IN WHICH THE QUIQUENDONIANS ADOPT A HEROIC RESOLUTION.
We have seen to what a deplorable condition the people of Quiquendone
were reduced. Their heads were in a ferment. They no longer knew or
recognized themselves. The most peaceable citizens had become
quarrelsome. If you looked at them askance, they would speedily send
you a challenge. Some let their moustaches grow, and several—the most
belligerent—curled them up at the ends.
This being their condition, the administration of the town and the
maintenance of order in the streets became difficult tasks, for the
government had not been organized for such a state of things. The
burgomaster—that worthy Van Tricasse whom we have seen so placid, so
dull, so incapable of coming to any decision— the burgomaster became
intractable. His house resounded with the sharpness of his voice. He
made twenty decisions a day, scolding his officials, and himself
enforcing the regulations of his administration.
Ah, what a change! The amiable and tranquil mansion of the burgomaster,
that good Flemish home—where was its former calm? What changes had
taken place in your household economy! Madame Van Tricasse had become
acrid, whimsical, harsh. Her husband sometimes succeeded in drowning
her voice by talking louder than she, but could not silence her. The
petulant humour of this worthy dame was excited by everything. Nothing
went right. The servants offended her every moment. Tatanémance, her
sister-in-law, who was not less irritable, replied sharply to her. M.
Van Tricasse naturally supported Lotchè, his servant, as is the case in
all good households; and this permanently exasperated Madame, who
constantly disputed, discussed, and made scenes with her husband.
“What on earth is the matter with us?” cried the unhappy burgomaster.
“What is this fire that is devouring us? Are we possessed with the
devil? Ah, Madame Van Tricasse, Madame Van Tricasse, you will end by
making me die before you, and thus violate all the traditions of the
family!”
The reader will not have forgotten the strange custom by which M. Van
Tricasse would become a widower and marry again, so as not to break the
chain of descent.
Meanwhile, this disposition of all minds produced other curious effects
worthy of note. This excitement, the cause of which has so far escaped
us, brought about unexpected physiological changes. Talents, hitherto
unrecognized, betrayed themselves. Aptitudes were suddenly revealed.
Artists, before common-place, displayed new ability. Politicians and
authors arose. Orators proved themselves equal to the most arduous
debates, and on every question inflamed audiences which were quite
ready to be inflamed. From the sessions of the council, this movement
spread to the public political meetings, and a club was formed at
Quiquendone; whilst twenty newspapers, the “Quiquendone Signal,” the
“Quiquendone Impartial,” the “Quiquendone Radical,” and so on, written
in an inflammatory style, raised the most important questions.
But what about? you will ask. Apropos of everything, and of nothing;
apropos of the Oudenarde tower, which was falling, and which some
wished to pull down, and others to prop up; apropos of the police
regulations issued by the council, which some obstinate citizens
threatened to resist; apropos of the sweeping of the gutters, repairing
the sewers, and so on. Nor did the enraged orators confine themselves
to the internal administration of the town. Carried on by the current
they went further, and essayed to plunge their fellow-citizens into the
hazards of war.
Quiquendone had had for eight or nine hundred years a _casus belli_ of
the best quality; but she had preciously laid it up like a relic, and
there had seemed some probability that it would become effete, and no
longer serviceable.
This was what had given rise to the _casus belli_.
It is not generally known that Quiquendone, in this cosy corner of
Flanders, lies next to the little town of Virgamen. The territories of
the two communities are contiguous.
Well, in 1185, some time before Count Baldwin’s departure to the
Crusades, a Virgamen cow—not a cow belonging to a citizen, but a cow
which was common property, let it be observed—audaciously ventured to
pasture on the territory of Quiquendone. This unfortunate beast had
scarcely eaten three mouthfuls; but the offence, the abuse, the
crime—whatever you will—was committed and duly indicted, for the
magistrates, at that time, had already begun to know how to write.
“We will take revenge at the proper moment,” said simply Natalis Van
Tricasse, the thirty-second predecessor of the burgomaster of this
story, “and the Virgamenians will lose nothing by waiting.”
The Virgamenians were forewarned. They waited thinking, without doubt,
that the remembrance of the offence would fade away with the lapse of
time; and really, for several centuries, they lived on good terms with
their neighbours of Quiquendone.
But they counted without their hosts, or rather without this strange
epidemic, which, radically changing the character of the
Quiquendonians, aroused their dormant vengeance.
It was at the club of the Rue Monstrelet that the truculent orator
Schut, abruptly introducing the subject to his hearers, inflamed them
with the expressions and metaphors used on such occasions. He recalled
the offence, the injury which had been done to Quiquendone, and which a
nation “jealous of its rights” could not admit as a precedent; he
showed the insult to be still existing, the wound still bleeding: he
spoke of certain special head-shakings on the part of the people of
Virgamen, which indicated in what degree of contempt they regarded the
people of Quiquendone; he appealed to his fellow-citizens, who,
unconsciously perhaps, had supported this mortal insult for long
centuries; he adjured the “children of the ancient town” to have no
other purpose than to obtain a substantial reparation. And, lastly, he
made an appeal to “all the living energies of the nation!”
With what enthusiasm these words, so new to Quiquendonian ears, were
greeted, may be surmised, but cannot be told. All the auditors rose,
and with extended arms demanded war with loud cries. Never had the
Advocate Schut achieved such a success, and it must be avowed that his
triumphs were not few.
The burgomaster, the counsellor, all the notabilities present at this
memorable meeting, would have vainly attempted to resist the popular
outburst. Besides, they had no desire to do so, and cried as loud, if
not louder, than the rest,—
“To the frontier! To the frontier!”
As the frontier was but three kilometers from the walls of Quiquendone,
it is certain that the Virgamenians ran a real danger, for they might
easily be invaded without having had time to look about them.
Meanwhile, Josse Liefrinck, the worthy chemist, who alone had preserved
his senses on this grave occasion, tried to make his fellow-citizens
comprehend that guns, cannon, and generals were equally wanting to
their design.
They replied to him, not without many impatient gestures, that these
generals, cannons, and guns would be improvised; that the right and
love of country sufficed, and rendered a people irresistible.
Hereupon the burgomaster himself came forward, and in a sublime
harangue made short work of those pusillanimous people who disguise
their fear under a veil of prudence, which veil he tore off with a
patriotic hand.
At this sally it seemed as if the hall would fall in under the
applause.
The vote was eagerly demanded, and was taken amid acclamations.
The cries of “To Virgamen! to Virgamen!” redoubled.
[Illustration: “To Virgamen! to Virgamen!”]
The burgomaster then took it upon himself to put the armies in motion,
and in the name of the town he promised the honours of a triumph, such
as was given in the times of the Romans to that one of its generals who
should return victorious.
Meanwhile, Josse Liefrinck, who was an obstinate fellow, and did not
regard himself as beaten, though he really had been, insisted on making
another observation. He wished to remark that the triumph was only
accorded at Rome to those victorious generals who had killed five
thousand of the enemy.
“Well, well!” cried the meeting deliriously.
“And as the population of the town of Virgamen consists of but three
thousand five hundred and seventy-five inhabitants, it would be
difficult, unless the same person was killed several times—”
But they did not let the luckless logician finish, and he was turned
out, hustled and bruised.
“Citizens,” said Pulmacher the grocer, who usually sold groceries by
retail, “whatever this cowardly apothecary may have said, I engage by
myself to kill five thousand Virgamenians, if you will accept my
services!”
“Five thousand five hundred!” cried a yet more resolute patriot.
“Six thousand six hundred!” retorted the grocer.
“Seven thousand!” cried Jean Orbideck, the confectioner of the Rue
Hemling, who was on the road to a fortune by making whipped creams.
“Adjudged!” exclaimed the burgomaster Van Tricasse, on finding that no
one else rose on the bid.
And this was how Jean Orbideck the confectioner became general-in-chief
of the forces of Quiquendone.