The Count of Antwerp Is Falsely Accused and Exiled

Gautier of Antwerp’s false accusation and exile begin when he refuses the wife of the king’s son, who has secretly fallen in love with him. Her desire becomes a weapon when he rejects it: she tears her clothes and cries that he tried to force her, and the court believes her. Gautier flees rather than risk being destroyed by the accusation, but his escape is treated as proof of guilt. His home is plundered and razed, and he and his descendants are sentenced to perpetual banishment. In the tale narrated by Elisa, a private refusal thus becomes a public judgment that drives an innocent father and his children into disguise, poverty, and separation.

Background and the rejected advance

Gautier is a widower, around forty, whose wife has died leaving him a young son and daughter. He is described as handsome, agreeable, well-mannered, and notably elegant; his good standing has brought him into the company of the royal court. While the king and his son are away at war, the wife of the king’s son grows secretly enamoured of him. She summons him to her chamber under the pretext of discussing other matters.

Gautier asks twice why she sent for him before she confesses her love. She presents her wealth, leisure, youth, and absent husband as reasons that might excuse her desire, and argues that she has chosen a lover of worth. Her appeal is also a request for his cooperation. Gautier, however, understands the proposed liaison as a betrayal of his lord. He rebukes her and swears that he would rather be torn limb from limb than consent to an offence against the king’s honour.

The accusation and the sentence

The refusal abruptly changes the scene. The woman’s love gives way to fury, and she threatens to have Gautier killed or driven from the world. She tears at her hair, rends the front of her clothing, and cries out for help, claiming that he has tried to violate her. The accusation is calculated to make her apparent distress visible to anyone who enters and to transform his restraint into an alleged assault.

Gautier fears not his conscience but the courtiers’ envy and the likelihood that they will credit her malice over his innocence. He leaves the chamber and palace as quickly as he can, rides home, and immediately sets his two children on horseback before mounting himself and heading toward Calais. He takes no time to seek advice or defend himself at court; flight is his urgent response to the danger of being disbelieved.

Those who answer the woman’s cries accept her account. They further interpret Gautier’s gallant bearing and courteous manner as evidence that he had long used them to pursue her. The crowd rushes to arrest him, but, finding him gone, plunders his houses and razes them to their foundations. When the distorted report reaches the king and his son at the army, they condemn Gautier and his descendants to perpetual banishment and offer large rewards to anyone who delivers him, dead or alive. The verdict extends punishment beyond the accused man to his children, making his family’s continued safety depend on remaining unrecognized.

Flight, concealment, and separation

Gautier reaches Calais with the children and crosses to England, where he goes to London in mean apparel. He recognizes the danger created by his flight: although innocent, he fears that running away has made him appear guilty. Before entering the city, he teaches his children to endure the poverty that fortune has brought upon them and, above all, never to disclose their family or origin. Louis, about nine, and Violante, about seven, understand as much of this instruction as their age allows and later show that they have obeyed it.

To strengthen the concealment, Gautier changes their names. He calls his son Perrot and his daughter Jeannette, and the three go about asking alms in the guise of poor French wanderers. This is not simply a change of clothing or address: it hides the lineage that has made the children targets of the royal sentence. Their father’s effort to preserve their lives requires him to suppress their identities and accept a life wholly unlike their former rank.

At a church door in London, the wife of an English marshal sees Gautier and the children begging. She asks where he comes from and whether the children are his. He claims to be from Picardy and explains their poverty by blaming an unruly elder son, presenting Louis and Violante as his own children. The marshal’s wife is moved by Violante’s beauty, manners, and engaging conduct, and offers to take her into her household and arrange an honourable marriage if she proves worthy. Gautier agrees and gives up his daughter with tears, entrusting her to the woman’s care.

Gautier then leaves England with Louis, unwilling to remain after separating from Violante. He crosses to Ireland and eventually reaches Stamford, where he enters the service of a knight attached to an earl’s household, doing the work of a lackey or horseboy. Though accustomed to a very different life, he remains there for a long time in hardship and labour, still unknown. The false accusation has therefore displaced him not only from his home and title but into a social position defined by service and anonymity.

The episode’s reversals

The tale makes the accusation’s force visible through a chain of consequences: a rejected advance becomes a public claim of assault; the claim becomes a royal sentence; and the sentence turns a noble household into a family of disguised beggars and servants. Gautier’s conscientious refusal does not protect him. Indeed, his sudden departure, made to escape danger, is read as confirmation of the charge, while the woman’s staged distress supplies the scene that persuades the court and crowd.

The exile also unfolds through the children’s separation. Gautier preserves their lives by teaching them silence and giving them assumed names, but the same strategy requires him to surrender Violante to strangers and later to leave with Louis. The episode’s decisive injustice is thus both political and intimate: the court punishes a man who has refused betrayal, while the banishment of his descendants makes a father’s care take the form of concealment, poverty, and parting.