Page:Great Men and Famous Women Volume 5.djvu/74

 40 WORKMEN AND HEROES Turning to the historical data on which the romance is based, it will be found that in the year 778 A.D. Charlemagne, accompanied by his nephew, Count Ro- land of Bretagne, and the flower of Prankish chivalry, made a raid across the Spanish border. Abdalrahman, the first of the great Spanish caliphs of Cordova, was engaged in putting down the rebellious chiefs who had refused to own thcii allegiance to the new caliphate. The frontier was therefore comparatively un- protected. The Spanish Christians, who maintained a precarious independence among the Asturias and Pyrenees, and who found it the wisest policy to be at peace with the Mohammedan rulers, were not strong enough to resist Charle- magne. Accordingly the Franks advanced nearly to Saragossa On returning to France laden with spoil through the winding defile of Roncesvalles (the valley of thorns or briers), their rear-guard was cut off by a band of Basques or Gascons and Spanish-Arabians, and their leader, Roland, slain. To the presence of these Spanish Christians in the Moorish army must be attributed the origin of the many Spanish ballads on the victory, in which all the glory is due to the prowess of the national hero, Bernardo Del Carpio, " the doughtiest lance in Spain." It is curious also to note, on the other hand, that the Arabians themselves in their chronicles, translated by the Spanish historian Conde", make little of this victory, merely mentioning the fact. The Saracen King Marsil, or Marsilius, of Saragos- sa, so often referred to in this and other Carlovingian romances, is identified by Conde* with the Mohammedan Wali, or Governor of Saragossa, Abdelmelic, the son of Omar, called by the Christians Omarus Filius, hence the corruption Mar- silius. With these brief outlines of the history of Roncesvalles before us it is inter- esting to observe the grandiloquent strain of the old Norman rymours, the fear- less exaggerations, and the total ignorance of the actual state of affairs in Spain under the enlightened and accomplished Arabians. " Carles ft rets nostre empercrt magnes, Set anz tut pleins ad estet en Espaigne" Our great emperor Charles the King had been for seven full years in Spain, so runs the chronicle ; castle and keeper alike had gone down except Saragossa, the mountain town, where King Marsil held his court, surrounded by 20,000 Mohammedan nobles. At their council it was agreed to accept Spain as a fief from the emperor, and ten knights set out with golden bridles and silver saddles, "And they ride with olive boughs in hand, To seek the lord of the Frankish land." Near the pass of Roncesvalles, one of the Pyrenean " gates " of Spain, sits the emperor upon a throne of beaten gold. His form is tall and majestic, and his long white beard flows over his coat of mail. 'Tis whispered, too, that he is already two hundred years old, and yet, there he is in all his pride. Beside him stand his nephew Roland, the Lord Marquis of the marches of Bretagne ; Sil