The Casque's Lark Part 16

"Now, then, I, Schanvoch, have this to say to you, Tetrik. You are one of the dangerous reptile that you have just mentioned. I consider you a traitor! And I purpose to unmask your treason!"

"Schanvoch!" cried Victoria interrupting me in a reproachful tone.

"I perceive that the old Gallic love for raillery, one of our franchises, has returned with our G.o.ds and our freedom," replied the governor smiling.

And turning to Victoria he added:

"Our friend Schanvoch possesses the art of dry humor--the most amusing of all--"

"My brother speaks seriously and out of an honorable impulse," the Mother of the Camps broke in saying. "And I grieve thereat, since I know that he is mistaken; but he is sincere in his error--"

Tetrik let his eyes wander alternately from Victoria to me with no little amazement; for a moment he was silent; thereupon he said in a serious and penetrating voice:

"All faithful friends are quick to suspect. Good Schanvoch, your distrust is inexplicable to me; but it must have its reason. The attack was frank, frank shall be the answer. Let us settle the question. What is your charge against me?"

"About a month ago you came to Mayence. A man of your retinue, your secretary, Morix by name and well supplied with money, gave the soldiers to drink and at the same time endeavored to irritate them against Victorin, saying to them that it was disgraceful that their general, one of the two chiefs of regenerated Gaul, should be a drunkard and a profligate. Did your secretary hold such language, yes or no? I wait for your answer."

"Proceed, friend Schanvoch, proceed--"

"Your secretary told a story that, being subsequently spread through the camp, has greatly irritated the soldiers against Victorin. This was the story: A few months ago, Victorin and several officers went to a tavern on one of the isles in the Rhine; after having drunk copiously, Victorin, excited by the wine, violated the innkeeper's wife, and she thereupon killed herself in despair--"

"Calumny!" cried Victoria. "I know and condemn my son's faults--but he is incapable of such an infamous act!"

The governor listened to me without betraying the slightest emotion.

Presently he said with a smile and his habitual placidity of countenance:

"So, then, good Schanvoch, it is your opinion that, obedient to orders received from me, my secretary spread unworthy calumnies in the camp?"

"Yes. It is all done with your knowledge and consent."

"And what could be my motive?"

"You are ambitious--"

"And in what manner could such calumnies subserve my ambition?"

"If the dissatisfaction of the soldiers with Victorin, whom they elected, continues, you would then use your influence with Victoria to the end of inducing her to propose you to the soldiers as Victorin's successor in the government of Gaul."

"A mother! Did you stop to consider that, good Schanvoch?" Tetrik answered looking at Victoria. "A mother sacrifice a son to a friend!"

"In the greatness of her love for her country, Victoria would certainly sacrifice her son to your elevation if the measure became necessary to the welfare of Gaul. Am I mistaken, sister?"

"No," Victoria answered me evidently grieved at my accusations against her relative; "in that you say the truth, but as to the inferences that you draw therefrom, I reject them."

"And that heroic sacrifice, good Schanvoch," resumed the governor, "Victoria is expected to make knowing that it was through my underground calumnies that her son's reputation was blasted with the soldiers?"

"My sister would not have been aware of your intrigues had I not unmasked them. Besides, more than once did I hear her say, and justly say, that in case peace was established, it would be better for the country if its chief, instead of being ever p.r.o.ne to battle, gave serious thought to the healing of the wounds inflicted by the past wars. She often mentioned you as one of the men who wisely prefer peace to war."

"It is true, I hold that the sword, good to destroy, is impotent to reconstruct," remarked Victoria; "and the freedom of Gaul once firmly established, I would prefer to see my son give more thought to peace than to war. It was, therefore, Schanvoch, that I commissioned you with one last attempt with the Franks, looking to the restoration of peace."

"Allow that I interrupt you, Victoria," put in Tetrik, "and that I ask our friend Schanvoch whether he has any other charges against me."

"I charge you with being either the secret agent of the Roman Emperor Galien, or the agent of the chief of the new creed, Roman Catholicism."

"I!" cried the governor. "I the agent of the Christians!"

"I said the agent of the chief of the new creed. I refer to the Bishop of Rome, who ent.i.tles himself 'Sovereign Pontiff.'"

"I the agent of Etienne, the Bishop of Rome, and fourteenth Pope of the new church?--of that Pope, of whom Firmilien, the Bishop of Caesarea, wrote to Cyprian, the presiding officer of the Spanish council, composed of twenty-eight bishops: 'Would one believe that that man (Pope Etienne) had a soul in his body? Evidently his body is but ill conducted, and his soul is in a disordered condition. Etienne does not stick at calling his brother Cyprian a false Christ, a false apostle, a fraudulent artisan; in order to forestall having these things said of himself, he has the audacity to make the accusation against others.' And can I be the agent of that ambitious pontiff! Of that simoniacal bishop, who is given over to all manner of vices!"

"Yes--unless that, deceiving at once both the Roman Emperor and the Pope of Rome, you are serving both, ready to sacrifice the one or the other, according as your ambition may require."

"That I serve the Romans is a thing that I am ready to admit," Tetrik answered with his unalterable placidity. "However unjust your suspicion towards me, it may be understood, as an instance of extreme patriotism.

We are well aware that, although we have succeeded, by force of arms, to reconquer during nearly three centuries, inch by inch the full freedom once enjoyed by old Gaul, the Roman Emperors have seen with sorrow our country slip from their dominion. Accordingly, I can understand, Schanvoch, how you might accuse me of desiring to arrive at power in Gaul, with the end in view of sooner or later restoring the country to the Romans, although in doing so I would be betraying it most infamously. But is it imaginable that I act in the interest of the Pope of the Christians, of those unhappy people who are everywhere persecuted and martyrized? It is not a sane thought! What could I do for them? What could they do for me?"

Schanvoch was about to answer. Victoria interrupted him with a gesture and said to Tetrik while she pointed to the cross of black wood, the emblem of the death of Jesus, that was placed near the bra.s.s vase with the seven twigs of mistletoe, a druid symbol much in use among the Gauls:

"Look at that cross, Tetrik, it tells you that, without infidelity to our own G.o.ds, I nevertheless venerate him who said that no man has the right to oppress his fellows; that the guilty merit pity and consolation, not contempt and severity; and that the irons of the slave should be stricken off. Blessed be these maxims, Tetrik; the wisest of our druids have accepted them as holy; accordingly, you may judge how dearly I love the gentle and pure morality of that young man of Nazareth. But listen, Tetrik," Victoria added pensively, "there is something unexplainable, strange and mysterious that makes me shudder.

Yes, many a time and oft, during my long watches beside the cradle of my grandson, and when I pondered the present and the past, tormenting thoughts crowded upon my mind concerning the future of our well-beloved Gaul."

"And whence does your terror proceed?" Tetrik asked. "What is its cause?"

"That for three successive centuries Rome was the implacable foe of Gaul," Victoria answered; "that for so many centuries Rome was the merciless scourge of the world!"

"Rome?" replied the governor. "Pagan Rome?"

"Yes. The tyranny that weighed down upon the world had its seat in Rome," rejoined Victoria. "Now, then, I ask myself, by what strange fatality have the bishops, the Popes of the new creed, who aspire to reign over the universe by ruling the sovereigns of the world, been led to establish the seat of their empire in Rome? Jesus of Nazareth branded the high priests as liars and hypocrites. He preached above all, humility, forgiveness, equality, fraternity among men, and lo! in his apotheosized name, we now see a new hierarchy of high priests arising, pretending to be the rulers of the world, and already, as Pope Etienne, meriting the charges of ambition, deception and intolerance, even from their fellow Christian bishops!"

"Is it you, Victoria, who hold such language?" Tetrik interrupted her saying: "You so wise, so enlightened--can you fear the future of Gaul to be endangered by those unhappy people who bear witness to their faith by their martyrdom?"

"Oh!" cried the Mother of the Camps with exaltation. "I love, I admire those poor Christians who die in torture while proclaiming the equality of man before G.o.d, the liberation of the slaves, the community of goods, love and forgiveness for the guilty! I love, I admire those poor Christians who die on the scaffold and proclaim in the name of Jesus: 'Those are monsters of iniquity who hold their brothers in bondage, who leave them to suffer in cold and hunger, instead of sharing with them their bread and their cloak.' Oh! pity and veneration for those heroic martyrs! But I stand in dread of those people who call themselves the chiefs, the Popes of the Christians. Yes, I stand in dread of those high priests who have fixed upon Rome as the seat of their mysterious empire!--in that city, the center of the most frightful tyranny that has ever crushed down the human race! I fear for the future of Gaul from that quarter."

"Victoria," again Tetrik interrupted, saying: "You exaggerate the power of those Christian pontiffs. Have not large numbers of them, persecuted by the Roman Emperors, undergone martyrdom, like any other neophytes?"

"Every battle has its dead, and the Popes struggle with the Emperors in order to wrench from these the dominion over the world! Among those bishops there have been many who have spoken and died like Jesus. But if there are some worthy pontiffs among them, and they are few, the domination of the priests is not, for that, any the less dread a visitation upon the people. Has not the government of our own priests been despotic and merciless? Did not the druids leave the people for over ten centuries steeped in cra.s.sest ignorance, governing them with the instruments of barbarism--superst.i.tion and terror? Did not those days of oppression and debas.e.m.e.nt last until the glorious and prosperous epoch when, merged in the body of the nation as citizens, fathers and soldiers, our druids took part in the common life of the people, in the joys of the family, and in the national wars against the foreigner? What I apprehend for the future of the nations is that some day there may be established in Rome a murky alliance between the Pope and the most powerful Emperors and Kings of the world! Unhappy will that day be for the peoples! From such an alliance a frightful political and religious tyranny will be born, and it will be watered with the blood of fresh martyrs! Woe, then, to the peoples! They will once more be made to bend under a pitiless theocratic yoke!"

As she uttered these words, Victoria seemed inspired by the prophetic genius of the female druids of olden times. Tetrik listened to her in silence, but instead of answering, he resumed with a smile:

"See how far we have wandered from the charges that our friend Schanvoch has preferred against me--and yet, Victoria, your words, regarding the apprehension that the Christian high priests, as you style them, fill you with for the future, in a manner bring us back to the charges. So, then, Schanvoch, the purpose of the perfidies that you charge me with is to arrive at power in Gaul, to the end of betraying the country to pagan or to Catholic Rome?"

"Yes, that is my opinion."

"Schanvoch, I shall not need many words for my defense. One of my secretaries did seek to arouse the hostility of our soldiers against Victorin. Your revelation comes rather late--"

"I learned the facts only yesterday."

"That is of no consequence," he replied, "that secretary was dismissed by me just because I learned that, irritated at Victorin for having railed at him several times, he sought to revenge himself by spreading against the general calumnies that were even more ridiculous and odious.

But let us drop these petty matters. I am ambitious, you say, friend Schanvoch! I aim at the government of Gaul, even if, in order to accomplish my purpose, I should have to resort to unworthy intrigues!

Now, ask Victoria what errand brings me back to Mayence."