The Iron Pincers or Mylio and Karvel Part 15

Aye, leaving behind their hearths and their goods, All have fled by a secret subterranean pa.s.sage-- They fled, the people of Carca.s.sonne fled.

They fled, the people of Carca.s.sonne fled, The thickets of the forests, The caverns of the mountains will be their place of refuge, For days to come and months.

If ever they see their town again, How many will return from the woods, the caverns and the rocks?

How many will have survived exhaustion?

They left, twenty thousand and more; A few thousand, perhaps, may return.

"Oh! the heretics of Carca.s.sonne have slipped through our fingers!"

Thus cries the papal legate: "Those who were unable to follow them shall bear the punishment for all.

Pillage the town, and after the pillage the pyre, the gibbet For the miscreants who fell into our hands!"

Carca.s.sonne is ravaged from cellar to garret.

After the pillage the gibbets are raised, And the wood is piled for the pyres.

Death! Torture! Rape! Slaughter!

Carca.s.sonne is ravaged from cellar to garret.

After the pillage the gibbets are raised, And the wood is piled for the pyres.

The Crusaders carry the wounded, Mutilated some of these are, others expiring; The weak, the old, the lying-in women, The daughters, the wives and the mothers of those who were unable to flee-- All are hanged, quartered, or burned.

Flare up, ye flames of the pyres!

Ye ropes of the gibbets, straighten yourselves Under the weight of your loads!

All are hanged, quartered or burned-- All the Carca.s.sonne heretics left in the town;

All are hanged, quartered or burned, And then the wagons are filled with the booty.

"To Lavaur!" now cries the papal legate.

"Fall to, Montfort! On the march!

Kill, pillage, burn the heretics!

Our Holy Father thus has issued the order!"

"To Lavaur! To Lavaur!" Montfort makes answer.

And behold, the Cath'lic Crusaders now march upon Lavaur.

Priests lead the way, The red cross on their b.r.e.a.s.t.s, The name of Jesus on their lips, The sword in one hand, The torch in the other!

What wrong have we done to these priests?

Oh, what wrong have we done unto them!

CHAPTER IX.

THE HERETICS' WAR SONG.

Aye, behold them on the march to Lavaur, The f.a.got in one hand, The sword in the other, The Catholic Crusaders!

Aye, behold what they've done until now.

Oh, valiant sons of Languedoc!

Oh, ye sons of ancient Gaul, Who, like our fathers, have known how to re-conquer freedom, Read on the flag of the Catholic Crusaders, Read--read these lines traced in blood and in fire: "Cha.s.seneuil,"

"Beziers,"

"Carca.s.sonne."

Tell me! Will "Lavaur" also soon be read on its folds?

And "Albi"?

"Toulouse"?

"Arles"?

"Narbonne"?

"Avignon"?

"Orange"?

"Beaucaire"?

Tell me, has there been enough rapine and rape, Carnage and arson?

Tell me, is't enough?

Are Cha.s.seneuil, Beziers, Carca.s.sonne enough?

Tell me, Cha.s.seneuil, Beziers, Carca.s.sonne-- Is't enough?

Tell me, are all our cities to be turned into heaps of ashes?

Our fields into deserts, whitened with human bones?

Our woods into forests of gibbets?

Our rivers into torrents of blood?

Our skies into ruddy reflections of conflagrations and pyres?

Tell me, will you submit, Ye brave men who emanc.i.p.ated yourselves from the yoke of Rome?

Will you relapse, you, your wives, your children, Under the execrable power of the priests, Whose soldiers rape, slay and burn women and children?

Are you ready for that?

No! You are not! No!

Your hearts beat high, your blood boils and you declare: Cha.s.seneuil, Beziers, Carca.s.sonne--that's enough! Too much!

Aye, aye, Cha.s.seneuil, Beziers, Carca.s.sonne--that's enough!

Despite their valor, our brothers have perished.

Let us redouble our valor, Let us crush our enemy.

No truce nor mercy for him.

Over mountains and valleys-- Let's pursue him! Harra.s.s him! Cut him to pieces!

Let us rise as one man, sons of Languedoc, All!

Implacable war!

War to the death to the Cath'lic Crusader!

Right is with us; All is justified against them-- The fork and the scythe, The club and the stone, The hands and the teeth!

To arms, ye heretics of Languedoc!

To arms!

Also we cry: "On to Lavaur!"

And may Lavaur be the grave of the Cath'lic Crusaders!

Vengeance! Death to the invader!

Mylio the Trouvere composed this song, and throughout the country sang it from place to place while the army of the Crusaders marched upon the city and Castle of Lavaur.[4]

CHAPTER X.

BEFORE THE CASTLE OF LAVAUR.

Son of Joel, the following scenes take place in a beautiful villa that has been abandoned by its heretic owners, lies at only a short distance from the castle of Giraude, the Lady of Lavaur, and is now besieged by the Crusaders. The retreat is occupied by the general of the Army of the Faith, Simon, Count of Montfort. He is accompanied by his wife Alyx of Montmorency, who only recently joined her husband in Languedoc. The tents of the seigneurs lie scattered around the house occupied by their chief. The camp itself, formed of huts of earth or of tree branches in which the soldiers are bivouacked, lies at a distance. The ma.s.s of serfs, who availed themselves of the opportunity to leave their masters'

fields under the pretext of joining the hunt of heretics, but who were attracted mainly by the prospect of pillage, lie on the bare ground and shelterless.

It is night. A wax candle sheds a dim light in one of the lower apartments of the villa. A large fire burns in the hearth, the evening being cool. Two knights are engaged in conversation near the fire. One is Lambert, Seigneur of Limoux, who, at the Blois Court of Love, filled the functions of Conservator of the High Privileges of Love. The other is Hugues, Seigneur of Lascy, ex-Seneschal of Sweet-Marjoram in the same Court. Although now in full armor, the fur cap that he wears exposes a bandage around his head. The knight was wounded at the siege of Lavaur.