"Whereas the charter and statute on the right of first fruits vests in the seigneur of the lands and seigniory of Nointel, Loury, Berteville, Cramoisy, Saint-Leu and other places the privilege of demanding the first wedded day of all the maidswho are not noble, and who shall marry in said seigniory, after which the said seigneur shall no longer touch the said married woman, and shall leave her to her husband;"And whereas, on the eleventh day of this month, Aveline-who-never-lied, a female serf of the parish of Cramoisy, was married to Mazurec the Lambkin, a miller serf at the Gallion mill;"And whereas, our young, high, noble and puissant seigneur, Conrad Neroweg, knight and seigneur of the said seigniory herein above mentioned, having wished to exercise his right of first fruits on the said Aveline-who-never-lied, and the said Mazurec the Lambkin, her husband, having sought to oppose himself thereto by using unseemly words towards the said seigneur, and the said married woman having been required to submit to the said right and having obstinately refused, the said seigneur, by reason of the disobedience of the said married couple and their unseemly words, caused them both to be separately imprisoned and filed a criminal bill with his worship the seneschal of Beauvoisis notifying him of the above occurrences;"And whereas, an inquest was made in writing and by the summoning of witnesses upon the ancient right and custom in order to ascertain and establish that the said seigneur of Nointel has the said right to the first fruits; and the information being gathered and inquest made, a sentence was rendered by the court of the seneschal of Beauvoisis, as follows, word by word:"
"Whereas the charter and statute on the right of first fruits vests in the seigneur of the lands and seigniory of Nointel, Loury, Berteville, Cramoisy, Saint-Leu and other places the privilege of demanding the first wedded day of all the maidswho are not noble, and who shall marry in said seigniory, after which the said seigneur shall no longer touch the said married woman, and shall leave her to her husband;
"And whereas, on the eleventh day of this month, Aveline-who-never-lied, a female serf of the parish of Cramoisy, was married to Mazurec the Lambkin, a miller serf at the Gallion mill;
"And whereas, our young, high, noble and puissant seigneur, Conrad Neroweg, knight and seigneur of the said seigniory herein above mentioned, having wished to exercise his right of first fruits on the said Aveline-who-never-lied, and the said Mazurec the Lambkin, her husband, having sought to oppose himself thereto by using unseemly words towards the said seigneur, and the said married woman having been required to submit to the said right and having obstinately refused, the said seigneur, by reason of the disobedience of the said married couple and their unseemly words, caused them both to be separately imprisoned and filed a criminal bill with his worship the seneschal of Beauvoisis notifying him of the above occurrences;
"And whereas, an inquest was made in writing and by the summoning of witnesses upon the ancient right and custom in order to ascertain and establish that the said seigneur of Nointel has the said right to the first fruits; and the information being gathered and inquest made, a sentence was rendered by the court of the seneschal of Beauvoisis, as follows, word by word:"
Clenching his fists with rage, Jocelyn observed to himself: "Can law, can justice consecrate such infamy! To what human power can these wretched vassals appeal in their despair? Oh, the martyrs of so many centuries can not fail to demand heavy reprisals!"
The royal notary proceeded to read:
"The case of the young, high, noble and puissant Conrad Neroweg, seigneur of Nointel and other seigniories, reclaimer of the right of first fruits upon all maids, not noble, who marry in the said seigniory, the party of the one part, and Aveline-who-never-lied, recently married to Mazurec the Lambkin, refuser of the said right, the party of the other part; and the said seigneur of Nointel, also claimant in reparation and chastisement for the unseemly words pronounced by the said Mazurec the Lambkin. The court of the seneschal of Beauvoisis, in view of the criminal charges of the said seigneur and the information and inquests taken, rendering justice to the parties concerned, says and declares thatthe said seigneur is well grounded in law and in reason in claiming the first fruits from all maids, not noble, married in his seigniory;and by reason of that which is declared herein above, the said court hassentenced and now condemns the said Aveline-who-never-lied and the said Mazurec the Lambkinto render obedience to the said seigneur in what concerns his right of the first fruits; and concerning the unseemly words that the said Mazurec the Lambkin pronounced against his seigneur, thesaid court has sentenced and now sentences him to apologise to said seigneur and, with one knee on the ground, his head bare, and his hands crossed over his breast, to pray his mercy in the presence of all who were assembled at his wedding. And, furthermore, the said court orders that the present sentence shall be announced by a royal notary or beadle in front of the church of the said seigniory."
"The case of the young, high, noble and puissant Conrad Neroweg, seigneur of Nointel and other seigniories, reclaimer of the right of first fruits upon all maids, not noble, who marry in the said seigniory, the party of the one part, and Aveline-who-never-lied, recently married to Mazurec the Lambkin, refuser of the said right, the party of the other part; and the said seigneur of Nointel, also claimant in reparation and chastisement for the unseemly words pronounced by the said Mazurec the Lambkin. The court of the seneschal of Beauvoisis, in view of the criminal charges of the said seigneur and the information and inquests taken, rendering justice to the parties concerned, says and declares thatthe said seigneur is well grounded in law and in reason in claiming the first fruits from all maids, not noble, married in his seigniory;and by reason of that which is declared herein above, the said court hassentenced and now condemns the said Aveline-who-never-lied and the said Mazurec the Lambkinto render obedience to the said seigneur in what concerns his right of the first fruits; and concerning the unseemly words that the said Mazurec the Lambkin pronounced against his seigneur, thesaid court has sentenced and now sentences him to apologise to said seigneur and, with one knee on the ground, his head bare, and his hands crossed over his breast, to pray his mercy in the presence of all who were assembled at his wedding. And, furthermore, the said court orders that the present sentence shall be announced by a royal notary or beadle in front of the church of the said seigniory."
The decree, which confirmed and consecrated through the organs of law and justice the most execrable of all the feudal laws, produced different emotions in the surrounding crowd. Some, stupefied with terror, misery and ignorance, cowardly resigned to a disgrace that their fathers had been subjected to and was reserved for their own children, seemed amazed at the resistance that Mazurec had offered; others, who, due to a sentiment, if not of love, yet of dignity, prized themselves happy that, thanks to their money, the ugliness of their wives, or the accidental absence of the seigneur, they had been able to escape the ignominy, imagined themselves in the place of the condemned man and were somewhat moved with pity for him; finally, the larger number, married or not, serfs, villeins or townsmen, felt violent indignation, hardly repressed by fear. Hollow murmurs ran through the crowd at the last words of the notary. But all these sentiments soon made place for those of anguish and compassion when, led by the seigneur's men-at-arms, the condemned man appeared at the portico of the church. Mazurec was about twenty years of age, and the benignity of his face and the mildness of his nature had earned him the name of Lambkin. On that day, however, he seemed transfigured by misfortune and despair. His physiognomy was savage and pinched, his clothes in tatters, his face livid, his eyes fixed and red with tears and sleeplessness, his hair tumbling—all imparted to him a frightful appearance. Two men-at-arms unbound the prisoner, and pressing heavily upon his shoulders forced him to drop upon his knees before the Sire of Nointel, who together with his friends, laughed outright at the abject submissionof Jacques Bonhomme. Presently the royal notary said in a loud voice:
"The reparation and amende honorable of the condemned man to his seigneur must have for witness those who assisted at the marriage of Mazurec. Let them come forward."
At these words, Jocelyn the Champion saw William Caillet and another robust serf, called Adam the Devil, step from the front ranks of the crowd. To judge by the perspiration that bathed his bony and tired face, the latter had just run a long distance. Struck, at first, by the determined mien of Adam the Devil, Jocelyn saw him, as well as his friend William Caillet, suddenly metamorphose himself, so to speak. Affecting dullness and humble timidity, dropping their eyes, doubling their backs, and dragging their legs, both doffed their caps with a pitiful air as they approached the royal notary. Caillet saluted him by twice bowing to the earth with his arms across his breast and saying in a trembling voice:
"Pardon ... excuse ... Sir, if we, I and my companion, come alone. The other witnesses of the wedding, Michael-kill-bread and Big Peter, they have just been laid up with the fever which they caught draining the swamp of our good seigneur. Their teeth are clattering and they are shaking on the straw. That's why they have not been able to come to town. I am William, the father of the bride; this is my companion, Adam, who witnessed the wedding."
"These witnesses will suffice, I think, for the amende honorable, will they not, seigneur?" said the notary to the Sire of Nointel. The latter answered with an affirmative nod of the head, while continuing to laugh aloud with his friends at the stupid and timorous appearance of the two boors. All the while, on his knees a few paces from his seigneur, Mazurec could not repress his tears at the sight of Aveline's father; they rolled down slowly from his inflamed eyes while the notary addressed him, saying: "Cross your hands over your chest, and raise your eyes to heaven."
The condemned man clenched his fists with rage and did not follow the notary's orders.
"Ho! pshaw!" cried William Caillet, addressing Mazurec in a reproachful tone. "Don't you hear what this kind gentleman says? He told you to cross your two hands, in this way ... look ... this way ... look at me ..."
These last words, "look at me," were pronounced by the peasant with such force that Mazurec raised his head, and understood the meaning of the rapid glance that Caillet darted at him. Quickly obeying the orders of the notary, the condemned man crossed his arms on his breast.
"Now," proceeded the scribe, "raise your head towards our seigneur and repeat my words: 'Seigneur, I humbly repent having had the audacity of using unseemly words towards you.'"
The serf hesitated a moment, and then, overcoming his aversion with a violent effort, he repeated in a hollow voice: "Seigneur, I humbly repent having had the audacity of ... using ... unseemly words ... towards you."
"Further," pursued the notary, "I repent no less humbly, my seigneur, of having wickedly wished to oppose your exercise of your right of the first fruits upon one of your female vassals, whom I took for my wife."
Mazurec's resignation had reached the end of its tether. The notary's last words, recalled to the unhappy man's mind the infamous violence that the sweet maid whom he tenderly loved had been made a victim of; he uttered a heart-rending cry, hid his face in his hands and, convulsed with sobs, fell forward with his face on the ground. At that spectacle, Jocelyn, whose indignation threatened to overpower his prudence, was about to leap forward, when he again heard the cry of William Caillet. Stooping down to Mazurec as if to help him rise, he said two words in his ears so as to be heard by none others, and continued aloud: "Ho! Pshaw!... What ails you?... Why do you weep, my boy?... You are told that our good seigneur will pardon your fault when youshall have repeated the words that you are ordered to.... Go ahead.... Fling them out quickly, those words!"
With his face bathed in tears and a smile of the damned, Mazurec repeated these words after the notary had told them over again: "I repent no less humbly, my seigneur, having wickedly wished to oppose your exercise of your right of the first fruits upon one of your female vassals, whom I took for my wife."
"In repentance of which, my seigneur," pursued the notary, "I humbly place myself at your mercy."
"In repentance of which, my seigneur," stammered Mazurec in a fainting voice, "I humbly place myself at your mercy."
"Be it so," responded the Sire of Nointel with a haughty and flippant air. "I grant you mercy. But you shall not be set free until after having rendered satisfaction in a judicial duel, to which you are summoned by my guest Gerard of Chaumontel, a nobleman, whom you have outrageously defamed by accusing him of larceny." Turning thereupon to one of his equerries: "Let the peasant be guarded until the hour of the tourney, and let the daughter be delivered to her father;" and stepping away with his friends towards the door of the church, the young seigneur said to them, laughing: "The lesson will do Jacques Bonhomme good. Do you know, gentlemen, that that stupid pack has of late been pricking up its ears and commenced to bridle up against our rights? Although she was a comely lassie, I cared little for that peasant's wife; but it was necessary to prove to the vile rustic plebs that we own it body and soul; therefore, gentlemen, let us never forget the proverb: 'Smite a villein and he'll bless you; bless a villein and he'll smite you.'[3]Now, let us hear the sacred mass; you will tell me whether Gloriande de Chivry, my betrothed, whom you will see in my seigniorial pew, is not a superb beauty."
"Happy Conrad!" said Gerard of Chaumontel, the robberknight, "for bride, a handsome and radiant beauty, who, besides, is the richest heiress of this region, seeing that after the death of the Count of Chivry, his seigniory, in default of male heirs, will fall from the lance to the distaff! Oh, Conrad! What beautiful days of gold and silk will you not spin, thanks to the opulent distaff of Gloriande of Chivry!"
At the moment when thus chatting the noblemen entered the church, Mazurec, who was still kept a prisoner, vanished under the vault, and a man of the suite of the Sire of Nointel led out Aveline. She was not quite eighteen. Despite the pallor of her face and her deeply disturbed features, the girl preserved her surpassing beauty. She moved with faltering steps, still clad in her humble bride's apparel, of coarse white cloth. Her loose hair fell upon and half covered her shoulders. Her lacerated arms still bore the traces of tight hands, seeing that, in order to triumph over the desperate resistance of his victim, the Sire of Nointel had her bound fast. Crushed with shame at the thought of being thus exposed to the gaze of the crowd, the moment she stepped upon the parvise Aveline closed her eyes with an involuntary movement, and did not at first see Mazurec who was being taken back to prison. However, at the heart-rending cry that he uttered, a shudder went over her frame, she trembled at every limb, and her eyes met the gaze of her husband, a gaze of desolation, in which passionate love and yet painful repulsion mixed with ferocious jealousy, raised within his breast by the thought of the outrage that his wife had been subject to, were all depicted at once. The last of these feelings was betrayed by an involuntary movement, made by the wretched young man, who, avoiding the beseeching looks of Aveline, made a gesture of horror, covered his face with his hands, and rushed under the vault like one demented, followed by the men-at-arms who had him in charge.
"He despises me," murmured the girl with fainting voice and following her husband with haggard eyes. "He now no longer loves me." Saying this, Aveline became livid, her knees yieldedunder her, she lost consciousness and would have rolled upon the ground without Caillet, who, hastening to meet her, received her in his arms, saying: "Your father remains to you." Then, helped by Adam the Devil, he raised her up, and both, carrying the swooning young bride in their arms, disappeared in the crowd.
Jocelyn the Champion, a witness to this distressing scene, rushed into the vault that opened upon the parvise, overtook the keepers of Mazurec and said to one of them:
"The serf they are taking away yonder has been summoned to a judicial combat, is it so comrade?"
"Yes," answered the man-at-arms, "he is to combat with the knight Gerard of Chaumontel. Such is the sentence."
"I must speak to that serf."
"He is to communicate with nobody."
"I am his judicial second in this combat, will you venture to keep me from seeing and speaking with my client? By Satan! I know the law. If you refuse—"
"There is no need of bawling so loud. If you are JacquesBonhomme's judicial second, come ... you have a sorry principal!"
The tourney, a ruinous spectacle offered to the nobility of the neighborhood by the Sire of Nointel in celebration of his betrothal, was held on a large meadow that stretched before the gates of the town. The lists were according to the royal ordinance of the year 1306, twenty-four paces long by forty wide, and surrounded by a double row of fences four feet apart. In this latter space the horn and clarion blowers were posted; likewise the valets of the combatting knights were allowed in this latter enclosure, ready to carry their masters from the mêlée, or to run to their assistance when unhorsed, seeing that these valiant jousters were covered with such heavy and thick armor that they could move only with difficulty. Within these barriers were also seen the heralds and sergeants-at-arms, charged with preserving order at the tourney, and passing upon foul blows.
The plebs of the town and neighboring fields, having hastened to witness the spectacle at the close of the mass, crowded on the outside. A more ragged, wan, miserable and worn-out mass could hardly be imagined than that presented by the crowd whose crushing labors supplied the prodigalities of their seigneurs. The only satisfaction enjoyed by these cowed and brutified people was that of being allowed to assist from a distance, as on this day, at the sumptuous displays that they paid for with their sweat and their marrow. The vassals, leaving their mud-huts, where, exhausted with hunger and broken by toil—at night they huddled pell-mell on the marshy ground like animals in their pens—contemplated with an astonishment that was sometimes mixed with savage hatred, the brilliant assemblage covered with silks and velvets, embroideries andprecious stones, seated on a spacious amphitheater, that, decked with tapestries and rich hangings, rose along one of the sides of the lists, and was reserved for the noble dames, the seigneurs and the prelates of the vicinage. On either side of the amphitheater, which was sheltered by tent-cloths from the rays of the sun and from the rain, were two tents intended for the knights who participated in the jousts. There they don their heavy armors before the combat, and thither are they transported when hurt or unhorsed. Numerous banners emblazoned with the arms of the Sire of Nointel floated from the top of poles that surround the lists. The queen of the tournament is Gloriande, a noble young lady, the daughter of Raoul, count and seigneur of Chivry, and betrothed since the previous month to Conrad of Nointel. Magnificently bedizened in a scarlet robe embroidered with gold, her black hair braided with pearls, tall and of remarkable beauty but of a haughty and bold type, with disdainful lips and imperious mien, Gloriande was throned superbly under a species of canopy contrived in the center of the platform, whence she could command a view of the arena. Her father, proud of his daughter's beauty, stood behind her. The noblemen and ladies of all ages, were seated on benches flanking either side of the canopy where the young queen of the tournament paraded her wealth and her charms. Suddenly the clarions sound the opening of the passage of arms; and a herald, clad in red and yellow, the colors of Nointel, advances to the center of the arena and cries the formula:
"Hear ye, hear ye, seigneurs and knights, and people of all estates:—our sovereign seigneur and master, by the grace of God, John, King of the French, forbids under penalty of life and of forfeiture of goods, all speaking, crying out, coughing, expectorating or uttering and giving of any signs during the combat."
The profoundest silence ensues. One of the bars is lowered, and the Sire of Nointel, cased in a brilliant steel armor tipped with gold ornaments, rides into the arena. Mounted on a richlycaparisoned charger that he causes to prance and caracole with ease, he reins in before the canopy of Gloriande, and the damosel, taking from her own neck the necklace of gold strands, ties it to the iron of the lance that her betrothed lowers before her. By that act he is accepted by the lady as her knight of honor, a quality by which he is to exercise sovereign surveillance over the combatants, and if the point of the weapon from which hangs the necklace touch any of the jousters, he must immediately withdraw from the combat. In giving her necklace to her knight, Gloriande's shoulders and bosom remain naked, and she receives without blushing the testimonies of admiration showered upon her by the knights in her vicinity, whose libertine praises savor strongly of the obscene crudities peculiar to the language of those days. After having made the tour of the field, during which he displays anew his skill in horsemanship, the Sire of Nointel returns to the foot of the platform where the queen of the tournament is seated, and raises his lance. The clarions forthwith resound, the bars are let down at the opposite sides of the arena, and each gives passage to a troop of knights armed cap-a-pie, visors down, recognizable only by their emblems or the color of their shields and the banners of their lances. The two sets, mounted on horses covered with iron, remain for an instant motionless like equestrian statues, at the extremities of the arena. The lances of these gallants, six feet long and stripped of their iron, are, in the parlance of tourneys, "courteous"; their thrust, no wise dangerous, can have for its only effect to roll the ill-mounted combatant off his horse. The Sire of Nointel consults the radiant Gloriande with the eye. With a majestic air she waves her embroidered handkerchief, and immediately her knight of honor utters three times the consecrated formula: "Let them go! Let them go! Let them go!"
The two sets break loose; the horses are put to a gallop; and, lances in rest, they rush to the center of the lists, where they dash against one another, horses and riders, with an incredibleclatter of hardware. In the shock the larger number of lances fly into splinters. The disarmed tilters thus declare themselves vanquished, and their armor and mounting belong by right to the vanquisher. Accordingly, these tourneys are as much a game of hazard as is a game of dice. Not a few renowned tilters, hankering after florins more than after a puerile glory, derive large revenues from their skill in these ridiculous jousts; almost always do the adversaries whom they have overcome ransom their arms and horses with considerable sums. At a signal of the Sire of Nointel, a few minutes' truce followed upon the disarming of two of the knights who rolled down upon the thick bed of sand that the ground is prudently covered with. There is nothing so pitifully grotesque as the appearance of these disarmed gallants. Their valets raise them up in almost one lump within their thick iron shell that impedes their movements, and with legs stiff and apart, they reach the barrier steaming in perspiration, seeing that, in order to soften the pressure, these noble combatants wear under their armor a skin shirt and hose thickly padded with horse's hair. The vanquished abandon the lists in disgrace, while the vanquishers, after prancing over the arena, approach the platform where the queen of the tournament is enthroned. There they lower their lances to her in token of gallant homage. The charmed Gloriande answers them with a condescending smile and they leave the lists in triumph. The remaining knights now continue the struggle on foot and with swords—swords no less "courteous" than their lances, without either point or edge, so that these valiant champions skirmish with steel bars three feet and a half long, and they carry themselves heroically in a combat that is all the less perilous, seeing that they are protected against all possible danger by their padded undergarments laid over by an impenetrable armor.
At a fresh signal from the Sire of Nointel, a furious conflict is engaged in by the remaining combatants. One of them slips and falls over backward and remains motionless, as little ableto rise as a tortoise laid on its back. Another of the Cæsars has his sword broken in two in his own hands. Only two combatants now remain, and continue the struggle with rage. The one carries a green buckler emblazoned with an argent lion, the other a red buckler emblazoned with a gold dolphin. The knight of the argent lion deals with his sword such a hard blow upon his adversary's casque, that, dazed by the shock, the latter falls heavily upon his haunches on the sand. The great conqueror superbly enjoyed his triumph by proudly contemplating his vanquished adversary, ridiculously seated at his feet; and, responding to the enthusiastic acclamations of the assembled nobility, he approached the throne of the queen of the tourney, bent one knee, and raised his visor. After placing a rich collar around the conqueror's neck in token of his prowess, Gloriande stooped down, and, following the custom of the time, deposited a loud and long kiss upon his lips. This duty, attached to her distinguished office, Gloriande fulfilled without blushing, and with an off-handedness that denoted ample experience. Thanks to her beauty, the young lady of Chivry had been often before chosen queen of tournaments. The clarions announced the victory of the knight of the argent lion, who, strutting proudly with the trophy around his neck, placed his right hand on his hip, walked around the arena, and marched out at the barriers.
These first passages of arms were followed by an interval during which the valets of the Sire of Nointel, carrying cups, plates, and flagons of gold and silver, that glistened in the dazzled eyes of the peasants, served the noble company on the platform with spiced wines, refreshments and choice pastries, ample honor being done by all to the munificence of the Sire of Nointel.
The seigneurs, their wives and daughters on the platforms had just enjoyed the refection, while commenting upon the incidents of the tourney, when a shudder ran through the crowd of peasants and bourgeois massed outside of the barriers. Until then and while witnessing the jousts and the passages of arms they had been animated with curiosity only. In the combat, which it was murmured among them was to follow these harmless struggles, the populace felt themselves concerned. It was to be a combat to the death between a vassal and a knight, the latter on horseback and in full armor, the vassal on foot, dressed in his blouse and armed with a stick. Even the more timid and brutalized ones among the vassals revolted at the thought of so crassly unequal a conflict, in which one of their class was inevitably destined to death. It was, accordingly, amidst a silence laden with anxiety and suppressed anger that one of the heralds uttered three times from the center of the arena the consecrated formula: "Let the appellant enter!"
The knight Gerard of Chaumontel, now summoned to the trial of a judicial combat against the accusation of theft made by Mazurec, issued from one of the contiguous tents and entered the arena on horseback, in full armor. His buckler hangs from his neck; his visor is up; in his hand he carries a little image of St. James, for whom the pious knight seemed to entertain a peculiar devotion. His two seconds, on horseback like himself, ride beside him. With him they make the round of the arena while the fair Gloriande says to her father disdainfully: "What a shame for the nobility to see a knight reduced, in order to prove his innocence, to do combat with a varlet!"
"Oh, my daughter! What evil days these are that we live in!" answered the aged seigneur with a growl. "Those accursed king's jurists are crossing their pencils over all our rights under the impertinent pretext of legalizing them. Was not a decree of the court of the seneschal of Beauvoisis requisite in order to authorize our friend Conrad to exercise his seigniorial right over a miserable female serf in revolt?" Remembering, however, that his daughter was the betrothed of the Sire of Nointel, the Count of Chivry stopped short. Gloriande surmised the cause of her father's reticence and said to him with a haughtiness that verged on anger: "Do you think that I am jealous of such as her? Can I look upon these female serfs as rivals?"
"No, no; I am not placing such an insult upon you, my daughter ... but after all, the rebellion of that female vassal is as novel as it is monstrous. Oh, the spirit of revolt among the populace, although partly broken to-day, has spread into our domains and has infested our peasants also; and that is taken by the crown for a pretext to add to our troubles by encroaching upon our rights, claiming that they must be first sanctioned by the jurists. A curse upon all reform kings!"
"But, father, our rights remain."
"Blood and thunder, my daughter! Do our privileges stand in need of confirmation by the men of the gown? Does not our class hold its rights by the right of our ancestors' swords? No, no, the crown aims at monopolizing all rights, and to be the sole exploiter of the plebs."
"Have not the kings," observed another knight, "taken from us one of our best sources of revenue, the minting of money in our seigniories, under the pretext that we coined false money? The devil take kings who hold up law! May hell consume the gentry of the pen!"
"Blood and thunder! It is enough to make one's blood boil in his veins," cried the Count of Chivry. "Is there in thewhole world any worse money than the king's. False coiners have been quartered who are less thievish than our King John and his predecessors."
"Let that good prince look elsewhere than here for support," put in another knight. "The truce with England will soon expire. If war breaks out anew, King John will see neither a man nor a gold piece out of my domain. He may, for all I care, leave his carcass on the field of battle."
"Oh, gentlemen," said Gloriande gulping down a yawn, "how uninteresting is your conversation! Let us rather talk about the Court of Love that is soon to hold its sessions in Clermont, and for which I shall order the most skillful hairdressers from Paris. I am also expecting a Lombard who is to bring me magnificent silks, woven with gold and silver, and which I shall wear during the solemnity."
"And what do you expect to pay all those fine things with?" cried the Count of Chivry. "How are we to meet the expenses of brilliant tourneys and the sumptuous displays of the Court of Love if, on the one side, the King ruins us, and, on the other, Jacques Bonhomme refuses to work?"
"Oh! Oh! Dear father!" replied the fair Gloriande, laughing aloud. "Jacques Bonhomme will meekly bend the neck. At the first crack of the whip of one of our hunters you will see those varlets lie down flat upon their faces. And mind you," added the young lady, redoubling her laughter, "just turn your eyes to that bugaboo of a Jacques Bonhomme, does he not look redoubtable?" and she pointed with her finger at Mazurec the Lambkin, who, at the second call of the herald, had stepped into the arena accompanied by his two seconds, Jocelyn the Champion and Adam the Devil. Mazurec, dressed in his "blaude," the ancient Gallic blouse, made of coarse cloth and of the same fabric as his hose, wore on his head a woolen cap while his wooden shoes partly hid his bare feet. Jocelyn, his second, held in his hand a stout stick of sorb, four feet long, and freshly cut by himself in a neighboring thicket, with an eye to the factthat, when fresh, the sorb wood is heavy and does not easily break. The appellee, as well as the appellant, in the judicial battle were required to make the round of the arena before engaging in combat. The serf filled the formality in slow and measured steps, accompanied by his two seconds.
"My brave fellow," Jocelyn said to Mazurec, "do not forget my advice, and you stand a chance of worsting your noble robber, for all that he may be on horseback and armed cap-a-pie."
"I'd as lief die," answered the serf, marching dejectedly between his two seconds with his head down and his eyes fixed: "When I saw Aveline this morning it was as if a knife had entered my heart," he added sobbing. "Oh, I am a lost man!"
"By the navel of the Pope! No feebleness," replied Jocelyn with emphasis and alarmed at the despondent voice of his principal. "Where is your courage? This morning from a lambkin you became a wolf."
"To now live with my poor wife would be a daily torture to me," murmured the serf. "I would rather the knight killed me outright."
Thus conversing, half the field had been covered by Mazurec in company with his seconds. The latter, more and more alarmed at the unhappy young man's despondency, were at that moment passing at the foot of the amphitheater where the nobility of the neighborhood were seated with the fair Gloriande in their midst. Casting an expressive look at the champion, Adam the Devil nudged Mazurec with his elbow and said to him in a low voice: "Take a look at the betrothed of our seigneur.... I swear she's handsome!... That will make a pretty wedding! Hm!... Won't the two lovers be happy?" At these words, which fell like molten lead upon the bleeding wound in his heart, the vassal shook convulsively. "Take a good look at the handsome young lady," proceeded Adam the Devil. "See how happy she is in her rich clothes. Do you hear her laugh?... Go to! No doubt she's laughing at youand at your wife, who was violated last night by our seigneur.... But do take a look at the beauty! I wager she is jeering at you."
Drawn from his dejection, and rage mounting to his heart, Mazurec brusquely raised his head. For an instant his eyes fiery and red with weeping, fastened on the betrothed of his seigneur, the haughty damosel, resplendent in attire and personal beauty, radiant with happiness, and surrounded by brilliant knights, who, courting her smiles, crowded near her.
"At this hour," the caustic voice of Adam the Devil whispered to the ear of Mazurec, "your own bride is drinking her shame and her tears. What! In order to avenge Aveline and yourself would you not make an attempt to kill the nobleman who robbed you!... That thief is the cause of all your misfortune."
"My stick!" cried the vassal leaping forward, transported with rage, at the same instant that one of the sergeants-at-arms hurried by to notify him that it was not allowed to stop on the arena and look at the ladies, but that he was to betake himself to one of the tents in order, before the combat, to take the customary oaths with the vicar of Nointel. Now inflamed with hatred and rage, Mazurec quickly followed the sergeant-at-arms, while, walking more slowly, Jocelyn said to Adam the Devil:
"You must have suffered a great deal in your lifetime ... I overheard you a minute ago. You know how to fire hatred—"
"Three years ago," broke in the serf with a wild look, "I killed my wife with an axe, and yet I loved her to distraction—"
"Was that at Bourcy—near Senlis?"
"Who told you of it? How come you to know it?"
"I happened to ride through the village on the day of the murder. You preferred to see your wife dead rather than disgraced by your episcopal seigneur."
"Exactly. That's the way I felt on the subject."
"But how did you become a serf of this seigniory?"
"After I killed my wife, I kept in hiding for a month in the forest of Senlis, where I lived on roots; thereupon I came to this country. Caillet gave me shelter. I offered my services as a butcher to the superintendent of the seigniory of Nointel. After the lapse of a year I was numbered among the vassals of the domain. I remained here out of friendship for Caillet."
During this conversation between his two seconds Mazurec had arrived near the tent where he, as well as the Knight of Chaumontel, was to take the customary oath. Clad in his sacerdotal robes and holding a crucifix in his hands, the vicar addressed the serf and the knight.
"Appellant and appellee, do not ye shut your eyes to the danger to which you expose your souls in combating for a bad cause. If either of you wishes to withdraw and place himself at the mercy of his seigneur and the King, it is still time. It will soon be too late. One of you is about to cross the gates of the other world. You will there find seated a God who is merciless to the perjurer. Appellant and appellee, think of that. All men are equally weak before the tribunal of divine justice. The eternal kingdom is not entered in armor. Is either of you willing to recede?"
"I shall maintain unto death that this knight has robbed me; he has caused my misfortunes; if God is just, I shall kill this man," answered Mazurec in a voice of concentrated rage.
"And I," cried the knight of Chaumontel, "swear to God that that vassal lies in his throat, and outrageously slanders me. I shall prove his imposture with the intercession of our Lord and all his saints, especially with the good help of St. James, my blessed patron."
"Aye," put in Jocelyn, "and above all with the good help of your armor, your lance and your sword. Infamous man! To battle on horseback, helmet on head, cuirass on body, sword at your side, lance in your hand, against a poor man on foot and armed only with a stick. Aye, you behave like a coward.Cowards are thieves; consequently, you stole the purse of my principal!"
"How dare you address me in such words!" cried the knight of Chaumontel. "Such a common fellow as you! Miserable vagabond! Intolerable criminal!"
"Heavens be praised! He utters insults!" exclaimed Jocelyn with delight. "Oh, Sir thief, if you are not the most cowardly of two-legged hares, you will follow me on the spot behind yonder pavillion, or else I shall slap your ignoble scamp's face with the scabbard of my sword."
Livid with rage, Gerard of Chaumontel was, to the extreme joy of Jocelyn, about to accept the latter's challenge, when one of his seconds said to him:
"That bandit is trying to save his principal by provoking you to a fight. Fall not into the trap. Do not mind him, mind the vassal."
Taking this prudent advice, Gerard of Chaumontel contemptuously answered Jocelyn: "When arms in hand I shall have convicted this other varlet of imposture, I shall then consider whether you deserve that I accept your insolent challenge."
"You evidently desire to taste the scabbard of my sword," cried Jocelyn. "By heaven, I shall not deprive you of the dish; and if your hang-dog face does not redden with shame, it will redden under my slaps. Coward and felon—"
"Not another word, or I shall order one of my men to expel you from the arena," said the herald-at-arms to Jocelyn; "a second has no right to insult the adversary of his own principal."
Jocelyn realized that he would be compelled to yield to force, held his tongue, and cast a distracted look at Mazurec. The vicar of Nointel raised the crucifix and resumed in his nasal voice: "Appellant and appellee, do you and each of you still insist that your cause is just? Do you swear on the image of the Saviour of mankind?" and the vicar presented the crucifix tothe knight, who took off his iron gauntlet and placing his hand upon the image of Christ, declared:
"My cause is just, I swear to God!"
"My cause is just," said in turn Mazurec; "and I take God for my witness; but let us combat quickly; oh, quickly!"
"Do you swear," proceeded the vicar, "that neither of you carries about his person either stone, or herb, or any other magic charm, amulet or incantation of the enemy of man?"
"I swear," said the knight.
"I swear," said Mazurec panting with rage. "Oh, how much time is lost!"
"And now, appellant and appellee," cried the herald-at-arms, "the lists are open to you. Do your duty."
The knight of Chaumontel seized his long lance and jumped upon his horse, which one of his seconds held for him, while Jocelyn, pale and deeply moved, said to Mazurec, while giving him his stick: "Courage!... Follow my advice ... I expect you will kill that coward ... But one last word.... It regards your mother ... Did she never tell you the name of your father?"
"Never ... as I told you this morning in prison. My mother always avoided speaking to me of my father."
"And her name was Gervaise?" asked Jocelyn pensively. "What was the color of her hair and eyes?"
"Her hair was blonde, her eyes black. Poor mother."
"And had she no other mark?"
"She had a small scar above her right eye-brow—"
The clarions sounded at this point. It was the signal for the judicial duel. Unable to restrain his tears, Jocelyn pressed Mazurec in his arms and said to him: "I may not at a moment like this reveal to you the cause of the double interest that you inspire me ... My suspicions and hopes, perhaps, deceive me ... But courage ... Hit your enemy on the head."
"Courage!" put in Adam the Devil in an undertone. "Inorder to keep your blood boiling, think of your wife ... remember the betrothed of your seigneur laughed at you.... Kill the thief, and patience.... It will some day be our turn to laugh at the noble damosel.... Think above all of your wife ... of her last nights shame and of your own.... Remember that you have both been made forever unhappy, and fall to bravely upon that nobleman! Be brave.... You have a cane, nails and teeth!"
Mazurec the Lambkin uttered a cry of rage and rushed into the lists at the moment when, in answer to a motion from the Sire of Nointel, the marshal of the tourney gave the signal for the combat to the appellant and appellee by calling three times the consecrated words: "Let them go!"
The noble spectators on the platform laughed in advance at the sorry discomfiture of Jacques Bonhomme; but among the plebeian crowd all hearts stopped beating with anxiety at this decisive moment. The knight of Chaumontel, a vigorous man, armed in full panoply, mounted on a tall charger covered with iron, and his long lance in rest, occupied the center of the arena, while Mazurec dashed to the spot barefoot, clad in his blouse and holding his stick in his hands. At sight of the serf, the knight, who, out of contempt for such an adversary, had disdained to lower his visor, put the spurs to his horse, and lowering his pointed iron-headed lance, charged upon the serf certain of transfixing him then and there, and then trampling over him with his horse. But Mazurec, mindful of Jocelyn's recommendations, avoided the lance thrust by suddenly letting himself down flat upon his face; and then, partly rising up at the moment when the horse was about to grind him under its hoofs, he dealt the animal two such heavy blows with his stick on its forelegs that the courser, stung with pain, reared, slipped its footing and almost fell over, while its rider was shaken out of position on the saddle.
"Felony!" cried the Sire of Nointel with indignation. "It is forbidden to strike a horse!"
"Well done, my brave woolen cap!" cried the populace on the outside, palpitating with suspense and clapping their hands, despite the strictness and severity of the royal ordinances which commanded profound silence to the spectators at a tourney.
"Fall to, Mazurec!" simultaneously cried Jocelyn and Adam the Devil. "Courage! Kill the nobleman! Kill him! Death to the thief!"
Mazurec rose, and seeing the knight out of poise and holding to the bow of his saddle, dropped his stick, picked up a fistful of sand, leaped upon the horse behind Gerard of Chaumontel, while the latter was seeking to regain his equilibrium, lost no time in clutching the knight around the neck with one hand, turned him half over backward, and with the other rubbed his eyes with the sand he had just picked up. Almost half-blinded, the noble robber dropped his lance and reins and sought to carry his hands to his eyes. Mazurec seeing the movement, put his arms around the knight, and, after a short struggle, succeeded in making him wholly lose his balance and tumble down to the ground, where both fell rolling on the arena, while the crowd of serfs, now considering the serf the victor over the knight, clapped their hands, stamped on the ground with joy and cried: "Victory for the woolen cap!"
Gerard of Chaumontel, however, although blinded by the sand and dazed by the fall, gathered fresh strength from the rage that took possession of him at finding himself unhorsed by a peasant, and with little difficulty regained the upper hand over his unskilled adversary. In the unequal struggle against the man clad in iron, the tight clasp of the virtually naked serf was in vain; his nails broke off against, or glided harmlessly over the polished armor of his adversary, while the latter, finally succeeding in planting his two knees upon the serf's chest, bruised his head and face with a shower of hammer blows dealt with his iron gauntlet. His face beaten to pulp and bleeding, Mazurec pronounced once more the name of Aveline andremained motionless. Gerard of Chaumontel, who was gradually regaining his sight, not satisfied with having almost beaten the serf's face out of shape, then drew his dagger to finish his victim. But quickly recalling himself, and animated by a feeling of refined cruelty, he replaced the dagger in his belt, rose upright, and placing one of his iron shod feet upon the chest of the prostrate and moaning Mazurec, cried in a stentorian voice: "Let this vile impostor be bound up, put in a bag and thrown into the river as he deserves. It is the law of the duel; let it be carried out!"
An oppressive silence followed the close of the judicial combat, as Gerard of Chaumontel, leaving the outstretched body of the serf on the sand, rejoined his seconds while rubbing his irritated eyelids, and jointly they quitted the arena. The sergeant-at-arms had proceeded to pick up the prostrate body of the vassal in order to carry it to the bridge that spanned the near-by river; and the vicar of Nointel had followed on the tracks of the mournful train, in order to administer the last sacraments to the condemned man so soon as he should recover consciousness, and before he was bundled into a bag, agreeable to the ordinance, and cast into the river. For a moment struck dumb with terror by the issue of the judicial combat, the plebs crowd was slowly recovering its voice, and, despite its habit of respect towards the seigneurs, had begun to murmur with rising indignation. Several voices were heard to say that the knight having been unhorsed by the vassal, the latter was to be considered the victor and should not be killed. The turmoil was on the increase, when an unexpected event suddenly drew to itself the attention of the crowd and cut short its criminations. A large troop of men-at-arms, covered with dust and one of whom bore a white flag emblazoned with the fleur-de-lis,[4]hove in sight at a distance over the field and rapidly approached the fenced-in arena. Mazurec was forgotten. Sharing the astonishment of the assembled nobility at the sight of the armed troop that had now reached the barriers, the Sire of Nointel applied both spurs to his horse, rode rapidly forward, and addressing himself to oneof the new arrivals, a herald with the fleur-de-lis jacket, saluted him courteously and inquired:
"Sir herald, what brings you hither?"
"An order of the King, my master. I am charged with a message to all the seigneurs and noblemen of Beauvoisis. Having learned that a large number of them were gathered at this place, I came hither. Listen to the envoy of King John."
"Enter the lists and read your message aloud," answered Conrad of Nointel to the herald, who, producing a parchment from a richly embroidered bag, rode to the center of the arena and prepared to read.
"This extraordinary message augurs nothing good," said the seigneur of Chivry to his daughter Gloriande. "King John is going to demand some levy of men of us for his war against the English, unless it be some new edict on coinage, some fresh royal pillage."
"Oh, father! If, like so many other seigneurs, you had only chosen to go to the court at Paris ... you would then have shared in the largesses of King John, who, we hear, is so magnificently prodigal towards the courtiers. You would then have gained on the one side what you lost on the other. And then also ... they say the court is such a charming place ... continuous royal feasts and dances, enhanced by choicest gallantry. After our marriage Conrad must take me to Paris. I wish to shine at the royal court."
"You are a giddy-headed girl," observed the aged seigneur shrugging his shoulders, and half closing his fist, which he applied to his ear for a trumpet, so as to be better able to hear the royal herald, he remarked to himself: "What devil of a song is he going to sing to us?"
"John, by the grace of God, King of the French," said the herald reading from his parchment, "to his dear, beloved and faithful seigneurs of Beauvoisis; Greeting!"
"Proceed, proceed; we can do very well without your politenessand greetings," grumbled the aged seigneur of Chivry. "They are gilding the pill for us to swallow."
"Pray, father, let me hear the messenger," said Gloriande impatiently. "The royal language has a court perfume that ravishes me."
The herald proceeded: "The mortal enemy of the French, the Prince of Wales, son of the King of England, has perfidiously broken the truce that was not to expire for some time longer. He is advancing at the head of a strong army."
"There we are," cried the Count of Chivry, angrily stamping with his feet. "It is a levy of men that we are going to be asked for. Blood and massacre! To the devil with the King!"
The herald continued reading: "After having set fire to everything on their route, the English are marching towards the heart of the country. In order to arrest this disastrous invasion, and in view of this great public danger, we impose upon our peoples and our beloved nobility a double tax for this year. Furthermore, we enjoin, order and command all our dear, beloved and faithful seigneurs of Beauvoisis to take up arms themselves, levy their men, and join us within eight days at Bourg, whence we shall take the field against the English, whom we shall vanquish with the aid of God and our valiant nobility. Let everyone be at his post of battle. Such is my will. JOHN."
This appeal from the King of the French to his valiant nobility of Beauvoisis was received by the noble assemblage with a mute stupor, that speedily made place for murmurs of anger and rebellion.
"We refuse to give men and money. To the devil with King John!" cried the Count of Chivry. "Already has he imposed subsidies upon us for the maintenance of his troops. Let him take them to war! We propose to remain at our manors!"
"Well said!" exclaimed another seigneur. "The King evidently kept up no army. All our moneys have been squanderedin pleasures and festivities. The court at Paris is an insatiable maw!"
"What!" interjected a third; "we are to wear ourselves out making Jacques Bonhomme sweat all the wealth he can, and the cream thereof is to go into the King's coffers? Not by all the devils! Already have we given too much."
"Let the King defend himself. His domains are more exposed than our own. Let him protect them!"
"It is all we can do, we and our own armed forces, to protect our castles against the bands of marauders, of Navarrais and of the hired soldiery that ravages our lands! And are we to abandon our homes in order to march against the English? By the saints! Fine goslings would we be!"
"And in our absence, Jacques Bonhomme, who seems to indulge in dreams of revolt, will put in fine strokes!"
"By heavens, messieurs!" cried a young knight, "We, nevertheless, may not, to the shame of knighthood, remain barracked on our own manors while battles are being fought on the frontier."
"Well! And who keeps you back, my dear fire-eater?" cried the Count of Chivry. "Are you curious to make acquaintance with war? Very well; depart quickly, and soon.... Each one disposes at his will of his own person and men."
"As to me," loudly put in the radiant Gloriande with fiery indignation, "I shall not bestow my hand on Conrad of Nointel if he does not depart for the war, and return crowned with the laurels of victory, leading to my feet ten Englishmen in chains. Shame and disgrace! Gallant knights to stay at home when their King calls them to arms! I shall not acknowledge for my lord and husband any but a valiant knight!"
Despite Gloriande's heroic words and a few other rare protests against the selfish and ignominious cowardice of the larger number of seigneurs, a general murmur of approval received the words of the aged seigneur of Chivry, who, encouraged bythe almost unanimous support of the assembly, stepped upon his bench and answered the herald in a stentorian voice:
"Sir, in the name of the nobility of Beauvoisis, I now answer you that we have our hands so full on our own domains, that it would be disastrous for us to take the field in distant regions. For the rest, the request of the King will be considered when the deputies of the nobility and the clergy shall be assembled in the States General of the Kingdom. Until then we shall remain at home."
A sudden outburst of hisses from the crowd of peasants and bourgeois answered the words of the seigneur of Chivry; and Adam the Devil, leaving Jocelyn the Champion for a moment alone with Mazurec, who, having regained consciousness, was resignedly expecting the hour of his death, thrust himself among several groups of serfs saying:
"Do you hear them? Fine seigneurs they are!... What are they good for?... Only to combat in tourneys with pointless lances and edgeless swords, or to indulge in bravados in combats, where they are fully armed, against Jacques Bonhomme, armed only with a stick!"
"That's so!" answered several angry voices. "To the devil with the nobility!"
"Poor Mazurec the Lambkin! It is enough to make one's heart ache to see his face bleeding under the iron gauntlet of the Knight."
"And now they are to put him in a bag and throw him into the water!... I declare.... That's what they call justice...."
"Ah! When, thanks to the cowardice of our seigneurs, the English will have penetrated to this region," resumed Adam the Devil, "what with our masters on one side and the English on the other, we shall be like iron beaten on the anvil by the hammer. Oppressed by these, pillaged and sacked by the others, our lot will be twice as hard. Woe is us!"
"That's what happens now when bands of marauders descendupon our villages. We flee for safety to the woods, and when we return, we find our homes in flames or in ashes!"
"O, God! What a lot is ours!"
"And yet our vicar says that secures our salvation ... in heaven! Another fraud upon us!"
"Woe is us if on top of all our ills we are to be ravaged and tortured by the English. That means our end."
"Yes, and we are all to go down through the cowardice of our seigneurs," put in Adam the Devil, "themselves, their families and retainers safely entrenched and provisioned in their fortified castles, they will allow us to be pillaged and massacred by the English! Oh! What a fate is in store for us!"
"And when everything we have will have been devastated," replied another serf in despair, "our seigneur will then tell us, as he told us when the last gang of marauders passed over the region like a hurricane: 'Pay your taxes, Jacques Bonhomme,' 'But, Sire, the marauders have carried away everything; they have left us only our eyes to weep with, and we weep!' 'Oh, you rebel, Jacques Bonhomme! Give him quick a beating and put him to the torture!' Oh, it is too much ... too much!... That must end. Death to the nobles and their helpers, the clergy!"
The murmurs among the rustic plebs, at first low and rumbling, presently broke out into loud hisses and imprecations, and these were so menacing and direct against the nobles, that the seigneurs, for a moment taken aback by the incredible audacity of Jacques Bonhomme, bridled up furiously, drew their swords, and, in the midst of alarmed cries of the elder and younger ladies, precipitately descended the steps of the platform to chastise the varlets at the head of the sergeants of the tourney, their own men-at-arms and also of those of the royal herald, who promptly sided with the noblemen against the plebs.
"Friends," cried Adam the Devil, rushing from one group of the serfs to another to inflame their courage, "if the seigneursare a hundred, we are a thousand. Have you not a minute ago seen Mazurec unhorse a knight all alone, with his stick and only a handful of sand? Let's prove those nobles that we are not afraid of them. Pick up stones and sticks! Let's deliver Mazurec the Lambkin! Death to the nobles!"
"Yes! Take up stones and sticks! Let's deliver Mazurec!" responded the more daring ones. "The devil take the seigneurs who wish to leave us at the mercy of the English!"
Under the pressure of this furious mob a portion of the barrier around the lists was soon torn up and a large number of vassals, arming themselves with the debris of the fence, redoubled their threats and imprecations against the seigneurs. Attracted by the tumult and catching a glimpse of Adam the Devil, who with glistening eyes was brandishing one of the posts of the barrier, Jocelyn left Mazurec and ran towards the serf to whom he cried out: "Those wretches will be mowed down ... you will lose everything.... The right time has not yet come!"
"It is always in time to kill noblemen," answered Adam the Devil, grinding his teeth, saying which he redoubled his vociferations: "Stones and sticks! Let's deliver Mazurec!"
"But you lose him by that!" cried Jocelyn in despair. "You will lose him! I hoped to save him!" and turning to the surrounding serfs he said: "Do not attack the seigneurs; you are in the open field, they on horseback; you will be trampled under foot. Come, now! Disperse!"
The voice of Jocelyn was lost in the tumult, and his efforts remained fruitless in the midst of the exasperation of the mob. A reflux of the crowd separated him from Adam the Devil, and soon the foresight of the champion was but too well verified. For a moment taken by surprise and even frightened at the aggressive attitude of Jacques Bonhomme, a spectacle they had never before witnessed, the seigneurs presently recovered their composure. Headed by the Sire of Nointel and supported by about fifty men-at-arms, sergeants and knights who speedily mounted their horses, the armed nobility nowadvanced in good order, and charged upon the revolted serfs with swords and lances. The women and children who happened to be in the crowd, were thrown down and trampled over by the horses, and filled the air with their heart-rending cries. The peasants, without order and without leadership, and already frightened at their own audacity whose consequences they now dreaded, fled in all directions over the meadow. Some few of the more valorous and determined stood their ground and were either cut down by the knights or severely wounded and taken prisoners. In the heat of the fray, Adam the Devil, who had been thrown down by a sabre cut, was seeking to rise when he felt a Herculean hand seize him by the collar, raise him and despite his resistance, drag him far away from the field of carnage. The serf recognized Jocelyn who said to him while dragging him along: "You will be a precious man on the day of uprising ... but to allow yourself to be killed to-day is an act of folly.... Come, let us preserve ourselves for a later day."
"Mazurec is lost!" cried the serf in the agony of despair and struggling against Jocelyn; but the latter, without making answer, compelled Adam the Devil, who was greatly enfeebled by the loss of blood, to take shelter behind a heap of lumber that had been brought thither for the construction of the barrier around the lists, but had been found unnecessary. Both lay themselves down flat upon the grass.
The sun has gone down; night is drawing nigh. The noble dames, frightened by the recent popular commotion, have left the platform of the tourney and returned to their manors either on their palfreys or on the cruppers of their cavaliers' horses. At a short distance from the lists where lay the corpses of a considerable number of serfs, killed in their futile attempt at revolt, flows the Orville River. On one side its banks are precipitous, but on the other they slope gently, covered with reeds. The river is crossed by a wooden bridge. To the right of the bridge are a few old willows. Their branches have almost all been freshly lopped off with axes. The few remaining ones, strongly supported and spreading out, have been turned into gibbets. From them now hang the bodies of four of the vassals who had been captured in the revolt. The pendent bodies resemble shadows cast upon the clear sky of the dusk. Night approaches rapidly. Standing on the middle of the bridge surrounded by his friends, among whom is Gerard of Chaumontel, the Sire of Nointel makes a sign, and the last of the revolted and captured serfs is, despite his cries and entreaties, hanged like his companions from a branch of a willow on the bank of the river. A man then brings to the bridge a large bag of coarse grey material, of the kind used by the millers. A strong cord inserted at its mouth like a purse-string enables its being tied closely. Mazurec the Lambkin is led forward tightly pinioned. Up to then he had been seated at one end of the bridge near the vicar. The latter after having placed the crucifix to the mouths of the serfs that had been hanged, returned to the victim about to be drowned. Mazurec is no longer recognizable. His bruised face covered with clotted blood is hideous to behold. One of his eyes hasbeen knocked out and his nose crushed under the fierce blows dealt him by the knight of Chaumontel with his iron gauntlet. The executioner opens the mouth of the bag while the bailiff of the seigniory approaches Mazurec and says: "Vassal, your felony is notorious; you have dared to charge Gerard, a nobleman of Chaumontel, with robbery; he appealed to a judicial duel where you were vanquished and convicted of calumny and defamation; in obedience to the royal ordinance, you are to be submerged until death does ensue. Such is the supreme and irrevocable sentence."
Mazurec steps forward, and as he is about to be seized and thrust into the bag, he raises his head, and addressing the Sire of Nointel and Gerard, says to them as if inspired with prophetic exaltation:
"It is said among our people that those about to perish become seers. Now, this is what I foretell: Gerard of Chaumontel, you robbed me and now you have me drowned ... you will die drowned. Sire of Nointel, you have done violence to my wife ... your wife will be done violence to. Mayhap my wife may bring to the world the child of a noble; ... your wife may bring to the world the child of a serf. May God take charge of my vengeance. The day of reprisals will come!"
Mazurec the Lambkin had barely uttered these words when the executioner proceeded to tie him up in the bag. Conrad grew pale and shivered at the sinister prophecy of his vassal, and was unable to utter a word. Gerard, however, addressing the serf who was being "bagged" burst out laughing and pointed to the five hanged serfs who rocked in the evening breeze, and whose outlines were dimly perceptible like spectres in the twilight, said:
"Look at the corpses of those villeins who dared to rebel against their seigneurs! Look at the water that runs under the bridge and that is about to swallow you up ... should Jacques Bonhomme still dare to kick, there are our long lances to piercehim through, wide branched trees to hang, and rivers to drown him."
Mazurec was the while tied in the bag, and at the moment when the executioner was about to hurl him into the river, the vassal's voice was heard for the last time from within the canvas. "Gerard of Chaumontel, you will be drowned; Sire of Nointel, your wife will be violated...."
A peal of contemptuous laughter from the knight answered the serf's prediction, and amidst the silence of night the splash was heard of Mazurec's body dropping into the deep waters of the river.
"Come away, come away," said the Sire of Nointel to Gerard in a faltering voice; "let's return to the castle; this place frightens me. The prophecy of that miserable villein makes me shudder despite myself.... He mentioned reprisals."
"What feebleness! Conrad, are you becoming weak-minded?"
"Everything that happened to-day is of ill-omen. I tremble at the future."
"What do you mean?" replied Gerard, following his friend who was walking away at a rapid pace. "What is that you said about ill-omen? Come, explain the cause of your terror."
"This evening, before returning to Chivry, Gloriande said to me: 'Conrad, to-morrow my father celebrates our betrothal in the chapel of his castle; I desire that you depart that same evening to join the forces of the King; and even then I shall not be your wife unless you lead back from battle and place at my feet, as a pledge of your bravery, ten Englishmen in chains and captured by yourself.'"
"The devil take such folly!" cried Gerard. "The romances of knighthood have turned her head!"
"'I wish,' added Gloriande, 'that my husband be illustrious by his prowesses. Therefore, Conrad, to-morrow I shall take the oath at the altar to finish my days in a monastery, if you are killed in battle, or if you fail in the promises that I have demanded of you!'"
"By the saints! That girl is gone daft on her Englishmen in chains. There are only blows to be fetched in war, and your betrothed runs the chances of seeing you return without an eye, a leg or an arm ... if you do return.... The devil take her whims!"
"I am bound to yield to Gloriande's wishes. There is no more stubborn head than hers. Besides, she loves me as I do her. Her wealth is considerable. I have dissipated a good part of my fortune at the court of King John. I cannot renounce the marriage. Whatever it may cost me, I must join the army with my men. Sad it is, but there is no choice!"
"Be it so! But then fight ... prudently and moderately."
"I am anxious to live so that I may marry Gloriande ... provided during my absence the prediction of that miserable vassal—"
"Ho! Ho! Ho!" broke in the knight of Chaumontel, laughing out aloud. "You surely are not troubled with the fear that during your absence Jacques Bonhomme will violate your wife?"
"These villeins, an unheard of thing, have dared to insult, to menace and to throw themselves upon us like the wild beasts that they are."
"And you saw that rag-tag flee before our horses like a set of hares. The executions of this evening will complete the lesson, and Jacques Bonhomme will remain the Jacques Bonhomme of ever. Come! Make your mind easy! While I prefer a hundred times the hunt, the tourneys, wine, game and love to the stupid and dangerous feats of war, I shall accompany you to the army, so as to bring you back soon to the beautiful Gloriande. As to the English prisoners that you are to lead in chains to her feet as a pledge of your valor, we shall scrape together a few leagues from our lady's manor the first varlets that we can lay our hands on. We shall bind them and threaten them with hanging if they utter a single word; and they will dowell enough for the ten English prisoners. Is not the idea a jolly one? But, Conrad, what are you brooding over?"
"Perhaps I was wrong in exercising my right over that vassal's wife," replied the Sire of Nointel with a somber and pensive mien. "It was a mere libertine caprice, because I love Gloriande. But the resistance of the scamp, who, besides, charged you with theft, irritated me." And resuming after a moment of silence, the Sire of Nointel addressed his friend: "Tell me the truth; here among ourselves; did you really rob the villein? It would have been an amusing trick.... I only would like to know if you really did it?"
"Conrad, the suspicion is insulting—"
"Oh, it is not in the interest of the dead serf that I put the question, but it is in my own."
"How? Explain yourself more clearly."
"If that vassal has been unjustly drowned ... his prophecy would have more weight."
"By heavens! Are you quite losing your wits, Conrad? Do you see me saddened because Jacques Bonhomme has predicted to me that I was to be drowned?... The devil! It is I who mean to drown your sadness in a cup of good Burgundy wine.... Come, Conrad, to horse ... to horse!... Supper waits, and after the feast pretty female serfs! Long live joy and love! Let's reach the manor in a canter—"
"Perhaps I did wrong in forcing the serf's wife," the Sire of Nointel repeated to himself. "I know not why, but a tradition, handed down from the elder branch of my family, located at Auvergne, comes back to me at this moment. The tradition has it that the hatred of the serfs has often been fatal to the Nerowegs!"
"Hallo, Conrad, to horse! Your valet has been holding your stirrup for the last hour," broke in the cheerful voice of Gerard. "What are you thinking about?"
"I should not have violated the vassal's wife," the Sire ofNointel still mumbled while swinging himself on his horse's back, and taking the route to his manor accompanied by Gerard of Chaumontel.