Robert's secret crimes, he never manifested any 1024-1035 open tendency to outrage or cruelty. Courteous, joyous, debonnaire and benign, was the son of Richard le-Bon before the world; and his life and conversation consistent. The poor and diseased ever commanded his sympathies, and particularly did he labour to relieve the sufferings of the miserable mesel. This Robert, second of the name in the opinion of those genealogists who accept Rollo-Robert as the first, was truly Robert le-Magnifique, as well as Robert le-Diable. Fully did he deserve the epithet earned by his abounding munificence. The Magnifico commenced his reign by increasing the salaries of his retainers, and duplicating their liveries, the Court allowances for back and belly. According to popular exagge rations, which may in some degree be accepted as expansions of truth, Robert's gifts were so liberal, that those whom he benefitted died of joy. He never could satisfy himself that his bounties were adequate to the claims of the receivers: and, endued with a virtue far more rare than liberality, his heart never grudged what his hand bestowed. Yet, despite his generosity and joyous munificence, Robert's general conduct was unsatisfactory, and in the last year of his life he displayed all that wild, exuberant hilarity which saddens the thoughtful observer more than grief: an unseasonable joke may be more melancholy than the darkest despondency. Once settled in his authority;-at least as Falaise Robert's residence. 1024-1035 much settled as his flighty hilarious character would allow him to be, Falaise became his favourite residence. Site, air, water, hunting grounds, copses, shaws, all pleased him ; and the various anecdotes concerning Robert's demeanour, trivial in themselves, but which acquire value by accumulation, are evidences that the young Duke mixed pleasantly with his inferiors. Robert or his family. The peltry manufacture, and all the branches of the leather trade flourished in Falaise. Buckskin and doe-skin, calf-skin, and sheep-skin, and the bullock's tough hide, were supplied cheaply and abundantly from the glade and the pasture. Foreigners resorted to the thriving bourgade and were welcomed as denizens. Thus, in the time of Richard le-Bon, a certain Herbert, or Robert, or Fulbert, three names which may be easily confounded the one with the other by the careless transcriber, established himself there. "Robertus Belliparius," as Alberic of TroisTanner, and fontaines writes the word Pelliparius, following the thick German pronunciation, was born at Chaumont, in the Walloon country, near the Abbey of Florines, in the Diocese of Liège, but he and his wife, Doda, removed to "Hoie," where, as it is noted, they dwelt in the Market Place, near the old Exchange.-" Manentes ad veteras cambias in foro Hoiense." And Alberic also furnishes some particulars (not relevant to our history) concerning the courtship and mar riage of the "Belliparius," with the said Doda, 1024-1035 otherwise Duida. Considered in themselves, these circumstances are somewhat trifling, but they were traditional in the localities. Alberic, who collected the information on the spot, informs us that he had heard old folks tell the story of the fortunate Currier's family; and the minuteness of these details testifies that Fulbert continued a "celebrity" in his former neighbourhood more than a century after his grandchild the Conqueror's death, and imparts identity to the personage. One daughter had the Belliparius and Doda, the Arletta, or Herleva, of the Norman chroniclers. Fulbert was wealthy; a currier or tanner by trade, he also carried on the business of a beer brewer. § 16. A strong prejudice exists in Germany against the artificers who furnish the currier with the raw material needful for his manufacture. Those who pursued the useful, albeit disgusting, trade of skinning beasts, were stigmatized as a distinct and degraded casteranked amongst the races maudites of France, The Skinners holding a place somewhat between a mesel and degraded a gypsey, cohabiting or marrying only amongst themselves. It was the ever present and intolerable burning brand of unmerited and unremoveable ignominy, which drove the famous Rhine robber, Schinderhans, to desperation. The opinion concerning the foulness of the VOL. III. L antiently a caste. 1024-1035 Vocation seems to have been very general. Union of the trades of Tanner prohibited. The antient Hebrew gnome:-Let the learned man skin dogs, or break the Sabbath, rather than abase his talent by employing the gift as the means of making money, affords equally a curious exemplification of the honour rendered to intellect by the fine old Rabbins, and their detestation of the disgusting business which, employing an excusable exaggeration, they paralleled with so great a transgression as the violation of the Seventh day's rest. All analogous avocations-all employments dealing with the raw hide-participated in the same obloquy. Prosperous as Fulbert was, he could not merge the Tanner in the Brewer. It is probable that the union of these trades encreased his unpopularity. In England, Tanners were and Brewer prohibited from brewing, as though the junction of these callings might be injurious to the public health, or productive of some other inconveniences. There are queer-and, to ale drinkers, -rather disagreeable stories current, concerning the smoothness imparted to the good liquor by animal matter. And whoever sought to tease or scoff at Fulbert or his, led you into the tan-yard. Such being the state of the public mind, we may easily imagine the sensation created in Falaise, when, adopting the expression so familiar among our lower classes, it was talked and gossiped all round the town how the Duke "kept company" with the Tanner's daughter. The Chroniclers ARLETTA. detail these amours with much gusto. 147 Some 1024-1035 Tanner's and the Duke's say Robert became acquainted with the damsel Arletta, the at a dance: others, that he was first attracted by daughter, seeing her delicate little feet gleaming through the translucent streamlet, still rippling round the base of the rock upon which the huge Donjon stands. The window is shewn through which as the Cicerone now tells you, the Duke first beheld her. Arletta did not affect coyness; but Fulbert, who desired she should be married honestly in her own station, opposed the Duke's haunting the house. The Duke, however, neither could nor would be warned or driven away from the premises. One son, one only son, was acknowledged as their offspring. Robert bestowed upon the boy the ancestral name of William, and he was nursed in the house of his Grandfather, the Tanner. 17. Such a connexion as Robert had formed with the ultra-plebeian Arletta, could not fail to be resented by her aristocratic betters as a personal affront; but her inferiors, whether male or female, were far more offended;— would it not have been more than could fairly be demanded from poor human nature, that such an insult to respectability should be condoned.Arletta's pretty feet had taken the shine out of all the other pretty feet in Falaise.—We may picture to ourselves how the Burgess wives, who prided themselves in character and decorum, |