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CHAPTER XII
ARCHBISHOP FRANCON
One of the pavilions of the royal residence at Compiegne served as the apartment of Ghisèle, the daughter of Charles the Simple, King of the Franks. The young princess usually was in the company of her female associates in the large hall on the first floor. A high and narrow window, made of little glass squares, pierced a wall ten feet thick, and opened upon the sombre and vast forest in the midst of which rose the palace of Compiegne. This morning Ghisèle was engaged upon a piece of tapestry. She had just completed her fourteenth year. Married at sixteen, her father, Charles the Simple, was a parent at seventeen.
Ghisèle's face was childlike and mild. Her nurse, a woman of about forty, handed to her the strands of woolen thread of different colors which the princess used at her work. At the princess' feet, on a wooden bench, sat Yvonne, her foster-sister. A little further away, several young girls were busily spinning, or conversed in an undertone while plying their needles.
"Jeanike," said Ghisèle to her nurse, "my father always comes to embrace me in the morning; he has not yet come to-day."
"Count Rothbert and seigneur Francon, the Archbishop of Rouen, arrived last night from Paris with a large escort. The chamberlain was sent to wake up the King, your father. Since four in the morning he has been in conversation with the count and the archbishop. The conference must be on some very important matter."
"This night call makes me uneasy. I only hope it does not mean some bad news."
"What bad news is there to be feared? The proverb runs: 'Can the Northmans be in Paris?'" retorted the nurse smiling and shrugging her shoulders. "Do not take alarm so quickly, my dear child."
"I know, Jeanike, that the Northmans are not in Paris. May God save us from those pirates! May He hold them back in their frozen haunts."
"The chaplain was telling us the other day," put in Yvonne, "that they have hoofs of goats and on their heads horns of oxen."
"Keep still! Keep still, Yvonne!" exclaimed Ghisèle with a shudder. "Do not mention those pagans! Their bare name horrifies me! Alas, were they not the cause of my mother's death?"
"It is true," answered the nurse sadly. "Oh, it was a fearful night in which those demons, led by the accursed Rolf, attacked the castle of Kersey-on-the-Oise after a rapid and unexpected ascent of the river. The Queen, your mother, was nursing you at the time. She was so frightened that her breasts dried and she died. It was upon that misfortune that you shared my milk with my little Yvonne. Until that time I had felt very wretched. A stray child, sold in her early years to the intendant of the royal domain of Kersey, my fate improved when I became your foster-mother. It helped my eldest son, Germain, to become one of the chief foresters of the woods of Compiegne."
"Oh, nurse," replied Ghisèle with a sigh, her eyes filling with tears, "everyone has his troubles! I am a King's daughter, but am motherless. For pity's sake never mention in my hearing the name of those Northmans, of those accursed pagans who deprived me of a mother's love!"
"Come, dear child, do not cry," said Jeanike affectionately and drying the tears on Ghisèle's face, while the princess' foster-sister, kneeling upon the little bench and unable to repress her own tears, looked at the princess disconsolately.
At that moment the curtain over the farther door of the apartment was pushed aside, and the King of the Franks, Charles the Simple, stepped in. This descendant of Charles the great emperor, was then thirty-two years of age. His bulging eyes, his retreating chin, his hanging lower lip imparted to his physiognomy a look of such stupidity and dullness that anyone would pronounce him a fool, at first sight. His long hair, the symbol of royalty, framed in a puffed face that was fringed with a sparse beard. The King looked profoundly downcast, and brusquely said to Jeanike:
"Go out, nurse! Out of the room everybody!"
The King remained alone with Ghisèle. The child embraced her father tenderly and looked to find in his presence the needed consolation for the painful thoughts that the recollection of her mother had awakened in her. Charles the Simple quietly submitted to the caresses of his daughter, and said:
"Good morning, child; good morning. But why do you weep?"
"For very little, good father. I was feeling sad. Your sight banishes my sadness. You are late this morning. My nurse tells me that last night the Count of Paris arrived at the castle together with the Archbishop of Rouen."
The King sighed, and nodded affirmatively with his head.
"They did not, I hope, bring you bad news, father?"
"Alas," answered Charles the Simple, sighing again and looking up at the ceiling, "the tidings that they bring would be disastrous, aye, they would, if I refuse to accept certain conditions!"
"And is it in your power to fulfil those conditions?" asked Ghisèle, and the girl looked into her father's face with so childlike and mild a countenance that Charles the Simple, but not wicked, seemed embarrassed and touched. He dropped his eyes before his daughter and stammered:
"Those conditions! Oh, those conditions! They are hard! Oh, so very hard! But – what is to be done? Fain would I resist. But I am forced to. What would you have me do if I should be forced to do what should give us pain?"
"You can not be commanded, you, the master, the sovereign, the King of the Franks!"
"I, King of the Franks!" cried Charles the Simple with bitterness and rage. "Is there, perchance, a King of the Franks in existence? The counts, the dukes, the marquises, the bishops, the abbots – they are the kings! Have not the seigneurs, for the last century, made themselves the sovereign and hereditary masters of the counties and duchies which they were simply put there to administer during their lives and in the name of the King? Who is it that reigns in Vermandois? Is it I? No, it is Count Herbert! Who reigns over the country of Melun? Is it I? No, it is Count Errenger! – and over the country of Rheims? Archbishop Foulque; and in Provence? Duke Louis the Blind; and in Lorraine? Duke Louis IV; and in Burgundy? Duke Rodulf; and in Brittany? Duke Allan – Those are the brigands, they and so many other thieves, small and large, who have plucked us of one province after another; bit by bit they have appropriated to themselves the royal heritage of our fathers. I tell you this, my child, in order that you may understand that, however hard the conditions may be that are imposed upon me, I must, alas! submit. The seigneurs command, I obey. Am I in a condition to resist them? Are they not intrenched in the fortified castles that they have made Gaul to bristle with all over the face of the land? I barely can muster up enough soldiers to defend the small domain that is left to me. Over what region can I say that I reign to-day – I, the descendant of Charles the Great, the redoubtable emperor who ruled over the world? I do not possess the hundredth part of Gaul! Figure it out, Ghisèle, figure it out, and you will see that there is nothing now left to me but the Orleanois, Neustria, the country of Laon and my domains of Compiegne, Fontainebleau, Braine and Kersey. How would you expect me to resist the seigneurs, and that I say 'No!' when they order me to say 'Yes!' seeing my forces are so trifling?" And Charles the Simple, stamping the floor with rage, clenched his fists and cried out: "Oh, my poor Ghisèle! If we only had our ancestor Charles the Great to defend us now, we would not now be dictated to as we are! The brave emperor would march forth at the head of his troops to crush the insolent seigneurs and archbishops in their own lairs! – Alack! Alack! I have neither the courage, nor the will, nor the power! They call me 'the Simple'! – They are right," added the King overcome with sorrow and weeping profusely. "Yes, yes; I am a simpleton! But a poor simpleton who is greatly to be pitied – especially at this hour – my child!"
"Good father!" exclaimed Ghisèle, throwing herself on the neck of the King whose face was bathed in tears. "Do not give way to grief so. Will there not always be enough land left to you in which to live in peace with your daughter who loves and your servants who are attached to you?"
The King looked fixedly at Ghisèle, and wiping his eyes with the back of his hand said in a voice broken with sobs: "Do you know what Count Rothbert – " but suddenly breaking off he proceeded with an explosion of idle rage: "I abhor this family of the Counts of Paris! It is they who robbed us of the duchy of France. – Those people are our most dangerous enemies! Some fine day, that Rothbert will dethrone me absolutely, as his brother Eudes dethroned Charles the Fat! Oh, felonious, impudent and thieving family! With what joy would I not exterminate you, if I only had the power of Charles the Great! – But I have no courage – I do not even dare to order them to be killed. They are well aware of this – and that is why they trample over me!" The King's voice was smothered by his sobs. He could only add: "Shame and humiliation!"
"I conjure you, dear father; drive away these evil thoughts – But what did that wicked Count Rothbert say to you?"
"First of all, he said to me that the Northmans were before Paris, and in immense numbers."
"The Northmans!" cried Ghisèle turning pale and shuddering from head to foot with fear. "The Northmans before Paris! Oh, woe, woe is us!" and the child hid her face in her hands, while tears inundated her countenance and her frame shook with convulsive sobs.
With his eyes fixed on the floor, not venturing to raise them lest they should encounter his daughter's, Charles the Simple proceeded with a tremulous voice:
"The Count of Paris, as I was saying, informed me that the Northmans were before the city. 'What would you have me do against it?' I asked him; 'I have neither soldiers nor men; you, seigneurs, who are the masters of almost all Gaul, have nothing else to do but to defend your own possessions; that is your concern.' Rothbert answered me: 'The Northmans threaten to burn down Paris, massacre the people, and to overrun Gaul ravaging and sacking the fields and towns. No resistance can be offered them. The majority of the villeins and serfs refuse to take the field against them. The soldiers at the disposal of us, the seigneurs, are too few in number to pretend to combat the pirates. We must treat with them.' I then, my little Ghisèle, said to the count: 'Very well, treat; that is your affair, seeing those pagans are before your walls of Paris and in your duchy of France.' 'And so I did,' Rothbert answered me; 'I treated in your name with the envoys of Rolf, the Northman chief.'"
"With Rolf," murmured Ghisèle clasping her hands in horror. "With that pirate! That felon steeped in crime and sacrilege! That monster who was the cause of my mother's death!"
"Alas! To the desolation of us both, dear daughter, this accursed Rothbert, aiming only at the protection of his city of Paris and of his duchy of France from the clutches of the old Northman brigand, promised in my name that I would relinquish Neustria to him – Neustria, the best of the provinces left to me – and besides – "
As Ghisèle perceived that her father hesitated to finish the sentence, she wiped his tears and asked; "And besides, what else do they demand, father?"
Charles the Simple remained for a moment silent, and shuddered. Presently, however, overcoming the imbecile weakness of his character, he broke out into fresh tears, crying: "No! No! I will not! However much of a simpleton I may be, that shall never be. No! For once, at least, in my life I shall act the King!" And closing his daughter in his arms, Charles the Simple covered her head with kisses and cried: "No! No! He shall not have my Ghisèle! The insolence of that old brigand, to think of marrying – the grand-daughter of Charles the Great – and she a child of barely fourteen! Sooner than see you the wife of Rolf, I would kill you – I would kill you on the spot. Oh, Lord God, have mercy upon me!"
Ghisèle heard her father's words almost without understanding them. She was gazing upon him with mingled doubt and stupor when a new personage stepped into the hall. It was Francon, Archbishop of Rouen. The man's impassive face, cold and hard, resembled a marble mask. He approached close to Ghisèle and her father, who still clung together in a close embrace, and pointing with his hand to the curtain behind which he had kept himself concealed up to then, said in his sharp, short style:
"Charles, I have heard everything."
"You spied upon me!" cried the King. "You have dared to surprise the secrets of your master!"
"I mistrusted your weakness. After our interview with Rothbert, I followed you. I have overheard everything;" and addressing himself to the young girl who, trembling at every limb, had fallen back upon her seat, the Archbishop of Rouen proceeded in a solemn and threatening voice: "Ghisèle, your father told you the truth. He is King only in name. The little territory that he still is master of is, like his crown, at the mercy of the Frankish seigneurs. They will dethrone him whenever it should please them, as they dethroned Charles the Fat and crowned in his stead Eudes, the Count of Paris, only twenty-five years ago."
"Yes! Yes! And there will be no lack for a bishop to consecrate the new usurper, just as there was found one to consecrate Count Eudes, not so, Francon?" cried Charles the Simple with bitterness. "Such is the gratitude of the priests towards the descendants of the Frankish Kings that have made the Church so rich!"
"The Church owes nothing to Kings; the Kings owe to the Church the remission of their sins!" was the disdainful reply of the archbishop. "The Kings have bestowed wealth upon the Church here below, on earth; they have been rewarded a hundredfold in heaven and all eternity. Now, Ghisèle, listen to what I have to say to you. If, by reason of your refusal, or the refusal of your father, the Northman pagans should, as they threaten to do, renew against Gaul the frightful and sacrilegious warfare that we are all familiar with, but which they promise to put an end to in the event of your father's consenting to grant your hand to their chieftain Rolf and to relinquish Neustria to him, then you and your father will be alone responsible for the frightful ills that will anew desolate the land."
"Francon," put in Charles the Simple imploringly, "the seigneurs also have provinces and daughters. Why could not they give to Rolf one of their provinces and one of their daughters?"
"Rolf wants Neustria, and Neustria belongs to you; Rolf wants Ghisèle, and Ghisèle is your daughter. The two sacrifices impose themselves upon the King!"
"I to marry that monster who caused my mother's death!" cried Ghisèle. "No! Never! Never! Rather would I die!"
"A curse, then, upon you in this world and the next!" shouted the archbishop in a thundering voice. "Let the blood that is to flow in this impious war fall upon your head and your father's! You will both have to answer before God for all the acts of sacrilege that you can prevent! You will both expiate these sins here on earth by the excommunication that I shall hurl upon you, and after death in everlasting flames! Charles, excommunicated and damned in this world shall be an object of horror to all his subjects. The Church that consecrated him King, will pronounce him damned and forfeit of his throne! His life will be ended in a dungeon!"
The terror that took hold of Charles the Simple as the Archbishop of Rouen spoke, now reached its height. He fell upon his knees at the priest's feet and clasping his hands implored:
"Mercy! Mercy, holy father! I shall give Neustria to Rolf – but not my daughter! She is barely fourteen years of age! Fourteen years! It is in itself almost a crime to marry a child at that age! And, then, she is so timid! Alas, to place her in that monster's bed would be to consign her to death!" And the wretched sovereign sobbed convulsively, and still implored: "Mercy! Mercy! Can you threaten me with eternal punishment because I refuse to deliver my child to a bandit whom the Church has excommunicated for his unspeakable crimes?"
"Rolf will be baptized!" answered the prelate solemnly. "The lustral waters will wash away his soilure, and he will enter the nuptial couch clad in the white robes of a catechumen, the symbol of innocence!"
"Help! Nurse, help! My daughter is dying!" cried Charles the Simple leaping from the floor and convulsively straining in his arms the inert body of Ghisèle, who pale and cold as a corpse, had swooned away in her seat.
The prelate triumphed.
CHAPTER XIII
THE WEDDING OF ROLF
The city of Rouen was in gala. Large crowds of people filled the streets and pressed eagerly towards the basilica whose bells were pealing at their loudest. Among those who were wending their way towards the church were Eidiol, his daughter Anne the Sweet, Guyrion the Plunger and Rustic the Gay. They had left Paris two days before; they descended the Seine as far as Rouen in the vessel of the dean of the guild of the skippers of Paris. It was a trip of pleasure and profit. Eidiol sailed to Rouen in order to convey thither a cargo of merchandise and to witness the wedding of the daughter of Charles the Simple, King of the Franks, with Rolf, the chieftain of the Northman pirates, but now elevated to the rank of sovereign Duke of Neustria, which assumed the name of Northmandy.
Such was the indifference of that wretched population of serfs and villeins to the form of the yoke that oppressed them, that the people of Rouen, the capital of Neustria, now named Northmandy, actually delighted to see the great province in the hand of the pirates.
Eidiol and his family walked towards the square of the basilica, intending to watch the nuptial procession at close quarters. Anne rested on the arms of her father and brother. Rustic preceded them in order to clear a passage for them across the crowd that became denser and more compact as they drew nearer to the cathedral. Finally, after much struggling, the family of Eidiol succeeded in securing a post at the corner of a street that ran out into the square.
"Master Eidiol," said Rustic, "there is a milestone here. Let Anne stand on it. She will be better able to see the procession, and she will be free from the crush."
"No, Rustic," answered the young girl, "I would not dare to take that place."
"Jump on the milestone yourself," said the old man, "in case we can not see with our own eyes, we shall be able to see with yours. Myself and Guyrion will stay close to Anne."
As Eidiol spoke the distant sound of clarions was heard mingling with the redoubled clanging of the nearby bells, and a wild clamor of joy went up from the crowd.
"Here is the procession," cried Rustic from his perch; "it has turned into the square; clarion blowers on horseback head the march; they are followed by Frankish cavaliers, armed with lances bearing streamers; they carry painted gilt bucklers hanging from their necks. Oh, here come the Northman pirates clad in their armor and carrying the standard of old Rolf. The standard has a seagull with open beak and claws for its device. Well may you screech your cry of triumph, old sea bird! Your prey is magnificent: a province of Gaul and the daughter of a King!"
"Oh, Rustic, how can you joke in that way!" remarked Anne the Sweet in a tone of sad yet affectionate reproach. "Poor little Ghisèle! To wed that old monster! Do you see the poor girl? Poor victim!"
"No; I see nothing of her as yet. Ah, here come the female pirates! How martial they look in their armor of steel scales, with their azure bucklers on their arms! Now come the seigneurs of the suite of the Count of Paris, in their long robes embroidered with gold and ornamented with fur. Hold! They stop! They are looking back uneasily. What can have happened?" and leaning against the wall Rustic raised himself on the tips of his feet in order to see further. A minute later he cried: "Oh, the poor girl! Anne, you were right! Although she is the daughter of a King the girl is to be pitied. She looks like a victim led to death!"
"Is it of Ghisèle that you are talking, Rustic?" inquired the young girl. "What has happened to her? How I pity the poor child!"
"She was marching, leaning on the arm of Charles the Simple and paler than a corpse under her white bridal robe, when suddenly her strength entirely failed her. She collapsed and fell in a swoon into the arms of the seigneurs who stood near her."
"Oh, father!" said Anne the Sweet to Eidiol, her eyes moist with tears, "Is not that wretched girl's fate shocking!"
"And yet less shocking than the fate of millions of the women of our own race who have been violated by the seigneurs and the ecclesiastics. Those wretched women left their master's couch only to return to the exhausting and even crushing toils of servitude. Degraded, dejected, bought and sold like cattle, dying of grief or under their master's blows, ignorant of the joys of family life and depraved, they were brutified by slavery. Such, for centuries past, has been the condition of the women of our race, and still continues to be. How many millions of the women of our class die macerated, body and soul!"
"Alas! This poor King's daughter is surely guiltless of all these crimes! She is much to be pitied!"
"Master Eidiol," resumed Rustic, "Charles the Simple's daughter has regained consciousness; she now walks again, sustained by her father and the Count of Paris. Oh! Here comes Rolf! He wears a long white shirt over his armor. Behind Rolf marches our relative Gaëlo, together with the Beautiful Shigne. The procession has halted. It now resumes its march to the basilica. The clergy, with Archbishop Francon at the head, halt under the portal. Oh, Master Eidiol! I am dazzled! The precious stones glisten on the gilded copes of the priests, on their gold mitres, on the gold crosses! Gold, rubies, pearls, diamonds and emeralds glitter everywhere! The large cross, carried before the clergy, seems to be of massive gold! It is studded with precious stones! The wealth of Golconda!"
"Oh, young man of Nazareth!" exclaimed Eidiol. "Oh, Jesus, the carpenter! The friend of the poor in rags! You, whom our ancestress Geneviève saw done to death in Jerusalem by the high priests of your day! Would you acknowledge as your disciples these priests, these bishops so gorgeously robed and surrounded by so much splendor? Oh, clergy, ye modern generation of vipers!"
"Do you hear the chaunts of the priests and the sound of the portable organs, Master Eidiol? The clarions break in between. The bells are chiming with increased noise. The King, his daughter and old Rolf enter the portal of the basilica. Gold censers are being swung right and left and the smoke of incense mounts to the sky!"
"They burned incense to Clovis, the firebrand and blood-thirsty monster; they burned incense to Charles the Great who dethroned the stock of Clovis! And to-day they burn incense to Rolf, to Rolf the old pirate, to Rolf the murderer, to Rolf the perpetrator of sacrilege! The god of the priests is gold!"
The marriage of Rolf and Ghisèle was blessed and consecrated by Archbishop Francon in the princely cathedral of Rouen. The prelate also on the same day blessed the union of Shigne and Gaëlo. The ceremony of Ghisèle's marriage was barely over when the wretched girl again swooned away – the third time on that day – and was carried into an adjoining chamber on the arms of her women in waiting. Rolf, Charles the Simple, the Count of Paris, together with the seigneurs of their respective suites proceeded to the vast hall of the chapter of the Archbishopric of Rouen. On his head the gold crown of the Frankish Kings, in his hand his scepter, and the long royal mantle trailing on the floor behind him, Charles the Simple ascended and remained standing on an elevated dais. The Archbishop of Rouen and the bishops of the neighboring dioceses placed themselves to the right, while to the left of the King were ranked Rothbert, Count of Paris and Duke of France, and the Viscounts of Monthery, of Argenteuil, of Pontoise, together with many other Frankish seigneurs, among and above whom towered the tall figure of Burchart, seigneur of the country of Montmorency. At the foot of the dais, and facing the King and this assemblage of seigneurs and prelates, stood Rolf, accompanied by Gaëlo and Shigne, together with the leading Northman chiefs. The old pirate still had on the white shirt of the neophyte over his armor. His demeanor was triumphant, insolent and sly. Charles the Simple, on the contrary, looked sad and dejected, and furtively wiped away the tears that insisted on forcing themselves to his eyes. Despite his imbecility, the man loved his daughter; and the fate of Ghisèle overpowered him with grief.
Radiant with joy at having escaped the fresh disasters that Rolf had threatened to overwhelm Gaul with, the Count of Paris, the Archbishop of Rouen and all the other seigneurs and prelates enjoyed the abject state of the King. Nevertheless, however abased and hollow his title, still they envied it. Clad in the full magnificence of his episcopal robes, Archbishop Francon descended the steps of the dais with majestic tread, approached Rolf and said to him in a loud and solemn tone:
"It has pleased Charles, King of the Franks, to bestow upon you and your men all the fields, forests, towns, burgs, villages, inhabitants and cattle of Neustria – "
"If the King had refused to give me the province I would have taken it" put in Rolf, calmly interrupting the prelate. "You baptized me and my champions; we allowed ourselves to be dipped naked in a large basin of water, like so many fishes; we allowed you to sprinkle us with salt water, the genuine brine of the ocean; and we were then told to put long white shirts over our armor. I simply humored you in your priestly monkey shines."
"It is the sacred symbol of the purity of your soul, which has been cleansed of its soilure by the holy immersion of baptism," replied the archbishop. "Henceforth you are a Catholic and son of the Church of Rome. It is a very distinguished honor done to you."
"Aye, but you demanded from me, in exchange, all the lands of the abbeys of my new duchy of Northmandy for your Church. I have since learned that they make up one-fourth of my province."
"The goods of the Church are the goods of God," retorted the archbishop haughtily. "What is God's, is God's; no human power can lay hands on it."
"Priest!" cried Rolf puckering his brows with mingled anger and slyness, "take care lest the humor seize me to chase the whole pack of tonsured gentry from their nests in the abbeys, in order to prove to you once more that Rolf and his champions take and keep whatever it may please Rolf and his champions to take or to keep, without asking leave of your Church."
"To the devil with the man of the gold cap with two points!" chimed in several voices from among the freshly baptized pirates. "By the white horse of our god Thomarog! Does the fellow take us for fools? Death to the tonsured knave!"
"Rolf!" said the Archbishop of Rouen insinuatingly in order to calm the old pirate, "the light of our faith has not yet sufficiently dispelled the darkness in which paganism held your soul imprisoned. I do not threaten you – I shall remain faithful to our compact."
"That's then agreed!" replied Rolf. "It is give and take between us. If your priests serve me well, they shall keep their lands. But I must recoup myself for the property that I leave to your abbots;" and addressing the King, who, wholly indifferent to the conversation that was taking place before him, remained silent, somber and sad: "Charles, you gave me Ghisèle and Neustria. That is not now enough. A King's daughter should be more richly dowered. My duchy of Northmandy borders on Brittany. I demand this province also, together with all its towns, abbeys and dependencies."
"You want Brittany!" cried Charles the Simple, for the first time awaking from his gloomy apathy. "Oh, you want Brittany! I give it to you with all my heart! You can have it. Go and take possession of it. It will be a bright day to me, the day that I shall hear that you set foot in that country. I gladly make you a present of Armorica, with its cities, abbeys and dependencies! All you have to do is to take possession!"
Not a little astonished at the King's eagerness to grant him so considerable a cession, the old pirate turned towards his men inquiringly. Gaëlo whispered to him:
"Charles grants you the country of the Bretons because he knows that it is impregnable, being defended by a race of indomitable men."
"There is nothing impregnable to you, my champions! You will take charge of the task."
"Since six hundred years the Franks have been endeavoring to subjugate that land, and they have not yet succeeded in establishing themselves firmly in it. They have invaded it; they have vanquished its forces – but never yet have they subjugated it."
"The Northmans will subjugate those who have resisted the Franks."
"Armorica," replied Gaëlo, "will be the grave of your best soldiers."
The old pirate shrugged his shoulders with incredulity and not a little impatience; he took two steps towards the King and said: "Well, then, Charles, that province also is mine – "
"Yes – yes. It is yours – Duke of Northmandy and of Brittany – provided you can conquer it!"
"Rolf," resumed Gaëlo in a low voice, "renounce your pretensions over Armorica – you will otherwise have reasons to regret your obstinacy."
"Rolf wills what he wills!" answered the pirate haughtily.
"From this day," replied Gaëlo resolutely, "you must no longer count me among your men – "
The Northman chief was on the point of inquiring from the young warrior the reason for his sudden resolution when the Archbishop of Rouen addressed the pirate:
