by Eugène Sue
Goose-Skin (distracted with terror, throwing himself at Montfort’s feet and seizing his robe)— “Gracious god-father! You promised me that you would hold me over the baptismal font. I wish to live henceforth a good Catholic. I believe in the Church, I believe in all her past, present and future saints. I believe the most incredible miracles. I shall believe anything that you want.”
Montfort (to Abbot Reynier)— “You were right. This wretch yields to fear and not to the faith. He is a miscreant.”
Abbot Reynier (to Goose-Skin)— “If your faith is sincere, the pyre will purify you of your past sins. But if you are merely feigning a sacrilegious conversion, the eternal flames will be your just punishment. You shall be burned alive like the others.”
Goose-Skin (rises furious)— “Oh, you lascivious buck! Oh, you lewd pig and tiger of cruelty! You are trying to take revenge for the night when I threw you down, and kept you there and prevented you from blasting a pure and poor girl! Hypocrite and criminal!”
The count’s equerries fall upon Goose-Skin and pinion him despite his violent resistance. They also pinion Mylio and Karvel who quietly allow themselves to be bound. The trumpets sound. Hugues of Lascy enters and announces that all is ready for the assault and that a litter awaits the count.
Alyx of Montmorency (falls on her knees)— “Go, my noble husband. I shall remain here on my knees until the battle is ended, and shall pray for the triumph of your arms, and the extermination of the enemy, and for the salvation of the poor heretical souls of Lavaur.”
Abbot Reynier (to Montfort)— “Come, brave soldier of Christ! Come and receive from my hands the bread of the angels, the holy communion!”
Montfort leaves the room reclining upon the monk’s arm and followed by his equerries, while Alyx of Montmorency remains on her knees in fervent prayer.
Mylio (looking sadly at Goose-Skin)— “Alas! It was his friendship for me that brought him to this country!”
Karvel (pensively contemplating Alyx of Montmorency who is murmuring her orisons)— “Poor creature! Her heart has remained good. She is imploring the mercy of heaven for the victims!”
CHAPTER XIII.
THE ESPLANADE AT LAVAUR.
AFTER A HEROIC defense the city and Castle of Lavaur surrender to the Crusaders. The consuls have stipulated for the safety of the inhabitants. But obedient to the dictum of Pope Innocent III— “None need to keep faith with those who have failed in their faith to God” — despite the terms of the capitulation, almost all the prisoners are massacred, the rest are reserved for separate execution.
One night has passed since the surrender of Lavaur.
Suddenly the chimes of a neighboring church ring the passing-bell. Soon thereupon a little door that connects with a stone balcony, upon which rows of seats are arranged, is thrown open. The Archbishops of Lyons and of Rennes, the Bishops of Poitiers, of Bourges, of Nantes and other prelates, all dressed in their sacerdotal robes, issue through the little door in solemn procession and take their seats. Montfort and Alyx of Montmorency follow, accompanied by the papal legate and Abbot Reynier. The quartet seat themselves in the front row of the balcony. Below the balcony and in plain view of the audience is a stone esplanade. Soldiers are ranked at the foot of the walls; they are followed by priests and monks of several orders carrying aloft silver crucifixes and black banners, and singing funeral canticles at the top of their voices.
The Executioner (on his knees before a little furnace, to a sergeant-at-arms)— “My irons are ready. Bring forward the sons of Satan.”
The sergeant goes to the door of the vault and knocks. The door opens and twenty-eight men and fifteen women step out. They are of all ages and all conditions. The prisoners move slowly; they cannot take long steps; their feet are chained. Their arms are pinioned behind their backs. They step upon the stone esplanade.
Abbot Reynier (in a menacing voice)— “Heretics of Lavaur! Will you abjure? Will you acknowledge the infallible authority of the Roman Catholic and Apostolic Church?”
An Old Man (to Abbot Reynier)— “My son died defending the town. The ruins of my house that was burned down after the pillage are still smoldering. I am near my grave. I now own nothing. But even if I had as many days before as I have behind me, even if I still had more wealth than I ever had, even if there still stood by my side the cherished child of my old age — even then, both he and I would answer you: ‘Death, a thousand times death, rather than embrace your infamous religion.’”
The Prisoners (among whom is Florette, fall on their knees and cry)— “Mercy for our Lady of Lavaur and her son!”
Only Florette remains standing. Mylio’s young wife is pale, livid; she sees nothing of all that is happening around her. Her thoughts are with her husband, whom she believes killed long before. Noticing that the dear child does not kneel with the rest, Abbot Reynier’s attention is attracted towards her. He recognizes her, his eyes bulge and he says to himself: “Ha! I shall now be doubly revenged upon that vagabond Mylio!”
The Old Man (to Alyx of Montmorency, who, herself pale and with eyes cast down, is devoutly counting her beads)— “Madam, in the name of your mother, mercy for our Lady of Lavaur!”
Alyx of Montmorency (unmoved)— “If she does not abjure her heresy, she must perish!”
Abbot Reynier (in a thundering voice)— “Hardened heretics, the Church now delivers you to the secular arm! Enemies of God, may your death strike a salutary terror among your fellows!”
The Provost of the Army (to the executioner)— “Take your hot irons. — But leave one of his eyes to the old man who has just spoken. With it he shall guide the rest.”
The executioner and his assistants seize at haphazard one of the prisoners. He is a young man. They bind him down upon a seat on the scaffold, while the executioner himself walks over to his furnace.
The Heretic (to the executioner’s assistants)— “What are you going to do? Have mercy upon me!”
One of the Assistants— “We are going to put out both your eyes, heretic dog! Pagan!”
The Heretic (terrified)— “Oh, death rather — rather death than such a torture — mercy! (He vainly tries to snap his bonds and writhes convulsively, crying) Brothers! Help! They are going to put out our eyes. Oh, Lord, have mercy upon us!”
The Prisoners (to Montfort)— “Such a punishment is frightful. Have us rather burned — strangled! Mercy!”
Montfort (with a hollow voice)— “No mercy! Your blind souls are closed to the divine light. So shall your bodily eyes be forever closed to the light of day!”
A Heretic (whose teeth are chattering with terror)— “Seigneur, myself and several of our companions abjure. Mercy! Mercy!”
Abbot Reynier— “Too late! Too late!”
The young heretic, who is firmly tied to the seat on the scaffold, is furthermore held down by the assistants of the executioner. The latter approaches the victim, who emits heart-rending shrieks and mechanically closes his eyes. With two thrusts of his sharp and incandescent iron the executioner pierces both the eyelids and the globes of the two eyes. The blood and smoke ooze out of the now hollow orbits. The shrieks of the victim are fearful, but they are speedily drowned by the choir of the monks and priests who chant their litanies aloud.
The same punishment, inflicted upon the rest of the prisoners in succession, is accompanied throughout by the funeral psalmody. Florette is the last victim, reserved to close the ghastly performance. At the sight of the horrors thus enacted in her presence, the poor girl almost loses her reason. She imagines herself oppressed by a nightmare. Sustained by the executioner’s assistants she marches mechanically to the seat on the scaffold. These hardened men themselves feel moved to pity. After she is fastened down to the seat and before proceeding with the operation, the executioner whispers to her; “Take my advice, little one, open your eyes — you will suffer less. If the eyelids are shut the pain is double, because the hot iron must pierce them before it reaches the eye-ball. Do you understand me? Come, l
ittle one, do as I tell you; are you ready?”
Florette (in a low voice to herself and only semi-conscious)— “Meseems I have been told to open my eyes in order that I may suffer less. Oh, no! I shall shut my eyes in order to suffer all the more, and die speedily, and rejoin Mylio. (Her haggard eyes wander; they alight upon Abbot Reynier; the girl shudders.) Oh, monk of Citeaux! Oh, infamous monk! There he stands, hovering before me in his white robe like a specter announcing death!”
The Executioner (holding in his hand the iron, the sharp point of which is at white heat)— “Quick now, my pretty girl! Open your eyes wide!”
Florette on the contrary closes her eyes firmly; her face becomes cadaverous; her bluish lips are convulsively pressed; she awaits death.
The Executioner (stamping on the ground)— “Open your eyes quickly — my iron is cooling. (The young woman does not obey) The devil take you! Fool! (The executioner darts his burning iron into the victim’s right eye) The devil take the heretic’s obstinacy! The right eye is now out!”
Florette (emits a piercing cry, and swoons murmuring)— “Mylio — help!”
The poor child swoons away so completely that she utters but a feeble moan at the burning out of her left eye.
Abbot Reynier (aside)— “What a pity! Such beautiful eyes! Why did the hussy prefer that miserable Mylio to me!”
Montfort (addressing the old man, only one of whose eyes was put out)— “You may now serve as the guide for these sinners. They may now be unpinioned. Let them consecrate the rest of their lives to repentance!”
Alyx of Montmorency (sadly to her husband)— “Alas! The punishments that the stiff-neckedness of these wretches compels us to inflict upon them are horrible — but the Church so orders it.”
The Provost (stepping to the foot of the balcony and addressing Montfort)— “Seigneur, shall the pyre be lighted?”
Montfort— “Be quick about it! Let the pyre be lighted immediately to burn the other heretics alive.”
Abbot Reynier (in a resonant voice)— “Bring the other heretics forth! The terrestrial hell shall be to them the vestibule of the eternal hell.”
Again the gate that communicates with the esplanade is thrown open. Pricked in the back by the lances of the soldiers behind them, a crowd of men, women and children of all ages issues from the dungeon with pinioned hands. The soldiers rank themselves in a cordon along the edge of the esplanade, and with the points of their lowered lances drive the human mass of prisoners into a burning fosse.
Among the last victims to issue from the dungeon are Karvel the Perfect, his wife Morise, the Lady of Lavaur and her son. Accident threw the four together at this supreme moment. Giraude is clad in black, her arms are pinioned at her back; so are Aloys’s, who has received a severe wound on his left shoulder, seeing that, despite his tender years, he insisted upon fighting at his uncle’s side during the siege. Giraude does not take her eyes from her son. The distracted mother’s angelic features betray the horror which, little recking her own fate, she feels at the atrocious death that awaits her son. The latter guesses his mother’s preoccupation, and endeavors to calm her with a smile. Karvel and his wife march with a firm step and serene front. Nevertheless, at the sight of the shocking spectacle that presents itself to him the instant he steps upon the esplanade, the Perfect stops short and shudders with horror. On the left are twenty-four gibbets awaiting their victims with arms outstretched; on the right, the prostrate bodies of those, who, too weak to withstand the torture of “blinding,” are now dead or dying: they lie strewn around the foot of the scaffold; finally, a little further away from the gibbets and corpses, lambent flames rise from the pit, a vast brazier whose fires are kept alive with the fuel furnished by the flesh, the bones and the entrails of the heretics. From the midst of that burning heap of human remains some tokens of life are still visible. Arms, limbs and chests quiver and writhe convulsively; here and there a head is seen with hair aflame and features singed. Oh! son of Joel, no human pen could depict to you the aspect of these beings in the throes of such a death.
Such is the spectacle that presents itself to Karvel and his wife. The Perfect stops, and turns to the balcony where Montfort, his wife, the mitred abbots, the noble dukes, counts and knights are ranked in state. He contemplates the assemblage for an instant, and, a prophetic inspiration lighting his face, cries out aloud:
“Oh, ye priests of Rome! Verily, verily I say unto you the evangelical faith has departed from your midst; to-day it dwells among those whom you style heretics, and there it will dwell imperishable as truth! You have the might — the might — ephemeral as that pyre that, this very evening, will be but a heap of ashes!”
Abbot Reynier (jumps up furious)— “Tear out that heretic’s tongue!”
The executioner and his assistants seize Karvel. While the latter hold the Perfect the former quickly takes out of his bag a pair of small iron pincers with wooden handles; he heats the iron in the furnace; and armed with the incandescent instrument of torture, beats in the Perfect’s teeth, and tears out his tongue together with shreds of his lips. Morise closes her eyes and plunges into the burning furnace, whither her husband is thrown immediately after her.
The only heretics now left of those that were condemned to the pyre are the Lady of Lavaur and her son. At the moment when the executioners drag them towards the fosse, Giraude throws herself upon her knees under the balcony where she just perceived Alyx of Montmorency. With convulsed hands and a voice that palpitates with horror the distracted mother cries:
“Madam! I do not ask you for my life. But I shudder for my son at the thought of the pyre. Oh! madam, for mercy’s sake, obtain from your husband the commutation of our punishment. Let us be slain with the sword!”
Alyx of Montmorency (lowers her eyes and clasps her beads)— “It may not be!”
The Lady of Lavaur (with a heart-rending voice)— “I implore you! Listen to a last prayer! Order them to burn me, but let them kill my son with the sword. You are silent? Oh, God! Have you no children, yourself, that you can be so merciless?”
Aloys kneels down beside his mother. His hands being tied behind his back the boy’s movements are constrained. He breaks into tears and approaches his face to the lips of his mother, who covers it with kisses and wets it with her tears. Alyx of Montmorency, whose eyes seem to moisten, timidly looks at Montfort and says to him in a low voice: “Monseigneur, I pity this heretic woman, could not her request be granted?”
Abbot Reynier (precipitately)— “Madam, in her quality of Mistress of Lavaur, this woman is guiltier than any other. She and her son must be burned alive!”
Montfort (impatiently)— “Oh! my reverend Father. Provided this heretic woman die, what does it matter whether it be by the rope, the sword or by fire? She will have been made an example of. After all, the Lady of Lavaur is of noble race; some concession must be made to the nobility. (The count casts his hollow eyes around him and proceeds with an expression of lassitude and disgust) And even that — to have the woman and her child slain there — before my very eyes. May the Lord pardon me a sinful weakness — my heart fails me! (He notices a cistern, and beckons to the provost) Come, be quick about it. Throw the woman and her son into that well and cover it up with large stones.”
The Lady of Lavaur (with a look of gratitude)— “Oh, thanks! Thanks! (To her son) Come, my child, we shall be drowned together.”
While Giraude and Aloys descend the stone steps within the well in which their lives are to be extinguished, the former turns to the executioner who accompanies them and is to thrust them into the water. “We are about to die,” she says, “neither my son nor I can offer any resistance. For mercy’s sake, free us from our bonds. My son and I could at least give each other a last embrace and die in each other’s arms!”
The Lady of Lavaur and her son are untied, and while the two hold each other in a close embrace and exchange their last adieus amidst sobs, the executioner makes a sign to his assistants, who forthwith push mothe
r and son down into the well. The sound is heard of the two bodies striking the water, the water closes over them, they rise again to the surface, their agonizing cries rise from the depth of the well; presently silence reigns within.
Perceiving that the sun is on the decline, also, perhaps, exhausted by the sight of the wholesale butcheries and wishing to hasten their end, Montfort orders the provost of the army to bring on the esplanade the heretics that are condemned to be hanged. They are brought out. At their head and hardly able to walk, seeing that he received many wounds during the siege, marches Aimery, the brother of the Lady of Lavaur. Close behind him come Mylio the Trouvere and Goose-Skin the juggler. They are followed by the consuls and other notabilities of the town. Soldiers with drawn swords lead the prisoners to the foot of the gibbets.
Abbot Reynier (rising)— “People of Lavaur, will you abjure your heresy?”
Aimery— “Between your Church and the gibbet, we choose the gibbet.”
Abbot Reynier (in a thundering voice)— “Death to the heretics. Hang them all!”
Mylio (looking distractedly around him)— “Poor Florette! She must have perished. My last thought shall be for my brother and for you, sweet child! I have hung on my neck the little spindle that you gave me. It lies on my heart. We shall soon meet again in the new world, where a new life awaits us. (To Goose-Skin, who seems steeped in thought) Old friend, pardon me your death. It is your devotion to me that has led you to this pass.”
Goose-Skin— “I was just asking myself whether there are hams and good wives in those starry worlds that your brother spoke to us about, where, according to him, we are to be born again in the flesh and the spirit. Oxhorns! If I am born again with my paunch, why, its weight and bulk will greatly incommode me in the ascent towards the empyrean!”
With the aid of a ladder the executioners have raised Aimery up to the noose that dangles from the first gibbet. The ladder is quickly removed and the victim remains hanging by the neck. For a few instants his limbs twitch convulsively, but they soon relax and remain motionless.
