The young prince was furious at his defeat, and, not content with treating the son of Ogier with the most insulting language, he seized the chess-board in his two hands, and struck him so violent a blow on the forehead, that he split his head, and scattered his brains over the floor. In a well-known illuminated manuscript of the fifteenth century, in the British Museum (MS. Reg. 15 E. vi.), containing a copy of the romance of “Ogier le Danois,” this scene is represented in an illumination which is copied in our cut No. 139. Similar incidents are rather common in these old romances. In that of “Parise la Duchesse,” her young son, brought up as a foundling at the court of the king of Hungary, becomes an object of jealousy to the old nobles. Four of the sons of the latter conspire to murder him, and it is arranged that they shall invite him to go and play at chess with them in a retired cellar, and, having secretly provided themselves with knives, insult him, in order to draw him into a quarrel, and then stab him to death. “Hugues,” they said, “will you come with us to play at chess? you may gain a hundred francs on the gilt chess-board, and at the same time you will teach us chess and dice; for certainly you know the games much better than any of us.” Hugues seems to have been conscious of the frequency of quarrels arising from the game, for it was not until they had promised him that they would not seek any cause of dispute, that he accepted their invitation. They then led him into the cellar, and sat down at the chess-board. “He began by playing with the son of duke Granier; and each put down a hundred francs in coined money; but he had soon vanquished and mated them all, that not one of them was able to mate him:”--
_Au fil au duc Graner comença à juer;_ _Chascuns mist c. frans de deniers moniez;_ _Mais il les a trestoz et vancus et matez,_ _Que il n’i ot i. sol qui l’an poüft mater._ --Parise la Duchesse, p. 105.
Hugues, in kindness, offered to teach them better how to play, without allowing them to risk their money, but they drew their knives upon him, and insulted him in the most outrageous terms. He killed the foremost of them with a blow of his fist, and seizing upon the chess-board for a weapon, for he was unarmed, he “brained” the other three with it. We learn from this anecdote that it was the custom in the middle ages to play at chess for money.