THE DOG OF MONTARGIS
“The dog is much attached to its master; if it loses him it remembers
him for a long time. I am going to give you an example so striking that
it has been recorded in history.
“In the year 1371 there lived at the court of King Charles V a
nobleman, the Chevalier Macaire, who, envious of the favor one of his
companions, Aubry de Montdidier, enjoyed with the king, one day came
upon his rival by surprise, when the latter was accompanied only by his
dog, in a deserted corner of the forest of Montargis. Finding the
occasion opportune for gratifying his odious rancor, he suddenly threw
himself upon Aubry, killed him, and buried his body in the forest. The
ill deed accomplished, he returned to court, where he bore himself as
if nothing out of the ordinary had occurred.”
“Oh, the hateful wretch!” cried Jules.
“In the meantime the dog couched on its master’s grave, where night and
day it howled with grief. When the pangs of hunger pressed too hard it
returned to Paris, scratched at the door of its master’s friends,
hastily ate what was given it, and immediately went back to the wood to
lie down again on the grave. Seeing it thus come and go alone, always
oppressed with care and manifesting by doleful barks some deep grief,
people followed it into the forest, watched its actions, and saw that
it stopped on a mound of freshly turned earth, where its lamentations
became still more plaintive.”
“No doubt they dug and the crime was discovered?”
“Struck with the fresh mound of earth and the dog’s howls at this spot,
they dug and found the dead man, to whom a more honorable burial was
then given; but there was nothing to make them suspect the author of
the murder.”
“And what became of the dog?” asked Emile.
“After having thus apprized Aubry’s friends and relatives that its
master had been miserably assassinated, there remained a more difficult
task for it to accomplish; namely, to expose the murderer. A relative
of the dead man had adopted the dog and was in the habit of taking the
animal out with him when he went to walk. One day the dog chanced to
spy the assassin, Macaire, in company with other gentlemen. To leap at
his throat for the purpose of biting and strangling him, was the affair
of an instant.”
“Bravo! Good dog! Strangle the rascal!” cried Emile in great
excitement.
“You are going too fast, my friend,” his uncle remonstrated. “No one as
yet suspected that Macaire was the author of the horrible crime. They
draw off the dog, beat it, and drive it away. The animal keeps
returning in a rage, and as it is not allowed to come near it
struggles, barks from a distance, and directs its threats toward the
quarter where Macaire has disappeared.
“This performance is repeated again and again, and on each occasion the
dog, perfectly gentle toward every other person, is seized with violent
rage at the sight of the murderer and recommences its assaults. It is
against Macaire alone that it nurses a grudge which neither threats nor
blows can appease. Such is the creature’s fury that finally the query
arises whether the dog may not be actuated by a desire to avenge the
death of its first master.”
“Ha! now we are coming to it. Suspicion is aroused.”
“They speak to the king about the affair; they tell him that a nobleman
of his court was found buried, victim of an unknown assassin; they
further inform him that the dead man’s dog, with indomitable
persistence, springs at the Chevalier Macaire every time it sees him.
The king has the suspected person brought before him and orders him to
remain hidden in the midst of a throng of other bystanders. Then the
dog is brought in. Its sense of smell immediately warns it of the
presence of the murderer. With its accustomed fury it spots its victim
in the crowd and springs at him. As if reassured by the king’s
presence, it attacks with more boldness than ever, and by its plaintive
barks seems to ask that justice be done it. There is hasty
intervention, without which Macaire would be devoured by the animal.”
“And it would have served him right.”
“Wait: punishment will come. The dog’s strange conduct, together with
other suspicious circumstances, had made an impression on the king.
Some days later Charles V had Macaire appear before him and pressed him
by his questions to confess the truth. What foundation was there for
the suspicions current in regard to him? How explain, if he were not
guilty, the dog’s repeated attacks and furious barking at sight of him?
Seized with the fear of a shameful punishment, Macaire obstinately
denied the crime.
“At this epoch, characterized by manners and customs little above
barbarism, when the accuser affirmed and the accused denied, with no
sufficient proof on either side, it was customary to decide the
question by a mortal combat between the two. The one that succumbed was
held to be in the wrong.”
“But to be the weaker proves nothing against right,” objected Jules.
“One might be a thousand times right and yet be beaten by one’s
adversary.”
“That is undeniably true, and I hope you will from day to day become
more firmly convinced of this noble truth. In our lamentable age—you
will learn this later, my friend—in our lamentable age it is a current
maxim, a maxim of savagery, that might makes right! In the days of
Charles V, rude as that period was, no one would have dared to say such
a horrible thing; but nevertheless, under the influence of
superstition, men really believed that the vanquished was in the wrong,
because, they maintained, right can never succumb, upheld as it is by
God. Therefore a judicial combat was called a judgment of God. Alas,
alas, my friend, how far they were from sanity of mind! How far from it
we ourselves are, with our duel, relic of ancient barbarism! What does
a well-directed shot prove in favor of him who pulled the trigger?
Nothing, unless it be that he is more adept in the use of firearms than
his adversary, or that chance has been on his side. Thus it is,
however, that men decide disputes involving our most precious
possession, honor.
“The king, then, ordered the affair to be brought to an end and the
truth determined by a combat between the man and the dog. A large field
was laid out with seats for the king, all his court, and a numerous
company besides. In the middle of the field were the two champions—the
man with a large and heavy stick, the dog with the weapons that nature
had given it, and with nothing but a leaky cask for a refuge and a
sally-port.”
“This cask was to serve it as shelter against the blows of the stick?”
asked Emile.
“It was the citadel where, if the attack became too pressing, it could
take refuge in order to escape the cudgel’s blows. But the brave animal
did not once make use of it. As soon as it was let loose it rushed at
Macaire. But the nobleman’s stick was big enough to fell his adversary
with a single blow; so the dog began to run this way and that around
the man to avoid the crushing descent of the club. Then, seizing its
opportunity, with one bound it jumped at its enemy’s throat and gripped
it so firmly as to throw Macaire over backward. Half strangled, he
cried for pity and begged to be freed from the animal, promising to
confess everything. The guards drew off the dog and, the judges
approaching by royal command, Macaire confessed his crime to them.”
“And the assassin got off with nothing but a bite from the dog?”
“Macaire was hanged like the scoundrel that he was.”
“That time, at least, might decided right,” Jules declared with much
satisfaction.