Quentin Durward | Page 4

one there who may be inimical to his liege lord. On the
other hand, it might be reasonably pleaded that this right of dictating to
the vassal to a certain extent in the choice of a husband, is only
competent to the superior from whom the fief is originally derived.
There is therefore no violent improbability in a vassal of Burgundy
flying to the protection of the King of France, to whom the Duke of
Burgundy himself was vassal; not is it a great stretch of probability to
affirm that Louis, unscrupulous as he was, should have formed the
design of betraying the fugitive into some alliance which might prove
inconvenient, if not dangerous, to his formidable kinsman and vassal of
Burgundy.
[Some of these departures from historical accuracy, as when the death
of the Bishop of Liege is antedated, are duly set forth in the notes. It
should be mentioned that Mr. J. F. Kirk, in his elaborate History of
Charles the Bold, claims that in some points injustice has been done to
the Duke in this romance. He says: "The faults of Charles were
sufficiently glaring, and scarcely admitted of exaggeration; but his
breeding had been that of a prince, his education had been better than
that of other princes of his time, his tastes and habits were more, not
less, refined than theirs, and the restraint he imposed upon his sensual
appetites was as conspicuous a trait as his sternness and violence."]
Abbotsford, 1830.
Quentin Durward was published in June, 1823, and was Scott's first
venture on foreign ground. While well received at home, the sensation
it created in Paris was comparable to that caused by the appearance of
Waverley in Edinburgh and Ivanhoe in London. In Germany also,
where the author was already popular, the new novel had a specially
enthusiastic welcome. The scene of the romance was partly suggested

by a journal kept by Sir Walter's dear friend, Mr. James Skene of
Rubislaw, during a French tour, the diary being illustrated by a vast
number of clever drawings. The author, in telling this tale laid in
unfamiliar scenes, encountered difficulties of a kind quite new to him,
as it necessitated much study of maps, gazetteers, and books of travel.
For the history, he naturally found above all else the Memoirs of Philip
de Comines "the very key of the period," though it need not be said that
the lesser chroniclers received due attention. It is interesting to note that
in writing to his friend, Daniel Terry, the actor and manager, Scott says,
"I have no idea my present labours will be dramatic in situation; as to
character, that of Louis XI, the sagacious, perfidious, superstitious,
jocular, politic tyrant, would be, for a historical chronicle containing
his life and death, one of the most powerful ever brought on the stage."
So thought the poet, Casimir Delavigne -- writing when Scott's
influence was marked upon French literature -- whose powerful drama,
Louis XI, was a great Parisian success. Later Charles Kean and Henry
Irving made an English version of it well known in England and
America.
CHAPTER I
: THE CONTRAST
Look here upon this picture, and on this, The counterfeit presentment
of two brothers.
HAMLET
The latter part of the fifteenth century prepared a train of future events
that ended by raising France to that state of formidable power which
has ever since been from time to time the principal object of jealousy to
the other European nations. Before that period she had to struggle for
her very existence with the English already possessed of her fairest
provinces while the utmost exertions of her King, and the gallantry of
her people, could scarcely protect the remainder from a foreign yoke.
Nor was this her sole danger. The princes who possessed the grand fiefs
of the crown, and, in particular, the Dukes of Burgundy and Bretagne,

had come to wear their feudal bonds so lightly that they had no scruple
in lifting the standard against their liege and sovereign lord, the King of
France, on the slightest pretence. When at peace, they reigned as
absolute princes in their own provinces; and the House of Burgundy,
possessed of the district so called, together with the fairest and richest
part of Flanders, was itself so wealthy, and so powerful, as to yield
nothing to the crown, either in splendour or in strength.
In imitation of the grand feudatories, each inferior vassal of the crown
assumed as much independence as his distance from the sovereign
power, the extent of his fief, or the strength of his chateau enabled him
to maintain; and these petty tyrants, no longer amenable to the exercise
of the law, perpetrated with impunity the wildest excesses of fantastic
oppression and cruelty. In Auvergne alone, a report was made