A Proud Taste for Scarlet and Miniver (4 page)

I looked at the gold cross that the goldsmiths of Lorraine had labored two years to finish. I rubbed it and thought that such sights on Earth were worth the cost of a few years in Heaven, but this was not the time to say anything like that to Louis, so I did not.

I wrote to Abbot Bernard and asked him to lift the ban of excommunication. I described Louis’s humility and concern and promised that Louis would dismiss the bishops he had appointed. Louis dismissed the bishops, and the abbot lifted the ban.

In gratitude, Louis gave me the crystal and gold vase that Eleanor had given him as a wedding gift. I knew that Abbot Bernard would not approve of my keeping it, so I donated it to my church at St. Denis. (Certainly, God could not resent luxury that is dedicated to Him.) The crystal of the vase is cracked now, but people who visit the Louvre Museum still admire it. It stands there as an example of Eleanor’s taste, of Louis’s gratitude, and of my piety.

LOUIS AND ELEANOR
arrived a day early for the consecration of my church. Louis wore a plain woolen robe and hood. Eleanor wore a gown of blue silk and a belt embroidered with gold and set with precious stones. The sleeves of her gown were long and fell back from her arms to expose her slender wrists, which she had sheathed in pale green silk. Louis could easily have been mistaken for a monk. Eleanor, however, could be taken for nothing but a queen. In bearing, in manner, in dress she was all queen.

Bishops had come from all over Europe. Rumors had long foretold that something new in the way of building would appear at St. Denis. Within a few years, the style that I, thanks be to God, developed at St. Denis became international. It showed up in churches all over Europe. Even today, colleges and churches are built in the style that I called modern, which people then called the style of Paris, but which men today call
Gothic.
Despicable word,
Gothic.
The Goths were pagans and had nothing to do with my church.

When the time came to carry the relics of our patron saint, St. Denis, to their vault under the new altar, Louis helped to bear the load. His eagerness to be of service, his simple dress, his sincerity could not help but impress Abbot Bernard, and Abbot Bernard was not easily impressed with anything or anyone on Earth.

It had been said that Abbot Bernard could perform miracles, and Eleanor needed a miracle; she asked me to arrange an interview for her. It was not easy, for Abbot Bernard had little use for worldly queens, but my prestige was high at the moment, and so was King Louis’s. Abbot Bernard consented to a short audience with her. I wondered if Eleanor would simplify her dress and her manner in order to impress him.

She did not.

They met in my quarters. Abbot Bernard, whose thoughts were always on high and whose eyes were always cast down, entered. Eleanor did not wait for the holy abbot to lift his eyes which was the signal that he was ready to talk. “Good day to you, Abbot,” she said. Abbot Bernard’s head jerked up. Eleanor waited for his eyes to catch hers. Then she smiled, a slow smile, a smile that spread as did her confidence.

“You wished to talk to me?” he asked.

“Yes, I did,” she answered.

“About what?” he asked.

“I want you to give me a baby,” she answered.

“Eleanor, please,” I whispered, “surely you can find a more delicate way to phrase that.” Eleanor looked at me, surprised at my interruption, and then realized what she had said. She laughed out loud. No one ever laughed in the presence of Abbot Bernard. He had never been seen smiling, and he did not now. Eleanor realized that she must be more than serious, she must be solemn.

She repeated her request, quieter this time. “Abbot Bernard, I would that you could add your prayers to mine so that Louis and I should be granted a child.”

Abbot Bernard lifted his head; his eyes, blue as Heaven, did not so much look at Eleanor as they penetrated her. “It is difficult for me to ask God to grant you children when your marriage is not valid in His eyes.”

Eleanor was shocked. “What are you saying, Abbot Bernard?”

“I am saying only what you know: that you and King Louis are cousins within the fourth degree, and that degree is prohibited. You should never have married.”

“But the Pope allowed it, he gave us special permission.” Eleanor protested.

“Yes, he did,” Abbot Bernard admitted, “but I did not recommend it.”

Eleanor replied, “All my life I have been taught that the Pope is king of the Church. Bishops are his vassals, and I do believe that abbots are even lower than bishops. What the Pope allows, certainly an abbot of Clairvaux should also allow. Louis and I have been married a week of years, and in your eyes we may not legally be married, but in the Pope’s mind and in Louis’s heart we are. I hold with that.”

Men of great faith never argue. Abbot Bernard did not. He grabbed Eleanor’s wrist and led her to a chair where he sat her down. Thus, with Queen Eleanor at an elevation lower than his, he spoke to her in a voice that was as loud as the Abbot’s soul. He told her to work for peace within the kingdom, to learn to be an obedient wife, to quit meddling in the business of the Church, to curb her appetites for gold and jewels, for music and poetry, for color and luxury—for scarlet and miniver. He told her to do all this, and he would then add his voice to hers in prayer. Abbot Bernard’s voice, it was known even then, went directly to Heaven, and rumor was that it never went unanswered.

Within a year after that interview, there was peace within the kingdom, and King Louis and Queen Eleanor had a child. The child was named Marie, in honor of the Lady to whom Eleanor had addressed her prayers. She had prayed only for a baby, whereas she should have asked for a baby
boy.
Oh, well, … next time.

The grand opening of St. Denis marked the welcome of Louis back into the Church, the welcome of a baby girl into the royal household, the welcome of peace within the realm and, thanks be to God, the welcome of my beautiful, elegant, high new style of building churches.

EVEN THOUGH
Louis had returned to the ways of the Church, he was still worried about his soul. He wanted to make up for his past—especially Vitry. When news reached us that Jerusalem stood in danger of falling into the hands of the Turks, Louis decided that he had found a way to make up for his bad behavior: he would gather together people from all over Europe to go on a great crusade to the Holy Land. They would save it from the Moslems.

It had been fifty years since the First Crusade. The men of that one had come from all over Europe and fought to establish a chain of kingdoms that stretched through Asia and Africa along the route to the Holy Land. These kingdoms insured Europeans safe passage into Jerusalem, for they were ruled by Frenchmen, younger brothers who welcomed a chance to rule something, somewhere. Eleanor’s grandfather had been one of the men who had taken part in the First Crusade; his own second son, Raymond of Poitiers, was one of the men who had been given a kingdom overseas. This younger brother, this uncle of Eleanor’s, was now ruler of Antioch.

He was only nine years older than Eleanor. They had played together when they were children. Raymond was very handsome; it was said that he could charm the curl out of a lady’s hair—or into it—whichever he chose.

Eleanor and Louis came to tell me of their decision to go on Crusade. I did not approve.

“But, dear Suger,” Louis said, “the Pope wants it. Abbot Bernard has preached for it; even Emperor Conrad of Germany has agreed to join. Eleanor is for it! She has been remarkable in signing up thousands of noblemen from the Aquitaine. She is anxious to go. Aren’t you, my dear?” Louis looked at his wife and patted her hand as it rested on the arm of her chair.

I looked at Eleanor and smiled. She looked away, but she snapped her head back and looked me straight in the eye. It was not Eleanor’s style to look away from the truth or the person asking it. “Let me talk to Eleanor alone,” I said. Louis agreed and left the room.

“You have been bored, haven’t you, my queen?” I asked.

“Yes, Abbot, I have,” she answered. “Ever since Vitry, ever since Louis’s return to the Church, I have been bored. There are no longer any troubadours allowed at the castle. There is no music. Louis has taken down the tapestries from our room. He himself dresses like a monk. My life is silent and without color.”

“What about your daughter, Marie?”

“Oh, she is a joy! But, Abbot, I am a grown woman. I have need for sounds not found in a baby’s gurgle and for sights outside the nursery walls. Show me a woman who is content to be in the company of babies all day, and I’ll show you a woman who is … who is …”

“Is what, Eleanor?”

“Is an Adelaide—my mother-in-law.”

“What about the life of the intellect, Eleanor? What about learning? Paris is the place for that.”

“And so is the Aquitaine, Abbot. And so is Jerusalem and so is Constantinople.” Eleanor rose from her chair and walked across the room away from me. She turned, her arms folded across her chest. “Just as there are men of action,” she continued, “there are women of action, too. I am one of those! I need to move, to travel. I like to read the character of a man from the lines of his face not from the lines of a book. I like to feel foreign air on my face. I want to go on Crusade. Boredom is a deadly sin, Abbot, and I am bored. Does not my soul matter, too?”

“Eleanor, Eleanor! Calm down. Let me tell you of my objections. A Crusade is a fancy name for war. War means killing. Not only men are killed, but their ideas die, too. And the art that could be born of those ideas never sees day.”

“But a Crusade, dear Abbot, will give all of France a thorough flushing. How else can you rid Europe of its criminals, its beggars, its restless younger sons, and not only ship them out but also rescue their souls. Anyone who dies on Crusade is guaranteed admission into Heaven. Besides, we’ll save Jerusalem. By any measure, a Crusade is a bargain.”

I laughed. “How can I hold out against a saintly abbot, a king and a pope? And a beautiful, restless queen besides?”

“Don’t try. We need you on our side, Abbot Suger. Louis is appointing you head of the government of France for the time that we will be gone.”

“I feel honored, your majesty.”

“Feel honored now, dear Abbot, for you will soon feel overworked.”

“You will see much and learn much, Eleanor. Don’t let the glitter of the East blind you to plain goodness.”

“I can not only see plainness, I can smell it, and I don’t like it. And as for goodness, I like it salted with greatness. Louis is
good,
Abbot; he is very
good.
The Orient is famous for its spices, Abbot. Do you think that good Louis can find some flavor over there?”

“Eleanor, don’t mistake simplicity for simple-mindedness.”

“Oh, Abbot, how could I? True simplicity is elegant. Can you imagine me not loving anything that is truly elegant?”

I laughed. She was a match for anyone, that queen. Anyone, except a confused man. I called Louis back into the room.

“Louis, my king, my son, go with my blessing. Odo the Chaplain will accompany you. He will be your confessor as well as my messenger. I shall send you my blessings through him. Now, while I have you within my sight, let me bless you both and your mission.”

They knelt, and I placed my hands over their heads, thinking of what different materials those heads were made: Louis’s, filled with dreams of a holy life; Eleanor’s, with dreams for which Louis did not even have names.

THE DIFFERENCES
between Louis and Eleanor were apparent from the very start of the Crusade. Louis rode at the rear of the long caravan. Eleanor rode up front. Louis considered simplicity of dress a duty. Eleanor carried every comfort that was portable: candles, cosmetics, clothing. The luggage of Eleanor and her lady friends took as many wagons as the arms of the men who were to do battle for Jerusalem. The ladies soon earned a nickname; they were called
The Amazons.

Odo wrote me faithfully. From his letters I kept track of their progress. Eleanor rode through every foreign town, able to spot some sight to store in her memory. There was no new place that she could not enjoy for its differences. At last they reached Constantinople. There have been glorious cities and beautiful ones before and since Constantinople, but nothing in all of history has ever matched its magnificence. Ancient Athens was beautiful but austere. Rome was great but governmental. Constantinople was gay, and it glittered. It was as if the whole city had been lifted in a piece and then dipped into a rainbow. But not a pastel rainbow, a rainbow of undiluted color.

It was not only a city of color but also of ceremonies. Each meal, each greeting, was like a small brilliant tile that was part of an elaborate mosaic. And mosaics! They were all over Constantinople, on walls and ceilings and floors. The floors of the palaces were covered with thick carpets; the best floors of Europe wore only rushes. Constantinople straddled both Europe and Asia, and its shops supplied the best of both civilizations. The streets were paved, and the houses had baths. Everyone who lived in Constantinople considered the Crusaders as a new generation of barbaric invaders, they seemed that primitive.

Eleanor usually enjoyed contrasts, but she did not enjoy seeing plain Louis look like a country boy beside the smooth, handsome, elaborately dressed Manuel Comnenus, the ruler of Constantinople. Louis helped his men saddle horses and helped load the baggage carts; he could never do enough to prove that he was serving both God and man. Louis was uncomfortable with all ceremonies except those of the Church. Manuel Comnenus had servants who served his servants. Manuel Comnenus sat upon a throne of gold; and his vassals did not kneel at his feet, they lay down at his feet. Manuel Comnenus expected it, and no one ever questioned it. Compared to Constantinople, court life in Paris seemed like life in Noah’s ark.

There was no meal in Constantinople in which Eleanor did not taste something new and different and delicious. And the same could be said of her days; they were full of strange spices that she, more than any woman of her time, was ready to try, to memorize, to adopt, to adapt. Ten days they stayed in Constantinople. Only ten days. Ten days that Eleanor held onto and that Louis pulled away from, ten days that unraveled the ties between the king and queen of France.