l
episode of the rude poem attributed to Raimbert of Paris. The son of
Ogier, Baudouinet, had been slain by the son of Charlemagne, who called
himself Charlot. Ogier did nothing but breathe vengeance, and would not
agree to assist Christendom against the Saracen invaders unless the
unfortunate Charlot was delivered to him. He wanted to kill him, he
determined to kill him, and he rejoiced over it in anticipation. In vain
did Charlot humble himself before this brute, and endeavor to pacify him
by the sincerity of his repentance; in vain the old Emperor himself
prayed most earnestly to God; in vain the venerable Naimes, the Nestor
of our ballads, offered to serve Ogier all the rest of his life, and
begged the Dane "not to forget the Saviour, who was born of the Virgin
at Bethlehem." All their devotion and prayers were unavailing. Ogier,
pitiless, placed one of his heavy hands on the youthful head, and with
the other drew his sword, his terrible sword "Courtain." Nothing less
than the intervention of an angel from heaven could have put an end to
this terrible scene in which all the savagery of the German forests was
displayed.

The majority of these early heroes had no other shibboleth than "I am
going to separate the head from the trunk!" It was their war-cry. But if
you desire something more frightful still, something more "primitive,"
you have only to open the _Loherains_ at hazard, and read a few stanzas
of that raging ballad of "derring-do," and you will almost fancy you are
perusing one of those pages in which Livingstone describes in such
indignant terms the manners of some tribe in Central Africa. Read this:
"Begue struck Isore upon his black helmet through the golden circlet,
cutting him to the chine; then he plunged into his body his sword
Flamberge with the golden hilt; took the heart out with both hands, and
threw it, still warm, at the head of William, saying, 'There is your
cousin's heart; you can salt and roast it.'" Here words fail us; it
would be too tame to say with Goedecke, "These heroes act like the
forces of nature, in the manner of the hurricane which knows no pity."
We must use more indignant terms than these, for we are truly amid
cannibals. Once again we say, there was the warrior, there was the
savage whom the church had to elevate and educate!

Such is the point of departure of this wonderful progress; such are the
refractory elements out of which chivalry and the knight have been
fashioned.