In the Days of Chivalry | Page 7

Bordeaux" which, bound by strong ties to the
royal city, the queen of the Garonne, stood by her and played so large a
part in the great drama of the Hundred Years' War. Those cities had
been built by a great king and statesman to do a great work, and to
them were granted charters of liberties such as to attract into their walls
large numbers of persons who helped originally in the construction of

the new townships, and then resided there, and their children after them,
proud of the rights and immunities they claimed, and loyally true to the
cause of the English Kings, which made them what they were.
It is plain to the reader of the history of those days that Gascony could
never have remained for three hundred years a fief of the English
Crown, had it not been to the advantage of her people that she should
so remain. Her attachment to the cause of the Roy Outremer, her
willing homage to him, would never have been given for so long a
period of time, had not the people of the land found that it was to their
own advancement and welfare thus to accord this homage and fealty.
Nor is the cause for this advantage far to seek. Gascony was of
immense value to England, and of increasing value as she lost her hold
upon the more northerly portions of France. The wine trade alone was
so profitable that the nobility, and even the royal family of England,
traded on their own account. Bordeaux, with its magnificent harbour
and vast trade, was a queen amongst maritime cities. The vast "landes"
of the province made the best possible rearing ground for the chargers
and cavalry horses to which England owed much of her warlike
supremacy; whilst the people themselves, with their strength and
independence of character, their traditions of personal and individual
freedom which can be clearly traced back to the Roman occupation of
the province, and their long attachment to England and her King, were
the most valuable of allies; and although they must have been regarded
to a certain extent as foreigners when on English soil, they still
assimilated better and worked more easily with British subjects than
any pure Frenchman had ever been found to do.
Small wonder then that so astute a monarch as the First Edward had
taken vast pains to draw closer the bond which united this fair province
to England. The bold Gascons well knew that they would find no such
liberties as they now enjoyed did they once put themselves beneath the
rule of the French King. His country was already overgrown and almost
unmanageable. He might cast covetous eyes upon Gascony, but he
would not pour into it the wealth that flowed steadily from prosperous
England. He would not endow it with charters, each one more liberal

than the last, or bind it to his kingdom by giving it a pre-eminence that
would but arouse the jealousy of its neighbours. No: the shrewd
Gaseous knew that full well, and knew when they were well off. They
could often obtain an increase of liberty and an enlarged charter of
rights by coquetting with the French monarch, and thus rousing the
fears of the English King; but they had no wish for any real change, and
lived happily and prosperously beneath the rule of the Roy Outremer;
and amongst all the freemen of the Gascon world, none enjoyed such
full privileges as those who lived within the walls of the "villes
Anglaises," of which Sauveterre was one amongst the smaller cities.
The construction of these towns (now best seen in Libourne) is very
simple, and almost always practically the same -- a square in the centre
formed by the public buildings, with eight streets radiating from it,
each guarded by a gate. An outer ditch or moat protected the wall or
palisade, and the towns were thus fortified in a simple but effective
manner, and guarded as much by their own privileges as by any outer
bulwarks. The inhabitants were bound together by close ties, and each
smaller city looked to the parent city of Bordeaux, and was proud of the
title of her daughter.
Sauveterre and its traditions and its communistic life were familiar
enough, and had been familiar from childhood to the twin brothers.
Halfway between the mill and the town stood a picturesque and
scattered hamlet, and to this hamlet was attached a church, of which a
pious ecclesiastic, by name Father Anselm, had charge. He was a man
of much personal piety, and was greatly beloved through all the
countryside, where he was known in every hut and house for leagues
around the doors of his humble home. He was, as was so frequently the
case