"Upon your arrival at Clermont you will receive further instructions

from Marcel. To overpower the nobility, dethrone the Regent and chase

the foreigners from our soil--that is the provost's programme. When the

campaign shall be over, the hour of Jacques Bonhomme's enfranchisement

will have come. Delivered from the tyranny of the seigneurs and the

pillaging of the English, free, happy and at peace, the peasant will

then be able to enjoy the fruits of his arduous labors and will be able

to taste without molestation the sweet pleasures of the hearth.... Yes,

you William Caillet, you Adam the Devil, you Mazurec, and so many

others who have been wounded in your tenderest feelings, you will have

been the last martyrs of the seigneurs and clergy, you will be the

liberators of your kind."

"Jocelyn, whatever may now happen, vanquisher or vanquished, I can die

in peace. My daughter is revenged!" said William Caillet. "I promise to

lead more than ten thousand men to the walls of Clermont. The blood of

the seigneurs and their priests who have outraged us, the conflagrations

of their castles and churches, from which they issued to oppress us,

will mark the route of the Jacques."

"Marcel recalls me to Paris; I shall return to him; but you will meet me

at Clermont, where I shall convey to you further instructions." And

pressing Mazurec to his heart: "Adieu, my brother, my poor brother! We

shall soon meet again. William, I leave him with you. Watch over the

unfortunate lad!"

"I love him as I did my daughter! She will be the topic of our

conversation. And we shall fight like men who no longer care for life."

After this exchange of adieus, Jocelyn turned back to Paris with Rufin

the Tankard-smasher on the crupper of his horse.

CHAPTER VII.

CLERMONT.

Charles the Wicked, King of Navarre, occupied at Clermont, in the

province of Beauvoisis, the castle of the count of the place--a vast

edifice one of whose towers dominated the square called the "Suburb."

The first floor of the donjon, lighted by a long ogive window, formed a

large circular hall. There, near a table, sat Charles the Wicked. It was

early morning. The prince asked one of his equerries:

"Has the scaffold been erected?"

"Yes, Sire, you can see it from this window. It is just as you ordered

it."

"What face do the bourgeois make?"

"They are in consternation; all the shops are closed; the streets are

deserted."

"And the masses?... the artisans.... Are they heard to murmur?"

"Sire, after yesterday's massacre, there are none more of the poorer

class to be seen ... neither on the streets nor the squares.... The

people are scarce."

"But some must still be left."

"Those that are left are in consternation and stupor like the

bourgeois."

"All the same, let my Navarrians keep sharp watch at the gates of the

town, on the ramparts and on the streets. Let them kill on the spot any

bourgeois, peasant or artisan who dares this morning to put his nose

outside of his house."

"The order has been given, Sire. It will be carried out."

"And the chiefs of those accursed Jacques?"

"They remain impassive, Sire!"

"Blood of Christ! They will become livelier, and that soon.... Has a

trevet been procured. Let the executioner hold himself ready."

"Yes, Sire. Everything is prepared according to your orders."

"Let everything be ready at the stroke of seven."

"All shall be ready, Sire."

Charles the Wicked reflected a moment, and then resumed, taking up an

enameled medallion with his monogram that lay near him on the table:

"Did the man arrive who was arrested at the gates last night, and who

sent me this medallion?"

"Yes, Sire. He has just been brought in unarmed and pinioned, as you

ordered. He is kept under watch in the lower hall. What is your

pleasure?"

"Let him be brought up."

The equerry stepped out. Charles the Wicked rose, and approached the

window that opened upon the square where the scaffold was erected. After

throwing it partly open so as to be able to look out, he reclosed it and

returned to his seat near the table, his lips contracted with a sinister

smile. He had barely sat down again when the equerry returned preceding

the archers in the middle of whom walked Jocelyn the Champion with his

hands bound behind his back and his face inflamed with anger. The prince

made a sign to the equerry, who thereupon withdrew with the Navarrians,

leaving Charles the Wicked and Jocelyn alone, the latter, however, still

pinioned.

"Sire, I am the victim either of a mistake or of unworthy treason!"

cried Jocelyn. "For the sake of your honor, I hope it is a mistake....

Order me to be unbound."

"There is no mistake in the case."

"Then it is treason! To disarm me! To pinion me!... Me, the carrier of

the medallion that I sent to you together with a letter that I brought

to you from Master Marcel! That is treason, Sire! Disgraceful felony!"

"There is in all this neither mistake nor felony. A truce with your

imprudent words!"

"What else is it?"

"A simple measure of prudence," coolly answered Charles the Wicked; "you

signed the letter 'Jocelyn the Champion'.... Is that your name and

profession?'

"Yes, Sire; I am a defender of the oppressed."

"Did Marcel send you to me?"

"I told you so, and proved it by forwarding the medallion. What do you

want of me? Ask; I shall answer."

"What is the purpose of your message?"

"You shall know it when you will have set me free of my bonds."

"The bonds do not tie your tongue ... seems to me! You can answer very

well as you are."

"You ignore my character of ambassador! I have come in that capacity."

"That's subtle ... but be careful; the minutes are precious; your

message is certainly important.... Its success may be endangered by a

prolonged silence."

"Sire, I came to you, if not as a friend, still as an ally. You treat me

like an enemy. Master Marcel will be thankful for my reserve----"

"Very well," said Charles the Wicked, ringing a bell. The call was

forthwith answered by the equerry. "Let this man be taken outside of the

town, and the gates closed after him. Do not allow him in again."

After a brief struggle with himself, Jocelyn resumed: "However

outrageous be the reception you give an envoy of Marcel, I shall speak

and fulfill my mission."

At another sign from the King of Navarre, the equerry stepped out again

and the former said to Jocelyn: "What is your message?"

"Master Marcel charged me to say to you, Sire, that it was time to open

the campaign; the Regent's army is marching upon Paris; all the vassals

are up in arms; numerous troops of Jacques must be approaching Clermont

to join you. Indeed, I am astonished at not having met any Jacques."

"By what gate did you enter Clermont? From what side did you cross the

walls?"

"By the gate of the Paris road. It was dark when I arrived and sent you

one of the archers who arrested me."

"You spoke with no soldier?"

"I was locked up alone in one of the turrets of the rampart. I could

speak with nobody. I communicated only with your archers."

"Proceed ... with your message."

"Marcel wishes to know what your plan of campaign will be when your

troops have been reinforced by eight or ten thousand Jacques, who,

according to our information, may any time arrive in Clermont."

"We shall speak about that presently.... First tell me what the public

sentiment is in Paris. Are more rebellions feared?"

"The adversaries of Marcel and partisans of the Regent are very active.

They seek to mislead the population by imputing to the revolt all the

ills that the city suffers from. Royal troops seized Etamps and Corbeil

to prevent the arrival of grains in Paris and starve out the city.

Marcel took the field with the bourgeois militia, and after a murderous

conflict he threw the royalists back and secured the subsistence of

Paris. But the provost's adversaries are redoubling their underhand

manoeuvres with a view to bring a portion of the bourgeoisie back to the

Regent. The people, more accustomed to privations, are easily resigned;

full of hope in the future that is to bring them deliverance, they

weaken neither in energy nor in devotion to Marcel, especially since the

tidings of the revolts of the Jacques reached Paris. The vassals of the

whole valley of Montmorency are now in revolt ..."; but suddenly

breaking off, Jocelyn said: "Sire, order these bonds to be removed from

my hands; they are a disgrace to me and to you.... You treat me like a

prisoner!"

"You were saying that the Regent's partisans are active? Is not Maillart

among the leaders in that movement?"

"No ... at least not openly. The avowed leaders of the court party are

all nobles; among them is the knight of Charny and the knight James of

Pontoise. Prompt and resolute action is necessary. Your chances of

reigning over Gaul are excellent if you come to the help of the

Parisians, take the field against the forces of the Regent, and utilize,

as Master Marcel suggests, the powerful aid offered by the Jacquerie.

Next to the clergy and the seigneurs, there are no more implacable

enemies of the peasants than the English. Marcel's purpose in

encouraging the insurrections of the Jacques and organizing their bands

is above all to hurl them in mass against the English in the name of the

country that the invaders are ravaging with their predatory bands, and

to drive them from our soil. Triumph is assured if the present

enthusiasm of the Jacques is utilized by turning it into that sacred

channel towards the safety and deliverance of the country. That is the

reason, Sire, why Master Marcel has been seeking to effect the junction

of the Jacques with the forces that you command."

"Our friend Marcel," Charles the Wicked observed caustically, "made an

excellent choice of allies for me in the revolted peasants!" saying

which he rang the bell. The equerry entered and left after the prince

had whispered a few words in his ear.

"Sire," again remonstrated Jocelyn, "your manners are mysterious. Are

you hatching some other plot against me? You may be frank; I am in your

power."

"There is no plot hatching," coolly answered Charles the Wicked,

shrugging his shoulders. "I am merely taking precautions to insure the

quiet and calmness of our interview as becomes people like ourselves."

"Sire, have I perchance failed in calmness and quiet? My language is

self-possessed."

"So far ... you are right ... but presently your moderation may be put

to a severe test ... my precautions are wise----"

The entrance of two other robust equerries in the company of the

prince's confidante interrupted his last words, and without Jocelyn,

whose hands were tied, being able to offer any effective resistance, he

was thrown on the floor, where, however, despite his being pinioned, he

resented the treatment with Herculean though vain efforts to disengage

himself from his assailants.

"By God! You are a Hercules ... what athletic vigor you display! Am I

wrong if I take precautions against the consequences of our further

interview, despite your assurances of calmness and moderation?"

Not without much difficulty the three equerries finally succeeded in

binding Jocelyn's legs as firmly as his arms. When that was done,

Charles the Wicked said: "Place the envoy on the settee near the window.

He may sit up or lie down, as he chooses.... You may now go."

Again alone with Jocelyn, who was writhing in impotent rage, the prince

pursued: "Our interview can now proceed peacefully."

"Oh, Charles the Wicked, every day you strive to justify your name!"

cried Jocelyn. "My suspicions did not deceive me. You have some infamous

act of treason to inform me of!"

Nonchalantly shrugging his shoulders, the prince answered: "Vassal, if I

did you the honor of fearing you I would have had you hanged before

this.... If I was betraying Marcel I would be at Compiegne beside the

Regent.... You are not hanged, and I am not at Compiegne! Let us now

tranquilly resume the conversation that was interrupted when you were

speaking about the Jacques.... Well, now, the Jacques did come in

bands.... The worthy allies of your friend Marcel came----"

"Here to Clermont?"

"They came here ... to Clermont, in the number of eight or ten

thousand."

"Where are they?"

"Oh! Oh!... Where are they?" Charles the Wicked answered back with a

Satanic leer. "Where are they?... That is an embarrassing question, that

is!... Since man is man it has been the despair of those who seek to

fathom the secret of where we go ... when we leave this world.... They

are where we all shall go!"

"What is that? The Jacques?----"

"They are where we all shall go.... Do you not understand me?"

"Dead!?" cried Jocelyn, stupefied with terror. "Dead! Massacred! My

God!"

"Come, keep cool.... Listen to the details of the adventure ... you are

to transmit it to your friends."

"This man frightens me!" thought Jocelyn, a cold perspiration bathing

his forehead. "Is it some trap he is laying for me?"

"The Jacques came," resumed Charles the Wicked, "those wild beasts that

pillage and burn down castles, massacre priests and seigneurs, outrage

women, and pitilessly cut the throats of children, to the end, as these

devils put it, of annihilating the nobility!"

"Oh, God!" cried Jocelyn, sitting up, "the reprisals of Jacques Bonhomme

lasted one day ... his martyrdom centuries!----"

"Vassal!" the King of Navarre haughtily interrupted Jocelyn, "the rights

of the conqueror over the conquered, of the seigneur over the serf, are

absolute and from heaven!... A villein or peasant in revolt deserves

death. It is the feudal law."

The champion shivered, and looking fixedly at the King of Navarre said:

"Charles the Wicked, you will not let me leave this place alive; you

would be a lost man if I carried your words to Marcel!"

"You will leave this place alive," coldly answered the prince, "and

besides my words, you will report the facts to Marcel."

A prey to irrepressible agony, Jocelyn fell back upon the settee and

Charles the Wicked proceeded:

"You will first of all tell Marcel that, however wily he may be, I have

not been his dupe. The chiefs of the Jacques whom he sent to me as

auxiliaries were expected to become my watchers, and, if need be, my

butchers ... if I deviated from the path marked out by that insolent

bourgeois. I was in his hands, said he to me, but an 'instrument that he

would break if need be'.... Very well! I have broken one of Marcel's

redoubtable instruments.... I have annihilated the Jacquerie ... and at

this very moment my friends, Gaston Phoebus, the Count of Foix and the

Captal of Buch are crushing in Meaux the last coils of that serpent of

revolt that sought to rise against the nobility----"

"The Jacquerie crushed! annihilated!" exclaimed Jocelyn, more and more

beside himself. But returning to his first suspicion, he gathered voice

to say: "Charles the Wicked, you are the most cunning man on earth ...

you are laying some trap for me.... If the Jacques came to Clermont to

the number of eight or ten thousand, you were not in command of

sufficient forces to exterminate them."

"Sir envoy, you are too hasty in your conclusions. Listen first, you

will then be able to judge. I promised facts to you. Here they are.

Yesterday, towards noon, I was apprised of the approach of the Jacques.

The bourgeoisie of Clermont and the corporation of artisans, infected

with the old communal leaven, went out to meet the malefactors and to

feast them. I encouraged their plans, and while the Jacques halted in

the valley near Clermont, three of their chiefs presented themselves at

the drawbridge demanding to entertain me."

"What were their names?"

"William Caillet ... Adam the Devil ... and Mazurec the Lambkin.... I

ordered the three Jacques chiefs to be brought to me; I received them

with great courtesy; I touched their hands, called them my comrades and

gave them fraternal embraces. We agreed that, obedient to Marcel's

wishes, they should be my auxiliaries, and that we would speedily start

on the march to Paris. In the meantime their men were to remain encamped

in the valley. After issuing their orders to this effect, the three

chiefs conferred with me upon the plan of campaign. So said, so done.

The three chiefs returned to their encampment to order matters and came

back to me. My first act then was to throw all three into prison. I knew

that, deprived of their chiefs, the execrable bandits were half

overcome. I then sent one of my officers, the Sire of Bigorre, to inform

the Jacques that at the conference I had with their chiefs, they desired

that their men should immediately begin to exercise themselves with my

archers and cavalrymen, in order to accustom themselves to military

manoeuvres. The Jacques tumbled into the trap, gladly accepted the

proposition, and were formed into battalions."

Noticing the indignation and rage of Jocelyn, that betrayed themselves

through his involuntary twitchings in his bonds, Charles the Wicked

interrupted his narrative for a moment in order to interject the remark:

"I congratulate myself more and more upon having had you bound fast.

Waste not your fury. It will soon have stronger matter upon which to

expend itself.... I now proceed.... The bourgeois and artisan guilds of

Clermont had tapped a large number of barrels to feast their friends the

Jacques with. Their hilarity was soon complete. With loud cries the

Jacques called for their first exercise in military marching. The Sire

of Bigorre, an able captain, commanded the manoeuvre. He did it in such

a way that, after a few marches and countermarches, the Jacques found

themselves huddled and crowded together like a herd of cattle at the

bottom of the valley, an easy mark to my archers stationed on the

surrounding eminences, while my cavalry occupied the only two issues

from which the fleers could escape out of the deep hollow."

"You princes are experts at massacres!" cried Jocelyn, in bitter

despair.

"It was a regular slaughter of wolves," answered Charles the Wicked.

"The Jacques, like stupid and ferocious brutes, and full of vain-glory

at parading before the bourgeois of Clermont, put out their chests, and

carried their staves, forks and scythes with as much pride as if they

carried the noble arms of knighthood; they even applauded the excellent

order of my men-at-arms who held the crests round about the hollow in

which they were penned up. Suddenly the clarions gave a signal. The

music greatly delighted the revolted varlets. But their delight is soon

ended. At the clarion's first notes my archers bent their bows and a

hail storm of murderous bolts, shot by my soldiers from above into the

compact mass of Jacques in the hollow, decimated the bandits. A panic

took possession of the savage herd; the brutes sought to flee by the two

issues in the valley; but there they found themselves face to face with

my five hundred cavalrymen, cased in iron, who, with lances, swords and

iron maces furiously charged upon the canaille, while my archers

continued riddling with their bolts both the flanks of the band and

those who sought to climb up the hill.... It was a superb slaughter....

The ground was heaped with the dead!"

Jocelyn uttered a hollow groan. Charles the Wicked smiled satisfied and

proceeded:

"Nothing more cowardly can be conceived than those varlets after their

first exaltation. Such was their fright, as told me by the Sire of

Bigorre, that they allowed themselves to be killed like sheep; they fell

upon their knees, bared their throats to the swords, their breasts to

the arrows and their heads to the iron maces. In short, all those whom

iron did not pierce were smothered under the corpses. A large number of

bourgeois and town plebs, spectators of the slaughter, and also crowded

down in the valley, shared the fate of their comrade Jacques Bonhomme.

Thus with one blow I relieved myself of the peasants and of the town

plebs together with a considerable number of communal bourgeois. I now

hold their town in my power, and keep it. That is their affair with me.

And, now, Sir ambassador, tell Marcel in my name no more to mix up the

Jacques in our operations. There are now few of these ferocious beasts

left; moreover, they are evil companions. You shall presently be freed

of your bonds and your horse shall be returned to you. Should you doubt

my words and wish to make sure of the facts before returning to Paris,

go out by the side of the valley, look around, and, above all, close

your nose ... the carcasses of those accursed Jacques are beginning to

emit rank odors."

Forgetting in his rage that he was pinioned, Jocelyn turned to rush upon

Charles the Wicked. The prince, however, proceeded smiling as before:

"Ungrateful fellow.... You would strangle me.... Yet you ignore how

generous I have been.... I have saved the lives of the three chiefs of

that band of raving wolves.... Do you doubt it?" he inquired, answering

a painful sigh that escaped from the breast of Jocelyn, whose thoughts

ran upon his brother; "you question my clemency and generosity!"

"Could it be true?" cried Jocelyn, yielding to a vague hope; "did my

brother Mazurec really escape?"

"If you talk calmly instead of bellowing like a staked steer, I shall

give you my word as a knight that you will see your brother."

"Mazurec lives.... I shall see him!"

"He lives.... You will see him ... upon the word of a knight. But let us

talk sensibly. We must now consider the means by which Marcel and I can

co-operate in the accomplishment of our common projects."

"Marcel will not co-operate with the butcher of so many innocent

victims!" cried Jocelyn. "Marcel will not ally himself with you, who

just told me that all rebellious vassals deserve death!... The fatal

alliance he entered into with you, compelled thereto by stress of

circumstances, is now forever sundered. It has been a terrible lesson.

It will enlighten the people who seek the support of princes in the

struggle against their oppressors."

"You slander Marcel's good judgment, whose political sagacity none

appreciates more than I. That clothier is a master-man. Do you know what

he will answer you when, back to Paris, you will have reported to him

the carnage of the Jacquerie?"

"Oh, indeed I do!"

"He will say this: 'The bourgeoisie and the Jacquerie were my army; I

expected to discipline it and to be able to say to the King of Navarre:

"My army is superior to yours; accept my conditions; let us jointly

march against the Regent; I promise you his crown if you consent to

submit to the national assembly as the supreme power. If you prefer

allying yourself with the Regent, do so. The bourgeoisie holds the

towns, the Jacquerie the country. I do not fear you." But here is the

Jacquerie, the bulk of my army, annihilated.' Marcel will thoughtfully

add: 'The disaster is irreparable. I now have but one of two courses

open: either submission to the Regent, and deliver up to him my head and

the heads of my friends, or promote the projects of the King of Navarre,

who has an army capable of coping with the royal forces. Accordingly,

instead of dictating terms to the King of Navarre, I am compelled to

accept his terms.' That is what Marcel will say."

"Marcel will never betray the cause to which he has devoted his life."

"So far from betraying the cause of the people, he will insure the

execution of a part of his programme. Do you take me for fool enough to

ignore that, inevitably--Marcel said so to me, and he spoke

truly--inevitably, if I mount the throne, I am compelled to carry out

the larger part of the reforms that that redresser of wrongs has been

pushing so many years? Would not the bourgeois sooner or later rebel

against me as they have done against the Regent if I did not grant them

greater freedom? Marcel furthermore said to me with his usual good

sense: 'You, Sire, who covet the crown, will see in every reform

measure only a means to confirm you upon the throne; the Regent, on the

contrary, considers every measure of reform as a curtailment of his

hereditary sovereign rights.'"

"Charles the Wicked, if such are your plans, if each of your words is

not a lie or does not hide some trap, why did you massacre the Jacques?

Why did you crush that popular uprising? Was it not bound to insure the

freedom of Gaul and chase away the English?"

"Do you take me for a simpleton? What would there be left for me to

reign over if Gaul were entirely free? What would become of the

nobility? No, no! Whether I like it or not, I shall be compelled to

grant a large number of reforms that may satisfy the bourgeoisie; I

would not resign myself to the role of a passive instrument of the

national assembly, as Marcel proposes, but I shall want to rule jointly

with the assembly; and I would put forth all my efforts to end the

English war. But as to raising Jacques Bonhomme from his condition--not

at all! If I tried it I would turn every seigneur into an enemy. Jacques

Bonhomme shall remain Jacques Bonhomme. Who would be left to fill the

royal treasury if I enfranchised Jacques Bonhomme? Who would there be

left to be taxed at will? The enfranchisement of Jacques Bonhomme would

be the end of both nobility and royalty!... Those pests of bourgeois

franchises, that issued from the execrable communes, are themselves

enough of a menace to the throne.... This being all understood, you will

say to Marcel that as early as to-morrow I shall begin collecting the

several divisions of my army, and that I shall march upon Paris, whose

gates shall be open to me.... Finally, in order to settle this and some

other matters, you will tell him to meet me at Saint-Ouen, where I shall

be in the evening of the day after to-morrow."

The merciless logic of Charles the Wicked only redoubled the horror that

he inspired Jocelyn with, and the latter was about to give vent to it

when the hour of seven was struck from afar by the parochial church of

Clermont. With his usual smile the prince observed:

"I promised you that you would see your brother.... You are about to see

him. And I want to let you know how I discovered your relationship. I

ordered a fellow who is all ears to be concealed in a secret closet of

the prison of the three chiefs of the Jacquerie. He was instructed to

spy upon the scamps. In that way he heard one of them say to his

accomplices, that he regretted he could not see his brother Jocelyn the

Champion and friend of Marcel once more. When I this morning received

the letter signed 'Jocelyn,' announcing yourself as the envoy of the

provost, I easily discovered your relationship with the Jacques."

"Where is my brother? Where is that poor Mazurec? Have me carried before

him."

"You will see him! Did I not pledge you my word as a knight?... But do

not forget to notify Marcel that I expect to see him at Saint-Ouen day

after to-morrow evening. And may the devil take you!"

The King of Navarre left the room. A few minutes after his departure the

door was again opened and Jocelyn joyfully turned expecting to see his

brother enter. He hoped in vain. It was one of the equerries.

"Your master assured me that I would see my brother, Mazurec," said

Jocelyn, an unaccountable feeling of anxiety creeping over him.

The equerry opened the window near which the champion had been deposited

and pointing to it said: "Look out of this window. Our Sire is faithful

to his promise," and he withdrew, locking the door after him.

Seized with a terrible presentiment, Jocelyn leaned towards the window

as far as his bound limbs allowed him, and the following ghastly scene

was enacted before his eyes:

Below the window, about thirty feet down, is a vast square surrounded

with houses and into which two streets run out, both of which are barred

with strong cordons of soldiers charged to keep the inhabitants of the

town from entering the square. At one end of the square and not far from

Jocelyn's window rises a wide scaffold. In the middle of the scaffold

stands a stake with a stool attached, at either side of which is a block

on which a sharp-pointed pile is firmly fastened. Several executioners

are busy on the scaffold. Some are attaching iron chains to the center

stake; others are standing around a cooking-stove turning on the burning

coals, with the help of tongs, one of those iron trevets or tripods used

by the peasants to cook their porridge in the fire-place. The trevet

begins to be red hot; some of the executioners engaged near the stove

kneel down and blow upon the fire to keep up the flames.

Presently, trumpets are heard approaching from the direction of one of

the two streets; the cordon of soldiers posted at the mouth of that

street part and allow a passage to a first squad of archers. Between

this and the second squad, William Caillet, Adam the Devil and Mazurec

the Lambkin are seen marching with firm tread. Mazurec is only half clad

in an old hose of goat-skin; the two other peasants wear the ancient

Gallic "blaude" or blouse, wooden shoes and woolen cap. It was not

thought necessary to pinion them. Adam and Mazurec have each an arm on

the shoulder of William Caillet, who is placed between the two. Thus

joined in one embrace, the three men march with heads erect, intrepid

looks and resolute carriage towards the scaffold erected for their last

martyrdom.

The archers who compose the rear-guard of the escort spread themselves

over the place, with their bows ready and their eyes searching the

windows of the surrounding houses. One of the lattices clicks open, and

instantly two arrows fly and disappear through the aperture, followed by

an agonizing cry within. The two archers immediately re-fit their bows.

They are executing the orders they received from their chiefs. The town

people occupying the houses around the square had been forbidden to

appear at their windows during the execution of the three chiefs of the

Jacquerie. The three are now at the foot of the scaffold.

Gasping for breath, his face moist with cold perspiration, horrified and

desperate at the sight of such a spectacle, Jocelyn feels his head

swimming. He seems oppressed by a horrible nightmare. He distinguishes

the faces; he hears the voice of Mazurec, of Adam, of Caillet exchanging

a supreme adieu on the scaffold, while the executioners around them are

making ready. William Caillet takes the hands of Adam and Mazurec and

cries out in a strong voice that reaches the champion's ears:

"Firm, my Jacques! Firm to the end! Adam, your wife is revenged!...

Mazurec, our Aveline is revenged!... Our relatives and friends,

smothered to death in the cavern of the forest of Nointel are

avenged.... The executioners are about to torture and put us to death.

What does it matter? Our death will not return life to the noble dames

and seigneurs who fell under our blows in the midst of their happiness.

They sorrowed to leave life ... not so with us, with us whose lives are

brimful of sorrows and tears!... The Jacquerie has revenged us!... Some

day others will finish what we began!... Firm, my Jacques! Firm to the

end!"

"Oh, Jacques Bonhomme, for so many centuries a martyr!" responded Adam

and Mazurec in savage enthusiasm. "The Jacquerie has revenged you!...

Others will finish what we began!... Firm, my Jacques!... Firm to the

end!"

The executioners, engaged in their last dispositions, feel no concern at

what the three peasants may say. Their words can find no echo upon that

deserted place. As soon as the iron trevet is at white heat, one of the

tormentors cried: "Ready! We are ready for the job!"

The archers chain the three Jacques fast to the platform of the scaffold

and deliver them to the executioners. These seize William Caillet and

bind him down upon the seat attached to the stake in the center of the

two blocks with sharp-pointed piles. Mazurec and Adam are stripped of

their clothes except their hose, their hands are tied behind their backs

and they are led to the two blocks. One of the executioners pulls off

the woolen cap that covers the grey-headed William Caillet, while

another seizes with a pair of tongs the little trevet, turns it upside

down with its feet in the air, and placing the white-hot iron on the

skull of the aged peasant cries out: "I crown thee King of the Jacques!"

Caillet bellows with the insufferable pain; his hair takes fire, the

skin of his forehead shrivels, runs blood and rips open under the

pressure of the incandescent iron. The axes of two other executioners

rise over Mazurec and Adam, who are now on their knees each before one

of the blocks.

"Brother!" cries Jocelyn the Champion, overcoming the nightmare pressure

on his chest that suffocated and extinguished his voice; "Brother!"

At the heart-rending cry, Mazurec quickly raises and turns his head

towards the window from which the cry proceeded. But that very instant

the glint of the descending axe of the executioner flashes in Jocelyn's

eyes; his brother's body sinks upon and his head rolls over the

scaffold, reddening it with its blood. The champion is seized with a

vertigo; his heart fails him; and he falls unconscious upon the floor.

When Jocelyn recovered consciousness he found himself unbound and

stretched upon a pallet of straw in a lower hall. An archer mounted

guard over him near a lamp. It was night. Gathering his thoughts as if

he had awakened from some troubled dream, the champion soon recalled the

horrible reality. The archer informed him that he was found unconscious

by the equerries of the prince in the hall of the tower, had been

transported to that place, and, after a fit of delirium, had fallen into

profound torpor. The archer also informed him that his horse and arms

were to be returned to him, and that he could leave Clermont whenever he

wished. Jocelyn requested the archer to take him to one of the officers

of the King of Navarre, hoping to obtain permission to render a pious

homage to Mazurec. The prince granted the request, and Jocelyn, leaving

the castle, proceeded to the place of the execution. By the light of

the moon he mounted the scaffold which was guarded by soldiers. The

corpses of the three Jacques were to remain exposed during the whole of

the next day. After his torture, William Caillet had been beheaded like

his two companions. His head and theirs were stuck to the points of the

piles that surmounted the blocks. Jocelyn religiously kissed the icy

forehead of his brother Mazurec, and turning to descend the scaffold,

his foot struck against the iron trevet which had fallen down after the

decapitation of William Caillet.

"This instrument of torture and witness of my brother's martyrdom shall

join the relics of our family," said Jocelyn the Champion to himself,

picking up and concealing the trevet under his cloak. He then hastened

to his horse that was held ready at the gate of Clermont and left the

town, hastening to rejoin Etienne Marcel in Paris.

PART IV

JOHN MAILLART

CHAPTER I.

THE WAYS OF ENVY.

About a month had elapsed since the death of William Caillet, Adam the

Devil and Mazurec the Lambkin.

Denise, the niece of Etienne Marcel and betrothed to Jocelyn the

Champion, has retired to a large apartment over the cloth shop of the

provost and is busy sewing by a lamp. Uneasiness is depicted on the

sweet face of the young maid. From time to time she stays her needle and

listens towards the window through which the confused talk and hurrying

steps of large numbers of people on the street penetrate into the room.

Gradually the noise on the street subsided and silence reigned again.

These evidences of the excitement that agitated Paris greatly alarmed

Denise.

"My God!" she exclaimed. "The tumult augments. My aunt Marguerite has

not yet returned. Where can she have gone to? Why did she borrow the

cloak of Agnes our servant? Why the disguise? Why did she conceal her

head under a cowl? Can she have gone to the town-hall, where my uncle

and Jocelyn have been since morning?" At the thought of the champion,

Denise blushed, sighed and proceeded: "Oh, should there be any danger,

Jocelyn will watch over my uncle Marcel as he would have done over his

own father.... But the prolonged absence of my aunt causes me mortal

anxiety.... May God guard her...."

Agnes the Bigot, the old domestic of the house, entered the room

precipitately, and said to Denise whom she had known since her birth:

"For the last hour I have noticed three men of sinister looks on our

street. They never stray far from our door. I watched them through the

lattices. Off and on they consult in a low voice and then separate

again. One of them has now planted himself on the left, the second to

the right of the door, and the third opposite.... They must have been

sent to spy upon the people who enter and leave the house."

"Such spyings seem to me ominous; I shall notify my aunt as soon as she

returns."

"I think this is she," answered the servant. "I heard the shop door open

and close; that must be madam."

Indeed Marguerite Marcel soon entered the room. She threw far from her a

cowled cloak that she had on, and said to Agnes: "Leave us."

The provost's wife threw herself into a chair; she was exhausted with

fatigue and emotion. Her dejection, the pallor of her visage and the

visible palpitation of her bosom redoubled the fears of Denise who was

about to interrogate her aunt, when the latter, making an effort over

herself suppressed her agitation and said to Denise collectively:

"Courage, my child; courage!"

"Oh, heaven!... Aunt ... have we any new misfortune to deplore? What has

happened now?"

"No ... not at present; but to-morrow; perhaps this very evening."

Marguerite stopped short for a moment, and then proceeded with still

greater calmness and decision: "I paid a tribute to weakness; I now feel

strong again; I am now prepared for the worst.... I shall at least know

by resignation how to rise to the height of the man whose name I bear!

Oh, never was an honorable man more unworthily misunderstood, or

attacked in more cowardly fashion!"

"Then Master Marcel is exposed to new perils?"

"My presentiments did not deceive me. What I have just learned by myself

confirms them. A plot is hatching against Marcel and his partisans.

Perhaps his own life and the lives of his friends are at stake. Let the

worst come! At the hour of danger Marcel will do his duty and I mine....

I shall stand by my husband unto death."

Marguerite pronounced these last words in an accent of such mournful

determination that a cry of astonishment and fright escaped from Denise.

"My resolution astonishes you, poor child!" resumed Marcel's wife.

"To-day you see me full of courage! And yet last year ... even as late

as yesterday ... I admitted to you my agony and the fears that every day

beset me at the mere thought of the dangers that my husband ran. I then

minded only his fatigue, I then only objected to the overwhelming labors

that barely left him two hours of rest a night, I then looked back

regretfully to the days when, a stranger to political affairs, he busied

himself only with the affairs of our own cloth business. Our then

obscurity at least saved us the sad spectacle of the hatreds and the

envy that have since been unchained against Marcel's glory and

popularity."

"Oh, aunt, you speak truly! Do you remember that wicked and envious

Petronille Maillart? Thank God she never came back since the day of the

funeral of Perrin Mace! We have been spared her presence!"

"I now have no doubt that her husband is one of the leaders in the plot

that is hatching against Marcel."

"Master Maillart!... Uncle's childhood friend! He who only the other day

was so loudly protesting his affection for him!"

"Maillart is a weak man; he yields to his wife's influence over him, and

she is consumed with envy. She envied in me the wife of the man whom

the idolizing people called the King of Paris. In those days I would

have sacrificed Marcel's glory to his repose ... his genius to his

safety! The slightest popular commotion made me fear for him.... I was

then weak and cowardly.... But to-day, when he is pursued by hatred,

ingratitude and iniquity, I feel strong, brave and withal proud of being

the wife of that great citizen. I feel capable of proving to him my

devotion unto death."

"Oh, may heaven prevent that your devotion be put to so terrible a test!

But how did you learn about the plot?"

"I determined this evening to put an end to my suspense, and to

ascertain the actual facts regarding the popular sentiment towards

Marcel. I wrapped myself in that mantle to prevent being discovered, and

moved among numerous groups that gathered in our quarter."

"I now understand it all. And you learned directly...."

"Things that cause me to foresee an imminent and fearful crisis. The

life of Marcel is in great danger."

"Good God! May you not be mistaken?"

"No! The privations, the sufferings and the ills that follow in the wake

of the painful conquest of freedom are laid to Marcel's door. My husband

is at once attacked by the emissaries of the court party and by those of

the party of Maillart. These emissaries circulate among the poor people,

who, credulous of evil as well as of good, are fickle in their

affections, and whimsical in their hatred. It is harped upon to them

that all the evils of these days would have been avoided if Councilman

Maillart, 'the true friend of the people,' had been listened to; others

preach prompt submission to the Regent as the only means to a speedy end

of our public disasters. 'What does the Regent, after all, demand,' ask

his backers, 'What does he exact in return for his pardon? Only eight

hundred thousand gold pieces for the ransom of King John and the heads

of the leaders of the revolt and of its principal partisans! Would it be

paying too dearly with a little shame, a little gold and a little blood

for the peace of the city?'"

"Great God!" cried Denise, pale and trembling, "who are the leaders of

the revolt whose heads the Regent demands?"

"They are Marcel ... my son ... our best friends ... all honorable

people, devoted to the public weal, adversaries of oppression and

iniquity ... uncompromising enemies of the English, who are ravaging our

unhappy land, and who would have put Paris to fire and sword were not

Paris protected by the fortifications that it owes to Marcel's foresight

and zeal! The people to-day seem to have forgotten the services that my

husband has rendered the city; they seem to have forgotten that they owe

to Marcel the reforms that have been imposed upon the Regent and which

guarantee them against rapine and violence from the side of the court."

"Can it be possible that the people are guilty of such ingratitude

against Master Marcel?"

"My husband's soul is too large, his spirit too just to have been swayed

in his public acts by expectations of gratitude. How often has he not

said to me: 'Let us do what is right and just, such acts are their own

reward.' Marcel is prepared for any emergency. Nevertheless, thinking

that my observations might be of benefit to him, I stepped into the

house of our friend Simon the Feather-dealer who lives not far from the

town-hall, and I wrote to my husband what I had seen and heard. My

letter was carried to him by a trusty man----" but observing that the

tears that Denise had long been suppressing now inundated her face,

Marguerite interrupted her report, inquiring tenderly: "Why do you weep,

dear Denise?"

"Oh, aunt! I have neither your strength nor your courage.... The thought

of the dangers that threaten Master Marcel ... and our friends ...

overwhelm me with fear!"

"Poor child! You are thinking of Jocelyn, your lover? He is a true

friend of ours."

"Should there be a riot or a fight, he will rush into the thickest ...

to save Marcel."

"I regret, for the sake of your happiness, dear child, that I ever

called you to Paris. Had you not come, you would now be living

peacefully at Vaucouleurs, away from this center of trouble and strife."

At this instant Agnes the Bigot re-entered, preceding a person whom she

announced, saying: "Dame Maillart has come, she assures me, in order to

render you a great service. She wishes to speak to you without delay."

"I do not wish to see her!" cried Marguerite, impatiently. "I detest the

sight of that woman. I refuse to receive her!"

"Madam, she says she came to render you a great service," answered the

servant, sorry for having involuntarily crossed her mistress' wishes. "I

thought I was doing right to allow her to come up; it is now

unfortunately too late----"

Indeed, Petronille Maillart appeared at that moment at the door of the

room. Triumphant and barely controlled hatred betrayed itself in the

looks that the councilman's wife cast upon Marguerite. But assuming a

mild and kind voice she approached the object of her envy.

"Good evening, Dame Marcel; good evening, poor Dame Marcel."

"This affectation of sympathy conceals some odious perfidy," thought

Denise, whose face was still wet with tears. "I do not like to afford

this wicked woman the spectacle of my sorrow."

The young maid left the room, together with the servant. Alone with the

councilman's wife, Marguerite addressed her dryly:

"I am greatly astonished to see you here, madam; our friendly relations

must cease."

"I understand your astonishment, poor Dame Marguerite, seeing we have

not met since the day of the funeral of Perrin Mace. Oh, Master Marcel's

popularity was then immense; people called him then the King of Paris

... they swore by him ... he was looked upon as the saviour of the

city----"

"Madam, I beg you to speak less of the past and more of the present....

Make your visit short. What do you want of me?"

"First of all to beg you to forget the little quarrel we two had on the

day of the funeral of Perrin Mace. Next I come to render a great service

to poor Master Marcel."

"My husband excites nobody's pity ... he does not need your services."

"Alack! I wish I could leave you in that error, Dame Marguerite. But I

must tell you the truth, and inform you, seeing you are not aware of it,

that you no longer are the 'Queen of Paris' as you were in the days when

Master Marcel was the King. Even at the risk of wounding your legitimate

pride, I must add against my will that your husband's position has

become desperate.... I feel distressed at the sorrow that overwhelms

you----"

"Your excellent heart is unnecessarily alarmed, Dame Petronille. Do not

mind my sorrow."

"Unfortunately, however, I am certain of what I say."

"Madame, I greatly mistrust both your protestations and your

confidences."

"You do not seem to be informed on what is transpiring in Paris."

"I know that there are wicked and envious people in Paris."

"I know you too well, Dame Marguerite, to imagine that a wise and

discreet person like yourself would reproach me with being envious----"

"Indeed, I would not venture, madam.... I would indeed not venture----"

"And you would be right. What is there in your present fate to be

envied. A storm is beating down upon you."

"Envious people do not need much to be envious about. They envy even

the calmness and courage derived from a clean conscience, when

misfortune is on!"

"You admit it?... Misfortune has come upon you and your husband?" cried

the councilman's wife triumphantly, and for a moment forgetting her role

of hypocrite. But recalling herself, she added cajolingly: "The avowal

at least makes me hope that you will accept the services of my husband."

Realizing the gravity of the last words of the councilman's wife,

Marguerite fixed a penetrating look upon her and answered:

"Did Master Maillart send you to offer his services to my husband?

Whence such solicitude?"

"Have the two not been friends since their childhood? Is the friendship

of youth ever forgotten? You have earned our affection."

"It is so at least with generous hearts. But if Master Maillart wishes

to render a service to my husband, why should he send you, madam? Does

he not meet Marcel daily at the town-hall?"

"Since last evening, neither Maillart nor any of his friends have set

foot at the town-hall ... and for good reasons. And for another reason

he would not set foot here. That is why he has commissioned me to come

and offer you his advice and services."

"What does he advise ... what are his services?"

"Maillart advises your husband to secretly leave Paris this very night."

"We now know the advice; it implies a great resolution.... As to the

service ... what is it?"

"My husband offers to favor Marcel's flight if you adopt his advice."

"And how?"

"Maillart will send a trusty man to your house towards midnight. He

shall accompany your husband. He is to wrap himself up well so as not to

be recognized, and confidently follow our emissary, who is charged to

see him safely off.... But your husband must be absolutely alone,

otherwise our emissary will refuse to conduct him."

"It seems to me that in his eagerness to advise and serve, Master

Maillart forgets that Marcel and the town council--the governors, as

they are called--are still masters of Paris. The captains of tens and

the guards at the gates still obey them. If it should happen--a thing

that I consider impossible--that my husband should contemplate quitting

his post at the moment of danger, he would take horse with some of his

friends, and would order whatever gate of Paris he chose to be

opened.... He has the right and the power to do so."

"You would be right if Master Marcel's orders would be obeyed, if these

were still the days when, lording it over all Paris, he had the first

place at all ceremonies.... But the times have changed, good Dame

Marguerite. At this very hour in which I am speaking to you, your

husband's authority is about to be ignored. If he tried to order one of

the gates of Paris to be opened, his action would confirm the rumors

concerning his treason. People would cry: 'Hold the traitor! Death to

the traitor!' A hundred avenging arms would rise, and Master Marcel

would fall under their blows dead, disfigured, bleeding, butchered!...

His body would be torn to pieces.... That would then be his fate!"

"Enough! Enough!" stammered Marguerite, shivering and hiding her face in

her hands. "This is horrible. Hold your tongue!"

"Would not such a death be awful, dear Dame Marguerite? Therefore, in

order to save his friends from such a fate, my husband charged me to

come and offer you his services."

Despite the poor opinion in which she held Maillart and his wife, whose

envy she was aware of, Marguerite did not imagine that the proposition

of the councilman, one of Marcel's oldest friends and, like himself, of

the popular party, could conceal a trap or a snare. Marguerite even took

it for a token of sincere pity, easily supposable from the part of

envious people at the moment of their triumph over a rival. Moreover,

did not the state of public opinion in Paris, on which Marguerite had

that very evening sought to assure herself, but too well confirm the

words of the councilman's wife on the subject of Marcel's increasing

unpopularity? On the other hand, Marguerite was too well acquainted with

her husband's force of character and his energy not to feel assured

that, unless he was reduced to utter extremities, he never would decide

to leave Paris as a fugitive. Nevertheless, the hour of that terrible

extremity might arrive. In that case Maillart's offer was not to be

despised. These thoughts rapidly flashed through Marguerite's mind. She

remained pensive and silent for a moment, while the councilman's wife

observed her closely and anxiously awaited her answer.

"Dame Maillart," finally answered Marguerite, "I wish to believe, I

believe in the generous impulses that dictated the tender of services

that you have just made me in the name of your husband."

"Then, it is understood?" said the councilman's wife, with an eagerness

that should have excited Marguerite's suspicion. "The emissary will be

here at midnight. Let your husband follow him without taking any

companion.... He must have no escort.... That is understood."

"Allow me, Dame Petronille. I can not go so far as to accept your offer

in my husband's name. He alone is the judge of his conduct. He gave me

reasons to believe that he would be here this evening to take a few

hours' rest. If my expectations prove true, I shall soon see him.... I

shall notify him of Master Maillart's proposition. Ask your husband to

send his emissary here at midnight. My husband will decide."

"He should not hesitate a moment. Believe me, poor Dame Marguerite, you

must exert your whole influence upon your husband, and decide him to

avail himself of the one opportunity of escape left to him. He is in

great danger."

At this juncture Denise entered the room affecting great hurry and said:

"Aunt, Dame Alison wishes to see you privately; she has no time to

wait." To these words Denise added a significant gesture conveying to

Marguerite the hint to seize the opportunity for putting an end to the

visit of the detested Dame Petronille.

Marguerite understood the thoughts of her niece, and said to the

councilman's wife: "Please excuse me, there is a visitor I must

receive."

"Adieu, good Dame Marcel," said the councilman's wife, taking a step

towards the door. "Fail not to remember my advice.... We must know how

to resign ourselves to what can not be prevented.... The days follow,

but do not resemble each other.... For the rest you understand me. Good

evening, dear Dame Marguerite, I wish you happier days. May God preserve

you and yours!"

As always, not envy here followed hatred, but hatred envy. Born of the

rankling enviousness that the unworthy entertain for the worthy,

Petronille Maillart was consumed with malevolent hatred for the man and

woman whose ruin she was plotting. Casting upon Marguerite the furtive

look of a viper, Dame Petronille took her leave.

CHAPTER II.

LAST DAY AT HOME.

The handsome tavern-keeper, who now entered in response to the summons

of Denise, looked neat and prim as ever. Her beautiful black eyes, her

white teeth, her comely shape, above all her golden heart--all justified

the partiality of the student Rufin for this amiable and honorable woman

to the total eclipse of Margot. Finally, thanks to Jocelyn, Alison had

not only saved her honor from the clutches of Captain Griffith, but also

quite a round sum of gold, sewed in her skirt, from the rapacity of the

English. Jocelyn the Champion, once Alison's defender against Simon the

Hirsute and later her liberator, when exposed to the libertinage of the

bastard of Norfolk, had inspired her with sentiments more tender than

merely those of gratitude. Nevertheless, apprized of the engagement of

Denise and Jocelyn, the young woman struggled bravely against the

promptings of her heart, and seeking to free her mind from the

affectionate thoughts that crowded upon her, had found pleasure in

observing that, despite his turbulence, Rufin the Tankard-smasher lacked

neither devotion, nor heart, nor brightness, nor yet external

attractions. Thus, since the day when, fleeing from the horrors of the

war that desolated Beauvoisis, she had taken refuge in Paris near the

family of the provost to whom she had been recommended by Jocelyn,

Alison often met the student in her little lodgings at the inn where she

housed, and it often occurred to her that, despite his name, which

sounded particularly unpleasant in a tavern-keeper's ear, Rufin the

Tankard-smasher might after all not make a bad husband. Moreover, her

vanity was not a little flattered by the hope of herself opening a

tavern, whose principal customers would be the students of the

University of Paris. Received with kindness by Marguerite and Denise,

Alison entertained for both a deep sense of gratitude. On this evening

she had hastened to Marcel's house in the hope of being of service to

them. Observing the signs of uneasiness depicted on the tavern-keeper's

face, Marguerite said to her affectionately, taking her hands:

"Good evening, dear Alison ... you look alarmed.... Tell us the cause of

your trouble."

"Oh, Dame Marguerite! I have but too much reason for being alarmed, if

not for myself, yet for you"; and interrupting herself she added: "First

of all, and so as not to forget the circumstance, I must warn you that

coming in I saw three men enveloped in cloaks who seem to be in hiding

on some ambuscade. These men seem to have evil intents."

"Agnes, our servant, also noticed them," said Denise; "we are

forewarned."

"They are no doubt spies," replied Marguerite. "But Marcel need not fear

the consequences of being spied upon. Whatever he does is in the public

interest, and none of his acts need concealment. Nevertheless, seeing

that hatred now dogs his steps ... the information may be useful."

"It is distressing to me, Dame Marguerite, to bring what may be bad news

to you, who received me so kindly upon my arrival from Beauvoisis."

"Our friend Jocelyn recommended you to us; he informed us of your

misfortunes and of your tender care of that ill-starred Aveline. Our

good wishes in your behalf were but natural. But what is the matter?"

"This evening I was looking out of the window of my room at the tumult

of the people in the street, because you must know there is an unusual

agitation this evening on the streets of Paris, when a young man all out

of breath, handed me this note from Rufin the Tankard-smasher."

Alison drew from her corsage a slip of paper which she passed to

Marguerite, who nervously seizing it began to read it aloud:

"As true as Venus in her Olympian beauty...."

"Skip that, skip that, Dame Marguerite! Begin at the fourth or fifth

line," said Alison, blushing and smiling at once. "Those are but

flourishes that Master Rufin amuses himself with. Lose no more time over

them than I did myself.... That worthy fellow should have abstained from

his roguishness when writing upon such serious subjects."

After having run her eyes over the first lines of the epistle, during

which the student displayed his amorous and mythological vein,

Marguerite arrived at the essential portion of the missive:

" ... Hurry to the house of Master Marcel; if he is not at home, tell

his honored wife to have him warned not to leave the town-hall without a

strong escort. I am on the track of a plot against him. So soon as I

shall have positive proofs I shall go either to Master Marcel's house,

or to the town-hall to inform him of my discovery. Above all, let him be

on his guard against Councilman Maillart. He has no more mortal enemy.

He ought to order his arrest on the spot ... just as I would on the spot

have your heart for my prison whose turnkey is the gentle bantling

Cupid."

"Skip all that also, Dame Marguerite; those are some more flourishes.

There is nothing more of importance. I am not a little surprised at

seeing master student mix up folly with serious matter in that manner."

"Serious, indeed! Very serious!... This letter increases my

apprehensions," answered Marguerite, trembling; and recalling her recent

conversation with the councilman's wife, she thought to herself: "Could

the councilman's offer be a snare?... And still I can not yet accept the

existence of quite so horrible a plot!"

"My God!" cried Denise bitterly, "and yet uncle, despite all our

presentiments, always answers us when we mention to him our suspicions

regarding Maillart: 'He is not a bad sort of a man; only he is wholly

under the influence of his wife, who is devoured with vanity. Do not

judge him unjustly.'"

"Dear Alison," rejoined Marguerite after a few moments' reflection, "did

you question the messenger who brought you the letter?"

"Indeed, madam ... I asked where he had left Master Rufin."

"What answer did he make?"

"That the student was in a tavern near the arcade of St. Nicholas when

he handed him the letter."

As Alison was uttering the last words, two men wrapped to the eyes in

cloaks entered the room. Marguerite immediately recognized her husband

and Jocelyn the Champion. As they were throwing off their wraps,

Marguerite cried: "At last, here you are!" and unable longer to control

her emotions, she threw her arms around Marcel's neck, while Denise gave

her hand to her lover, who respectfully took it to his lips. Under his

armor Jocelyn wore a black jacket, a piece of clothing that he had

assumed since the day that he witnessed the execution of Mazurec the

Lambkin. Sad and pale, the face of Jocelyn betokened the grief that

beset his mind. After tenderly embracing Marcel, who effusively returned

her caresses, Marguerite said, delivering to him Rufin the

Tankard-smasher's letter:

"My friend, take notice of what this latter contains; our good Alison

just brought it to me in great haste."

Marcel read the letter in a low voice in the midst of the profound

silence of all present, while Marguerite, his niece and Alison

attentively watched his face. He remained calm throughout. He even

smiled at the mythological flourishes of the student. When he had

finished the letter he returned it to Alison, saying kindly:

"I thank you for your anxiety to bring me the missive, Dame Alison; our

friend Rufin is wrongly alarmed."

"Nevertheless, my friend," put in Marguerite with intense seriousness,

"what about the plot that the student mentions, and on the track of

which he says he is?"

"Rufin must have exaggerated to himself the importance of some

insignificant fact, my dear Marguerite."

"But ... did you notice what he said about Maillart?"

"Last evening Maillart affectionately shook me by the hand when leaving

the town-hall after a discussion in which his opinion differed from

mine. 'Men,' said he to me, 'may differ, but the bonds of old friendship

are indissoluble,' he added."

Jocelyn confirmed the episode, but Marguerite insisted, the disclosures

of the student having gone far to confirm her suspicions against the

councilman. "Marcel," said the alarmed wife, "Maillart's wife was here

this evening ... she came to propose a place of refuge for you in case

of danger----"

"The generous offer does not surprise me."

"A man is to come here this midnight ... you are to follow him alone ...

well wrapt in your mantle," said Marguerite with emphasis. "Alone ... do

you hear, Marcel?... and he is to conduct you to a place whence you

shall be able to flee without danger."

"This is too much kindness," Marcel answered with a smile. "I am

grateful for the offer; I do not think of fleeing, that is certain....

We never have been so near the triumph."

"What!" cried Marguerite encouraged by new hope. "Is that true? And yet,

why all this commotion.... Why this tumult in Paris ... why these

alarming rumors?" And her apprehensions that for an instant had been

allayed by the reassuring words of her husband, again regaining the

upperhand, she proceeded sadly: "The precaution that you as well as

Jocelyn took of enveloping yourselves in these cloaks, no doubt for the

purpose of not being recognized on the street--all these things

contribute to make me fear that you are deceiving yourself ... or that

out of consideration for me, you are concealing the true state of

things."

"Aunt forgot to tell you that three men seem to have been watching our

house all evening," said Denise, and it did not escape her that Jocelyn

seemed struck by the circumstance.

"And I also," observed Alison, "noticed at entering that there seemed to

be three spies near the house. Their presence is strange."

"My friend," said Marguerite, seeking to detect from her husband's face

whether his feeling of safety was real or assumed, "I sent you this

evening a note that I wrote to you at our friend's, Simon the

Feather-dealer. I there informed you of my impressions on my personal

observations, and urged you to take precautionary measures."

"I received your letter, my dear wife," said Marcel, tenderly taking

Marguerite's hands. "You trust me, do you not?... Very well; believe me

when I assert that your fears are unfounded. Better than anybody else do

I know what is going on in Paris this evening. Are our enemies active? I

let them talk, certain that I shall lead my work to a happy issue, as my

device proclaims. For the rest, is not my presence here the best proof

of my confidence in the situation? Upon receipt of your letter I decided

to leave the town-hall for a moment in order to come and calm your

fears, to comfort you, and also to beg of you not to alarm yourself if

it should happen that I do not return home all day to-morrow....

To-morrow grave matters will be decided. And to sum up," Marcel

proceeded, cheerfully, "as I mean to overthrow all your objections, you

dear, timid soul, I shall add that it was partly due to my modesty that

I enveloped myself in that cloak. I meant to reach here and return

without being stopped twenty times on the street by the cheers of the

people. Despite the envy and hatred of some of the bourgeois partisans

of the Regent, Marcel continues to be loved by the people of Paris."

"And you would not doubt it, Dame Marguerite," added Jocelyn, "if you

had heard, as I did, the addresses delivered to-day by the trades

guilds, all of which came to pledge their loyalty to Master Marcel."

Jocelyn's words, the cheerful and serene physiognomy of the provost and

the tone of conviction that marked his words, somewhat allayed the

fears of Marguerite and Denise, the latter of whom said to Marcel: "Your

presence suffices to encourage us, dear uncle, just as the sight of the

physician sometimes suffices to allay the pains of a patient."

"My worthy Jocelyn," Marcel said, cheerfully, turning to the champion,

"that applies to you as much as to me ... you happy and beloved lover!"

"Dear Denise," said the champion to the blushing maid, "the mourning for

my poor brother has put off our marriage.... I do not very much regret

the circumstance when I consider that in these days of turmoil I could

not have devoted all my time to you. But believe Master Marcel; better

days are approaching. Need I tell you that they are the subject of my

ardent wishes, seeing that they will witness our union?"

"Dame Alison," cordially put in Marcel, "since marriage is the topic of

the conversation, take pity on the amorous martyrdom of poor Rufin....

He is a good and loyal heart, despite some transports of youth that

earned for him the nickname of 'Tankard-smasher.' I feel quite sure that

the wholesome influence of a kind and honorable woman like yourself

would make an excellent husband of him. It would be a double pleasure to

me to see you and Rufin, Denise and Jocelyn, approach the altar the same

day. What say you?"

"That needs thinking over," answered Alison, meditatively. "That needs

much thinking over, Master Marcel. For the rest," she proceeded, with a

blush and a sigh, "I say neither 'yes' nor 'no'.... I wish to consult

Dame Marguerite."

"Rufin's prospects are good," rejoined the provost. "The woman who says

not nay ever has a strong wish to say aye."

"Marcel would not be so cheerful and jovial did he actually believe

himself and his partisans on the eve of grave dangers," thought

Marguerite, now more and more reassured by the turn of gaiety her

husband's words had taken. "I must have attached exaggerated importance

to what I heard this evening. My husband is right. Even when his

popularity is strongest, calumny pursues him. Maillart may be yielding

simultaneously both to envy and the more generous feelings prompted by

old friendship. He may believe in the loss of popularity by Marcel and

enjoy the idea, and yet wish to save him. That wicked Petronille has

merely thrown poison into an offer that, in itself, is honorable. If it

were otherwise, Maillart would be the vilest of men, and that I am not

ready to believe. Such a degree of perversity would exceed the bounds of

possibility----"

"Denise," said the provost, kissing his niece on the forehead, "order a

lamp to be taken into my cabinet. I have some documents to finish."

Turning to his wife, whom he also kissed on the forehead: "I shall see

you again before I leave," and taking Jocelyn by the arm: "Come, we have

work to attend to."

Denise hastened to carry a lamp into Marcel's cabinet, where she left

her uncle and her lover closeted together.

CHAPTER III.

DARKENING SHADOWS.

Once alone in his cabinet with Jocelyn, Marcel sank into profound

pensiveness. The cheerful serenity that had pervaded his bearing during

the conversation with his wife was now replaced by an expression of

melancholic seriousness. For a few minutes he contemplated in silence

his studious retreat, the witness of the meditations of his riper years.

Finally, leaning over a large table that was strewn with parchments, he

emitted a sigh and said to Jocelyn:

"How many nights have I not spent here, elaborating by the light of this

little lamp the plans of reform that some day, hap now what hap may,

will be the solid basis for the emancipation of our people, the

evangelium of the rights of the citizen!... Here have been spent the

happiest, the most beautiful days of my life!... What a pure joy did I

not then taste!... Sustained by my ardent love for justice and right,

and enlightened by the lessons of the past, I soared upward to the

sublimest theories of freedom!... I then was ignorant of the deceptions,

the evils, the delays, the struggles, the storms that the practice and

application of truth inevitably engender!... I then saw truth in its

radiant simplicity!... I did not then reckon with human passions!... But

that matters not!... Truth is absolute.... Sooner or later it imposes

itself upon humanity that ever is on the march, progresses and improves

itself...."

Jocelyn listened to Marcel in mute reverence. He now beheld that

illustrious man wrapt with pensive brow in ever deeper meditation. A few

instants later, Marcel stepped towards an oaken trunk that age had

blackened. He opened it, took out several rolls of parchment, lay them

on the table, pushed a stool near and sat down to write. His virile and

characterful face betrayed by degrees increasing sadness, and, to

Jocelyn's surprise several tears dropped from the provost's eyes upon

the lines that he was writing. Tears from so great a man, from a man of

such energy, endowed with ancient stoicism, profoundly impressed the

champion. Jocelyn's heart ached, and he began to suspect Marcel's

motives for the affectation of safety that he had shortly before

displayed before his family. Jocelyn saw him dry his tears and seal the

parchment with black wax, using for that purpose the impress of a large

gold ring that he wore on his finger, after which, placing the scroll

together with the others that he had taken from the trunk, he made one

package of all, sealed them together and replaced them in the trunk. He

then locked it, and giving the key to Jocelyn, said to him deliberately:

"Keep this key safe.... I charge you to deliver it to my wife and to

tell her, in case certain events should happen, that she will find in

that trunk, together with my testament and some other papers that it is

well to keep, a letter for herself ... written by me this evening ...

written for my beloved Marguerite...."

"Master Marcel," Jocelyn answered, a cold shudder running over his

frame, "these are lugubrious preparations."

"Lugubrious?... no ... but prudent.... I have fulfilled my sacred

duty.... I now find myself in a singular frame of mind.... The latest

happenings, those of to-day, cast over my mind, not any doubt upon the

decision I should take, but considerable uncertainty on the head of the

means to be adopted. Never yet have I been so in need of a clearness of

judgment as now, when I must take some supreme and irrevocable step. I

imagine that by talking over the general condition of things, these will

stand out more clearly before me. Thought expressed in words becomes

preciser, while mute it often fades from one thing to another and is

lost to the goal in mind. Therefore, listen to me, and if in the rough

sketch that I shall present any omission should strike you, any point

should seem obscure, tell me so.... It is a friendly duty that I now

conjure you to fulfill."

"I listen, Master Marcel."

"Upon your return from Clermont--pardon that I open the wound of your

private sorrow--I also wept over the death of your unfortunate

brother--upon your return from Clermont, you informed me of the massacre

of the Jacques. The following day we learned that the Captal of Buch and

the Count of Foix exterminated at Meaux another considerable troop of

revolted peasants. Finally, recovering from the stupor into which these

formidable insurrections had struck it, the nobility gathered its forces

and running over the country it put a mass of serfs, men, women and

children, to frightful tortures and to death, whether these sympathized

with the Jacquerie or not, and set their villages on fire. That settled,

at least for a long time to come, all thought of an alliance between the

townsfolks and the country people. The destruction of the Jacquerie

reduces the bourgeoisie to its own forces in its struggle against the

Regent. The bourgeoisie has, thereupon, no choice but either to accept

the unequal fight or deliver itself to Charles the Wicked, and instead

of dictating terms to him, accept those that he may choose to dictate to

us."

"That was the calculation of the blood-thirsty knave. He said so

explicitly to me at Clermont."

"Nevertheless, by massacring the Jacques, skillful politician though

Charles the Wicked be, he deprived himself of powerful auxiliaries

against the Regent, whose forces are far superior to those of his own.

He may fail in his calculations."

"The scoundrelly prince! Had he followed your generous advice, his own

hands, re-inforced by thousands of armed peasants and thousands of

bourgeois, would by now have crushed the royal troops. And profiting by

the general enthusiasm of the people, who are as exasperated at the

English as at the seigneurs, Charles the Wicked would now be chasing the

foreigners from our soil and would ascend the throne in the midst of the

acclamations of a people whom he would govern placing before them the

example of submission to the national assembly."

"Such was the glorious mission that opened before Charles the Wicked. It

is not yet too late if he would only have the courage, the wisdom and

the loyalty to devote himself body and soul to so noble an aim. I shall

presently explain that. At present, however, he is, just as ourselves,

no other than a rebel against the loyal authority of the Regent. The

latter disposes of considerable forces. He has on his side the monarchic

tradition, which in the eyes of the people runs back into the night of

the ages; he has on his side the royal name, the courtiers, the clergy,

the royal officers, the administrators of the revenue and of justice, in

short, all those who live upon abuses and exactions--a huge clientage

that imparts formidable strength to the Regent. Charles the Wicked is

too clear-sighted not to have realized by now all that he lost by

destroying the Jacquerie, and how slight his chances now are of usurping

the crown. He must have thought of an eventual settlement with the

Regent in case our cause, to whose side he still seems to lean, should

be seriously compromised, or actually lost."

"Do you believe that Charles the Wicked has actually negotiated with the

Regent?"

"Everything makes me think so. The conduct of the King of Navarre during

these last days reveals a man who is wavering between ambition to ascend

the throne and the fear of a defeat which he would have to pay for with

his life and the loss of his domains. He sends us a few insignificant

reinforcements, but refuses to enter Paris. He has accepted the title of

captain-general of our city, but the queen, his mother, has frequent

interviews with the Regent. The hour is critical. The court party

exploits at our expense and with its habitual perfidy the present

national calamities whose original causes are the insane prodigalities

of the court itself. King John and his creatures have driven both towns

and country districts to desperation with their acts of rapine and

violence and their unbearable imposts. A revolution broke out. We

conquered radical reforms. These were expected to inaugurate an era of

peace and prosperity unequaled in the annals of the land, because

liberty is at once well-being and independence. But liberty is complete

only with the possession of the instruments of work."

"A profound truth, Master Marcel. Tyranny ever engenders servitude, and

servitude misery. Only by freeing them from seigniorial tyranny could

the insurrection of the serfs insure to these the enjoyment of the

fruits of the earth which they now cultivate for their own butchers."

"Yes, but all revolution is arduous and rough. It cannot overnight

remedy ills that are the fatal inheritance of the past. Sometimes such

ills are even temporarily aggravated by the remedial revolution, as the

cauterized wound for a while smarts worse than before. These ills, these

sufferings, have been carried to their extreme by the ravages of the

English after the battle of Poitiers. The people have valiantly endured

them, placing their confidence in the revolution of 1357. The city

council, presided over by myself, the 'governors' in short, as the body

is called, have been forced to exercise a temporary dictatorship, often

to resort to energetic and even terrible measures in order to make front

against the English at our gates, and the court party inside of our

walls. The people at first accepted the dictatorship for the sake of the

safety of the city, but they have since fallen away when they found that

we could not instantly meet their expectations of material well-being.

The people are tired of dictatorship, and now in their credulous despair

they lend ear to the mischievous words of their own enemies! They are

ready to withdraw from the struggle instead of finishing the work of

emancipation! The people now deplore their rebellion; they are ready to

curse the councilmen who have sacrificed their repose and their

property, and even exposed their lives in the effort of emancipation.

They imagine that by humbly submitting to the Regent, that by meekly

resuming their yoke, the ills they now suffer from will vanish.

Perchance to-morrow the people will be dragging me to the scaffold, me

who so recently was their idol!" After a few seconds of silence the

provost resumed: "To sum up, we can now barely count with the support of

the masses; Charles the Wicked is a doubtful ally; the Regent a

formidable adversary."

"Unhappily the manifestations of the defection of the people, whom the

manoeuvres of the Regent's party have done their best to promote, have

struck me during the last few days. Must all hope be given up, Master

Marcel?"

"No! No! I merely wished to establish the critical aspect of our

situation. But all is not lost. By virtue of their very fickleness the

people are capable of sudden revulsions. A considerable section of the

bourgeoisie, firmly resolved to carry our work to a happy issue, in the

language of my device, will go with us to the end, whatever the dangers

be that menace our lives and property in case of failure. We still can

make our influence felt among the masses; we can arouse their

enthusiasm, wrench them free from their acquiesence in the enemy's

suggestions, adopt terrible measures against these, and gain a decisive

victory over the Regent. But seeing that the Jacquerie is annihilated,

it would be insane to undertake such a struggle without the support of

Charles the Wicked. This, then, is our last resource. This very night I

shall induce the prince to declare himself against the Regent, and

sufficiently compromise himself so as to force him to the alternative of

vanquishing with us and ruling, or of losing both his life and his

property should the Regent prevail. If he accepts my propositions, then

Charles the Wicked, having staked his head for a crown, will enter Paris

at the head of his Navarrians. We shall make a supreme effort; we shall

arouse the people and shall take the field against the Regent. If we are

victorious, we shall then rouse against the English the peasants that

have escaped the vengeance of the nobility. The foreigner will be beaten

back; delivered from her domestic and her foreign foes, Gaul will

delegate her sovereignty to Charles of Navarre under control of the

national assembly. Our provinces will then form a powerful

confederation with us as the center."

"Such a result would be admirable. But would Charles the Wicked keep his

promise once he is crowned King of France? Will he submit to the laws of

the States General?"

"He would have submitted to all our conditions before the annihilation

of the Jacquerie which was a counterpoise to his bands of mercenaries.

But when he mounts the throne the force of circumstances will compel him

to keep a large number of the reforms very much like a gift of joy. Thus

a part of our conquests over the royalty will have been assured. Nor is

that all. The masses, still steeped in ignorance are slavish. Accustomed

through centuries to being governed despotically by a prince of royal

lineage, they can arrive only by degrees at free government under

elective magistrates, as were the communal towns at the time of their

enfranchisement. But experience will be gradually gained. Is not the

mere fact of the overthrow of one dynasty and the setting up of a new at

the will of the citizens, an immense step forward? The divine prestige

of the royalty will have received a death-blow. The power of choosing a

sovereign implies the right to depose him. And, finally, let us not lose

sight of this, always supposing that Charles the Wicked succeeds in the

war: Gaul will be delivered of the English; after that, whatever may

happen, the nobility will preserve the memory of the formidable

insurrection of the Jacques; it will feel itself compelled to ease the

yoke, realizing that, driven again to extremities, Jacques Bonhomme

might again wield the fork, the scythe and the torch."

"Aye, Master Marcel, the future is bright ... provided Charles the

Wicked openly pronounces against the Regent, and we triumph."

"I have weighed everything, calculated everything. If we succumb in this

supreme conflict, Charles the Wicked will share our defeat and, like us,

will pay for his rebellion with his head. He is, at best, a wicked

prince; the Regent will return to Paris just as he would inevitably do

if the King of Navarre refuses to embrace our cause. It would be an act

of folly to try to oppose the Regent without him. Let us examine this

last hypothesis. Aiming at putting an end to the hesitations of Charles

the Wicked, I have forced him to decide this very night--"

"This very night?"

"At one o'clock to-morrow morning I shall await the King of Navarre at

the St. Antoine gate. I declared to him yesterday at St. Denis that I

shall no longer count with him, and shall look upon him as a traitor if

at the hour I mentioned he does not appear at the rendezvous so as to

enter Paris with me and to solemnly announce to-morrow at the town-hall

his adherence to our cause, and the support of his arms. We are left to

our own forces if Charles the Wicked fails to put in his appearance

to-night."

"What did he answer you, Master Marcel?"

"He answered me in his usual manner, that he would think it over. Now,

then, if the fear of losing his domains and of risking his head carries

the day over his ambition, he will go and throw himself at the feet of

the Regent and will offer him his services in atonement for his past

conduct. The Regent has great interest in temporizing with such an

adversary. He will grant him pardon, and the two will march upon Paris

at the head of their combined troops. Our city will then fall back under

the monarchic yoke."

"Then, Master Marcel," cried Jocelyn, "let us call to arms all the

stout-hearted people of the city; let us then close our gates and lock

ourselves behind our ramparts that are now so well fortified by your

foresight and zeal; let us be killed to the last man; let not the Regent

re-enter his capital but through the breach that he will have to make

over our corpses!"

"Such a resolution is heroic. But you forget the horrors that follow the

capture of a city by assault. You forget Meaux delivered to the flames

by the Captal of Buch and the Count of Foix; the women assaulted, old

men and children slaughtered or perishing in the flames! Shall I deliver

Paris to such a fate, Paris the head and heart of Gaul? No! To attempt

to resist the Regent without the assistance of Charles the Wicked would

be to expose ourselves to annihilation. Let us prefer a salutary

sacrifice to a sterile heroism. Even our defeat will be fruitful."

"Master Marcel, I do not understand you now."

"Whatever the stubbornness and duplicity of the Regent may be, the

terrible lessons he has received will not be lost upon him. A fugitive

before the popular uprising, he was forced to leave the palace of the

Louvre furtively ... he has seen himself on the point of losing his

crown. If, thanks to the submission of the Parisians, he should re-enter

the city, however he may seek to satiate his vengeance and satisfy his

royal pride, he will feel compelled to observe certain reforms. These,

no doubt, will be less numerous than Charles the Wicked would have

accepted in order to consolidate his usurpation. Nevertheless, whatever

they be and however few, these reforms will remain safe to posterity,

our revolution will have borne some fruit, the burden that weighed upon

the people will have been lightened. Do you grasp my sense?... What is

it that astonishes you?"

"In order to satisfy the resentment of the Regent and slake his

vengeance, the heads of the chiefs of the rebellion will be demanded."

"Some heads will be demanded!" answered Marcel with Spartan simplicity.

"Yes, the Regent will demand my own head first of all and also the heads

of the governors, the principal leaders in the rebellion.... Very well!

We shall deliver our heads to the Regent.... My friends and I are in

accord upon that.... This conversation elucidates, as I expected of it,

the facts that are to be considered, and confirms me in my resolution.

At one in the morning I shall proceed to the gate of St. Antoine, where

I shall expect to meet Charles the Wicked. If he fails to come, I shall

take horse and ride to the Regent's camp at Charenton. I shall offer him

my life; if that does not suffice him, I shall offer him the lives of my

friends: they have authorized me to dispose of their heads. In exchange,

I shall demand of the prince the observances of the reforms sworn to in

1357. I shall demand a good deal so as to obtain something.... These

reforms will smooth the day for the advent of our plan of government,

based upon the federation of the provinces and the permanence of the

sovereign national assemblies that will at first delegate the appearance

of a crown to a phantom king, and later, by wholly suppressing the idol,

suppress royalty itself. The government of free Gaul, free and

confederated, will then be again what it was at the time of the invasion

of Caesar, as we learn from history and as one of your family's legends

confirms."

"At the time of the abolition of the commune of Laon and of so many

other municipal republics that Louis the Lusty destroyed, my ancestor

Fergan the Quarryman said to his son, who despaired of the future:

'Hope, my child, hope!... Have faith in the slow, painful but

irresistible progress of the race.' He spoke truly! Thanks to your

genius, I might have seen in this very century the municipal government

of the old communes--free, benevolent and wise governments--applied no

longer to one town only but to all Gaul. Be praised for having promoted

such a step forward."

"That is my dream! Social unity and administrative uniformity. Political

rights made commensurate with civic rights. The principles of authority

transferred from the crown to the nation. The States General changed

into a national assembly under the control of the people of the towns

and the country, and the living forces of the nation; and the popular

sovereignty attested by the overthrow of one dynasty and the transfer of

the crown to another, until the day of the total suppression of the

royalty, the last vestige of the Frankish conquest!... That was my

dream! Time will change the dream into reality. May be I stepped in

advance of my century.... Is that wrong?... That government of the

future will have been practiced three years!... Our children will place

all the stronger reliance in the prospect of their deliverance when,

instructed by the past, they will know that their fathers actually held

their deliverance in their own hands; that, having one day assumed their

freedom, they bent and chased away the royal incumbent, and that, if

they relapsed under the yoke, it was because on the eve of final triumph

they yielded to discouragement; it was because, after having overcome

formidable obstacles, they grew faint-hearted at the moment of reaching

the ultimate goal. The lesson will be great and profitable to our

children. Perchance the death of myself and my friends may render the

lesson all the more striking! Our death will have been as fruitful as

our life!... The scaffold will crown it!"

CHAPTER IV.

PLOTTERS UNCOVERED.

Wrapt in wonderment and admiration, Jocelyn was contemplating the noble

figure of Etienne Marcel that now seemed transfigured in the brilliancy

of the sentiments he had given utterance to, when a knock was heard at

the door. Jocelyn opened and Denise said to him:

"Jocelyn, your friend Rufin wishes to speak to you without delay."

"Master Marcel," the champion observed, "it must be about the plot that

Rufin thinks to have discovered."

"My child, tell Rufin to come in," said the provost to his niece.

Rufin entered immediately. He was deeply agitated: "Master Marcel," he

said, "I believe the goddess Fortuna served me as well this time as she

did the night I discovered the flight of the Regent"; and drawing a

letter from his pocket he handed it over to Marcel, adding: "Be kind

enough to post yourself thereon; if the message is to be judged by the

messenger, it bodes nothing good."

Marcel took the letter, broke the seal, trembled when he recognized the

hand that wrote it, and carefully read its contents, while Jocelyn,

leading the student to the outer end of the cabinet, said to him in a

low voice:

"How did you get the letter, friend Rufin?"

"By Hercules! I got it ... by the force of my fist! without, however,

forgetting the aid that my chum Nicholas the Thin-skinned and two Scotch

students lent me. I became acquainted with the last two about a year ago

in a contest over the flagrant superiority of the rhetoric of Fichetus

over that of Faber. Our discussion having turned from oral to manual,

to all the greater honor of rhetoric, I preserved a striking souvenir

of their fists--"

"The minutes are precious, Rufin; grave matters are at stake; I beseech

you, come to the point."

"This evening, towards nightfall, I was walking on

Oysters-are-fried-here street, totally oblivious of the perfumes exhaled

by the fries, although I had dined only on a herring, and thinking only

of that treasure, that pearl, or rather of that bouquet of roses that

Dame Venus, her godmother, christened by the succulent name of Alison--"

"For heaven's sake, Rufin!"

"Keep cool; I shall bid my soul hold its tongue. I shall come to the

point. Well, then, I noticed a large crowd at the other end of the

street; I elbowed my way in and reached its front ranks. There I saw a

certain large-boned scamp with a furred cap whom I had come across

before and knew to be a bitter partisan of Maillart. The said

large-boned scamp was perorating against Master Marcel, attributing to

him all the ills we are suffering from and crying: 'We must put an end

to the tyranny of the governors. The Regent's army is gathered at

Charenton and is about to march upon us. The Regent is furious. He

wishes to set fire to his good city of Paris and slaughter its townsmen.

Maillart, the true friend of the people, is alone able to make a front

against the Regent or to negotiate with him and thus save the city from

the ruin that threatens it.'"

"Always that Maillart!"

"Such language exasperated me. I was on the point of breaking out and

confounding the man of the furred cap whose words, I must say so, were

having their effect upon the mob. Some of them had even begun to

vituperate Master Marcel and the governors, when suddenly I heard

someone behind me say in Latin: 'The water begins to boil, the fish must

now be thrown in,' and another voice answered, also in Latin: 'Then let

us hasten to notify the master cook.' Seeking to fathom the mysterious

meaning of these parables, I turned towards my Latinists at the moment

when they began to cry, this time in French: 'Good luck to Maillart, to

the devil with Marcel! He is a criminal! A traitor! He plots with the

Navarrians! Good luck to Maillart! He alone can put an end to our ills!'

A portion of the crowd took up the cries, whereupon the lumbering scamp

of the furred cap closed his peroration and came down from the box on

which he had been perched. The two Latinists then approached him, and

while the crowd was dispersing my three gentlemen stepped aside and

conducted an animated discussion. I did not lose sight of them; the

three walked on together and I followed, catching these broken words

that they let drop: 'rendezvous,' 'horse,' 'arcade of St. Nicholas.' You

know how even at mid-day the arcade of St. Nicholas is dark and

deserted. Night was falling fast. The idea struck me that my three

worthies might be having some suspicious rendezvous at that secluded

spot, because the mysterious Latin words would not leave my head. 'The

water begins to boil' might mean the boiling of the popular rage; 'the

fish that was to be thrown in the boiling water,' might mean Master

Marcel; finally, 'the cook who was to be notified'--"

"Might be the Regent or Maillart," put in Jocelyn. "I do not believe

your penetration was at fault. It is a credit to your sagacity."

"And the words 'horse,' 'rendezvous,' 'arcade of St. Nicholas' might

mean some messenger on horseback was waiting for my three worthies at

that secluded spot. I know the place. Often did Margot.... But I shall

drop Margot! I said to myself on the contrary: 'Oh, if now, instead of

following the lumbering scamp of the furred cap to the spot so

propitious to love, I followed the divine Alison--"

The champion again made an impatient gesture, took his friend by the

arm, and pointed significantly towards the other end of the chamber

where Marcel sat with his forehead leaning on his hand, contemplating

the letter that he had just finished reading, and a smile at once

bitter and sorrowful playing around his lips. The student grasped

Jocelyn's meaning and proceeded in a still lower voice:

"I have quick legs. I put them to use and made a short cut on the run

across St. Patern to arrive before my three men at the arcade of St.

Nicholas. The place was dark as an oven. I listened, but heard nothing.

I know the place. Groping about I found a niche where one time stood the

statue of the saint. I vanished in the cavity, and awaited at all

hazards. I was well repaid. About fifteen minutes later steps were heard

under the vault and I recognized the voice of the man of the furred cap

whispering: 'Haloa ... haloa! John Four-Sous', and presently a voice

answered: 'He has not yet arrived ... the devil take the loafer!' 'No

time is lost,' answered a third voice, 'he only needs three hours to

reach here from Charenton on horseback; he will not fail.'"

"The situation is grave," said Jocelyn. "It is at Charenton that the

Regent has his headquarters. There must be some treasonable plot on

foot."

"Exactly. So you can imagine how I congratulated myself on my discovery.

Evidently there was a plot hatching with the court party. John Four-Sous

finally arrived by the other side of the entrance of the arcade and the

man of the furred cap asked him: 'Are you ready to leave?' 'Yes, my

horse stands saddled in the stable of the inn of The Three Monkeys.'

'Very well; here is the letter,' came from the man of the furred cap,

'Make haste to arrive at the royal encampment; deliver the letter to the

seneschal of Poitou; he will understand.' 'But will they allow me to

leave the city?' asked the messenger. 'Fear not,' he is answered, 'the

gate of St. Antoine is this evening guarded by men of our side; Master

Maillart is to be there himself; you shall give for pass-word "Montjoie,

the King and Duke"; that will let you through. To horse, now, to horse!'

After that the man of the furred cap and his two companions walked off

by one entrance and John Four-Sous by the other. I left the niche where

I had taken St. Nicholas' place, and followed the messenger of whom I

got a clear view when the light of the moon fell upon him outside the

vault. The scamp was tall, sinewy and well armed. I made up my mind to

seize the letter that he carried. How to do it? I was still revolving

the matter when I saw him enter the tavern of The Three Monkeys. I

imagined he was going for his horse in the stable. Not at all! John

Four-Sous, being a man of foresight, called for supper before starting

on his journey, and through the open door I saw him comfortably anchored

at a table. Bacchus willed it that I had often emptied more than one

tankard at the tavern of The Three Monkeys without smashing them after

drinking. I knew the inn-keeper, a worthy fellow belonging to Marcel's

party. I immediately dropped a few lines to the divine Alison whom Dame

Venus ... attached to her chariot...."

"We know all about that ... come to the point."

"Uncertain of what success I might meet, I wished at least to forewarn

Master Marcel, and that so soon as possible, that something was hatching

against him. The inn-keeper undertook to forward my note to Alison's

inn, and presently.... Blessed be the goddess Fortuna, whom do I see

enter but my chum Nicholas the Thin-skinned, in the company of the

Scotch students, with whom I had once fistically discussed the merits of

the rhetoric of Fichetus. They came to drink some spiced wine. With the

corner of my eyes I was taking in John Four-Sous devouring his ample

supper. My plan was formed. I communicated it to my friends and the

inn-keeper, confiding to them the suspicions that I entertained, and

which the incident of the arcade of St. Nicholas confirmed. Nothing

simpler than my project: Pick up a quarrel with John Four-Sous, fall

upon him, take possession of the letter, and lock up the scamp in the

cellar of The Three Monkeys so as to keep him from giving the alarm to

Maillart's party. So said, so done.... I approached John Four-Sous'

table and started quarrelling with him. He gave me an insolent answer. I

jumped at his throat and Nicholas the Thin-skinned rummaged through the

fellow's pockets, and seized the letter, and--"

The student's account was interrupted by Marcel, who after a long and

thorough reflection, rose from his seat, and stepping towards Jocelyn

said:

"I spoke to you of my quandary; this letter would have put an end to it

had not my resolution been previously taken. Do you know who wrote this

letter?"

"No, Master Marcel; who is its author? A friend or an enemy?"

"My oldest friend," answered the provost with deep concern and disgust,

"John Maillart! This letter proves that for some time, and despite his

affectation of devotion for the popular cause and his violent language

against the court, Maillart was secretly negotiating with the royalist

party whose chiefs in Paris are the Sire of Charny and the knight James

of Pontoise, for the nobility, with Maillart and the old councilmen

Pastorel and John Alphonse for the bourgeoisie. These are our worst

enemies."

"Master Marcel," asked Jocelyn, "will not you and the governors take

rigorous measures against these traitors?"

"They dare to conspire within our walls!" added the student. "They seek

to lead astray a credulous people! They deserve death!"

"It will have been brought on by our enemies themselves! They must he

stricken down with terror. They invoke frightful vengeance upon Paris!"

replied Marcel. "Yes, Maillart, keeping the Regent informed upon our

intestine dissensions, upon the discouragement inspired among the masses

by the agents of the court, upon the hatred that they have incited

against us, beseeches the prince to march upon Paris, and assures him

that the people are tired of suffering. He assures him that a movement

in his favor will break out within our walls so soon as he approaches.

He informs the prince that he and his partisans will be on guard

to-night and to-morrow at the gate of St. Antoine, and that they will

open the gates to him. Finally, he expresses the hope of being able to

deliver me to the Regent, me whom he calls 'the soul of the

revolution.'"

"There can be no longer any doubt!" exclaimed Jocelyn horrified. "So

that when Maillart's wife came here this evening to offer means for your

escape to Dame Marguerite she only was laying a trap for you."

"Aye," broke in Marcel with a look of contempt, "she was laying a trap

for me. I was to trust the loyalty of my oldest friend ... I was to go

alone to his house ... and there he was to take me prisoner and deliver

me to the Regent at his entry into Paris!"

"Treason and cowardice!" cried the student indignantly. "What a female

monster! Oh, I judged her rightly from her hypocritical lamentations at

the funeral of Perrin Mace."

"The envy and pride that devour her have lost Maillart," rejoined the

provost. "The vanity of that insensate woman has driven her husband to

crime and to deep baseness. That man without character and without

convictions reminds the seneschal in his letter that the Regent promised

him a patent of nobility in consideration of the services he is

rendering the court party!... That is the Maillart that was incessantly

reproaching me for not exterminating the members of the court party who

remained in Paris!... He could not find words enough to throw at the

nobility!"

"Oh, Master Marcel," cried Jocelyn, "and your blood was to be the price

for the ennobling of that infamous wretch!"

"This act of betrayal wounds me doubly ... I know mankind. Nevertheless,

I resisted up to this moment the belief that Maillart could be guilty of

such felony.... He, the friend of my infancy.... But now, to work. There

is now no longer any doubt, nor can there now be any question what step

to take.... The reaction of the court party will be merciless.... Our

only chance of escape lies in the support of the King of Navarre ...

and in the vigorous measures that we must now take against these

implacable enemies."

"Master Marcel," Jocelyn whispered to the provost, "if Charles the

Wicked does not put in his appearance at the rendezvous of this evening,

what will you do then?"

"I shall ride at a gallop to deliver to the Regent my own head and the

heads of the governors ... Our blood will slake the young prince's

thirst for vengeance and he will spare Paris."

A great noise, at first from a distance, was heard rapidly approaching

along the street. Presently distinct cheers were heard: "Good luck to

Marcel!" "To a happy issue, to a happy issue!" "Good luck to Marcel!"

and almost at the same time Marguerite entered her husband's cabinet

saying: "Simon the Feather-dealer, Philip Giffart, Consac and other

friends are in arms in the street with a large number of faithful

partisans cheering for you. Our friends consider it prudent to come for

you and escort you to the town-hall."

"Good-bye, Marguerite, dear and beloved wife!" said Marcel with profound

but well-controlled emotion, thinking that this was perhaps the last

time he might press to his heart the companion of his life. "Adieu ...

and may we soon meet again!"

"Oh, my friend, these cheers that acclaim you with enthusiasm reassure

me ... Our friends are guarding you."

Fear nothing; I shall see you again to-morrow ... Adieu!... Adieu once

more!" repeated Marcel, who despite his courage, felt his heart breaking

at the moment of a separation that might be eternal. Giving a last

embrace to Marguerite, Marcel descended to the street. There he was met

by several of the councilmen in the midst of a large crowd of partisans

whose sympathetic acclamations redoubled at the sight of their idol.

Discouragement had, it was true, gained over a majority of the people.

Nevertheless Marcel could still count upon many devoted and intrepid

hearts.

"Friends!" Marcel cried out aloud to the councilmen, "we shall not go

to the town-hall, but to the gate of St. Antoine. I shall tell you more

on the way."

The words were caught by one of the three men who all during the evening

had never left the approaches to Marcel's house. The spy said to his

companions:

"Let one of you hurry to the Sire of Charny and notify him that Marcel

is going with his men to the gate of St. Antoine. The other of you run

ahead of the bandits and notify Master Maillart that they are coming. I

shall follow them at a distance and watch their movements. Let each be

at his post and well armed."

CHAPTER V.

THE GATE OF ST. ANTOINE.

The clock had sounded the first hour of morning from the church in the

quarter of St. Antoine. Just before sinking below the horizon the moon

still shed enough light to brighten with a fringe of silver the topmost

battlement of the two high towers that defend the gate of St. Antoine,

towards which Etienne Marcel was wending his way accompanied by the

councilman Philip Giffart and Jocelyn, and holding two keys in his

hands. The other magistrates and a group of their partisans had posted

themselves, at the request of the provost, in a house near the ramparts.

The profoundest silence reigned near a wide and dark vaulted passage

that led to the gate of the city. A man leading a horse by the bridle

followed Marcel at a little distance.

"This is the decisive moment," Marcel was saying to his companions. "If

Charles the Wicked has come to our rendezvous, we then have a chance of

success ... if not, I shall mount that horse and ride to Charenton to

deliver myself to the Regent!"

Hardly had Marcel finished pronouncing these words when two sentinels,

posted outside the dark passage which he was about to enter, called out:

"Montjoie, the King and Duke!" and almost at the same moment appeared

John Maillart stepping forward. At the sight of his old friend, whose

infamous treason he was now acquainted with, Marcel stopped indignant

and the following exchange of words took place:

"Marcel," said the councilman in an imperious voice, "Marcel, what

business brings you here at this hour? You should now be at the

town-hall!"

"What business is that of yours," answered Marcel. "I am here to guard

the safety of the town, whose government is in my hands."

"By God!" cried Maillart imperceptibly drawing nearer to Marcel. "By

God! You cannot be here for anything good!" and turning to the two

sentinels who stood motionless a few steps off: "You see it; Marcel

holds in his hands the keys of the gate.... It is to betray us!"

"You miserable and abominable scamp," cried Marcel, "you lie in your

throat!"

"No, traitor, it is you who lie!" replied Maillart, and suddenly raising

a short axe that he had held concealed behind his back, he leaped with

one bound at the provost crying: "To me, my friends! Death to Marcel!

Death to him and his partisans! They are all traitors!" Before Jocelyn

or Philip Giffart could foresee and parry the sudden charge, Maillart

dealt so furious a blow at Marcel's head that he staggered and fell

bathed in blood.

At Maillart's cry, "To me, my friends!" the passageway, until then dark,

was suddenly illumined by several lanterns that had been kept under the

cloaks of their carriers. By the glimmering light a large number of men

were seen, all armed with pikes, halbards and cutlasses. Among them were

the Sire of Charny, the knight James of Pontoise and the councilman

Pierre Dessessarts. Hardly had Marcel dropped under the axe of Maillart

than the troop of assassins issued forth from their ambuscade, and

crying: "Montjoie, the King and Duke!" precipitated themselves upon the

provost to despatch him. Marcel, his skull cleaved in two and his face

covered with blood, sought to regain his feet with the help of Jocelyn

and Philip Giffart. These made heroic efforts to defend the wounded man,

but they were soon thrown down with him and all three riddled with sword

thrusts and axe blows. The other governors and several of their

partisans, who were posted in reserve at a nearby house where they were

to await the issue of Marcel's rendezvous with the King of Navarre,

hearing the increasing tumult and cries of "Montjoie, the King and

Duke!" rushed to the gate of St. Antoine intending to come to the aid of

the provost. Their red and blue head-covers pointed them out to the fury

of the murderers. Their heroic defence was soon overcome and they were

all butchered like their chief. But the rage of Maillart and of the Sire

of Charny was not yet appeased.

"To death with all the enemies of our Sire, the Regent!" cried the

seigneur. "We know where they are burrowing. Let us run to their houses.

We shall kill them in their beds!"

"To death!" responded John Maillart brandishing his axe. "To death with

the partisans of Marcel! To death with all the communiers!"

"Montjoie, the King and Duke!" repeated in chorus the armed band. "Death

to the red and blue!"

"Friends!" cried the seigneur of Charny, "the body of the knight of

Conflans, a victim of the popular party, was exposed in the Student's

Dale. Let now the body of Marcel be exposed in the same place.... Carry

him on your shoulders."

"To-morrow the body shall be placed on a hurdle and dragged through the

mud to the Louvre which our beloved Sire, the Regent, was forced to

leave in sight of Marcel's threats. After that let the carcass of the

felon be thrown into the river--unworthy sepulchre for a Christian,"

added John Maillart, and he said to himself, thinking of his wife:

"Petronille will no longer reproach me with being under the provost;

Petronille will no longer be eaten up with jealousy; Petronille will no

longer hear that Marguerite is the wife of the 'King of Paris' ... and I

shall have a title of nobility."

The orders of the Sire of Charny and Maillart were carried out. The

corpse of the provost was picked out from among his dead friends. Four

men carried on their shoulders the disfigured remains of the great

citizen, and marching by the light of torches, the funeral cortege

wended its way to the Student's Dale brandishing their arms and

shouting:

"Death to the partisans of the governors!"

"Death to the red and blue!"

"Montjoie, the King and Duke!"

EPILOGUE.

The hatred of Etienne Marcel's enemies pursued him beyond the grave. His

corpse, taken to the Student's Dale, remained there the whole day

exposed to the insults and the jeers of the fickle and ingrate mass

whose enfranchisement and happiness he had labored to attain. The day

after his death his bloody and mutilated remains were thrown upon a

hurdle, dragged towards the Seine and hurled into the river in front of

the Louvre. Such was that great man's sepulchre.

The principal leaders of the popular party, to the number of sixty,

among whom were Simon the Feather-dealer, Cousac and Pierre Caillart,

were executed by orders of John Maillart and the Sire of Charny, now

become joint dictators. These executions being over, the dictators

delegated Simon Maillart, a brother of the councilman, the councilmen

Dessessarts and John Pastorel, to appear before the Regent and notify

the young prince that he could re-enter his good town of Paris, now

submissive and penitent. The Regent answered the delegation: "That will

be gladly done." Accompanied by a numerous cavalcade, the Regent left

the bridge at Charenton and re-entered the Louvre where, in the language

of the chronicler of the time, "he found John Maillart, whom he greatly

esteemed and loved."

"As the Regent," the chronicler proceeds, "was crossing a certain street

on his way to the Louvre, a workingman had the daring to call out aloud:

'By God, Sire, if my advice had been taken, you would not now be

entering here. But nothing will be done for you.'"

These and some other instances showed, to the honor of humanity, that

ingratitude, defection and the fickleness of the masses--the fruits of

their ignorance and secular subjection--offered at least pleasing

exceptions. The memory of Marcel remained alive and sacred in the hearts

of many loyal to the popular cause. Despite the triumph of the court

party, several conspiracies were started looking to the overthrow of the

throne and intended to revenge upon the Regent the death of the

venerated Etienne Marcel. The last of these conspiracies was organized

by a rich Paris bourgeois, Martin Pisdoe. He mounted the scaffold and

paid with his head for his religious devotion to the memory of Marcel.

Jocelyn the Champion had been left for dead near the gate of St. Antoine

in the midst of a heap of corpses. Informed the same night by popular

rumors of the assassination of the provost and his partisans, Rufin the

Tankard-smasher and Alison the Huffy hastened to the place of the

massacre in order to ascertain Jocelyn's fate. They found him covered

with wounds, ready to expire, and carried him to a charitable person in

the neighborhood where, thanks to their untiring care he was rescued

from death. Protected by the obscurity of his name, he long remained

hidden in that asylum where a surgeon, a friend of Rufin, visited him.

Only slowly did he regain his strength.

Marguerite learned of her husband's death from emissaries sent by John

Maillart, who came that same night to arrest her at her house. Taken to

prison, the unfortunate woman vainly implored permission to bury Marcel

with her own hands. The supreme consolation was denied her, and she was

later made acquainted with the ignominies inflicted on her husband's

corpse. She soon died in captivity. The property of Etienne Marcel was

confiscated for the benefit of the Regent.

Alison, always compassionate, offered Denise, who now found herself

helpless and without means, to share with her the chamber she occupied

at her inn. Often the two called to see Jocelyn the Champion in his

secret retreat. Among other wounds an axe-stroke deprived him forever of

the use of his right arm. When his other wounds were completely healed,

he married Denise; on the same day Dame Alison married Rufin the

Tankard-Smasher.

Jocelyn had inherited a little patrimony, thanks to which he could

almost wholly cover the indispensible needs of himself and wife, a

fortunate circumstance seeing that the weakness consequent upon his

wounds did not allow him to pursue his profession of champion. The only

relative left to Denise lived near the frontier of Lorraine in the town

of Vaucouleurs. Jocelyn decided to move hither. Despite the little

notice he had drawn upon himself during the late revolt, it would have

been imprudent on his part to prolong his stay in Paris after his

recovery, seeing that the re-action of the court party was implacable.

Jocelyn sold his patrimony, took, not without deep regret, leave from

Rufin the Tankard-smasher and Alison, and escaping a hundred dangers

from the bands of English soldiers and marauders who then ravaged Gaul,

he reached the town of Vaucouleurs with Denise and settled there.

THE END.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] In the judicial combats of the Middle Ages, it was allowed to women,

children and old men, except in cases of high treason or of parricide,

to appear in the lists by a representative. Such a hired combatant was

called a champion.

[2] Jack Drudge.

[3] "Poignez villain, il vous oindra; oignez villain, il vous poindra."

[4] The three lilies, the device of French royalty.

[5] The Lord's Prayer, called "pater" from the first word, "pater"

(father) in the Latin prayer.

[6] A prayer or invocation to Mary, so named from the first word, "Ave,

Maria," (Hail to you, Mary), in the Latin prayer.