d, daily by the horizon's breadth so
much nearer Heaven, the fore-running sun goes down for him beyond the
glowing water;--there, where now the peasant woman trots homewards
between her panniers, and the saw rests in the half-cleft wood, and the
village spire rises grey against the farthest light, in Turner's
'Loireside.'[8]

[Footnote 8: Modern Painters, Plate 73.]

All which things, though not themselves without profit, my special
reason for telling you now, has been that you might understand the
significance of what chanced first on Clovis' march south against the
Visigoths.

"Having passed the Loire at Tours, he traversed the lands of the abbey
of St. Martin, which he declared inviolate, and refused permission to
his soldiers to touch anything, save water and grass for their horses.
So rigid were his orders, and the obedience he exacted in this
respect, that a Frankish soldier having taken, without the consent of
the owner, some hay, which belonged to a poor man, saying in raillery
"that it was but grass," he caused the aggressor to be put to death,
exclaiming that "Victory could not be expected, if St. Martin should
be offended."

Now, mark you well, this passage of the Loire at Tours is virtually
the fulfilment of the proper bounds of the French kingdom, and the
sign of its approved and securely set power is "Honour to the poor!"
Even a little grass is not to be stolen from a poor man, on pain of
Death. So wills the Christian knight of Roman armies; throned now high
with God. So wills the first Christian king of far victorious
Franks;--here baptized to God in Jordan of his goodly land, as he goes
over to possess it.

How long?

Until that same Sign should be read backwards from a degenerate
throne;--until, message being brought that the poor of the French
people had no bread to eat, answer should be returned to them "They
may eat grass." Whereupon--by St. Martin's faubourg, and St. Martin's
gate--there go forth commands from the Poor Man's Knight against the
King--which end _his_ Feasting.

And be this much remembered by you, of the power over French souls,
past and to come, of St. Martin of Tours.

NOTES TO CHAPTER I.

The reader will please observe that notes immediately necessary to the
understanding of the text will be given, with _numbered_ references,
under the text itself; while questions of disputing authorities, or
quotations of supporting documents will have _lettered_ references,
and b