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THE PONIARD'S HILT
* * * * *
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, _Faustine and Syomara_.
THE SILVER CROSS; or, _The Carpenter of Nazareth_.
THE CASQUE'S LARK; or, _Victoria, the Mother of the Camps_.
THE PONIARID'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 PONIARD'S HILT
Or
Karadeucq and Ronan
A Tale of Bagauders and Vagres
by
EUGENE SUE
Translated from the Original French by Daniel De Leon
New York Labor News Company, 1907
Copyright, 1908, by the
New York Labor News Co.
INDEX.
TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE 3
PART I. THE KORRIGANS.
CHAP. I. ARAIM 9
II. FAIRIES AND HOBGOBLINS 15
III. HEVIN, THE PEDDLER 25
IV. OFF TO THE BAGAUDY! 37
PART II. THE VAGRES.
CHAP. I. "WOLVES'-HEADS" 45
II. BISHOP AND COUNT 49
III. AT THE CHAPEL OF ST. LOUP 61
IV. THE DEMONS! THE DEMONS! 66
V. VAGRES IN JUDGMENT 71
VI. TO THE FASTNESS OF ALLANGE 85
VII. THE VAGRES AT FEAST 101
VIII. THE MIRACLE OF ST. MARTIN 107
IX. LOYSIK AND RONAN 114
X. THE MIRACLE OF ST. CAUTIN 129
PART III. THE BURG OF NEROWEG.
CHAP. I. LEUDES AT HOME 139
II. THE MAHL 151
III. THE SPECTRE OF WISIGARDE 161
IV. THE LION OF POITIERS 170
V. IN THE TREASURE-CHAMBER 184
VI. THE BEAR OF MONT-DORE 194
VII. IN THE ERGASTULA 203
VIII. IN THE BANQUET HALL 211
IX. THE RESCUE 235
X. COUNT AND VAGRE 242
PART IV. GHILDE.
CHAP. I. AT THE HEARTH OF JOEL 251
II. ON THE HILL NEAR MARCIGNY 258
III. THE DEATH OF CHRAM 272
EPILOGUE 281
TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE
The invasion of Gaul by Clovis introduced feudalism in France, which is
equivalent to saying in Europe, France being the teeming womb of the
great historic events of that epoch. It goes without saying that so vast
a social system as that of feudalism could not be perfected in a day, or
even during one reign. Indeed, generations passed, and it was not until
the Age of Charlemagne that feudalism can be said to have taken some
measure of shape and form. Between the Ages of Clovis and Charlemagne a
period of turbulence ensued altogether peculiar to the combined
circumstances that feudalism was forced to struggle with two foes--one
internal, the disintegrating forces that ever accompany a new movement;
the other external, the stubborn and inspiring resistance, on the part
of the native masses, to the conqueror from the wilds of Germania.
Historians, with customary levity, have neglected to reproduce this
interesting epoch in the annals of that social structure that is mother
to the social structure now prevalent. The task was undertaken and
successfully accomplished by Eugene Sue in this boisterous historic
novel entitled _The Poniard's Hilt; or, Karadeucq and Ronan_, the sixth
of his majestic series of historic novels, _The Mysteries of the People;
or, History of a Proletarian Family Across the Ages_. The leading
characters are all historic. It required the genius, the learning, the
poetry, the tact, withal the daring of a Sue to weave these characters
into a fascinating tale and draw a picture as vivid as the quartos, from
which the facts are gathered, are musty with old age.
DANIEL DE LEON.
January, 1908.
PART I
THE KORRIGANS
CHAPTER I.
ARAIM.
Occasionally they are long-lived, these descendants of the good Joel,
who, five hundred and fifty years ago and more lived in this identical
region, near the sacred stones of the forest of Karnak. Yes, the
descendants of the good Joel are, occasionally, long-lived, seeing that
I, Araim, who to-day trace these lines in the seventy-seventh year of my
life, saw my grandfather Gildas die fifty-six years ago at the advanced
age of ninety-six, after having inscribed in his early youth a few lines
in our family archives.
My grandfather Gildas buried his son Goridek, my father. I was then ten
years old. Nine years later I lost my grandfather also. A few years
after his demise I married. I have survived my wife, Martha, and I have
seen my son Jocelyn become, in turn, a father. To-day he has a daughter
and two boys. The girl is called Roselyk, she is eighteen; the elder of
the two boys, Kervan, is three years his sister's senior; the younger,
my pet, Karadeucq, is seventeen.
When you read these lines, as you will some day, my son Jocelyn, you
will surely ask:
"What can have been the reason that my great-grandfather Gildas made no
other entry in our chronicles than the death of his father Amael? And
what can be the reason that my grandfather Goridek wrote not a line?
And, finally, what can be the reason that my own father, Araim, waited
so long--so very long before fulfilling the wishes of the good Joel?"
To that, my son, I would make this answer:
Your great-grandfather had no particular liking for desks and
parchments. Besides, very much after the style of his own father Amael,
he liked to postpone for to-morrow whatever he could avoid doing to-day.
For the rest, his life of a husbandman was neither less peaceful nor
less industrious than that of our fathers since the return of Schanvoch
to the cradle of our family, after such a very long line of generations,
kept away from Armorica by the hard trials and the slavery that followed
in the wake of the Roman conquest. Your great-grandfather was in the
habit of saying to my father:
"There will always be time for me to add a few lines to our family's
narrative; besides, it seems to me, and I admit the notion is foolish,
that to write 'I have lived', sounds very much like saying 'I am about
to die'--Now, then, I am so happy that I cling to life, just as oysters
do to their rocks."
And so it came about that, from to-morrow to to-morrow, your
great-grandfather reached his ninety-sixth year without increasing the
history of our family with a single word. When he lay on his deathbed he
said to me:
"My child, I wish you to write the following lines for me in our
archives:
"'My grandfather Gildas and my father Goridek lived in our house quietly
and happy, like good husbandmen; they remained true to their love for
old Gaul and to the faith of our fathers; they blessed Hesus for having
allowed them to be born and to die in the heart of Britanny, the only
province where, for so very many years, the shocks that have elsewhere
shaken Gaul have hardly ever been felt--those shocks died out before the
impregnable frontiers of Breton Armorica, as the furious waves of our
ocean dash themselves at the feet of our granite rocks.'"
That, then, my son Jocelyn, is the reason why neither your grandfather
Goridek nor his father wrote a line themselves.
"And why," you will insist, "did you, Araim, my father, why did you
wait so long, until you had a son and grandchildren, before you paid
your tribute to our chronicle?"
There are two reasons for that: the first is that I never had enough to
say; the second is that I would have had too much to write.
"Oh!" you will be thinking when you read this. "His advanced age has
deranged old Araim's mind. He says in one breath that he had too much
and too little to say. Is that sensible?"
Wait a moment, my son; be not in a hurry to believe that your old father
has fallen into his second infancy. Listen, and you will discover how it
is that I have at once too much and not enough to write upon.
As to what concerns my own life, being an old husbandman, I have been in
the same predicament as my ancestors since Schanvoch--there never was
sufficient matter for me to write about. Indeed, the interesting and
charming narrative would have run somewhat after this fashion:
"Last year the autumn crop was richer than the winter crop; this year it
is the reverse."
Or, "The large black cow yields daily six pints of milk more than the
brindled cow."
Or, "The January sheep have turned out more woolly than the sheep of
last March."
Or, "Last year grain was so dear, so very dear, that a 'muid' of old
wheat sold at from twelve to thirteen deniers. The price of cattle and
poultry is also on the upward tack: we now pay two gold sous for a draft
ox, one gold sou for a milch-cow, six gold sous for a draft horse."
Or, "Will not our descendants be delighted to know that in these days a
pig, if good and fat, fetches twelve deniers in autumn, which is neither
more nor less than the cost of a bell-wether? And will they not rejoice
to learn that our last coop of one hundred fat geese was sold last
winter at the market of Vannes for a full pound of silver by the
weight? And imagine how well posted they will feel when they learn that
the day-laborers whom we hire during harvest time are paid by us one
denier a day."
That would hardly be considered either a charming or a thrilling
narrative.
On the other hand, would our descendants feel more elated if I were to
tell them:
"That in which my pride lies is the knowledge that there is no better
field-laborer than my son Jocelyn, no better housekeeper than his
wife Madalen, no sweeter creature than my granddaughter Roselyk, no
handsomer and more daring lads than my two grandsons, Kervan and
Karadeucq--especially the latter, the youngest of the set, my own
pet!--a very demon for deviltry, bravery and attractiveness. One should
see him, at seventeen years of age, break in the wild colts of our
meadows, dive into the sea like a fish, not lose an arrow out of ten
when he shoots at the sea-gulls on the wing, along the beach, during a
storm--or handling the 'pen-bas,' our redoubtable Breton stick! Five or
six soldiers armed with lances or swords would find more sores than
pleasure if they rubbed against my Karadeucq with his 'pen-bas.' He is
so robust, so agile, so dexterous! And then, he is so handsome, with his
beautiful blond hair cut round and falling over the collar of his Gallic
blouse; his eyes of the blue of heaven, and his stout cheeks tanned by
the wind of the fields and the breeze of the sea!"
No! By the glorious bones of old Joel. No! He could not have been
prouder of his three sons--Guilhern the field-laborer, Michael the
armorer, and Albinik the mariner; or of his daughter Hena, the Virgin of
the Isle of Sen--a now deserted island that, at this moment, looking out
at the window, I see yonder, far away, almost in the open sea, veiled in
mist. No! The good Joel could not be any prouder of his family than I,
old Araim, am of my grandchildren! But the sons of Joel either fought
valiantly for freedom or remained dead on the battlefield; and his
daughter Hena, whose saintly and sweet name is sung to this day and has
come down from century to century, disinterestedly laid her life on the
altars of Hesus for the welfare of her country, while the children of my
son will die, obscure like their father, in this corner of Gaul. At
least they will die free! The barbarous Franks have twice dashed forward
as far as the frontiers of our Britanny, but never dared to enter it;
our impenetrable forests, our bottomless marshes, our inaccessible and
rocky mountains, above all our sturdy men, quickly up and in arms in
response to the call of our ever-beloved druids, the Christian as well
as the non-Christian druids, have rolled back the Frankish marauders,
who, however, have rendered themselves masters of our other provinces
since nearly fifteen years ago.
Alas! After nearly two centuries, the gloomy prophecy of the foster
sister of our ancestor Schanvoch has been verified. Victoria the Great
predicted it but too accurately. Long ago did the Franks pour over our
frontier of the Rhine; they have since spread themselves over the whole
of Gaul and subjugated the land--except our Breton Armorica.
These are the reasons why old Araim believed that neither as a father
nor a Breton did his obscure happiness deserve to be chronicled in our
family records, and these are the reasons why, alas! he had too much to
write as a Gaul. Is not the account of the defeat, the shame, the
renewed slavery of our common country, too much to write about, although
we here in Britanny are ourselves free from the misfortunes that
overwhelm our brothers elsewhere?
"But," meseems I hear you, my son Jocelyn, still insist, "why should old
Araim, who has too little or too much to say, why should he begin his
narrative to-day, rather than yesterday, or why did he not postpone
starting to write until to-morrow?"
This is my answer, my son:
Read the narrative that I am now writing on that winter's evening when
you, your wife and your children will gather by the fire in the large
hall of our farmhouse and await the return of my pet Karadeucq, who left
for the chase early in the morning promising to bring home a stag. Read
this narrative, it will recall to your mind the family gathering of the
previous evening, my son Jocelyn--it will also inform you of something
that you do not know. You will not thereafter ask again:
"Why did good Araim start this narrative to-day, and not yesterday?"
CHAPTER II.
FAIRIES AND HOBGOBLINS.
The January snow and hail are falling in torrents; the wind moans; at a
distance the sea roars and dashes inshore as far as the sacred stones of
Karnak. It is only four o'clock in the afternoon, and yet it is night to
all intents and purposes; the warmly stalled cattle are locked in; the
gates of the farmyard are closed tightly out of fear of prowling wolves;
a large fire shoots up its flames in the fireplace of the hall; old
Araim is seated in his armchair, at the chimney-corner, with his large
grey dog, its head streaked with the white of old age, stretched out at
his feet. The old man is at work on a net for fishing; his son Jocelyn
is fashioning a plough handle; Kervan is adjusting new thongs to a yoke;
Karadeucq is sharpening the points of his arrows on a flint-stone. The
tempest will last till morning if not longer, because the sun went down
like a ball of fire behind thick black clouds that wreathed the isle of
Sen like a dense fog. Whenever the sun sets in that fashion and the wind
blows from the west the tempest lasts two, three, sometimes four and
five days. The next morning Karadeucq will be out on the beach to shoot
sea-gulls while they graze with their wings the still raging waves. It
is the lad's amusement--my pet is such a skilful and expert archer!
The sea roars from the distance like rumbling thunder; the house rocks
in the gale; the hail is heard clattering in the chimney. Roar, tempest!
Blow, sea gale! Drop, both snow and hail! Ah! How good it feels to hear
the ice-laden blast thunder, when one sees his family merrily gathered
in the house around a blazing fireplace! And then, the young lads and
their sister whisper things to one another that make them shiver and
smile at once. For it does, indeed, look as if during the last century
all the hobgoblins and all the fairies of Gaul have taken refuge in
Britanny. Is it not a positive pleasure to hear tell during a tempest
and by the fire those wonders to which one gives a lingering credence if
one has not seen them himself, and more so if one has seen them?
This is what the young folks are saying to one another. My grandson
Kervan starts the ball rolling as he shakes his head:
"The traveler who has lost his way and who should happen to pass
to-night by the cavern of Pen-March will hear the hammers clang--"
"Yes, the hammers that beat in time while the devilish hammerers
themselves sing their song, the burden of which ever is: 'One, two,
three, four, five, six, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday--'"
"And it is said they even add 'Thursday,' 'Friday' and 'Saturday,' but
never 'Sunday,' the day of the mass--of the Christians."
"And the traveler may prize himself happy if the little Dus do not drop
their false coiners' hammers and start to dance, compelling him to join
in their reel until death closes upon him."
"What dangerous demons those Dus must be, dwarfs no taller than barely
two feet high! Meseems I see them, with their hairy and shriveled faces,
their cats' claws, their goats' hoofs and their eyes flashing fire. The
bare thought of them is enough to make one shiver."
"Look out, Roselyk! There is one under the bin. Look out!"
"How imprudent you are, brother Karadeucq, to sport in that way over the
Dus! Those hobgoblins are spiteful things. I tremble when I think of
them."
"As for me, were I to come across a band of these customers, I would
capture two or three brace of them, I would tie them together by the
legs like partridges--and off I would make with them--"
"Oh! You, Karadeucq, are not afraid of anything."
"Justice should be done the little Dus. Although they do coin false
money in the cavern of Pen-March, they are said to be excellent
blacksmiths, and matchless in the shoeing of horses."
"Yes, you may rely on that! From the moment a horse has been shod by
those devilish dwarfs, he shoots fire out of his nostrils; and as to
running--as to running without ever stopping for breath--either night or
day--to even take a look at his rider--"
"Children, what a tempest! What a night!"
"Fine night for the little Dus, mother! They love storms and darkness!
But it is a bad night for the poor little Korrigans, who love only the
mild nights of the month of May."
"Certes, I am dreadfully afraid of the hairy and clawy dwarfs with their
purses full of false coin dangling from their belts and their
blacksmith's hammers on their shoulders. But I would be still more
afraid if I were to run across a Korrigan, only two feet high, combing
her hair, and looking at herself in some secluded fountain, in the clear
water of which she is admiring those blonde tresses that they are so
proud of."
"What! Afraid of those pretty little fairies, brother Kervan! I, on the
contrary, have often tried to meet one of them. It is said positively
that they assemble at the fountain of Lyrwac'h-Hen, which lies in the
thickest of the large oak forest that shades several druid stones. I
have gone thither three times--and all the three times I saw nothing--"
"Luckily for you that you saw nothing Karadeucq, because it is said that
the Korrigans never meet for their nocturnal dances except near the
sacred stones. Woe to him who sees them!"
"I gather that they are expert musicians and that they sing like
nightingales."
"It is also said of them that they like to pilfer food like cats. Yes,
Karadeucq, you may laugh--but you should believe me; I am no fibber,"
observed his sister indignantly. "I have heard the rumor that at their
nocturnal feasts they spread upon the sward, but always near a fountain,
a cloth white as snow, and woven of the dainty thread that we find in
summer on the meadows. In the very center of the cloth they place a
crystal cup that shines so brightly, so very brightly, that it serves
the fairies for a torch. People add that a single drop of the liquid in
the cup would make one as wise as God."
"And what do the Korrigans eat on that table cloth as white as snow? Do
you know, Karadeucq, you who love them so much?"
"The dear little darlings! It can not be costly to nourish their rosy
and transparent bodies that are hardly two feet high. Sister Roselyk
says they are gourmands. What is it they eat? The juice of night
flowers, served upon gold grass blades?"
"Gold grass blades? That superb grass that, if you step upon it, puts
you to sleep and imparts to you the knowledge of the language of
birds--"
"And what do the Korrigans drink?"
"The dew of heaven in the azure shell of wrens' eggs--what boozers they
are! But at the slightest sound of human feet--off they vanish. They
vanish into the fountain and return to their crystal and coral palace at
the bottom of the water. It is to the end of being able to escape
quickly the sight of men that they always stay near the water. Oh, the
pretty little fairies! I would give my best bow and twenty arrows, I
would give all my fishing nets, I would give ten years, twenty years of
my life to see a Korrigan!"
"Karadeucq, my son, make not such impious vows on such a stormy night as
this--it may bring ill luck--I have never heard the enraged sea roar
like this--it sounds like thunder--"
"Good mother, I would brave murky darkness, tempest and thunder to see a
Korrigan!"
"Hold your tongue, rash boy, hold your tongue--do not say such words!"
"What a bold and venturesome lad you are, my boy!"
"Grandfather, you should join us in scolding my brother Karadeucq
instead of encouraging him in his dangerous wishes. Do you not know--"
"What, my blonde Roselyk?"
"Alas! grandfather, the Korrigans steal the children of poor mothers and
put little monsters in their place. The song so has it--"
"Let's hear that song, my little Roselyk."
"It runs this way, grandfather:
"Mary is very sad; she has lost her little Laoik; the Korrigan
snatched him away.
"As I went to the spring for water I left my Laoik in his cradle;
when I came back to the house, my little one was gone far away.
"And in its place the Korrigan left me this monster--with a face as
red as a toad's; he scratches and bites.
"And all day he wants to be nursed, and yet he is seven years
old--and yet he wants to be nursed.
"Mary is very sad; she has lost her little Laoik; the Korrigan
snatched him away!
"That is the song, grandfather. And will brother still want to meet the
wicked things, these Korrigan fairies who snatch away babes?"
"What have you now to say in defense of your fairies, my pet?"
"Grandfather, my sweet sister Roselyk has been imposed upon by evil
tongues. All mothers with ugly urchins for children declare that the
Korrigans substituted a little monster for their darling."
"Well answered, my grandson!"
"And, on my part, I maintain that the Korrigans are, on the contrary,
sweet and serviceable. Do you know the valley of Helle?"
"Yes, my dare-devil."
"One time the finest hay in the world was to be got in that valley--
"'Hay from Helle, perfumed hay.'"
"Well, that was thanks to the Korrigans--"
"Indeed? Tell me how--"
"When the time for mowing and haymaking came around, the Korrigans
arrived and camped on the crests of the rocks around the valley to watch
over the meadow. If during the day the sun parched the grass too much,
the Korrigans caused a plentiful dew to drop. When the grass was mowed,
they scattered the clouds that might have interfered with the making of
hay. A foolish and wicked bishop wanted to chase away the pretty and
kind fairies. He caused a large heather fire to be kindled early one
night all over the rocks; when these were sufficiently hot, the ashes,
were all carefully removed. At their regular hour, and suspecting
nothing, the dear Korrigans came to hold watch over the meadow, but they
instantly burned their feet on the hot rocks. They then wept and cried:
'Oh! Wicked world! Oh! Wicked world!' Since then they never more
returned to the place, and as a consequence, ever since, the hay has
been either rotted by the rain, or burned by the sun in the valley of
Helle. That is what comes of being unkind to the Korrigans. No, I shall
not die happy if I do not see at least one of them--"
"Children, children, put no faith in such witcheries; above all never
wish to witness any. It brings bad luck--"
"What, mother, simply because I desire to see a Korrigan, some
misfortune will befall me? What kind of misfortune?"
"Hesus only knows, wild boy! I wish you would keep still; your talk
frightens me."
"What a tempest! The house shakes!"
"And it is on such a night that Karadeucq dared to say he would give his
life to see a Korrigan."
"Come, dear wife, your fears only show weakness."
"Mothers are weak and timid, Jocelyn. We must not tempt God--"
Old Araim stops working for a moment at his net; his head drops on his
chest.
"What is the matter, folks? You seem to be in a brown study! Do you
fear, like Madalen, that danger may threaten Karadeucq just because, on
such a tempestuous night as this, he wishes to see a Korrigan?"
"I am not thinking of the fairies; I am thinking of this frightful
storm, Jocelyn. I read to you and your children the narrative of our
ancestor Joel, who lived about five hundred and odd years ago, if not in
this very house, at least in the neighborhood of where we now are. I was
thinking that on a somewhat similar stormy night, Joel and his son, both
greedy after stories like the inquisitive Gauls that they were--"
"Did the trick of stopping a traveler at the pass of Craig'h, binding
him fast, and carrying him home to tell stories--"
"And the traveler happened to be the Chief of the Hundred Valleys--a
hero!"
"Oh! Oh! How your eyes sparkle as you speak, Karadeucq."
"If they sparkle, grandfather, it is because they are moist. Whenever I
hear you speak of the Chief of the Hundred Valleys tears come to my
eyes."
"What is the matter with Erer, father? The dog growls between his teeth
and pricks up his ears."
"Grandfather, do you hear the watchdog bark?"
"Something must be going on outside of the house--"
"Alas! If it is the gods who wish to punish my son for his audacious
wishes, their anger is swift--Karadeucq, come near me."
"What! Madalen--there you are weeping and embracing the boy, as if
really misfortune threatened him. Come, be more sensible!"
"Do you not hear the dogs barking louder and louder? And there is Erer
now running to the door. There is something wrong going on outside--"
"Fear not, mother; it is some wolf prowling about. Where is my bow?"
"Karadeucq, you stay here--"
"Dear Madalen, be not in such fear for your son, nor you my sweet
Roselyk for your brother. Perhaps it is better not to challenge the
hobgoblins and fairies on a stormy night, but your fears are idle. There
is no wolf prowling about here; if there were, Erer would long ago have
bitten off the panel of the door and rushed to the encounter of the
unwelcome guest--"
"Father is right--it may be a stranger who lost his way."
"Come, Kervan, come brother, let's to the gate of the yard."
"My son, you stay here by my side--"
"But, mother, I cannot allow my brother Kervan to go out alone."
"Hark! Hark! It seems to me I hear a voice calling--"
"Alas! mother, some misfortune threatens our house--you said it--"
"Roselyk, my child, do not add fuel to your mother's fright. What is
there astonishing in a traveler calling from without to have the door
opened to him--"
"His cries are not human--I am frozen with fear--"
"You come with me, Kervan, seeing that your mother wishes to keep
Karadeucq near her. Although this is a quiet neighborhood, hand me my
'pen-bas,' and take yours along, my boy."
"My husband, my son, I conjure you, do not go out--"
"Dear wife, suppose some stranger is outside in such weather as this!
Come Kervan!"
"Alas! I tell you the cries that I heard are not human. Kervan! Jocelyn!
They will not listen--they are gone--Alas! Alas!"
"My father and brother go out to face danger, and I remain here--"
"Do not stamp your feet that way, bad boy! You are the cause of all this
evil with your impious wishes--"
"Calm yourself, Madalen--and you, my pet, do not put on, if you please,
the air of a wild colt that seeks to snap his reins; just obey your
mother."
"I hear steps--they are drawing near--Oh! grandfather!"
"Well, my dear Roselyk, why tremble? What is there frightful in the
steps that are approaching? Good--do you hear them laughing aloud? Are
you now at ease?"
"Laughing!--on such a night!"
"It is frightful to hear, is it not, my sweet Roselyk, especially when
the laughers are your own father and brother? Well--here they are. Well,
my children?"
"The misfortune that threatened our house--"
"The cries that were not human--"
"Will you be done laughing? Just look at them! The father is as crazy as
the son! Will you speak?"
"The great misfortune is a poor peddler who lost his way--"
"The voice that was not human was his voice--"
And father and son laughed merrily, it must be admitted, like people who
are happy to find their apprehensions unfounded. The mother's fears,
however, were not so quickly allayed; she did not join the laughter; but
both the boys, the girl and even Jocelyn himself, all cried out
joyously:
"A peddler! A peddler!"
"He has pretty ribbons and fine needles."
"Iron for arrows, strings for bows, scissors to clip the sheep."
"Nets for fishing, seeing that he comes to the seashore."
"He will tell us the news of outlying places."
"But where is he? Where is the good peddler that Hesus sends to us to
help enliven this long winter's night?"
"What a happiness to be able to see all his merchandise at one's ease!"
"But where is he? Where is he?"
"He is shaking off the ice that his clothes are frozen stiff with."
"Good mother, now see the misfortune that threatened us because I wished
to see a Korrigan!"
"Be still, son! To-morrow rests with God!"
"Here is the peddler! Here he is!"
CHAPTER III.
HEVIN THE PEDDLER.
The man who stepped into the house gave at the threshold a last shake to
his traveling boots, which were so covered with snow that he seemed to
be clad in white hose. He was of a robust frame, but squat and square,
in the full strength of manhood, jovial and of an open yet determined
face. Still uneasy, Madalen did not take her eyes from him, and twice
she made a sign to her son to return to her side. Removing the hood from
his thick, ice-pearled coat, the peddler laid down his bulky bale, a
heavy burden that, however, seemed light to his sturdy shoulders. He
then removed his cap and stepped towards Araim, the oldest member of the
household:
"Long life and happy days to hospitable people! This is Hevin the
Peddler's wish to yourself and your family. I am a Breton. I was going
to Falgoet, when the night and the tempest overtook me on the beach. I
saw the light of this house from a distance; I came, I called, and the
door was opened to me. Thanks to you all, thanks to hospitable people!"
"Madalen, what gives you that absent and pensive look? Do not the
peddler's pleasant face and kind words set you at ease?"
"Father, to-morrow rests with God--I feel all the more uneasy since the
stranger's arrival."
"Speak lower, lower still, dear daughter. The poor fellow might overhear
you and be grieved. Oh! these mothers! these mothers!"
And addressing the stranger:
"Draw near the fire, you sturdy peddler. The night is rough. Karadeucq,
while we wait for supper, fetch a pot of hydromel for our guest."
"I accept, good old man! The fire will warm me from without, the
hydromel from within."
"You seem to be a gay stroller."
"So I am. Joy is my companion; however long or rough my road may be, joy
never tires of following me."
"Here--drink--"
"Your health, good mother and sweet girl; to the health of you all--"
And clicking his tongue against the roof of his mouth: "This is the best
hydromel I ever tasted. A cordial hospitality renders the best of
potions still better."
"Do you come from afar, gay stroller?"
"Do you mean since I started this morning or since the beginning of my
journey?"
"Yes, since the beginning of your journey."
"It is now two months since I departed from Paris."
"From the city of Paris?"
"Does that surprise you, good old man?"
"What! Cross half Gaul in such times as these, when the cursed Franks
overrun the country?"
"I am an old roadster. For the last twenty years I have crossed Gaul
from end to end. Is the main road hazardous, I take the by-path. Is the
plain risky, I go over the mountain. Is it dangerous to travel by day, I
journey by night."
"And have you not been rifled a hundred times by those thievish Franks?"
"I am an old roadster, I tell you. Accordingly, before entering
Britanny, I bravely donned a priest's robe, and painted on my pack a big
cross with flames red as hell-fire. The Frankish thieves are as stupid
as they are savage; they fear the devil, whom the bishops frighten them
with in order to share with them the spoils of Gaul. They would not
dare to attack me, taking me for a priest."
"Come, supper is ready--to table," said old Araim; and addressing his
son's wife, who continued to give signs of preoccupation, he said to her
in a low voice:
"What is the matter, Madalen? Are you still thinking of the Korrigans?"
"This stranger who disguises himself in the robe of a priest without
being one will bring misfortune over our house. The tempest's fury seems
to have redoubled since he came in."
It is an impossible thing to allay a mother's apprehensions once they
are aroused.
The family and the guest sat down to table, ate and drank. The peddler
drank and ate like a man to whom the road imparts a good appetite. The
jaws did their ample duty; teeth and tongues played their parts well;
the family was in good spirits. It is not every long winter's night that
one has a peddler from Paris in his company.
"And what is going on in Paris, brave roadster?"
"The most satisfactory thing that I have seen in the city was the
burying of the King of the cursed Franks!"
"Ah! Is their King dead?"
"He died more than two months ago--on the 25th of November of last year,
of the year 512 of the 'Incarnation of the Word,' as the bishops say who
blessed and gave sepulchre to the crowned murderer in the basilica of
the Holy Apostles at Paris."
"Ah! He is dead, that Frankish King! And what was his name?"
"He had a devil of a name, Hlode-Wig."
"It must choke one to pronounce it--"
"Hlode-Wig was his name. His wife, whom they call the Queen, is no less
happily endowed--her name is Chrotechild--and her four children are
named Chlotachaire, Theudeber--"
"Enough! Friend peddler! A truce of those savage names! Those who wear
them are worthy of them."
"Right you are, as you may judge by the deceased Hlode-Wig, or Clovis,
as he is popularly pronounced; and his family bids fair to surpass even
him. Imagine gathered in that monster, whom St. Remi baptised a son of
the Church--imagine gathered in that one monster the cunning of the fox
and the cowardly ferocity of the wolf. To enumerate to you the murders
that he committed with his dagger or his axe would take too long. I
shall only mention some of the leading ones. An old Frankish chief, a
hunchback named Sigebert, was King of Cologne. This is the way these
bandits become Kings: they pillage and ravage a province at the head of
a band, massacre or sell like so many heads of cattle men, women and
children, reduce the rest of the inhabitants to slavery, and then they
say: 'Here we are Kings'; the bishops echo back: 'Yes, our friends the
Franks are Kings here; we shall baptize them into the Church; and you,
people of Gaul, obey them or we will damn you!"
"And has there never been found any courageous man to plant a dagger in
the heart of such a King?"
"Karadeucq, my pet, do not heat yourself in that manner. Thanks to God,
that Clovis is dead. That is, at any rate, one less. Proceed, good
peddler!"
"Well, as I was saying, Sigebert the hunchback was King of Cologne. He
had a son. Clovis said to him: 'Your father is old--kill him and you
will inherit his power.' The son sympathized with the idea and killed
his father. And what does Clovis do but kill the parricide and
appropriate the kingdom of Cologne!"
"You shudder, my children! I can well imagine it. Such are the new Kings
of Gaul!"
"What, you shudder, my hosts, at so little? Only wait. Shortly after
that murder, Clovis strangled with his own hands two of his near
relatives, father and son, named Chararic, and plundered them of what
they themselves had plundered Gaul of. But here is a still worse
incident: Clovis was at war with another bandit of his own royal family
named Ragnacaire. He ordered a set of necklaces and baldrics to be made
of imitation gold, and sent them through one of his familiars to the
leudes who accompanied Ragnacaire with the message that, in exchange for
the present, they deliver to him their chief and his son. The bargain
was struck, and the two Ragnacaires were delivered to Clovis. This great
King thereupon struck them both down with his axe like oxen in the
slaughter house; he thus at one stroke committed two crimes--cheated the
leudes of Ragnacaire and murdered their chiefs."
"And yet the Catholic bishops preach to the people submission to such
monsters?"
"Certes, seeing that the crimes committed by these monsters are the
source of the Church's wealth. You can figure it out for yourself, good
old man, the murders, fratricides, parricides and acts of incest
committed by the great Frankish seigneurs yield more gold sous to the
fat and do-nothing bishops than all the lands, that your hard and daily
toil fructifies, yield deniers to you. But listen to another of Clovis'
prowesses. In the course of time he had either himself despatched or
ordered others to massacre all his relatives. One day he gathers around
him his forces and says with a moan:
"'Woe is me! I am now left all alone, like a traveler among strangers; I
have no relatives left to help me in case adversity overtake me.'"
"Well, so at last he repented his many crimes--it is the least of the
punishments that await him."
"He repent? Clovis? He would have been a big fool if he had, good old
man! Do you forget that the priests relieve him of the burden of remorse
in consideration of good round pounds of gold or silver?"
"And why, then, did he use those terms; why did he say: 'Woe is me! I am
now left all alone, like a traveler among strangers; I have no relatives
left to help me in case adversity overtake me?'"
"Why? Another trick of his. No, in the language of a bishop himself who
chronicled the life of Clovis, it was not that Clovis grieved over the
death of all the relatives whom he had caused to be put to death; no, it
was a ruse on his part when he held that language, malefactor that he
was; he only wished thereby to ascertain whether there was any relative
left, and then to kill him."
"And yet was there not a single man resolute enough to plant a dagger in
the monster's breast?"
"Keep quiet, bad boy! This is the second time that you have given vent
to those sentiments of murder and vengeance! You only do so to frighten
me!"
"Dear wife, our son Karadeucq is indignant, like anyone else, at the
crimes of that Frankish King. By my father's bones! I who am not of an
adventurous disposition, I say myself--it is a shame to Gaul that such a
monster should have reigned fourteen years over our country--Britanny
fortunately excepted."
"And I, who in my trade of peddler have crossed Gaul from end to end,
and seen the country's wretchedness and the bloody slavery that
oppresses it, I say that the people's hatred should fall as heavily upon
the bishops! Was it not they who called the Franks into Gaul? Was it not
they who baptised the murderer a son of the Roman Church? Did they not
propose to canonize the monster with the title of 'Saint Clovis?'"
"God in heaven! Is it craziness or cowardly terror on the part of those
priests?"
"It is unbridled ambition and inveterate cupidity, good old man. At
first, allied to the Roman emperors from the time that Gaul became again
a Roman province, the bishops succeeded by underhanded means to secure
large endowments for themselves and their churches and to occupy the
leading magistracies in the cities. That did not satisfy them; they
counted upon being better able to dominate the barbarous Franks than the
civilized Romans. They betrayed the Romans to the Franks. The latter
came; Gaul was ravaged, pillaged and subjugated, and the bishops shared
the plunder with the conquerors whom they speedily placed under their
thumb through the fear of the devil. And so it happens that these
sanctimonious men have become richer and more powerful under the
Frankish than under the Roman rule. Now old Gaul has become their quarry
jointly with the barbarians; they now possess vast domains, all manner
of wealth, innumerable slaves--slaves that are so well chosen, trained
and docile to the whip that an 'ecclesiastical slave' generally fetches
twenty gold sous in the market, while other slaves fetch only twelve
sous. Would you form an idea of the wealth of the bishops? This
identical St. Remi, who baptised Clovis in the basilica of Reims, and
thus approved him a worthy son of the holy Roman Church, was so fatly
remunerated that he was able to pay five thousand pounds of silver by
the weight for the domain of Epernay."
"Oh! Thus to traffic in the blood of Gaul! It is horrible! It is
shocking!"
"Oh! That is still nothing, good father. Had you traveled as I have done
over regions that were once so flourishing, and seen them now, ravaged
and burned down by the Franks! Had you seen the bands of men, women and
children, bound two by two, marching among the cattle and wagons heaped
with booty of all sorts, that the barbarians drove before them after
they conquered the country of Amiens, which I then happened to
cross--had you seen that, you would have felt your heart bleed as mine
did."
"And where did they take those men, women and children whom they carried
away as slaves?"
"Alas! good mother, they took them to the banks of the Rhine, where the
Franks keep a large market of Gallic flesh. All the barbarians of
Germany who have not yet broken into our unhappy country, repair thither
to supply themselves with slaves of our race--men, women and children."
"And what becomes of those who remain in Gaul?"
"The men of the fields are enslaved and made to cultivate under the rod
of the Franks their own ancestral estates that King Clovis divided with
his leaders, his old comrades in pillage and massacre, and whom he since
has made dukes, marquises and counts of our country. But there are still
some drops of generous blood left in the veins of old Gaul. Even if the
rule of the Franks and the bishops is to endure, they will, at least,
not enjoy their conquest in peace."
"How so?"
"Did you ever hear of the Bagaudy?"
"Certainly, and praisefully, too."
"What is the Bagaudy, grandfather?"
"Let me first answer our friend the peddler--it will be information to
you also. My grandfather Gildas told me that he heard from his father
that, a few years after the death of Victoria the Great, the first
Bagaudy took place, not in Britanny, but in the other provinces.
Irritated at seeing herself again reduced to the level of a Roman
province, as a result of the treason of Tetrik, and of being obliged to
pay heavy imposts into the empire's fisc, Gaul rose in rebellion. The
uprisings were called 'Bagaudies.' They threw the emperor Diocletian
into such consternation that he hurried an army into Gaul to combat
them; at the same time, however, he remitted the imposts, and granted
almost everything that the Bagauders demanded. As you see, it is only a
question of knowing how to present one's demand to kings and emperors.
Bend your back and they will load it to the breaking point; show your
teeth and they remove the load--"
"Well said, old father--beg them with clasped hands, and they laugh;
make your demand with clenched fists, and they yield--that was another
good feature of the Bagaudy."
"Well, there were so many good features about it, that, towards the
middle of last century, it was started against the Romans anew. That
time it spread as far as Britanny, to the very heart of Armorica. But we
only talked about it, there was no occasion for serious action. The time
was well chosen; if my memory serves me right, I was one of those who
accompanied our venerated druids to Vannes, to the curia of that town
which consisted of Roman magistrates and officers. To them we said:
"'You govern us Breton Gauls in the name of your emperor; you lay rather
heavy imposts upon us, always in the name and for the benefit of the
same emperor. For a long time we have found that very unjust. We enjoy,
it is true, our freedom and citizen rights. Nevertheless our subjection
to Rome galls us. We think the hour has come for us to emancipate
ourselves. The other provinces are of the same mind, seeing that they
are rebelling against your emperor. Accordingly, it now pleases us to
become free once more, as independent of Rome as we were before the
Conquest of Caesar, as we were at the time of Victoria the Great.
Accordingly, ye Roman officials and tax-gatherers, pack yourselves off.
Britanny will henceforth keep her silver and gold to herself, and will
govern herself without your help. A happy journey to you, and do not
come back again; if you do, you will find us in arms ready to receive
you with our swords, and, if need be, our scythes and forks.'
"The Romans went, their garrisons along with them. Without troops to
enforce their decrees, the magistrates took their departure, and never
returned. The Bagaudy in Gaul and the Franks on the Rhine kept their
hands full. This second Bagaudy, like the first, had its good effect, in
our province even better than elsewhere, seeing that the bishops, having
joined the Romans, succeeded in imposing themselves upon the other
provinces of Gaul, but were prevented by the Bagaudy from making their
weight felt as heavily as in former years. As to ourselves, of Breton
Armorica, Rome never sought to resubjugate us. From that time on, and
obedient to our ancient custom, each tribe chooses its own chief, and
these choose a chief of chiefs who governs the land. He is kept if he
does well, he is removed if he does not give satisfaction. It has
continued so to this day, and I hope will ever be, despite the doings of
the cursed Franks outside of Britanny. The last Breton will have died
before our Armorica shall be conquered by the barbarians as they have
done the rest of Gaul. And now, friend peddler, I understand you to say
that the Bagaudy is again raising its head, now against the Franks? So
much the better! They will, at least, as you say, not enjoy their
conquest in peace, if the new Bagauders are worthy of the old."
"They are, good old man; they are; I have seen them at work."
"The Bagauders are, then, numerous armed troops?"
"Karadeucq, my pet, do not excite yourself--listen without
interrupting."
"Bad boy, he can only think of battles, revolts and adventures!"
And the poor woman added in a low voice in Araim's ear:
"Was there any occasion for the peddler to mention such matters before
my son? Alas! I told you so, father, it is an ill wind that blew this
man into our house."
"Do you think him in league with the Dus and Korrigans, Madalen?"
"What I believe is, father, that a misfortune threatens this house. I
wish this night were over, and it were to-morrow!"
And the alarmed mother sighed while the peddler answered Karadeucq, who
hung upon the stranger's words:
"The new Bagauders, my brave lad, are what the old ones were. Terrible
to the oppressors, kind to the people."
"Do the people love them?"
"Whether they love them! Aelian and Aman, the two chiefs of the first
Bagaudy who were put to death nearly two centuries ago in an old Roman
castle near Paris, at the confluence of the Seine and the Marne--Aelian
and Aman are to this day loved by the people as martyrs!"
"Ah! Theirs is a happy fate! To be still loved by the people after two
centuries! Did you hear that, grandfather?"
"Yes, I did, and so did your mother--see how sad she looks."
But the "bad boy," as the poor woman called him, already seeming in
thought to be running the Bagaudy, cast inquisitive and ardent looks at
the peddler, and asked:
"Did you ever see the Bagauders? Were there many of them? Had they
already run any raids against the Franks and bishops? Is it long since
you saw them?"
"Three weeks ago, on my way hither, as I crossed Anjou. One day I missed
my road in the forest. Night fell upon me. After having walked a long,
long while, and going astray ever deeper in the woods, I noticed at a
distance a bright light that issued from a cavern. I ran thither. There
I found about a hundred lusty Bagauders. They were resting around a fire
with their Bagaudines, because you must know that they are generally
accompanied by determined women. A few nights before, they had made a
descent upon some Frankish seigneurs, our conquerors, and attacked their
'burgs' as the barbarians term their castles. The Bagauders fought
furiously and without neither mercy or pity; they pillaged churches and
episcopal villas, exacted ransom from the bishops, hung from the trees
the most perverse of the priests who fell into their hands, rifled the
coffers of the royal tax-collectors, and slew whatever Frank came in
their way. But, as fast as they took from the rich, they gave to the
poor. They generously distributed among these the plunder of the rich
prelates and Frankish counts, and set free all the chained slaves whom
they found. Ah! By Aelian and Aman, the patrons of the Bagauders, the
life of those gay and brave fellows is a noble and happy one. Had I not
been on my way to Britanny in order to see my old mother once more, I
would have then and there joined them in running the Bagaudy in Anjou
and the contiguous provinces."
"And what must one do in order to be admitted into the ranks of those
intrepid people?"
"The first thing to do, my brave lad, is to sacrifice one's skin in
advance; you have to be robust, agile, courageous; you must love the
poor, swear eternal hatred for the Frankish counts and the bishops;
feast by day and bagaude by night."
"And where are their haunts?"
"You might as well ask the birds of the air where they perch, the beasts
of the wood where they lie down. Yesterday on the mountain, to-morrow in
the woods, marching ten leagues during the night, hiding for days in
succession in the nearest cave--the Bagauder knows not to-day where he
will be to-morrow."
"It must, then, be a lucky accident that would make one run across
them?"
"A lucky accident for good people, an unlucky one for counts, bishops or
tax-collectors!"
"Was it in Anjou that you met that troop of Bagauders?"
"Yes, in Anjou--in a forest about eight leagues from Angers, whither I
was then bound--"
"Do you notice my pet Karadeucq? Look at him! See how his eyes sparkle
and his cheeks burn. Truly, if he does not dream of little Korrigans
to-night, he will surely dream of Bagauders. Am I wrong, my lad?"
"Grandfather, what I say is that the Bretons and the Bagauders are and
will be the very last Gauls. Were I not a Breton I would indeed run the
Bagaudy against the Franks and the bishops."
"And it is my opinion, my grandson, that you will surely run it to-night
with your head upon your pillow. I wish you pleasant dreams of the
Bagaudy, my pet. Now go to bed, it is late; you are making your mother
feel unnecessarily uneasy."
CHAPTER IV.
OFF TO THE BAGAUDY!
I broke off this narrative three days ago.
I began writing it on the afternoon of the day when the peddler, after
having spent the night under our roof, proceeded on his journey. When he
appeared at the hall the next morning the tempest had subsided. After
the peddler left the house, before he disappeared at the turning of the
road, and as he waved us a last adieu, I said to Madalen:
"Well, now, you silly thing! You poor frightened mother--did the angry
gods punish my pet Karadeucq for having wished to see the Korrigans?
Where is the misfortune that this stranger was to bring down upon our
house? The tempest has blown over, the sky is serene, and the sea is
calming down and looking as blue again as ever! Why is your mien still
preoccupied? Yesterday, Madalen, you said: 'To-morrow rests with God.'
Here we are at yesterday's to-morrow. What evil has befallen us?
Nothing, absolutely nothing."
"You are right, good father, my forebodings have proved false. And yet,
I do not feel at ease. I still am sorry that my son spoke the way he did
of the Korrigans."
"Turn around, here is your Karadeucq with his hunting dog in the leash,
his pouch on his back, his bow in his hand, his arrows at his side. How
handsome he is! How handsome! How alert and determined his mien!"
"Where are you going, son?"
"Mother, yesterday you said to me that it was two days since we have had
any venison in the house. This is a good day for the purpose. I shall
endeavor to bring down a doe in the forest of Karnak. The chase may take
me long; I am carrying some provisions along--bread, fruits and a bottle
of our wine."
"No, Karadeucq, you shall not go hunting to-day; I shall not allow it--"
"And why not, mother?"
"I do not know. You might lose your way and fall into some pit in the
forest."
"Mother, do not feel alarmed; why, I know all the paths and pits in the
forest."
"No, no; you shall not go hunting to-day. I forbid you to leave the
house."
"Good grandfather, intercede for me--"
"Willingly. I delight in eating venison. But you must promise me, my
pet, that you will not go on the side of the spring where you may
encounter the Korrigans."
"I swear to you, grandfather!"
"Come, Madalen, let my skilful archer depart for the chase--he swears to
you that he will not think of the fairies."
"Is it really your wish that he go, father?"
"I beg you; let him go; see how crossed he looks."
"Well, let it be as you wish--it is against my wish, however!"
"A kiss, mother!"
"No, bad boy, leave me alone!"
"A kiss, good mother; I beg you--do not deny me a caress--"
"Madalen, see those big tears in his eyes. Would you have the courage to
refuse him an embrace?"
"Kiss me, dear child--I felt sorrier than you. Be gone, but come back
early."
"One more kiss, good mother--good-bye--good-bye!"
Karadeucq left, wiping his tears. Three or four times he turned around
to look at his mother--he then disappeared behind the trees. The day
passed. My favorite did not return. The chase must have carried him far
away. He will be here in the evening. I started to write this narrative
that sorrow interrupted. It grew dark. Suddenly someone burst into my
room. It was my son Jocelyn, closely followed by his wife. He cried.
"Father! Father! A great misfortune."
"Alas! Alas! father. I told you that the Korrigans and the stranger
would be fatal to my son. Why did I yield to you? Why did I allow him to
depart this morning? Why did I allow my beloved Karadeucq to go away! It
is done for him! I shall never more see him again! Oh! unhappy woman
that I am!
"What is the matter, Madalen? What is the matter, Jocelyn? What makes
you look so pale? Why those tears? What has happened to Karadeucq?"
"Read, father, read this little parchment that Yvon the neat-herd has
just brought me--"
"Oh! A curse! A curse upon that peddler with his Bagaudy! He bewitched
my son--the Korrigans are the cause of this misfortune--"
While my son and his wife wrung their arms in desolation I read what my
grandson had written:
"Good father and good mother--when you will read this I, your son
Karadeucq, will be very far away from our house. I have told Yvon the
neat-herd, whom I met this morning in the fields, not to put this
parchment into your hands until night, to the end that I may have twelve
hours the lead, and may thus escape your efforts to overtake me. I am
going to run the Bagaudy against the Franks and bishops. The times of
the Chiefs of the Hundred Valleys, the Sacrovirs and Vindexes are past.
But I could never remain quiet in a corner of Britanny, the only free
section of Gaul, without avenging, if but upon one of the sons of
Clovis, the slavery of our beloved country. Good father, good mother,
you have left beside you my elder brother, Kervan, and my sister
Roselyk. Be not angry with me. And you, grandfather, who love me so
much, obtain my pardon and keep my dear parents from cursing their
son--Karadeucq."
Alas, all efforts to recover the unhappy boy were futile.
I started this narrative because the conversation of the peddler
impressed me deeply. I talked long with the stranger, who for twenty
years had been traveling over all parts of Gaul and who thus had
exceptional opportunities to observe events. He solved to me the
mystery--how our people, who had known how to emancipate themselves from
the powerful Roman yoke, fell and remained under the yoke of the Franks,
a people whom our own surpass a thousandfold in courage and in numbers.
I had meant to insert here the stranger's answer. But the departure of
that unhappy boy who was the joy of my old days, has broken my heart. I
lack the courage to continue this narrative. Later, perhaps, if some
good news from my pet Karadeucq should revive the hope of seeing him
again, I shall finish what I meant to say. Alas! Shall I ever hear from
him? Poor boy! To leave all alone, at the age of seventeen, to run the
Bagaudy!
Can it be true, after all, that the gods punish us for wishing to see
the malign spirits? Alas! Alas! I now also say, with the poor mother,
who incessantly runs to the door demented in the hope that she may be
able to see whether her son is coming back:
"The gods have punished Karadeucq, my pet, for having wished to see the
Korrigans!"
* * * * *
My father Araim died of a broken heart shortly after the departure of my
second son. He left me the family archives.
I write these lines ten years after my father's death, and have never
had any tidings of my poor son Karadeucq. He probably met his death in
the adventurous life of a Bagauder.
Britanny preserves her independence, the Franks dare not attack us. All
the other provinces of Gaul have remained under the yoke of the bishops
and the sons of Clovis. The latter, it is said, surpass their father in
ferocity. Their names are Thierry, Childebert and Clotaire; the fourth,
Chlodomir, is said to have died this year.
How many years of life are left to me and what events are in store for
me? I know not. But I wish this day to bequeath to you, my eldest child,
Kervan, the chronicles of our family. I bequeath them to you five
hundred and twenty-six years after our ancestress Genevieve witnessed
the death of Jesus of Nazareth.
* * * * *
I, Kervan, the son of Jocelyn, who died seven years after he bequeathed
to me our family archives have this to add:
The narrative that follows was brought to me here, at my house, near
Karnak, by Ronan, one of the sons of my brother Karadeucq, who left our
house to run the Bagaudy, the year after the death of Clovis. These two
narratives contain the adventures of my brother Karadeucq and of his two
sons Loysik and Ronan. The first portion of the narrative brought to me
by Ronan, and which I here subjoin, entitled "The Vagres," and "The Burg
of Neroweg," was written by Ronan himself in the ardor of youth, and in
a style and form that differ greatly from those of the previous
narratives of our family chronicle; the second, which I have entitled
"Ghilde," I wrote from the word of mouth account that Ronan left with
me, and which I think should not be lost.
Britanny, still in peace, governs herself by chiefs of her own choice.
The Franks have not dared to penetrate into our fastnesses. But in the
course of my nephew's narrative, our descendants will find the secret of
that mystery that my grandfather Araim had not the courage to put in
writing:
"How the Gallic people, who had known how to emancipate themselves from
the powerful Roman yoke, fell and remained under the yoke of the Franks,
whom they surpass a thousandfold in courage and in numbers."
May it please the gods that it may not some day be in Britanny as in the
other provinces of Gaul! May it please the gods that our country, the
only one that to-day remains free, may never fall under the domination
of the Franks and the bishops of Rome. May our druids, both the
Christian and the non-Christian, continue to inspire us with a love for
freedom and with the virile virtues of our ancestors.
PART II
THE VAGRES
CHAPTER I.
"WOLVES' HEADS."
"'The devil take the Franks! Long live the Vagrery and Old Gaul!'
Such is the cry of all Vagres. The Franks call us 'Wand'ring Men,'
'Wolves,' 'Wolves' Heads.' Let us be wolves!
"My father ran the Bagaudy, and I now run the Vagrery, but both to
the one cry--'The devil take the Franks!' and 'Long Live Gaul!'
"Aelian and Aman, Bagauders in their days, as we in ours are
Vagres, in revolt against the Romans, as we against the
Franks--Aelian and Aman, put to death two centuries ago in their
old castle near Paris, they are our prophets. We take communion
with the wine, the treasures and the wives of the seigneurs, the
bishops and rich Gauls who made common cause with the Frankish
counts and dukes to whom King Clovis gave our old Gaul. The Franks
have pillaged us, they massacred and burned down; so let us do
likewise--pillage, massacre and burn! And let us live in
joy--'Wolves,' 'Wolves' Heads' and Wand'ring men!' Vagres that we
are! Let us live in summer under the green foliage, and in winter
in caverns warm!
"Death unto oppressors! Freedom to the slave! Let us take from the
seigneurs! Let us give unto the poor!
"What! A hundred kegs of wine in the master's cellar, and only the
water of the stream for the wornout slave?
"What! A hundred cloaks in the wardrobe, and only rags for the
toiling slave?
"Who was it planted the vine? Who harvested the grape and pressed
it into wine? The slave! Who should drink the wine? The slave!
"Who was it that tended and sheared the sheep and wove the cloth
and made the cloak? The slave!
"Who should wear the cloak? The slave!
"Up, ye poor and oppressed! Up! Revolt! Here are your good friends
the Vagres! They approach! Death to the seigneurs and the bishops!
"Six men united are stronger than a hundred divided: Let us unite!
Each for all, and all for each! 'The devil take the Franks! Long
live the Vagrery and Old Gaul!'"
Who sang this song? Ronan the Vagre. Where did he sing it? On a mountain
path that led to the city of Clermont in Auvergne, that grand and
beautiful Auvergne, land of magnificent traditions--Bituit, who gave
Roman legions to his pack of hounds for breakfast in the morning; the
Chief of the Hundred Valleys! Vindex! and so many other heroes of Gaul,
were they not all sons of Auvergne? of the beautiful Auvergne, to-day
the prey of Clotaire, the most odious, the most ferocious of the four
sons of Clovis?
Other voices answered in chorus to the song of Ronan the Vagre. They had
met on a mild summer's night; there were about thirty Vagres gathered at
the spot--gay customers, rough boys, clad in all styles, but armed to
the teeth, and all carrying in their caps a twig of green oak as the
emblem of their solidarity.
They arrive at a place where the roads fork--one road leads to the
right, another to the left. Ronan halts. A voice is heard--the voice of
Wolf's-Tooth. What a Titan the man is! He is six feet high, with the
neck of a bull and enormous hands; only the hoop of a barrel could
encircle his waist:
"Ronan, you said to us: 'Brothers, arm yourselves!' We armed ourselves.
'Furnish yourselves with torches of straw!' Here are the torches.
'Follow me!' We did. You halt; and we have halted."
"Wolf's-Tooth, I am considering. Now, brothers, answer me. Which is to
be preferred, the wife of a Frankish count or a bishopess?"
"A bishopess smells of holy water--the bishop blesses; a count's wife
smells of wine--the count, her husband, drinks himself drunk."
"Wolf's-Tooth, it is exactly the contrary: the wily prelate drinks the
wine, and leaves the water to the stupid Frank."
"Ronan is right!"
"To the devil with the holy water, and long live wine!"
"Yes, long live the wine of Clermont, with which Luern, the great
Auvergnan chief of former days, used to fill up the ditches wide as
ponds, in order to refresh the warriors of his tribe."
"That would have been a cup worthy of you, Wolf's-Tooth! But, brothers,
do answer me; to whom shall we give the preference, to a bishopess or to
a count's wife?"
"To the bishopess! To the bishopess!"
"No, to the count's wife!"
"Brothers, so as to please all, we shall take both--"
"Well said, Ronan!"
"One of these roads leads to the burg of Count Neroweg, the other to the
episcopal villa of Bishop Cautin."
"We must carry off both the bishopess and the countess--we must pillage
both burg and villa!"
"With which shall we start? Shall we start with the prelate, or shall we
start with the seigneur? The bishop spends more time over his cup; he
loves to roll the sweet morsels over his tongue, and to taste the wine
leisurely; the seigneur drinks larger quantities; he gulps them down
like a toper--"
"Ronan is right!"
"Consequently, at this hour of the night, midnight, the hour of the
Vagres, Count Neroweg must be full as a tick, and snoring in his bed;
his wife or some concubine, lying beside him, must be dreaming with eyes
wide open. Bishop Cautin, on the other hand, will be leaning with both
his elbows on a table, and face to face with a bowl of old wine and one
of his favorite boon companions, cracking jokes."
"First to the count; he will be in bed."
"Brothers, let us first call on the bishop; he will be found up; there
is more sport in surprising a prelate at his wine than a seigneur at his
snores."
"Well said, Ronan! The bishop first!"
"March! I know the house!"
Who was it that said this? A young and handsome Vagre of about
twenty-five years of age. He went by the name of "Master of the
Hounds." There was no more accurate marksman than he with his bow and
arrow. His arrow simply traveled as he wished. Once the forester slave
of a Frankish duke, he was caught in an amour with one of the women of
his seigneur's household, and escaped death by flight. He thereupon ran
the Vagrery.
"I know the episcopal house," repeated the daring fellow. "Feeling it in
my bones that some day or other we would be holding communion with the
bishop's treasury, like a good master of the hounds, I went one day and
took observations around his lair. I saw the dear old man there. Never
did I see a buck with blacker or more fiery eyes!"
"And the house, Master of the Hounds, the house; how is it arranged?"
"Bad! The windows are high; the doors heavy; the walls strong."
"Master of the Hounds," replied Ronan the Vagre, "we shall reach the
heart of the bishop's house without crossing either the door, the
windows or the walls--on the same principle that you reach your
sweetheart's heart without penetrating by her eyes--the night is
favorable."
"Brothers, to you the treasures--to me the handsome bishopess!"
"Yours, Master of the Hounds, be the bishopess; ours, the booty of the
episcopal villa! Long live the Vagrery!"
CHAPTER II.
BISHOP AND COUNT.
In the summer season Bishop Cautin inhabited a villa situated not far
from the city of Clermont, the seat of his episcopacy. Magnificent
gardens, crystalline springs, thick arbors, green lawns, excellent
meadows, gold harvests, purpled vines, forests well stocked with game,
ponds well supplied with fish, excellently equipped stables--such were
the surroundings of the holy man's palace. Two hundred ecclesiastical
slaves, male and female, cultivated the church's "vineyard," without
counting the domestic personnel--the cup-bearer, the cook and his
assistants, the butcher, the baker, the superintendent of the bath, the
shoemaker, the tailor, the turner, the carpenter, the mason, the master
of the hounds, besides the washerwomen and the weavers, most of the
latter young, often handsome female slaves. Every evening one of these
girls took to Bishop Cautin, who lay softly tucked on a feather bed, a
cup of warm and highly spiced wine. Early in the morning another girl
took in a cup of creamy milk for the first breakfast of the pious man.
And thus lived that good apostle of humility, chastity and poverty!
And who is that portly, handsome and still young woman, who resembles
Diana the huntress? With her bare neck and arms, clad in a simple linen
tunic and her long black hair half undone, she leans on her elbows over
the balcony that crowns the terrace of the villa. At once burning and
languishing, the eyes of this woman now rise towards the starry sky, now
seem to peer through this mild summer's night, under shelter of which,
with the stealthy step of wolves, the Vagres are wending their way
towards the bishop's residence. The woman is Fulvia, Cautin's bishopess,
whom he married when, still a simple friar, he did not yet aspire to a
bishopric. After he was promoted to the higher office that he now fills
in the hierarchy, he piously calls her "my sister," agreeable to the
canons of the councils.
"Woe is me!" the bishopess was saying. "Woe to these summer nights
during which one is left alone to inhale the perfume of the flowers, to
listen to the murmur of the nocturnal breezes in the foliage of the
trees, murmurs that so much resemble the stolen kisses of lovers! Oh! I
always fear the unnerving heat of these summer nights! It penetrates
through my whole frame! I am twenty-eight years of age. I am now twelve
years, married, and I have counted these conjugal years with my tears! A
recluse in the city, a recluse in the country by the orders of my lord
and master, my husband, Bishop Cautin, who spends his time in the
women's part of the house among my female slaves, whom the profligate
debauches while pleading the canons of the councils that, he says, order
him to live chastely with his wife--such is my life--my sad life! My
youth is ebbing away without my enjoying a single day of love or of
freedom. Love! Freedom! Shall I grow old without knowing you? Woe is
me!"
And the handsome bishopess rose, shook her black hair to the night
breeze, puckered her black eyebrows and cried defiantly:
"Woe to violent and debauched husbands! They hurl women into perdition!
Loved, respected, treated, if not as wife, at least truly as his sister
by the bishop, I would have remained chaste and gentle. But disdained
and humiliated before the lowest of the domestic slaves, I have grown to
be wrathful and vindictive. From the height of this terrace, and often
my cheeks mantling with shame, I follow with distracted gaze the young
slaves of the field when they go out to work in the morning and return
in the evening. I have struck my husband's concubines with my
hands--and yet, poor wretches that they are, they do not yield to the
lover who begs, but to the master who orders. I struck them in anger,
not in jealousy. Before that man became odious to me, I was indifferent
to him. Nevertheless, I might have loved him, had he wished it--and as
he willed. 'Sister-wife' of a bishop--it looked attractive! How much
good could not be done! How many tears could not be dried! But I have
had only my own to dry, soon finding myself degraded and despised. The
measure overflows; I have wept enough; I have moaned enough; I have
sufficiently resisted the temptations that devour me! I shall flee from
this house, even at the risk of being captured and sold as a slave! Can
it be called to live, this dragging of my days in this opulent villa, a
gilded grave? No! No! I wish to leave this sepulchre! I wish to breathe
the free air! I wish to see the sun! I wish to move free in space! I
crave a single day of love and freedom! Oh! If I could only see again
the young lad, who more than once went by this terrace early in the
morning! What warm and loving glances he shot at me! What a beautiful
and fearless face looked from under his red headcover! What a robust and
graceful build did not his Gallic blouse reveal with the belt of his
hunting knife! He must be some forester slave of the neighborhood! A
slave! What does it matter! He is young, handsome, nimble and amorous!
My husband's concubines also are slaves! Oh! Shall I never enjoy a day
of love, of freedom?"
In the meantime, what is the bishop doing while his bishopess, lost in
revery on the balcony over the terrace, contemplates the stars, sighs
into the darkness, and breathes her sorrows and her devilish hopes upon
the midnight breezes? The holy man is drinking and conferring with Count
Neroweg, who happens on this night to be his guest. The banquet hall in
which they are seated is built after the Roman fashion. It is a spacious
room, ornamented with marble pillars, and decked with gilded work and
fresco paintings. Gold and silver vases are ranged on ivory sideboards.
The floor is slabbed with rich mosaics that are pleasing to the eye. But
still more pleasing to the eye is the large table loaded with drinking
cups and half-emptied amphoras. The leudes, Neroweg's companions in arms
and his equals in time of peace, have gone to play at dice with the
bishop's clerks and familiars in the vestibule, after having partaken of
supper at the same table with the count, as is the custom. Here and
there along the walls the rough weapons of the leudes are stacked
up--wooden bucklers, iron-rimmed staves, 'francisques' or double-edged
axes, 'haugons' or demi-pikes furnished with iron grappling hooks. The
count's buckler is illumined with a painting that represents three
eagle's talons. Left alone at table with his guest, the prelate induces
Neroweg to drain cup after cup. At the lower end of the table sits a
hermit laborer. He drinks not, neither does he speak. At times he seems
to listen to the conversation of the two topers. Oftener, however, he is
steeped in thought.
The Frank, Count Neroweg, has the appearance and emits the odor of a
wild-boar in spring; his face resembles a bird of prey, with his beaked
nose and restless little eyes that alternately assume a savage and then
a sleepy look; his coarse yellow hair, tied over his head with a leather
thong, falls back over his neck like a mane; the coiffure of these
barbarians remained unchanged during the last two centuries. Neroweg's
chin and cheeks are closely shaven, but his long reddish moustache
droops down to his chest, which is covered by a doe-skin jacket, shines
with grease, and is dotted with wine spots. Long leathern straps
criss-cross over his lower hose from his coarse iron-spiked shoes up to
his knees. He has removed his heavy sword from his broad and loosely
hanging baldric and laid it upon a seat nearby, beside a stout holly
club. Such is the convivial guest of the prelate, such is Count Neroweg,
one of these new masters of the old lands of Gaul.
Bishop Cautin resembles a large, fat, ruttish fox--lascivious and sly
eyes, red ears, a mobile and pointed nose, hirsute hands. He prinks in
his violet robe of fine woven silk. And what a paunch! One would say
there was a barrel under the gown.
As to the hermit-laborer--all respect for that priest, a worthy disciple
of the young man of Nazareth! He is thirty years of age at the most. His
face is pale, and it is at once mild and firm; his beard is blonde, his
head is prematurely bald; his long brown robe, made of some coarse
material, is here and there frayed by the brambles on the lands that his
toil has cleared. The man's bearing is rustic, his hands are strong, the
plow and the hoe-handle have made them horny.
The bishop again fills another large cup to the Frank, saying:
"Count--I repeat it--the twenty gold sous, the meadow lands and the
little blonde female slave--either I must have them, or you get no
absolution!"
"Bishop! I shall fall upon your house with all my leudes and sack it; I
shall roast you over a slow fire--and you will give me absolution--"
"Impious man! Sacrilegious blasphemer! Pharaoh! Hog of profligacy!
Reservoir of wine! How dare you hold such language to your bishop! And
you a son of our apostolic Church!"
"You shall give me absolution, will ye, nill ye!"
"Oh! The beast! Is it that you are itching to fall into the very bottom
of hell? Is it that you are itching to remain for centuries in
succession broiling in pails full of burning pitch! You seem to be
itching after a thorough trouncing with the forks of the devils! Devils
with toads' heads, rams' horns, serpents for their tails, elephants'
trunks for arms, and cloven hoofs--aye archcloven!"
"Did you see them?" queried the Frank with a savage and yet frightened
mien. "Did you, bishop? Did you see those demons?"
"Whether I saw them! They brought before me in a cloud of bitumen and
sulphur Duke Rauking, who, the sacrilegious wretch! struck Bishop Basile
with his cane!"
"And did the devils carry off Duke Rauking?"
"They threw him into the bottomless pit! I counted them; there were
thirteen of them; a large red devil, that was Lucifer, led them. Such a
fate is in store for you, if I refuse you absolution."
"Bishop, you may be saying all that only to frighten me out of my twenty
gold sous, the fine meadow lands, and the pretty blonde slave!"
The prelate rang a bell; one of his confidential servants stepped in;
the holy man said to him a few words in Latin while with his eyes he
indicated a spot on the mosaic floor. The servant went out again. The
hermit-laborer thereupon addressed the bishop, also in Latin:
"What you propose to do is an unworthy trick! It is a sacrilegious
fraud!"
"Hermit, is not everything allowed to the clergy of our holy Church in
order to terrify these brutes of Franks into subjection?"
"Fraud never is allowed--"
Cautin shrugged his shoulders, and addressing the count in the Frankish
tongue--the prelate spoke the language like any of the barbarians--he
said:
"Are you a Christian and a Catholic? Did you receive holy baptism?"
"Bishop Macaire, twenty years ago, ordered me to step naked into the
stone tank of his basilica; he then threw a handful of water upon my
head and mumbled some Latin words."
"You are a Catholic--a son of our holy Church--by reason of which you
must respect and obey me as your father in Christ!"
"Bishop, you are trying to confuse me by such language, but I will not
be duped by you. Our great King Clovis conquered and subjugated Gaul at
the head of his brave leudes. My father Gonthram Neroweg was one of his
warriors, and--"
"You lie, count! It is to the bishops that your King owed his conquest;
it was they who ordered the people to submit to Clovis; without them,
your great King would have remained only a chief of brigands. Never
forget that, barbarian! You may now proceed with what you had to say,
and speak respectfully."
"When Theodorik lived, the son of Clovis who had Auvergne as one of his
kingdoms, he allotted to me vast domains in this region--lands, people,
cattle and houses, and he sent me here as his representative. He made me
what is called 'graf' of this country, and what we Franks call 'count';
and he authorized me to preside together with the chief bishop of the
city and the magistrates of the city of Clermont."
"What are you driving at with that long digression?"
"I wish to prove, first of all, that King Clovis committed many more
crimes than I did, and that his crimes did not prevent him from entering
paradise, as the bishops themselves declare."
"True enough, brute that you are! But you seem to forget what that
paradise cost him. St. Remi, who baptized him, was so richly endowed by
him that the holy prelate was able to buy an estate in Champagne that
cost him five thousand pounds of silver by weight."
"I then meant to say that if you are bishop, I am count of the conquered
country, and I can force you to give me absolution!"
"Ah! You blaspheme!" and the bishop struck under the table with his
foot. "Ah! You dare to defy the anger of the Lord! You--soiled with
execrable crimes!"
"Well! Yes! Is it perchance an unpardonable crime to kill a brother? I
confess that I murdered my brother Ursio! Give me absolution!"
"You seem to forget the murder of your concubine Isanie, and of your
fourth wife Wisigarde, whom you married when two previous ones were
still alive, and you then took a fifth wife, Godegisele--"
"And did you not give me absolution for all those sins? By the faith of
the Terrible Eagle, my glorious ancestor! It cost me five hundred acres
of the best stretches of my forest, thirty-eight gold sous, twenty
slaves, together with the superb cloak of Northern marten skin in which
you strutted about last winter, and which King Clovis presented to my
father!"
"You have been absolved of those first crimes--as to them you are as
white as the pascal lamb, but for the fresh crime of your brother's
murder."
"I did not kill Ursio out of hatred, I only killed him for his part of
our inheritance."
"And what else should you have killed your brother for, beast? To eat
him up?"
"Did not the great Clovis also kill all his relatives for their
heritage, and yet you declare that he entered paradise. I also wish to
go there, and I have killed fewer people. If you do not promise paradise
to me on the spot and without any further payments, if you refuse to
give me absolution, I shall have you torn into pieces by four horses, or
hacked to pieces by my leudes."
"And I tell you that if you do not expiate your fratricide by a gift to
the Church, you shall go to hell, like a new Cain who killed his
brother."
"What you are after is my hundred acres of meadow land, my twenty gold
sous, and my pretty little blonde slave."
"What I am after is the salvation of your soul, unhappy man! What I aim
at is to save you the torments of hell, the very thought of which should
make you shudder with terror."
"You are always talking of hell. Where is hell?"
Bishop Cautin again struck the floor with his feet under the table.
"Count, do you smell that odor of sulphur?"
"I do feel a pungent odor."
"Do you see the smoke that is coming up from between those stone slabs?"
"Whence does that smoke proceed?" cried Neroweg affrighted, rising from
the table and jumping back from a near place where a thick black vapor
was curling upward. "Bishop, what magic is this? Come to my help!"
"Oh, Lord God! You have heard the voice of your unworthy servant!" said
Cautin clasping his hands and falling upon his knees. "You wish to
manifest yourself to this barbarian!" And turning his head toward
Neroweg: "You asked where hell was? Look at your feet--see the
abyss--see that sea of flames, all ready to engulf you!"
As the bishop spoke, one of the mosaic slabs sank below the floor, drawn
down by an artful contrivance of ropes and weights; a large gap was thus
left open, and out of it a whirl of flames leaped up, spreading a
suffocating odor of sulphur.
"The earth is opening!" cried the terrorized Frank. "Fire! Fire! My feet
burn! Help! Help!"
"It is the everlasting fire," said the bishop rising and striking a
threatening attitude, while the count, dropping on both his knees, hid
his face in his hands. "Ah! You asked me where hell was, impious,
blaspheming brute!"
"Father! Good father--have pity upon me!"
"Do you hear those underground cries? It is the devils; they are coming
for you. Listen! Do you hear them cry: 'Neroweg! Neroweg! The
fratricide! Come to us! Cain, you are ours!'"
"Oh! Those cries are frightful. Good father in Christ, pray to the Lord
that he forgive me!"
"Ah! Now you are on your knees, pale and distracted, with hands clasped,
your eyes closed with terror! Will you still ask where is hell?"
"No! No! Holy bishop! Holy Bishop Cautin! Absolve me of the death of my
brother; you shall have the meadow lands, the twenty gold pieces--"
"And the pretty blonde slave?"
"Oh! You want my pretty blonde slave also?"
"I have a donation deed ready made out. You shall order one of your
leudes to come in and sign the parchment as your witness--yonder hermit
shall be my witness, and you will sign the document in their presence.
The donation will then be in order and binding."
"I consent to everything--have pity upon me. Order the devils back.
Order them back! Oh! good father, order them away! Keep them from
dragging me to hell!"
"They will certainly drag you thither if you fail in your promise."
"I shall keep all my promises."
"Seeing that you are no longer in doubt of the power of the Lord," the
bishop proceeded to say while he again stamped on the floor with his
foot, "you may rise, count, open your eyes, the abyss of hell is closed
again"; the slab had in the meantime been raised and adjusted in its
former place. "Hermit, bring the parchment to me and writing materials.
You shall be my witness."
"I decline, seigneur bishop, to aid in the accomplishment of such a
sacrilegious knavery," the hermit-laborer answered in Latin, "but if I
reveal your trick to that barbarian he will put you to death! I shall
not be the means of your death. God will one day judge you! In the
meantime I shall raise my voice against your unworthy comedies."
"What! Would you be capable of abusing your influence over the masses in
order to incite them to a rebellion in my diocese? Is it a declaration
of war that you make to me? Do you not know that the officers of the
Church must stand by one another? Or is it some favor that you mean to
draw from me through intimidation? Answer!"
"To-morrow, before proceeding upon my journey, I shall tell you what I
demand of you--"
Cautin, who stood in awe of the hermit, rang a bell while the count, who
remained upon his knees, still trembled at every limb, and mopped the
cold sweat that inundated his forehead. At the bishop's call, the
confidential servant appeared. The holy man said to him in Latin:
"The hell was very satisfactory. Have the fires put out!"
And he added in the Frankish tongue:
"Order one of the count's leudes, one who can write, to step in. You
shall come back with him; I shall need your services."
The servant left, and the bishop addressed the kneeling Frank:
"You have believed, you repent--you may now rise!"
"My good father, I am afraid of returning to my burg to-night. The
devils might come for me on the road and take me to hell. I am
terror-stricken. Keep me in your house to-night!"
"You shall be my guest until to-morrow. But I want the pretty blonde
slave to be delivered to me this very evening. I promised her to my
bishopess, who was once my wife according to the flesh, and is to-day my
sister in God. She needs a young girl for her service--and I promised
her that one. The sooner she has her, all the better pleased will she
be."
"And so, bishop," said the count scratching himself behind his ear, "you
must have that blonde slave?"
"Will you dare to break your engagement?"
"Oh, no! No, father! One of my leudes shall take horse, ride to my burg,
and bring the slave to you on the crupper."
The deed of the donation was signed and duly witnessed by the bishop's
servant and one of the count's leudes. It provided that Neroweg, count
of the King of Auvergne and the city of Clermont, donated to the Church,
represented by Cautin, and in remission of his sins, a hundred acres of
meadow land, twenty gold sous, and a spinner female slave, fifteen years
old, named Odille. After the ceremony of signing was concluded the
bishop gave the Frankish count absolution for the murder of his brother
and offered him three full cups of wine to comfort him.
"Sigefrid," said the count to his leude, smothering a last sigh of
regret, "be a good friend to me; ride to my burg; take Odille the
spinner girl on the crupper of your horse and bring her here."
CHAPTER III.
AT THE CHAPEL OF ST. LOUP.
The Vagres arrived near the episcopal villa.
"Ronan, the gates are solid, the windows high, the walls thick--how
shall we penetrate into the place and reach the bishop?" asked the
Master of the Hounds. "You promised to lead us to the very heart of the
house. As for me, I'm off to the heart of the bishopess."
"Brothers, do you see yonder, at the foot of the hill, that little
structure surrounded by pillars?"
"We see it--the night is clear!"
"That building was formerly a warm water bath. The warm spring lay in
the mountain. The bath is reached from the villa by a long underground
gallery. The bishop had the stream turned away, and transformed the
former bath into a chapel that he consecrated to St. Loup. Now, then, my
sturdy Vagres, we will penetrate to the very heart of the episcopal
villa by that underground gallery, without need of boring holes through
walls or breaking doors or windows. If I promised, did I keep?"
"As always, Ronan! You promised and kept!"
The troop entered the former warm water bath, now chapel of St. Loup. It
was dark as a pocket. A voice was heard saying:
"Is that you, Ronan?"
"I and mine. Lead, Simon, you good servant of the episcopal villa! Lead
on, we follow."
"We shall have to wait."
"Why delay?"
"Count Neroweg is still with the bishop, with his leudes."
"All the better! We shall capture a fox and a wild-boar at once! A
superb hunt!"
"The count has with him twenty-four well armed leudes."
"We are thirty! That is fifteen Vagres more than enough for such a raid.
Lead on, Simon, we follow."
"The passage is not yet free."
"Why is not the passage free that leads underground into the banquet
hall?"
"The bishop prepared a miracle for this evening, in order to frighten
the Frankish count with hell. Two clerks carried into the apartment
under the banquet hall large bales of hay, bundles of fagots and boxes
of sulphur. They are to set them on fire and yell like devils possessed;
then one of the mosaic slabs of the flooring in the hall will sink down;
it drops by means of the same contrivance that used to remove it in
order to descend to this gallery for the warm baths."
"And the stupid Frank, imagining he sees one of the mouths of hell
yawning wide, will make some generous donation to the holy man--"
"You guessed it, Ronan. So, then, we shall have to wait until the
miracle is over. When the count is gone and the villa slumbering you and
your men can come in safely."
"The bishopess for me!"
"To us the iron money-chest, the gold and silver vases! To us the
bishop's full money-bags--and then we shall scatter alms among the poor
who have not a denier!"
"To us," cried another set, "the full wine pouches and bags of grain--to
us the hams and smoked meats! Alms, alms to the poor who hunger!"
"To all of us the wardrobes, the fine clothes, the warm robes--and then
alms, alms to the poor who suffer with cold!"
"And then, fire to the episcopal villa--and to the sack!"
"Freedom to the slaves!"
"We shall take with us the young girls, who will follow us gladly!"
"Long live love and the Vagrery!" cried Ronan, saying which he struck up
the song:
"My father was a Bagauder, and I a Vagre am; born under the green
foliage as any bird in May.
"Where is my mother? I do not know, forsooth!
"A Vagre has no wife.
"The poniard in one hand, the torch held in the other, he moves
from burg to burg and villas kept by bishops; he carries off the
wives or concubines of bishops and of counts, and takes the belles
along into the thickest of the woods!
"And first they weep and then they laugh. The jolly Vagre knows the
art of love. In his strong arms the loving belles forget full soon
the cacochymic bishop or the brutified duke!"
"Long live the Vagre's love!"
"You are in rollicking mood--"
"Aye, Simon, we are about to put a bishop's house to the sack!"
"You will be hanged, burned, quartered!"
"No more nor less so than Aman and Aelian, our prophets, Bagauders in
their days as we are Vagres in ours. For all that, the poor say: 'Good
Aelian!' 'Good Aman!' May they some day say: 'Good Ronan!' I would die
happy, Simon!"
"Always living in the recesses of the woods--"
"Verdure is so cheerful!"
"At the bottom of caverns--"
"It is warm there in winter, cool in summer!"
"Always on the alert; always on the run over hill and valley; always
wandering without hearth or home--"
"But always living free, old Simon. Yes, free! free! instead of leading
a slave's life under the whip of some Frankish master or some bishop!
Join us, Simon!"
"I am too old for that!"
"Do you not hate your master, Bishop Cautin, and the whole seigniory?"
"One time I was young, rich and happy. The Franks invaded Touraine, my
native country. They slew my wife after violating her; they dashed my
little girl's head against the wall; they pillaged my house; they sold
me into slavery, and from master to master, I have finally fallen into
the hands of Bishop Cautin. So you see, I have every reason to execrate
the Franks; but worse than them, if possible, I execrate the Gallic
bishops, who hold us Gauls in bondage, and sanctify the crime of our
foreign oppressors. I would hang them all if I could!"
"Who goes there?" cried Ronan noticing a human form on the outside,
creeping on its knees and approaching the door of the chapel in that
posture. "Who goes there?"
"I, Felibien, ecclesiastical slave of our holy bishop."
"Poor man! Why do you crawl on your knees in that style?"
"It is in obedience to a vow that I took. I come on my knees--over the
stones of the road--to pray to St. Loup, the great St. Loup, to whom
this chapel is dedicated. I come at night so that I may be back at dawn
when I must start to work. My hut is far from here."
"But why do you inflict such a punishment upon yourself, brother? Is it
not hard enough to have to rise with the sun, and to lie down upon straw
at night worn out with fatigue?"
"I come upon my knees to pray St. Loup, the great St. Loup, to request
the Lord to grant a long and happy life to our seigneur, the bishop."
"To pray for a long and happy life for your master is to pray for a
lengthening of the whip of the superintendents who flay your back."
"Blessed be their blows! The more we suffer here below, all the happier
will we be in paradise!"
"But the wheat that you sow is eaten by your bishop; the wine that you
press is drunk by him; the cloth that you weave, clothes him--and you
remain wan, hungry, in rags!"
"I would be willing to feed on the offal of swine, clothe myself in
thorns that tear my skin to the veins--my happiness will be all the
greater in paradise!"
"The Lord created the grain, the grapes, the honey, the fruits, the
creamy milk, the soft fleece of the sheep--was all that done in order
that any of His creatures should live on ordure and dress in thorns?
Answer me, my poor brother."
"You are an impious fellow!"
"Alas! Almost all the slaves are, like this unhappy fellow, steeped in
the abjectest besotment--the evil spreads by the day--it is done for old
Gaul--"
"If so, let us sing the refrain of the Vagres:
"The Franks call us 'Wand'ring Men,' 'Wolves,' 'Wolves' Heads'--Let
us live like wolves! Let us live in joy! In summer under the green
foliage, in winter in caverns warm!"
"Come, Simon, the bishop's miracle must be over by this time."
"Yes--I shall precede you alone, a little way in this underground
passage; should I see light I shall return and notify you."
"But what about that slave, who is mumbling his prayers on his knees to
the great St. Loup?"
"Lightning might strike at his very feet and he would not budge from the
spot--he will go back as he came, on his knees. Follow me!"
And led by the ecclesiastical slave, the Vagres vanished in the
subterranean passage which led from the former warm baths into the
episcopal villa. As they proceeded in the dark, they sang in an
undertone:
"The jolly Vagre has no wife. The poniard in one hand, the torch
held in the other, he moves from burg to burg and villas kept by
bishops; he carries off the wives and concubines of bishops and of
counts, and takes the belles along into the thickest of the woods!"
CHAPTER IV.
THE DEMONS! THE DEMONS!
What were the prelate and the count engaged in while the Vagres were
approaching the ecclesiastical villa through the underground gallery?
What were they engaged in? They were emptying cup upon cup. The count's
leude had returned to the burg in quest of the pretty blonde slave girl.
While waiting for him, Bishop Cautin, hardly able to contain himself for
the joy that he anticipated in the possession of the girl whom he
coveted, had returned to his seat at the table. Neroweg had not yet
recovered from his recent fright; ever and anon a shiver would run over
him. Every time it occurred to him that hell had just yawned at his very
feet and might be located under the very room in which he found himself,
he would gladly have left the banquet hall. He dared not. He believed
himself protected by the holy presence of the bishop against the attacks
of the devils, who might elsewhere fall upon him. In vain did the man of
God urge his guest to drain another cup; the count pushed the cup back
with his hand while his gimlet eyes, resembling the eyes of a frightened
bird of prey, rolled uneasily over the hall.
Impassible in his seat, the hermit laborer remained sunk in meditation,
or observed what took place around him.
"What ails you?" the bishop asked the count. "You look downcast and
drink no more! A minute ago you were a fratricide, and now, thanks to
the absolution that I gave you, you are white as snow. Is your
conscience still uneasy? Can it be that you hid some other crime from
me? If you did, you chose your time ill--as you saw, hell is not far
away--"
"Keep still, father! Keep still! I feel so weak just now that I could
not carry a lamb on my back--I who can otherwise raise a wild-boar. Do
not leave your son in Christ alone! You are able to conjure the demons
away--I shall not leave you till it is broad day--"
"You will nevertheless have to leave me the moment the pretty blonde
slave arrives; I must take her to the women's section of the house near
Fulvia."
"As truly as one of my ancestors was called the Terrible Eagle in
Germany, I shall not quit you any more than your shadow."
"An ancestor of that Neroweg was called the Terrible Eagle in
Germany--the meeting is odd," thought the hermit to himself. "It does
seem that our two hostile families, the one Frank the other Gaul, having
crossed each other's path in the past, must cross it again--and are to
recross it, perhaps, again and again through the centuries to come--"
"Count, your terror proves to me that your soul is not at ease--I
mistrust that your confession was not complete."
"Yes, yes; I confessed everything!"
"I hope to God it be so, for the salvation of your soul. But cheer up!
Let us talk of the hunt. Oh! By the way of the hunt, I have a complaint
against you and your forester slaves. The other day they pursued three
stags into the very heart of the Church's forest--in that part of the
wood that is separated from the rest of your domains by the river."
"If my forester slaves pursued any stag into your forest, I shall allow
yours to pursue one into mine; our woods are separated only by a narrow
road."
"A better boundary would be the river itself."
"In that case I would have to abandon to you fully a thousand acres of
woodland, which lie on this side of the stream."
"Do you place much store by that little corner of your forest? The trees
do not thrive very well at that spot."
"Not as poorly as you would make out. There are among them oak trees
more than twenty feet around; besides, it is that portion of my domains
that game seems to like best."
"You boast of the beauty of your trees; it is your right; but your
domains would have a better and safer boundary if you took the river,
and if you consented to yield to the Church that corner of a thousand
acres."
"What makes you speak of my woods? I have no need of any further
absolution from you--"
"No--you killed one of your wives, one of your concubines and your
brother Ursio--you have expiated those crimes by endowing the
Church--you have received absolution. Nevertheless, coming to think of
it, there is one thing that both of us have overlooked--and it is of
capital importance--"
"What is it, father?"
"Your fourth wife, Wisigarde, died a violent death at your hands. She
did not receive priestly assistance at her death--her soul is in pain.
She might come to torment you during the night in the shape of some
frightful phantom until you will have drawn her poor soul from
purgatory--"
"How can I do that?"
"Through the holy mass and through the prayers of a priest of the Lord."
"Well, father, I wish you to make those prayers for the soul of the
departed."
"I shall grant your request. For twenty years prayers shall be recited
at the altar for the repose of the soul of Wisigarde, but only under
condition that you pass over to me the corner of your woods that is
separated from your domains by the stream--"
"Give again to your Church! Ever give! Ever!"
"Would you prefer to be tormented by nocturnal phantoms?"
The Frank looked at the bishop with an angry and defiant eye:
"Rapacious Gaul! You are seeking to pluck piece by piece from me the
share of the conquests that our kings have presented to my family as our
hereditary possessions. Endow the Church still more! I will sooner endow
the devil! Yes, by all the horns of Lucifer!"
"Do! Endow him! Here he is!" came from a rude loud voice that seemed to
issue from the center of the earth.
At the sound of the voice the hermit started from his seat; the bishop
threw himself back and quickly crossed himself, but a reassuring thought
flashed through his mind, and he said to himself aloud in Latin:
"It must be my good assistant who remained below--the trick is good!"
The count, however, struck with terror and believing himself pursued by
the archfiend in person, screamed aloud and fled from the banquet hall
distracted. So precipitate was his flight and headlong his bewilderment
that he nearly upset the leude who, back at that moment from his errand
to the count's burg, entered the hall pushing before him the young
blonde slave whom he was sent in quest of:
"Here is the slave girl, Odille," said the leude.
The bishop started to run towards the poor lass, but at the very moment
when he dashed forward to seize her, a vigorous hand that rose from the
opening of the now again removed mosaic slab held the prelate back by
the fold of his robe, and a voice shouted:
"A profligate you shall no longer be, holy man of God! That pretty lass
is not for you!"
When the startled bishop looked around, he saw with terror Ronan issuing
from the underground recess at the head of his companions, all of whom
were yelling at the top of their voices. In order to carry on the humor
of the trick that the bishop played upon the count, the Vagres had all
blackened their faces with the charred remains of the fagots that
shortly before furnished the "flames of hell."
At the sight of those black men rising from under the ground, and
yelling as if possessed, the leude who brought in the young slave also
believed that they issued from hell, and rushed out close upon Neroweg's
heels, crying:
"The demons! The demons!"
More and more frightened by these cries, the count ran to the stable,
leaped upon his horse, and dashed full tilt away from the episcopal
villa. His leudes followed his example; they, in turn, took to their
mounts, and leaving their arms behind in the banquet hall, fled
tumultuously, repeating in terror:
"The demons! The demons!"
CHAPTER V.
VAGRES IN JUDGMENT.
The episcopal villa has been invaded by the Vagres. They carried the
place, and they did so without striking a blow.
Who is he who is celebrating night mass in the bishop's chapel? The wax
candles are lighted on the altar with all the gorgeousness of an Easter
Sunday. Their brilliant light illumines the near vault, while the rest
of the chapel is thrown into the shade, down to the Gothic main
entrance, that now and then a ruddy gleam flickers through like the
reflection of an extinguishing bonfire. What bonfire was that? It was
the bonfire of the episcopal villa in flames.
Was, then, the villa set on fire by the Vagres? Certes; for what other
reason should they have brought along torches and straw?
In the center of the yard the riches of the bishop lie in a high
heap--gold and silver vases, holy chalices, together with drinking
goblets, Bible cases of precious wood, together with platters of the
banquet table, patines, together with bowls used for cooling the
bishop's wine; good sized and ripped-up bags, from which silver and gold
sous roll out; costly cloth, purple and blue, that but awaited the
tailor's scissors; warm and rare furs, some black as crows, others white
as doves. In the way of trophies, the axes, bucklers and pikes of the
leudes, who ran away out of fear for the devil, are stacked up at the
four corners of the superb heap of booty. Gold, silver, steel, the
brilliant colors of the cloths--they all scintillate and sparkle, each
with its own lustre, and all with the resplendence that is so pleasing
to the eye of the Vagre.
The Vagres are there! They are in the holy chapel of the episcopal
villa, where they do that which all Vagres do after they have drunk
their fill, ravaged and pillaged. Some are snoring at the foot of the
altar exhausted by their labors or overcome by the fumes of wine; others
balance themselves on their unsteady limbs and cast loving glances at
the wealth which they are about to scatter on their route and that will
make so many poor people happy. The Vagres of Ronan are ever faithful to
the sacred commandments of the Vagrery:
"Let us take from the rich and give to the poor. The Vagre who preserves
a sou for the morrow ceases to be a Vagre, a 'Wolf's-head,' a 'wand'ring
man.' He ever divides the booty of the previous evening among the poor,
so that he be compelled to pillage fresh renegade bishops, and Frankish
oppressors of old Gaul. Nor peace nor truce to the oppressors!"
And as to those other Vagres, who lean against the shafts of the
pillars, or are seated on the step of the altar near the snorers--their
eyes are as steady as their limbs; have they perchance, not also tasted
the old wines of the episcopal villa?
Oh! They did drink, twice, ten times more than the others; but they are
veterans at the trade, old Vagres, sturdy customers who drain a pouch at
one gulp, and immediately after are able to walk with steady step over a
beam across the conflagration that they have lighted in the burg of a
Frank, or the villa of a bishop.
And these others--men with shaven heads, wan, clad in rags; these women
and these girls, some of whom are pretty--who are they?
They are the slaves of the Church; they look happy at the sight of their
day of justice and vengeance. But other slaves there are, not a few in
number, who fled terrified into the woods. They imagined they saw the
fires of heaven roll down upon the Vagres, who could be sacrilegious
enough to put to the sack and fire the house of the vice-regent of God
on earth, their holy bishop.
And what is Ronan doing? There he sits in full gala on the episcopal
bench, decked in sacerdotal garb, and coiffed in the fur cap which count
Neroweg left behind when he fled demented out of the banquet hall. Four
Vagres assist Ronan. They are odd-looking clerks! Jolly deacons! Among
them is Wolf's-Tooth, the giant whose waist a barrel's hoop would hardly
encircle.
"Brother, are we all together?"
"Ronan, only the Master of the Hounds is missing. When the conflagration
was at its height, he was seen by one of our men running towards the
door of the bishopess; he leaped through the flames and re-issued at the
garden door running with a fainting woman in his arms."
"He is doubtlessly engaged in making her regain consciousness. Well,
while the bishopess is being revived, shall we try the bishop?"
"The holy man has tried people, whom he said were under his
jurisdiction, as bishop of the city of Clermont. He is now under our
jurisdiction. Let us try him!"
Louder than the Vagres themselves, the slaves of the prelate set up the
cry:
"Let us judge the bishop!"
"Bring him forward, on the spot!"
Two Vagres went out in quest of the holy man of God, who had been kept
locked up in a contiguous compartment. He was brought in pinioned. Pale
and wrathful he was pushed before the tribunal of Ronan and his four
Vagre clerks.
"Seigneur bishop," said Ronan to him, "thy 'charity,' thy 'piety,' thy
'exalted chastity' (thou seest I am giving thee all the honorary titles
that thou and thine bestow upon one another, holy men that ye are) thy
'exalted chastity' will be kind enough to inform us of thy name?"
"Incendiary! Pillager! Sacrilegious wretch! Those are your names! I damn
and excommunicate you, you, together with your whole band! You stand
excommunicated in this world and in the next, where you will suffer
everlasting tortures!"
"Thy 'exalted chastity' answers my question with insults. Seeing that
thou refusest to state thy name, I shall answer for thee. Thy name is
Cautin--"
"May my name burn your tongue!"
"Slaves of the bishopric," proceeded Ronan addressing those who
surrounded him, "what charges have you to prefer against your bishop?"
"He grinds us down with toil and with taxes. He oppresses us from
morning till night all the year long!"
"For food he lets us have a handful of beans, for clothes rags, and for
shelter rickety mud huts!"
"Our slightest oversights are visited with the whip!"
"He violates our daughters! What resistance can the female slave offer
when threatened? She submits with a shudder--she weeps--"
"That a Frank should be ready to subjugate us and whelm us with misery
we can understand: he is a conqueror who abuses his power. But that
bishops, Gauls like ourselves, should join the Frank in order to share
with him the plunder that he levies upon us--that we cannot understand;
such action must draw down the severest punishment upon the heads of the
perpetrators. Oh! Our old priests, the venerated druids, never allied
themselves with the Roman conquerors of Gaul. No! No! With the sword in
one hand, the mistletoe twig in the other, they were ever the first to
give the signal for war against the foreigner; they roused the peoples
to revolt with the words: 'The country and freedom!' The response came
swift from the masses; out of their midst arose the Chief of the
Hundred Valleys, Sacrovir, Vindex, Marik, Civilis! And the Romans
trembled in their very Capitol!"
"Bishop," Ronan proceeded, "has thy exalted truthfulness anything to
answer to the accusations of thy slaves?"
"They are all damned criminals, sacrilegious wretches who will have to
answer for their crimes when they appear before the throne of God, on
the day of last judgment. Ever after they will gnash their teeth--"
"Bishop, has thy exalted purity nothing else to say than utter insults?"
"And may it please the Lord to turn these insults into so many tongues
of fire to pierce your bodies, ye accursed men!"
"While waiting for the fulfillment of thy wishes, listen to the further
indictment against thee: Thou didst covet the goods of one of thy
priests named Anastasius; he declined to let thee have them; thou didst
inveigle him to Clermont; thou didst there have him seized, bound hand
and foot and thrown alive into a grave with a decomposing corpse. Wilt
thou dare deny that thou art guilty of that felony?"
"A wonderful council this is, made up of beggars, sacrilegious wretches
and slaves, to interrogate a bishop!"
"We shall proceed. Thy exalted poverty, in its rage to augment its
wealth, conceived this evening, under guise of a miracle, a veritable
bandit's trick: thou didst plunder Count Neroweg under pressure of the
fear of the devil. Under the code of the Vagrery, to plunder a Frank is
a pious act. But if the Vagres delight in pillaging our conquerors, it
is only in order to administer to the wants of the poor by making them
sharers in the plunder. On the other hand, to plunder a thief for
self-gain is a sin according to the code of the Vagrery. Moreover, thou
didst absolve the count of a crime in order that thou mightst possess a
young slave, a girl of barely fifteen years. Now, then, under the code
of the Vagrery, such episcopal profligacy also is a damnable sin that
demands punishment."
And addressing himself to the Vagres, Ronan added:
"Bring in the young slave!"
Ronan was right. To impute fifteen years to the girl was to add to her
actual age. Her blonde hair that was parted in two long and thick
braids, reached almost down to her feet, which were bare, like her arms
and shoulders. In fetching her from the burg, the brutal leude had
barely given her time to dress before lifting her on the crupper of his
horse. Accordingly, now that she faced the Vagres what suppliant fear
was not readable in the large blue eyes of the poor child, who still
trembled visibly! Her nocturnal ride on the crupper of the Frankish
warrior's horse, the burning of the episcopal villa, the strange aspect
of the Vagres--how many subjects of alarm to her young heart! The young
girl's cheeks must once have been full and rosy; they now were hollow
and pale. The infantine figure, bearing the stamp of suffering, was
painful to behold. As the young slave stepped into the chapel a feeling
of sadness came over Ronan; his very voice betrayed his emotion when he
addressed her:
"What is your name, my child?"
"I am called Odille."
"Where were you born?"
"Far from here--in one of the uplands of the Mont-Dore."
"How old are you, little Odille?"
"My mother said to me this spring: 'Odille, it is to-day fourteen years
that you have been the joy of my life.'"
"How did you become the slave of the Frankish count? Tell us your
history."
"My father died young. I lived in the mountain with my grandfather, my
brother and my mother. We lived off the yield of our herd, and we spun
wool. No sorrow had ever befallen us except my father's death. One day
the Franks scaled the mountain in arms. They took our herd and said to
us: 'We shall carry you to the burg of our count to restock his domain
with slaves and cattle.' My brother attempted to defend us. The Franks
killed him. They tied my mother and me to one rope, and drove us
together with our herd of sheep before them. My grandfather begged them
on his knees to allow him to follow us. But the Franks said to him: 'You
are too old to gain your bread as a slave.' 'But if I am left alone, I
shall die of hunger on the mountain!' 'Die, then!' was their answer, and
they made us move on before them. My grandfather followed us, weeping,
at a distance. The Franks stoned him to death. On their way they
captured other slaves, took in other droves of cattle, and killed other
people of the mountain when they refused to follow. They descended into
the valley; there they made some further captures of people and cattle.
There were about fifty of us, men, women and girls. The Franks
slaughtered all the children as being worthless. The first night we
slept in a wood. On that night the Franks violated the women despite all
their entreaties. I heard the sobs of my mother. They separated me from
her in the evening and did me no harm. The chief of the band kept me, he
said, for the count. The next morning we resumed our march, with me
separated from my mother. More people were killed who did not wish to
march on--more slaves and cattle were taken. After that the troop
marched to the burg. Before arriving there a second night was spent in
the woods. The chief who reserved me for the count made me sleep beside
his horse. Early the next morning we proceeded on our route. I tried to
discover my mother in the crowd--the Frank said to me: 'She died; two
warriors contended for her last night; in the tussle she was killed.' I
wished to lie down and die, but the chief raised me on his horse, and we
arrived on the count's domain--"
"Dost thou hear, bishop?" broke in Ronan. "Dost thou hear, renegade
Gaul? It is thy allies, the Franks, who in this as well as in the other
provinces, put old men and babes to death as useless mouths, and carry
away the men and women of our race to restock the lands of Gaul which
the kings have parceled out among their warriors after plundering us of
our patrimony. It is thy allies, thy friends, thy brothers in Christ and
in God who commit these execrable deeds. And yet thou orderest these
poor people, under the penalty of hell, to obey those plunderers, those
thieves, those ravishers, those murderers, who violate and kill mothers
under the very eyes of their daughters! Didst thou hear that story,
Gallic bishop?"
"The Franks respect the property of the Church and the servants of the
Lord--while you, accursed pack, you dare to lift impious hands against
both the property and the priests of the Church!"
"Proceed," said Ronan to Odille.
"We arrived at the burg. The count had me taken to his chamber. He threw
himself upon me; I tried to resist; he struck me in the face with his
fist; my face was bathed in blood; pain and fright rendered me
senseless, and the seigneur count violated me. I was afterwards locked
up with other female slaves in the apartment of his wife Godegisele; a
very gentle woman for so wicked a man. To-night, one of the leudes came
for me and brought me hither on his horse. He said to me that I was to
be the bishop's slave."
"And does that frighten you, poor child, to be a slave of the seigneur
bishop?"
"My mother and relatives were killed; I am a slave and disgraced
besides. I tried to strangle myself with my hair; but I was afraid--and
yet I wish I could die."
"And she is only fourteen, bishop! Didst thou hear?"
"Sit down on the steps of the altar, little Odille. Here you have only
friends; you are still young, do not despair."
The child contemplated the Vagre with wondering eyes; he spoke to her in
a gentle voice. She stepped towards the altar and sat down; she looked
at Ronan only; she listened only to his words.
"O! Master of the Hounds! Master of the Hounds!" cried one of the lusty
Vagres, who stood near one of the small doors of the chapel opening into
the garden. "Whither are you bound with the bishopess on your arm? Would
she not like to come and see her darling husband, the holy Bishop
Cautin, before we hang him?"
"My good seigneurs Vagres," said the bishopess, whose comely shape was
hardly distinguishable in the shadow of the vaulted door of the chapel,
"long have I cursed yonder man who is my husband. I now no longer curse
him. Happiness renders one indulgent. Be merciful to him, as I pardon
him. For the rest, I no longer was his wife--our carnal bonds were
sundered. Let him go in peace. I at last enjoy my day of freedom and of
love. Long live the Vagrery!"
"Shameless and sacrilegious woman! Accursed burgess! You shall burn for
this in the everlasting flames of hell!"
But Cautin's vituperation and threats were idle. The bishopess stepped
out under the tall trees of the garden of the villa and continued her
promenade, while Ronan again addressed the holy man:
"Sentence shall be passed upon thee by those whom thou hast oppressed.
Ye poor ecclesiastical slaves, what shall be done to this wicked and
profligate religious humbug who buries the living with the dead?"
"Let him be hanged! Death to the bishop!"
"Yes! Yes! Let him be hanged!"
"He will die but one death, the infamous scoundrel! And our lives have
been one prolonged agony!"
"What dost thou think of that?" said Ronan to the bishop. "Dost thou
fancy the views of these poor people?"
"Brothers, in the name of Jesus of Nazareth, the friend of the
sorrowful, pardon this guilty man if you find his repentance sincere."
Who was it that spoke thus? The hermit-laborer, who had until then kept
himself concealed in the shadow under one of the vaults of the chapel.
As he spoke he stepped into the light and stood before the Vagres and
the slaves who were venting their rage.
"The hermit-laborer!" cried the slaves with touching respect. "The
friend of the poor, of the meek and the oppressed!"
"The consoler of those who weep!"
"How often has he not taken in the field the hoe of one of our exhausted
companions, and himself finished the task of the slave in order to save
him from the keeper's whip!"
"One day, as I was pasturing the sheep that I had in charge, two lambs
went astray. The hermit-laborer looked for them until he found them and
was able to bring them back to me. Blessed be he for his charity."
"Our little children always have a smile for the hermit-laborer."
"Oh! From the moment they see him they run to him and take hold of his
robe."
"As poor as any of ourselves, he loves to make little presents to the
children. He always has some fruit for them that he gathered in the
woods, a piece of wild honey-comb, or some little bird that has fallen
out of its nest."
"Love one another! Love one another like brothers, poor disinherited
people! he always says to us.--Love renders toil less arduous."
"Hope! he also says to us.--Hope! The rule of the oppressors will pass
away; and then the first will be the last, and the last will be the
first."
"Jesus, the friend of the sorrowful, said the iron of the slave will be
broken. Hope!"
"Unite! Love one another! Help one another, children of one God, sons
of one country! Disunited, you can do nothing; united you will be
stronger than your oppressors. The day of deliverance may be nigh! Love,
unity, patience!"
"Aye! Aye! These are the precepts that the hermit-laborer teaches us!"
"And these precepts, brothers, you must remember and act upon at this
hour," replied the monk-laborer. "Jesus said: 'Woe to the hardened
hearts! Mercy to those who repent!'"
"Insolent monk, dare you accuse me!"
"Hermit, good friend, you hear the 'holy' man--you perceive his
repentance--what shall be done, my Vagres?"
"Brothers, if you love me, grant me the bishop's life!"
"The bishop made us suffer. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth!"
"Will vengeance wipe out your past sufferings? Your ancestors astonished
the world by their generous bravery--and would you slay a defenseless
man?"
Vagres and slaves remained silent for a moment. After a short
consultation with Ronan they directed him to stipulate the conditions
for Cautin's life.
"Bishop, choose! Either be our cook or hang!"
"Sacrilegious bandits! After pillaging and setting my episcopal villa on
fire, to demand that I be their cook! Monk, you hear them! Alas! Alas!
And you have neither curse nor anathema for them! Is it thus that you
defend me? What did you save my life for but in order to rejoice at my
humiliation?"
"Hold your tongue! Jesus of Nazareth, whose life was as pure as yours is
sullied; Jesus, when in the Roman pretorium, amidst the soldiers who
whelmed him with mockery and physical outrage said: 'My God, pardon
them, they know not what they do--"
"But these scamps do know what they are doing when they make a cook of
me! And would you have me pardon them their sacrilege!"
"Consider your past life--"
"Come, my Vagres," said Ronan; "come, day is dawning. Let us pack our
booty on the bishop's wagons, and on the march! What a fine day will
this be for the folks of this neighborhood!"
And stepping towards the little slave girl, who, seated on the steps of
the altar had quietly watched and listened to all that took place:
"Poor child, you are without father or mother, will you come with us?
The Vagrery is the world topsy-turvy. The slave and the poor are sacred
to us; our hatred is for the wicked rich. If our life of adventure and
dangers should frighten you, our friend the hermit will take you to some
charitable person in a neighboring village, where you may be safe."
"I shall follow you, Ronan. I am a slave and an orphan," answered Odille
weeping. "What can I do? Where would you have me go, if not with you who
speak to me with so much kindness?"
"Well, then, come with me, and dry your tears, little Odille. No tears
are shed among the Vagres. You shall ride on one of the wagons of the
villa in which our companions will carry the booty. Come, take my arm,
and let us walk out, poor little child. We shall go whithersoever chance
may take us!"
And seeing that the hermit was stepping towards him:
"Adieu, friend!"
"Ronan, I shall accompany you."
"Will you join us in running the Vagrery? You, a hermit? You among us,
'Wand'ring men,' 'Wolves,' 'Heads of Wolves,' Vagres that we are? A
saint in the company of demons?"
"They that be whole need not the physician, but they that are sick."
"Monk, you are right!" said Cautin to him in a low voice. "You will not
leave me alone in their hands? You will protect me against the
Philistines?"
"It is my duty to render these people better than they are."
"Better! The sacrilegious scoundrels, who pillaged my villa, stole my
beautiful goblets, my vases and all my money--"
"The homicidal sword will be turned into a pruning hook to prune the
flowering vine; the peaceful and teeming earth will yield its fruit for
all men; the lion will lie down beside the sheep, the wolf beside the
lamb, and a little child will lead them! Do not blaspheme, bishop! The
Creator made His children after his own image; He made them good in
order that they may be happy; blind, wretched or ignorant are the
wicked. Let us heal their ignorance, their wretchedness and their
blindness--and good they will become!"
"Lies!" cried the bishop excitedly. "Behold yonder the woman who was my
wife, with her orange skirt and gold embroidered red stockings--behold
her on the arm of that bandit with the black hair. The infamous
woman--they are in each other's arms."
"Jesus had only words of mercy for Magdalen the courtesan and for the
adulterous woman; will you dare to throw the first stone at the woman
who once was your wife? Come--come along--I pity you--lean upon my
arm--you are about to faint--"
"Alas! Where do these accursed Vagres propose to take me?"
"That does not concern you--mend your ways--repent!"
"My God! My God! And there is no hope of being delivered on the road!
Oh! We live in frightful days!"
"And who is it that made these days what they are, if not you, princes
of the Church? Oh! For centuries did our fathers see Gaul peaceful and
flourishing. She then was free!" replied the hermit with bitterness.
"To-day she is again enslaved."
"Our fathers were miserable heathens! At this very hour they are
gnashing their teeth in all eternity!" cried Cautin. "We, on the
contrary, have the true faith--and the Lord has terrible punishment in
store for the wretches who dare insult His priests and plunder the goods
of His Church. Look yonder, monk, is not that a sight to make one's
heart break? Abomination and desolation!"
CHAPTER VI.
TO THE FASTNESS OF ALLANGE.
The sight that excited the wrath of the holy man filled the hearts of
the Vagres with joy. It was broad day. Four large wagons of the villa,
each hitched to teams of oxen, were slowly rolling away from the
smoldering ruins of the late episcopal mansion. The wagons were loaded
with all manner of booty: gold and silver vases, curtains and beddings,
feather mattresses and bags of wheat, boxes filled with linen, hams,
venison, smoked fish, preserved fruits, and all sorts of eatables, heavy
rolls of cloth that had been woven by weaver-slaves, soft cushions, warm
coverlets, shoes, cloaks, iron pots, copper basins, tin cans--all of
them dear to the heart of a housekeeper. The Vagres followed the train,
singing like larks at the rise of the beautiful June sun. On the front
wagon, and seated on one of the cushions, little Odille--whom the
bishopess in loving tenderness thoughtfully clad in one of her own
beautiful, although rather too long robes for the child--no longer
timorous but still laboring under the effect of her wonderment, opened
her beautiful blue eyes, and, for the first time since many a long day,
breathed in freedom the fresh and invigorating morning air that reminded
her often of that of her own mountains from which she was torn, poor
child, and cast into the burg of the count. Ever and anon Ronan
approached the wagon:
"Take courage, Odille; you will get accustomed to us. The Vagres are not
as wolfish as evil tongues pretend."
On another wagon, gorgeous in her gold necklaces and her most beautiful
dress which her loving Vagre saved for her from the conflagration, the
bishopess whiled away the time, either combed her long black hair with
the aid of a little pocket mirror, or adjusted her scarf, or hopped
about, crazy with joy, like a hen-linnet that had escaped from her cage.
At last she enjoyed that day of freedom and love that she had so
ardently dreamed about after having lived more than ten years almost a
prisoner. The morning journey across the beautiful mountains of
Auvergne, where at frequent intervals cascades of bubbling water were
encountered, seemed to charm her. She chatted, laughed, sang, sang
again, and threw sidelong glances at her Vagre every time that, with his
light step and triumphant mien, he passed by her wagon. Suddenly, as her
eyes happened to fall upon a distant object, she seemed moved with pity.
She seized a straw-covered amphora that the Master of the Hounds had
thoughtfully placed within her reach, and turning towards the rear of
the car, where several women and girls, the bishop's slaves, having
gladly resolved to run the Vagrery together with their quondam mistress,
were huddled, she said to one of them:
"Carry this bottle of spiced wine to my brother, the bishop; the poor
man loves to take what he calls his morning cup; but do not let him know
that I sent you."
The young girl to whom the bishopess gave the flask answered with a nod
of intelligence, leaped down from the cart, and looked for Cautin. Most
of the ecclesiastical slaves fled into the mountains when the bishop's
house was set on fire; they feared the wrath of heaven if they joined
the Vagres; the others, however, being of a less timorous turn,
resolutely accompanied the troop of the lusty men. They should have been
seen--alert, frisk as if they had just risen from a restful night spent
under the foliage of the wood, they marched with elastic step, despite
the orgy of the previous night, and went and came, and skipped and
chatted, and exchanged kisses with the women who were willing or with
the pouches of wine that they carried along, and bit lustily into the
hams, the chunks of venison and the episcopal cakes.
"How good it is to live a Vagre's life!"
On the last wagon, under the special watch of Wolf's-Tooth and a few
companions who brought up the rear, Cautin, bishop and Vagre's cook,
accustomed to strut on his traveling mule, or to ride through the forest
on his vigorous hunting steed, found the road rough, dusty and
unpleasant. He perspired, panted, tossed himself about, moaned,
grumbled, grunted under the weight of his heavy paunch and invoked to
his aid all the saints of paradise.
"Seigneur bishop," said the young girl whom the bishopess charged with
the amphora of wine, "here is some good spiced wine; drink it; it will
give you strength to support the fatigue of the journey."
"Give it to me! Give it to me, my daughter! God will reward you for your
attachment to your father in Christ, who finds himself obliged to drink
by stealth the wine of his own cellar--"
And clapping the amphora to his lips, he drained it at one draught. When
the flask was empty he dashed it against the floor, and looking at the
young girl cried:
"And so you propose to run the Vagrery, little she-devil, confounded
wench?"
"Yes, seigneur bishop; I am now twenty years of age, and this is the
first day of my life that I have been able to say: 'I belong to
myself--I can go and come, jump, sing, dance, just as I please'--"
"You belong to yourself, do you, brazen minx? You belong to me! But with
the aid of God you will yet be re-captured either by the Church, or by
some Frankish seigneur--and I hope you may fall into even worse slavery,
God-forsaken wench!"
"I will then, at least, have tasted freedom--"
And the young woman dashed off, jumping and singing, in pursuit of a
butterfly that fluttered in the bush.
The troop of Vagres arrived at the hovels of some slaves that belonged
to the domain of the Church, and that lay scattered along the road.
Little wan, sickly looking children, absolutely bare by reason of their
parents' pinching poverty, were wallowing in the dust. Their fathers
were off on the fields since dawn; their mothers, as wan-looking and
thin as the children, sat at the entrance of their hovels upon bunches
of decaying straw; they were clad in rags and busily plied their
distaffs for the benefit of the bishop; their long and unkempt hair
tumbled over their foreheads upon their bony shoulders; their eyes were
hollow, their cheeks sunburnt and sunken; the aspect that they presented
was at once so repulsive and painful that the hermit-laborer could not
refrain from pointing them out to the bishop, saying:
"Look at those unhappy creatures!"
"Resignation, misery and sorrow here below, everlasting reward
above--otherwise as everlasting and frightful tortures!" cried Cautin.
"The Church so decrees; it is the law of God!"
"Blasphemer! Your words are like those of the impostor physicians who
pretend that man was born for fevers, the pest and ulcers, and not for
health!"
At the sight of the approaching and well-armed troop, the women and
children were first afraid and ran to hide in their hovels; but stepping
forward, Ronan called out to them:
"Poor women! Poor children! Be not afraid--we are your good friends the
Vagres!"
The Vagrery caused the Franks and the bishops to tremble, but it was
often blessed by the poor. Women and children, all of whom had at first
fled with fear into their hovels, now emerged again, and one of the
mothers said to Ronan:
"Do you want to know the road? I shall show it to you."
"Are you running away from the leudes of the seigneurs?" said another.
"None has passed this way; you can march on in safety."
"Women," answered Ronan, "your children are naked, you and your husbands
toil from dawn to dusk; you are barely covered in rags; you lie down to
sleep upon poorer straw than the swine; you live upon decayed beans;
often you munch grass like cattle!"
"Alas! It is the truth! Our lives are wretched, indeed!"
"Here we have for you linen, cloth, dresses, covers, mattresses, bags of
grain, full pouches, provisions of all sorts. Give, my Vagres! Give,
Odille, to these poor people! Give, bishopess of the Vagrery! Give and
give again!"
"Take--take, sisters!" said the bishopess with eyes moist with
compassionate tears, as she helped the Vagres to distribute the booty
taken at her house. "Take, sisters! Yesterday I was a slave as
yourselves, to-day I am free! Take, sisters!"
"Take and make merry, dear women; and may your little ones never be torn
from you!" said Odille as she also gave a hand in the distribution of
the booty. And she wiped her eyes as she exclaimed: "How good Ronan, the
Vagre, is to the poor!"
"Blessings upon you!" cried the poor mothers, weeping for joy. "It is
better to meet a Vagre than a count or a bishop."
It was a pleasure to see with what ardor the Vagres, perched upon the
carts, distributed what they had taken from the wicked bishop; it was a
pleasure to see how the poor mothers' faces brightened with happiness at
the unlooked-for alms. Amazed and enraptured they contemplated the heap
of all manner of articles that they had never yet made acquaintance
with. The children, more impatient than their elders, merrily hitched
themselves by twos, threes and fours to a mattress in order to transport
it into one of the huts, or they put their thin arms around a bundle of
linen and sought to lift it in. Suddenly, however, a wrathful and
threatening voice, a veritable mar-plot, froze the marrow of the poor
folks with terror.
"Woe unto you! Damnation upon your families! if you dare to touch with
sacrilegious hands the goods of the Church! Tremble! Tremble! It is a
mortal sin! You, your husbands, your children, you will all be thrown
into the flames of hell for all time!"
It was Bishop Cautin. Despite the remonstrances of the hermit-laborer,
he dashed in among the startled slaves, and fulminated his anathemas.
"Oh! We shall touch nothing of all that is offered us, holy bishop!"
answered the mothers with a shudder. "We shall not touch any of the
goods of the Church."
"My Vagres!" cried Ronan, "Hang the bishop on the nearest tree! We shall
not lack for a cook."
Already they were seizing the holy man, who now grew paler and trembled
in greater terror than the most awe-struck of the mothers who had just
been running over with joy, when the monk again interposed to save
Cautin from the noose.
"The hermit!" cried the mothers and their children. "The
hermit-laborer!"
"Blessed be you, the friend of the sorrowful!--"
"Blessed be you, the friend of little children!--"
And the hands of all the little ones took hold of the robe of the
hermit, who said in his sweet and clear voice:
"Dear women, dear little ones; take what is given you; take without
fear; Jesus said: 'Woe unto the rich who share not their bread with
those who hunger, and their cloak with those who are cold.' Your bishop
gives you all these good things. Take all that is offered to you!"
"Blessings upon you, holy bishop!" exclaimed the mothers, raising their
arms in thankfulness to Cautin. "Blessed be you, good father, for your
generous gifts!"
"I give nothing!" cried Cautin. "You shall burn eternally in hell, if
you listen to that apostate hermit!"
The larger number of the women looked undecided from Ronan to the
bishop and the hermit. They put their hands forward and withdrew them
again from the articles that were offered them. But two of the oldest of
them resolutely drew away from the goods of the Church, and throwing
themselves down upon their knees murmured affrighted:
"Holy Bishop Cautin! Pardon us for having even for a moment harbored the
thought of committing so great a crime. Mercy! Mercy!"
"Fear not, my sisters!" resumed the hermit. "Your bishop gives you all
these good things. He knows that the Lord has equal love for all his
children, and does not wish that some should be naked and freeze, while
others perspire under the useless weight of twenty gowns; that some
should suffer hunger, while others are filled to repletion. Fear not
that your bishop will either hunger or suffer cold; he has new and warm
clothing on; he knows not what to do with so many robes; he can not
drink all those pouches of wine; he can not eat up all these provisions!
Take, take--the goods of a bishop are the property of the poor."
Most of the unhappy mothers, convinced by the words of the hermit, and
also driven by the lash of their needs, began busily to transport the
proffered goods of the Church into their huts, aided by their children.
Only three elderly ones dared not to join; they remained on their knees
and smote their breasts.
"Dear daughters in Christ! Persevere in your holy horror for sacrilege!"
the bishop cried to the three kneeling women. "You will enter paradise
and will hear the seraphim play on the harp before the Lord, while they
sing His praises!"
"My Vagres!" again Ronan called out. "A rope! Let the hypocritical
babbler be strung up high and dry! It is evident that he has made up his
mind to hang!"
With a gesture the hermit arrested the anger of the Vagres and said:
"Bishop, do you recognize the words of Jesus of Nazareth as divine? 'Him
that taketh away thy cloak forbid not to take away thy coat also.' What
thought did Jesus mean to convey by these words, but that only too often
theft has want for its cause, and that charity should be exercised and
pity had for such want. Relinquish voluntarily these superfluous goods,
you who have taken the vow of poverty, charity and chastity!"
"Keep still, tempting hermit, who dare contradict our bishop! We may not
lay our fingers on the goods of the Church!" cried one of the three
kneeling women. "We would be damned for all time!"
"Yes, yes," shouted the other two. "Keep still, hermit!"
"Poor creatures! Steeped in ignorance and blindness!" exclaimed Ronan.
"Do you care for the life of your bishop?"
"We would undergo a thousand deaths for his sake!"
"Oh! Pious women!" cried Cautin ecstatically. "What a superb part of
paradise will not be yours! And now, until the day of eternal life come,
I give you absolution for all your past sins, and all the future ones
that you may commit."
"Oh, beloved bishop!" cried the kneeling mothers smiting their chests.
"A saint among saints! Thanks--thanks to you!"
"Listen to me, ye poor sheep who mistake the butcher for the shepherd,"
said Ronan to them. "If you do not forthwith profit by our offer, we
shall hang the bishop before your very eyes."
"Here is a rope," said Wolf's-Tooth, and he put the noose around
Cautin's neck.
"Dear daughters, take everything!" cried the prelate acting under a new
inspiration. "Your father in Christ requests you, adjures you, orders
you to accept the booty--accept it quick!" he added as he felt the noose
tighten.
One of the three kneeling women rose and obeyed with alacrity; the other
two remained on their knees and said:
"You are only trying us, holy bishop!"
"But these heathens are going to hang me--"
"A holy man like you does not fear martyrdom."
"No, my daughters, I do not fear martyrdom--but I think I am
indispensable for the salvation of my flock. I pray you, carry that
booty away! If you do not, I shall damn you! I shall excommunicate you!
Confounded old hags! Miserable wretches, you will have to answer for my
death on the day of judgment!"
"Holy bishop, you seek to try us to the last. You just said to us that
to touch the goods of the Church is mortal sin. Would you order us to
commit a mortal sin?"
"No! No!" screamed the other of the two mothers who had remained on
their knees; she smote her breast and added: "Holy man, you could never
think of ordering us to commit mortal sin! You are to receive
martyrdom!--"
"And from the heavens above you will throw your blessings upon us, great
and good St. Cautin!"
"Bishop, do you hear these poor old women? You sowed, now you are
harvesting. Come, my Vagres, draw the rope!"
Once more the hermit interposed in order to protect the prelate. At that
moment the Vagres who were on the carts were heard crying:
"The leudes! The Frankish warriors!"
"There are seven of them! They are on horseback! They are leading a gang
of chained men! Up, my Vagres! Death to the leudes! Freedom to the
slaves!"
"Death to the leudes! Freedom to the slaves!" shouted the Vagres and ran
to their arms.
"The Franks have come to capture me and take me back to the burg of the
count!" cried little Odille. "Oh, Ronan, protect me!"
"There will not be one of them left alive to carry you back!"
"Ronan, no imprudence!" said the hermit. "These horsemen may be only a
scouting party riding ahead of a numerous troop. Send out scouters
against scouters; keep the bulk of your men in reserve and have them
entrench themselves behind the wagons."
"Monk, you are right. You talk like an experienced soldier. You must
have made war?"
"A little--occasionally--whenever it was necessary to protect the weak
against the strong."
"Frankish warriors!" cried Cautin clasping his hands with a triumphant
air. "Friends! Allies! I am saved! Help, dear brothers in Christ! This
way, my beloved sons in God! Fall upon this rabble. Deliver me from the
hands of the Philistines! This way, my--"
Giving a jerk to the rope around the neck of the holy man, Ronan
suddenly checked his flow of speech by drawing the noose tight.
"Bishop, no useless cries!" said the hermit; "and you, Ronan, no
violence; drop that rope!"
"Very well; but I shall bind his arms; and if he again breaks in upon my
ears I shall run my sword through him--"
"The Frankish riders have reined in their horses the moment they caught
sight of the wagons," cried one of the Vagres; "they seem to be
deliberating what to do."
"Our deliberation will not be long. There are seven of the mounted
Franks; let six Vagres follow me, and by the faith of Ronan, it will not
be long before there will be seven conquerors less in Gaul!"
"Here are the six of us--let us forward!"
The Master of the Hounds was among the six Vagres. Seeing him examine
the handle of his axe, the bishopess leaped down from her wagon, and,
her eyes sparkling, her nostrils inflated and her cheeks on fire, she
rolled up the right sleeve of her silk robe, and thus baring her white,
beautiful and strong arm up to the shoulder, she cried:
"Give me a sword! A sword!"
"Here is one! What will you do with it, beautiful bishopess in Vagrery?"
"I shall fight beside my Vagre!" Saying this the bishopess seized the
proffered weapon like a Gallic woman of ancient days, and dashed forward
upon the foe.
"Little Odille, you wait here for me. When the Franks are slain I shall
return to you," said Ronan to the young girl, who, pale with fear,
sought to hold him back with both hands and rested upon him her
beautiful blue eyes now moist with tears. "Do not tremble, poor child!"
"Ronan," she murmured convulsively seizing the arm of the Vagre, "I have
neither father nor mother left; you delivered me from the count and the
bishop; you have a good heart; you are full of pity for the poor; you
have treated me with the tenderness of a brother; it was only last night
that I saw you for the first time, and yet it seems to me that I have
known you long, long--"
And the girl took both the Vagre's hands, kissed them, and added with
tremulous lips:
"If those Franks should kill you!--"
"If they should kill me, little Odille?"
Saying this the Vagre turned his head towards the hermit, and pointing
to him with his eyes added:
"Should the Franks kill me, yonder good hermit-laborer will protect
you."
"I promise you, my child, should misfortune befall your friend, I shall
protect you."
"Little Odille," Ronan now said with almost embarrassed mien, "one kiss
on your forehead--it will be first, and may be the last."
The child was weeping silently; she reached her girlish forehead to
Ronan; he touched it with his lips, and raising his sword dashed off on
a run. Hardly had Ronan left when the cry of the Vagres was heard
attacking the leudes. At the cries, Odille threw herself distracted
into the arms of the hermit, hid her face on his breast and sobbed
aloud:
"They will kill him! They will kill him!"
"Courage, Franks! Courage, my sons in God!" shouted Cautin from the
cart-wheel to which he was bound fast. "Exterminate those Moabites!
Above all cut to pieces that she-devil wife of mine, that brazen woman
with the orange dress with the blue sash and silver embroidered
stockings. No mercy for the Jezebel! the shameless wench! the slattern!
Hack her to pieces!--"
"Bishop! Bishop! Your words are inhuman. Remember the mercifulness of
Jesus towards Magdalen and the adulteress!" exclaimed the hermit, while
Odille, with her head resting on the breast of that true disciple of the
young man of Nazareth murmured:
"They will kill Ronan! They will kill him!"
"Here I am back to you, little Odille! The Franks did not kill me. The
people whom they brought in chains are all set free!"
Who said this? It was Ronan. What? Back so soon? Yes! The Vagres do
their work quickly. With one bound Odille was in the arms of her friend.
"I killed one of them--he was just about to run my Vagre through with
his sword!" cried the bishopess returning from the encounter. And
throwing down her blood-stained sword, her eyes sparkling, her bosom
half covered by her long black tresses that, together with her robe,
were thrown into disorder by the heat of the combat, she said to the
Master of the Hounds: "Are you satisfied with your wife?"
"Strong in the embrace of love, and strong in battle are your arms!"
answered the young man delighted. "And now, a full cup of wine!"
"To drink in my very face wine that was mine! To court and caress before
my own eyes that impure woman who was my wife!" murmured the bishop.
"Oh, monstrous! These are the signs that foretell frightful calamities
about to afflict the earth."
Three of the Vagres were wounded. The hermit attended them with so much
skill that he might have been taken for a physician. He was about to
proceed to another of the wounded men when his eyes fell upon the people
whom the leudes had brought with them and who were now set free by the
men of Ronan. These unhappy folks who only a few minutes before were
prisoners, were covered with rags; nevertheless the joy of deliverance
shone upon their faces. Invited by their liberators to eat and drink in
order to recruit their strength, they were eagerly acquitting themselves
of their task. While they drained the pouches of wine and caused the
loaves of bread and the hams to vanish, the monk said to one of them, a
robust man despite his grey hair:
"Brother, who are you? Whence do you come?"
"We are colonists and slaves. We formerly owned and cultivated the
parcels of land that the son of Clovis newly joined as benefices to the
salic and military domains that the Frankish count Neroweg previously
held from his father by the right of conquest."
"Did the count, accordingly, strip you of your fields and houses?"
"Would to heaven, dear hermit, that he had done so!"
"Your answer is strange!"
"The count, on the contrary, left the fields to us, and he even added
two hundred acres to them, the accursed man! The two hundred acres
belonged to my friend and neighbor Fereol, who fled out of fear for the
Franks."
"Your property is doubled, friend, and yet you complain!"
"Indeed I complain! Is it that you do not know what is going on in Gaul?
This is what the count said to me: 'My glorious King has made me count
of this country, and, besides, he has given me as a benefice, which I
hope will become hereditary as my military lands, all these domains,
including the cattle, houses and people upon them. You will cultivate
for me the fields that belong to you; I shall join several new parcels
to them; you will be my colonist and your laborers my slaves; all of you
will work for me and my leudes; you will furnish them as well as myself
with all that we shall need. You shall help my mason and carpenter
slaves in the building of a new burg that I shall have erected after the
Germanic fashion. It is to be large, commodious and properly fortified,
and it is to be located in the center of an old Roman camp that I
discovered nearby. Your horses and cattle having become mine will haul
the stones and logs of wood that are too heavy for men to carry. Besides
that you shall pay me a hundred gold sous annually, ten of which I shall
give to the King when I annually render him homage for the lands that I
hold.' 'A hundred gold sous!' I cried. 'My lands, jointly with those of
my neighbor Fereol, will not yield such a sum year in and year out! How
do you expect me to pay you a hundred gold sous, besides feeding you,
your leudes and your retinues, and keeping myself, my family and my
laborers, now your slaves, alive?' Threatening me with his club, the
count answered me saying: 'I shall have my hundred gold sous every
year--if you fail, I shall have my leudes cut off your feet and
hands--'"
"Poor man!" observed the hermit sadly. "And like so many others you
consented to the servitude? You accepted the hard conditions?"
"What else was I to do? How could I resist the count and his leudes? I
only had a few laborers, and to them the priests preached submission to
the conquerors, who, sword in hand, say to us: 'The fields of your
fathers, fructified by their labors and yours, are now ours--you shall
cultivate them for us.' What were we to do? Resist? It was impossible!
Flee? That would be to rush into slavery in some other region, seeing
that all the provinces are equally invaded by the Franks. I had a young
wife--both servitude and a wandering life frightened me more for her
sake than for mine--moreover, I was attached to the region and the
fields on which I was born. The thought was unbearable to me of having
to cultivate those very fields for another, and yet I preferred not to
leave them. Myself and my laborers resigned ourselves to shocking
misery, to incessant toil! Such was the life we led for many a year. By
dint of hard work and privations I succeeded in supplying the wants of
Neroweg and his leudes, and of making my lands yield from seventy to
eighty gold sous a year. Twice did the count put me to the torture in
order to force me to give him the hundred gold sous that he demanded of
me. I did not own one denier outside of the moneys that I paid him. My
torture and subsequent long physical pain was all the comfort that he
had for his cruelty."
"And did the thought never occur to you," asked Ronan, "of choosing some
fine dark night to set the burg on fire?"
"Alas! The priests persuade the slaves that the harder their lot is on
earth, all the happier will they be in paradise. I could not rely upon
my companions in slavery, besotted as they were with the fear of the
devil and unnerved by misery. Besides, I had little children; and their
mother, consumed with grief, was ailing; finally, this year, the poor
creature fortunately died. My sons had grown up to be men, and they and
I, together with a few other slaves who were all tired of unrequited and
continuous toil for the benefit of the count and his leudes, finally
took to flight. We took refuge on the domain of the Bishop of Issoire.
It was but an exchange of masters, still we hoped to find the prelate a
less cruel master than the count. The count was set upon recapturing me
who had managed for so many years to extract from my lands so much
wealth for him and his leudes. Having learned of our asylum, he ordered
some of his leudes to take horse and reclaim us from the Bishop of
Issoire. The bishop surrendered us. His men bound our hands, and the
leudes were taking us back to the count when these good Vagres killed
our captors and set us free. By my faith! Vagres we shall now be--all of
us--I, my sons and the other slaves whom you see yonder. Will you have
us, ye bold runners of the night?"
"Yes, yes!" cried the companions of the colonist. "It is better far to
run the Vagrery than to cultivate our fathers' lands under the club of a
count and his leudes!"
"Bishop! Bishop!" remarked Ronan to the prelate. "Behold what your
allies have turned our old Gaul into! But, I swear by torch and fire, by
blood and massacre, I swear, the hour shall come when neither prelates
nor seigneurs will have aught but smoldering ruins and bleaching bones
to rule over! Up! new brothers in Vagrery! Be like ourselves 'Wand'ring
men,' 'Wolves,' 'Wolves-Heads!' Like ourselves you will live like wolves
and happy--in summer under the leafy green, in winter in caverns warm.
Up, my Vagres! Up! The sun is high! We have in these carts still much
booty left to be distributed on our way. Let us proceed, little Odille
and beautiful bishopess! Let us pillage the seigneurs, and give freely
to the poor! Let us keep only just enough to feast upon to-night in the
fastness of Allange under the dome of the stately old oak trees. On the
march! And to-morrow, when the last pouch will have been emptied, then
on the hunt again, my Vagres, so long as there shall be a single burg
left standing in Gaul, or a single episcopal residence! Let us burn down
all the dens of tyranny! Death to the seigneurs and their bishops!"
And the troop resumed its march to the sound of the Vagres' song. When,
at sunset, they arrived at the fastness of Allange, which was one of
their haunts, all the booty that was taken at the episcopal villa had
been distributed along the route among the poor. Only a few mattresses
for the women, the gold and silver goblets out of which to drink the
bishop's wine, and the necessary provisions for the night's festival
were left. The eight teams of oxen were to furnish the roast for the
gigantic feast, because gigantic it was to be seeing that the troop of
Vagres had gathered many recruits on the route--slaves, artisans,
laborers and colonists, all of whom were enraged with misery, without
counting a number of young women, all of whom were eager to run the
Vagrery.
CHAPTER VII.
VAGRES AT FEAST.
What delightful feasts are those held in Vagrery! Does, stags,
wild-boars, killed by the Vagres the day before in the thickets of the
forest that shade the fastness of Allange--all, together with the oxen
from the wagons, have been dispatched and grilled over a roaring oven.
What! An oven in a forest? An oven large enough to embrace oxen, does,
stags and wild-boars? Yes; the good God has dug for the good Vagres a
number of large pits in the secluded fastnesses of Allange. They are
spacious craters, now extinct like other volcanic apertures in Auvergne.
Is not one of these deep semi-circular grottoes, in which a man can
stand upright, a veritable bake-house? Fill up the grotto with dry wood;
one or two dead oaks will suffice; set the pyre on fire; it burns up
high and becomes a brasier: the bottom, the walls, the lava vault--all
are soon red hot, and into the chasm, ablaze like the mouth of hell,
stags, does, whole wild-boars and oxen are rolled in to broil. That
done, the opening of the grotto is closed with lava rocks, a huge oven
of glowing embers. Four or five hours later, oxen and game, grilled to
the point, are served steaming and toothsome upon the table. What!
Tables also in Vagrery! Certes, and covered with the finest of green
carpet. What table? What carpet? The lawn of a forest clearing. And for
seats? Again that lawn. For tent the lofty oaks; for ornaments the arms
suspended from the branches. For dome the starry sky. For chandelier the
moon at her fullest. For perfumery the night odor of wild flowers. For
musicians the nightingales and all the other songsters of the woods.
Several Vagres, placed on watch at the outskirt of the forest and near
the approaches of the fastnesses of Allange, guarded the troop against a
surprise in case that, the sack and burning of the villa becoming known,
the Frankish counts and dukes of the region should fear an attack upon
their own burgs, and start with their leudes in the pursuit of the
Vagres.
Despite his ire, Bishop Cautin excelled himself as a cook. Long before
had a certain sauce known to be a favorite with the bishop been the
subject of talk in Vagrery. The holy man was ordered to produce it. He
did. He filled with it a large caldron into which each one dipped his
roast, whether of game or beef--it was a toothsome sauce, made of old
wine and oil, aromated with wild thyme. It was pronounced delectable.
Biting into her Vagre's roast with her white teeth the bishopess
remarked:
"I now no longer wonder that he who was my husband always showed himself
so implacable towards his kitchen slaves, and that he had them whipped
for their slightest negligence--the seigneur bishop was a better cook
than any of them. No wonder he was hard to please!"
Only two of the guests did not join in the spirit of the feast--the
hermit-laborer and the young female slave who sat near Ronan. As to
Ronan, he did ample justice to the repast; but the monk seemed to be
absorbed in contemplation as he looked up at the starry vault overhead,
and little Odille also dreamed--as she contemplated Ronan. The gold and
silver vases, whatever their previous destination, circulated from hand
to hand; the wine pouches collapsed in even measure as the stomachs of
the drinkers became inflated; merry jokes, loud outbursts of laughter,
kisses stolen and given from and by Vagres and Vagresses;--it was a
mirthful and giddy festivity. Ever and anon, nevertheless, and generally
on the subject of some pretty face, a dispute would break out between
two Vagres, just as used to happen during the ancient banquets of the
Gauls. Then swords would be taken down from the trees and crossed by the
combatants, but never in hatred, ever in the exuberance of spirit:
"That thrust is for you--mine shall the pretty girl be!"
"And this other thrust is for you--the damsel shall be mine!"
"Hit! That is for her roguish eyes!"
"Parried! Mine remains the daisy!"
"I'm wounded! Help, my belle!"
"I die! Good-bye to my love!"
The wounded Vagre was attended to; the dead one was covered with leaves.
Honor to the brave who will be born anew in yonder worlds, and long live
the feasts of the Vagrery! And the exchange of repartees continued--some
were mirthful, others strange, and not a few sad. The repartees
reflected the state of affairs in Gaul, her people, and the miseries of
the nation as she lay debased and demoralized at the feet of the
conquerors; the repartees produced a picture better than chroniclers or
historians could ever reproduce it, even if ever this country of iron
should find its historian.
"Ah! What happy days these are!" exclaimed Wolf's-Tooth as he gnawed on
the ivory of his second shoulder of doe. "Ah! what jolly days do we owe
to these times of disorder, of pillage, of combats on the highways, of
sieges of burgs and episcopal villas and of their smoldering embers that
we leave behind! Ah! What rollicking times do not these Frankish Kings
furnish us with!"
"Ronan said it--old Gaul is on fire--let us dance and drink upon the
ruins--let us make love on the ashes of the palaces and upon the
extinguished coals of the episcopal villas that we turned into
bonfires!"
"Oh, great bishop! Oh, great St. Remi! Blessings upon you, who, at the
basilica of Reims, in the midst of incense and flowers, now over fifty
years ago baptized Clovis as a submissive son of the Roman Church!
Blessings upon you, St. Remi, the patron of highwaymen and bandits!"
"Where is she? Aye, where is she, the proud and powerful Gaul of the
days of the Chief of the Hundred Valleys, of the Sacrovirs, the
Vindexes, the Civiles, the Victorias?"
"Who is the present inheritor of Gaul's one-time valor? The Vagres, the
'Wolves-Heads,' the 'Wolves!' It is they alone who still carry on the
struggle against the barbarians!"
"And yet we are hunted like wild beasts, put to the rack and hanged if
taken!"
"But our nails are sharp and our teeth trenchant to tear to pieces and
devour our enemies!"
"And yet they call us robbers!"
"And murderers!"
"And sacrilegious wretches!"
"Brothers, we but follow the example of our glorious new masters--the
Frankish kings, dukes and counts; they kill, we massacre; they pillage,
we steal; they lay waste, we burn down. Death to the seigniory!"
"Sad are the times in which we live!" said the bishopess as she
unloosened her long black tresses to the wind. "These are days of
sanguinary fury! days of unbridled debauchery! days of vertigo, in which
one rushes into evil paths with wild ecstasy. Oh, holy virtue of our
mothers! tender chastity! noble and undefiled love! Where shall we look
for you in these days? Shall we look for you in the hut of the female
slave whom her masters outrage? Shall we look for you in the house of
the free woman, whose very hearth is turned under her own eyes into a
brothel? Oh! Let us shut our eyes, and die young! Will you die, my
Vagre? To-morrow, at the first rays of the sun; to-morrow, at the hour
when the birds awake; to-morrow put your hand in mine, and let us depart
together for those unknown worlds, whither our ancestors bravely and
willingly took their departure in order to live together!"
"Let love reign until to-morrow! And until then, a sweet kiss, my
Vagress!"
The Master of the Hounds received the kiss, while his neighbor, grave
like a man half-seas over, said in a magisterial voice:
"Brothers, I have an idea--"
"Your idea, Symphorien, seems to be to drain that amphora to the very
bottom."
"Yes, to begin with--and then to prove to you--_logice_ and _a
priori_--"
"To the devil with your Roman tongue!"
"Brothers, not because one is a Vagre does it follow that he can not be
versed in letters and philosophy. I used to teach rhetoric to the young
clerks of the Bishop of Limoges. I received a call from the Bishop of
Tulle for the same office. As I was crossing the Jargeaux mountains on
the way from the one town to the other, I was captured in the woods by a
band of bad Vagres--there are good and bad Vagres. And those Vagres sold
me to a slave merchant, and he sold me again to the bishop of--"
"The devil take this rhetorician! Look at him traveling up hills and
down dales."
"Such is frequently the effect of rhetoric. It carries one across the
plains of imagination. But let me return to what I wanted to prove to
you _logice_--it is this: We need not worry ourselves over the leudes
nor any other armed bands that might be in pursuit of us, because,
_logice_--the Lord God will perform a miracle in our favor to disengage
us of our enemies."
"A miracle in favor of us, Vagres? Are we, perchance, on such good terms
with heaven?"
"We are on all the better terms with heaven for living like wolves, like
true wolves. Therefore, _logice_, the Lord will deliver us from our
enemies by miracles. And that I shall now proceed to prove to you."
"To the proof, learned Symphorien--to the proof! We are waiting for your
arguments."
CHAPTER VIII.
THE MIRACLE OF ST. MARTIN.
The rhetorician straightened himself up and proceeded to the proof.
"I'm at it," he said. "But first of all, brothers, answer me this
question: Under whose royal claws did this beautiful land of Auvergne
fall?"
"Under the claws of Clotaire, the last and worthy son of King Clovis.
Having married the widow of his second nephew Theobald, Clotaire now
owns Auvergne by double right. He is now in this year 558 the sole king
of all conquered Gaul. Glory to the Saints in heaven! Now, then, that
Clotaire is the wedder of the whole human race. The bishops have married
him as many times as it has pleased him to celebrate fresh weddings;
they remarried him even during the lives of most of his wives. They
married him to Gundiogue, the wife of his own brother; they married him
to Radegonde, to Ingonde and, a fortnight later to the latter's sister,
called Aregonde; they married him to Chemesne, to several others, and
finally to Waltrade, the widow of his second nephew Theobald. But all
these are only peccadillos--"
"Learned, very learned Symphorien, you promised to prove to us _logice_
that heaven would rain miracles in our favor; but your rhetoric tends to
prove just one thing--that Clotaire is an eternal wedder--"
"My rhetoric first establishes the premises, you will presently see what
conclusions flow from them--_ergo_, I shall establish one more
prefigurement, which I shall also need for my argument. It is this:
Among other crimes, this Clotaire committed one before which even Clovis
might have recoiled. The affair happened in Paris in the year 533, in
the old Roman palace inhabited by the Frankish kings. Now listen--"
"We are listening, learned Symphorien. It is pleasant to the ear to hear
the praises of kings."
"Accordingly, it was about twenty-five years ago. Clovis had long before
gone to paradise upon the recommendation of the bishops and after having
partitioned Gaul between his four sons--Thierry, Childebert, Clodomir
and this Clotaire, who is to-day the sole king of all these conquered
provinces. Clodomir died shortly after and left two children. These were
taken in charge by their grandmother, the widow of Clovis, old Queen
Clotilde. She had her two little grandsons brought up beside her, until
they should be of age to assure the inheritance of their father's
kingdom. One day, when she was in Paris, Childebert, who lived in that
city, sent secretly one of his confidential servants to the kind-hearted
Clotaire with the message: 'Our mother Clotilde keeps the children of
our brother near her, and she wishes them to enter into possession of
his kingdom; come quickly to Paris in order that we may consider what is
to be done with them, whether we shall have their hair cut short like
the rest of the people, and have them locked up in a monastery, or
whether we shall kill them and thus share among ourselves the kingdom of
their father, our brother'--"
"The story begins to be affectionate."
"It is the fraternity in vogue among the Franks."
"What Vagre would ever think of killing his own brother's children in
order to seize their property?"
"None! None would think of such a thing."
"We are wolves, and wolves do not devour one another--my brothers--"
"And were those children whom they sought to slay still young, learned
Symphorien?"
"One was ten, the other seven--"
"Poor little creatures--"
"I pursue my narrative. Clotaire arrived in Paris, deliberated with his
brother, and the two acting in concert visited old Queen Clotilde and
said to her: 'Send us your grandchildren that we may embrace them, and
forthwith announce them to the people as the heirs of their father's
kingdom.'"
"Oh! These Frankish kings are ever as wily as they are bloodthirsty! It
was a lure, was it not, learned Symphorien?"
"You will soon see what their project was. Clovis' widow was happy, and
sent the little children to their uncles, saying to the little ones: 'I
shall forget that I lost your father when I see you succeed him in his
kingdom.' The moment the children arrived at their uncles' they were
separated from their slaves and governors, and kept in close
confinement. Clotaire and Childebert then sent an emissary to the
children's grandmother. In one hand he carried a pair of shears, in the
other a naked sword. He said to old Queen Clotilde: 'Glorious Queen, our
lords, your sons, desire to know your preference with regard to your
grandsons--do you wish them to be shorn, that is, locked up in a
convent, or would you prefer to have them slain?' 'If they are to
renounce their father's throne,' cried the old Queen indignant, 'I would
prefer to see them dead rather than shorn.' The emissary returned and
said to the two kings: 'You have the Queen's wishes to finish the work
that you began.' Immediately thereupon King Clotaire takes the eldest by
the arm, throws him on the ground, and plunges his knife under the boy's
arm-pit."
"Poor, dear little one!" murmured Odille weeping. "He must have died
calling to his mother for help--"
"The royal butcher knew the right spot to plunge his knife in the
child's body," observed Ronan; "that is the proper way to kill lambkins.
Proceed, learned Symphorien."
"At the cries of the child, his younger brother rushes in and throws
himself at Childebert's feet, and clinging to his legs with all his
strength, cries out to him: 'Uncle! Good uncle! Come to my help! Do not
let me be killed like my brother!'"
"Touched to the heart for an instant, Childebert says to Clotaire:
'Grant me the life of this child.' But Clotaire answers enraged: 'Either
push the child off your knees, or you will die in his stead! It is you
who led me into this affair, and now your heart seems to fail you!'"
"The good Clotaire was right," put in Ronan. "First to scheme the
assassination of the children, and then to recoil before the deed was to
insult the stock of the glorious King Clovis. But Childebert thought
better, in honor of his royal family, did he not, learned Symphorien?"
"What else could he? Childebert pushed the child off from his knees and
threw him towards Clotaire, who plunged his knife under the boy's
arm-pit as he had done with the other, and killed him. The two kings
forthwith put all the slaves and governors of the two children to death,
and divided their kingdom among them."
"That is the manner in which monarchies are founded," observed Ronan.
"Oh, by Rita-Gaur, the inspired Gaul of olden days who had a blouse
woven of the beard of the kings! All these monsters deserve to be
exterminated, do you not think so, friend?" he added, addressing the
hermit laborer, who had silently listened to the narrative. "Is it not
the duty of all sons of Gaul to take the field in permanence against
these wild beasts who have invaded our country, reduced us to vile
slavery?"
"It is better to prevent the evil than to kill the criminal," answered
the hermit.
"Hermit, could you prevent a Frankish king from being born a rapacious
thief?"
"He must be prevented from being born king, duke, count or seigneur, and
taught that he is not the master of the life and goods of other human
beings. Jesus of Nazareth said it: we are all equal. From the equality
of men their fraternity will one day be born. To each his part in the
common heritage. Propagate that doctrine among your brothers, and the
end will be reached without the spilling of blood."
Saying this the hermit-laborer relapsed into his previous silent revery.
"Twice have I camped on the trail of that last king of Auvergne--king by
the grace of pillage and massacre," said Ronan, "and both times I failed
to catch him. But, by Rita-Gaur, if ever Clotaire falls into my hands, I
shall shave him--and so close to his shoulders that his head will never
more grow again--"
"Ronan, you reckon without the demonstration of rhetoric. I have
established the premises, let us now draw the conclusions. Therefore,
_logice_, I shall prove to you that naught will avail you against
Clotaire. The Lord protects him. Yes, the Lord has performed a miracle
in favor of Clotaire, the butcher of children. Consequently, I was right
when I said that I shall prove _logice_ that the Lord will surely
perform some miracle in our own favor, in favor of the good Vagres--"
"We were decidedly wrong in not hanging the bishop!"
"It will always be time to draw the Lord's attention upon as by some
such pious deed. But tell us the miracle, learned Symphorien."
"It was in the year 537, about four years after Childebert and Clotaire
stabbed their little nephews to death. Our two worthy sons of the stock
of Clovis had no thought but of how to plunder and despatch each other.
Accordingly, although united for a moment like loving brothers in the
assassination of the two boys, Clotaire and Childebert declared war
against each other. Theudebert, one of Clovis' grandchildren, joined
Childebert; the two placed themselves at the head of their leudes, and,
as was their wont, pillaged and laid waste the countries that they
crossed, and marched against Clotaire. The good uncle did not consider
his own forces strong enough to make head against the joint troops of
his brother and his nephew; he declined battle and withdrew to the
forest of Brotonne, between Rouen and the sea. Theudebert and
Childebert girdled the forest, and quietly awaited the night, confident
of catching the beloved brother and uncle in the net. In pursuit of
their plan, Childebert and Theudebert advanced noiselessly at the head
of their troops. The sun was rising. They had arrived to within two or
three hundred paces from the spot where Clotaire was encamped with his
leudes, when suddenly a frightful hailstorm of stones and fire dropped
down from the sky. The troops of Childebert and Theudebert were crushed
by the stones and consumed by the heavenly fire."
"And what became of Clotaire?"
"Oh! Clotaire, the favorite of the Lord, as the miracle proved, saw the
troops of his brother and nephew annihilated only a few paces from him
by the stones and fire that rained down from the sky, while over his own
head, the sky, as pure, limpid and serene as his own conscience, was of
a smiling blue. Not even a breath of wind agitated the tops of the trees
in the forest, while all around there was a cataract of fire. And
thereupon a further shower of stones dropped down from the bosom of the
clouds, and buried all the enemies of Clotaire."
Symphorien stopped for a moment to contemplate the effect of the miracle
on his audience and then proceeded:
"And above all, you must not fail to observe that the account of the
miracle expressly states that it was the great St. Martin himself, who,
in paradise, prayed to the Lord that he give such a token of friendship
for Clotaire. Now, then, St. Martin did not intercede with the Lord on
behalf of the felonious Clotaire, but at the fervent prayer of Queen
Clotilde."
"What! The grandmother of the two poor little victims of that monster of
a Clotaire?" exclaimed little Odille clasping her hands. "She prayed for
a miracle in favor of the murderer of her two grandsons?"
"My Vagre," put in at this juncture the bishopess passing her slender
fingers through the waivy hair of the young man, and placing her lips
upon her lover's mouth, "is it not better to proceed to yonder worlds
than to remain and live in this world of horrors?"
"Aye, horrible--horrible is this world," cried the hermit-laborer with
profound grief and indignation. "Oh! To see the name of that God of
mercy, of love and of justice thus profaned and daily soiled! Oh! To see
these crimes, that cause nature to shudder, placed under divine
protection! Oh, Jesus! Jesus of Nazareth! You the divinest of all sages,
you did foresee that your Church would be ill-understood, when, with
your spirit, afflicted unto death, you did, in your last and supreme
watch, weep over the approaching future of the world! Jesus! Jesus!
Centuries must elapse before your day shall arrive!"
"Be careful, friend!" said Ronan, "speak not so loud. Yonder holy man of
a bishop, who sleeps not far from you, gorged with wine and meat, might
excommunicate you if he heard you! But to the devil with sadness! We
live in damnable days--let us live like the damned! Up, my Vagres, up!
You are thrice holy! Let our Saturnalia cover all Gaul--let this land of
our fathers be the grave of the Franks, even if it has to be the grave
of ourselves. The ruins of our deserted cities will tell future
centuries: 'Here lies a great people! Free, it was the pride of the
world; enslaved by conquering kings, it one day knew how to vanish from
the world as it dragged its tyrants with it into the abyss!' So, then,
let us die rejoicing. Up, my Vagres and Vagresses--let us dance and make
love until dawn! Let the Franks tremble in their burgs at our daring
songs! Let bishops flee for refuge in their basilicas! Let them all
whisper affrighted to one another: 'Woe is us! Woe is us to-morrow! They
are feeling very happy to-night in Vagrery!"
And the Vagres and Vagresses screamed, and sang, and shouted. Wildly
they tumbled about, and started a giddy reel upon the sward by the pale
illumination of the moon.
CHAPTER IX.
LOYSIK AND RONAN.
Wrapped in silence the hermit-laborer had listened to the conversation
of the Vagres. Seated beside little Odille, he seemed to shield her with
a paternal protection. The child seemed a stranger to what happened
around her. When at the close of the repast Ronan gave his companions
the signal for the songs and dance, they ran away tumultuously from the
place of the recent banquet to give a loose to their bacchic gayety and
indulge in a giddy dance on the sward of another and nearby clearing.
Approaching the hermit-laborer and the little girl, both of whom had
kept their places as they gazed up at the sky, Ronan said to her in a
merry voice:
"Will you dance, little Odille? The reel is started; it will last until
dawn."
The young girl shook her head melancholically, made no answer, and
continued to gaze at the sky.
"Odille, what is it you are dreaming about as you gaze at the moon?
Whither do your thoughts fly, my child?"
"Sleep is overpowering me, and my thoughts are running over an old druid
chant that my mother used to sing to me, to rock me asleep when I was
little."
"What chant was that?"
"Oh! It is old, very, very old--my mother used to tell me. It has been
sung in Gaul for over five or six hundred years."
"And what is its name?"
"The chant of Hena, the Virgin of the Isle of Sen."
"The chant of Hena!" cried the Vagre and the hermit simultaneously with
a tremor of delight.
Both grew immediately silent, while Odille, astonished at their visible
emotion, looked from the one to the other, and asked:
"You also seem to know the chant of Hena?"
"Sing it, my child," answered Ronan in a tremulous voice.
More and more astonished, little Odille was hardly able to recognize her
friend. The dare-devil and merry Vagre had become pensive and grave.
"Yes, yes, my child! Recite that chant to us with your sweet voice of
fifteen years," put in the hermit. "But not here--the dance and yonder
wild carousal, although far enough away, would drown your voice--"
"The hermit is right. Come with us, little Odille, to yonder large oak.
It will be far enough away from the dancers. It is surrounded by a soft
moss carpet. You will be able to sleep there. I shall cover you up with
my cloak to protect you from the damp."
From the foot of the oak tree where the girl took her seat between Ronan
and the hermit, only the dim noise was heard of the giddy dance and
songs of Ronan's companions, the Vagres and Vagresses. The moon, now on
her decline, shed her silvery rays under the somber verdure of the
leaves and lighted the hermit, Ronan and the young slave as if the sun
shone through the trees. The child-like voice of Odille was soon heard
striking up the first couplet of the chant:
"She was young, she was fair, and holy was she; Hena her name, Hena the
maid of the Island of Sen."
At these words both the hermit and the Vagre lowered their heads, and
without noticing the tears that the other was shedding, both wept.
Odille sang the second couplet, but broken with the fatigue of the last
twenty-four hours, and yielding to the influence of the chant's
melancholy rhythm, that so often had lulled and rocked her to sleep on
her mother's knees, the little slave's voice became fainter and fainter,
while, at the distance the Vagres suddenly struck up in chorus and with
resonant voices the refrain of another ancient chant of Gaul. These
latter accents sent a new thrill through the frames of Ronan and the
hermit. Without wholly drowning Odille's voice, the words reached their
ears:
"Flow, flow, thou blood of the captive! Drop, drop, thou dew of gore!
Germinate, sprout up, thou avenging harvest!"
The two men seemed struck with the singular coincidence: at a distance,
the chant of revolt, of war and blood; close to them, the girl's angelic
voice, singing the praises of Hena, one of the sweetest glories of
Armorican Gaul. Presently, however, as Odille yielded more and more to
the gentle pressure of slumber, her voice was heard ever fainter until
from a murmur, it became hardly audible. The girl's head drooped on her
breast, and with her back sustained by the trunk of the tree she fell
into profound sleep.
"Poor child!" said Ronan as he covered her with his cloak. "She is
overcome with fatigue. May her sleep give her rest and strength!"
"Ronan," observed the hermit fastening a penetrating look upon the
Vagre, "the chant of Hena made you weep--"
"It is true, good hermit."
"What is the reason of such emotion?"
"A family remembrance--if a Vagre, a 'Wand'ring Man,' a 'Wolf,' a
'Wolf's-Head' can be at all said to have a family--"
"And what is that family remembrance?"
"The sweet Hena, to whom the chant refers, was one of my ancestresses."
"How do you know that?"
"My father often told me so; in my childhood he used to relate to me the
histories of olden days, of centuries ago."
"Where is your father now?"
"I do not know. He used to run the Bagaudy, perhaps he now runs the
Vagrery, unless he has died the brave death of a brave man. I do not
expect to be enlightened upon that until he and I meet again
elsewhere--"
"Where?"
"In those mysterious worlds that none knows and that we shall all
know--seeing that we shall all continue to live there--"
"You have, then, preserved the faith of our ancestors?"
"My father taught me that to die was to change vestments, because we
leave this world to be re-born in yonder ones. Death is but a
transformation."
"Is it long since you were separated from your father?"
"Let us drop that subject--it is a sad one. I prefer to keep up a
cheerful mood. And yet, I feel drawn towards you, although you are not
cheerful--"
"We live in days when, in order to be cheerful, one's soul must be
either very weak or very strong."
"Do you think me weak?"
"I think you are both strong and weak. But as to your father--what has
become of him?"
"Well, my father was a Bagauder in his youth; later, after the Franks
christened us 'Vagres,' he became a Vagre. The name was changed, the
pursuit remained the same."
"And your mother?"
"In Vagrery one knows but little of his mother. I never knew mine. The
furthest back that I can carry my memory, I must have been seven or
eight years old. I then accompanied my father in his raids, now in
Provence, and now here in Auvergne. If I was tired of foot, either my
father or one of his companions carried me on his back. It is thus that
I grew up. We often had days of enforced rest. Sometimes the Frankish
counts were so exasperated at us that they gathered their leudes and
hunted us. Informed of their movements by the poor folks of the fields
who loved us dearly, we would then retire to our inaccessible
fastnesses, and there lie low for several days while the Franks beat the
field without encountering even the shadow of a Vagre. At such intervals
of rest in the seclusion of some solitary retreat, my father used to
narrate to me, as I told you, the histories of olden days. Thus I
learned that our family originated in Britanny, where the main stock
lived and perhaps still lives to this very hour, free and in peace,
seeing that the Franks have never yet been able to place their yoke upon
that rugged province--its granite rocks are too hard, and its Bretons
are like the granite of its rocks."
"I know the saying: 'He is intractable as an Armorican.'"
"My father often used the saying."
"But what induced him to leave that peaceful province, that still enjoys
the boon of freedom, thanks to the indomitable bravery that continues to
uphold the druid faith, which the evangelical morality of the young
master of Nazareth has regenerated?"
"My father was about seventeen years of age when one day his family
extended hospitality to a peddler during a stormy night. The peddler's
trade took him all over Gaul; he knew and he told them of the country's
trials; he also spoke of the life of adventure led by the Bagauders. My
father was tired of the life of the fields; his heart was warm, and from
his cradle he had drunk in the hatred for the Franks. Struck by the
peddler's account, he considered the opportunity good for waging war
upon the barbarians by joining the Bagauders. He left the paternal roof
and joined the peddler by appointment about a league away. After a few
days' march the two reached Anjou and met a troop of Bagauders. Young,
robust and daring, my father was an acceptable recruit. He joined the
band, and--long live the Bagaudy! Raiding from province to province, he
came as far as Auvergne, which he never left. The country was favorable
for his pursuit--forests, mountains, rocks, caverns, torrents, extinct
volcanos! It is the paradise of the Bagaudy, the promised land of the
Vagrery!"
"How came you to be separated from your father?"
"It was about three years ago--agents of the king, they were called
_antrustions_, collected the revenues of the royal domain. They were
numerous, well armed, and traveled only by day. We were waiting for the
end of their reaping to gather in our harvest. One night they halted at
Sifour, a little unprotected village. The opportunity tempted my father.
We sallied forth believing that we would take the Franks by surprise.
They were on their guard. After a bloody encounter we had to flee before
the Frankish lances that followed us in hot pursuit. I was separated
from my father during that midnight affray. Was he killed or was he
merely wounded and taken prisoner I do not know. All my efforts to
ascertain his fate have been vain. Since then my companions elected me
their chief. You wanted to know my history--I have told it to you. You
now know it."
"You have told me more than you think for. Your father's name was
Karadeucq."
"How do you know that?"
"The name of your father's father was Jocelyn. If he still lives in
Britanny with his elder son Kervan and his daughter Roselyk, he must be
inhabiting a house near the sacred stones of Karnak--"
"Who told you--"
"One of your ancestors was named Joel; he was the brenn of the tribe of
Karnak. Hena, the saint sung about in the druid chant, was the daughter
of Joel, whose family traces its origin back to the Gallic brenn, whom
the Romans called Brennus, and who, nearly eight hundred years ago, made
them pay ransom for Rome."
"Who are you that you know the history of my family so accurately?"
"That chant of the slaves in revolt against the Romans--'Flow, flow,
thou blood of the captive! Drop, drop, thou dew of gore!'--was sung by
one of your ancestors named Sylvest, who was cast to the wild beasts in
the circus of Orange. And I imagine that your father taught you another
thrilling chant, one sung two hundred and odd years ago, on the occasion
of one of the great battles fought on the Rhine against the Franks, and
won by Victorin, the son of Victoria, the Mother of the Camps--"
"You are right--often did my father sing that chant to me. It began this
wise:
"'This morning we said: How many are there of these barbarous hordes?
How many are there of these Franks?'"
"And it closed this wise," replied the monk:
"'This evening we say: How many were there of these barbarous hordes?
This evening we say: How many were there of these Franks?'"
"Schanvoch, another of your ancestors, a brave soldier and
foster-brother of Victoria the Great, sang that song--"
"Yes, Gaul, on that day proud, free and triumphant, had just driven the
barbarians from both banks of the Rhine, while, to-day--but let us drop
that topic, monk; if those days were glorious, the present ones seem to
me all the more horrible. Oh! blameworthy was the credulity of our
fathers, martyrs to this new religion--"
"Our fathers could not choose but place faith in the words of the first
apostles, who preached to them love for their fellow men, the pardon of
sins, the deliverance of the slaves, in the name of the young master of
Nazareth, whom your ancestress Genevieve saw crucified in Jerusalem--"
"My ancestress Genevieve? You seem to be informed on every particular
detail concerning my family. Only my father could have instructed you on
such matters--you must have known him! Answer me!"
"Yes, I knew your father. Did you never notice, after you entered the
heart of Auvergne, that from time to time your father absented himself
for several days?"
"Yes, he did--I never knew the reason."
"Your father, each such time, went to visit a poor female slave near
Tulle. She was bound to the glebe of the bishop of that city. That
female slave, it is now at least thirty years ago, one day found your
father Karadeucq, who was then the chief of the Bagauders, wounded and
in a dying condition in a hedge along the road. She took pity upon him;
she helped him to drag himself to the hut which she inhabited with her
mother. Your father was then about twenty years of age--the young female
slave was of about the age of that child who is asleep near us. The two
loved each other. Shortly after he was well again, your father was one
day discovered in the slave's hut by the bishop's superintendent. The
man considered Karadeucq a good prize and sought to take him as a slave
to Tulle. Your father resisted, beat the agent, and fled and rejoined
the Bagauders. The young slave became a mother--she gave birth to a
son--"
"I then have a brother!"
"The son of a female slave is born a slave and belongs to his mother's
master. When the boy, whom your father named Loysik in remembrance of
his Breton extraction, was four or five years old, the bishop of Tulle,
who had noticed in the child certain precocious qualities, had him taken
to the episcopal college, where he was brought up with several other
young slaves who were all to become clerks of the Church. From time to
time Karadeucq went at night to visit the mother of his son at Tulle.
The boy being always notified in advance by his mother, always found
some means of repairing to his mother's hut on such occasions. There the
father and the son held long conversations concerning the men and things
of the olden days of Gaul when the country was glorious and free. Your
father preserved as a family tradition an ardent and sacred love for
Gaul. He strove to cause his son's heart to beat proudly at the grand
recollections of the past, to exasperate him against the Franks, and
some day to take him along to run the Vagrery with him. But Loysik, who
was of a quiet and rather retiring disposition, feared such an
adventurous life. Years passed. Had your brother so desired, he could
have won honors and riches, as so many others did, by consecrating
himself to the Church. But shortly before being ordained a priest, he
had the opportunity of gaining so close a view of the clerical
hypocrisy, cupidity and profligacy, that he declined to enter priesthood
and he cursed the sacrilegious alliance of the Gallic clergy with the
conquerors. He left the episcopal house and went to the frontier of
Provence, where he joined the hermit-laborers. He was previously
acquainted with one of their set, who had stopped for several weeks at
the episcopal alms-house for his cure."
"Did the hermit-laborers establish a colony?"
"Several of them gathered in a secluded spot to cultivate the lands that
had been laid waste and were abandoned since the conquest. They were
plain and good men, faithful to the recollections of old Gaul and to the
precepts of the gospels. Those monks lived in celibacy, but took no
vows. They remained lay, and had no clerical character. It is only since
recent years that most of those monks have begun entering the Church.
But having become priests, they are daily losing the popular esteem that
they once enjoyed, and the independence of character that rendered them
so redoubtable to the bishops. At the time that I am speaking of, the
life of those hermit-laborers was peaceful and industrious. They lived
like brothers, obedient to the precepts of Jesus; they cultivated their
lands in common; and they jointly and forcibly defended them whenever
some band of Franks, on the way from some burg to another, took it into
their heads, out of sheer wantonness, to injure the fields or crops of
the monks--"
"I must say that I love those hermits, who are at once husbandmen and
soldiers, who are faithful to the precepts of Jesus, to the love for old
Gaul, and to horror for the Franks. You say that those monks fought
well--were they armed?"
"They had arms--and better than arms. See here," said the hermit drawing
from under his robe a species of short sword or long poniard with an
iron hilt; "observe this weapon carefully. Its strength does not lie in
its blade but in the words engraven on the hilt."
"I see," said Ronan, "on one of the sides of the guard, the word _ghilde_,
and on the other side two Gallic words--_friendship_--_community_. I
suppose these are the device of the hermit-laborers? But what does the
word _ghilde_ mean? That is not a Gallic word. It is unknown to me."
"It is a Saxon word."
"Oh! It is a word from the language of the pirates who come down from
the seas of the North, skirt the coasts, and often ascend the Loire in
order to plunder the bordering lands. They are fearful marauders, but
intrepid seamen! Think of their coming over sea from distant shores, in
mere canoes, that are so frail and light that, at a pinch, they are
carried on their backs. It is said that they have ascended the Loire
more than once as far as Tours."
"And it is true. And thus Gaul is to-day the prey of barbarians from
within and from without. She is at the mercy of the Franks and the
Saxons!"
"But how can that Saxon word _ghilde_, engraven on the iron impart
strength to the weapon, as you tell me?"
"I shall explain the secret to you. One of the monk-laborers lived on
the border of the Loire before he joined us. Being carried away by the
pirates at one of their raids in Touraine, when he was still in his
early infancy, he was brought up in their country. During his sojourn
among them, he noticed that those men of the North drew immense strength
from certain associations in which each owed solidarity to all, and all
to each--solidarity in fraternity, in assistance, in goods, in arms and
in life. These associations are generally believed to have sprung up
from Christian fraternity; the fact is that they were in practice in
those Northern regions many a century before the birth of Jesus, and
they were called _ghildes_. Later the prisoner of the pirates succeeded
in making his escape, reentered Gaul, joined us hermit-laborers--"
"Why do you break off?"
"An oath that I have taken forbids me to say more--"
"I shall respect your secret. But the confidence, with which I seem to
inspire you, you also inspire in me. My brother, you said to me, was of
the number of the hermit-laborers with whom you are associated. You must
have known him intimately. Only he could have furnished you with the
details concerning the family of Joel which he doubtlessly received from
his own father. Why do you look at me so fixedly? Your silence
disconcerts and moves me--your eyes are filling with tears--"
"Ronan, your brother was born thirty years ago--that is my age. Your
brother's name is Loysik--that is my name."
"Loysik! My brother!"
"It is I. Did you not surmise as much?"
"Joy of heavens! You are my brother!"
Long did the hermit and the Vagre remain in close embrace. After the
first ebullition of their tender joy, Ronan said to Loysik:
"And whatever became of our father?"
"I know not his fate--but let us trust in the goodness of God--let us
not despair of some day finding him again--"
"And was it your brother's instinct that led you to accompany us?"
"I did not suspect you of being my brother until I noticed the degree to
which you were moved by the chant of Hena. When you told me she was one
of your ancestresses, I no longer entertained any doubt but that we were
either brothers or close relatives. The account of your life proved to
me that we were brothers."
"But why, then, did you follow us in Vagrery?"
"Did you not hear my answer to Bishop Cautin: 'It is not the well but
the sick who stand in need of the physician?'"
"Would you blame me for being a Vagre, and would you blame our father
for having been a Bagauder?"
"No less than you, Ronan, do I hold slavery and conquest in horror,
seeing that Gaul, formerly powerful and teeming with happiness, is
covered with ruins and brambles since the Frankish invasion.
Proprietors, colonists, husbandmen have all fled before the barbarians
who reduce them to slavery, or cause them to die of hunger by reason of
the frightful floods of famine that have followed in the wake of the
invading army. Driven by despair large numbers of those unhappy people
run the Vagrery like yourself. Only slaves are seen here and there
cultivating the lands of the Church and of the seigneurs, and the poor
wretches bend under the weight of toil; not infrequently die of hunger
or of maltreatment. The cities, once so rich, so flourishing by their
commerce, are to-day ruined, almost depopulated, but being at least
defended by their walls, they offer some measure of security to their
inhabitants; and yet, the ceaseless civil wars between the sons of
Clovis at times deliver even these places to the torch of the
incendiary, to pillage and to massacre. During the fitful lulls of these
feuds, the inhabitants hardly dare to leave their walls; the roads,
infested with armed bands, render communication and traffic impossible.
But too often the horrors of famine have decimated the population of
whole cities. Alas! Such is the sad plight of our country."
"Aye, that is what the Frankish conquest has done for Gaul. She can no
longer be free--let her disappear from the world burying the conquerors
and the conquered alike under her ruins!"
"Brother, is not this Gaul that you lay waste with as much
inveterateness as the conquerors themselves, is she not our dearly
beloved country, our mother? Is it for us, her children, to join hands
with the barbarians in whelming her with sorrows and trials? Like
yourself, I wish to labor for the overthrow of barbarism; like yourself
I wish to put an end to the craven besottedness of the oppressed; but I
wish to destroy barbarism with civilization, ignorance with
enlightenment, poverty with labor, slavery with the sense of national
worth--a sense, alas! now almost wholly uprooted, and yet once so
powerful, in the days of our fathers, when our venerated druids aroused
the peoples to arms against the Romans. Holy insurrections!"
"Tracked by the bishops, our last druids have died upon the scaffold!"
"But the druid faith is not dead! No--no! The forms of religions pass,
but their divine principle remains for all time. Revived, stimulated and
regenerated by the gentle morality of Jesus, the druid faith is born
anew in our breasts. It has preserved its belief in the immortality of
the soul of men, in their successive re-incarnation in the starry world,
to the end that by fresh trials and sufferings the wicked may become
good, and the just still more perfect. Aye, humanity, whether visible or
invisible, must rise from sphere to sphere in its eternal effort, in its
continuous progress, towards infinite perfection. Such is our faith, the
faith of us Christian druids, who practice the evangelical doctrine in
all that it contains of tenderness, mercifulness, and the love of
freedom--"
At this point Loysik was suddenly interrupted by a voice that proceeded
from a bush near the oak tree, shouting:
"Relapsed! Sacrilegious wretch! Worshiper of Mammon! Hermit of the
devil! Prop of Beelzebub! You shall be burned for a heretic!"
It was the voice of Bishop Cautin. And almost at the same instant, from
afar, from the side where the Vagres were finishing their night of
wassail, these other cries were heard through the stillness of the
approaching dawn:
"On guard! On guard! The leudes of Count Neroweg are approaching! The
count himself is at their head!"
"On guard! The leudes of Count Neroweg are approaching! To arms! To
arms!"
Awakened from her restful sleep by the tumult and hearing the cries of
the Vagres, little Odille screamed with terror as she threw herself on
the neck of Ronan:
"Count Neroweg! Save me!"
"Fear not, poor child!"
And addressing Loysik, Ronan added:
"Brother, fate sends to us a descendant of that family of Neroweg, whom
our ancestor Schanvoch fought two centuries ago on the borders of the
Rhine. I wish to kill that barbarian, rid Gaul of him, and protect our
own family from the peril of his descendants--"
"Kill me!" murmured Odille, falling on her knees before the Vagre and
clasping her hands. "I prefer to die at your hands rather than to fall
back into the hands of the count--"
Touched by the girl's despair and of course unable to foresee the issue
of the pending combat, Ronan remained pensive for a moment. He looked
around. His eyes fell upon a spreading branch of the oak tree near which
they stood. He leaped up, seized it, and bending it down said to his
brother:
"Loysik, sit Odille on this branch; when it straightens up again it will
carry the poor child up; she will then be able to reach the thicker
foliage, and keep herself concealed until the end of the combat. I shall
forthwith assemble the Vagres. Courage, little Odille, I shall return
after the battle--"
And he ran towards his companions, while the slave, whom Loysik had
placed upon the branch, disappeared in the midst of the thick foliage
waving her hands at Ronan.
Dawn was lighting the forest. The tops of the trees were crimsoned with
the first fires of the orb of day. The Vagres, who just announced the
approach of Count Neroweg and his leudes, had taken a path across the
thicket that was impracticable for the horses of the Franks, a good deal
shorter than the road that these were obliged to take in order to arrive
at the clearing where the Vagres had halted for the night. The larger
number of the Vagres being in their cups and exhausted with singing and
dancing, were asleep on the lawn. Awakened with a start by the cries of
the outposts, they rushed to their arms. The slaves, the colonists, the
women, the ruined proprietors, who joined the Vagres on the previous day
were differently affected at the tidings of the approach of the leudes.
Some trembled from head to foot; others fled into the thickest of the
forest; still others, a goodly number, preserved their courage, and
hastily sought for means of the defense. In default of better weapons
they supplied themselves with heavy knotted staves that they cut from
the trees. The Vagres themselves numbered about a dozen excellent
archers, others were armed with axes, iron maces, pikes, swords and
scythes with the blades turned outward. At the first cry of alarm, the
brave fellows gathered around Ronan and the hermit. Should battle be
engaged with the leudes? Was it better to flee before them and await a
better opportunity for an offensive stroke? Only few were for flight;
the majority favored immediate battle.
While the council of war was being held two other pickets rushed to the
clearing. They had concealed themselves in the underwood, and had been
able to count with approximate accuracy the number of leudes whom the
count led. There were barely a score on horseback; they were well armed;
but fully a hundred foot soldiers followed these and were armed with
pikes and clubs. Some were Franks, others were from the city of
Clermont, whom the count requisitioned in the name of the King for the
pursuit of the Vagres. Several of Bishop Cautin's slaves, who, out of
fear of hell fire, did not wish to run the Vagrery after the burning of
the episcopal villa, swelled the foot soldiers of Count Neroweg. Ronan's
troop numbered at most a score of men.
The council of war decided to engage in a general battle.
CHAPTER X.
THE MIRACLE OF ST. CAUTIN.
It is half an hour since the approach of Count Neroweg and his leudes
was announced by the pickets. The Vagres have disappeared. There remains
in the clearing where they feasted during the night naught but the
remains and evidences of their sumptuous banquet on the lawn--empty wine
pouches, gold and silver goblets strewn over the grassy and trampled
ground; not far away stand the wagons that were brought from the
episcopal villa, and further off the carcasses of the oxen lying near
the still smouldering bake-oven. The silence in the forest is profound.
Presently, one of the slaves of the villa, one of the pious guides of
the leudes, emerges from the thicket that surrounds the clearing. He
steps forward diffidently, listens and looks around as if apprehensive
of an ambuscade. At the sight of the evidences of the feast that lie
strewn about, he seems astonished and quickly turns around. Doubtlessly
his first impulse is to return to the troop which he precedes, but as
his eyes fall that instant upon the gold and silver vases that lie upon
the grass, he stops, turns back, runs to the booty, snatches up a gold
chalice and as quickly hides it under his rags. He thereupon lifts up
his voice and calls to the leudes.
A distant and steadily approaching noise is heard in the woods. The
bushes break down before the chests and under the iron hoofs of the
horses. Voices call and answer. Finally Count Neroweg breaks through the
thicket. He is on horseback and closely followed by several leudes. Most
of his troop, as well as the footmen, being less impetuous than himself,
follow at safer distance through the hedges on the way to join their
master. Neroweg had expected to fall unperceived upon the Vagres. There
was, however, not a soul in sight except the slave who now ran towards
him crying:
"Seigneur, the impious Vagres who sacked the villa of our holy bishop
have fled into the forest."
Neroweg raised his long sword and with one blow cut off the slave's
head:
"Dog! You deceived me! You were in conspiracy with the Vagres!"
The slave's lifeless body sank to the ground, and the hidden gold
chalice rolled over the grass.
"That gold vase is mine!" cried the count pointing at the chalice with
his sword to one of his men who followed him on foot. "Karl, put that
into your bag--"
These thieves always had close to their heels several men with bags
ready for booty. But just as Karl was about to follow his master's
orders, the latter's eyes fell upon the other articles of gold and
silver that were taken from the episcopal villa and which now glistened
attractively in the filtering rays of the rising sun. Neroweg put the
spurs to his horse, and bounding forward cried:
"Those treasures are mine! Fill up your bag, Karl. Call Rigomer and have
him fill his bag with all that it can contain!"
"The booty is not all for you alone, we have our share!" cried the
leudes who now entered upon the clearing. "All these treasures must be
divided alike--we are your equals!"
"We are equals in battle--equals also in the dividing of the booty--it
is but fair--"
"Do you forget that at the pillage of Soissons even the great Clovis
himself did not dare to dispute a gold vase with one of his warriors?"
"These treasures are ours as much as yours--we shall divide on the
spot--"
The count did not dare resist the demands of his leudes. Although these
warriors ever recognized him as their chief, they likewise ever treated
him as their equal. Several of the plunderers now alighted from their
horses and cast covetous glances at the chalices, their covers and other
articles of the Church, together with the goblets, dishes, bowls and
many other gold and silver utensils. Carried away by their greed, the
leudes precipitated themselves upon the treasures, pushing and shoving
one another, and were in the act of reaching out their hands to snatch
up the precious goods, when a loud voice, that seemed to descend from
the heavens above, thundered down upon them:
"Hands off, sacrilegious men! God hears you! God sees you! If you dare
to reach out impious hands at the goods of the Church you will be damned
forever!"
At the sound of the voice that seemed to come from heaven Neroweg grew
pale, trembled at every limb, dropped from his horse and fell upon his
knees. Several of the leudes followed his example and humbly prostrated
themselves. They were terror-stricken!
"All on your knees, pagans that you are!" proceeded the voice in still
more threatening accents. "All down on your knees! Accursed pillagers of
the Church!"
The last of the leudes who still remained on their feet dropped
distractedly on their knees, and with them the rest of the troop that
followed on foot and were now upon the scene. The affrighted crowd bowed
their heads to earth and smote their chests murmuring:
"A miracle! A miracle! It is the voice of the Lord!"
"And now, ye miserable sinners," the voice from above proceeded to
thunder in tones increasingly wrathful, "now that you have bowed down to
earth before the eye of the Lord and have attested your fear of His
wrath, rise and hasten to help His servant who--"
The voice suddenly stopped short; the branches of a tall oak, near which
Neroweg and his leudes lay upon their knees, bent and cracked under the
weight of a heavy body that was rolling down, and thus broke its fall as
it landed upon the ground, but so near to the count that the latter
narrowly escaped being crushed by it. This additional phenomenon added
to the terror of Neroweg and his leudes; the whole troop threw
themselves down flat upon their faces and murmured in their fright:
"Oh Lord! Oh Lord! Have mercy upon us! Oh Lord, turn Your wrath from
us!"
And what was it that actually tumbled down from the tree? It was Bishop
Cautin, and his was the voice that had sounded from on high. Just before
the arrival of the Franks, Ronan had pricked the holy man with the point
of his sword, and forced him to clamber up the tree before him and keep
himself there like a fat dormouse. Ronan accompanied the holy man up the
tree, and with the point of his sword drove him to speak in the name of
the Lord. Ronan's purpose was served so long as the holy man limited
himself to throwing Neroweg and his leudes into consternation, but as
soon as the bishop evinced an inclination to call them to his aid, the
Vagre seized him. The sudden move choked off Cautin's sentence before he
finished, the rotund and heavy bishop slipped, and tumbling down from
branch to branch fell almost upon the back of the count. But the man of
God was a wily customer. Although dazed for a moment by his fall, he
quickly profited by the terror in which the Franks and the slaves were
thrown as they lay face down, flat upon the earth. He steadied himself
upon his legs, and rubbed his sore limbs, and puffing his cheeks he
shouted:
"Miserable sinners! Adore your holy bishop who redescends from heaven
upon the wings of the Lord's archangels!"
"A miracle!" again cried the crowd with even intenser unction, and
smiting their chests with redoubled fervor. "A miracle!"
"Holy Bishop Cautin, who descends from heaven--protect us!"
"Is it your voice I hear, holy father?" queried Neroweg in a subdued
voice without daring to raise his face from the ground or looking up.
"Is it your own voice, holy bishop, or is it a snare that Satan spreads
for us?"
"It is myself--your bishop--to doubt it is sacrilege!"
"Whence come you, good father?"
"I descend from heaven. After the sack of the episcopal villa, and
seeing me carried away a captive by the Vagres--be they forever
accursed!--the Lord sent His exterminating angels to my aid. They were
clad in armor of hyacinthe, and armed with flaming swords. They snatched
me from the hands of the Philistines, took me on their azure wings, and
carried me to heaven--"
"A miracle!" cried the entranced crowd in chorus. "A miracle!"
"Our holy bishop has seen the face of the Lord! Hosanna!"
"St. Cautin," cried up Neroweg, "you will protect me, dear patron saint,
my dear father in Christ! Will you not bless your son?"
"Yes, I will bless you--provided always you prostrate yourself before
the bishop of the Lord, and you enrich the Church!"
"I shall have a chapel built in your honor on this very spot, holy
bishop, in order to glorify this miracle--"
"That is far from enough--no, that is not enough. Listen, count, listen
attentively:
"Neroweg and his leudes fled like cowards from the episcopal villa when
it was attacked by the Vagres.
"I order that the count relinquish one quarter of his goods to me, the
bishop of Clermont; I order that he rebuild the episcopal villa, which
he allowed the Vagres to set on fire, and that he richly ornament it.
"I furthermore order that Count Neroweg pursue the Vagres without let,
that he capture and put them to death--all of them, but especially their
chief and a relapsed hermit, a renegade, an idolater who accompanies the
accursed men.
"Finally, I order that the count burn to death, over a slow fire, a
certain Moabite woman, a witch, an infernal wench, who once was bound to
me by the bonds of holy matrimony.
"Let Count Neroweg carry out these, my orders; only at that price shall
his sins be remitted, and on the day of his death I shall admit him into
paradise.
"That is the message that the Lord entrusted me to bear to you. Amen!"
Neroweg and a few of the leudes rose upon their knees open-mouthed. As
they did so they perceived two bearded Vagres with their bows between
their teeth crawling like serpents along a large branch in order to
reach a spot from which, skilful archers that they were, they could take
deliberate aim at their foes and nail them to the sod.
"Treason!" cried the count jumping to his feet and pointing to the tree.
"Treason! The Vagres are there, hidden in the tree branches!"
Hardly had the count said these words when a volley of arrows flew from
the tree-top and riddled his troop. Finding themselves discovered, the
daring Vagres hesitated not one instant to engage in battle. So accurate
was the aim of the archers that every arrow found its quiver in the
flesh of a foe.
"This is for you, Neroweg!" cried Ronan from the branch on which he was
perched. "This is for you, the descendant of the Terrible Eagle! There
goes the Vagre's arrow!"
Unfortunately the arrow's head was flattened out against the iron casque
of the count. The other Vagres who, until now had remained hidden in the
bushes, rushed forward with loud yells and intrepidly attacked the troop
of Neroweg. The combat became general.
Who were the vanquishers in that combat? The Vagres or the Franks?
Malediction! After a stubborn struggle, almost all the Vagres were
slain. A few who escaped the sword and others who were too severely
wounded to flee remained prisoners in the hands of Neroweg. Ronan, the
Vagre, was among the latter. The superiority of arms prevailed over mere
courage.
And Loysik? And little Odille? And the bishopess?
All prisoners--yes, they were all taken to the burg of the Frankish
count, while Bishop Cautin, carrying with him his gold and silver vases,
regained Clermont followed by a pious crowd of slaves who cried on his
passage:
"Glory to our holy bishop! Glory to the blessed Cautin! Hosanna!"
PART III
THE BURG OF NEROWEG
CHAPTER I.
LEUDES AT HOME.
The burg of Count Neroweg is situated in the center of a space once
occupied by a fortified Roman camp. The structure is reared on a
highland plateau that dominates a vast forest at its feet. Between the
forest and the burg lies a wide expanse of meadow lands, watered by a
swift-running river. Beyond the forest, far away, the horizon is bounded
by the volcanic mountain peaks of Auvergne. The seigniorial residence
that shelters the count and his leudes is built after the Germanic
fashion: in lieu of walls stout beams carefully planed and fastened
together, rest upon a broad stone foundation. At intervals, and with the
view of steadying the one-foot thick beams, buttresses of masonry rise
from the stone foundation up to the roof, which, in turn, is constructed
of oaken shingles and boards, one foot square, laid over each other. The
roofing is both light and proof against the rain. The building is a long
square, a wide wooden portico ornaments its front entrance, and it is
supported on either wing by other structures similarly put together.
These are thatched and are devoted to the purposes of kitchen,
storerooms, washhouses, weaving and spinning, shoe-making, tailoring,
and all the other needs of a household. In these wings are also situated
the kennels, the stables, the perches for the falcons, the pig-sty, the
cattle-sheds, the wine-presses, the brewery, and large outhouses filled
with fodder for horses and cattle. In the main, or seigniorial building
are also the women's apartments reserved for Godegisele, the fifth wife
of the count, whose second and third wives still live. There Godegisele
spends her days in sadness; she rarely leaves her apartments and plies
her distaff in the midst of her female slaves, who attend to the several
duties of the needle and the spindle or loom. A frame chapel, in which a
clerk, a messmate at the burg, officiates, is connected with the women's
apartment, the latter being essentially a lupanar, to which no man save
the count himself is admitted. There, under the very eyes of his wife,
every evening after drinking, the count picks out his bed-fellow for the
night. The leudes distribute themselves promiscuously among the outside
female slaves.
These vast structures, together with a garden and a spacious tree-girt
yard intended for the military exercises of the leudes and of the foot
soldiers, all of whom were freemen and Franks, are surrounded by a fosse
and earthworks, the ancient vestiges of the Roman camp which dates from
the conquest of Julius Caesar. The parapets are considerably impaired by
the centuries, but they still present a good line of defense. Only one
of the four entrances of the fortified enclosure--facing, as was the
custom, north, south, east and west--has been preserved. It is the one
facing south. On that side, a draw-bridge built of rough logs spans the
fosse during the day, in order to afford a passage to man, wagons and
horses. But, as a means of precaution--the count is diffident and
suspicious--the bridge is drawn at night by its keeper. The deep fosse,
boggy by reason of the waters that it has drained from time immemorial
and that stagnated in its bed, has so thick a layer of mud at its
bottom, that any one who should attempt to cross the slough would be
completely engulfed. At a little distance from the yard and far removed
from the main building, but still within the fortified space, stands an
_ergastula_, built, like all Roman structures, of imperishable bricks.
The _ergastula_ is a sort of deep cave, intended during the Roman
conquest as a lock-up for the slaves who were employed in field labor
and in the building of roads. Ronan, Loysik the hermit-laborer, the
handsome bishopess, little Odille and several other Vagres, all who had
not died of their wounds since their capture, have for the last month
been imprisoned in the _ergastula_, the jail of the burg, being thrown
there immediately after the combat in the passage of Allange, where most
of the Vagres lost their lives. The rest fled into the woods.
Certainly the position of the burg, the noble Frank's den, was well
chosen. The old Roman fortifications place the residence above the
danger of a sudden attack. On the other hand, is the seigneur count
minded to hunt wild animals, the forest lies so near the burg that
during the first nights of autumn the loving stags and does can be heard
belling for one another's company; is he minded to hunt birds on the
wing, the meadows that surround his home offer to the falcons any number
of flocks of partridges, while further away large ponds serve as a
retreat to the herons who, often in their aerial contests with the
falcons, transfix the latter with their long sharp beaks; finally, is
the seigneur count minded to fish, his numerous ponds teem with pike,
carp and lampreys, while azure-backed trout and purple-finned perches
furrow the limpid streams.
Oh, seigneur Count Neroweg! How sweet it is to you to thus enjoy the
delights of this land that your kings conquered with their own and the
swords of their leudes! You and your fellows, the new masters of this
soil that our fathers' labors fecundated, live in idleness and sloth. To
drink, eat, hunt, play at dice with your leudes, outrage our wives,
sisters and daughters, and then attend church every week--such is the
life of the Franks who now possess the vast domains that they plundered
us of! Oh, Count Neroweg! How good it feels to inhabit that burg, built
by Gallic slaves who were carried away from their own fields, homes and
families, and who were made to carry on their backs, under the threat of
the clubs of your warriors, the timber from the woods, the stones from
the mountain, the sand from the river and the lime from the bowels of
the earth--after which, streaming with sweat, broken with fatigue, dying
with hunger, receiving for their only pittance a handful of beans, they
lay down upon the damp ground, their heads barely sheltered with a roof
of rushes! At early dawn the bites of dogs woke up the sluggards--aye,
and those selfsame keepers with sharp fangs, and trained for their
office by the Franks, accompanied the slaves when they were led to their
work, hastened their heavy steps when they returned at night bending
under their heavy loads, and, if ever driven by despair, the Gaul
assayed flight, the intelligent mastiff quickly drove him with its teeth
back to the human flock, just as the butcher's dog drives back to the
fold a recalcitrant ox or ram.
And did those slaves all belong, perchance, to the class of laborers and
artisans, strong, rough men, broken from infancy to hard labor? No, no!
Among those captives, more than one had been accustomed to comforts,
often to wealth, and were carried away from their cities or fields with
wives, daughters and sons, either at the time of the Frankish conquest,
or later during the civil wars between the sons of Clovis; the women
were consigned to the lodgings of the female slaves, there to attend to
the female work of the household and furnish the Franks with subjects
for debauchery; the men were assigned to hard out-of-door work, to the
building of houses, making of roads or tending the fields. Other slaves,
once teachers, merchants and even poets, were captured on the roads as
they traveled in troops from one city to another in pursuit of their
respective occupations, imagining themselves safe against any attack in
these days of war, pillage and general devastation.
Aye, slavery thus rendered the rich Gaul, who was ever accustomed to
comforts, the brother in misery and sorrow of the poor Gaul who
previously knew what arduous work was. Aye, the woman of white hands and
delicate complexion was thrown together with the woman whose hands toil
had roughened and whose complexion the sun had tanned--both were
rendered by slavery sisters in dishonor and shame, and were cast
weeping, or, if they resisted, bleeding into the bed of the Frankish
seigneur, whom, on the Sunday following a Gallic priest would regularly
give remission for his sins!
Oh, our fathers! Oh, our mothers! By all the sorrows that you underwent!
Oh, our brothers and our sisters, by all the sorrows that you now
undergo! Oh, our sons! Oh, our daughters! By the dregs of the cup of
humiliation and disgrace that you are made to drain! Oh, you all, by the
tears that drop from your eyes, by the laceration of your bodies--you
will be avenged! You will be avenged upon these abhorred Franks!
But let us step into the burg of the seigneur. By the faith of a Vagre!
By the sweat and the blood of our fathers that have moistened and
crimsoned every beam, every stone of this structure--it is a
comfortable, spacious and handsome building, this burg of the seigneur
count! Twelve well rounded oaken beams support the portico; it leads
directly into the _mahl_, as these barbarous chiefs style the tribunal
where they dispense their seigniorial justice--a vast, spacious hall, in
the rear of which, and raised on a platform, is the seat of the count,
and the benches of the leudes who assist him in the ceremony. There he
holds his _mahl_ and judges the crimes committed on his domains. In a
corner of the room a stove, a rack and pincers are seen--no justice
without torture and execution. In yonder opposite corner and even with
the floor is a wide tank full of water and deep enough for a man to
drown in. Near the tank lie nine plow-shares. These are all instruments
for _judicial trials_; they are prescribed by the _Salic Law_, the law
of the Franks, to which Gaul is now subject, seeing the land is in the
power of Frankish conquerors.
And yonder door, made of solid oak, thick as a hand's palm, and covered
with sheets of iron and enormous nails--that door is the door of the
chamber in which the treasures of the noble seigneur are kept. Only he
keeps the key. In that apartment are the large boxes, likewise ribbed
with iron, where he locks up his gold and silver sous, his precious
stones, his costly vases, both sacred and profane, his necklaces, his
bracelets, his gold-hilted parade sword, his handsome bridle with its
silver bit and his elaborately silver-ornamented saddle with stirrups of
the same metal--all stolen from this noble land of Gaul.
Let us enter the banquet hall. It is night. By my faith! Those are
curious candelabras. They are made of flesh and bone. Ten slaves--all
burnt by the sun, worn and barely clad in rags--are ranked five on one
side, five on the other of the table. They stand motionless as statues
and hold aloft large flaming torches of wax that barely serve to light
the place. A double row of rounded oak trunks, a sort of rustic
colonnade, divides the spacious hall into three compartments along its
full length, reaching at one end the door of the _mahl_, and at the
other to the count's chamber, which, in turn communicates with the
apartments of Godegisele and her women.
Between the two rows of pillars stands the table of the count and of the
leudes, his peers. To the right and left, and on the other sides of the
two rows of pillars, stand two other tables--one is reserved for the
warriors of inferior rank, the other for the principal servants of the
count: his seneschal, his equerry, his chamberlains, seeing that the
seigneurs imitate closely the customs and style of the royal courts. In
the four corners of the hall, the floor of which is, obedient to custom,
strewn with green leaves in summer, and straw in winter, stand four
large barrels, two of hydromel, one of beer, and one of herbed wine,
Auvergne wine mixed with spices and absinthe--a beverage pressed by the
slaves of the burg. Along the wainscoting hang the count's hunting
trophies, together with his arms of war and the chase--heads of stags,
does and wild goats, all garnished with their horns; wild boars' and
wolves' heads with their fangs exposed. The flesh and skin have been
removed from these trophies; nothing remains but the whitened bones.
Boar-spears, pikes, hunting-knives and horns, fishing-nets, falcon
coifs, implements of war, lances, francisques or double edged axes,
swords, bucklers and shields painted in garish colors--all these are
ranged along the walls. On the table lie spread sheep and wild boars
roasted whole, mountains of ham and smoked venison, avalanches of
cabbage in vinegar, the latter being a favorite dish with the Franks;
chunks of beef, mutton and veal of the cattle fattened in the count's
yards; small game, poultry, carps and pikes, the latter of which are of
extraordinary size; vegetables, fruit and cheese raised and prepared on
the fertile fields and farms of Auvergne; bowls and amphoras,
incessantly replenished by butlers who run from the tables to the
barrels and back again, are as speedily emptied by the Franks with the
aid of wild bulls' horns that serve as their usual goblets. The horn
used by Neroweg must have belonged to an animal of monstrous size. It is
black and hooped from top to bottom in gold and silver. From time to
time the seigneur makes a sign, whereupon several slaves standing at one
end of the hall with drums and hunting horns, strike up an infernal
music, which, however, is less discordant and deafening than the cries
and laughter of the blockish Teutons, gorged gluttons, most of whom are
at an advanced state of intoxication.
Who produced these wines, these mountains of venison, of fish, of beef,
of pork, of mutton, of game, of poultry, of vegetables and fruit? Gaul!
The country that is cultivated and rendered fruitful by a population of
starvelings, whose representatives, wan with hunger and privation in the
midst of such plenty, officiate as living torches to light the banquet.
That heap of good things is produced by men and women who, huddled in
mud and straw huts, are, at that very moment, and in utter exhaustion,
partaking of a tasteless pittance.
Behold the Franks, gorged with food and wine; obscene jokes and
challenges to drink and drink still more are bandied backward and
forward; the hall is a roar of boisterous laughter; beyond all others
the seigneur count is hilarious. At his side sits his clerk, who serves
as his secretary and officiates in the oratory of the burg. According to
the newly introduced custom that the Church authorized, the Frankish
seigneurs are allowed to keep a priest and chapel in their houses. The
clerk has been assigned to Neroweg by Cautin. When making the
assignment, the wily prelate said to the stupid barbarian: "This clerk
can neither grant you remission for the sins that you may commit, nor
can he snatch you from the claws of Satan; only I have that power; but
the constant presence of a priest at your side will render the attempts
of the demon more difficult; that will afford you time, in urgent cases,
to wait for my arrival without danger of your being carried off to
hell."
The boisterous mirthfulness of the leudes is at its height. Neroweg
wishes to speak. Three times he strikes on the table with the handle of
his _scramasax_, the name given by the barbarians to the knife used at
table, and habitually worn at the warrior's belt. Silence, or some
degree of silence ensues. The count is to speak. With both his elbows
leaning upon the table, he strokes and restrokes his long, reddish,
greasy and wine-soaked moustache between his thumb and index. The
posture and gesture always announces with him some scheme of vicious
cruelty. The leudes are aware of this and greet his words in advance
with gross and confident laughter. Without saying a word, Neroweg points
out to his peers one of the slaves who, motionless, has been holding up
a torch at the banquet. The fellow is a poor old man, wrinkled and
haggard; his hair and beard are white and long; for only clothing he
wears a tattered blouse and hose which expose his skin, yellow and
tanned like parchment; his hose do not reach his bony knees; his bare
and lank legs, scarred by the brambles among which he is forced to work,
seem hardly able to support him. Compelled, like the rest of his
torch-bearing companions, to hold up the light with outstretched arm,
and the whip of the Frankish overseer being ever ready to enforce the
order with merciless cruelty, he felt his lean arm grow numb, weaken and
tremble despite all he could do to prevent it.
After pointing at the slave, Neroweg turned to his leudes with cruel
hilarity and said:
"Hi--hi--hi--we shall now have a good laugh. You old toothless dog, why
do you not hold the candle straight?"
"Seigneur, I am very old--my arm grows tired despite myself."
"So, then, you are tired?"
"Alas! Yes, seigneur!"
"Yet you know that he who does not hold up his torch straight is regaled
with fifty lashes!"
"Seigneur, my strength fails me!"
"Do you say so?"
"Yes, yes, seigneur--my fingers are numb--they can no longer hold the
torch--it will soon fall down--"
"Poor old man--come, put out your torch."
"Thanks, thanks, seigneur!"
"Wait a moment. What are you doing?"
"I am going to blow out the torch--as you ordered me--"
"Oh, I did not mean it in that way."
And ever caressing his moustache, Neroweg cast ironical and cruel
glances at his leudes.
"Seigneur, how will you have me extinguish my torch?"
"I wish you to put it out between your knees."
The Frankish leudes received the comical idea of the count with loud
applause and wild yells and laughter. The old Gaul trembled from head to
foot, looked imploringly at Neroweg, lowered his head and murmured:
"Seigneur, my knees are bare, the torch will burn me--"
"Ho! You old brute! Do you imagine I would order you to extinguish the
torch between your knees if they were covered with oxhide or jambards of
iron?"
"Seigneur, good seigneur, it will smart me terribly; for pity's sake, do
not impose such a torment upon me."
"Bother! Your knees are bones!"
The bright sally on the part of the count redoubled the laughter and
hilarity of the leudes.
"It is true I am only skin and bones," answered the old man seeking to
soften his master's heart; "I am quite weak--please spare me the pain,
my good seigneur."
"Listen--if you do not on the spot extinguish your torch between your
knees, I shall have my men seize you and extinguish the torch in your
throat--take your choice, quickly!"
A fresh explosion of hilarity proved to the old Gaul that he had no
mercy to expect from the Franks. He looked down weeping upon his frail
and tremulous legs, and yielding to one last ray of hope he addressed
the clerk in suppliant accents:
"My good father in God--in the name of charity--do intercede in my
behalf with my good seigneur count!"
"Seigneur, I ask grace for the poor old man."
"Clerk! Does the slave belong to me--yes or not? Am I his master--yes or
not?"
"He belongs to you, noble seigneur."
"Can I dispose of my slave at my pleasure, and chastise him as I may
choose?"
"My noble seigneur, it is your right."
"Very well, then! I want him to extinguish the torch between his knees;
if not, by the great St. Martin! I shall extinguish it myself in his
throat!"
"Oh, my good father in God--do intercede again for me! I beg you!"
"My good son," said the clerk with unction to the slave, "we must accept
with resignation the trials that heaven sends us."
"Will you have done!" cried the count again smiting the table with the
handle of his _scramasax_. "We have had words enough--take your
choice--either your knees or your throat for an extinguisher! Do you
hesitate--"
"No, no, seigneur, I obey--"
And it was a very comical scene for the Franks. By the faith of a Vagre,
there was truly cause for laughter. With tears rolling down his cheeks,
the poor old Gaul first approached the burning torch to his trembling
knees; the instant the flame touched him he quickly withdrew it again.
But the count, who, with both his hands upon his paunch swollen with
food and drink, was roaring with laughter and, like the rest of the
leudes, shook with mirth, again smote the table violently with the
handle of his _scramasax_. The slave understood the signal. With
trembling hands he again drew the torch close to his icy knees, and
assayed to put a quick end to the torture; he parted his legs a little
and then brought them twice quickly and convulsively together so as to
extinguish the flame between his knees. He succeeded in this, but not
without emitting a piercing cry of pain; such was the pang he suffered
that the old man fell over upon his back and lay on the floor deprived
of consciousness.
"I smell grilled dog!" said the count dilating his nostrils like a beast
of prey. The odor of burnt human flesh doubtlessly acted as an appetizer
upon him, and he cried as if struck by a new idea: "My valiant leudes,
the burg's prison is well stocked, I know. We have in the _ergastula_,
loaded with chains, first of all, Ronan the Vagre and the
hermit-laborer; they are now both nearly healed of their wounds; then we
have the little blonde slave, she is not yet well, she still seems to be
at death's door; besides that, we have the handsome bishopess--she is
not wounded but is possessed of the devil--".
"But, count," spoke up one of the leudes, "what do you propose to do
with those cursed Vagres, the little Vagress and the handsome witch whom
we brought prisoners with us from the combat at the fastnesses of
Allange? What manner of torture will you inflict upon them?"
"Oh! how I regret that they have not a thousand members to burn and hack
to pieces in order to expiate the death of our companions in arms whom
they killed in the fastness!"
"Will you have them tried here, count?"
"No--no--they shall be tried at Clermont. Bishop Cautin insists upon his
jurisdiction over them. Oh! By the Terrible Eagle, my ancestor who
skinned his prisoners alive, the Vagre, the hermit-laborer and the witch
shall be submitted to frightful tortures. But they do not concern us
this evening. When I mentioned to you the prisoners in the _ergastula_,
my good leudes, what I meant to say was that we have there one of my
domestic slaves who is charged with larceny by the cook slave. The
latter asserts, the former denies the theft. Which of the two lies? In
order to ascertain the truth, let us put the two cubs to the cold water
and hot iron trials, according to the law of our Salic Franks."