Gautier of Antwerp

Gautier of Antwerp is a trusted count whose loyalty cannot protect him from a courtier’s false accusation, but whose family survives his exile and whose identity is ultimately restored. His story turns on a sharp reversal: the king’s confidence first gives him authority over France, then a fabricated charge strips him of home and rank; eighteen years later, a chance act of hospitality helps bring him back into the king’s presence.

Identity and Appointment

Around the transfer of the Roman Empire from French to German hands, hostility between the two nations gave way to a prolonged war. The King of France and his son gathered an army against their enemies, and, before departing, entrusted the governance of their realm to Gautier. They regarded him as noble, discreet, and a faithful servant; although versed in warfare, they considered him better suited to delicate affairs than to the hardships of military campaigning.

Gautier undertook the office with order and discretion. Though the queen and her daughter-in-law were under his custody and jurisdiction, he continued to treat them as his liege ladies and mistresses, consulting the queen about matters of government. His authority rested on the king’s confidence, but the same proximity to the royal household would expose him to danger.

Accusation and Exile

The crisis began when the king’s daughter-in-law declared her desire for Gautier. He rebuked her passion and refused her advances, swearing that he would rather be torn limb from limb than dishonor his lord. Her response was immediate: she turned from entreaty to rage, disordered and tore her hair, rent her clothing at the breast, and cried aloud that Gautier had tried to violate her.

Gautier judged that the courtiers’ envy might make her accusation more persuasive than his innocence. Rather than remain and risk arrest, he hurried from the palace to his own house, put his children on horseback, and rode with them toward Calais. Those who came in response to the princess’s cries believed her account; some also claimed that Gautier’s courtly bearing had long been intended to win her. His houses were plundered and razed, and the king and his son, hearing the distorted report at the army, condemned him and his descendants to perpetual banishment, offering a great reward to anyone who delivered him alive or dead.

Exile and His Children’s Lives

Gautier’s flight separated him from his children, whom he left in different places in England. Eighteen years passed before, while living in Ireland after enduring a hard and impoverished life, he resolved to discover what had become of them. Age and long exertion had changed his appearance and made him more robust than he had been in his former life of ease, so he returned to England without revealing who he was.

He first found Perrot, now a powerful lord and marshal of England. Pleased by his son’s prosperity, Gautier withheld his identity until he could learn the fate of his daughter. In London he discovered that Violante had married Jamy Lamiens, the son of the woman to whose care Gautier had entrusted her. He counted his past adversity a small price for finding both children alive and settled. When Jamy noticed the old, poor stranger near his house, he took pity on him and had him brought in and fed. Gautier met his grandchildren there; recognizing them as his own, he fondled them, while the children gathered around him with an attachment the story presents as an almost instinctive recognition of kinship.

Recognition and Restoration

After the family had exchanged the account of their separate misfortunes and fortunes, Perrot and Jamy wanted to clothe Gautier properly. Gautier refused. He asked Jamy to claim the reward promised for finding the count and his children, and to present him to the king in the poor condition and groom’s clothing in which he had returned. The disguise made the restoration a public reversal: the man once condemned as a fugitive would appear before the king not as a petitioner who had resumed his former station, but as the very person the proclamation had sought.

The king initially offered Jamy a reward on the condition that he produce the count and his children. Jamy then identified Gautier, standing before the king as a horseboy, and named Perrot as his son. Though Gautier’s appearance had greatly changed, the king recognized him after looking closely. He raised Gautier from his knees, kissed and embraced him, and ordered that he immediately receive clothes, servants, horses, and equipment befitting his rank. The king also received Perrot graciously and asked to hear the details of their adventures.

Gautier allowed Jamy to accept the promised gifts, adding that Jamy should tell his father that his children and grandchildren were not descended on their mother’s side from a vagabond. Jamy sent for Violante and his mother to join the family in Paris, where Perrot’s wife also came. The king restored Gautier to all his possessions and made him greater than before; Gautier remained in Paris in greater honor than he had previously enjoyed until his death.

Narrative Significance

Gautier’s story makes reputation vulnerable to political power: the princess’s performance is believed, the king’s judgment is made in anger and distance, and a loyal servant loses his home and inheritance without a hearing in the scenes related here. His eventual restoration depends not on a recorded trial but on recognition, family testimony, and the king’s renewed personal response to the man he once trusted.

The return also reverses the story’s social images. The count who once governed France comes back poor and changed, accepted into a household as an object of charity; the children he feared lost have prospered, and their hospitality reconnects him with the family from which exile separated him. By insisting on appearing before the king in a groom’s habit, Gautier lets his abasement remain visible at the instant his status is restored. The resolution returns his rank and wealth, but it also makes the long cost of the false accusation part of the recognition itself.