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Now in the spring of 1199 a story reached Richard of the finding of a wonderful treasure on the land of the lord of Chalus, one of his under vassals in the Limousin. We are told that it was the images of an emperor, his wife, sons, and daughters, made of gold and seated round a table also of gold.
"I care not, my liege," said Ivanhoe, pledging the sovereign respectfully, and tossing off the whole contents of the bowl of hypocras to his Highness's good health. And he at once appeared to be taken into high favor; not a little to the envy of many of the persons surrounding the King. As his Majesty said, there was fighting and feasting in plenty before Chalus.
The good King Richard was, as Ivanhoe learned, in the Limousin, encamped before a little place called Chalus; the lord whereof, though a vassal of the King's, was holding the castle against his sovereign with a resolution and valor which caused a great fury and annoyance on the part of the Monarch with the Lion Heart.
As for the Count of Chalus, and the remainder of the slain, the hermits were too much occupied with Ivanhoe's case to mind them, and did not, it appears, give them any elixir: so that, if they are really dead, they must stay on the rampart stark and cold; or if otherwise, when the scene closes upon them as it does now, they may get up, shake themselves, go to the slips and drink a pot of porter, or change their stage-clothes and go home to supper.
A new justiciar, Geoffry Fitz-Peter, Earl of Essex, extorted some money by a harsh assize of the forests; but the exchequer was soon drained, and Richard listened with more than the greed of his race to rumours that a treasure had been found in the fields of the Limousin. Twelve knights of gold seated round a golden table were the find, it was said, of the Lord of Châlus.
The ladders were placed in spite of the hail of death raining round: the King and Ivanhoe were, of course, the first to mount them. Chalus stood in the breach, borrowing strength from despair; and roaring out, "Ha! Plantagenet, St. Barbacue for Chalus!" he dealt the King a crack across the helmet with his battle-axe, which shore off the gilt lion and crown that surmounted the steel cap.
Whilst the royal Richard and his court were feasting in the camp outside the walls of Chalus, they of the castle were in the most miserable plight that may be conceived. Hunger, as well as the fierce assaults of the besiegers, had made dire ravages in the place.
Maddened by the pain of the wound, the brute nature of Richard was aroused: his fiendish appetite for blood rose to madness, and grinding his teeth, and with a curse too horrible to mention, the flashing axe of the royal butcher fell down on the blond ringlets of the child, and the children of Chalus were no more! . . .
Why should I not, if I were minded to revel in horrifying details, show you how the famished garrison drew lots, and ate themselves during the siege; and how the unlucky lot falling upon the Countess of Chalus, that heroic woman, taking an affectionate leave of her family, caused her large caldron in the castle kitchen to be set a-boiling, had onions, carrots and herbs, pepper and salt made ready, to make a savory soup, as the French like it; and when all things were quite completed, kissed her children, jumped into the caldron from off a kitchen stool, and so was stewed down in her flannel bed-gown?
Cross-bows were afterwards prohibited by the second Lateran Council, anno 1139, as hateful to God, and unfit to be used among Christians; in consequence whereof they were laid aside till the reign of Richard the First, who again introduced them, and was himself killed by an arrow or quarrel, discharged from a cross-bow at the siege of the Castle of Chalus.
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