Collected Works of Eugène Sue

by Eugène Sue

  “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.”

  CHAPTER IV.

  “JACQUERIE! JACQUERIE!”

  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.”

>   “My dearly beloved Gloriande,” said the Sire of Nointel, rising quickly, “allow me to accompany you.”

  “Yes, I wish you would, Conrad.... I shall take some air at the window of my room.... I think that will do me good.”

  “Come, my children,” said the seigneur of Chivry, resignedly, “I shall start my song all over again at to-morrow’s feast;” and then added: “Let the maids of honor kindly accompany the bride, according to custom, as far as the door of the nuptial chamber.”

  At these words several of the young ladies regretfully quitted the knights near whom they sat and surrounded the bride, while Conrad walked around the immense table to join his wife, and two pages threw open the doors of the bridal chamber, brilliantly lighted by torches of perfumed wax. The nuptial couch was seen at the end of the chamber, surmounted with an armorial canopy, and half concealed behind curtains of tapestry that glistened with silver thread. Suddenly the voice of Gerard of Chaumontel, more and more intoxicated, was heard crying:

  “Noble dames and damosels, I request leave to prove to you that I am a man ... of singular powers of divination!”

  “Prove it! Prove it!” gayly came from the guests. “Prove it to us, to-night! We listen! Give us the proof!”

  “Last year,” proceeded Gerard, “on the day of the tourney of Nointel, where all of you were present, and where Jacques Bonhomme kicked some capers, Conrad ordered several of the scamps to be hanged, and to drown the one whom I vanquished in a judicial combat, all according to usage and custom.”

  “I very much would like to see a villein drown,” cried a lad of eleven years, son of the Sire of Bourgeuil. “I have seen villeins whipped, I have seen their ears cropped, I have seen them hanged and quartered, but never have I seen any drowned. Father, ... will you not have a villein drowned ... for me to see?... I would like to see a villein drowned.... I have taken the fancy.”

  “My son,” the Sire of Bourgeuil answered the child in a magisterial tone, “your interruption is unbecoming. You should have waited till the knight finished before expressing your wish to me.”

  “Well,” continued Gerard of Chaumontel, “the rustic whom I vanquished, at the moment of taking his first and last bath, cried out to me with the voice of a devil who has caught cold: ‘You cause me to be drowned, you shall be drowned!’ and to Conrad: ‘You outraged my wife, your wife shall be outraged!’”

  “The knight of Chaumontel is tipsy,” murmured several guests.

  “Such lugubrious stories about hanging and drowning are out of place at a wedding.”

  “Enough, Sir knight! Enough!”

  “Drink your wine in peace, good Sir!”

  “Wait till I prove it to you ... how I am a man of singular powers of divination,” continued Gerard. But the hisses drowned his voice, and the Sire of Nointel, shivering despite himself at the mournful recollection now evoked by his friend, took the hand of Gloriande whom the maids of honor surrounded and said to her while marching towards the nuptial chamber: “Listen not to the fool; he is tipsy.... Come, my beloved.... Love awaits us.”

  Suddenly an equerry appeared like a specter at the large door of the hall. His face was livid and his body streamed blood. He took two steps forward, swayed on his feet and dropped down upon the stone slabs which he reddened with his blood. With his last dying breath he uttered these words “My seigneur.... Oh, my seigneur.... Save yourself!”

  At the spectacle a cry of horror and fear leaped from every mouth. The belle Gloriande, seized with terror, threw herself into Conrad’s arms. The guests, pale and stupefied, were for an instant struck silent, while from the distance a formidable noise seemed to approach. Another equerry, also pale as a ghost and bleeding, ran in screaming in a broken voice:

  “Treason!... Treason!... The English prisoners have cut the throats of the guards at the main gate of the castle.... They opened it to a furious multitude.... The assailants are here!”

  Immediately the cry of “Jacquerie! Jacquerie!” repeated from hundreds of throats, resounded outside the banquet hall, and the glasses of the windows, beaten in with axes and pitchforks, flew in all directions with a wild rush.

  A numerous band of Jacques, led by Adam the Devil and his blackened companions who had performed the rôle of English prisoners in that same hall that same morning, now rushed in through the doors and broken windows. Guided by an identical impulse, the terror-stricken noble assemblage crowded towards the principal door expecting to escape at that issue. Their exit was, however, intercepted by William Caillet and Mazurec, who appeared at the threshold at the head of still another band of Jacques armed with staves, scythes, forks and axes. Almost all these peasants in arms were vassals of the seigneurs of Chivry and Nointel. At the sight of the wan, savage, blood-stained, half-naked mob, bearing on their bodies the impress of serfdom, the dames and damosels uttered cries of terror and huddled together in wild panic into the extreme corner of the hall. The seigneurs, having according to usage doffed their armor to don their gala dress, seized the table knives and the flagons of glass and silver to defend themselves. The joyous fumes of wine that at first confused their minds were soon dissipated and they ranked themselves into an improvised barrier before the women.

  William Caillet swung his axe three times. At that signal the tumultuous clamors of the Jacques was hushed by little and little until the silence became profound, disturbed only by exclamations and moans from the affrighted noble women.

  “My Jacques!” cries Caillet. “You brought ropes along. First of all bind fast all the noblemen; kill on the spot whoever resists; but keep alive the father and the husband of the bride; also to keep alive the knight of Chaumontel. We have an account to settle with them.”

  “I shall take charge of those three,” said Adam the Devil. “Follow me, my alleged Englishmen. Get the ropes ready.”

  The vassals flew upon the seigneurs. A few of them offered a desperate resistance and were killed, but the larger number of the knights, demoralized and terror-stricken by the suddenness of the attack allowed themselves to be bound. Among these were the aged seigneur of Chivry, Gerard of Chaumontel and the Sire of Nointel, the last of whom was torn from the arms of his bride. More furious than frightened, Gloriande gave a loose to imprecations and insults that she hurled at the revolted serfs. Adam the Devil seized and overpowered her, tearing in the attempt her wedding dress to shreds, and tied her hands behind her back, while with refined ferocity he observed:

  “To each his turn, my noble damosel.... Last year you laughed at us at the tourney of Nointel.... Now it is our turn to laugh at you, my amorous belle!”

  “This English prisoner knows me!” exclaimed Gloriande. “Is all this but a horrible dream? Conrad, revenge your wife!”

  “I am a vassal of the seigniory of Nointel, and not an Englishman, my belle,” answered Adam the Devil. “The rôle of prisoner was imposed upon us by your noble husband, your valiant knight, the Sire of Nointel, too much of a coward to make real prisoners. He met us just outside of the forest and ordered us under pain of hanging to accompany him hither and be the accomplices of his trick upon you by figuring as the English prisoners that he was to lead to you from the battle that was fought. We consented to the masquerade. It helped us in our plan to enter your father’s castle. One of us, managing to escape on the road, took to our companions the order to draw near the manor by nightfall. We cut the throats of the guards, lowered the bridge and let our Jacques in. Now we are going to laugh at you, my belle ... just as you laughed at us at the tourney of Nointel! It is now our turn to feast.”

  Gloriande allowed Adam the Devil to speak without interrupting him. And shuddering with painful indignation she cried: “Conrad lied.... Conrad is a coward!”

  “Yes, your nobleman of a husband is a liar and a coward,” rejoined Adam the Devil, dragging Gloriande towards the other extremity of the hall. “A beauty like you deserves a braver husband. I shall take you to the kind of lover you have been dreaming of.”

  Gloriande of Chi
vry forgot for a moment the dangers that beset her and the terror that had begun to seize her mind. Overwhelmed by the idea, horrible to her pride, that Conrad of Nointel was a coward, she let herself be dragged without resistance towards the other end of the hall.

  In the center of the Jacques who had formed a circle stood William Caillet reclining on the handle of his heavy axe; near him were Jocelyn the Champion with his arms across his breast, and Mazurec the Lambkin, now the widower of Aveline-who-never-lied. Only partly clad in rough sheep-skin, his hair matted, his arms bare and blood-bespattered, with the cavity of one eye hollow, his nose crushed, his upper lip split — the serf presented a repulsive aspect. Adam the Devil pushed Gloriande towards Mazurec saying: “There is your new husband! Come, my pretty lass, embrace your lord and master!”

  At the sight of the disfigured serf Gloriande drew back and uttered a cry of fright; but terror palsied her brain when she saw Mazurec slowly advancing upon her with his one eye burning with hatred, and laying his callous hand upon her shoulder say in a hollow voice: “In the name of force ... you are mine ... the same as in the name of force my bride Aveline belonged to Conrad of Nointel....”

  “What is the monster saying?” muttered the distracted Gloriande drawing back and seeking to free herself from the grasp of the vassal. “Father!... Come to my help, father!”

  The noble seigneur of Chivry lay nearby bound hand and foot, the same as Gerard of Chaumontel and Conrad of Nointel, the last of whom, out of his senses with fright and crushed with remorse, neither heard nor saw aught, but was muttering between his teeth: “Have mercy upon me, my Lord God!... I am a great sinner.... I repent having outraged that vassal’s bride....”

  “Help, father!” Gloriande continued to cry, ever seeking to escape the grip of Mazurec, whose nails, now long and bent like those of a bird of prey, dug deep into the flesh of the Sire of Nointel’s bride and held her firmly while he exclaimed: “This noble damosel is mine!”