urgundy. Perhaps he was wise enough to understand that what
Constance was really scheming for was the continuance of her own power,
and that if placed on the throne he would have been completely under her
control.

In this crisis of the affairs of the kingdom, Henry, fleeing with a
following of but twelve vavasours, called upon Normandy for aid; and
most effective aid he had from one whose name was to become famous, a
nucleus for the gathering of romance. This was Duke Robert of Normandy,
surnamed Robert the Devil, who carried on a predatory warfare so savage
and so successful that most of the revolted lords near the borders of
Normandy "bowed their heads before him." Old Foulques Nerra, probably in
one of his edifying fits of repentance, at length brought Constance to a
reconciliation with Henry, reproaching her with the brutal fury with
which she was treating her son. The miserable queen, who had caused so
much unhappiness to her husband and to her sons, did not long survive
the peace, dying at Melun in July, 1032. Her ally Eudes continued the
struggle some little while, but was at last vanquished and forced to
disgorge half of the county of Sens which Constance had given him as a
bribe.

Thus ends the life of one of the first of the French queens who really
took an active part in affairs. Beautiful, witty, and full of graces and
caprices essentially feminine, as well as of some masculine qualities,
she yet appears to have inspired no love, nothing but dread, in anyone
who came near her; and the chroniclers of the time seem to delight in
telling anecdotes illustrative of her wickedness as contrasted with
Robert's saintliness. But we must remember that at least she
accomplished something, and that her enemies tell her story.

At the period of which we write, Normandy was all powerful, and the
Capets had come to look upon her dukes now as their most dangerous foes
and now as their most useful friends. Duke Robert the Magnificent, as
his courtiers called him, or Robert the Devil, as literature knows him,
had an amour which is interesting as showing that class distinctions
were not so rigid as one might think. According to Wace's story of the
romance:

"A Faleize ont li Dus hante,...
Une meschine i ont amee,
Arlot ont nom, de burgeis nee."

(The duke did much frequent Falaise,... There he loved a girl named
Arietta, born of a burgess of the town). Arietta, the tanner's daughter,
was to becom