The Cloister and the Hearth: A Tale of the Middle Ages

by Charles Reade

  CHAPTER LXXIII

  "AS is the race of leaves so is that of man." And a great man buddedunnoticed in a tailor's house at Rotterdam this year, and a large mandropped to earth with great eclat.

  Philip Duke of Burgundy, Earl of Holland, etc., etc., lay sick atBruges. Now paupers got sick and got well as Nature pleased: but woebetided the rich in an age when, for one Mr. Malady killed, three fellby Dr. Remedy.

  The duke's complaint, nameless then, is now diphtheria. It is, and was,a very weakening malady, and the duke was old; so altogether Dr. Remedybled him.

  The duke turned very cold: wonderful!

  Then Dr. Remedy had recourse to the arcana of science.

  "Ho! This is grave. Flay me an ape incontinent, and clap him to theduke's breast!"

  Officers of state ran septemvious, seeking an ape to counteract thebloodthirsty tomfoolery of the human species.

  Perdition! The duke was out of apes. There were buffaloes, lizards,Turks, leopards; any unreasonable beast but the right one.

  "Why, there used to be an ape about," said one. "If I stand here I sawhim."

  So there used; but the mastiff had mangled the sprightly creature forstealing his supper: and so fulfilled the human precept, "Soyez de votresiecle!"

  In this emergency the seneschal cast his despairing eyes around; and notin vain. A hopeful light shot into them.

  "Here is _this_," said he, sotto voce. "Surely _this_ will serve; 'tisaltogether apelike, doublet and hose apart."

  "Nay," said the chancellor, peevishly, "the Princess Marie would hangus. She doteth on _this_."

  Now _this_ was our friend Giles, strutting, all unconscious, in cloth ofgold.

  Then Dr. Remedy grew impatient, and bade flay a dog.

  "A dog is next best to an ape; only it must be a dog all of one colour."

  So they flayed a liver-coloured dog, and clapped it, yet palpitating, totheir sovereign's breast: and he died.

  Philip the Good, thus scientifically disposed of, left thirty-onechildren: of whom one, somehow or another, was legitimate; and reignedin his stead.

  The good duke provided for nineteen out of the other thirty; the restshifted for themselves.

  According to the Flemish chronicle the deceased prince was descendedfrom the kings of Troy through Thierry of Aquitaine, and Chilperic,Pharamond, &c., the old kings of Franconia.

  But this in reality was no distinction. Not a prince of his day have Ibeen able to discover who did not come down from Troy. "Priam" wasmediaeval for "Adam."

  The good duke's body was carried into Burgundy, and laid in a noblemausoleum of black marble at Dijon.

  Holland rang with his death; and little dreamed that anything as famouswas born in her territory that year. That judgment has been longreversed. Men gaze at the tailor's house, where the great birth of thefifteenth century took place. In what house the good duke died "no oneknows and no one cares," as the song says.

  And why?

  Dukes Philip the Good come and go, and leave mankind not a halfpennywiser, nor better, nor other, than they found it. But when, once inthree hundred years, such a child is born to the world as Margaret'sson, lo! a human torch lighted by fire from heaven; and "FIAT LUX"thunders from pole to pole.