THE ABBESS MEROFLEDE.
Upon leaving the workshop, the intendant Ricarik, followed by the old
goldsmith, proceeded to a vast shed located outside of the abbey. Almost
all the slaves and colonists who had ground-rent to pay to the monastery
were gathered at the place. There were four days in the year set aside
for the payment of major rents. At these periods, the products of the
land that was cultivated, and with so much labor, by the Gauls, flowed
in a strong and steady stream into the abbey. Thus abundance and leisure
reigned within the holy precincts of this, the same as of all the other
monasteries, while the enslaved populations, barely sheltered in
thatched hovels, lived in perpetual and atrocious misery, borne down by
all manner of exactions. Few sights could be imagined, more lively and
yet so sad, than those presented at the payment of the ground-rent. The
peasants, barely clad, whether slaves outright or only colonists, whose
leanness told of their trials, arrived carrying on their shoulders or
pushing in carts provisions and products of all sorts. To the tumultuous
noise of the crowd was added the bleating of sheep and calves, the
grunting of pigs, the lowing of cattle, the cackling of poultry--animals
that the rent payers had to bring alive. Some of the men bent under the
weight of large baskets filled with eggs, cheese, butter and honeycombs;
others rolled barrels of wine that were taken to the abbey's gate on a
sort of sled; yonder, wagons were unloaded of their heavy bags of wheat,
of barley, of spelt, of oats or of mustard grain; here, hay and straw
were being heaped up in high piles; further away, kindling wood or
building material, such as beams, planks, boards, vine poles, stakes;
forester slaves brought in bucks, wild boars and venison to be smoked;
colonists led by the leash hunting dogs that they had to train, or
carried in cages falcons and sparrow-hawks that they had taken from
their nests for falconry; others, taxed in a certain quantity of iron
and lead, necessary articles in the construction of the buildings of the
abbey, carried these metals, while others brought rolls of cloth and of
linen, bales of wool or of hemp for spinning, large pieces of woven
serge, packages of cured hides, ready for use. There were also tenants
whose rent consisted in certain quantities of wax, of oil, of soap and
even resinous torches; baskets, osier, twisted rope, hatchets, hoes,
spades and other agricultural implements. Finally, others had to pay
with articles of furniture, and household utensils.
Ricarik sat down at one of the corners of the shed near a table to
receive the money tax of the colonists who were in arrears, while
several turning-box sisters of the convent, dressed in their long black
robes and white veils, went from group to group with a parchment scroll
on which they entered the rent in kind. The old goldsmith stood behind
Ricarik and examined one after another the sous and the silver and
copper deniers that were being paid in. He approved them all. The
venerable old man feared to expose the poor people to bad treatment if
he rejected any coin, seeing the intendant was merciless. The colonists
who were unable to pay on that day made a considerable group, and
anxiously awaited their names to be called. Many of them were
accompanied by their wives and children. Those who had the money to pay
having acquitted themselves, Ricarik called in a loud voice:
"Sebastian!" The colonist advanced all in a tremble with his wife and
two children at his side, all of them as miserably dressed as himself.
"Not only have you not paid your rent of twenty-six sous," said the
intendant, "but last week you refused to cart to the abbey the woolen
and linen goods that the abbess sent to Rennes. A bad payer, a
detestable servant."
"Alack, seigneur! If I have not paid my rent it is because shortly
before harvest time the storm destroyed my ripe wheat. I might still
have saved something if I could have attended to the crop immediately,
but the slaves who work the field with me were requisitioned away five
out of seven days in order to work at the enclosures of the new park of
the abbey and in draining one of the ponds. Left alone, I could not take
in the remnants of the harvest; then came the heavy rains; the wheat
rotted on the ground and the whole harvest was lost. All I had left was
one field of spelt; it had not been badly treated by the storm; but the
field is contiguous to the forest of the abbey, and the deer ravaged the
crops as they did the year before."
Ricarik shrugged his shoulders and proceeded: "You owe besides, six
cart-loads of hay; you did not fetch them in, yet the meadows that you
cultivate are excellent. With the surplus of six cart-loads you could
easily get money and fulfill your engagements."
"Alack, seigneur! I never get to see the first cut of those meadows. The
herds of the abbey come to pasture on my lands from early spring. If I
set slaves to keep them off, a fight breaks out between my slaves and
those of the abbey; one day mine are beaten, the next mine beat the
others. But however it be, I am deprived of the help of their arms.
Besides, seigneur, almost every day has its special duties; one day we
have to prune the vines of the abbey, another we have to plow, harrow
and plant its fields; yet another, we have its crops to cart away;
another day it is the fences that have to be repaired. We have lately
also had ditches to dig when the abbess feared that the convent was to
be attacked by some bands of marauders. At that time we also had to
mount guard.... If out of three nights one is compelled to spend two on
his feet, and then to work from early dawn, strength fails and the work
is neglected."
"What about the cartage that you refused?"
"No, seigneur, I did not refuse to make the cartage. But one of my
horses was foundered with too heavy a load and too long a stretch for
the abbey. It was not possible to execute your orders for the last
cartage."
"If you have only one foundered horse, how do you expect to cultivate
your fields? How will you pay your back rent and the rent of next year?"
"Alack, seigneur! I am in a cruel fix. I have brought with me my wife
and children. Here they are. They join me in beseeching you to remit
what I owe. Perhaps in the future I shall not meet so many disasters one
after another."
At a sign from the unhappy Gaul, his wife and children threw themselves
at the feet of the intendant and with tears in their eyes implored him
to remit the debt. Ricarik answered the colonist: "You have done wisely
in bringing your wife and children with you; you have saved me the
trouble of sending for them. I know of a certain Jew of Nantes called
Mordecai, who loans money on bodily security. He will advance at least
ten gold sous on your wife and two children, both of whom are old enough
to work. You will be able to invest the money in the purchase of a horse
to replace the one that was foundered. Later, after you shall have
reimbursed the Jew his loan, he will return you your wife and children."
The colonist and his family heard with stupor the words of the
intendant, and broke out into sobs and prayers. "Seigneur," said the
Gaul, "sell me if you like as a slave; my condition will not be worse
than it is now; but do not separate me from my wife and children.... I
never shall be able to pay my back rent and reimburse the Jew; I prefer
slavery to my present life as a colonist. Have pity upon us!"
"That will do!" said Ricarik. "You have too numerous a family to feed;
that is what is ruining you.... When you will have only your own needs
to attend to, you will be able to pay your rent, and with Mordecai's
loan you will be enabled to continue to work." Turning thereupon to one
of his men: "Take the wife and children of Sebastian to the Jew
Mordecai, he happens to be here now."
Bonaik sought to mollify the Frank, but in vain, and Ricarik proceeded
to call up by their names other colonists who were in arrears with their
rent. The intendant was at this work when a lad of from seventeen to
eighteen was dragged before him. The lad offered violent resistance to
his captors and cried: "Let me go! I have brought three falcons and two
goshawks for the abbess' perch as my father's rent.... I took them from
their nests at the risk of breaking my bones.... What is it you want?"
"Ricarik," said one of the slaves of the abbey who was dragging the lad,
"we were near the fence of the abbey's perch when we saw a sparrow-hawk,
still hooded, that had escaped from the falconer's hand. The bird flew
only a little distance. Being impeded by its hood, it fell down close to
the fence. This lad immediately threw his cap upon the bird and put it
into his bag. We caught the thief in the act. Here is the bag. The
sparrow-hawk is inside with its hood still on."
"What have you to say?" asked Ricarik of the young lad who remained
somber and silent. "Do you know how the law punishes the theft of a
sparrow-hawk? It condemns the thief to pay three silver sous or to allow
the bird to eat six ounces of flesh from his breast. I have a good mind
to apply the law to you as a salutary example to other hawk thieves....
What have you to say?"
"If our abbess," the lad answered boldly, "gives our flesh for pasture
to her hunting birds, as true as my name is Broute-Saule, sooner or
later I shall have my revenge on her and you!"
"Seize him!" cried Ricarik. "Let him be tied down to a bench outside of
the shed so that his punishment be public.... Let the flesh on his
breast be offered to the sparrow-hawk for pasture!"
"Butcher!" cried the lad. "If I ever catch you or your abbess of the
devil alone, you will make the acquaintance of my knife!"
The crowd of slaves who witnessed the scene broke out into violent
shouts against Broute-Saule, who was impious enough to express himself
in such terms on the abbess Meroflede, and the wretches crowded each
other in their curiosity to witness the punishment. The young Gaul was
stripped of his clothes to the waist and tied down, face up, to a stout
bench that stood outside of the shed. Ricarik then made a slight
incision on the right breast of the lad so as to whet the hawk's
appetite. Attracted by the blood, the bird pounced upon the breast of
Broute-Saule, into whose flesh it stuck its beak.
At this moment the tramp of several horses was heard, and immediately
the slaves and colonists who stood near the bench on which Broute-Saule
lay, and with a greedy gap watched his punishment, fell upon their
knees. The abbess Meroflede had ridden in among them, mounted upon a
vigorous grey stallion. Curious to ascertain the cause of the excited
crowd that stood outside of the shed, the abbess reined in her horse
with a sudden tug at the reins. Meroflede was dressed in a long black
robe; a white veil, fastened under her chin, framed in her face. Clasped
at the height of her neck, a sort of caped red cloak floated in the
breeze over her monastic garb. Slender, tall and graceful, the woman was
about thirty years of age. Her features would have been handsome but for
their combined expression that was alternately sensuous, haughty or
savage. Her face, wan from excess, rivaled by its pallor the whiteness
of the veil that surrounded it, the same as the color of her cloak vied
with her red and lascivious lips that were shaded by a light moustache
of reddish gold. Her hooked nose terminated in palpitating and inflated
nostrils. Her large eyes of sea-green color glistened under thick and
reddish eyebrows. Meroflede reined in her horse near the crowd, which
knelt down, and in doing so discovered to her sight the half-naked
youth, whose breast the sparrow-hawk had begun to peg into. Broute-Saule
turned towards her his face that nestled in his black and wavy hair, and
despite the pain that the bird's beak gave him, the young Gaul, whose
features were expressive of involuntary admiration, cried: "How
beautiful she is!"
Motionless, with the gloved hand that held her whip reclining upon her
thigh, Meroflede looked steadily upon the slave whose flesh the hawk was
eating up; on the other hand, insensible to his own pain, Broute-Saule
contemplated the abbess and repeated in a low voice as if in a rapture:
"How beautiful she is! Oh, madam, the Queen Mary and mother of God is
not more beautiful!"
For a few seconds Meroflede contemplated the spectacle; she then called
Ricarik, leaned down over her saddle, whispered a few words to him, and
casting a last look at Broute-Saule she departed at a gallop without
bestowing upon the kneeling slaves and colonists the benediction that
the poor wretches expected from their abbess.