942-943 Now signed to Eudes Eudes. and Herbert the Handsome, the fourth son, 942-954 was left, according to the original scheme of allotment, with only his face for his fortune, Amiens aswhilst Eudes the eldest, received Amiens. for this, there was sufficient reasonwas more active than Albert, and had been already put in possession of Amiens by his father. If Vermandois was the prouder dominion, Amiens was the richest of the shares. Amiens-urbs inter alias eminens-maintained the splendour which distinguished her during Julian's flourishing reign. The Counts of Amiens, who date from Louis-le-Débonnaire, acquired so much power that they might almost be treated as independent Sovereigns. But the Count had a rival in the person of the Bishop, who possessed great privileges, and was lord of a numerous body of military tenants. So long as the Prelate was canonically elected by Clergy and People, the Citizens would find in the Prelate a protector against the Count, but when the Sovereign, as at this period, exercised the donative patronage, this usurpation enabled him to drop the mitre upon the head of any serviceable partizan, and thereby appoint a permanent Governor, who, protecting the interests of the Crown, might check either the "feudal" Lord or the Civic municipality. Those who discuss the vast question of the Prerogative and the Pontificate, and who consider the pull as lying merely 942-954 between Pope and King, should keep such facts in mind. It is probable that Hugh-le-Grand helped 943-944 in managing to establish Albert, who was of a very pacific disposition, in the county of Vermandois, in order that Eudes, the fighting man, should be able to control Louis: whilst, in relation to Hugh's more immediate territorial concerns, the transfer to him of Couci and its appurtenances, Creil and Thury, may have required the royal confirmation. Louis visits Paris. § 11. Great familiarity ensued between Louis Grand at and Duke Hugh, an affected dismissal of all grudges. Soon after Louis had quitted Rouen, we find him in the place where of all others we should least look for him, to wit, at Paris a portentous event in those times. For, whereas, according to the current of modern ideas, the King of France and the City of Paris are now naturally suggestive of each other, they were then inevitably repulsive. No Carlovingian Monarch had ever been seen in Paris since Charles-le-Chauve. Not a square toise of land was owned by Louis in the future Metropolis. At Paris, Louis had neither house nor home, nor right, nor power. He could not have repaired to that jealous city otherwise than pursuant to the Duke's invitation: nor can it be supposed that he lodged elsewhere than in the Duke's palace, situated, as French antiquaries tell us, near the antient Moûtier of Saint Barthelemy. 943-944 It must have been esteemed a signal token of con- 942-954 fidence that Louis should pay such a visit. Cautious men might shake their heads and murmur : -was it not dangerous for Louis to enter within the walls, and expose himself to the perils of having the portals closed and the doors bolted after he had passed them?—Treachery, however, was not to be apprehended from Hugh at this juncture, because it would not have answered;-but the residence of Louis at Paris was unexpectedly prolonged. Louis, suddenly sickening, languished throughout the summer, and could not move during several months. People believed that his blood was corrupted. We do not possess any information concerning the nature of the ailment, but it evidently undermined his health-and his strange death seems to have been preceded by temporary mental hallucinations. practice between and the The era upon which we are now employed Medical offers a brief but rather remarkable passage in divided the history of medieval therapeutics, with some the clergy bearing upon Church and State. During the Jews. reign of King Raoul, and amongst the nobles of the Court, was a certain Deroldus, a man of high rank and station-Vir spectabilis ac palatinus-and much loved by the King, who, having taken orders, and acquired great skill in the healing art, became Raoul's body-physician. The medical profession was, during this era, divided between two rival classes of practitioners, the 942-954 Clergy and the Jews. Amongst the Hebrews we may quote the celebrated Zedechias, who, 943-944 having prescribed for Charles-le-Chauve during the king's his last illness, was in danger of his own life in Deroldus body physician and Bishop of Amiens. consequence of an accident, which, were it retributed upon the faculty at large as it was likely to have been upon him, would speedily extinguish the College, namely, the sufferer dying under his care. The medico-clerical doctors were prohibited by the canons of the Church from receiving fees. Deroldus therefore never put his hand behind him when concluding his visit, as the unscrupulous Zedechias would have done, nor indeed had he any call to do so; for he was no loser by his conformity to the decorum of the cloth. In some way or another, Church-property was the reserved fund upon which the King was accustomed to draw, and when Physic and Divinity were conjoined, the fees were generally paid in a lump by some "good piece of preferment," as the same (during the ante-reform age) used to be styled in the official language of His Majesty's faithful Commons, when addressing the Sovereign on behalf of their Chaplain that his services might be rewarded by the Crown-and King Raoul accordingly nominated Deroldus to the great See of Amiens. Deroldus, like Zedechias, lost his patient, but the opprobrium of the Jew became the luck of the Bishop. We will not suppose, for a moment, 943-944 that the successor of Raoul felt any degree of 942-954 obligation towards his predecessor's medical attendant: however-be that as it may-when Louis, whether grateful or not, was called to the throne by the demise of Raoul, Bishop Deroldus, The Bishop retaining his appointment in the royal house- rival, the hold, was forthwith received into the King's high Salerno. favour. Gerberga, conjugally antagonistic, as is usual in such domestic affairs, patronized a learned Leech of Salerno, whom she much desired to call in, but Louis, usually so conformable to his wife's wishes, was obstinate on this point, and would not give up the Bishop.-Louis teased the grave visitor by seducing him into a dinner-conversation before his competitor, thereby exposing his comparative ignorance of surgery, botany, and other branches of science. The puzzled foreigner was provoked, and a pharmaceutical duel ensued, appropriately fought by exchange of poisons. Deroldus triumphantly vindicated his skill in this branch of practice, though it is rather doubtful whether he behaved honourably. The unfortunate Neapolitan, less perfectly versed in the art, afterwards carried to such perfection in his country, was worsted in the conflict. The subtle venom- -a powder, it seems, administered to him by the Bishop in the sauce-piquante of which both partook, assumed the shape of a pill when it entered his veins, and ultimately lodging in his VOL. II. CC and his Leech of |