mockingly--“See, the count of Anjou has turned clerk!” and the king joined in their mockery. The letter which the “clerk” wrote to Louis, when their jesting came round to his ears, has passed into a proverb: “Know, my lord, that an unlettered king is but a crowned ass.”[255] Fulk was indeed a living proof that it is possible to make the contemplative life of the scholar a help and not a hindrance to the active life of the statesman. The poet-canon was no mere dreamer; he was a practical, energetic ruler, who worked hard at the improvement and cultivation, material as well as intellectual, of his little marchland, rebuilding the churches and the towns that had been laid waste by the northmen, and striving to make up for the losses sustained during the long years of war. The struggle was completely over now; a great victory of King Rudolf, in the year after Ingelger’s death,[256] had finally driven the pirates from the Loire; and there was nothing to hinder Fulk’s work of peace. The soil had grown rich during the years it had lain fallow, and now repaid with an abundant harvest the labours of the husbandman; the report of its fertility and the fame of Fulk’s wise government soon spread into the neighbouring districts; and settlers from all the country round came to help in re-peopling and cultivating the marchland.[257] This idyl of peace lasted for twenty years, and ended only with the life of Fulk. In his last years he became involved in the intricacies of Breton politics, and storm-clouds began to gather on his western border; but they never broke over Anjou itself till the Good Count was gone. [252] “Iste Fulco nulla bella gessit.” _Gesta Cons._ (Marchegay, _Comtes_), p. 69. [253] _Gesta Cons._ (Marchegay, _Comtes_), p. 70. [254] _Ib._ pp. 71, 72. [255] “Scitote, domine, quod rex illitteratus est asinus coronatus.” _Gesta Cons._ (Marchegay, _Comtes_), p. 71. It is curious that John of Salisbury, writing at the court of Henry of Anjou some years before the compilation of the _Gesta Consulum_, quotes the saying as coming from “literis quas _Regem Romanorum_ ad Francorum regem transmisisse recolo” (_Polycraticus_, l. iv. c. 6; Giles, vol. iii. p. 237). The proverb was well known in the time of Henry I.; see Will. Malm. _Gesta Reg._, l. v. c. 390 (Hardy, p. 616). [256] _Fragm. Hist. Franc._ in _Rer. Gall. Scriptt._, vol. viii. p. 298. [257] _Gesta Cons._ (Marchegay, _Comtes_), pp. 74, 75.