volume one

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HTSTOET OF THE CEUSADES. 603
kniglits and troubadours who had taken the cross with noble
and delicate sentiments, preserved them from the seductions
of gross debauchery. More than one warrior, animated by
the remembrance of beauty, caused his bravery to be greatly
admired, whilst fighting against the Saracens. It was in this
crusade that the Chatelain de Coucy fell, mortally wounded,
by the side of King Eichaed. In a song, which is still
extant, he had bid adieu to Prance, saying that he went to
the Holy Land to obtain three things of inestimable value to
a knight, Paradise, glory^ and the love of his mistress* A
chronicle of the middle ages relates, that after he had
received a mortal wound and was about to breathe his last
siirh, the faithful Chatelain first confessed himself to the
legate of the Pope, and then charged his squire to bear his
heart to the lady de Payel. The last commands of Coucy,
and the horrible banquet that a cruel husband caused to be
served up to the victim of his jealousy, show at once what
chivalry could inspire of the most touching kind, and that
which the manners of the twelfth century could exhibit of
the most barbarous.f The troubadours celebrated in their
songs the chivalric love of the noble Chatelain, and the
despair of the beautiful De Vergy, when she learnt she had
eaten the heart of her faithful knight. If we may believe
old chronicles, the lord de Payel, pursued by remorse and the
opinion of his contemporaries, was obliged to go to the Holy
Land, to expiate his crime and the death of his unfortunate
wife.
In this crusade, in which so many knights rendered them-
* L'amour de sa mie.
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Trans.
t The adventures of the Chatelain de Coucy and the lady de Fay el are
related in an old chronicle quoted by the President Faucher. There
exists in the Imperial Library a manuscript copy of this chronicle, which
appears to have been written towards the beginning of the thirteenth
century, a short time after the third crusade. M. Roquefort, whose
authority is of great weight in all which concerns the middle ages, does
not appear to adopt the account of the chronicle quoted in his article
' Coucy" of La Biograpfde Universelle, and is of the opinion of Father
Papon, who attributes the adventure of the Chatelain to the troubadour
Cabestan. We may object to M. Roquefort, that the adventure of
Cabestan is not the same as that of Coucy, and that one may be true
without rendering the other doubtful. We find in the works of Belloy
a dissertation which has not been refuted, which proves the truth, if not of
some details, of the principal facts related in the chronicle we have quoted.