The Branding Needle, or The Monastery of Charolles Part 2

"It is the reflection of the moon on the armor of the warriors."

"Now they are coming! Do you hear the three bugle blasts?"

"It is the signal agreed upon. Quick, now, quick! Let us unfasten the punt and cross over to the other side."

The ropes were unfastened; pushed by Placidus and Felibien by means of long poles the punt arrived at the opposite bank. Mounted on a mule a man awaited them on the opposite sh.o.r.e. He was a Catholic priest. His face was hard and imperious. At his side was a Frankish chief on horseback and escorted by about a score of riders cased in iron. A wagon filled with baggage, drawn by four oxen and followed by several slaves on foot attended the Frankish chief.

"Reverend archdeacon," said Placidus to the man on horseback and in the black robe, "we began to despair of your arrival; but you are still on time. The whole colony--men, women, girls and children--is a.s.sembled at the monastery, and only G.o.d knows the abominations that are taking place there under the very eyes of Loysik, who incites these sacrilegious excesses!"

"These scandals are about to come to an end and to receive condign punishment, my sons. Can the horses of these riders and the wagon that carries my baggage be risked in that punt?"

"Reverend archdeacon, the cavalry is too numerous for one trip; we shall have to make three or four pa.s.sages before they can all be transported to the opposite bank."

"Gondowald," said the archdeacon to the Frankish chief, "how would it be if we leave your horses and my mule and wagon temporarily on this side of the river? We could march straight upon the monastery with your hors.e.m.e.n following you on foot."

"Whether on foot or on horseback, they will be enough to execute the orders of my glorious mistress, Queen Brunhild, and to dust with the shafts of their lances the backs of those monks of Satan and of those rustic plebs if they dare offer any resistance."

"Reverend archdeacon, we who know what the monks and people of the Valley are capable of, we are of the opinion that, should they rebelliously resist the orders of our holy bishop of Chalon, twenty warriors will not suffice to overpower them."

Gondowald cast a disdainful look at the priest, and did not even consent to make an answer.

"I do not share your fears, my dear sons; and I have good reasons for my opinion," answered the archdeacon haughtily. "Here we are all in the punt--push off!"

A short while later the archdeacon, Gondowald the chamberlain of Queen Brunhild, and the Queen's twenty warriors landed on the Valley sh.o.r.e, casqued, cuira.s.sed and armed with lances and swords. From their shoulders hung their gilt and painted bucklers.

"Is the distance long from here to the monastery?" inquired the archdeacon as he set foot on land.

"No, father; it is at the most a half hour's walk if we move briskly."

"Lead the way, my dear sons--we will follow."

"Oh, father, the impious people of this community little dream at this hour that the punishment of heaven is ready to descend upon their heads!"

"Move quickly, my sons--justice will soon be done."

"Hermanfred," said the chief of the warriors turning to one of the men in his troop, "have you with you the rope and iron manacles?"

"Yes, seigneur Gondowald."

CHAPTER IV.

BRUNHILD AND FREDEGONDE.

At the monastery the banquet was in full swing. Convivial cordiality presided over the celebration. At the table where Loysik, Ronan, the Master of the Hounds and their respective families were seated, the conversation continued animated and lively. At this moment the subject was the atrocities that took place in the gloomy palace of Queen Brunhild. The happy inhabitants of the Valley listened to the horrible account with the greedy, uneasy and shuddering curiosity that is often felt at night when, seated by a peaceful hearth, one hears some awe-inspiring history. Happy, humble and unknown, the listeners feel certain they will never find themselves concerned in any adventure of the frightful nature of the one that causes them to shudder; they fear and yet they like to hear the end of the tale.

"In order to unravel the sanguinary tangle, and seeing that Brunhild, the present ruler of Burgundy, is the theme, let us first sum up the facts in a few words. Clotaire died not long after he had his son Chram, together with the latter's wife and daughter, burned alive. That was about fifty-three years ago. Is it not so?" Ronan was saying.

"Yes, father," answered Gregory; "we are now in the year 613."

"Clotaire left four sons--Charibert reigned in Paris, Gontran was King of Orleans and Bourges, Sigebert was King of Austrasia and resided in Metz, and Chilperic was left King of Neustria, occupying the royal residence of Soissons, our conquerors, as you know, having given the names of Neustria and Austrasia to the provinces of the north and the east of Gaul."

"Did you say Chilperic, father?" asked Ronan's son. "Chilperic, the Nero of Gaul, one of whose edicts closed with these words: 'Let whomsoever refuses obedience to this law have his eyes put out!'"

"Yes, we were speaking of him and of his brother Sigebert. Let us leave the other two aside, seeing that both Charibert and Gontran died childless, the former in 566, the latter in 593. Although they both showed themselves worthy descendants of Clovis, they need not now occupy us."

"Father, the account that we wish to hear is that of Brunhild and Fredegonde. These two names seem to be inseparable and are both steeped in blood--"

"I am coming to the history of these two monsters and of their two husbands, Chilperic and Sigebert--the two she-wolves have each her wolf, and, what is still worse for Gaul, her whelps. Although married to Andowere, Chilperic had among his numerous concubines a Frankish female slave, a woman of dazzling beauty, and endowed, it is said, with an irresistible power of seduction. Her name was Fredegonde. He became so fascinated with her that, in order to enjoy the company of the slave with utter freedom, he cast off his wife Andowere, who soon thereupon died, in a convent. But Chilperic presently tired of Fredegonde also, and, anxious to emulate his brother Sigebert, who married a princess of royal blood named Brunhild, the daughter of Athanagild, a King of Germanic stock like the Franks, and whose ancestors conquered Spain as Clovis did Gaul, he asked and obtained the hand of Brunhild's sister, Galeswinthe. It is said that nothing was comparable with the sweetness of the face of this princess, while the goodness of her heart matched the angelic qualities of her face. When she was about to leave Spain to come to Gaul and marry Chilperic, the unhappy soul had sad presentiments of a speedy death. Nor did her presentiments deceive her. Six years after her marriage she was smothered to death in her bed by her own husband."

"Like Wisigarde, the fourth wife of Neroweg, who was strangled to death by that Frankish count, whose family still lives in Auvergne," remarked Gregory. "The Frankish kings and seigneurs all follow the same custom."

"Poor Galeswinthe! But why did her husband Chilperic indulge such ferocity toward her?"

"For the reason that the pa.s.sion which once drew him to Fredegonde and which had cooled for a time, resumed the upper hand with him more hotly than before. He put his second wife out of the way in order to marry the concubine. Thus Fredegonde was married to Chilperic after the murder of Galeswinthe, and became one of the queens of Gaul. At times odd contrasts are seen in the same family. Galeswinthe was an angel, her sister Brunhild, married to Sigebert, was an infernal being. Of exceptional beauty, gifted with an iron will, vindictive to the point of ferocity, animated by an insatiable ambition, and endowed with an intelligence of such high grade that it would have equalled genius had she only not applied her extraordinary faculties to the blackest deeds--Brunhild could not choose but create for herself a fame at which the world grows pale. She first set her cap to revenge Galeswinthe, who was strangled to death by Chilperic at the instigation of Fredegonde. A frightful feud broke out, accordingly, between the two women who now were mortal enemies, and each of whom reigned with her husband over a part of Gaul: poison, the a.s.sa.s.sin's dagger, conflagrations, civil war, wholesale butcheries, conflicts between fathers and sons, brothers and brothers--such were the means that the two furies employed against each other. The people of Gaul did not, of course, escape the devastating storm. The provinces that were subject to Sigebert and Brunhild were pitilessly ravaged by Chilperic, while the possessions of the latter were in turn laid waste by Sigebert. Thus driven by the fury of their wives, the two brothers fought each other until they were both a.s.sa.s.sinated."

"Oh, if only Gallic blood did not have to flow in torrents, if only these frightful disasters did not heap fresh ills upon our unhappy country, I would be ready to see in the conflict between those two women, who thus blasted the families that they joined, a positive punishment sent down by heaven," observed Loysik. "But, alas, what ills, what frightful sufferings do not these royal hatreds afflict our own people with!"

"And did the two female monsters ever find ready tools for their vengeance?"

"The murders that they did not themselves commit with the aid of poison, they caused to be committed with the dagger. Fredegonde, whose depravity surpa.s.sed Messalina's of old, surrounded herself with young pages; she intoxicated them with unspeakable voluptuousness; she threw their reasoning into disorder by means of philters that she herself concocted; by means of these she rendered them frenetic, and then she would hurl them against the appointed victims. It was by such means that she contrived the a.s.sa.s.sination of King Sigebert, Brunhild's husband, and that she succeeded in poisoning their son Childebert. It was by such means that she caused a large number of her enemies to be despatched with the dagger and, if the chronicles are to be trusted, her own husband Chilperic was numbered among her victims."

"So, then, that veritable fury spewed out of h.e.l.l--Fredegonde--spared not even her own husband?"

"Some historians, at least, lay his murder to her door; others charge it to Brunhild. Both theories may be correct; the one Queen, as well as the other, had an interest in putting Chilperic out of the way--Brunhild in order to avenge her sister Galeswinthe, Fredegonde in order to escape the punishment that she feared for the depravity of her life."

"And did punishment finally overtake the abominable woman?"

"Queen Fredegonde died peaceably in her bed in the year 597 at the age of fifty-five years. Her funeral was pompously celebrated by the Catholic priests and she was buried in consecrated ground in the basilica of St. Germain-des-Pres at Paris. In the language of the panegyrists of our Kings, 'Fredegonde reigned long, happy and ably.' At her death she left her kingdom intact to her son Clotaire the younger."

A shudder of horror pa.s.sed over the hearers of this shocking history.

The royal abominations stood in such strong contrast to the morals of the inhabitants of the Valley, that these good people imagined they had heard the narrative of some frightful dream, the fabric of the delusion of a fever.

Gregory was the first to break the silence that ensued:

"Accordingly, Clotaire the younger, son of Fredegonde and Chilperic, is the grandson of Clotaire the elder, the slayer of his little nephews, and is great-grandson to Clovis?"

"Yes--and how worthy of his stock he is proving himself you may judge, my son, by the era of new crimes that follows. His mother Fredegonde bequeathed to him the implacable hatred with which she was herself animated against Brunhild. Accordingly, the mortal duel continued unabated between the latter and the son of her enemy."

"Alas, fresh disasters will befall Gaul, with the renewal of the sanguinary conflict!"

"Oh, indeed frightful disasters--frightful--because the crimes of Fredegonde pale before those of Brunhild, our present Queen, the Queen of the people of Burgundy."

"Father, can the crimes of Brunhild surpa.s.s Fredegonde's?"

"Ronan," said Odille carrying both her hands to her temples. "This ma.s.s of murders, all committed in the same family, makes one's head reel with dizziness. One's mind feels over-burdened and tires in the effort to follow the b.l.o.o.d.y thread that alone can lead through the maze of such unnamable crimes. Great G.o.d, in what times do we live! What sights may yet be reserved for our children!"