by Eugène Sue
THE GOLD SICKLE
Or
Hena, The Virgin of The Isle of Sen
A Tale of Druid Gaul
by
EUGENE SUE
Translated from the Original French by Daniel De Leon
New York Labor News Company, 1904
Copyright, 1904, by theNew York Labor News Company
TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE
_The Gold Sickle; or, Hena the Virgin of the Isle of Sen_, is theinitial story of the series that Eugene Sue wrote under the collectivetitle of _The Mysteries of the People; or, History of a ProletarianFamily Across the Ages_.
The scheme of this great work of Sue's was stupendously ambitious--andthe author did not fall below the ideal that he pursued. His was thepurpose of producing a comprehensive "universal history," dating fromthe beginning of the present era down to his own days. But the historythat he proposed to sketch was not to be a work for closet study. It wasto be a companion in the stream of actual, every-day life and struggle,with an eye especially to the successive struggles of the successivelyruled with the successively ruling classes. In the execution of hisdesign, Sue conceived a plan that was as brilliant as it waspoetic--withal profoundly philosophic. One family, the descendants of aGallic chief named Joel, typifies the oppressed; one family, thedescendants of a Frankish chief and conqueror named Neroweg, typifiesthe oppressor; and across and adown the ages, the successive strugglesbetween oppressors and oppressed--the history of civilization--is thusrepresented in a majestic allegory. In the execution of this superb plana thread was necessary to connect the several epochs with one another,to preserve the continuity requisite for historic accuracy, and, aboveall, to give unity and point to the silent lesson taught by theunfolding drama. Sue solved the problem by an ingenious scheme--a seriesof stories, supposedly written from age to age, sometimes at shorter,other times at longer intervals, by the descendants of the ancestraltype of the oppressed, narrating their special experience and handingthe supplemented chronicle down to their successors from generation togeneration, always accompanied with some emblematic relic, thatconstitutes the first name of each story. The series, accordingly,though a work presented in the garb of "fiction," is the best universalhistory extant: Better than any work, avowedly on history, itgraphically traces the special features of class-rule as they havesucceeded one another from epoch to epoch, together with the specialcharacter of the struggle between the contending classes. The "Law,""Order," "Patriotism," "Religion," "Family," etc., etc., that eachsuccessive tyrant class, despite its change of form, fraudulently soughtrefuge in to justify its criminal existence whenever threatened; thevarying economic causes of the oppression of the toilers; the mistakesincurred by these in their struggles for redress; the varying fortunesof the conflict;--all these social dramas are therein reproduced in amajestic series of "novels" covering leading and successive episodes inthe history of the race--an inestimable gift, above all to our owngeneration, above all to the American working class, the short historyof whose country deprives it of historic back-ground.
It is not until the fifth story is reached--the period of the Frankishconquest of Gaul, 486 of the present era--that the two distinct streamsof the typical oppressed and typical oppressor meet. But the fourpreceding ones are necessary, and preparatory for the main drama, thatstarts with the fifth story and that, although carried down to therevolution of 1848 which overthrew Louis Philippe in France, reaches itsgrand climax in _The Sword of Honor; or, The Foundation of the FrenchRepublic_, that is, the French Revolution. These stories are nineteen innumber, and their chronological order is the following:
1. The Gold Sickle; or, Hena, the Virgin of the Isle of Sen; 2. The Brass Bell; or, The Chariot of Death; 3. The Iron Collar; or, Faustine and Syomara; 4. The Silver Cross; or, The Carpenter of Nazareth; 5. The Casque's Lark; or, Victoria, The Mother of the Fields; 6. The Poniard's Hilt; or, Karadeucq and Ronan; 7. The Branding Needle; or, The Monastery of Charolles; 8. The Abbatial Crosier; or, Bonaik and Septimine; 9. Carlovingian Coins; or, The Daughters of Charlemagne; 10. The Iron Arrow-Head; or, The Maid of the Buckler; 11. The Infant's Skull; or, The End of the World; 12. The Pilgrim's Shell; or, Fergan the Quarryman; 13. The Iron Pincers; or, Mylio and Karvel; 14. The Iron Trevet; or, Jocelyn the Champion; 15. The Executioner's Knife; or, Joan of Arc; 16. The Pocket Bible; or, Christian the Printer; 17. The Blacksmith's Hammer; or, The Peasant-Code; 18. The Sword of Honor; or, The Foundation of the French Republic; 19. The Galley-Slave's Ring; or, The Family of Lebrenn.
Long and effectually has the influence of the usurping class in theEnglish-speaking world succeeded in keeping this brilliant torch thatEugene Sue lighted, from casting its rays across the path of theEnglish-speaking peoples. Several English translations were attemptedbefore this, in England and this country, some fifty years ago. Theywere all fractional: they are all out of print now: most of them are notto be found even in public libraries of either England or America, not awrack being left to them, little more than a faint tradition. Only twoof the translations are not wholly obliterated. One of them waspublished by Truebner & Co. jointly with David Nutt, both of London, in1863; the other was published by Clark, 448 Broome street, New York, in1867. The former was anonymous, the translator's identity beingindicated only with the initials "K. R. H. M." It contains only eight ofthe nineteen stories of the original, and even these are avowedlyabridgments. The latter was translated by Mary L. Booth, and it brokeoff before well under way--extinguished as if snuffed off by a gale.Even these two luckier fragmentary translations, now surviving only ascurios in a few libraries, attest the vehemence and concertedness of theeffort to suppress this great gift of Sue's intellect to the human race.It will be thus no longer. _The Mysteries of the People; or, History ofa Proletarian Family Across the Ages_ will henceforth enlighten theEnglish-speaking toiling masses as well.
DANIEL DE LEON.
New York, May 1, 1904.
