THE ROYAL HOUSE OF FRANCE - outriders poetry project

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© 2009 Max Wickert
daughters, and thrived so well that in less than five years Lambert grew rich and no longer tended to
the hunt. She had taught Lambert’s daughter to become so lovely and proper (and his wife, too)
that she well showed that she was born of gentle blood.
Lambert showed her as much honor as was in his power, and they all obeyed her He often told her
of the news in Paris. He told her how King Pepin had had two sons by Queen Bertha, the daughter
of the King of Hungary. Then she understood all too well how Falisetta had betrayed her with the
help of her relatives. She thought night and day how she might be avenged and return into the grace
of her lord, much as she might fear death. Then she conceived the idea of fashioning a marvelous
pavilion.
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Bertha had been with Lambert for five years when she sent an order by him to Paris, making him on
several occasions spend more than three hundred pieces of gold to purchase silk and thread of gold
and of silver. Then she fashioned a marvelous pavilion on which she embroidered in intricate
patterns the whole story of what had occurred: first, how she was betrothed in Hungary, and the
barons who had brought her, and how she had come to Paris, with all that had happened there, one
by one; and each panel had a writ that plainly declared each event.
When the pavilion was finished, she called Lambert and said: “Go hence, on the day of the festival,
to Saint Denis, and erect this pavilion in a place where the king and his barons will see it in passing.
Sell it at the price of two pounds of silver for every pound of its weight. If anyone asks you where
you got it, say: ‘I went to Aigues Mortes and set about buying merchandise. A man from Alexandria
sold me this. I have brought it here to sell, and my price for it is twice its weight in silver.’ But do