THE IDIOT.
Among the household serfs of the royal domain of Compiegne was a young
lad of eighteen named Yvon. Since the death of his father, a forester
serf, he lived with his grandmother, the washerwoman for the castle, who
had received permission from the bailiff to keep her grandson near her.
Yvon was at first employed in the stables; but having long lived in the
woods, he looked so wild and stupid that he was presently taken for an
idiot, went by the name of Yvon the Calf, and became the butt of all.
The King himself, Louis the Do-nothing, amused himself occasionally with
the foolish pranks of the young serf. He was taught to mimic dogs by
barking and walking on all fours; he was made to eat lizards, spiders
and grass-hoppers for general amusement. Yvon always obeyed with an
idiotic leer. Thus delivered to the sport and contempt of all, since his
grandmother's death, the lad met at the castle with the sympathy of none
except a poor female serf named Marceline the Golden-haired from the
abundant gold-blonde ornament of her head. The young girl was a helper
of Adelaide, the favorite lady of the Queen's chamber.
The morning of the day that Blanche and Hugh the Capet had met at the
Fountain of the Hinds, Marceline, carrying on her head a bucket of
water, was crossing one of the yards of the castle towards the room of
her mistress. Suddenly she heard a volley of hisses, and immediately
after she saw Yvon enter the yard pursued by several serfs and children
of the domain, crying at the top of their voices: "The Calf!" "The
Calf!" and throwing stones and offal at the idiot. Marceline revealed
the goodness of her heart by interesting herself in the wretch, not that
Yvon's features or limbs were deformed, but that the idiotic expression
of his face affected her. He was in the habit of dressing his long
black hair in five or six plaids interwoven with wisps of straw, and the
coiffure fell upon his neck like as many tails. Barely clad in a sorry
hose that was patched with materials of different colors, his shoes were
of rabbit or squirrel skin fastened with osiers to his feet and legs.
Closely pursued from various sides by the serfs of the castle, Yvon made
several doublings in the yard in order to escape his tormentors, but
perceiving Marceline, who, standing upon the first step of the turret
stairs that she was about to ascend, contemplated the idiot with pity,
he ran towards the young girl, and throwing himself at her feet said
joining his hands: "Pardon me, Marceline, but protect poor Yvon against
these wicked people!"
"Climb the stairs quick!" Marceline said to the idiot, pointing up the
turret. Yvon rose and swiftly followed the advice of the serf maid, who,
placing herself at the door, lay down her bucket of water, and
addressing Yvon's tormentors, who were drawing near, said to them: "Have
pity for the poor idiot, he harms no one."
"I have just seen him leap like a wolf out of the copse of the forest
from the side of the Fountain of the Hinds," cried a forester serf. "His
hair and the rags he has on are wet with dew. He must have been in some
thicket spreading nets for game which he eats raw."
"Oh, he is a worthy son of Leduecq, the forester, who lived like a
savage in his den, never coming out of the woods!" observed another
serf. "We must have some fun with the Calf."
"Yes, yes, let us dip him up to his ears in the neighboring pool in
punishment for spreading nets to catch game with," said the forester;
and taking a step toward Marceline who remained at the door: "Get out of
the way, you servant of the devil, or we shall give you a ducking along
with the Calf!"
"My mistress, Dame Adelaide, a lady of the Queen's chamber, will know
how to punish you if you ill-treat me. Begone, you heartless people!"
"The devil take Adelaide! To the pool with the Calf!"
"Yes, to the pool with him! And Marceline also! A good mud-bath for
both!"
At the height of the tumult, one of the casements of the castle was
thrown open, and a young man of twenty years at most leaned out and
cried angrily: "I shall have your backs flayed with a sound strapping,
you accursed barking dogs!"
"The King!" exclaimed the tormentors of Yvon, and a minute later all had
fled by the gate of the yard.
"Halloa, you girl!" called out Louis the Do-nothing to Marceline who was
taking up her bucket of water. "What was the cause of the infernal
racket made by that noisy pack?"
"Seigneur," answered Marceline trembling, "they wanted to ill-treat poor
Yvon."
"Is the Calf about?"
"Seigneur, I know not where he is gone to hide," explained the maid who
feared lest Yvon, barely escaped from one set of tormentors, should fall
into the hands of the whimsical King. As the latter thereupon withdrew
from the window, Marceline hastened to ascend the stair of the turret.
She had scarcely mounted a dozen steps when she saw Yvon crouching with
his elbows on his knees and his chin in his hands. At the sight of the
maid he shook his head and with a voice full of emotion said: "Good you;
oh, you good! Marceline good!" and he fixed his eyes so full of
gratitude upon her that she observed aloud with a sigh: "Who would
believe that this wretch, with eyes at times so captivating, still is
deprived of reason?" and again laying down her bucket she said to the
idiot: "Yvon, why did you go this morning into the forest? Your hair and
rags are really moist with dew. Is it true that you spread nets to take
game?" The idiot answered with a stupid smile, swaying his head backward
and forward. "Yvon," said Marceline, "do you understand me?" The idiot
remained mute, but presently observing the bucket of water that the maid
had laid down at his feet, he lifted it up, placed it on his own head,
and motioned to Marceline to go up ahead of him. "The poor creature is
expressing his gratitude as well as he can," Marceline was thinking to
herself when she heard steps above coming down the stairs, and a voice
cried out:
"Oh, Calf, is it you?"
"That is the voice of one of the King's servants," said Marceline. "He
is coming for you, Yvon. Oh, you are going to fall into another
tormentor's hands!"
Indeed, one of the men of the royal chamber appeared at the turning of
the winding stairs and said to the idiot: "Come, get up quick and follow
me! Our lord the King wishes to amuse himself with you, you double
Calf!"
"The King! Oh! Oh! The King!" cried Yvon with a triumphant air, clapping
his hands gayly. The bucket being left unsupported on his head, fell and
broke open at the feet of the King's servitor whose legs were thereby
drenched up to his knees.
"A plague upon the idiot!" cried Marceline despite all her
good-heartedness. "There is the bucket broken! My mistress will beat
me!"
Furious at the accident that drenched his clothes, the royal servitor
hurled imprecations and insults upon Yvon the Calf, who, however,
seeming not to notice either the imprecations or the insults, continued
to repeat triumphantly: "The King! Oh! Oh! The King!"