rd _Siege of Narbonne_, which has a poem to itself, he shows
prowess against the Saracens, but is taken prisoner. He is rescued
from crucifixion by his aged father, who cuts his way through the
Saracens and carries off his son. But the number of the heathen is too
great, and the city must have surrendered if an embassy sent to
Charlemagne had not brought help, headed by William himself, in time.
He is as victorious as usual, but after his victory again returns to
Aix.

[Sidenote: _The_ Charroi de Nimes.]

Now begins the _Couronnement Loys_, of which the more detailed
abstract given above may serve, not merely to make the individual
piece known, but to indicate the general course, incidents, language,
and so forth of all these poems. It will be remembered that it ends by
a declaration that the king was not grateful to the King-maker. He
forgets William in the distribution of fiefs, says M. Gautier; we may
say, perhaps, that he remembers rather too vividly the rough
instruction he has received from his brother-in-law. On protest
William receives Spain, Orange, and Nimes, a sufficiently magnificent
dotation, were it not that all three are in the power of the infidels.
William, however, loses no time in putting himself in possession, and
begins with Nimes. This he carries, as told in the _Charroi de
Nimes_,[38] by the Douglas-like stratagem (indeed it is not at all
impossible that the Good Lord James was acquainted with the poem) of
hiding his knights in casks, supposed to contain salt and other
merchandise, which are piled on cars and drawn by oxen. William
himself and Bertrand his nephew conduct the caravan, dressed in rough
boots (which hurt Bertrand's feet), blue hose, and coarse cloth
frocks. The innocent paynims give them friendly welcome, though
William is nearly discovered by his tell-tale disfigurement. A
squabble, however, arises; but William, having effected his entrance,
does not lose time. He blows his horn, and the knights springing from
their casks, the town is taken. This _Charroi de Nimes_ is one of the
most spirited, but one of the roughest, of the group. The catalogue of
his services with which William overwhelms the king, each item
ushered by the phrase "Rois, quar te membre" ("King, bethink thee
then"), and to which the unfortunate Louis can only answer in various
forms, "You are very ill-tempered" ("Pleins es de mautalent";
"Mautalent avez moult"), is curiously full of uncultivated eloquence;
while