"Oh, indeed I do!"
"He will say this: 'The bourgeoisie and the Jacquerie were my army; I expected to discipline it and to be able to say to the King of Navarre: "My army is superior to yours; accept my conditions; let us jointly march against the Regent; I promise you his crown if you consent to submit to the national assembly as the supreme power. If you prefer allying yourself with the Regent, do so. The bourgeoisie holds the towns, the Jacquerie the country. I do not fear you." But here is the Jacquerie, the bulk of my army, annihilated.' Marcel will thoughtfully add: 'The disaster is irreparable. I now have but one of two courses open: either submission to the Regent, and deliver up to him my head and the heads of my friends, or promote the projects of the King of Navarre, who has an army capable of coping with the royal forces. Accordingly, instead of dictating terms to the King of Navarre, I am compelled to accept his terms.' That is what Marcel will say."
"Marcel will never betray the cause to which he has devoted his life."
"So far from betraying the cause of the people, he will insure the execution of a part of his programme. Do you take me for fool enough to ignore that, inevitably—Marcel said so to me, and he spoke truly—inevitably, if I mount the throne, I am compelled to carry out the larger part of the reforms that that redresser of wrongs has been pushing so many years? Would not the bourgeois sooner or later rebel against me as they have done against the Regent if I did not grant them greater freedom? Marcel furthermore said to me with his usual good sense: 'You,Sire, who covet the crown, will see in every reform measure only a means to confirm you upon the throne; the Regent, on the contrary, considers every measure of reform as a curtailment of his hereditary sovereign rights.'"
"Charles the Wicked, if such are your plans, if each of your words is not a lie or does not hide some trap, why did you massacre the Jacques? Why did you crush that popular uprising? Was it not bound to insure the freedom of Gaul and chase away the English?"
"Do you take me for a simpleton? What would there be left for me to reign over if Gaul were entirely free? What would become of the nobility? No, no! Whether I like it or not, I shall be compelled to grant a large number of reforms that may satisfy the bourgeoisie; I would not resign myself to the rôle of a passive instrument of the national assembly, as Marcel proposes, but I shall want to rule jointly with the assembly; and I would put forth all my efforts to end the English war. But as to raising Jacques Bonhomme from his condition—not at all! If I tried it I would turn every seigneur into an enemy. Jacques Bonhomme shall remain Jacques Bonhomme. Who would be left to fill the royal treasury if I enfranchised Jacques Bonhomme? Who would there be left to be taxed at will? The enfranchisement of Jacques Bonhomme would be the end of both nobility and royalty!... Those pests of bourgeois franchises, that issued from the execrable communes, are themselves enough of a menace to the throne.... This being all understood, you will say to Marcel that as early as to-morrow I shall begin collecting the several divisions of my army, and that I shall march upon Paris, whose gates shall be open to me.... Finally, in order to settle this and some other matters, you will tell him to meet me at Saint-Ouen, where I shall be in the evening of the day after to-morrow."
The merciless logic of Charles the Wicked only redoubled the horror that he inspired Jocelyn with, and the latter was about to give vent to it when the hour of seven was struck from afarby the parochial church of Clermont. With his usual smile the prince observed:
"I promised you that you would see your brother.... You are about to see him. And I want to let you know how I discovered your relationship. I ordered a fellow who is all ears to be concealed in a secret closet of the prison of the three chiefs of the Jacquerie. He was instructed to spy upon the scamps. In that way he heard one of them say to his accomplices, that he regretted he could not see his brother Jocelyn the Champion and friend of Marcel once more. When I this morning received the letter signed 'Jocelyn,' announcing yourself as the envoy of the provost, I easily discovered your relationship with the Jacques."
"Where is my brother? Where is that poor Mazurec? Have me carried before him."
"You will see him! Did I not pledge you my word as a knight?... But do not forget to notify Marcel that I expect to see him at Saint-Ouen day after to-morrow evening. And may the devil take you!"
The King of Navarre left the room. A few minutes after his departure the door was again opened and Jocelyn joyfully turned expecting to see his brother enter. He hoped in vain. It was one of the equerries.
"Your master assured me that I would see my brother, Mazurec," said Jocelyn, an unaccountable feeling of anxiety creeping over him.
The equerry opened the window near which the champion had been deposited and pointing to it said: "Look out of this window. Our Sire is faithful to his promise," and he withdrew, locking the door after him.
Seized with a terrible presentiment, Jocelyn leaned towards the window as far as his bound limbs allowed him, and the following ghastly scene was enacted before his eyes:
Below the window, about thirty feet down, is a vast square surrounded with houses and into which two streets run out, both of which are barred with strong cordons of soldiers charged tokeep the inhabitants of the town from entering the square. At one end of the square and not far from Jocelyn's window rises a wide scaffold. In the middle of the scaffold stands a stake with a stool attached, at either side of which is a block on which a sharp-pointed pile is firmly fastened. Several executioners are busy on the scaffold. Some are attaching iron chains to the center stake; others are standing around a cooking-stove turning on the burning coals, with the help of tongs, one of those iron trevets or tripods used by the peasants to cook their porridge in the fire-place. The trevet begins to be red hot; some of the executioners engaged near the stove kneel down and blow upon the fire to keep up the flames.
Presently, trumpets are heard approaching from the direction of one of the two streets; the cordon of soldiers posted at the mouth of that street part and allow a passage to a first squad of archers. Between this and the second squad, William Caillet, Adam the Devil and Mazurec the Lambkin are seen marching with firm tread. Mazurec is only half clad in an old hose of goat-skin; the two other peasants wear the ancient Gallic "blaude" or blouse, wooden shoes and woolen cap. It was not thought necessary to pinion them. Adam and Mazurec have each an arm on the shoulder of William Caillet, who is placed between the two. Thus joined in one embrace, the three men march with heads erect, intrepid looks and resolute carriage towards the scaffold erected for their last martyrdom.
The archers who compose the rear-guard of the escort spread themselves over the place, with their bows ready and their eyes searching the windows of the surrounding houses. One of the lattices clicks open, and instantly two arrows fly and disappear through the aperture, followed by an agonizing cry within. The two archers immediately re-fit their bows. They are executing the orders they received from their chiefs. The town people occupying the houses around the square had been forbidden to appear at their windows during the execution of the three chiefs of the Jacquerie. The three are now at the foot of the scaffold.
Gasping for breath, his face moist with cold perspiration, horrified and desperate at the sight of such a spectacle, Jocelyn feels his head swimming. He seems oppressed by a horrible nightmare. He distinguishes the faces; he hears the voice of Mazurec, of Adam, of Caillet exchanging a supreme adieu on the scaffold, while the executioners around them are making ready. William Caillet takes the hands of Adam and Mazurec and cries out in a strong voice that reaches the champion's ears:
"Firm, my Jacques! Firm to the end! Adam, your wife is revenged!... Mazurec, our Aveline is revenged!... Our relatives and friends, smothered to death in the cavern of the forest of Nointel are avenged.... The executioners are about to torture and put us to death. What does it matter? Our death will not return life to the noble dames and seigneurs who fell under our blows in the midst of their happiness. They sorrowed to leave life ... not so with us, with us whose lives are brimful of sorrows and tears!... The Jacquerie has revenged us!... Some day others will finish what we began!... Firm, my Jacques! Firm to the end!"
"Oh, Jacques Bonhomme, for so many centuries a martyr!" responded Adam and Mazurec in savage enthusiasm. "The Jacquerie has revenged you!... Others will finish what we began!... Firm, my Jacques!... Firm to the end!"
The executioners, engaged in their last dispositions, feel no concern at what the three peasants may say. Their words can find no echo upon that deserted place. As soon as the iron trevet is at white heat, one of the tormentors cried: "Ready! We are ready for the job!"
The archers chain the three Jacques fast to the platform of the scaffold and deliver them to the executioners. These seize William Caillet and bind him down upon the seat attached to the stake in the center of the two blocks with sharp-pointed piles. Mazurec and Adam are stripped of their clothes except their hose, their hands are tied behind their backs and they are ledto the two blocks. One of the executioners pulls off the woolen cap that covers the grey-headed William Caillet, while another seizes with a pair of tongs the little trevet, turns it upside down with its feet in the air, and placing the white-hot iron on the skull of the aged peasant cries out: "I crown thee King of the Jacques!"
Caillet bellows with the insufferable pain; his hair takes fire, the skin of his forehead shrivels, runs blood and rips open under the pressure of the incandescent iron. The axes of two other executioners rise over Mazurec and Adam, who are now on their knees each before one of the blocks.
"Brother!" cries Jocelyn the Champion, overcoming the nightmare pressure on his chest that suffocated and extinguished his voice; "Brother!"
At the heart-rending cry, Mazurec quickly raises and turns his head towards the window from which the cry proceeded. But that very instant the glint of the descending axe of the executioner flashes in Jocelyn's eyes; his brother's body sinks upon and his head rolls over the scaffold, reddening it with its blood. The champion is seized with a vertigo; his heart fails him; and he falls unconscious upon the floor.
When Jocelyn recovered consciousness he found himself unbound and stretched upon a pallet of straw in a lower hall. An archer mounted guard over him near a lamp. It was night. Gathering his thoughts as if he had awakened from some troubled dream, the champion soon recalled the horrible reality. The archer informed him that he was found unconscious by the equerries of the prince in the hall of the tower, had been transported to that place, and, after a fit of delirium, had fallen into profound torpor. The archer also informed him that his horse and arms were to be returned to him, and that he could leave Clermont whenever he wished. Jocelyn requested the archer to take him to one of the officers of the King of Navarre, hoping to obtain permission to render a pious homage to Mazurec. The prince granted the request, and Jocelyn, leaving the castle, proceededto the place of the execution. By the light of the moon he mounted the scaffold which was guarded by soldiers. The corpses of the three Jacques were to remain exposed during the whole of the next day. After his torture, William Caillet had been beheaded like his two companions. His head and theirs were stuck to the points of the piles that surmounted the blocks. Jocelyn religiously kissed the icy forehead of his brother Mazurec, and turning to descend the scaffold, his foot struck against the iron trevet which had fallen down after the decapitation of William Caillet.
"This instrument of torture and witness of my brother's martyrdom shall join the relics of our family," said Jocelyn the Champion to himself, picking up and concealing the trevet under his cloak. He then hastened to his horse that was held ready at the gate of Clermont and left the town, hastening to rejoin Etienne Marcel in Paris.
About a month had elapsed since the death of William Caillet, Adam the Devil and Mazurec the Lambkin.
Denise, the niece of Etienne Marcel and betrothed to Jocelyn the Champion, has retired to a large apartment over the cloth shop of the provost and is busy sewing by a lamp. Uneasiness is depicted on the sweet face of the young maid. From time to time she stays her needle and listens towards the window through which the confused talk and hurrying steps of large numbers of people on the street penetrate into the room. Gradually the noise on the street subsided and silence reigned again. These evidences of the excitement that agitated Paris greatly alarmed Denise.
"My God!" she exclaimed. "The tumult augments. My aunt Marguerite has not yet returned. Where can she have gone to? Why did she borrow the cloak of Agnes our servant? Why the disguise? Why did she conceal her head under a cowl? Can she have gone to the town-hall, where my uncle and Jocelyn have been since morning?" At the thought of the champion, Denise blushed, sighed and proceeded: "Oh, should there be any danger,Jocelyn will watch over my uncle Marcel as he would have done over his own father.... But the prolonged absence of my aunt causes me mortal anxiety.... May God guard her...."
Agnes the Bigot, the old domestic of the house, entered the room precipitately, and said to Denise whom she had known since her birth: "For the last hour I have noticed three men of sinister looks on our street. They never stray far from our door. I watched them through the lattices. Off and on they consult in a low voice and then separate again. One of them has now planted himself on the left, the second to the right of the door, and the third opposite.... They must have been sent to spy upon the people who enter and leave the house."
"Such spyings seem to me ominous; I shall notify my aunt as soon as she returns."
"I think this is she," answered the servant. "I heard the shop door open and close; that must be madam."
Indeed Marguerite Marcel soon entered the room. She threw far from her a cowled cloak that she had on, and said to Agnes: "Leave us."
The provost's wife threw herself into a chair; she was exhausted with fatigue and emotion. Her dejection, the pallor of her visage and the visible palpitation of her bosom redoubled the fears of Denise who was about to interrogate her aunt, when the latter, making an effort over herself suppressed her agitation and said to Denise collectively:
"Courage, my child; courage!"
"Oh, heaven!... Aunt ... have we any new misfortune to deplore? What has happened now?"
"No ... not at present; but to-morrow; perhaps this very evening." Marguerite stopped short for a moment, and then proceeded with still greater calmness and decision: "I paid a tribute to weakness; I now feel strong again; I am now prepared for the worst.... I shall at least know by resignation how to rise to the height of the man whose name I bear! Oh,never was an honorable man more unworthily misunderstood, or attacked in more cowardly fashion!"
"Then Master Marcel is exposed to new perils?"
"My presentiments did not deceive me. What I have just learned by myself confirms them. A plot is hatching against Marcel and his partisans. Perhaps his own life and the lives of his friends are at stake. Let the worst come! At the hour of danger Marcel will do his duty and I mine.... I shall stand by my husband unto death."
Marguerite pronounced these last words in an accent of such mournful determination that a cry of astonishment and fright escaped from Denise.
"My resolution astonishes you, poor child!" resumed Marcel's wife. "To-day you see me full of courage! And yet last year ... even as late as yesterday ... I admitted to you my agony and the fears that every day beset me at the mere thought of the dangers that my husband ran. I then minded only his fatigue, I then only objected to the overwhelming labors that barely left him two hours of rest a night, I then looked back regretfully to the days when, a stranger to political affairs, he busied himself only with the affairs of our own cloth business. Our then obscurity at least saved us the sad spectacle of the hatreds and the envy that have since been unchained against Marcel's glory and popularity."
"Oh, aunt, you speak truly! Do you remember that wicked and envious Petronille Maillart? Thank God she never came back since the day of the funeral of Perrin Macé! We have been spared her presence!"
"I now have no doubt that her husband is one of the leaders in the plot that is hatching against Marcel."
"Master Maillart!... Uncle's childhood friend! He who only the other day was so loudly protesting his affection for him!"
"Maillart is a weak man; he yields to his wife's influence over him, and she is consumed with envy. She envied in me the wifeof the man whom the idolizing people called the King of Paris. In those days I would have sacrificed Marcel's glory to his repose ... his genius to his safety! The slightest popular commotion made me fear for him.... I was then weak and cowardly.... But to-day, when he is pursued by hatred, ingratitude and iniquity, I feel strong, brave and withal proud of being the wife of that great citizen. I feel capable of proving to him my devotion unto death."
"Oh, may heaven prevent that your devotion be put to so terrible a test! But how did you learn about the plot?"
"I determined this evening to put an end to my suspense, and to ascertain the actual facts regarding the popular sentiment towards Marcel. I wrapped myself in that mantle to prevent being discovered, and moved among numerous groups that gathered in our quarter."
"I now understand it all. And you learned directly...."
"Things that cause me to foresee an imminent and fearful crisis. The life of Marcel is in great danger."
"Good God! May you not be mistaken?"
"No! The privations, the sufferings and the ills that follow in the wake of the painful conquest of freedom are laid to Marcel's door. My husband is at once attacked by the emissaries of the court party and by those of the party of Maillart. These emissaries circulate among the poor people, who, credulous of evil as well as of good, are fickle in their affections, and whimsical in their hatred. It is harped upon to them that all the evils of these days would have been avoided if Councilman Maillart, 'the true friend of the people,' had been listened to; others preach prompt submission to the Regent as the only means to a speedy end of our public disasters. 'What does the Regent, after all, demand,' ask his backers, 'What does he exact in return for his pardon? Only eight hundred thousand gold pieces for the ransom of King John and the heads of the leaders of the revolt and of its principal partisans! Would it be paying toodearly with a little shame, a little gold and a little blood for the peace of the city?'"
"Great God!" cried Denise, pale and trembling, "who are the leaders of the revolt whose heads the Regent demands?"
"They are Marcel ... my son ... our best friends ... all honorable people, devoted to the public weal, adversaries of oppression and iniquity ... uncompromising enemies of the English, who are ravaging our unhappy land, and who would have put Paris to fire and sword were not Paris protected by the fortifications that it owes to Marcel's foresight and zeal! The people to-day seem to have forgotten the services that my husband has rendered the city; they seem to have forgotten that they owe to Marcel the reforms that have been imposed upon the Regent and which guarantee them against rapine and violence from the side of the court."
"Can it be possible that the people are guilty of such ingratitude against Master Marcel?"
"My husband's soul is too large, his spirit too just to have been swayed in his public acts by expectations of gratitude. How often has he not said to me: 'Let us do what is right and just, such acts are their own reward.' Marcel is prepared for any emergency. Nevertheless, thinking that my observations might be of benefit to him, I stepped into the house of our friend Simon the Feather-dealer who lives not far from the town-hall, and I wrote to my husband what I had seen and heard. My letter was carried to him by a trusty man——" but observing that the tears that Denise had long been suppressing now inundated her face, Marguerite interrupted her report, inquiring tenderly: "Why do you weep, dear Denise?"
"Oh, aunt! I have neither your strength nor your courage.... The thought of the dangers that threaten Master Marcel ... and our friends ... overwhelm me with fear!"
"Poor child! You are thinking of Jocelyn, your lover? He is a true friend of ours."
"Should there be a riot or a fight, he will rush into the thickest ... to save Marcel."
"I regret, for the sake of your happiness, dear child, that I ever called you to Paris. Had you not come, you would now be living peacefully at Vaucouleurs, away from this center of trouble and strife."
At this instant Agnes the Bigot re-entered, preceding a person whom she announced, saying: "Dame Maillart has come, she assures me, in order to render you a great service. She wishes to speak to you without delay."
"I do not wish to see her!" cried Marguerite, impatiently. "I detest the sight of that woman. I refuse to receive her!"
"Madam, she says she came to render you a great service," answered the servant, sorry for having involuntarily crossed her mistress' wishes. "I thought I was doing right to allow her to come up; it is now unfortunately too late——"
Indeed, Petronille Maillart appeared at that moment at the door of the room. Triumphant and barely controlled hatred betrayed itself in the looks that the councilman's wife cast upon Marguerite. But assuming a mild and kind voice she approached the object of her envy.
"Good evening, Dame Marcel; good evening, poor Dame Marcel."
"This affectation of sympathy conceals some odious perfidy," thought Denise, whose face was still wet with tears. "I do not like to afford this wicked woman the spectacle of my sorrow."
The young maid left the room, together with the servant. Alone with the councilman's wife, Marguerite addressed her dryly:
"I am greatly astonished to see you here, madam; our friendly relations must cease."
"I understand your astonishment, poor Dame Marguerite, seeing we have not met since the day of the funeral of Perrin Macé. Oh, Master Marcel's popularity was then immense; people calledhim then the King of Paris ... they swore by him ... he was looked upon as the saviour of the city——"
"Madam, I beg you to speak less of the past and more of the present.... Make your visit short. What do you want of me?"
"First of all to beg you to forget the little quarrel we two had on the day of the funeral of Perrin Macé. Next I come to render a great service to poor Master Marcel."
"My husband excites nobody's pity ... he does not need your services."
"Alack! I wish I could leave you in that error, Dame Marguerite. But I must tell you the truth, and inform you, seeing you are not aware of it, that you no longer are the 'Queen of Paris' as you were in the days when Master Marcel was the King. Even at the risk of wounding your legitimate pride, I must add against my will that your husband's position has become desperate.... I feel distressed at the sorrow that overwhelms you——"
"Your excellent heart is unnecessarily alarmed, Dame Petronille. Do not mind my sorrow."
"Unfortunately, however, I am certain of what I say."
"Madame, I greatly mistrust both your protestations and your confidences."
"You do not seem to be informed on what is transpiring in Paris."
"I know that there are wicked and envious people in Paris."
"I know you too well, Dame Marguerite, to imagine that a wise and discreet person like yourself would reproach me with being envious——"
"Indeed, I would not venture, madam.... I would indeed not venture——"
"And you would be right. What is there in your present fate to be envied. A storm is beating down upon you."
"Envious people do not need much to be envious about. Theyenvy even the calmness and courage derived from a clean conscience, when misfortune is on!"
"You admit it?... Misfortune has come upon you and your husband?" cried the councilman's wife triumphantly, and for a moment forgetting her rôle of hypocrite. But recalling herself, she added cajolingly: "The avowal at least makes me hope that you will accept the services of my husband."
Realizing the gravity of the last words of the councilman's wife, Marguerite fixed a penetrating look upon her and answered:
"Did Master Maillart send you to offer his services to my husband? Whence such solicitude?"
"Have the two not been friends since their childhood? Is the friendship of youth ever forgotten? You have earned our affection."
"It is so at least with generous hearts. But if Master Maillart wishes to render a service to my husband, why should he send you, madam? Does he not meet Marcel daily at the town-hall?"
"Since last evening, neither Maillart nor any of his friends have set foot at the town-hall ... and for good reasons. And for another reason he would not set foot here. That is why he has commissioned me to come and offer you his advice and services."
"What does he advise ... what are his services?"
"Maillart advises your husband to secretly leave Paris this very night."
"We now know the advice; it implies a great resolution.... As to the service ... what is it?"
"My husband offers to favor Marcel's flight if you adopt his advice."
"And how?"
"Maillart will send a trusty man to your house towards midnight. He shall accompany your husband. He is to wrap himself up well so as not to be recognized, and confidently follow our emissary, who is charged to see him safely off.... Butyour husband must be absolutely alone, otherwise our emissary will refuse to conduct him."
"It seems to me that in his eagerness to advise and serve, Master Maillart forgets that Marcel and the town council—the governors, as they are called—are still masters of Paris. The captains of tens and the guards at the gates still obey them. If it should happen—a thing that I consider impossible—that my husband should contemplate quitting his post at the moment of danger, he would take horse with some of his friends, and would order whatever gate of Paris he chose to be opened.... He has the right and the power to do so."
"You would be right if Master Marcel's orders would be obeyed, if these were still the days when, lording it over all Paris, he had the first place at all ceremonies.... But the times have changed, good Dame Marguerite. At this very hour in which I am speaking to you, your husband's authority is about to be ignored. If he tried to order one of the gates of Paris to be opened, his action would confirm the rumors concerning his treason. People would cry: 'Hold the traitor! Death to the traitor!' A hundred avenging arms would rise, and Master Marcel would fall under their blows dead, disfigured, bleeding, butchered!... His body would be torn to pieces.... That would then be his fate!"
"Enough! Enough!" stammered Marguerite, shivering and hiding her face in her hands. "This is horrible. Hold your tongue!"
"Would not such a death be awful, dear Dame Marguerite? Therefore, in order to save his friends from such a fate, my husband charged me to come and offer you his services."
Despite the poor opinion in which she held Maillart and his wife, whose envy she was aware of, Marguerite did not imagine that the proposition of the councilman, one of Marcel's oldest friends and, like himself, of the popular party, could conceal a trap or a snare. Marguerite even took it for a token of sincere pity, easily supposable from the part of envious people at themoment of their triumph over a rival. Moreover, did not the state of public opinion in Paris, on which Marguerite had that very evening sought to assure herself, but too well confirm the words of the councilman's wife on the subject of Marcel's increasing unpopularity? On the other hand, Marguerite was too well acquainted with her husband's force of character and his energy not to feel assured that, unless he was reduced to utter extremities, he never would decide to leave Paris as a fugitive. Nevertheless, the hour of that terrible extremity might arrive. In that case Maillart's offer was not to be despised. These thoughts rapidly flashed through Marguerite's mind. She remained pensive and silent for a moment, while the councilman's wife observed her closely and anxiously awaited her answer.
"Dame Maillart," finally answered Marguerite, "I wish to believe, I believe in the generous impulses that dictated the tender of services that you have just made me in the name of your husband."
"Then, it is understood?" said the councilman's wife, with an eagerness that should have excited Marguerite's suspicion. "The emissary will be here at midnight. Let your husband follow him without taking any companion.... He must have no escort.... That is understood."
"Allow me, Dame Petronille. I can not go so far as to accept your offer in my husband's name. He alone is the judge of his conduct. He gave me reasons to believe that he would be here this evening to take a few hours' rest. If my expectations prove true, I shall soon see him.... I shall notify him of Master Maillart's proposition. Ask your husband to send his emissary here at midnight. My husband will decide."
"He should not hesitate a moment. Believe me, poor Dame Marguerite, you must exert your whole influence upon your husband, and decide him to avail himself of the one opportunity of escape left to him. He is in great danger."
At this juncture Denise entered the room affecting great hurry and said: "Aunt, Dame Alison wishes to see you privately; shehas no time to wait." To these words Denise added a significant gesture conveying to Marguerite the hint to seize the opportunity for putting an end to the visit of the detested Dame Petronille.
Marguerite understood the thoughts of her niece, and said to the councilman's wife: "Please excuse me, there is a visitor I must receive."
"Adieu, good Dame Marcel," said the councilman's wife, taking a step towards the door. "Fail not to remember my advice.... We must know how to resign ourselves to what can not be prevented.... The days follow, but do not resemble each other.... For the rest you understand me. Good evening, dear Dame Marguerite, I wish you happier days. May God preserve you and yours!"
As always, not envy here followed hatred, but hatred envy. Born of the rankling enviousness that the unworthy entertain for the worthy, Petronille Maillart was consumed with malevolent hatred for the man and woman whose ruin she was plotting. Casting upon Marguerite the furtive look of a viper, Dame Petronille took her leave.
The handsome tavern-keeper, who now entered in response to the summons of Denise, looked neat and prim as ever. Her beautiful black eyes, her white teeth, her comely shape, above all her golden heart—all justified the partiality of the student Rufin for this amiable and honorable woman to the total eclipse of Margot. Finally, thanks to Jocelyn, Alison had not only saved her honor from the clutches of Captain Griffith, but also quite a round sum of gold, sewed in her skirt, from the rapacity of the English. Jocelyn the Champion, once Alison's defender against Simon the Hirsute and later her liberator, when exposed to the libertinage of the bastard of Norfolk, had inspired her with sentiments more tender than merely those of gratitude. Nevertheless, apprized of the engagement of Denise and Jocelyn, the young woman struggled bravely against the promptings of her heart, and seeking to free her mind from the affectionate thoughts that crowded upon her, had found pleasure in observing that, despite his turbulence, Rufin the Tankard-smasher lacked neither devotion, nor heart, nor brightness, nor yet external attractions. Thus, since the day when, fleeing from the horrors of the war that desolated Beauvoisis, she had taken refuge in Paris near the family of the provost to whom she had been recommended by Jocelyn, Alison often met the student in her little lodgings at the inn where she housed, and it often occurred to her that, despite his name, which sounded particularly unpleasant in a tavern-keeper's ear, Rufin the Tankard-smasher might after all not make a bad husband. Moreover, her vanity was not a little flattered by the hope of herself opening a tavern, whose principal customers would be the students of the University of Paris. Receivedwith kindness by Marguerite and Denise, Alison entertained for both a deep sense of gratitude. On this evening she had hastened to Marcel's house in the hope of being of service to them. Observing the signs of uneasiness depicted on the tavern-keeper's face, Marguerite said to her affectionately, taking her hands:
"Good evening, dear Alison ... you look alarmed.... Tell us the cause of your trouble."
"Oh, Dame Marguerite! I have but too much reason for being alarmed, if not for myself, yet for you"; and interrupting herself she added: "First of all, and so as not to forget the circumstance, I must warn you that coming in I saw three men enveloped in cloaks who seem to be in hiding on some ambuscade. These men seem to have evil intents."
"Agnes, our servant, also noticed them," said Denise; "we are forewarned."
"They are no doubt spies," replied Marguerite. "But Marcel need not fear the consequences of being spied upon. Whatever he does is in the public interest, and none of his acts need concealment. Nevertheless, seeing that hatred now dogs his steps ... the information may be useful."
"It is distressing to me, Dame Marguerite, to bring what may be bad news to you, who received me so kindly upon my arrival from Beauvoisis."
"Our friend Jocelyn recommended you to us; he informed us of your misfortunes and of your tender care of that ill-starred Aveline. Our good wishes in your behalf were but natural. But what is the matter?"
"This evening I was looking out of the window of my room at the tumult of the people in the street, because you must know there is an unusual agitation this evening on the streets of Paris, when a young man all out of breath, handed me this note from Rufin the Tankard-smasher."
Alison drew from her corsage a slip of paper which she passed to Marguerite, who nervously seizing it began to read it aloud:
"As true as Venus in her Olympian beauty...."
"Skip that, skip that, Dame Marguerite! Begin at the fourth or fifth line," said Alison, blushing and smiling at once. "Those are but flourishes that Master Rufin amuses himself with. Lose no more time over them than I did myself.... That worthy fellow should have abstained from his roguishness when writing upon such serious subjects."
After having run her eyes over the first lines of the epistle, during which the student displayed his amorous and mythological vein, Marguerite arrived at the essential portion of the missive:
" ... Hurry to the house of Master Marcel; if he is not at home, tell his honored wife to have him warned not to leave the town-hall without a strong escort. I am on the track of a plot against him. So soon as I shall have positive proofs I shall go either to Master Marcel's house, or to the town-hall to inform him of my discovery. Above all, let him be on his guard against Councilman Maillart. He has no more mortal enemy. He ought to order his arrest on the spot ... just as I would on the spot have your heart for my prison whose turnkey is the gentle bantling Cupid."
"Skip all that also, Dame Marguerite; those are some more flourishes. There is nothing more of importance. I am not a little surprised at seeing master student mix up folly with serious matter in that manner."
"Serious, indeed! Very serious!... This letter increases my apprehensions," answered Marguerite, trembling; and recalling her recent conversation with the councilman's wife, she thought to herself: "Could the councilman's offer be a snare?... And still I can not yet accept the existence of quite so horrible a plot!"
"My God!" cried Denise bitterly, "and yet uncle, despite all our presentiments, always answers us when we mention to him our suspicions regarding Maillart: 'He is not a bad sort of a man; only he is wholly under the influence of his wife, who is devoured with vanity. Do not judge him unjustly.'"
"Dear Alison," rejoined Marguerite after a few moments' reflection, "did you question the messenger who brought you the letter?"
"Indeed, madam ... I asked where he had left Master Rufin."
"What answer did he make?"
"That the student was in a tavern near the arcade of St. Nicholas when he handed him the letter."
As Alison was uttering the last words, two men wrapped to the eyes in cloaks entered the room. Marguerite immediately recognized her husband and Jocelyn the Champion. As they were throwing off their wraps, Marguerite cried: "At last, here you are!" and unable longer to control her emotions, she threw her arms around Marcel's neck, while Denise gave her hand to her lover, who respectfully took it to his lips. Under his armor Jocelyn wore a black jacket, a piece of clothing that he had assumed since the day that he witnessed the execution of Mazurec the Lambkin. Sad and pale, the face of Jocelyn betokened the grief that beset his mind. After tenderly embracing Marcel, who effusively returned her caresses, Marguerite said, delivering to him Rufin the Tankard-smasher's letter:
"My friend, take notice of what this latter contains; our good Alison just brought it to me in great haste."
Marcel read the letter in a low voice in the midst of the profound silence of all present, while Marguerite, his niece and Alison attentively watched his face. He remained calm throughout. He even smiled at the mythological flourishes of the student. When he had finished the letter he returned it to Alison, saying kindly:
"I thank you for your anxiety to bring me the missive, Dame Alison; our friend Rufin is wrongly alarmed."
"Nevertheless, my friend," put in Marguerite with intense seriousness, "what about the plot that the student mentions, and on the track of which he says he is?"
"Rufin must have exaggerated to himself the importance of some insignificant fact, my dear Marguerite."
"But ... did you notice what he said about Maillart?"
"Last evening Maillart affectionately shook me by the hand when leaving the town-hall after a discussion in which his opinion differed from mine. 'Men,' said he to me, 'may differ, but the bonds of old friendship are indissoluble,' he added."
Jocelyn confirmed the episode, but Marguerite insisted, the disclosures of the student having gone far to confirm her suspicions against the councilman. "Marcel," said the alarmed wife, "Maillart's wife was here this evening ... she came to propose a place of refuge for you in case of danger——"
"The generous offer does not surprise me."
"A man is to come here this midnight ... you are to follow him alone ... well wrapt in your mantle," said Marguerite with emphasis. "Alone ... do you hear, Marcel?... and he is to conduct you to a place whence you shall be able to flee without danger."
"This is too much kindness," Marcel answered with a smile. "I am grateful for the offer; I do not think of fleeing, that is certain.... We never have been so near the triumph."
"What!" cried Marguerite encouraged by new hope. "Is that true? And yet, why all this commotion.... Why this tumult in Paris ... why these alarming rumors?" And her apprehensions that for an instant had been allayed by the reassuring words of her husband, again regaining the upperhand, she proceeded sadly: "The precaution that you as well as Jocelyn took of enveloping yourselves in these cloaks, no doubt for the purpose of not being recognized on the street—all these things contribute to make me fear that you are deceiving yourself ... or that out of consideration for me, you are concealing the true state of things."
"Aunt forgot to tell you that three men seem to have been watching our house all evening," said Denise, and it did not escape her that Jocelyn seemed struck by the circumstance.
"And I also," observed Alison, "noticed at entering that there seemed to be three spies near the house. Their presence is strange."
"My friend," said Marguerite, seeking to detect from her husband's face whether his feeling of safety was real or assumed, "I sent you this evening a note that I wrote to you at our friend's, Simon the Feather-dealer. I there informed you of my impressions on my personal observations, and urged you to take precautionary measures."
"I received your letter, my dear wife," said Marcel, tenderly taking Marguerite's hands. "You trust me, do you not?... Very well; believe me when I assert that your fears are unfounded. Better than anybody else do I know what is going on in Paris this evening. Are our enemies active? I let them talk, certain that I shall lead my work to a happy issue, as my device proclaims. For the rest, is not my presence here the best proof of my confidence in the situation? Upon receipt of your letter I decided to leave the town-hall for a moment in order to come and calm your fears, to comfort you, and also to beg of you not to alarm yourself if it should happen that I do not return home all day to-morrow.... To-morrow grave matters will be decided. And to sum up," Marcel proceeded, cheerfully, "as I mean to overthrow all your objections, you dear, timid soul, I shall add that it was partly due to my modesty that I enveloped myself in that cloak. I meant to reach here and return without being stopped twenty times on the street by the cheers of the people. Despite the envy and hatred of some of the bourgeois partisans of the Regent, Marcel continues to be loved by the people of Paris."
"And you would not doubt it, Dame Marguerite," added Jocelyn, "if you had heard, as I did, the addresses delivered to-day by the trades guilds, all of which came to pledge their loyalty to Master Marcel."
Jocelyn's words, the cheerful and serene physiognomy of the provost and the tone of conviction that marked his words, somewhatallayed the fears of Marguerite and Denise, the latter of whom said to Marcel: "Your presence suffices to encourage us, dear uncle, just as the sight of the physician sometimes suffices to allay the pains of a patient."
"My worthy Jocelyn," Marcel said, cheerfully, turning to the champion, "that applies to you as much as to me ... you happy and beloved lover!"
"Dear Denise," said the champion to the blushing maid, "the mourning for my poor brother has put off our marriage.... I do not very much regret the circumstance when I consider that in these days of turmoil I could not have devoted all my time to you. But believe Master Marcel; better days are approaching. Need I tell you that they are the subject of my ardent wishes, seeing that they will witness our union?"
"Dame Alison," cordially put in Marcel, "since marriage is the topic of the conversation, take pity on the amorous martyrdom of poor Rufin.... He is a good and loyal heart, despite some transports of youth that earned for him the nickname of 'Tankard-smasher.' I feel quite sure that the wholesome influence of a kind and honorable woman like yourself would make an excellent husband of him. It would be a double pleasure to me to see you and Rufin, Denise and Jocelyn, approach the altar the same day. What say you?"
"That needs thinking over," answered Alison, meditatively. "That needs much thinking over, Master Marcel. For the rest," she proceeded, with a blush and a sigh, "I say neither 'yes' nor 'no'.... I wish to consult Dame Marguerite."
"Rufin's prospects are good," rejoined the provost. "The woman who says not nay ever has a strong wish to say aye."
"Marcel would not be so cheerful and jovial did he actually believe himself and his partisans on the eve of grave dangers," thought Marguerite, now more and more reassured by the turn of gaiety her husband's words had taken. "I must have attached exaggerated importance to what I heard this evening. My husband is right. Even when his popularity is strongest, calumnypursues him. Maillart may be yielding simultaneously both to envy and the more generous feelings prompted by old friendship. He may believe in the loss of popularity by Marcel and enjoy the idea, and yet wish to save him. That wicked Petronille has merely thrown poison into an offer that, in itself, is honorable. If it were otherwise, Maillart would be the vilest of men, and that I am not ready to believe. Such a degree of perversity would exceed the bounds of possibility——"
"Denise," said the provost, kissing his niece on the forehead, "order a lamp to be taken into my cabinet. I have some documents to finish." Turning to his wife, whom he also kissed on the forehead: "I shall see you again before I leave," and taking Jocelyn by the arm: "Come, we have work to attend to."
Denise hastened to carry a lamp into Marcel's cabinet, where she left her uncle and her lover closeted together.
Once alone in his cabinet with Jocelyn, Marcel sank into profound pensiveness. The cheerful serenity that had pervaded his bearing during the conversation with his wife was now replaced by an expression of melancholic seriousness. For a few minutes he contemplated in silence his studious retreat, the witness of the meditations of his riper years. Finally, leaning over a large table that was strewn with parchments, he emitted a sigh and said to Jocelyn:
"How many nights have I not spent here, elaborating by the light of this little lamp the plans of reform that some day, hap now what hap may, will be the solid basis for the emancipation of our people, the evangelium of the rights of the citizen!... Here have been spent the happiest, the most beautiful days of my life!... What a pure joy did I not then taste!... Sustained by my ardent love for justice and right, and enlightened by the lessons of the past, I soared upward to the sublimest theories of freedom!... I then was ignorant of the deceptions, the evils, the delays, the struggles, the storms that the practice and application of truth inevitably engender!... I then saw truth in its radiant simplicity!... I did not then reckon with human passions!... But that matters not!... Truth is absolute.... Sooner or later it imposes itself upon humanity that ever is on the march, progresses and improves itself...."
Jocelyn listened to Marcel in mute reverence. He now beheld that illustrious man wrapt with pensive brow in ever deeper meditation. A few instants later, Marcel stepped towards an oaken trunk that age had blackened. He opened it, took out severalrolls of parchment, lay them on the table, pushed a stool near and sat down to write. His virile and characterful face betrayed by degrees increasing sadness, and, to Jocelyn's surprise several tears dropped from the provost's eyes upon the lines that he was writing. Tears from so great a man, from a man of such energy, endowed with ancient stoicism, profoundly impressed the champion. Jocelyn's heart ached, and he began to suspect Marcel's motives for the affectation of safety that he had shortly before displayed before his family. Jocelyn saw him dry his tears and seal the parchment with black wax, using for that purpose the impress of a large gold ring that he wore on his finger, after which, placing the scroll together with the others that he had taken from the trunk, he made one package of all, sealed them together and replaced them in the trunk. He then locked it, and giving the key to Jocelyn, said to him deliberately:
"Keep this key safe.... I charge you to deliver it to my wife and to tell her, in case certain events should happen, that she will find in that trunk, together with my testament and some other papers that it is well to keep, a letter for herself ... written by me this evening ... written for my beloved Marguerite...."
"Master Marcel," Jocelyn answered, a cold shudder running over his frame, "these are lugubrious preparations."
"Lugubrious?... no ... but prudent.... I have fulfilled my sacred duty.... I now find myself in a singular frame of mind.... The latest happenings, those of to-day, cast over my mind, not any doubt upon the decision I should take, but considerable uncertainty on the head of the means to be adopted. Never yet have I been so in need of a clearness of judgment as now, when I must take some supreme and irrevocable step. I imagine that by talking over the general condition of things, these will stand out more clearly before me. Thought expressed in words becomes preciser, while mute it often fades from one thing to another and is lost to the goal in mind. Therefore, listen to me, and if in the rough sketch thatI shall present any omission should strike you, any point should seem obscure, tell me so.... It is a friendly duty that I now conjure you to fulfill."
"I listen, Master Marcel."
"Upon your return from Clermont—pardon that I open the wound of your private sorrow—I also wept over the death of your unfortunate brother—upon your return from Clermont, you informed me of the massacre of the Jacques. The following day we learned that the Captal of Buch and the Count of Foix exterminated at Meaux another considerable troop of revolted peasants. Finally, recovering from the stupor into which these formidable insurrections had struck it, the nobility gathered its forces and running over the country it put a mass of serfs, men, women and children, to frightful tortures and to death, whether these sympathized with the Jacquerie or not, and set their villages on fire. That settled, at least for a long time to come, all thought of an alliance between the townsfolks and the country people. The destruction of the Jacquerie reduces the bourgeoisie to its own forces in its struggle against the Regent. The bourgeoisie has, thereupon, no choice but either to accept the unequal fight or deliver itself to Charles the Wicked, and instead of dictating terms to him, accept those that he may choose to dictate to us."
"That was the calculation of the blood-thirsty knave. He said so explicitly to me at Clermont."
"Nevertheless, by massacring the Jacques, skillful politician though Charles the Wicked be, he deprived himself of powerful auxiliaries against the Regent, whose forces are far superior to those of his own. He may fail in his calculations."
"The scoundrelly prince! Had he followed your generous advice, his own hands, re-inforced by thousands of armed peasants and thousands of bourgeois, would by now have crushed the royal troops. And profiting by the general enthusiasm of the people, who are as exasperated at the English as at the seigneurs, Charles the Wicked would now be chasing the foreigners from our soil and would ascend the throne in the midst of the acclamationsof a people whom he would govern placing before them the example of submission to the national assembly."
"Such was the glorious mission that opened before Charles the Wicked. It is not yet too late if he would only have the courage, the wisdom and the loyalty to devote himself body and soul to so noble an aim. I shall presently explain that. At present, however, he is, just as ourselves, no other than a rebel against the loyal authority of the Regent. The latter disposes of considerable forces. He has on his side the monarchic tradition, which in the eyes of the people runs back into the night of the ages; he has on his side the royal name, the courtiers, the clergy, the royal officers, the administrators of the revenue and of justice, in short, all those who live upon abuses and exactions—a huge clientage that imparts formidable strength to the Regent. Charles the Wicked is too clear-sighted not to have realized by now all that he lost by destroying the Jacquerie, and how slight his chances now are of usurping the crown. He must have thought of an eventual settlement with the Regent in case our cause, to whose side he still seems to lean, should be seriously compromised, or actually lost."
"Do you believe that Charles the Wicked has actually negotiated with the Regent?"
"Everything makes me think so. The conduct of the King of Navarre during these last days reveals a man who is wavering between ambition to ascend the throne and the fear of a defeat which he would have to pay for with his life and the loss of his domains. He sends us a few insignificant reinforcements, but refuses to enter Paris. He has accepted the title of captain-general of our city, but the queen, his mother, has frequent interviews with the Regent. The hour is critical. The court party exploits at our expense and with its habitual perfidy the present national calamities whose original causes are the insane prodigalities of the court itself. King John and his creatures have driven both towns and country districts to desperation with their acts of rapine and violence and their unbearable imposts. A revolutionbroke out. We conquered radical reforms. These were expected to inaugurate an era of peace and prosperity unequaled in the annals of the land, because liberty is at once well-being and independence. But liberty is complete only with the possession of the instruments of work."
"A profound truth, Master Marcel. Tyranny ever engenders servitude, and servitude misery. Only by freeing them from seigniorial tyranny could the insurrection of the serfs insure to these the enjoyment of the fruits of the earth which they now cultivate for their own butchers."
"Yes, but all revolution is arduous and rough. It cannot overnight remedy ills that are the fatal inheritance of the past. Sometimes such ills are even temporarily aggravated by the remedial revolution, as the cauterized wound for a while smarts worse than before. These ills, these sufferings, have been carried to their extreme by the ravages of the English after the battle of Poitiers. The people have valiantly endured them, placing their confidence in the revolution of 1357. The city council, presided over by myself, the 'governors' in short, as the body is called, have been forced to exercise a temporary dictatorship, often to resort to energetic and even terrible measures in order to make front against the English at our gates, and the court party inside of our walls. The people at first accepted the dictatorship for the sake of the safety of the city, but they have since fallen away when they found that we could not instantly meet their expectations of material well-being. The people are tired of dictatorship, and now in their credulous despair they lend ear to the mischievous words of their own enemies! They are ready to withdraw from the struggle instead of finishing the work of emancipation! The people now deplore their rebellion; they are ready to curse the councilmen who have sacrificed their repose and their property, and even exposed their lives in the effort of emancipation. They imagine that by humbly submitting to the Regent, that by meekly resuming their yoke, the ills they now suffer from will vanish. Perchance to-morrow the people will be dragging me to the scaffold,me who so recently was their idol!" After a few seconds of silence the provost resumed: "To sum up, we can now barely count with the support of the masses; Charles the Wicked is a doubtful ally; the Regent a formidable adversary."
"Unhappily the manifestations of the defection of the people, whom the manoeuvres of the Regent's party have done their best to promote, have struck me during the last few days. Must all hope be given up, Master Marcel?"
"No! No! I merely wished to establish the critical aspect of our situation. But all is not lost. By virtue of their very fickleness the people are capable of sudden revulsions. A considerable section of the bourgeoisie, firmly resolved to carry our work to a happy issue, in the language of my device, will go with us to the end, whatever the dangers be that menace our lives and property in case of failure. We still can make our influence felt among the masses; we can arouse their enthusiasm, wrench them free from their acquiesence in the enemy's suggestions, adopt terrible measures against these, and gain a decisive victory over the Regent. But seeing that the Jacquerie is annihilated, it would be insane to undertake such a struggle without the support of Charles the Wicked. This, then, is our last resource. This very night I shall induce the prince to declare himself against the Regent, and sufficiently compromise himself so as to force him to the alternative of vanquishing with us and ruling, or of losing both his life and his property should the Regent prevail. If he accepts my propositions, then Charles the Wicked, having staked his head for a crown, will enter Paris at the head of his Navarrians. We shall make a supreme effort; we shall arouse the people and shall take the field against the Regent. If we are victorious, we shall then rouse against the English the peasants that have escaped the vengeance of the nobility. The foreigner will be beaten back; delivered from her domestic and her foreign foes, Gaul will delegate her sovereignty to Charles of Navarre under control of the national assembly. Our provinceswill then form a powerful confederation with us as the center."
"Such a result would be admirable. But would Charles the Wicked keep his promise once he is crowned King of France? Will he submit to the laws of the States General?"
"He would have submitted to all our conditions before the annihilation of the Jacquerie which was a counterpoise to his bands of mercenaries. But when he mounts the throne the force of circumstances will compel him to keep a large number of the reforms very much like a gift of joy. Thus a part of our conquests over the royalty will have been assured. Nor is that all. The masses, still steeped in ignorance are slavish. Accustomed through centuries to being governed despotically by a prince of royal lineage, they can arrive only by degrees at free government under elective magistrates, as were the communal towns at the time of their enfranchisement. But experience will be gradually gained. Is not the mere fact of the overthrow of one dynasty and the setting up of a new at the will of the citizens, an immense step forward? The divine prestige of the royalty will have received a death-blow. The power of choosing a sovereign implies the right to depose him. And, finally, let us not lose sight of this, always supposing that Charles the Wicked succeeds in the war: Gaul will be delivered of the English; after that, whatever may happen, the nobility will preserve the memory of the formidable insurrection of the Jacques; it will feel itself compelled to ease the yoke, realizing that, driven again to extremities, Jacques Bonhomme might again wield the fork, the scythe and the torch."
"Aye, Master Marcel, the future is bright ... provided Charles the Wicked openly pronounces against the Regent, and we triumph."
"I have weighed everything, calculated everything. If we succumb in this supreme conflict, Charles the Wicked will share our defeat and, like us, will pay for his rebellion with his head. He is, at best, a wicked prince; the Regent will return to Parisjust as he would inevitably do if the King of Navarre refuses to embrace our cause. It would be an act of folly to try to oppose the Regent without him. Let us examine this last hypothesis. Aiming at putting an end to the hesitations of Charles the Wicked, I have forced him to decide this very night—"
"This very night?"
"At one o'clock to-morrow morning I shall await the King of Navarre at the St. Antoine gate. I declared to him yesterday at St. Denis that I shall no longer count with him, and shall look upon him as a traitor if at the hour I mentioned he does not appear at the rendezvous so as to enter Paris with me and to solemnly announce to-morrow at the town-hall his adherence to our cause, and the support of his arms. We are left to our own forces if Charles the Wicked fails to put in his appearance to-night."
"What did he answer you, Master Marcel?"
"He answered me in his usual manner, that he would think it over. Now, then, if the fear of losing his domains and of risking his head carries the day over his ambition, he will go and throw himself at the feet of the Regent and will offer him his services in atonement for his past conduct. The Regent has great interest in temporizing with such an adversary. He will grant him pardon, and the two will march upon Paris at the head of their combined troops. Our city will then fall back under the monarchic yoke."
"Then, Master Marcel," cried Jocelyn, "let us call to arms all the stout-hearted people of the city; let us then close our gates and lock ourselves behind our ramparts that are now so well fortified by your foresight and zeal; let us be killed to the last man; let not the Regent re-enter his capital but through the breach that he will have to make over our corpses!"
"Such a resolution is heroic. But you forget the horrors that follow the capture of a city by assault. You forget Meaux deliveredto the flames by the Captal of Buch and the Count of Foix; the women assaulted, old men and children slaughtered or perishing in the flames! Shall I deliver Paris to such a fate, Paris the head and heart of Gaul? No! To attempt to resist the Regent without the assistance of Charles the Wicked would be to expose ourselves to annihilation. Let us prefer a salutary sacrifice to a sterile heroism. Even our defeat will be fruitful."
"Master Marcel, I do not understand you now."
"Whatever the stubbornness and duplicity of the Regent may be, the terrible lessons he has received will not be lost upon him. A fugitive before the popular uprising, he was forced to leave the palace of the Louvre furtively ... he has seen himself on the point of losing his crown. If, thanks to the submission of the Parisians, he should re-enter the city, however he may seek to satiate his vengeance and satisfy his royal pride, he will feel compelled to observe certain reforms. These, no doubt, will be less numerous than Charles the Wicked would have accepted in order to consolidate his usurpation. Nevertheless, whatever they be and however few, these reforms will remain safe to posterity, our revolution will have borne some fruit, the burden that weighed upon the people will have been lightened. Do you grasp my sense?... What is it that astonishes you?"
"In order to satisfy the resentment of the Regent and slake his vengeance, the heads of the chiefs of the rebellion will be demanded."
"Some heads will be demanded!" answered Marcel with Spartan simplicity. "Yes, the Regent will demand my own head first of all and also the heads of the governors, the principal leaders in the rebellion.... Very well! We shall deliver our heads to the Regent.... My friends and I are in accord upon that.... This conversation elucidates, as I expected of it, the facts that are to be considered, and confirms me in my resolution. At one in the morning I shall proceed to the gate of St. Antoine, where I shall expect to meet Charlesthe Wicked. If he fails to come, I shall take horse and ride to the Regent's camp at Charenton. I shall offer him my life; if that does not suffice him, I shall offer him the lives of my friends: they have authorized me to dispose of their heads. In exchange, I shall demand of the prince the observances of the reforms sworn to in 1357. I shall demand a good deal so as to obtain something.... These reforms will smooth the day for the advent of our plan of government, based upon the federation of the provinces and the permanence of the sovereign national assemblies that will at first delegate the appearance of a crown to a phantom king, and later, by wholly suppressing the idol, suppress royalty itself. The government of free Gaul, free and confederated, will then be again what it was at the time of the invasion of Cæsar, as we learn from history and as one of your family's legends confirms."
"At the time of the abolition of the commune of Laon and of so many other municipal republics that Louis the Lusty destroyed, my ancestor Fergan the Quarryman said to his son, who despaired of the future: 'Hope, my child, hope!... Have faith in the slow, painful but irresistible progress of the race.' He spoke truly! Thanks to your genius, I might have seen in this very century the municipal government of the old communes—free, benevolent and wise governments—applied no longer to one town only but to all Gaul. Be praised for having promoted such a step forward."
"That is my dream! Social unity and administrative uniformity. Political rights made commensurate with civic rights. The principles of authority transferred from the crown to the nation. The States General changed into a national assembly under the control of the people of the towns and the country, and the living forces of the nation; and the popular sovereignty attested by the overthrow of one dynasty and the transfer of the crown to another, until the day of the total suppression of the royalty, the last vestige of the Frankish conquest!... Thatwas my dream! Time will change the dream into reality. May be I stepped in advance of my century.... Is that wrong?... That government of the future will have been practiced three years!... Our children will place all the stronger reliance in the prospect of their deliverance when, instructed by the past, they will know that their fathers actually held their deliverance in their own hands; that, having one day assumed their freedom, they bent and chased away the royal incumbent, and that, if they relapsed under the yoke, it was because on the eve of final triumph they yielded to discouragement; it was because, after having overcome formidable obstacles, they grew faint-hearted at the moment of reaching the ultimate goal. The lesson will be great and profitable to our children. Perchance the death of myself and my friends may render the lesson all the more striking! Our death will have been as fruitful as our life!... The scaffold will crown it!"
Wrapt in wonderment and admiration, Jocelyn was contemplating the noble figure of Etienne Marcel that now seemed transfigured in the brilliancy of the sentiments he had given utterance to, when a knock was heard at the door. Jocelyn opened and Denise said to him:
"Jocelyn, your friend Rufin wishes to speak to you without delay."
"Master Marcel," the champion observed, "it must be about the plot that Rufin thinks to have discovered."
"My child, tell Rufin to come in," said the provost to his niece.
Rufin entered immediately. He was deeply agitated: "Master Marcel," he said, "I believe the goddess Fortuna served me as well this time as she did the night I discovered the flight of the Regent"; and drawing a letter from his pocket he handed it over to Marcel, adding: "Be kind enough to post yourself thereon; if the message is to be judged by the messenger, it bodes nothing good."
Marcel took the letter, broke the seal, trembled when he recognized the hand that wrote it, and carefully read its contents, while Jocelyn, leading the student to the outer end of the cabinet, said to him in a low voice:
"How did you get the letter, friend Rufin?"
"By Hercules! I got it ... by the force of my fist! without, however, forgetting the aid that my chum Nicholas the Thin-skinned and two Scotch students lent me. I became acquainted with the last two about a year ago in a contest over the flagrant superiority of the rhetoric of Fichetus over that of Faber. Our discussion having turned from oral to manual, toall the greater honor of rhetoric, I preserved a striking souvenir of their fists—"
"The minutes are precious, Rufin; grave matters are at stake; I beseech you, come to the point."
"This evening, towards nightfall, I was walking on Oysters-are-fried-here street, totally oblivious of the perfumes exhaled by the fries, although I had dined only on a herring, and thinking only of that treasure, that pearl, or rather of that bouquet of roses that Dame Venus, her godmother, christened by the succulent name of Alison—"
"For heaven's sake, Rufin!"
"Keep cool; I shall bid my soul hold its tongue. I shall come to the point. Well, then, I noticed a large crowd at the other end of the street; I elbowed my way in and reached its front ranks. There I saw a certain large-boned scamp with a furred cap whom I had come across before and knew to be a bitter partisan of Maillart. The said large-boned scamp was perorating against Master Marcel, attributing to him all the ills we are suffering from and crying: 'We must put an end to the tyranny of the governors. The Regent's army is gathered at Charenton and is about to march upon us. The Regent is furious. He wishes to set fire to his good city of Paris and slaughter its townsmen. Maillart, the true friend of the people, is alone able to make a front against the Regent or to negotiate with him and thus save the city from the ruin that threatens it.'"
"Always that Maillart!"
"Such language exasperated me. I was on the point of breaking out and confounding the man of the furred cap whose words, I must say so, were having their effect upon the mob. Some of them had even begun to vituperate Master Marcel and the governors, when suddenly I heard someone behind me say in Latin: 'The water begins to boil, the fish must now be thrown in,' and another voice answered, also in Latin: 'Then let us hasten to notify the master cook.' Seeking to fathom the mysteriousmeaning of these parables, I turned towards my Latinists at the moment when they began to cry, this time in French: 'Good luck to Maillart, to the devil with Marcel! He is a criminal! A traitor! He plots with the Navarrians! Good luck to Maillart! He alone can put an end to our ills!' A portion of the crowd took up the cries, whereupon the lumbering scamp of the furred cap closed his peroration and came down from the box on which he had been perched. The two Latinists then approached him, and while the crowd was dispersing my three gentlemen stepped aside and conducted an animated discussion. I did not lose sight of them; the three walked on together and I followed, catching these broken words that they let drop: 'rendezvous,' 'horse,' 'arcade of St. Nicholas.' You know how even at mid-day the arcade of St. Nicholas is dark and deserted. Night was falling fast. The idea struck me that my three worthies might be having some suspicious rendezvous at that secluded spot, because the mysterious Latin words would not leave my head. 'The water begins to boil' might mean the boiling of the popular rage; 'the fish that was to be thrown in the boiling water,' might mean Master Marcel; finally, 'the cook who was to be notified'—"
"Might be the Regent or Maillart," put in Jocelyn. "I do not believe your penetration was at fault. It is a credit to your sagacity."
"And the words 'horse,' 'rendezvous,' 'arcade of St. Nicholas' might mean some messenger on horseback was waiting for my three worthies at that secluded spot. I know the place. Often did Margot.... But I shall drop Margot! I said to myself on the contrary: 'Oh, if now, instead of following the lumbering scamp of the furred cap to the spot so propitious to love, I followed the divine Alison—"