Inhaltsangabe
This historic book may have numerous typos, missing text or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1851. Not illustrated. Excerpt: ... 181 SUMMARY. QUEEN BERTHA OP THE LONG FOOT. "These miscreants, who roh and kill, Traitors to God, and false to men. Despise the law, transgressing still-As Death they mock--its precepts ten. But Death will come--sad epilogue! Then faithless, heartless, past recall. What will they do, condemn'd in all The breaches of the Decalogue." Peyrard. On a fine day in September, 737, in a little room of the castle of Laon, handsomely furnished for that period, two young girls were conversing, one with simplicity, and the other with some affectation. The castle of the counts of Laon was nothing, at the first view, but a fortress rudely constructed in a rock, covered with flags of stone, laid over like tiles, and supported by an enormous piece of timber. Painted boards, placed upon long beams, formed the ceiling of the apartments, which were all on the same floor: trophies of arms had long constituted the only ornament of the whitened walls: an uneven pavement composed the floor; and high, narrow windows, the corners of which were a little rounded, were pierced in the thick walls. The posterns were heavy and massive: the entry-door, clasped with iron, was still farther protected by a double portcullis. This was the feudal manor-house, for feudalism had then begun. But what then distinguished the castle of Laon from the residences of that sort was, that Count Charibert, to whom Charles Martel had given that town, having followed the duke of Austrasia in all his wars, had found means of collecting some rich objects, which gave the interior of his fort the appearance of a palace. At the taking of the camp of the Saracens in the plains of Tours, he had carried off carpets and valuable furniture: he had obtained, from the pillage of the Roman towns in southern Gaul, jewels unknow...
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