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'Lords, said Richard, 'we await your leisures. None cared to attack: there was the fire to cross, and in that narrow entry three desperate blades. What could the old King do? Almost crying, the King turned to his followers. 'Taillefer, will you see me dishonoured? Where is Ponthieu? Where is Drago? So at last they all attacked together, coming on with their shields before them, in a phalanx.
"Lovest thou not, William Lord of Breteuil, lovest thou not fame for the sake of fame?" "Sur mon ame yes!" said the Baron. "And thou, Taillefer the minstrel, lovest thou not song for the sake of song?" "For song alone," replied the mighty minstrel. "More gold in one ringing rhyme than in all the coffers of Christendom."
His large face, turning from blue and red to a purple shade terrible to see, partook of the general commotion by movements like the heaving and pitching of a brig. "Now, did you murder them?" Emile asked him. "Capital punishment is going to be abolished, they say, in favor of the Revolution of July," answered Taillefer, raising his eyebrows with drunken sagacity.
On Taillefer the eternal snows appeared wonderfully near in the brilliance of this early spring atmosphere, and here and there on the roadside bunches of wild crocus and of snowdrops were already visible rearing their delicate corollas up against a background of moss.
To-day is the day when we must go to see M. Taillefer. Poor little thing! She is trembling like a leaf," Mme. Couture went on, as she seated herself before the fire and held the steaming soles of her boots to the blaze. "Warm yourself, Victorine," said Mme. Vauquer.
Taillefer rushed forward, his sword shivered on the Saxon shield, and in the same moment he fell a corpse under the hoofs of his steed, transfixed by the Saxon spear.
Kneel, Taillefer, kneel to King Edward, and with more address, rogue, than our unlucky countryman to King Charles." But Edward, as ill-liking the form of the giant as the subject of his lay, said, pushing back his seat as far as he could: "Nay, nay, we excuse thee, we excuse thee, tall man." Nevertheless, the minstrel still knelt, and so, with a look of profound humility, did the priest.
"Hein, hein!" said Taillefer, bluntly, "vex not my bon camarade, Count of the Normans. Gramercy, thou wilt welcome him, peradventure, better than me; for the singer tells but of discord, and the sage may restore the harmony." "Ha!" said the Duke, and the frown fell so dark over his eyes that the last seemed only visible by two sparks of fire. "I guess, my proud Vavasours are mutinous.
The countship of Angoulême dated from the 9th century, the most important of the early counts being William Taillefer, whose descendants held the title till the end of the 12th century.
O'Hagan, Q.C., of Dublin. Most probably it was a curtailed version of this romance that is referred to by Wace in his "Roman le Rou," when he records how, as the Normans marched to Senlac Hill, in 1066, the minstrel Taillefer sang, "Of Roland and the heroes all Who fell at fatal Roncesvall."
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