The African giant turned towards his fellows, motioned them to be

silent, and wiping on his sleeves the bloody blade of his dagger, said

to the bishop in an excited voice, still trembling with rage, but not

without calculatingly casting upon Thiegaud a look of rancorous hatred:

"I had just led Mussine the Pretty to the outer gate--"

"My daughter!" Thiegaud ejaculated stupefied at the very moment when,

angrily stamping the ground, the prelate checked the indiscreet words of

his slave with a silent gesture. Black John remained mute like one who

understands too late the folly he committed, while the rest of the

bishop's domestics stealthily giggled at the consternation of Thiegaud.

Some dreaded him for his malignity, others envied him for his intimate

relations with their master. Thiegaud, livid at the startling

revelation, flashed at Gaudry a sinister look quick as lightning; his

features thereupon as quickly reassumed their usual expression, and he

started to laugh louder than the rest at the awkward blunder of Black

John. He even went the length of indulging in ironical deference towards

Gaudry. The latter, long acquainted with the criminal life of the serf

of St. Vincent, was not surprised at seeing him remain so indifferent to

the disgrace of his daughter. Nevertheless, yielding to that respect for

man that even the most depraved characters never succeed in wholly

stripping themselves of, the bishop silenced the suppressed merriment

with an imperious gesture and said: "Those giggles are unseemly.

Thiegaud's daughter came early in the morning, as so many other

penitents do, to consult me on a case of conscience. After listening to

her in the confessional, I ordered John to accompany her to the gate."

"That's so true," added Thiegaud with perfect composure, "that, having

to bring this morning a horse to our seigneur the bishop, I expected to

return with my daughter. But she left by the vaulted door while I was

still on the green."

"Friend Ysengrin," resumed the prelate with a mixture a haughtiness and

familiarity, "my words can dispense with your testimony." And wishing to

cut off short this incident, which had the archdeacon, silent but

profoundly indignant, for a witness, Gaudry said to the black slave:

"Speak! What has happened between you and the communiers, whom may the

pest carry off and hell confound! May Satan take them all!"

"I was opening the gate for Mussine the Pretty, when three bourgeois,

coming from the suburbs and bound for the principal entry of the city,

to assist at the ceremonies announced by the belfry of those rogues,

passed by the palace. Seeing a veiled woman come out, those scamps set

up a malicious laugh, and nudged one another in the ribs while keeping

on their way. I ran after them and asked: 'What are you laughing about,

you dogs of communiers?' They gave me an insolent answer and called me

the bishop's hangman. I then drew my dagger and stabbed one of them in

the arm, and leaving his companions and him loudly threatening to demand

justice from the Commune, I returned and locked the door after me. By

Mahomet, I am proud of what I did. I avenged my master for the insults

of those curs!"

"Black John did well!" cried the domestics of the bishop. "We can no

longer go out without being shamed by the communiers of Laon."

"The other day," put in one of the falconers, "the butcher of Exchange

street, one of the Councilmen of the Commune, refused to give me meat on

credit for the falcons!"

"At the taverns we are compelled to pay before drinking! The shame and

humiliation of it!"

"It was not thus three years ago!"

"Those were good days! A retainer of the bishop then took without paying

whatever he wanted from the merchants; he caressed their wives and

daughters; and none dared say a word. By the womb of the Virgin Mary, we

were then masters! But since the establishment of the Commune it is the

bourgeois who command! The devil take the Commune! Three cheers for the

good old times!"

"To hell with the communiers, they make us die of shame for our seigneur

the bishop!" exclaimed one of the young serfs who had been shortly

before exercising in the use of arms. And resolutely addressing the

prelate, who, so far from quieting down the excitement of his people,

seemed delighted at their recriminations, and encouraged them with a

smile of approval: "Say the word, our bishop! There are here fifty of us

who have learned to manage the bow and pike! Place a few knights at our

head, and we will descend upon the city, leaving not a stone upon

another of the houses of that bourgeois and artisan rabble!"

"Say the word!" cried out Thiegaud, "and I will bring you, my holy

patron, a hundred woodsmen and colliers from the forest of St. Vincent.

They will make a bonfire of the houses of those bourgeois and artisans

fit to roast Beelzebub! Death and damnation to the communiers!"

If the bishop of Laon had entertained any doubt upon the indifference of

the serf of St. Vincent regarding his daughter's shame, it was removed

by the man's words. Accordingly, doubly satisfied with the tokens of

Thiegaud's devotion, the bishop addressed his people in these words: "I

am glad to find you in such a frame of mind. Remain so. The hour for

going to work will arrive sooner than you may think. As to you, my brave

John, you have avenged me on the insolence of those communiers. Fear

not. Not a hair of your head shall be touched. As to you, friend

Ysengrin, notify the farmer that I keep the horse, and I shall pay him

if I choose. Then, see our friends the woodsmen and colliers of the

forest. I may need them any day. When that day shall come, they shall

be free, in reward for their good will, to plunder at their pleasure the

houses of the bourgeois of Laon." Turning thereupon towards the

archdeacon, who had witnessed this scene without uttering a word, he

said to him: "Let's go in. What has just taken place under your own eyes

will have prepared you for the interview we are to have, and for which I

summoned you hither."

Anselm followed the prelate, and both entered the bishop's apartments.

"Anselm, you have just seen and heard things that, doubtlessly, left a

disagreeable impression upon your mind. We shall take that up

presently," said Gaudry to the archdeacon when they were closeted

together. "I summoned you to the palace because I am aware of your

foible for the common folks of the bourgeoisie, and in order to afford

you the opportunity to render a signal service to your favorites. Listen

to me carefully."

"I shall strive to meet your intentions, seigneur bishop."

"You shall go to the bourgeois and artisans of the city and say to them:

'Renounce, good people, that execrable spirit of novelty, that

diabolical passion that drives the vassal to rise against his master.

Abjure, soon as possible, the brazen and impious pride that persuades

the artisan and townsman to withdraw from the seignioral authority and

to govern themselves. Return to your trades, to your shops. The

administration of public affairs can get along very well without you.

You quit the Church for the Town Hall; you open your ears to the sound

of your own belfry, and shut them to the chimes of the church bells.

That is not good for you. You will end by forgetting the submission you

owe to the clergy, to the nobles and to the King. Good people, never

allow the distinctions of the stations in life to be confounded; each to

his rights, each to his duties. The right of the clergy, of the nobility

and of the King is to command and to govern; the duty of the serf and

the bourgeois is to bow before the will of their natural masters. This

communal and republican comedy, that you have been playing for now

nearly three years, has lasted too long. Abdicate willingly your roles

of Mayor, Councilmen and warriors. People at first laughed at your silly

pranks, hoping you would return to your senses. But it takes too long;

one's patience is exhausted. The time has come to put an end to the

Saturnalia. In order to avoid a just punishment, return of your own

accord to the humility of your station in life. Cut your Councilmen's

robes into skirts for your wives; return your arms to people who know

how to handle them; respectfully surrender to the Church, as an homage

of atonement, that ear-splitting bell of that belfry of yours; it will

enrich the chimes of the cathedral. Your superb banner will make a

becoming altar-cloth, and as to your magnificent silver seal, melt it

back into money wherewith to purchase some hogsheads of old wine which

you will empty in honor of the restoration of the seigniory of your

bishop in Jesus Christ. Do so, and all will be well, good people. The

past will be forgiven you upon condition that you will henceforth be

submissive, humble and penitent towards the Church, the noblemen and the

King, and that of your own accord, you renounce your pestiferous

Commune.'"

Anselm listened to the bishop with a mixture of amazement, indignation

and profound anxiety. He did not interrupt the speaker to the end,

wondering how that man, whom he could not deny either cleverness or

sagacity, yet could be so untutored upon men and things as to conceive

such a project. So profound was the emotion of the archdeacon that he

remained silent for a while. Finally he answered the bishop in a grave

and clear voice: "You solicit my assistance to advise the inhabitants of

Laon to give up their charter, that very charter that both you and they

have agreed to and sworn to uphold by a common accord?"

"That agreement was concluded by the chapter and council of seigneurs

who governed during my absence, while I was away in England."

"Must I remind you that, upon your return from London, and in

consideration of a large sum paid by the bourgeoisie, you signed the

charter with your own hand, that you sealed it with your own seal, and

that you swore upon your faith that it would be faithfully observed?"

"I was wrong in doing so. The Church holds her seigniories from God

alone. She may not alienate her rights. I am absolved from such

engagements."

"Have you returned the money that you received for your consent to the

Commune? Has restitution been made?"

"The money I received represented, at the most, four years' revenues

that I habitually drew from the inhabitants of Laon. Three years have

elapsed since the establishment of this Commune. I am only one year in

advance of my vassals. My right is to tax at will and mercy. I shall

double the tax of the current year, and being quits, I shall, if I

please, demand the tax for the next year."

"Yours would be such a right had you not alienated it. But you cannot

repudiate your signature, your seal and your oath. Your engagement is

binding."

"What is there in a signature? One or two words placed at the bottom of

a parchment! What is a seal? A lump of wax! What is an oath? A breath of

air that is lost in space, and which the wind carries off!"

Although highly wrought up by the prelate's answer, Anselm restrained

his indignation and proceeded: "You, then, persist in your purpose to

break your oath and abolish the Commune of Laon?"

"Yes, I intend to smash it."

"You refuse to keep your sacred engagement? Be it so! But the communiers

of Laon have had their charter confirmed by the present King. They will

turn to him to compel you to respect its clauses. You will have two

foes to face--the people and the King."

"To-morrow," answered the bishop, "Louis the Lusty will be here at the

head of a goodly number of knights and men-at-arms,--all resolved to

crush those miserable bourgeois if they dare defend their Commune. It is

all settled between us."

"I can hardly believe what you say, seigneur bishop," replied the

archdeacon. "The King, who confirmed and swore to the charter for the

enfranchisement of the bourgeois of Laon, and who received the price

agreed upon, he surely will not be ready to perjure himself and commit

such an infamy."

"The King begins to listen to the voice of the Church. He understands

that, though it be good politics and profitable withal, to sell charters

of emancipation to the cities that are subject to lay seigniories, his

rivals and ours, it is to seriously compromise his own power if he were

to favor emancipation from the ecclesiastical seigniories. The King is

determined to restore to the episcopal authority all the ecclesiastical

cities that have been enfranchised, and to exterminate their inhabitants

if they dare oppose his pleasure. To-morrow, perhaps this very day, the

King will be in the city at the head of armed men. The nobles of the

city have been apprised, like myself, of the pending arrival of the

King. We shall notify our will to the people."

"My presentiments did not deceive me when I urged the communiers to

redouble their self-control and prudence!"

"You were on the right road. It is, therefore, that, aware of your

influence with those clowns, I sent for you, to commission you to induce

them to renounce their hellish Commune of their own free will, if they

would escape a terrible punishment. We demand absolute submission."

"Bishop of Laon," Anselm answered solemnly and with a tremulous voice,

"I decline the mission that you charge me with. I do not wish to see the

blood of my brothers flow in this city. If your projects were but

suspected, an uprising would break out on the spot among the people,

and yourself, the clergy and the knights in the city would be the first

victims of the rage of the communiers. Your houses would be burned down

over your heads."

"There is no insurrection to be feared," put in the bishop laughing

loudly. "John, my negro, will take by the nose the wildest of those

clowns and will bring him on his knees to my feet, begging for mercy,

trembling and penitent. I need but to say the word."

"If you dare touch the rights of the Commune, then you, the priests and

the nobles will all be exterminated by the people in arms. Oh, may

heaven's curse fall upon me before I shall by a single word help to

unchain such a storm!"

"So, then, you, Anselm, a subordinate to my authority, you refuse the

commission that I charge you with?"

"I swear to you upon the salvation of my soul, you are staking your life

at a terrible game! May I not have to dispute your bleeding remains from

the popular fury in order to give them Christian burial!"

CHAPTER V.

BOURGEOIS AND ECCLESIASTICAL SEIGNEUR.

The Bishop of Laon had long remained steeped in revery. The tone of

conviction, the imposing authority of the archdeacon's character, left a

profound impression upon the man. Though there was no crime he would

recoil at in the satisfaction of his passions, yet he fervently clung to

life. Accordingly, his blind contempt for the common people

notwithstanding, he wavered for a moment in his projects, and, recalling

to memory the triumphant revolts, that under similar circumstances, had

in recent years been witnessed in other Communes of Gaul, he was lost in

sombre, silent perplexity, when the sudden entry of Black John awoke him

from his quandary.

"Patron," said Black John, breaking into the room with a malefic grin,

"one of the bourgeois dogs has himself walked into the trap. We are

holding him, as well as his female, who, by Mahomet, is of the comliest.

If the husband is a mastiff, the wife is a dainty greyhound, worthy of a

place in the ecclesiastical kennels!"

"Quit your jokes!" remarked the bishop with impatience. "What is the

matter now? Speak up!"

"A minute ago there was a rap at the main gate. I was in the yard with

the serfs who are exercising in arms. I peeped through the wicket and

saw a burly fellow, with a casque that fell over his nose, and bursting

in his steel corselet, and as incommoded by his sword as a dog to whose

tail a kettle has been tied. A young and pretty woman accompanied him.

'What do you want?' said I to the man. 'To speak with the seigneur

bishop, and on the spot, too, on grave matters.' To hold one of these

dogs of communiers in pawn, struck me as timely. After sending one of

the men to see through the loopholes in the tower whether the bourgeois

was alone, I opened the door. Oh, you would have laughed," Black John

proceeded, "had you seen the good man embrace his wife before crossing

the threshold of the palace, as though he were stepping into Lucifer's

house, and heard his wife say: 'I shall wait for you here; my uneasiness

will be shorter than if I had remained at the Town Hall.' By Mahomet! I

said to myself, my patron is too fond of receiving pretty penitents to

leave this charmer outside; and taking her up like a feather I carried

her into the yard. I had a good mind to shut the gate in the husband's

face, but I considered it was better to keep him too here. His little

wife, furious like a cat in love, screamed and scratched my face when I

took her up in my arms, but after she was allowed to join her gander of

a husband, she put on airs of bravery and spat in my face. They are both

in the next room. Shall they be brought in?"

The announcement of the arrival of one of the communiers, the objects of

the bishop's hatred, revived the anger of the seigniorial ecclesiastic,

that had been checked for a moment by the words of Archdeacon Anselm.

The bishop jumped up, crying out: "By heaven! By the Pope's navel! That

bourgeois arrives in time! Bring him in!"

"His wife too?" asked the negro, opening the door. "She will act as a

counter-irritant to your worship," and without waiting for his master's

answer, the negro vanished.

"Take care!" Anselm said, more and more alarmed. "Take care what you are

about to do! The Councilmen are elected by the inhabitants! To do

violence to one of their chosen men would be a moral offence!"

"We have had enough remonstrances!" cried out Gaudry with haughty

impatience. "You seem to forget that I am your superior, your bishop!"

"It is your conduct that would make me forget it. But it is for the sake

of the episcopacy, for the sake of the salvation of your soul, for the

sake of your own life that I adjure you not to apply the match to a

conflagration that neither yourself nor the King might be able to

extinguish!"

"What!" exclaimed the bishop with a wrathful sneer; "What! That

conflagration could not be extinguished even in the blood of those

damned dogs, of the revolted clowns, themselves?"

The prelate had just pronounced these execrable words, when Ancel

Quatre-Mains entered, accompanied by his wife, Simonne, and preceded by

Black John, who, leaving them at the door of the apartment, withdrew

again with a smile on his cruel lips. The Councilman was pale and deeply

moved. The good nature, habitual to his features, had now made place to

an expression of deliberate firmness. It must, nevertheless, be admitted

that his casque thrown too far back on his head and his stomach

protruding below his steel corselet imparted to the townsman an almost

grotesque appearance that could not fail to strike the Bishop of Laon.

Accordingly breaking out in a loud guffaw, not unmixed with rage and

disdain, and pointing to Ancel, he said to the archdeacon: "Here have

you a bright sample of the gallant men who are to cause bishops, knights

and kings to tremble and retreat. By the blood of Christ, what a

grotesque appearance!"

The Councilman and his wife, who drew close to him, looked at each

other, unable to understand the words of the bishop. No less alarmed

than her husband, two distinct sentiments seemed to fill Simonne's

mind--fear of some danger to Ancel and horror for Gaudry.

"Well, now, seigneur Councilman, august elective magistrate of the

illustrious Commune of Laon!" said the prelate in a jeering and

contemptuous accent. "You wanted to see me. Here I am. What do you

want?"

"Seigneur bishop, I have had no ambition, and so I haven't, of coming

here. I'm merely fulfilling a duty. This month I'm the judicial

Councilman. As such, I am charged with the trials. It is in that

capacity that I have come here to fill my office."

"Oh, oh! Greetings to you, seigneur prosecutor!" replied the prelate

sneeringly, bowing before the baker. "May we at least know the subject

of the process?"

"Certes, seigneur bishop, seeing the action is against yourself and

against John, your African servant, I shall inform you of the charge."

"And while my husband is fulfilling a judicial mission," pertly put in

Simonne, "he shall also demand justice and indemnity for the insults

hurled at me by the noble dame of Haut-Pourcin, the wife of one of the

episcopals of the city, so please your seigneur bishop!"

"By heaven, my negro John was right, I have never seen a prettier

creature!" observed the dissolute bishop, attentively examining the

baker's wife, whom until that instant he had taken little notice of; and

seeming to reflect for a moment he asked: "How long have you been

married, little darling? Answer your bishop truthfully!"

"Five years, monseigneur."

"My good man," resumed Gaudry addressing the Councilman, "you must have

ransomed your wife from the right of the first night at the time when

the canon of Amaury was charged with its supervision?"

"Yes, seigneur," answered the baker, while his wife, casting down her

eyes, blushed with shame at hearing the bishop refer to that infamous

right of the bishop of Laon, who, before the establishment of the

Commune had the right to demand "first wedding night of the bride"--a

galling shame, that, occasionally, the husband managed to redeem with a

money payment.

"That miserable beggar of old Amaury!" exclaimed the prelate with a

cynical outburst of laughter. "It was all in vain for me to tell him:

'When a bride and bridegroom come to announce at church their

approaching wedding, inscribe on a separate roll the names of the brides

that are comely enough to induce me to exact from them the amorous tax

of nature.' But there were none of these according to Amaury; and yet I

have before my eyes a striking proof of his fraudulence or his

blindness. Almost all the brides were homely, according to him!"

"Happily, seigneur bishop, those evil days are gone by," answered Ancel,

hardly able to restrain his indignation. "Those days will never return

when the honor of husbands and wives was at the mercy of bishops and

seigneurs!"

"Brother," put in the archdeacon, painfully affected by the words of the

bishop, and addressing Ancel, "believe me, the Church herself blushes at

that monstrous right, that prelates enjoy when they are at once temporal

seigneurs."

"What I do know, Father Anselm," the baker answered with judicial

deliberateness and raising his head, "is that the Church does not forbid

the ecclesiastics to use that monstrous right, we see them using it and

deflowering young brides."

"By the blood of Christ!" cried out the bishop, while the archdeacon

remained silent, unable to gainsay the baker; "that right proves better

than any argument how absolutely the body of the serf, the villein or

the non-noble vassal is the absolute and undisputed property of the lay

or ecclesiastical seigneur. Accordingly, so far from blushing at that

right, the Church claims it back for its own seigneurs, and

excommunicates those who dare contest it."

The archdeacon, not daring to contradict the bishop, seeing the bishop

spoke the truth, lowered his head in mute pain. The Councilman resumed

with a mixture of sly good nature and firmness: "I am, seigneur bishop,

too ignorant in matters of theology to discuss the orthodoxy of a right

that honorable folks speak of only with indignation in their hearts and

shame on their brows. But, thanks be to God, since Laon has become an

enfranchised Commune, that abominable right has been abolished, along

with many others. Among the latter is the right of demanding goods

without money, and of taking some one else's horse without paying for

it. This, seigneur bishop, leads me to the matter that has brought me

here."

"You, then, mean to start a process against me?"

"I am fulfilling my functions. An hour ago, Peter the Fox, tenant farmer

of Colombaik the Tanner, deposed before the Mayor and Councilmen

assembled at the Town Hall that you, Bishop of Laon, kept, against all

right, a horse belonging to the said Colombaik, and that you refuse to

pay the price demanded by the owner."

"Is that all?" the bishop asked laughing. "Have I committed no other

sin? Have you no other charges to bring against me?"

"Germain the Strong, master carpenter of the suburb of Grande-Cognee,

supported by two witnesses, has deposed before the Mayor and Councilmen

that, while passing before the gate of the episcopal palace, he was

first insulted and then stabbed in the arm by Black John, a domestic of

your household, which constitutes a grave crime."

"Well, then, seigneur justiciary," said the bishop still laughing,

"Condemn me, brave Councilman. Formulate your judgment and sentence."

"Not yet," coldly answered the baker. "The suit must first be entered;

then the witnesses must be heard; next comes the judgment; and fourth

its enforcement. Everything in its order."

"Just see! I am instructed! Let it be, I shall be patient. Yet I am

curious to see how far your audacity will lead you, communier of Satan.

Go ahead and to work!"

"My audacity is that of a man who fulfills his duty."

"An honest man, who dares not allow himself to be intimidated," put in

Simonne with deftness; "a man who will know how to cause the rights of

the Commune to be respected, who is not troubled by disdain. A man of

sense and of action."

"I love to see your rogish face," replied the bishop, turning to the

young woman; "it gives me the necessary humor to listen to this loafer,

I swear it by your round and plump throat, by your beautiful black eyes,

and by your secret charms!"

"And I swear by the poor eyes of Gerhard of Soisson, whom you have so

cruelly deprived of sight, that the sight of you is odious to me, Bishop

of Laon! You, whose hands are still red with the blood of Bernard des

Bruyeres, whom you murdered in your own church!" And uttering these

imprudent words, drawn from her by an impulse of generous indignation,

the baker's wife brusquely turned her back upon the bishop.

Enraged at hearing himself reproached in such a manner for two of his

crimes, the Bishop of Laon became livid with rage, and half rising from

his seat, whose arms he clutched convulsively, he cried out: "Miserable

serf! I shall teach you to control your viper's tongue!--"

"Simonne!" said the Councilman to his wife in a tone of earnest reproof,

interrupting the prelate. "You should not speak that way. Those past

crimes belong before the bar of God, not of the Commune, as are the

misdemeanors that I am prosecuting. The bishop is summoned to answer

only the two charges that I have preferred."

"I shall save you half your trouble!" cried out Gaudry in a towering

rage, and dropping his jeering tone towards the Councilman. "I declare

that I am keeping a farmer's horse; I declare that my negro John stabbed

a clown of the city this morning. Now, then, decide, you stupid brute!"

"Seeing you admit these wrong-doings, seigneur Bishop of Laon, I decide

that you return the horse to its owner, or that you pay him his price, a

hundred and twenty silver sous; and I decide that you render justice for

the crime committed by your black slave John."

"And I shall keep the horse without paying for it; and I hold that my

servant John did justly punish an insolent communier! Now, pronounce

your sentence."

"Bishop of Laon, those are very serious words," answered the Councilman

with emotion. "I conjure you, deign to think that over while I shall

read to you aloud two clauses from our charter, sworn to by yourself,

signed with your own hand, and sealed with your own seal; do not forget

that; and moreover confirmed by our seigneur the King." Whereat the

Councilman, producing a parchment from his pocket, read as follows: "'If

anyone injure a man who shall have taken the oath of the Commune of

Laon, a complaint being lodged with the Mayor and Councilmen, they

shall, after due trial, enforce justice upon the body and upon the

property of the guilty party.... If the guilty party takes refuge in a

fortified castle, the Mayor and Councilmen shall notify the seigneur of

the castle, or his lieutenant. If in their opinion satisfaction shall

have been rendered against the guilty party, that will suffice; but if

the seigneur refuses satisfaction, they shall themselves enforce justice

upon the property and upon the men of the said seigneur.' That, seigneur

bishop, is the law of our Commune, agreed and sworn to by yourself and

us. If, then, you do not return the horse, if you do not give us

satisfaction for the crime of your servant John, we shall see ourselves

forced to ourselves enforce justice upon you and upon your men."

Certain of the support of the King, the bishop and the episcopals had

for some time desired to provoke a conflict with the communiers. They

felt certain of success, and looked in that way to reconquer by force

their seigniorial rights, a one-time inexhaustible treasure, but

alienated by them three years previous, for a considerable sum of money,

that had by this time been dissipated. By refusing to satisfy the

legitimate demands of the Councilmen, the bishop was inevitably bound to

lead to a collision at the very moment when Louis the Lusty would arrive

at Laon with a numerous troop of knights. Accordingly, making no doubt

that the people would be crushed in the struggle, and considering

himself seconded by circumstance, Gaudry, so far from angrily answering

the baker, now replied with a sarcastic affectation of humility: "Alack,

illustrious Councilman, poor seigneurs that we are, we shall have no

choice but to try and resist you, my valiant Caesars, and to prevent you

from enforcing justice upon our goods and our persons, as you

triumphantly announce. We shall have to don our casques and cuirasses,

and await you, lance in hand, mounted on our battle horses! Alack!"

"Seigneur bishop," answered the baker, anxiously joining his hands,

"your refusal to do justice to the Commune, is equivalent to a

declaration of war between our townsmen and you!"

"Alack!" replied Gaudry ironically imitating Ancel's gesture, "we shall

then have to resign ourselves to battle. Fortunately the episcopal

knights know how to manage the lance and sword wherewith they will run

you through."

"The battle will be terrible in our city," cried out the Councilman

excitedly. "Why would you reduce us to such extremities, when it depends

upon you to avert such a calamity by proving yourself equitable and

faithful to your oath?"

"I implore you, yield to these wise words," now put in the archdeacon

addressing Gaudry. "Your refusal will unchain all the scourges of civil

war, and cause torrents of blood to flow. Woe is us!"

"Seigneur bishop," the Councilman resumed with insistence and in a sad

yet firm tone: "What is it that we demand of you? Justice. Nothing more.

Return the horse or pay for it. Your servant has committed a crime.

Inflict exemplary punishment upon him. Is that asking too much of you?

Are you ready by your resistance to hand over our beloved country to

innumerable calamities, and cause the shedding of blood? Reflect on the

consequences of the conflict. Think of the women whom you will have

widowed, the children whom you will have orphaned! Think of the

calamities that you will conjure over our city!"

"I'm bound to think, heroic Councilman," replied the bishop with a

disdainful sneer, "that you are afraid of war!"

"No, we are not afraid!" cried out Simonne, unable longer to control her

impetuous nature. "Let the belfry summon the inhabitants to the defense

of the Commune, and you will see that, as at Beauvais, as at Noyons, as

at Rheims, the men will fly to arms and the women will accompany them to

nurse the wounded!"

"By the blood of Christ, my charming Amazon, if I take you prisoner, you

will pay the arrears due to your seigneur."

"Seigneur bishop," interposed the Councilman, "such words ill-become the

mouth of a priest, above all when the issue is bloodshed. We dread war!

Yes, undoubtedly, we dread it, because its evils are irreparable. I fear

war as much or more than anyone else, because I wish to live for my

wife, whom I love, and to enjoy in peace our modest means, the fruit of

our daily labor. I fear war by reason of the disasters and the ruin that

follow upon its wake."

"But you will fight like any other!" cried out Simonne almost irritated

at the sincerity of her husband. "Oh, I know you! You will fight even

more bravely than others!"

"More bravely than others is saying too much," naively interposed the

baker. "I have never fought in my life. But I shall do my duty, although

I am less at home with the lance or the sword than with the poker of the

furnace in my bakery. Each to his trade."

"Admit it, good man," retorted the bishop laughing uproarously, "you

prefer the fire of your furnace to the heat of battle?"

"On my faith, that's the truth of it, seigneur bishop. All of us good

people of the city, bourgeois and artisans that we are, prefer good to

evil, peace to war. But, take my word for it, there are things we prefer

to peace, they are the honor of our wives, our daughters and sisters,

our dignity, our independence, the right of ourselves and through

ourselves to administering the affairs of our city. We owe these

advantages to our enfranchisement from the seigniorial rights.

Accordingly, we shall all allow ourselves to be killed, to the last man,

in the defence of our Commune and in the protection of our freedom.

That's why, in the name of the public peace, we implore you to do

justice to our demand."

"Patron," broke in at this point Black John who entered the room

precipitately, "a forerunner of the King has just arrived. He announces

that he precedes his master only two hours, and that he comes

accompanied with a strong escort."

"The King must have hastened his arrival!" cried out the prelate

triumphantly. "By the blood of Christ, everything is working according

to our wishes!"

"The King!" exclaimed the Councilman with joy, "The King in our city!

Oh, we now have nothing more to fear. He signed our charter, he will

know how to compel you to respect it, Bishop of Laon. Your wicked

intentions will now be paralyzed."

"Certes!" answered Gaudry with a sardonic smile. "Count with the support

of the King, good people. He comes in person, followed by a large troop

of knights armed with strong lances and sharp swords. Now, then, my

valiant bourgeois, go and join your shop heroes, and carry my answer to

them. It is this: 'Gaudry, bishop and seigneur of Laon, certain of the

support of the King of the French, awaits in his episcopal palace to see

the communiers come themselves to enforce justice upon his property and

his men!'" And turning then to Black John: "Order my equerry to saddle

the stallion that was brought here this morning. I know no more

mettlesome horse to ride on ahead of the King and in the beard of those

city clowns. Let the knights of the city be notified, they shall serve

for my escort. To horse! To horse!" Saying which, the prelate stepped

off into another room, leaving the baker as stupefied as he was alarmed

at the sight of his crumbling hopes. He heard the bishop's words

regarding the King's intention, yet hesitated to give them credence.

The townsman remained thunderstruck.

"Ancel," said the archdeacon to him. "There is no doubt about it. Louis

the Lusty will side with the episcopals. A conflict must be avoided at

any price. Recommend the other Councilmen to redouble their prudence. I

shall, on my part, endeavor to conjure off the storm that threatens."

"Come, my poor wife," said the Councilman, whose eyes were filling with

tears! "Come! Woe is us, the King of the French is against us. May God

protect the Commune of Laon!"

"As to me," answered Simonne, "upon the faith of a Picardian woman, I

place my reliance upon the stout hearts of our communiers, upon the

pikes, the hatchets and the swords in our hands!"

CHAPTER VI.

THE GATHERING STORM.

Louis the Lusty had made his entry into the city of Laon on the eve of

Holy Thursday of the year 1112. On the day following the arrival of the

Prince, Colombaik, his mother and his wife were seated together in the

basement chamber of their house. Dawn was about breaking. Fergan's son,

Martine and Joan the Hunchback had watched all night. A lamp threw its

light upon them. The two women, uneasy in the extreme, were stripping

old linen into bandages and lint, while Colombaik, together with his

three apprentices, plying their saws and planes, were actively engaged

in fashioning pike-shafts, four feet long, of oak and ash branches

recently lopped off. Colombaik did not seem to share the apprehension of

his mother and his wife, who silently pursued their work, listening from

time to time in the direction of the little window that opened on the

street. They awaited, with as much impatience as anxiety, the return of

Fergan, absent since the previous evening. What tidings would he bring?

"Lively, my lads," Colombaik was jovially saying to his apprentices,

"ply your planes and your saws with dispatch! It does not much matter if

these pike-shafts be rough. They are to be used by hands as callous as

our own. May there be a chance to use them!"

"Oh, master Colombaik," remarked one of the young apprentices laughing,

"as to that, these handles will be less smooth to the touch than the

fine doe skins that we tan for the embroidered gloves of the noble dames

and their elegant young ladies."

"The ornament of a pike is its iron head," rejoined Colombaik; "but

little Robin the Crumb-cracker, the apprentice of the blacksmith, is

long in fetching us those ornaments. However, with him it will not be as

with the little apprentice of our friend the baker. There is no fear of

Robin's nibbling at his goods on the way." The lads laughed at the joke

of Colombaik. But accidentally turning his eyes in the direction of Joan

and Martine, he was struck by the increasing uneasiness of their looks.

"Good mother," said he to Joan in a tender and beseeching voice, "pardon

me if I have saddened you with jokes that may be out of season at this

time."

"Oh, my child," answered Joan, "if I look sad, it is not on account of

your jokes, but the result of thoughts suggested by the sight of men

shaping weapons, and women preparing lint for the wounded."

"And when we consider," put in Martine, unable to keep back her tears,

"that a father, a son, a husband may happen to be among the wounded!

Confound the people who brought war upon the city! Confound this clergy

of the devil and their train of churchmen!"

"Dear Martine, and you, good mother," Colombaik rejoined, seeking to

calm the two women, "to prepare for war is not to wage it. It is prudent

to be on one's guard, just in order to secure peace, honorable peace."

"Your father!... Here is your father!" Joan cried out abruptly, hearing

a rap at the street door. She rose, together with Martine, while one of

the apprentices ran to open the door. But the expectation of the two

women was not verified. They heard a childish voice cry out gleefully:

"It burns!... It burns!... Who wants buns.... It burns!" And Robin the

Crumb-cracker, the blacksmith's apprentice, a lad about twelve years of

age, wide awake, but all black with the smoke of the forge, stepped in,

holding in his little leather apron about twenty pike-heads which he

dropped on the floor. "Who wants fire-buns!... They are hot!... They

just come from the furnace!..."

"Master Colombaik feared you had been nibbling the goods on the way,"

one of the young tanners observed with a laugh. "We hold you quite

capable of doing so, little Robin!"

"You are right. I took my bite on the way!" laughingly answered the

urchin. "But in order to chew my pretty piece of pointed iron, I need

one of your fine ash branches. Let me have one."

"What the devil would you do with a pike?" asked Colombaik, smiling upon

him. "You are barely twelve years old. That is no toy for urchins."

"I want to use it, if there be blows coming. My master,

Paynen-Oste-Loup, will tap the backs of the great episcopals; so will I!

I shall roll over the little noblemen in my best style. Those scamps

have hurt my feelings quite often, pointing their finger at me and

calling out: 'Look at the little villain with the black face! He looks

like a blackamoor!'"

"Hold, my bold lad," said Colombaik to Robin; "here is a good oak handle

for you. Give us the news. What is doing in the city?"

"They are rejoicing as on Christmas eve. Light is seen at all the

windows. The forges are shooting up flame. The anvils ringing. They are

making an infernal racket. One would think that the blacksmiths,

locksmiths and armorers were all working at their master-pieces; and one

would think all the shops are smithies."

"This time it is your father!" Joan cried out to her son, hearing a

second rapping at the door. Fergan soon appeared. He entered at the

moment when Robin was leaving, brandishing his oak branch and shouting:

"Commune! Commune! Death to the episcopals!"

"Oh!" said the quarryman, following the blacksmith's apprentice with his

eye. "How could we fear for our cause when even the children--"; and

interrupting himself to address his wife, who ran with Martine to meet

him: "Come, now, dear bundles of timidity! The news makes for peace."

"Can it be true!" exclaimed the two women, folding their hands together.

"There is to be no war?" And running to Colombaik, on whose neck she

threw herself, Martine cried out: "Did you hear your father? There is to

be no war! What happiness! It is over! Let's rejoice!"

"Upon my soul, dear Martine, so much the better!" remarked the young

tanner, returning the embrace of his wife. "We shall not recoil before

war, but peace is better. So, then, father, everything is adjusted? The

bishop pays, or surrenders the horse? Justice will be enforced against

that scamp of a Black John? And the King, true to his oath, backs the

Commune against the bishop?"

"My friends," answered the quarryman, "we must, all the same, not hope

for too much."

"But what about what you said just before," replied Joan with returning

uneasiness, "did you not tell me the news was good?"

"I said, Joan, that the news was favorable to peace. Here is what

happened last night: You heard the insolent answer of the bishop,

reported at the meeting of the Councilmen by our neighbor Quatre-Mains,

the baker, an answer that was rendered all the more threatening by the

entry of the King into our city at the head of an armed troop of men.

The Councilmen decided to take measures of resistance and safety. As

constable of the militia, I ordered watchmen placed at all the towers

that command the gates of the city, with orders to close them and allow

none to enter. I likewise issued orders to the guilds of the

blacksmiths, locksmiths and armorers to turn out quickly a large number

of pikes, to the end of being able to arm all the male inhabitants.

Quatre-Mains, like a man of foresight and good judgment, proposed

sending under a good escort for all the flour in the mills of the

suburbs, fearing the bishop may have them pillaged by his men to starve

out Laon. These precautions being taken, they were reported to the

Council. We did not recoil before war, but did all we could to conjure

it away. It was agreed that John Molrain was to appear before the King

and pray him to induce the bishop to do us justice, and to promise

henceforth to respect our charter. The Mayor went to the house of the

Sire of Haut-Pourcin, where the King had taken quarters. Unable,

however, to see the Prince, he conferred long with Abbot Peter de la

Marche, one of the royal counselors, and showed him that we demanded

nothing but what was just. The abbot did not conceal from John Molrain

that the bishop, having ridden ahead with the King, had entertained him

for a long time, and that Louis the Lusty seemed greatly irritated

against the inhabitants of Laon. John Molrain had had dealings with the

Abbot de la Marche on the confirmation of our Commune. Knowing the

abbot's cupidity, he said to him: 'We are resolved to maintain our

rights with arms, but before arriving at such extremities we desire to

try all the means of conciliation. No sacrifice will be too great for

us. Already have we paid Louis the Lusty a considerable sum to obtain

his adhesion to our charter, let him deign to confirm it anew and to

order the bishop to do us justice. We offer the King a sum equal to that

which he received before. And to you, seigneur abbot, a handsome purse

as a testimony of our gratitude.'"

"And attracted by such a promise," put in Colombaik, "the abbot surely

accepted?"

"Without making any promises, the tonsured gentleman agreed to

communicate our offer to the King when he retired, and he made an

appointment with John Molrain for eleven in the evening. The Councilmen,

having approved the proposition of the Mayor, went over the city,

soliciting each of our friends to contribute according to his power

towards the sum offered to the King. This last sacrifice was expected to

roll away from our city the threatened dangers of war. All the

inhabitants hastened to put in their quota. Those who had not enough

money, gave some vessel of silver; women and young girls offered their

trinkets and their collars; finally, towards evening, the sum or its

equivalent in articles of gold and silver was deposited in the communal

treasury. John Molrain returned to the King to hear his answer. The

Abbot de la Marche informed the Mayor that the King did not seem

indisposed to accept our propositions, but that he desired to wait till

morning before taking a definite resolution. There is where matters now

stand. In a hurry to make the rounds of our watchmen, and having no time

to come here for money, I requested our good neighbor the baker to pay

for us our share of the contribution. Colombaik shall take to Ancel the

money he advanced for our family."

"Surely the King will accept the offer of the Councilmen," observed

Joan, "what interest could he have in refusing to profit by so large a

sum? He is a greedy prince. He will accept our money."

"What a wretched trader that Louis the Lusty is!" exclaimed Colombaik.

"He has us pay him to confirm our charter, and he has us pay him a

second time to re-confirm it. Patient people that we are! We must pay,

and pay again!"

"What does it matter, my child," said Joan; "provided no blood flows,

let us pay a double tribute, if necessary!"

"'It is with iron that tribute should be paid to kings,' said our

ancestor Vortigern to that other tonsured representative sent by Louis

the Pious," rejoined Colombaik, looking almost with regret at the iron

pikes that his apprentices, who had not intermitted their work, were

engaged upon. "Oh, those times are long gone by!"

"Fergan!" suddenly Joan called out, inclining her head towards the

street; "listen! Is not that the bell, and the voice of a crier. Let's

find out what is up--"

At these words the quarryman's family approached the open window. The

sun had just risen. A crier of the bishop, distinguishable by the arms

embroidered on the breast of his coat, was seen passing the house. He

alternately rang his bell and then cried out: "In the name of our

seigneur the King! In the name of our seigneur the Bishop! Inhabitants

of Laon assemble in the market-place at the eighth hour of the day!" and

the crier rang anew his bell, the sound of which was soon lost in the

distance. For an instant the family of the quarryman remained silent,

each seeking to guess the object of the King and the bishop in ordering

the assemblage. Joan, always yielding to hope, said to Fergan: "The King

probably wishes to assemble the inhabitants in order to announce to them

that he accepts the money and confirms the charter anew."

"If such was the intention of Louis the Lusty, if he had accepted the

offer of the Commune, he would have notified the Mayor," the quarryman

answered, sadly shaking his head.

"Perhaps he has done that. We may expect him to have done so, father."

"In that case the Mayor would have issued orders to ring the belfry

bell, in order to assemble the communiers and announce to them the happy

tidings. I do not like this convocation, made in the name of the King

and the bishop. It presages nothing good. We have everything to fear

from our enemies."

"Fergan!" replied Joan alarmed, "must we, then, renounce all hope of an

accommodation? Is it war? Is it peace?"

"We shall soon be clear upon that. It will not be long before the eighth

hour will sound," whereupon Fergan resumed his casque and his sword,

which he had put away upon entering, and said to his son: "Arm yourself

and let's go to the market-place. As to you, my young ones," said he,

turning to the apprentices, "continue adjusting the pike-heads to the

shafts."

"Fergan!" exclaimed Joan anxiously, "you foresee war?"

"Oh, Colombaik," said Martine, weeping and throwing herself upon the

neck of her husband, "I die with fear, when I think of the dangers that

you and your father are about to run!"

"Be comforted, dear wife, by ordering these preparations of resistance

to continue, my father only adopts a measure of prudence," answered

Colombaik. "The situation is not desperate."

"My dear Joan," the quarryman said sadly, "I have seen you bear up more

bravely on the sands of Syria. Remember what perils you, your child and

I escaped during our long journey in Palestine, and when we were serfs

of Neroweg VI--"

"Fergan," Joan broke in, overcome with anguish, "the dangers of the past

were terrible, and the future looks menacing."

"We were all so happy in this city!" muttered Martine. "Those wicked

episcopals, so anxious to turn our joy into mourning, have,

nevertheless, the same as the communiers, wives, mothers, sisters,

daughters!"

"That is true," said Fergan bitterly; "but those men of the nobility and

their families, driven by the pride of station and living in idleness,

are furious at no longer being able to dispose of our hard labor. Oh! If

they tire our patience and if they mean to reconquer their hateful

rights, woe be unto the episcopals! Terrible reprisals await them!" And

embracing Joan and Martine, the quarryman added: "Good-bye, wife;

good-bye, my child."

"Good-bye, good mother; good-bye, Martine," Colombaik said in his turn,

"I accompany my father to the market-place. Soon as we shall have

definite information, I shall return to let you know. Remain at ease and

without any apprehensions."

"Come, daughter," said Joan to Martine, after once more embracing her

husband and her son, who forthwith went out, "let's resume our sad task.

For a moment I had hoped we could drop it."

The two women began anew to prepare lint and bandages, while the young

apprentices, resuming their work with renewed ardor, continued shafting

the iron pikes.

CHAPTER VII.

"TO ARMS, COMMUNIERS!"

An ever increasing crowd flowed into the market-place. Not now, as on

the previous day, did joy and the breath of security brighten the faces

of men, women and children gathering to celebrate the inauguration of

the communal Town Hall and belfry, the symbol of the emancipation of the

inhabitants. No; neither women nor children assisted at this gathering,

so different from the first. Only the men met, sombre, uneasy, some

determined, others crestfallen, and all foreseeing the approach of a

public danger. Assembled in large groups around the pillars of the

market-place, the communiers discussed the latest tidings--not yet known

by Fergan at the time when, in the company of his son, he left his

house--significant and alarming tidings. The watchmen on the towers,

between which one of the gates of the city opened on a promenade that

extended between the ramparts and the episcopal palace, had seen a large

troop of woodmen serfs and colliers, with Thiegaud, the bandit and

favorite of Bishop Gaudry, march into the palace at daybreak. A short

time after daybreak, the King, accompanied by his knights and

men-at-arms, had also retired into the fortified dwelling of the

prelate, leaving Laon by the south gate, which the sentinels had not

dared to refuse to open to the royal cavalcade. The courtiers of the

King having warned him that the inhabitants of the city had been up all

night, and that the blacksmiths' and locksmiths' anvils had constantly

rung under the hammer in the manufacture of a large number of pikes,

such preparations of defence, such a nocturnal excitement, all so

contrary to the peaceful habits of the townsmen, awoke the royal

suspicions and fears, and he had hastened to transfer his quarters to

the episcopal palace, where he considered himself safer. Instructed on

the departure of the Prince, the Mayor, John Molrain had himself run to

the episcopal palace, where admission was refused him. Foreseeing as

much, the Mayor had provided himself with a letter to the abbot

counselor of the King, in which Molrain repeated his propositions of the

previous day, and implored the King to accept them in the name of public

peace. Molrain added that the Commune held the promised sum at the

disposal of the King. To a letter so wisely framed and so conciliating,

the King sent for answer that in the morning the inhabitants of Laon

would be apprized of his pleasure. During that same night, it had been

noticed in the city that the episcopals, entrenched in their fortified

and solidly barricaded houses, had frequently exchanged signals among

themselves by means of torches placed at their windows and alternately

lighted and extinguished. These alarming tidings demolished almost

completely the hope of an accommodation, and threw the communiers into a

state of increasing anxiety. The Councilmen had been the first to appear

at the market-place, where they were soon joined by the Mayor. The

latter, grave and resolute, ordered silence, mounted one of the stands

in the deserted stalls and said to the crowd:

"The eighth hour of the day will soon sound. I have ordered the

messenger of the King to be allowed into the city when he presents

himself at the gate. The King and the bishop have ordered us to meet

here, at the market-place, to hear their pleasure. We prefer to receive

the royal message at our Town Hall. That is the seat of our power. The

more that power is contested from us, all the more zealous should we

show ourselves in holding it high."

The Mayor's proposition was received with acclamation, and while the

crowd followed the magistrates, Fergan and his son, commissioned to wait

for the King's messengers, saw Archdeacon Anselm approaching with

hurried steps. Thanks to his goodness and his uprightness, the prelate

was beloved and venerated by all. Making a sign to the quarryman to

draw near, he said to him in an agitated voice: "Will you join me in an

endeavor to avert the frightful misfortunes that this city is threatened

with?"

"The King has not, then, been moved even by the last sacrifice that we

imposed upon ourselves? He refused the offer of John Molrain?"

"The bishop, learning that the Mayor had offered the King a considerable

sum for the re-confirmation of your charter, offered Louis the Lusty

twice as much to abolish the Commune, and promised rich presents to the

King's counselors."

"And the King gave ear to such an infamous auction sale?"

"He gave ear to the suggestions of his own cupidity. He listened to the

counselors that surround him, and he accepted the bishop's offer."

"The oath that Louis the Lusty took, his signature, his seal affixed to

our charter--all that is then nullified?"

"The bishop absolved the King of his oath, by virtue of his episcopal

power of binding and unbinding here on earth. A sacredotal chicanery."

"The King is in error if he expects to receive the price of that

infamous traffic. The treasure of the bishop is empty. How could the

King, so astute a trader, rely upon the promises of Gaudry?"

"Once the bishop's seigniorial power is restored, he will clap upon the

townsmen, who will have again become taxable and subject to any imposts

at his mercy, a tax to pay the sum promised to the King, and the latter

himself will lend armed assistance to the bishop to levy the new

contributions."

"Fatality!" cried out Fergan in an outburst of rage. "We shall,

accordingly, have paid to obtain our enfranchisement, and are to pay

over again to fall back into servitude!"

"The projects of the bishop are as criminal as insane. But if you desire

to ward off even greater dangers, you will try to allay the popular

effervescence when the decision of the King shall be announced to the

Councilmen."

"You advise a cowardly act! No, I shall not seek to pacify the people,

when the insolent challenge shall have been thrown in their faces! You

will hear me the first to cry out: 'Commune! Commune!' and I shall march

at the head of my forces against the bishop. It will be a battle to the

knife!"

"Will you promise me not to precipitate so bloody a solution, that I may

make new efforts to lead the bishop back to more equitable sentiments?"

Anselm had hardly finished speaking when a man on horseback, preceded by

a sergeant-at-arms, covered with iron and the visor of his casque up,

appeared at the entrance of the street.

"Here is the royal messenger," said the quarryman to the archdeacon,

advancing towards the two cavaliers; "if the resolution of the King and

the bishop is such as you have just informed me of, let the blood that

is to run fall upon them!" Addressing then the royal messenger:

"The Mayor and the Councilmen are awaiting you in the large reception

room of the Town Hall of the Commune."

"Monseigneur the King and monseigneur the Bishop commanded the

inhabitants to assemble here at the market-place, in order to hear the

rescript that I bring," answered the messenger; "I must obey the orders

given me."

"If you wish to fulfil your mission, follow me," replied the quarryman.

"Our magistrates, representing the inhabitants of the city, are

assembled at the Town Hall. They have not chosen to wait here." Fearing

some trap, the King's messenger hesitated to follow Fergan, who,

surmising his thoughts, added: "Fear nothing; your person will be

respected; I answer for you with my head."

The sincerity that breathed through the words of Fergan reassured the

envoy, who, from greater prudence, ordered the knight, by whom he was

escorted, to accompany him no further, lest the sight of an armed man

should irritate the crowd. The royal messenger then followed the

quarryman.

"Fergan," the archdeacon called in a penetrating voice, "a last time I

conjure you, seek to curb the popular anger. I return to the King and

the bishop to renew my endeavors against the fatal course they are

starting on."

With that the archdeacon precipitately left the quarryman, who, leaving

the market-place, reached the Town Hall, and stepping ahead of the

messenger into the crowd repeated several times, while elbowing his way

through: "Room and respect for the envoy; he is alone and unarmed!"

Arrived at the threshold of the Town Hall, the envoy left his horse in

charge of Robin the Crumb-cracker, who pressed forward offering to guard

the palfrey; and accompanied by the quarryman he went up to the large

reception hall where were gathered the Mayor and the Councilmen, some in

arms, others merely in the robes of their office. The faces of the

magistrates were at once grave and uneasy. They misgave the approach of

events disastrous to the city. Above the Mayor's seat stood the Communal

banner; on a table before him, lay the official silver seal. The

gathering was silent and wrapt in thought.

"Mayor and Councilmen! Here is the royal envoy who wishes to make a

communication to you."

"We shall listen to him," answered the Mayor, John Molrain; "let him

communicate to us the message he is charged with."

The King's man seemed embarrassed in the fulfillment of his errand. He

drew from his breast a parchment scroll, sealed with the royal seal, and

unfolding it he said in a tremulous voice: "This is the pleasure of our

seigneur the King. He has ordered me to read this rescript to you aloud,

and to leave it with you, to the end that you may not remain in

ignorance upon its contents. Listen to it with respect."

"Read," said John Molrain; and turning to the Councilmen: "Above all, my

friends, whatever our sentiments, let us not interrupt the envoy during

the reading."

The King's man then read aloud:

"Louis, by the Grace of God, King of the French, to the Mayor and

inhabitants of Laon, Greeting:--

"We order and command you strictly to render, without contradiction

or delay, to our well-beloved and trusty Gaudry, Bishop of Laon,

the keys of this city, which he holds under us. We likewise order

and command you to forward to our well-beloved and trusty Gaudry,

Bishop of the diocese of Laon, the seal, the banner and the

treasury of the Commune, which we now declare abolished. The tower

of the belfry and the Town Hall shall be demolished, within the

space of one month at the longest. We order and command you, in

addition, to henceforth obey the bans and orders of our

well-beloved and trusty Gaudry, Bishop of Laon, the same as his

predecessors and himself have always been obeyed before the

establishment of the said Commune, because we may not fail to

guarantee to our well-beloved and trusty bishops the possession of

the seigniories and rights which they hold from God as

ecclesiastics and from us as laymen.

"This is our will.

"LOUIS."

The recommendation of John Molrain was religiously observed. The King's

envoy read his message in the midst of profound silence. In the measure,

however, as he proceeded with the reading of the act, every word of

which conveyed a threat and was an outrage, an iniquity, a perjury

towards the Commune, the Mayor and Councilmen exchanged looks

successively expressive of astonishment, rage, pain and consternation.

Overwhelming, indeed, was the astonishment of the Councilmen, to whom

Fergan had not yet had time to communicate his conversation with the

archdeacon. However, aware of the evil intentions of the King, yet they

had not been able to imagine such a flagrant violation of the rights

that had been granted, acknowledged and solemnly sworn to by the Prince

and the bishop. Great, indeed, was the anger that seized the Councilmen;

the least bellicose among them felt his heart stirred with indignation

at the insolent challenge hurled at the Commune, at the brazen robbery

contemplated by the King and bishop in the attempt to restore their

odious rights, the permanent abolition of which was proclaimed by a

charter sold for heavy money. Great was also the pain felt by the

Councilmen at the royal order to surrender to the bishop their banner,

their seal and their treasury, and to tear down their Town Hall and its

belfry. That belfry, that seal, that banner, such dear symbols of an

emancipation obtained after so many years of oppression, of servitude

and of shame,--all were to be renounced by the communiers. They were to

fall back under the yoke of Gaudry, when, in their legitimate pride,

they expected to bequeath to their children a freedom so painfully

acquired. Tears of rage and despair rolled down from all eyes at the

bare thought of such a disgrace. Great was the consternation of the

Councilmen; even the more energetic of them, while caring little for

their own lives, determined to defend the communal franchises unto

death, nevertheless anticipated with profound pain the disasters that

their flourishing city was threatened with, the torrents of blood that

civil war was about to shed. Victory or defeat, what distress, what

ravages, what a number of widows and orphans in prospect!

At that supreme moment, some of the Councilmen, they later admitted it

themselves, after having first triumphed over a transitory feeling of

faintness, felt their resolution waver. To enter into a struggle with a

King of the French was, for the city of Laon, an act of almost insane

foolhardiness. It was to expose the inhabitants to almost certain deeds

of retribution. Moreover, these magistrates--all of them husbands and

most of them fathers, men of peaceful habits--were not versed in war.

Undoubtedly, to submit to bear the yoke of the bishop and of the

nobility meant abysmal degradation; it meant to submit for all future

time themselves and their descendants to indignities and incessant

exploitation. Life, it is true, would be safe, and by virtue of tame

submission to the bishop some concessions might be obtained to render

life less miserable. Fortunately, the instances where such unworthy

wavering in the face of peril was experienced, had the advantage of

unrolling before the shaken hearts the abysmal infamy that fear might

drive them to. Promptly returning to their senses, these men realized

that the fatal choice was between degradation and servitude on the one

side, and, on the other, the dangers of a resistance sacred as justice

itself; that they had to choose between shame or a glorious death. Their

self-respect soon regained the upper hand, and they blushed at their

own weakness. When the envoy of Louis the Lusty had finished reading the

royal message, none of the Councilmen who had just been a prey to cruel

perplexities raised the voice to advise the relinquishment of the

franchises of the Commune.

The reading of the King's rescript being ended, John Molrain said to the

envoy in a solemn voice: "Are you authorized to listen to our

objections?"

"There is no room for objections to an act of the sovereign will of our

seigneur the King, signed by his own hand and sealed with his own seal,"

answered the messenger. "The King commands in the fullness of his power;

his subjects obey with humility. Bend your knees, bow down your

foreheads!"

"Is the will of Louis the Lusty irrevocable?" resumed the Mayor.

"Irrevocable!" answered the envoy. "And as a first proof of your

obedience to his orders, the King herein orders you, Councilmen, to hand

over to me the keys, the seal and the banner of the city. I have orders

to take them to the bishop, in token of submission to the abolition of

the Commune."

These words of the messenger carried the exasperation of the Councilmen

to its pitch. Some bounded from their seats or raised to heaven their

threatening fists; others covered their faces in their hands. Threats,

imprecations, moans, escaped from all lips. Dominating the tumult, John

Molrain ordered silence. All the Councilmen resumed their seats. Then,

rising full of dignity, calmness and firmness, the Mayor turned to the

banner of the Commune, that stood behind his seat, pointed towards it

with his hand and said to the messenger of the King: "On this banner,

that the King commands us to give up like cowards, are traced two towers

and a sword: The towers are the emblem of the city of Laon, the sword is

the emblem of the Commune. Our duty is inscribed upon that banner--to

defend with arms the franchises of our city. That seal, which the King

demands as a token of relinquishment of our liberties," John Molrain

proceeded, taking up from the table a silver medal, "this seal

represents a man raising his right hand to heaven in witness of the

sacredness of his oath; in his left hand he holds a sword, with the

point over his heart. This man is the Mayor of the Commune of Laon. This

magistrate is swearing by heaven to rather die than betray his oath.

Now, then, _I, Mayor of the Commune of Laon, freely elected by my fellow

townsmen, I swear to maintain and to defend our rights and our

franchises unto death_!"

"To that oath we shall all be faithful!" cried the Councilmen with

frantic enthusiasm. "We swear sooner to die than to renounce our

franchises!"

"You have heard the answer of the Mayor and Councilmen of Laon," said

John Molrain to the King's man when the tumult was appeased. "Our

charter has been sworn to and signed by the King and by Bishop Gaudry in

the year 1109. We shall defend that charter with the sword. The King of

the French is all-powerful in Gaul, the Commune of Laon is strong only

in its rights and in the bravery of its inhabitants. It has done

everything to avoid an impious war. It now awaits its enemies."

Hardly had John Molrain pronounced these last words when a deafening

uproar rose outside the Town Hall. Colombaik had joined his father to

accompany the royal messenger to the council hall. But after hearing the

rescript of the King, he was not able longer to restrain his

indignation. Hastily descending to the street, packed with a dense mass,

he announced that the King abolished the Commune and re-established the

bishop in the sovereignty of his so justly abhorred rights. While the

news spread like wild-fire from mouth to mouth through the whole city,

the crowd, massed upon the square, began to make the air resound with

imprecations. The more exasperated communiers invaded the hall, where

the council was gathered, and cried, inflamed with fury: "To arms! To

arms! Down with the King, the bishop and the episcopals!"

Sufficiently uneasy before now, the royal messenger grew pale with fear,

and ran for protection behind the Mayor and Councilmen, saying to them

in a trembling voice: "I have only obeyed orders; protect me!"

"Fear nothing!" called Fergan. "I have answered for you with my head. I

shall see you safe to the gates of the city."

"To arms!" cried John Molrain, addressing himself to the inhabitants who

had invaded the hall. "Ring the belfry bell to convoke the people to the

market-place. From there we shall march to the ramparts! To arms,

communiers! To arms!"

These words of John Molrain caused the King's messenger to be forgotten.

While several inhabitants climbed to the tower of the belfry to set the

big bell ringing, others descended quickly to the street and spread

themselves over the city crying: "To arms!" "Commune!" "Commune!" And

these cries, taken up by the crowds, were soon joined by the clangor

from the belfry.

"Molrain," Fergan said to the Mayor, "I shall accompany the envoy of

Louis the Lusty to the city's gate that opens opposite the episcopal

palace, and I shall remain on guard at that postern, one of the most

important posts."

"Go," answered the Mayor; "we of the Council shall remain here in

permanence to the end of deciding upon the measures to be taken."

Fergan and Colombaik descended from the council hall. The King's man

walked between them. The people, running home for their arms, had

cleared the square; only a few groups were left behind. Little Robin the

Crumb-cracker, who had been charged with the care of the messenger's

palfrey, had hastened to profit by the opportunity of straddling a horse

for the first time in his life, and was carrying himself triumphantly in

the saddle. At sight of the quarryman, he quickly came down again and

said, while placing the reins into his hands: "Master Fergan, here is

the horse; I prefer the infantry to the cavalry. I shall now run for my

pike. Let the little episcopals look out. If I meet any, I'll massacre

them."

The bellicose ardor of the stripling seemed to strike the royal envoy

even more forcibly than anything he had yet seen. He remounted his horse

escorted by Fergan and his son. The redoubled peals from the belfry

resounded far into the distance. In all the streets that the King's man

traversed on his way to the city gate, shops were hastily closing, and

soon the faces of women and children appeared at the windows, following

with anxious mien the husband, father, son or brother, who was leaving

the house to meet in arms at the call of the belfry. The King's

messenger, sombre and silent, could not conceal the astonishment and

fear produced in him by the warlike excitement of that people of

bourgeois and artisans, all running with enthusiasm to the defence of

the Commune. "Before you arrived at the gate of the city," Fergan said

to him, "you surely expected to meet here with a craven obedience to the

orders of the King and the bishop. But you see it for yourself, here, as

at Beauvais, as at Cambrai, as at Noyons, as at Amiens, the old Gallic

blood is waking up after centuries of slavery. Report faithfully to

Louis the Lusty and to Gaudry what you have witnessed while crossing the

city. Perchance, at the supreme moment, they may recoil before the

iniquity that they are contemplating, and they may yet save grave

disasters to this city that asks but to be allowed to live peacefully

and happy in the name of the faith that has been plighted."

"I have no authority in the councils of my seigneur the King," answered

the envoy sadly, "but I swear in the name of God, I did not expect to

see what I have seen, and hear what I have heard. I shall faithfully

report it all to my master."

"The King of the French is all-powerful in Gaul, the city of Laon is

strong only in its right and the bravery of its inhabitants. It now

awaits its enemies! You see it is on its guard," added Fergan, pointing

to a troop of bourgeois militia that had just occupied the ramparts

contiguous to the gate by which the King's envoy made his exit.

CHAPTER VIII.

RETRIBUTION.

The episcopal palace, fortified with towers and thick walls, was

separated from the city by a wide space, lined with trees and that

served as a promenade. Fergan and his son were busy organizing the

transport of materials destined for the defence of the walls in case of

an attack, when the quarryman saw the outer gate of the episcopal palace

thrown open. Several of the King's men came out, looked around

cautiously, as if to make sure that the promenade was clear, re-entered

the palace in hot haste, and almost immediately a strong escort of

knights rode out, and took the road that led to the boundary of Picardy.

This vanguard was closely followed by a few warriors, clad in brilliant

armor, one of them, notable for his enormous stomach; two ordinary men

could have been easily held in this one's cuirass. The rider's casque

was topped with a golden crown engraved with fleur-de-lis. The long

scarlet saddle-cloth, that covered his horse almost wholly, was likewise

embroidered in gold fleur-de-lis. These insignias, coupled with the

extraordinary corpulence of the rider, designated Louis the Lusty to

Fergan. A few steps behind the Prince the quarryman recognized the

messenger, whom, shortly before, he had himself accompanied to the gate

of the city, and who, now was engaged in an animated conversation with

the Abbot de la Marche. The train closed with several baggage mules and

servants; the rear was brought up by another squad of knights. The whole

cavalcade soon fell into a gallop, and Fergan saw the King at a distance

turning towards the ramparts of Laon, whose belfry bell did not cease

ringing, and menace the city with a gesture of rage by shaking at it his

closed fist, covered with a mailed gauntlet. Giving then the spurs to

his horse, Louis the Lusty soon disappeared at the turning of the road

in the midst of a cloud of dust.

"You flee before the insurgent communiers, oh, King of the Franks, noble

descendant of Hugh Capet!" cried out Colombaik in the passionate heat of

his age. "Old Gaul is waking up! The descendants of the kings of the

conquest flee before the popular uprisings! The day predicted by

Victoria has arrived!"

Ripened with age and experience, Fergan said to his son in a grave and

melancholic voice: "My son, let us not take the first glimmerings of the

approaching dawn for the light of the midday sun." At that very moment,

the sound of the great bell of the cathedral, never rung but at certain

great holidays, was suddenly heard. Instead, however, of ringing slowly

and in measured ryhthm, as usual, its clang now was alternately rapid

and then again at long intervals. The tolling lasted only a short time;

soon the bell was silent. "To arms!" Fergan cried out in a thundering

voice. "This must be a signal agreed upon between the knights of the

city and the episcopal palace. While waiting for the re-inforcements

that, undoubtedly, the King is gone after, the episcopals deem

themselves able to overcome us. To arms! Cover the ramparts! Death to

the episcopals!"

At the call of Fergan and his son, the latter of whom ran to rally the

insurgents, the communiers hastened near, some armed with bows, others

with pikes, hatchets and swords--all ready to repel an attack. Others

again lighted fires under caldrons full of pitch, while their companions

rolled with great effort towards the ramparts certain engines of war,

which, by means of turning pallets, fastened in the middle of a twisted

rope, hurled enormous stones more than a hundred paces off. Suddenly a

great noise, in which shouts were mixed with the clatter of arms,

sounded from afar in the center of the city. As Fergan had forseen, the

episcopals sallying forth from their fortified dwellings at the signal

given by the great bell of the cathedral, had fallen upon the bourgeois

in the city at the same time that, as agreed upon, the serfs of the

episcopal palace, led by several knights, were to begin the siege of the

ramparts. The communiers were, accordingly, to find themselves between

two enemies, one within, the other without. In fact, Fergan saw the gate

of the episcopal palace swing open once more, and there issued forth

from it a huge four-wheeled wagon, pushed from behind with feet and

hands. The wagon was filled with straw and faggots, heaped so high, that

the mass of combustibles, raised twelve or fifteen feet above the rails

of the wagon, completely hid and covered those who shoved it, serving

them as a shelter against the projectiles that might be hurled at them

from the walls. The assailants figured upon setting fire to the

combustibles in the wagon, with the object of pushing it near enough to

the gate so as to communicate its fire to the latter. The move, although

skilfully planned, was baffled by the quick wit of Robin the

Crumb-cracker, the blacksmith's apprentice. Armed with his pike, he was

one of the first at the ramparts, and had noticed the chariot advancing

slowly and always pushed from behind. Several insurgents, armed with

bows, yielded to a thoughtless impulse, and hastened to shoot their

arrows at the wagon. These, however, fastened themselves uselessly in

the straw or the wood. Robin pulled off his shirt, tore it in shreds,

and sighting a tall militiaman, who, seduced by the example of his

fellows was also about to shoot uselessly upon the straw, the

blacksmith's apprentice brusquely disarmed the townsman, seized the

arrow, wrapped it in one of the shreds of his shirt, ran and plunged it

into a caldron of pitch, already liquid, lighted it at the fire, and

quickly placing it on the cord of the bow, fired the flaming arrow into

the middle of the chariot filled with combustibles, and then but a short

distance from the walls. Overjoyed at his own inspiration, Robin clapped

his hands, turned somersaults, and while returning the bow to the

astonished militiaman, set up the shout: "Commune! Commune! The

episcopals prepare the bonfires, the communiers light them!" And the

blacksmith's apprentice ran to pick up his pike.

Hardly had the firebrand dropped upon that load of straw and fagots than

it took fire, and offered to the eyes one mass of flames, overtopped by

a dense cloud of smoke that the wind drove towards the episcopal palace.

Noticing the circumstance, Fergan hastened to profit by it. "My

friends!" cried he, "let's finish the work begun by little

Crumb-cracker! That cloud of smoke will mask our movements from the

episcopals. Let's make a sortie. Form into a column of armed men, and

let's take the episcopal palace by storm. Death to the episcopals!"

"Fall to!" was the insurgents' response. "To the assault! Commune!

Commune!"

"One-half of our troops will remain here with Colombaik to guard the

walls," Fergan proceeded. "They are fighting in the village. The

episcopals might try to attack the ramparts from behind. Let those

follow me who are ready to storm the episcopal palace. Forward, march!"

A large number of communiers hastened upon the heels of Fergan. Among

them was Bertrand, the son of Bernard des Bruyeres, the ill-starred

victim of Gaudry's murderous nature. Bertrand was silent, almost

impassible in the midst of the seething effervescence of the people. His

only thought was to avoid dropping his heavy axe that weighed down his

shoulder. Fergan had cleverly led the sortie of the insurgents. Masked

for a sufficient space of time to the eyes of the enemy by the flames

and smoke of the burning wagon and its load, they soon reached the walls

of the episcopal palace, found the gate open, and a crowd of armed serfs

standing under the arch. Under the lead of several knights, they were

preparing to march on the assault of the postern, their chief, as well

as Fergan, having relied upon masking their attack behind the burning

chariot. At the unexpected sight of the insurgents, the episcopals only

thought of barring the entrance to the palace. It was too late. A bloody

hand-to-hand encounter took place under the arch that joined the two

towers on either side of the gate. The communiers, warming to the

conflict, fought with fury. Many were killed, others wounded. Fergan

received from a knight a blow with an axe that broke his casque and

struck his forehead. After a stubborn struggle, the inhabitants of Laon

threw the episcopals back and entered the vast yard where the combat

proceeded with redoubled fury. Fergan, still in the hottest of the

fight, despite his wound, for a moment thought himself and his men lost.

Just as the fight was at its hottest, Thiegaud came in from the green of

the bishopric at the head of a large body of woodmen serfs, armed with

stout hatchets, and threw himself into the fray. The re-inforcement was

intended to crush the insurgents. What was not the surprise of these,

when they heard the serf of St. Vincent and his men set up the cry:

"Death to the bishop! To the sack of the palace! To the sack! Commune!"

The combat changed its aspect on the spot. The larger number of the

bishop's serfs who had taken part in the struggle, hearing the woodmen

cry: "Commune! Death to the bishop! To the sack of the palace!" dropped

their arms. Deserted by a part of their men, the knights redoubled their

efforts of valor, but in vain; they were all killed or disabled. Soon

masters of the palace, the insurgents spread in all directions, yelling:

"Death to the bishop!"

Thiegaud approached Fergan with a mien of triumphant hatred brandishing

his cutlass. "I answered Gaudry for the faithfulness of the woodmen of

the abbey," cried the serf of St. Vincent, "but in order to revenge

myself upon the wretch for having debauched my daughter, I caused our

men to mutiny against him and his tonsured fellow devils!"

"Where is the bishop?" the insurgents shouted, brandishing their

weapons. "To death with him!"

"Friends, your vengeance shall be satisfied, and mine also. Gaudry will

not escape us," replied Thiegaud. "I know where the holy man lies in

hiding. The moment you forced the gate of the palace, and fearing the

issue of the fight, Gaudry put on the coat of one of the servants, in

the hope of fleeing under cover of the disguise. But I advised him to

lock himself up in his storeroom, and to crawl into the bottom of one of

the empty hogsheads. Come, come!" he proceeded with savage laughter, "We

shall stave in the head and draw red wine." Saying which, the serf of

St. Vincent, followed by the mob of the insurgents who were exasperated

at the bishop, wended his way to the storeroom. Among the furious crowd

was the son of Bernard des Bruyeres. Having by the merest chance escaped

unscathed from the melee, the frail youth marched close behind Thiegaud,

endeavoring, despite the smallness of his stature and his feebleness,

not to lose the post he had taken. His pale and sickly features were

rapidly regaining their color; a feverish ardor illumined his eyes and

imparted to him fictitious strength. No longer did his heavy battle axe

seem to weigh on his puny arm. From time to time he lovingly

contemplated the weapon, while he passed his finger along its sharp

edge. At such times he would emit a sigh of repressed joy, while he

raised his flashing eyes to heaven. Guiding the communiers, the serf of

St. Vincent, threaded his way to the storeroom, a spacious chamber

located at one of the corners of the first yard. Before reaching it, the

inhabitants of Laon, having stumbled against the corpse of Black John

that lay riddled with wounds, they threw themselves in a paroxysm of

fury upon the lifeless body of the savage executor of Gaudry's

cruelties. In the tumult that ensued upon these acts of reprisal, the

son of Bernard des Bruyeres was, despite all stubborn resistance on his

part, separated from Thiegaud, at the moment when the latter, helped by

several of the insurgents, broke down and forced the door of the

storeroom, that, for greater precaution, the prelate had bolted and

barred from within. The mass emptied itself into the vast chamber that

was barely lighted by narrow skylights and crowded with full and empty

vats. A kind of alley wound its way between the numerous hogsheads.

Thiegaud made a sign to the insurgents to halt and stay at a distance.

Wishing to prolong the bishop's agony, he struck with the flat of his

cutlass the head of several vats, calling out each time: "Anyone

inside?" Of course he received no answer. Arriving finally near a huge

hogshead that stood on end he turned his head to the communiers with the

slyness of a wolf, and removing and throwing down the cover that had

been lightly placed upon it, asked again: "Any one inside?"

"There is here an unhappy prisoner," came from the trembling voice of

the bishop. "Have mercy upon him in the name of Christ!"

"Oho! my friend Ysengrin!" said Thiegaud, now taking his turn in giving

the nickname to his master. "Is it you who are cowering down in that

barrel? Come out! Come out! I want to see whether, perhaps, my daughter

is there in hiding with you." Saying which, the serf of St. Vincent

seized the prelate by his long hair with a vigorous clutch, and forced

him, despite his resistance, to rise by little and little from the

bottom of the ton into which he had crawled. It was a frightful

spectacle. For a moment, always holding the bishop by the hair as the

latter rose on his feet in the barrel, Thiegaud seemed to hold in his

hand the head of a corpse, so livid was Gaudry's face. For a moment

Gaudry stood upon his legs inside of the barrel, with his head and

shoulders above the edge. But his limbs shook so that, wishing to

support himself inside of the barrel, it tumbled over and the Bishop of

Laon rolled at the feet of the serf. Stooping down, while the prelate

was painfully trying to rise, Thiegaud affected to look into the bottom

of the barrel, and cried out: "No, friend Ysengrin, my daughter is not

there. The jade must have stayed in your bed."

"Beloved sons in Jesus Christ!" stammered Gaudry, who, upon his knees,

extended his hands towards the communiers. "I swear to you upon the

gospels and upon my eternal salvation, I shall uphold your Commune! Have

pity upon me!"

"Liar, renegade!" yelled back the enraged communiers. "We know what your

oath is worth. Swindler and hypocrite!"

"You shall pay with your life for the blood of our people that has

flowed to-day! Justice! Justice!"

"Yes, justice and vengeance in the name of the women, who this morning

had husbands, and this evening are widows!"

"Justice and vengeance in the name of the children, who this morning had

fathers, and this evening are orphans!"

"Oh, Gaudry, you and yours have by dint of perjuries and untold outrages

tired the patience of the people! Your hour has sounded!"

"Which of us is it that wanted war, you or we? Did you listen to our

prayers? Did you have pity for the peace of our city? No! Well, then,

neither shall there be pity for you! Death to the bishop!"

"My good friends ... grant me my life," repeated the bishop, whose teeth

chattered with terror. "Oh! I pray you!... Grant me my life! I ... I

shall renounce the bishopric.... I shall leave this city.... You shall

never see my face again.... Only leave me my life!"

"Did you show mercy to my brother Gerhard, whose eyes were put out by

your orders?" cried a communier, seizing the prelate by the collar and

shaking him with fury. "Infamous criminal! Did you have pity for him?"

"Did you have mercy for my friend Robert of the Mill, who was stabbed to

death by Black John?" added another insurgent. And the two accusers

seized the prelate, who quietly allowed himself to be dragged upon his

knees, "You shall die in the face of the sun that has witnessed your

crimes!"

Overwhelmed with blows and insults, Gaudry was pushed out of the

storeroom. In vain did he cry: "Have pity upon me!... I shall restore

your Commune!... I swear to you!... I swear!--"

"Will you restore their husbands to the widows, their fathers to the

orphans you have made?"

"After having lived the life of a traitor and a homicide; after

exasperating an inoffensive people that only asked to be allowed to

live in peace in accordance with the pledge that was sworn, it is not

enough to cry 'Pity!' in order to be absolved."

"Clemency is holy, but impunity is impious! Death to the bishop!"

"Heaven and earth!" cried Fergan. "The justice of the people is the

justice of God! Death to the bishop! Death!"

"Yes, yes! To death with the bishop!"

The prelate was dragged in the midst of these furious cries outside of

the storeroom. Suddenly a tremulous voice dominated the uproar: "What,

shall not the son of Bernard des Bruyeres be allowed to avenge his

father!" Immediately, by a simultaneous movement, the insurgents opened

a path to the son of the victim. His face radiant, his eyes flashing,

Bertrand rushed upon the prostrate bishop, and raising his heavy axe

with his weak hands, cleaved the skull of Gaudry; then, casting off the

blood-stained weapon, he cried: "You are avenged, my father!"

"Well done, my lad! The death of your father and the dishonor of my

daughter are avenged at one blow!" cried Thiegaud; and seeing the

episcopal ring on the bishop's finger, he added: "I take my daughter's

token of marriage!" Unable, however, to tear the ring off the prelate's

finger, the serf of St. Vincent cut it off with a blow of his cutlass

and stuck both finger and ring in his pocket.

So legitimate was the hatred that Gaudry inspired the communiers, that

it survived even the man's death. His corpse was riddled with wounds and

covered with curses. The insurgents were in the act of throwing his

lifeless body into a sewer close to the storeroom, when from another

side the cry fell upon their ears: "Commune! Commune! Death to the

episcopals!"

CHAPTER IX.

RESTING ON THEIR ARMS.

While this tragic scene was enacting, another body of the people of

Laon, led by Ancel Quatre-Mains and his sprightly wife, invaded the

episcopal palace from another side. Fergan was running to meet them the

moment he saw them enter the green, when he caught sight of Archdeacon

Anselm, who, having so far kept aloof from the theater of the conflict,

was now hastening to the spot, informed of the bishop's fate by one of

his domestics. The archdeacon succeeded in inducing the communiers to

refrain from submitting the remains of their enemy to the idle and last

disgrace contemplated by them. Helped by two servants, the worthy priest

of Christ was carrying the corpse of the bishop, when he noticed Fergan,

and said to him in a voice deeply moved, with the tears running down his

cheeks: "I wish to bury the body of this unfortunate man, and to pray

for him. My sad forecasts have been verified. Only yesterday, warning

him in the midst of his braggart and fatal illusion of security, I

expressed the hope that I may not soon have to pray over his grave. Oh,

Fergan, civil war is a terrible scourge!"

"A curse upon those who provoke these execrable strifes, that carry

mourning into the camp of both the vanquishers and the vanquished!"

answered the quarryman, and leaving the archdeacon to fulfil his pious

office, he proceeded to join Quatre-Mains, who commanded the other troop

of the invaders.

The worthy Councilman, ever hampered and incommoded by his military

equipment, had rid himself of it in the moment of battle. Replacing his

iron casque with a woolen cap and keeping on his leather jerkin only,

with his coat sleeves rolled back, as he was wont when kneading his

dough, he had armed himself with the poker of his oven, a long and heavy

iron implement, bent at one end. His stout-hearted little wife Simonne,

her cheeks in a glow and her eyes aflame, carried in her skirt a bundle

of lint and bandages ready for use, together with a wicker-covered

flask, containing a decoction, pronounced marvelous by her for checking

the flow of blood. Joy and the excitement of triumph radiated from the

charming features of the baker's wife. At the sight of Fergan, however,

whose face was clotted with the blood of the wound he had received on

his head, she cried out sadly: "Neighbor Fergan, you are wounded! Let me

tend you, the fight is over; be not alarmed about your son; we have just

seen him at his post on the ramparts; he is safe and sound, although

there was a sharp encounter at that spot; sit down on this bench, I

shall nurse you the same as I would have done Ancel, had he been

wounded. Upon the faith of a Picardian woman, if he escaped being hurt,

it was not his fault; he merited anew his surname of Quatre-Mains, the

way he belabored the heads and backs of the episcopals."

Fergan accepted Simonne's offer and sat down upon a bench, while the

young woman looked for the lint in her pockets. The baker himself

stopped a few steps behind to gather the details of the capture of the

bishop. He then approached his wife, and seeing her engaged upon Fergan,

hastened his steps, asking with deep interest: "What, neighbor, wounded?

Nothing serious?"

"I was struck with an axe on my casque," and raising his head which he

had inclined to facilitate the nursing of Simonne, Fergan noticed the

rather unmilitary accoutrement of his friend: "Why did you take off your

armor in the middle of the fight?"

"Upon my faith, the casque kept dropping on my nose, the corselet took

the breath from me, the sword encumbered my legs. Accordingly, when the

fight started, I made myself comfortable, just as I do when I am

kneading dough. I rolled up my sleeves, and instead of that devil of a

sword, which I cannot handle, I armed myself with my iron poker, the

use of which is familiar to me."

"But what could you do with a poker? It is a rather singular implement

of war."

"What could he do with it?" put in Simonne, saturating a bandage with

the contents of the wicker-covered flask, and applying the same to the

quarryman's wound. "Oh, Ancel is quick with his hands. If a nobleman on

horseback came near, armed to the teeth, my husband grappled his throat

with the hook of his long poker and then pulled with all his might; I

helped when necessary. In almost every instance we unhorsed the knight,

and throwing him to the ground he was at our mercy."

"After which," added the baker calmly, "and after beating my man with

the hook of my poker, I dispatched him with the handle. I settled more

than one of them. One does what he can!"

"Oh, neighbor!" Simonne proceeded with enthusiasm; "it was especially at

the siege of the house of the knight of Haut-Pourcin that Ancel made a

famous use of his poker. Several episcopals and their servants,

entrenched upon a crenelated terrace, fired down upon us with

cross-bows. They had killed or wounded so many communiers, that none

dared come near the accursed house, and our people had retired to the

end of the street. Presently, we saw the wicked knight of Haut-Pourcin,

cross-bow in hand, leaning half over the battlement of the terrace, to

see if there was any of ours that he could hit. At that instant--," but

interrupting herself, Simonne said to her husband: "Tell your own story,

Ancel; while I speak I cannot pay proper attention to the bandage of our

neighbor."

While Simonne finished attending to Fergan, the baker continued the

narrative that his wife had commenced: "Noticing that the knight of

Haut-Pourcin leaned over the terrace several times, I profited by a

moment when he had withdrawn; I slided along the wall to the foot of the

house; as the projection of the balcony prevented him from seeing me, I

watched for my man; the instant he again put out his head I snatched

him up with the hook of my poker exactly at the jointure of his casque

and his cuirass with might and main; Simonne came and helped; and we had

the satisfaction of making that noble personage turn a somersault from

the height of the terrace down to the street; our communiers ran by; the

episcopals rushed out of the knight's house to deliver him; they were

driven back and we stormed the building!"

"And lo!" cried Simonne heroically, "I, who did not leave the heels of

Ancel, find myself face to face with that old hag of the dame of

Haut-Pourcin, who was yelling like a fury: 'Kill! Kill! No quarter for

those vile clowns! Exterminate them!' I was seized with rage, and

recalling the insults that the harpy had poured upon me shortly before I

threw her down, grabbed her by the throat, and, as true as Ancel is

called Quatre-Mains, I slapped her face as thoroughly as if I was

endowed with six hands, all the while saying to her: 'Take this! and

that! you proud dame of Haut-Pourcin. Take this, and that, and still

another, you wicked old hag! Oh, my gallants pay for my skirts, do they!

Very well, I pay cash, and in round sums for the insults I receive!'

Upon the faith of a Picardian woman, had her hair not been gray, like my

mother's, I would have strangled the she-devil!"

Fergan could not help smiling at the exaltation of Simonne. He then said

to Ancel: "When I heard the large bell of the cathedral ringing in a

peculiar way, I concluded it was the signal agreed upon between the

bishop and his partisans to attack our people simultaneously from within

and from without the city."

"You were not mistaken, neighbor. At that signal, the episcopals, who

had laid their plans and gathered their forces over night, sallied forth

from their houses crying: 'Kill, kill the communiers!' Other noblemen

also were besieged in their houses. The fight was going on with the same

vigor on the streets and squares, while a troop of episcopals betook

itself to the ramparts on the side of the bishop's gate."

"Expecting to fall from the rear upon our people who they thought were

being attacked in front," said Fergan. "For that reason I ordered my son

to be on his guard. You assure me he is not wounded? God be praised!"

"If he is wounded, neighbor Fergan," replied Simonne, "it can only be

slightly. He called out to us from the top of the ramparts: 'Victory!

Victory! Our people are masters of the bishop's palace!'"

"And now," said Quatre-Mains, "meseems the Mayor and Councilmen should

meet at the Town Hall to consider what is to be done."

"I think so, too, Ancel. We shall leave here a sufficient force to keep

the palace. Watch shall continue to be held on the ramparts of the city,

whose gates shall be closed and barricaded. Let's not deceive ourselves.

However legitimate our insurrection, we must be prepared to see Louis

the Lusty return to lay siege to the city at the head of the

re-inforcements that he has gone to fetch. The Princes are on the side

of the clergy."

"I think so, too," replied the Councilman with resignation and

fortitude: "John Molrain said to the royal messenger: 'The King of the

French is all-powerful in Gaul; the Commune of Laon is strong only in

its right and the courage of its inhabitants.' We shall fight as well as

we may against Louis the Lusty and his army; and we shall, if need be,

be killed to the last man."

"Thank you for your kind nursing, good neighbor," Fergan said to

Simonne; "I now feel in good trim. My poor Joan will be jealous."

"It is rather I who should be jealous," retorted Simonne. "Crossing our

street, we saw the basement room of your house full of wounded men, at

whom your wife and Martine were busy. The good souls!"

"Dear souls! How uneasy they must feel!" said Fergan. "I must hasten to

ease their minds, and I shall return to superintend our defence."

The conversation between Fergan and Ancel was here interrupted by cries

and shouts mingled with cheers that went up from one of the yards of the

palace, which was given up to pillage and devastation. The insurgents

sought vengeance not only for the perjury of Gaudry, but also for the

odious exactions and cruelties that they had suffered before the

establishment of the Commune. Some, staving in the vats in the

storeroom, were getting drunk on the bishop's precious wines, a rich

tithe, once collected by him on the vineyards of the villeins; others,

making a heap of the tapestry and furniture which they dragged from his

rooms into the yard, set fire to the pile; finally, and it was the

shouts of these last that reached the quarryman and the baker, yet

others, seizing the sacerdotal robes and insignia of the prelate,

organized themselves into a grotesque procession, of which little Robin

the Crumb-cracker was the hero. The blacksmith's apprentice, carrying on

his head the episcopal mitre that almost completely hid his face, and

robed in a cape of gold cloth that trailed at his heels, held in his

hands a vermillion cross studded with precious stones. He scattered to

the right and left grotesque benedictions, while the communiers, now

half drunk, as well as the bishop's serfs, who, after the fight had

joined the vanquishers, sang at the top of their voices a parody of

church hymns, interspersed ever and anon with cheers of "Long live Robin

the Crumb-cracker!"

Leaving these rolicking youngsters to amuse themselves at their pleasure

on the bishop's premises, Fergan and his neighbors betook themselves to

the city. Night was approaching. Bidding good-bye to the baker and his

wife and requesting them to hasten ahead of him to his house and set

Joan and Martine's minds at ease, Fergan mounted the rampart to meet his

son. The latter, considering it prudent to keep watch, even after the

victory of the day, was busy with the measures for the night. At sight

of his father with his head bandaged, Colombaik uttered a cry of alarm,

but soon was set at ease by Fergan. After providing for additional

measures of security, both returned home.

Night had set in. Everywhere the fight had long ended. The communiers

were collecting their dead and wounded by the light of torches. Women,

bathed in tears, ran to the places where the fight had been hottest, and

looked for a father, a husband, a son, or a brother, in the midst of the

corpses that the streets were strewn with. At other places, exasperated

at the chiefs of the episcopal party, the communiers were demolishing

their fortified houses. Finally, at a distance, a brilliant gleam

crimsoned the sky, and cast its reflection hither and thither on the

gables of the taller houses. It was the glare of a conflagration. The

fire was devouring the dwelling of the bishop's treasurer, one of the

most execrated of the episcopals. Neither did the cathedral of Laon

escape the avenging torch of the insurgents.

"Never, my child, blot this terrible spectacle from your memory. Such

are the fruits of civil war," said Fergan to his son, stopping in the

middle of the Exchange square, one of the most elevated spots of the

city, and whence the burning cathedral could be seen at a distance.

"Look at the flames of the conflagration that is devouring the

cathedral; hark to the sound of the seigniorial towers crashing down

under the hammer blows of the communiers; listen to the moaning of

yonder children, now become orphans, of their mothers, now become

widows; contemplate these wounded men, these bleeding corpses carried

away by their relatives and by friends in tears; behold at this hour,

everywhere in the city, mourning, consternation, vengeance, disaster,

fire and death! Then recall the happy and peaceful aspect that this same

city offered only yesterday, when the people, in the fullness of their

joy, inaugurated the symbol of their enfranchisement, bought, agreed and

sworn to by our oppressors! It was a beautiful day. How our hearts

leaped at every peal from our belfry! How all eyes shone with pride at

the sight of our communal banner! All of us, bourgeois and artisans,

rejoicing in the present and confident of the future, wished to continue

to live under a charter sworn to by the nobles, the bishop and the King.

But it happened that nobles, bishop and King, having dissipated the

money with which we paid for our franchises, said to themselves: 'What

does a signature or an oath matter; we are powerful and numerous; we are

used to wielding the lance and the sword; those artisans and bourgeois,

vile clowns all, will flee before us. To horse, noble episcopals, to

horse! High the sword! High the lance! Kill, massacre the communiers!'"

"But the communiers made the King of the French take to his heels, and

have exterminated the knights!" cried Colombaik with enthusiasm. "The

son of one of the victims of that infamous bishop cleaved his skull in

two with a blow of his axe! The cathedral is on fire, and the

seigniorial towers are crumbling down! Such is the price of perjury!

Such is the terrible and just chastisement of the people who unchained

the furies of war against this city, so tranquil but yester night! Oh,

let the blood that has been shed fall upon the criminals! Their turn has

come to tremble! Old Gaul is waking up after six centuries of torpor!

The day of the rule of might and clerical chicanery is over! The hour of

deliverance has sounded!----"

"Not yet, my son!"

"What! The King is fleeing; the bishop killed; the episcopals

exterminated or in hiding; the city ours!"

"Have you given a thought to the morrow?"

"The morrow? We shall preserve our conquest, or shall fight other

battles, equally victorious!"

"No illusions, dear boy! Louis the Lusty fled before an insurrection

that he did not think himself equal to cope with. But ere long he will

be back to the walls of Laon with considerable forces, and he will then

dictate his will."

"We shall resist unto death!"

"I know, that despite all our heroism, we shall succumb in the fray."

"What! These franchises, paid for with our good money and now sealed

with our blood,--shall they be torn from us? Are our children to fall

back under the abhorred yoke of the lay and ecclesiastical seigneurs?

Oh, father, are we to despair of the future?"

"To despair? Never! Thanks to the communal insurrections, that were

provoked by the feudal atrocities, our worst days are over. The

legitimate and terrible reprisals of Noyon, Cambrai, Amiens and

Beauvais, just as these fresh ones of Laon, will inspire the seigneurs

with a wholesome fear. These holy insurrections have proved to our

masters that the 'clowns, artisans and bourgeois' will no longer allow

themselves to be taxed at mercy, robbed, tortured and killed with

impunity. Our darkest days are over. But our descendants will still have

bloody battles to fight before the arrival of the radiant day predicted

by Victoria the Great!"

"And yet all has gone our way on this day."

"Rely upon my experience and foresight. Louis the Lusty will presently

return at the head of redoubtable forces. The death of this infamous

Gaudry, just though it was, will unchain against our city the fury of

the clericals. The bolts of excommunication will second the royal arms.

We are bound to go down--not before the excommunication; people laugh at

that--but under the blows of the soldiers of Louis the Lusty. Our

bravest men will be killed in battle, banished or executed after the

King's victory. Another bishop will be imposed upon the city of Laon.

Our belfry will be torn down, our seal will be broken, our banner torn

and our treasury pilfered. The episcopals, supported by the King, will

take vengeance for their defeat. Torrents of blood will flow in the

city. That's what's before us."

"Then all is lost!"

"Child," proceeded Fergan with a melancholy smile, "men are killed; the

principle of freedom never, after it has once penetrated the popular

heart. Will Louis the Lusty, the new bishop, the nobles, however cruel

their vengeance may be, massacre all the inhabitants of Laon? No. They

are bound to leave alive the larger part of the communiers, if for no

other purpose than to have whom to levy taxes on. The mothers, sisters,

wives, the children of those who will have died for liberty, will

continue to live. Oh, no doubt, for a while, the terror will be intense;

the recollection of the disasters, of the massacres, of the banishments,

and of the executions that will have followed upon the struggle, will at

first paralyze all thought of insurrection. But none of that will last."

"Accordingly, the new bishop and the nobles will redouble their

audacity? Their oppression will become more frightful than before?"

"No, the new bishop, however insensate he may be, will never forget the

terrible fate of Gaudry; the nobles will not forget the death of so many

of their people, who fell under the blows of the people's justice. That

valuable example will be useful to us. The first thirst for vengeance on

the part of the episcopals, once slaked, they will ease the yoke out of

fear for new revolts. Nor is that all. Those of us who will have

survived the struggle, will gradually forget those evil days and recall

the happy ones when the Commune, free, peaceful, flourishing, exempt

from all crushing imposts, and wisely governed by a magistracy of its

own choice, was the pride and bulwark of its inhabitants. Those who will

have witnessed those happy days will speak of them to their children

with enthusiasm. They will tell their little ones how one day the King

and the bishop having leagued themselves against the Commune, the latter

valiantly rose in arms, forced Louis the Lusty to flee, and exterminated

the bishop and his episcopals. The glory of the triumph will cause the

disaster of the subsequent defeat to be forgotten. The feeling will take

hold of revenging the overthrow of the Commune by restoring it. By

little and little the enthusiasm will gain ground, and, when the moment

shall have come, the insurrection will break out anew. Just reprisals

will once more be exercised against our enemies, and our franchises will

be proclaimed again. Mayhaps that again that second step towards freedom

is followed by a savage re-action. But the step will have been taken.

Some franchises will continue in force. And thus, step by step,

painfully, by dint of struggles, of courage, of perseverance, our

descendants, alternately vanquishers and vanquished, halting at times

after battle to tend their wounded and recover breath, but never

retreating an inch, will in the course of time arrive at the goal of

that laborious and bloody journey. Then will the radiant sun of the day

of Gaul's enfranchisement rise in all its glory!"

"Oh, father," said Colombaik, overpowered with sorrow, "woe is us, if

Victoria's prediction is not to be verified, according to her prophetic

visions, but across heaps of ruins and torrents of blood!"

"Do you imagine freedom is gained without struggle? We are the

vanquishers. Our cause is holy like justice, sacred like right. And yet,

look around!" answered the quarryman, pointing his son to the dismal

spectacle presented by Exchange square, encumbered with the dead and

dying, and lighted by the glamor of the torches and the lingering gleams

of the fire of the Cathedral. "Look around, what streams of blood, what

heaps of ruins!"

"Oh, why this terrible fatality!" resumed Colombaik in tones almost of

despair. "Why must the conquest of such legitimate rights cost so dear!"

"The insurrection of the communal bourgeois is but the symptom of an

enfranchisement, universal, but still far away. That day of deliverance

will arrive, but it will arrive only when all the oppressed in city and

field will rise in a body against their masters. Yes, that great day

will come ... it may take centuries ... but I shall at least have caught

the glamour of its dawn ... and I shall die happy!"

EPILOGUE.

Two months after the victory of the Commune of Laon over its seigniorial

suzerain, the Bishop of Laon, and its episcopals, Fergan the Quarryman

died on the ramparts of the city, defending them against the troops of

Louis the Lusty. The quarryman's apprehensions had been verified, fully

and promptly.

The day after the victory the Mayor, Councilmen and several other

leading citizens, convened to consider the dangers of the situation. An

attack by Louis the Lusty was expected any moment, nor did any give

themselves up to illusions concerning the issue. Left to fight the King

single-handed, the citizens of Laon realized that they would be crushed.

They decided to seek an ally. One of the most powerful seigneurs of

Picardy, Thomas, seigneur of the castle of Marle, known for his bravery,

as well as for his ferocity, in which he equalled Neroweg VI., was a

personal enemy of the King. Shortly before, in 1108, he had leagued

himself with Guy, seigneur of Rochefort, and several other knights, to

prevent the King's being consecrated at Rheims. Despite the iniquitous

character of Thomas de Marle, and against the advice of Fergan, the

Commune of Laon, pressed by danger, made propositions to that seigneur,

who was known to have a large force at his command, for an alliance

against the King. Thomas de Marle, unwilling to affront the royal power,

refused to declare war against the King, but consented, in consideration

of a money payment, to receive on his lands all the communiers who stood

in fear of the royal vengeance.

A considerable number of insurgents, foreseeing the consequences of a

struggle with the King, accepted the offer of Thomas de Marle, and,

carrying their valuables with them, left Laon with wife and children.

Others, Fergan among them, preferred staying in the city and defending

themselves against the King unto death. Although the number of the

communiers was reduced by the migrations to the surrounding regions,

nevertheless, generous and credulous, the remaining inhabitants of Laon

had entered into the pacific overtures of the surviving episcopals, who

were laboring under the demoralizing effect of their recent defeat.

Soon, however, as the latter realized how greatly the ranks of the

communiers were thinned by death, and, above all, by the migrations,

they picked up courage. They ordered the serfs of the abbey to meet in

the market-place on a given day, and, taking them in command, fell upon

the communiers in their own houses. Whoever fell into their hands was

put to the sword. Thus, civil war broke out afresh. The serfs pillaged

and set on fire all the houses of the bourgeois that they succeeded in

capturing. Fergan and Joan, Colombaik and Martine, together with the

apprentices of the tanner, entrenched themselves in their house, which,

happily fortified, enabled them to sustain victoriously more than one

siege to which they were subjected.

During these internal disturbances that decimated still further the

ranks of the remaining communiers, Louis the Lusty was busily engaged

gathering his forces. Learning that Thomas de Marle was giving asylum on

his domains to the inhabitants of Laon, the King first marched against

him, ravaged his lands, besieged him in his fortress of Couchy, took him

prisoner, and mulcted him with a heavy ransom. As to the people of Laon,

found within the territory of Thomas de Marle, the King had them all

sabred or hanged, and their bodies long served as pasture to the birds

of prey. A rich butcher of Laon, Robert the Eater, was tied to the tail

of a fiery horse, and died the frightful death of the Queen Brunhild,

five hundred years before. Through with these bloody executions, Louis

the Lusty marched upon Laon. The Mayor and Councilmen, faithful to their

oaths of defending the Commune with their lives, ran to the ramparts,

together with Fergan, Colombaik and several others of the citizens, to

oppose the entrance of the King. At the last battle a large number of

the communiers fell on the field, dead or wounded. Fergan was killed,

Colombaik was wounded in two places. The defeat of the communiers was

inevitable.

The King took the city and placed a new bishop in the seigniory. But

here also the forecast of Fergan proved correct. Thanks to the

remembrance of the insurrection and of the just reprisals of the

insurgents, the exorbitant privileges of the bishop and noblemen were

modified.

Colombaik was not allowed to taste these limited sweets of the heroic

defence of Laon. Himself and others, among whom were the Mayor and the

Councilmen, too deeply compromised in the insurrection, were banished

from the place, and all their property confiscated. But young and full

of life as well as of hope for the future and of pride at the past,

though ruined, the quarryman's son settled down with his mother and

wife, and resumed his trade as a tanner at Toulouse in Languedoc, where,

thanks to the local advantages of industry and intelligence, commerce

then flourished and, at that season, thought enjoyed freedom.

(The End.)

FOOTNOTES:

[A] A Gallic heroine of the second century.

[B] A Norse chieftain who led a piratical invasion of France in the

eighth century, and was pacified with the fief of Normandy where he and

his followers in arms settled.

[C] William, Archbishop of Tyre, reports this frightful address in his

history of the Crusaders.

[D] Baudry, Archbishop of Dole, says: "It was not imputed a crime to eat

up the Saracens; it was considered to be a waging of war against them

with the teeth."

[E] Four-handed.