THE ROYAL HOUSE OF FRANCE - outriders poetry project

lament, she recalled all the troubles he had borne for her, and she for him. She immediately
commanded that a message be sent to King William of England, and sent another to Guy at
141
© 2009 Max Wickert
Clairmont. The body was kept embalmed until her sons arrived. And they all came, except Sinibald,
who was in Armenia. When they had come, they heard what the sailor who had been with the
murderer had said. And then they held a rich funeral. Drusiana was so grieved by all this, that she
lived for fifteen days more, and then died and was buried in the same tomb with Bevis, her husband
and lord. An inscription was placed above the tomb with the following legend: “Here lie Duke
Bevis, son of Guy of Hampton, and Drusiana, daughter of King Armin of Armenia. Bevis was
murdered by the traitor Gailon of Maganza, his half-brother on his mothers side, while praying on
his knees in the church of Saint-Savior.” 29
. . . . . . .
BOOK SIX: THE YOUTH OF CHARLEMAGNE
Bertha of the Large Foot
King Pepin’s Wooing
1
The story now relates that when Pepin was king of France and emperor, since he was very advanced
in years and had no wife, and since France was such a noble realm of Christendom, his barons,
29 The original adds a concluding tag: “Here ends the Fourth Book of Reali di Francia, entitled ‘Constantine,’ and
begins the Fifth. The one ending here is of Bevis of Hampton. Amen.” Evidently, Constantine was something
like an alternative title of the entire work, perhaps in the way that Brut became the title of Layamon’s epic; more
importantly, attention is now directed forward to Book Five, which, continuing from the end of Book Three,
concerns the descendants of Constantine up to Charlemagne. Andrea insists on the continuity of the Roman
Empire with the royal House of France, much as Geoffrey of Monmouth (to say nothing of Layamon and
Spenser after him) insists on the continuity of the Roman Brutus, eponymous founder of Britain, with the court
of King Arthur. Paris is just as much Troynovant as Camelot or London.