Collected Works of Eugène Sue

by Eugène Sue

  “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 di
stricts!”

  “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.

  PART III. THE JACQUERIE.

  CHAPTER I.

  CAPTAIN GRIFFITH AND HIS CHAPLAIN.

  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?”