In the meantime Robert, the Duke's brother, was not in the least satisfied, and made an outcry because, though he was lord of the beautiful county of Exmes, the city of Falaise was withheld from him. There was a man from Brittany who urged him to resent his wrongs, and made trouble between the brothers; Ermenoldus he was called, /the theosophist/; and there is a great mystery about him which the old writers stop to wonder over. He was evidently a sort of magician, and those records that can be discovered give rise to a suspicion that he had strayed far eastward with some pirate fleet toward Asia, and had learned there to work wonders and to compass his ends by uncanny means. There was a siege of Falaise, which Robert seized and tried to keep by main strength; but Richard's army was too much for him, and at last he sued for peace. The brothers went back to Rouen apparently the best of friends; but there was a grand banquet in Rolf's old castle, and Richard was suddenly death-struck as he sat at the head of the feast, and was carried to his bed, where he quickly breathed his last. The funeral bell began to toll while the banquet still went on, and the barons made themselves merry in the old hall. [Pg114] There was great lamentation, for Richard was already much beloved, and nobody doubted that he had been poisoned. So Robert came to the throne of Normandy with a black stain upon his character, and during all the rest of his life that stain was not overlooked nor forgotten. As for the baby-widow, she afterward became the wife of the Count of Flanders, Baldwin de Lisle, and she was the mother of Matilda, who was the wife of William the Conqueror. [Illustration] [Pg115] [Illustration] VI. ROBERT THE MAGNIFICENT. "What exile from himself can flee?"—BYRON. Before we begin the story of the next Duke of Normandy whose two surnames, the Devil, and the Magnificent, give us a broad hint of his character, we must take a look at the progress of affairs in the dukedom. There is one thing to be remembered in reading this history, or any other, that history is not merely the story of this monarch or that, however well he may represent the age in which he lived and signify its limitations and development.