THE ROYAL HOUSE OF FRANCE - outriders poetry project

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© 2009 Max Wickert
Now a murmur rose among the lords of the host, who said, “We are marching with Charles against
his own blood, and with Bernard against his,” and there was much talk about this question. Yet
Charles gathered all the nobility together and reassured them, swearing that even if they should all
kill him, nothing should ever be held against them, and all should be pardoned from that moment
onward. “Are you not all great and free nobles? For I abjure them as traitors to me and to my
father.” Bernard of Clairmont also abjured Gerard of the Thicket as an enemy of the French
Crown and of justice. After the barons were reassured, the host began to move and thus banded
together marched toward Paris
Back in France
Gerard and Guerrin
43
When news arrived in Paris that the army had passed Orleans, Gerard of the Thicket said to Lanfroy
and King Ulric: “We have to take the field against them, so that we may not seem to be afraid.” A
command was issued that everyone should sally out from Paris. King Ulric issued a public
declamation that every citizen capable of bearing arms should, on pain of hanging, sally from the city
against the enemy. When they were outside the city, he made the form the first division and made
two citizens its captains. The second was bestowed on Lanfroy, and it had twenty thousand knights.
In to this division Gerard sent Guerrin, his younger brother, and said to him: “That man Charles
says he is King Philip’s son and that he was begotten on a car during a hunt. This cannot be
believed, since Pepin was so old that you could not have been able. But the mother, to call the
succession of this kingdom into question, had plenty of means to get herself pregnant. But about
those two who are our masters are certainly Pepin’s sons.” He continued by saying to Guerrin: