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Now on Holy Easter Day, Maître Jacquet Coquedouille, a notable citizen
of the place, was peeping through a hole in a shutter of his house and
watching the countless throng of pilgrims passing down the steep street.
They were wending homewards, happy to have won their pardon; and the
sight of them greatly magnified his veneration for the Black Virgin. For
he deemed a lady so much sought after must needs be a puissant dame.
He was old, and his only hope lay in God’s mercy. Yet was he but
ill-assured of his eternal salvation, for he remembered how many a time
he had ruthlessly fleeced the widow and the orphan. Moreover, he had
robbed Florent Guillaume of his scrivenry at the sign of Our Lady. He
was used to lend at high interest on sound security. Yet could no man
infer he was a usurer, forasmuch as he was a Christian, and it was only
the Jews practised usury,--the Jews, and, if you will, the Lombards and
the men of Cahors.
Now Jacquet Coquedouille went about the matter quite otherwise than the
Jews. He never said, like Jacob, Ephraim, and Manasses, “I am lending
you money.” What he did say was, “I am putting money into your business
to help your trafficking,” a different thing altogether. For usury and
lending upon interest were forbidden by the Church, but trafficking was
lawful and permitted.
And yet at the thought how he had brought many Christian folk to poverty
and despair, Jacquet Coquedouille felt the pangs of remorse, as he
pictured the sword of Divine Justice hanging over his head. So on this
holy Easter Day he was fain to secure him against the Last Judgment
by winning the protection of Our Lady. He thought to himself she would
plead for him at the judgment seat of her divine Son, if only he gave
her a handsome fee. So he went to the great chest where he kept his
gold, and, after making sure the chamber door was shut fast, he opened
the chest, which was full of angels, flor-ins, esterlings, nobles, gold
crowns, gold ducats, and golden sous, and all the coins ever struck by
Christian or Saracen. He extracted with a sigh of regret twelve
deniers of fine gold and laid them on the table, which was crowded
with balances, files, scissors, gold-scales, and account books. After
shutting his chest again and triple-locking it, he numbered the deniers,
renumbered them, gazed long at them with looks of affection, and
addressed them in words so soft and sweet, so affable and ingratiating,
so gentle and courteous, it seemed rather the music of the spheres than
human speech.
“Oh, little angels!” sighed the good old man. “Oh, my dear little
angels! Oh, my pretty gold sheep, with the fine, precious fleece!”
And taking the pieces between his fingers with as much reverence as it
had been the body of Our Lord, he put them in the balance and made sure
they were of the full weight,--or very near, albeit a trifle clipped
already by the Lombards and the Jews, through whose hands they had
passed. After which he spoke to them yet more graciously than before:
“Oh, my pretty sheep, my sweet, pretty lambs, there, let me shear you!
‘T will do you no hurt at all.”
Then, seizing his great scissors, he clipped off shreds of gold here and
there, as he was used to clip every piece of money before parting with
it. And he gathered the clippings carefully in a wooden bowl that was
already half full of bits of gold. He was ready to give twelve angels
to the Holy Virgin; but he felt no way bound to depart from his use and
wont. This done, he went to the aumry where his pledges lay, and drew
out a little blue purse, broidered with silver, which a dame of the
petty trading sort had left with him in her distress. He remembered that
blue and white are Our Lady’s colours.
That day and the next he did nothing further. But in the night, betwixt
Monday and Tuesday, he had cramps, and dreamt the devils were pulling
him by the feet. This he took for a warning of God and our Blessed Lady,
tarried within doors pondering the matter all the day, and then toward
evening went to lay his offering at the feet of the Black Virgin.