VALEN- hastened away. As she passed through the city,
TINE AND she was met by multitudes of people lamenting the

ORSON

loss of so good an empress. When she had left
Constantinople, ‘Alas!’ cried she, ‘in what un-
happy hour was I born, to fall from so high an.
estate to so low a condition as I am now in!’
As she was thus complaining and weeping with
anguish, her servant said to her, ‘Madam, be not
discomforted, but trust in God, who will keep and
defend you.’
He had hardly spoken, before he espied a fountain,
which he and his lady at once approached. After
refreshing themselves at the fountain, they pro-
ceeded towards France. Many weary days and
nights had been spent in travel, when, arriving in
the forest of Orleans, the disconsolate princess
was so overcome with grief and fatigue, that she
sank, and was incapable of proceeding farther.
Her faithful attendant gathered the fallen leaves
and the moss to make a couch for her on which
to rest, and then hastened away, to seek some
habitation where he might procure food for his
unfortunate mistress.
During Blandiman’s absence the empress fell
asleep, with her two infant boys laid on the couch
beside her, when suddenly a huge bear rushed
out of the forest, and, snatching up one of the
children in its mouth, disappeared with its prey.
The wretched mother, distracted at the fate of her
child, pursued the bear with shrieks and lamenta-
tions, till, overcome with anguish and terror, she
fell into a swoon near the mouth of the cave into -
which the bear had carried her child.
It happened that King Pepin, accompanied by
several great lords and barons of his court, was
that same day hunting in the forest of Orleans,
and chanced to pass near the tree where the other
little boy lay sleeping on his bed of moss. The
king ee astonished with the beauty of the child,
3