File:Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres (1913) (14595566888).jpg

Identifier: montsaintmichel00adam (find matches)
Title: Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres
Year: 1913 (1910s)
Authors: Adams, Henry, 1838-1918 American Institute of Architects Cram, Ralph Adams, 1863-1942
Subjects: Cathédrale de Chartres Middle Ages Le Mont-Saint-Michel (France)
Publisher: Boston, New York, Houghton Mifflin Company
Contributing Library: New York Public Library
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

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llefer was to be a part,and a distinguished part, of his chanson. Sooner or later, all were todie in the large and simple way of the eleventh century. Duke Williamhimself, twenty years later, was to meet a violent death at Mantes inthe same spirit, and if Bishop Odo did not die in battle, he died, rtleast, like an eleventh-century hero, on the first crusade. First or last,the w^hole company died in fight, or in prison, or on crusade, while themonks shrived them and prayed. Then Taillefer certainly sang the great death-scenes. Even to thisday every French school-boy, if he knows no other poetry, knowsthese verses by heart. In the eleventh century they wrung the heartof every man-at-arms in Europe, whose school was the field of battleand the hand-to-hand fight. No modern singer ever enjoys such powerover an audience as Taillefer exercised over these men who were actorsas well as listeners. In the melee at Roncesvalles, overborne byinnumerable Saracens, Oliver at last calls for help: —
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H a o w HO WH Uu I H h-(-< HZ O PUBLIC 11R^ AM LA CHANSON DE ROLAND 25 Munjoie escriet e haltement e cler. Montjoie! he cries, loud and dear. Rollant apelet sun ami e sun per; Roland he calls, his friend and peer: Sire compainz a mei kar vus justez. . Sir Friend! ride now to help me here! A grant dulur ermes hoi deserveret. Aoi. Parted to-day, great pity were. Of course the full value of the verse cannot be regained. One knowsneither how it was sung nor even how it was pronounced. The asso-nances are beyond recovering; the laisse or leash of verses orassonances with the concluding cry, Aoi, has long ago vanishedfrom verse or song. The sense is as simple as the Ballad of ChevyChase, but one must imagine the voice and acting. DoubtlessTaillefer acted each motive; when Oliver called loud and clear, Taille-fers voice rose; when Roland spoke doulcement et suef, the singermust have sung gently and soft; and when the two friends, with thesingular courtesy of knighthood and dignity of sold

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