Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 20.djvu/676

Rh 652 ROMANCE Gotten. Galien h Rhetor^ This romance was first printed in 1500. It is partly of late composition, although sufficiently ancient to have rendered the word "rhetore" (i.e., rhetorized, or narrated in elegant prose) incomprehensible at the time of its impression. The word was supposed to mean "restored," and to indicate the restoration of chivalry by Galieu. The chief substance of the story was the ancient tale of Charlemagne's journey to the East and the Turpin Chronicle. Hugues, emperor of Constantinople, at first receives the Frankish emperor and his peers courteously, but is informed by a spy of certain vaunting expressions to which, as is the Frankish manner, they have given utterance amongst themselves after supper. These "gabes," as they are called, are merely frolicsome braggadocio, spoken in lightheartedness, and not intended to convey any serious intention. The spy and the Greek emperor, however, take them as the threats of dangerous magicians ; the Franks are seized and menaced with death if they fail to fulfil their words. Oliver is first put to the test ; his speech had had reference to the Greek princess Jacqueline, and might better have befitted the lips of a Parisian gamin of to-day than of a young paladin. He, however, awakens a tender interest in the lady's heart, and she indulgently informs her father the next morning that the knight's boast has been fulfilled. Hugues requires that the others shall also exhibit their power, which they do to his satisfaction, partly by celestial succour and partly by the use of mother- wit. He finally dismisses them with presents. After Oliver has gone, Jacqueline becomes the mother of Galien, who grows up in time to hear of the ex- pedition to Spain and to arrive just too late for the battle in the pass of Roncesvalles. His dying father there acknowledges him, and Galien signalizes himself in the renewed fighting in which Charlemagne takes reprisals for the loss of his peers and the treachery of Ganelon. After various deeds of valour in the West, Galien returns to the East, saves his mother from a shameful death, and resumes the imperial crown. Milles et Milks et Amys. The prose romance in its existing form was Amys. written in the 15th century, and first printed by Verard about 1503. The martyrdom of the two friends is supposed to have taken place in 774 in Charlemagne's war against the Lombards, and their story was popularly current in the 12th century. Milles was the son of Anceaume, count of Clermont, and Amis the son of the count's seneschal. Milles's parents celebrate his birth by making a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. During their adventures and captivity in the East Milles is robbed of his inheritance at home and Amys is brought up under a feigned name. They enter into the closest friendship and set out for Constantinople, where Milles discovers his captive mother acting as nurse to the Greek princess Sidoine, whom by her assistance he weds, after having taken a chief part in forcing the sultan of Acre to raise the siege of Con- stantinople. He becomes emperor of Byzantium, but after a while returns to France with Amys, regains possession of his estates, and makes Amys a duke. Hearing that the Saracens have again attacked Constantinople and that his Greek wife has perished in the flames, he allows himself to be seduced by Bellisant, the daughter of Charlemagne, who, however, makes an honest man of him by marriage and behaves honourably ever after. Amys also gets married. Then the two friends also go on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, from which Amys returns stricken with leprosy. His wife refuses to receive him, but he is carefully tended by Milles in his own castle ; and now the most striking episode in the story takes place. Amys learns in a dream that he can only be healed by bathing in the blood of his friend's offspring and tells Milles of it. The latter is painfully affected, but does not hesitate to strike off the heads of his two children. Amys is cured and the devotion of Milles repaid by a miracle from heaven : the children's heads are replaced upon their shoulders. Afterwards Milles and Amys set out on another pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostella. Ogier the Dane, then at war with Charlemagne, meets and treacherously slays them on their way homeward. A continuation follows, nar- rating the adventures of the infant children of Milles. The widow of Amys plots for their destruction, but they are zealously tended by a wise ape, which shares their fortunes until separated from them by malice and mishap. Florisset becomes a Saracen leader in Venice and Anceaume a brave warrior in the army of Charle- magne. The two brothers have a desperate encounter in the war which takes place, but are recognized by the ape (which has already brought about the punishment of the wicked widow of Amys, in a similar fashion to that of the celebrated dog of Mont- argis). A restoration takes place : the two young men are acknow- ledged the emperor's grandsons, and the ape dies of joy. Jonrdain Jourdain de Slaves (or de Blaye). The prose romance, first printed in 1520, is altered from a 15th-century poem. It is affili- Blaves. ated to Milles et Amys, the hero being the grandson of Amys. He undergoes the most varied fortunes : he throws his wife with his yet unborn child into the sea, enclosed in a box, when the vessel bear- ing himself and his warriors is in peril of shipwreck ; he searches for her some years later, and finds her in a refuge, to which she has fled from the love of the man who fished her out of the sea, and who exposed her baby -girl at the birth ; and next, when hunt- ing in a forest, he finds his daughter running wild in company with a bitch and her young. This is a reflexion of the story of Apollonius of Tyre, and is rather a dull work. Doom of Mayence. Doon or Doolin of Mayence is the hero of .1 Doon o 14th-century poem, adapted as a prose romance in the 15th cen- Mayeni tury, first printed by Verard in 1501. He is represented as defying and almost defeating his lord the emperor, whom he treats at first with disrespect. In his earlier history he appears as a son of Gui of Mayence, who, as penance for an unintentional crime, retires to a hermitage. On his disappearance his wife is accused of murder, condemned to death, and her children banished. Doon meets his father and returns to fight as his mother's champion, conquers his enemies, and assumes his rightful possessions. He falls in love with a Saracen princess and wins her by force, with the help of Charlemagne, after the episode of his quarrel with the emperor. The lady's father has been aided by the king of Denmark ; Doon, after his victory, seizes the Danish crown, which he transmits through his son Geoffrey to his grandson Ogier. Ogier le Danois. There are twelve chansons upon the story of Ogier I this hero, dating from the 12th and 13th centuries, and based Dane, upon still older poems now lost. The trouveres Raimbert and Adenez le Hoi were among the authors. The story was recomposed in prose, from the poem of the latter writer, probably in the second half of the 14th century. The fairies who preside at Ogier's birth and endow him with many gifts are a later addition to the stoiy ; one of them is Morgan la Fay, King Arthur's sister, who foretells that at the end of his career he shall go to live with her in im- mortal youth at Avalon. While yet a little boy he is sent as a hostage to Charlemagne and is brought up at the imperial court. When fourteen years of age he is banished to the castle of St Omer, where he falls in love with the young chatelaine, but is soon afterwards ordered out of his prison to accompany Charle- magne on an expedition to Italy against the invading Saracens. Here, for the first time, he is subjected to the hatred and envy of young Chariot, the emperor's son ; but on the triumph of the Frankish arms he accompanies the monarch in his return to Paris and learns that his father is dead and that the chatelaine has borne him a son. He departs to assume the crown of Denmark, but lays it down after a few years and returns to Charlemagne. His son has grown up and is one day engaged in a game of chess with Chariot, who, having lost it, becomes irritated, and kills him with the chess-board (an incident frequently met with in old fiction). Ogier, in his fury for revenge, uses such language that he is com- pelled to fly, and betakes himself to the court of the Lombard king Desiderius, then at war with the emperor. It is on this occasion that the famous dialogue takes place on the walls of Pavia. Desiderius or Didier wonders, as he and Ogier look forth together, at the great number of the Frankish warriors advancing over the plain, and, as each successive body of troops, ever increasing in strength and grandeur, makes its appearance, he says, " Is this the emperor ? " Ogier to each question answers, " Not yet," till at last he cries, " When thou shalt see the fields bristling with an iron harvest, and the Po and the Ticino, swollen with sea-floods, inun- dating the walls of the city with iron billows, then perhaps shall Karl be nigh at hand." Soon after the Iron Emperor with his mightiest host darkens the horizon, and Didier falls smitten with terror. The Lombard king is beaten ; Ogier is made prisoner while sleeping, and brought to the emperor. He still refuses to be re- conciled until the monarch yields Chariot to his revenge. Charle- magne at last gives way ; Ogier, when just on the point of striking off the prince's head, abstains, and foregoes his vengeance. Then, returning to his old station as one of the emperor's chief paladins, he fights an invading army and slays their giant leader. He next saves the king of England's daughter Clarice from captivity, marries her, and is recognized as king of that country ; but he abandons for a second time the kingly dignity and sets out for the conquest of the Holy Land. Whilst returning to France, he is shipwrecked, comes upon a diamond castle, invisible by day, and finds himself in Avalon in the company of Morgan la Fay. She puts the ring of perpetual youth on his finger, the crown of forgetfulness on his head, and he lives a life of joy for two cen- turies. Then the crown is taken off; he remembers his old life, and betakes himself to the new and degenerate French kingdom which has succeeded to the empire of Charlemagne. After restor- ing the spirit of the older knighthood, vanquishing the Norse invaders, and passing through some curious adventures in con- nexion with his ring, he is carried away by Morgan la Fay and disappears for ever. Meurvin. This was a romance of late origin, first printed at Mev Paris in 1531. Meurvin was the son of Ogier by Morgan la Fay, and is a personage of little interest, except for his connexion with the romance of the Knight of the Swan, whose ancestor he is repre- sented to be through his son Oriant. The Four Sons of Aymon ; or Regnault de Montauban and his '. Three Brothers. This, one of the most popular and delightful of sons the romances of this cycle, was printed many times in the 1 5th Ayr and 16th centuries, and in later abridgments as a chap-book.