A HELEBORE WREATH.
THE destruction of Le Gros Guillem's body of men at La Roque Gageac was
the prelude to the surrender of the citadel of Domme. The small garrison
left in charge of that stronghold was panic-stricken when it heard the
tidings from La Roque. The whole country was in arms. The citizens had
marshalled in the square, and the soldiers, deserting the town, had
taken refuge in the castle. Without head, without prospect of relief,
hemmed in by the Bishop's troops that arrived from Sarlat and La Roque
on one side, menaced from Beynac, where was a royal garrison, on
another, and from Fénelon on a third, where the baron was loyal to the
French crown as well as a personal enemy of Guillem, the remnant of the
Company that had acknowledged Guillem as Captain was fain to capitulate;
and the confederate troops under the governor of La Roque were content
to accord terms, knowing the danger of driving these freebooters to
desperation.
They were suffered to march forth with their arms. They retreated up the
Dordogne to Autoire, an impregnable stronghold, at that time in the
power of a Chief of Companies, who they knew would welcome them, and
afford them fresh opportunities of ravage and of gaining spoil.
The history of France presents but one period of greater horror than
that of the Free Companies--namely, the epoch of the wars of religion.
But practically these latter wars were the outcome of the former. For
three hundred years the barons and the great seigneurs of Aquitaine had
been free to act in accordance with their passions, uncontrolled by any
hand. They had made war against each other on no provocation; they had
made the cities and commercial towns their common prey. The only
possible way in which a community of peaceful citizens or of villagers
could struggle on was by contracting patis or compacts with the barons,
whereby they undertook to pay them an annual sum, and on this agreement
were freed from vexation by his armed men. The younger sons of the
barons, and bastards, collected about them the scum of society, runaway
serfs, escaped felons, adventurers from Spain, from Brabant, from Italy,
but chiefly Gascons, drilled them, armed them, maintained them in strict
discipline, captured such castles as seemed to them most advisable
centres as dominating fertile districts, or else constructed others
wherever was a rock that lent itself to defence; and thence they carried
their arms in all directions. They came in torrents down from the
Causses and the Cevennes upon Languedoc. They ravaged Auvergne, they
carried their incursions into Berry and the Limousin. The king of
France, the estates of the several provinces, were powerless to rid the
country of them. Again and again vast sums of money were collected and
poured into their bottomless purses, and the Companions promised on
receipt of these sums to surrender their castles and quit the country.
But very generally they only half-fulfilled their undertaking. They
yielded up a fortress or two; they drifted off over the Pyrenees into
Spain, or over the Alps into Italy, and not finding there the spoil they
wanted, or meeting there with reverses, they turned their faces again
toward France and reoccupied their old nests or constructed fresh ones,
and all the old evils returned in aggravated form.
The mediæval historian Villani, who died in 1363, gives an account of
the formation of one of these terrible bands, which may serve as an
example of the constitution of all. He says that in 1353 a knight of St.
John of Jerusalem, wearied of his order and its discipline, renounced
his vows and formed a Company of Free Companions in the marches of
Ancona.
"Brother Moriale called together by letter and message a great number of
soldiers out of employ. He bade them come to him, and promised to defray
their expenses and to pay them for their services. This succeeded
admirably; he gathered about him fifteen hundred bassinets and more than
two thousand comrades, all men greedy to live at the cost of others."
Very speedily this Company began its ravages. "They rode about the
country and pillaged on all sides. They attacked Feltramo, took it by
storm and killed five hundred men. As the country round was rich they
remained in Feltramo a month, ravaging it. During the period of these
incursions the terror inspired by the Company made every castle in the
neighbourhood surrender. Crowds of mercenaries who had finished their
term of service flocked to Moriale, hearing exaggerated rumours of the
great spoil gained by the Company, and many soldiers refused all
engagements, saying that they would serve under this freebooter only."
Moriale observed the greatest exactitude in the distribution of the
booty. Objects that had been stolen were sold by his orders, and he gave
free passes to purchasers, so that by this means men who had been
plundered might come to the fair he held and recover by payment the
goods of which they had been despoiled. He instituted a treasurer, and
had regular accounts kept of what was taken, and what prices were paid
for things sold. He exacted as strict obedience as any feudal lord. He
administered justice, and his judgments were invariably executed.
It was not till long after the English domination had ceased, and which
had furnished these ruffians with an excuse for their violence, that the
plague of the Free Companies was put down. One of the very worst of all
was that of the "Ecorcheurs," or Flayers, and had nothing whatever to do
with the English. It was headed by Alexander de Bourbon, a mere boy, who
had been given minor orders to enable him to hold a fat canonry. The
Flayers professed "that all the horrors hitherto committed from the
beginning of the war would be but as child's play compared to their
exploits."
A great Council of Captains of Companies was held at Monde, in the
Gevaudan, in 1435, when the soil of France, of Aquitaine, of Languedoc,
of Provence was parcelled up among them, each having his region allotted
him in which to plunder and work havoc.
So long as the English held Aquitaine it was impossible for the crown of
France to control this terrible plague. Every baron, every little noble,
as well as every great prince who found his liberty in the least
touched, his misdeeds reproved, at once transferred his allegiance to
the English crown, and the English king was too far off, and too greatly
in need of assistance, to be nice in choosing his partisans, and not to
wink at their misdoings.
The money that had been taken from Levi was restored by Jean del' Peyra,
but not without murmurs from those who had assisted in the capture of
l'Eglise Guillem. The peasants could see the justice in surrendering
every article recovered to the claimants who could establish their
rights and show that they had been plundered of these objects. Even the
book of the Chanson de Geste of Guerin de Montglane had found an owner.
Most of the ecclesiastical goods had been restored to churches. Articles
of clothing had been divided among those who had helped to take and
destroy the vulture's nest. This all seemed to them reasonable enough,
but that so large a sum as a hundred livres should be surrendered to a
dog of a Jew, solely because he had been despoiled of it--that was what
they could not understand. If he had been robbed of the money it was
well--Jews were made to be plundered. Equal justice was not due to those
who had crucified the Christ. Jean, had however, been firm, and had held
to his intention. Rather than irritate the peasants to rebellion against
his decision, he surrendered to them his entire share in the spoil of
the robber's stronghold.
The gratitude of the Jew at the unexpected recovery of his money was
profuse. Jean paid little regard to his demonstration. A year later and
he had reason to congratulate himself on having done an act of justice,
for Levi assisted him in the purchase of the Seigneurie of Les Eyzies
with it feudal stronghold and the flourishing village at its feet. But
this is an event of the future. We are concerned now only with what took
place in the memorable winter that saw the destruction of the band of Le
Gros Guillem, and that preceded the great battle of Castillon and the
ruin of the English cause in Guyenne.
Jean had become exceedingly anxious to obtain tidings of Noémi. After
the terrible death of her father, the butchering of his followers, the
surrender of Domme, and the dispersion of the remainder of his band, he
knew not what had become of her. She had relatives at La Roque--the
Tardes--that he knew, and he was therefore satisfied that she was not
homeless and destitute. But that anything out of the wreck of Le Gros
Guillem's accumulations had been preserved for her, he was doubtful. Who
Guillem was, whence sprung, of what parents, no one knew. Whether he had
any surname no one could say. Like many another Captain of the period he
had escaped from the common mass of adventurers by the force of his
abilities, by his superior power, by his daring courage. It had been so
with that redoubted soldier of fortune, "Le petit Meschin,"[10] who from
a scullion had risen to be the scourge of whole provinces, and to defeat
and well-nigh exterminate a royal army under a prince of the blood. Even
renegade priests had headed bands of brigands and distinguished
themselves by their outrages of all laws human and divine.
[10] "Picciolo servo fuggito, di oscura lugo nato."--Villani.
The "Eglise Guillem" in the rocks of the left bank of the Vézère was no
inheritance of the robber chief, but had been taken by him and occupied
as a stronghold of his own, and none had dared to reclaim it and attempt
to dislodge him, till the attack by the peasants that has been recorded.
Jean felt that a painful obligation lay on him to see Noémi. Her father
had met with a terrible death at the hands of his father, who had played
with the wretched man as a cat with a mouse before he had cut the cord
and precipitated him to his death. Le Gros Guillem had forfeited every
right to command sympathy by his treatment of Ogier--in casting him down
the _oubliette_ and then by his treacherous attempt to have him murdered
by his two men-at-arms. Nevertheless, he was Noémi's father, and his
mangled corpse lay between Jean and her, and across that and the
terrible wrongs committed by the dead man and the revengeful execution
the hands of Jean and Noémi could never meet.
But the word of affiance had been spoken, and spoken solemnly, before
many witnesses, and it had been sealed with the giving of a ring. Such a
word could not be broken. In popular superstition it bound even beyond
the grave. Release could be had only by mutual consent and the
restoration of the pledge. Jean rode to La Roque, full of trouble at
heart. He loved Noémi, he greatly esteemed her. He saw in her a noble
soul struggling to its birth with aspirations after something better
than what she had known--gladly would he have taken her to be his, and
helped this uncertain, restless, eager spirit to unfold its wings, to
break out of its shell, to look up and to soar into a pure
atmosphere--but it might not be. The terrible shadow of Le Gros Guillem,
the awful story of the past made this impossible.
As he was nearing La Roque, he suddenly drew rein--he saw Noémi. She was
seated on a mass of brown fallen leaves, and was plucking helebore
flowers. Even that act struck Jean to the heart. "She plays with
poison--seeks out the noxious, the deadly," he said. He leaped to the
ground, and holding the rein of his horse came to her.
"Noémi, what are you doing?"
"I am making a chaplet for the grave of my father."
"Of helebore?"
"What else suits? Would you have it of the innocent flower of the field?
On such he trampled. They call this the wolf's flower--enfin! It is a
flower!"
"Noémi, do you know why I have come?"
She stood up, holding the half-finished wreath in her hands and looking
down. She did not answer, tears filled her eyes and trickled over her
cheeks.
"Noémi," said he gravely, "you recall that incident by the
charcoal-burner's lodge, that moment of terrible danger when the
peasants, mad with revenge and success and the blood of the wolves they
had killed, would have torn you----"
She did not answer. As she raised her hand with the helebore wreath, he
saw that the ring was on her finger where he had placed it.
"I said what I did then, and I placed on your finger that ring, which is
indeed your own--as you had entrusted it to me to show to your
father--and I declared before all present that you were affianced to me.
It was so."
She bowed her head.
"But, Noémi, you know that this can never, never be."
She looked up quickly, sadly at him. Her eyes were full of tears.
Jean was deeply agitated.
"You must return me the ring--if only for the form's sake, so as to undo
the pledge and dissolve the engagement--I will give it back to you as a
surrender of a loan--as nothing else."
She put her fingers to the ring and drew it off, and without a word
offered it to him.
He took the ring and looked at it, doubtful what more to say.
"Noémi," he asked, "whose arms are these engraved on it? They seem to me
to belong to the Fénelon family."
"Yes--they are the Fénelon arms."
"Was the ring----" He was about to ask if it had been stolen, but
checked himself.
"It was my father's ring," she said in a low tone.
"Your father's! Was Le Gros Guillem a Fénelon?"
"Le Gros Guillem! Oh, no! Do you not know and understand?"
"Know, understand what?"
"Le Gros Guillem was not really my father; he carried off my mother from
Fénelon, along with me when I was an infant in arms. Le Gros Guillem
killed my father, who was the Baron de Fénelon. But I was a child and I
was brought up at Domme. I knew nothing of that. Le Gros Guillem always
treated me as his child and loved me as such, and I--I always called him
and looked up to him as father."
"Noémi--is this true?"
She gazed at him full in the face. "I am no liar, Jean."
"Noémi, throw aside that helebore, open your arms. To my heart! to my
heart! Take back the ring, all is well, is well. Mine for ever!"