Page:Georges Eekhoud - Escal Vigor, a novel.djvu/26

2 they followed Frederick Barbarossa in his Italian expeditions, and distinguished themselves by an inalterable devotion, the fidelity of thane to king, to the House of Hohenstaufen.

A Kehlmark had even been the favourite of Frederick II., the Sultan of Luceria, that voluptuous emperor, the most artistic of the romantic house of Swabia, who, in that brilliant southern land, lived a life energised by the deep and virile aspirations of the north. This Kehlmark perished at Beneventum with Manfred, the son of his illustrious friend.

At the date of our story, a large panel in the billiard room of Escal-Vigor still represented Conradin, the last of the Hohenstaufens, in the act of embracing Frederick of Baden before mounting with him on to the scaffold.

In the Fifteenth century, there flourished at Antwerp a Kehlmark, money-lender to kings, like the Fuggers and the Salviati, and he figured among those haughty Hanseatic merchants, whose custom it was to wend them to the Cathedral, or to the Exchange, preceded by fife and violin players.

An historic and even legendary abode,