Page:The Mediaeval Mind Vol 1.djvu/567

CHAP XXII "Afterwards Messire the king called to him Monseigneur Philippe his son, the father of the present king, and the king Thibaut (of Navarre), and laid his hand on the earth and said: 'Sit close to me, so that they may not hear.'

"'Ah Sire,' say they, 'we dare not sit so close to you.'

"And he said to me, 'Seneschal, sit down here.' And so I did, so close that our clothes touched. And he made them sit down by me, and said to them: 'You have done ill, you who are my sons, who have not obeyed at once all that I bade you: and see to it that this does not happen with you again.' And they promised. And then he said to me, that he had called us in order to confess to me that he was in the wrong in defending Master Robert against me. 'But,' said he, 'I saw him so dumbfounded that there was good need I should defend him. And do none of you attach any importance to all I said defending Master Robert; for, as the seneschal said to him, you ought to dress well and becomingly, so that your wives may love you better, and your people hold you in higher esteem. For the sage says that one should appear in such clothes and arms that the wise of this world may not say you have done too much, nor the young people say you have done too little.'"

The hopelessly worthy parvenu was quite outside this charmed circle of blood and manners.

Another story of Joinville opens our eyes to Louis' views on Jews and infidels. The king was telling him of a grand argument between Jews and Christian clergy which was to have been held at Cluny. And a certain poverty-stricken knight was there, who obtained leave to speak the first word; and he asked the head Jew whether he believed that Mary was the mother of God and still a virgin. And the Jew answered that he did not believe it at all. The knight replied that in that case the Jew had acted like a fool to enter her monastery, and should pay for it; and with that he knocked him down with his staff, and all the other Jews ran off. When the abbot reproached him for his folly, he replied that the abbot's folly was greater in having the argument at all. "So I tell you," said the king on finishing his story, "that only a skilled clerk should dispute with misbelievers; but a layman, when he hears any one speak ill of the Christian law, should defend that law with nothing but his sword, which he should plunge into the defamer's belly, to the hilt if possible."