Gautier, Count of Antwerp—Perrot

Gautier, Count of Antwerp—Perrot is a father–son relationship tested by exile and concealment, then repaired through recognition and public restoration. When Gautier is driven from his home, he teaches his children to endure poverty and hide their parentage; the son grows up as Perrot the Picard, a celebrated warrior who does not know his father’s fate. Their reunion turns the secrecy that preserved the children into a means of recovering the family’s name and standing.

Exile and the Father’s Instructions

After the Count of Antwerp is falsely accused, he reaches Calais with his two young children and crosses into England. Before entering London, he speaks to them about the abrupt change in their fortunes: they must bear their poverty patiently, since it has come through no fault of their own, and they must never disclose who they are if they value their lives. The boy, Louis, is about nine; his sister, Violante, is about seven. Both understand as much of their father’s warning as their age allows.

To make the concealment more secure, Gautier changes their names. Louis becomes Perrot, and Violante is called Jeannette. The altered names sever the children, at least outwardly, from the rank and family history that could expose them to danger. Their father’s precautions are not an abandonment of his parental role: they are the practical form his care takes under exile, when preserving their lives requires keeping their origins secret.

In London, Gautier gives Violante into the care of the wife of an English marshal. He accepts the woman’s offer to take the girl into her household and, in time, arrange an honorable marriage for her. He then takes Perrot to Wales, where another of the king’s marshals maintains a household. The father’s decision to entrust each child to a powerful household is costly: he freely gives up his son despite the pain of separation, then leaves England himself, making his way through Ireland before entering service as a lackey or horseboy. Father and son are thus separated not by a voluntary rejection of one another, but by the conditions of exile and Gautier’s effort to secure the children’s future.

Perrot the Picard

Under the Welsh marshal’s protection, Perrot wins his lord’s favor and grows into a man of striking ability. He excels in tournaments, jousts, and other feats of arms, until no one in the country can match him. Yet his public distinction develops under the identity his father chose for his protection: he is known as Perrot the Picard, not as the son of the Count of Antwerp. His achievements therefore restore his standing in practice before his birth is known.

An epidemic transforms the household in which he has been raised. The marshal, his wife, their only son, and many of their relatives die; the marshal’s daughter and Perrot are among those left behind. With the approval and counsel of surviving gentlemen, the daughter takes Perrot as her husband, and he becomes lord of the inheritance that had belonged to her. When the King of England hears of the marshal’s death and Perrot’s reputation, he appoints him marshal in his former lord’s place. The son whom Gautier had entrusted to another household has become a powerful figure in his own right, although the family connection remains concealed.

Recognition and Reunion

The way back to Gautier opens when the Queen of France, gravely ill and near death, confesses that the Count of Antwerp had suffered unjustly through her. She asks worthy men to persuade the king to restore Gautier, if he is alive, or one of his children if he is not. After her confession reaches the king, he proclaims that anyone who brings news of the count or either child will be richly rewarded, and declares his intention to restore the count to his former estate and more.

Gautier, still serving in the guise of a horseboy, hears the proclamation and trusts that it is genuine. He goes to Jamy Lamiens and asks him to accompany him to Perrot, intending to reveal the family’s identity. When the three meet, Gautier tells Perrot that Jamy is married to Violante, and that the promised royal reward should go to Jamy so that Violante will not be left without a dowry. He then identifies himself as the Count of Antwerp and their father. Perrot recognizes him, falls weeping at his feet, and embraces him. The father’s disclosure is met not with hesitation but with recognition and welcome; the years of concealment end in a bodily act of reunion.

Restoration of the Family

Jamy, astonished by the revelation and by Perrot’s response, recognizes Gautier as the man to whom he had once spoken injuriously while mistaking him for a humble horseboy. He asks forgiveness, and Gautier raises him and grants it. The family’s reunion therefore gathers together not only father and son but also Violante’s marriage to Jamy, the connection through which Gautier arranges for the reward to benefit his daughter and son-in-law.

Gautier refuses to change out of his servant’s clothes before being presented to the king. Jamy brings him and Perrot to court in that very condition, making the contrast between the father’s apparent poverty and his true rank part of the recognition scene. The king eventually knows Gautier despite the change in his appearance, raises him from his knees, embraces him, and orders that he be supplied with clothes, servants, horses, and equipment appropriate to his station. He receives Perrot graciously as well. Gautier’s restoration is completed when the king reinstates him in all his possessions and raises him to greater honor than before.

When Jamy is about to receive the promised reward, Gautier encourages him to accept the king’s generosity and to make clear to his own father that his grandchildren are not descended on their mother’s side from a vagabond. The remark answers the long separation’s deepest public consequence: exile had made the children appear to belong to a lowly, unknown household, while the reunion restores their legitimate family identity. Perrot’s rise from disguised exile to marshal and recognized heir, and Gautier’s return from horseboy’s service to honored count, make their relationship the story’s measure of how names and rank can be suppressed without erasing kinship.