The four novels, which deal with the history of the Crusades, are “Count Robert of Paris,” “The Betrothed,” “The Talisman,” and “Ivanhoe.” It is a singular fact that the one occupying the first place in chronological order was written last, and hardly completed by the author when he died. “Ivanhoe” is, without doubt, the great favorite. I have often thought that “Ivanhoe” bears the same relation to Scott’s novels that “The Merchant of Venice” does to the dramas of Shakspere. “Old Mortality,” and “Hamlet,” may show deeper insight; but neither Scott nor Shakspere ever surpassed the two I have associated in dramatic interest. The three novels which precede “Ivanhoe” in point of time will give us a complete knowledge of the times and manners of the Crusades, and lead us, as it were, from one picture-gallery to another, until we come to the master-piece of the great artist.
“Count Robert of Paris” opens with a description of the court of Alexius Commenus—a wily monarch, who had ample need of all his strategy in dealing with foes that menaced him from every side: the Franks from the west, the Turks from the east, the Scythians from the north, the Saracens from the south. The wealthy city on the Bosphorous, enriched by the spoils of nations, whose golden gate symbolized the wealth and magnificence of seven hundred years of prosperity, was on the great highway of travel, where, so to speak, the “cross-roads” of Europe met, and presented a tempting prize to the restless and barbarous hordes from the shores of the Caspian to the German Ocean. “The superb successor of the earth’s mistress,” decked in borrowed splendor, gave early intimations of that speedy decay to which the whole civilized world, then limited within the Roman Empire, was internally and imperceptibly tending. Intrigue and corruption in the palace had compelled the Greek sovereigns of Constantinople, for many years, to procure foreign soldiers to quell insurrections and defend any traitorous attempt on the imperial person. These were known as Verangians—a word signifying barbarians—and formed a corps of satellites more distinguished for valor than the famed Prætorian Bands of Rome.
The second chapter of the book reveals the hatred and jealousy existing between these foreign soldiers and the crafty civilians. The Verangian, to whom the reader is introduced, is an Anglo-Saxon too proud to bow his head to a Norman conqueror, a wanderer from his father-land, a soldier in search of better fortune, soon to discover by lucky chance among the crusaders the fair Bertha of his early love. Upon this slender thread the novelist hangs the romantic elements of the story. But Count Robert of Paris is in no sense a love drama; in fact it can hardly be termed a romance. It is rather a historic sketch, placing in sharp contrast the wild enthusiasm of western Europe, her castles of rude masonry, her mud hovels, her rude simplicity, with the over-refined manners and tapestried chambers of the eastern court hastening to its decay. It is living Europe confronting the dead centuries.