turning once more to William, "that the student loves knowledge for
the sake of knowledge? Born of high race, poor in purse, and slight
of thews, betimes I found wealth in books, and drew strength from
lore. I heard of the Count of Rouen and the Normans, as a prince of
small domain, with a measureless spirit, a lover of letters, and a
captain in war. I came to thy duchy, I noted its subjects and its
prince, and the words of Themistocles rang in my ear: 'I cannot play
the lute, but I can make a small state great.' I felt an interest in
thy strenuous and troubled career. I believe that knowledge, to
spread amongst the nations, must first find a nursery in the brain of
kings; and I saw in the deed-doer, the agent of the thinker. In those
espousals, on which with untiring obstinacy thy heart is set, I might
sympathise with thee; perchance"--(here a melancholy smile flitted
over the student's pale lips), "perchance even as a lover: priest
though I be now, and dead to human love, once I loved, and I know what
it is to strive in hope, and to waste in despair. But my sympathy, I
own, was more given to the prince than to the lover. It was natural
that I, priest and foreigner, should obey at first the orders of
Mauger, archprelate and spiritual chief, and the more so as the law
was with him; but when I resolved to stay despite thy sentence which
banished me, I resolved to aid thee; for if with Mauger was the dead
law, with thee was the living cause of man. Duke William, on thy
nuptials with Matilda of Flanders rests thy duchy--rest, perchance,
the mightier sceptres that are yet to come. Thy title disputed, thy
principality new and unestablished, thou, above all men, must link thy
new race with the ancient line of kings and kaisars. Matilda is the
descendant of Charlemagne and Alfred. Thy realm is insecure as long
as France undermines it with plots, and threatens it with arms. Marry
the daughter of Baldwin--and thy wife is the niece of Henry of France
--thine enemy becomes thy kinsman, and must, perforce, be thine ally.