The national era. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1847-1860, 1858-02-25
: TUE BEAUREPA1RE OAK.

But hrst, ere the sun Is set stay a few min.
utes and look at the Beaurepaire oak, while I
tell you the little men knew about it, not the
thousandth part of what it could have told, if
trees could speak as we'll as breathe.
The Baroness did not exaggerate. The tree
was somewhat older than even this ancient
family. There was a chain of family docu.
ments, several of which related incidents in
which this tree played part.
The oldest of these manuscripts was written
BY monk, younger son of the house, about
five hundred years before our story This
would not have helped us much, but luckily.
the good monk was at the pains to collect all
the oral traditions about it that had come down
from a far more remote antiquity, and, like a
sensible man, arrested and soldified them nv
the pen. He had a superstitious reverence for
the tree; and probably this, too, came down
to him from his ancestors, as it was certainly
transmitted by him to the chroniclers that sue
ceeded him.
The sum Of all is this.
The first Baron of Beaurepaire had pitched
his tent under fair oak that stood prone RI.
uum-near a brook. He afterwards built a
square tower hard by, and dug moat that en-
closed both tree and tower, and received the
waters OF the brook aforesaid. These particu
lars correspondent too exactly with the present
race OF things and the intermediate accounts, to
leave doubt that this was the same tree.
In these early days, its size seems to have
been nothing remarkable, and this proves it
was still growing timber. But century and a
half before the monk wrote, it had became
famous in all the district for its girth; and in
the monks own day had ceased to grow. but
showed no sign of decay. The mutilated arm
l have mentioned was once long, sturdy
Dough, worn smooth as velvet in one part from
curious cause; it ran about as high above
the ground as a full-sized horse, and the koights
and equlres used to be forever vaultng upon
it, the former in srmor the monk when bow.
had seen them do it thousand times.
The heart of the tree began to go, and then
this heavy bough creaked suspiciousIy. In
those days, they did not prop sacred bough
with line of iron posts, as now.
They solved the difficulty by cutting this one
off within six feet of the trunk two centuries
later, the tree being now nearly hollow, a rude
iron bracket was roughly nailed into the stem,
and, running out three feet, supported the
knights bough; for so the mutilated limb was
still called.
What had not this tree seen since first it came,
green and tender as the cabbage, above the soil,
and stood at the mercy of the first hare or rsb-
bit that should choose to cut short forever it's
frail existencel
Since then, eagles had perched on its crown,
and wild bears fed, without fear of man, upon
Its acorns. Troubadours had sung beneath it
to lords and ladies seated around or walking
on the grass, and commenting the minstrels
tales OF love by exchange of amorous chances.
IL had seen a Norman Duke conquer Eng.
land, and English Kings invade France, and be
crowned at Paris. 1t had seen a woman put
knights to the rout, and seer God insulted and
the warrior virgin burned by envious priests,
with the consent of the ours she had defended
and the ours she had defeated.
Medieval sculptors had taken it's leaves, and,
wisely trusting to nature, had adorned many a
church with thoee leaves cut in stone.
why, IN its old age it had seen the rise of
printing, and the FIRST dawn of national civil
zation Ia Europe. Itfourished and decayed in
France, but it grew in Gaul. And more re-.
markabe still, though by all accounts it is like.
~ to see the world to An end, it was a tree in
ancient history; its old age awaits the millen-
mum its first youth belonged to that great
tract OF time which includes the birth of Chriet,
the building of Rome, and the siege of Troy.
The tree had mingled in the fortunes of the
family 1t had saved their lives and taken
their lives. One Lord of Beaurepaire, hotly
pursued by his feudal enemies, made for the
tree, and hid himself, partly by great bough,
partly by thick screen of leaves. The foe
darted In, made sure he had taken to the house,
ransacked it, and got into the cellar, where, by
good luck, was store of Malvoisie; and SO the
oak and the vine saved the quaking Baron.
Another Lord of Beaurepaire, besieged in
his castle, was shot dead on the ramparts by q
cross bowman who had secreted himself unob-
served in this tree little before the dawn.