Collected Works of Eugène Sue

by Eugène Sue

  PART II. THE VAGRES

  CHAPTER I.

  “WOLVES’ HEADS.”

  “ ‘THE DEVIL take the Franks! Long live the Vagrery and Old Gaul!’ Such is the cry of all Vagres. The Franks call us ‘Wand’ring Men,’ ‘Wolves,’ ‘Wolves’ Heads.’ Let us be wolves!

  “My father ran the Bagaudy, and I now run the Vagrery, but both to the one cry— ‘The devil take the Franks!’ and ‘Long Live Gaul!’

  “Aëlian and Aman, Bagauders in their days, as we in ours are Vagres, in revolt against the Romans, as we against the Franks — Aëlian and Aman, put to death two centuries ago in their old castle near Paris, they are our prophets. We take communion with the wine, the treasures and the wives of the seigneurs, the bishops and rich Gauls who made common cause with the Frankish counts and dukes to whom King Clovis gave our old Gaul. The Franks have pillaged us, they massacred and burned down; so let us do likewise — pillage, massacre and burn! And let us live in joy— ‘Wolves,’ ‘Wolves’ Heads’ and Wand’ring men!’ Vagres that we are! Let us live in summer under the green foliage, and in winter in caverns warm!

  “Death unto oppressors! Freedom to the slave! Let us take from the seigneurs! Let us give unto the poor!

  “What! A hundred kegs of wine in the master’s cellar, and only the water of the stream for the wornout slave?

  “What! A hundred cloaks in the wardrobe, and only rags for the toiling slave?

  “Who was it planted the vine? Who harvested the grape and pressed it into wine? The slave! Who should drink the wine? The slave!

  “Who was it that tended and sheared the sheep and wove the cloth and made the cloak? The slave!

  “Who should wear the cloak? The slave!

  “Up, ye poor and oppressed! Up! Revolt! Here are your good friends the Vagres! They approach! Death to the seigneurs and the bishops!

  “Six men united are stronger than a hundred divided: Let us unite! Each for all, and all for each! ‘The devil take the Franks! Long live the Vagrery and Old Gaul!’”

  Who sang this song? Ronan the Vagre. Where did he sing it? On a mountain path that led to the city of Clermont in Auvergne, that grand and beautiful Auvergne, land of magnificent traditions — Bituit, who gave Roman legions to his pack of hounds for breakfast in the morning; the Chief of the Hundred Valleys! Vindex! and so many other heroes of Gaul, were they not all sons of Auvergne? of the beautiful Auvergne, to-day the prey of Clotaire, the most odious, the most ferocious of the four sons of Clovis?

  Other voices answered in chorus to the song of Ronan the Vagre. They had met on a mild summer’s night; there were about thirty Vagres gathered at the spot — gay customers, rough boys, clad in all styles, but armed to the teeth, and all carrying in their caps a twig of green oak as the emblem of their solidarity.

  They arrive at a place where the roads fork — one road leads to the right, another to the left. Ronan halts. A voice is heard — the voice of Wolf’s-Tooth. What a Titan the man is! He is six feet high, with the neck of a bull and enormous hands; only the hoop of a barrel could encircle his waist:

  “Ronan, you said to us: ‘Brothers, arm yourselves!’ We armed ourselves. ‘Furnish yourselves with torches of straw!’ Here are the torches. ‘Follow me!’ We did. You halt; and we have halted.”

  “Wolf’s-Tooth, I am considering. Now, brothers, answer me. Which is to be preferred, the wife of a Frankish count or a bishopess?”

  “A bishopess smells of holy water — the bishop blesses; a count’s wife smells of wine — the count, her husband, drinks himself drunk.”

  “Wolf’s-Tooth, it is exactly the contrary: the wily prelate drinks the wine, and leaves the water to the stupid Frank.”

  “Ronan is right!”

  “To the devil with the holy water, and long live wine!”

  “Yes, long live the wine of Clermont, with which Luern, the great Auvergnan chief of former days, used to fill up the ditches wide as ponds, in order to refresh the warriors of his tribe.”

  “That would have been a cup worthy of you, Wolf’s-Tooth! But, brothers, do answer me; to whom shall we give the preference, to a bishopess or to a count’s wife?”

  “To the bishopess! To the bishopess!”

  “No, to the count’s wife!”

  “Brothers, so as to please all, we shall take both—”

  “Well said, Ronan!”

  “One of these roads leads to the burg of Count Neroweg, the other to the episcopal villa of Bishop Cautin.”

  “We must carry off both the bishopess and the countess — we must pillage both burg and villa!”

  “With which shall we start? Shall we start with the prelate, or shall we start with the seigneur? The bishop spends more time over his cup; he loves to roll the sweet morsels over his tongue, and to taste the wine leisurely; the seigneur drinks larger quantities; he gulps them down like a toper—”

  “Ronan is right!”

  “Consequently, at this hour of the night, midnight, the hour of the Vagres, Count Neroweg must be full as a tick, and snoring in his bed; his wife or some concubine, lying beside him, must be dreaming with eyes wide open. Bishop Cautin, on the other hand, will be leaning with both his elbows on a table, and face to face with a bowl of old wine and one of his favorite boon companions, cracking jokes.”

  “First to the count; he will be in bed.”

  “Brothers, let us first call on the bishop; he will be found up; there is more sport in surprising a prelate at his wine than a seigneur at his snores.”

  “Well said, Ronan! The bishop first!”

  “March! I know the house!”

  Who was it that said this? A young and handsome Vagre of about twenty-five years of age. He went by the name of “Master of the Hounds.” There was no more accurate marksman than he with his bow and arrow. His arrow simply traveled as he wished. Once the forester slave of a Frankish duke, he was caught in an amour with one of the women of his seigneur’s household, and escaped death by flight. He thereupon ran the Vagrery.

  “I know the episcopal house,” repeated the daring fellow. “Feeling it in my bones that some day or other we would be holding communion with the bishop’s treasury, like a good master of the hounds, I went one day and took observations around his lair. I saw the dear old man there. Never did I see a buck with blacker or more fiery eyes!”

  “And the house, Master of the Hounds, the house; how is it arranged?”

  “Bad! The windows are high; the doors heavy; the walls strong.”

  “Master of the Hounds,” replied Ronan the Vagre, “we shall reach the heart of the bishop’s house without crossing either the door, the windows or the walls — on the same principle that you reach your sweetheart’s heart without penetrating by her eyes — the night is favorable.”

  “Brothers, to you the treasures — to me the handsome bishopess!”

  “Yours, Master of the Hounds, be the bishopess; ours, the booty of the episcopal villa! Long live the Vagrery!”

  CHAPTER II.

  BISHOP AND COUNT.

  IN THE SUMMER season Bishop Cautin inhabited a villa situated not far from the city of Clermont, the seat of his episcopacy. Magnificent gardens, crystalline springs, thick arbors, green lawns, excellent meadows, gold harvests, purpled vines, forests well stocked with game, ponds well supplied with fish, excellently equipped stables — such were the surroundings of the holy man’s palace. Two hundred ecclesiastical slaves, male and female, cultivated the church’s “vineyard,” without counting the domestic personnel — the cup-bearer, the cook and his assistants, the butcher, the baker, the superintendent of the bath, the shoemaker, the tailor, the turner, the carpenter, the mason, the master of the hounds, besides the washerwomen and the weavers, most of the latter young, often handsome female slaves. Every evening one of these girls took to Bishop Cautin, who lay softly tucked on a feather bed, a cup of warm and highly spiced wine. Early in the morning another girl took in a cup of creamy milk for the first breakfast of the pious man. And thus live
d that good apostle of humility, chastity and poverty!

  And who is that portly, handsome and still young woman, who resembles Diana the huntress? With her bare neck and arms, clad in a simple linen tunic and her long black hair half undone, she leans on her elbows over the balcony that crowns the terrace of the villa. At once burning and languishing, the eyes of this woman now rise towards the starry sky, now seem to peer through this mild summer’s night, under shelter of which, with the stealthy step of wolves, the Vagres are wending their way towards the bishop’s residence. The woman is Fulvia, Cautin’s bishopess, whom he married when, still a simple friar, he did not yet aspire to a bishopric. After he was promoted to the higher office that he now fills in the hierarchy, he piously calls her “my sister,” agreeable to the canons of the councils.

  “Woe is me!” the bishopess was saying. “Woe to these summer nights during which one is left alone to inhale the perfume of the flowers, to listen to the murmur of the nocturnal breezes in the foliage of the trees, murmurs that so much resemble the stolen kisses of lovers! Oh! I always fear the unnerving heat of these summer nights! It penetrates through my whole frame! I am twenty-eight years of age. I am now twelve years, married, and I have counted these conjugal years with my tears! A recluse in the city, a recluse in the country by the orders of my lord and master, my husband, Bishop Cautin, who spends his time in the women’s part of the house among my female slaves, whom the profligate debauches while pleading the canons of the councils that, he says, order him to live chastely with his wife — such is my life — my sad life! My youth is ebbing away without my enjoying a single day of love or of freedom. Love! Freedom! Shall I grow old without knowing you? Woe is me!”

  And the handsome bishopess rose, shook her black hair to the night breeze, puckered her black eyebrows and cried defiantly:

  “Woe to violent and debauched husbands! They hurl women into perdition! Loved, respected, treated, if not as wife, at least truly as his sister by the bishop, I would have remained chaste and gentle. But disdained and humiliated before the lowest of the domestic slaves, I have grown to be wrathful and vindictive. From the height of this terrace, and often my cheeks mantling with shame, I follow with distracted gaze the young slaves of the field when they go out to work in the morning and return in the evening. I have struck my husband’s concubines with my hands — and yet, poor wretches that they are, they do not yield to the lover who begs, but to the master who orders. I struck them in anger, not in jealousy. Before that man became odious to me, I was indifferent to him. Nevertheless, I might have loved him, had he wished it — and as he willed. ‘Sister-wife’ of a bishop — it looked attractive! How much good could not be done! How many tears could not be dried! But I have had only my own to dry, soon finding myself degraded and despised. The measure overflows; I have wept enough; I have moaned enough; I have sufficiently resisted the temptations that devour me! I shall flee from this house, even at the risk of being captured and sold as a slave! Can it be called to live, this dragging of my days in this opulent villa, a gilded grave? No! No! I wish to leave this sepulchre! I wish to breathe the free air! I wish to see the sun! I wish to move free in space! I crave a single day of love and freedom! Oh! If I could only see again the young lad, who more than once went by this terrace early in the morning! What warm and loving glances he shot at me! What a beautiful and fearless face looked from under his red headcover! What a robust and graceful build did not his Gallic blouse reveal with the belt of his hunting knife! He must be some forester slave of the neighborhood! A slave! What does it matter! He is young, handsome, nimble and amorous! My husband’s concubines also are slaves! Oh! Shall I never enjoy a day of love, of freedom?”

  In the meantime, what is the bishop doing while his bishopess, lost in revery on the balcony over the terrace, contemplates the stars, sighs into the darkness, and breathes her sorrows and her devilish hopes upon the midnight breezes? The holy man is drinking and conferring with Count Neroweg, who happens on this night to be his guest. The banquet hall in which they are seated is built after the Roman fashion. It is a spacious room, ornamented with marble pillars, and decked with gilded work and fresco paintings. Gold and silver vases are ranged on ivory sideboards. The floor is slabbed with rich mosaics that are pleasing to the eye. But still more pleasing to the eye is the large table loaded with drinking cups and half-emptied amphoras. The leudes, Neroweg’s companions in arms and his equals in time of peace, have gone to play at dice with the bishop’s clerks and familiars in the vestibule, after having partaken of supper at the same table with the count, as is the custom. Here and there along the walls the rough weapons of the leudes are stacked up — wooden bucklers, iron-rimmed staves, ‘francisques’ or double-edged axes, ‘haugons’ or demi-pikes furnished with iron grappling hooks. The count’s buckler is illumined with a painting that represents three eagle’s talons. Left alone at table with his guest, the prelate induces Neroweg to drain cup after cup. At the lower end of the table sits a hermit laborer. He drinks not, neither does he speak. At times he seems to listen to the conversation of the two topers. Oftener, however, he is steeped in thought.

  The Frank, Count Neroweg, has the appearance and emits the odor of a wild-boar in spring; his face resembles a bird of prey, with his beaked nose and restless little eyes that alternately assume a savage and then a sleepy look; his coarse yellow hair, tied over his head with a leather thong, falls back over his neck like a mane; the coiffure of these barbarians remained unchanged during the last two centuries. Neroweg’s chin and cheeks are closely shaven, but his long reddish moustache droops down to his chest, which is covered by a doe-skin jacket, shines with grease, and is dotted with wine spots. Long leathern straps criss-cross over his lower hose from his coarse iron-spiked shoes up to his knees. He has removed his heavy sword from his broad and loosely hanging baldric and laid it upon a seat nearby, beside a stout holly club. Such is the convivial guest of the prelate, such is Count Neroweg, one of these new masters of the old lands of Gaul.

  Bishop Cautin resembles a large, fat, ruttish fox — lascivious and sly eyes, red ears, a mobile and pointed nose, hirsute hands. He prinks in his violet robe of fine woven silk. And what a paunch! One would say there was a barrel under the gown.

  As to the hermit-laborer — all respect for that priest, a worthy disciple of the young man of Nazareth! He is thirty years of age at the most. His face is pale, and it is at once mild and firm; his beard is blonde, his head is prematurely bald; his long brown robe, made of some coarse material, is here and there frayed by the brambles on the lands that his toil has cleared. The man’s bearing is rustic, his hands are strong, the plow and the hoe-handle have made them horny.

  The bishop again fills another large cup to the Frank, saying:

  “Count — I repeat it — the twenty gold sous, the meadow lands and the little blonde female slave — either I must have them, or you get no absolution!”

  “Bishop! I shall fall upon your house with all my leudes and sack it; I shall roast you over a slow fire — and you will give me absolution—”

  “Impious man! Sacrilegious blasphemer! Pharaoh! Hog of profligacy! Reservoir of wine! How dare you hold such language to your bishop! And you a son of our apostolic Church!”

  “You shall give me absolution, will ye, nill ye!”

  “Oh! The beast! Is it that you are itching to fall into the very bottom of hell? Is it that you are itching to remain for centuries in succession broiling in pails full of burning pitch! You seem to be itching after a thorough trouncing with the forks of the devils! Devils with toads’ heads, rams’ horns, serpents for their tails, elephants’ trunks for arms, and cloven hoofs — aye archcloven!”

  “Did you see them?” queried the Frank with a savage and yet frightened mien. “Did you, bishop? Did you see those demons?”

  “Whether I saw them! They brought before me in a cloud of bitumen and sulphur Duke Rauking, who, the sacrilegious wretch! struck Bishop Basile with his cane!”

  �
��And did the devils carry off Duke Rauking?”

  “They threw him into the bottomless pit! I counted them; there were thirteen of them; a large red devil, that was Lucifer, led them. Such a fate is in store for you, if I refuse you absolution.”

  “Bishop, you may be saying all that only to frighten me out of my twenty gold sous, the fine meadow lands, and the pretty blonde slave!”

  The prelate rang a bell; one of his confidential servants stepped in; the holy man said to him a few words in Latin while with his eyes he indicated a spot on the mosaic floor. The servant went out again. The hermit-laborer thereupon addressed the bishop, also in Latin:

  “What you propose to do is an unworthy trick! It is a sacrilegious fraud!”

  “Hermit, is not everything allowed to the clergy of our holy Church in order to terrify these brutes of Franks into subjection?”

  “Fraud never is allowed—”

  Cautin shrugged his shoulders, and addressing the count in the Frankish tongue — the prelate spoke the language like any of the barbarians — he said:

  “Are you a Christian and a Catholic? Did you receive holy baptism?”

  “Bishop Macaire, twenty years ago, ordered me to step naked into the stone tank of his basilica; he then threw a handful of water upon my head and mumbled some Latin words.”

  “You are a Catholic — a son of our holy Church — by reason of which you must respect and obey me as your father in Christ!”

  “Bishop, you are trying to confuse me by such language, but I will not be duped by you. Our great King Clovis conquered and subjugated Gaul at the head of his brave leudes. My father Gonthram Neroweg was one of his warriors, and—”