antle. With this feeble buckler
he received the thrust of the lance. It penetrated the mantle, but
missed his body. Then, rising upon his stirrups, Sir Huon struck
Charlot so terrible a blow with his sword that the helmet was cleft
asunder, and his head too. The dastardly prince fell dead upon the
ground.

Huon now perceived that the wood was full of armed men. He called the
men of his suite, and they hastily put themselves in order, but nobody
issued from the wood to attack him. Amaury, who saw Charlot's fall, had
no desire to compromit himself; and, feeling sure that Charlemagne
would avenge the death of his son, he saw no occasion for his doing
anything more at present. He left Huon and the Abbot of Cluny to bind
up the wound of Girard, and, having seen them depart and resume their
way to Paris, he took up the body of Charlot, and, placing it across a
horse, had it carried to Paris, where he arrived four hours after Huon.

The Abbot of Cluny presented his nephew to Charlemagne, but Huon
refrained from paying his obeisance, complaining grievously of the
ambush which had been set for him, which he said could not have been
without the Emperor's permission. Charlemagne, surprised at a charge
which his magnanimous soul was incapable of meriting, asked eagerly of
the Abbot what were the grounds of the complaints of his nephew. The
Abbot told him faithfully all that had happened, informing him that a
coward knight, who called himself the son of Thierry of Ardennes, had
wounded Girard, and run upon Huon, who was unarmed; but by his force
and valor he had overcome the traitor, and left him dead upon the plain.

Charlemagne indignantly disavowed any connection with the action of the
infamous Thierry, congratulated the young Duke upon his victory,
himself conducted the two brothers to a rich apartment, stayed to see
the first dressing applied to the wound of Girard, and left the
brothers in charge of Duke Namo of Bavaria, who, having been a
companion in arms of the Duke Sevinus, regarded the young men almost as
if they were his own sons.

Charlemagne had hardly quitted them when, returning to his chamber, he
heard cries, and saw through the window a party of armed men just
arrived. He recognized Amaury, who bore a dead knight stretched across
a horse; and the name of Charlot was heard among the exclamations of
the people assembled in the court-yard.

Charles's partiality for this unworthy son was one of his weaknesses.
He