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"Holy Mary!" exclaimed the Princess. "Rally yourself," said the Emperor; "remember you are a child of the purple chamber, born, not to weep for your father's wrongs, but to avenge them, not to regard even him who has lain by your side as half so important as the sacred Imperial grandeur, of which you are yourself a partaker." "What can such words preface?" said Anna Comnena, in great agitation.
"Did I not understand thee, fellow," said Anna Comnena, "to have informed me, nearly a month ago, that the Normans and the Franks were the same people, and enemies to the race from which you spring?" "The Normans are our mortal enemies, Lady," answered Hereward, "by whom we were driven from our native land.
Anna Comnena gives us to understand that she knows not what might have been the result had not Alexis fortunately awoke at that instant. In this there is a moral of the highest kind, in which the sensuous instinct first raised its voice, and of which the reason had only afterwards taken cognizance in quality of judge.
Assuming then an attitude more commanding, as one who was about to claim the attention of the company, the Princess inclined her head gently around to the audience, and taking a roll of parchment from the fair amanuensis, which she had, in a most beautiful handwriting, engrossed to her mistress's dictation, Anna Comnena prepared to read its contents.
We traced his first entrance into the court, but since then he had frequently been summoned, not only by order of the Princess Anna Comnena, who delighted in asking him questions concerning the customs of his native country, and marking down the replies in her own inflated language; but also by the direct command of the Emperor himself, who had the humour of many princes, that of desiring to obtain direct information from persons in a very inferior station in their Court.
"I trust," said Anna Comnena, "that in my humble sketch of the life of the princely sire from whom I derive my existence, I have not forgot to notice his love of peace, and care for the lives of his soldiery, and abhorrence of the bloody manners of the heretic Franks, as one of his most distinguishing characteristics."
French gave various bases for his opinion. "Yes interesting. Very interesting. Rather like the Byzantines lingering on into far other ages. Anna Comnena always charmed me very much. HOW she despised the flower of the north even Tancred! And so the lingering Venetian families! And you, in your palazzo on the Grand Canal: you are a northern barbarian civilised into the old Venetian Signoria.
The Count helped himself carelessly out of a dish which stood near him, and partaking of a draught of wine, without enquiring whether it was of the vintage which the Greeks held it matter of conscience to mingle with that species of food, he declared himself satisfied; nor could the obliging entreaties of his neighbour, Anna Comnena, induce him to partake of other messes represented as being either delicacies or curiosities.
The Greek princess, Anna Comnena, speaks of a rebel prisoner, whom her father Alexis, then a simple general of his predecessor, had been charged to conduct to Constantinople. During the journey, as they were riding side by side, Alexis desired to halt under the shade of a tree to refresh himself during the great heat of the day.
"For that," answered the Patriarch, "your Imperial Majesty must trust to the filial piety and literary talents of your accomplished daughter, Anna Comnena." The Emperor shook his head. "This unhappy Caesar," he said, "is like to make a quarrel between us; for I shall scarce pardon so ungrateful a rebel as he is, because my daughter clings to him with a woman's fondness.
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