adins, Ivon and Ivaire, the Gascon Engelier, Gerier and
Gerin, Berenger and Otho, Anseis and Salamon, and the old Gerard of
Rousillon; and one by one drags them to where the archbishop lies dying.
And then, when to these knights Roland has at last added his own beloved
comrade Oliver, he bids the archbishop bless all the dead, before he die
himself. Then, when he has reverently crossed Turpin's beautiful
priestly hands over his breast, he goes forth to shatter his sword
Durendal against the rocks; but the good sword has cut the rock without
shivering; and the coldness of death steals, over Roland. He stretches
himself upon a hillock looking towards Spain, and prays for the
forgiveness of his sins; then, with Durendal and his ivory horn by his
side, he stretches out the glove of his right hand to God. "He has
stretched forth to God the glove of his right hand; St. Gabriel has
received it... Then his head has sunk on his arm; he has gone, with
clasped hands, to his end. God sends him one of his cherubim and St.
Michael of Peril. St. Gabriel has come with them. They carry the soul of
the Count: up to paradise."

More solitary, and solemn and sad even, is the end of the other hero, of
the great rebel Renaud of Montauban. At length, after a lifetime wasted
in fruitless, attempts to resist the iniquity of the emperor, to baffle
his power, to shame him by magnanimity into, justice, the four sons of
Aymon, who have given up their youth, their manhood, the dearest things
to their heart, respect to their father and loyalty to their sovereign,
rather than countenance the injustice of Charlemagne to their kinsman,
have at last obtained to be pardoned; to be pardoned, they, heroes, by
this, dastardly tyrant, and to quietly sink, broken-hearted into
nothingness. The eldest, Renaud, returning from his exile and the Holy
Land, finds that his wife Clarisse has pined for him and died; and
then, putting away his armour from him, and dressing in a pilgrim's
frock made of the purple serge of the dead lady's robe, he goes forth to
wander through the world; not very old in years, but broken-spirited; at
peace, but in solitude of heart. And one evening he arrives at Cologne.
We can imagine the old knight, only half aware of the sunshine of the
evening, the noise of the streets, the looks of the crowd, the great
minster rising half-finished in the midst of the town by the Rhine, the
cries and noise and chipping of the masons; unconscious of all