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THE CASQUE'S LARK
THE FULL SERIES OF
The Mysteries of the People
" OR "
History of a Proletarian Family
Across the Ages
By EUGENE SUE
_Consisting of the Following Works:_
THE GOLD SICKLE; or, _Hena the Virgin of the Isle of Sen._
THE BRASS BELL; or, _The Chariot of Death._
THE IRON COLLAR; or, _Faustina and Syomara._
THE SILVER CROSS; or, _The Carpenter of Nazareth._
THE CASQUE'S LARK; or, _Victoria, the Mother of the Camps._
THE PONIARD'S HILT; or, _Karadeucq and Ronan._
THE BRANDING NEEDLE; or, _The Monastery of Charolles._
THE ABBATIAL CROSIER; or, _Bonaik and Septimine._
THE CARLOVINGIAN COINS; or, _The Daughters of Charlemagne._
THE IRON ARROW-HEAD; or, _The Buckler Maiden._
THE INFANT'S SKULL; or, _The End of the World._
THE PILGRIM'S SHELL; or, _Fergan the Quarryman._
THE IRON PINCERS; or, _Mylio and Karvel._
THE IRON TREVET; or, _Jocelyn the Champion._
THE EXECUTIONER'S KNIFE; or, _Joan of Arc._
THE POCKET BIBLE; or, _Christian the Printer._
THE BLACKSMITH'S HAMMER; _or, The Peasant Code._
THE SWORD OF HONOR; or, _The Foundation of the French Republic._
THE GALLEY SLAVE'S RING; or, _The Family Lebrenn._
Published Uniform With This Volume By
THE NEW YORK LABOR NEWS CO.
28 CITY HALL PLACE NEW YORK CITY
THE CASQUE'S LARK
:: OR ::
VICTORIA, THE MOTHER OF THE CAMPS
A Tale of the Frankish Invasion of Gaul
By EUGENE SUE
TRANSLATED FROM THE ORIGINAL FRENCH
By DANIEL DE LEON
NEW YORK LABOR NEWS COMPANY 1909
Copyright, 1909, by the
NEW YORK LABOR NEWS CO.
INDEX
TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE v
INTRODUCTION 1
PART I--FOREIGN FOES.
I. SCHANVOCH AND SAMPSO 21
II. ON THE RHINE 26
III. THE HORDES OF THE FRANKS 46
IV. THE PRIESTESS ELWIG 55
V. NEROWEG THE TERRIBLE EAGLE 69
VI. THE FLIGHT 83
VII. SHADOWS ACROSS THE PATH 94
VIII. CAPTAIN MARION 99
IX. VICTORIA THE GREAT 107
X. TETRIK 114
XI. VICTORIN 127
XII. TO BATTLE 143
XIII. THE BATTLE OF THE RHINE 156
XIV. THE HOMEWARD RIDE 173
PART II--DOMESTIC TRAITORS.
I. GATHERING SHADOWS 185
II. THE CATASTROPHE 195
III. THE MORTUARY CHAMBER 208
IV. FUNERAL PYRES 229
V. ASSASSINATION OF MARION 233
VI. THE TRAITOR UNMASKED 247
VII. THE VISION OF VICTORIA 268
VIII. CRIME TRIUMPHANT 274
IX. KIDDA, THE BOHEMIAN GIRL 280
EPILOGUE 288
TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE
The first four stories of Eugene Sue's series of historic novels--_The
Mysteries of the People; or, History of a Proletarian Family Across the
Ages_--are properly introductory to the wondrous drama in which, as
indicated in the preface to the first story of the series, "one family,
the descendants of a Gallic chief named Joel, typifies the oppressed;
one family, the descendants of a Frankish chief named Neroweg, typifies
the oppressor; and across and adown the ages, the successive struggles
between oppressors and oppressed--the history of civilization--is thus
represented in a majestic allegory." That wondrous drama opens with
this, the fifth of the stories--_The Casque's Lark; or, Victoria, the
Mother of the Camps_.
Here, for the first time, does a descendant of Joel, the Breton chief,
encounter a Neroweg, the representative of the conquering race. Here
they cross swords for the first time, their descendants meeting again
and again in the course of the subsequent narratives, almost always in
deadly encounter, each typical of the advancing stage of civilization in
which the succeeding encounters occur.
In point of time, the scene of this story is about the third century of
the Christian era. The great historic epoch which it describes is that
in which, the star of the Roman Empire being in the decline and the
Empire's hold upon Gaul having been greatly relaxed, the flood of the
barbarian migration of nations flowed westward from the primeval
forests and frozen fields of Germania, attempting to cross the Rhine and
enter Gaul. Foremost among these hordes were the savage and warlike
Franks, led by a number of independent chiefs. The present story
describes the two forces--Franks and Gauls, the latter supported by the
Romans--facing each other, frequently crossing swords in bloody
encounters and holding each other in check. Out of this material, into
which the thin thread of the initial introduction of Christianity in
Gaul is woven in the woof, Sue constructed the present superb
narrative--a fit overture for the following and successive fourteen
acts.
DANIEL DE LEON
Milford, Conn. August, 1909.
INTRODUCTION.
I, Schanvoch, a descendant of Joel, the brenn of the tribe of Karnak; I,
Schanvoch, now a freeman, thanks to the valor of my father Ralf and the
bold Gallic insurrections that continued unabated from century to
century; I, Schanvoch, write the following narrative two hundred and
sixty-four years after my ancestress Genevieve, the wife of Fergan,
witnessed in Judea the death of the poor carpenter Jesus of Nazareth.
I write the following account thirty-four years after Gomer, the son of
Judicael and grandson of Fergan, who was a slave like his father and
grandfather, wrote to his son Mederik that he had nothing to add to the
family annals but the monotonous account of his life as a slave.
Neither did my ancestor Mederik contribute aught to our family history,
and his son Justin contented himself with having a stranger's hand enter
these short lines:
"My father Mederik died a slave, fighting as a Son of the Mistletoe for
the freedom of Gaul; he told me that he was driven to revolt against the
foreign oppression by the narrative of the bravery of our free ancestors
and by the description of the sufferance of our enslaved fathers. I, his
son Justin, a colonist, and no longer a slave of the fisc, have caused
this fact to be entered upon our family parchments, which I shall
faithfully transmit to my son Aurel, together with their accompanying
emblems, the gold sickle, the little brass bell, the fragment of the
iron collar and the little silver cross, all of which I have carefully
preserved."
Aurel, Justin's son and a colonist like his father, was not any more
literate than the latter, and left no record whatever. After him, again
a stranger's hand inserted these lines in our family annals:
"Ralf, the son of Aurel the colonist, fought for the freedom of his
country. Ralf having become absolutely free, thanks to the Gallic arms
and the holy war preached by our venerable druids, found himself obliged
to resort to a friend's help in order to enter the death of his father
Aurel upon our family parchments. Happier than myself, my son Schanvoch
will not be forced to avail himself of a stranger in order to enter in
our family's archives the death of myself, the first male descendant of
Joel, the brenn of the tribe of Karnak, who again regained complete
freedom. As several of my ancestors have done before me, I here declare
that it was the history of our ancestors' valor and martyrdom that
induced me to take up arms against the Romans, our masters and secular
oppressors."
These family scrolls, together with their accompanying relics, I shall
leave to you, my dear little Alguen, the son of my beloved wife Ellen,
who gave you birth this day four years ago.
I choose this day, the anniversary of your birth, as a day of happy
augury, in order to start, for your benefit and the benefit of our
descendants, the narrative of my life and my battles, my joys and my
sorrows, obedient to the last wishes of our ancestor Joel, the brenn of
the tribe of Karnak.
You will grieve, my son, when you learn from these archives that, from
the death of Joel down to that of my great-grandfather Justin, seven
generations, aye, seven whole generations, were subjected to intolerable
slavery. But your heart will be cheered when you learn that my
great-grandfather had, from a slave, become a colonist or serf attached
to the glebe of Gaul--still a servile condition but greatly above that
of slavery. My own father, having regained his full freedom, thanks to
the formidable insurrections of the Sons of the Mistletoe that from
century to century were conjured up at the voice of the druids, the
tireless and heroic defenders of the freedom of oppressed Gaul, has
bequeathed to me freedom, that most precious of all wealth. I shall, in
turn, transmit it to you.
By dint of constantly struggling for it, and also of stubborn
resistance, we Gauls have succeeded in successively reconquering almost
our full former freedom. A last and frail bond still holds us to Rome,
now our ally, after having formerly been our pitiless master. When that
last and frail bond will be snapped, we shall have regained our absolute
independence, and we shall resume our former place at the head of the
great nations of the world.
Before acquainting you with the details of my life and time, my son, I
must fill certain voids that are left in the history of our family
through the omissions of those of our ancestors, who, either through
illiteracy or the hardness of the times, were prevented from joining
their respective accounts to our archives. Their lives must have been
the life of all the other Gauls, who, the fetters of slavery
notwithstanding, have, step by step and from century to century,
conquered through revolt and battle the deliverance of our country.
You will find in the last lines written by our ancestor Fergan, the
husband of Genevieve, that despite the vows taken by the Sons of the
Mistletoe and despite innumerable uprisings, one of the most formidable
of which was chieftained by Sacrovir, the worthy emulator of the Chief
of the Hundred Valleys, the Roman yoke that Caesar imposed upon Gaul
remained unshaken. In vain did Jesus, the carpenter of Nazareth,
prophesy that the chains of the slave would be broken. The slaves still
dragged their blood-stained chains. Nevertheless, our old race,
weakened, mutilated, unnerved or corrupted though it was by slavery,
never once was submissive, and allowed only short intervals to pass
without endeavoring to shake off the yoke. The secret associations of
the Sons of the Mistletoe covered the country, and furnished intrepid
soldiers to each succeeding revolt against Rome.
After the heroic attempt of Sacrovir, the account of whose sublime death
you will find in the narrative of our ancestor Fergan, the weak and
timid weaver-slave, other insurrections broke out during the reigns of
the Emperors Tiberius and Claudius; they increased in force during the
civil wars that rent Italy under the reign of Nero. At about that time,
one of our heroes, Vindex, as intrepid a patriot as Sacrovir or the
Chief of the Hundred Valleys, long held the Roman arms in check.
Civilis, another Gallic patriot, taking his stand upon the prophecies of
Velleda--one of our female druids, a virile woman, wise in council and
worthy compeer of our brave and wise mothers--roused almost all Gaul to
revolt and gave the first serious wound to the power of Rome. Finally,
during the reign of the Emperor Vitellius, a poor field slave like our
ancestor Guilhern set himself up as the messiah and liberator of Gaul,
just as Jesus of Nazareth proclaimed himself the Messiah of Judea, and
pursued with patriotic ardor the task of liberation that was started by
the Chief of the Hundred Valleys and continued after him by Sacrovir,
Vindex, Civilis and so many other heroes. That field slave's name was
Marik. He was then barely twenty-five years of age; robust, intelligent
and gifted with heroic bravery he joined the Sons of the Mistletoe. Our
venerable druids, always persecuted, had traversed Gaul inciting the
lukewarm, restraining the impatient, and preparing all for the hour of
the insurrection. It broke out. At the head of ten thousand slaves,
field laborers like himself and armed with their scythes and forks,
Marik engaged the Roman troops of Vitellius under the walls of Lyons.
That first attempt miscarried; the insurgents were cut to pieces by the
Roman army that greatly exceeded them in numbers. But so far from
feeling overwhelmed, this defeat intensified the ardor of the revolted
people. Whole populations rose in rebellion at the voice of the druids
that called them to the holy war. The combatants seemed to spring out of
the entrails of the earth, and Marik saw himself again at the head of a
numerous army. Endowed by the gods with a military instinct, he
disciplined his troops, inspired them with courage and a blind
confidence in him, and marched at their head towards the banks of the
Rhine, where, sheltered behind its trenches, lay the reserve of the
Roman army. Marik attacked it, beat it, and compelled whole legions that
he took prisoner to drop their own ensigns and substitute them with our
ancient Gallic cock. Those Roman legions had, due to their long sojourn
in our country, virtually become Gauls; carried away by the military
ascendency of Marik, they readily joined him, combatted under him
against the fresh Roman columns that were sent from Italy, and either
annihilated or dispersed them. The hour of Gaul's deliverance was about
to sound--but at that moment Marik fell through cowardly treason into
the hands of the monster Vespasian, then Emperor of Rome. Riddled with
wounds the hero of Gaul was delivered to the wild beasts in the circus,
like our own ancestor Sylvest.
The martyr's death exasperated the population. Fresh insurrections broke
out forthwith all over Gaul. The words of Jesus of Nazareth, declaring
that the slave is the equal of his master, began to penetrate our own
country, filtering through on the lips of itinerant preachers. The
flames of hatred for the foreign domination shot up with renewed vigor.
Attacked from all sides in Gaul, harrassed on the other side of the
Rhine by innumerable hordes of Franks, barbarous warriors that issued
from the depths of the northern forests and seemed but to await the
propitious moment to pour into Gaul, the Romans finally capitulated to
us. At last we harvested the fruits of so many heroic sacrifices! The
blood shed by our fathers for the previous three centuries watered our
deliverance. Indeed, the words of the Chief of the Hundred Valleys were
prophetic:
"Flow, flow thou blood of the captive!
Drop, drop thou dew of gore!
Germinate, sprout up, thou avenging harvest!"
Yes, my son, those words were prophetic. It was with that refrain on
their lips that our fathers fought and overcame the foreign oppressor.
Rome, at last, yielded back to us a part of our ancient freedom. We
formed Gallic legions commanded by our own officers; our provinces were
once more governed by magistrates of our own choice. Rome reserved only
the right to appoint a "Principal" over Gaul, the suzerainty over which
she was to retain. We accepted, while waiting and striving for better
things--and these better things were not long in coming. Frightened by
our continual revolts, our tyrants had been slowly moderating the rigor
of our slavery. Terror was to force from them that which they
relentlessly refused as a matter of right and justice to the voice of
suppliant humanity. First the master was no longer allowed, as he was in
the days of Sylvest and several of his descendants, to dispose over the
life of his slaves as one disposes over the life of an animal. Later, as
their fear increased, the masters were forbidden from inflicting
corporal punishments upon their slaves, except with the express
authorization of a magistrate. Finally, my child, that horrible Roman
law, that, at the time of our ancestor Sylvest and of the five
generations that followed him, declared in its ferocious language that
the slave does not exist, that "he has no head" (_non caput habet_) that
shocking law was, thanks to the dread inspired by our unceasing revolts,
modified to the point that the Justinian code declared:
"Freedom is a natural right; it is the statute law that has created
slavery; it has also created enfranchisement, which is the return to
natural freedom."
Alack! It is distressing to notice that the sacred rights of humanity
can not triumph except at the cost of torrents of blood and of
unnumbered disasters! But who is to be cursed as the true cause of all
such evils? Is it not the oppressor, seeing that he bends his fellow-men
under the yoke of a frightful slavery, lives on the sweat of the brow of
his fellow-men, depraves, debases and martyrizes his fellow-beings,
kills them to satisfy a whim or out of sheer cruelty, and thus compels
them to reconquer by force the freedom that they have been deprived of?
Never forget this, my son, if, once subjugated, the whole Gallic race
had shown itself as patient, as timid, as resigned as did our poor
ancestor Fergan the weaver, our slavery never would have been abolished!
After vain appeals to the heart and reason of the oppressor, there is
but one means left to overthrow tyranny--revolt--energetic, stubborn,
unceasing revolt. Sooner or later right triumphs, as it triumphed with
us! Let the blood that our triumph has cost fall upon the heads of those
who enslaved us.
Accordingly, my son, thanks to our innumerable insurrections, slavery
was at first replaced by the state of the colonist, or serfdom, the
regime under which my great-grandfather Justin and my grandfather Aurel
lived. Under that system, instead of being forced to cultivate under the
whip and for the exclusive benefit of the Roman masters the lands that
they had plundered us of by conquest, the colonist had a small share of
the harvest that he gathered. He could no longer be sold as a draft
horse, along with his children; he could no longer be submitted to the
torture or killed; but they were, from father to children, compelled to
remain attached to the same domain. If the domain was sold, the colonist
likewise changed hands under the identical conditions of toil. Later the
condition of the colonists was further improved; they were granted the
rights of citizenship. When the Gallic legions were formed, the soldiers
that composed them became completely free. My father Ralf, the son of a
colonist, gained his freedom in that manner; I, the son of a soldier,
brought up in camp, was born free; and I shall bequeath that freedom to
you, as my father bequeathed it to me together with the duty to
preserve it for your descendants.
When you will read this narrative, my son, after you will have become
acquainted with the manifold sufferings of our ancestors, who were
slaves for so many generations, you will appreciate the wisdom of the
wish expressed by our ancestor Joel, the brenn of the tribe of Karnak.
You will admire his sagacity in expecting that, by piously preserving
the memory of its bravery and of the independence that it once enjoyed,
the Gallic race would be able to draw from the horror for Roman
oppression the strength to overthrow it.
At this writing I am thirty-eight years of age. My parents are long
dead. Ralf, my father, a soldier in one of our Gallic legions, in which
he enrolled at the age of eighteen in the south of Gaul, came into this
region, near the western banks of the Rhine, along with the army. He was
in all the battles that were fought with the ferocious hordes of the
Franks, who, attracted by the fertility of our Gaul and by the wealth
contained in our borders, encamped on the opposite shore of the river,
ever ready to attempt a new invasion.
About four years ago a descent of the insular population of England was
feared in Brittany. On that occasion several legions, the one in which
my father enlisted among them, were ordered into that province. During
several months he was quartered in the city of Vannes, not far from
Karnak, the cradle of our family. Having had one of his friends read to
him the narratives of our ancestors, Ralf visited with pious respect the
battle field of Vannes, the sacred stones of Karnak, and the lands that
we were plundered of in Caesar's time by the Roman conquerors. The lands
were held by a Roman family; colonists, sons of the Breton Gauls of our
tribe and who had formerly been in bondage, now cultivated the lands
that their ancestors one time owned. The daughter of one of those
colonists loved my father; her love was reciprocated; her name was
Madalene; she was one of those proud and virile Gallic women, that our
ancestress Margarid, the wife of Joel, was a type of. She followed my
father when his legion left Brittany to return to the banks of the
Rhine, where I was born in the fortified camp of Mayence, a military
city that our troops occupied. The chief of the legion to which my
father belonged was the son of a field laborer. His bravery won him the
post. On the day after my birth that chief's wife died in child-bed of a
baby girl--a girl who, some day perhaps, may yet, from the retreat of
her humble home, reign over the world as she reigns to-day over Gaul.
To-day, at the time that I write, Victoria, by virtue of her
distinguished wisdom, her eminent qualities, the benign influence that
she exercises over her son Victorin and over our whole army, is, in
point of fact, empress of Gaul.
Victoria is my foster-sister. Prizing the solid qualities of mind and
heart that my mother was endowed with, when Victoria's father became a
widower, he requested my mother to nurse his little babe. Accordingly,
she and I grew up like brother and sister. We never since failed in the
fraternal affection of our childhood. From her earliest age Victoria was
serious and gentle, although she greatly delighted in the blare of
trumpets and the sight of arms. She gave promise to be some day of that
august beauty that mingles calmness, grace and energy, and that is
peculiar to certain women of Gaul. You will see medals that have been
struck in her honor when she was still a young maid. She is there
represented as Diana the huntress, with a bow in one hand and a torch
in the other. On a later medal, struck about two years ago, Victoria is
represented with her son Victorin in the guise of Minerva accompanied by
Mars. At the age of ten she was sent by her father to a college of
female druids. Being now again freed from Roman persecution, thanks to
the new birth of Gallic freedom, the druids, male and female, again
attended to the education of children as they did of yore.
Victoria remained with these venerable women until her fifteenth year.
She drew from that patriotic and strict tuition an ardent love for her
country, and information on all subjects. She left the college equipped
with the secrets of former times, and, it is said, possessing, like
Velleda and other female druids, the power of seeing into the future. At
that period of her life the proud and virile beauty of Victoria was
sublime. When she met me again she was happy and she did not conceal her
joy. So far from declining through our long separation from each other,
her affection for me, her foster-brother, had increased.
I must at this point make an admission to you, my son; I am free to make
it because you will not read these lines until after you will be a man.
You will find a good example of courage and abnegation in my confession.
When Victoria returned in her dazzling beauty of fifteen years I was of
the same age and although hardly of the age of puberty myself, I fell
distractedly in love with her. I carefully concealed my feelings, out of
friendship as well as by reason of the respect that, despite the
fraternal attachment of which she every day gave me fresh proof, that
serious young maid, who brought with her from the college of the female
druids an indescribably imposing, pensive and mysterious appearance,
inspired in me. I then underwent a cruel trial. Ignorant of the feelings
of my heart, as she ever will be, at fifteen and a half Victoria gave
her hand to a young military chief. I came near dying of a slow
consuming illness caused by my secret despair. So long as my life seemed
in danger, Victoria did not leave the head of my couch. A tender sister
could not have attended me with more devoted and touching care. She
became a mother. Although a mother, she ever accompanied her husband, to
whom she was passionately devoted, whenever called to war. By force of
reflection I succeeded at last in overcoming, if not my love, at least
its violent manifestations, the pain it gave me, the senselessness of
the passion. But there remained in me a sense of boundless devotion
towards my foster-sister. She asked me to remain near her and her
husband as a horseman in the body of cavalrymen that ordinarily act as
escorts to the Gallic chiefs, and either take down in writing or convey
their military orders. My foster-sister was barely eighteen years of age
when, in a severe battle with the Franks, she lost on the same day both
her father and her husband. A widow with her son, for whom she foresaw a
glorious future, bravely verified by himself since then, Victoria never
left the camp. The soldiers, accustomed ever to see her in their midst,
with her child in her arms, and walking between her father and her
husband, knew that more than once her profoundly wise advice prevailed
in the councils of the chiefs as the advice of our mothers of old often
prevailed in the councils of our forefathers. They came to look as a
good omen upon the presence of this young woman, who was trained in the
mysterious science of the druids. At the death of her father and husband
they begged her not to leave the army, declaring to her with naive
affection that thenceforth her son Victorin should be "Son of the Camps"
and she the "Mother of the Camps." Touched by so much affection,
Victoria remained with the troops, preserving her influence over the
chiefs, directing them in the government of Gaul, sedulous in imparting
a manly education to her son, and living as modestly as the wife of an
officer.
Shortly after her husband's death, my foster-sister told me that she
would never marry again, it being her intention to consecrate her life
entirely to Victorin. The last and insane hope that I nursed when I saw
her a widow and free again, was dashed. With time I recovered my senses.
I suppressed my ill-starred love and gave no thought but to the service
of Victoria and her son. A simple horseman in the army, I served my
foster-sister as her secretary. Often she confided important state
secrets to me. At times she even charged me with confidential embassies
to the military chiefs of Gaul.
I taught Victorin to ride, to handle the lance and the sword. Soon I
came to love him as an own son. A kinder and more generous disposition
than that of the lad could not be imagined. Thus he grew up among the
soldiers, who became attached to him by a thousand bonds of habit and of
affection. At the age of fourteen he made his first campaign against the
franks, who were fast becoming as dangerous enemies to us as the Romans
once were. I accompanied him. Like a true Gallic woman his mother
remained on horseback and surrounded by the officers, on a hill from
which the battle field could be seen on which her son was engaged. He
comported himself bravely and was wounded. Being thus from early youth
habituated to the life of war, the youth developed great military
talents. Intrepid as the bravest of the soldiers, skilful and cautious
as a veteran captain, generous to the full extent that his purse allowed
it, of a joyful disposition, open and kind to all, he gained ever more
the attachment of the army that soon divided with him its adoration for
his mother.
The day finally arrived when Gaul, already almost independent, demanded
to share with Rome the government of our country. The power was then
divided between a Gallic and a Roman chief. Rome appointed Posthumus,
and our troops unanimously acclaimed Victorin as the Gallic chief and
general of the army. Shortly after, he married a young girl by whom he
was dearly loved. Unfortunately she died within the year, leaving him a
son. Victoria, now a grandmother, devoted herself to her son's child as
she had done before to himself, and surrounded the babe with all the
cares that the tenderest solicitude could inspire.
My early resolve was never to marry. I was nevertheless gradually
attracted by the modest graces and the virtue of the daughter of one of
the centurions of our army. She was your mother, Ellen, whom I married
five years ago.
Such has been my life until this day, when I start the narrative that is
to follow. Certain remarks of Victoria decided me to write it both for
your benefit and the benefit of our descendants. If the expectations of
my foster-sister, concerning several incidents in this narrative, are
eventually realized, those of our relatives who in the centuries to come
may happen to read this story will discover that Victoria, the Mother of
the Camps, was gifted, like Hena, the Virgin of the Isle of Sen, and
Velleda, the female druid and companion of Civilis, with the holy gift
of prevision.
What I am here about to narrate happened a week ago. In order to fix the
date with greater accuracy I certify that it is written in the city of
Mayence, defended by our fortified camp on the borders of the Rhine, on
the fifth day of the month of June, as the Romans reckon, of the seventh
year of the joint principality of Posthumus and Victorin in Gaul, two
hundred and sixty-four years after the death of Jesus of Nazareth, the
friend of the poor, who was crucified in Jerusalem under the eyes of our
ancestress Genevieve.
The Gallic camp, composed of tents and light but solid barracks, is
massed around Mayence, which dominates it. Victoria lodges in the city;
I occupy a little house not far from the one that she inhabits.
PART I.
FOREIGN FOES.
CHAPTER I.
SCHANVOCH AND SAMPSO.
The morning of the day that I am telling of, I quitted my bed with the
dawn, leaving my beloved wife Ellen soundly asleep. I contemplated her
for an instant. Her long loose hair partly covered her bosom; her sweet
and beautiful head rested upon one of her folded arms, while the other
reclined on your cradle, my son, as if to protect you even during her
sleep. I lightly kissed both your foreheads, fearing to awake you. It
required an effort on my part to refrain from tenderly embracing you
both again and again. I was bound upon a venturesome expedition;
perchance, the kiss that I hardly dared to give you was the last you
were ever to receive from me. I left the room where you slept and
repaired to the contiguous one to arm myself, to don my cuirass over my
blouse, and take my casque and sword. I then left the house. At our
threshold I met Sampso, my wife's sister, as gentle and beautiful as
herself. She held her apron filled with flowers of different colors;
they were still wet with the dew. She had just gathered them in our
little garden. Seeing me, she smiled and blushed surprised.
"Up so early, Sampso?" I said to her. "I thought I was the first one
stirring. But what is the purpose of these flowers?"
"Is it not to-day a year ago that I came to live with my sister Ellen
and you--you forgetful Schanvoch?" she answered with an affectionate
smile. "I wish to celebrate the day in our old Gallic fashion. I went
out for the flowers in order to garland the house-door, the cradle of
your little Alguen, and his mother's head. But you, where are you bound
to this morning in full armor?"
At the thought that this holiday might turn into a day of mourning for
my family I suppressed a sigh, and answered my wife's sister with a
smile that was intended to allay suspicion.
"Victoria and her son charged me yesterday with some military orders for
the chief of a detachment that lies encamped some two leagues from here.
It is the military custom to be armed when one has such orders in
charge."
"Do you know, Schanvoch, that you must arouse jealousy in many a
breast?"
"Because my foster-sister employs my soldier's sword during war and my
pen during truces?"
"You forget to say that that foster-sister is Victoria the Great, and
that Victorin, her son, entertains for you the respect that he would
have for his mother's brother. Hardly a day goes by without Victoria's
calling upon you. These are favors that many should envy."
"Have I ever sought to profit by these favors, Sampso? Have I not
remained a simple horseman, ever declining to be an officer, and
requesting the only favor of fighting at Victorin's side?"
"Whose life you have already twice saved when he was at the point of
perishing under the blows of those barbarous Franks!"
"I did but my duty as a soldier and a Gaul. Should I not sacrifice my
life to that of a man who is so necessary to our country?"
"Schanvoch, we must not quarrel; you know how much I admire Victoria;
but--"
"But I know your uncharitableness towards her son," I put in with a
smile, "you austere and severe Sampso!"
"Is it any fault of mine if disorderly conduct finds no favor in my
eyes--if I even consider it disgraceful?"
"Certes, you are right. Nevertheless I can not avoid being somewhat
indulgent towards the foibles of Victorin. A widower at twenty, should
he not be excused for yielding at times to the impulses of his age? Dear
but implacable Sampso, I let you read the narrative of my ancestress
Genevieve. You are gentle and good as Jesus of Nazareth, why do you not
imitate his charity towards sinners? He forgave Magdalen because she had
loved much. In the name of the same sentiment pardon Victorin!"
"There is nothing more worthy of forgiveness than love, when it is
sincere. But debauchery has nothing in common with love. Schanvoch, it
is as if you were to say to me that my sister and I could be compared
with those Bohemian girls who recently arrived in Mayence."
"In point of looks they might be compared with you or Ellen, seeing that
they are said to be ravishingly beautiful. But the comparison ends
there, Sampso. I trust but little the virtue of those strollers, however
charming, however brilliantly arrayed they may be, who travel from town
to town singing and dancing for public amusement--even if they indulge
not in worse practices."
"And for all that, I make no doubt that, when you least expect it, you
will see Victorin the general of the army, one of the two Chiefs of
Gaul, accompany on horseback the chariot in which these Bohemian girls
promenade every evening along the borders of the Rhine. And if I should
feel indignant at the sight of the son of Victoria serving as escort to
such creatures, you would surely say to me: 'Forgive the sinner, just as
Jesus forgave Magdalen the sinner.' Go to, Schanvoch, the man who can
delight in unworthy amours is capable of--"
But Sampso suddenly broke off.
"Finish your sentence," I said to her, "express yourself in full, I pray
you."
"No," she answered after reflecting a moment; "the time has not yet come
for that. I would not like to risk a hasty word."
"See here," I said to her, "I am sure that what you have in mind is one
of those ridiculous stories about Victorin that for some time have been
floating about in the army, without its being possible to trace the
slanders to their source. Can you, Sampso, you, with all your good sense
and good heart, make yourself the echo of such gossip, such unworthy
calumnies?"
"Adieu, Schanvoch; I told you I was not going to quarrel with you, dear
brother, on the subject of the hero whom you defend against all comers."
"What would you have me do? It is my foible. I love his mother as an own
sister. I love her son as if he were my own. Are you not as guilty as
myself, Sampso? Is not my little Alguen, your sister's son, as dear to
you as if he were your own child? Take my word for it, when Alguen will
be twenty and you hear him accused of some youthful indiscretion, you
will, I feel quite sure, defend him with even more warmth than I defend
Victorin. But we need not wait so long, have you not begun your role of
pleader for him, already? When the rascal is guilty of some misconduct,
is it not his aunt Sampso whom he fetches to intercede in his behalf? He
knows how you love him!"
"Is not my sister's son mine?"
"Is that the reason you do not wish to marry?"
"Surely, brother," she answered with a blush and a slight embarrassment.
After a moment's silence she resumed:
"I hope you will be back home at noon to complete our little feast?"
"The moment my mission is fulfilled I shall return. Adieu, Sampso!"
"Adieu, Schanvoch!"
And leaving his wife's sister engaged in her work of garlanding the
house-door, Schanvoch walked rapidly away, revolving in his mind the
topic of the conversation that Sampso had just broached.