“May it please your lordship to order that you should be in private with your servant?”
Raymond Beranger made a sign to his people that he wished to be alone with the _jongleur_.
“Who are you?” asked he, as soon as the door was shut.
“I am,” said the _jongleur_, “the person who answered ‘Amen,’ in the church of St. Saviour, when your lordship vowed, sword in hand, to render justice to the high and low, the rich and poor, to foreigners as well as your own subjects.”
“In the name of the Empress Praxida of Germany, unjustly accused of adultery by Guthram de Falkemberg and Walter de Than, and condemned by her husband, the Emperor Henry the Fourth, to die, unless a champion, within a twelvemonth and a day, successfully defend her innocence against her accusers.”
“Why has she chosen such a singular messenger for this important mission?”
“Because none but the poor _jongleur_ dared expose himself to the anger of a powerful prince, and the vengeance of two renowned knights like Guthram de Falkemberg and Walter de Than; and certainly I should not have ventured to do so myself, if my young mistress, Douce, Marchioness of Provence, who has such fine eyes and such a touching voice that no one can refuse what she asks, had not required it of me. I went, therefore, by her command, in search of a knight sufficiently brave to defend, and sufficiently powerful to dare to vindicate, the fame of an injured and innocent lady. I have traversed, in obedience to my mistress, France and Italy in vain, and even Spain, the very holy land of chivalry, and found no one disposed to championize the Empress of Germany. On the way to Barcelona I heard you named as a generous and courageous gentlemen. I entered the church at the moment you vowed, sword in hand, to defend the oppressed against the oppressor; and it appeared to me that the hand of God had led me there. I raised my voice, and cried ‘Amen, so be it!’”
“So let it be, then,” chivalrously replied the count; “for the honor of my name, and the increase of my renown, in the name of the Lord, I will hold myself ready to undertake this enterprise.”
“Thanks, my lord, for this grace; but, saving your good pleasure, you have no time to lose, for ten months have already elapsed, and you will have little left for your journey to Cologne.”