Count Robert of Paris

Вальтер Скотт

Tales of My Landlord

They were the literary phenomenon of their time: The Waverly novels, 48 volumes set in fanciful re-creations of the Scottish Highlands (and other lands) of centuries past, published between 1814 and 1831 and devoured by a reading public hungry for these sweeping, interconnected melodramas. The series popularized historical fiction, though they're also abundant in astute political and social commentary.

Count Robert of Paris, Volume 46 of Waverly, is part of the fourth and final series in Scott's Tales of My Landlord. Ranging over the Near East, this is a tale of adventure and romance set during the first Crusades in the late 11th century.

Scottish novelist and poet SIR WALTER SCOTT (1771–1832), a literary hero of his native land, turned to writing only when his law practice and printing business foundered. Among his most beloved works are The Lady of the Lake (1810), Rob Roy (1818), and Ivanhoe (Waverly Vols. 16 and 11) (1820).

Sir Walter Scott

Count Robert of Paris

Count Robert of Paris originally published by Whittaker & Company in 1831.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.

В© 2005 Cosimo, Inc.

Introductory Address

JEDEDIAH CLEISHBOTHAM, M.A.

To the loving Reader wisheth health and prosperity.

It would ill become me, whose name has been spread abroad by those former collections, bearing this title of "Tales of my Landlord," and who have, by the candid voice of a numerous crowd of readers, been taught to think that I merit not the empty fame alone, but also the more substantial rewards, of successful pencraft – it would, I say, ill become me to suffer this, my youngest literary babe, and, probably at the same time, the last child of mine old age, to pass into the world without some such modest apology for its defects, as it has been my custom to put forth on preceding occasions of the like nature. The world has been sufficiently instructed, of a truth, that I am not individually the person to whom is to be ascribed the actual inventing or designing of the scheme upon which these Tales, which men have found so pleasing, were originally constructed; as also that neither am I the actual workman, who, furnished by a skilful architect with an accurate plan, including elevations and directions both general and particular, has from thence toiled to bring forth and complete the intended shape and proportion of each division of the edifice. Nevertheless I have been indisputably the man, who, in placing my name at the head of the undertaking, have rendered myself mainly and principally responsible for its general success. When a ship of war goeth forth to battle with her crew, consisting of sundry foremast-men and various officers, such subordinate persons are not said to gain or lose the vessel which they have manned or attacked, (although each was natheless sufficiently active in his own department;) but it is forthwith bruited and noised abroad, without further phrase, that Captain Jedediah Cleishbotham hath lost such a seventy-four, or won that which, by the united exertions of all thereto pertaining, is taken from the enemy. In the same manner, shame and sorrow it were, if I, the voluntary Captain and founder of these adventures, after having upon three divers occasions assumed to myself the emoluments and reputation thereof, should now withdraw myself from the risks of failure proper to this fourth and last outgoing. No! I will rather address my associates in this bottom with the constant spirit of Matthew Prior's heroine:

"Did I but purpose to embark with thee

On the smooth surface of some summer sea,

But would forsake the waves, and make the shore,

When the winds whistle, and the billows roar?"

As little, nevertheless, would it become my years and station not to admit without cavil certain errors which may justly be pointed out in these concluding "Tales of my Landlord," – the last, and, it is manifest, never carefully revised or correc