THE ROYAL HOUSE OF FRANCE - outriders poetry project

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© 2009 Max Wickert
river that was called the Maine 35 . On the banks of that river there stood a knight, whose name was
Lambert. He was a retainer of King Pepin’s reserved for the hunt, and he had a wife and four
daughters. That Lambert went tracking and searching through that forest, or rather hunting
preserve, and one of his bloodhounds found Bertha tied up and began to bark. Lambert, thinking
that there was some beast or quarry there, ran up at the baying of the hound. He saw Bertha and
grew astonished and asked her who she was. She scarcely answered him but begged to be untied.
He did so and she fell to the ground. She could scarcely speak but told him that she was a
merchant’s daughter. “And I was forcibly abducted from my garden by four ruffians and brought to
this place, for they would deprive me of my virginity. I demanded that they kill me rather and they
said: ‘We will not kill you, but we will make you die in a strange manner.’ Then the tore of my shift
and tied me to this tree, as you can see, and carried all my garments away with them.” (She spoke in
French, like Lambert.)
He had great pity for her and helped her to rise as best she could, and then brought her to his
dwelling, which stood on the banks of the Maine, and told his wife how he had found her. She too
pitied her and clothed in one of her garments of coarse burlap, saying: “My daughter, you shall stay
with us, and whatever we have, we shall share with you.” The lady praised God and His Divine
Mother, and knelt at their feet and thanked them, and bade them call her Falisetta.
When she had stayed with them for a month, she said to Lambert: “My father, I pray you to buy
some writing-sheets and an ink well, that I may write for my necessities. If you do so, I promise
your daughters shall gain a dowry.” Lambert obeyed, and she wrote whatever she needed for
embroidery work and to fashion purses in the French fashion. When her work was finished,
Lambert carried it to Paris to sell, and so doubled his money. Then she taught her skill to Lambert’s
35 Perhaps the modern Mayenne. For its connection with the name “Charlemagne” see below.