"My dearly beloved Gloriande," said the Sire of Nointel, rising quickly, "allow me to accompany you."
"Yes, I wish you would, Conrad.... I shall take some air at the window of my room.... I think that will do me good."
"Come, my children," said the seigneur of Chivry, resignedly, "I shall start my song all over again at to-morrow's feast;" and then added: "Let the maids of honor kindly accompany the bride, according to custom, as far as the door of the nuptial chamber."
At these words several of the young ladies regretfully quitted the knights near whom they sat and surrounded the bride, while Conrad walked around the immense table to join his wife, and two pages threw open the doors of the bridal chamber, brilliantly lighted by torches of perfumed wax. The nuptial couch was seen at the end of the chamber, surmounted with an armorial canopy, and half concealed behind curtains of tapestry that glistened with silver thread. Suddenly the voice of Gerard of Chaumontel, more and more intoxicated, was heard crying:
"Noble dames and damosels, I request leave to prove to you that I am a man ... of singular powers of divination!"
"Prove it! Prove it!" gayly came from the guests. "Prove it to us, to-night! We listen! Give us the proof!"
"Last year," proceeded Gerard, "on the day of the tourney of Nointel, where all of you were present, and where Jacques Bonhomme kicked some capers, Conrad ordered several of the scamps to be hanged, and to drown the one whom I vanquished in a judicial combat, all according to usage and custom."
"I very much would like to see a villein drown," cried a lad of eleven years, son of the Sire of Bourgeuil. "I have seen villeins whipped, I have seen their ears cropped, I have seen them hanged and quartered, but never have I seen any drowned. Father, ... will you not have a villein drowned ... for me to see?... I would like to see a villein drowned.... I have taken the fancy."
"My son," the Sire of Bourgeuil answered the child in a magisterial tone, "your interruption is unbecoming. You should have waited till the knight finished before expressing your wish to me."
"Well," continued Gerard of Chaumontel, "the rustic whom I vanquished, at the moment of taking his first and last bath, cried out to me with the voice of a devil who has caught cold: 'You cause me to be drowned, you shall be drowned!' and to Conrad: 'You outraged my wife, your wife shall be outraged!'"
"The knight of Chaumontel is tipsy," murmured several guests.
"Such lugubrious stories about hanging and drowning are out of place at a wedding."
"Enough, Sir knight! Enough!"
"Drink your wine in peace, good Sir!"
"Wait till I prove it to you ... how I am a man of singular powers of divination," continued Gerard. But the hisses drowned his voice, and the Sire of Nointel, shivering despite himself at the mournful recollection now evoked by his friend, took the hand of Gloriande whom the maids of honor surrounded and said to her while marching towards the nuptial chamber: "Listen not to the fool; he is tipsy.... Come, my beloved.... Love awaits us."
Suddenly an equerry appeared like a specter at the large door of the hall. His face was livid and his body streamed blood. He took two steps forward, swayed on his feet and dropped down upon the stone slabs which he reddened with his blood. With his last dying breath he uttered these words "My seigneur.... Oh, my seigneur.... Save yourself!"
At the spectacle a cry of horror and fear leaped from every mouth. The belle Gloriande, seized with terror, threw herself into Conrad's arms. The guests, pale and stupefied, were for an instant struck silent, while from the distance a formidable noise seemed to approach. Another equerry, also pale as a ghost and bleeding, ran in screaming in a broken voice:
"Treason!... Treason!... The English prisoners have cut the throats of the guards at the main gate of the castle.... They opened it to a furious multitude.... The assailants are here!"
Immediately the cry of "Jacquerie! Jacquerie!" repeated from hundreds of throats, resounded outside the banquet hall, and the glasses of the windows, beaten in with axes and pitchforks, flew in all directions with a wild rush.
A numerous band of Jacques, led by Adam the Devil and his blackened companions who had performed the rôle of English prisoners in that same hall that same morning, now rushed in through the doors and broken windows. Guided by an identical impulse, the terror-stricken noble assemblage crowded towards the principal door expecting to escape at that issue. Their exit was, however, intercepted by William Caillet and Mazurec, who appeared at the threshold at the head of still another band of Jacques armed with staves, scythes, forks and axes. Almost all these peasants in arms were vassals of the seigneurs of Chivry and Nointel. At the sight of the wan, savage, blood-stained, half-naked mob, bearing on their bodies the impress of serfdom, the dames and damosels uttered cries of terror and huddled together in wild panic into the extreme corner of the hall. The seigneurs, having according to usage doffed their armor to don their gala dress, seized the table knives and the flagons of glass and silver to defend themselves. The joyous fumes of wine that at first confused their minds were soon dissipated and they ranked themselves into an improvised barrier before the women.
William Caillet swung his axe three times. At that signal the tumultuous clamors of the Jacques was hushed by little and little until the silence became profound, disturbed only by exclamations and moans from the affrighted noble women.
"My Jacques!" cries Caillet. "You brought ropes along. First of all bind fast all the noblemen; kill on the spot whoever resists; but keep alive the father and the husband of the bride; also to keep alive the knight of Chaumontel. We have an account to settle with them."
"I shall take charge of those three," said Adam the Devil. "Follow me, my alleged Englishmen. Get the ropes ready."
The vassals flew upon the seigneurs. A few of them offered a desperate resistance and were killed, but the larger number of the knights, demoralized and terror-stricken by the suddenness of the attack allowed themselves to be bound. Among these were the aged seigneur of Chivry, Gerard of Chaumontel and the Sire of Nointel, the last of whom was torn from the arms of his bride. More furious than frightened, Gloriande gave a loose to imprecations and insults that she hurled at the revolted serfs. Adam the Devil seized and overpowered her, tearing in the attempt her wedding dress to shreds, and tied her hands behind her back, while with refined ferocity he observed:
"To each his turn, my noble damosel.... Last year you laughed at us at the tourney of Nointel.... Now it is our turn to laugh at you, my amorous belle!"
"This English prisoner knows me!" exclaimed Gloriande. "Is all this but a horrible dream? Conrad, revenge your wife!"
"I am a vassal of the seigniory of Nointel, and not an Englishman, my belle," answered Adam the Devil. "The rôle of prisoner was imposed upon us by your noble husband, your valiant knight, the Sire of Nointel, too much of a coward to make real prisoners. He met us just outside of the forest and ordered us under pain of hanging to accompany him hither and be the accomplices of his trick upon you by figuring as the English prisoners that he was to lead to you from the battle that was fought. We consented to the masquerade. It helped us in our plan to enter your father's castle. One of us, managing to escape on the road, took to our companions the order to draw near the manor by nightfall. We cut the throats of the guards, lowered the bridge and let our Jacques in. Now we are going to laugh at you, my belle ... just as you laughed at us at the tourney of Nointel! It is now our turn to feast."
Gloriande allowed Adam the Devil to speak without interrupting him. And shuddering with painful indignation she cried: "Conrad lied.... Conrad is a coward!"
"Yes, your nobleman of a husband is a liar and a coward," rejoined Adam the Devil, dragging Gloriande towards the other extremity of the hall. "A beauty like you deserves a braver husband. I shall take you to the kind of lover you have been dreaming of."
Gloriande of Chivry forgot for a moment the dangers that beset her and the terror that had begun to seize her mind. Overwhelmed by the idea, horrible to her pride, that Conrad of Nointel was a coward, she let herself be dragged without resistance towards the other end of the hall.
In the center of the Jacques who had formed a circle stood William Caillet reclining on the handle of his heavy axe; near him were Jocelyn the Champion with his arms across his breast, and Mazurec the Lambkin, now the widower of Aveline-who-never-lied. Only partly clad in rough sheep-skin, his hair matted, his arms bare and blood-bespattered, with the cavity of one eye hollow, his nose crushed, his upper lip split—the serf presented a repulsive aspect. Adam the Devil pushed Gloriande towards Mazurec saying: "There is your new husband! Come, my pretty lass, embrace your lord and master!"
At the sight of the disfigured serf Gloriande drew back and uttered a cry of fright; but terror palsied her brain when she saw Mazurec slowly advancing upon her with his one eye burning with hatred, and laying his callous hand upon her shoulder say in a hollow voice: "In the name of force ... you are mine ... the same as in the name of force my bride Aveline belonged to Conrad of Nointel...."
"What is the monster saying?" muttered the distracted Gloriande drawing back and seeking to free herself from the grasp of the vassal. "Father!... Come to my help, father!"
The noble seigneur of Chivry lay nearby bound hand and foot, the same as Gerard of Chaumontel and Conrad of Nointel, the last of whom, out of his senses with fright and crushed with remorse, neither heard nor saw aught, but was muttering between his teeth: "Have mercy upon me, my Lord God!... I am a great sinner.... I repent having outraged that vassal's bride...."
"Help, father!" Gloriande continued to cry, ever seeking to escape the grip of Mazurec, whose nails, now long and bent like those of a bird of prey, dug deep into the flesh of the Sire of Nointel's bride and held her firmly while he exclaimed: "This noble damosel is mine!"
"Vassal!" cried the seigneur of Chivry gasping for breath and addressing Caillet: "You are the chief of these bandits; save my daughter's life and honor and I promise to pardon you.... Be merciful.... I swear by the living God, I shall remit the punishment that your crimes deserve!"
"Noble seigneur," replied the chief of the Jacques with ominously sinister calmness, "the wedding day of the child whom we love is a beautiful day! It is a beautiful day for the nobles—"
"Oh, indeed I believed this morning that the wedding day of my daughter Gloriande would be a beautiful day for me."
"So did I imagine on the morning of the day when my daughter Aveline-who-never-lied wedded.... A vassal has a father's heart.... I tenderly loved my daughter.... She was a sweet and pure girl, the pride of my miserable life.... Your son-in-law, the Sire of Nointel, had my daughter dragged to his bed ... the next day he returned her to me!"
"The Sire of Nointel only exercised the right he has over all brides who are not noble!... It is his right of first fruits.... It is the feudal law!"
"Conrad of Nointel exercised a right that he derived from force.... To-day the Jacques are stronger, and they will, in turn, exercise their right," answered Caillet without abandoning his savage calmness. "Mazurec, my daughter's bridegroom sought to resist the ignomy she was threatened with.... In punishment for his rebellion he was compelled to make the amende honorable on his knees before his seigneur.... Yesterday my daughter, together with so many other victims, was smothered to death by the smoke that the bailiff of the Sire of Nointel ordered the cavern in which they had taken refuge to be filled with.... 'An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth!' ... So says Scripture.... The Sire of Nointel has outraged the bride of Mazurec the Lambkin.... Now the bride of the Sire of Nointel belongs to Mazurec."
The Jacques greeted the sentence of their chief with triumphant acclaim, while with one kick Adam the Devil broke open the door of Gloriande's nuptial chamber, and by the light of the torches of perfumed wax that burned within from massive candlesticks of silver, the Jacques saw the dazzling interior of the apartment.
Painting with terror Gloriande still struggled with Mazurec who dragged her to the nuptial couch. "Father! Deliver me!" cried the agonized belle.
"Thus did Aveline call me to her help," said William Caillet with his foot on the Count of Chivry. "You shall drain the cup to the lees!"
"Oh, death! rather than to witness such atrocities!" cried the Sire of Nointel. "Heaven and earth! To see that miserable vassal dare to lay hands upon Gloriande! The scamp is tearing down the curtains! He means to violate my bride!"
"Oh! Oh! You are a rebel!" cried Adam the Devil laughing loudly. "We now sentence you to make the amende honorable on both knees before your master and seigneur, Jacques Bonhomme, in the person of Mazurec; and you shall beg his pardon for having insulted him ... for calling him scamp!"
"Conrad, let us know how to die!" cried the knight of Chaumontel. "We shall soon be revenged upon these scamps; not one of them will escape the lances of the knights."
Jocelyn the Champion, who had until then stood by an impassive witness, now stepped forward and heavily laying his iron gauntlet upon the knight's shoulder said to him: "You fought cased in iron against my brother Mazurec who was half naked and armed only with a stick. I have decided that you shall now fight him, yourself half naked and armed with a stick, he cased in iron. If you are vanquished you shall be thrown into a bag and drowned. To-day, from appellee, Jacques Bonhomme has become appellant."
"But before the combat," cried Adam the Devil, "let us take supper, my Jacques; the table is set; plenty of wine is still left in the flagons; also meats on the dishes!... Let us feast before the eyes of these seigneurs, the fathers, brothers or husbands of yonder dames and damosels!... Fall to, my Jacques! Long live love and wine! After the feast we shall lock up this whole nobility, men, women and children, in the underground prisons of the castles! The ruins of the burnt-down manor shall be their fitting tombstone.... Fall to, Jacques Bonhomme.... Long live love and wine, and ours be the dames and damosels of these nobles!"
CHAPTER V.
THE ORVILLE BRIDGE.
Night is about to yield to day; the moon is setting; the first glimmerings of dawn begin to crimson the eastern sky. The troop of Jacques, who fired the manor of Chivry after putting its noble tenants to the sword, is now marching towards the bridge that spans the Orville river, and from which, the year before, tied in a bag, Mazurec was thrown into the water. At the head of the troop march William, Mazurec, Jocelyn and Adam the Devil. Behind them follow the Jacques leading the Sire of Nointel and the knight of Chaumontel, half naked, unarmed and pinioned. His head covered with the casque, clad in the cuirass and coat of mail, and armed with the dagger and sword of the knight of Chaumontel, Mazurec marches between Jocelyn the Champion and Caillet. Halting at the crest of the hill they had just ascended, and which commanded a wide view of the surrounding country, the latter cried pointing in several directions of the horizon that was either lighted with flames or darkened with black clouds:
"Do you see the castles of Chivry, of Bourgeuil, of Saint-Prix, of Montsorin, of Villiers, of Rochemur and so many others, aye, so many others, set this night on fire, sacked and their noble masters put to the sword by bands of revolted serfs?... Do you hear the village bells summoning the serfs to arms?... They sound still! They are summoning the Jacques to the hunt of the nobles!"
Indeed, the hurried peals of the bells, loudly sounding from a large number of villages that lay scattered in the fields and forests, reached the hill, carried thither by the morning breeze. The horizon, reflecting the flames that were devouring so many feudal manors, itself seemed on fire. Hardly were the first rays of the sun able to penetrate the thickness of the somber mass of smoke.
"The sight is worth the music!" remarked Adam the Devil listening to the sound of the bells. Crossing his arms behind him, spreading out his legs, and poising himself on his robust loins he swept with an eager eye the flaming curtain of the distant conflagrations. "There they are on fire and in ruins, those proud donjons cemented in the blood and the sweat of our people, and that for centuries have been the terror of our fathers! Ha! Ha! Ha!" and laughing boisterously the serf proceeded: "What mournful scenes must now be enacting at those manors!"
"At this hour," observed Caillet, "in Beauvoisis, in Laonnais, in Picardy, in Vermandois, in Champagne, everywhere, in the Isle of France, Jacques Bonhomme is making similar bonfires! Everywhere the nobility and their supporting priests are being massacred!"
"I wish I could see all the fires!" exclaimed Adam the Devil, raising his head. "I would like to hear all the cries uttered by these nobles!"
"Oh!" observed Jocelyn, with profound sorrow, "if the cries of our fathers, the male and female serfs and vassals, who for so many hundreds of years have endured martyrdom, could reach us across the centuries!... Oh! if the cries of our mothers, borne down by serfdom, starved in misery, and outraged by the seigneurs, could now reach us across these many centuries.... If that could be, then the frightful concert of maledictions, of imprecations and of cries of pain that would reach us would drown that which now goes up from these feudal strongholds!... The hour of justice has come at last!"
"Brother," said Mazurec, sad and dejected, while hastening his steps so as to leave Caillet and Adam the Devil behind and snatch a few moments of privacy with Jocelyn, "I have an admission to make to you ... and perhaps also to pray your indulgence for a weakness of my heart.... When I had dragged the bride of Conrad into her nuptial chamber ... and after the door was closed behind us, Gloriande threw herself at my feet, and with joined hands she implored mercy. I said to myself: 'My poor Aveline must have prayed for mercy ... she must have suffered terribly.' I wept at the thought of Aveline; I forgot my hatred and my vengeance. Seeing me weep, Gloriande redoubled her supplications. I then said to her: 'In my condition of serf I had but one joy in the world, the love of Aveline-who-never-lied.... She was outraged by my seigneur, your bridegroom.... After months of suffering and despair she died, smothered by smoke in the cavern of Nointel shortly before being delivered of the child of her shame.... It seems to me I see my poor Aveline, on her knees, like you now, asking for mercy.... It is her whom I pity.... You need not fear me!' And Gloriande took my hands in hers, kissed and moistened them with her tears.... She begged me to allow her to escape by a secret passage. I consented. I remained in the room, thinking of Aveline until they set fire to the castle. I did not wish to outrage my seigneur's bride.... Vengeance would not have restored to me my lost happiness."
"Oh, my poor brother! Gentle soul! Generous heart!" answered Jocelyn, deeply moved. "You whom nature made Mazurec the Lambkin and whom your master's ferocity transformed into Mazurec the Wolf! You were born to love, not to hate! Oh, you speak truly! Vengeance does not return the lost happiness! Sublime martyr, you need no indulgence for your generous conduct! Your heart did not fail you; it inspired itself with the principle of mercy proclaimed by the young carpenter of Nazareth!" And seeing that Adam the Devil and Caillet were approaching, Jocelyn added, in a low voice: "Brother, let none know that you respected Gloriande; above all, Conrad must, for his punishment, believe that his bride was dishonored!" Turning then to Caillet, who had just joined the two, Jocelyn observed: "We shall soon be at the Orville bridge. Our friends are anxious we should reach the spot quickly. The work of punishment is not yet finished."
The slanting rays of the sun now glisten in the rapid waters of the Orville that the previous year had swallowed up Mazurec pinioned and tied in a bag. On its banks still stand the trunks of the old willow trees from which were hanged the serfs caught in the riot of the tourney. The morning breeze agitates the reeds that concealed Adam the Devil and Jocelyn during the preparations for the death of Mazurec, and from behind which they had succeeded in rescuing him.
The Jacques arrived at the bridge, crossed it and stepped upon the broad meadow in the middle of which the last year's tourney given by the seigneur of Nointel was held. They halted there. A large number of them had been spectators of the passage of arms, and had afterwards witnessed the judicial duel between Mazurec and the knight of Chaumontel. Obedient to the orders of Caillet, several peasants proceeded to cut it with their scythes young tree branches, that they stuck in the ground, forming an enclosure about thirty feet square, in imitation of the fence or barrier of tourneys. The enclosure being ready, the Jacques crowded in dense ranks around it.
At a signal, William Caillet approached the men who led the pinioned Sire of Nointel and the knight of Chaumontel. The latter, though pale, still preserved his resoluteness; the former, however, looking dejected and discouraged, was now a prey to superstitious terror. He sees verified the sinister prophecy of his vassal, who the year before had said to him: "You have outraged my bride, your bride shall be outraged."
Of all his attire, the Sire of Nointel has preserved only his jerkin and velvet shoes, now in shreds from the roughness of the road. Cold drops of perspiration gather at his temples. Caillet addresses him: "Last year my daughter was forcibly placed in your bed ... last night Mazurec, the wronged bridegroom whom we saved from the watery grave that you decreed to him, returned outrage for outrage.... My daughter and many other victims died an atrocious death in the cavern of the forest of Nointel, last night your bride and many other nobles died in the underground dungeons of the castle of Chivry that Jacques Bonhomme set on fire.... But that is not yet enough. Mazurec was sentenced to make the amende honorable to you because he insulted you; seeing that you insulted Mazurec when he dragged away your wife, you shall now make the amende honorable on your knees before Mazurec. If you refuse," added Caillet, seeing the enraged seigneur stamp the ground with his feet, "if you refuse, I shall then sentence you to the same death that you have inflicted upon several of your vassals. Two young and strong trees shall be bent, you shall be tied by the feet to the one and by the arms to the other, the saplings will then be let free to straighten themselves up again.... You are forewarned, Sire of Nointel!"
"I witnessed the death of my friend Toussaint the Heavy-bell, who was dismembered in that manner by your orders between two oak saplings!" interposed Adam the Devil. "I know exactly how it must be done in order to manage that torture successfully. Now choose between the amende honorable or the death we just described."
"Submit, Conrad!" said the knight of Chaumontel, with bitter disdain. "Let us submit to the extreme limit of the excesses of these varlets. We will be revenged. Oh, soon again the casque will resume the upperhand over the woolen cap, and the lance over the fork."
Shivering with dismay at the threatened torture, Conrad of Nointel answered his friend in a hoarse voice: "Gerard, do not leave me alone!"
"I shall be your faithful companion to the end," answered the knight. "We have joyously emptied more than one cup together, we shall die together."
Led by Jacques, the two nobles were placed in the center of the enclosure, around which stood the revolted vassals. Many of them had also witnessed the amende honorable of Mazurec, who, now armed in the armor of the knight of Chaumontel, is standing near the center of the lists, reclining on his long sword.
"On your knees!" ordered Adam the Devil to the Sire of Nointel, and pressing down with his strong hands the seigneur's shoulders, he made him drop on his knees at the feet of Mazurec. "And now, noble seigneur, repeat my words:
"Seigneur Jacques Bonhomme, I blame myself and humbly repent having used unseemly words against you when last night you dragged my noble bride...."
Outbursts of laughter, jeers and cat-calls from the Jacques greeted these words, which recalled to the Sire of Nointel both the forfeiture of his happiness and the disgrace of his bride. He shrank together, emitted a roar of pain, and burning tears dropped from his eyes while grinding his teeth he muttered: "Death and massacre!"
"That is quite painful, is it not, Sire of Nointel," suggested Caillet, "to be forced to beg pardon on one's knees for having wished to resist the outrage that is racking your mind? Poor Mazurec the Lambkin went through this shame only last year, as you are doing now!... It is justice!... Stay on your knees!"
"Come, let's hurry!" resumed Adam the Devil, "make the amende honorable on your knees before Jacques Bonhomme, if not, you shall be dismembered on the spot, my noble Sire!"
The Sire of Nointel answered only with a fresh roar of rage, writhing in his bonds: "Oh, my unhappy life!"
"Conrad," said Gerard, "repeat the empty words, yield to these cowardly varlets. What can you do against force? There is nothing but to submit."
"Never!" cried the Sire of Nointel, in a frenzy of rage. "Sooner a thousand deaths! To ask pardon of that miserable serf ... when before my own eyes he dragged away my bride ... my beautiful and proud Gloriande ...," and breaking out again in a cry of rage: "Blood and massacre! A minute ago I felt overwhelmed.... I now feel hell burning in my breast.... Oh, if only I were free ... I would tear these varlets to pieces with my nails and teeth! I would put them through a thousand deaths!"
"Sire of Nointel, if upon your knees you make the amende honorable to Mazurec, I shall then put a sword in your hand," said Jocelyn the Champion slowly drawing near. "I promise to fight with you, and you will then at least die as a man. Come, on your knees!"
"True?" mumbled Conrad, his mind wandering with despair and rage, "you will give me a sword?... I shall be able to die seeing the blood of one of you flow ... you miserable rebels!"
Seizing the naked sword that his brother held in his hand, Jocelyn took it and threw it on the ground a few paces from Conrad, and planting his foot upon the blade said: "Make the amende honorable—you will then be unbound and you may take this sword ... then there shall be a combat to the death between us two, son of Neroweg!"
"Come, my handsome Sir," resumed Adam the Devil addressing Conrad, "come, repeat after me—'Seigneur Jacques Bonhomme, I blame myself and humbly repent....'"
"Seigneur Jacques Bonhomme," repeated Conrad of Nointel in a voice strangling with rage and casting a furtive look at the sword only the sight of which imparted to him the necessary strength to perform the revolting expiatory act. "Seigneur Jacques Bonhomme, I blame myself and humbly repent.... Shame and humiliation!"
"Having used unseemly words against you, Seigneur Jacques Bonhomme," proceeded Adam the Devil amidst new outbursts of laughter and jeers from the Jacques, "when last night you were about to outrage my bride on the nuptial bed ... my belle Gloriande of Chivry."
"No, no, never," cried Conrad of Nointel, foaming at the mouth, "I never shall repeat those infamous words!"
Jocelyn took off and threw his casque at a distance, unbuckled his steel corselet, threw away his armlets, pulled off his leather jerkin, preserving only that part of his armor that covered his thighs and lower extremities, removed his shirt, leaving his breast bare, and said to the Sire of Nointel: "Here is flesh to bore holes through, if you can.... I am wounded in the thigh ... that evens up your chances; moreover, I swear I shall strike only at your breast; yes, I swear it, as truly as, freeman or serfs, my ancestors have during the centuries that rolled over us crossed swords with yours!"
"Oh, you dog whom my ancestors conquered.... I shall kill you!" cried Conrad of Nointel nearly delirious. Retaining his posture on his knees before Mazurec, he muttered, gasping for breath: "I repent, seigneur Jacques Bonhomme ... of having used unseemly words ... against you ... when you sought ... to outrage ... my bride in her nuptial bed...."
"The belle Gloriande of Chivry, and pronounce the name distinctly," said Adam the Devil. "Now, hurry up!"
"The ... belle ... Gloriande ... of ... Chivry ..." repeated Conrad, as if tearing the words from his breast.
"High, puissant and redoubtable seigneur of Nointel, Jacques Bonhomme pardons you for the outrage he perpetrated upon you!" now put in Mazurec in the midst of a fresh explosion of triumphant laughter and contemptuous jeers uttered by the Jacques.
"The sword! The sword!" cried Conrad rising livid and fearful with rage, but with his hands still pinioned behind him, and addressing Jocelyn. "You promised me blood ... yours ... or mine.... I wish to die seeing blood.... To the sword, to the sword!"
"Remove his bonds," said the champion with his feet still on the sword that lay on the ground and drawing his own.
While the Jacques were unfastening the bonds that held the arms of the seigneur of Nointel, the knight of Chaumontel took a step towards his friend and said to him: "Farewell, Conrad ... you are blinded with rage ... you are weakened by the trials of last night ... you will be killed by that Hercules ... a champion by profession.... But we shall be revenged."
"I killed!" cried the Sire of Nointel with a ghostly smile. "No, no; it is I who will kill the dog.... I will cut the vagabond's throat!"
"Recommend your soul to St. James," said Gerard in a penetrating voice to Conrad; "an invocation to him is sovereign in cases of duels."
"Oh, I shall invoke my hatred," replied Conrad twitching his arms that Adam the Devil was about to unloosen. But Jocelyn made a sign to his companion to wait a moment before untying the Sire of Nointel, and then turning to the revolted serfs he made to them this vigorous and terse address:
"It is now eleven hundred years ago ... one of my ancestors, Schavanoch the Soldier—the foster brother of Victoria the Great, the emperor woman who predicted the enfranchisement of Gaul—fought against one of the chiefs of the Frankish hordes who then threatened to invade Gaul, our mother country; that Frankish chieftain was called Neroweg the Terrible Eagle, and he was the ancestor of the Sire of Nointel, whom you there see before you.... Two centuries later, the Franks, thanks to the complicity of the Bishop of Rome, had succeeded in conquering Gaul and in reducing her inhabitants to a condition of most cruel slavery; our land thereupon became a prey to our conquerors, and we moistened it with our sweat, our tears and our blood.... During the first years of the Frankish conquest, Karadeuk the Bagaude, the ancestor of both Mazurec and myself, a revolted slave, fought with Neroweg, Count of Auvergne, count by the right of rapine and murder. That Neroweg had subjected to a cruel torture Loysik the Working-Hermit and Ronan the Vagre, sons of Karadeuk the Bagaude. Bagaudie and Vagrerie were the Jacquerie of those days. Vagres and Bagaudes revenged themselves then as the Jacques do now for the oppression of the seigneurs. In that fight between Karadeuk the Bagaude and the Count Neroweg, Neroweg fell under the axe of Karadeuk.... Coming down to three centuries ago, another of my ancestors, Den-Brao the Mason was buried alive together with several other serfs, his fellow workmen, by Neroweg IV, Count of Plouernel in Brittany."
"That noble thereby buried together with Den-Brao the secret of an underground passage that they had been made to construct, leading from the feudal manor into the forest. The grandson of Den-Brao, who remained a serf of the seigniory of Plouernel, was called Fergan the Quarryman. Neroweg VI kidnapped a son of Fergan for the purpose of applying the child to the bloody sorceries of a witch. Fergan succeeded in rescuing his child, but he witnessed the murder of his two relatives Bezenecq the Rich and Bezenecq's daughter Isoline. Unable to pay an enormous ransom imposed upon him by Neroweg VI, Bezenecq perished under the torture, while Isoline, the witness of her father's torment, became insane and died. Then came the days of the Crusades. Fergan and his seigneur met face to face and alone in the middle of the desert of Syria. Fergan could have killed him by surprise, but he fought him and vanquished.... Finally, only a year ago, my brother Mazurec the Lambkin has seen his bride dishonored by the Sire of Nointel, the scion of the Nerowegs of old, he forced my brother to make him the amende honorable at his feet, and thereupon to fight half naked with the knight of Chaumontel in full armor. Vanquished in this unequal combat and sentenced to be drowned in a bag, Mazurec would have perished but for Adam the Devil and myself, who succeeded in drawing him out of the river betimes, but his wife, Aveline-who-never-lied, died an atrocious death only a few days ago. The history of my family's sufferings is the history of the families of us all, the enslaved and oppressed of your class, Sire of Nointel, during so many centuries! Aye, among the thousands upon thousands of revolted vassals, who at this hour are running to arms, there is not one whose family has not undergone what mine has! The narrative of Mazurec's family and mine is theirs also. Do you now understand the treasury of hatred and of vengeance that has been heaping up from century to century in the indignant breast of Jacques Bonhomme? Do you understand that from age to age the fathers bequeathed this hatred to their children as the only heritage left to them by servitude? Do you understand that the vassal has a frightful account to settle with his seigneur? Do you understand how, in his turn, Jacques Bonhomme has no mercy and no pity? Do you, finally, understand that if at this moment, instead of fighting you, I were to kill you like a wolf caught in a trap, the act would be just? You have but one life, but innumerable are the lives of the Gauls taken by you, and much larger yet those taken by your class!"
An explosion of fury from the Jacques marked the close of these words. Sufficiently exasperated against the Sire of Nointel, they felt that the narrative of Jocelyn's family was that of the martyrdom on earth endured by Jacques Bonhomme.
"Death to the seigneur!... Death without combat!" repeated the insurgents. "Death to him, like a wolf caught in a trap!"
"Vassal, you promised to fight with me!" cried Conrad of Nointel. "Of what use are these ancient stories?"
"Do you repudiate the acts of your ancestors? Do you repudiate your class?"
"Even with your sword at my throat I shall to the very end pronounce myself proud of belonging to the warrior class that has held you under the whip and the stick, ye miserable serfs.... Even dying would I smite your faces!"
With a wafture of his hand Jocelyn restrains a fresh explosion of fury from the Jacques, and says to Adam the Devil: "Deliver the seigneur of his bonds.... Once more in the course of the centuries a son of Joel and a son of Neroweg shall take each other's measure, sword in hand!"
"And may my stock again meet yours to the undoing of your own!" answered Conrad of Nointel in a hollow voice. "The elder branch of my family still occupies its domains in Auvergne ... and my father's brother has sons! The race of the Nerowegs will reappear across the ages!"
"Battle!... Battle!" said Jocelyn. "It shall be a battle to the death, without quarter or mercy.... Battle!"
"And also I, brother, shall have neither pity nor mercy for that thief, the cause of all my misfortunes!" cried Mazurec, pointing at the knight of Chaumontel, and added: "Adam, untie also his hands. There is room enough here for a double combat. My brother shall have the seigneur.... I shall take this thief of a knight. Give me a pitch-fork, the fork is the lance of Jacques Bonhomme."
Freed of his bonds and clad only in his shirt and hose, Gerard of Chaumontel receives from William Caillet a stick to defend himself with, and from Adam the Devil a rude push that throws him in front of Mazurec, who, protected from head to foot by the knight's own armor, holds up his three-pronged and sharp fork.
"Come up, you double thief!" Mazurec called out; "must I step forward to meet you?"
[The knight of Chaumontel, pale from fright and pursued by the cries of (these words missing due to printer's error, here translated from the French version by the etext transcriber)] the Jacques, grasps his stick with both hands and forcing a smile on his lips answers: "The heralds-at-arms have not yet given the signal."
In the meantime, Conrad of Nointel, whose arms have been unbound, stooped down to seize the sword from which Jocelyn had not yet lifted his foot.
"One moment!" cried the champion, always with his foot firmly on the sword. "Sire of Nointel, look me in the face ... if you dare!"
Conrad raised his head, fastened his glistening eyes upon his adversary and asked: "What do you want?"
"Worthy Sire, I wish to goad you to the combat. I mistrust your courage. You fled like a coward at the battle of Poitiers, and a minute ago you referred to me as a vile slave fit only for the whip and the cane—"
"And I say so again!" yelled Conrad turning red and white with rage, "you vagabond!"
"Take this for the insult!" came from Jocelyn like a flash while buffeting the livid face of Conrad of Nointel. "These slaps are the goad I promised you. Even if you were more cowardly than a hare, fury will now serve you instead of courage!" Saying this Jocelyn made a leap backward, placing himself on his guard and leaving the sword on the ground free. Crazed with rage, Conrad of Nointel seized the weapon and rushed upon Jocelyn at the very moment that, armed with his stick, Gerard of Chaumontel was rapidly retreating before the approaching prongs of Mazurec's fork.
"Infamous thief!" cried the vassal pressing the knight with his fork; "I had more courage than you.... I threw myself under the feet of your horse, and seized you hand to hand!"
"My Jacques!" cried out Adam the Devil seeing the knight of Chaumontel still retreating before Mazurec, "cross your scythes behind that knight of cowardice; let him fall under your iron if he tries to escape Mazurec's fork."
The Jacques followed Adam the Devil's suggestion; at the same time that Mazurec ran forward with his fork Gerard of Chaumontel perceived a formidable array of scythes rise behind him.
"Cowardly varlets! Infamous scamps! You abuse your strength!"
"And you, worthy knight," answered Adam the Devil, "did not you abuse your strength when you fought on horseback and in full armor against Mazurec half naked and with only a stick to defend himself?"
During this short dialogue, the Sire of Nointel was impetuously charging upon Jocelyn. Rendered dexterous in the handling of the sword by the practice of the tourneys, young, agile and vigorous, he aims many an adroit blow at Jocelyn, who, however, parries them all like a consummate gladiator, while pricking his adversary with the contemptuous remark. "To know how to handle a sword so well, and yet to retreat so pitifully at the battle of Poitiers! What a shame!"
With a rapid step back Jocelyn evades at that instant a dangerous thrust of Conrad of Nointel's sword, retorts with a vigorous pass, smites his adversary on the shoulder and, to his great astonishment, sees him suddenly roll on the ground, seem to stiffen his members, and then remain motionless.
"What?" observed the champion lowering his sword, "dead with so little? Beaten down so quickly?"
"Brother, look out ... it probably is a ruse!" cried Mazurec, at whom Gerard of Chaumontel had finally aimed so furious a blow with his stick that it broke into splinters against the iron casque on the vassal's head. "Without the casque I would now be a dead man. Oh! that's a good practice you knights have of fighting so well armed against half naked Jacques Bonhomme!" Although somewhat dazed by the shock, Mazurec plunged his fork into the bowels of the robber knight, who fell blaspheming. Observing that Conrad still remained motionless on the ground, Mazurec repeated the warning: "Look out, brother! It is a ruse!"
And so it was. Astonished at the fall of his adversary Jocelyn was stooping over him when the Sire of Nointel suddenly rose on his haunches, seized the champion's leg with one hand, and with the other sought to stab his adversary in the flank with a dagger that he had kept concealed in his hose. Taken by surprise and pulled by a leg, Jocelyn lost his balance.
"Viper!" cried Jocelyn dropping his sword and falling upon Conrad whose hand he struggled to overpower. "I was on the look-out.... I thought your death was feigned!" and wresting the dagger from Conrad's hand, Jocelyn plunged it in his adversary's breast: "Die, thou son of the Nerowegs!"
"Gerard!" muttered Conrad, dying, "I ... was wrong ... in violating the vassal's wife.... Oh, Gloriande!"
Hardly had Jocelyn stepped aside from the corpse of the Sire of Nointel when his vassals, so often the victims of his cruelty, precipitated themselves upon the arena, and plying their forks, scythes and axes with savage fury on the still warm body of their recent tyrant, mutilated it beyond recognition. In the meantime, aided by other Jacques, Adam the Devil raised the knight of Chaumontel, who, though mortally wounded by the thrust of Mazurec's fork, was still alive, and called out: "Fetch the bag and ropes!"
A peasant brought a bag with which they had provided themselves at the castle of Chivry. The bleeding body of the knight of Chaumontel was placed within and tied fast so as to allow his cadaverous head to stick out, and the bundle was carried to the Orville bridge.
"Do you recall my prophecy," Mazurec asked the knight, with a diabolical smile; "I prophesied you would be drowned."
Gerard of Chaumontel uttered a deep moan. A superstitious terror now overpowered him. His wonted haughtiness was no more. In a fainting voice he murmured: "Oh, St. James, have pity upon me.... Oh, St. James, intercede for me.... with our Lord and all his saints.... I am justly punished.... I stole the vassal's purse.... Oh, Lord, Oh, Lord, have pity upon me!"
Arrived at the Orville bridge, the peasants threw the bagged body of the knight of Chaumontel into the river amid the frantic cheers of the Jacques, who exclaimed: "May thus perish all seigneurs!"
CHAPTER VI.
ON TO CLERMONT!
Tarrying a moment on the Orville bridge, which the Jacques had left on the march to join other bands and proceed in stronger force against other seigniories, Jocelyn noticed a rider approaching at full gallop. A few minutes later he recognized the rider to be Rufin the Tankard-smasher, who soon reined in near the bridge, followed at a distance by a considerable number of insurgents.
Jumping off his horse Rufin said to Jocelyn: "I learned from the peasants coming up behind me that there was a large gathering of Jacques at this place; I thought I would find you among them and hastened hither to deliver to you a letter from Master Marcel.... Great events are transpiring in Paris."
Jocelyn eagerly took the missive, and while he read it, Rufin the Tankard-smasher went on saying: "By Jupiter! The company of an honorable woman brings good luck. When I used to have Margot on my arms, I always ran up against some accident; on the other hand, nothing could have been happier than this trip of mine to Paris with Alison the Huffy, who, I fancy, is huffy only at Cupid. We arrived in Paris without accident, and Dame Marguerite received Alison with great friendship. Oh, my friend! I worship that tavern-keeper. Fie! What an improper term! No! That Hebe! And was not Hebe the Olympian tavern-keeper? Oh, if Alison would only have me for her husband, we would set up a lovely tavern, intended especially for the students of the University. The shield would be splendid. It would exhibit Greek and Latin verses appealing to the topers, such as: "Like Bacchus does——"
Jocelyn here interrupted the student, saying with much animation after he had finished Etienne Marcel's letter: "Rufin, I return with you to Paris; the provost has orders for me. Mazurec is revenged. Everywhere the Jacques are rising according to the information that reaches Marcel from the provinces. The formidable movement must now be directed and utilized. The Jacquerie must be organized. Wait for me a minute. I shall be back immediately."
Jocelyn thereupon called to Adam the Devil, Mazurec and William Caillet, who had also remained behind, took them aside and said: "Marcel calls me to his side. The Regent has withdrawn to Compiegne; he has declared Paris out of the pale of the law and is preparing to march upon the city at the head of the royal troops; they are waiting for him, and will give him a warm reception. All the communal towns, Meaux, Amiens, Laon, Beauvais, Noyons, Senlis are in arms. Everywhere the peasants are rising and the bourgeois and guild corporations are joining them. The King of Navarre is captain-general of Paris. The man deserves the nickname of 'Wicked,' nevertheless he is a powerful instrument. Marcel will break him if he deviate from the right path and refuse to bow before the popular sovereignty. The hour of Gaul's enfranchisement has sounded at last. In order to carry the work to a successful issue, the Jacquerie will have to be regulated. These scattered and dispersed bands must gather together, must discipline their forces and form an army capable of coping, first with that of the Regent, and then with the English. We must first crush the inside foe and then the foreign one."
"That is right," said Caillet, thoughtfully. "Ten scattered bands can not accomplish much; the ten together can. I am known in Beauvoisis. Our Jacques will follow me wherever I lead them. Once the seigneurs are exterminated, we shall fall upon the English, a vermin that gnaws at the little that seigneurs and their clergy leave us."
"Yesterday's butcheries have opened my appetite," cried Adam the Devil, brandishing his scythe. "We shall mow down the English to the last man. Death to all oppressors!"
"The crop will be fine if we mow together," replied Jocelyn. "Meaux, Senlis, Beauvais and Clermont are awaiting the Jacques with open arms. Their gates will be opened to the peasants. These will find there food and arms."
"Iron and bread! We need no more!" put in William Caillet. "And what is Marcel's plan?"
"These fortified cities, occupied by the Jacques and the armed bourgeoisie, will hold the Regent's troops in check in the provinces," answered Jocelyn. "The other sections of the country are to organize themselves similarly. Now, listen well to Marcel's instructions. The King of Navarre is on our side because he expects with the support of the popular party to dethrone the Regent. He occupies Clermont with his troops. Thence he is to proceed to Paris and meet the royal army under the walls of the city. He needs reinforcements. Marcel mistrusts him. Now, then, you are to gather all the bands of Jacques into a body and proceed to Clermont at the head of eight thousand men. You can then join Charles the Wicked without fear, although he is never to be trusted. But as his own forces barely number two thousand foot soldiers and five hundred horsemen, in case of treason they would be crushed by the Jacques, who would out-number them four to one."
"Agreed," answered William Caillet, after carefully listening to the champion, "and from Clermont are we to march straight to Paris?"
"Upon your arrival at Clermont you will receive further instructions from Marcel. To overpower the nobility, dethrone the Regent and chase the foreigners from our soil—that is the provost's programme. When the campaign shall be over, the hour of Jacques Bonhomme's enfranchisement will have come. Delivered from the tyranny of the seigneurs and the pillaging of the English, free, happy and at peace, the peasant will then be able to enjoy the fruits of his arduous labors and will be able to taste without molestation the sweet pleasures of the hearth.... Yes, you William Caillet, you Adam the Devil, you Mazurec, and so many others who have been wounded in your tenderest feelings, you will have been the last martyrs of the seigneurs and clergy, you will be the liberators of your kind."
"Jocelyn, whatever may now happen, vanquisher or vanquished, I can die in peace. My daughter is revenged!" said William Caillet. "I promise to lead more than ten thousand men to the walls of Clermont. The blood of the seigneurs and their priests who have outraged us, the conflagrations of their castles and churches, from which they issued to oppress us, will mark the route of the Jacques."
"Marcel recalls me to Paris; I shall return to him; but you will meet me at Clermont, where I shall convey to you further instructions." And pressing Mazurec to his heart: "Adieu, my brother, my poor brother! We shall soon meet again. William, I leave him with you. Watch over the unfortunate lad!"
"I love him as I did my daughter! She will be the topic of our conversation. And we shall fight like men who no longer care for life."
After this exchange of adieus, Jocelyn turned back to Paris with Rufin the Tankard-smasher on the crupper of his horse.
CHAPTER VII.
CLERMONT.
Charles the Wicked, King of Navarre, occupied at Clermont, in the province of Beauvoisis, the castle of the count of the place—a vast edifice one of whose towers dominated the square called the "Suburb." The first floor of the donjon, lighted by a long ogive window, formed a large circular hall. There, near a table, sat Charles the Wicked. It was early morning. The prince asked one of his equerries:
"Has the scaffold been erected?"
"Yes, Sire, you can see it from this window. It is just as you ordered it."
"What face do the bourgeois make?"
"They are in consternation; all the shops are closed; the streets are deserted."
"And the masses?... the artisans.... Are they heard to murmur?"
"Sire, after yesterday's massacre, there are none more of the poorer class to be seen ... neither on the streets nor the squares.... The people are scarce."
"But some must still be left."
"Those that are left are in consternation and stupor like the bourgeois."
"All the same, let my Navarrians keep sharp watch at the gates of the town, on the ramparts and on the streets. Let them kill on the spot any bourgeois, peasant or artisan who dares this morning to put his nose outside of his house."
"The order has been given, Sire. It will be carried out."
"And the chiefs of those accursed Jacques?"
"They remain impassive, Sire!"
"Blood of Christ! They will become livelier, and that soon.... Has a trevet been procured. Let the executioner hold himself ready."
"Yes, Sire. Everything is prepared according to your orders."
"Let everything be ready at the stroke of seven."
"All shall be ready, Sire."
Charles the Wicked reflected a moment, and then resumed, taking up an enameled medallion with his monogram that lay near him on the table: "Did the man arrive who was arrested at the gates last night, and who sent me this medallion?"
"Yes, Sire. He has just been brought in unarmed and pinioned, as you ordered. He is kept under watch in the lower hall. What is your pleasure?"
"Let him be brought up."
The equerry stepped out. Charles the Wicked rose, and approached the window that opened upon the square where the scaffold was erected. After throwing it partly open so as to be able to look out, he reclosed it and returned to his seat near the table, his lips contracted with a sinister smile. He had barely sat down again when the equerry returned preceding the archers in the middle of whom walked Jocelyn the Champion with his hands bound behind his back and his face inflamed with anger. The prince made a sign to the equerry, who thereupon withdrew with the Navarrians, leaving Charles the Wicked and Jocelyn alone, the latter, however, still pinioned.
"Sire, I am the victim either of a mistake or of unworthy treason!" cried Jocelyn. "For the sake of your honor, I hope it is a mistake.... Order me to be unbound."
"There is no mistake in the case."
"Then it is treason! To disarm me! To pinion me!... Me, the carrier of the medallion that I sent to you together with a letter that I brought to you from Master Marcel! That is treason, Sire! Disgraceful felony!"
"There is in all this neither mistake nor felony. A truce with your imprudent words!"
"What else is it?"
"A simple measure of prudence," coolly answered Charles the Wicked; "you signed the letter 'Jocelyn the Champion'.... Is that your name and profession?'
"Yes, Sire; I am a defender of the oppressed."
"Did Marcel send you to me?"
"I told you so, and proved it by forwarding the medallion. What do you want of me? Ask; I shall answer."
"What is the purpose of your message?"
"You shall know it when you will have set me free of my bonds."
"The bonds do not tie your tongue ... seems to me! You can answer very well as you are."
"You ignore my character of ambassador! I have come in that capacity."
"That's subtle ... but be careful; the minutes are precious; your message is certainly important.... Its success may be endangered by a prolonged silence."
"Sire, I came to you, if not as a friend, still as an ally. You treat me like an enemy. Master Marcel will be thankful for my reserve——"
"Very well," said Charles the Wicked, ringing a bell. The call was forthwith answered by the equerry. "Let this man be taken outside of the town, and the gates closed after him. Do not allow him in again."
After a brief struggle with himself, Jocelyn resumed: "However outrageous be the reception you give an envoy of Marcel, I shall speak and fulfill my mission."
At another sign from the King of Navarre, the equerry stepped out again and the former said to Jocelyn: "What is your message?"
"Master Marcel charged me to say to you, Sire, that it was time to open the campaign; the Regent's army is marching upon Paris; all the vassals are up in arms; numerous troops of Jacques must be approaching Clermont to join you. Indeed, I am astonished at not having met any Jacques."
"By what gate did you enter Clermont? From what side did you cross the walls?"
"By the gate of the Paris road. It was dark when I arrived and sent you one of the archers who arrested me."
"You spoke with no soldier?"
"I was locked up alone in one of the turrets of the rampart. I could speak with nobody. I communicated only with your archers."
"Proceed ... with your message."
"Marcel wishes to know what your plan of campaign will be when your troops have been reinforced by eight or ten thousand Jacques, who, according to our information, may any time arrive in Clermont."
"We shall speak about that presently.... First tell me what the public sentiment is in Paris. Are more rebellions feared?"
"The adversaries of Marcel and partisans of the Regent are very active. They seek to mislead the population by imputing to the revolt all the ills that the city suffers from. Royal troops seized Etamps and Corbeil to prevent the arrival of grains in Paris and starve out the city. Marcel took the field with the bourgeois militia, and after a murderous conflict he threw the royalists back and secured the subsistence of Paris. But the provost's adversaries are redoubling their underhand manoeuvres with a view to bring a portion of the bourgeoisie back to the Regent. The people, more accustomed to privations, are easily resigned; full of hope in the future that is to bring them deliverance, they weaken neither in energy nor in devotion to Marcel, especially since the tidings of the revolts of the Jacques reached Paris. The vassals of the whole valley of Montmorency are now in revolt ..."; but suddenly breaking off, Jocelyn said: "Sire, order these bonds to be removed from my hands; they are a disgrace to me and to you.... You treat me like a prisoner!"
"You were saying that the Regent's partisans are active? Is not Maillart among the leaders in that movement?"
"No ... at least not openly. The avowed leaders of the court party are all nobles; among them is the knight of Charny and the knight James of Pontoise. Prompt and resolute action is necessary. Your chances of reigning over Gaul are excellent if you come to the help of the Parisians, take the field against the forces of the Regent, and utilize, as Master Marcel suggests, the powerful aid offered by the Jacquerie. Next to the clergy and the seigneurs, there are no more implacable enemies of the peasants than the English. Marcel's purpose in encouraging the insurrections of the Jacques and organizing their bands is above all to hurl them in mass against the English in the name of the country that the invaders are ravaging with their predatory bands, and to drive them from our soil. Triumph is assured if the present enthusiasm of the Jacques is utilized by turning it into that sacred channel towards the safety and deliverance of the country. That is the reason, Sire, why Master Marcel has been seeking to effect the junction of the Jacques with the forces that you command."
"Our friend Marcel," Charles the Wicked observed caustically, "made an excellent choice of allies for me in the revolted peasants!" saying which he rang the bell. The equerry entered and left after the prince had whispered a few words in his ear.
"Sire," again remonstrated Jocelyn, "your manners are mysterious. Are you hatching some other plot against me? You may be frank; I am in your power."
"There is no plot hatching," coolly answered Charles the Wicked, shrugging his shoulders. "I am merely taking precautions to insure the quiet and calmness of our interview as becomes people like ourselves."
"Sire, have I perchance failed in calmness and quiet? My language is self-possessed."
"So far ... you are right ... but presently your moderation may be put to a severe test ... my precautions are wise——"
The entrance of two other robust equerries in the company of the prince's confidante interrupted his last words, and without Jocelyn, whose hands were tied, being able to offer any effective resistance, he was thrown on the floor, where, however, despite his being pinioned, he resented the treatment with Herculean though vain efforts to disengage himself from his assailants.
"By God! You are a Hercules ... what athletic vigor you display! Am I wrong if I take precautions against the consequences of our further interview, despite your assurances of calmness and moderation?"
Not without much difficulty the three equerries finally succeeded in binding Jocelyn's legs as firmly as his arms. When that was done, Charles the Wicked said: "Place the envoy on the settee near the window. He may sit up or lie down, as he chooses.... You may now go."
Again alone with Jocelyn, who was writhing in impotent rage, the prince pursued: "Our interview can now proceed peacefully."
"Oh, Charles the Wicked, every day you strive to justify your name!" cried Jocelyn. "My suspicions did not deceive me. You have some infamous act of treason to inform me of!"
Nonchalantly shrugging his shoulders, the prince answered: "Vassal, if I did you the honor of fearing you I would have had you hanged before this.... If I was betraying Marcel I would be at Compiegne beside the Regent.... You are not hanged, and I am not at Compiegne! Let us now tranquilly resume the conversation that was interrupted when you were speaking about the Jacques.... Well, now, the Jacques did come in bands.... The worthy allies of your friend Marcel came——"
"They came here ... to Clermont, in the number of eight or ten thousand."
"Where are they?"
"Oh! Oh!... Where are they?" Charles the Wicked answered back with a Satanic leer. "Where are they?... That is an embarrassing question, that is!... Since man is man it has been the despair of those who seek to fathom the secret of where we go ... when we leave this world.... They are where we all shall go!"
"What is that? The Jacques?——"
"They are where we all shall go.... Do you not understand me?"
"Dead!?" cried Jocelyn, stupefied with terror. "Dead! Massacred! My God!"
"Come, keep cool.... Listen to the details of the adventure ... you are to transmit it to your friends."
"This man frightens me!" thought Jocelyn, a cold perspiration bathing his forehead. "Is it some trap he is laying for me?"
"The Jacques came," resumed Charles the Wicked, "those wild beasts that pillage and burn down castles, massacre priests and seigneurs, outrage women, and pitilessly cut the throats of children, to the end, as these devils put it, of annihilating the nobility!"
"Oh, God!" cried Jocelyn, sitting up, "the reprisals of Jacques Bonhomme lasted one day ... his martyrdom centuries!——"
"Vassal!" the King of Navarre haughtily interrupted Jocelyn, "the rights of the conqueror over the conquered, of the seigneur over the serf, are absolute and from heaven!... A villein or peasant in revolt deserves death. It is the feudal law."
The champion shivered, and looking fixedly at the King of Navarre said: "Charles the Wicked, you will not let me leave this place alive; you would be a lost man if I carried your words to Marcel!"
"You will leave this place alive," coldly answered the prince, "and besides my words, you will report the facts to Marcel."
A prey to irrepressible agony, Jocelyn fell back upon the settee and Charles the Wicked proceeded:
"You will first of all tell Marcel that, however wily he may be, I have not been his dupe. The chiefs of the Jacques whom he sent to me as auxiliaries were expected to become my watchers, and, if need be, my butchers ... if I deviated from the path marked out by that insolent bourgeois. I was in his hands, said he to me, but an 'instrument that he would break if need be'.... Very well! I have broken one of Marcel's redoubtable instruments.... I have annihilated the Jacquerie ... and at this very moment my friends, Gaston Phoebus, the Count of Foix and the Captal of Buch are crushing in Meaux the last coils of that serpent of revolt that sought to rise against the nobility——"
"The Jacquerie crushed! annihilated!" exclaimed Jocelyn, more and more beside himself. But returning to his first suspicion, he gathered voice to say: "Charles the Wicked, you are the most cunning man on earth ... you are laying some trap for me.... If the Jacques came to Clermont to the number of eight or ten thousand, you were not in command of sufficient forces to exterminate them."
"Sir envoy, you are too hasty in your conclusions. Listen first, you will then be able to judge. I promised facts to you. Here they are. Yesterday, towards noon, I was apprised of the approach of the Jacques. The bourgeoisie of Clermont and the corporation of artisans, infected with the old communal leaven, went out to meet the malefactors and to feast them. I encouraged their plans, and while the Jacques halted in the valley near Clermont, three of their chiefs presented themselves at the drawbridge demanding to entertain me."
"What were their names?"
"William Caillet ... Adam the Devil ... and Mazurec the Lambkin.... I ordered the three Jacques chiefs to be brought to me; I received them with great courtesy; I touched their hands, called them my comrades and gave them fraternal embraces. We agreed that, obedient to Marcel's wishes, they should be my auxiliaries, and that we would speedily start on the march to Paris. In the meantime their men were to remain encamped in the valley. After issuing their orders to this effect, the three chiefs conferred with me upon the plan of campaign. So said, so done. The three chiefs returned to their encampment to order matters and came back to me. My first act then was to throw all three into prison. I knew that, deprived of their chiefs, the execrable bandits were half overcome. I then sent one of my officers, the Sire of Bigorre, to inform the Jacques that at the conference I had with their chiefs, they desired that their men should immediately begin to exercise themselves with my archers and cavalrymen, in order to accustom themselves to military manoeuvres. The Jacques tumbled into the trap, gladly accepted the proposition, and were formed into battalions."
Noticing the indignation and rage of Jocelyn, that betrayed themselves through his involuntary twitchings in his bonds, Charles the Wicked interrupted his narrative for a moment in order to interject the remark: "I congratulate myself more and more upon having had you bound fast. Waste not your fury. It will soon have stronger matter upon which to expend itself.... I now proceed.... The bourgeois and artisan guilds of Clermont had tapped a large number of barrels to feast their friends the Jacques with. Their hilarity was soon complete. With loud cries the Jacques called for their first exercise in military marching. The Sire of Bigorre, an able captain, commanded the manoeuvre. He did it in such a way that, after a few marches and countermarches, the Jacques found themselves huddled and crowded together like a herd of cattle at the bottom of the valley, an easy mark to my archers stationed on the surrounding eminences, while my cavalry occupied the only two issues from which the fleers could escape out of the deep hollow."
"You princes are experts at massacres!" cried Jocelyn, in bitter despair.
"It was a regular slaughter of wolves," answered Charles the Wicked. "The Jacques, like stupid and ferocious brutes, and full of vain-glory at parading before the bourgeois of Clermont, put out their chests, and carried their staves, forks and scythes with as much pride as if they carried the noble arms of knighthood; they even applauded the excellent order of my men-at-arms who held the crests round about the hollow in which they were penned up. Suddenly the clarions gave a signal. The music greatly delighted the revolted varlets. But their delight is soon ended. At the clarion's first notes my archers bent their bows and a hail storm of murderous bolts, shot by my soldiers from above into the compact mass of Jacques in the hollow, decimated the bandits. A panic took possession of the savage herd; the brutes sought to flee by the two issues in the valley; but there they found themselves face to face with my five hundred cavalrymen, cased in iron, who, with lances, swords and iron maces furiously charged upon the canaille, while my archers continued riddling with their bolts both the flanks of the band and those who sought to climb up the hill.... It was a superb slaughter.... The ground was heaped with the dead!"
Jocelyn uttered a hollow groan. Charles the Wicked smiled satisfied and proceeded:
"Nothing more cowardly can be conceived than those varlets after their first exaltation. Such was their fright, as told me by the Sire of Bigorre, that they allowed themselves to be killed like sheep; they fell upon their knees, bared their throats to the swords, their breasts to the arrows and their heads to the iron maces. In short, all those whom iron did not pierce were smothered under the corpses. A large number of bourgeois and town plebs, spectators of the slaughter, and also crowded down in the valley, shared the fate of their comrade Jacques Bonhomme. Thus with one blow I relieved myself of the peasants and of the town plebs together with a considerable number of communal bourgeois. I now hold their town in my power, and keep it. That is their affair with me. And, now, Sir ambassador, tell Marcel in my name no more to mix up the Jacques in our operations. There are now few of these ferocious beasts left; moreover, they are evil companions. You shall presently be freed of your bonds and your horse shall be returned to you. Should you doubt my words and wish to make sure of the facts before returning to Paris, go out by the side of the valley, look around, and, above all, close your nose ... the carcasses of those accursed Jacques are beginning to emit rank odors."
Forgetting in his rage that he was pinioned, Jocelyn turned to rush upon Charles the Wicked. The prince, however, proceeded smiling as before:
"Ungrateful fellow.... You would strangle me.... Yet you ignore how generous I have been.... I have saved the lives of the three chiefs of that band of raving wolves.... Do you doubt it?" he inquired, answering a painful sigh that escaped from the breast of Jocelyn, whose thoughts ran upon his brother; "you question my clemency and generosity!"
"Could it be true?" cried Jocelyn, yielding to a vague hope; "did my brother Mazurec really escape?"
"If you talk calmly instead of bellowing like a staked steer, I shall give you my word as a knight that you will see your brother."
"Mazurec lives.... I shall see him!"
"He lives.... You will see him ... upon the word of a knight. But let us talk sensibly. We must now consider the means by which Marcel and I can co-operate in the accomplishment of our common projects."
"Marcel will not co-operate with the butcher of so many innocent victims!" cried Jocelyn. "Marcel will not ally himself with you, who just told me that all rebellious vassals deserve death!... The fatal alliance he entered into with you, compelled thereto by stress of circumstances, is now forever sundered. It has been a terrible lesson. It will enlighten the people who seek the support of princes in the struggle against their oppressors."
"You slander Marcel's good judgment, whose political sagacity none appreciates more than I. That clothier is a master-man. Do you know what he will answer you when, back to Paris, you will have reported to him the carnage of the Jacquerie?"