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Duke Namo stopped his hand for an instant, while Charles told him the crime of which Huon was accused. "He is a peer of the realm," said Namo, "and if he is guilty, is he not here in your power, and are not we peers the proper judges to condemn him to death? Let not your hand be stained with his blood." The Emperor, calmed by the wisdom of Duke Namo, summoned Amaury to his presence.
The others smiled, and the landscape painter, Amaury Maldant, a thin little bald-headed man with a gray beard, said, with a sly expression: "I, too, always feel the rising of the sap in April; it makes me bring forth a few leaves half a dozen at most then it runs into sentiment; there never is any fruit." The Marquis de Rocdiane and the Comte Landa sympathized with him.
At last a peace was agreed upon: both Christians and Damascenes were to retire, each party to have a share in the revenues of Egypt. The first part of the contract was faithfully carried out; the second part neither Syrian nor Christian expected to be obeyed. And now the same ambition possessed the mind both of Amaury and of Nûr-ed-Din. This was nothing less than the conquest of Egypt.
For he would draw upon himself the other two. Amaury moved first. We cannot follow the Christian king on his disastrous attempt. It is sufficient to say that Shirkoh, after a brief struggle, remained master of the field and of Egypt, and that the fall of the Latin kingdom, thus rendered possible, was only delayed until the consolidation of the new power was complete.
The Abbot of Cluny, delighted to find in his nephew sentiments worthy of his birth, embraced him, gave him his blessing, and hastened to the church of St. Germains to pray for him, while the officers of the king prepared the lists for the combat. The battle was long and obstinate. The address and agility of Huon enabled him to avoid the terrible blows which the ferocious Amaury aimed at him.
There he enlisted the aid of the Atabeg Sultan Nur ed-Din, who sent his army against Ed-Durghan, with the result that Shawir was reinstated in power in Egypt. Shawir appealed for aid to the Crusaders, and with the help of Amaury, King of Jerusalem, Shawir besieged his friend Shirkuh.
Amaury chose to remain French, and by a family arrangement with the king's sanction the honour of Leicester passed in 1231 to his younger brother Simon. His choice made Simon an Englishman, but his foreign blood still moved the jealousy of the barons, and this jealousy was quickened by a secret match in 1238 with Eleanor, the king's sister and widow of the second William Marshal.
He descended in trepidation to the court-yard, ran to Amaury, and uttered a cry of grief on recognizing Charlot. "It is Huon of Bordeaux," said the traitor Amaury, "who has massacred your son before it was in my power to defend him." Charlemagne, furious at these words, seized a sword, and flew to the apartment of the two brothers to plunge it into the heart of the murderer of his son.
When Simon de Montfort was decisively victorious, and in possession of the places wrested from Raymond, Philip Augustus recognized accomplished facts, and received the new Count of Toulouse as his vassal; but when, after the death of Simon de Montfort and Innocent III., the question was once more thrown open, and when Raymond VI., first, and then his son Raymond VII., had recovered the greater part of their dominions, Philip formally refused to recognize Amaury de Montfort as successor to his father's conquests: nay, he did more; he refused to accept the cession of those conquests, offered to him by Amaury de Montfort and pressed upon him by Pope Honorius III. Philip Augustus was not a scrupulous sovereign, nor disposed to compromise himself for the mere sake of defending justice and humanity; but he was too judicious not to respect and protect, to a certain extent, the rights of his vassals as well as his own, and, at the same time, too discreet to involve himself, without necessity, in a barbarous and dubious war.
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.
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