THE ROYAL HOUSE OF FRANCE - outriders poetry project

168
© 2009 Max Wickert
jacket. The shepherd replied: “On the day when King Pepin was killed, a page passed this place and
asked me to exchange garments. He gave me his clothing and I gave him mine, and my stockings
and my shoes. I asked him why he was doing this and he said to me: ‘For fear of being killed..’”
The shepherd also gave so many other tokens, that Morand was overcome with joy at the thought
that his charge must still be alive.
At that time the abbot often had the aforesaid vision telling him that the boy who called himself
Mainet was Charlot. Therefore, when one morning he was alone with him in his chamber, he fell on
his knees to him, and spoke in the following manner: “Sire, you can no longer hide the fact that you
are my lord Charles.” Then Charles no longer knew how to deny it, but threw himself weeping
upon his knees before the abbot, crossed his breast and ,trembling with fright, begged him to save
him from the hands of the two bastards. The abbot, weeping also, embraced him and encouraged
him, saying: “My lord, your father endowed me with this abbey, and I was for eight years his
chaplain. Both my person and my abbey are at your disposal. I would rather die a thousand times
than that you should fall into the hands of these two treacherous patricides.” Mainet then asked him
not to change his employment, lest he be recognized. The abbot secretly had a suit of armor
fashioned to the measure of his back, and for love of him kept a great steed ready in his stables.
And since Charlot asked questions among all the other monks, he bid him make peace with all of
them, and made him sleep in his own chamber. In this manner he kept him there for two years
before he was recognized.
20
After Morand had been searching through nearly the whole world and never had any tidings of
Charlot except from the above-mentioned shepherd, he asked him what way he had taken and he