The Count of Antwerp’s exile

The Count of Antwerp’s exile is the long consequence of a false accusation: after he rejects the Queen of France, she claims that he tried to violate her, and the royal court condemns him and his descendants to banishment. For eighteen years he lives without his name or station, separated from his children and moving through service and poverty. His eventual return begins not with a legal defense but with the queen’s confession, which exposes the injustice and makes recognition possible.

The accusation and sentence

The crisis begins when the count, a loyal subject of the French king, refuses the queen’s advances. She responds by disheveling her hair, tearing her clothing at the breast, and crying out that Gautier of Antwerp has tried to force her. The gestures turn her rejected desire into a public charge. The count fears that the courtiers’ envy will make them believe her malice rather than his innocence; instead of remaining to contest the story, he leaves the palace and rides to his house.

The accusation spreads quickly. Those who answer the queen’s cries accept her account and add their own allegation that Gautier of Antwerp’s courteous manner had long served to win women. By the time the altered story reaches the king and his son, the count’s flight is treated as confirmation of guilt. His houses are plundered and razed, and the king declares Gautier and his descendants perpetual exiles, promising a substantial reward to anyone who delivers the count to him alive or dead. The sentence thus reaches beyond the accused man: his children must flee with him and conceal their family identity.

Flight, concealment, and separation

After reaching Calais with his children, Gautier crosses to England and goes to London in mean apparel. Before entering the city, he instructs Louis, about nine, and Violante, about seven, to endure the poverty into which they have fallen and never disclose their parentage. He changes their names to Perrot and Jeannette, making concealment part of their daily survival. They go about asking alms, presenting themselves as a poor father and his children rather than as a banished count’s family.

At a church door, an English marshal’s wife notices Jeannette, is taken with her appearance and manner, and offers to take her into her household and eventually arrange a good marriage for her. Gautier accepts, commends his daughter to the woman’s care, and parts from her in tears. He then travels on foot into Wales with Perrot. There, Perrot’s skill in running and leaping attracts the attention of another marshal, and the boy enters the marshal’s household. In time, after the plague has abated, Perrot marries the marshal’s daughter, inherits her lands, and is appointed marshal by the King of England. Jeannette, meanwhile, marries the first marshal’s son, Jamy Lamiens. The children establish lives and families, but their father remains unknown to them.

Eighteen years of exile

Gautier’s banishment is not a single flight followed by a settled refuge. Eighteen years after leaving Paris, he is living in Ireland, worn by a poor and difficult life. Wanting to learn what has become of his children, he returns to England, physically changed by years of hardship and accustomed to exertion rather than the ease in which he had once lived. He first finds Perrot, now a marshal and a great lord. Pleased to see his son alive and prosperous, Gautier nevertheless withholds his identity until he has learned what became of Jeannette.

He goes to London and cautiously makes inquiries about the daughter he entrusted to the marshal’s wife. Learning that Jeannette is married to Jamy Lamiens, he is glad to discover that both children have survived and reached security. Yet he does not immediately present himself as their father. Instead, he haunts the neighborhood of their home in the guise of a beggar. When Jamy sees the old, poor man, he takes pity on him and has a servant bring him in for food. Jeannette and Jamy’s young children gather around Gautier and caress him; he recognizes them as his grandchildren, while their unaccountable affection draws them to him before his identity is known.

Gautier is offered a place in the household and says that he knows how to tend horses, the work he has practiced throughout his life. A horse is assigned to him, and he also makes sport for the children. The former count’s life in service is a sharp measure of how far the accusation has carried him from his old position. Even after finding his family, he remains their anonymous dependent.

Confession and recognition

The change comes during a renewed war between France and Germany. The King of England sends forces under Perrot and Jamy Lamiens; Gautier accompanies them, still unrecognized and still disguised as a horseboy. He proves his worth through both counsel and action, doing more than his lowly role requires. The war brings the exile back into the political world from which he has been excluded, but it does not itself clear his name.

The decisive disclosure comes when the Queen of France falls gravely ill. Confessing to the Archbishop of Rouen, she admits that Gautier had suffered wrongfully because of her. She also repeats the truth before other men of standing and asks them to ensure that, if the count is alive—or, if not, one of his children—his family is restored to its estate. After her death, the king accepts the confession as proof of Gautier’s innocence and announces rewards for anyone who can give news of the count or either child. He declares his intention to restore the family to its former standing and more.

Gautier hears the announcement and goes to Jamy, asking him to accompany him to Perrot. When they are together, he identifies himself and points out that Jamy married his sister without receiving a dowry. He proposes that Jamy claim the reward by revealing that Perrot is the Count of Antwerp’s son and that Violante is Perrot’s sister and Jamy’s wife. Perrot recognizes his father, falls at his feet in tears, and embraces him. Jamy, first astonished and then convinced by Perrot’s response, is ashamed of the injurious words he had sometimes spoken to the man he knew only as a hostler; Gautier raises him and grants his apology.

Meaning of the exile

The story makes the count’s banishment the consequence of a power imbalance as well as a personal misfortune. The queen’s accusation becomes authoritative through rank and public repetition, while the count’s fear that the court will prefer her story helps drive him into flight. His departure is then taken as evidence against him, and the punishment extends to his children even though they are innocent. The narrative’s central reversal is that the confession withheld by the queen during her lifetime arrives only when she is near death.

Exile also transforms family recognition into a slow, material process. The count preserves his children by changing their names and separating them into households; those choices protect them, but also leave him outside the prosperous lives they build. When he finally returns to them, his identity is disclosed not through a title, a document, or a public trial, but through the queen’s confession and Perrot’s recognition. The ending repairs the family bond and makes restoration possible, while the years of concealed identity and service show the lasting cost of a sentence imposed before the truth could be heard.