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This etext was produced by Martin Robb .

QUENTIN DURWARD

by

Sir Walter Scott, Bart.

AUTHOR'S INTRODUCTION

The scene of this romance is laid in the fifteenth century, when
the feudal system, which had been the sinews and nerves of national
defence, and the spirit of chivalry, by which, as by a vivifying soul,
that system was animated, began to be innovated upon and abandoned
by those grosser characters who centred their sum of happiness in
procuring the personal objects on which they had fixed their own
exclusive attachment. The same egotism had indeed displayed itself
even in more primitive ages; but it was now for the first time openly
avowed as a professed principle of action. The spirit of chivalry
had in it this point of excellence, that, however overstrained and
fantastic many of its doctrines may appear to us, they were all
founded on generosity and self denial, of which, if the earth were
deprived, it would be difficult to conceive the existence of virtue
among the human race.

Among those who were the first to ridicule and abandon the self
denying principles in which the young knight was instructed and to
which he was so carefully trained up, Louis XI of France was the
chief. That sovereign was of a character so purely selfish -- so
guiltless of entertaining any purpose unconnected with his ambition,
covetousness, and desire of selfish enjoyment -- that he almost
seems an incarnation of the devil himself, permitted to do his
utmost to corrupt our ideas of honour in its very source. Nor is it
to be forgotten that Louis possessed to a great extent that caustic
wit which can turn into ridicule all that a man does for any other
person's advantage but his own, and was, therefore, peculiarly
qualified to play the part of a cold hearted and sneering fiend.

The cruelties, the perjuries, the suspicions of this prince, were
rendered more detestable, rather than amended, by the gross and
debasing superstition which he constantly practised. The devotion
to the heavenly saints, of which he made such a parade, was upon the
miserable principle of some petty deputy in office, who endeavours
to hide or atone for the malversations of which he is conscious
by liberal gifts to those whose duty it is to observe his conduct,
and endeavours to support a system of fraud by an attempt to corrupt
the incorruptible. In no other light can we regard his creating the
Virgin Mary a countess and colonel of his guards, or the cunning
that admitted to one or two peculiar forms of oath the force of a
binding obligation which he denied to all other, strictly preserving
the secret, which mode of swearing he really accounted obligatory,
as one of the most valuable of state mysteries.

To a total want of scruple, or, it would appear, of any sense
whatever of moral obligation, Louis XI added great natural firmness
and sagacity of character, with a system of policy so highly refined,
considering the times he lived in, that he sometimes overreached
himself by giving way to its dictates.

Probably there is no portrait so dark as to be without its softer
shades. He understood the interests of France, and faithfully
pursued them so long as he could identify them with his own. He
carried the country safe through the dangerous crisis of the war
termed "for the public good;" in thus disuniting and dispersing this
grand and dangerous alliance of the great crown vassals of France
against the Sovereign, a king of a less cautious and temporizing
character, and of a more bold and less crafty disposition than
Louis XI, would, in all probability, have failed. Louis had also
some personal accomplishments not inconsistent with his public
character. He was cheerful and witty in society; and none was better
able to sustain and extol the superiority of the coarse and selfish
reasons by which he endeavoured to supply those nobler motives for
exertion which his predecessors had derived from the high spirit
of chivalry.

In fact, that system was now becoming ancient, and had, even while
in its perfection, something so overstrained and fantastic in
its principles, as rendered it peculiarly the object of ridicule,
whenever, like other old fashions, it began to fall out of repute;
and the weapons of raillery could be employed against it, without
exciting the disgust and horror with which they would have
been rejected at an early period, as a species of blasphemy. The
principles of chivalry were cast aside, and their aid supplied by
baser stimulants. Instead of the high spirit which pressed every
man forward in the defence of his country, Louis XI substituted the
exertions of the ever ready mercenary soldier, and persuaded his
subjects, among whom the mercantile class began to make a figure,
that it was better to leave to mercenaries the risks and labours
of war, and to supply the Crown with the means of paying them,
than to peril themselves in defence of their own substance. The
merchants were easily persuaded by this reasoning. The hour did not
arrive in the days of Louis XI when the landed gentry and nobles
could be in like manner excluded from the ranks of war; but the wily
monarch commenced that system, which, acted upon by his successors,
at length threw the whole military defence of the state into the
hands of the Crown.

He was equally forward in altering the principles which were wont
to regulate the intercourse of the sexes. The doctrines of chivalry
had established, in theory at least, a system in which Beauty was
the governing and remunerating divinity -- Valour, her slave, who
caught his courage from her eye and gave his life for her slightest
service. It is true, the system here, as in other branches, was stretched
to fantastic extravagance, and cases of scandal not unfrequently
arose. Still, they were generally such as those mentioned by Burke,
where frailty was deprived of half its guilt, by being purified from
all its grossness. In Louis XI's practice, it was far otherwise.
He was a low voluptuary, seeking pleasure without sentiment, and
despising the sex from whom he desired to obtain it. ... By selecting
his favourites and ministers from among the dregs of the people,
Louis showed the slight regard which he paid to eminent station
and high birth; and although this might be not only excusable but
meritorious, where the monarch's fiat promoted obscure talent, or
called forth modest worth, it was very different when the King made
his favourite associates of such men as the chief of his
police, Tristan l'Hermite. .

Nor were Louis's sayings and actions in private or public of a kind
which could redeem such gross offences against the character of a
man of honour. His word, generally accounted the most sacred test
of a man's character, and the least impeachment of which is a capital
offence by the code of honour, was forfeited without scruple on
the slightest occasion, and often accompanied by the perpetration
of the most enormous crimes ... It is more than probable that, in
thus renouncing almost openly the ties of religion, honour, and
morality, by which mankind at large feel themselves influenced, Louis
sought to obtain great advantages in his negotiations with parties
who might esteem themselves bound, while he himself enjoyed liberty.
He started from the goal, he might suppose, like the racer who
has got rid of the weights with which his competitors are still
encumbered, and expects to succeed of course. But Providence
seems always to unite the existence of peculiar danger with some
circumstance which may put those exposed to the peril upon their
guard. The constant suspicion attached to any public person who
becomes badly eminent for breach of faith is to him what the rattle
is to the poisonous serpent: and men come at last to calculate
not so much on what their antagonist says as upon that which he
is likely to do; a degree of mistrust which tends to counteract
the intrigues of such a character, more than his freedom from
the scruples of conscientious men can afford him advantage. .

Indeed, although the reign of Louis had been as successful in
a political point of view as he himself could have desired, the
spectacle of his deathbed might of itself be a warning piece against
the seduction of his example. Jealous of every one, but chiefly of
his own son, he immured himself in his Castle of Plessis, intrusting
his person exclusively to the doubtful faith of his Scottish
mercenaries. He never stirred from his chamber; he admitted no one
into it, and wearied heaven and every saint with prayers, not for
forgiveness of his sins, but for the prolongation of his life. With
a poverty of spirit totally inconsistent with his shrewd worldly
sagacity, he importuned his physicians until they insulted
as well as plundered him. .

It was not the least singular circumstance of this course, that
bodily health and terrestrial felicity seemed to be his only object.
Making any mention of his sins when talking on the state of his
health, was strictly prohibited; and when at his command a priest
recited a prayer to Saint Eutropius in which he recommended the
King's welfare both in body and soul, Louis caused the two last
words to be omitted, saying it was not prudent to importune the
blessed saint by too many requests at once. Perhaps he thought by
being silent on his crimes he might suffer them to pass out of the
recollection of the celestial patrons, whose aid he invoked for
his body.

So great were the well merited tortures of this tyrant's deathbed,
that Philip de Comines enters into a regular comparison between
them and the numerous cruelties inflicted on others by his order;
and considering both, comes to express an opinion that the worldly
pangs and agony suffered by Louis were such as might compensate the
crimes he had committed, and that, after a reasonable quarantine
in purgatory, he might in mercy he found duly qualified for the
superior regions ... The instructive but appalling scene of this
tyrant's sufferings was at length closed by death, 30th August,
1483.

The selection of this remarkable person as the principal character
in the romance -- for it will be easily comprehended that the little
love intrigue of Quentin is only employed as the means of bringing
out the story -- afforded considerable facilities to the author.
In Louis XI's time, extraordinary commotions existed throughout
all Europe. England's Civil Wars were ended, rather in appearance
than reality, by the short lived ascendancy of the House of York.
Switzerland was asserting that freedom which was afterwards so
bravely defended. In the Empire and in France, the great vassals
of the crown were endeavouring to emancipate themselves from its
control, while Charles of Burgundy by main force, and Louis more
artfully by indirect means, laboured to subject them to subservience
to their respective sovereignties. Louis, while with one hand
he circumvented and subdued his own rebellious vassals, laboured
secretly with the other to aid and encourage the large trading
towns of Flanders to rebel against the Duke of Burgundy, to which
their wealth and irritability naturally disposed them. In the more
woodland districts of Flanders, the Duke of Gueldres, and William
de la Marck, called from his ferocity the Wild Boar of Ardennes,
were throwing off the habits of knights and gentlemen to practise
the violences and brutalities of common bandits.

[Chapter I gives a further account of the conditions of the period
which Quentin Durward portrays.]

A hundred secret combinations existed in the different provinces
of France and Flanders; numerous private emissaries of the restless
Louis, Bohemians, pilgrims, beggars, or agents disguised as such,
were everywhere spreading the discontent which it was his policy
to maintain in the dominions of Burgundy.

Amidst so great an abundance of materials, it was difficult to
select such as should be most intelligible and interesting to the
reader: and the author had to regret, that though he made liberal
use of the power of departing from the reality of history, he felt
by no means confident of having brought his story into a pleasing,
compact, and sufficiently intelligible form. The mainspring of
the plot is that which all who know the least of the feudal system
can easily understand, though the facts are absolutely fictitious.
The right of a feudal superior was in nothing more universally
acknowledged than in his power to interfere in the marriage of
a female vassal. This may appear to exist as a contradiction both
of the civil and canon laws, which declare that marriage shall be
free, while the feudal or municipal jurisprudence, in case of a
fief passing to a female, acknowledges an interest in the superior
of the fief to dictate the choice of her companion in marriage.
This is accounted for on the principle that the superior was, by his
bounty, the original granter of the fief, and is still interested
that the marriage of the vassal shall place no one there who
may be inimical to his liege lord. On the other hand, it might be
reasonably pleaded that this right of dictating to the vassal to
a certain extent in the choice of a husband, is only competent to
the superior from whom the fief is originally derived. There is
therefore no violent improbability in a vassal of Burgundy flying
to the protection of the King of France, to whom the Duke of Burgundy
himself was vassal; not is it a great stretch of probability to
affirm that Louis, unscrupulous as he was, should have formed the
design of betraying the fugitive into some alliance which might
prove inconvenient, if not dangerous, to his formidable kinsman
and vassal of Burgundy.

[Some of these departures from historical accuracy, as when
the death of the Bishop of Liege is antedated, are duly set forth
in the notes. It should be mentioned that Mr. J. F. Kirk, in his
elaborate History of Charles the Bold, claims that in some points
injustice has been done to the Duke in this romance. He says: "The
faults of Charles were sufficiently glaring, and scarcely admitted
of exaggeration; but his breeding had been that of a prince, his
education had been better than that of other princes of his time,
his tastes and habits were more, not less, refined than theirs,
and the restraint he imposed upon his sensual appetites was as
conspicuous a trait as his sternness and violence."]

Abbotsford, 1830.

Quentin Durward was published in June, 1823, and was Scott's
first venture on foreign ground. While well received at home, the
sensation it created in Paris was comparable to that caused by
the appearance of Waverley in Edinburgh and Ivanhoe in London. In
Germany also, where the author was already popular, the new novel
had a specially enthusiastic welcome. The scene of the romance was
partly suggested by a journal kept by Sir Walter's dear friend,
Mr. James Skene of Rubislaw, during a French tour, the diary being
illustrated by a vast number of clever drawings. The author, in
telling this tale laid in unfamiliar scenes, encountered difficulties
of a kind quite new to him, as it necessitated much study of maps,
gazetteers, and books of travel. For the history, he naturally found
above all else the Memoirs of Philip de Comines "the very key of
the period," though it need not be said that the lesser chroniclers
received due attention. It is interesting to note that in writing
to his friend, Daniel Terry, the actor and manager, Scott says,
"I have no idea my present labours will be dramatic in situation;
as to character, that of Louis XI, the sagacious, perfidious,
superstitious, jocular, politic tyrant, would be, for a historical
chronicle containing his life and death, one of the most powerful
ever brought on the stage." So thought the poet, Casimir Delavigne
-- writing when Scott's influence was marked upon French literature
-- whose powerful drama, Louis XI, was a great Parisian success.
Later Charles Kean and Henry Irving made an English version of it
well known in England and America.

CHAPTER I: THE CONTRAST

Look here upon this picture, and on this,
The counterfeit presentment of two brothers.

HAMLET

The latter part of the fifteenth century prepared a train of future
events that ended by raising France to that state of formidable power
which has ever since been from time to time the principal object
of jealousy to the other European nations. Before that period she
had to struggle for her very existence with the English already
possessed of her fairest provinces while the utmost exertions of
her King, and the gallantry of her people, could scarcely protect
the remainder from a foreign yoke. Nor was this her sole danger.
The princes who possessed the grand fiefs of the crown, and, in
particular, the Dukes of Burgundy and Bretagne, had come to wear
their feudal bonds so lightly that they had no scruple in lifting
the standard against their liege and sovereign lord, the King of
France, on the slightest pretence. When at peace, they reigned as
absolute princes in their own provinces; and the House of Burgundy,
possessed of the district so called, together with the fairest and
richest part of Flanders, was itself so wealthy, and so powerful,
as to yield nothing to the crown, either in splendour or in strength.

In imitation of the grand feudatories, each inferior vassal of
the crown assumed as much independence as his distance from the
sovereign power, the extent of his fief, or the strength of his
chateau enabled him to maintain; and these petty tyrants, no longer
amenable to the exercise of the law, perpetrated with impunity the
wildest excesses of fantastic oppression and cruelty. In Auvergne
alone, a report was made of more than three hundred of these
independent nobles, to whom incest, murder, and rapine were the
most ordinary and familiar actions.

Besides these evils, another, springing out of the long continued
wars betwixt the French and English, added no small misery to this
distracted kingdom. Numerous bodies of soldiers, collected into
bands, under officers chosen by themselves, from among the bravest
and most successful adventurers, had been formed in various parts
of France out of the refuse of all other countries. These hireling
combatants sold their swords for a time to the best bidder; and,
when such service was not to be had, they made war on their own
account, seizing castles and towers, which they used as the places
of their retreat, making prisoners, and ransoming them, exacting
tribute from the open villages and the country around them -- and
acquiring, by every species of rapine, the appropriate epithets of
Tondeurs and Ecorcheurs, that is, Clippers and Flayers.

In the midst of the horrors and miseries arising from so
distracted a state of public affairs, reckless and profuse expense
distinguished the courts of the lesser nobles, as well as of the
superior princes; and their dependents, in imitation, expended in
rude but magnificent display the wealth which they extorted from
the people. A tone of romantic and chivalrous gallantry (which,
however, was often disgraced by unbounded license) characterized the
intercourse between the sexes; and the language of knight errantry
was yet used, and its observances followed, though the pure spirit
of honourable love and benevolent enterprise which it inculcates
had ceased to qualify and atone for its extravagances. The jousts
and tournaments, the entertainments and revels, which each petty
court displayed, invited to France every wandering adventurer; and
it was seldom that, when arrived there, he failed to employ his
rash courage, and headlong spirit of enterprise, in actions for
which his happier native country afforded no free stage.

At this period, and as if to save this fair realm from the various
woes with which it was menaced, the tottering throne was ascended
by Louis XI, whose character, evil as it was in itself, met, combated,
and in a great degree neutralized the mischiefs of the time -- as
poisons of opposing qualities are said, in ancient books of medicine,
to have the power of counteracting each other.

Brave enough for every useful and political purpose, Louis had not
a spark of that romantic valour, or of the pride generally associated
with it, which fought on for the point of honour, when the point
of utility had been long gained. Calm, crafty, and profoundly
attentive to his own interest, he made every sacrifice, both of
pride and passion, which could interfere with it. He was careful in
disguising his real sentiments and purposes from all who approached
him, and frequently used the expressions, "that the king knew not
how to reign, who knew not how to dissemble; and that, for himself,
if he thought his very cap knew his secrets, he would throw it
into the fire." No man of his own, or of any other time, better
understood how to avail himself of the frailties of others, and
when to avoid giving any advantage by the untimely indulgence of
his own.

He was by nature vindictive and cruel, even to the extent of finding
pleasure in the frequent executions which he commanded. But, as
no touch of mercy ever induced him to spare, when he could with
safety condemn, so no sentiment of vengeance ever stimulated him
to a premature violence. He seldom sprang on his prey till it was
fairly within his grasp, and till all hope of rescue was vain; and
his movements were so studiously disguised, that his success was
generally what first announced to the world the object he had been
manoeuvring to attain.

In like manner, the avarice of Louis gave way to apparent profusion,
when it was necessary to bribe the favourite or minister of a rival
prince for averting any impending attack, or to break up any alliance
confederated against him. He was fond of license and pleasure; but
neither beauty nor the chase, though both were ruling passions, ever
withdrew him from the most regular attendance to public business and
the affairs of his kingdom. His knowledge of mankind was profound,
and he had sought it in the private walks of life, in which he
often personally mingled; and, though naturally proud and haughty,
he hesitated not, with an inattention to the arbitrary divisions
of society which was then thought something portentously unnatural,
to raise from the lowest rank men whom he employed on the most
important duties, and knew so well how to choose them, that he was
rarely disappointed in their qualities. Yet there were contradictions
in the character of this artful and able monarch; for human nature
is rarely uniform. Himself the most false and insincere of mankind,
some of the greatest errors of his life arose from too rash a
confidence in the honour and integrity of others. When these errors
took place, they seem to have arisen from an over refined system of
policy, which induced Louis to assume the appearance of undoubting
confidence in those whom it was his object to overreach; for, in
his general conduct, he was as jealous and suspicious as any tyrant
who ever breathed.

Two other points may be noticed to complete the sketch of this
formidable character, by which he rose among the rude, chivalrous
sovereigns of the period to the rank of a keeper among wild beasts,
who, by superior wisdom and policy, by distribution of food, and
some discipline by blows, comes finally to predominate over those
who, if unsubjected by his arts, would by main strength have torn
him to pieces.

The first of these attributes was Louis's excessive superstition, a
plague with which Heaven often afflicts those who refuse to listen
to the dictates of religion. The remorse arising from his evil
actions Louis never endeavoured to appease by any relaxation in
his Machiavellian stratagems [on account of the alleged political
immorality of Machiavelli, an illustrious Italian of the sixteenth
century, this expression has come to mean "destitute of political
morality; habitually using duplicity and bad faith." Cent. Dict.],
but laboured in vain to soothe and silence that painful feeling by
superstitious observances, severe penance, and profuse gifts to
the ecclesiastics. The second property, with which the first is
sometimes found strangely united, was a disposition to low pleasures
and obscure debauchery. The wisest, or at least the most crafty
sovereign of his time, he was fond of low life, and, being himself
a man of wit, enjoyed the jests and repartees of social conversation
more than could have been expected from other points of his character.
He even mingled in the comic adventures of obscure intrigue, with
a freedom little consistent with the habitual and guarded jealousy
of his character, and he was so fond of this species of humble
gallantry, that he caused a number of its gay and licentious anecdotes
to be enrolled in a collection well known to book collectors, in
whose eyes (and the work is unfit for any other) the right edition
is very precious.

[This editio princeps, which, when in good preservation, is
much sought after by connoisseurs, is entitled Les Cent Nouvelles
Nouvelles, contenant Cent Histoires Nouveaux, qui sont moult plaisans
a raconter en toutes bonnes compagnies par maniere de joyeuxete.
Paris, Antoine Verard. Sans date d'annee d'impression; en folio
gotique. See De Bure. S]