The Truce of God Part 4

Gilbert's light slumber had been broken by the voice of his benefactor.

As soon as Father Omehr saw the youth awake, he approached him, and inquired, with great kindness of manner, whether he felt better.

The youth replied in the affirmative.

"I have discovered," continued the other, "that you have richly deserved this wound. You killed with your own hand the husband of the woman who stabbed you, and though the chance thrust of an affray, it was noted, and communicated to Bertha by an eye-witness, one of the combatants.

This is her revenge--but how inadequate to her suffering!"

"It is, indeed," said Gilbert, replying to the last remark, which had been particularly emphasized. His companion could not conceal the satisfaction with which he hailed this reply, as an omen of regret, and of a right apprehension of his former violence. But the youth was drowsy, and prudence forbade a longer conversation. At the close of the evening service, the lady of Stramen was seen to exchange a few words with her venerable pastor, but she did not enter the cell.

The gorgeous sun of ancient Suabia was beneath the horizon--but Gilbert slept upon his couch; the moon had lit her feebler torch, and walked silently beneath the stars--yet not until midnight did Gilbert awake.

All was profoundly still. The dim light of the taper at his bedside revealed only the motionless figure of the sacristan, and the outline of a crucifix hanging against the wall. His eyes involuntarily closed, and in a moment he stood before his father, in the oaken halls of Hers--his retainers were around him--the horses pranced merrily--the bugle sounded--"On to the chase!" was the cry. He opened his eyes--the crucifix became more distinct.

He knelt before a prince, and arose a knight--a broidered kerchief streamed from his polished casque--the herald, in trumpet tones, proclaimed his prowess--the troubador embalmed his deeds in immortal verse--the smiles of high-born damsels were lavished upon him--the page clasped his sword at the mention of his name. He opened his eyes--the crucifix, and the sacristan!

A form of beauty was before him--at first, haughty and disdainful, but gradually a.s.suming a look of interest and pity--it bent over him, and poured a balm into his wound, with a prayer for its efficacy--but the figure lifted its finger with a menacing air, and pointed to a snake, hissing from its hair--a mist settled around him, and the apparition was gone. He opened his eyes--the taper burned brighter--the crucifix became more distinct.

Gilbert was now fully awake. His wound was more painful than it had yet been, and in vain he endeavored to win back the repose so lately enjoyed. Nor was corporal uneasiness his only annoyance. Father Omehr's revelation of the motives by which Bertha was actuated, had left a more painful impression upon his mind than his monitor perhaps desired.

Though the priest had not directly attributed the woman's insanity to her husband's death, Gilbert too clearly understood that such was the fact. His was too generous a heart, not to deplore bitterly so terrible a calamity, of which he was--however unintentionally--the cause. He felt no resentment for his misguided a.s.sailant--he would willingly have exposed himself to a second attack, could he have thus restored her reason. The memento of the crucifixion--that Catholic alphabet, the crucifix--held up unto his soul the wondrous truth that G.o.d had voluntarily suffered, for the sake of man, all that humanity can endure; and the youth interiorly acknowledged that the errors of his life were but imperfectly balanced by the inconvenience he then experienced.

It is not in the pride of health and youth, surrounded by pleasure, and strangers to care, that a heart, wedded to the world, is apt to prostrate itself in humility before the Author of life; but in danger and affliction, we learn to mistrust our self-sufficiency, and feel our complete dependence upon an invisible and almighty power. We are much more disposed to appeal to heaven for protection, than to return thanks for repeated favors. It is not to be wondered at, then, that Gilbert sought relief in prayer; there is nothing more natural to one who prefers the consolations of religion to the staff of philosophy. He was far indeed from that exalted perfection of loving G.o.d for Himself alone; but who can predict what may spring from the mustard-seed?

By the first gray light of the morning Father Omehr was bending over his youthful charge: Gilbert was fast asleep.

CHAPTER III

Fit to govern!

No, not to live. O nation miserable, With an unt.i.tled tyrant, b.l.o.o.d.y-sceptred, When shalt thou see thy wholesome days again?

MACBETH.

The third Friday after Gilbert had been wounded, he mounted his horse, and, accompanied by Father Omehr, set out for the Castle of Hers, which lay some four leagues distant to the south.

"You are sad, Father," said the youth, who felt all the exhilaration of returning strength, heightened by the freshness of the morning.

"It is true, my son; for though in all the trials of this pilgrimage I endeavor to turn to G.o.d the cheerful face He loves to see in affliction, I am sometimes weak enough to tremble at the gloomy period before us. We are upon the eve of a tremendous struggle. You may not be aware of it, for you are unaccustomed to watch events which govern the future for good or evil; but the firmness of our Holy Father, and the increasing recklessness and impiety of the emperor, must create an earthquake sooner or later."

"My father," replied Gilbert, "has imputed to His Holiness a want of firmness."

"Alas, with how little reason! He who, when seized by Cencius and his armed a.s.sa.s.sins at the altar of St. Mary Major--bruised, and dragged by the hair to the castle of his a.s.sailant--yet remained calm and unmoved, with the face of an Angel, neither imploring mercy nor attempting an ineffectual resistance--cannot be accused of a want of firmness. The matchless benevolence--the heart which melts at the first symptom of repentance--the clemency which led him, while his wounds were yet fresh, to pardon Cencius, prostrate at his feet--have also induced him to hearken to the promises of King Henry and accept his contrition."

"But is it not almost folly to trust the royal hypocrite to whom Suabia pays so heavy a tribute? I wish that when his infant majesty fell in the Rhine, there had been no Count Ecbert nigh to rescue him!"

"Is it not rather an exalted charity, of which you have no conception, and a Christian forgiveness which puts to shame your last ungenerous wish?"

"I can have no sympathy or pity for him who has loaded with insult a princess alike distinguished for beauty and virtue."

"You mean the queen, his wife. But tell me, when he endeavored to procure a divorce from Bertha, who prevented the criminal separation?

Was it the boasted chivalry of Suabia? No! Peter Damian, the Pope's legate, alone opposed the angry monarch, and told him, in the presence of all his courtiers, that 'his designs were disgraceful to a king--still more disgraceful to a Christian; that he should blush to commit a crime he would punish in another; and that, unless he renounced his iniquitous project, he would incur the denunciation of the Church and the severity of the holy canons.' The result was the reconcilement of Henry with Bertha, in Saxony. And though Alexander was Pope, Peter received his instructions from Hildebrand. But there is a wide difference between your hostility to Henry of Austria and the resistance of Gregory VII to his encroachments: your motives all flow from human considerations, and seek a human revenge; his, on the contrary, proceed from the knowledge of his duty, to G.o.d, and breathe forgiveness: you seek the king's destruction and your own aggrandizement--Gregory, the king's welfare, and the independence and prosperity of the Christian Church."

We will no longer continue a conversation which, to be intelligible to all, would require a more intimate acquaintance with the history of the times than can be obtained from the books in free circulation among us.

Though Gregory VII has been reproached by all Protestants, and by some Catholics, with an undue a.s.sumption of temporal power, and an unnecessary severity against Henry IV of Austria, it is certain that, in his own day, he was charged by many of his own friends, particularly, in Saxony and Suabia, with too tender a regard for a monarch who violated his most solemn engagements the moment he fancied he could do so with impunity, and whose court, already openly profligate, threatened to present the appearance of an Eastern seraglio. A hasty glance at the prominent facts of the dispute will leave us in doubt whether to admire most the dignified and Christian forbearance of the Pope while a hope of saving his adversary remained, or the unwavering resolution he displayed, even to death in exile, when convinced that mercy to the king would be injustice to G.o.d.

No sooner had Gregory a.s.sumed the tiara, than he addressed letters to different persons, in which he a.s.sured them of his earnest desire to unite with Henry in upholding the honor of the Church and the imperial dignity; to accomplish which he would embrace the first opportunity of sending legates to Henry, to acquaint the king with his views. But, while proferring his love, he declared that, if Henry should venture to offer G.o.d insult instead of honor, he would not fail in his duty to the Divine Head of the Church through fear of offending man. So, in a letter to Rodolph, Duke of Suabia, who at that time was known to be secretly hostile to the king, Gregory declared that he entertained no ill feeling whatever for Henry, but simply desired to do his duty.

There were two evils which Gregory was resolved to extirpate: lay invest.i.tures, and the incontinence of the clergy. When the power of appointing to benefices was usurped by the civil power, the emperor was sure to fill the highest places in his gift with creatures of his own.

The inevitable result of this was to create two cla.s.ses of prelates--one of lay, the other of ecclesial invest.i.ture. Its ultimate effect was to render the Church completely depend upon the State, and to change and corrupt its very source with the varying vices of libertine despots. It was found (and how could it be otherwise?) that the proteges of the emperor studied only how to please him; and that, in serving the State and the prince, they became indifferent to the Church. Selected to serve a particular purpose, or chosen in consideration of a valuable donation, the lay nominee had been sure to fulfil the object for which he was elevated, or to indulge the avarice or ambition which had craved the appointment. It was in attempting to remedy this fatal innovation that Gregory found himself repeatedly thwarted by Henry; and yet he had been censured by those who lament the worldliness of a portion of the medieval clergy, for striking at the root of the evil.

After repeated provocation, the arm of the Pope is uplifted to strike; but Henry, awed by his menaces, and by an insurrection in Saxony, hastens to avert the blow by an unreserved submission and the fairest promises. He confesses, not only to have meddled in ecclesiastical matters, but to have unjustly stripped churches of their pastors--to have sold them to unworthy subjects guilty of simony, whose very ordination was questionable--and implores the Pope to begin the reform with the Cathedral of Milan, which is in schism by his fault.

Gregory pardons him; and, in 1074, holds his first council at Rome against simony and the incontinence of the clergy. It was in this year that Henry, already pressed by the Saxons and Thuringians, found himself threatened by Salomon, King of Hungary. In this emergency, he has recourse to Gregory, who, by an eloquent letter, calms the indignant Hungarian.

With the year following, the campaign against Saxony begins. This brave but turbulent people had risen against the towns in possession of Henry, and burned the magnificent Cathedral at Hartzburg. Here again the Pope secured to the king the powerful a.s.sistance of Rodolph, Duke of Suabia, in conjunction with whom the royal army obtains a decisive victory at Hohenburg. But once in security and crowned with success, the graceless monarch forgets his submission, and exclaims, "It does not befit a hero, who has vanquished a warlike people, struggling in defence of what they hold most sacred, to bow humbly down before a priest, whose only weapon is his tongue!" Faithless to his recorded vow in the hour of danger, he nominates Henry, canon of Verdun, to fill the see vacated by the Bishop of Liege; and, soon after, calls to the see of Milan, Theobald, his own chaplain, in place of the murdered Herlembaud. Thus repeatedly deceived, Gregory must strike at last, or sacrifice the independence of the Church of G.o.d to human weakness.

It was in the pause between these new indignities and the consecration of Hidolphe in the archbishopric of Cologne, that Father Omehr and Gilbert rode slowly on toward the Castle of Hers.

The conversation naturally turned from the consideration of impending evils, to the miserable feud actually existing between the two houses of Hers and Stramen.

"I sincerely wish it were ended," said Gilbert, in reply to a vehement denunciation just p.r.o.nounced by his companion. "I could willingly forgive all the injuries I have received at their hands, when I remember the kindness of the Lady Margaret."

The priest looked quickly up in the young man's face, but Gilbert was gazing with an abstracted air upon the blue outline of the beautiful Lake of Constance, which just began to appear to the south.

"It were far better," he said, commanding the youth's attention by taking his hand--"it were far better to forgive them when you remember the prayer of your dying Jesus for His persecutors, than out of grat.i.tude to the ordinary courtesy of a pitying damsel."

Gilbert made no direct reply, nor did he return the glance of his friend, which he well knew was upon him.

"I could wish," he began, after a considerable pause, "before leaving your hospitable roof, to have expressed to the Lady Margaret my deep sense of the interest she deigned to display in my regard, and which I fear has done more to soften my feelings toward her father, than the n.o.bler and holier motive you have mentioned."

There was a humility in this that pleased the good missionary; but he saw with pain and uneasiness the direction which the ardent mind of the youth was evidently taking, and instantly rejoined:

"Did you know the Lady Margaret better, you would spare yourself that regret. In her charitable attention to your wants, she overcame a natural repugnance to yourself. She would rather miss than receive any return you can make, and is always more inclined to set a proper value upon the solid and eternal recompense of G.o.d, than attach any importance to the empty and interested grat.i.tude of man."

Gilbert's eyes were bent again upon the Lake of Constance. They were now at the foot of a long, high hill, which they began to ascend in silence. Gilbert pressed his horse rather swiftly up the gradual ascent, and they soon gained the summit.

"What is the Danube to that splendid lake!" cried the mercurial stripling; "and what is there in all the lordship of Stramen to vie with this!"

The view now opened might excuse his excitement, even in a less interested person. The Castle of Hers, though built for strength, presented a very different appearance from that of Stramen: its outline was light and graceful, and it seemed rather to lift up than c.u.mber the tall hill that it so elegantly crowned. It was situated upon the border of the lake, which, by trouvere and troubadour, in song and in verse, in every age and in every clime, has been so justly celebrated. A few miles to the southwest the mighty Rhine came tumbling in; who, as the German poets say, scorns to mingle his mountain stream with the quiet waters of the lake. We will attempt no further description, for fear of spoiling a finer picture, which must already exist in the eye of the reader, created by more skilful hands.

As the hors.e.m.e.n neared the castle, they saw a knight, followed by a few men, dashing down the hill. Gilbert knew his father, and hastened to meet him. Their meeting was manly and cordial. The baron stopped but to embrace his son, and hastened to welcome Father Omehr. He dismounted, and imprinted a kiss upon the old man's still vigorous hand.

"I should be childless now," he said, "but for your kindness; and you know that words would but mock my feelings."

The tears in the baron's eyes expressed more than a long oration.

Father Omehr only replied, with a laugh, "You must blame your son's indiscretion, and not applaud me!" Thus saved from a formal and unsatisfactory conversation, the knight remounted his horse and led the way to the castle.