THE MYSTERIOUS CHAMBER.
The mysterious chamber into which Marik Lebrenn now for the first time
introduced his son, his daughter and George Duchene, presented, as far
as exterior appearance went, nothing extraordinary, except that it was
kept always lighted by a pendant lamp of antique workmanship, after the
fashion of certain consecrated sanctuaries. And was not that spot the
sanctuary of pious reminiscences, of the traditions, often heroic, of
that plebeian family? Under the lamp the merchant's children saw a large
cloth-covered table, on which stood a casket of bronze. Around the
casket and musty with centuries, lay a number of articles, some of which
dated back to the very furthest antiquity, and the most recent of which
were the galley-slave's ring, which the merchant had brought with him
from Rochefort, and the casque of the Count of Plouernel.
"My children," said Lebrenn in an impressive voice, indicating the
historic curios gathered upon the table, "behold the relics of our
family. Around each of these articles clusters some memory, some name,
some deed, some date of interest to us. The same as when our descendants
will have the narrative of my experience, written by me, the casque of
Monsieur Plouernel and the galley-slave's ring that I brought with me
from prison will possess their own historic significance. It is in this
manner that almost every generation, of the many of whom we are lineal
descendants, has for now nearly two thousand years furnished its
contribution and tribute to this collection."
"During so many centuries, father!" said Sacrovir with profound
astonishment, and looking at his sister and brother-in-law.
"Yon will later learn, my children, how these relics came down to us.
They do not fill much space, as you may notice. With the exception of
Monsieur Plouernel's casque and the sword of honor bestowed upon my
father at the close of last century, all these articles can be locked
up, as they have often been, in that bronze casket--the tabernacle of
our family archives, that sometimes lay concealed in some sequestered
place, and was often left there for safety during long years, until
better days dawned upon its then possessor."
Lebrenn then took up from the table the first of these fragments of the
past, which lay ranged in chronological order. It was a piece of gold
jewelry, blackened with age, and shaped like a sickle. A movable ring,
attached to the handle, indicated that the jewel was meant to be worn
from a chain or suspended from a belt.
"This little gold sickle, my children," Lebrenn proceeded to explain,
"is a druid emblem. It is the oldest souvenir we possess of our family.
It dates back to the year 57 before Jesus Christ, that is to say,
nineteen hundred years ago."
"And did any of our forefathers wear that jewel, father?" asked Velleda.
"Yes, my child," answered Lebrenn with deep emotion. "She who wore it
was young as you--and gifted with a most angelic heart and proudest
courage withal! But why anticipate the history of the relic? You will
read that narrative of our family in this manuscript," added Lebrenn,
pointing to a booklet which lay beside the gold sickle. The booklet,
like all the older ones of those that were exhibited upon the table,
consisted of a large number of oblong strips of tanned skin,[11] which,
once sewed together by the ends so as to present the appearance of a
long and narrow band, were later, for the sake of greater convenience,
ripped apart and fastened together in the shape of a small tome covered
with black shagreen, on the face of which, in letters of silver, was the
inscription:
YEAR 57 B. C.
"But father," said Sacrovir, "I see upon the table a booklet, very much
like this one, lying beside each of the articles that you have referred
to."
"Because, my children, each of these relics, coming from some one of the
members of our family, is accompanied by a manuscript, written by
himself, and relating his own life, often that of his relatives also."
"Why! Father!" exclaimed Sacrovir more and more amazed. "These
manuscripts--"
"Have all been written by some ancestor of ours. Does that astonish you,
my children? It is hard, I presume, for you to understand how an obscure
family can possess its own chronicles, as if it were of some ancient
royal lineage! Besides, you are naturally wondering how these chronicles
could follow one another without interruption, from century to century,
for nearly two thousand years, down to our own days."
"Indeed, father," said the young man, "that does seem most extraordinary
to me."
"You think that verges on the improbable, do you not?" asked the
merchant.
"No, father," Velleda hastened to explain, "seeing you say it is so. But
it certainly justifies us in wondering."
"I should first of all inform you, my children, that the custom of
transmitting family traditions from generation to generation, be it
orally or in writing, has ever been one of the most characteristic with
our forefathers, the Gauls, and was observed with peculiar religiousness
by the Gauls of Brittany, by them more than by any others. Every family,
however obscure it might be, had its own traditions, while in the other
lands of Europe the habit was observed but rarely even among Princes and
Kings. In order to convince you of this," added the merchant, taking
from the table a small old book that seemed to date from the earliest
days of the printing press, "I shall quote to you a passage translated
from one of the most antique works of Brittany, the authority of which
is unquestioned in the world of learning."
Marik Lebrenn read as follows:
"'Among the Bretons the most obscure people know their forefathers, and
preserve the memory of their full ancestral line, back to the remotest
ages, and they state it in this way, for instance: _Eres_, the son of
_Theodrik_--son of _Enn_--son of _Aecle_--son of _Cadel_--son of
_Roderik_ the Great or the Chief. And so on to the end. Their ancestors
are, to them, the object of a positive cult, and the wrongs which they
punish most severely are those done to their kin. Their revenge is cruel
and sanguinary, and they punish, not the fresh wrongs only, but also the
oldest done to their kin, which they keep steadily in mind so long as
not revenged.' So you see, my children," observed Lebrenn, laying the
book down upon the table, "that explains our family chronicle.
Unfortunately, you will learn that some of our ancestors have been but
too faithful to this custom of pursuing vengeance from generation to
generation. More than once in the course of the ages, the Plouernels--"
"What! Father!" cried George. "Have the ancestors of the Count of
Plouernel been, occasionally, the enemies of our family?"
"Yes, children, you will see it. But let us not anticipate events. You
will readily understand that, if our fathers were from time immemorial
in the habit of handing down a grudge from generation to generation,
they necessarily handed down, along with the grudge, the cause therefor,
besides the leading events of each generation. Thus it happens that our
archives are found written from age to age, down to our own days."
"You are right, father," agreed Sacrovir; "that custom explains what at
first seemed extraordinary to us."
"In a minute I shall give you, my children," the merchant proceeded to
explain, "some further information regarding the language used in these
manuscripts. I must first bespeak your attention for these pious relics,
which will make clear to you many things that you will run across in the
manuscripts. This gold sickle," added the merchant, replacing the jewel
upon the table, "is, as you see, the symbol of manuscript Number 1,
dated the year 57 before Jesus Christ. You will learn that that epoch
was to our family, free at the time, an epoch of happy prosperity, of
virile virtues, of proud principles. It was, alas! the close of a
beautiful day. Frightful disasters came upon its heels--slavery, torture
and death." After a moment's silence during which the merchant remained
steeped in thought, he resumed: "Each of these manuscripts will inform
you, century by century, concerning the life of our ancestors."
For several minutes the eyes of the children of Marik Lebrenn wandered
over the mementoes of the past lying on the table. Their eyes rested
occasionally with greedy curiosity upon one object or another. They
contemplated them in silence, and no less moved than their father.
Attached to the little gold sickle was, as Marik Lebrenn had stated, a
manuscript bearing the date of the year 57 before Jesus Christ.
To manuscript Number 2, dated the year 56 before Jesus Christ, was
attached a little brass bell, very much like the bells which to this
day are attached to the necks of cattle in Brittany. The bell,
accordingly, was at least nineteen hundred years old.
To manuscript Number 3, bearing the date of the year 28 before Jesus
Christ, was attached a fragment of an iron collar, or carcan, corroded
with rust, and on which the outlines of certain Roman letters could be
deciphered, cut into the iron:
SERVUS SUM--(I am the slave).
As a matter of course the name of the slave's owner was on the missing
fragment. The carcan must have been at least eighteen hundred and
seventy-seven years old.
To manuscript Number 4, which was dated the year 32 of our era, was
attached a little silver cross from which hung a tiny little chain of
the same metal. Both seemed to have been blackened by fire. The little
cross was eighteen hundred and seventeen years old.
To manuscript Number 5, dated the year 296 of our era, was attached a
massive copper ornament that once formed part of the top of a casque and
represented a lark with wings partly distended. This fragment of a
casque was fifteen hundred and fifty-three years old.
To manuscript Number 6, dated the year 550 of our era, was attached the
hilt of an iron dagger, black with the mould of ages. On one of its
sides could be seen the word:
GHILDE
on the other the following two words in the Celtic and Gallic tongues
respectively--very much resembling the Breton of our own days:
AMINTIAICH (Friendship)
COMMUNITEZ (Community)
The poniard's hilt was every bit of thirteen hundred years old.
To manuscript Number 7, dated the year 615 of our era, a rusty branding
needle was attached. This article was fully twelve hundred and
thirty-four years old.
To manuscript Number 8, dated the year 737 of our era, an abbatial
crosier was attached. It was of chiseled silver and bore evidence of
once having been gilded over. The name _Meroflede_ could be deciphered
amid the exquisitely wrought ornamentation of the relic. The crosier was
eleven hundred and twelve years old.
To manuscript Number 9, dated the year 811, two pieces of Carlovingian
money were attached. Their reverse bore the effigy of Charlemagne, still
recognizable. One of the coins was of copper, the other of silver. They
were held together by an iron wire. The two coins were ten hundred and
thirty-eight years old.
To manuscript Number 10, dated the year 912, was attached a barbed iron
arrow head. The arrow-head was nine hundred and thirty-seven years old.
To manuscript Number 11, dated the year 999, was attached a fragment of
an infant's skull. The child, judging by the size and structure of the
fragment, must have been between eight and ten years of age. The
external wall of the fragment bore, graven in the Gallic tongue, the
words:
FIN-AL-BRED (The End of the World).
The skull was eight hundred and fifty years old.
To manuscript Number 12, dated the year 1096, was attached a ribbed
white shell, of the sort that is seen on the pictures of pilgrims'
mantles. The frail shell was seven hundred and fifty-three years old.
To manuscript Number 13, dated the year: 1208, was attached a pair of
iron pincers, an instrument of torture, the tongues of which were
serrated so that the teeth fitted exactly into one another. This
instrument of torture was six hundred and forty-one years old.
To manuscript Number 14, dated the year 1358, was attached a little iron
trevet of about twenty centimeters in diameter, that looked as if it,
had been almost fretted out of shape by fire. The trevet was four
hundred and ninety-nine years old.
To manuscript Number 15, bearing the date of the year 1413, was attached
an executioner's knife with a horn handle, the blade of which was eaten
up with rust and partly broken. The knife was four hundred and
thirty-six years old.
To manuscript Number 16, bearing the date of the year 1535, was attached
a little pocket Bible, belonging to the first years of the printing
press. The cover of the book was almost wholly burnt up, likewise the
corners of the pages, as if the Bible had been exposed to fire. Several
pages also bore stains that must have been of blood. The Bible was
three hundred and fourteen years old.
To manuscript Number 17, dated the year 1673, was attached the iron head
of a heavy blacksmith's hammer, on which, engraved in the Breton tongue,
could be read the words:
EZ-LIBR (To be free).
The hammer was one hundred and seventy-six years old.
To manuscript Number 18, dated the year 1794, was attached a sword of
honor, with hilt of gilded copper bearing, the following inscription
engraved on the blade:
JOHN LEBRENN HAS DESERVED WELL OF THE FATHERLAND.
Finally, unaccompanied by any manuscript, and only bearing the dates of
1848 and 1849, came the last two articles that made up the collection:
The dragoon's casque which was presented in February of 1848 to Marik
Lebrenn by the Count of Plouernel, and the iron ring that the merchant
had worn in the galleys of Rochefort that very year of 1849.
It can easily be imagined with what pious respect and burning curiosity
these fragments of the past were examined by the merchant's family. He
interrupted the pensive silence that his children preserved during the
examination, and resumed:
"Accordingly, as you see, my children, these manuscripts relate the
history of our plebeian family for the last two thousand years.
Accordingly, also, this history could be called the history of the
people, of their faults, their excesses, occasionally even of their
crimes Slavery, ignorance and misery often deprave man in degrading
him. But thanks be to God, in our family, the bad acts are rare, while,
on the other hand, numerous have been the patriotic and heroic deeds of
our Gallic forefathers and mothers during their long struggle against
the Roman and then the Frankish conquest. Yes, the men and the
women--for, often will you see in the pages of these narratives that the
women, like worthy daughters of Gaul, vie with the men in abnegation and
intrepidity. Many a one of these touching and heroic figures will remain
cherished and glorified in your memory as the saints of our domestic
legend. Now, one word concerning the language used in these manuscripts.
As you know, my children, your mother and I have ever kept at your side,
since your earliest years, a female servant from our own country, in
order that you might learn to speak the Breton dialect at the same time
that you learned to speak French; furthermore, your mother and I ever
kept you familiar with that dialect by using it frequently in
conversation with you."
"Yes, father."
"Well, my son," said Marik Lebrenn to Sacrovir, "in teaching you the
Breton tongue I had above all in mind--obedient, moreover, to a
tradition in our family, according to which it never forgot its mother
tongue--to enable you to read these manuscripts."
"Are they, then, written in the Breton tongue, father?" asked Velleda.
"Yes, my children. The Breton tongue is none other than the Celtic or
Gallic that was once spoken all over Gaul before the Roman and Frankish
conquests. With the exception of a few changes that have taken place in
the course of the centuries, it has preserved its purity in our
Brittany, down to our own days. Of all the provinces of Gaul, Brittany
was the last to submit to the Frankish Kings who issued from the
conquest. Yes, let us never forget the proud and heroic motto of our
fathers, conquered and despoiled though they were by the invader: _We
still preserve our name, our tongue, our faith._ Now, then, my children,
after two thousand years of struggles and strifes, our family has
preserved its name, its tongue and its faith. We call ourselves
_Lebrenn_, we speak Gallic, and I have raised you in the faith of our
fathers, in the faith of the immortality of the soul and of the
continuity of existence which enables us to look upon death as a change
of habitation, nothing more--a sublime faith the morality of which,
taught by the druids, was summed up in precepts like these: _Adore God;
do no harm; exercise charity; he is pure and holy who performs celestial
works and pure._ Fortunately, my children, we are not the only ones who
preserved the sublime dogma of the continuity of life. Armand Barbes,
one of the bravest militants of the democracy, when taken prisoner and
subsequently condemned to death under the reign of Louis Philippe,
awaited the hour of his execution with religious serenity of soul. The
serenity which he preserved he drew from his faith in the perpetuity of
life, a fundamental principle in our creed. I can do no better, my
friends, than to read to you a page from the writings of Armand Barbes,
the page which he dedicated to the memory of Godefroid Cavaignac, the
publicist of the democracy, entitled: 'Two days of a death sentence.'"
Lebrenn read:
"It was the 12th of June, 1839. After four days' deliberation the
Court of Peers notified me of its sentence. According to the usage
in such cases, it was the registrar who brought me the sentence,
and the honorable Cauchy thought it his duty to add to his message
a little puff for the Roman Catholic and Apostolic religion. I
answered him that I had my own religion and believed in God, but
that that was no reason why I should be in need of the consolations
of a priest, whosoever he might be. I requested him to be kind
enough to inform his masters that I was ready to die, and that I
only hoped that when their last hour approached their soul might be
as tranquil as mine.
"Armand Barbes then proceeds to tell how, instinctively inspired, and
led by the approach of his last hour to a plane of lofty thought, he
recalled with thrilling gratitude the source from which he drew his
supreme tranquility in the face of death. He then says further:
"One day I read in the _New Encyclopedia_ the superb article on
_Heaven_ by John Raynaud. Passing by the irrefutable arguments with
which he incidentally demolishes the heaven and hell of the
Catholics, his leading thought, as taught by the druid faith, of
deriving from the law of progress the infinite series of our lives,
as they continuously progress in worlds that gravitate ever nearer
and nearer to God, seemed to me to satisfy at once all our multiple
aspirations. Do not the moral sense, the imagination, do not our
desires, does not everything find there its place? Nevertheless,
carried away, while I read the article, by the pre-occupations of
an active republican, I gave at the time little thought to
details; all I did with these was to deposit them, so to speak,
undigested in my heart. But later, when picked up wounded on the
street I inhabited a prison cell with the scaffold in perspective,
I drew them out of the place where I held them in reserve as a last
store of wealth the value of which the time had come for me to
appreciate in full--and these thoughts rose naturally to my mind
during my watches, already a victim bound for the executioner,
during these solitary hours when I kept watch in the solemn night
of death.
"I beg pardon of John Raynaud, the elegant encyclopedist, for my
having turned into a vile plummet, in order to meet the exigency of
the moment, the pure gold of his philosophy. Thus, after confirming
with some preliminary reasoning my belief in the immortality of the
soul, meseems a sublime Jacob's ladder unrolled before my eyes,
with its foot resting on the earth to climb heavenward, eternally,
from star to star, from sphere to sphere! The cart, this planet
upon which I had spent thirty years, looked to me to be one of the
innumerable specks where man makes his first landing in
life--whence he begins to climb upwards before God, and, when the
phenomenon which we call death is accomplished, man, drawn by the
attraction of progress, is forthwith re-born in a superior star
with a new expansion of his being.
"So you see, my children, what fortitude of soul the dogma of the
perpetuity of life is able to impart. Let us, then, follow the example
of our forefathers; let us follow in the footsteps of their belief; and
let us, like them, _preserve our name, our tongue and our faith_."
"We shall not fail in that pledge, father," answered Velleda.
"We shall show neither less courage nor less persistence than our
ancestors," added Sacrovir. "Oh, how I shall be thrilled with ecstasy
when I read those venerated lines which they have traced! But is the
chirography of the Celtic or Gallic language the same exactly as the
Breton, which we are accustomed to read, father?"
"No, my boy. Since a number of centuries back, the Gallic chirography,
which originally was the same as the Greek, began to be little by little
modified in the course of time, and finally fell into disuse. But my
grandfather, a working compositor, learned and well lettered,
transcribed into modern Breton all the manuscripts that were in Gallic.
Thanks to his work, you will be able to read those manuscripts as
fluently as you read the legends that our good Gildas loves so well, and
which, composed eight or nine hundred years ago, are still current in
our villages of Brittany, printed on brown paper."
"Father!" exclaimed Sacrovir. "One more question. Did our family always
inhabit our beloved Brittany during all these centuries?"
"No--not always, as you will see in these narratives. The conquest, the
wars, the rude vicissitudes to which a family like ours was exposed in
those evil days, often compelled our forefathers to leave their natal
soil,--sometimes because they were carried away slaves or prisoners into
other provinces; sometimes in order to escape death; other times, again,
in order to gain their bread; still other times in obedience to foreign
laws; and, finally, occasionally driven thereto by the whims of fate.
Nevertheless, few are our forefathers who did not make a certain pious
pilgrimage, as I have made myself, and as you, in turn will make on the
first of January following the year of your majority, that is next
January 1."
"And why on that particular day, father?"
"Because the first day of each new year has ever been a solemn day with
the Gauls."
"And in what does the pilgrimage consist?"
"You will proceed to the druid stones of Karnak, near Auray."
"Indeed, I have heard it said, father, that that assemblage of gigantic
granite blocks, found down to to-day, ranked in a mysterious fashion,
dates back to the remotest antiquity."
"Already two thousand years and more ago, my boy, it was not known at
what epoch--an epoch that is lost in the night of the past--the stones
of Karnak were raised and put in place."
"Oh! father, one is seized as with a vertigo in thinking of the age that
those monumental stones must have."
"Only God knows it, my friends! If we are to judge of their future by
their past, myriads of generations will yet succeed one another at the
feet of those gigantic monuments, which seem to defy the tooth of time,
and upon which the eyes of our fathers have so often rested from century
to century in pious meditation."
"And why did they make the pilgrimage, father?"
"Because the cradle of our family, the fields and the homesteads of the
first of our ancestors of whom these manuscripts make mention, were
situated near the stones of Karnak. As you will see, that ancestor was
named _Joel, en Brenn an Lignez an Karnak_, which, as you know, means
_Joel, the chief of the tribe of Karnak_. He was the chief or patriarch,
chosen by his tribe, or by his clan, as the Scotch call it."[12]
"Accordingly," interjected George Duchene, "your name, father, the name
of _Brenn_, means chief?"
"Yes, my friend, that honorable appellation, attached to the name of
each individual, to his baptismal name, as the saying is since the
advent of Christianity, has in the course of time been transformed into
a family name. The custom of family names does not begin to be generally
observed among plebeian families until towards the Fourteenth or
Fifteenth Century. In earlier days, the son of the first of our
ancestors, for instance, whom I mentioned to you, was called _Guilhern,
mab eus an Brenn_--Guilhern, the son of the chief--then _Kirio_,
grandson of the chief, and so on. In the course of time the words
grandson and great-grandson were suppressed, and the only name added to
the word Brenn, which was corrupted into Lebrenn, was the baptismal one.
Accordingly, almost all the names taken from a trade--as _Carpenter_,
_Smith_, _Baker_, _Weaver_, _Miller_, etc., etc.--have their origin in
some manual occupation, the designation of which has been converted in
the course of time into a family appellation. These explanations may
seem trivial; they nevertheless attest a grave and painful fact--the
absence of a real family name with our brothers of the masses of the
people. Alas! So long as they were slaves or serfs, could people who did
not belong to themselves have a patronymic? Their masters dubbed them
with bizarre and grotesque nicknames, as one gives to a horse or a dog
such names as suit his whim. When the slave was sold to a new master he
was dressed up in a new name. But, as you will see, in the measure that,
thanks to their energetic and unflagging struggle, the oppressed arrived
at a less servile state, the consciousness of their dignity as human
beings developed apace. When, finally, they could have a name of their
own and transmit the same to their children, however obscure, yet always
honorable, it was a sign that they were slaves no longer, nor yet serfs,
although still steeped in wretchedness. The conquest of a proper, or
family name, has been, by reason of the duties it imposes and the rights
that it gives, one of the longest steps taken by our ancestors in the
direction of their complete emancipation. In the manuscripts that we are
about to read you will encounter an admirable sentiment of the Gallic
nationality and of its religious faith--a sentiment all the more
irrepressible, all the more exaggerated, perhaps, by reason of the Roman
and Frankish conquests being felt as galling yokes by those heroic men
and women, who were so proud of their race and who carried their
contempt for death to the point of superhuman grandeur. Let us admire
them, let us emulate them in their ardent love for their country, in
their implacable hatred of oppression, in their belief in the
progressive continuity of life which delivers us from the _disease of
death_. But, while piously glorifying the past, let us continue, in
step with the movement of mankind, to march towards the future. Let us
apt forget that a New World began with Christianity. Unquestionably its
divine spirit of fraternity, equality and freedom has been outrageously
belied, trampled in the dirt, and persecuted since the first centuries
of its era by most of the Catholic bishops, who were themselves holders
of slaves, and were gorged with wealth that they wheedled from the
conquering Franks, in return for the absolution of their abominable
crimes which the high clergy sold to them. It could be no otherwise than
that our fathers, seeing the evangelical word smothered and impotent to
deliver them, took matters into their own hands, rose in rebellion and
in arms against the tyranny of the conquerors, and almost always, as you
will find proof in these manuscripts, where sermons only suffered
shipwreck, revolt secured some lasting concession. It happened obedient
to the time-honored behest--_Help yourself, and heaven will help you_.
Nevertheless, despite the Roman Catholic and Apostolic Church, the
breath of Christianity has passed over the world, and warms it more and
more with that sweet and tender warmth which, notwithstanding all its
grandeur, the druidic faith of our ancestors was lacking in. Thus
rejuvenated and completed, our old druid belief is bound to receive a
fresh impetus. It no doubt was a trying experience for us to undergo,
the loss of even the name of our nationality, and to see the name of
_France_ substituted for that of our old and illustrious Gaul by a
horde of ferocious conquerors.
"No doubt the _Gallic Republic_ would sound no less pleasant to our ears
than the _French Republic_. But our first and immortal Republic has
sufficiently cleansed the French name of whatever monarchic odor clung
to it, by carrying its colors triumphantly over all the lands of Europe.
Moreover, my friends," added the merchant with his habitual smile, "the
same thing happens to that old and brave Gaul as happened to her own
heroic women who rendered themselves illustrious under their husband's
name--although, to be sure, the marriage of Gaul with the Frank came
about in a singularly forced manner."
"I understand that, father," observed Velleda, also smiling. "The same
as many women sign their own family name beside the one they hold from
their husband, all the admirable deeds performed by our heroine under a
name that was not her own should be signed--FRANCE, born GAUL."
"An excellent comparison," remarked Madam Lebrenn. "Our name might
change, our race has remained our race."
"And now," resumed Marik Lebrenn with deep emotion, "now that you are
initiated into the family tradition which founded our plebeian archives,
do you, my children take the solemn pledge to perpetuate them, and to
cause your children to follow your example? Do you, my son, and you, my
daughter, in default of him, pledge yourselves to register in all
sincerity the deeds and events of your own lives, be they just or
unjust, praiseworthy or blamable, to the end that the day when you
depart from this existence to another, the narrative of your own life
may increase our family chronicles, and that the inexorable sense of
justice of our descendants may praise or condemn our memory, according
as we shall have deserved?"
"Yes, father--we swear!"
"Well, then, Sacrovir, this day on which you have completed your
twenty-first year, you are free, agreeable to our traditions, to read
these manuscripts. We shall begin the reading this very evening, in a
family circle, and continue it from day to day. In order that George may
participate, we shall translate into French, as we read."
Marik Lebrenn, his wife and George being gathered together that evening,
Sacrovir Lebrenn began the readings, starting with the first manuscript,
entitled: "The Gold Sickle."
EPILOGUE
I request my reader to leap over the space of time that elapsed since we
left the family of Lebrenn assembled in the room, held to be so
mysterious by Gildas, and which contained the archives or narratives of
the family, which they began to read successively.
It is now Sunday, December 1, 1851. The same personages--Marik Lebrenn,
Henory his wife, Sacrovir, his sister Velleda, and her husband--are
assembled on the evening of that Sunday in the modest upper parlor
connected with the linendraper's shop.
Answering a question put to him by his father, Sacrovir was saying:
"The prophecy came very near being fulfilled in 1848. The thrones shook
everywhere--revolutions in Naples, Vienna, Berlin, Milan, Rome. Italy
was on fire. The German Confederation contemplated declaring itself a
republican federation at the diet of Frankfort. Frankfort was in revolt;
Hungary up in arms; Poland and Spain shook to their very center; all
Europe was in a revolutionary ferment, Russia alone excepted. What,
however, could that country's autocrat do against the confederation of
all the other peoples, leagued against him in a holy, the holiest of
alliances! One more step, and our generation would have hailed the
United States of Europe. Alas! The sublime moment was missed! The plan
miscarried. Will it be long before the opportunity returns?"
"What does it matter, my children," replied Lebrenn, "whether we
actually witness or not the dawn, if we have the certainty that the sun
of that beautiful day is bound eventually to shine over a regenerated
world! The very disappointment of 1848 is a positive earnest that the
prophecy of our ancestress Victoria the Great will be accomplished. Do
you for a moment imagine that the lava is cold which, in 1848, ran
boiling over such wide areas of Europe? No! No! Whatever appearances may
be, whatever the present depression, revolutionary thought is at this
very hour germinating under the soil. It is spreading and gaining in
depth through a thousand underground rootlets. Sooner or later, its
sudden and last irresistible explosion will be heard. Upon the ruins of
the old social system a new social order will be established.
"There can be no doubt whatever, my children, regarding that great and
crowning event. Progress is the law of humanity--for society as well as
for the individual. Our plebeian narratives furnish the irrefutable
proof. Our ancestors, subjected, first by the Roman and then by the
Frankish conquest, to a most galling slavery, progressed by little and
little towards freedom. Originally slaves and sold and exploited and
treated like vile human cattle, they then became serfs, and, from serfs,
vassals. Finally they revindicated and conquered their sovereignty,
consecrated by the immortal Republic of 1792, and confirmed by that of
1848. When we see such progress traced across the pages of the
centuries, how can we entertain any doubts as to what the future has in
store?"
"A knowledge of the past," observed George Duchene, "imparts a firm
faith in the future."
"How strange the emotions that come over one," remarked Velleda, "when
the long procession of the personages of our ancient family files before
our mind's eye in the living flesh, I may say, as if they emerged from
the dust of the ages! _Hena_, the virgin of the Isle of Sen; _Joel_, the
brenn of the tribe of Karnak; _Sylvest_, the Roman slave, and his sister
_Syomara_; then _Genevieve_, who witnessed the execution of Jesus of
Nazareth; _Schanvoch_, the soldier and foster-brother of Victoria the
Great; then _Ronan the Vagre_, the intrepid insurgent against the
Frankish conquest; _Loysik the hermit laborer_, who saw Brunhild die;
_Amael_, Charles Martel's companion in arms, and appointed keeper of the
last pitiful scion of the once redoubtable Clovis; _Vortigern_, the
beloved of Thetralde, Charlemagne's daughter; _Eidiol_, the Parisian
skipper, besides _Gaelo the Pirate_ and ancestor of the Prince of
Gerolstein and companion in arms of Rolf, who became Duke of Normandy
and son-in-law of the French King Charles the Simple; _Yvon the
Forester_, an eye-witness of the death of Louis the Do-Nothing, the last
scion of the Carlovingian dynasty, succeeded by Hugh Capet who enthroned
his house with the aid of adultery and murder; _Fergan the Quarryman_,
serf of the seigneur of Plouernel, and who, departing for Palestine, was
present at the siege and capture of Jerusalem. His son _Colombaik_, one
of the bold communiers of the city of Laon, who battled against their
episcopal seigneur in the endeavor to emancipate the communes from the
feudal yoke; _Karvel the Perfect_, done to death with his sweet wife
_Morise_ during the Crusade against the Albigensians; _Mazurec the
Lambkin_, the husband of Aveline-Who-Never-Lied, daughter of William
Caillet, the immortal chieftain of the Jacques; _Jocelyn the Champion_
who witnessed the martyrdom of Joan Darc, the Maid of Gaul; _Christian
the Printer_, whose daughter _Hena_ was burned alive before Francis I;
_Antonicq_, who battled intrepidly at the siege of La Rochelle by the
side of _Cornelia Mirant_, his brave bride-to-be; _Salaun, the mariner_,
one of the chiefs in the revolt of the vassals of Brittany who
endeavored to impose the Peasant Code upon their seigneurs and bishops
during the reign of Louis XIV. Finally, _John Lebrenn_, our own
grandfather, whose sister _Victoria_ was the victim of the lewdness of
Louis XV--that John Lebrenn, who was commissioned as a guard over Louis
XVI, but who, alas! did not live to hail the Republic of 1848! When so
many members of our race and our blood rise before my mind from the
vasty depths of the centuries that have rolled by, a vertigo seizes me
as I climb the ladder from Age to Age up to the fountainhead of our
family, in the days of the Republic of the Gauls."
Velleda's words were listened to with rapt attention by all the members
of her family. Her father was the first to break the silence:
"My children, if indeed our family history is priceless, the reason
lies in that that history is the history, not of a family merely, but,
above all, of all the proletarians and all the bourgeois of Gallic
extraction, of that Gallic race that was conquered and subjugated by the
Franks, the dominant race, until 1789, the date of their final
emancipation. The struggle of the _Children of Joel_ across the ages
with the _Children of Neroweg_, of whom the Count of Plouernel is a
descendant, is a summary of the centuries-old struggle between the
vanquishers and the vanquished, the oppressors and the oppressed. By
imparting to us a knowledge and the consciousness of what our
forefathers have undergone in order to regain their freedom and their
rights, this history must render us all the prouder and more jealous of
the boon that we have conquered at the cost of so many tears, of such
untold privations, and of such torrents of blood. It must inspire us
with the desire to defend it unto death."
THE END.
* * * * *
Changes made in the text (note of etext transcriber):
I know a fine man=>I knew a fine man
George's counteance=>George's countenance
FOOTNOTES:
[1] "If the Gallic tongue has been in some part preserved by the bards,
and by bards in possession of the druidic traditions, that could only
have taken place in Armorica, that province which for so many centuries
formed an independent state, and which, in spite of its annexation to
France, has remained Gallic in physiognomy, in costume, and in language,
down to our own day."--Ampere, _History of Literature_.
[2] Villemarque, in his excellent _Popular Songs of Brittany_, assigns
this ballad, which is still heard among the strolling ballad-singers of
that province, to the Fourteenth or Fifteenth Century.
[3] _Sounn ann dud Laour_ (The Song of the Poor), Villemarque, _Popular
Songs of Brittany_.
[4] _Popular Songs of Brittany_, Villemarque.
[5] Villemarque traces this chant, still very popular in Brittany, back
to the Eleventh or Twelfth Century; hence for seven or eight hundred
years it has been passed down by word of mouth from generation to
generation.
[6] It is above all for our brothers of the people that we wrote this
history. In a form which we strove to render as fascinating as possible.
We hope they have followed the notes, for these are, so to speak, the
key of the chronicle, and the proof that under the form of romance one
can find the most scrupulous history.
[7] Gregory, Bishop of Tours, says of Clovis, the first Frankish King by
Divine right:
"Having killed several other Kings besides, and even some of his closest
relatives, Clovis extended his power over all the Gauls. Nevertheless,
having one day assembled his men, he is reported to have spoken thus of
the relatives he had himself caused to be executed and murdered:--'Woe
is me, I am left a wanderer among wanderers, and I have no relatives
who, in case of need could come to my assistance.' Not that he was
grieved over their death," adds the Bishop of Tours, "but he held this
language to discover whether there remained anyone _whom he could still
put to death_."--Gregory of Tours, _History of the Franks_, book II,
chapter XLII.
Still this Gallic bishop slurs over the terrible hypocrisy of the
Frankish conqueror, sullied with thefts, murders, incest, and
fratricide. He says:
"Thus each day God caused the enemies of Clovis to fall into his hands,
and extended his kingdom, because he walked with a pure heart before
Him, and did what was agreeable in the eyes of God." (book II, chapter
XL).
On the character of some of the early bishops themselves, Gregory sheds
this light:
"Salone and Sagitaire, Bishops of Embrun and Gap, once masters of their
bishoprics, began to distinguish themselves with a senseless fury by
usurpations, murders, adulteries, and other excesses." (book V, chapter
XXI).
[8] The White Terror, the massacre in the south of France, the
executions without appeal which followed the first restoration of Kings
by Divine right, are well known to all. It did not stop there.
On October 27, 1815, Monsieur Pasquler read in the Chamber a report on
the projected law on seditious speeches and writings:
"We would pronounce," he declared, "the penalty of _hard labor_ against
all seditious slogans, speeches or writings if delivered individually.
"_Death_, if they are the result of concerted action.
"_The same penalty as for parricide_ if they have any noticeable
effect."
Another, Monsieur C----, rose, and in concert with two of his royalist
colleagues proposed with great insistence that the penalty of death be
made applicable to all who hoisted the tricolored flag.
[9] This portrait of courage is justified by the heroic death of two
young girls, about eighteen years old, who, their hair flowing to the
winds, their arms bare, held their place on a barricade near St. Denis
Street in June, 1848.
[10] More than anyone else, we deplored the sad insurrection of June,
1848, and the blood that flowed both before and behind the barricades;
but we are equally revolted by the abominable calumnies with which all
the insurrectionists, without distinction, have been pursued. We call to
witness brave General Pire, who, in a letter to the Representatives of
the people, expresses himself as follows:
"Citizen Representatives, having entered first by force of bayonet
behind the barricade on National St. Martin Street on the 23rd of June,
I found myself for several minutes alone among insurrectionists animated
by unspeakable exasperation. We fought on both sides to the last notch.
They could have killed me; they did not do so. I was in the ranks of the
National Guard, and an old General. They respected a veteran of
Austerlitz and Waterloo. The memory of their generosity will never leave
me. I fought them to the point of death. I found them brave, they spared
my life. They were defeated--unhappy ones with whom I should have shared
my bread, come what might.
"Pire.
"Lieutenant General."
We would also cite this passage from "L'Atelier":
"Three months have passed since the days of June, and now one can judge
coolly of the cause of those terrible events. Doubtless there can be
found, as always, men who exploit, for their ambition, public evils, men
who would sacrifice the whole world to their hateful spirit of egotism.
But the true mover, that which put guns in the hands of 30,000
combatants, was the desolating misery which deprives men of their
reason. Fathers of families can alone judge of its sway.
"Here is the testimony of one whom the Council of War has just condemned
to ten years at hard labor:
"'I had been hunting two days for work, and was unable to find any.... I
returned to my sick wife. She was lying on her bed without waist or
vest, with a rag of cover thrown over her. For an instant I thought of
suicide, but I rejected the idea when I saw at her side the little pink
face of my Infant, who slept deep in such misery.... My wife died. I
remained alone with my two children. It was two days before the
insurrection. My son, showing me the basket that he carried lunch in
regularly to school, said to me, "Papa, haven't you given me anything?"
Well, sir, that is why I listened to my unhappy comrades.... I had
suffered like them.... When they came for me, I yielded, but I said: "I
beg of you, by the memory of my poor holy mother: if we are defeated, I
shall be thrown into a dungeon, I shall not complain, I shall not
reproach you; but if we are the victors,--no vengeance, pardon to all,
for this war among Frenchmen is horrible."'--Testimony of N. A., before
the Council of War."
[11] "The use of tanned skins for writing dates back to remote
antiquity, and was common among the people of Asia, as well as among the
Greeks, Romans and Gauls. At the Library at Brussels is a manuscript of
the Pentateuch which is thought to antedate the Ninth Century B. C. It
is written on fifty-seven skins sewed together, making a roll of about
forty yards in length."--Ludovic Lalaune, _Curiosities of Bibliography_,
p. 11.
[12] "Antique geneologies, diligently kept by the bards, seemed to
designate those who could pretend to the dignity of chiefs of a canton
or family; for these words were synonymous in the tongue of the Gallic
Breton, and the lines of descent were the basis of their social
status."--Augustin Thierry, _Social State of the Bretons, History of the
Conquest of Britany_, pp. 10, 11.