Chapter XLVIII · THE TRIUMPH OF FORCE.

The unexpected departure of the Count of Champagne excited general surprise, and even Alexander himself was at a loss to account for the motive. It was said that a horseman had arrived during the night, urgently inquiring for the Count; but none could say whence he came, or of what tidings he was the bearer; all that was known was, that after the receipt of some important despatches, the Count had gone away in great haste. He scarcely gave breathing-time to his horses, but pressed on so rapidly, that, after six days' travel, he arrived at his castle near Laon, on the Seventh of September, the date which had been fixed upon for another interview between the Emperor and the King of France.

Louis, who had experienced much alarm as long as he was in sight of the German army, appeared to wish anxiously for this meeting. At least he had ordered tents, for himself and the court, to be pitched in the vicinity of the bridge over the Saône.

About nine o'clock Louis arrived, but Barbarossa had not yet appeared. Rinaldo, with a number of prelates and nobles, seemed astonished at the punctuality of the King, whom he found more affable than at the audience in Laon.

"The Emperor can scarcely question my pacific intentions now," said Louis; "the Count of Champagne has discretionary powers to bring the Pope, even should violence be necessary. I am punctual to a minute at the rendezvous which has been appointed by your master. What more can I do, to avoid the accusation of treachery or double-dealing?"

The Chancellor was embarrassed for an answer.

"The Emperor admits your good intentions, Sire," he answered. "With his aid, you will soon be freed from an evil which distracts France and torments the Church. There is no doubt whatever that the Fathers of the council will refuse to Cardinal Roland, wrongly styled Alexander, all right to the pontifical throne."

"I cannot take it upon myself to decide upon which side is the right," answered Louis.

Before Rinaldo could answer, a loud noise was heard, and a body of armed men were seen advancing. A horseman, covered with dust, spurred to the front, glanced around the royal group, and perceiving the king, bowed respectfully and solicited a private audience. The monarch entered his tent, and through the canvas walls could be heard the voice of the stranger, interrupted after a few sentences by Louis, who exclaimed,--

"Deo gratias!--God be thanked for this fortunate result!"

Rinaldo was astonished, but while he was reflecting upon the possible meaning of what had just happened, they came out. The King's face beamed with satisfaction, and without noticing the Chancellor's anxiety, he gave charge of his guest to a nobleman of his suite, with instructions to treat him with every possible courtesy, and then turning to Rinaldo, resumed their former conversation.

"We have but one point to regulate, my lord Chancellor, and that is the pressure which the Emperor means to bring to bear upon the council. The Fathers ought to be entirely unbiassed, and their votes must not be influenced either by the force of arms or by worldly considerations."

"His Majesty," said Dassel, "will employ both argument and force to re-establish order in the Church."

"Doubtless, according to his own ideas. But there is no guaranty that these ideas are exempt from all selfish considerations! The Emperor is Alexander's personal enemy; think you that he would recognize his rights to the throne of Saint Peter?"

"These questions are insulting, Sire!--Frederic is too just by nature, to be guilty of an injustice.--And you ask for guaranties of the purity of his intentions? To whom would you make the Emperor responsible? On whom does he depend?"

"He is responsible to the laws of nations, which he has repeatedly violated in many different ways, my lord."

"This reproach has often been made by interested persons; I am surprised, Sire, that you would repeat it."

"And we are surprised!" said Louis, proudly, "that you, Count, do not feel the importance of this reproach! Besides, in the Assembly of Besançon, there will be present both temporal princes and unconsecrated bishops.--Who has conferred on laymen the right of voting in purely ecclesiastical questions, and particularly on questions of this importance?"

"The Emperor!" replied Dassel, promptly. "If his Imperial Majesty sees fit to sanction an exception to a rule, this very exception becomes by the consequence of his high and mighty authority, the rule and the law. And more, if the chief of the Roman Empire, who is, at the same time, the chief of all the princes of Christendom, thinks it expedient to grant a vote upon this question to foreign princes, he has a right to all their gratitude."

"Very good, my lord! and we are then the Emperor's vassals? This is a new phase!--Our bishops will be delighted with the lesson you set them!--Gentlemen," he added, "are you not somewhat surprised to hear such a doctrine preached?"

Rinaldo answered boldly, and some bitter words were interchanged; at last he lost patience.

"We have no need, in any way, of French bishops to put an end to schism!" he cried. "When a discussion on the subject of a bishopric arises among you, you put an end to the difficulty yourselves: why should not the Emperor have the same right? Rome belongs to him."

The French courtiers heard these words, with surprise. Dassel's opinions were in opposition to all received notions, and to the canons of the Church. The King profited by the statesman's mistake.

"I am astonished," he said, "that so cautious a man as yourself should advance such extraordinary assertions. We have the right to choose our bishops after a previous understanding with the Holy See. But no bishop of my kingdom is chief of Christendom; your argument is consequently invalid. You say that the Emperor and his bishops alone have the right to choose the Pope. Did not Christ confide to Saint Peter and his successors all his flock? Were my bishops and myself excepted? Is the Pope only your shepherd, and not mine?"

This language astonished Rinaldo, who was nevertheless forced to admit its truth; but all efforts to explain his words were useless, Louis turned away from him, and soon after rode back to Laon.

"What a changeable man!" said the Bishop Gero of Halberstadt. "Yesterday the French king was the Emperor's humble servant, and to-day he seems to defy him."

"Patience!" replied Werner of Minden; "Frederic will teach him obedience. It must come to that. If peace were to last forever, there would be no need of our good armor. Believe me, this insolence of Louis comes very opportunely; in two days' time the Imperial eagle will float over the French frontier."

"Yesterday, the Emperor gave me a splendid charger and a suit of Venetian armor; I shall be glad of a chance to use them," said Philip of Osnabruck.

"I shall wear my Nuremberg mail," added the Bishop of Munster; "it was a present from Frederic, and so far no weapon has started a single link."

The entrance of the Count of Champagne interrupted the conversation; Dassel, who had been reflecting seriously, approached him.

"Back already?" said the Chancellor. "I trust that you have brought the Cardinal Roland with you."

"With the best intentions in the world, it was impossible," replied Henry, whose gloomy face presaged no good. "All is lost. The English king, Henry, is marching forward with a mighty army. Luckily I was informed in time, and so escaped from falling into the hands of these partisans of Alexander. Just now I saw the English ambassador, Earl Gilbert, in the King's suite."

Rinaldo was thunderstruck.

"At last," he cried, "I have the clue to the mystery. But it is strange that the negotiation between Alexander and England should have escaped our notice. I can scarcely believe it possible."

"It was entirely out of my calculation," said Henry, trying to console the statesman. "The English king, whose character you all know, has pursued a course which no one suspected, but which probably has been long in preparation. It is certain that he is not marching merely to Alexander's assistance, but against the Imperial supremacy."

"It is really absurd! As if a feeble gazelle could struggle against a tiger," said Dassel. "Let us go at once to the Emperor; he must hear it from your own mouth."

The Count was in no hurry, for he looked at the question in a different light.

"My personal safety forbids it," he said. "I have done all I could; I supported the Emperor; but it would be madness in me to give the English King a pretext for seizing my domains. For the time being, I can only be a secret ally of Frederic."

"What! Count, you think to serve two masters?" cried Dassel, furiously. "How can you be at the same time the friend and the enemy of the Emperor?"

The Count admitted the dilemma, but no entreaties could change his determination.

"It cannot be, my lord; I must no longer delay my return to Laon. Farewell; present my homage to the Emperor."

He sprang into the saddle and rode towards the city.

"Ah! these falsehearted Frenchmen!" said the Chancellor; "but it is well; our arms will teach them honor and conscience."

"That is my advice too," said the fighting Bishop Werner; "German honesty, which more than once has been the dupe of its own rectitude, is well known. Let us go to the camp at once, raise our standards, and reap a new harvest of laurels in the heart of France."

The nobles returned to the Imperial camp, where they found their sovereign surrounded by his princes and bishops. The startling intelligence of the change in the French policy, and the movements of the English King, amazed every one. A few, among whom were the fierce Otho of Wittelsbach and the schismatical bishops of the Empire, were in favor of crossing the frontier at once. But the Dukes of Austria, Saxony, and Bavaria, and some others, who were secret partisans of Alexander, took the matter with the greatest coolness.

Barbarossa remained calm in appearance, although the flash of his eyes and the contraction of his features gave unmistakable evidence that he with difficulty controlled his rage and disappointment. With a slight inclination of the head to the assembly, he beckoned to Rinaldo and left the tent, which had now become the scene of an animated discussion.

Hastily divesting himself of the sumptuous costume with which he had thought to dazzle the King of France and his great vassals, Barbarossa seated himself before the Chancellor.

"The solution of the question can now only be arrived at in the field," said Dassel, with the insinuating manner of a serpent creeping on his prey. "We must attack Louis before his troops are thoroughly organized. You have been insulted, and every man, even to the meanest serf in our army, feels the outrage done you by the King of France; let us profit by the opportunity."

"If you had observed my faithful vassals, you would scarcely call the present a good opportunity," replied Barbarossa. "Besides, I do not wish to trust all to the fortune of war. We are not strong enough yet to engage the united forces of France and England. But," he added, "is the result of this ecclesiastical meeting very certain?"

"Certain!" said the Count. "We are sure of our own bishops, but not of those of the King of Sweden. Some things cannot be accomplished by mere brute force, and rather need skill and intelligence than threats of violence."

"You are at your tricks again, and I am tired of them," said Barbarossa. "The Danish prelates are only men; after all, self-interest will guide them. Besides, Victor will be enjoined from the commencement of the Council to abrogate all appeal to Rome or elsewhere. We shall see how the Danes can get over this difficulty."

"All well enough in its way! that may intimidate some," answered Dassel; "but in this way you lessen the Papal power, and increase that of the bishops. What will the Emperor gain by the change?"

"What the Pope alone possesses now, will become the property of a thousand different individuals, and I have always looked upon a divided power as more easy of direction than when it is vested in one person."

"Your Majesty's observation is just and to the point," replied the wily statesman.

After a lengthy interview, Rinaldo left the Emperor to take charge of the preparations for the council. Louis breathed freely at the announcement of the departure of the German army for Besançon. Alexander had written to him of the intended campaign of the English King against Frederic. At the same time he learned that Andrew of Hungary was ready to march an army into Germany, as soon as the Imperial troops crossed the French frontier. In the meanwhile, the Emperor, accompanied by several of his princes, and by about fifty Bishops and Archbishops, nearly all of whom were as yet unconsecrated, had arrived at Besançon. King Waldemar of Denmark came to meet him there, but he was attended by only one prelate, the Bishop Absalom of Roskilde, for the northern sovereigns could not make up their minds to attend a council which had been convened in defiance of the canonical rules, and with the sole view of legalizing the acts of the schismatical Frederic. The preliminaries against Alexander, the recognition of Victor, and, as a natural consequence, the Imperial supremacy, were rapidly and skilfully arranged.

As the Emperor was leaving his apartment, to proceed with great pomp to the cathedral where the council was to be held, a letter with the seal of the Abbey of Cluny was handed to him.

"From Cluny! Who brought this?" he asked.

"A strange horseman," said the chamberlain. Barbarossa hastily ran it over, while Rinaldo examined his expression, with eager curiosity.

"Pshaw! it is scarcely worth talking about," said Frederic, laying the letter aside; "at least, we have no time to meddle with it. Still if you would like to know," he added, seeing Dassel's curiosity, "Count Rechberg informs us that he is going on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. That is all; the young man could do nothing better in order to escape the bonds in which a sage statesman would have tied him. Let us hope that he will come back completely cured. My lord Chancellor, you may give the signal for our departure now."

Under ordinary circumstances, it is probable that Barbarossa would not have listened so calmly to his kinsman's resolve, but just then he was busied in a matter of interest to all Christendom, and he could think of nothing else.

A long and brilliant cavalcade of princes and prelates proceeded to the Cathedral of Besançon, where the Emperor did not neglect the opportunity of holding the Pope's stirrup. Victor received the attention haughtily, as though it were in some way an offset to the many humiliations which he had suffered. The bishops and princes took their places in the centre of the nave. The presidency of the council was assigned to Victor, with Frederic on the right hand, and Waldemar, King of Denmark, on his left.

Barbarossa opened the proceedings by a recital of all the acts and artifices of the French and English sovereigns. He also paraded his efforts for the pacification of the Church and the suppression of heresy, and his discourse convinced the audience of his moderation and good intentions.

Victor followed with a long series of complaints against those whom he called the enemies of the Church, and particularly against Alexander. The substance of his discourse stated the numerous privileges which would be accorded to the Bishops.

After him Rinaldo spoke, and in skilful words insisted upon the legality of Victor's claims, while he endeavored to prove that the present meeting was in reality a general council.

Finally, Barbarossa rose and besought the assembly in energetic terms, to put an end to the schism, to banish Roland as an enemy of the Church, and to proclaim Victor as the head thereof. A general confusion commenced to prevail in the Cathedral. At this juncture Bishop Absalom rose and made a signal to his sovereign.

"For the love of God, my dear brother," exclaimed Victor, "do not leave at this most important moment."

"I am only here as an attendant on my sovereign," said Absalom, with marked coolness. "As he is leaving the Cathedral, I must follow him."

The withdrawal of the King and his prelate caused additional confusion, and a few other bishops, with whom the sentiment of honor was stronger than the dread of the Emperor's anger, followed their example.

But the proceedings were in no way hindered by their absence. Alexander was excommunicated, and Victor solemnly proclaimed Head of the Church, and then, after the Te Deum, the assembly adjourned.