ied that the contest was vain. In
proportion as the activity of the hostilities diminished, Matilda became
more and more open in her efforts to restrain it, and to allay the
animosity on either side. She succeeded, finally, in inducing Robert to
lay down his arms, and then brought about an interview between the
parties, in hopes of a peaceful settlement of the quarrel.

It appeared very soon, however, at this interview, that there was no
hope of any thing like a real and cordial reconciliation. Though both
the father and son had become weary of the unnatural war which they had
waged against each other, yet the ambitious and selfish desires on both
sides, in which the contest had originated, remained unchanged. Robert
began the conference by imperiously demanding of his father the
fulfillment of his promise to give him the government of Normandy. His
father replied by reproaching him with his unnatural and wicked
rebellion, and warned him of the danger he incurred, in imitating the
example of Absalom, of sharing that wretched rebel's fate. Robert
rejoined that he did not come to meet his father for the sake of hearing
a sermon preached. He had had enough of sermons, he said, when he was a
boy, studying grammar. He wanted his father to do him justice, not
preach to him. The king said that he should never divide his dominions,
while he lived, with any one; and added, notwithstanding what Robert had
contemptuously said about sermons, that the Scripture declared that a
house divided against itself could not stand. He then proceeded to
reproach and incriminate the prince in the severest manner for his
disloyalty as a subject, and his undutifulness and ingratitude as a son.
It was intolerable, he said, that a son should become the rival and
bitterest enemy of his father, when it was to him that he owed, not
merely all that he enjoyed, but his very existence itself.

These reproaches were probably uttered in an imperious and angry manner,
and with that spirit of denunciation which only irritates the accused
and arouses his resentment, instead of awakening feelings of penitence
and contrition. At any rate, the thought of his filial ingratitude, as
his father presented it, produced no relenting in Robert's mind. He
abruptly terminated the interview, and went out of his father's presence
in a rage.

In spite of all his mother's exertions and entreaties, he resolved to
leave the country once more. He said he would rather be an ex