"Do you remember, Jocelyn, that at the University we were in the habit of taking aim with a stone saying: 'If my stone hits, my first wish will be realized?'"
"Rufin!" sadly answered the champion, "since on my arrival in Paris I learned of my father's death, I have lost my sense of humor. As I said to you before, I say now, let us talk seriously, my friend."
"I would not, my worthy Jocelyn, seem to make light of your bereavement; and yet, out of place as my words may seem, they are, by Jupiter, to the point! All I shall say is this: Day before yesterday, my wench Margot gave me, with a good many monkey tricks and pussy purrings, an assignment at the river bank. If Margot is faithful to her promise, I shall then believe the Regent to be sincere in his good resolves; not before."
"The devil take the fool!" said Jocelyn impatiently and he walked away ahead of Rufin, who pensively said to himself: "My friend Rufin the Head smasher, you are become as much of a fatalist as a Mohamedan! That's a shameful thing for a free thinker!"
Marcel had not yet arrived home although night was far advanced. Marguerite, Denise and William Caillet were seated together in one of the upper chambers of the house. The two women listened with wrapt and grief-stricken attention to the narrative of Jocelyn who had just finished the story of Aveline and Mazurec.
"Delivered from the dungeon in the castle of Beaumont, thanks to the bizarre generosity of Captain Griffith," the champion was saying, "I hastened to Paris, and at my arrival," added the young man unable to contain his tears, "I learned of the death of my venerated father."
"Ah! At least he loved you with his last breath," said Denise sharing the emotions of Jocelyn. "Your father came here almost every day, and we only spoke of you."
"Let that thought console you, Jocelyn," observed Marguerite. "Your father considered you an exemplary son."
"I know it, Dame Marguerite; and the thought does afford me some consolation in my bereavement. Before dying my father gave me a proof of the confidence he placed in my respect and affection. He made an important revelation."
"On what?" asked Marguerite.
"I told you of the profound interest that Mazurec inspired me with, Mazurec, the husband of Caillet's daughter," answered Jocelyn with deep emotion. "Well, then, after the last revelation made by my father, I can doubt no longer that Mazurec is my brother!"
"Are you certain?" Marguerite and Denise cried in one voice. "That unfortunate lad, that martyr, your brother!"
"Is it possible?" asked Caillet in turn and no less astonished. "How do you know it?"
"When my mother died," explained Jocelyn, "I was a child and my father quite young. One evening, some four or five years later, as he was entering Paris, he found on the road a young peasant woman lying on the ground unconscious and bleeding of a wound. Moved by compassion, he raised and carried her to a neighboring inn. The young woman regained consciousness and informed him that she was a vassal of the Bishop of Paris, and that, having lost her mother since early childhood, she was then fleeing from a merciless step-mother who that same day came near killing her. The young woman was named Gervaise. Touched by her youth, her misfortune and her beauty, my father apprenticed her to a washerwoman who lived near us. He often visited his protegé. Both loved each other, and one day Gervaise informed my father that she carried under her heart the fruit of their joint indiscretion. My father, as an honest man, realized his duty, but being at that season forced to leave Paris on a trip, promised Gervaise under oath to marry her upon his return. Several weeks, a month and two passed by and my father did not return—"
"But he was a man incapable of violating a sacred promise," interjected Marguerite. "During the long years that we knew your father, we learned to appreciate the straightforwardness of his nature and the goodness of his heart. Undoubtedly some serious accident must have kept him away."
"Almost at the end of his journey, my father was attacked by a band of highwaymen. He was robbed, wounded and left for dead on the road."
"And that prevented him from communicating with Gervaise?"
"He was picked up and for a long time he languished between life and death. The unhappy woman thought herself deserted. The consequences of her error began to betray her weakness. A prey to shame and despair she left Paris!"
"Her condition should have earned the sympathy of people."
"Barely convalescent, my father hastened to write to Gervaise announcing his speedy return. But when he arrived she had disappeared. Despite all the inquiries that he instituted, he never succeeded in finding her again. Her disappearance was a great sorrow to him, and remorse haunted him the rest of his days. Such was his confession in a letter that he wrote to me shortly before his death, and in which he conjured me, if by some accident, impossible to foresee, I should meet Gervaise or her child, to atone for the injury that he had involuntarily done to both."
"And thus, thanks to a strange coincidence," observed Marguerite, "you now feel certain that the unhappy Mazurec, whose distressing story you have told us, is indeed your brother?"
"I can have no doubt. After leaving Paris, Gervaise arrived in Beauvoisis begging for her bread, shortly before giving birth to Mazurec, and he himself told me that his mother's name was Gervaise; that she was blonde; that her eyes were black, and that she had a little scar above the left eye-brow. The description corresponds exactly with that which my father left me of the poor creature. The scar came from a blow that she received from her step-mother. Finally, by naming her son Mazurec, one of my father's names, the poor woman furnished the last link to the chain of evidence."
"Your father was at least saved a bitter sorrow," remarked Denise sadly, "of never having learned the horrible fate of Gervaise's son."
Steps were at that moment heard mounting the stairs. Marguerite listened attentively, and quickly rising and stepping to the door exclaimed: "It is Marcel! God be praised!" and turning in a low voice to Denise who had followed her: "I could hardly conceal my uneasiness; my husband's late absence was seriously alarming me. May God be praised for his return!"
The provost entered, and after answering the tender caresses of his wife and niece, said to them: "I suppose you think I am tired of the night at work with the Regent, yet never have I felt so easy in mind and so light of heart. Happiness is such a sweet recreation! I was profoundly happy to see that young man return to the path of duty and equity as if by enchantment, and express regret at his errors, and promise to atone for them. Well was I in the right to say that we must never despair of youth."
"Then, my friend," asked Marguerite, "the Regent did not deceive your last hopes?"
"He went beyond them. We have just taken prompt and energetic measures looking to the realization of the just and fruitful reforms that were enacted last year by the national assembly. We shall now appeal to the nation's courage and devotion to put an end to the disastrous war with the English. We are to call, not upon the nobility only, but upon the whole people—peasants, townsmen and artisans—to take up arms in this holy war. That great triumph is to be the signal for the deliverance of our rustic brothers," added Marcel reaching out his hand to Caillet. "Yes, those who will have gloriously vanquished and chased away the enemy, having become free men by their victory, are for ever after to be free from the tyranny of the seigneurs who have not even known how to protect our native country. Oh, my friend, how many agonies and sufferings does not that hope wipe off from my heart and mind! The hope of seeing Gaul at last victorious and free, peaceful and prosperous!"
"Master Marcel! Treason!... Treason!" suddenly resounded from a voice rushing up the stairs. The provost held his breath, all others in the chamber trembled with fear, and Rufin the Tankard-smasher rushed in breathless, repeating: "Treason!... Master Marcel, treason!"
"Who betrays?" cried Jocelyn. "Speak!"
"Do you remember this morning at the Louvre?" answered Rufin. "I told you then that if Margot, my wench, keeps the appointment she made with me, I shall then believe in the sincerity of the Regent, but not before!"
"Young man," put in Marcel with severity, seeing his wife and niece blush at the amorous confidences of the student, "is it for the purpose of cracking bad jokes that you have come to alarm my household?"
"The news I bring will be an apology, Master Marcel," respectfully answered Rufin mopping his forehead that streamed with perspiration; "the Regent has fled from Paris...."
"The Regent has fled!" cried Marcel stupefied. "Impossible! It is hardly half an hour since I was with him."
"And that is less time than he needed to descend from the Louvre, to go out by the postern gate that opens upon the river outside of the barrier and to jump upon a skiff that was waiting for him!"
"You are dreaming!" replied Jocelyn, while Marcel seemed thunderstruck, unable to understand what he heard. "You are dreaming, my gay Rufin, or you have just left some tavern the fumes of whose wine have upset your mind."
"By Bacchus, the god of wine, and by Morpheus, the god of slumbers!" cried the student, "I am as certain that I am wide awake as that I am not drunk! I saw the Regent with my two eyes step into the vessel, and with my two ears I heard the Regent say to the friend who accompanied him: 'I leave this accursed town, and I swear not to set foot in it again until Marcel, the councilmen and the other chiefs of rebels shall have paid with their heads for their insolent audacity and for the revolt of these accursed Parisians.' Is that clear enough? Moreover, would I dare come here and tell yarns to Master Marcel, whom I admire and respect as much as any one could? And above all when, in the teeth of the privileges of the University, he had me housed at the Chatelet, together with my chum Nicholas the Thin-skinned because of the racket we made one night on the street?" Noticing that despite certain irrelevant details of his report, the people in the chamber began to attach faith to his words, Rufin continued, while Marcel seemed racked with painful astonishment and a prey to overpowering indignation: "As I was telling you, I had an assignation with my wench Margot, on the river bank, outside the barriers. Tired of waiting in vain for this fallacious creature, I was about to leave when I perceived a lighted lantern on the other side of the barrier and just under the postern of the Louvre. Knowing as well as anybody that the vaulted corridor of that issue runs out on one of the stairs of the large tower, a suspicion flashed through my mind. The night was silent. At the risk of drowning and of going to Pluto to meet Margot, only this time on the borders of the Styx, I reached the stairs by clambering along the poles and the chain of the barriers. At that moment the bearer of the lantern, who must have meant to make sure that the vessel was there, re-entered the palace. I slid along the wall of the Louvre up to the postern and there, screened by the gate which was left open, I soon heard a voice saying: 'Come, come, Sire; the vessel and the two boats are near the shore.' At which the Regent answered in the way I have just stated to Master Marcel—'I leave the accursed town, and I swear not to set foot in it again until Marcel, the councilmen and the other chiefs of rebels shall have paid with their heads for their insolent audacity and for the revolt of these accursed Parisians.' The Regent and his companion marched quietly to the bank of the river, and soon the sound of oars told me that the boat was leaving rapidly. It vanished in the darkness of the night." Turning to Jocelyn with a triumphant air, the student remarked: "Well, what did I tell you this morning? You took me for a fool! And now you see the Regent has fled from Paris threatening the inhabitants with vengeance! By the bowels of the Pope! The belief in fatalism is a great thing!"
Learning that Marcel was now running fresh dangers, Marguerite exchanged glances of anxiety with Denise, while seeking to conceal her alarm from her husband lest she increased his worries. On the other hand, foreseeing that the Regent's treason would hasten the uprising of the rustic serfs, Caillet shrugged his shoulders with sinister gladness. Finally, Marcel, with his arms crossed upon his breast, his head lowered, his lips contracted with a bitter smile, broke the silence with these words uttered deliberately: "When we parted the Regent said to me: 'My good father, I beseech you, go and take a little rest; night is falling; I desire to-morrow early to renew our work with fresh ardor. Go and take rest, my good father, and you will enjoy as much as myself the restful sleep that will come to us from knowledge of having done right.' Such were the last words I had from that young man."
"Oh, Marcel," said Marguerite, "how will you not regret the confidence you placed in him!"
"Let us never regret having had faith in the repentance of a man. If we do, we shall become merciless. Moreover, there are treasons so black and monstrous that in order to suspect them one must be almost capable of committing them." After another short interval of contemplative silence Marcel resumed: "I hoped to save Gaul fresh bloodshed! Vain hope! That unhappy fool wants war! How much is he not to be pitied for being so ill-advised!"
"You pity him!" cried Marguerite; "and yet his last words threatened you with death!"
"Dear wife; if my head were all that was at stake, I would not enter into a terrible struggle to preserve it. I have achieved things that sooner or later will bear fruit. My share in this world has been handsome and large. I am ready to quit life. It is not my head that I would dispute to the Regent, it is the lives of our councilmen, it is the lives of a mass of our fellow townsmen, all of them menaced by the merciless revenge of the court! What I wish to defend is our freedom so dearly bought by our fathers; what I wish to secure is the enfranchisement of those millions of serfs who are driven to extremities by the tyranny of the seigneurs. Finally, what I aim at is the welfare of Gaul, to-day exhausted and moribund! The dice are cast. The Regent and seigneurs want war! They shall have war!... a terrible war!... Such a war as human memory does not recall!" Saying this, Marcel sat down at a table and rapidly wrote a few lines upon a parchment.
"No!" replied William Caillet in a tremor of rage. "No; never will that have been seen that will be seen now! Up, Jacques Bonhomme!" cried the old peasant in savage exaltation. "Up! Seize the fagot! Fall to! Take in the harvest, Jacques Bonhomme, and be not dainty about it! Take up your scythe in your bare arms—the short and sharp scythe! Let not a blade be left to be gleaned after you!" and reaching out his trembling hand to Marcel, the serf added: "Adieu, I depart well satisfied. By to-morrow evening I shall be in the country. At dawn of the next day Jacques Bonhomme will be up and doing in Beauvoisis, in Picardy, in Laonnais and in many other districts!"
"Postpone your departure just one hour," answered Marcel while sealing the letter he had just written. "I am going to the Louvre. You shall depart at my return."
"My friend," exclaimed Marguerite in alarm, "what do you want at the Louvre?"
"To make certain of the Regent's departure, although the account given by Rufin leaves me no doubt on that head. I wish, before resorting to terrible extremes, to be absolutely certain of the Regent's treason."
As Marcel was uttering the last words, Agnes the Bigot entered precipitately and delivered to her master a letter that one of the town sergeants had just brought in great haste. Marcel took the letter, read it quickly and cried: "The councilmen have assembled at the town hall and expect me. One of them, instructed by a man connected with the palace on the flight of the Regent, ran to the Louvre, assured himself of the fact, and hastily convoked the council. No doubt now. The Regent's treason is confirmed." Delivering to Jocelyn the letter he had just written, Marcel said to him: "Take horse, and carry this letter to the King of Navarre at St. Denis. Wait for no answer."
"I shall jump on your horse's crupper, Jocelyn," cried Caillet. "I shall that way reach the country a few hours sooner."
"Done!" said the champion; and turning to Marcel: "After I shall have delivered your letter to the King of Navarre, I shall pursue my route with Caillet to join by brother Mazurec."
"It is your duty, go!" answered Marcel stretching his arms out to Jocelyn. "Embrace me. Who knows whether we shall ever again meet!" And after having pressed the champion to his breast, he took the hand of Denise who turned away her head to hide her tears, and added: "Whatever may befall me, Denise shall be your wife upon your return; you could have no worthier mate, nor could she choose a worthier husband; may heaven grant that I assist at your wedding. If later any danger should threaten you, you will find a safe retreat in Lorraine at Vaucouleurs with the relatives of my niece."
Breaking out into tears and almost fainting, but supported by Marguerite, Denise stretched out her hand to Jocelyn who covered it with kisses, while Marcel said to Caillet: "Now, the hour has sounded! To arms, Jacques Bonhomme! Peasants, artisans, townsmen, all for each! Each for all! To the happy issue of the good cause!"
"To the happy issue of the good cause!" rejoined the serf shaking with impatience. "To an evil issue the cause of the seigneurs and their clergy! Up, Jacques Bonhomme! War upon the castles!"
"And I," cried the student addressing Caillet while Marcel was giving his last instructions to Jocelyn, "I also will accompany you. I have shins of steel to tire out a horse. I shall ride ahead of Jocelyn's steed. To a happy issue the good cause! I represent the alliance of the University with the rustic folks. Rufin the Tankard-smasher was my name of peace; Rufin the Head-smasher becomes my name of war! And by the god Sylvanus, the genius of the fields and forests, I shall make havoc in this sylvan war! Forward! Forward!..."
A few minutes later William Caillet departed from Marcel's domicile accompanied by the champion and the student, all three bound for Beauvoisis.
The morning after William Caillet, Jocelyn the Champion and Rufin the Tankard-smasher left Paris, a band of English adventurers, commanded by Captain Griffith, and who for some time had been raiding the region of Beauvoisis, was marching under a balmy May sun in the direction of the village of Cramoisy. The men, about a hundred all told, and armed with weapons of different descriptions, marched in disorder with the exception of about fifty archers who carried on their shoulders their six-feet-long ash bows, a favorite weapon with the English, and which they handled with such dexterity that at the battle of Poitiers ten thousand of them were enough to put to rout the army of King John, consisting of more than forty thousand men commanded by the élite of the French nobility.
Several empty carts, hitched to horses and oxen and led by peasants who had been pressed into Captain Griffith's band under pain of death, were intended for the prospective booty. The English sold to the contiguous towns the proceeds of their thefts from the castles, as well as the droves of cattle that they took from the fields. In these towns the raiders were certain of purchasers for the sufficient reason that whoever refused was hanged on the spot. Captain Griffith affected a lordly generosity towards his customers in consenting to leave with them the spoils of his thieving exploits in exchange for moneys that it was in his power to rob them of. In his quality of the bastard of a great lord, the Duke of Norfolk, he prided himself of acting courteously, "as a true Englishman," according to his favorite phrase, and not scurvily like so many other leaders of mercenary bands.
Captain Griffith—a man in the full vigor of his age, robust and corpulent, and with hair and beard of a reddish blonde—rode at the head of his archers, the élites of his troop. Although in full armor, he had hung his casque on the pommel of his saddle, and now wore on his head a bonnet of fox-skin. Boldness, incontinence and a sort of cruel joviality stood out from the features of the Englishman that wore a rubicund tint from the potations and meats that he was in the habit of swallowing in enormous quantities. The morning air having sharpened his appetite, if ever it can be said to have been satisfied, the bastard of Norfolk was picking a ham, and from time to time lovingly resorted to a wine pouch that also hung from the pommel of his saddle. At his side rode his lieutenant, whom with impious mockery he styled his "Chaplain." Guilty of all the crimes on the calendar, Captain Griffith took, like Rolf the Norman pirate before him, a diabolical delight in all manner of sacrilege.
The Chaplain, a hulky scamp with a toper's face and as vigorous of bone as his Captain, wore under his iron coat of mail a monk's gown and on his head a steel helmet.
"My son," said he to the bastard of Norfolk, "without meaning to offend you, I shall have to call your attention to the fact that this is the third time you put your wine pouch to your mouth without offering your brother in Beelzebub to quench his thirst."
"What have you eaten, Chaplain, to make you so thirsty?"
"By the devil! I have been eating with my eyes the ham that you have been devouring with your teeth."
"Why, then, quench your thirst by seeing me drink! Your health, friend!"
"Sacrilege! To refuse wine to a thirsty chaplain! I would prefer, for the sake of your salvation, to see you again journey a whole day on a stretch in a chariot drawn by St. Patrick, the abbot, and his 'chapter.'"
"Pshaw!" hissed Griffith; "there were relays."
"True, several relays, each of twelve monks, and they were successively hitched. It was in your favor."
"There, devil's Chaplain, drink! Drink to my amorous exploits!"
After having kept for a seemingly interminable time his lips glued to the orifice of the pouch that the Captain had passed over to him, the Chaplain detached them for a moment, not so much for the purpose of answering his worthy chief as for the purpose of taking breath. Breathing heavily, he asked: "What amorous exploits? Sacred or profane ones?" and then proceeded to quaff.
"I mean that winsome tavern-keeper, who escaped us at the pillage of the little town of Nointel. Since that day, the pretty ankles of the brunette have not ceased trotting in my brain. As sure as I am Norfolk's bastard," added the Captain while the Chaplain continued to drain the contents of the pouch at long draughts, "there are two things that I would sell my soul to Beelzebub for. First, to snatch up that luscious tavern-keeper, second to fight with that tall scamp whom we released from the dungeons of Beaumont. He was then but a bag of bones, but when he will have been fatted up, I would wager your neck, Chaplain, that there is not the likes of him in this whole poltroon country of Gaul. I am tired of seeing only puny knights at the point of my lance whom I run down as if they were nine-pins. What a set of cowards these French noblemen are!"
At this point, the lieutenant, who had never ceased drinking, emitted a long gurgling sound, while with his free hand he pointed to a small troop of armed foot-men headed by a rider, and who pursued a route that somewhat led away from that of the English, but that ran out upon the same clearance at the top of a hill. The rider who led the foot-men, ordered a halt, and galloping over the meadow approached the English troop with his right hand up as a sign that he had no hostile intentions. Fearing, nevertheless, some ambuscade, Captain Griffith also ordered his troop to halt, but he placed his archers in line, donned his casque, took his long stout lance from the hands of one of his men, and seeing the Chaplain still clinging to the pouch of wine struck it from his lips with so dexterous a lance thrust that, slightly grazing the drinker's nose, the weapon hurled the pouch ten paces off. "You have watered quite enough!" he said with a gruff laugh.
"Fortunately the pouch is now empty," said the Chaplain wiping his mouth with the back of his right hand; "not a drop has been lost."
The unknown rider approached the while, but suddenly reined in seeing the archers, as was their wont before shooting their bolts, plant their left feet in the center of their bows in order to bend them.
"I come as a friend!"
"Who are you?" demanded the bastard of Norfolk. "What do you want?"
"I am the bailiff of the Sire of Nointel, the seigneur of these domains. I wish to speak with the valiant Captain Griffith."
"I am he.... What do you want?"
"Sir, is it you who have just pillaged the burgs and villages of our seigneur, the Sire of Nointel?"
"Would you, perchance, want to prevent me?"
"On the contrary, Sir; I have come in the name of my seigneur to offer you the advice of my old experience in order to help you to collect ransom from these villeins. Jacques Bonhomme is a wily customer; he has hiding places where he keeps his coin under shelter, and even provisions and cattle."
"Chaplain," the Captain broke in upon the bailiff, "we shall have to cut the ears of this fellow who comes here to mock us. Draw your cutlass and give him absolution for his sins."
"Sir, listen to me, and you will be convinced that I am not joking!" cried the bailiff. "Are you the son of the Duke of Norfolk?"
"A bastard son by my mother's virtue. But seeing she bestowed upon me a good fist, good eyes and good teeth I hold her quits. I remain noble from one side."
"The Duke your father knows that you hold the field in this region, and he is charmed with your prowesses. He wrote so to my master."
"A short time ago, on the occasion of one of my archers' return to Guyenne, I wrote to my father: 'My lord, in your life you gave me nothing but a kick with your left foot which I still feel; but I am none the less your affectionate bastard who is doing havoc in Gaul and who signs himself—Captain Griffith.'"
"Sir," said the bailiff handing a letter to the Captain, "here is the answer of the noble Duke, your father."
Greatly astonished, Captain Griffith broke the seal on the parchment and read: "One of the poltroon French knights whom I took prisoner at the battle of Poitiers will deliver this letter to you and also six thousand florins for his ransom. You are a fine scamp. Persevere in your exploits—Norfolk."
"What a father!" exclaimed the Chaplain raising his hands to heaven. "What a son!"
"Six thousand florins!" cried Captain Griffith. "Well! The good man must have remembered my worthy mother"; and addressing the bailiff he asked: "Where are the six thousand florins?"
"In the purses of the vassals of my seigneur, the Sire of Nointel, who was taken prisoner at the battle of Poitiers by the noble Duke of Norfolk. But, oh! My master is ruined by the costs of war and not a florin in the castle. But he gave his word as a Christian and a knight to pay his ransom to your father or to you, Sir. He will keep his word. It is an established custom that the vassals must ransom their seigneurs when taken prisoner. I therefore come, Sir Captain, to offer to you, by order of my master what little service I can render to you to the end of aiding you in collecting the sum, a very difficult thing to do without our aid. If you want a proof, all you have to do is to follow me not far from here, and you will see something that will greatly astonish you."
Captain Griffith, whose curiosity was now pricked, started his horse at the pace of the bailiff's, and resuming its march the troop descended the flank of the hill at whose foot lay the straggling village of Cramoisy, consisting of about three hundred cottages and houses. The silence of the tomb reigned in these homes. They were deserted, and the open doors showed their interiors to be empty and bare. Stupefied, Captain Griffith reined in his horse and said to the bailiff:
"By the devil! Where are the inhabitants of these shanties?"
"The other villages of this seigniory are as deserted as this one. You will find there, Sir, neither women, nor men, nor children, nor cattle," answered the bailiff. "There are left, as you see, only the four walls of the houses. You will, therefore, find it difficult to collect here even the smallest fraction of your six thousand florins. Jacques Bonhomme is a sly fox; he had wind of your coming and has run into the earth to escape you. But, to a sly fox a sly limehound. I know the burrow of Jacques Bonhomme. Follow me, Sir."
"Where to? Whither do you lead us?"
"Only one league from here.... But we shall have to descend from our horses at the outskirts of the forest. You can leave there the gross of your troop. A dozen of your archers will be enough for the job I have in mind. The risk is slight."
"Why would you have me descend from horseback, and leave behind the bulk of my troop?"
"It will, in the first place, be impossible for us to ride on horseback over the quagmires, jungles and bogs that we shall have to cross in order to arrive at the hiding place of Jacques Bonhomme. In the second place, the fox has a sharp ear. The noise made by a large troop would give him the alarm."
"Captain," suggested the Chaplain, "suppose this scamp were but leading us into an ambuscade?"
"Chaplain, never did Griffith recoil before danger," was the Captain's answer; "moreover, if this bailiff with a marten's snout should deceive us, let him be forewarned. At the first suspicion of treachery we shall promptly hack him to pieces."
"That's right," returned the Chaplain. "Let's march! His skin answers for our lives."
"March!" ordered Captain Griffith, and guided by the bailiff, who had been rejoined by his men, the troop left the village of Cramoisy and wended its way towards a forest, the skirt of which drew its length along the horizon.
About two leagues from the village of Cramoisy, and in the thickest of the seigniorial forest of Nointel, is a vast subterranean grotto, cut into the chalky rock that offers little resistance to the pick and the mattock. The cavern dates from the far-back troubled days when the Norman pirates were in the habit of rowing up the Somme, the Seine and the Oise and raiding the surrounding lands. Such of the serfs whose dire misery did not reach the pitch of constraining them to join the Normans, and who sought to escape the flood of pillage and massacre, had dug the underground place of refuge. Carrying thither their little havings, and even cattle, they remained hidden until the pirates left the country. Similar places were in later years contrived in almost all parts of Gaul by the vassals of the nobility for the purpose of escaping the brigandage of the English, of the robber bands and of the bands of mercenaries who devastated the provinces, finally also to escape the extortions of the seigneurs that now became intolerable, seeing that Jacques Bonhomme was forced to pay the ransom of their masters who had been taken prisoners at the battle of Poitiers. In other regions of Gaul the peasants withdrew with their families upon rafts which they anchored midstreams of rivers, and which frequently were either submerged or carried away by the floods to be finally swamped with the wretched mass of humanity that they bore. Never before had desolation and panic reached such a pitch in the unfortunate country; the huts were almost all abandoned, the fields uncultivated and a famine was apprehended similar to that which desolated Gaul in the year 1000.
The underground retreat whither the inhabitants of Cramoisy and several other villages of the seigniory of Nointel took refuge consists of a long vault, at the extremity and to the right and left of which are several other galleries in which cattle, goats and sheep are crowded. A well, used for a drinking trough, is dug in the center of the principal gallery. Above, an opening, partially masked with stones and underbrush, admits some light and air to the dark and icy asylum that oozes with the moisture of the earth. There, more than a thousand people crowded together—men, women and children who fled from their homes. The milk of the cattle, a few handfuls of rye or wheat pounded between two stones entertain rather than appease the tortures of hunger. A steaming, suffocating and nauseous heat, produced by the agglomeration of people and cattle, pervades the gloomy place. Now plaintive wails are heard, then the outbursts of violent quarrels, such as are certain to break out among semi-savages whom suffering exasperates. Wan and half naked children, who, however, preserve the carelessness of their age, played at this moment at the edge of the well which just happened to be lighted by a ray of sunlight that filtered through the rocks and underbrush which concealed the only air-hole of the vault. That sun ray also lighted a group of three persons, huddled together in a dug-out near the well. The three persons were Aveline, Alison and Mazurec.
When the little village of Nointel was pillaged by the troupe of Captain Griffith, the handsome tavern-keeper succeeded in saving what moneys she had and fled to Cramoisy where she joined Aveline. Learning there that the English were still ravaging the neighborhood, she joined the peasants in their flight to the underground retreat.
Aveline, now far advanced in pregnancy, expected every day to be delivered of the child of her disgrace and the fruit of the iniquity perpetrated upon her by her seigneur. Barely covered in a few rags, she lay on the cold and bare earth. Ever sympathetic, Alison held upon her knees the languishing and pale head of the young girl, whose thinness had now become shocking. Her hollow cheeks imparted monstrous size to her eyes, which she attached beseechingly upon Mazurec, engaged at the moment in sharpening upon a stone the teeth of a pitch-fork while muttering to himself: "William is long in returning from Paris; we are waiting for him so as to start the massacre ... sacred reprisals!"
Thus muttering to himself, Mazurec continued sharpening his fork. He had become a hideous sight. Having lost his right eye since the judicial combat with the knight of Chaumontel, the now hollow, quivering and half closed eyelids on that side of his face exposed a blood-clotted cavity. His crushed nose is a mass of scars, purplish like his torn-up upper lip which exposes his broken teeth. His long matted hair falls upon the ragged goat-skin jacket which he wears and from which protrude his nervy, but now haggard arms. Attaching upon her husband a beseeching look, Aveline said to him in a weak and sad voice: "Mazurec, if I give birth to a child before dying ... promise me not to kill it!... Answer me ... I beseech you in God's name.... Have mercy on the innocent creature."
"I promise nothing," answered the vassal in a hollow voice without stopping from his work; "we shall see what's to be done."
"He will kill the innocent child, Dame Alison!" cried Aveline weeping and hiding her head.
"Keep still!" replied Mazurec with the mien of a tiger that rendered his face still more frightful; "Keep still, or I may believe you are proud of having a child of your seigneur."
Aveline answered with a hysterical sob, while Alison cried indignantly: "Wretch, you will yet be the cause of your wife's death!"
"I had as lief she was dead as alive ... as to the child she now carries ... he shall not live ... I shall smother the noble whelp."
"Well, then, why don't you kill both mother and child. That would be less cruel than to kill Aveline by little and little as you are doing!" And looking at Mazurec with eyes of angry reproach, Alison added: "Oh, Mazurec the Lambkin, the unfortunate girl whose death you now wish, once made your heart bound with joy when you passed the door at which she used to spin!"
At these words which recalled to Mazurec the spring-tide of his love, days that were sweet even to the wretched serf, the young man broke down in tears, threw the fork aside, and closely embracing his wife, whose pale face he covered with kisses, he said: "Pardon me, my poor Aveline!... Oh, my blood has turned to gall ... I have suffered so much.... I still suffer so much.... Pardon me, my dear wife!"
Mazurec was uttering these words when suddenly the species of air-hole above the well was almost wholly obstructed with large stones that were being rolled about by the men of the bailiff of Nointel, and the bailiff himself, applying his mouth as closely as he could to the little opening that was left, shouted down into the cavity: "All of you, vassals of the parish of Cramoisy and neighboring villages, you are taxed, as your quota of the ransom of our very noble, very high, very dear and very powerful seigneur, the sum of one thousand florins; the other parishes of the seigniory shall be similarly taxed. Rummage around your purses quickly so that you meet the sum demanded. You have hiding places where you bury your valuables. Choose quickly between death and your money. If within the time it shall take me to utter a 'pater'[5] and an 'ave,'[6] one of you does not come out with the money, you will all be smoked to death like so many foxes in their burrow, after which the corpses will be rifled."
The bailiff stopped; the air-hole was tightly closed with clods of earth; and the cavern was plunged into utter darkness.
"Oh, my God! What's going to happen? Leave me not Mazurec," cried Aveline in a tremor and throwing her arms around her husband who jumped up the better to hear the announcement made by the bailiff, and which, repeated from mouth to mouth by the vassals, left them steeped in gloomy silence. The unhappy serfs clung all the more tightly to their little coin, their last resource, the only fruits left to them of their crushing labors and homicidal privations, seeing that they had succeeded in saving it from the rapacity of their seigneurs only by dint of untold privations and nameless devices, often struggling against the torture itself that was frequently inflicted upon them in the hope of wringing from them the disclosure of the hiding places where they kept their little treasure buried. The first shock being over, cries of indignation and revolt resounded in the cavern. The noise increased more and more.
"We leave our homes to live in holes like wild beasts, and we are hunted down even here!"
"To be pillaged by the English, and be forced besides to pay for the ransom of our seigneurs!"
"No! No! Let them choke us with smoke, let them burn us, let them massacre us.... They shall get not one denier from us!"
"We shall throw our few remaining sous into the well, sooner than deliver them to our butcher!"
It did not take the bailiff long to say his "pater" and "ave." Seeing none of the serfs coming out of the cavern to bring him the sum demanded, he ordered the burrow of Jacques Bonhomme to be smoked. The work was easily done. The cavern was entered by a narrow and steep passage cut into the rock. The Englishmen of Captain Griffith and the retinue brought by the bailiff heaped up at the mouth of the entrance a mass of dry leaves and branches, set fire to the same, and with the aid of their long lances shoved on the brasier a heap of green branches the thick and acrid smoke of which soon filled the interior of the cavern, the only opening that could have allowed the smoke to escape having been tightly closed in advance.
Ghastly was the scene that ensued. Suffocated and blinded by the black and pungent smoke, the vassals were a prey to distracting pain. The cattle, submitted to the identical trial, became furious, broke their ropes and rolled in the darkness amid the crowd whom they trampled under foot or gored with their horns. The wails of women and children, the imprecations of men, the lowing of the cattle made an infernal concert. Several of the serfs succeeded in groping their way to the well and threw themselves in to escape prolonged torture; others threw themselves headlong towards the mouth of the cavern, but smothered by the thick smoke and the flames that entered the passage and that now converted the entrance into a furnace, dropped down into the middle of the flames and were consumed; others again threw themselves down flat upon the ground, scratched the earth with their nails and, burying their faces in the earth imagined in their wild delirium they could thus take breath; lastly not a few were the mothers who, wishing to spare their children a long agony, strangled them quickly to death.
Mazurec held Aveline tightly in his arms while he shuddered at the thought of the horrible death that awaited her. The tender sentiments of their happier days took possession of his heart and mind and he racked his brain for a means of escape. It was in vain. Long worn out by misery and sorrow, the young woman was not equal to so rude an additional strain. In her death agony she fastened her lips to Mazurec's as though, wishing to escape suffocation, she strove to inhale her husband's breath.
By degrees her hold on him was relaxed, with one convulsive effort she embraced her husband and then her arms dropped by her side.
"Dead!" shrieked the serf; "dead and unavenged, my dearly beloved Aveline!"
"You can still revenge her and save us both and many more of these unfortunates," came panting from Alison, who still preserved her senses and energy. "Let us hasten!" continued the tavern-keeper with an ever more oppressed voice. "Let us endeavor to get out of here; ... I shall give the bailiff three hundred florins that I have sewn in my clothes; ... he will allow us to escape; ... if he does not, kill him; ... take your pitch-fork; ... it lies there.... Let's flee!..."
Mazurec emitted a cry of savage joy. The imminence of danger and the hope of revenge increased his strength tenfold. He seized the fork with his right hand, with his left he dragged Alison after him, and guided by the ruddy glow at the mouth of the cavern, the vassal plied his fork so as to clear a passage through the crowd that ran about delirious. Some he threw down, others he walked over. Finally he reached the approaches of the burning pile near which a number of corpses lay strewn. Dropping the hand of Alison and hitting upon a plan that had occurred to none during the general panic, Mazurec thrust his pitch-fork into the midst of the burning pile, scattered it, threw some of it behind him, opened a passage to himself, cleared the space which was covered with burning embers, and after a few bounds found himself at the issue of the cavern. For a moment Mazurec stood still inhaling the free air; his strength returned speedily; and making one last effort he rushed out. At the unexpected sight of Mazurec, foaming at the mouth with rage and brandishing his fork, both the Englishmen and the bailiff's men drew back in terror. Mazurec lost no time; he rushed upon the bailiff, buried the fork in the bowels of his seigneur's menial, threw him down, and, maddened with rage, trampled him under foot while he again and again thrust his pitch-fork into the bailiff's breast, his face and every part of his body that he could reach, uttering at every thrust: "This is for your having dragged Aveline to your master's bed!... This is for your having now smothered Aveline to death!"
At the sight of the terrific spectacle Captain Griffith broke out in a loud guffaw saying: "I take this expert poker under my protection. I admire his dexterity in the use of his pitch-fork!" In the midst of these exclamations Captain Griffith suddenly remained silent, then clapping his hands he proceeded in new ecstacy: "By the devil! Here are my two beautiful black eyes and plump ankles! Oh, this time you will not escape me, my belle! Mine be your treasures!"
The English captain uttered these cries at the sight of Alison, who now appeared at the entrance of the cavern, pale, with disheveled hair, her clothes half burnt, breathing fast and so feeble that she was unable to walk except supporting herself by the rocks that lay near by. Captain Griffith, without being moved at the lamentable aspect of the woman, and listening only to his own amorous suggestions, made one bound at his prey, took her in his arms and cried: "This time I hold you! Now you are mine!"
"Mercy!" cried Alison, struggling to free herself. "I shall give you all the money I have.... Mercy!"
"Love first, money afterwards!" was the answer of Norfolk's bastard carrying Alison off.
"Help, Mazurec! Help!" cried the tavern-keeper as loudly as her weak voice allowed her. But Mazurec, exasperated with suffering and now drunk with bloodshed and the transports of revenge, continued to hack with his pitch-fork the corpse of the bailiff, and heard not the appeal of Alison.
Suddenly, stepping out of a thick bush and appearing on the top of a rocky eminence, Jocelyn the Champion precipitated himself upon the ravisher, followed by Adam the Devil, William Caillet, Rufin the Tankard-smasher and several serfs armed with axes, forks and scythes. This small troop, attracted by the cries of Alison, had rushed forward ahead of a large number of revolted peasants, who, crossing a denser part of the forest, marched slowlier.
"Here I am, my charming hostess!" cried Jocelyn, leaping from rock to rock, sword in hand; "here I am ... ready to defend you!"
"My Hercules of the castle of Beaumont!" exclaimed Captain Griffith, drawing his sword at the sight of Jocelyn whom he immediately recognized; and relinquishing Alison he rushed, sword in hand, at Jocelyn, saying: "Only to-day I requested but two things from Satan: to embrace that belle and to find you again a little fattened, my sturdy boy! Let's commence with you; the belle shall have her turn!"
"I have not yet gathered much meat on my bones," responded the champion, intrepidly attacking the bastard of Norfolk, "but you shall not be long in admitting that my wrist has not yet lost any of its strength."
A mad combat was immediately engaged in between the champion and the Captain, while Caillet, Adam the Devil, Rufin and several of the serfs who accompanied them, threw themselves furiously upon Captain Griffith's Chaplain and the archers who had come with him when he left the gross of his troop near the skirt of the forest, as the bailiff had advised.
"Kill, kill the English!... Death to the English!"
Overpowered and crushed by numbers, cut to pieces with the scythes, disemboweled with the forks, knocked down with the hatchets, not one of Captain Griffith's men escaped the carnage. After heroically defending himself against Adam the Devil, who was armed with a short scythe and against Rufin who wielded a long sword, the Chaplain fell under their blows. His attention being now drawn again from his frenzy against the corpse of the bailiff by the arrival of the peasants who came with Caillet, Mazurec turned to them and brandishing his fork first joined their side of the combat; but struck with a sudden thought, he climbed the hillock where the air-hole had been contrived over the cavern, and which had recently been closed by the orders of the bailiff of Nointel. With the assistance of his fork he rolled off the stones from the aperture, and the smoke, now finding an issue, escaped therefrom in thick and black puffs. Climbing down, Mazurec disappeared within the cavern.
At that moment, though wounded in the arm, Jocelyn was holding Captain Griffith to the ground with both his knees pressing on the Englishman's chest, and was looking for the dagger at his belt to bury it in his throat saying: "You shall die, English dog, who do not respect even dying women!"
"As true as you are the best blade that I have yet met in this country, my only regret is that I leave that belle behind!"
Such were the last words of the bastard of Norfolk. At the same moment Mazurec issued from the cavern with the corpse of Aveline in his arms, saying:
"William Caillet, here is your daughter and my wife. All of you who have wives, children, parents or friends step into that cavern. Look for them among the dead and dying. Our seigneur, the Sire of Nointel, had us smoked in our refuge because we refused to contribute money towards his ransom!"
At this announcement a large number of peasants ran into the cavern, while Caillet approached Mazurec, who still held his wife's body in his arms, and calmly said: "Lay her down on the grass.... We shall dig her grave." But the words were hardly uttered by the old man than throwing himself down beside the lifeless body of his daughter, he broke out in convulsive sobs while kissing her cold face.
"I have cried so much that I have no tears left," said Mazurec contemplating the spectacle with a dry and fiery eye, while Adam the Devil silently dug Aveline's grave with the aid of his short scythe.
A clump of roots and trees had until now concealed the sad spectacle from Jocelyn, who, not having noticed his brother in the heat of the combat, sat down on the grass supported by Rufin, and left his arm to be attended by Alison. Always brave and helpful, despite the different emotions that stormed through her heart, the tavern-keeper had ripped up her neck-cloth, and kneeling down beside Jocelyn, looked upon him with tenderness while staunching his wound.
"When we first met, you won my case; to-day I owe to you life and honor. How can I ever repay such a debt. Oh, I know too well how you contemn money to offer you three hundred franks that I have sewed in my skirt."
"Do you wish, dear and good hostess, to repay your debt? Go to Paris. When you arrive there, ask where Master Marcel lives. Everybody will show you the place. Tell his wife that I have been slightly wounded and that there is no danger. That will assure Dame Marcel and also her niece ... my betrothed."
"Oh, you are betrothed, Sir!" exclaimed Alison with some confusion, and gulping down a sigh, she added in an unsteady voice: "May God protect your love! I shall do as you say. I shall go to Paris ... I shall calm the anxieties of the girl you love. In her place I would be happy, indeed.... Oh, so happy to be reassured regarding him whom I love," saying which Alison lowered her head to conceal a furtive tear that shone on her beautiful black eyes.
"Oh, Jocelyn!" Rufin said in a low voice, charmed with the grace and kindness of Alison, "a comely and honest body like that is worth a hundred Margots."
"Dear hostess!" resumed Jocelyn after a moment's reflection, "Will you allow me to give you advice? In times like these, a woman who travels alone runs great dangers. Take this friend of mine, Rufin, for your escort."
"Jocelyn," said the student with a lively movement, "I wish to remain with you to fight the nobility."
"You fought bravely despite the wound that you received only day before yesterday, and which still gives you much pain. You can render our cause a great service by returning and notifying Marcel that the peasants are in arms in this province and that William Caillet has given the signal for the uprising. Marcel awaits this news to act.... And if he has any confidential message for me, he will send it through you. You will then rejoin me in Beauvoisis. You will be easily able to learn the whereabouts of Caillet's troops, which I shall not leave"; and seeing that the student was about to yield, Jocelyn added in a low voice: "Despite the indiscretions of your youth, you are an upright fellow; promise me that you will guard Alison as you would your own sister."
"I promise, Jocelyn; and you can trust my word! I shall be a good guardian to Alison."
Suddenly a tremor ran over Jocelyn. He had just noticed Mazurec and Caillet carrying the body of Aveline. He understood what had happened, profound sorrow depicted itself upon his face, and kneeling down he said: "Kneel, Rufin ... kneel, my good hostess ... I shall have to wait till after this funeral to inform Mazurec that I am his brother."
Adam the Devil had finished digging the grave of Aveline. Caillet and Mazurec, holding the body by the shoulders and feet, laid it down in the tomb. The peasants who witnessed the ceremony fell upon their knees. The funeral of the poor female serf piously performed under the vault of the forest in the midst of the heaped-up rocks at the mouth of the cavern—the immense tomb of so many other victims—was a spectacle of mournful grandeur. Everything contributed to render the scene terrible and imposing. There lay the mutilated and bloody members of the bailiff, the pitiless executer of the Sire of Nointel's orders; yonder were strewn the corpses of the English, no less execrated than the seigneurs by the people of the fields; further at a distance was the kneeling crowd of serfs, bare-headed, clad in rags, holding strange and murderous weapons in their hands, and hardly able to restrain their fury; finally there were the father and the husband laying with their own hands into her grave her who should have been the solace of the former's old age and the joy and love of the latter's youth!
As soon as the body of the dead girl was laid in the fosse, Adam the Devil began filling it up with earth, while William Caillet standing at the head of his daughter's sepulchre and holding Mazurec to his breast cried out in a voice that pulled at the heart-strings of all present:
"Adieu, my daughter! Adieu, my poor Aveline! You who never lied! You who never did wrong! Adieu! For evermore adieu!" and raising his trembling hands heavenward, the old peasant proceeded solemnly: "I swear here by the body of my child whom I have buried with my own hands! By the bones of our friends and our relatives whose grave is that cavern! By the sufferings that we endure! By the blood and the sweat of our forefathers! I shall revenge my daughter! I shall revenge our fathers! I shall revenge our race for the tortures it has endured! War upon the castles, without let or mercy!"
Carried away by these words, the surrounding serfs rose to their feet, and brandishing their staves, their scythes, their forks and their axes, all responded in chorus with a voice that the echoes of the forest answered back: "Vengeance!" "Justice!"
In the meantime the peasants who had run into the cavern were coming back with terror marked on their faces: "Dead.... They are all dead or dying! Women and children, old and young ... all are dead!"
"All dead!" Caillet repeated in a terrific voice, "the little children! The women! The old men and the young! All dead! Up, Jacques Bonhomme! Up, my Jacques! Let the Jacquerie commence!"
"It shall commence with the castle of Chivry," cried Adam the Devil. "Our seigneur is to be this very day at the castle of Chivry to wed the gorgeous Gloriande ... on the day of the tourney she laughed at Mazurec!... It will now be your turn to laugh at the haughty damosel.... Up, my Jacques, let the Jacquerie commence!"
"Ha! Ha! The belle Gloriande!" Mazurec repeated with a ferocious and semi-delirious laughter. "I shall appear before her with one eye knocked out and my nose crushed! Oh! The gorgeous Gloriande!... What a fright she'll have!... Her husband took my bride.... Up, up, my Jacques! The Jacquerie commences!... War upon the castles!"
The revolted peasants tumultuously followed Caillet, Adam the Devil and Mazurec across the forest crying: "To Chivry.... Up, Jacques.... The Jacquerie commences!"
"Good-bye, hostess!" said Jocelyn rising and preparing to follow Mazurec. "Good-bye, Rufin. Guard with the solicitude of a brother this worthy woman who confides herself to your protection."
"I trust your friend," answered Alison, "because you told me to trust him."
"I swear," put in the student deeply moved, "that you can trust me as fully as you would Jocelyn himself, pretty hostess."
"Good-bye, Rufin; I shall join my brother, disclose to him the bonds that unite us, and battle at his side. Once more, good-bye, Alison. Say to Dame Marcel and to Denise, my betrothed, that if I do not see them again, my last thoughts will have been to them. As to you, Rufin, say to Marcel that the peasants of this province are at work exterminating the seigneurs."
"Good-bye, Jocelyn," Rufin answered sadly, extending his hand to his friend. "If Master Marcel should have any message for you I shall ask him to commission me to bring it to you!"
Once more the champion pressed his friend's hand and hastened to join the Jacques whose vociferations were heard in the distance. Before following the student, the good Alison knelt down at the grave of Aveline and amidst tears bade the last adieu to the ill-starred young woman.
The castle of Chivry, situated about three leagues from Nointel, and like almost all other feudal manors, built on the brow of a precipitous mountain, has nothing to fear from an attack from without. Defended both by a hundred men-at-arms and its own natural position, it can resist a long siege. For such an attack, artillery and other engines of war would have been requisite. The interior magnificence of this seigniorial edifice matches its defensive strength. Among its many sumptuous features is the throne hall, or hall of honor, which presents a dazzling sight. Its rafters, painted and gilded, glisten under the blue of the ceiling. Rich hanging carpets cover the walls, and enormous fire-places of sculptured stone, where whole trunks of trees are burned, rise at the two extremities of the vast apartment which is lighted by ten ogive windows of glass bearing armorial designs. The hall, virtually a gallery, is two hundred feet long, by one hundred wide—vast dimensions, indispensible to the state ceremonies which the stewards of the Sire of Chivry, as is the custom, attend mounted on horseback, entering by one of the doors of the hall, and solemnly carrying on the silver platters the "dishes of honor" such as peacocks and roasted pheasants, prepared with their own heads, and out-spread tails and wings, or gigantic pastries representing the seigniorial manor, ornamented with an escutcheon painted in lively colors—a glorious dish that the pages place on the table before the queen of the feast, and that must be cut by the equerry.
On this day, a brilliant company—the nobles, seigneurs and dames, damosels and children of the neighboring estates—assembled in the throne hall of the castle of Chivry, and pressed around the beautiful Gloriande, who sat triumphant on the throne—a sort of raised seat covered and canopied with gold brocades. Never did the damosel seem more superb and brilliant in the eyes of her admirers. Her attire was dazzling. Her black hair, braided with a thread of pearls and carbuncles, is half hid under her virginal bride's veil. Her robe of white velvet, embroidered with silver, boldly exposes her breast and plump arms. A scarf of Oriental silk, fringed with pearls, girds her supple and well-shaped waist. With brilliant eyes, pink cheeks and smiling lips, Gloriande receives the compliments of the noble assemblage who congratulate her on her wedding, the celebration of which is soon to be announced by the bell of the castle's chapel. The aged Count of Chivry enjoys the happiness of his daughter and the homage she is the recipient of. Nevertheless, despite the gladness denoted by her face, from time to time Gloriande puckers up her black eyebrows, while throwing impatient looks towards the doors of the gallery. Noticing one of these looks of impatience, the Count of Chivry says to his daughter smiling: "Be at ease ... Conrad will soon be here.... There he is.... Behold your bridegroom! What a noble presence!"
At the moment when the noble seigneur was saying these words a triumphant procession entered the spacious hall. Clarion players opened the march with a bravoure, they were followed by the pages bearing the livery of Nointel who in turn were followed by the seigneur's equerries. These led ten hideous looking men in chains. Their faces and skulls, smoothly shaven, are of dark brown color. Sad and dejected, they hold their heads down. They are clad in new white and green blouses, the armorial colors of the house of Chivry. From time to time the captives noisily clank their chains and emit lamentable moanings. Behind them marches the Sire of Nointel, superbly astride of a charger, with visor down, lance in hand and accoutred in battle armor. At his side but on foot marches Gerard of Chaumontel, also in full armor and seeming to share his friend's glory. The cheers of the noble assemblage greet the procession, and the radiant Gloriande, whose cheeks are now red with pride, rises from her seat and waving her handkerchief cries:
"Glory to the victor! Honor to the bravest gallant!"
"Glory to the victor!" is echoed back by the noble assemblage. "Honor to the bravest gallant! Long live the seigneur of Nointel!"
The Sire of Nointel descends from his horse, raises the visor of his casque and while his equerries beckon the captives to kneel down, he delivers himself of the following sentence:
"My lady-love ordered me to go to war against the English and to bring ten prisoners to her feet. The duty of all gallant knights is to obey the queen of their thoughts. Here are the ten English soldiers that I took at the battle that we have fought. And I, a captive of the god of love, now lead these chained men to the feet of my lady-love."
These chivalrous and gallant words threw the assemblage into transports of enthusiasm. The Sire of Nointel bows his head and proceeds:
"These prisoners belong to my lady-love. Let her dispose of them at her sovereign will."
"Seeing that my valiant knight requests me to decide over the fate of these prisoners," answered Gloriande, "I order that they be delivered of their chains ... and that they be set free! The day of my marriage shall be a day of joy for all"; and extending her hand to Conrad who drops on one knee before his bride, she proceeds: "Here is my hand, Sire of Nointel. I can give it to no more valorous a knight."
"Happy day to the wedded couple!" cries the assemblage. "Glory and happiness to Gloriande of Chivry and Conrad of Nointel!"
While the brilliant company was thus manifesting its share in the gladness of the young couple, the Count of Chivry approached the knight of Chaumontel and asked him in a low voice:
"Gerard, what devil of Englishmen are these fellows.... Why, they are dark as moles!"
"Sir Count," gravely answered the knight, "these scamps are of the English tribe of Ratamorphrydich!"
"How do you call that tribe?" again inquired the aged seigneur stupefied at the barbarous name; "I never heard of it before."
"The Ratamorphrydich," explained the knight, "are one of the most ferocious tribes of northern England. They are supposed to descend from a gypsy or Syrian colony that migrated from Moscovy to the shores of Albion upon the back of marine horses."
"Well! Well!" rejoined the aged count enraptured at the geographic knowledge of the knight. "That is a very complete and clear explanation."
The bell of the castle's chapel now sounded, and the seigneur of Chivry said to the knight: "This is the first peal of the wedding mass. Oh, Gerard, this is a beautiful day for my old years ... doubly beautiful because it shines in otherwise sad times."
"But it seems, Sire, that you have no cause to complain of the events. Conrad returns to you covered with laurel. True enough, he is a paroled prisoner of the English, but at this very moment his vassals are emptying their purses for his ransom. He is beloved by your daughter, whom he adores. Your castle, well fortified and provisioned, and defended by a courageous garrison, has nothing to fear from either the English or the marauding bands. Jacques Bonhomme, still sore at every limb from the lesson he received last year at the tourney of Nointel, dare not raise his nose above the ditches where he is at work for you. You may live in peace and contentment. Long live love, and let the future take care of itself!"
"Father," said Gloriande to the Count of Chivry, "the bell has sounded the second call for mass.... Let us start."
"Very well, my impatient bride," the Count replied smiling upon his daughter, "give your hand to Conrad and we shall start for the altar."
"Oh, father, do you know that Conrad spoke of me to the Regent, our Sire? The young and lovely prince wishes to see me at court.... We shall have time to order three dresses, one of brocade, the other of silver ... the third laminated in flower work."
"You may order ten dresses, twenty if you wish, and of the richest. Nothing is too beautiful for Gloriande of Chivry when she makes her appearance at court! It is well to show those kings, who seek to crowd the seigneurs, that we are as great seigneurs as themselves. You shall not lack for money. My bailiffs shall levy a double tax upon my vassals in honor of your wedding, as is customary. But here comes another impatient hot-blood who implores you to take pity on his martyrdom," gaily added the Count pointing at Conrad who now approached. The Sire of Nointel lovingly took the hand of his bride, the procession formed and, followed by the pages and equerries, the noble assembly marched to the chapel of the manor.
The English prisoners, who had been freed of their chains by the order of Gloriande, brought up the rear. While crossing the threshold of the gallery a large newly sharpened knife with a coarse wooden handle dropped from the blouse of one of the prisoners.
"Adam the Devil," whispered another prisoner, "pick up your knife before it attracts the attention of the soldiers."
The marriage of the damosel of Chivry with the seigneur of Nointel took place in the morning. In the afternoon, the large number of guests invited to the brilliant wedding were gathered in the large throne hall, now transformed into a banquet room. The banquet was continued deep into the evening, and was now nearing its end. For the last six hours the noble guests had been doing ample honor to the interminable meal. While Jacques Bonhomme barely preserves existence with decayed beans and water, the seigneurs eat fit to split their stomachs. It was so at the nuptials of the belle Gloriande. The first course, intended to open the appetite, consisted of citrons, fruit cooked in vinegar, sour cherries, salted dishes, salads and other toothsome preparations. The second course was of lobster patties, cream almonds, soups of meat, of rice, of oats, of wheat, of macaroni, of fricandelles, each served in the different colors that expert cooks impart to them and that please the eyes of the gourmands—soups in white, in blue, in yellow, in red, in green or of golden hue were spread in harmonious combinations. The third course had roasts with sauce, and what a variety of sauces!—cinnamon, nutmeg, raisin, jennet, rose, flower—all these sauces likewise colored differently. The fourth course consisted of pastries of all sorts, of boars, of deer, monstrous pastries that held, floating on goose fat, a whole stuffed lamb, finally tarts of rose leaves, of cherries, of chestnuts, and in the middle of all these a monumental fabric of pastry three feet high, representing the donjon-keep, the towers and the ramparts of the noble manor of Chivry. The long table loaded down with costly plate which reflected one another by the light of wax candles presented the aspect of gladsome disorder. The flagons and silver decanters, filled with spiced wines and circulating from hand to hand, redoubled the conviviality of the hour. Some of the guests grew unsteady in their seats, their heads swimming in the fumes of approaching drunkenness. The cheeks and eyes of several of the dames and their daughters, even without having celebrated Gloriande's nuptials to a Bacchic excess, had become purple and inflamed; their breasts heaved, and they laughed boisterously at the licentious stories told by the seigneurs who sat near and drank out of the same cup with them. Outside of the banquet table, the servants, and even the men-at-arms, were sharing the convivial joys of their masters, and celebrated the nuptials of their seigneur's daughter with deep potations of beer, cider, and even wine. Many were asleep in the profound slumbers of inebriety.
Alone Gloriande and her bridegroom have remained free from the effects of the overfeeding and drinking. Their intoxication is sweeter. They love each other, and soon the hour would come for their retirement. From time to time they exchanged furtive glances of impatience. Ardent are the looks of Conrad; troubled those of Gloriande. Her beautiful bosom undulates attractively the necklace of pearls and diamonds that rests upon it. She even frowns and shrugs her white shoulders upon hearing her father, now in an advanced stage of intoxication, bellowing at the top of his voice for silence and announcing that he would sing an old drinking song of twenty-eight verses, and each couple, drinking from the same goblet, was to empty it at each couplet, after which the bride and bridegroom would be ceremoniously conducted by her maids of honor to the bridal chamber, whose door opened into the hall. At her father's proposition to sing twenty-eight verses, a proposition that was received with general acclaim, Gloriande cast a desolate look upon Conrad, and the latter, turning to his friend Chaumontel, whispered in his ear: "The devil take the drunken old man ... along with his song."
"By the way," answered the half intoxicated knight, laughing loudly, "the old man asked me this morning how our English prisoners happened to be dark as moles;" and turning from the Count of Chivry the knight reflected a moment and then proceeded: "But, Conrad, were there not originally eleven rustics instead of ten that we picked up near the forest, from which they had just issued with forks, scythes and axes? They said they were hunting for a wolf that caused them much damage. Ah! Ah! I must still laugh when I think of our capture.... By the devil.... It was eleven and not ten rustics that we caught.... How does it come that, being eleven, there should only be ten now?"
"Do you forget that one of them ran away on the road?"
"That's a ray of light!" cried Gerard, counting on his fingers with the gravity of a drunken man. "The rustics were eleven. Good.... One of them escapes.... Consequently there should be only ten left! Conrad, you are the brightest of mortals!"
At that moment the seigneur of Chivry struck up the fourth couplet of his Bacchic song. No longer could the beautiful Gloriande endure her amorous martyrdom. She exchanged a few signs of intelligence with Conrad, and almost immediately uttered a slight cry, while seizing her father's arm, near whom she was seated. The old seigneur abruptly broke off his song and said to Gloriande, in blank amazement:
"What is the matter, dear daughter? Are you not well?"
"I feel giddy; I am not well; I shall withdraw to my room."