as of the dead, it would be ungenerous to speak evil; what little energy he had displayed would be remembered with piety220, when all that he had done amiss was courteously221 forgotten. As English folk looked for Arthur; as Danes awaited the coming of Ogier; as Somersetshire peasants or sergeants222 of the Old Guard expected the return of Monmouth or Napoleon; the countrymen of Charles of Orleans looked over the straits towards his English prison with desire and confidence. Events had so fallen out while he was rhyming ballades, that he had become the type of all that was most truly patriotic185. The remnants of his old party had been the chief defenders223 of the unity224 of France. His enemies of Burgundy had been notoriously favourers and furtherers of English domination. People forgot that his brother still lay by the heels for an unpatriotic treaty with England, because Charles himself had been taken prisoner patriotically225 fighting against it. That Henry V. had left special orders against his liberation, served to increase the wistful pity with which he was regarded. And when, in defiance226 of all contemporary virtue15, and against express pledges, the English carried war into their prisoner’s fief, not only France, but all thinking men in Christendom, were roused to indignation against the oppressors, and sympathy with the victim. It was little wonder if he came to bulk somewhat largely in the imagination of the best of those at home. Charles le Boutteillier, when (as the story goes) he slew227 Clarence at Beauge, was only seeking an exchange for Charles of Orleans. 41 It was one of Joan of Arc’s declared intentions to deliver the captive duke. If there was no other way, she meant to cross the seas and bring him home by force. And she professed228 before her judges a sure knowledge that Charles of Orleans was beloved of God. 42
41 Vallet’s CHARLES VII., i. 251.
42 PROCES DE JEANNE D’ARC, i. 133-55.
Alas229! it was not at all as a deliverer that Charles returned to France. He was nearly fifty years old. Many changes had been accomplished since, at twenty-three, he was taken on the field of Agincourt. But of all these he was profoundly ignorant, or had only heard of them in the discoloured reports of Philip of Burgundy. He had the ideas of a former generation, and sought to correct them by the scandal of a factious230 party. With such qualifications he came back eager for the domination, the pleasures, and the display that befitted his princely birth. A long disuse of all political activity combined with the flatteries of his new friends to fill him with an overweening conceit231 of his own capacity and influence. If aught had gone wrong in his absence, it seemed quite natural men should look to him for its redress232. Was not King Arthur come again?
The Duke of Burgundy received him with politic1 honours. He took his guest by his foible for pageantry, all the easier as it was a foible of his own; and Charles walked right out of prison into much the same atmosphere of trumpeting234 and bell-ringing as he had left behind when he went in. Fifteen days after his deliverance he was married to Mary of Cleves, at St. Omer. The marriage was celebrated235 with the usual pomp of the Burgundian court; there were joustings, and illuminations, and animals that spouted236 wine; and many nobles dined together, COMME EN BRIGADE, and were served abundantly with many rich and curious dishes. 43 It must have reminded Charles not a little of his first marriage at Compiegne; only then he was two years the junior of his bride, and this time he was five-and-thirty years her senior. It will be a fine question which marriage promises more: for a boy of fifteen to lead off with a lass of seventeen, or a man of fifty to make a match of it with a child of fifteen. But there was something bitter in both. The lamentations of Isabella will not have been forgotten. As for Mary, she took up with one Jaquet de la Lain, a sort of muscular Methody of the period, with a huge appetite for tournaments, and a habit of confessing himself the last thing before he went to bed. 44 With such a hero, the young duchess’s amours were most likely innocent; and in all other ways she was a suitable partner for the duke, and well fitted to enter into his pleasures.
43 Monstrelet.
44 Vallet’s CHARLES VII., iii. chap. i. But see the chronicle that bears Jaquet’s name: a lean and dreary237 book.
When the festivities at Saint Omer had come to an end, Charles and his wife set forth by Ghent and Tourney. The towns gave him offerings of money as he passed through, to help in the payment of his ransom145. From all sides, ladies and gentlemen thronged238 to offer him their services; some gave him their sons for pages, some archers239 for a bodyguard240; and by the time he reached Tournay, he had a following of 300 horse. Everywhere he was received as though he had been the King of France. 45 If he did not come to imagine himself something of the sort, he certainly forgot the existence of any one with a better claim to the title. He conducted himself on the hypothesis that Charles VII. was another Charles VI. He signed with enthusiasm that treaty of Arras, which left France almost at the discretion241 of Burgundy. On December 18 he was still no farther than Bruges, where he entered into a private treaty with Philip; and it was not until January 14, ten weeks after he disembarked in France, and attended by a ruck of Burgundian gentlemen, that he arrived in Paris and offered to present himself before Charles VII. The king sent word that he might come, if he would, with a small retinue242, but not with his present following; and the duke, who was mightily243 on his high horse after all the ovations244 he had received, took the king’s attitude amiss, and turned aside into Touraine, to receive more welcome and more presents, and be convoyed by torchlight into faithful cities.
45 Monstrelet.
And so you see, here was King Arthur home again, and matters nowise mended in consequence. The best we can say is, that this last stage of Charles’s public life was of no long duration. His confidence was soon knocked out of him in the contact with others. He began to find he was an earthen vessel245 among many vessels246 of brass247; he began to be shrewdly aware that he was no King Arthur. In 1442, at Limoges, he made himself the spokesman of the malcontent248 nobility. The king showed himself humiliatingly249 indifferent to his counsels, and humiliatingly generous towards his necessities. And there, with some blushes, he may be said to have taken farewell of the political stage. A feeble attempt on the county of Asti is scarce worth the name of exception. Thenceforward let Ambition wile250 whom she may into the turmoil251 of events, our duke will walk cannily252 in his well-ordered garden, or sit by the fire to touch the slender reed. 46
46 D’Hericault’s MEMOIR, xl. xli. Vallet, CHARLES VI., ii. 435.
IV.
If it were given each of us to transplant his life wherever he pleased in time or space, with all the ages and all the countries of the world to choose from, there would be quite an instructive diversity of taste. A certain sedentary majority would prefer to remain where they were. Many would choose the Renaissance253; many some stately and simple period of Grecian life; and still more elect to pass a few years wandering among the villages of Palestine with an inspired conductor. For some of our quaintly254 vicious contemporaries, we have the decline of the Roman Empire and the reign255 of Henry III. of France. But there are others not quite so vicious, who yet cannot look upon the world with perfect gravity, who have never taken the categorical imperative256 to wife, and have more taste for what is comfortable than for what is magnanimous and high; and I can imagine some of these casting their lot in the Court of Blois during the last twenty years of the life of Charles of Orleans.
The duke and duchess, their staff of officers and ladies, and the high-born and learned persons who were attracted to Blois on a visit, formed a society for killing257 time and perfecting each other in various elegant accomplishments259, such as we might imagine for an ideal watering-place in the Delectable260 Mountains. The company hunted and went on pleasure-parties; they played chess, tables, and many other games. What we now call the history of the period passed, I imagine, over the heads of these good people much as it passes over our own. News reached them, indeed, of great and joyful261 import. William Peel received eight livres and five sous from the duchess, when he brought the first tidings that Rouen was recaptured from the English. 47 A little later and the duke sang, in a truly patriotic vein262, the deliverance of Guyenne and Normandy. 48 They were liberal of rhymes and largesse263, and welcomed the prosperity of their country much as they welcomed the coming of spring, and with no more thought of collaborating264 towards the event. Religion was not forgotten in the Court of Blois. Pilgrimages were agreeable and picturesque265 excursions. In those days a well-served chapel266 was something like a good vinery in our own, an opportunity for display and the source of mild enjoyments267. There was probably something of his rooted delight in pageantry, as well as a good deal of gentle piety, in the feelings with which Charles gave dinner every Friday to thirteen poor people, served them himself, and washed their feet with his own hands. 49 Solemn affairs would interest Charles and his courtiers from their trivial side. The duke perhaps cared less for the deliverance of Guyenne and Normandy than for his own verses on the occasion; just as Dr. Russell’s correspondence in THE TIMES was among the most material parts of the Crimean War for that talented correspondent. And I think it scarcely cynical to suppose that religion as well as patriotism268 was principally cultivated as a means of filling up the day.
47 Champollion-Figeac, 368.
48 Works, i. 115.
49 D’Hericault’s MEMOIR, xlv.
It was not only messengers fiery red with haste and charged with the destiny of nations, who were made welcome at the gates of Blois. If any man of accomplishment258 came that way, he was sure of an audience, and something for his pocket. The courtiers would have received Ben Jonson like Drummond of Hawthornden, and a good pugilist like Captain Barclay. They were catholic, as none but the entirely idle can be catholic. It might be Pierre, called Dieu d’amours, the juggler270; or it might be three high English minstrels; or the two men, players of ghitterns, from the kingdom of Scotland, who sang the destruction of the Turks; or again Jehan Rognelet, player of instruments of music, who played and danced with his wife and two children; they would each be called into the castle to give a taste of his proficiency271 before my lord the duke. 50 Sometimes the performance was of a more personal interest, and produced much the same sensations as are felt on an English green on the arrival of a professional cricketer, or round an English billiard table during a match between Roberts and Cooke. This was when Jehan Negre, the Lombard, came to Blois and played chess against all these chess-players, and won much money from my lord and his intimates; or when Baudet Harenc of Chalons made ballades before all these ballade-makers272. 51
50 ChampoIlion-Figeac, 381, 361, 381.
51 Champollion-Figeac, 359,361.
It will not surprise the reader to learn they were all makers of ballades and rondels. To write verses for May day, seems to have been as much a matter of course, as to ride out with the cavalcade that went to gather hawthorn269. The choice of Valentines was a standing273 challenge, and the courtiers pelted274 each other with humorous and sentimental275 verses as in a literary carnival276. If an indecorous adventure befell our friend Maistre Estienne le Gout, my lord the duke would turn it into the funniest of rondels, all the rhymes being the names of the cases of nouns or the moods of verbs; and Maistre Estienne would make reply in similar fashion, seeking to prune277 the story of its more humiliating episodes. If Fredet was too long away from Court, a rondel went to upbraid278 him; and it was in a rondel that Fredet would excuse himself. Sometimes two or three, or as many as a dozen, would set to work on the same refrain, the same idea, or in the same macaronic jargon279. Some of the poetasters were heavy enough; others were not wanting in address; and the duchess herself was among those who most excelled. On one occasion eleven competitors made a ballade on the idea,
“I die of thirst beside the fountain’s edge”
(Je meurs de soif empres de la fontaine).
These eleven ballades still exist; and one of them arrests the attention rather from the name of the author than from any special merit in itself. It purports280 to be the work of Francois Villon; and so far as a foreigner can judge (which is indeed a small way), it may very well be his. Nay, and if any one thing is more probable than another, in the great TABULA RASA, or unknown land, which we are fain to call the biography of Villon, it seems probable enough that he may have gone upon a visit to Charles of Orleans. Where Master Baudet Harenc, of Chalons, found a sympathetic, or perhaps a derisive281 audience (for who can tell nowadays the degree of Baudet’s excellence282 in his art?), favour would not be wanting for the greatest ballade-maker of all time. Great as would seem the incongruity283, it may have pleased Charles to own a sort of kinship with ragged singers, and whimsically regard himself as one of the confraternity of poets. And he would have other grounds of intimacy284 with Villon. A room looking upon Windsor gardens is a different matter from Villon’s dungeon at Meun; yet each in his own degree had been tried in prison. Each in his own way also, loved the good things of this life and the service of the Muses285. But the same gulf286 that separated Burns from his Edinburgh patrons would separate the singer of Bohemia from the rhyming duke. And it is hard to imagine that Villon’s training amongst thieves, loose women, and vagabond students, had fitted him to move in a society of any dignity and courtliness. Ballades are very admirable things; and a poet is doubtless a most interesting visitor. But among the courtiers of Charles, there would be considerable regard for the proprieties287 of etiquette288; and even a duke will sometimes have an eye to his teaspoons289. Moreover, as a poet, I can conceive he may have disappointed expectation. It need surprise nobody if Villon’s ballade on the theme,
“I die of thirst beside the fountain’s edge,”
was but a poor performance. He would make better verses on the lee-side of a flagon at the sign of the Pomme du Pin, than in a cushioned settle in the halls of Blois.
Charles liked change of place. He was often not so much travelling as making a progress; now to join the king for some great tournament; now to visit King Rene, at Tarascon, where he had a study of his own and saw all manner of interesting things — oriental curios, King Rene painting birds, and, what particularly pleased him, Triboulet, the dwarf jester, whose skull-cap was no bigger than an orange. 52 Sometimes the journeys were set about on horseback in a large party, with the FOURRIERS sent forward to prepare a lodging290 at the next stage. We find almost Gargantuan291 details of the provision made by these officers against the duke’s arrival, of eggs and butter and bread, cheese and peas and chickens, pike and bream and barbel, and wine both white and red. 53 Sometimes he went by water in a barge292, playing chess or tables with a friend in the pavilion, or watching other vessels as they went before the wind. 54 Children ran along the bank, as they do to this day on the Crinan Canal; and when Charles threw in money, they would dive and bring it up. 55 As he looked on at their exploits, I wonder whether that room of gold and silk and worsted came back into his memory, with the device of little children in a river, and the sky full of birds?
52 Lecoy de la Marche, ROI RENE, II. 155, 177.
53 Champollion-Figeac, chaps. v. and vi.
54 IBID. 364; Works, i. 172.
55 Champollion-Figeac, 364: “Jeter de l’argent aux petis enfans qui estoient au long de Bourbon, pour les faire nonner en l’eau et aller querre l’argent au fond.”
He was a bit of a book-fancier, and had vied with his brother Angouleme in bringing back the library of their grandfather Charles V., when Bedford put it up for sale in London. 56 The duchess had a library of her own; and we hear of her borrowing romances from ladies in attendance on the blue-stocking Margaret of Scotland. 57 Not only were books collected, but new books were written at the court of Blois. The widow of one Jean Fougere, a bookbinder, seems to have done a number of odd commissions for the bibliophilous count. She it was who received three vellum-skins to bind293 the duchess’s Book of Hours, and who was employed to prepare parchment for the use of the duke’s scribes. And she it was who bound in vermilion leather the great manuscript of Charles’s own poems, which was presented to him by his secretary, Anthony Astesan, with the text in one column, and Astesan’s Latin version in the other. 58
56 Champollion-Figeac, 387.
57 NOUVELLE BIOGRAPHIE DIDOT, art. “Marie de Cleves.” Vallet, CHARLES VII, iii. 85, note 1.
58 Champollion-Figeac, 383, 384-386.
Such tastes, with the coming of years, would doubtless take the place of many others. We find in Charles’s verse much semi-ironical regret for other days, and resignation to growing infirmities. He who had been “nourished in the schools of love,” now sees nothing either to please or displease294 him. Old age has imprisoned him within doors, where he means to take his ease, and let younger fellows bestir themselves in life. He had written (in earlier days, we may presume) a bright and defiant little poem in praise of solitude. If they would but leave him alone with his own thoughts and happy recollections, he declared it was beyond the power of melancholy to affect him. But now, when his animal strength has so much declined that he sings the discomforts295 of winter instead of the inspirations of spring, and he has no longer any appetite for life, he confesses he is wretched when alone, and, to keep his mind from grievous thoughts, he must have many people around him, laughing, talking, and singing. 59
59 Works, ii. 57, 258.
While Charles was thus falling into years, the order of things, of which he was the outcome and ornament296, was growing old along with him. The semi-royalty of the princes of the blood was already a thing of the past; and when Charles VII. was gathered to his fathers, a new king reigned297 in France, who seemed every way the opposite of royal. Louis XI. had aims that were incomprehensible, and virtues that were inconceivable to his contemporaries. But his contemporaries were able enough to appreciate his sordid exterior298, and his cruel and treacherous299 spirit. To the whole nobility of France he was a fatal and unreasonable300 phenomenon. All such courts as that of Charles at Blois, or his friend Rene’s in Provence, would soon be made impossible; interference was the order of the day; hunting was already abolished; and who should say what was to go next? Louis, in fact, must have appeared to Charles primarily in the light of a kill-joy. I take it, when missionaries301 land in South Sea Islands and lay strange embargo302 on the simplest things in life, the islanders will not be much more puzzled and irritated than Charles of Orleans at the policy of the Eleventh Louis. There was one thing, I seem to apprehend303, that had always particularly moved him; and that was, any proposal to punish a person of his acquaintance. No matter what treason he may have made or meddled304 with, an Alencon or an Armagnac was sure to find Charles reappear from private life, and do his best to get him pardoned. He knew them quite well. He had made rondels with them. They were charming people in every way. There must certainly be some mistake. Had not he himself made anti-national treaties almost before he was out of his nonage? And for the matter of that, had not every one else done the like? Such are some of the thoughts by which he might explain to himself his aversion to such extremities305; but it was on a deeper basis that the feeling probably reposed306. A man of his temper could not fail to be impressed at the thought of disastrous307 revolutions in the fortunes of those he knew. He would feel painfully the tragic contrast, when those who had everything to make life valuable were deprived of life itself. And it was shocking to the clemency308 of his spirit, that sinners should be hurried before their judge without a fitting interval for penitence and satisfaction. It was this feeling which brought him at last, a poor, purblind blue-bottle of the later autumn, into collision with “the universal spider,” Louis XI. He took up the defence of the Duke of Brittany at Tours. But Louis was then in no humour to hear Charles’s texts and Latin sentiments; he had his back to the wall, the future of France was at stake; and if all the old men in the world had crossed his path, they would have had the rough side of his tongue like Charles of Orleans. I have found nowhere what he said, but it seems it was monstrously309 to the point, and so rudely conceived that the old duke never recovered the indignity310. He got home as far as Amboise, sickened, and died two days after (Jan. 4, 1465), in the seventy-fourth year of his age. And so a whiff of pungent311 prose stopped the issue of melodious312 rondels to the end of time.
V.
The futility313 of Charles’s public life was of a piece throughout. He never succeeded in any single purpose he set before him; for his deliverance from England, after twenty-five years of failure and at the cost of dignity and consistency, it would be ridiculously hyperbolical to treat as a success. During the first part of his life he was the stalking horse of Bernard d’Armagnac; during the second, he was the passive instrument of English diplomatists; and before he was well entered on the third, he hastened to become the dupe and catspaw of Burgundian treason. On each of these occasions, a strong and not dishonourable personal motive314 determined315 his behaviour. In 1407 and the following years, he had his father’s murder uppermost in his mind. During his English captivity, that thought was displaced by a more immediate316 desire for his own liberation. In 1440 a sentiment of gratitude to Philip of Burgundy blinded him to all else, and led him to break with the tradition of his party and his own former life. He was born a great vassal, and he conducted himself like a private gentleman. He began life in a showy and brilliant enough fashion, by the light of a petty personal chivalry317. He was not without some tincture of patriotism; but it was resolvable into two parts: a preference for life among his fellow-countrymen, and a barren point of honour. In England, he could comfort himself by the reflection that “he had been taken while loyally doing his devoir,” without any misgiving318 as to his conduct in the previous years, when he had prepared the disaster of Agincourt by wasteful319 feud. This unconsciousness of the larger interests is perhaps most happily exampled out of his own mouth. When Alencon stood accused of betraying Normandy into the hands of the English, Charles made a speech in his defence, from which I have already quoted more than once. Alencon, he said, had professed a great love and trust towards him; “yet did he give no great proof thereof, when he sought to betray Normandy; whereby he would have made me lose an estate of 100,000 livres a year, and might have occasioned the destruction of the kingdom and of all us Frenchmen.” These are the words of one, mark you, against whom Gloucester warned the English Council because of his “great subtility and cautelous disposition.” It is not hard to excuse the impatience320 of Louis XI., if such stuff was foisted321 on him by way of political deliberation.
This incapacity to see things with any greatness, this obscure and narrow view was fundamentally characteristic of the man as well as of the epoch. It is not even so striking in his public life, where he failed, as in his poems, where he notably322 succeeded. For wherever we might expect a poet to be unintelligent, it certainly would not be in his poetry. And Charles is unintelligent even there. Of all authors whom a modern may still read and read over again with pleasure, he has perhaps the least to say. His poems seem to bear testimony323 rather to the fashion of rhyming, which distinguished the age, than to any special vocation324 in the man himself. Some of them are drawing-room exercises and the rest seem made by habit. Great writers are struck with something in nature or society, with which they become pregnant and longing325; they are possessed326 with an idea, and cannot be at peace until they have put it outside of them in some distinct embodiment. But with Charles literature was an object rather than a mean; he was one who loved bandying words for its own sake; the rigidity327 of intricate metrical forms stood him in lieu of precise thought; instead of communicating truth, he observed the laws of a game; and when he had no one to challenge at chess or rackets, he made verses in a wager328 against himself. From the very idleness of the man’s mind, and not from intensity of feeling, it happens that all his poems are more or less autobiographical. But they form an autobiography329 singularly bald and uneventful. Little is therein recorded beside sentiments. Thoughts, in any true sense, he had none to record. And if we can gather that he had been a prisoner in England, that he had lived in the Orleannese, and that he hunted and went in parties of pleasure, I believe it is about as much definite experience as is to be found in all these five hundred pages of autobiographical verse. Doubtless, we find here and there a complaint on the progress of the infirmities of age. Doubtless, he feels the great change of the year, and distinguishes winter from spring; winter as the time of snow and the fireside; spring as the return of grass and flowers, the time of St. Valentine’s day and a beating heart. And he feels love after a fashion. Again and again, we learn that Charles of Orleans is in love, and hear him ring the changes through the whole gamut330 of dainty and tender sentiment. But there is never a spark of passion; and heaven alone knows whether there was any real woman in the matter, or the whole thing was an exercise in fancy. If these poems were indeed inspired by some living mistress, one would think he had never seen, never heard, and never touched her. There is nothing in any one of these so numerous love-songs to indicate who or what the lady was. Was she dark or fair, passionate331 or gentle like himself, witty332 or simple? Was it always one woman? or are there a dozen here immortalised in cold indistinction? The old English translator mentions gray eyes in his version of one of the amorous333 rondels; so far as I remember, he was driven by some emergency of the verse; but in the absence of all sharp lines of character and anything specific, we feel for the moment a sort of surprise, as though the epithet334 were singularly happy and unusual, or as though we had made our escape from cloudland into something tangible335 and sure. The measure of Charles’s indifference336 to all that now preoccupies337 and excites a poet, is best given by a positive example. If, besides the coming of spring, any one external circumstance may be said to have struck his imagination, it was the despatch338 of FOURRIERS, while on a journey, to prepare the night’s lodging. This seems to be his favourite image; it reappears like the upas-tree in the early work of Coleridge: we may judge with what childish eyes he looked upon the world, if one of the sights which most impressed him was that of a man going to order dinner.
Although they are not inspired by any deeper motive than the common run of contemporaneous drawing-room verses, those of Charles of Orleans are executed with inimitable lightness and delicacy339 of touch. They deal with floating and colourless sentiments, and the writer is never greatly moved, but he seems always genuine. He makes no attempt to set off thin conceptions with a multiplicity of phrases. His ballades are generally thin and scanty of import; for the ballade presented too large a canvas, and he was preoccupied340 by technical requirements. But in the rondel he has put himself before all competitors by a happy knack341 and a prevailing342 distinction of manner. He is very much more of a duke in his verses than in his absurd and inconsequential career as a statesman; and how he shows himself a duke is precisely343 by the absence of all pretension344, turgidity, or emphasis. He turns verses, as he would have come into the king’s presence, with a quiet accomplishment of grace.
Theodore de Banville, the youngest poet of a famous generation now nearly extinct, and himself a sure and finished artist, knocked off, in his happiest vein, a few experiments in imitation of Charles of Orleans. I would recommend these modern rondels to all who care about the old duke, not only because they are delightful in themselves, but because they serve as a contrast to throw into relief the peculiarities345 of their model. When de Banville revives a forgotten form of verse — and he has already had the honour of reviving the ballade — he does it in the spirit of a workman choosing a good tool wherever he can find one, and not at all in that of the dilettante346, who seeks to renew bygone forms of thought and make historic forgeries347. With the ballade this seemed natural enough; for in connection with ballades the mind recurs348 to Villon, and Villon was almost more of a modern than de Banville himself. But in the case of the rondel, a comparison is challenged with Charles of Orleans, and the difference between two ages and two literatures is illustrated349 in a few poems of thirteen lines. Something, certainly, has been retained of the old movement; the refrain falls in time like a well-played bass200; and the very brevity of the thing, by hampering350 and restraining the greater fecundity351 of the modern mind, assists the imitation. But de Banville’s poems are full of form and colour; they smack racily of modern life, and own small kindred with the verse of other days, when it seems as if men walked by twilight352, seeing little, and that with distracted eyes, and instead of blood, some thin and spectral353 fluid circulated in their veins354. They might gird themselves for battle, make love, eat and drink, and acquit355 themselves manfully in all the external parts of life; but of the life that is within, and those processes by which we render ourselves an intelligent account of what we feel and do, and so represent experience that we for the first time make it ours, they had only a loose and troubled possession. They beheld356 or took part in great events, but there was no answerable commotion357 in their reflective being; and they passed throughout turbulent epochs in a sort of ghostly quiet and abstraction. Feeling seems to have been strangely disproportioned to the occasion, and words were laughably trivial and scanty to set forth the feeling even such as it was. Juvenal des Ursins chronicles calamity358 after calamity, with but one comment for them all: that “it was great pity.” Perhaps, after too much of our florid literature, we find an adventitious359 charm in what is so different; and while the big drums are beaten every day by perspiring360 editors over the loss of a cock-boat or the rejection361 of a clause, and nothing is heard that is not proclaimed with sound of trumpet233, it is not wonderful if we retire with pleasure into old books, and listen to authors who speak small and clear, as if in a private conversation. Truly this is so with Charles of Orleans. We are pleased to find a small man without the buskin, and obvious sentiments stated without affectation. If the sentiments are obvious, there is all the more chance we may have experienced the like. As we turn over the leaves, we may find ourselves in sympathy with some one or other of these staid joys and smiling sorrows. If we do we shall be strangely pleased, for there is a genuine pathos362 in these simple words, and the lines go with a lilt, and sing themselves to music of their own.
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1
politic
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| adj.有智虑的；精明的；v.从政 | |
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specially
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| adv.特定地；特殊地；明确地 | |
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virtuous
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| adj.有品德的，善良的，贞洁的，有效力的 | |
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subsist
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| vi.生存，存在，供养 | |
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denominations
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| n.宗派( denomination的名词复数 )；教派；面额；名称 | |
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frigid
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| adj.寒冷的，凛冽的；冷淡的；拘禁的 | |
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bosom
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| n.胸，胸部；胸怀；内心；adj.亲密的 | |
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busts
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| 半身雕塑像( bust的名词复数 )； 妇女的胸部； 胸围； 突击搜捕 | |
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aspiration
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| n.志向，志趣抱负；渴望；(语)送气音；吸出 | |
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posterity
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| n.后裔，子孙，后代 | |
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dwarf
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| n.矮子，侏儒，矮小的动植物；vt.使…矮小 | |
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delightful
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| adj.令人高兴的，使人快乐的 | |
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mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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specious
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| adj.似是而非的；adv.似是而非地 | |
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virtue
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| n.德行，美德；贞操；优点；功效，效力 | |
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virtues
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| 美德( virtue的名词复数 )； 德行； 优点； 长处 | |
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eloquent
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| adj.雄辩的，口才流利的；明白显示出的 | |
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accomplished
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| adj.有才艺的；有造诣的；达到了的 | |
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fascination
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| n.令人着迷的事物，魅力，迷恋 | |
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gratitude
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| adj.感激，感谢 | |
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admiration
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| n.钦佩，赞美，羡慕 | |
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situated
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| adj.坐落在...的，处于某种境地的 | |
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sumptuously
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| 奢侈地，豪华地 | |
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adorned
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| [计]被修饰的 | |
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inventory
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| n.详细目录，存货清单 | |
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tapestried
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| adj.饰挂绣帷的，织在绣帷上的v.用挂毯（或绣帷）装饰( tapestry的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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tapestry
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| n.挂毯，丰富多采的画面 | |
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knight
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| n.骑士，武士；爵士 | |
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gathering
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| n.集会，聚会，聚集 | |
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purblind
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| adj.半盲的；愚笨的 | |
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vividly
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| adv.清楚地，鲜明地，生动地 | |
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scanty
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| adj.缺乏的，仅有的，节省的，狭小的，不够的 | |
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trite
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| adj.陈腐的 | |
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resentment
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| n.怨愤，忿恨 | |
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lesser
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| adj.次要的，较小的；adv.较小地，较少地 | |
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squire
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| n.护卫, 侍从, 乡绅 | |
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defiant
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| adj.无礼的，挑战的 | |
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loathsome
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| adj.讨厌的，令人厌恶的 | |
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sneer
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| v.轻蔑；嘲笑；n.嘲笑，讥讽的言语 | |
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industrious
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| adj.勤劳的，刻苦的，奋发的 | |
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smack
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| vt.拍，打，掴；咂嘴；vi.含有…意味；n.拍 | |
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ethics
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| n.伦理学；伦理观，道德标准 | |
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compendious
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| adj.简要的，精简的 | |
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nay
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| adv.不；n.反对票，投反对票者 | |
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profligate
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| adj.行为不检的；n.放荡的人，浪子，肆意挥霍者 | |
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tract
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| n.传单，小册子，大片(土地或森林) | |
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jousts
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| （骑士）骑着马用长矛打斗( joust的名词复数 )； 格斗，竞争 | |
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memoir
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| n.[pl.]回忆录，自传；记事录 | |
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49
entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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50
heralds
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| n.使者( herald的名词复数 )；预报者；预兆；传令官v.预示( herald的第三人称单数 )；宣布（好或重要） | |
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51
conclusive
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| adj.最后的，结论的；确凿的，消除怀疑的 | |
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52
wry
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| adj.讽刺的；扭曲的 | |
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53
crimson
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| n./adj.深(绯)红色(的)；vi.脸变绯红色 | |
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54
velvet
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| n.丝绒，天鹅绒；adj.丝绒制的，柔软的 | |
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pageant
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| n.壮观的游行；露天历史剧 | |
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gaily
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| adv.欢乐地，高兴地 | |
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groom
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| vt.给（马、狗等）梳毛，照料，使...整洁 | |
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58
contemptible
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| adj.可鄙的，可轻视的，卑劣的 | |
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copiously
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| adv.丰富地，充裕地 | |
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pious
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| adj.虔诚的；道貌岸然的 | |
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lasting
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| adj.永久的，永恒的；vbl.持续，维持 | |
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avenge
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| v.为...复仇，为...报仇 | |
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avenged
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| v.为…复仇，报…之仇( avenge的过去式和过去分词 )；为…报复 | |
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rivalry
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| n.竞争，竞赛，对抗 | |
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feud
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| n.长期不和；世仇；v.长期争斗；世代结仇 | |
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abeyance
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| n.搁置，缓办，中止，产权未定 | |
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conspired
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| 密谋( conspire的过去式和过去分词 )； 搞阴谋； （事件等）巧合； 共同导致 | |
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forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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squires
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| n.地主，乡绅( squire的名词复数 ) | |
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beset
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| v.镶嵌；困扰，包围 | |
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slain
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| 杀死，宰杀，杀戮( slay的过去分词 )； (slay的过去分词) | |
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precedent
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| n.先例，前例；惯例；adj.在前的，在先的 | |
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perturbed
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| adj.烦燥不安的v.使（某人）烦恼，不安( perturb的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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avowed
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| adj.公开声明的，承认的v.公开声明，承认( avow的过去式和过去分词) | |
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guilt
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| n.犯罪；内疚；过失，罪责 | |
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brazen
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| adj.厚脸皮的，无耻的，坚硬的 | |
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gallop
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| v./n.(马或骑马等)飞奔；飞速发展 | |
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faction
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| n.宗派，小集团；派别；派系斗争 | |
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remarkably
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| ad.不同寻常地，相当地 | |
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lucid
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| adj.明白易懂的，清晰的，头脑清楚的 | |
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interval
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| n.间隔，间距；幕间休息，中场休息 | |
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suppliant
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| adj.哀恳的；n.恳求者，哀求者 | |
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vassal
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| n.附庸的；属下；adj.奴仆的 | |
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vassals
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| n.奴仆( vassal的名词复数 )；（封建时代）诸侯；从属者；下属 | |
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zeal
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| n.热心，热情，热忱 | |
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intensity
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| n.强烈，剧烈；强度；烈度 | |
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fiery
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| adj.燃烧着的，火红的；暴躁的；激烈的 | |
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destined
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| adj.命中注定的；(for)以…为目的地的 | |
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bastard
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| n.坏蛋，混蛋；私生子 | |
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tragic
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| adj.悲剧的，悲剧性的，悲惨的 | |
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jealousy
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| n.妒忌，嫉妒，猜忌 | |
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straightforward
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| adj.正直的，坦率的；易懂的，简单的 | |
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pompous
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| adj.傲慢的，自大的；夸大的；豪华的 | |
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exasperate
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| v.激怒，使（疾病）加剧，使恶化 | |
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tingling
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| v.有刺痛感( tingle的现在分词 ) | |
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curiously
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| adv.有求知欲地；好问地；奇特地 | |
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joint
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| adj.联合的，共同的；n.关节，接合处；v.连接，贴合 | |
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disposition
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| n.性情，性格；意向，倾向；排列，部署 | |
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judgment
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| n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见 | |
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100
unpack
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| vt.打开包裹（或行李），卸货 | |
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101
hue
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| n.色度；色调；样子 | |
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102
gems
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| growth； economy； management； and customer satisfaction 增长 | |
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103
engraved
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| v.在（硬物）上雕刻（字，画等）( engrave的过去式和过去分词 )；将某事物深深印在（记忆或头脑中） | |
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104
trampled
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| 踩( trample的过去式和过去分词 )； 践踏； 无视； 侵犯 | |
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105
hoofs
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| n.（兽的）蹄，马蹄( hoof的名词复数 )v.（兽的）蹄，马蹄( hoof的第三人称单数 ) | |
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106
miscarriage
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| n.失败，未达到预期的结果；流产 | |
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107
vengeance
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| n.报复，报仇，复仇 | |
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108
wrought
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| v.引起；以…原料制作；运转；adj.制造的 | |
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109
worthy
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| adj.(of)值得的，配得上的；有价值的 | |
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110
honourable
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| adj.可敬的；荣誉的，光荣的 | |
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111
prodigal
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| adj.浪费的，挥霍的，放荡的 | |
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112
illustrate
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| v.举例说明，阐明；图解，加插图 | |
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113
penitence
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| n.忏悔，赎罪；悔过 | |
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114
creditors
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| n.债权人，债主( creditor的名词复数 ) | |
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115
cynical
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| adj.(对人性或动机)怀疑的，不信世道向善的 | |
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116
epoch
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| n.(新)时代；历元 | |
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117
debtor
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| n.借方，债务人 | |
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118
pretext
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| n.借口，托词 | |
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119
valid
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| adj.有确实根据的；有效的；正当的，合法的 | |
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120
disbursed
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| v.支出，付出( disburse的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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121
vouchers
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| n.凭证( voucher的名词复数 )；证人；证件；收据 | |
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122
justified
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| a.正当的，有理的 | |
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123
purely
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| adv.纯粹地，完全地 | |
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124
devastated
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| v.彻底破坏( devastate的过去式和过去分词)；摧毁；毁灭；在感情上（精神上、财务上等）压垮adj.毁坏的；极为震惊的 | |
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125
shameful
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|
| adj.可耻的，不道德的 | |
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126
reconciliation
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| n.和解，和谐，一致 | |
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127
margin
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| n.页边空白；差额；余地，余裕；边，边缘 | |
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128
allied
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| adj.协约国的；同盟国的 | |
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129
abominable
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| adj.可厌的，令人憎恶的 | |
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130
betrothed
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| n. 已订婚者 动词betroth的过去式和过去分词 | |
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131
monstrous
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| adj.巨大的；恐怖的；可耻的，丢脸的 | |
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132
rumour
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| n.谣言，谣传，传闻 | |
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133
uproar
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| n.骚动，喧嚣，鼎沸 | |
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134
subsided
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| v.（土地）下陷（因在地下采矿）( subside的过去式和过去分词 )；减弱；下降至较低或正常水平；一下子坐在椅子等上 | |
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135
bridle
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| n.笼头，束缚；vt.抑制，约束；动怒 | |
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136
lamentable
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| adj.令人惋惜的，悔恨的 | |
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137
tranquil
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| adj. 安静的, 宁静的, 稳定的, 不变的 | |
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138
tranquillity
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| n. 平静, 安静 | |
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139
countenance
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| n.脸色，面容；面部表情；vt.支持，赞同 | |
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140
sonnet
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| n.十四行诗 | |
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141
constable
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| n.(英国)警察，警官 | |
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142
ragged
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| adj.衣衫褴褛的，粗糙的，刺耳的 | |
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143
archer
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| n.射手，弓箭手 | |
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144
diligent
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| adj.勤勉的，勤奋的 | |
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145
ransom
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| n.赎金，赎身；v.赎回，解救 | |
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146
ransoms
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| 付赎金救人，赎金( ransom的名词复数 ) | |
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147
retailed
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| vt.零售（retail的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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148
asperity
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| n.粗鲁，艰苦 | |
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149
inclination
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| n.倾斜；点头；弯腰；斜坡；倾度；倾向；爱好 | |
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150
transgressions
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| n.违反，违法，罪过( transgression的名词复数 ) | |
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151
hatred
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| n.憎恶，憎恨，仇恨 | |
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152
utterances
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| n.发声( utterance的名词复数 )；说话方式；语调；言论 | |
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153
garish
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| adj.华丽而俗气的，华而不实的 | |
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154
luxurious
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| adj.精美而昂贵的；豪华的 | |
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155
stunned
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| adj. 震惊的，惊讶的 动词stun的过去式和过去分词 | |
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156
anthems
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| n.赞美诗( anthem的名词复数 )；圣歌；赞歌；颂歌 | |
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157
scarlet
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| n.深红色，绯红色，红衣；adj.绯红色的 | |
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158
virgins
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| 处女，童男( virgin的名词复数 )； 童贞玛利亚（耶稣之母） | |
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159
attired
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| adj.穿着整齐的v.使穿上衣服，使穿上盛装( attire的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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160
solitude
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| n. 孤独; 独居,荒僻之地,幽静的地方 | |
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161
captivity
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| n.囚禁；被俘；束缚 | |
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162
alleviation
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| n. 减轻，缓和，解痛物 | |
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163
hawking
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| 利用鹰行猎 | |
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164
honourably
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| adv.可尊敬地，光荣地，体面地 | |
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165
imprisoned
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| 下狱，监禁( imprison的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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166
vagrant
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| n.流浪者，游民；adj.流浪的，漂泊不定的 | |
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167
misery
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| n.痛苦，苦恼，苦难；悲惨的境遇，贫苦 | |
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168
constraint
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| n.(on)约束，限制；限制(或约束)性的事物 | |
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169
baron
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| n.男爵；(商业界等)巨头，大王 | |
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170
imprisonment
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| n.关押，监禁，坐牢 | |
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171
dungeon
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| n.地牢，土牢 | |
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172
distinguished
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| adj.卓越的，杰出的，著名的 | |
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173
recurrence
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| n.复发，反复，重现 | |
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174
scotch
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|
| n.伤口，刻痕；苏格兰威士忌酒；v.粉碎，消灭，阻止；adj.苏格兰(人)的 | |
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175
distressing
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| a.使人痛苦的 | |
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176
adversary
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| adj.敌手，对手 | |
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177
fugitive
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| adj.逃亡的，易逝的；n.逃犯，逃亡者 | |
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178
elude
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| v.躲避，困惑 | |
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179
connoisseur
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| n.鉴赏家，行家，内行 | |
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180
retrospect
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| n.回顾，追溯；v.回顾，回想，追溯 | |
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181
animated
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| adj.生气勃勃的，活跃的，愉快的 | |
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182
habitual
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| adj.习惯性的；通常的，惯常的 | |
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183
maker
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| n.制造者，制造商 | |
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184
gallant
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| adj.英勇的，豪侠的；(向女人)献殷勤的 | |
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185
patriotic
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|
| adj.爱国的，有爱国心的 | |
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186
sojourn
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| v./n.旅居，寄居；逗留 | |
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187
consistency
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| n.一贯性，前后一致，稳定性；(液体的)浓度 | |
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188
puritanical
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| adj.极端拘谨的；道德严格的 | |
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189
covetousness
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190
impeachment
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| n.弹劾；控告；怀疑 | |
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191
intercourse
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| n.性交；交流，交往，交际 | |
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192
ransomed
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| 付赎金救人，赎金( ransom的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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193
abortive
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| adj.不成功的，发育不全的 | |
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194
persecuted
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| （尤指宗教或政治信仰的）迫害(~sb. for sth.)( persecute的过去式和过去分词 )； 烦扰，困扰或骚扰某人 | |
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195
attains
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| （通常经过努力）实现( attain的第三人称单数 )； 达到； 获得； 达到（某年龄、水平、状况） | |
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196
dignified
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| a.可敬的，高贵的 | |
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197
aspire
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| vi.(to，after)渴望，追求，有志于 | |
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198
authenticity
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| n.真实性 | |
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199
diligently
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| ad.industriously;carefully | |
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200
bass
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| n.男低音(歌手)；低音乐器；低音大提琴 | |
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201
procure
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| vt.获得，取得，促成；vi.拉皮条 | |
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202
hereditary
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| adj.遗传的，遗传性的，可继承的，世袭的 | |
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203
malice
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| n.恶意，怨恨，蓄意；[律]预谋 | |
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204
vendetta
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| n.世仇，宿怨 | |
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205
originality
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| n.创造力，独创性；新颖 | |
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206
disarms
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| v.裁军( disarm的第三人称单数 )；使息怒 | |
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207
melancholy
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| n.忧郁，愁思；adj.令人感伤（沮丧）的，忧郁的 | |
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208
amiable
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| adj.和蔼可亲的，友善的，亲切的 | |
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209
thoroughly
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| adv.完全地，彻底地，十足地 | |
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210
scruples
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| n.良心上的不安( scruple的名词复数 )；顾虑，顾忌v.感到于心不安，有顾忌( scruple的第三人称单数 ) | |
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211
torrent
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| n.激流，洪流；爆发，(话语等的)连发 | |
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212
sordid
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| adj.肮脏的，不干净的，卑鄙的，暗淡的 | |
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213
chronological
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| adj.按年月顺序排列的，年代学的 | |
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214
spires
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| n.（教堂的） 塔尖，尖顶( spire的名词复数 ) | |
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215
shrine
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| n.圣地，神龛，庙；v.将...置于神龛内，把...奉为神圣 | |
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216
cavalcade
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| n.车队等的行列 | |
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217
defiles
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| v.玷污( defile的第三人称单数 )；污染；弄脏；纵列行进 | |
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218
esteem
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| n.尊敬，尊重；vt.尊重，敬重；把…看作 | |
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219
stereotyped
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| adj.(指形象、思想、人物等)模式化的 | |
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220
piety
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| n.虔诚，虔敬 | |
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221
courteously
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| adv.有礼貌地，亲切地 | |
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222
sergeants
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| 警官( sergeant的名词复数 )； （美国警察）警佐； （英国警察）巡佐； 陆军（或空军）中士 | |
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223
defenders
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| n.防御者( defender的名词复数 )；守卫者；保护者；辩护者 | |
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224
unity
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| n.团结，联合，统一；和睦，协调 | |
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225
patriotically
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| 爱国地；忧国地 | |
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226
defiance
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| n.挑战，挑衅，蔑视，违抗 | |
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227
slew
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| v.（使）旋转；n.大量，许多 | |
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228
professed
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| 公开声称的，伪称的，已立誓信教的 | |
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229
alas
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| int.唉(表示悲伤、忧愁、恐惧等) | |
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230
factious
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| adj.好搞宗派活动的，派系的，好争论的 | |
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231
conceit
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| n.自负，自高自大 | |
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232
redress
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| n.赔偿，救济，矫正；v.纠正，匡正，革除 | |
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233
trumpet
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| n.喇叭，喇叭声；v.吹喇叭，吹嘘 | |
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234
trumpeting
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| 大声说出或宣告（trumpet的现在分词形式） | |
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235
celebrated
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| adj.有名的，声誉卓著的 | |
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236
spouted
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| adj.装有嘴的v.（指液体）喷出( spout的过去式和过去分词 )；滔滔不绝地讲；喋喋不休地说；喷水 | |
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237
dreary
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| adj.令人沮丧的，沉闷的，单调乏味的 | |
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238
thronged
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| v.成群，挤满( throng的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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239
archers
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| n.弓箭手，射箭运动员( archer的名词复数 ) | |
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240
bodyguard
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| n.护卫，保镖 | |
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241
discretion
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| n.谨慎；随意处理 | |
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242
retinue
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| n.侍从；随员 | |
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243
mightily
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| ad.强烈地；非常地 | |
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244
ovations
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| n.热烈欢迎( ovation的名词复数 ) | |
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245
vessel
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| n.船舶；容器，器皿；管，导管，血管 | |
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246
vessels
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| n.血管( vessel的名词复数 )；船；容器；（具有特殊品质或接受特殊品质的）人 | |
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247
brass
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| n.黄铜；黄铜器，铜管乐器 | |
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248
malcontent
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| n.不满者，不平者；adj.抱不平的，不满的 | |
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249
humiliatingly
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250
wile
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| v.诡计，引诱；n.欺骗，欺诈 | |
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251
turmoil
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|
| n.骚乱，混乱，动乱 | |
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252
cannily
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| 精明地 | |
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253
renaissance
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| n.复活，复兴，文艺复兴 | |
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254
quaintly
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|
| adv.古怪离奇地 | |
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255
reign
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| n.统治时期，统治，支配，盛行；v.占优势 | |
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256
imperative
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| n.命令，需要；规则；祈使语气；adj.强制的；紧急的 | |
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257
killing
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| n.巨额利润；突然赚大钱，发大财 | |
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258
accomplishment
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|
| n.完成，成就，（pl.）造诣，技能 | |
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259
accomplishments
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|
| n.造诣；完成( accomplishment的名词复数 )；技能；成绩；成就 | |
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260
delectable
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|
| adj.使人愉快的；美味的 | |
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261
joyful
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|
| adj.欢乐的，令人欢欣的 | |
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262
vein
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| n.血管，静脉；叶脉，纹理；情绪；vt.使成脉络 | |
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263
largesse
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| n.慷慨援助，施舍 | |
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264
collaborating
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|
| 合作( collaborate的现在分词 )； 勾结叛国 | |
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265
picturesque
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|
| adj.美丽如画的，（语言）生动的，绘声绘色的 | |
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266
chapel
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| n.小教堂，殡仪馆 | |
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267
enjoyments
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|
| 愉快( enjoyment的名词复数 )； 令人愉快的事物； 享有； 享受 | |
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268
patriotism
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| n.爱国精神，爱国心，爱国主义 | |
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269
hawthorn
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| 山楂 | |
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270
juggler
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| n. 变戏法者, 行骗者 | |
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271
proficiency
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| n.精通，熟练，精练 | |
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272
makers
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| n.制造者，制造商（maker的复数形式） | |
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273
standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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274
pelted
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|
| （连续地）投掷( pelt的过去式和过去分词 )； 连续抨击； 攻击； 剥去…的皮 | |
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275
sentimental
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|
| adj.多愁善感的，感伤的 | |
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276
carnival
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| n.嘉年华会，狂欢，狂欢节，巡回表演 | |
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277
prune
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| n.酶干；vt.修剪，砍掉，削减；vi.删除 | |
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278
upbraid
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|
| v.斥责，责骂，责备 | |
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279
jargon
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| n.术语，行话 | |
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280
purports
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| v.声称是…，（装得）像是…的样子( purport的第三人称单数 ) | |
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281
derisive
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|
| adj.嘲弄的 | |
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282
excellence
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| n.优秀，杰出，(pl.)优点，美德 | |
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283
incongruity
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|
| n.不协调，不一致 | |
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284
intimacy
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|
| n.熟悉，亲密，密切关系，亲昵的言行 | |
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285
muses
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| v.沉思，冥想( muse的第三人称单数 )；沉思自语说（某事） | |
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286
gulf
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| n.海湾；深渊，鸿沟；分歧，隔阂 | |
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287
proprieties
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|
| n.礼仪，礼节；礼貌( propriety的名词复数 )；规矩；正当；合适 | |
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288
etiquette
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|
| n.礼仪，礼节；规矩 | |
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289
teaspoons
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| n.茶匙( teaspoon的名词复数 )；一茶匙的量 | |
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290
lodging
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| n.寄宿，住所；(大学生的)校外宿舍 | |
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291
gargantuan
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|
| adj.巨大的，庞大的 | |
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292
barge
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| n.平底载货船，驳船 | |
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293
bind
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|
| vt.捆，包扎；装订；约束；使凝固；vi.变硬 | |
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294
displease
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|
| vt.使不高兴，惹怒；n.不悦，不满，生气 | |
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295
discomforts
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|
| n.不舒适( discomfort的名词复数 )；不愉快，苦恼 | |
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296
ornament
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| v.装饰，美化；n.装饰，装饰物 | |
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297
reigned
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|
| vi.当政，统治（reign的过去式形式） | |
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298
exterior
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|
| adj.外部的，外在的；表面的 | |
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299
treacherous
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|
| adj.不可靠的，有暗藏的危险的；adj.背叛的，背信弃义的 | |
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300
unreasonable
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|
| adj.不讲道理的，不合情理的，过度的 | |
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301
missionaries
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| n.传教士( missionary的名词复数 ) | |
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302
embargo
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|
| n.禁运（令）；vt.对...实行禁运，禁止（通商） | |
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303
apprehend
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|
| vt.理解，领悟，逮捕，拘捕，忧虑 | |
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304
meddled
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| v.干涉，干预（他人事务）( meddle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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305
extremities
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|
| n.端点( extremity的名词复数 )；尽头；手和足；极窘迫的境地 | |
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306
reposed
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|
| v.将（手臂等）靠在某人（某物）上( repose的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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307
disastrous
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|
| adj.灾难性的，造成灾害的；极坏的，很糟的 | |
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308
clemency
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|
| n.温和，仁慈，宽厚 | |
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309
monstrously
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310
indignity
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|
| n.侮辱，伤害尊严，轻蔑 | |
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311
pungent
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|
| adj.（气味、味道）刺激性的，辛辣的；尖锐的 | |
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312
melodious
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|
| adj.旋律美妙的，调子优美的，音乐性的 | |
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313
futility
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| n.无用 | |
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314
motive
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|
| n.动机，目的；adv.发动的，运动的 | |
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315
determined
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|
| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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316
immediate
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|
| adj.立即的；直接的，最接近的；紧靠的 | |
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317
chivalry
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|
| n.骑士气概，侠义；（男人）对女人彬彬有礼，献殷勤 | |
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318
misgiving
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|
| n.疑虑，担忧，害怕 | |
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319
wasteful
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|
| adj.（造成）浪费的，挥霍的 | |
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320
impatience
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|
| n.不耐烦，急躁 | |
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321
foisted
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|
| 强迫接受，把…强加于( foist的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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322
notably
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|
| adv.值得注意地，显著地，尤其地，特别地 | |
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323
testimony
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|
| n.证词；见证，证明 | |
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324
vocation
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|
| n.职业，行业 | |
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325
longing
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| n.（for）渴望 | |
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326
possessed
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|
| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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327
rigidity
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| adj.钢性，坚硬 | |
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328
wager
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| n.赌注；vt.押注，打赌 | |
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329
autobiography
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| n.自传 | |
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330
gamut
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| n.全音阶，(一领域的)全部知识 | |
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331
passionate
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|
| adj.热情的，热烈的，激昂的，易动情的，易怒的，性情暴躁的 | |
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332
witty
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| adj.机智的，风趣的 | |
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333
amorous
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| adj.多情的；有关爱情的 | |
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334
epithet
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| n.（用于褒贬人物等的）表述形容词，修饰语 | |
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335
tangible
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|
| adj.有形的，可触摸的，确凿的，实际的 | |
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336
indifference
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| n.不感兴趣，不关心，冷淡，不在乎 | |
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337
preoccupies
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|
| v.占据（某人）思想，使对…全神贯注，使专心于( preoccupy的第三人称单数 ) | |
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338
despatch
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| n./v.(dispatch)派遣；发送；n.急件；新闻报道 | |
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339
delicacy
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| n.精致，细微，微妙，精良；美味，佳肴 | |
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340
preoccupied
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|
| adj.全神贯注的，入神的；被抢先占有的；心事重重的v.占据（某人）思想，使对…全神贯注，使专心于( preoccupy的过去式) | |
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341
knack
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|
| n.诀窍，做事情的灵巧的，便利的方法 | |
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342
prevailing
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| adj.盛行的；占优势的；主要的 | |
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343
precisely
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|
| adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地 | |
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344
pretension
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| n.要求；自命，自称；自负 | |
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345
peculiarities
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|
| n. 特质, 特性, 怪癖, 古怪 | |
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346
dilettante
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| n.半瓶醋，业余爱好者 | |
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347
forgeries
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| 伪造( forgery的名词复数 )； 伪造的文件、签名等 | |
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348
recurs
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|
| 再发生，复发( recur的第三人称单数 ) | |
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349
illustrated
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|
| adj. 有插图的，列举的 动词illustrate的过去式和过去分词 | |
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350
hampering
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|
| 妨碍，束缚，限制( hamper的现在分词 ) | |
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351
fecundity
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|
| n.生产力；丰富 | |
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352
twilight
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| n.暮光，黄昏；暮年，晚期，衰落时期 | |
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353
spectral
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|
| adj.幽灵的，鬼魂的 | |
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354
veins
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|
| n.纹理；矿脉( vein的名词复数 )；静脉；叶脉；纹理 | |
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355
acquit
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|
| vt.宣判无罪；(oneself)使(自己)表现出 | |
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356
beheld
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|
| v.看，注视( behold的过去式和过去分词 )；瞧；看呀；（叙述中用于引出某人意外的出现）哎哟 | |
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357
commotion
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|
| n.骚动，动乱 | |
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358
calamity
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|
| n.灾害，祸患，不幸事件 | |
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359
adventitious
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| adj.偶然的 | |
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360
perspiring
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|
| v.出汗，流汗( perspire的现在分词 ) | |
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361
rejection
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|
| n.拒绝，被拒，抛弃，被弃 | |
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362
pathos
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| n.哀婉，悲怆 | |
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