Alexandre Dumas tells us in this short story another tradition on the death of Roland, far from Roncesvalles.
"The Pilgrimage Rolandseck or ruins of Roland is a need for tender souls who inhabit not only the two shores of the Rhine from Schaffhausen to Rotterdam, but still fifty leagues inland. If we may believe the tradition, this was Roland, up the Rhine to answer the call from his uncle, ready to go to fight the Saracens of Spain, was received by the old Count Raymond. The latter, hearing the name of the illustrious paladin he had the honor to receive from him, wished he was served at table by her daughter, the beautiful Hildegonde. It mattered little to Roland by which it would be used as long as dinner was hearty and the wine was good. So he held out his glass when a door opened and a beautiful young girl came in a goblet in his hand, and advanced towards the knight. But midway, eyes of Hildegonde and Roland met, and, strange to say Both began to tremble so that half the wine fell on the pavement, as the fault of the guest by that of the butler. Roland had to leave the next day, but the old Count Raymond insisted that he should pass eight days at the castle. Roland felt that his duty was in Ingelheim, but Hildegonde raised her beautiful eyes, and he remained.
After these eight days the two lovers had not spoken of their love, and yet, on the evening of the eighth day, Roland took her hand and led Hildegonde in the chapel. Arrived at the altar they both knelt in one movement. Roland said: "I will never be another woman qu'Hildegonde." Hildegonde added: "My God! Receive the oath I swear to you if I am to him."
Roland departed. A year passed. Roland did wonders, and the sound of his prowess sounds from the Pyrenees to the Rhine and then suddenly they heard vague talk of a great defeat, and the name was pronounced Roncesvalles.
One night a knight came to ask for hospitality at the castle of Count Raymond and he came to Spain where he had followed the emperor. Hildegonde ventured to pronounce the name of Roland, and Then the knight told how, in Roncesvalles, surrounded by Saracens, and finding himself alone against a hundred, he had sounded his horn to call the emperor to his aid, and that with such force that, although was more than a mile and a half, the emperor had intended to return, but Ganelon had prevented, and the sound of the horn had gone dying because it was the last effort of the hero. Then he saw him, that his good sword Durandal point should fall into the hands of the infidels, to try to break the rocks, but used to melt steel, Durandal was split granite, and he had to Roland enfonçât the blade in a crevice, and brisât by pressing it. Then, covered with wounds, he fell next to sections of his sword, muttering the name of a woman named Hildegonde.
The daughter of Count Raymond did not shed a tear and uttered no cry, only she rose, pale as death, and approaching the Count:
- My father, "she said, you know what Roland had promised, and what, for my part, I promised to Roland. Tomorrow, with your permission, I will come to the convent of Nonenwerth.
The father looked at the girl, shaking her head sadly as he said to himself: Roland was he at all? and me, was I anything? Then, remembering that he was a Christian before being father
- The will of God be done in any thing! he replied. And the next day
Hildegonde entered the convent. Then, as she was eager to take the veil because he felt that it would be more separated from the mainland, the more it would be closer to Roland, she got the diocesan bishop, who was his uncle, the time of trial was reduced to three months for her, and after three months she took her vows.
Eight days had not elapsed Knight asks that the hospitality at the castle of Count Raymond. Count down to meet him, the knight stops and looks at him with surprise because the last three months he had separated from her daughter, the count had grown more than ten years. Then the knight raises his visor of his helmet.
- My father, he said, I kept my word. Hildegonde me she kept hers?
The old man uttered a cry of pain. This knight was Roland. The injuries he received were deep, but they were not fatal. After a long convalescence, he had set off to rejoin his fiancée.
The old man leaned
on Roland's shoulder, and then, remembering his courage, he led him, without answering a single word in the chapel, and there, beckoning him to kneel down and knelt beside him :
- Pray, "he said.
- Is she dead? murmured Roland.
- She died for you and for the world! Had she not promised to be only you or God? She took her oath.
The next morning, Roland went on foot, leaving his horse and weapons in the castle of the old count, he plunged into the mountain, and towards evening he reached the summit of a peak overlooking the river, when he lives his feet at the end of the island green, the convent of Nonenwerth. At this time, the nuns sang the hello, and amidst all those holy voices rose to heaven, there was a voice that came straight to his heart.
Roland spent the night lying on the rock the next morning at daybreak, the nuns sang matins, and he heard again the voice that was vibrating every fiber of his soul. So he resolved to build a chapel at the top of this mountain, so as not to get away at least that he loved. He began to work.
About eleven o'clock, the nuns went out and spread throughout the island, but One of them walked away from her companions and sat down under a willow at the water's edge. She was veiled and she wore the same costume as the other sisters, yet Roland had not doubted for a moment that it was Hildegonde.
For two years, night and morning, Roland heard religious voices in the middle of that voice which was so dear for two years, every day, at the same time, the same solitary nun sat at the same place though every day she came more slowly. Finally, one evening, his voice failed. The next morning the vote failed again. Eleven o'clock came, and Roland waited in vain. The nuns spread, as usual, in the garden, but none of them came and sat under the willow at the water's edge. About four hours, four nuns dug, taking turns, a pit at the foot of the willow, and when the pit was dug, Roland again heard the songs that the sweetest and most beautiful voice was still missing, and the entire community came out , escorting the coffin in which lay a virgin forehead crowned with flowers and a pale face and short.
was the first time in two years qu'Hildegonde lifted her veil.
Three days later, a shepherd who had lost his goat climbed to the top of the mountain, and found Roland sat back against the wall of his hermitage, and head on his chest. He was dead. "
Alexandre Dumas, Roland , back from Roncesvalles in Tales for adults and children and other stories
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