The saint continued: "Listen first. Give me all your lands. I will
take care of all the work, the ploughing, the sowing, the fertilizing,
everything, and we will share the crops equally. How does that suit
you?"
The devil, who was naturally lazy, accepted. He only demanded in
addition a few of those delicious grey mullet which are caught around
the solitary mount. Saint Michael promised the fish.
They grasped hands and spat on the ground to show that it was a
bargain, and the saint continued: "See here, so that you will have
nothing to complain of, choose that part of the crops which you
prefer: the part that grows above ground or the part that stays in
the ground." Satan cried out: "I will take all that will be above
ground."
"It's a bargain!" said the saint. And he went away.
Six months later, all over the immense domain of the devil, one could
see nothing but carrots, turnips, onions, salsify, all the plants
whose juicy roots are good and savoury and whose useless leaves are
good for nothing but for feeding animals.
Satan wished to break the contract, calling Saint Michael a swindler.
But the saint, who had developed quite a taste for agriculture, went
back to see the devil and said: "Really, I hadn't thought of that at
all; it was just an accident, no fault of mine. And to make things
fair with you, this year I'll let you take everything that is under
the ground."
"Very well," answered Satan.
The following spring all the evil spirit's lands were covered with
golden wheat, oats as big as beans, flax, magnificent colza, red
clover, peas, cabbage, artichokes, everything that develops into
grains or fruit in the sunlight.
Once more Satan received nothing, and this time he completely lost his
temper. He took back his fields and remained deaf to all the fresh
propositions of his neighbour.
A whole year rolled by. From the top of his lonely manor Saint Michael
looked at the distant and fertile lands and watched the devil direct
the work, take in his crops and thresh the wheat. And he grew angry,
exasperated at his powerlessness. As he was no longer able to deceive
Satan, he decided to wreak vengeance on him, and he went out to invite
him to dinner for the following Monday.
"You have been very unfortunate in your dealings with me," he said; "I
know it, but I don't want any ill feeling between us, and I expect you
to dine with me. I'll give you some good things to eat."
Satan, who was as greedy as he was lazy, accepted eagerly. On the day
appointed he donned his finest clothes and set out for the castle.
Saint Michael sat him down to a magnificent meal. First there was a
_vol-au-vent_, full of cocks' crests and kidneys, with meat-balls,
then two big grey mullet with cream sauce, a turkey stuffed with
chestnuts soaked in wine, some salt-marsh lamb as tender as cake,
vegetables which melted in the mouth and nice hot pancake which was
brought on smoking and spreading a delicious odour of butter.
They drank new, sweet, sparkling cider and heady red wine, and after
each course they whetted their appetites with some old apple brandy.
The devil drank and ate to his heart's content; in fact he took so
much that he was very uncomfortable, and began to retch.
Then Saint Michael arose in anger and cried in a voice like thunder:
"What! before me, rascal! You dare--before me--"
Satan, terrified, ran away, and the saint, seizing a stick, pursued
him. They ran through the halls, turning round the pillars, running up
the staircases, galloping along the cornices, jumping from gargoyle
to gargoyle. The poor devil, who was woefully ill, was running about
madly and trying hard to escape. At last he found himself at the top
of the last terrace, right at the top, from which could be seen the
immense bay, with its distant towns, sands and pastures. He could no
longer escape, and the saint came up behind him and gave him a furious
kick, which shot him through space like a cannon-ball.
He shot through the air like a javelin and fell heavily before the
town of Mortain. His horns and claws stuck deep into the rock, which
keeps through eternity the traces of this fall of Satan.
He stood up again, limping, crippled until the end of time, and as he
looked at this fatal castle in the distance, standing out against the
setting sun, he understood well that he would always be vanquished in
this unequal struggle, and he went away limping, heading for distant
countries, leaving to his enemy his fields, his hills, his valleys and
his marshes.
And this is how Saint Michael, the patron saint of Normandy,
vanquished the devil.
Another people would have dreamed of this battle in an entirely
different manner.
THE DEMON POPE[26]
BY RICHARD GARNETT
[26] Taken by permission from _The Twilight of the Gods_, by
Richard Garnett. Published by John Lane Co., New York.
"So you won't sell me your soul?" said the devil.
"Thank you," replied the student, "I had rather keep it myself, if
it's all the same to you."
"But it's not all the same to me. I want it very particularly. Come,
I'll be liberal. I said twenty years. You can have thirty."
The student shook his head.
"Forty!"
Another shake.
"Fifty!"
As before.
"Now," said the devil. "I know I'm going to do a foolish thing, but I
cannot bear to see a clever, spirited young man throw himself away.
I'll make you another kind of offer. We don't have any bargain at
present, but I will push you on in the world for the next forty years.
This day forty years I come back and ask you for a boon; not your
soul, mind, or anything not perfectly in your power to grant. If you
give it, we are quits; if not, I fly away with you. What say you to
this?"
The student reflected for some minutes. "Agreed," he said at last.
Scarcely had the devil disappeared, which he did instantaneously, ere
a messenger reined in his smoking steed at the gate of the University
of Cordova (the judicious reader will already have remarked that
Lucifer could never have been allowed inside a Christian seat of
learning), and, inquiring for the student Gerbert, presented him with
the Emperor Otho's nomination to the Abbacy of Bobbio, in
consideration, said the document, of his virtue and learning, wellnigh
miraculous in one so young. Such messengers were frequent visitors
during Gerbert's prosperous career. Abbot, bishop, archbishop,
cardinal, he was ultimately enthroned Pope on April 2, 999, and
assumed the appellation of Silvester the Second. It was then a general
belief that the world would come to an end in the following year, a
catastrophe which to many seemed the more imminent from the election
of a chief pastor whose celebrity as a theologian, though not
inconsiderable, by no means equalled his reputation as a necromancer.
The world, notwithstanding, revolved scatheless through the dreaded
twelvemonth, and early in the first year of the eleventh century
Gerbert was sitting peacefully in his study, perusing a book of magic.
Volumes of algebra, astrology, alchemy, Aristotelian philosophy, and
other such light reading filled his bookcase; and on a table stood an
improved clock of his invention, next to his introduction of the
Arabic numerals his chief legacy to posterity. Suddenly a sound of
wings was heard, and Lucifer stood by his side.
"It is a long time," said the fiend, "since I have had the pleasure of
seeing you. I have now called to remind you of our little contract,
concluded this day forty years."
"You remember," said Silvester, "that you are not to ask anything
exceeding my power to perform."
"I have no such intention," said Lucifer. "On the contrary, I am about
to solicit a favour which can be bestowed by you alone. You are Pope,
I desire that you would make me a Cardinal."
"In the expectation, I presume," returned Gerbert, "of becoming Pope
on the next vacancy."
"An expectation," replied Lucifer, "which I may most reasonably
entertain, considering my enormous wealth, my proficiency in intrigue,
and the present condition of the Sacred College."
"You would doubtless," said Gerbert, "endeavour to subvert the
foundations of the Faith, and, by a course of profligacy and
licentiousness, render the Holy See odious and contemptible."
"On the contrary," said the fiend, "I would extirpate heresy, and all
learning and knowledge as inevitably tending thereunto. I would suffer
no man to read but the priest, and confine his reading to his
breviary. I would burn your books together with your bones on the
first convenient opportunity. I would observe an austere propriety of
conduct, and be especially careful not to loosen one rivet in the
tremendous yoke I was forging for the minds and consciences of
mankind."
"If it be so," said Gerbert, "let's be off!"
"What!" exclaimed Lucifer, "you are willing to accompany me to the
infernal regions!"
"Assuredly, rather than be accessory to the burning of Plato and
Aristotle, and give place to the darkness against which I have been
contending all my life."
"Gerbert," replied the demon, "this is arrant trifling. Know you not
that no good man can enter my dominions? that, were such a thing
possible, my empire would become intolerable to me, and I should be
compelled to abdicate?"
"I do know it," said Gerbert, "and hence I have been able to receive
your visit with composure."
"Gerbert," said the devil, with tears in his eyes, "I put it to
you--is this fair, is this honest? I undertake to promote your
interests in the world; I fulfil my promise abundantly. You obtain
through my instrumentality a position to which you could never
otherwise have aspired. Often have I had a hand in the election of a
Pope, but never before have I contributed to confer the tiara on one
eminent for virtue and learning. You profit by my assistance to the
full, and now take advantage of an adventitious circumstance to
deprive me of my reasonable guerdon. It is my constant experience that
the good people are much more slippery than the sinners, and drive
much harder bargains."
"Lucifer," answered Gerbert, "I have always sought to treat you as a
gentleman, hoping that you would approve yourself such in return. I
will not inquire whether it was entirely in harmony with this
character to seek to intimidate me into compliance with your demand by
threatening me with a penalty which you well knew could not be
enforced. I will overlook this little irregularity, and concede even
more than you have requested. You have asked to be a Cardinal. I will
make you Pope--"
"Ha!" exclaimed Lucifer, and an internal glow suffused his sooty hide,
as the light of a fading ember is revived by breathing upon it.
"For twelve hours," continued Gerbert. "At the expiration of that time
we will consider the matter further; and if, as I anticipate, you are
more anxious to divest yourself of the Papal dignity than you were to
assume it, I promise to bestow upon you any boon you may ask within my
power to grant, and not plainly inconsistent with religion or morals."
"Done!" cried the demon. Gerbert uttered some cabalistic words, and in
a moment the apartment held two Pope Silvesters, entirely
indistinguishable save by their attire, and the fact that one limped
slightly with the left foot.
"You will find the Pontifical apparel in this cupboard," said Gerbert,
and, taking his book of magic with him, he retreated through a masked
door to a secret chamber. As the door closed behind him he chuckled,
and muttered to himself, "Poor old Lucifer! Sold again!"
If Lucifer was sold he did not seem to know it. He approached a large
slab of silver which did duty as a mirror, and contemplated his
personal appearance with some dissatisfaction.
"I certainly don't look half so well without my horns," he
soliloquized, "and I am sure I shall miss my tail most grievously."
A tiara and a train, however, made fair amends for the deficient
appendages, and Lucifer now looked every inch a Pope. He was about to
call the master of the ceremonies, and summon a consistory, when the
door was burst open, and seven cardinals, brandishing poniards, rushed
into the room.
"Down with the sorcerer!" they cried, as they seized and gagged him.
"Death to the Saracen!"
"Practises algebra, and other devilish arts!"
"Knows Greek!"
"Talks Arabic!"
"Reads Hebrew!"
"Burn him!"
"Smother him!"
"Let him be deposed by a general council," said a young and
inexperienced Cardinal.
"Heaven forbid!" said an old and wary one, _sotto voce_.
Lucifer struggled frantically, but the feeble frame he was doomed to
inhabit for the next eleven hours was speedily exhausted. Bound and
helpless, he swooned away.
"Brethren," said one of the senior cardinals, "it hath been delivered
by the exorcists that a sorcerer or other individual in league with
the demon doth usually bear upon his person some visible token of his
infernal compact. I propose that we forthwith institute a search for
this stigma, the discovery of which may contribute to justify our
proceedings in the eyes of the world."
"I heartily approve of our brother Anno's proposition," said another,
"the rather as we cannot possibly fail to discover such a mark, if,
indeed, we desire to find it."
The search was accordingly instituted, and had not proceeded far ere a
simultaneous yell from all the seven cardinals indicated that their
investigation had brought more light than they had ventured to expect.
The Holy Father had a cloven foot!
For the next five minutes the Cardinals remained utterly stunned,
silent, and stupefied with amazement. As they gradually recovered
their faculties it would have become manifest to a nice observer that
the Pope had risen very considerably in their good opinion.
"This is an affair requiring very mature deliberation," said one.
"I always feared that we might be proceeding too precipitately," said
another.
"It is written, 'the devils believe,'" said a third: "the Holy Father,
therefore, is not a heretic at any rate."
"Brethren," said Anno, "this affair, as our brother Benno well
remarks, doth indeed call for mature deliberation. I therefore propose
that, instead of smothering his Holiness with cushions, as originally
contemplated, we immure him for the present in the dungeon adjoining
hereunto, and, after spending the night in meditation and prayer,
resume the consideration of the business tomorrow morning."
"Informing the officials of the palace," said Benno, "that his
Holiness has retired for his devotions, and desires on no account to
be disturbed."
"A pious fraud," said Anno, "which not one of the Fathers would for a
moment have scrupled to commit."
The Cardinals accordingly lifted the still insensible Lucifer, and
bore him carefully, almost tenderly, to the apartment appointed for
his detention. Each would fain have lingered in hopes of his recovery,
but each felt that the eyes of his six brethren were upon him: and
all, therefore, retired simultaneously, each taking a key of the cell.
Lucifer regained consciousness almost immediately afterwards. He had
the most confused idea of the circumstances which had involved him in
his present scrape, and could only say to himself that if they were
the usual concomitants of the Papal dignity, these were by no means to
his taste, and he wished he had been made acquainted with them sooner.
The dungeon was not only perfectly dark, but horribly cold, and the
poor devil in his present form had no latent store of infernal heat to
draw upon. His teeth chattered, he shivered in every limb, and felt
devoured with hunger and thirst. There is much probability in the
assertion of some of his biographers that it was on this occasion that
he invented ardent spirits; but, even if he did, the mere conception
of a glass of brandy could only increase his sufferings. So the long
January night wore wearily on, and Lucifer seemed likely to expire
from inanition, when a key turned in the lock, and Cardinal Anno
cautiously glided in, bearing a lamp, a loaf, half a cold roast kid,
and a bottle of wine.
"I trust," he said, bowing courteously, "that I may be excused any
slight breach of etiquette of which I may render myself culpable from
the difficulty under which I labour of determining whether, under
present circumstances, 'Your Holiness,' or 'Your infernal Majesty' be
the form of address most befitting me to employ."
"Bub-ub-bub-boo," went Lucifer, who still had the gag in his mouth.
"Heavens!" exclaimed the Cardinal, "I crave your Infernal Holiness's
forgiveness. What a lamentable oversight!"
And, relieving Lucifer from his gag and bonds, he set out the
refection, upon which the demon fell voraciously.
"Why the devil, if I may so express myself," pursued Anno, "did not
your Holiness inform us that you _were_ the devil? Not a hand would
then have been raised against you. I have myself been seeking all my
life for the audience now happily vouchsafed me. Whence this mistrust
of your faithful Anno, who has served you so loyally and zealously
these many years?"
Lucifer pointed significantly to the gag and fetters.
"I shall never forgive myself," protested the Cardinal, "for the part
I have borne in this unfortunate transaction. Next to ministering to
your Majesty's bodily necessities, there is nothing I have so much at
heart as to express my penitence. But I entreat your Majesty to
remember that I believed myself to be acting in your Majesty's
interest by overthrowing a magician who was accustomed to send your
Majesty upon errands, and who might at any time enclose you in a box,
and cast you into the sea. It is deplorable that your Majesty's most
devoted servants should have been thus misled."
"Reasons of State," suggested Lucifer.
"I trust that they no longer operate," said the Cardinal. "However,
the Sacred College is now fully possessed of the whole matter: it is
therefore unnecessary to pursue this department of the subject
further. I would now humbly crave leave to confer with your Majesty,
or rather, perhaps, your Holiness, since I am about to speak of
spiritual things, on the important and delicate point of your
Holiness's successor. I am ignorant how long your Holiness proposes to
occupy the Apostolic chair; but of course you are aware that public
opinion will not suffer you to hold it for a term exceeding that of
the pontificate of Peter. A vacancy, therefore, must one day occur;
and I am humbly to represent that the office could not be filled by
one more congenial than myself to the present incumbent, or on whom he
could more fully rely to carry out in every respect his views and
intentions."
And the Cardinal proceeded to detail various circumstances of his past
life, which certainly seemed to corroborate his assertion. He had not,
however, proceeded far ere he was disturbed by the grating of another
key in the lock, and had just time to whisper impressively, "Beware of
Benno," ere he dived under a table.
Benno was also provided with a lamp, wine, and cold viands. Warned by
the other lamp and the remains of Lucifer's repast that some colleague
had been beforehand with him, and not knowing how many more might be
in the field, he came briefly to the point as regarded the Papacy, and
preferred his claim in much the same manner as Anno. While he was
earnestly cautioning Lucifer against this Cardinal as one who could
and would cheat the very Devil himself, another key turned in the
lock, and Benno escaped under the table, where Anno immediately
inserted his fingers into his right eye. The little squeal consequent
upon this occurrence Lucifer successfully smothered by a fit of
coughing.
Cardinal No. 3, a Frenchman, bore a Bayonne ham, and exhibited the
same disgust as Benno on seeing himself forestalled. So far as his
requests transpired they were moderate, but no one knows where he
would have stopped if he had not been scared by the advent of Cardinal
No. 4. Up to this time he had only asked for an inexhaustible purse,
power to call up the Devil _ad libitum_, and a ring of invisibility to
allow him free access to his mistress, who was unfortunately a married
woman.
Cardinal No. 4 chiefly wanted to be put into the way of poisoning
Cardinal No. 5; and Cardinal No. 5 preferred the same petition as
respected Cardinal No. 4.
Cardinal No. 6, an Englishman, demanded the reversion of the
Archbishoprics of Canterbury and York, with the faculty of holding
them together, and of unlimited non-residence. In the course of his
harangue he made use of the phrase _non obstantibus_, of which Lucifer
immediately took a note.
What the seventh Cardinal would have solicited is not known, for he
had hardly opened his mouth when the twelfth hour expired, and
Lucifer, regaining his vigour with his shape, sent the Prince of the
Church spinning to the other end of the room, and split the marble
table with a single stroke of his tail. The six crouched and huddling
Cardinals cowered revealed to one another, and at the same time
enjoyed the spectacle of his Holiness darting through the stone
ceiling, which yielded like a film to his passage, and closed up
afterwards as if nothing had happened. After the first shock of dismay
they unanimously rushed to the door, but found it bolted on the
outside. There was no other exit, and no means of giving an alarm. In
this emergency the demeanour of the Italian Cardinals set a bright
example to their ultramontane colleagues. "_Bisogna pazienzia_," they
said, as they shrugged their shoulders. Nothing could exceed the
mutual politeness of Cardinals Anno and Benno, unless that of the two
who had sought to poison each other. The Frenchman was held to have
gravely derogated from good manners by alluding to this circumstance,
which had reached his ears while he was under the table: and the
Englishman swore so outrageously at the plight in which he found
himself that the Italians then and there silently registered a vow
that none of his nation should ever be Pope, a maxim which, with one
exception, has been observed to this day.
Lucifer, meanwhile, had repaired to Silvester, whom he found arrayed
in all the insignia of his dignity; of which, as he remarked, he
thought his visitor had probably had enough.
"I should think so indeed," replied Lucifer. "But at the same time I
feel myself fully repaid for all I have undergone by the assurance of
the loyalty of my friends and admirers, and the conviction that it is
needless for me to devote any considerable amount of personal
attention to ecclesiastical affairs. I now claim the promised boon,
which it will be in no way inconsistent with thy functions to grant,
seeing that it is a work of mercy. I demand that the Cardinals be
released, and that their conspiracy against thee, by which I alone
suffered, be buried in oblivion."
"I hoped you would carry them all off," said Gerbert, with an
expression of disappointment.
"Thank you," said the Devil. "It is more to my interest to leave them
where they are."
So the dungeon-door was unbolted, and the Cardinals came forth,
sheepish and crestfallen. If, after all, they did less mischief than
Lucifer had expected from them, the cause was their entire
bewilderment by what had passed, and their utter inability to
penetrate the policy of Gerbert, who henceforth devoted himself even
with ostentation to good works. They could never quite satisfy
themselves whether they were speaking to the Pope or to the Devil, and
when under the latter impression habitually emitted propositions which
Gerbert justly stigmatized as rash, temerarious, and scandalous. They
plagued him with allusions to certain matters mentioned in their
interviews with Lucifer, with which they naturally but erroneously
supposed him to be conversant, and worried him by continual nods and
titterings as they glanced at his nether extremities. To abolish this
nuisance, and at the same time silence sundry unpleasant rumours which
had somehow got abroad, Gerbert devised the ceremony of kissing the
Pope's feet, which, in a grievously mutilated form, endures to this
day. The stupefaction of the Cardinals on discovering that the Holy
Father had lost his hoof surpasses all description, and they went to
their graves without having obtained the least insight into the
mystery.
MADAM LUCIFER[27]
BY RICHARD GARNETT